LITMIR.BIZ

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had forgotten all the places in the world where a State Department employee would be unwelcome. No, she’d been thinking of London, Paris, Tokyo...not little out-of-the-way consulates in dangerous countries. But of course Johnny wouldn’t shy away from the dangers. He never had.

      She needed to get away from this, at least for now. Ryker was shifting her mental images around like a puzzle, and she wasn’t sure she would like the new picture. “So, more about you,” she said.

      “I was born,” he said.

      Despite everything, she felt her mood rising to a much lighter place, and realized she desperately needed it. “That’s it?” she asked, surprised to hear a tremor of humor in her voice.

      “No, of course that’s not it. I had, still have, family. I grew up like a normal kid, two parents and a sister. My parents are retired now, and my sister lives in New Zealand. I get to see her once every few years. And that’s where normal ended, I guess. The military called to me like a siren. My imaginings were very different from reality. But I think I mentioned that. Anyway, since then my home has been my job.”

      None of that told her very much, but what had she been expecting? “That could be lonely.”

      “I haven’t noticed it, except occasionally.” The way he spoke led her to believe there had been times when it had been incredibly lonely. She wondered if Johnny had felt that way sometimes, too. And why.

      “So you’re going back to teaching in the fall?”

      She nodded. “I hope I’m ready by then. I’d be a lousy teacher right now.”

      “How are you filling your days?”

      “Trying to get through them.”

      The words lay there, stark and revealing. More than she had wanted to say to this stranger, more than she had even said to her friends. The fact that hell lived inside her was not something she felt compelled to inflict on her friends. She tried to keep it to herself as much as humanly possible. She knew she didn’t do the best job of it, but she still made the effort.

      “Everything’s okay with the baby, though?”

      “Fine.” It wasn’t really his business.

      “And a nursery? Have you put one together?”

      She felt a prickle of guilt. Her pregnant friends had usually attacked the nursery business early and had things ready months in advance. For some reason she had been postponing it, as if she could stay in this state of stasis forever. Unrealistic. Ducking. Evading what she couldn’t have said. “No. There’s a crib in the basement that was Johnny’s. I thought I’d use that.”

      “Need help getting it up here?”

      It was clear he wanted to do something more than knock down a few icicles. Well, this was one task where help would be welcome. “Yes, actually I do.”

      She had just given him a wedge to drive farther into her life. She hoped like hell she didn’t regret it.

      * * *

      Glad of a useful job to do, Ryker headed downstairs to the basement. Marisa had told him where to find the crib, and he didn’t have any trouble locating it. The basement was clean, scrupulously organized and stocked with every tool a man could wish for. The only thing that bothered him was that the laundry machines were down here. That meant Marisa was going up and down those narrow steps at least once a week, and when the baby came she’d have to do them even more often. He didn’t like it. The railing didn’t seem stout enough; the steps were too narrow. How often would she attempt them with a baby in her arms? He hated to think.

      But as he carried the awkwardly sized pieces of the crib frame up one by one, he had the opportunity to think about Johnny and Marisa, and his opinion was changing.

      Had Johnny even once considered how his death would gut his wife? Had he ever looked at her and wondered what would become of her? In just a short time Ryker had gleaned a decent impression of the price Marisa was paying, a price compounded by the impending arrival of a child she would now have to care for on her own. He had no doubt she could do it, but there’d be no handy dad to spell her when she got tired or needed a break.

      Lots of women did it. He got it. But Marisa should have had Johnny to lean on. Of course, Johnny had been so busy pursuing his new goals that maybe he’d have been no help at all.

      Thoughts such as these had been one of the main reasons Ryker had avoided every opportunity to settle down. It wasn’t just that women wanted to change him. No, they had a right to expect certain things from a husband, things he couldn’t provide.

      And the lie. The big lie. That they would travel together? Johnny would likely have never been assigned to any station where he could take his family. Not with his skills.

      And another lie, his own. He and Johnny didn’t work for the State Department. They worked for the CIA. State was their cover. He hated having to perpetuate that with Marisa. At this point she deserved something better than lies. She certainly deserved to know about a black star on a marble wall at Langley that would never bear Johnny’s name.

      But the simple fact was, the agency would put up the star, but it might never acknowledge that John had been one of them. It had happened before and would happen again, and setting Marisa on a quest to break through that huge barrier to truth seemed fruitless. Some names were never inscribed in the book, which was guarded as well as the crown jewels. Some families were never invited to the annual memorial ceremony. Some were never told what their loved ones had done. Some were left forever with stories such as those Marisa had been told because even one slip might cause an irreparable harm.

      He didn’t even know himself exactly what had happened to John. He’d never know. But he didn’t like giving her the cover story when she deserved the truth.

      But maybe the truth would upset her more. Maybe knowing that all that talk about exotic travel had been most likely lies would only compound sins that never seemed to stop compounding.

      He’d been at this business longer than John had; he was more used to deceptions that went with it. But he found himself getting sick to the gills of it. That woman up there reminded him that secrecy had repercussions. Horrible repercussions. At least if John had been killed in a combat mission with the Rangers, she’d have been given some information about where, when and how that was truthful. Instead, she’d been given a lie. A street mugging?

      Not much closure, especially when she was right that John could have taken care of himself.

      He brought the springs up to the bedroom she had indicated. Her room, he guessed, at the back of the house. She wanted the child near. She was already working over the wood with a damp rag. He looked at the springs, though, and wondered if they should be replaced. A few rusty spots marred them.

      “Can we get new springs for the crib?” We, as if he belonged.

      She let it pass, though, and stepped over to look. “Maybe I should.”

      “Can you get them in town?”

      “I can order them. I know I need to order a mattress.”

      But not a whole new crib. He didn’t need brilliant insight to understand that. “Let me measure them, then. Can you just call to order them?”

      “Freitag’s?” She smiled faintly. “They’ll order anything anyone around here wants. We used to have a catalog store, but that closed. Miracle of the internet.”

      “Where do I find a tape measure?”

      He found it in the kitchen drawer she had directed him to and returned with it and the memo pad and pen from the fridge. He measured the frame, made notes about how it bolted to the bed, then joined her in wiping down the wood. At last she sat on the edge of her bed, holding her stomach and laughed. “That felt good!”

      “Yeah? Somehow I think you need to tell that to your back.”

      “How did you guess?”

      “Because

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