The Marine's Secret Daughter Read online

  Meg met his gaze. Riley’s eyes resembled the lake during a summer storm. Those gray eyes—Fiona’s gray eyes—dared her to say something. “Are you okay to drive?”

  He lifted the bag higher, the bottles clinking and the paper bag crackling. “I haven’t touched a drop. Check the bottles if you don’t believe me.”

  “I believe you.” She stepped out of his way. “Expecting company?”

  “Something like that.”

  He set the bag on the porch steps and hustled back to the truck.

  The dots dancing around the edges of her vision had increased in both size and speed, but she tried to pull herself into the pickup. Riley seized her around the waist and easily lifted her into the seat. “Thanks.”

  After securing her seat belt, she sat hunched forward and closed her eyes.

  When he climbed behind the wheel, she pried her eyes open and eased back against the seat. “You remember...hospital?”

  “Of course.”

  Meg tried to ignore his hand draped over the steering wheel. Not a good time for taking trips down memory lane...but those hands...

  She made a strangled choking sound and turned away.

  He slammed the brakes on. “Should I call an ambulance?”

  “No.” She motioned with her hand. “Go.”

  He peered at her for a moment longer before easing his foot off the brake. “Quit scaring me like that.”

  “Sorry.” But it was his fault for looking so damn sexy. So not fair that his worn camo pants looked hot and her worn jeans looked...well, old and tattered. She wasn’t wearing any makeup and Liam’s old sweatshirt swallowed her whole. Yep, Meg McBride was a real sexpot. What was she doing? She needed to remember her first priority was Fiona. Riley’s parting words rang in her ears. I’m not coming back again, Meggie. The marines are my life now. But she’d been naive enough to think she could change his mind with sex. Yeah, that worked out well. But she was in a good place in her life now and wouldn’t confuse lust with love. Not that there was anything wrong with no-strings-attached sex. She might even try it...someday.

  “...and I was surprised.”

  Oh, God. He’d been talking and she hadn’t heard a word. “Sorry?”

  He passed a slow-moving car. “I didn’t think your family used the cottage anymore.”

  Was he here because he thought she wouldn’t be?

  “I—”

  “Sorry.” He glanced at her. “I didn’t mean to make you keep talking. Save your breath. We can catch up later.”

  Fiona had two more weeks of vacation with Grampa Mac and Doris. Most lake rentals lasted a week. Riley would be gone before Fiona came home. Meg curled her fingers into her palms. She should be thinking of ways to tell Riley the truth, not celebrating the timing of his visit. If he’d come three weeks ago or two weeks from now, there would be no escaping the truth; it would be literally staring him in the face. But now? With a bag of whiskey bottles waiting on his porch? She could last a couple of weeks. Riley had shattered her heart... What would he do to Fiona’s tender one?

  “Meg? You still with me?”

  She opened her mouth but began coughing.

  “I noticed the musty smell. Did mold bring on your attack?” He turned onto the road leading to the hospital.

  She reached out to rest her hand on the dashboard. “Yeah...spring rain and snowmelt caused some spring flooding.”

  “What about your place?” He gave her a quick glance. “Do you have mold, too?”

  She nodded and he continued, “I’ll take a look later and see if I can’t get it cleaned up.”

  “No!” He gave her a wounded look and she softened her tone. “Don’t waste...your week.”

  He slowed the truck as they approached the hospital. “No problem. I’ll be here for the next thirty days.”

  What? Thirty days? Meg shook her head. Riley might not know—yet—what she’d done, but karma had obviously memorized it line, verse and chapter and was gleefully punishing her. First, Riley showed up looking like sex on a stick while she looked like something he’d step in with his size thirteen boots. And he was staying an entire month. Last night, after she’d talked to Fiona on the phone, Meg had cried because another fourteen days without her baby seemed like an eternity. Now, a week wasn’t enough time to get ready for the impending storm.

