Читать книгу Rogue's Reform - Marilyn Pappano - Страница 9

Because she worked such long hours, Grace was under doctor’s orders to spend much of the day with her feet propped up, which was easier than a person would suspect, given the nature of folks in Heartbreak. Most of her customers had been customers so long that they knew their way around the shelves and were perfectly willing to help themselves. They would even make their own change from the antique cash register if she gave them the chance. Last week old Pete Davis had brought her a thermos of his granny’s famous chicken soup because he’d thought she looked a bit peaked, and Mavis over at the five-and-dime had brought her a puffy quilt to warm up under on dreary, gray days like this.

But she rarely felt the need to stretch out with her feet up. In fact, she’d had more energy in the last few months than ever before. Doc Hanson said it was because she walked every day. Callie, the midwife who would deliver the baby when it was time, credited the primarily vegetarian diet she’d started Grace on.

Personally, Grace believed it was her father’s absence. Living day in and day out with overwhelming bitterness and anger could suck the life force right out of a body. Life without Jed not only was different, but it felt different. Even the very air smelled different. And Callie swore her aura was totally changed, too.

Life was darn near perfect.

While the store was empty, she dragged a stepladder out so she could combine straightening the shelves with taking inventory. Jed had always insisted on doing inventory on the last day of the month, so Grace spread it out over several days at the beginning of the month. He’d made her sweep the floors first thing in the morning; now she did it last thing at night. He’d never extended a penny’s credit to anyone in his life. She offered it to everyone.

The further her pregnancy progressed, the harder taking inventory got. Not because she had a problem, but because people fussed at her for climbing ladders, lifting boxes, being on her feet. She’d learned to do it in quick snatches when the store was empty and liked doing it that way. It gave her time to wonder over the fact that all this was hers—well, hers and the suppliers’. She, who’d grown up with constant reminders that she owned nothing, not even the clothes on her back, owned this store. She marveled over it every day.

She was standing on the top step of the ladder when the bell over the door dinged. “I’ll be right with you,” she called as she quickly sorted and counted the boxes used to restock the shelves below.

Footsteps crossed the store and came around the corner into her aisle as she made notations on her clipboard. “Take your time, Melissa,” a quiet voice said, then deliberately added, “Or should I call you Grace?”

Ethan James. She froze in place. She hadn’t heard his voice in seven months, but she would have recognized it after seven years. A woman who’d lived her life without affection, without even a kind word from anyone else, wouldn’t soon forget the first voice to call her darlin’, or to tell her she was beautiful.

She would never forget the voice of the man who’d fathered her child.

Her hands were trembling as she carefully laid the clipboard and pen on the shelf, then turned on the narrow step to face him. He’d stopped ten feet away and was watching her with a totally unreadable expression.

He looked more handsome than ever, with unruly blond hair and wicked blue eyes, with a stubborn jaw and cover-model-perfect features. Every young man in the state owned the same outfit—faded Wranglers, a white T-shirt, jeans jacket, scuffed work boots—but he wore them with more ease than she imagined anyone else could. Snug and comfortable, like a second skin.

As she looked at him, appreciating the sheer beauty of him, he looked back. Was he disappointed, she wondered uneasily, that the wild, curly red hair, the sexy clothes, the lovely woman on the make—Melissa in her entirety—had all been an illusion? Was he dismayed that he’d spent a good part of a long summer night naked and hot with her? Was that why his features were schooled into such blankness? Why his blue eyes were so cold? Why his voice had been so flat?

She wished she had the nerve to lie, to swear that he was mistaken, that she didn’t know him. But, except for that night, she’d never lied, and she didn’t have the desire to start now. Slowly she came down the ladder, relieved when she felt the floor solid under her feet.

Folding her hands tightly together behind her back, she said in the calmest voice she could muster, “I…didn’t expect to see you.” Again. Ever. She didn’t add the qualifiers, but he heard them. It showed in the tightening of his jaw.

“You can thank Olivia and Shay Stephens for it. They thought I should know—” his gaze raked her up and down “—about you.”

“Rafferty,” she said nervously.

“What?”

“Shay Stephens. Rafferty. Easy came home last fall, and he and Shay got married in November…or maybe October. I’m not sure. It was before he started buying the horses for his ranch but after her birthday. October, I think, but—”

“Forget Shay,” he said sharply, and she sucked in whatever rambling words she might have spoken with a startled breath. He gave her another hard look up and down, one that made her fingers knot where he couldn’t see them. “Olivia tells me I’m…responsible for this.”

