“There’s no reason why we couldn’t have an affair.”

He continued ruthlessly, “If it’s been thirteen years since you’ve made love with anyone, you’re long overdue. And I know I am.”

Marnie stood very still, and of all the emotions churning in her belly, she couldn’t have said which was uppermost. Desire? Fury? She said, finally, “That would be so easy for you, wouldn’t it? Your daughter in Burnham and your mistress in Faulkner. Everything compartmentalized.”

“Easy? No. But I can’t deny that I want you. And I want you as my mistress far more than Kit needs you as a mother!”

Although born in England, SANDRA FIELD has lived most of her life in Canada: she says the silence and emptiness of the north speaks to her particularly. While she enjoys traveling, and passing on her sense of a new place, she often chooses to write about the city which is now her home. Sandra says, “I write out of my experience; I have learned that love with its joys and its pains is all-important. I hope this knowledge enriches my writing, and touches a chord in you, the reader.”

The Mother Of His Child
Sandra Field

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 THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

MARNIE Carstairs pulled her car over on the shoulder of the road; the motor gave its usual asthmatic wheeze, then settled down to a low grumble. From her vantage point on the crest of the hill, she could see the town of Burnham spread out below. Her destination. The place that might answer—at least partially—some of the terrible questions she’d lived with for nearly thirteen years.

No wonder her hands were ice-cold and her throat tight with anxiety.

Burnham was a pretty town on this sunny Sunday in late April, situated as it was around the shores of an inlet of the Atlantic. Its houses and shops were painted bright colors, while its church spires pointed cheerfully to the high-piled clouds and the wheeling gulls. A few yachts admired their own reflections in the silky water, their hulls crisply painted white and blue. On the wooded hills that overlooked the town, Marnie could pick out the stone buildings of Burnham University. Did Calvin Huntingdon work there? Perhaps his wife did, too.

It was their names that had brought Marnie here today. Calvin and Jennifer Huntingdon of Burnham, Nova Scotia. Two names, a place and a date: the date of birth of Marnie’s child all those years ago, the child who had been, against her knowledge and her every wish, adopted. The child she had not seen or heard of since then.

If her mother hadn’t died at fifty-two, a death that no one had anticipated, least of all Charlotte Carstairs herself, Marnie would never have found that single piece of paper in a plain white envelope in her mother’s safe. She was sure of it. Her mother would have destroyed it.

The Huntingdons’ names had been printed on the paper in Charlotte Carstairs’s angular script, along with the birth date and the name of this little town: a discovery that had rocked Marnie to her roots.

The Huntingdons must have adopted her child. What other conclusion could she come to?

Briefly, the town blurred in her vision. She stared down at the steering wheel, noticing that her fingernails had dug tiny crescents into the vinyl covering, and that her wrists were taut from the strain of her grip. She had very strong fingers and wrists; for the past five years she’d been learning how to rock climb. Making a deliberate effort to relax, she blew out her breath in a long sigh, checked in the rearview mirror and engaged the clutch. No point in sitting here. She’d come this far, she’d at least follow through on the rest of her plan.

If you could call it a plan.

As she pulled back on the highway, she noticed that the bank of clouds to the southeast had lowered over the hills, the edges of the clouds swabbed with a theatrical blend of purple and gray. Storm clouds. Then a gust riffled the water and the yachts swayed uneasily at their moorings.

It wasn’t an omen. Of course it wasn’t.

The Huntingdons’ address was engraved on Marnie’s mind; she’d found it, all too easily, in the phone book. Her plan, such as it was, was to drive past the house and check it out; at least that way she’d see where her child was living.

And was she praying that a twelve-year-old girl would run out of the house just as she drove by?

Basically, she didn’t have a plan. She’d come here because she couldn’t possibly have done otherwise. No force on earth could have kept her away. Even though she was afraid that her action would tear open old wounds better left alone.

The Huntingdons would be wealthy; Charlotte Carstairs would have seen to that. No, Marnie had never worried about the material circumstances of the baby she had never seen. It was other concerns that had haunted her over the years. Was her daughter loved? Was she happy? Did she know she was adopted? Or did she believe that the two people bringing her up were her true parents?

Calvin Huntingdon her real father, and Jennifer her only mother.

Stop it, Marnie, she scolded herself. One step at a time. Check out the house first and then go from there. This is a small town; you can buy yourself a pizza at the local hangout and ask a few discreet questions about the Huntingdons. Stop for gas down the street and do the same thing there. No one can hide in a place the size of Burnham. You grew up in Conway Mills; you know all about small towns.

As if on a signal, the sun disappeared behind the clouds, Burnham’s narrow main street darkening as if a blanket had been thrown over it. Or a shroud, she thought with a shiver of her nerves. If this were a movie, they’d be playing spooky music right now, the kind that warns you something really scary’s going to happen.

She made it a policy to stay away from horror movies. The footsteps-coming-up-the-stairs-and-you-know-it’s-thebad-guy-with-an-ax kind of movie.

On impulse, Marnie turned into a paved parking lot to her left, which surrounded a small strip mall and an ice-cream stand decorated with little flags that were now snapping in the wind. Spring had come early to Nova Scotia this year. The day was unseasonably warm, and Marnie adored ice cream; it was number two on her list of comfort foods, right up there with barbecued chips. A flea market was going on in the mall, so the parking lot was fairly crowded. She drew up several rows away from the ice-cream stand, grabbed her purse and hurried between the parked vehicles. In front of the stand, half a dozen girls in jeans and anoraks were arguing about their favorite flavors; Marnie’s heart gave a painful lurch, her eyes racing from one to the other of them. But they were all younger than twelve.

She didn’t even know what her own child looked like.

Marnie bit hard on her lip and forced herself to scan the list of flavors. Another gust rattled the striped awning, and the last of the six girls took her cone from the attendant and put down her money.

“I’ll have a double, please,” Marnie said. “Cherry swirl on the bottom and mocha fudge on top.”

It wasn’t the time to worry about calories. She needed all the help she could get now that she was actually here in Burnham and she’d go for a jog on the beach when she got home tonight.

With a snap like a pellet, the first raindrop hit the awning. “Gonna have a little storm,” the woman said affably. “But that’s April for you. ’Bout as dependable as a kid on rollerblades.”

The rain now sounded like a machine-gun attack. “Maybe it won’t last long,” Marnie offered.

“On again, off again, been like that the past few days. There you are, miss, that’s two dollars.”

Marnie paid, grabbed a wad of paper napkins and took a hefty bite from the mocha fudge. To give herself courage, she was wearing her new denim overalls with a turquoise turtleneck and matching turquoise flats. The sweater emphasized the unusual color of her eyes, which were also turquoise, rather like an ocean shoal on a summer’s day. Her earrings, big gold hoops, were almost hidden by a tumble of bright chestnut curls. The wind caught in her hair, tossing it around her head, and hurriedly she stepped back under the awning.

Although the rain showed no signs of abating, now that she was this close, Marnie craved action even if it was only to see the house. She said to the attendant, “Can you direct me to Moseley Street?”

“Sure thing. Go right through town to where the road forks. The left turn’s Moseley. Wow—hear that thunder?”

“Thanks,” Marnie said, lifting her face to the sky. All nature’s excesses tended to exhilarate rather than frighten her. In a surge of optimism, she thought, I’ll see where my daughter lives, I’ll find out she has the best of parents, and I’ll go home with my mind at rest. Knowing she’s loved and happy.

Peace. Closure of a kind. She was long overdue for both.

She took another big hunk out of the ice cream and plunged out into the rain, her shoes slapping on the wet pavement. Raindrops stung her face, almost as if they were hail, her sweater sticking wetly to her skin. Head down, she raced for her car. Luckily, she hadn’t bothered to lock it.

