The Soldier's Baby Bargain. Beth Kery

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 face. Seeing not a hint of anger, she sighed in relief.

      “Ryan, there’s something I want us to be on the same page about,” she approached the topic cautiously after the waiter brought them coffee and tea. She sensed the tension that flew into his muscles.

      “About Jesse?” he asked.

      She nodded, took a deep breath for courage and blurted out the details of discovering Jesse’s infidelities. She was learning to read him, she realized after a minute or two of talking almost nonstop. Most people would have called his flat expression impassive, but that slight widening of his eyes meant all-out shock on Ryan’s face.

      “I can’t believe it,” he said. “Melanie Shane contacted you, and told you about her affair with your husband?”

      Faith nodded and poured hot water over her tea bag. The pain that went through her at the vivid memory was lessening now, altering from the stab of betrayal to the ache of regret. Mostly she was mad at herself for not facing the truth earlier. Jesse was charming and funny and dynamic, but he was not a one-woman man.

      Nor a two-woman man, for that matter.

      Sometimes it was just easier to be blind to the obvious.

      “It was a few months before the crash. She found me through my veterinary practice’s website,” she said. She set down her spoon and met Ryan’s stare. “I’m just thankful that I happened to open the emails that morning. Often, Jane does it before me.”

      Ryan shut his eyes briefly. Pain flickered across his hard face and was gone. “They had the most volatile relationship. Jesse and Melanie were either fighting like cats and dogs or they were—”

      He stopped abruptly. Their stares held as she finished his sentence in her mind.

      “When Melanie first wrote me, she was in quite a state,” Faith said after a long pause. “Apparently she’d discovered that Jesse had slept with a lieutenant who trained airmen on computers at the airport. Melanie was pretty upset by it.”

      Ryan grimaced. “Damn. I can’t believe Melanie did that.” He exhaled heavily. “Strike that. I can. She’d get herself into a real state at times, when it came to Jesse. I suppose she had herself convinced she was doing you a favor by pouncing on you with the news?”

      Faith nodded. “Bingo. You’d think we were blood sisters, both betrayed by the devil.”

      Ryan grunted. “When in reality, Melanie was feeling furious and rejected by what Jesse had done. She ran blabbing to you because she knew it would hurt Jesse. She never gave a thought or care about what she was doing to you. I’m sorry, Faith.”

      “It’s not your fault. You have nothing to apologize for.”

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