In Heartbreak responsible was not a word people used in reference to Ethan James. Irresponsible, yes. Trouble. Lazy. Dishonest. Disloyal. Selfish. She could stand there the rest of the day, listing every negative quality she could think of and still not cover all the failings attributed to him.

But he was waiting for a response to his comment. Which did he want—yes or no? How did he feel about being a father? How did he feel about fathering a child with her?

He was here. That said something, didn’t it? He’d come back to his least-favorite place in the world because he’d been told his one-night stand had produced an eighteen-year commitment. Surely that meant he wasn’t totally averse to the idea.

Unless he’d come back to buy her silence. To give her some reason not to make demands of him. Maybe he wanted her to continue to keep his identity secret. After all, he had a reputation to protect. Charming rogues like Ethan James did not get suckered into one-night stands with plain Janes like Grace Prescott. Or maybe he’d settled down somewhere, with someone special, and didn’t want word of an illegitimate child leaking out to tarnish his future.

“Well?” Impatience colored his voice and gave her the courage to shrug carelessly and start toward the counter.

“I never mentioned you to Olivia or anyone else.”

“That’s not what I’m asking.” He leaned on the counter as she circled to the other side. “Is that— Am I—” He dragged his fingers through his hair, muttered a curse and tried again. “Did we…?”

After studying him for a moment, she knew the answer he wanted. It was in his scowl, his clenched hands, the sinking feeling in her stomach. It was foolish to be disappointed. She was twenty-five, a woman on her own, about to become a single mother. There was no room in her life for daydreams or fantasies, no chance that a charming rogue might turn into her very own Prince Charming, no chance at all that something special could develop out of a one-night stand. Yes, he’d come back upon hearing that she was pregnant, but only because he wanted her to deny that he was the father.

“No,” she said softly, feeling the ache of the lie deep inside.

He looked startled, then relieved, then suspicious. “No what?”

“You’re not the father.”

“Who is?”

“That’s between my baby and me.”

His gaze narrowed, sending heat flushing through her face. “You’re lying.”

“I don’t lie.”

“Everything about the night you spent with me was a lie,” he said scornfully.

The heat intensified. Did the fact that it was a necessary lie count for anything? It was a simple truth that without the makeup, the clothes, the hair, she never would have found the nerve to walk into that bar. It was another truth that without the makeup, the clothes and the hair, he never would have looked twice at her.

She had desperately needed for someone to take a second look at her.

“It’s my baby, isn’t it?”

She thought of all the emotions she’d experienced since finding out she was pregnant. Shock. Panic. Dread. Fear. Heartache. And, finally, joy. She’d had such dreams, made such plans. She’d fallen in love with her daughter—she liked to think it was a girl—soon after learning of her existence. She couldn’t imagine anything more wonderful, any gift more precious, than the one she’d been given.

“Do you want a baby?” she asked, hearing the wistfulness in her voice. It would be an even more precious gift if he answered yes honestly and sincerely. Even if she was the last woman he would choose to play the role of mother, she would be forever grateful if he could truthfully say yes, he wanted their baby.

For a moment, he couldn’t say anything at all. He opened his mouth twice, then closed it again. Finally, with a stiffness that vibrated the air between them, he said, “It’s a little late to be considering what I want. This baby’s going to be here in two months, whether I want it or not.”

“But you don’t have to be here in two months.”

Once again she’d startled him. He blinked, then refocused on her as she continued.

“I do want this baby. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I want to change diapers and have 2:00 a.m. feedings and teach her to walk and talk and ride a bike. I want to be such a good mother that she’ll never miss having a father.” In spite of the awful examples her parents had set for her, she knew she could do it. She had more love to give than any little girl could ever need. She could easily be mother and father both, especially when the father she was replacing had no desire to be a father.

“So I’m not needed here. That’s what you’re saying.” Ethan heard the bitterness in his voice, felt it deep in his gut, but didn’t understand it. He should be grateful. She was offering him the opportunity to walk away and never look back. She didn’t want his name, his money or his presence. Hell, she didn’t want anything to do with him.

He should be used to it by now. He’d been living with it most of his life. His mother had loved him, but she’d loved Guthrie more. His father hadn’t loved him at all, and Guthrie had wished that he’d never been born. Now he was neither needed nor wanted in his kid’s life.

“You don’t want to be here,” she said quietly. “You don’t want to be a father.”

