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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.
    â€œCan 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.”
    â€œCan you get them in town?”
    â€œI 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?”
    â€œFreitag’s?” She