“Why? What are you…”One corner of Eva’s mouth lifted in a grin. “Oh.”
Ryder ignored her as his eyes ran up my body, skimming over my breasts. My four-month pregnancy was hidden behind the layers I wore to keep warm. I still wasn’t showing very much but the time had come to tell him the truth.
Eva left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. This was the first time Ryder and I had been alone together without a fever coming between us, making him unaware of everything. Now it was just the two of us. I felt nervous, excited, and scared all at once.
“Ryder, please lay back down. I can’t watch you get stitched up again,” I pleaded, placing a hand on his chest.
“Not yet. There’s something I need to do.” He yanked me toward him. I wasn’t prepared for the strength behind his hands.
My breath left me in a whoosh as I fell against him. His strong thighs captured me, keeping me in place.
“Ryder, what are you doing? You’re going to hurt yourself,” I said breathlessly.
He didn’t answer. One of his hands moved to my hip, holding me steady. The other moved beneath my braid, grasping the back of my neck.
“It’s hurting me not to do this,” he said.
Before I realized what he meant, his mouth lowered to mine. His thick beard brushed against my chin, feeling rough against my smooth skin. His lips captured mine, taking what he missed and needed. Feelings coursed through me. Heat, need, fire, and passion. They were all there, building from somewhere down low and moving up my body.
For the first time in months, I felt alive.
I groaned as his mouth slanted across mine, demanding more. My lips parted, giving him what he wanted.
I let out a moan of disappointment when his hand left me. But I didn’t have long to wait for it to be back on me. With one jerk, he yanked my knitted cap off of my head and tossed it across the room. As soon as my hair was freed, his fingers dived into it, tangling in the strands.
When his tongue plunged into my mouth, I went crazy. My hands moved to his naked chest, feeling the warmth of him against my fingertips. I could feel the outline of his muscles, reminding me that he might have lost weight in the prison camp but he was still strong, built to fight.
“Take this off,” he rasped against my mouth, tugging at my jacket. “I’ve got to feel you. Touch you. God, I’ve got to make sure you’re real and I’m not dreaming.”
I froze. He wants my jacket off. This was it. The moment of truth. The moment he found out he was going to be a dad.
His mouth covered mine again, more urgent this time. As his lips kissed mine, I reached between us for the buttons on the old jacket I wore.
“All I could think about was you, Maddie. You were on my mind day and night. I could see your face.” His mouth dipped down to my jawline, leaving a trail of dampness behind. His thumb ran beneath the collar of my shirt, brushing across my collarbone and sending a tingle through me.
I pushed a button through its hole, trying to concentrate on what I was doing. But with his lips on me, the desire was building to dangerous levels.
“And your hair. I could feel it in my hands. I could remember it wrapped around my fingers as I drove deep inside of you,” he rasped against my neck, slipping the rubber band from the end of my braid. Achingly slow, he unwound my hair from the thick braid. When it was loose and hanging down my back, he plunged his fingers into it.
My head fell back as his mouth left a warm path down my neck. His fingers tightened in my hair, holding my head in place for him to taste my skin.
I breathed heavier, my eyes closed. My hands were shaking now, leaving my jacket to run along his thighs.
“And your lips.” His mouth moved back to my lips, brushing his mouth across mine. “Shit, Maddie, memories of your lips kept me hard at night.”
His mouth savagely took mine, forcing my lips apart. I moaned, meeting his tongue with urgency. He slipped another button through the buttonhole, taking over the job.
“Thoughts of you are what kept me alive,” he whispered.
As soon as the last button was undone, Ryder pushed the jacket off of my shoulders. It fell in a puddle at my feet, covering my boots and tangling around my legs. Nothing but layers of shirts covered me now.
His fingers reached for the top button of my shirt as his tongue darted inside my mouth, filling me. I couldn’t resist. My hands went to his hair, tangling in the long strands and dragging him closer.
When he groaned, not with need but with pain, worry cooled my overheated skin.
“We can’t do this, Ryder,” I said, pulling my lips away from his.