The truth, plain and simple. And not so simple. It was true that he’d never wanted kids—but that was speaking in terms of possibilities, prospects, somewhere down the line. This baby wasn’t a prospect. It—he or she—existed, a real, live part of him and Grace. It wasn’t fair to apply theoretical ideas to reality. Whether or not he wanted to be a father didn’t matter, because the simple fact was, in another eight weeks, he would be one. Wanting or not wanting couldn’t change that.

Realizing that his hand was cramping, he slowly eased his fingers flat against the counter. He didn’t know what to say. Obviously she would be happy if he accepted her offer to give up any claim he had on her baby and left town, but he knew instinctively that he would regret it if he did. Leaving would only prove that he was no better than his own father. Guthrie would never forgive him. His child would grow up to hate him. He’d have no choice but to hate himself.

And if he stayed? Maybe the kid would still hate him. He wasn’t exactly prime father material. He’d made too many mistakes, disappointed people too many times. No matter how hard he tried, he would never be a father to make a kid proud.

Across the counter, Grace shifted uneasily, drawing his gaze that way. She looked so different from before. Truth was, if he’d met her without meeting Melissa first, he wouldn’t have paid her any attention. He wouldn’t have sat down at her table, bought her a beer, asked her to dance. He certainly wouldn’t have taken her to the motel next door.

And it would have been his loss.

The hair that had been gloriously red and wild that night was really brown, pulled straight back from her face and braided to her waist. The brown eyes that had seemed so soft and hazy then had actually been unfocused. Judging by the thickness of the lenses in the glasses that kept slipping down her nose, she’d been damn near blind that night. That explained why she hadn’t run the other way when he’d approached her.

She wore no makeup, not even lipstick, and her dress was shapeless except where it draped over her belly on its way to her ankles. The sweater she wore over it was equally shapeless, with sleeves that fell three inches past her wrists.

She wasn’t pretty, and she wasn’t homely, either. She was just plain. And yet it had taken him mere seconds to recognize the lovely, sexy Melissa in her.

But Melissa, who had wanted him, didn’t really exist, and Grace, who did exist, didn’t want him. At all.

She fidgeted under his gaze, drawing the front edges of the sweater together and holding them with her arms folded tightly over her chest. “Listen, Ethan,” she said, and he recognized sexy Melissa in the way she said his name. “You came back, you did what was right. You can go now. I’ll convince Olivia and Shay they were wrong. No one will hold it against you. No one will ever even know.”

And because he was irresponsible, worthless, no good, that was supposed to satisfy him. It was supposed to ease his conscience, assuming he had one, and get him back on the road out of town.

He gazed away from her to the dusty plate-glass window that looked out on the parking lot and wondered if his mother had ever encouraged his father to go away and stay away. There was no doubt that Nadine had regretted her marriage to Gordon James. That last time he’d left, she’d waited only days—ten, maybe fourteen—to file for divorce, and though she’d never changed her name legally, she’d gone back to using Harris again. Being ten years old and stupid, he’d asked if he could use the Harris name, too. After all, they were a family, right? And families should have the same last name. But Guthrie had objected, and their mother had made some excuse about needing his father’s permission, and he’d known then that he wasn’t really part of the family.

Now it was payback time. He’d wanted to give up his father’s name, and now his own child was never going to be allowed to know his name. Grace and the baby were one more family that he wasn’t welcome in.

Unless he changed her mind. Unless he proved to her that he was fit to be a part of their lives. The hell of it was, he didn’t know that he wanted to be a part of their lives. He didn’t know if he could live up to the responsibility, or if he would run true to form, disappoint them and run away. Like he always did.

Hell, if he couldn’t trust himself to stick around, how could he ask her to?

He glanced at her but didn’t make eye contact. “I…I don’t think I can do that, Grace.”

He could tell by her voice and no more that she was alarmed. “Why not? You’ve been doing it for years.”

“I don’t know. I just can’t… This is different. Before it was always people I walked out on—adults who didn’t want me around, anyway. This is a baby—”

“My baby,” she interrupted sharply.

“And mine.” He felt the bitterness swell until it threatened to choke him. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone that. I’ll keep your little secret. But I’m not leaving. Not until I figure some things out.” Like what he wanted, and why, and whether he had a right to want anything at all.

He took a few steps toward the door, then turned back. “Olivia has offered me use of the cabin out at their place, if Guthrie doesn’t throw me out. I’ll be around.”

Before she could respond or react in any way, he turned and walked out.

So much for the creaking in Bill Taylor’s bones.

