Necessary Secrets Read online

  Finally he’d stopped beating around the bush. Someone at HQ had realized where Jonathan Cahill had gone for the summer and was starting to sweat. Hmm, could they trust Mitchell to keep her mouth shut?

  Yes, oh yes, but she wasn’t about to allow this major to pull rank on her. “Major Tirouski, Jonathan Cahill came looking for closure and I needed help for the summer.”

  “He’s a police officer. He doesn’t need a job.”

  “No. What he needs is to deal with his brother’s death in his own way, and if that means working long, hard hours chasing cattle on my ranch, then who are you to say he shouldn’t be here? And we both know that I signed a nondisclosure form in Bosnia stating I wouldn’t discuss Rick’s death.” She leaned over the counter and found herself practically bumping noses with the man. “Well, I haven’t. Nor do I plan to.”

  Six months ago she’d never have pulled such insubordination, but she no longer had her career to worry about. On the line today was her privacy. And Jon’s.

  And the privacy of her tiny baby, whose existence was temporarily hidden by a high countertop.

  The major straightened, pulling from an inner pocket a photocopied document. “Just to refresh your memory, Warrant.”

  He handed the paper to her, but she didn’t need to read the form again. Her pulse pounded in her throat.

  “Under the provisions of the Official Secrets Act, you may not disclose any information, period, whether you consider what happened a mistake or not. If you do, Warrant, you can be charged under the Code of Service Discipline, with a court martial, as you are still in the service, technically.”

  He pulled out his beret and fitted it to his head. Then, still watching her face, he slipped on his sunglasses. The cool eyes disappeared. “And that code hasn’t become any more lenient since you retired.”

  “Breathe in slowly, slowly, hold it, and…exhale. Make each exhalation as long as the inhalation. Focus on the breath, not the pain.”

  Sitting cross-legged on the floor of the birthing center’s family room, Sylvie drew in as much air as her lungs would allow. As the public health nurse said, she focused on the breath.

  Better than focusing on the events of this morning, and how she’d stewed all day at the major’s not-so-subtle warning.

  Mind you, she thought as she let out a long, controlled exhalation, she wasn’t sure she could focus on her breathing as long as Jon’s arm supported her back, either. And what about the dark head just inches from her face, so close that if she were to turn around, she’d be only a heartbeat from a kiss?

  Jon. He knew nothing of Major Tirouski’s visit, and she more than hoped to keep it that way. Even now, the shame of her act and the anger that the military had backed her into a corner made it hard to think.

  Focus. Breathe out. She let out her inhalation in a long, measured length, trying to match her breathing to the heavily pregnant woman’s on the next mat. Tirouski had come as close as possible to openly threatening her today. Sylvie stifled a dry laugh. He’d wasted his time driving all the way down to see her. She’d signed the gag order. Nothing would make her go back on her word.

  Jon shifted beside her, no doubt attempting to get more comfortable on the thin gymnastics mat. She steeled herself as he ducked his head once, sending her way a waft of some warm, spicy scent from his evening shower.

  She shut her eyes. He smelled so good.

  “If it’s too hard to kneel beside me, go sit down,” she whispered between breaths while restraining the urge to clear her throat of his enticing scent.

  “I’m comfortable. How about you?”

  Hardly. Not with him so close. It couldn’t be attraction, even as handsome as Jon was. He was Rick’s brother, a man who wanted two things from her. The truth about Rick’s death and a chance to know his nephew or niece.

  She drew in another long, focusing breath. Forget him. He may get the latter, but he’ll never get the former.

  The nurse called out, “Breathe, ladies. In…and…out. Dads, help our mums.”

  Jon shifted closer to her, and his breath danced across her warm face. Did they have to keep this place so damn hot? He leaned in toward her and rubbed a maddeningly distracting circle between her aching shoulder blades. “Breathe, Sylvie,” he mimicked the nurse quietly.

  She let a long seethe. “If I have to do anymore damn deep breathing, I’ll turn into a Hindu monk.”

