An Unlikely Daddy by Rachel Lee

Author:Rachel Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2016-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Ryker drove for hours along back country roads, feeling as if a Pandora’s box had been opened inside him. All the soul-searching he’d failed to do over the years, all the decisions he’d made or had refused to make, the truncated personality he’d become...they all leaped out and screamed at him like unleashed Furies.

Why the hell had John Hayes asked this of him? More than anyone else on the planet, John had to have been aware of Ryker’s lacks. His narrow set of emotions. The secrets that would always stand between him and anyone else.

“What were you thinking, John?” But of course there was no answer. Of all the people John could have asked to check on his wife if anything happened, there were a million better choices than Ryker.

John had chosen to lay this on Ryker, and now that the baby was imminent, Ryker knew he couldn’t leave. Not yet. But that was no excuse for what John had caused here, because John hadn’t known about the kid.

Or maybe John had been just that selfish. Maybe he hadn’t understood Ryker at all. After all, his friend was the one who’d kept leaving a wife behind time and again to go on dangerous missions until he got himself killed. The guy who wouldn’t leave the Rangers until he got himself a dangerous covert job with the CIA.

Ryker could hardly hold himself blameless, though. He hadn’t had to get John that job. He could have told the guy to go home and settle down. But, maybe just like John, he hadn’t given any thought to Marisa. She wasn’t his wife. What did it matter to him?

Oh, hell, it mattered. It mattered in ways he wasn’t used to and didn’t know how to handle. Or even sort out.

What did John think Ryker would do? Pull into town, make a little recon, find out if Marisa needed anything, then head out again?

Cussing, Ryker turned into the parking lot of a roadhouse and slammed the car into Park. Maybe that was the Ryker John thought he knew. A man who could come here and leave everything untouched. Leave Marisa in her misery. Barely touch the edges of her consciousness. A gesture, nothing more. A way to speak from beyond the grave and remind this woman he’d loved her.

Well, it hadn’t worked that way, had it? What’s more, he was beginning to agree with Julie’s unspoken assessment of John. Selfish and always walking out the door.

The ugliest thought popped into his head. John had known Ryker wouldn’t be able to make it until months after the funeral. Maybe this had been John’s way of keeping her grief fresh, of keeping her to himself, because he knew Ryker’s rule on women.

Could that man have really been so ugly inside?

It was possible, much as he hated to believe it. But he knew as well how much the kind of life they led could breed ugliness in some. And how possessive some men could be.

He cussed again and switched off the car, heading inside to get a beer.

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