Grace stood at the window in her dark, still bedroom, wearing a nightgown of flannel and wrapped in a quilt, staring out into a quiet, cold and incredibly clear night. She should have been asleep hours ago, but her mind wouldn’t stop spinning long enough to let sleep creep in. She’d prayed for snow all the way home in the Blazer that served as Reese’s sheriff’s car, for the rare kind of blizzard that Oklahoma never saw that would bury her house to its eaves and leave her safe and protected from the world—from Ethan—until the spring thaw.

But there was no snow. No protection, either.

Expect the worst, her father had always preached, and you won’t be disappointed. Never trust anyone, never take chances, never count on someone doing what he should. She’d always thought it was a sad way to live, so sad that she’d gone a hundred and eighty degrees in the opposite direction. Her motto, since his leaving, had been simpler. Don’t Worry. Be Happy.

She’d thought years would pass before Ethan’s next return, had thought he’d never recognize her as Melissa, and even if he did, he would never have any interest in playing daddy to her child. After all, he was the irresponsible one, the immature one, the selfish one out for himself and to hell with everyone else. Like everyone else in town, she’d been so convinced of it that she almost felt cheated that the image wasn’t entirely accurate. He had a conscience. He felt some sense of obligation, some duty.

How long would it last? A few weeks? A few months or, heaven forbid, a few years? There was no way of knowing. Long enough, though, for everyone in town to guess the truth. Long enough to saddle her child with the burden of the James name, the James reputation.

Long enough to put Grace herself at risk. She’d proven her susceptibility to daydreams and fantasies. Lord knows, she’d lived enough of her life in them. She’d already proved her susceptibility to handsome con artists. Toss in the idea of creating a family—husband, wife, child, in-laws, nieces, maybe soon a nephew—and in a blink of an eye, she just might forget all about her hard-won independence.

But Ethan James wasn’t a family sort of man. He’d been running away from his own family for half his life. He wasn’t likely to accept any ties that might hold him down. Sure, he felt some sense of obligation, probably some unresolved issue from his abandonment by his own father, but it would never be enough to keep him here. At best, he’d stick around just long enough to screw up everything, and then he would leave Grace and their daughter to deal with it while he went on to greener pastures.

Sighing, she turned away from the window and faced her room instead. Until her father had found out she was pregnant and thrown her out, she’d slept every night of her life but one in this room. She’d huddled in the closet over there, hands over her ears, to block out the sounds of her parents’ fights. She’d curled up in the rocker and dreamed about catching the eye of someone at school. Boy or girl, it hadn’t mattered, just someone who would be friends with her and make her feel less desperately alone. She’d lain awake nights in that cramped little bed, lamenting the healthy, normal relationships missing in her life—the boyfriends, the dates, the little intimacies—and she’d wondered if anyone would ever truly love her.

Now, she thought, patting her stomach reassuringly, she had an answer.

And she had Ethan James to thank for it. Even if she did wish she had never seen him again. Even if some traitorous little part of her hoped to see him again and again.

Suddenly chilled, she returned to the bed, snuggled in under layers of blankets and closed her eyes for a series of deep-breathing exercises. She kidded herself that simply relaxing, resting and breathing were almost as good as sleep, which she certainly wasn’t going to get tonight. She was too wide awake, too worried.

But the next time she opened her eyes it was morning, and the sun was shining brightly in the east. Refusing to think about anything other than her normal routine, she got ready for work, cooked and ate her breakfast, then began dressing in the layers necessary for the walk to the store. It was just another day, she told herself. Like the last ninety or so, nothing special, nothing to be dreaded.

Maybe saying it made it real. Her walk was uneventful, even a bit boring. The usual vehicles were parked outside the Heartbreak Café, where Shay Rafferty gave her usual wave through the plate-glass window. Trudie Hampton called a hello as she unlocked the insurance agency door and commented on the cold temperatures and toes freezing off. The store looked exactly as it had when she left the day before.

Life hadn’t changed. It was ordinary. Routine.

Until 10:32 a.m., when Ethan walked through the front door.

She was busy with customers when the bell rang. She didn’t glance up. She didn’t need to, thanks to their murmured comments.

“Well, look at that. When do you suppose he came back?”

“Better question would be why do you suppose he came back.”

“Y’think Guthrie was expectin’ him?”

“Sure. Guthrie always expects trouble. ’Least, from that one.”