  He snickered in her ear, and the sound dissolved deliciously through her like the first morsel of one of Marg’s brownies, still warm from the oven. She’d deliberately avoided Jon ever since that night in the kitchen, more than two weeks ago. She hadn’t gone out to inspect the line shack, either, for fear of running into him.

  He’d shown his true colors that night. She’d been tempted to fire him on the spot, but that would leave her so desperately short-handed.

  “Okay, Mums,” the nurse called out, “let’s get you on your sides. Dads, we’re going to run through some simple massage techniques. If your wife’s back doesn’t ache now, you can be sure it will.”

  During the communal chuckling, Sylvie did as the nurse instructed. She lay on her side, facing away from Jon, tensing, waiting for his firm fingers to knead into the tired muscles of her lower back.

  The nurse chatted on, and Jon followed her cheerful instructions.

  Oh, his fingers were heaven on earth. Sylvie clamped her eyes shut, afraid someone in the room, anyone, really, would see how much his touch affected her. How much his warm fingers could make her forget Tirouski’s offending visit.

  Behind her, Jon drew in a long breath and worked deeper into the thick, knotted muscles on either side of her spine. She let out a quiet groan, not realizing until that minute how much she truly ached.

  “Feel good?”

  She nodded. “I hadn’t realized how much I needed this.”

  “That’s because you’ve been ignoring your body.”

  Her eyes flew open. Was she that transparent? “I’ve got too much to do to pamper this pregnancy. And besides, if all your body did was throw up and dump an elephant on your back, you’d try to ignore your pregnancy, as well.”

  He leaned forward, digging his knuckles deep into one tense spot and making her eyes widen and water with the exquisite pain. “I guess I’ll never know. Except, of course, if I listen to Lawrence.”

  She stifled an unexpected giggle. “What’s he been doing lately?”

  “Reading out loud what we all can expect. Of course, we’re all banned from looking at the photos, especially Purley.”

  She burst out laughing, causing several other parents-to-be to glance their way. “Purley used to be married. He’s been divorced for about twenty years now. I figured Michael would have been more interested. He’s younger, hasn’t had a date since the spring and, like Lawrence, has never married. Oh, yes, there!”

  He worked the knot. “Maybe they don’t know what they’re missing.”

  “Well, those pictures can’t be very exciting.”

  Jon leaned forward again. She caught his soft chuckle as it danced past her ear. “You’d be surprised what a man finds exciting. And at the worst times.”

  Huh?

  When she blinked, a vision that shouldn’t be imagined waltzed through her mind. She shut her eyes, trying to force the unseemly erotic image away. But it lingered, defiant like the man who dominated it. A man with dark hair and strong hands and a lean frame that could cover a woman’s in one fluid, purposeful thrust.

  Abruptly another man’s face slashed over her.

  No! Please, no. Rick was dead. Dead because of her stupid poor judgment.

  Go away!

  Something caught in her throat, hard enough to choke her.

  Oh, hell. Tears sprang into her eyes from nowhere. Not just a few, either. Within the second, they streamed down her face, and the same knot of fear and terror from that night tightened in her chest, cutting off what little breathing she could manage.

  Why did she do it? Why couldn�
�t she have used a bit more common sense, stopped everything they’d done before it all started?

  Stuck along a road they shouldn’t have been on, miles from their only aid….

  Oh, no! Not here! Sobs jammed between her shoulders, then pounded up her throat in brutal rhythm with her heart. Jon immediately stopped his massage.

  He leaned over her. “Sylvie? What—”

  She pulled away from him and struggled to stand up. The nurse stopped her instruction, and Sylvie cast a blurred, terrified glance around at the other curious parents before racing from the room.

  Chapter 7

  Jon found her outside, and his sigh of relief came all the way from his feet. Thank God she was still here.

  With the sun having finally set, only security lights lit the lawn behind the clinic. Their cool circles didn’t quite reach Sylvie out there on the picnic table, but he recognized her form immediately. She was crying, her shoulders pumping up and down.

