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“It is.” She started for the door and he followed her. It was easier for him to relax, she reasoned, her forehead wrinkling as she frowned. He wasn’t the one carrying a secret around.
“There was a time when we weren’t uncomfortable with each other at all. I don’t know why we are now. That’s all in the past. I didn’t even know you’d still be here after all this time.”
His words contradicted his cold manner of their first meeting and she wondered at it. “I stayed,” she answered, hitting the door with her hip to push it open.
Jonas held the door and then followed her out, putting his white pizza box down on the hood of his truck. “I just go where they tell me.”
Shannyn paused, the heat from the pizza warming her fingers. That had always been the problem. He was at the mercy of wherever his superiors sent him next. He’d done his training here, at Base Gagetown, finished when he was twenty-two. Still so young, full of energy and determination to be the best shot in the Army. Then he’d gone to Edmonton, and who knew where he’d been since then. Who knew how long he’d be stationed here? Despite his injury, it was obvious he was staying in the military, not looking to be discharged. That meant more moving around.
“And where would that be?”
He smiled but it seemed grim, a thin line. “Here and there. Doing what I do…what I did,” he corrected himself. “I went where I was needed.”
The very level of danger she’d worried so much about lent a sense of the mysterious to him, and Shannyn felt a glimmer of awe. He would have performed each task as it was assigned, no questions. For some strange reason, despite his aloofness, she knew what she’d always known. There was something heroic about Jonas Kirkpatrick. Something that made her feel safe. That was odd, because right now he was her biggest threat and he didn’t even know it.
“What are you doing on base now? When you left you’d just finished sniper school.” She looked up into his eyes. That had been a bone of contention in the end, too. An extra degree of danger that he’d relished and she’d feared. And it looked as though she’d had good reason to worry. He was only wounded. How many hadn’t come back alive?
His jaw hardened, only slightly but enough that she saw it. Saw his eyes cool until they seemed to shut her out completely. In a matter of a few seconds, he had fully withdrawn into himself.
“I’m back at the school.”
“More courses?” She couldn’t imagine what else they would want him to do; he’d already accelerated through basic and had set his eyes on Special Forces. He’d obviously done his job and done it well.
“I’m instructing, sniping and small arms.”
Her eyebrows lifted. Now he was in charge of training the next generation of sharpshooters? No more active duty? Had his injury caused that? How had it happened? She had so many questions and no right to ask. No right to pry. They were exes only, as far as he was concerned.
And truth be told, curious as she was, even though she still felt that pull to him, she knew it would be better for everyone if they kept things very impersonal. Getting involved in his life meant he’d get involved in hers, and she couldn’t let that happen. For all she knew instructing was a temporary position until he could return to active duty. The last thing she needed was Jonas temporarily involved in anything and then leaving. She’d been through that enough in her lifetime.
“Do you like the new job?” She asked the question to fill up the awkward silence that had fallen.
His eyes didn’t warm, just seemed to assess her distantly.
When they’d met six years ago, he’d been outgoing, fun, ebullient and full of life. It was hard to reconcile that energetic youth to the hardened man before her. The gulf between them now was wider than it had ever been.
“It has its good points.”
Despite his earlier attempt at lightening the atmosphere, it was clear Jonas wasn’t in a social chitchat sort of mood anymore, and it was just as well.
“Then I’m glad. I should get home.”
“See you around.”
She gripped the pizza box with one hand and looped her key ring around the index finger of her other. “Goodbye,” she replied, surprised to feel her throat tighten.
It would have been easier if he’d just stayed away. She could have kept the memories of their idyllic months together untarnished. Now they were bookended with an image of a colder, harder man who seemed familiar yet a stranger.
She didn’t need a man. She’d proven that. But if she were to choose one, it would be someone devoted, dedicated and, above all, present. Committed.
She couldn’t imagine Jonas as any of those things.
The leg press moved smoothly, up, down, up, down. Jonas grimaced at the weight on the bar. Ridiculous. It was half of what he’d been able to press only a year ago. He had enough reminders of what had happened to him without dealing with his body giving out.
