“I love you, Matt.

“For what you’re doing for me and the baby,” Cathie rushed on breathlessly.

Matt understood what she meant but found himself remembering the last time he’d heard those words. They’d come from Cathie then, too. She’d been sixteen.

He’d thrown the words back in her face as if they hadn’t meant a thing to him. Love seemed to come so easily to her. It was one of the things that had fascinated the crazy, half-wild boy he used to be.

He wanted to tell her there was nothing to love. That it was all an illusion.

But her words now rolled oddly around inside him, his brain, his chest and the pit of his stomach.

I love you, Matt.

Just words. They’d scared him to death all those years ago. Yet they sounded so different to him now….

Dear Reader,

Welcome to more juicy reads from Silhouette Special Edition. I’d like to highlight Silhouette veteran and RITA® Award finalist Teresa Hill, who has written over ten Silhouette books under the pseudonym Sally Tyler Hayes. Her second story for us, Heard It Through the Grapevine, has all the ingredients for a fast-paced read—marriage of convenience, a pregnant preacher’s daughter and a handsome hero to save the day. Teresa Hill writes, “I love this heroine because she takes a tremendous leap of faith. She hopes that her love will break down the hero’s walls, and she never holds back.” Don’t miss this touching story!

USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning author Susan Mallery returns to her popular miniseries HOMETOWN HEARTBREAKERS with One in a Million. Here, a sassy single mom falls for a drop-dead-gorgeous FBI agent, but sets a few ground rules—a little romance, no strings attached. Of course, we know rules are meant to be broken! Victoria Pade delights us with The Baby Surprise, the last in her BABY TIMES THREE miniseries, in which a confirmed bachelor discovers he may be a father. With encouragement from a beautiful heroine, he feels ready to be a parent…and a husband.

The next book in Laurie Paige’s SEVEN DEVILS miniseries, The One and Only features a desirable medical assistant with a secret past who snags the attention of a very charming doctor. Judith Lyons brings us Alaskan Nights, which involves two opposites who find each other irritating, yet totally irresistible! Can these two survive a little engine trouble in the wilderness? In A Mother’s Secret, Pat Warren tells of a mother in search of her secret child and the discovery of the man of her dreams.

This month is all about love against the odds and finding that special someone when you least expect it. As you lounge in your favorite chair, lose yourself in one of these gems!

Sincerely,

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

Heard it Through the Grapevine
Teresa Hill

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To everyone at St. Mary’s and all of our friends in Greenville, South Carolina.

Thanks for making our ten years there wonderful.

TERESA HILL

lives in South Carolina with her husband, son and daughter. A former journalist for a South Carolina newspaper, she fondly remembers that her decision to write and explore the frontiers of romance came at about the same time she discovered, in junior high, that she’d never be able to join the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise.

Happy and proud to be a stay-home mom, she is thrilled to be living her lifelong dream of writing romances.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter One

The stick turned blue.

Cathie Baldwin sank down to the floor of her tiny bathroom. Taking stock of her situation as objectively as possible, she decided she’d never been this afraid, this upset or this ashamed of herself.

She was twenty-three, certainly old enough to know better, and they’d been careful, darn it. So careful.

Of course, as mothers had no doubt been telling their daughters for decades, the only truly safe sex was no sex at all. Which was what she’d had for years. No Sex. She’d waited so long, and now that she’d finally found someone she’d thought was special enough to share her bed…now this.

She looked at the test stick again, just to be sure. If anything, it looked bluer than before.

Fine. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she let them fall.

No one had ever cried forever, had they?

She feared she might set a record in the event. Olympic Gold, Longest Crying Jag in History, Laura Catherine Baldwin, the preacher’s daughter. The good girl. Pregnant college dropout who horrified her father’s entire congregation, shamed her parents, infuriated her four overgrown, overprotective brothers, shocked a dozen aunts, uncles and cousins too numerous to count and generally messed up her life.

And her baby’s.

Oh, God, she was going to have a baby.

Cathie thought she was about as miserable as she could be.

Then the lights went out. Everything in the apartment whined down and stopped. The heat, the refrigerator, the computer. Everything.

She whimpered. Honestly, she was the most pitiful thing. On the way to the kitchen, she cracked her toe on the corner of the coffee table, swore softly as she hopped the rest of the way, her toe throbbing.

In the kitchen, she found the big pillar candle on the counter by the coffeepot. But the matches proved stubbornly elusive. She was feeling along the top of the refrigerator when, just as she thought she found them, her hand hit something else.

It rumbled and rolled on top of the fridge, and the next thing she knew, came flying down and hit her on the forehead.

“Ouch.” She put her hand on her poor head for a moment, then reached up and, finally finding the matches, struck one and lit the candle.

Her first stop after that was the little mirror hanging in the hallway, to check the damage. She had a red splotch on her right temple to match her tear-reddened eyes.

She was headed back into the kitchen to see what had hit her when hot wax from the candle dripped onto her hand.

“Ouch!” For a second, she thought she’d caught her pajama top on fire, that she was cursed for sure. Then the lights decided to come back on.

She groaned, blew out the candle, wiped the dot of hot wax off her hand, and then looked down at the mess she’d made of her own floor.

That’s when she saw the little wooden box in the corner by the trash can.

Cathie frowned at it.

Granted, it had been a really lousy day and maybe she was closer to hysterics than she realized.

Because it seemed a lot like God had just hit her on the head.

Warily, she crept over to the little wooden box as if it might have sprouted wings and flown into her forehead, all on its own. But she’d knocked it off the refrigerator.

That was all.

No big mystery there. No odd powers at work.

She felt silly for still having the thing.

It was her God Box. One of the quaint traditions of her father’s church. A turn-it-over-to-God thing. All the kids got one. For problems they didn’t think they could deal with on their own. Cathie had taken an introductory psych class, so she understood the concept. Letting go of things we simply can’t control or change.

They had a saying in her family: Take it to the Box. She’d done that with so many problems over the years, some of which had been solved and some she was still hoping to see resolved. They were still in the Box, scribbled on little slips of paper.

At least, they had been inside, until she’d knocked the Box off the refrigerator.

Feeling foolish, she got down on her hands and knees, scrambling to find those little papers and stuffing them back inside, as if any of those childhood secrets and wishes mattered now.

Her life had been so much simpler then.

Cathie sat on the floor, glancing warily at the Box, feeling too guilty and too ashamed of herself to say a prayer.

But it wasn’t so hard to say, Help me, please.

Or to write it down.

It felt silly, but she’d been crying forever, no closer to an answer than she had been when the blasted stick had turned blue. She could use all the help she could get.

Scribbling frantically through fresh tears, she managed to get down one frantic plea, then folded the paper up into tinier and tinier pieces, like she had when she was little. She tucked the paper inside and was just starting to think, Okay, what do I do now?

Honestly, it hadn’t been a minute.

When her doorbell rang, she was as startled as she’d been when the Box hit her on the head.

Not a single interior light was visible through the windows of the shabby, old house perched on the edge of the North Carolina college campus.

The house’s paint was flaking, the yard needed mowing, and the police should probably be called to deal with the two men half a block away, guzzling beer, shoving each other and swearing. A cat was on the prowl for its dinner, garbage was piling up on the curb and there didn’t seem to be a functioning streetlight on the whole block.

Matthew Monroe climbed out of his very expensive, steel-gray Mercedes and frowned. What the hell, he thought, activating the car’s security system. No reason to make it easy. Things had been much simpler in his car-thieving days.

Pocketing the car keys, he frowned as he headed for the old house, the last place in the world he wanted to be tonight or any other night.

Because she lived here.

But Mary Baldwin was the closest thing Matt had ever had to a mother, and Mary was worried about her daughter. Which meant someone had to go see if Mary’s little girl was all right. Matt was the closest thing to family Cathie had in town, so he was elected.

He climbed the front steps and pounded on the flimsy, pressed-wood door. An odd sensation—faintly reminiscent of nerves—rumbled around in the pit of his stomach. Nothing really worried him, anymore. Except her.

He waited, not hearing a sound. But her ancient Volkswagen bug was parked out front.

Saturday night, he remembered. She could be out on a date. It was amazing, really. Cathie Baldwin, all grown up. Dating.

He swore at the image that brought to mind. A hot, summer night. No moon, but a million stars. Cathie, barely sixteen years old, jailbait if he ever saw it. With tears in her eyes, a flush of embarrassment in her cheeks and indecent amounts of pale, creamy soft skin bared for him to see.