He followed, leaning over the edge of the bed to follow my mouth.
“Like hell, we can’t,” he growled, grabbing the back of my head and yanking me toward him.
His mouth landed on mine as his hands went to my shirt again. Within seconds, he had it unbuttoned completely.
It was time to tell him.
“Ryder, I need to tell you something,” I said, pulling away and hating every second of it.
“Later. I need you now,” he said, grabbing my loose hair in a fist and tugging me closer.
“A gunshot wound won’t stop you?” I asked with a smile.
“Not with you, baby.”
Hearing his words, I threaded my fingers though his hair, bringing his mouth back to mine. He growled as I kissed him, his hands going to my hips.
I grabbed one of his hands. With my fingers around his wrist, I slowly started to bring it to my stomach. My heart raced and my hands shook. This was it. What is he going to say?
He was an inch away from touching my stomach when the bedroom door opened.
His mom stood in the doorway, tears in her eyes. Behind her was Roger, holding a ball cap in one hand and shifting from foot to foot nervously.
“Mom. Dad,” Ryder said, his hand going to my hip, keeping me close.
As soon as he said her name, Janice rushed into the room, sobs shaking her body. I pulled away from Ryder, giving Janice the room she needed to reach him. In seconds she was throwing her arms around Ryder, holding him like she probably did when he was a child.
“Ryder, oh honey,” Janice whispered, smoothing down his long, unruly hair.
He wrapped his arms around her thin frame, looking over his shoulder at his dad. Roger stood in the doorway, watching his wife and son carefully.
“It’s okay, Mom,” Ryder said in a soft voice.
Janice sniffed and pulled away, keeping her hands resting on his shoulders. “We thought you wouldn’t make it. Your fever spiked and--”
“I’m fine,” Ryder interrupted, his eyes finding mine. “Never been better.”
His words sent a tingle through me. The need that lived between us was just as strong now as always had been. Time couldn’t change that. Nothing could.
Janice pushed his hair away from his forehead. An image of her doing that when he was fourteen raced through my mind. Ryder had always got mad at her, saying he wasn’t a baby. In response, she would tell him that he would always be her baby. I understood now that it meant more than just something a mom said to her child.
For ten or fifteen minutes Ryder talked to his parents, reassuring them he felt okay. Janice listened but her brows were furrowed with worry. I could tell she wanted to say more and finally she did.
“You’re okay. I couldn’t ask for more. But there’s something you need to know, Ryder. Something I should have told you long ago. I was just so afraid of hurting you and I was afraid you would leave.” Janice cleared her throat, the tears making her eyes brighter. “When I thought you were dead, I almost died too. I had so much guilt, so much I hadn’t told you. It’s time you know the truth.”
Ryder held his side and tried to sit up straighter, suddenly very alert.
“What’s going on?”
I felt uncomfortable, eavesdropping on a very private moment. I started to leave when Janice stopped me.
“Stay, Maddie. For him.”
/> I nodded, taking a seat in a nearby chair. The same chair I had sat in when Ryder lie bleeding and dying when we first brought him home.
Taking a deep breath, Janice told Ryder everything. She told him about his real mom, her little sister. How she had a drug and alcohol problem and was always in trouble. She described all the years of trying to help her sister, the agony of not knowing where she was most of the time. Janice explained the phone call she received and the night she took him home from the hospital, the night that he became hers.
Ryder kept his eyes on his mom, not moving a muscle as she spoke.
“She loved you, Ryder, in her own way. I don’t want you to think badly of her. She just didn’t know how to raise another human being,” Janice said, softly. “She had problems and knew she couldn’t be the mom you needed.”
Ryder’s jaw clamped harder beneath his thick beard. I saw hurt in his eyes, hidden behind the hardness that was always there.
“You are our son in every sense of the word,” Roger added. “Don’t ever forget that.”
Ryder’s mouth set in a grim line, his eyes hardened as they glanced from his mom to his dad.