A dark green Cherokee was parked next to it. As she lunged for the door handle of her own car, a man suddenly appeared from behind the Cherokee, traveling fast, his head bent against the rain. Marnie yelped a warning, stopping in her tracks. The man looked up, but his momentum carried him forward so that he drove her hard against the driver’s door. He was a big man. Her ice cream inscribed a neat arc in the air and plopped onto the hood of the Cherokee, leaving her holding the empty cone. Runnels of pink and brown splattered the shiny green paint, along with walnuts and little chunks of bright red maraschino cherries.

Marnie began to laugh, gurgles of infectious laughter that made twin dimples appear in her cheeks. “Oh, no,” she gasped, “cherries on the Cherokee. I am sorry, I wasn’t watching where I was going and…” She broke off, puzzled. “What’s wrong?”

The man still had her jammed against the door of her car. Water was dripping onto his forehead from his black hair, which was cut short and had a tendency to curl. His eyes were blue, so dark a blue as to be almost gray, and deep set. Like a quarry, Marnie thought, a slate quarry. His nose was crooked and his cheekbones wide-spaced: details that gave his face character. For he was—and she had decided this in the merest instant—the most attractive man she’d ever seen.

Attractive? He gave a whole new dimension to that word. Drop-dead gorgeous would be more like it.

He also seemed to have been struck dumb. His silence gave her time to feel through her clothing his lean muscularity and to appreciate his height—several inches taller than her five foot nine. He looked, she realized belatedly, as though he’d had a severe shock; nor had he, even momentarily, laughed at the ludicrous sight of her airborne ice cream. Suddenly frightened, she shoved against him and repeated, “What’s the matter?”

Slowly, he straightened to his full height, his gaze glued to her face. She could feel her cheeks flush from more than her headlong run through the rain. In a hoarse voice, he demanded, “Who are you?”

It wasn’t the response she’d expected. Distant lightning flickered across his face, shadowing the lines of strain around his mouth. He was pale under his tan and his eyes were blank: as though he’d been shaken to his foundations. Into the silence between lightning and thunder, Marnie countered, “What do you mean, who am I?”

He ran his fingers through his wet hair, disarranging it still more. “Exactly what I say. I want to know your name and I want to know what you’re doing here.”

“Look,” she said forcefully, “I’m sorry we bumped into each other and I’m sorry I got ice cream on your nice new car. But I’ve got enough napkins here to clean up four cars, and you bumped into me just as much as I bumped into—”

“Just answer the question.”

Thunder rumbled melodramatically overhead. Marnie’s eyes darted around her. No one else in sight. All the sensible people were indoors waiting for the rain to end. Which was precisely where she ought to be. “I don’t have to answer any of your questions,” she retorted. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

“I’ve got to know who you are!”

Exasperated, Marnie announced, “I’m not in the habit of telling strange men my name—especially ones as big and dangerous-looking as you.”

“Dangerous?” he repeated blankly.

“You’re darn right.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Listen, can we start over? And in the meantime, why don’t we get in my car? You’re getting soaked.”

“Not on your life.”

“You’re reading me all wrong,” he said, making an obvious effort to speak more normally. “I’m not trying to abduct you or harm you in any way—that’s the last thing on my mind. But I’ve got to talk to you and we’re both getting wetter by the moment. Here, I’ll give you my car keys, then you’ll know we’re not going anywhere.”

He fished in the pocket of his faded cords and produced a key ring, then passed it to her. Marnie took it automatically, although she was careful not to touch him. The keys were warm from his body. “I’d rather get wet, thank you very much,” she said. “No way am I getting in the vehicle of a total stranger. What do you think I am, nuts?”

For the first time, something like a smile loosened the taut lines of his face. “If I didn’t feel as though I’ve just had the rug pulled right out from under me, I might even see this as funny,” he said. “I’m an entirely respectable citizen of Burnham who’s never once in the past fifteen years been seen as remotely dangerous. Not even around university administrators, who are enough to make a saint contemplate homicide. Although, when I think about it, there might be a few gun-toting guerrillas in Third-World countries who’d agree with you.”

Guerrillas? With guns? And he was trying to reassure her? She said tartly, “Respectable citizen? Huh.” In one quick glance, she took in the impressive width of his shoulders and the depth of his rib cage. “You’d look right at home having a showdown with a bunch of thugs.”

“I assure you, I lead a blameless life,” he said, a gleam of self-mockery in his slate blue eyes.

The lightning was a hard flash this time, much closer; Marnie’s overalls were, by now, clinging clammily to her legs. She added, “Anyway, you could have another set of keys in your other pocket.”

His smile grew wider and definitely more convincing. Yikes, Marnie thought, you shouldn’t be allowed out, mister. The woman isn’t born who could resist that smile. And she watched as he turned out both pockets and patted the pockets on his shirt to show they were empty. It was a blue shirt, now molded by the rain to his flat belly. “Please,” he said.

A raindrop trickled down the shallow cleft in his chin; he could have done with a shave, which added to his general air of unreliability.

Wondering if she was being a complete idiot, Marnie unlocked the passenger door of the Cherokee and pushed the button to unlock all the other doors. A peal of thunder battered its way noisily across the parking lot. As she gave him one last suspicious scrutiny, he yelled, “Aren’t you afraid of lightning storms?”

“No. It’s large, angry men I’m afraid of,” she yelled back. Then she climbed in the Cherokee, putting the keys in her pocket and waiting for him to get in. On the drive to Burnham, when she’d tried to imagine what might happen today, her wildest fantasies couldn’t have come up with this scenario.

As he opened his door, he said, “I thought all women were scared of thunder.”

“That’s a huge generalization. I love thunderstorms, hurricanes and blizzards. Shut the door, you’re letting the rain in.”

He climbed in, slammed the door and turned toward her in his seat, raking her features almost as though he’d never seen a woman before; the smile had vanished. In a voice charged with suppressed emotion, he said, “What’s your name, where are you from and what are you here for?”

“Why do you want to know all that?”

He hesitated perceptibly. “You…remind me of someone.”

As her brain, finally, swung into action, Marnie’s heart began to beat with sick, heavy strokes. There was only one reason why she should resemble someone he knew…wasn’t there? Clenching her fists against her wet dungarees, feeling more afraid than she’d ever been in her life, she took a giant step into the unknown. “Do I remind you of a twelve-year-old girl who lives in this town?” she croaked.

CHAPTER TWO

THE man’s mouth thinned. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking the questions. For God’s sake, tell me who you are!”

“My name’s Marnie Carstairs. I live in Faulkner Beach—fifty miles down the coast.” Although his eyes were as hard as stones, giving as little away, Marnie forced herself to take a second momentous step. “Is your name Calvin Huntingdon?”

In a ferocious whisper, he demanded, “How do you know who I am?”

She sagged back against the seat. He was Calvin Huntingdon. This was the man who’d lived with her child for nearly thirteen years. This was the man her daughter would call father. Her daughter existed. Lived right here in Burnham.

Tears flooded Marnie’s eyes. She fought them back, she who had fought back so much emotion in her thirty years. Swallowing hard, staring at the rain that was streaming down the windshield, she asked her third question in the same tight voice. “Did you adopt a baby girl nearly thirteen years ago? She was born on the twenty-second of June.”

His breath hissed through his teeth. As Marnie’s eyes flickered over his features, she saw that once again he looked thoroughly dangerous. “How did you get my name?” he grated. “Adoption papers can only be accessed by the child, and only then as an adult.”

“Does it matter?” she asked tonelessly. “It was by chance, that’s all. Pure chance.”

