Necessary Secrets

He looked into the toolroom. Well, at least he’d still be exercising.

“Sylvie?” A voice called from deep within the barn.

She slipped past Jon. “Yes, Lawrence?”

Jon followed her out of the toolroom. A tall, wiry, white-haired man appeared. He looked at Jon with a sharp frown.

Sylvie made the simplest of introductions. “Jon is the brother of one of the soldiers I knew in Bosnia.”

Lawrence nodded, silently taking in Jon and his toodressy-for-the-barn clothes. The old man turned back to Sylvie. “Heard you puking again this morning.”

Jon also looked at him. Apparently, the idea of mincing words didn’t exist on this ranch.

“You’ll notice Lawrence has learned the Mitchell art of diplomacy,” Sylvie said. “He’s worked for my father and grandfather.”

“I’m too old to beat around the bush.”

Sylvie drew in a long breath, steeling her shoulders at the same time. “I’m surprised you’ve waited so long to say something. I’m pregnant, okay?”

Lawrence shrugged and headed into the small toolroom, talking as he went. “You want me to do the wagon tour tonight? The sign-up list at the office is full.”

“Yes, thanks.” She shut her eyes, and Jon watched her swallow.

Behind both of them, Lawrence chuckled. “Hard to believe after all those rough roads and ol’ army trucks, you’re brought to your knees by a homemade prairie schooner and a simple pregnancy.”

“Thanks, Lawrence, you always make me feel better.”

He turned to Jon. “Here camping?”

“Sylvie offered me a job for the summer.”

“Really?” Lawrence squinted at him. “Can you ride?”

Jon glanced over at Sylvie, who also waited for his reply. “I did a two-year stint with the mounted unit in Toronto.”

Lawrence quirked an eyebrow at Sylvie, who added, “Jon’s a police officer in Toronto. But he’s only needed here to do the yard work and general maintenance. I don’t see any reason to have him riding around with you all day.”

“Then you may want him to run into town with you. The shipping company called. Your unaccompanied baggage has finally arrived.”

“Good. It’s about time.” She smiled at Lawrence. Hardly broad, it was gentle, patient, so different. “Why don’t you help me with it? I have a gift for you in it.”

Lawrence chuckled and smiled back.

Now that was interesting. She was obviously very attached to the old man. Jon tucked that mental note away for future possibilities.

But the old man shook his head. “Not today, I’m afraid. We’ve got four stupid head of cattle that have broken through the fence and wandered up the trail. They gave three hikers quite a scare when they chased them.”

Jon spoke up. “I’ll take you into town, Sylvie. It’ll give me a chance to buy more appropriate clothes. And you can get your car, if you’re feeling up to driving home, that is.”

At his subtle challenge, she shot him a suspicious look. Then, catching sight of the uplifted corner of his mouth, the look shifted. Her smooth, lush lips parted, her eyes widened.

The mote-filled air around them heated and thickened. And the moment lingered.

Jon stared at her. In his line of work, he only ever saw the innocent, haunted look Sylvie now wore on the faces of child victims.

Innocent? Surely he was mistaken. He had to be missing something here. Damn it, something to do with Rick?

He stared harder at her, silently willing her to speak. Tell me what you can’t say, Sylvie.

She blinked away the haunted expression, and immediately the coolness returned. “Sure we can go now. I’m fine.”

No, she wasn’t, his intuition whispered. Jon pursed his lips into a tight line. Maybe the look had been a product of heat and hormones. Pregnant women glowed, they said.

“Then it’s settled,” Lawrence said, oblivious to the disturbing undercurrent flowing between Jon and Sylvie. “Better take the truck.”

Jon mentally yanked himself from his thoughts. He gave Sylvie his best poker face. “Yeah. Ready?”

Sylvie cleared her throat and nodded. She walked past the two men, Jon pivoting to watch her leave.

Was she really a victim here? She had been in the truck with Rick when it had been ambushed. Victim was the correct word.

So why was he here, waiting for just the right moment to squeeze out the private secrets of Rick’s last hours, in total violation of the legally binding agreement she’d signed?