Everything had been fine between them until that night. Cathie had been a scrawny little kid who’d once devoted herself to saving his worthless hide. He’d lived in her parents’ home from the time he was fifteen until he was eighteen, a part of them but not really one of the family, a distinction he’d always understood.

Even once he was eighteen and no longer a subject of the state’s foster care program, Mary, a do-gooder of the highest order, and Cathie kept treating him like family. During his breaks from college, Mary hounded him until he finally gave in and found himself back in the midst of the Baldwin clan once or twice a year.

It had been one of those visits, when he was twenty-three, that Cathie had thrown herself at him. As Matt saw it, he owed the Baldwins, and if it was the only decent thing he ever did in his life, he was going to keep his hands off their daughter.

He’d been doing fine until eight months ago when Cathie finally left home for college and ended up here in his town. Cathie, indulged and protected her entire life, who might as well walk around with a sign that said Take Advantage of Me. She’d always believed there was good in everyone. Even snipping, snarling, wild-eyed, would-be teenage car thieves.

One last time, he pounded on her door.

Finally, he heard the faint sound of footsteps coming from inside. A voice sounding oddly strained, called out, “Who’s there?”

“It’s Matt,” he admitted, though it certainly wouldn’t make her want to open the door. Silence. Matt grew more uneasy. “Cath? You okay?”

“I’ve got a cold. I don’t think you want to catch this.”

“I’ll risk it. Open up.”

“Matt, really. I’m fine. I was just sleeping, and I want to go back to bed.”

He pushed an impatient hand through his hair, then shoved the hand into the pocket of his slacks. Cathie Baldwin in a bed?

No, he would not go there.

“Cathie, I’ve been thinking this door really is too flimsy. I should replace it with something stronger.” He’d done all the locks when she’d moved in, but that didn’t seem like enough now. “So breaking down the door wouldn’t bother me at all.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Try me,” he shot back, unleashing every bit of worry he’d had over her safety in those two little words.

The door cracked open. Through the narrow opening, he peered into the darkness and saw nothing more than the outline of her face.

“It’s pitch-black in there,” he complained.

“I told you I was sleeping. And now you’ve seen me. You can go.”

“Me? Or your mother, Cath? Take your pick, but one of us is going to be inside that apartment, if not tonight, tomorrow.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“We’ve been through this already with the door. You know I would.”

She fumbled with the chain lock and finally stepped back to let him inside.

He looked her over from head to toe. She angled her face away from him, hiding behind a curtain of light brown hair sprinkled with blond sunshine. It was the beginning of December, but unseasonably warm. She had on a big sweatshirt in Carolina blue, the color of one of the local college sports teams, and a ragged pair of faded blue jean shorts. He couldn’t quite make himself stop staring at the lean expanse of skin, from her thighs all the way down to bare feet and dainty, pink-tinted toenails.

Damn. Matt tugged at his tie, then reached for the tiny lamp on the table in the corner and flicked it on.

Cathie winced at the flood of light and quickly turned away. “I suppose if you’re staying, I could at least offer you some coffee.”

She headed for the kitchen. She hadn’t made it far when he caught her by the arm and spun her around. Flicking on the overhead light, he saw that her eyes were puffy and red, her face pale, a trail of tears on her cheeks.

Irritation gave way to fury at anyone who dared hurt her. He’d always been protective of her. It had been there right from the beginning, when he was fifteen and she was eight, with pigtails, gaps in her teeth and skinned knees, an optimist to the core, forced to endure both the pampering and the supreme torture of being the youngest and the only daughter in a family of four boys.

So what the hell were her brothers doing, scattering themselves from one end of the earth to the other, when she needed someone? It was all too easy, staring at her poor, sad face, to imagine the myriad of ways in which a young woman alone in a strange town could be hurt.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s upset you,” he said in a tightly controlled voice.

She stood there trying in vain to hide her feelings. Give it up, Cath, he thought. She’d always been so easy to read.

“Come on. Tell me,” he said softly, for a minute finding and slipping into that old, easy manner between them from the days when she’d been his champion, the one who could always be counted on to take his side in anything and seemed absolutely determined to draw him into the world of her big, boisterous, affectionate, nosy family. Where he would never belong. He’d never belong anywhere. It had always been so clear to him. Why she didn’t see it, he’d never understand.

“Matt, please,” she pleaded, her eyes big and wide and blue, swimming in moisture, her lashes spiked together.

Even in the woman, there were the best qualities of the little girl. She could totally disarm him with nothing but a look in her eyes.

“Please what?” he said, caught, unable to walk away.

“Please leave it alone.”

“Can’t do it.” Matt suffered from an unfortunate, long-standing urge to touch her, even in the smallest, most inconsequential of ways. Though he certainly knew better, he reached for her. Her lashes fluttered down as the pad of his thumb brushed across one of her wet eyelids, and then the other.

It was so nice to touch her.

Matt dried her tears as best he could with the back of his hand. Pale and utterly still, Cathie stood there, not even breathing, her lips slightly parted, her cheeks pale and damp.

She looked like she had that long-ago night. Heartbroken and very, very sweet. Another memory he’d tried hard to forget rushed to the surface. The feel of her lips pressed to his, of sweet, impossibly shy kisses, innocence so pure it was hard to imagine in the world he knew. She’d gotten him into the back of a pickup in a secluded valley on her parents’ farm, taking him completely by surprise, absolutely convinced that she was in love with him and that they belonged together.

He’d had a hard time convincing her they didn’t and had gotten the hell away from her as fast as he could. Okay, almost as fast as he could. He was a man, after all, and she’d practically laid herself bare on a platter in front of him. She’d been embarrassed and hurt. He’d been gruff and insulting, because she’d scared him half to death because of the way she’d tasted, the way she’d felt beneath him and the way he’d wanted her.

Should have gone to jail fifteen years ago, he thought soberly.

“What’s gotten you so upset that you’re sitting in the dark crying your eyes out?” he asked.

“There…uh,” Cathie stumbled over the words. “There’s nothing you can do, Matt. Nothing anyone can do.”

He held his breath as he asked, “Are you sick?”

“No.”

He swore softly. For a minute, crazy things had gone through his head. That she was dying. That he might never see her smiling face again. Never hear her laugh.

Of course, she wasn’t dying. She was just making him crazy, as usual.

“Not sick? Okay. What else? Flunking out of school?”

“No.”

That was highly unlikely, given the fact that she’d worked so hard to get here. Her father had fallen ill with a heart condition during her senior year of high school. His heart transplant had nearly wiped out the family financially. All of her brothers had been either in college or committed to the military, and Matt knew they’d helped out monetarily, as much as they could. But Cathie had been the only one left at home. The years she’d normally have spent in college, she’d spent helping her mother care for her father, helping run the family bed-and-breakfast, taking courses at the local community college when she could.

He knew it was still a struggle financially and held out a brief hope that this could be about money. “Need me to loan you fifty bucks until payday?”

“No,” she insisted. “It’s nothing like that.”

“Okay. You want to play Twenty Questions? I’ll play.”

“Matt, please, just go,” she said, with that quality in her voice that always had him wanting to give her anything in this world. Except this.

“Sorry, but you’re a mess, Cath. You need somebody, and in case you haven’t noticed, I’m the only one here.”

“This isn’t your problem,” she argued.

“Your mother made it my problem, and you know the way she works. If she doesn’t hear from me soon, she’ll call and ask how you are, and I’m not going to lie to her. I’ll tell her you’re a wreck, that you wouldn’t tell me anything, and the next thing you know, she’ll be pounding on your door. Is that what you want?”

“No,” she insisted. “I just need some time to figure everything out. Could you just go away and give me some time?”

It was an entirely reasonable request, and hard as it was to believe, she was an adult. But he’d didn’t think he’d ever seen Cathie looking so fragile or so hurt. He doubted he could have walked away from her now if his life depended on it.

“Sorry. Can’t do it. Tell me what’s wrong.”

She eased to the right, her hip resting against the kitchen counter, which put her face fully into the light for the first time. It looked like she’d been crying for hours. A white-hot anger simmered in his gut, and he knew he’d been asking the wrong question. Not what was wrong with her, but who? Who had done this to her?

“This is about a guy, isn’t it?” Looking utterly miserable, Cathie let her gaze meet his for a second. She blinked back fresh tears and looked away. “Want me to go beat him up?”

“It wouldn’t help.”