“You expect me to believe that? Come off it—what’s the name of the game?”

Through the pain and confusion that was surging through her, Marnie felt the stirrings of anger. She scrubbed at her wet cheeks with the napkins that she still seemed to be clutching, sat up straighter and looked right at him. “There’s something very wrong with this scene. I’m not on trial here!”

With a deadly quietness, he said, “Then why are you here?”

And how could she answer that? When she herself didn’t know the answer. Hadn’t gotten any further in her planning than to drive past the Huntingdons’ house and to ask a few innocent questions of people who’d never link her with a child adopted all those years ago. And finally her mind made the connection that had been glaringly obvious ever since she’d collided with Calvin Huntingdon. “She…she looks like me,” she stumbled. “My daughter…she looks like me.”

Some of the tension eased from her body. A smile spread slowly over her face, a smile of such wonderment and joy that the depths of her irises were as translucent as the sea, and her soft, vulnerable mouth as gently curved as a new moon. Her daughter bore the marks of her true mother; was, in a very real way, her own flesh.

He said harshly, “Very touching. Are you an actress, Marnie Carstairs? Or do you just watch too many soap operas?”

Her jaw dropped. In a burst of antagonism, she snapped, “Do you treat her like this? My daughter? Doubting everything she says? Jeering at all her emotions? Because if so, then you’re not fit to be her father.”

“She’s not your daughter! You gave up that right a long time ago.”

“She’ll always be my daughter,” Marnie cried. “No one on earth can convince me otherwise—and certainly not you.”

“So what about the father?” he lashed. “Where’s he? Or are you saving him up for another day?”

“He’s none of your business.”

“Get real. Why have you turned up in Burnham thirteen years after the fact? What are you after—money? Is that it?”

To her own surprise, Marnie started to laugh. A ragged laugh, but a laugh nevertheless. “Right on—I’m after your money. Give me a million bucks or else I’ll turn up on your doorstep and raise hell.” Her voice rose. “How dare you? You don’t know the first thing about me and you dare accuse me—”

“I know you gave up your child nearly thirteen years ago. It seems to me I know rather a lot about you, Miss Carstairs.”

Marnie had gone too far for discretion. “She duped me, my mother. I thought I was going to marry my cousin Randall and all three of us would live together—me, Randall and the baby. Oh, God, it’s such a long story and I was such a stupid little fool to trust her, but—”

“I’m sure it’s a long story,” he interrupted smoothly. “After all, you’ve had a long time to come up with it, haven’t you? But oddly enough, it’s not a story I want to hear. Just answer me one question. Why did you come here today?”

“You know what?” Marnie retorted with deliberate provocation, flags of temper reddening her cheeks, her breasts heaving under her wet sweater. “I don’t like you, Calvin Huntingdon.”

“You don’t have to like me. And I don’t go by Calvin. The name’s Cal.”

“Oh, sure,” she said rudely. “So we’re on a first-name basis. Isn’t that just ducky?”

“I’ll tell you one thing,” he said. “I’m beginning to realize where my daughter comes by her temper. And her red hair.”

“My hair isn’t red,” Marnie snapped childishly. “It’s auburn. Which is quite different.” The storm of emotion in her breast craving release, she gave him a narrow-eyed scrutiny. “And you just blew it—because you didn’t have the slightest intention of telling me one single thing about her, did you, Mr. Huntingdon?”

“No, I wasn’t going to tell you anything,” he said savagely. “But there’s something about you—you sure know how to get under my skin. So why don’t I go for broke and tell you something else I’ve discovered in the past few minutes? She’ll be beautiful, my daughter. Quite extraordinarily beautiful.”

Marnie wasn’t often struck speechless; she worked, after all, as a librarian in a junior high school where repartee was part of her strategy for keeping the lid on her students. But right now she couldn’t think of one word to say. To her intense dismay, she felt a blush creep up her cheeks all the way to her hairline. To her equally intense dismay, his compliment—for compliment it was—gave her a thrill of pleasure deep down in that place she never allowed a man to go.

Cal banged his fist on the steering wheel. “I don’t believe I just said that.”

Finding her voice, Marnie said shrewishly, “Your wife would be most impressed,” and tried to keep her mind off both his wife and his profile, which was every bit as attractive as the rest of him. His nose had a little bump in it, and his chin—well, arrogant would be one word to describe that hard line of bone. Arrogant. Masculine in the extreme. Sexy.

Sexy? A man’s jaw? What was the matter with her?

A married man, moreover. Who—the ultimate irony—happened to be the father of her child.

The jaw she had just been admiring tightened ominously. “Let’s leave my wife out of this and get back to the essentials. Why you’re here. What you want from me.”

“Oh,” she said gently, “what I want is something I’m not going to get. That’s very clear.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?”

“Compassion, Cal. Simple compassion. That’s all.”

She had, she saw, taken him by surprise. She didn’t know Cal Huntingdon very well, but she was sure it wasn’t often that he was knocked off balance. Especially by a woman. He said flatly, “Compassion has to be earned.”

“Then I’ll tell you why I’m here. I wanted to see the house where my daughter lives. I’d hoped to ask a few questions of the locals, find out what you’re like. You and your wife. To see—” her voice shook in spite of herself “—if my child is happy.”

“And that’s all?”

She hated him for so openly doubting her. “Do you honestly believe I’d turn up on your doorstep without a word of warning?” she flared. “Oh, hello, I happen to be your daughter’s biological mother and I was just passing by and thought I’d drop in. For heaven’s sake, I don’t even know if she realizes she’s adopted! What kind of woman do you think I am?”

“I’d have to have the brains of Einstein to answer that.”

“Does she know? That she’s adopted?” Marnie whispered, twisting her hands painfully in her lap as she waited for him to sneer at her again, to deny her information that was crushingly important to her.

“Look at me, Marnie.” There was a note in his voice new to her. She raised her head and saw, momentarily, something that was perhaps compassion. He said quietly, “Yes, she knows she’s adopted. We were truthful with her about that from the start. We thought it best in the long run.”

Marnie blinked back another flood of tears. “Do you see what that means?” she blundered. “It means that—even if minimally—she knows I exist.”

“You and the man who fathered her.”

Two tears dripped on her clasped fingers. Refusing to acknowledge them, Marnie said steadily, “That’s right.”

He said evenly, “There’s one thing you haven’t asked me.”

“Is she happy?”

“I didn’t mean that. You haven’t asked me her name. The name we gave our daughter.”

More tears welled up on her lashes. She’d been afraid to ask. “So what did you call her, Cal?”

“Katrina. Katrina Elizabeth. She goes by Kit.”

Suddenly, it was all too much for Marnie. Desperate to be alone, she fumbled for the door handle. Blinded by tears, sobs strangling her breathing, she yanked on the catch. Cal caught her by the shoulder. Frantically, she twisted free of him. “Let go! I can’t take any more of this.”

And then the door was open and she was tumbling to the ground, her feet splashing in a puddle, the wind snarling her hair. She slammed the door shut and lunged for her own car, scrambling into her seat and instinctively jamming down the lock button on her side and the passenger side. It was a two-door car. She was safe. Only then did Marnie bow her head onto the steering wheel and begin to weep, sobbing as though there was no tomorrow.

Dimly, Marnie realized someone was banging on the window. Had been for some time. She looked up, blinking through her wet lashes. The rain had lessened, pattering softly on the windshield. Cal was rapping on the glass with his fist. He was very wet. He must have been standing there the whole time, watching her sob her heart out.

Invading her privacy.

She rolled her window partway down and said jaggedly, “I am not going to turn up on your doorstep, and once I’ve filled the car up with gas I’m going home. Goodbye, Mr. Huntingdon.”