  * * *

  Riley took the first empty parking spot. Her color had been pale before but it had suddenly gotten much worse. He threw the truck into Park while the wheels were still rolling and winced when the transmission groaned.

  Leaping down, he sprinted to the passenger door and pulled Meg to his side. Keeping one hand under her elbow, he hustled her through a pair of glass doors that whooshed open to a small waiting area with a nurse seated at a desk.

  She greeted them with a smile, but her sharp, assessing gaze stayed on Meg. “What brings you here today?”

  “Asthma. I—” A fit of coughing cut Meg off.

  Riley slipped an arm across Meg’s hunched shoulders, easing her closer. “She’s having an asthma attack and her inhaler was empty. Ma’am, she needs to see someone. Right away.”

  After they’d taken seats in front of her desk, the woman tapped her finger on a small black pad that looked like a calculator. “Can you type your Social Security number into this for me?”

  After Meg typed in her number, the nurse slipped a blood pulse oximeter on her finger.

  “When did the wheezing start?” the nurse asked and verified Meg’s date of birth and social.

  “About...thirty minutes ago.” Meg leaned forward in the seat.

  “And what were you doing?”

  “Laundry.”

  Riley drew his chair closer and secured an arm around Meg as if she’d slip away from him if he let go. He listened impatiently to every inane question and Meg’s breathless replies, the incessant tapping on the keypad. Geez, couldn’t they just give her an inhaler or something? What was taking so long?

  The nurse checked the oximeter and clucked her tongue. “Ninety-one. We’ll get you back there right away.”

  While the nurse put a hospital bracelet around Meg’s wrist, Riley glanced over at the crowded waiting room. Texting and watching TV, none of them looked as though they wanted to shout and tear the place apart until their loved one was treated. Not that Meg was...

  He closed his eyes and rubbed his forefinger across the bridge of his nose, searching for calm. He’d been fighting nausea since finding her at the bottom of those stairs. Sheer force of will had kept him moving up to this moment. Sweat trickled down his sides. Meg had asked him if he’d been expecting company when he’d picked up his bag of Jack Daniel’s bottles. What he hadn’t told her was that most nights the image of Private Trejo lying in a pool of blood and spilled guts at the bottom of those dusty steps in Kandahar kept him company.

  A hand touched his arm, and his eyes flew open.

  “She’s going to be fine.” The nurse flashed a reassuring smile. “Someone is coming right out to get her.”

  The door to the ER buzzed open and another nurse in dark blue scrubs stepped through, pushing a wheelchair in front of her. She called for Meg. Riley swallowed and helped Meg stand.

  “Meg, I figured that must be you when I saw the name on the face sheet from triage.” The trim, fortysomething nurse glanced at him, did a double take and smiled. “I would say it’s good to see you, but considering we’re in the ER, I won’t.”

  “Hi, Jan. I’d...” Meg coughed and settled in the chair, and Riley started to follow them into a small treatment area. “I’d say the same, but yeah, ER and all.”

  Jan stopped and gave him a sharp look. “Are you a relative?”

  “No.” But if you think you’re keeping me out here and away from Meggie, think again, lady.

  “He’s...” Meg’s gaze bounced between
him and Jan. “I’d like him with me.”

  The nurse nodded and started forward again. He sighed, glad he didn’t have to fight and claw his way back there to be sure they did their best for Meg.

  “We’ll get you fixed up right quick,” Jan said cheerfully as she wheeled Meg down a short hall with curtained treatment areas. “I ran into Brody the other day at the Pic-N-Save. He said Fiona is enjoying her trip. Bet you miss her like crazy. It was the Grand Canyon, wasn’t it?”

  Meg bit her lower lip. “Yes. Grand Canyon.”

  “They went by motor home, didn’t they?”

  “Yes.” Meg’s fingers gripped the sides of the chair, her knuckles white.

  Riley looked to Meg, but she ignored him. Who was Fiona and why would Meg be missing her like crazy? And who was Brody?

  She’s made a life for herself complete with new friends in the past five years, dumbass.