“I could call all of your brothers and the five of us could have at him.”

“My brothers would kill him.”

“That depends,” he said quietly. “What did this guy do to you?”

Cathie didn’t say anything. He was afraid she was crying again. Matt was considering his options when something on the kitchen counter caught his eye.

It was a small, rectangular box. Not able to believe what he was seeing, he swept past her and picked it up.

It was one of those home pregnancy tests.

In Cathie’s kitchen?

He turned to look at her. Really look. In his eyes, she’d hardly changed since that night when she was sixteen. So it always surprised him when he saw evidence that she had indeed grown up. He ran the numbers in his head. Her eight, to his fifteen. Her sixteen, to his wise-in-the-ways-of-the-world twenty-three. He was thirty now, which meant she was twenty-three.

Matt had a bad habit of still thinking of her as sixteen. This was Cathie Baldwin, after all. The good girl whose life could not have been more different from his. Matt’s hard-living, hard-drinking, never-met-a-fight-he-didn’t-like father had died when Matt was barely old enough to remember him. His mother had taken it badly, which to her meant drowning her sorrows in a bottle, too.

Matt ran wild, eventually living on the streets, headed for disaster, when he bungled the theft of Cathie’s mother’s car. For reasons he would never understand, rather than let him go to jail, the Baldwins had offered to take him into their home, something that had surely saved his worthless hide. Matt would not repay a debt like that by lusting after the Baldwins’ only daughter.

Besides, he’d always known what life had in store for her. A nice guy. A really nice one. Respectable. Wholesome. Not a single skeleton in his closet. Not a single arrest. Someone from a good family. Not necessarily well-to-do, but kind, God-loving people. She’d have a nice little house in the mountains her family called home, teach Sunday school and raise a half-dozen kids, and she’d be happy and well-protected her whole life.

But it hadn’t worked out that way. Another man had slept with her. Carelessly? Casually? Thoughtlessly? And that man had either failed to take the time to protect her or hadn’t cared enough to do so.

Matt held the proof in his hand.

He crushed the box of the home pregnancy test in his hand, taking out a mere shred of his anger on it, then threw it across the room.

Cathie winced as the box skittered across the floor, then opened a drawer and pulled out a white, plastic stick-like thing. “I’ll save you the trouble of asking. The stick turned blue.”

Blue? he thought numbly. “Blue’s bad?”

She nodded hopelessly. “If you’re not finished with college, not married, don’t have a lot of money and your father happens to be a minister, then…yes, blue’s bad.”

Chapter Two

Cathie stood there waiting for him to say something, still hardly able to believe he was here.

One minute, she’d been staring guiltily at the Box and the next, the doorbell had rung. She’d hastily shoved the Box in a drawer, and there was Matt. As if she’d conjured him up out of thin air. As if she’d asked, and the man upstairs had chosen to deliver Matt.

Cathie fought the urge to go stare up into the sky and say, Excuse me? What is he doing here?

Obviously, someone had gotten their wires crossed.

Matt didn’t even want to be in the same room with her.

All because she’d fallen for him ages ago and then thrown herself at him, when he didn’t want her at all. Which was just about the stupidest thing a woman could do.

Okay, not as stupid as getting pregnant when she hadn’t finished college and wasn’t married. But that night with Matt ranked right up there on her list of all-time stupid moves. She hadn’t wanted to come here to college because he lived in the same town. But the university had offered her the best financial aid package, and she’d needed all the help she could get.

Cathie hadn’t chased after him in years, but darned if she didn’t still compare every man she’d ever met to him. Even Tim. If she was honest, she’d admit that Tim reminded her the least little bit of Matt.

“So,” Matt said finally. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Cathie, the girl who always had a plan, said. “I just found out, and I’m still trying to make myself believe that it’s real. That it’s happening to me.”

“Do you want to marry this guy?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Though it would make her humiliation complete, she admitted, “I’m not sure it matters. I’m afraid he won’t want to marry me.”

Beside her, Matt stiffened, a mixture of disbelief, surprise and then anger washing across his face. For a minute, she thought he was going to ask the same question she’d been asking herself in the hours since the stick turned blue. Why in the world was she sleeping with a man who wouldn’t marry her if she was pregnant with his child?

“He’s…uh.” She closed her eyes and forced herself to start again. “He’s been different the last few weeks. A little…distant, maybe? Distracted. Impatient.”

Through clenched teeth, Matt said, “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Around the same time she noted subtle changes in her body that warned her something was wrong, she’d discovered an alarming number of doubts about Tim.

Matt, the tough guy of old wrapped in a thousand-dollar suit and still looking only faintly civilized, said, “Do you want me to talk to this guy for you?”

“You’re starting to sound like one of my brothers again.”

He swore softly. “I’m not one of your brothers.”

“I know.” She risked another glance in his direction. When she was a little girl, she’d look at him and think he was a wild thing she was going to tame. Like a pup who’d been kicked too many times, always waiting on someone to turn on him.

Cathie had followed him everywhere when he’d first come to live with her parents. She’d watched him with a kind of fascination as he warily watched her in return. She’d smile and he’d frown. She’d laugh and he’d put that same scowl on his face she’d seen tonight, the one that said she was getting to him.

Closing her eyes, she let herself remember, just a bit, her and Matt together. God, she thought breathlessly, how she’d missed that boy. Of course, God already knew. She’d certainly told him often enough, back in the days when she was trying to talk him into bringing Matt back to her. She hadn’t done that in years and fought the urge to pull out her Box and say very emphatically that he was not what she had in mind when she asked for help.

Still, she missed him so much, the lost boy who’d become her best friend. She’d seen more of him tonight than she had in years.

For just a moment, she let herself imagine a wild-eyed black knight coming to her rescue, making everything right somehow.

“What?” Matt growled, staring at her through midnight-colored eyes.

She shook her head and tried to smile, feeling hopelessly sentimental about a relationship she feared meant next to nothing to him. She, on the other hand, needed nothing more than the slightest touch of his fingertips to her cheek to know that she was every bit as attracted to the man as she’d once been to the boy. The awful part was that neither the boy nor the man had wanted her.

And now she feared she was in the same shape—no, worse—with another man she feared wouldn’t want her or her baby. Obviously, there was a pattern here she should probably figure out, so she didn’t keep repeating this same mistake.

“Cathie—”

“Sorry. I was just thinking. And wondering…why did you come here tonight?”

“I wasn’t going to,” he said. “Mary asked me to come by tomorrow, but I had a meeting tonight. When I got done, I wasn’t too far from here, and…I don’t know. Something just told me this might be a problem that shouldn’t wait. Why?”

She frowned. Something just told him?

“No reason,” she lied. No way she was explaining what she’d done to him.

“Cathie, why don’t you let me talk to this guy for you?”

Sure. He and Tim could compare notes. Why didn’t you want Cathie? Really? Me, either. She groaned, feeling sick suddenly and swayed on her feet.

“Easy.” Matt’s hand shot out to grab her. “I’ve got you. Need to sit?”

She nodded, letting herself lean on him as he steered her to the sofa.

“Better?” he asked once she was sitting.

“Yes. Thank you.” She had to get him out of here. Fast. He’d seen enough of this little drama that was her life. “And I appreciate the offer, about Tim, but I have to tell him myself. And my mother. My brothers. My father. They’re going to be so disappointed. Matt, I don’t think I’ve ever disappointed them. My father counsels teenagers at the community center on being responsible and careful. How is it going to look when his own daughter ends up pregnant and all alone? And to his congregation? I know some of them will give him grief over this. Plus his heart is…I don’t know. He hasn’t admitted it to me, but something’s going on. He was so sick before. We almost lost him. I don’t want him worrying over me, and for this, he’ll worry night and day.”

Utterly miserable, she stared up at Matt. He couldn’t have surprised her more when he sat down beside her and put his arm along the back of the sofa, motioning her closer. “C’mere, Cath.”

She hesitated, knowing she should not let herself get too close. But she needed him so badly right now. “Just for a minute?”

“Whatever it takes,” he said, his gaze steady and sure.

Cathie let herself lean against him a little, slipping progressively closer until her face was buried in the warm curve of his shoulder and his arms were clamped tightly around her. A long, deep shiver ran through her—her last-ditch effort at control. And then she was lost, just melting into the heat and the rock-solid strength of him.