  “Sylvie?”

  She stopped but didn’t turn around. She stayed seated on the table, her feet firmly planted on the bench. He said nothing more, just climbed up beside her.

  When her crying resumed, he pulled her into his arms, holding her firmly against him, refusing to let her rigid body go. Too bad if she didn’t want him to embrace her. She needed it right now.

  “Damn him.”

  He loosened his grip and peered down at her. “Who?”

  “Why us? We had nothing and he knew it, but he still let us drive into an ambush!”

  He could barely understand her sobbing, jumbled words. She turned in his arms and he could see her face contorted with frustration as she continued, “Hell, it was so stupid! I didn’t care who that guy sympathized with. He knew it would have been a waste of time to ambush us. It made no sense! He could have changed everything if he’d just paid attention to our manifest!”

  Still clinging to her, Jon struggled to understand her words. What made no sense? Who was she talking about? Changed everything?

  Like Rick’s death?

  He held his breath, hoping she might elaborate. Praying silently that she’d tell him more.

  But she didn’t. And as much as the temptation to pump her for more information burned him, he held back. She was blaming someone for something, a decision that had resulted in Rick’s death?

  Damn.

  He blinked. Tell me more, Sylvie. Please.

  But for too many long, anguished minutes, they sat there, silently listening to the sounds of the night. A car horn somewhere. Inside the clinic a baby wailed, loud and long enough to penetrate the insulated walls. Crickets joined the chorus of noise.

  But she stayed silent in his arms. Damn. Suppressing his disappointment, he finally asked, “Ready to go home?”

  She pulled away, sniffing. “Sorry about that.”

  He froze when his feet reached the ground. Adrenaline surged through him. About what? Her display? Or revealing something she shouldn’t have?

  No, he wouldn’t ask her about it. By giving her space the past few weeks and letting her warm up to him, he’d managed to get more info than any of his strong-arm tactics had. Someone was to blame. He tried an ineffectual shrug. “Lawrence would say it’s hormones.”

  She looked up at him. The security lights caught that innocent look again. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? It is just hormones. Plus, I…I guess I’m more tired than I figured. And the stress of retiring. I didn’t get a SCAN.”

  “A scan?”

  “It stands for Second Career Assistant Network. It’s a series of lectures and workshops designed to help you readjust to civilian life. All that bawling is the stress of retiring working itself out.” She stood up and straightened her shoulders.

  Like hell it was just the stress of retiring. Didn’t she even remember what she’d just wailed?

  Maybe not. Sometimes during stressful situations, a person pushed certain memories away. He took her hand and helped her off the picnic table. “Why don’t you sleep in tomorrow? Or even for the next few days? We guys can fend for ourselves. It won’t kill us. Though my omelettes might.”

  She smiled. “I’d love to, but I haven’t yet been out to the line shack. I need to get that sorted out. If there’s some way it can be salvaged—”

  “It’s waited this long for you. Let me do it. I won’t be able to go there for a few days, but it certainly isn’t beyond my capabilities.”

  “No. I need to know the full extent of the damage. We use that shack in the fall and winter, not to mention it’s near the water pump. If it has to be rebuilt, then it’s my responsibility. I’ll have to find the money somewhere—”

  Still holding her hand, he shook his head. “Nothing’s going to change tonight, or even during the next few days. If you want to go out there, that’s fine. Just not tomorrow or the day after, okay? Don’t worry about it. It’s probably not as bad as Lawrence claims.”

  She nodded. He released her hand and they began to walk around the center. Halfway around, he found himself wanting to end the heavy silence between them. “I’ll look at the shack, and if it’s as bad as Lawrence says, I’ll radio you. You can call the carpenter right away.”

  She peered at him, and the sense of innocent victim returned. And again the question he didn’t want to answer arose. Did he have the right to interrogate her? Could he treat his brother’s lover so harshly?

