Page 74 of Wyatt

He might be over-reacting because she didn’t have a firm diagnosis yet, but the fact was, she wouldn’t suggest further tests if he wasn’t sick.

Coco sat on the sofa, her face bone white as Sarai explained.

“He has elevated white blood cells in the sample we took, but we need to run a complete blood count and a panel of other tests. It has me worried enough, however, that he needs to be hospitalized for those tests ASAP.”

Sarai had arrived home thirty minutes ago, not long after Roman, who had returned with their daughter, Zia, and son, Vitya. Cute kids.

Not as cute as Mikka. The second Coco had returned to the train car after York told him the news, the moment Mikka looked at him, grinning, Wyatt was a goner.

Sheesh, he should have seen it right off. That tousled brown hair, those big eyes. He lookedexactlylike Wyatt had as a kid, and York was right.You are so freakin’ blind.

Apparently.

Or just so wiped out by the very notion that Coco would have had a child—his child—and not told him.

But he’d swallowed back any words and focused on his son.

Mikka. Short for Michael, probably. Or, in Russian, Misha.

For an almost five-year-old, he had good reflexes and decent eye-hand coordination. He could catch a ball, got back up after he fell down, and his laughter when Wyatt tickled him had embedded his pores.

Wyatt wasn’t leaving Russia without his son.

His. Son.

Why didn’t you tell me?

He’d vowed to himself on the train to keep it calm. And he had—oh, he had, all the way to Khabarovsk, through the ordeal of holding down Mikka when the doc drew blood, and even as he tried to cheer him up with a pile of Matchbox cars.

He’d even held it together when Coco came into the room and confessed the truth, finally.

But the words, secrets, lies, and even heartlessness shook free as he held her, and he couldn’t seem to tuck them back inside.

Breathe. He’d practically screamed it in his head. And then…yeah, Wyatt had completely fallen apart, like some pansy.

He also didn’t blame himself for pushing her away. For the rough scrape of his voice as he’d tried to pull himself together.

“You should have told me.” He’d kept his voice at a whisper, still fighting to close his mouth, to keep the cascade at bay. “Four years of his life, Coco—and I missed all of it. I’ll never get that back.”

She’d stepped away from him, her eyes lifting to his. Swallowed, and right then he had a flashback of the look she’d worn so many years ago when he’d arrived back on the ranch after being recently picked up by the Blue Ox.

Cute photographer trailing him like she might be his girlfriend. Yes, he’d been a bit of a jerk that weekend. But it didn’t mean Coco had to lie to him about the most important thing in his entire life.

He had achild.

“I wanted to tell you,” she whispered, a glance at Mikka, an unspoken request to take this conversation outside the room.

Fine, they’d have this conversation in the hallway. York was still outside of the apartment, in the corridor, and Sarai had left, so—

Wyatt closed the bedroom door behind him and turned to her.

Coco looked so small, despite the way she folded her arms and tightened her jaw, a tiny hand grenade.

He didn’t care. “Really? And how hard would that have been?” Emotion still shook his voice, the residue of letting it crest over him. But he was quickly balling it back up, finding his game face.

He wanted answers, and he wasn’t going to let his hurt get in the way.

“Pretty hard, as it turns out,” she snapped. “I planned to tell you when I came back to Montana, but you had moved on.”