With her face pressed against his neck, with every breath she took, she inhaled a bit more of the essence of him—something dark and dangerous and, after all these years, blessedly familiar. One of his hands stroked her hair tenderly. The other gently kneaded the knot of tension at the base of her spine. She gave up any hope of holding her tears in any longer. He pulled her closer and held on tighter, as if he might be able to hold her tightly enough to stop her body from trembling so badly.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered.

She didn’t believe that, but it was nice to have him hold her this way. She stayed there for the longest time, feeling safe and not so very hopeless. When she lifted her head, she found his face only inches from hers.

Deep, blue eyes, so familiar and flecked with gold, stared down at her, his jaw set in a grim line. His hair was shorter than it had been as a teenager, but still as dark, and, if anything, his body was even leaner and more powerful. It was so easy to find herself caught up in that old familiar spell that was Matt.

His hand settled against the side of her face. Carefully, gently, he wiped the tears from her cheeks in a touch that was so sweet, so tender.

Just for a moment, something flared in his eyes. If he’d been any other man, she would have sworn he was about to kiss her—the way a man kisses a woman he desires. And then, as she watched, the look drained away. Every little spark simply disappeared.

Unnerved, Cathie pulled away. Because she wasn’t sure her legs could hold her, she didn’t even try to stand. Instead, she scrambled to the opposite end of the couch. Drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs, she watched him as he watched her.

There were new lines of tension at the corners of those beautiful eyes of his, not even a hint of a smile on his lips. But she could say with absolute certainty that he was every bit as gorgeous at thirty as he had been at fifteen, nineteen, twenty-one, twenty-seven. Not that it mattered. He was simply being kind to her, and she was carrying another man’s child.

“I’m sorry,” she said finally.

“It’s all right,” he insisted. “Look, Cathie, there’s no place I have to be tonight. I could stay a while.”

“Thanks, but I have to make some decisions, and I have to talk to Tim.”

“All right.” Looking uncharacteristically uncertain, he stood up and headed for the door. “If you need anything…” he said roughly.

And then Cathie couldn’t even look him in the eye anymore. If she did, she’d take him up on his offer and ask him to stay. She felt like such a fool.

“I really don’t want to leave you like this,” Matt said, sounding like her prickly lost boy, put out with her but, at the same time, still trying to take care of her.

“I’ll be fine. I’m going to go to bed and hope I can figure some things out in the morning.”

“Okay. I’ll stall if your mother calls.”

“Please. I’ll call her tomorrow. Or I’ll go see her and Dad.”

With the front door open, he hesitated once again. “Cathie, anything. I mean that.” Matt squeezed her hand one last time, released it, then turned and disappeared into the night.

He was almost home when the phone in his car rang. He snatched it up, thinking Cathie might be calling. “Hello.”

“Matt? Hi. This is Mary. I’m sorry to bother you, dear, and I know you think I’m just a silly old woman who’s much too protective of her daughter….”

“You’ve always been a bother,” he said, trying to make light of this while he decided how much to tell her. “But I don’t think you’re silly, and you’ll never be old.”

“Thank you, dear. I notice you have the tact not to mention my overprotectiveness, and I appreciate that. I don’t suppose you know how my girl is?”

He closed his eyes and wrestled with his conscience. Cathie had a right to explain herself when she was ready. Still, Matt genuinely liked Mary Baldwin, and he didn’t want to lie to her.

“I saw her, and you’re right. She has some things on her mind right now.”

“Things she can’t talk about with her own mother? Matt, is she in trouble?”

“She has some decisions to make, and I’m sure she’s going to talk to you about this, as soon as she figures it out for herself. Mary, please don’t ask me for any more.”

Mary let out a long, slow breath. “Maybe I should drive down there tonight.”

That would work. Especially if it meant Cathie didn’t end up in his arms again. That had been sheer impulse, one that came from his time with the Baldwins. They were a family of touchers. Bear hugs. Kisses. Arms around each other’s shoulders. It was as natural to them as it was for Matt to hold himself apart from everyone. They seemed to have latched on to him in a way he just didn’t understand, and they’d never truly let go. They’d take care of Cathie now.

Still, she’d asked for his help, and he’d promised to try to stall.

“Mary, it’s late,” he reasoned. “Cathie said she’d call you tomorrow, and I told her if she needs anything from me, all she has to do is call.”

“Thank you, dear. If she had to be so far away from home, I feel better knowing you’re close by.”

Not close enough, he thought, feeling guilty that he’d kept his distance while some jerk was taking advantage of her. “She’s special, Mary.”

“I know, dear. She’s a wonderful girl, and I’m very proud of her. Still, I can’t help but worry. She’s always been too trusting for her own good.”

“Yes, she is.” That had to be the problem. She’d trusted the wrong man.

“Matt, we miss you, too. Christmas is coming. All the boys are going to be home this year, and we’d love to have you. And don’t tell me you’re too busy. You have to take some time off every now and then.”

Matt shook his head. No surprise here that Mary would go from mothering Cathie to trying to mother him. No one had ever really done that for him, except Mary. His own mother and father had gotten together when they were far too young, a quick, stormy relationship that had burned out long before Matt had come along. His father liked to go out and have a good time. He drank too much and got into arguments he tended to settle with his fists, or something worse. His mother drank to forget everything, including Matt. He’d been more of a hassle to her than anything else. By the time he was eight, he was roaming the streets, taking care of himself. By the time he was thirteen, he was living on those same streets after his mother kicked him out.

Not that any of that mattered anymore.

“I am planning some time away from the office,” he admitted. Honestly, he couldn’t remember where he decided to go. He recalled pointing to something from an array of brochures and leaving the details to his travel agent.

“Christmas is a time for family,” Mary argued. “Promise me you’ll think about coming here?”

“All right.” He’d think about it. He just wouldn’t go.

“You can’t run from us forever. Sooner or later you’re going to come home.”

“Mary—” he began.

“I’ll be waiting for your call. Bye, Matt.”

With that, she was gone, still able to outmaneuver him as neatly as always. He remembered standing in her kitchen his first morning there, cussing like a sailor, thinking to shock her, to make her turn her back on him, as everyone else had.

He soon learned that Mary didn’t shock easily, and she didn’t get flustered, no matter how filthy his language was. She’d used the same tone with him fifteen years ago, kindhearted, a bit bossy, but polite, as if he’d shown her the same courtesy she showed him. Then she’d smiled and proceeded to steamroll right over him, quietly making her wishes known, until somehow he’d decided he’d be better off doing what she suggested in the first place.

If that tactic didn’t work, shame did. She could make him feel like dirt without so much as lifting a finger. It was all in her eyes and the tone of her voice. No matter what he did wrong, she’d find out eventually. And she’d be hurt, as if she’d somehow failed him and not the other way around. She’d look at him and he could all but hear the words going through her head. What am I going to do with you, Matt? What have I done wrong that I can’t reach you?

Before long, she’d become his conscience. Even if he didn’t care what happened to himself, Mary did. Matt didn’t want to disappoint her. It became a litmus test for him. If I do this, what’s Mary going to think? What’s she going to say?

For the first time, he stopped to think before he shot off his mouth or let fly with his fists. With Mary on one side of him and Cathie on the other, he hadn’t stood a chance. Before they were done, he’d taken a long, hard look at himself and his life, figured out that there comes a time when it doesn’t really matter how screwed up anyone’s parents were. Maybe the world had dealt him a lousy hand, but lots of kids grew up without anyone who gave a damn about them. In the end, it was what he chose to do with his life that counted. Once he realized that, Matt had done surprisingly well for himself. He had a gift for numbers, something Cathie’s father had picked up on right away, and they’d no doubt called in some favors to get him admitted to the university here and to help get him a scholarship.

He had more money than he knew what to do with now, a company of his own that specialized in providing security for financial transactions over the Internet, a huge house, a car that positively reeked of money. He worked hard, and played just as hard when the notion struck him, which it seldom did.

He still couldn’t lie to himself well enough to say he was happy. It had all failed to satisfy him for some reason.

Matt eased back into the soft leather seat of his car and stared into the night.

As always, when he arrived at home, the place was dark and silent. He didn’t really want to go inside, which was ridiculous given what he’d paid for the place. It was too big for him and had never felt like a home. Tonight, it seemed worse than usual. Because his mind was on another house, an old one in the mountains, crammed to the rafters with people and laughter. With a sense of permanence. Of family.

Matt still remembered how it felt, living in the midst of the Baldwin clan. Their house had never been quiet or empty.