  The nurse stopped in front of a curtained treatment area, engaged the brake on the wheelchair and helped Meg transfer to a narrow stretcher. She closed the curtain and pulled a hospital gown from an overhead cabinet. “Sir, if you’ll wait on the other side of the curtain for a moment.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He was loath to leave Meg, but took a step back. Getting escorted out by security wouldn’t be a good idea.

  “Thanks.” The nurse smiled at him as she yanked the curtain closed in his face. “Now, Meg, take off your shirt and unhook your bra.”

  The curtain hadn’t closed all the way and he could still see Meg. He should be a gentleman about this. But he needed to reassure himself they were taking proper care of Meg. Yeah, right.

  Jan, the nurse, clucked her tongue, saying, “Oh, my.” Riley stiffened as she continued, “Looks like you’ve got some mold on the back of this sweatshirt.”

  “I must’ve brushed up against it in the basement,” Meg responded.

  “I’ll bag the shirt up just as a precaution and look for a scrub top for you to wear home,” Jan said and there was some rustling.

  “There, all covered,” Jan said, as if signaling the all clear, and Riley stepped back around the curtain.

  A tech came in right behind him and took Meg’s vital signs while the nurse did an evaluation. He clenched his jaw. How many questions did they have to ask before they treated her?

  The curtain flew aside and the doctor stepped in, stethoscope looped around his neck and holding a clipboard. He introduced himself and pulled a small black stool up to the stretcher and sat down.

  “So you’ve had an asthma attack. Was this one any worse than the others?”

  “No, but I had used up my inhaler and someone got a little freaked out.”

  Riley opened his mouth but thought better of arguing and shut it again.

  “I see. Let’s have a listen.” The doctor stuck his stethoscope under the gown and listened to Meg’s chest, right upper, left upper, right lower, then left lower, then repeating the process on her back all the while explaining, “We’re going to get your asthma exacerbation under control by giving you several updrafts back to back and, if necessary, an IV steroid.”

  When he finished, he went to the computer to document his findings and the nurse tied the gown. “It says you have inhalers. Did you say you used one today?”

  Unable to keep silent any longer, Riley stepped away from the wall he’d been leaning against. “The one she had was empty. I found her at—”

  “And you are?” The doctor turned and studied Riley over the top of his glasses.

  Riley flexed his fingers. Good question. What was he to Meg? Blowing out the breath he’d been holding in, he said, “Riley Cooper, sir.”

  The doctor glanced at the chart. “Are you a relative?”

  Riley stepped closer to Meg. “I’m—”

  “He’s just, uh...just a neighbor.”

  Well, that answered who and what he was. His gut burned at being relegated to such a mundane role in Meg’s life.

  Chapter Two

  “Meg gave her permission for him to be here,” Jan said into the silence.

  Meg rubbed her nose and avoided eye contact with Riley, but sneaked a look at his arms folded over his well-defined chest. And yes, she knew that chest was rock-hard from when he’d caught her on the stairs.

  Good grief, what was she thinking, and more to the point, why was he back here after all this time? Just her luck to have an asthma attack in the middle of cleaning up the place for—of all people—Riley. Why had she let him talk her into coming to the ER? And why had she assumed the mold in that basement had been cleaned up in the first place? If she’d known how bad it was, she would’ve refused the job. Or at least refilled the inhaler before going.

  She needed to be paying attention to the doctor, but Riley’s looming presence dwarfed everyone and everything else. Well, he couldn’t overwhelm her now. His surprise appearance at the cottage had flustered her and thrown her back into the old habit of thinking he hung the moon. That’s the explanation she had for letting him bully her into coming to the hospital. But she was an adult with a good life in Loon Lake and was working hard to provide Fiona with the security every child deserved. Riley might be sexier than ever, but she couldn’t let him in. Not after he’d made it plain his presence was temporary. She had to assume the marines were still his passion, his first choice. He’d shattered her heart and she wouldn’t allow him to do that to Fiona. Meg’s job as Fiona’s mom was not only to provide but also to protect.