He set his teeth and stubbornly added five more reps to his set, until the muscles quivered all the way up to his hip.
Tomorrow was his next physio appointment, and he was determined to have made progress. Everyone said his expertise and experience were beneficial to the training program here. But he knew the real reason he was back. He could no longer work out in the field. People called him a hero. He knew better.
He knew it was his fault.
Jonas slid off the black vinyl seat and sat on the mat, his legs spread out in a vee. Slowly he leaned forward, stretching out the muscles he’d just worked, gritting his teeth against the pain.
He hadn’t expected to see Shannyn, that was for sure. Even so, he’d done nothing but think of her as the transport flight came in on final approach. He’d only been here in the Fredericton area for basic training, then sniper school. A small wedge of his life so far. But during that time…Shannyn had been a big part of that, and he wasn’t immune to remembering happier days. She’d never been far from his mind.
But that was before. Before war, before deployment, before everything. Before the pervading taste of dust and blood. He could offer her nothing now, and he didn’t want to. That part of his life was over, and he was moving on in the only direction he knew how. Within the Army. His home.
He lay down on his back, crossed one ankle over his knee, and drew the knee in, stretching out his hip. They’d run into each other twice already, and he’d been back less than two weeks.
Switching legs, he sighed. Tomorrow he’d go to his appointment, and then he’d see about switching therapists, go to another office. The less they saw of each other the better. For both of them.
CHAPTER TWO
JONAS arrived for his appointment a few minutes early, providing the blond receptionist, who wasn’t Shannyn, with a letter before seating himself in the waiting room.
“Shannyn?”
Shannyn, just entering reception, shook her head, diverting her gaze from the back of Jonas’s head to the cheerful face of their receptionist, Melanie. “What is it?”
“It’s Sgt. Kirkpatrick’s letter. He wants his file sent to another clinic. He wants to switch therapists.”
Shannyn took the file. “Thank you, Melanie. I’ll take care of it.”
Her even tone betrayed nothing of what she felt. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure of it herself. Part of her was disappointed he wanted to go somewhere else, but mostly she felt relief that she wouldn’t have to see him on a regular basis. The more she saw him, the more likely she was to be reminded of how she’d cared about him. Cutting down the risk of bumping into him could only be a good thing, right?
Then why did she suddenly feel so disappointed?
Shannyn unfolded the paper and stared at the writing. When she reached the end she looked over at him in the waiting area. He turned, meeting her eyes, his face unreadable. She wondered if they taught them how to perfect that look in the Army. In his letter, he hadn’t offered any explanation for the switch. But then he didn’t need to, did he. She got the message loud and clear. He didn’t want to be anywhere near her.
The question she did have, however, was the one that she couldn’t seem to get out of her mind. What had happened that made him only a whisper of the man he’d been six years ago? Where had that gung-ho, save-the-world optimist gone? Where had Jonas left him behind?
His file was already pulled for his appointment, and she went to retrieve it. It might be her only chance to discover what had really happened to him, and more than anything, before their brief contact was cut off, she wanted to know.
She opened the beige cover, staring at the documentation. So little information, just facts and figures and terminology that said very little about what had happened to the man.
He’d sustained his injury eleven months ago, but his file didn’t say where or under what circumstances. The absence of data only made her more curious. He’d been stabilized, but the location had been blacked out. She’d had no idea there’d be such secrecy, and she looked up again at him sitting in the waiting room.
Where have you been, and what have you been doing that’s so dangerous it has to be classified?
She continued reading. The file only stated that he’d been airlifted to Germany where he’d had surgery for a broken femur. Spent time there before being sent home to Canada for recuperation and rehab.
She read further, absorbing notations about the complicated operation to repair the bone and also about an infection that had delayed recovery.
He hadn’t had an easy go of it.
It was probably enough to change a man. If combat hadn’t changed him first. She couldn’t shake that nagging thought from her mind.
“Sgt. Kirkpatrick?” Even now the name seemed that of a stranger. She took a deep breath. “May I see you for a moment?”