  Damn but he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  Putting his back to the early-morning sun, Jon shook his head in disgust. His two-way radio. At least he’d found his two-way radio. He hadn’t spoken much to Sylvie these past few days, not since that fateful prenatal class. But that would have to change.

  Normally the radios sat on the kitchen counter overnight, charging, but when he went for his, radio number five, it was missing.

  Not anymore.

  Ground into the dirt path that led from the office to the trailer sites, and pulverized by several forward and backward trips of some vehicle, there wasn’t much left of it to recognize, except for a shard of the plastic casing that must have flung out when the tire first ran over it. The shard bore the sticker number five.

  Vandals. Maybe those teenagers who liked to hang around the petting zoo after dark. If she didn’t already do so, Sylvie would have to start locking her back door at night. Whether or not she felt it was necessary. It would be a wise precaution any way one looked at it.

  Maybe the men could take turns sleeping on the cot in the small room off the kitchen.

  Yeah, like Sylvie would go for that. Ever since the incident at the prenatal class, she’d kept clear of everyone, especially him. Had she realized she’d blurted out too much, and feared he would confront her for more?

  Or did she fear that he’d demand the truth from the review committee set up to investigate Rick’s death, asking who had access to the truck’s manifest, and who knew where they were going.

  Working his jaw, he peered down at the shard in his hand. He should demand answers from that committee. All they’d done was send a letter informing him of the impending investigation. And not a damn peep since. Not even from that liaison, Major Tirouski.

  Sighing, Jon stooped and gathered up the broken neon green fragments of the radio, all the while committing to memory the design of the tire tracks that surrounded them. A wide tire, with deeply grooved tracks. Too bad he couldn’t take a plaster cast.

  When he looked up, he spied Sylvie walking to the house, her right hand occasionally dropping to her now slightly swollen belly. He should tell her about this.

  His insides clenched. But he doubted she’d take the advice he’d offer. Strong-arming the truth about Rick hadn’t worked, so why expect her to do something about a little vandalism? She’d blame it on teenagers.

  No, he’d have to find the right moment before he spoke.

  Sylvie spotted the dangerous lean to the building while still on the far crest. No wonder Lawrence wanted it torn down.

  She could also see Jon, sw
inging his leg wide as he dismounted Stampede, a big gelding, called so because he had lived up to his name at a very early age.

  She hadn’t talked to Jon since last week at her prenatal classes. She’d seen him only at meals. And until this minute she’d kept every scrap of what had happened that evening shoved in a dark, well-hidden corner of her mind.

  Now, slowing down the ATV, she tried to relive those lamenting moments outside the clinic…tried to pull back into the light what she’d said and done.

  But…but she couldn’t. Oh, Lord, she drew a blank. What had she said? She’d blubbered on and on after realizing she couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.

  All that lingered now could only be described as a bad blur, like those nightmares of hers where the memories of the emotions clung to her damp body long after she’d woken. Jon had casually joked about how easily a man could be aroused, and suddenly she’d fallen apart. When her tears had run out, he had taken her home. And said nothing.

  Everything seemed confusing, out of her grasp. Yet, his little joke ran like a broken record through her head. Were any of those emotions for him? Even now, with only the aftertaste swimming inside of her, an unwelcomed, heady swell of something tried to choke out all of her other feelings.

  She quickly adjusted her helmet. What she’d said last week at prenatal class would have to wait. Ahead, Jon and Lawrence waited beside their mounts, watching her approach. It couldn’t have been bad, because Jon remained calm and cordial to her. Right?

  She clenched her jaw. With deliberate focus, she turned her attention to the half-dilapidated shack beside the two men.

  Deep breath. In, two, three, out, two, three.

  It worked. Well, surprise, surprise. Repeating the breathing actually helped. She pulled up several yards away from the men, leaving the engine to idle.

  “That thing give you any trouble?” Lawrence asked, nodding to the ATV.

  She pulled off her helmet and fluffed her hair. “It was hard to start, that’s all. We’ll take it in for a tune-up next week.”