“But I’m not your son. Sounds like I’m just like her. I have her need to fight and drink and be pissed off at the world.” He shook his head, disgusted. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? It explains damn near everything.”
Roger pushed away from the doorframe. “No it doesn’t! You are who you are. You make your own decisions. You want to go out and get stinking drunk, you do it. Not because of your damn genes!”
Janice stood up, straightening the sheets and blankets on the bed in a nervous gesture.
“I know it’s shocking and we should have told you sooner but you’re my child even if I didn’t give birth to you. You’ll always be my son,” she said.
Ryder nodded, his hands tightening into fists. “Understood,” he said, harshly.
For a few moments, no one spoke. The silence in the room was heavy, making me squirm in my seat. I wanted to go to Ryder, knowing this had to be hurting him, but I stayed seated.
Finally, Roger gestured to Janice. “Let’s give them some space, honey,” he said. “I think maybe they need it.”
Janice looked at Ryder reluctantly with indecision on her face but Roger took her hand, leading her out of the room.
After the door closed, I was uncertain what to do. This is life-changing news. Did he want to be alone? Should I leave? Stay?
Ryder clenched and unclenched his fists, making the muscles under his shirtsleeves bunch.
“Did you know?” he asked, his eyes glued ahead.
“She told me the day we found you,” I answered.
Rubbing a hand over his face, he sighed. “Damn,” he whispered.
That one word held so much pain and heartache, that I had to go to him. Rising to my feet, I crossed to the bed. When I was close enough, he reached for me, pulling me between his legs.
For moments, we held each other. His hands cradled my head as my fingers rested on the warm skin of his neck.
After what seemed like eternity, he pushed my hair away from my neck, leaving my ear exposed.
Lowering his head, his lips brushed against the delicate skin of my earlobe as he whispered in my ear, “Thank you for putting up with me all those years. I wouldn’t have survived all the crazy shit I did without you.”
His hands roamed down my ribs, stopping on my hip. His lips left my ear, pulling away from me.
I grabbed his head. Turning his face toward me, I lowered my lips to his.
“I love you, Ryder,” I whispered against his mouth.
A moan was his answer as my lips parted under his.
We were alone. Now was the time to tell him about the baby. But I couldn’t. He had just been told that his whole life had been a lie, that he had been adopted. To tell him that he was going to be a father moments later seemed too much, too soon. Call me what you will, I couldn’t utter the words.
His hand slipped under my shirt, touching my bare hip. He might be hurt and I might be hiding my pregnancy, but I wanted him. Nothing would have stopped that.
His hand was moving around to my abdomen when the door creaked open again, stopping him.
I tore my lips away from him. Has everyone forgotten how to knock around here?
“Shit. Kind of busy here, Gavin,” Ryder said, slipping his hand out from under my shirt when he saw his brother standing in the doorway.
“Well, hell. Look who has risen from the grave,” Gavin joked as he strolled into the room. “The almighty Ryder himself.”
I tried to move away and let the two brothers reconnect but Ryder kept me next to him, refusing to let me go.
“How are you doing?” Gavin asked, stopping at edge of the bed. Putting his hand on Ryder’s shoulder, he gave him a good, firm pat.
“I’ve been better, brother, or should I say cousin?” Ryder said, his tone flat.
“So Mom told you?” Gavin asked, his smile slipping.
“Yeah. Some fucked up shit, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Gavin scratched his whiskered chin, appearing uncertain. Sticking his hands in his back pockets, he cleared his throat. “She told me a few days ago. But all that shit doesn’t matter. We’re still brothers, Ryder.”
“Well, it matters to me. Any other secrets I don’t know about?” Ryder asked, his eyes piercing.
Gavin rubbed the tip of his nose and glanced at me. I waited for him to say the words that would destroy Ryder; I kissed Maddie. I held my breath, praying Ryder wouldn’t hate us when he heard them. But Gavin didn’t say anything.
I looked away at the same time as Gavin shifted to his other foot and focused on his boots. Ryder watched us, his eyes going from Gavin to me.