His uneven gait carried him back to the counter. “Yes?”
Shannyn forced her voice to remain professional, even as she looked up into his face. He looked the same as he had last week. That inherent neatness and military bearing, despite his disability. She had the irrational longing to reach out and lay her hands on his lapels, straightening an imaginary crease. She shook off the silly urge. It would serve no purpose. If she were sure of one thing, it was that Jonas wouldn’t stay around. She’d been burned by him before. There was no way she’d let him do it to her again.
She gripped the papers in her hand. “There are a few things I need you to authorize before I can sign off on your file and send it to the office you’ve specified.”
She handed over the proper papers and a pen. “You should be fine there, although I think Ms. Malloy is the best physiotherapist in the city. Still, once this is taken care of, all you’ll have to do is call and set up your first appointment at the new clinic.”
Jonas’s hand paused over the papers.
“Why you? I thought you were the receptionist.”
She smiled thinly. When he’d been sent to Edmonton, she’d just enrolled in business school. “I started out that way. Now I’m the office manager. Any paperwork needs to be signed off by your therapist and by me.”
“Sgt. Kirkpatrick? I’m ready for you now.” Geneva Malloy called him in.
His eyes darted up to Shannyn’s but she didn’t let her gaze waver. She wanted him to sign the papers and be free to go on his way. On the other hand, they were running behind schedule and she didn’t want to keep Geneva waiting. “I’ll hold on to these,” she said brusquely. “You can sign them after your session.”
He handed her back the pen. She tapped the papers into an orderly stack and laid them on top of his file.
“Thank you,” he replied politely. For a flash, his eyes betrayed him and she felt he wanted to say something more. Why, after all this time, did her heart still leap every time her gaze met his?
Then the look was gone and he limped his way to the facilities in the back.
She left his paperwork on the desk behind the counter and turned her attention back to her computer. This was her job, and had been for a long time. She’d done just fine, going to school, making a new life. She’d told him the truth—she’d started by answering phones and had gone on to manage the entire office. It was a good life. It was real and it was permanent and those were two things that Shannyn rated highly.
She turned her attention to her work while he was with Geneva. Checking her watch, she realized he’d been in there nearly an hour and her spreadsheet was complete. She sat back in her chair and sighed. Shortly he’d come back out, walk out the door and unless fate was unkind, she probably wouldn’t meet him again. Being near him at all stirred up too many feelings she’d tried hard to bury.
Switching physiotherapists was a godsend. She could get on with her life, and he’d never know the difference. Even as she thought it, a slick line of guilt crawled through her. Most of the time she was successful in not thinking about what she’d done. But deep down she felt some remorse at keeping her secret.
The door to the back opened and she heard Jonas’s voice talking to Geneva, thanking her politely. Shannyn turned her head toward the sound, only to snap it back abruptly as the front office door swung open carrying laughter with it.
“Mommy!”
A charged bundle in jeans and a red T-shirt barreled across the floor towards Shannyn’s desk, bouncing to a halt and grinning up precociously. “Surprise! I came from kindergarten!”
Jonas released Geneva’s hand as he turned, his heart stopping for a brief moment as the girl wrapped her chubby arms around Shannyn’s neck.
I have a daughter. The thought struck him like the sure aim of a bullet.
As if she sensed something was off, the girl turned her head and their eyes met, green to green. Every muscle in his body tightened with the impact of the truth. This is Shannyn’s daughter. She’s in school. I left six years ago. She has my eyes.
Shannyn’s cheeks colored; the blatant guilt on her face and the way she shifted in her chair seemed to confirm his suspicion. This was his daughter, one Shannyn had kept hidden from him all this time. A tiny poppet who looked eerily like the pictures of himself he remembered from his grandmother’s photo album.
All of it left him gutted. How much more could he lose? He clenched his fingers. It wasn’t enough to have the life he’d made for himself ripped away in the space of a moment. Now he had to find out he had another, separate life that he hadn’t even known existed.