“Oh, no,” he said softly, “it’s not quite that simple. Before you go anywhere, I want you to swear you won’t try to get in touch with Kit.”

“I wouldn’t be that irresponsible!”

“Swear, Marnie.”

If looks could kill, his would have blitzed her in her seat. Pushing her hair back from her face, Marnie scowled right back. She needed to blow her nose. Which, she knew from past experience, was undoubtedly bright pink after her crying jag. “I won’t do anything to harm my daughter. And you’ll have to be satisfied with that—because it’s all you’re getting from me.”

She turned the key in the ignition, and for once her car started on the first try. But as she reached for her seat belt, Cal inserted his hand through the gap, yanked on the lock button and pulled her door open. He barked, “You’re not calling the shots here—I am. As Kit’s father. You say you’re going to get gas. You think they won’t look at you down at the station and see Kit Huntingdon written all over you? You’re a walking time bomb, and I want you to promise you’ll head out of Burnham right now and you won’t come back. Do you hear?”

His voice had risen during this speech; Marnie might not care for large, angry men, but on the other hand she wasn’t about to show Cal Huntingdon she was shivering all the way to her very wet shoes. “All right, I’ll buy my gas out of town! Now will you please shut the door and let me get out of here before anyone sees me? The last thing you should be doing is holding me up. What if a friend of yours comes along?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “The next time I come to the supermarket for milk on a Sunday, I’ll think twice,” he snarled. “Remember what I said, Marnie Carstairs. Get out of Burnham and stay out. And don’t you dare try to get in touch with Kit.”

He slammed the door in her face. She pushed the clutch into first gear, flicked on the wipers and drove away without a backward glance, her fingers gripping the steering wheel as though it were Cal’s throat. At the exit to the parking lot, she turned right. Right led her out of town. Away from the local gas station and away from Moseley Street.

Away from Katrina Elizabeth Huntingdon, her daughter. Known as Kit. And away from Cal and Jennifer Huntingdon, the couple who nearly thirteen years ago had adopted her.

It would take a woman of extraordinarily strong character to live with Cal. What was Jennifer Huntingdon like? And was she a good mother?

Was she beautiful? It was unlikely Cal would be married to someone who wasn’t. Yet he’d called her, Marnie, beautiful…. Why had he done that?

A mile out of town, when she’d passed the vinyl-sided Baptist Church and the boutiques temptingly arrayed for the tourists, Marnie pulled into a take-out stand. It was one-thirty. She hadn’t had lunch, and her ice cream had ended up on Cal’s Cherokee instead of in her stomach. She’d buy a sandwich. And then she’d do some hard thinking.

She took her sandwich to a small picnic spot along the shore, choosing the end table so she’d have privacy. The rain had stopped; the undergrowth smelled damp and pungent. She sat down on the wet bench and started to eat. Cal shouldn’t have tried ordering her about. She’d never liked being told what to do. Charlotte Carstairs had been long on orders and short on love, and there was no question in Marnie’s mind but that her own child had been conceived—at least partly—out of rebellion.

The sandwich tasted good. Chickadees were chattering companionably among the trees, and waves lapped on the rocks. Gradually, Marnie calmed down, all her new knowledge settling more gently into her mind. Her daughter’s name was Kit. Kit looked so like Marnie that Cal had ordered Marnie out of town. Because he didn’t want anyone knowing about Kit’s real mother. He certainly didn’t want to run any risk of Kit and Marnie meeting.

Which hurt. Hurt quite dreadfully.

With a jolt, Marnie suddenly remembered the one question Cal hadn’t answered. An extremely important question. In fact, the most essential question of them all. Whether Kit was happy.

He’d sidestepped it by telling Marnie Kit’s name. Whereupon she’d cried a bucket and forgotten to ask the question again. Was it just a genuine oversight on his part? Or had he had other motives? Motives of deception? Darker motives.

Chewing on her chicken salad, Marnie let a picture of Cal Huntingdon fill her mind. Unconsciously, and even in the midst of that turmoil of emotion in the parking lot, she realized that ever since they’d met she’d been searching for the one word that would encapsulate him. She’d come up with arrogant, sexy and masculine, and certainly each of those was accurate enough. Dangerous seemed entirely apt, as well. But something else was nagging at her mind, making her deeply uneasy. For some reason, she found herself remembering how facetiously she’d thought about the sort of scary movie she hated: the man-with-an-ax-coming-up-the-stairs kind. The bad guy.

She didn’t for one minute think Cal was a potential ax murderer. No, that wasn’t what she was getting at. But he did pose an enormous threat to her at a level that was gut-deep.

Was it his willpower? He had that all right. He’d hated her defying him.

Take away the first syllable of willpower, she thought, and what have you got? Power. That was it. The man reeked of power. His body, his voice, his actions—all of them were imbued with the unconscious energy of a man used to wielding power.

Charlotte Carstairs had been in love with power all her life. It had taken a huge and ongoing effort on Marnie’s part to prevent that power from ruining her own life, from making her as bitter and unloving as her mother.

Marnie finished her sandwich, drained the bottle of apple juice she’d bought to go with it and got back into her car. She rummaged in her haversack, found the square scarf that went with her raincoat and wrapped it, turban-style, around her head, carefully tucking her hair under it. She fished out her dark glasses and generously coated her lips with Strawberry Pearl Glaze. With some satisfaction, she looked at herself in the mirror. She did not look like the woman who’d bought an ice cream cone in the pouring rain.

Then she turned out of the picnic spot and headed back toward Burnham.

This time, she did have a plan.

She drove slowly through the town, her eyes peeled for a dark green Cherokee. At the gas station, she pulled up to the pumps and asked for a fill-up, adding casually, “I’m looking for Cal Huntingdon. Can you tell me where he lives?”

“Sure thing. Go to the fork in the road and hang a left. Moseley Street. His place is about a kilometer from the fork. Big cedar-shingled bungalow on the cove. Nice place. Want your oil checked, miss?”

“No, it’s fine, thanks.” As the red numbers clicked on the pump, she said with complete untruth, “I used to know him in my college days. Haven’t seen him for a while.”

“Yeah? Too bad about his wife, eh?”

Marnie’s fingers tightened around her credit card. “I—I hadn’t heard…is something wrong? I was in the area today and thought I’d drop in on them.”

“Well, now…she passed away two years ago. Cancer. Took her real fast, which is a blessing, I guess.”

“Oh,” said Marnie. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Hard on the kid. And on Cal, too, of course. That’s twenty-five even, miss.”

Feeling thoroughly ashamed of herself, Marnie handed over her card and a few moments later signed the slip. “I may phone first,” she said. “Rather than just dropping in. Thanks for telling me.”

“No problem. You have a nice day now.”

“Nice” wasn’t quite the word Marnie would have used to describe the day she was having. Her heart was racketing around in her chest again. She turned out of the gas station and asked the first person she saw for directions to the junior high school. Within ten minutes, she had a mental picture of the layout of the town and had figured out the probable route Kit Huntingdon would take to walk from Moseley Street to the consolidated school. Only then did Marnie leave Burnham.

She hadn’t seen a green Cherokee. And she’d be the first to admit she lacked the courage to drive past the cedar-shingled house on the cove.

Cal Huntingdon was a widower. Had been for two years. Which meant, unless he had a live-in girlfriend, that Kit was motherless.

Even though intuition told her Cal wasn’t the type for a live-in girlfriend, not when he had an adolescent daughter, that same intuition insisted that any woman worth her salt would be after him. Wanting to comfort him. In bed and out.