“What’s going on with you two?” he asked, dropping his hands from me. “What are you not telling me?” Hardness lined his voice and his eyes turned cold, a look I recognized so well.
“Nothing,” Gavin answered, glancing my way again.
“How come I don’t believe you?” Ryder retorted. Like a creature camouflaging itself for protection, I saw Ryder hide his emotions, covering them up with anger and spite. He was pulling away from me, dragging a solid curtain around himself so no one could reach him.
Shrugging, Gavin turned away, guilt written all over his face. Unlike Ryder, he couldn’t hide his emotions so well, usually wearing his heart on his sleeve. Grabbing a ladder-back chair from the corner of the room, he carried it over to the bed. Turning the chair backwards, he straddled it, facing Ryder.
“Let’s get down to business,” he said, folding his arms over the back. “What happened out there?”
“What part do you want to hear? The part where they shot me then dragged me to their hellhole or the part where they beat me, leaving me in a bloody pile for the flies to fest on?” Ryder asked, not pulling any punches.
All the blood drained from my face. Suddenly needing to sit down, I lowered myself into a chair. I knew Ryder had been beaten. His back was nothing but a crisscross of lash marks and cuts, placed there by either a whip or a chain. Huge bruises intersected with the marks, the perfect size of a man’s fist. He had been beaten, tortured, shot, and left for dead. It was miracle he was even alive. But to hear him talk about it was awful to hear.
“How many soldiers were in the camp?” Gavin asked, sounding like he was undertaking a military inquisition.
Ryder shrugged. “Don’t know. If I had to guess, I’d say a hundred but they came and went so I can’t be sure.”
“How many prisoners?”
“Fifty? Sixty? I was out of it most of the time so I have no idea,” Ryder answered.
“Weapons?”
“Everything you can imagine. Machine guns, grenades, RPGs. They also had generators. Big ass one’s with enough power to light up a building.”
“What about--”
“Listen, Gavin, why don’t I just tell you what the hell happened. We’ll be here all night if you ask a
bunch of damn questions.” Ryder glanced at me, his eyes dropping to my lips. “And I’ve got more important things to do.”
“Then spill it,” Gavin said, his hardened voice matching Ryder’s. “And I’ll let you get back to what you were doing.”
Ryder shot Gavin a look of annoyance. “You want to know what happened? I went to hell is what happened. They beat me at least twice a day with anything they could get their hands on. Wire, pipes, chains. Didn’t matter to them. They gave me bread full of maggots and water that looked like someone had pissed in it. Smelled just as bad too.” He rubbed a hand over the nape of his neck, the motion reminding me of someone that was nervous, uncomfortable with the conversation. “They tried some kind of mental torture crap, like something out of a damn movie. And hell, it worked. I was afraid to sleep. The nightmares were too terrible. I can’t say they’ve gone away either.”
I shifted in my seat, feeling anguish as I remembered all the nights he woke up screaming, thrashing about like he was fighting someone. I thought it was due to the fever raging through his body but now I knew it was the nightmares that haunted him.
Ryder ran a hand through his hair then down to his beard, looking uneasy talking about all of it.
“What is on my face?” he asked, scratching his cheek. “This shit itches. I need a razor.”
“Later. We need details before any more bastards show up here,” Gavin said, growing impatient.
Holding his injured side, Ryder sat up straighter, all humor disappearing. “More? What the fuck happened while I was out?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I don’t remember shit,” Ryder admitted, growing annoyed. “All I know is I was shot and I dragged myself home. The last thing I remember is seeing Maddie in the pasture. You telling me some shit went down and I was lying in bed like an invalid?”
“Calm down. You’ll pull a damn stitch if you get worked up,” Gavin grumbled. He rolled his shoulders and stole a glance at me.
“A few days ago, hell, maybe longer, one of them came looking for you. Found Maddie instead,” he said.
“Dammit,” Ryder muttered, turning his eyes on me. “You okay?”
“I’m in one piece so yeah, I’m good,” I answered, feeling redness creep up my neck as his eyes assessed me.