  And yet, hadn’t she hurt Fiona by keeping her existence a secret from Riley? Hiding a child wasn’t pay back, no matter what Riley had done. Fiona had every right to know her father, and vice versa. He’d ignored her letters, but she’d planned on swallowing her pride and doing what was necessary to contact him...right up until the day that manila envelope had arrived. In it were her letters to him. He’d returned every damn one—unopened.

  “Let’s adjust this a bit,” Jan muttered as she fiddled with the oxygen mask.

  The movement, as much as the increased oxygen, jerked Meg back to the present.

  The doctor scribbled a note and spoke to the nurse. “We need to see about getting Meghan a room for the night.”

  Wait, what? A room? As in hospitalized overnight? No, no, no. With her high deductible insurance plan, she’d be in debt until Fiona left for college—longer. Meg sat straighter and tugged the mask down. “No. I can’t stay over—”

  “You need this.” Riley settled the mask firmly back in place.

  She tried to slap his hand away, but he wouldn’t budge.

  The doctor cleared his throat. “It’s a precaution. I don’t think you should be alone tonight, Meghan.”

  Riley released his hold on the mask. “I’ll stay with her.”

  Meg shook her head. Fiona’s presence covered every inch of their home. She couldn’t deal with this tonight. The asthma treatments would leave her jittery and grouchy. Her dream of slinky dresses and killer heels might be dead, but she still needed some type of armor when she dealt with Riley.

  “According to this, you were doing laundry when the attack occurred.” The doctor frowned. “I see mold is one of your triggers, so I assume there’s mold at your place?”

  She groaned inwardly. If she said yes, the doctor would want her to stay in the hospital. If she said no, Riley would insist on staying at her place. It was a no-win situation. Maybe being in debt for the rest of her life wouldn’t be so bad. Ramen noodles weren’t the worst things in the world.

  “My cottage is next to hers and it’s my understanding, sir, both basements flooded.” Riley laid his hand on her shoulder.

  Meg tried to shrug it off and failed. The warmth of his fingers was scrambling her brain because she had an urge to lean into his strength. She was doing fine on her own. With her graduation from college this semester and her successful completion of student teaching last semes
ter, she’d sent the letter of disposition required for teacher certification. Once she received certification, she could pursue a full-time position. No more cleaning cottages to pick up extra cash between subbing jobs. Sure, she’d had some setbacks with her unreliable car and the flooded basement, but nothing she couldn’t handle, and she’d already applied for a fall teaching job. Speed bumps were a part of life, but the bag with bottles of whiskey on Riley’s porch could signal more than a bump in the road for Fiona. He hadn’t been a drinker before he left so Meg had been surprised by the alcohol, but that proved she didn’t know Riley anymore and her job was to protect her daughter.

  The doctor removed his glasses and slipped them in his shirt pocket. “Under normal circumstances, having some mold in the cellar wouldn’t put you in undue stress, but a second response to the same trigger would be twice as bad.”

  “I’m taking her to a motel for tonight.” Riley squeezed her shoulder. “And I’ll be sure her basement gets cleaned up.”

  “Sounds good.” The doctor stood and pushed the stool back. He shook Riley’s hand and patted Meg’s leg. “I’ll discharge you if you stay away from any triggers at least for tonight and use your nebulizer every four hours. Don’t hesitate to return if your condition worsens during the night. And be sure to fill your inhaler prescription.”

  Meg sputtered. What made Riley think he could show up and take over? She was capable of taking care of her daughter, herself and her home, thank you very much. After her ma had died, she’d discovered a strength she hadn’t known she possessed. She’d taken care of everything after her father and brother fell apart, and she’d been barely out of her teens, all the while caring for an infant and working to finish college. She’d been handling things for a long time now and she’d—

  “Keep that oxygen on while I go to see about your paperwork,” Jan said and sneaked a glance at Riley before sweeping past the curtain, her sneakers squeaking on the polished floor.