It took every ounce of his self-control to not go to the little girl, to kneel before her and demand to see her eyes again. Moss green eyes. His eyes in a miniature of Shannyn’s delicate features. But what would that accomplish beyond frightening the child? She wouldn’t understand. He didn’t understand. No, it was Shannyn who owed him an explanation.
That overriding thought filled him with tense rage. And explain she would. She’d known. Known all this time and hadn’t told him he had a daughter. For six years he’d been a father. She’d deliberately kept it a secret, and then when he did return to town, she’d said nothing, even though she’d had opportunity. This was the third time they’d met and still she hadn’t breathed a single word of it to him.
Shannyn felt as if her head was moving in slow motion. Her daughter’s happy, smiling face looked up at her. Then, turning her head a few degrees, she caught Jonas watching her with a startled expression blanking his face. Emma turned to see what she was looking at and lifted moss-green eyes to the man standing across the room.
Her heart raced even as the moment froze. He would know now for sure. There was no mistaking those eyes. Her own were aqua blue, and the only reason her lashes were dark was because she’d put on mascara that morning. Emma’s eyes were his. Green with lovely thick dark lashes that curled naturally. Just like the brown curls that rested on the tips of her shoulders, the same sable color as his short spikes. She could almost see him mentally counting back six years.
Emma looked from Shannyn to Jonas and then to her baby-sitter, who stood in the doorway looking confused.
“Why’s everyone standing so still?” Emma’s voice piped up curiously in the silence that had fallen.
Shannyn shook herself out of her stupor. She forced a cheery smile to her face, the skin tightly stretched under the false expression. Right now she had to ignore Jonas and deal with Emma. Lord knew Jonas would have to be dealt with later.
“What brings you here in the middle of the day, pumpkin?”
“I told Melissa that I wanted to see you when she picked me up from school.”
Shannyn reached down and lifted Emma up so that she was on her knee, aware of Jonas’s eyes on them unwaveringly. “And how was kindergarten today? Did you have fun? Learn the secret of moonbeams? Solve the mystery of the dinosaur?”
She made jokes, but her stomach churned with anxiety. He must have put two and two together by now. If not, he would have left the office. No, he knew exactly what the deal was. That they had a child and she hadn’t told him.
He would hate her. This wasn’t how things were supposed to happen at all. He was supposed to be switching therapists. Out of her sphere of existence. So she and Emma could live their lives as they always had.
“Mommy, that’s silly.”
She forced a smile as Emma’s bright voice brought her back to the present. “And so are you, girly-girl.”
“Can you come home?”
Melissa, Emma’s sitter, stepped forward, holding out her hand for Emma to take. “I thought you were coming to run errands with me? We need to let your mom finish work.” Melissa had sized up the situation, and had ascertained something was wrong. “We’ll meet her at home later.”
“Give me a hug, honey,” Shannyn said, squeezing the tiny waist tightly against her. She blinked back the tears that threatened, already sorry for the changes she knew were coming to Emma’s life. She’d hated the upheaval she’d experienced as a child; had tried to protect Emma from going through the same thing. Now, in the space of a few minutes, all her intentions were blown to smithereens. She gave Emma a little squeeze, wanting to hold on to her and keep the inevitable from happening. “Thanks for coming to see me. I’ll be home soon, okay?”
The response was a smacking kiss on the cheek. “See you later, alligator.”
It was Emma’s latest funny and she never seemed to grow tired of it. “In a while, crocodile,” Shannyn called back, her throat tight.
When the whirlwind had departed again, Shannyn braved a look up at Jonas.
“We need to talk.” She heard his voice and the tight quiver of anger it carried. Trembling, she made her gaze remain on his, no matter how his tone intimidated her. He ignored the other faces in the waiting room, his eyes piercing hers, accusing. She’d lied to him, and right now she knew that was all he could see.
“We need to talk, Shannyn, right now.”
Shannyn’s heart quaked. It would have been too much to ask that he not see the resemblance. She’d spent so much time telling herself that he’d never find out that she wasn’t prepared for this conversation.