Bed? Don’t go there, Marnie. Not when Cal’s on your mind. Cal plus bed could be a combination several steps beyond dangerous. You swore off men years ago, and even thinking about Cal Huntingdon in a sexual context is lunacy. Kit’s the issue here, and only Kit.

He hadn’t told her the truth. He’d allowed her to think that Kit had two parents, a mother as well as a father. That everything was normal and as it should be in the Huntingdon household. Mother, father, daughter—and no place for Marnie.

Beneath a very real sorrow for an unknown woman who had died far too young, Marnie was aware of anger, red-hot and seething. Kit had been left, tragically, without a mother. And yet Cal had dared to warn off the woman who had borne Kit all those years ago, a woman who had, surely, some claim on his honesty.

Some claim on Kit.

CHAPTER THREE

ON MONDAY morning, just before eight, Marnie arrived at the fork in the road that led out of Burnham. Moseley Street, the sign said. She flicked on her signal light and turned left. She was driving her best friend Christine’s small white Pontiac; she’d phoned Christine last night and asked if they could trade cars for the day.

Cal Huntingdon wouldn’t even notice if a white Pontiac drove past his house.

She checked the odometer, her heart hammering in her chest as loudly as a woodpecker on a tree. The Huntingdons lived about a kilometer down the road, according to the man at the gas station. It was a pretty road, following the curve of the bay and lush with evergreens. Point-seven kilometers, point-eight, point-nine. And then Marnie saw the cedar-shingled house on the cove, the mailbox neatly lettered “Huntingdon.”

She braked. Although a dark green Cherokee was parked in front of the house, there was no one in sight, neither Cal nor a young girl hurrying up the driveway on her way to school.

It was the house of her dreams.

Marnie’s mouth twisted. She’d had a lot of dreams over the years, several of which she’d made real—by guts, determination and plain hard work. But she was a long way from realizing this particular one. For the house spelled money.

It was a low bungalow, following the sloping contours of the land and taking full advantage of a spectacular view of a rocky cove. Pines and hemlocks shaded the roof; through the bare limbs of maples, sunlight glittered on the waves. The weathered cedar shingles blended perfectly with the surroundings. The chimney was built of chunks of native stone, while the slate pathways were the color of Cal’s eyes.

It was perfect, Marnie thought. Utterly perfect.

In terms of material goods, Kit was obviously in another league from Marnie. Discovering she didn’t like this thought one bit, Marnie put her foot to the accelerator and continued down the road, reluctantly noticing that the Huntingdon property extended several hundred feet farther along the cove. But why was she surprised that Kit had been adopted into money? She’d known all along that her mother worshiped money and even more the power it conferred; Charlotte wouldn’t have placed her grandchild with anyone who lived in poverty.

In her will, Charlotte had left Marnie the sum of one hundred dollars. The rest of her estate had been allocated to build a town hall and a library in Conway Mills. The will had been dated the day of Kit’s birth; a matter of hours after the birth, when Marnie’s world was disintegrating around her, Charlotte had informed Marnie that she was disinherited.

At the time, money had been the furthest thing from Marnie’s thoughts. But at the reading of the will, only a month ago, Charlotte’s unchanging bitterness toward her only daughter had had the power to wound deeply. Forgiveness, thought Marnie, was the most difficult of concepts. Had she herself ever really forgiven her mother?

Irritably, she wriggled the tightness from her shoulders and turned around in the third driveway beyond the Huntingdon place. As she drove past the bungalow again, there still was no sign of any occupants. Time for phase two, she decided grimly, and headed back into town. Ten minutes later, she was tucked into a window booth in the coffee-and-doughnut shop on the corner of the street by the junior high school. If she was right, Kit would walk along this street.

The sun, fortunately, was shining from a cloudless sky and again it was overly warm for late April. Marnie was wearing her largest pair of sunglasses and a big floppy hat under which she’d tucked most of her hair; it also hid her face. She’d taken the precaution of buying the daily paper in case she had to hide behind it.

She felt excruciatingly nervous. It was one thing to drive past the house where Kit lived; quite another to actually see her daughter.

Although she hated horror movies, Marnie loved James Bond. This morning, she was discovering she’d make a lousy espionage agent. She felt as though everyone in the place was staring at her and as though Kit, were she to go past the window, would pick her out unerringly.

She couldn’t allow that to happen. Wouldn’t allow it. All she wanted was to see her daughter. For the very first time. See if she was happy.

Was that too much to ask?

Last night, she’d phoned the principal of her school to tell him some urgent family business had come up and she needed the next day off. So here she was on a Monday morning in a coffee shop in Burnham when she should have been in the school library sorting books and checking out the computers.

Kids were now straggling past the coffee shop in loose groups, some with headsets, all in the regulation designer-label jeans and jackets with bright logos. Marnie sipped on coffee that could have been lye and unfolded the newspaper. Maybe Kit had a friend at the other end of town and walked to school a whole different way. Or else she might go by so fast Marnie wouldn’t have time to recognize her.

She certainly couldn’t chase after her.

A group of girls came around the corner of the building, their heads together, their laughter loud enough to be heard through the glass. One of them was tall with red hair, curly red hair that bounced in the sunlight.

Turn around, Marnie prayed. So I can see your face. Oh, please, turn around.

As though the girl had heard her, she pointed at the array of doughnuts in the showcase and said something Marnie couldn’t catch but that made all the other girls laugh. The girl’s face was almost a replica of Marnie’s, right down to the tilted nose and high cheekbones, except that her eyes were a warm brown. The color of Terry’s eyes.

It was Kit. Unquestionably it was Kit.

Then, to her horror, Marnie saw the whole group veer toward the door of the coffee shop. She grabbed her newspaper and lifted it, hiding her face, her fingers trembling. Although she braced her elbows on the table and willed her hands to steadiness, they wouldn’t obey her.

The bottom of the door scraped on the black plastic floor mat. “What kind of doughnut, Kit?” one of the girls called out.

“Double chocolate. Maybe that way I’ll stay awake in math class.”

The others giggled. Another voice said, “Boston cream for me. Kit, did you study for the test?”

“Yeah…my dad made me.”

One of the others groaned in sympathy. “My mum did, too. I wanted to watch a MuchMusic video instead.” In a wicked parody of an adult’s voice, she went on, “‘Not until the weekend, Lizzie.’ Mothers are such a drag.”

“Shut up, Lizzie,” Kit flared.

“Oops, sorry,” Lizzie said. “I’ll have a maple cream and share it with you, Kit.”

“Okay. You know what? I’m going to ace that test,” Kit said confidently. “I’ve got to keep my marks up or I’m off the basketball team. Dad said so.”

Kit’s voice was light, higher-pitched than Marnie’s. Willing herself to stop shaking, Marnie listened as the girls paid for their doughnuts and trooped out of the coffee shop. Over the top of the paper she caught one last glimpse of Kit. She was taking a big bite out of the double chocolate doughnut; she was wearing Levi’s and a baggy purple sweatshirt. Marnie’s favorite color was purple.

Marnie sat still, gazing blindly at the newsprint, trying to assimilate the fact that after thirteen years she had actually seen her daughter. Heard her voice. Had evidence, she thought wryly, of Kit’s quick temper, so like Marnie’s. Kit hadn’t liked Lizzie’s remark about mothers. Did that mean Kit still missed her mother? It must.

What had Jennifer Huntingdon been like? Warm and loving? Strong-willed? Happy?

A gang of teenage boys rocketed through the door, their energy making Marnie wince. She listened as they argued about doughnuts, then watched them leave with relief. What did Kit think about boys? Was she interested in them yet? Or did basketball interest her more?

You’ll never know the answer to those questions, Marnie. Because Kit is Cal’s daughter, not yours.