Shoving the memories aside, he pulled the car into the garage and walked into the kitchen, losing his keys, his wallet and his tie as he went. Upstairs in his bedroom, he kicked off his shoes and started working on the buttons of his shirt, the eerie quiet getting louder and louder with every passing minute.

Maybe what he needed was a woman. Someone to come home to, to fill the empty rooms and chase away the silence.

Glancing across the room at the big, wide bed, he imagined her waiting there for him on the nights when he came home really late. She’d have pillows propped against the headboard, one small light burning on the bedside table, a book in her lap.

Her hair would be long and loose, the light from the lamp glinting off of it. In his mind’s eye, he could see it so clearly, the image as enticing as any dream he’d ever had.

The woman lifted her head, smiled at him and held out her arms to him.

Cathie, he realized.

He was thinking of Cathie in his bed.

Matt knew what he had to do. He had to help her and then forget about her. He sure wasn’t letting her anywhere near his bed, even in his imagination.

There had to be a way to help.

It turned out to be so simple, he couldn’t believe it took him so long.

Money.

He had plenty, and she didn’t. She’d have doctor bills, tuition, child care, rent, utilities, diapers, all kinds of stuff. He wanted her out of that lousy neighborhood, too. Matt could do all that. She wouldn’t like it, but he simply wouldn’t take no for an answer this time. If her father hadn’t refused his help when Jim Baldwin had been so ill, Cathie would have finished college by now and maybe even been married. A baby wouldn’t have been a problem.

Matt was back on her doorstep shortly after eight the next morning, telling himself money was the answer. It was easy, too. He could write a check. He wouldn’t even have to see her again. Money. He was excited for the first time in years that he had so much of it.

Cathie opened the door wearing a pair of pale yellow, cottony pajamas. “Hi.”

She looked soft and rumpled, cold and dangerously touchable. Her hair was loose and falling around her shoulders, her eyes puffy and red and sad, and it seemed she’d come straight from her bed. He stared. She folded her arms across her breasts, as if to hide herself as best she could. He really had to stop thinking about her this way.

“When I heard the knock, I was sure my mother was here,” she said, stepping back to let him inside.

“I stalled as best I could, but it’s not going to work for long.”

“So, she’s on her way? Or is she waiting for you to report back to her?”

“She’s supposed to wait for you to call, but you know your mother.”

Matt wanted to know what her boyfriend said when she’d told him the news, wanted to know if she’d come to any decisions. But she looked like a stiff breeze could knock her over this morning, and he didn’t want to push.

“Have you had anything to eat?”

“No,” she admitted, wrapping herself up in a sweater that was thrown over the back of the sofa.

Good, he thought. Cover up.

“We could go get some breakfast,” he suggested. Get out of this apartment. Go somewhere they wouldn’t be alone.

“Matt, you don’t have to do this,” she said, a hurt look in her eyes that always managed to cut him to pieces. “I mean, I know my mother harasses you until you show up here.”

“She has. But she’s not the reason I’m here right now.”

Cathie frowned. He thought they were probably going to argue some more about his motives, when all he wanted was to keep her from kicking him out and to find out what that idiot who’d gotten her pregnant had said.

“Come on. I’m here. I’m hungry. You’re awake now. You’ve got to eat. I could cook something while you grab a shower and get dressed.”

Please, he thought, seeing bare feet and delicate pink-tinted toenails, get dressed.

She didn’t move. He could hear the faint sound of her breathing. Finally, she said, “You don’t even like me anymore.”

“Cathie.” He closed his eyes, simply unable to take the hurt he saw in her face. “I have never disliked you. Never even come close.”

Tears were glistening in her eyes the next time he looked up, and he wasn’t sure she believed him. “You thought I was a pest. You always did.”

“You were a pest.” He laughed, couldn’t hold it in. The memories were too strong. “You absolutely baffled me. Why in the world would a little girl like you give a damn about me? If you had any sense at all, you would have been scared of me and stayed away. Hell, if your whole family had any sense, they would have never let me inside your house.”

“You didn’t turn out so bad,” she said softly.

“Neither did you, Cath. Honestly, I never disliked you. Can you trust me about that, at least?” She considered him warily from across the room. “Humor me, okay? Get dressed. Let me feed you. Then, if you still want me out of here, I’ll go.”

“Promise?”

He frowned. “Do I have to promise?”

“Matt!”

“Okay.” That was a lie. He felt absolutely no guilt in telling it, not now that she needed him. It had always been her and her family doing so much for him, and him thinking he had nothing to give them in return.

Not that he’d ever have wished a situation like this on her. But still, the situation was what it was. She needed help, and he could give it to her.

“I know it’s hard,” he said. “To be in trouble and let someone help you. I’ve always wondered—why’d you do that for me? Why didn’t you give up on me and leave me alone?”

“I just couldn’t.”

He nodded, understanding exactly. “Do me a favor, Cath. Don’t make it as hard for me to help you as I made it for you to help me.”

She was quiet for a long time. It left him feeling edgy, like he might just do something crazy before he got out of here. She’d always made him a little crazy.

“Why did you come here this morning?” she asked finally.

Neatly trapped and unwilling to lie about this, he confessed. “I came to offer you money.”

She looked hurt. “It’s not that simple.”

“I know.” Too late, he saw that writing a check just wasn’t going to cut it.

Chapter Three

Cathie hid in her bathroom for what had to be the longest shower on record, finally emerging in a cloud of steam. In her tiny bedroom, she tugged on a pair of jeans and a white blouse. While she was buttoning her blouse, she found herself staring at the Box, which now sat on her dresser.

What is he doing here?

She’d slept with her arms wrapped around that Box, filled with so many little slips of paper with his name on them. Maybe someone had gotten confused again. Cathie’s handwriting had always been atrocious. Maybe she had a guardian angel who needed glasses or something.

The Matt notes are old notes. I don’t worry about him that much anymore. I try not to even think about him.

The Box remained stoically silent, reverently housing all her secret hopes and dreams, including one, new, desperate plea she’d written that morning, right before he’d shown up, again.

I asked for help. Not him. He’s fine now. Okay, maybe not fine. I’m afraid he’s lonely, and that he’ll never really let anyone love him. But he’s not miserable. He always wanted money and a nice house of his own. I know all that really means to him is a sense of security, which he never had before, but he’s got all that now.

Of course, she didn’t think those things made a person particularly happy. They would help her, in the shape she was in, but she didn’t think happiness was found in a big bank account and a nice house. Matt loved his work. She knew he was well-respected and keenly intelligent, and having people recognize those things meant something to him. If she ever asked for anything else for Matt, it would be that he let down his guard enough to let someone love him, but she wasn’t sure if he had it in him to love someone back. He’d always held himself apart from everyone else. Those were walls she feared would never come down.

She glanced back at the box, because there wasn’t anyone else to talk to at the moment. What do I do now?

If she’d expected a lightning bolt or a booming voice coming out of nowhere, it didn’t happen.

She just kept getting Matt at her door.

She supposed she had to go out there and let him make whatever offer he wanted, while she tried not to argue. He was right—he had made it terribly hard for her to help him, fighting all the way and nearly frustrating her to death. So, she would try not to do that to him. She’d try to just take what he offered, if her pride would let her.

Cathie found him in the kitchen wielding a knife covered with peanut butter. He’d made toast with peanut butter and jam.

“Wasn’t much to choose from,” he said. “And I knew you liked this.”

She’d made it for him ages ago. It had been one of her favorite treats as a child, and it sounded pretty good to her now. Bland, but filling.

“Thanks,” she said, having learned the hard way that she did not want to let her stomach stay empty for long, even if she didn’t feel like eating.

She sat down and nibbled gingerly. Matt sat and watched her.

“Better?” he asked, when she pushed her plate away.

“Yes.”

“So, you saw the guy?”

“Talked to him. He’s, uh…away for the weekend.” That’s what she’d believed. She’d never even doubted it. Was he such a good liar? Or was she just a fool? “Let’s just say I can’t believe I was that stupid.”

“Oh, Cathie. I’m sorry. He’s an ass. Lots of men are.”

She nodded, still having trouble believing how wrong she was. “He seemed so charming, and he was good-looking and all grown-up and sounded so sincere, and I fell for it completely. I believed everything he said, and he didn’t mean any of it.”

“And the baby? Is this boy—”

“He’s not a boy, Matt. He’s a grown man. One of my professors, actually.”

He swore roundly.