What the hell kind of person was he?

A man in need of the truth, that’s what. The truth from a woman keeping more than a secret hidden inside of her.

“Oh, hey, Jon,” Lawrence interrupted his desperate thoughts. The old man scratched a stubby growth of beard. “Um, the library is right beside the shipping company. I’m going to call in and have a few books signed out. Would you mind picking them up while Sylvie’s getting her stuff? Under the name of Lawrence Fawcett. The librarian will know.”

Sylvie shoved open the barn door and escaped outside, inhaling the mountain breeze with hope it would clear her mind. She hadn’t wanted to go into town with Jon, suspecting he’d find it the perfect time to pump her for details she’d rather not give. Rather not? More likely, never give.

But when he lifted one corner of his mouth, with challenge in his eyes, she’d felt a stirring within.

God, he was gorgeous. It hadn’t really struck her until that moment. Suddenly, one night of passion—one of the most inappropriate events ever—had transformed her from…

She swallowed. From cool virgin to full, sensual woman.

Her temples pounded. She hadn’t wanted to get involved with Rick.

Until she faced death as a virgin.

Oh, Lord. She’d been so incredibly selfish. A man was dead just because she hadn’t wanted to die a virgin, and now she was pregnant, alone, and of all things, fatally attracted to her one-time lover’s bitter brother, who was hinting that he wanted to be a father to the child.

Wasn’t that dandy?

Directly in her vision stood the back of the house, or more pointedly, the kitchen. Had Jon actually considered kissing her? No. It was grief, and the way the shadows played on his face. For all she knew, he’d mastered the hungry sexual look years ago, and now wore it as a matter of habit.

“Are the keys in the truck?”

She jumped, knocking her attention from the house to Jon, who’d slipped up beside her, completely unnoticed.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She tried to look calm. “It’s all right.”

The truck sat silent in front of her, its dark-green paint faded in spots by the brutal Alberta sun. Beside Jon, in a truck, while he drove?

His dark profile would show his concentration on his driving, like Rick’s had.

A sharp squeal cut through the hot air. She spun around to find the source.

Immediately Jon caught her arm. His warm fingers wrapped around her elbow as he pointed to the part of the front yard they could see. “It’s just the pig entertaining the kids. Relax.”

She sagged, letting out a whoosh of air. Of course. It was just Bruce. It wasn’t that night—

She offered Jon a foolish, wobbly smile. “Bruce is the camp favorite. But I swear if he roots through one more bag of garbage, there’ll be a pig roast on the next long weekend.”

Jon’s eyebrows creased together ever so briefly before he smiled and released her elbow. “Shall I drive?”

“No,” she snapped. Abruptly she cleared her throat and stiffened the smile she’d forced on her face. “Thanks. I’ll drive. I know where to go.”

When they reached the shipping company, Jon threw open the cab door. The bright sun beat down on him as he turned to face her. “I’ll just go get those books Lawrence asked for, then I’ll be straight back. Don’t lift anything, even if they say you have to, okay? I’ll do it.”

He threw her the firmest look he could summon after the relaxing ride back into town. She merely shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Jon climbed out and slammed the door. Sylvie had been quiet on the trip in. Her insistence on driving hadn’t struck him as odd, until they sat inside the old rattletrap and he’d realized that it was possible the last time she’d been riding as a passenger in a big truck was with Rick. And Rick, being the subordinate, would have done the driving.

She hadn’t wanted Jon to drive, and he understood her choice.

Walking across the pavement and through the scattering of various cars, he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Thankfully, he had the experience of Toronto in the dog days of August. Now that was hot, especially in a bulletproof vest and dark pants. Here was a dry heat, he told himself. Tolerable.

So why didn’t he feel cooler? It was just barely June, for crying out loud.

A chorus of laughter and noise greeted him as he entered the library. An elderly librarian was reading a story to a circle of youngsters, all of whom yelled out excitedly when a question arose in the book’s dialogue. Preschool morning, he presumed. He walked up to the counter. “I’m here to pick up some books for a Lawrence Fawcett.”