Slowly, Marnie lowered the newspaper, trying desperately to ignore the storm of emotion engulfing her whole body. Now what? she wondered. What do I do next?

When she’d decided last night that she was going back to Burnham despite Cal’s warnings, she hadn’t gotten any further than seeing Kit. Well, she’d seen her. Seen her friends, noticed her clothes, heard her voice. That’s it, Marnie. Kit’s happy enough, even if she does still miss her mother. Certainly she’s well looked after financially. You’ve done everything you can do. Now you’ve got to return to Faulkner and stay away from Burnham. The last thing you can risk is bumping into your daughter on the street. You can’t do that to her. It would be utterly unfair.

Moving like a woman much older than thirty, Marnie left her unfinished coffee and her newspaper on the table and walked out of the shop. She was going to drive home and cry her eyes out for the second time in as many days. She hardly ever cried. But that was what she was going to do.

It didn’t make much sense to cry—after all, she now had a face and a voice for her daughter where yesterday she’d had nothing—but she knew she had to do it. She ached all over, as though someone had pounded her body mercilessly in her sleep: an ache both physical and emotional, the same ache she’d suffered in that hospital bed in the private clinic so many years ago.

As she turned up a side street, she passed from sunlight into shade. She didn’t see the man standing statue-still between the two nearest buildings; rather, she was reaching into the pocket of her jeans for the keys to Christine’s car, her mind anywhere but on her surroundings. Not until a tanned, strong-fingered and unmistakably masculine hand fastened itself around her elbow was she jerked out of her reverie. “You’re coming with me,” Cal Huntingdon said in a clipped voice infused with rage, “and don’t bother arguing.”

With a strange sense of inevitability, Marnie looked up. Had she really thought she’d get away with her caper in the coffee shop? Saying the first thing that came into her head, she muttered, “I didn’t see the Cherokee.”

“I parked it on the next street. I didn’t see that wreck you’re driving, either. Come on.”

He was pulling on her arm as though she were eight years old. She said coldly, “I’m perfectly capable of walking to your car. Let go.”

“No.”

Although he hadn’t loosened his grip, Cal did stop tugging so hard. His fingers were warm; as she marched along beside him, Marnie discovered to her dismay that she liked the contact. Liked his height, the way his gray shirt was rolled up to his elbows, the tanned column of his throat. Scared to death by this realization, she said defiantly, “You didn’t see my car because I borrowed a friend’s.”

“I figured you’d pull a stunt like that. Which is why I was watching for you.”

“Don’t you think you should be at work? To pay for the very expensive house I drove past this morning?”

“It’s paid for, Marnie Carstairs. Every shingle and tree root. I’m surprised you didn’t bang on the door to check out the furniture.”

To her annoyance, Marnie couldn’t come up with a retort that would sound anything other than pettish. They’d reached the Cherokee; she climbed in and fastened her seat belt. As Cal turned on the ignition, she said with deliberate provocation, “Where are we going? Home for coffee?”

“Don’t push your luck,” he growled, then pulled out into the street.

“Or are you planning to fling me over the nearest cliff?”

“I’ve thought of it, believe me,” he said tightly. “We’re getting the hell out of Burnham and then we’re going to have a talk. During which I shall make a few things clear to you. In the meantime, why don’t you just shut up?”

It seemed like good advice. Marnie gazed out the window as though the drugstore across the street was the most interesting building she’d ever seen.

Once they’d left Burnham, Cal turned onto the highway that would lead eventually to Faulkner Beach. When he came to the picnic spot where Marnie had eaten her lunch the day before, he wheeled into it. There were no other cars there. Why would there be? thought Marnie. Most people don’t picnic for breakfast. He even chose the same table as she had.

She slid out of the Cherokee and sat down on top of the table, facing the sea, her feet resting on the bench. The buds were still tight on the trees, although a song sparrow was piping its melody from a nearby birch. The ocean glinted as though it were alive, the waves chuckling among the rocks. “No cliffs,” she said. “That’s a relief.”

Cal stationed himself in front of her, his back to the water. Shoulders hunched, hands jammed in the pockets of his jeans, he looked at her unwaveringly. His gray shirt was open at the throat as though he was immune to the cool ocean breeze; his hair shone with cleanliness, and he was clean shaven. He did not, Marnie noticed, look the slightest bit amused by her pert remark. Not that she really felt pert. She wasn’t sure how she felt.

She’d probably find out in the next few minutes. Cal Huntingdon would see to that.

Without saying a word, Cal reached out and pulled her dark glasses off her nose, then folded them carefully and put them on the table beside her. Then he undid the cord on her hat, the back of his hand brushing her chin, and took the hat off, placing it on the table, too. Her hair tumbled around her ears. And the whole time, his eyes were intent on her features.

Her lashes flickered involuntarily. His face was so close to hers she could see the small white scar over one eye and catch the faint mint scent of his aftershave.

She’d expected a tirade from him. Not this.

She had absolutely no idea what he was thinking.

Marnie stared back at him, forcing herself to keep her hands loose in her lap and struggling to hide her inner trembling. His action, so unexpected, had broken through a boundary that she guarded fiercely. Her voice faltering, she said, “What you just did—that’s got nothing to do with Kit.”

Cal didn’t bother denying it. “The sun in your hair…it’s like little strands of copper.”

The timbre of his voice, dusky as red wine, brought a flush to her cheeks. His eyes now looked more blue than gray and not at all like slate. She found herself gazing at his mouth, a generous mouth, cleanly sculpted, and wondering what it would be like to be kissed by him. To kiss him back.

He said levelly, “Don’t worry, I’m thinking exactly the same thing.”

Kiss him? She must be out of her mind. Cal was the enemy, the man determined to keep her from her daughter. Marnie shrank back. “Stay away from me.”

Thrusting his hands into his pockets again, Cal said in a raw voice, “What’s the matter? Not part of your game plan, Marnie?”

He’d gone so fast from what she would’ve sworn was desire to what she knew was rage that she felt dizzy. Which emotion was real? Only the anger? Had the desire been merely a facade? She rested her palms flat on the table, needing the solidity of wood to give her some kind of balance, and said with as much dignity as she could muster, “You took me by surprise.”

“You’ll forgive me, I’m sure,” he said with heavy irony, “if I don’t believe you. I think it would take a lot to surprise you. When I stationed myself on the street where Kit walks to school, I was telling myself I was every kind of a fool. You’d said you wouldn’t do anything to harm her— I assumed that meant you’d stay away from Burnham. Not risk her meeting you and seeing the resemblance between you. In other words, I trusted you.” He rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. “But I was wrong, wasn’t I? You’re not to be trusted. This morning, you put yourself in a situation where you ended up twenty feet away from my daughter. I’d call that taking a risk, wouldn’t you?”

Her own temper rose to meet his. “So we’re talking about trust, are we, Cal? Why didn’t you tell me you’re a widower?”

Visibly, he flinched. “How did you find that out?”

“I asked. At the gas station in Burnham last night.” She raised her chin. “I don’t like being ordered around.”

“Not even when it’s for the good of your daughter?”

“You have to allow me some part in that decision.”

“I didn’t tell you I’m a widower for the very obvious reason that I wanted you out of town. Out of my life. Mine and Kit’s.”

Marnie pushed her palms hard against the wooden table; his eyes were those of a man in torment, his jaw an unyielding line. How he must have loved his wife: a realization that filled her inexplicably with envy. She’d never known that kind of love and doubted she ever would. Forcing herself to continue, she asked, “Are you living with someone else? Or is Kit motherless?”

“That’s got nothing to do with you.”

“It’s got everything to do with me!”

