The Soldier's Baby Bargain. Beth Kery

      “How?”

      “She’s a member of the Southwestern Michigan’s Wom-en’s Auxiliary. It’s one of their missions to offer deployed military family members support. She came to visit me after Jesse died last year, and we’ve become friends.” He saw Faith’s throat tighten as she swallowed. Her face looked stricken. “She told me about her husband getting drunk and causing that accident. She told me that a couple had been killed that had lived just down the street from her. Oh, Ryan,” she finished in a whisper. Tears filled her green eyes. “I’m so sorry. We heard about that crash here in Holland when I was a teenager, but I didn’t recall any specific details. Brigit never mentioned names. I never re-alized…your parents.”

      “It’s okay, Faith,” he said, concerned by her pale cheeks and obvious distress. He didn’t have to think twice about taking her into his arms. She came willingly, hugging his waist as if to give him comfort. He lowered his head and pressed his mouth to her hair. He inhaled the achingly familiar scent of citrus and flowers. “It happened a long time ago,” he murmured, lifting his head and willing her to look up at him. When she did, he used his thumb to gently wipe off several tears from her cheek.

      “But you and your sister were so young. Did you have other family?”

      “Only an aunt in San Francisco,” Ryan murmured distractedly as he continued to touch her cheek. Her skin was incredibly smooth and soft. “She passed away a few years ago, though.”

      “I’m so sorry, Ryan,” she said in a choked voice.

      His heart squeezed a little in his chest. She seemed genuinely pained by the news that his parents had passed away almost seventeen years ago. He stopped drying her cheeks and palmed her delicate jaw.

      “You’re an amazingly nice woman, do you know that, Faith? Jesse never deserved you.”

      She blinked. Ryan realized how intense he’d just sounded. He hadn’t meant to speak his thoughts out loud, but seeing Faith’s lovely, troubled face and experiencing her compassion had caused the words to pop out of his throat. He regretted it when she released her hold on him and took a step back. A lake breeze whipped past them and Faith tightened the belt on her coat.

      “Maybe we ought to skip the walk,” Ryan said.

      “No. No, let’s walk over to that bench and watch the sunset,” she said. “It’s funny,” she said a moment later as they sat side by side on the wooden bench next to the path. “I grew up watching these sunsets, but I never get tired of them.”

      “Kind of hard to get tired of something like that,” Ryan agreed. For a few seconds they both watched silently as the ball of fire began to dip below the horizon, shades of magenta, pink and gold splashing across the sky in its wake.

      “It’s not too hard to believe you’re pregnant,” he said, studying her delicate, lovely face cast in the pink and gold shades of the sunset. Her face didn’t “glow” like the stereotypical pregnant woman, but there was a sort of soft luminescence to her that he found compelling. “You’ve never looked so beautiful.”

      The pink in her cheeks wasn’t caused by the sunset, he realized. Another breeze whipped past them, this one chillier. He leaned back on the bench and put his arm around her. Much to his satisfaction, she let her head rest on his shoulder. For several seconds they watched the sunset in silence. He felt entirely aware of her in those moments, of her firm, curving body, of her sweetness, the scent of her hair, the lock that fell just next to the pulse at her white throat. He brushed away the lock, stroking her skin in the process. Her shiver vibrated into his flesh. He braced himself for her reaction to what he was about to say.

      “I can’t leave you alone here, Faith,” he said gruffly.

      She lifted her head and studied him dazedly. “What do you mean?”

      “I respect the fact that you want to raise the baby in Holland. It’s your home. But I’m not comfortable with living three thousand miles away while my child is here.”

      Regret swept through him when he saw alarm flash into her eyes. She straightened, breaking the contact of their bodies.

      “What do you plan to do?” she demanded.

      “I’ll move back to Michigan,” he replied simply.

      She blinked. “Ryan, you can’t be serious. You’ve lived in San Francisco for years now. You started your new business out there. You can’t expect to just pack up and move to Holland.”

      “It’ll take some doing, I’ll grant you that. But it’d be better to do it now, before the business grows any larger. I can even rent hangar space at Tulip County Airport. I’ve been giving it a lot of thought since this afternoon. It might be better for me to be centrally located versus on the West Coast, given the nature of my business. Actually, the beach area of Michigan is an ideal location to serve business people in Detroit and Chicago, and I’ve already make loads of contacts out west.”

      Faith stared at him like he was slightly mad as he spoke his thoughts out loud. “Ryan, that seems so…sudden. Im-pulsive.”

      “Despite all the evidence against me from Christmas Eve, I’m not an impulsive person. But I do trust my instincts.” He traced the line of her jaw with his forefinger.

      She met his stare. He didn’t bother to guard his desire for her. Her eyes widened slightly, and he knew she’d seen it. Was she, like him, thinking of those ecstatic moments when they’d both acted on glorious instinct? He hoped so. He wished like hell those memories had been permanently scored in her brain like they had been in his.

      “I think we should talk about it more,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’m not so sure instinct is the wise guiding principle for the future, given the fact that a baby is involved.”

      “I think it’s the perfect principle.”

      “Why do you say that?”

      “It got us here, didn’t it?”

      She stared at him in mute amazement.

      Ryan scowled at the sound of voices in the distance. He turned his head and saw another couple approaching on the walk.

      “Come on. It’s almost dark,” he said. “We can talk more in the car.”

      Faith’s mind was a confused hodgepodge of thoughts, feelings and concerns as Ryan drove through the now dark streets of Holland. While they waited at a red light, Ryan turned toward her.

      “You’re vibrating with worry over there. Why don’t you vent some of what you’re thinking?”

      She met his stare. His rugged features looked shadowed and compelling in the dim light.

      “Are you really serious about moving back to Michi-gan?” she asked in a voice that sounded unnaturally high to her own ears.

      “Is it really that unbelievable?”

      “I just…I just hadn’t expected that you might want to do that.”

      “Why not?” he asked, looking slightly puzzled. The stoplight turned green and he began to drive. “Did you really think I was going to be blasé about the fact that I was going to have a child?”

      “I don’t know,” Faith stated honestly. “I guess I just assumed you’d…”

      “Be satisfied seeing the baby a few times a month and on half the holidays?” Ryan asked when she faded off uncertainly.

      “Well…you’re a pilot,” she said, as if that explained something.

      “And?”

      “Pilots are always on the go. One place is as much home as another. I just assumed you wouldn’t consider the distance between Holland and San Francisco as significant as most people would.”

      He came to a stop at an intersection of a quiet residential neighborhood.