The librarian nodded and pulled three books from under the counter. “They’ve already been signed out, so you don’t need anything. Here’s the slip saying when they have to be back.” She showed him the narrow paper before tucking it into the top book. “Tell Lawrence I’ve bought a whole bunch of new westerns he might be interested in. Especially after reading these books.”

Jon glanced down at the short pile, his eyes widening. Breastfeeding—Nature’s Way. He lifted the book and read the next title. A Father’s Guide to Surviving Pregnancy. Almost too scared to look, he lifted the second book and peered down. Pregnancy and Birth—An In-Depth Look at the Details. Wonderful. Why couldn’t Lawrence have asked Sylvie to fetch them?

He scooped up the books. Jeez, she’d just told him this morning. Was Lawrence already planning to be Sylvie’s labor coach? Dazed, he walked back to the shipping company, stopping only to dump the books on the front seat of the truck. Over the hood he spied Sylvie, lifting a large duffel bag over her shoulder. At her feet were two large barrack boxes and a rucksack.

What the hell was she doing?

He swore, long and loud enough for her to hear him. “Damn it, woman, I said I’d do that!”

He jogged over to the cement docking ramp and leaped up to glare at the young, pimply faced worker beside her. “What’s wrong with you, anyway? She’s pregnant, you know. And you’re making her lift all of this by herself?”

The worker blinked. “No, sir. I was going to put it all on a pallet and forklift onto her truck. I didn’t know she was pregnant. Sorry.”

Jon drew in a tight seethe. Of course he wouldn’t know. And he bet Sylvie wouldn’t ask for help.

Sylvie threw the lightly stuffed bag onto the wooden pallet the worker had hastily retrieved. “Good grief, Jon, quit ragging on the kid. I know my limitations, all right? This duffel bag’s practically empty.”

“The rest of it will be heavy. I know. I’ve got all of Rick’s stuff still sitting on my living room floor.”

She grabbed the shipping order and scrawled out her signature, tearing off her copy with the ease of someone who had worked in shipping all her adult life. Folding it with clipped, jerky movements, she snapped, “You still have his stuff in your living room? I packed his boxes two days after he died. They left by Hercules aircraft the day we had his memorial service. Isn’t it about time you sorted through that stuff? You’re only delaying the inevitable.”

Without waiting for his answer, she stalked down the steps to the truck.

Her expression still grim, she backed up the pickup, lining it up beside to the dock. Behind Jon, the young worker, now in the forklift, threw him a cautious look before carrying the pallet down a long ramp. When he reached the truck, he loaded the baggage onto the truck’s bed. “Um, I need the pallet back sometime, Ms. Mitchell.” He turned to Jon. “Is this all right?”

“Fine,” he muttered. Her stuff looked exactly like Rick’s. Rick’s stuff had had bright blue strips of cloth tied to the handles of the barrack boxes and duffel bag. Probably in order to easily recognize them in the sea of olive green Jon could imagine lined the floor of a Hercules cargo plane.

Sylvie’s strips of material were the same color.

Sweat beaded on his forehead. Yet his insides chilled him. He hadn’t received Rick’s stuff until six weeks after he’d buried him. And then, sick of not getting the answers he needed, and encouraged by his chief, he’d dumped his brother’s effects into his living room and called the airline. All that was left of Rick’s life had been sitting in his living room for almost a month.

Damn it, Rick deserved better.

Jon searched the horizon, a flat line broken up by the outline of the library beyond. Could Sylvie be right? Had he been delaying the inevitable? But to go through all of Rick’s things, every last scrap? What the hell would he do with it all? Longing ached his bones. Damn it, Rick, why did you have to die so young?

He studied Sylvie’s profile in the back window of the truck as she peered into the bed at something. How had she felt, sorting through her lover’s clothes and uniforms, packing up his personal items?

Being one hell of a woman, Sylvie would have managed, just as she’d manage parenthood. But she couldn’t give her baby the one thing he deserved: someone who could tell him about his father.

Already he was thinking of the kid as a male. A boy, a lively blond boy just like Rick. A boy who needed a man in his life, like Jon and Rick had needed their own father even before some coward killed him.

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