“You’re forgetting something. You gave up your rights to Kit when she was born.”

Although her palms were sweating, the rest of Marnie felt ice-cold. Knowing she was fighting for her life, she said in a cracked voice, “I turned seventeen three months before Kit was born. Until this morning, I’d never even laid eyes on her.”

“Unfortunately, some decisions we make in life are irrevocable. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

“Are you really that hard, Cal?” she whispered. “Is there no room in you for human frailty?”

He said flatly, “I’d guard Kit’s peace of mind with my very life.”

Marnie pounced. “So is she happy? Tell me she’s totally happy with her life the way it is, and I’ll go away. I promise.”

Abruptly, he swung away from her, gazing out to sea. The breeze toyed with his hair; his shoulders were rigid with tension.

Swiftly, Marnie stood up, putting herself between him and the water. In unconscious pleading, she rested her hand on his bare arm and said, “I hate this, Cal…this feeling we’ve got to score off each other, that Kit is some kind of prize we’re fighting over, when surely what we both want is what’s best for her. Can’t we do this some other way?”

“There’s no other woman in my house,” he said evenly. “Do you really think I’d live with someone else so soon after Jennifer died? It would be the worst thing in the world for Kit.”

And for him, too? Was that what he meant?

“Look at me, Cal.” As he reluctantly obeyed, Marnie said, “I’m sorry your wife died. I’m truly sorry.”

Her turquoise eyes were wide with sincerity and her fingers still lay loosely on his arm. “You mean that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. She was so young. It must have been dreadful for you—and for Kit.”

He said in a voice from which all emotion had been removed, “That’s why I can’t risk your meeting Kit. She changed after Jennifer died. She started questioning everything and bucking authority, and she’d spend hours in her room listening to music and refusing to talk to me. I didn’t know how to handle her. Still don’t. She’s not ready for another emotional upheaval, Marnie. You’ve got to believe me. She’s not.”

With a huge effort, Marnie kept her voice even. “I do believe you.” She believed something else: that very likely Cal was also talking about himself.

Quickly, Cal covered her fingers with his own. “What I just said—it hurt, didn’t it? Because it means you can’t see Kit again. God, this is such a mess….”

“Just the same, I’m glad you told me about her.”

Absently, he was playing with her hand. It was her left hand. “No rings?” he said. “But you must be married.”

“Oh, no,” she said, and snatched her hand back. “I’ve never married. Never wanted to.”

His eyes were suddenly appalled. “Surely to God you weren’t raped? That’s not how Kit—”

“No! No, of course not. Her father’s a good man, always was. He didn’t even know about Kit until I told him five years ago. I never told him at the time.”

“Why didn’t you? Why didn’t you marry him when she was born? If he was such a good man.”

Marnie reached up and plucked a branch from the birch tree that brushed her arm, systematically starting to tear the buds apart with her nails. “Yesterday you virtually accused me of making up stories about how I lost Kit,” she said in a low voice. “Give me one good reason why should I tell you about it now.”

He took the twig from her fingers and dropped it to the ground. “Let’s go down to the beach, sit on the rocks,” he said, and for the first time that morning smiled at her. “We both need a break.”

His smile transformed him, investing him with a wholly masculine vitality to which Marnie couldn’t help but respond. As she gaped at him, he added quizzically, “Did I say something wrong?”

It’s me that’s in the wrong, thought Marnie. Thirteen years ago, I swore off sex and now I’m practically fainting at Cal’s feet. Why do I keep forgetting that he’s Kit’s father? “No, no,” she sputtered. “No, you didn’t. I—I just can’t figure you out, that’s all.”

“I’m just an ordinary guy, Marnie.”

She snorted. “And the sea’s made of cherry swirl ice cream.”

He began to laugh. “It took me a whole box of Kleenex to clean off my car. Do you always mix your flavors?”

If his smile was sexy, his laugh was dynamite. “Always,” she said. “Life’s too short to play it safe.”

Her words hung in the air between them. “So you believe that, too, do you?” Cal said. “Is that how Kit was conceived?”

Her smile died. “It always comes back to that, doesn’t it?”

“You know what keeps throwing me?” he said with underlying violence. “You look so like Kit and yet you don’t. You’re a woman, where Kit’s hovering between child and adolescent. You’ve suffered—don’t think I can’t see that—and it’s given you a beauty that’s been tested. A beauty that’s far more than a question of good bones, skin like silk, eyes as blue as the sea.” His gaze raked her from head to foot. “Along with legs that go on forever and a body that could drive a man crazy…” Running his fingers through his hair, he finished explosively, “Dammit, I never meant to say any of this! But there’s something about you that takes all the rules and turfs them out the window.”

Frightened out of her wits, Marnie blurted, “If you have rules, so do I. We can’t afford to forget them, either one of us, because of your daughter. Your daughter and mine.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he blazed.

“This isn’t about you and me,” she persisted wildly. “It’s about Kit.” She was right, she knew she was. Not since that one time had she ever let a man seduce her, not with words or with his body. So what was so different about Cal Huntingdon?

Power, she thought with an inward shiver. The power of his words, which had both terrified and exhilarated her. And, she admitted unwillingly, the power of his body. His height, the way his muscles moved in his throat when he swallowed, the gleam of sunlight across his cheekbones… Oh God, what was wrong with her? She’d never in her life been so aware of a man’s sheer physicality.

Why did it have to be Cal, of all people, who was causing her to break all her self-imposed rules?

Be careful, Marnie. Be very careful. It’s Kit you want. Not Kit’s father.

Unable to stand the direction her thoughts had taken her, Marnie pushed her way through the bayberry shrubs onto the rocks.

Cal was right. She did need a break.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE beach was made of shale, gray blue shale on which the blue green waves were advancing and retreating. Like Cal’s eye color and her own, Marnie thought edgily. Finding a smooth boulder, she perched herself on it.

Cal bent and picked up a sliver of rock, then threw it so it skipped over the water half a dozen times before it sank. He said absently, “Kit loves to do that. Hers usually bounce more than mine—she’s really got the knack.”

Then he turned to face Marnie, his face clouded. “I knew she had a math test today, so I made her stay in last night to study when she wanted to be out with her friends. And do you know what she said? Her mother wouldn’t have made her stay in, her mother hadn’t been mean to her like me, she went on and on, and the irony is that Jennifer was stricter with her than I am. A couple of months ago, we went to a counselor, but Kit refused to even open her mouth. My best friend’s wife has done her best to draw Kit out—same result. I normally travel three or four times a year as an adjunct to my job, but I’ve even cut that out, figuring she needs me home.” His laugh was tinged with bitterness. “She needs me like she needs a hole in the head. It’s almost as though she hates me for being alive now that Jennifer’s dead.”

Her heart aching, Marnie ventured, “She seemed happy enough with her friends this morning. She did tell Lizzie you’d made her study, but she didn’t sound too upset about it.”

“I warned her she’d be off the school basketball team if her math marks didn’t improve. She’s their star forward, so she won’t risk that.”

Even though as an adult Marnie preferred solitary pursuits to team sports, she’d played basketball when she was a teenager, and now she helped out with the Faulkner Fiends, the junior high girls’ basketball team in her own school. One more link to Kit, she thought unhappily.

“Lately, she’s even…” Then Cal broke off, picking up another rock and firing it at the water. It hit at the wrong angle and sank with a small splash.

“Even what?” Marnie prompted.

Restlessly, he shrugged his shoulders. “Never mind. Tell me how the adoption came about.”

She winced. “What’s the point if I can’t see Kit again?”

“Maybe it’ll help me understand.”

“You don’t need to understand, Cal! Because I’m finally getting the message. I’ve got to go home and forget my daughter lives fifty miles down the road.”