“It gets worse.” Cathie turned away, as angry at herself as she was at Tim. “He’s, uh…he’s married. I didn’t know. I swear. I never would have had anything to do with him, if I’d known. I guess they’ve been having some problems and were separated. Or maybe that was a lie, too. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, anyway. She’s been away, but she’s back now and wants to get back together. He offered me money, Matt. To have an abortion. I couldn’t do that.”

“Okay. Forget about him. The guy doesn’t deserve you or your baby.”

“I know.”

None of which changed the fact that she was going to have the man’s baby.

Cathie cleared the table and started cleaning the tiny kitchen, just to have something to do. It was so horrible. She was so ashamed.

“So, what are you going to do?” Matt asked finally, when she couldn’t find anything else to do to keep her from facing him.

“Have a baby, I guess.”

“And then what, Cathie?”

“I don’t know.”

A part of her wanted to run home to her mother and father, but she was about to become a mother herself. Surely that meant she couldn’t go running home to her own mom and dad, expecting them to fix everything.

“I’m really worried about my father,” she admitted. “He’s had a lot of medical tests lately, and no one’s saying why. But I know that means something’s up. With transplants, there are so many things that can go wrong, even after all this time. We’re not supposed to worry him, and he’s going to be so worried. I love him so much, and I’m afraid of what this might do to him, Matt.”

“Yeah, he’s going to worry. What about school? How much do you have left?”

“Year and a half. If I’m lucky, I might make it through spring semester, which would only leave a year, but still…” A whole year left, with a brand-new baby. “I think I really should consider giving this baby up for adoption.”

“Could you do it?”

“I don’t know. But there are people who can’t have children any other way, nice people who love each other and are married and have good jobs. I’m barely getting by. School is so expensive, and if I quit before I graduate, what kind of job will I be able to get? How could I take care of myself and a baby like that?”

“Cathie, I know you. If you give up this child, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. This would break your heart.”

“I know,” she cried. “But what else am I going to do?”

“Let’s deal with one thing at a time, okay? You want to keep this baby, right?”

“Yes,” she whispered. It was a part of her, and as upset as she was at the timing, she’d always known she wanted to be a mother. Her own mother had told her quite seriously that having children was both the hardest thing she’d ever done and the greatest joy of her life.

“You need to finish school,” Matt said. “But that all takes time and money. Time won’t be easy to come by with a baby, but money helps there, too, and let’s take money off the table right now, okay? It’s silly to let that stand in your way when I have more than I’ll ever need, and I’d give you anything you need.”

“Matt—”

“It’s mostly because of your family that I have what I do today. Don’t tell me I don’t get to give something back now,” he insisted. “Your father’s always talking about that, isn’t he? Giving something back?”

She nodded. He had her there.

“So, this is how I get to give you back a little of what your family gave me.”

“Okay, but still—”

“I’m not done. You’re worried that this will bring a lot of stress to your father and put his health in danger?”

“Yes.”

“What else?” he asked.

“I’m worried about this baby growing up without a father.”

“You don’t know this baby won’t have a father. You could find someone you love, someone you trust, and marry him. He could be a great father to this baby. And even if you were married right now, it’s no guarantee that you always would be. The guy could walk away. He could get hit by a bus. Anything could happen.”

“I’m still worried. Your father was never around, right?”

“Right.”

“And how was that?”

“It wasn’t that unusual where I came from. I mean, it’s definitely not the best of circumstances, but lots of kids don’t have fathers.”

“You never knew him?”

“Barely. He died when I was four or five. Got into a fight in a bar. Just a stupid, little thing, but then he was always into some kind of trouble like that.”

“Matt—”

“It’s nothing to me,” he insisted.

“A father shouldn’t be nothing to his child.”

“No, he shouldn’t.”

“Do you ever hear from your mother?”

“Sure. Any time she needs money. She saw something in the paper about my company a year and a half ago and came running with her hand out.”

“Were she and your father married?”

“No.”

“So…did the other kids give you a hard time about that? Did they call you…”

“A bastard?” He grinned and shook his head. “I’ve been called every name in the book, but not necessarily because my parents never married.”

“Still, it’s a big, bad world out there.”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “Look, I don’t know how things are these days, with so many single parents and divorced parents and all that, but twenty-five years ago when I was old enough to hear it and to ask what it meant, it wasn’t a lot of fun the first time it happened. But it’s far from being the worst thing life ever threw at me.”

“So, that’s not a big consideration, I guess.”

“Well, not necessarily. You’d feel better if you were married?”

“Of course.”

He nodded. “And your father wouldn’t worry so much.”

“No, but that’s not going to happen. Tim’s not going to marry me—”

“I wasn’t talking about that jerk.” He took her hand and held on tight. “Oh, hell, I was thinking… Look, I know it sounds crazy, but…I was talking about me. I think you should marry me, Cathie.”

She gaped at him. “You?”

He nodded. “For the baby.”

Cathie’s heart lurched painfully. For the baby. Of course. She tried not to let him see how this both touched her and hurt her, tried to keep it light. “That would be a bit drastic, don’t you think?”

“Give it a minute. It could work,” he claimed. “We could get married right away. Everyone would assume I was the father of your baby. For all intents and purposes, I would be.”

“What?”

“You want this baby to have a name, don’t you? You don’t want that jerk of a professor of yours to ever have anything to do with your baby.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I have a big house,” Matt went on. “There’s more than enough room for you and the baby. There’s a housekeeper who comes in twice a week, a sweet old grandmotherly type. We’ll have her come full-time to help with the baby while you’re in class. I know you want to finish school. You’ll have to, if you’re going to get back on your feet after this baby comes.”

Cathie stood there mutely. Matt had actually asked her to marry him. She used to dream that he would, but never like this.

“Your parents would buy it,” he went on. “You’ve been here since May. Your mother’s kept sending me over here to check on you, so they know we’ve been spending time together. We’ll tell her we wanted to keep this just between the two of us until we were sure about our feelings.”

“I can’t lie to them like that, Matt,” she said, struggling for any reason she could give him to stop this insanity.

“Will we have to? If we just call them and tell them we’re getting married, they’ll make all the logical assumptions.”

They would. Her parents would never expect her to marry for anything less than love. Still, to tell them she and Matt loved each other, to let them think it…

“It would still be a lie, Matt.”

Oh, please. Let it be a lie. Let her remember all the reasons she couldn’t love him.

Matt’s hand came up to the side of her face, so gently she thought she must be imagining this. He’d never touched her anymore. She closed her eyes, savoring the feel of his touch, as he let his hand linger against her cheek.

“We were good together once, Cathie. Everything was so easy between us. We were the best of friends. Remember?”

“Of course, I remember,” she cried. “You’re the one who forgot.”

He shook his head sadly. The tips of his fingers spread into her hair, his thumb brushing away her tears.

“I didn’t forget,” he said, his gaze locked on hers. “Cathie, you’ve always been special to me. I care about you. I always have. I’m not going to lie and say I love you, because you know it’s not that. But I do care, and I want to help.”

“I know, but…marriage—”

“It doesn’t have to mean anything,” he said. “At least nothing more than we want it to mean.”

She closed her eyes and hung her head down low. Matt’s hand was still on her face, and she felt him ease closer. Gently, he pressed her face against his shoulder and his arms came around her. He stroked her hair, whispered reassurances in her ear, while she wished with every bit of her heart that he could have loved her, just a little.

He was different now. The cool, remote man who’d slipped in and out of her life over the years had been so different from the utterly compelling one who’d shown up at her apartment twice in the last twelve hours. The one who held her in his arms while she cried, offering tantalizing glimpses of the man she always knew he could be.

“Think about all your family’s done for me,” he said. “It’s a debt I never thought I’d be able to repay.”

“Oh.” Of course. This was something he understood, something he believed in. Never take anything from anyone, unless you absolutely couldn’t help it. And if you did, find a way to pay it back. “Matt, my parents helped you because they wanted to, because they came to think of you as part of the family, and families take care of each other.”

“Fine, I’m family, and you’re in trouble. Let me help you,” he said, looking more determined than she’d ever seen him. “Think about the baby, Cath. I want your baby to have everything.”

“Everything you never had?” she suggested. “Is that why you’re doing this?”

“What if it is?” he said. “Look, I’ll be whatever you want me to be to your baby. I’ll be a name on a piece of paper. Someone you share a house with for a few years. Someone who sees your kid every other weekend and on major holidays. Whatever you want, Cathie, I’ll do it.”