At that, Grace didn’t even try to resist looking at Ethan. He was in the last aisle before the far wall, pretending interest in a display of dead-bolt locks, his head ducked so that all she could see was tousled blond hair and a denim collar. No doubt he knew he had everyone’s attention. She hoped he was smart enough to stay over there until the others were gone, but she wouldn’t hold her breath.

She rang up the sale, took the cash, made the wrong change, then corrected it. She bagged the purchase in a sack large enough to fit it five times over, then dropped it on the counter instead of handing it to the customer. When they left, she straightened the few items on the counter, breathed deeply and straightened them again, then summoned the nerve to approach him. Before she’d taken three steps, he started toward her.

He was dressed much the same as the day before, but somehow he looked even better. Sometime in the last seven months she’d forgotten just how gorgeous he was. Looking at him now, she was amazed that she’d been able to catch his eye, even dressed up in Ginger’s flashiest clothes. He could have crooked his finger at any woman in that bar and she would have gone running, but he’d chosen her. The fake. The fraud.

He was disappointed that she wasn’t pretty. She’d read that in his expression yesterday. Part of her felt insulted. They were adults. They were supposed to prefer things like character, honesty and personality over good looks. And part of her couldn’t blame him. Was it so wrong to want the character, honesty and personality wrapped up in a pretty package? Would she honestly have been so quick to go to the motel with him that night if he hadn’t been drop-dead gorgeous?

Well…yes. But she’d been desperate, remember?

Finally he stopped on the opposite side of the counter. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Her gaze settled on his hands, resting on the scarred countertop. They were bigger, longer, than hers, but they could manipulate a deck of cards or remove a woman’s clothing with smooth, easy grace, never fumbling, never making a mistake. They were so strong, so certain of every move. And soft, like silk against her skin. Capable of seducing a never-been-kissed virgin right out of her clothes and her fears. Talented enough to make her thank him when it was over.

Her face grew warm, and she had to clear her throat before she could speak. “I take it Guthrie didn’t throw you out.”

“Only because Olivia talked him out of it. He knows better than to get on the wrong side of a woman who hasn’t seen her own feet in months.”

Grace’s smile was small and tentative. She liked Olivia Harris a lot, but that didn’t stop her from also envying her. Olivia had everything Grace had ever wanted. Her husband worshiped the ground she walked on, and no one could love her daughters more than he did. Their baby, due a month before hers, would receive a warm, loud and enthusiastic welcome into the world, and he—for Olivia insisted it was a boy—would know from his first breath how dearly loved he was.

On the other hand, Grace’s daughter would likely have no one but her, and she was no prize under the best of circumstances. Just ask Ethan.

Her smile fading, she turned away from the counter to the desk behind her. “I thought you might have left.” It was a lie, although she’d certainly hoped he would leave, taking her secret with him. She’d known it wasn’t likely, though. He hadn’t come from—well, wherever he’d come from, only to take off again immediately. That wasn’t the way he worked. According to rumor, he never left without stirring up trouble of one sort or another. This time that trouble would surely involve her.

Ignoring her comment, he looked around. “Do you work alone?”

“Yes.”

“Must be tough.”

She shrugged. “I’m a hard worker.”

“That can’t be good for…”

The baby, she silently filled in. Just say it. The baby. But instead he merely gestured toward her middle, as if the words were too difficult. Too damning. “Doc Hanson says I couldn’t be healthier. Callie agrees.”

“Who’s Callie?”

“My midwife.”

That brought his gaze to her face. “You’re seeing a midwife?”

Grace eased into the wooden chair behind the desk, propped her feet on the stool underneath the desk and folded her hands over her belly. “She’s going to deliver the baby.”

“Why not let Doc Hanson? He’s been doing it for fifty years.”

“Precisely why he’s not doing it anymore. He’s turned that part of his practice over to Callie.”

“So why not go to Tulsa or Oklahoma City?”

“Why would I do that when Callie is right here in town?” A scowl knitted her brows together. “She’s not some old granny that country folk turn to because they don’t know better or can’t afford a real doctor. She’s an R.N., a nurse-midwife. She practices in Doc Hanson’s clinic.” She paused before adding the one comment that would make a difference to him. “She’s delivering Olivia and Guthrie’s baby.”

It did make a difference. She could practically see the change in attitude. Oh, well, if Guthrie says it’s all right, then it must be all right. On the one hand, it annoyed her. It was her baby, her delivery, and if she said it was all right, it was. On the other, it was touching that, despite all the trouble between them, he obviously still had a great deal of respect for his brother.

