The Soldier's Baby Bargain. Beth Kery

who wouldn’t give a home to a little thing like that?” Faith said, waving at the three-legged, pale gray cat that hobbled fleetly into the kitchen after them.

      “There’s no reason to be apologetic because you have a kind heart,” he said quietly. He glanced down to his feet when Smokey brushed against his ankles. He bent and stroked the affectionate feline. Faith had been so offset by his candid compliment that she was glad for the interruption.

      “Are you still serving as the president of the Animal Advocates Alliance?” he asked a moment later, standing.

      “Oh, yes,” Faith said enthusiastically, glad for a safer topic. Ryan knew about her charity work from Jesse. She’d been extremely touched when he’d made a generous donation to both the Armed Forces Foundation and the Animal Advocates Alliance in Jesse’s name following the chopper crash that had killed him. She unhooked the gate that kept Topsy in the utility room. “The annual fundraiser ball is next week. I put a lot of hard work into it. Well?” she asked, glancing back at him. “Would you like to meet the Queen of Cute?”

      “I can’t wait,” he said, walking toward her.

      She started to open the gate wide enough for both of them to squeeze into the utility room without releasing the excited puppy, but noticed Ryan stared at her back door.

      “What happened here?” he asked, pausing to look at the improvised “lock”—a thick piece of wood nailed to each side of the door. His eyebrows slanted in worry. “Nobody tried to break in, did they?”

      “Oh, no. It’s nothing. The old lock came loose, and I haven’t had a chance to hire a locksmith to come and replace it yet.” She shrugged. “It’s not very pretty, but it’ll keep things out. I’ve had a real rush of patients at my office as the weather warms up, and I just haven’t had a chance to get it fixed.”

      “I’ll come and put a lock on it tomorrow.”

      “Ryan, that’s not necessary,” she said, set off balance by his steadfast offer.

      “It’s not a big deal.” Instead of waiting for her to inch back the gate—or to protest his offer—he just stepped over it.

      “Hi, Topsy,” he said.

      Topsy wiggled in irrepressible excitement. She looked like a caramel-colored powder puff.

      “I introduce you to Her Highness, Topsy-Turvy Blackwell.”

      “I was hoping she’d be a little bigger,” he said.

      “Oh, she’ll still grow quite a bit.”

      “Yeah, but she doesn’t look like she’ll ever be much of a watchdog, does she?” he asked dubiously. He noticed her equally confused expression. “It is awfully isolated out here on this road.”

      He was obviously worried about the baby, Faith realized. “It’s very safe here in the country, Ryan. I grew up in this house, and we’ve never had any problems. This area has one of the lowest crime rates in the state. It’s quite safe and close to the population I serve, as well. Lots of my patients live on farms hereabouts.”

      Ryan didn’t seem entirely convinced, but he refrained from disagreeing with her. Instead he bent his tall frame to pet the vibrating puppy. “How come you named her Topsy-Turvy Blackwell?”

      “Oh. It’s my maiden name. I plan to use it again, I just haven’t gotten around to having it legally changed yet.”

      He looked up, his eyelids narrowing on her. She felt x-rayed. “I see,” he said quietly, resuming petting Topsy.

      “Do you?” Faith asked cautiously.

      He didn’t answer for a moment as he stroked the wriggling puppy. “I think I do. That’s what you wanted to talk to me about tonight, isn’t it?”

      Faith swallowed thickly. A heavy sensation pressed down on her chest. Ryan knew that Jesse had been unfaithful to her. How else to explain his shuttered gaze and apparent discomfort? She experienced a wilting sensation. It was illogical and stupid, she knew, but it shamed her, to suspect he knew of Jesse’s infidelities. No matter how much she rationally knew that Jesse had been in the wrong, she still felt vaguely substandard as a female, knowing he’d found other women more exciting than her, that she hadn’t been sufficiently worth it for him to deny temptation and remain faithful.

      “Yes, it is what I wanted to discuss with you. Among other things,” she admitted, glancing away from his stare.

      He nodded once and stood. “I guess we better get going, then.”

      She agreed. He helped her to put the squirming puppy into the crate.

      “Topsy may not be ferocious, but you were right. She’s the cutest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on,” he observed a moment later as he opened the front door for her. Faith damned her pounding heart when he casually touched her waist as they walked together to his car.

      “What are you hungry for?” she asked a few seconds later when he backed out of her driveway onto the rural road.

      “I’ve already made reservations for dinner at Butch’s Dry Dock, downtown.” He glanced in her direction when she didn’t immediately respond. “Is that all right?”

      “Oh…yes,” she said, flustered. “I love Butch’s.”

      She couldn’t tell him his response had set her off guard because he’d planned dinner with her at one of the nicest restaurants in the area. Despite her self-admonishments to remember that this was an opportunity to settle business with the father of her baby, the evening was, indeed, starting to feel more and more like a date.

      An hour later Faith watched as Ryan leaned against the high-backed booth at Butch’s, the remains of their delicious meal still on the table. Ryan had seemed intent on making her comfortable during their dinner, and his efforts were paying off. Her nervousness had slowly faded as the meal progressed and Ryan regaled her with some inevitable funny mistakes he’d made in starting up his business from scratch. It suddenly struck her that they hadn’t yet landed on the topic of Jesse. She wondered if Ryan was avoiding the issue purposefully.

      “Can I ask you a personal question?” Ryan asked, his eyes warm on her.

      “It depends,” she said, a smile flickering across her mouth.

      “What’s it been like for you? Being pregnant?”

      “Oh,” she said, her eyes going wide. “It’s been…nice.”

      “You haven’t been getting sick or anything?”

      She nodded. “Yes, I got nauseous almost every day around the seven week mark, but believe it or not, I never threw up. It usually faded when I ate some crackers. I just had to make sure I didn’t let my stomach get empty. It’s gotten much better in the past week.”

      “And fatigue?”

      Again, she nodded, this time more emphatically. She paused while a busboy came to clear their table. “That was probably the worst of it.” She resumed when they were alone again. “Once I figured out why I felt like taking a nap by ten o’clock every morning, it seemed to help things, though.”

      “When did you find out? That you were pregnant?” he asked.

      “When I was about five weeks along.”

      “I wish you would have called me.”

      The back of her neck prickled with awareness at the sound of his low, resonant voice.

      “I meant to tell you all along, Ryan. Please believe that. I was going to tell you at the same time I told my parents.”

      “I believe you. You’re much too honest to make me think otherwise.”

      She gave him a thankful smile. “I just wanted to get through my first trimester safely.”

      “I understand,” he said. She searched his