“I don’t have any doubts about that.” Not for a second. He would take good care of her baby.

Cathie let out a long, slow breath. Last night, when she’d closed her eyes and tried to figure out what she should do, she kept imagining having her baby, handing it over to someone else and watching them walk away with her baby. The baby was crying, and Cathie was crying as well.

But now she saw Matt, her baby cradled tenderly in his arms.

Cathie’s heart started to thud in a hard, heavy rhythm. Hope warred equally with the urge to protect herself from him and everything she’d ever wanted, not just from him but for him. He needed someone to show him love was real and precious, worth fighting for, worth believing in. Maybe she wasn’t that person, but what if her baby was? What if that was the key to his heart?

Cathie’s mother always said babies were magical creatures, so innocent, so trusting, so accepting, that they could work miracles.

She could try to explain to Matt that he desperately needed someone to love, that his life wouldn’t be complete without it. She believed there was love inside of him, waiting for that one person who could draw it out. And her baby…

Maybe he could love her baby.

Maybe she did have something to give him, after all.

“Look, if it makes you feel any better, we can put a time limit on it,” he suggested. “Three years, Cath. Your parents gave me three years. Think where you and your baby could be in three years.”

That was Matt, practical to the end. If she’d had any illusions it might be something more…

Still, the situation was what it was. She was pregnant, and he was making her a very generous offer. In three years, she could have her degree and a teaching job. She’d have a two-year-old she could put in day-care, if she had to. Not the kind of life she’d imagined, but a lot more than she’d thought she’d have last night.

“Then what?” she said carefully. “We’d just walk away from each other?”

“Sure.”

He probably believed that. That they could live together for three years, and then just walk away from each other. Was she crazy to think he might feel differently before those three years were up?

“Cathie, you’re making this more complicated than it has to be. All we have to do is make it through the ceremony without your family getting too suspicious. Then we come back here, move you into my house and get on with our lives. You can go to school. I’ll go to work. You’ll have your baby. And when this marriage has served its purpose, we’ll end it. That’s it.”

Oh, he did need someone to love. He needed it desperately. Who’d give that to him? Who would he ever let close enough, if not her and her baby?

Matt took her chin in his hand and tilted her face to his. “Marry me, Cathie.”

Her breath caught in her throat, because he was so close, so solidly reassuring, so sincere. She opened her mouth to object one more time.

Matt pressed the pad of his thumb to her lips. “I’ll take good care of you and the baby. I promise.”

Her eyes filled with tears that spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “I know you will.”

Cathie felt the ache deep inside her give way. All of a sudden, the tightness was gone. A feeling of peace came over her. She knew she could safely entrust her life and her baby’s to Matt. Her heart might well be another matter, because she was going to lose it once more to him, if she hadn’t already, just by being here with him and seeing him again.

He had to quit hiding the kind, tender man he could be.

In the end, it was something her father told her that made up her mind.

Her father saw an order and a purpose to everything. He believed people’s lives fit together in exactly the way they were meant to. And then he threw in a little of the philosophy of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. That you didn’t always get what you wanted, but sometimes, you got exactly what you needed.

Cathie had said a lot of prayers in the last twenty-four hours. There’d been a time when she’d tearfully offered up endless, rambling prayers on Matt’s behalf.

Maybe this was her answer to all of them.

“You’re sure?” she said, giving him one last chance to back down.

“I’m sure.” He smiled, the reckless bad-boy smile of his youth. “Say yes, Cathie.”

She closed her eyes and whispered, “Yes.”

Matt fastened his strong arms around her and held her close. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he promised.

And in that instant, Cathie believed him.

She was trembling, so he held on to her for a while. He could take care of her now. Buy her a decent car, and see that she had the best medical care for her and the baby, and that she didn’t have to work for a while. Maybe when they separated, he could find a way to talk her into letting him support her and the baby afterward. He’d never miss a dime of the money, and he liked the idea of her and the baby having it.

Yeah, he’d do that, when the time came.

First, he had to make sure she didn’t back out on the wedding.

“We need to tell your parents,” he said.

She eased out of his arms and looked a little panicked. “I will.”

“No. Now. We don’t have any time to waste, do we?” he asked, glancing pointedly at her midsection. It was hard to imagine Cathie growing big and round with a baby. And then he remembered something. “Christmas is only three weeks away. We can use that as our excuse.”

“Excuse?”

“For getting married so quickly.” She gave a little squeak of distress. “It’s all right. It’s not like we’re going to have a big wedding. And we can’t spend six months planning it, right?”

“No, we can’t. But—”

“Your mother said all of your brothers are supposed to make it home this year, and you’d want to have all of them there, if you were getting married for real, right?”

“Yes.”

“We have to make this look real, Cath,” he said softly, fighting the urge to push even harder. Once she told her parents, that was it. There’d be no backing out. Picking up the cordless phone on the table by the sofa, he said, “Call.”

She looked kind of pitiful, like she might cry some more. “I hate lying to them.”

“It’s not a lie,” he insisted.

The voice of Mary Baldwin rose up inside him. She would definitely think omitting several pertinent facts constituted a lie. He wondered how well she would take the idea of him marrying her daughter.

Matt dialed the number and held out the phone to Cathie.

“I can’t,” she said, shaking again. “You do it.”

He pulled her against his side, so she wouldn’t run away, as Mary came on the line. It was a good thing one of them could tell not-quite-lies so well. That skill was going to come in handy before they were done. “Hello, Mary.”

“Matt? I hope you have some news for me. How’s my girl?”

Here we go. No time like the present. “She’s fine, but she’s going to be my girl. I finally talked her into marrying me.”

No lie there. It had taken a great deal of talking to convince her.

“What?”

“You heard me. She’s going to marry me.”

There were shrieks from the other end of the phone, then tears, then laugher. He’d forgotten how loud the Baldwins could be when they were happy. Before long, Cathie’s parents were both on the line. They didn’t offer a single objection to entrusting their only daughter to Matt, much to his surprise. They welcomed him warmly back into the family, claiming that in their eyes, he’d always been one of them. They’d just make it official now.

“Matt, I need a moment alone on the phone with my little girl, if you don’t mind,” Mary said. “Especially if we’re going to pull off a wedding in three weeks!”

Matt handed over the phone. Cathie pulled her knees to her chest and the phone to her ear.

“Yes,” she said. “If Daddy performs the service, Brett can walk me down the aisle… I love Grandma’s wedding dress. It’s perfect… Whatever decorations are put up for Christmas at the church will be fine. It’s one less thing to worry about… No, just a small thing at home afterward. We just want everyone there.”

She was doing fine. She and Mary would have to work so hard to pull off the wedding so quickly, Mary would hardly have time to ask questions.

And then he heard Mary’s voice say, “You love him, don’t you?”

Oh, hell.

The whole plan would fall apart. Cathie wouldn’t lie about a thing like that.

It got quiet for a minute. He wished he’d taken more time to convince her this was the right thing to do and that it was no big deal. Hell, the house was so big and he worked such crazy hours, he’d hardly ever see her and the baby. And his debt to the Baldwins would be paid.

Cathie looked up at him like he was the only solid thing in her world at the moment. She put a hand to her still-flat stomach, and he held his breath, waiting to hear what she’d say. If she’d just think of the promises he’d made her. He’d meant every one of them. He would be here for her and her baby, no matter what. They could make this work.

You love him, don’t you?

“I do,” Cathie whispered.

Matt nodded, telling her with his eyes that it was the right thing to do, and then he could breathe again, hadn’t even been aware that he’d stopped. Life was so strange sometimes.

A moment later, the conversation was over. Matt took the phone from Cathie’s trembling hand and put it back on the table at his side, then faced Cathie again. “You okay?”

“My mother asked me if I loved you, and I told her that I do. For what you’re doing,” she rushed on breathlessly. “For me and the baby. I do love you.”

“I know.”

He understood exactly what she meant, but found himself remembering the last time he’d heard those words. They’d come from her then, too. She’d been sixteen and mad as hell.

I love you, Matt.

He’d thrown it back in her face, as if the words hadn’t meant a thing to him, as if she didn’t, either. She’d been wrong, of course. Not that it was so surprising she might think she loved him. She loved so many people. Everyone. Nearly everything. She was extravagant with it, as if there was an abundance of it inside of her, and it was nothing to add one more person to the list of those she loved.

It seemed to come so easily to her, too. Love. It was one of the things about her that had fascinated the crazy, half-wild boy he used to be.