But all that respect hadn’t stopped Ethan from fraudulently selling Guthrie’s ranch out from under him a year or two ago. Though the very idea of it was amazing, if pressed, she would have to admit that it was a good thing he had. Otherwise, he never would have developed a guilty conscience, he wouldn’t have come back last summer to undo his wrong, and he wouldn’t have been in that bar on her first night of freedom. She wouldn’t have such sweet memories, her friends, this business, the house or, most important, her baby. She owed a lot to his disreputable ways.

Still, “disreputable” didn’t come high on her list of qualities desired in her baby’s father.

Hands in his pockets, he came around the counter and circled the small space that served as her office. He glanced out the window at her view—the dock where customers backed up their pickup trucks to load lumber and wall-board—then thumbed through a catalog offering every hand tool known to man before finally speaking. “Tell me something. What was Jed Prescott’s little girl doing in that bar dressed like a—” He broke off, then substituted a less-harsh description, she suspected, than what had initially come to mind. “Like a woman looking for a good time?”

“If I’d gone in there dressed like this, I wouldn’t have gotten the same response.”

The hint of a smile crossed his face, then disappeared. She remembered his smiles best of everything about him. They’d come so quickly, so easily, from sweet, gentle smiles to broad, oh-so-cocky grins. She’d thought halfway through the evening how incredibly wonderful it was to spend time with a man who expressed pleasure so naturally. Her father was not a smiler. Living with him, she hadn’t been, either.

Finished with the office, he turned and leaned back against the counter. “No,” he agreed. “Going in looking like that—” once again he gestured toward her stomach “—would have scared all the men away, including me.” Crossing his ankles, folding his arms across his chest, he waited for the real answer to his question.

She considered ignoring it, and him. She had end-of-the-month invoices to prepare, a couple of orders to call in, tax records to update, inventory to finish. If she chose, she could find any number of excuses for not answering, and she couldn’t think of one single reason for telling him.

So she told him, anyway. Go figure. “Do you remember me?”

He gave her a puzzled look. “From…?”

“High school. Middle school. Grade school. Church, when my father still let me go. When your mother still made you go.” She shrugged. “From growing up two years apart in the same small town for sixteen years.”

Ethan didn’t need to think about his answer. For all he remembered, she could have sprung into existence full-grown yesterday, with absolutely zero contact between them before then. He didn’t offer the response immediately, though. It seemed cruel to be so quickly certain that she hadn’t existed in his world—in their mutually shared world—for all those years.

But finally he couldn’t delay any longer, and so he shook his head. “No, I don’t. I’m sorry.”

“I’m the most forgettable person in Heartbreak. People who have known me all my life don’t know my name. My own father called me ‘girl’ rather than make the effort to remember ‘Grace.”’ Her smile was thin and bitter. “He called his dog ‘girl,’ too. He took her with him when he left.”

For a moment she seemed lost in that thought. Missing the father who’d apparently never loved her? Maybe regretting all the years she’d spent with a man who’d walked out when she needed him?

At least it gave them something in common—they’d both had lousy fathers. And they both wondered whether he could do better. And she had good reason to think her child would be better off with no father at all.

“That day last summer was the first time in my life that I was free of his control.”

It was an outrageous statement, but she said it so flatly that he knew it was true. Ethan couldn’t imagine living a life so restrictive. From the time he was fifteen, he’d taken such freedom that his life had been virtually without rules. Sometimes he’d wished his mother would put her foot down and hold him to the same rules she’d held Guthrie to. He’d figured that she thought he wasn’t capable of living up to them, so why even try.

“So you transformed yourself into someone else—” beautiful, sexy, sultry Melissa “—and determined to live all you could in that one day.” How many firsts had she experienced? First bar, first drink, first dance? Definitely first kiss. Sweet, a bit awkward, as if she’d expected their noses to bump or their mouths not to fit. It had taken only one kiss to convince her that wasn’t the case. The next had been sweet and steamy, full of promise, and at the motel, virgin or not, she’d delivered on that promise.

And he had definitely been her first man. Her only man, he suspected. There was something old-fashioned and satisfying about that knowledge.

“And that’s why you disappeared in the middle of the night.”

She shook her head. “Not in the middle of the night. Early, just before dawn.”

She was right, of course, Ethan thought, because in the middle of the night, they’d been making love again. She’d liked it better the second time. He’d fallen asleep wondering how much more she was going to enjoy the third time, only to awaken alone. The only thing she’d left behind was the faint scent of her cologne perfuming the sheets wrapped around him.

