Hannah openly admitted her love for her dead fiancé, and after learning what he had that evening, Riley didn't blame her. Jerry Sanders had been one hell of a man.
A far better man than he'd ever be. Riley had been born on the wrong side of the blanket. By the time he was in junior high, he'd been labeled a troublemaker and a rabble-rouser. His headstrong, rebellious ways had repeatedly gotten him into trouble throughout high school. He was lucky to have escaped reform school, not to mention prison. Actually, he had the Navy to thank for rescuing him from a life of crime.
He'd enlisted the day after he graduated from high school, at the bottom of his class. His cocky attitude hadn't lasted long; by the end of boot camp he'd realized the Navy could well be his one chance to turn himself around. It was up to him to decide.
It had taken him fifteen years to make the transformation from a street-smart, foulmouthed kid with a chip on his shoulder the size of a California redwood to a responsible Navy chief. A few of the rough edges of his personality had been rounded off over the years, but he'd never be the educated, cultured husband Jerry Sanders would have been to Hannah.
Riley would like to hate Hannah's fiancé, challenge him face-to-face for her heart. But everything he'd heard that night in church convinced Riley that, had he known Jerry, he would have liked him. Jerry Sanders had been the kind of man everyone looked up to and admired. A natural leader, a lover and defender of justice. Hell, the man had been near perfect. There wasn't anything to fault him with. He'd been a saint. He must have been, to be engaged to a woman as beautiful as Hannah and restrain from making love to her.
Hannah, who'd been sheltered and protected all her life, was the perfect match for such a man as Jerry. She was generous and sweet, a delicate rose; and by God, she deserved a better husband, someone far more decent than he'd ever be.
The problem was, what would Riley do about it now? Even if he found the courage to leave her for her own good, he couldn't turn away from her now. Not with her six months pregnant with his child.
What was a man to do in such a situation? The hell if Riley knew. He wasn't even close to being good enough to deserve Hannah. She'd crashed into his life when he least expected to meet a woman like her. One night with her had left him frantic with worry, furious and baffled. He hadn't known who she was or where she'd come from; all he had known was that he had to find her again.