He’d always thought she was begging to get hurt, by loving so easily and so generously. Which, no doubt, was what had happened. She’d fallen for some guy who was completely undeserving of her. It still made him furious, just thinking about it.

He wanted to tell her there was nothing to love. That it was all an illusion, bound to do nothing but hurt her even more, if she persisted in believing in it still.

But her words rolled around oddly inside his body, rattling around his brain, floating around in his chest and the pit of his stomach.

Just words.

They’d scared him so much all those years ago, and somehow sounded so good to him now.

Chapter Four

Matt reverted back to form so quickly and so completely, Cathie thought she might have dreamt that crazy twenty-four hours in which he’d magically appeared in response to her hastily scribbled prayer, heard all her secrets, then talked her into marrying him.

If not for the phone calls from her mother as they planned a wedding—hers and Matt’s—for the day after Christmas, she wouldn’t have believed it actually happened.

Matt became the polished, confident businessman once again, orchestrating their marriage as he might a business deal. Cathie talked to his secretary as often as she spoke to him, and when she did, he was fast-talking, making decisions in a split second, trying to pay for everything and handle everything.

He arranged to have her things moved into his house after the wedding, wanted her to have an entirely new wardrobe, which seemed ridiculous until he pointed out that it couldn’t look like he wasn’t providing for his wife. She swallowed her pride and spent his money as sparingly as possible, so that if she needed to look like Mrs. Matthew Monroe on occasion, she could do it without embarrassing him.

Matt insisted that she see an obstetrician, the best in town, a woman who came highly recommended by three of his female staff members.

He drove her to the appointment himself—the only time she saw him in that three weeks—and played the attentive husband-to-be perfectly. She tried not to catch her breath every time he got too close, tried not to let those old dreams of her and Matt, together and in love, seep back into her head. How would she be able to breathe once they got married and he was nearby all the time?

The doctor was friendly and thorough. Alone in the exam room with her, Cathie asked for an AIDS test and one for sexually transmitted diseases. A man had gotten her pregnant, after all. She had to consider he might have given her something else, too. The doctor merely nodded, promising to call with the results. She said the baby was just fine and calculated Cathie’s due date as July 15.

Matt wanted her to see his house, had offered to let her make any changes she wanted, but the house was the last thing on her mind.

She had to figure out what she was going to do. Try to slip into his life as unobtrusively as possible? Be grateful for what he was doing and for the fact that she’d be able to keep her baby? Or go for broke? Open up her heart and her life completely to him, in hopes he might love her back?

He made it sound like they were going to do nothing but share his house and his checkbook. Like he wasn’t the same man who’d held her so tenderly and made her all those beautiful promises about taking care of her and her baby, saving her in a way that humbled her and had given her all those crazy ideas that maybe…just maybe…he could love her.

Was she going to marry the man who’d been so kind and so gentle with her, or the completely self-contained businessman who’d swear he didn’t need anyone?

She feared it would be the latter.

That was the one who showed up three weeks later to drive her to her parents’ house for the wedding. Matt, all slick and polished, as calm and sure of himself as ever, driving that pricey, steel-gray sports car of his.

She had so many doubts she thought she might drown in them.

Matt carried her bags to the car and opened the passenger side door for her. She stood by the car door, gazing back at the tired-looking, old house she’d called home for the brief time she’d been here, wondering where she’d be three years from now and if she had the courage to take this leap of faith.

“You can’t change your mind now,” Matt said softly.

“I know.” But a smart woman would still try to protect her heart.

Cathie got in the car, trying not to look back anymore. Matt knelt down in the open door of the car and said, “I won’t let you down, Cathie. I’ll do everything I promised.”

And her silly heart started thumping like crazy. There was that man again.

“I know you will,” she said.

But what if she asked him for more? What if she found the courage? Would it be like that awful time when she was sixteen and had thrown herself at him?

“You don’t look so sure, Cath.”

“Just nervous.”

“About seeing everyone? About making them believe this is real?”

“About everything,” she confessed, and thought he was going to take her in his arms again. That would be nice. Maybe she wouldn’t cry or forget to breathe, and then she could just enjoy the feeling of having his arms around her.

Nothing felt like being in Matt’s arms.

She dared a glance at his face. He might have turned to stone, right there hunkered down in the doorway of the car. Finally, he said, “It’s the right thing to do.”

That was the businessman talking. The one who drove a status symbol, probably lived in one, as well. Couldn’t she just have her teenage car thief back? She’d understood him so much better and known how to handle him.

“Just keep thinking about the baby,” he said.

“Okay.” That helped. “I’ll always be grateful to you for this.”

“And don’t thank me again,” he said, giving her a warning look.

She fell silent. He stood up, came around to the driver’s side of the car, and off they went. They made it out of the city and onto the interstate, heading west toward the mountains, before he said anything else.

“All we have to do is get through Christmas and the wedding. It’s three days. Then we can live our own lives,” he said. “Your parents will come to visit every now and then. Your brothers might show up from time to time, but that’s it. No one else is going to put this marriage under a microscope and try to analyze it or judge it. We get through these three days, and we have nothing to worry about.”

“You’re right. It’s just…it’s not going to be easy. They’ll expect certain things from us….”

They’d expect her to be in love with him. How hard would that be? All she’d have to do was drop her guard and let all those old feelings show through. But at the same time, she had other secrets to hold inside. The fact that she was pregnant. That the baby wasn’t Matt’s, and that her marriage was intended to be nothing but a sham.

How was she going to manage that?

“Cathie, we’re talking about your family at Christmas and on the day you get married. It’s going to be pure chaos. A dozen people dropping by to see you and your brothers and your parents. Everyone talking at once, pulling us in six different directions and probably not giving us a moment’s peace. It’s a perfect setup for us.”

“You’re right.” Maybe they could pull it off. And then they’d be married. Oh, boy.

“Try to relax.” Matt punched a few buttons, turning up the heat, bringing soft, soothing music from the CD player. He grabbed his overcoat from the back seat and put it over her. “Or maybe try to get some sleep. It’s going to be a long three days.”

So, he was going to take care of her? That would be nice. And familiar. When she was a little girl, pestering him shamelessly and leaving him wanting nothing more than to get away, he’d still been the first person to come running if she ever got into trouble or got hurt.

She was starting to worry that it wasn’t fair to him, to marry him letting him think this was going to be nothing but a sham when she wanted so much more. That was about as dishonest as a woman could get, wasn’t it?

Or was this the chance she’d always wanted with him? One for him to have all the things he so desperately needed. She wasn’t sure if he’d ever loved anyone in his whole life, and he wasn’t going to start now, not on his own. She doubted he was even looking for anything like love, and his life seemed so empty to her.

But it was his life, and he claimed to like it just fine.

Who was she to turn it upside down? Or to claim she wanted one thing from him, when she wanted something else completely?

“You’re worrying again,” he said.

“Sorry. Are you sure this is what you want to do?” There. She just said it.

“Cathie, the whole thing was my idea. I’m sure.”

“It may not turn out the way we planned,” she tried. “I mean, life would be so much simpler if things just worked out the way we expected them to.”

“What do you expect to happen, Cathie?”

“I don’t know. Things have a way of getting complicated.” She thought about saying she didn’t want to hurt him, but he’d think that was ridiculous. He was like the man of steel, couldn’t be hurt. The man without a heart. So her heart was the only one at risk, right?

She just didn’t know.

He took her cold hand in his warm one. “Cathie, just let me take care of things for a while, okay?”

“I’m trying to.” She closed her eyes, trying not to think too much about what was right and what was wrong, trying to just be grateful to him for giving her and her baby this chance.

She slept, waking when they were only five minutes from her home.

“Matt!” she complained.

“What? You wanted more time to be nervous?”

“No.”

He grinned. “That’s what you would have done, and you know it.”

She might have begged him to stop, told him it was all a big mistake, that they couldn’t go through with this. As it was, she didn’t have time to do anything. They pulled up to the house. Someone must have been watching for them, because people started spilling out. Everyone was talking at once. There were hugs and kisses and more tears. Matt got pulled one way, and she was dragged another.

Her mother and her aunts wanted to go over every detail of the wedding, until her head was spinning. Sprinkled into that conversation came questions about her and Matt, about how secretive they’d been and how despite that, no one was really surprised. Had she been that transparent in her feelings for him? She supposed she had and didn’t want to think of what everyone was telling Matt.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.