It was the first time in years that the roles had been reversed. He was the one who woke early and slipped away. He was the one who didn’t want to face goodbyes, demands, recriminations. He was the one who kept his sexual encounters as anonymous and short-term as possible.

And Grace had shown him how it felt to be the one walked out on.

“So…I woke up alone, and you…?”

“Went home. Washed the color and the curls out of my hair. Scrubbed the makeup off. Gave the clothes back to my friend. Put away the memories and prepared to convince my father that I’d been a good girl while he was gone.”

“And he believed you.”

“For a while. One day I was over there—” she gestured to the shelves that flanked the side windows “—getting something off the top shelf for Miz Walker and…I don’t know. The light was right. My clothes were a little snug. Something about the way I was standing… He realized I was pregnant.” She lowered her hand to her stomach in a touch that Ethan suspected was totally reassuring. “A few weeks after that, he left town. But before he left, he signed the store and the house over to me.”

There was more to the story than that. Ethan was sure. Jed Prescott never gave anyone anything but grief. He wouldn’t have spit on his neighbors if they were on fire. He wouldn’t even call his only child by her name. He certainly wouldn’t have voluntarily given her everything he’d worked a lifetime for, especially after she’d disappointed him.

But if she wanted to leave it at that, who was he to push it?

Just the only man she’d ever been intimate with.

The father of her baby.

A virtual stranger.

“So, how’s business?”

Her gaze narrowed. “Fine for Heartbreak.”

“I—” His face flushed hot, and he turned away, pretending interest in the store to hide it. “I have some money set aside if…”

“No, thank you.”

Something about the prim tone of her voice raised his defenses and made him face her again. “It’s not tainted. I didn’t steal it or win it in a crooked card game, or scam some poor sucker out of it. I earned it at an honest job, tending bar in Key West. I’ve been working since I left here last summer, and I’ve saved everything I didn’t need to live on.”

She looked embarrassed, too. “I didn’t mean—I’m fine right now. I don’t need money.”

“What do you need?”

She thought about it a moment, then shrugged. “Nothing.”

That sounded damn near perfect, he thought bitterly. That was all he was, and all he could offer. Nothing.

The bell over the door rang, drawing their attention that way. The man who came through the door was white-haired and stoop-shouldered, and though Ethan hadn’t seen him in ten years, he would have recognized him anywhere. It wasn’t easy to forget the man who’d laid his mother to rest a good fifty years before Ethan was ready to let her go.

“Pastor.” Grace eased to her feet, pulled her sweater tighter across her front and went to stand at the counter. If Ethan were asked, from a purely analytical standpoint, he would say she was trying to hide her pregnancy from the old man. But seven months was a lot to hide, especially on someone as delicate as she was. “What can I do for you?”

“Mama wanted me to pick up two gallons of paint, and she wants it to match the green on this paper.” The old man laid a swatch of wallpaper on the counter between them. “She’s redoing the guest room again. Our son and his wife are coming for a visit next month to help us celebrate our forty-fifth anniversary, and she seems to think the house needs to look different every time they come.”

“I’ll mix this up for you,” she said with a flash of a smile before grabbing the paper and walking off with it.

Pastor Hughes turned his attention Ethan’s way. “Ethan.” He bobbed his head in a disapproving nod. “I heard you were back. It’s been a long time.”

“Not long enough, from what I understand.”

“What brings you home this time?”

Ethan shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, then lifted his shoulders in a shrug as he parroted the preacher’s words. “It’s been a long time.”

“I didn’t realize you and Grace were friends.”

Not friends. Not even acquaintances. Just accomplices in a night’s sins that had changed both their lives. But of course he couldn’t tell the preacher that. “We went to school together. I couldn’t come back and not say hello.”

Pastor Hughes looked as if he didn’t quite accept the explanation, but he didn’t look as if he suspected the truth. No, that would surely widen his old blue eyes with shock and distaste, with a self-righteous This-is-no-more-than-we-expect-from-you for Ethan and a dismayed How-could-you-with-him for Grace.

“Where have you been this time?” Pastor Hughes asked.

“Florida.”

“I understand it’s warm there this time of year. Too warm, perhaps?”

Ethan felt the damned guilty flush start again. “I wasn’t run out of town, if that’s what you’re asking. I left on my own.”

“And how long will you be staying?”

“That depends.” He watched Grace set two paint cans on the counter in the distant corner. With quick, efficient movements, she pried the tops off the cans, then began measuring in tints. He would offer his help for no other reason than to get away from the preacher, but he couldn’t help her. He knew nothing about mixing paints or matching colors. He knew nothing about anything but causing trouble. Certainly nothing about making it right.