“Why did you give her up, Marnie?”

The breeze was freshening, molding Marnie’s shirt to her breasts and teasing her hair. She stood up, rubbing her palms down the sides of her jeans. “I didn’t. My mother deceived me—I told you that.”

“So tell me more.”

She stared out at the horizon. Wisely or unwisely, she knew she was going to do as he asked. But because she’d never told anyone but Terry about her pregnancy, and because it was all so long ago and yet so painfully present, her voice sounded clipped and unconvincing, even to her own ears. “Terry and I were best friends all through school. Most of the kids either hated me or avoided me because of my mother. She owned the mill. Everyone in the town owed their livelihood to the mill. Try that one on for size in a small town. But I had Terry and his parents and a couple of girlfriends, so I was okay.”

“Were you in love with him?”

“With Terry?” she said blankly. “No! I’m sorry if best friends sounds corny, but that’s the way it was. Until the night of the first school dance my final year of high school. My mother and I had had a huge fight. She didn’t want me going with him—he was the son of a sawyer, after all. She locked me in my room, but I got out through the window and went anyway.”

“What floor was your bedroom?”

“I do wish you’d stop interrupting,” Marnie said fractiously. “The second floor. Why?”

“Did you jump?”

“I climbed down the Virginia creeper—the stems were thicker than your wrist.”

“You really don’t like being ordered around, do you?”

“Oh, shush! Anyway, we went to the dance. I had a couple of drinks too many, we drove to the lake to see the moon, and you can guess the rest.” She sighed. “Bad mistake, and I’m not just talking about pregnancy, I’m talking about sex. It ruined everything between us—the fun, the friendship. Terry and I avoided each other like the plague for the next few months.”

“Was it worth it?” Cal asked softly.

She gaped at him, feeling color creep into her cheeks. “Are you asking if it was good sex? How in the world was I supposed to know? I was sixteen, Cal!”

“You’ve been with men since then.”

She hadn’t. But she was darned if that was any of Cal’s business. Doggedly, she went on with her story, reciting it as though it had happened to someone else. “I didn’t tell my mother I was pregnant. I didn’t tell anyone. I wore baggy sweaters and let the waistband of my jeans out and forged a doctor’s certificate so I could stay away from gym class.”

“Were you that afraid of her?”

His voice was unreadable. “I was afraid she’d make me have an abortion,” Marnie said curtly. “So I kept it a secret until it was too late for that. She had tremendous power, Cal. She ran the town. She could give you one look and you’d find yourself doing exactly what she wanted. I hated that! Yes, of course I was afraid of her. Besides, she was as cold as—as the Atlantic Ocean in April.”

“She found out, though.”

“Oh, yes….” Marnie’s smile was twisted. “Now that was a scene, let me tell you. But in the end she got it out of me that Terry was the father.”

She kicked at the shale with the toe of her sneaker. “I was sent to a private clinic. The town was told I’d gone to a fancy girls’ school, and my mother said my cousin Randall from Boston would marry me when the baby was born.” She talked faster, only wanting done with this. “It was a hard labor, so I was out of it when Kit was born. When I came to, my mother was sitting by the bed. The baby was gone. She’d lied about Randall and the marriage, and she made me sign the consent forms by threatening to fire Terry’s father. She’d see he never got another job in the province, that’s what she told me. And if I ever tried to trace my child, she’d set a bunch of roughnecks on Terry and his brothers.”

Marnie shivered. “I knew she’d do it. I couldn’t risk anything happening to Terry or his family—they were the ones who’d taught me all I ever knew about kindness. So I signed.” As an afterthought, she added, “My mother also told me I was disinherited. As if that mattered.”

“How did you know your baby was a girl?”

“You sound like a lawyer for the prosecution,” she snapped. “One of the cleaning women told me. No one else would say a word, it was as if nothing had ever happened, as if I’d dreamed the whole pregnancy and birth. It was awful. I waited until I felt well enough, then I packed my suitcase and left via the window.” She glowered at him. “Ground floor this time. I wrote to my mother two or three times, and after that I wrote every Christmas and for her birthday. But she didn’t answer a single one of my letters, and I never saw her again. I found the paper with your name on it in her safe when I went back for the reading of the will. End of story.”

“It all sounds so feudal,” Cal said.

“So you don’t believe me.”

“I didn’t say that, Marnie.”

“You’re thinking it.”

“You’ve got to admit it’s an incredible story,” he said, frowning.

Marnie’s mind made an intuitive leap. “You think I’ve invented all this—straight out of a gothic romance—to cover up my guilt for abandoning my baby.”

“Dammit, I don’t! I don’t know what I think.”

Aware of an immense weariness, Marnie said, “It doesn’t really matter, does it? The fact is, Kit was adopted, your wife died, and it’s in Kit’s best interests that I stay out of the picture.”

“The fact is,” Cal said harshly, “that I don’t want you out of the picture. My picture. Despite Kit. Despite common sense and logic and caution. Explain that to me, why don’t you? Is that another scene from a gothic romance? I hardly think so.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t know what—”

“Don’t you, Marnie? Come on, tell the truth.”

Her heart was beating in thick, heavy strokes. “No, I don’t,” she said with a defiant toss of her head.

“Then let me show you.”

Cal’s footsteps crunched in the shale. His eyes blazing with an emotion she couldn’t possibly have categorized, he took her by the shoulders and bent his head. A wave collapsed on the beach in a rattle of stones. The tide’s coming up, we should get out of here, Marnie thought foolishly, and felt the first touch of his mouth to hers.

His fingers were digging into her flesh, his lips a hard pressure. Rigid in his embrace, she felt a shudder run through his body. Then gradually his kiss changed, questioning rather than demanding, and his hands left her shoulders, smoothing the rise of her throat and tangling themselves in her hair. Beneath her closed lids, the sun blazed orange.

As abruptly as he’d drawn her to him, Cal pushed her away. Marnie’s eyes flew open as he said in a staccato voice, “I shouldn’t have done that. Kissing you—Kit’s mother—it’s the stupidest move I could make.”

Marnie asked baldly, “Are you involved with anyone?”

“Are you kidding? In a town the size of Burnham with a twelve-year-old girl in the house? I haven’t slept with anyone since my wife died, and why the devil am I telling you something wild horses normally wouldn’t drag out of me?”

“I’ve had exactly one sexual experience in thirty years and that was with Terry.”

In sheer disbelief, Cal rasped, “Come off it, Marnie. You don’t have to lie to me.”

And quite suddenly, Marnie had had enough. The gamut of emotions she’d experienced ever since she’d bumped into a black-haired man in a parking lot in the middle of a thunderstorm now coalesced into pure rage. “I’m sick to death of your disbelieving every word I say!” she cried, wrenching free of him. “Let me tell you something, Cal Huntingdon. You think I’d jump in the sack with another man after what happened to me? For nine months I carried my child. That may not sound very long to you because you’ve had her for almost thirteen years. But to me that was a lifetime. Sure, I was terrified of being found out, and no, I had no idea what I was going to do or whom to turn to. It didn’t matter. I loved being pregnant. I felt fiercely protective of my baby and I knew I was going to be the best mother in the whole world.”

She realized through a haze of anger and pain that tears were streaming down her cheeks. Furious with herself for crying, she let her words tumble over each other. “And then she was taken from me. I never saw her. I had no way of tracing her or getting her back. I’ve never even known if she was loved.” Her voice broke. “How do you think that felt? I’ve lived with that loss for years, and if you think I was going to risk anything so terrible happening to me again just for the sake of a roll in the hay, you’re out of your tree. And I’m not crying!”

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