“I assume Grace has told you about her predicament.”

Afraid of what might show in his face if he continued to watch her, Ethan turned his gaze back to the preacher. “Her predicament? You mean being pregnant?”

“And unmarried. Abandoned by both her own father and the baby’s father. Left to suffer the consequences alone.”

He hadn’t abandoned her, he wanted to protest. He knew too well how that felt, had been through it with his father, with Guthrie, even with his mother. God help him, he would never do it to someone else.

But Grace had made it pretty clear that neither she nor her baby needed him, that she didn’t want him. So if he left again, that wasn’t abandonment, was it? Even if it felt like it?

“She can’t be the first unwed mother Heartbreak’s ever seen,” he said, injecting a touch of scorn into his voice to cover his guilt.

“No, sad to say she’s not. Which doesn’t make her situation any less fortunate.”

Her misfortune was not running the other way when she met him that night. It was not telling him to go to hell when he’d invited her to the motel. It wasn’t the baby. She insisted she wanted the child, even though it was his child, and he believed her.

He wanted to believe her.

Before the pastor could say anything else, Grace returned with the paint. She rang it up, then waited while the old man wrote out a check. As soon as he was gone, she let out a long sigh.

“I know the good pastor doesn’t think highly of wayward sons. I take it he’s not much kinder to unwed mothers,” Ethan said flatly.

She tilted her head side to side, stretching the muscles in her neck. “Actually, he is. He sees me as an innocent victim, taken advantage of and betrayed by some unrepentant scoundrel.” Abruptly, her gaze widened, as if she’d belatedly seen the insult in her words, and she opened her mouth to apologize.

“I’ll admit to the scoundrel part,” he said, his tone more casual than his emotions. “But I’ve always been repentant.”

“Just not enough to stop being a scoundrel.”

“Not until recently.”

“Why recently?”

“It was time,” he said with a careless shrug, but that wasn’t the real answer. He’d started trying to change because one morning he’d awakened from a three-day drunk and realized that he’d sold his brother’s ranch—his livelihood, his family history, the one thing Guthrie loved most in this world. The fact that land fraud was taken seriously in Oklahoma ranching country hadn’t concerned him, nor had the fact that he could go to prison for it. He’d been in jail before. It hadn’t been his favorite place, but truth be told, it hadn’t been his least favorite, either.

It was the idea that he’d committed the ultimate betrayal against Guthrie that had sobered him. Virtually anything else in the world could eventually be forgiven, but stealing his brother’s land was unforgivable.

He’d thought he might have a chance to set things right without Guthrie even finding out, and so he’d headed for Atlanta to find David Miles, the smug businessman who’d been one of the easiest marks Ethan had ever fleeced. He hadn’t had much of a plan—to admit that the sale was fraudulent, return what was left of the money and face whatever consequences Miles wanted to dish out.

In Atlanta, though, things had gone from bad to worse. He learned that Miles had been killed in an accident, leaving his wife and twin daughters penniless and homeless. The last anyone had heard, they were on their way to Oklahoma to claim the only thing left them—the ranch. Guthrie’s ranch.

Ethan remembered sitting in a seedy motel on the outskirts of the city, trying to gather the courage to pick up the phone and call his brother. But his hands had trembled and his throat had closed off. Even if Guthrie would have talked to him, he wouldn’t have been able to say a word.

And what words could he have offered? I’m sorry? I didn’t think you’d ever find out? I’ll never do it again? He’d said them all so many times before that they didn’t mean a thing.

In the end, it had worked out well, for Guthrie, Olivia and the girls, at least. They’d turned tragedy into triumph—had fallen in love, gotten married and created a new family that was a million times better than the old families that had let them down.

Maybe it had worked out well for Grace, too. Instead of making that phone call from Atlanta to Heartbreak, he’d made the drive, arriving in time to catch the last few minutes of Guthrie and Olivia’s wedding. He’d given Miles’s money to Olivia, given Guthrie the deed to the portion of ranch that had been his for a time, then left them to celebrate their wedding with their friends while he sought the comfort of a few beers and a willing woman in the bar in Buffalo Springs. And there he’d met Grace.

In the end, everyone involved—Guthrie, Olivia and Grace—had gotten the one thing they valued most. A family. Someone to love, someone to love them.

That was the one thing Ethan had always wanted, too.

It was the one thing he didn’t think he would ever get.