Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

Dedication

About The Author

Dear Reader

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

Jessica Carried Zach’s Child.

But at this time, he must not know about the baby. Such a revelation was too soon for him. How could she lure him into commitment at a time like this? What would people think?

She watched him, sternly cautioning her body to behave. White she didn’t remember being the “wild” woman he claimed, she did remember that she’d&—participated.

It had been…wonderful.

She slid her eyes discreetly down his body. It could happen again. One more time…

Dear Reader,

Can you believe that for the next three months we’ll be celebrating the publication of the 1000th Silhouette Desire? That’s quite a milestone! The festivities begin this month with six books by some of your longtime favorites and exciting new names in romance.

We’ll continue into next month, May, with the actual publication of Book #1000—by Diana Palmer—and then we’ll keep the fun going into June. There’s just so much going on that I can’t put it all into one letter. You’ll just have to keep reading!

This month we have an absolutely terrific lineup, beginning with Saddle Up, a MAN OF THE MONTH by Mary Lynn Baxter. There’s also The Groom, I Presume?—the latest in Annette Broadrick’s DAUGHTERS OF TEXAS miniseries. Father of the Brat launches the new FROM HERE TO PATERNITY miniseries by Elizabeth Bevarly, and Forgotten Vows by Modean Moon is the first of three books about what happens on THE WEDDING NIGHT. Lass Small brings us her very own delightful sense of humor in A Stranger in Texas. And our DEBUT AUTHOR this month is Anne Eames with Two Weddings and a Bride.

And next month, as promised, Book #1000, a MAN OF THE MONTH, Man of Ice by Diana Palmer!

Lucia Macro,

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

US.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

A Stranger In Texas
Lass Small

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To: Teri Letizia

My vital medical consultant

LASS SMALL

finds living on this planet at this time a fascinating experience. People are amazing. She thinks that to be a teller of tales of people, places and things is absolutely marvelous.

Dear Reader,

It is a cherished honor to be included in Silhouette Desire’s Celebration 1000. This is a good time to mention that I’ve been very fortunate in the skilled editors to whom I’ve been assigned. Thanks to them all and to Marcia Book Adirim now.

A Stranger in Texas is a different book. It is one of widely varying emotions that are funny and earnest. It is about living and about sharing lives with compassion. The story takes place in a fictional small town above the real city of Corpus Christi, TEXAS, and it concerns the adjustments made between those who are living there.

The book was interesting to write, and it will give a reader an insight into other aspects of life.

I am very grateful to my neighbor, Teri Letizia, to whom this book is dedicated. Teri is my medical consultant. She is a gem. There are Teri’s clear, instant replies to my questions. Then she gives me more. She tells me of wider ramifications that I wouldn’t have thought to inquire about or even to wonder about.

All of the books I’ve sent to Silhouette have pleased me. A Stranger in Texas is another. See if you agree.

With writer’s love,

One

While Texas has been occupied by Europeans for the past five hundred years, it’s been relatively recently that the northerners have been called Winter TEX-ANS. They had been known as Snow Birds, like the regular birds who fly south to get away from winter. The humans’ labeling was changed to Winter TEX-ANS when the druggies gave a new meaning to the word “snowbird.”

Winter TEXANS are welcomed wholeheartedly. They are lured to stay. And Sea View was one such place that lured them.

Sea View’s big hotel was called The Horizon. The town was north of Corpus Christi on the TEXAS coast. Sea View wasn’t on many of the maps.

The hotel had been built with wild expectations when the seacoast boom began long ago. Somehow that spot above Corpus had been lost to the general tourist bunch and bypassed for Padre Island by the college kids.

Even the main coastal highways had gone around Sea View. The town fathers hadn’t had the clout nor the money to get the highway to bend their way. The road builders placidly said it was illegal to go through the environmentally protected sand dunes with another road. Keeping the sand from shifting was another nuisance.

Why were all those problems listed for Sea View and not for Padre Island? At Padre, there was a four-lane highway down the center of that sand bar. No one ever knew the reason Sea View couldn’t just have a two-la-ner split from the main highway with a good direction sign.

Of course, there was already a road to the town of Sea View. It was a local two-laner that meandered along the path of least resistance. The highway people said that was sufficient.

With The Horizon Hotel and the elegant hospital, everybody in Sea View had predicted, “Just watch. As soon as we’ve had a flock of guests here, the word will spread. We’ll be swamped with tourists. We’ll get that highway split here.”

The natives had been disgruntled, until they saw how the non-TEXANS had lighted on Padre like pushy buzzards. By then, most of the citizens were glad this hadn’t happened to their own town.

Well, not everybody was glad. There were the sitters on the square who speculated what their land would have brought them and how they would then be living. There were guffaws over that—they’d just be sitting gossiping somewheres else. The whole, entire debate was just more wasted time.

However, through the years The Horizon Hotel had gradually gathered a following of very nice people who came especially in winter for the pleasure of just being on the coast and breathing the clean Gulf breeze that tumbled their hair. And they went out on boats or stood in the surf to fish or they played in or walked along the sand, collecting shells under the TEXAS winter sun.

Sea View native Jessica Channing was, by then, twenty-nine years old. In another year, she’d be an old maid. She was redheaded and green-eyed, and she didn’t give one hootin’ hot damn about getting married.

Her sister and brother were both married and had enough children to distract the parents from their youngest, unwed child.

Jessica had observed too many failed marriages. She didn’t need that kind of problem. She lived as she wanted, spent as she wanted and ate when she wanted, what she wanted. Her brother told her she was getting staid and persimmonish.

She agreed.

Jessica was the accountant at the Horizon Hotel. Her life was neat and orderly. She knew everyone in town. That wasn’t difficult. She knew all the secrets… and those secrets she knew, she never mentioned.

She was tall enough and well made. Her complexion was the ivory of real redheads, and her green eyes were gorgeous, deep, seeing into souls.

Jessica made people straighten up and quit gossiping. There was just something about her that shivered them a little. Maybe it wasn’t them so much as it was their consciences. Jessica never gossiped, but they did. She made them feel as if she was better than they.

Being a paragon was something of a burden. Jessica did understand her position. She was not only good with balancing books and straightening out tangles in thinking, but she was also breathtakingly beautiful.

That’s always a burden for a woman. Any smart woman knows being beautiful causes all sorts of problems with other women. Men, too, are a real nuisance, but women are leery of beautiful women. They avoid including them.

What woman wants that kind of competition?

While a man always wants the best woman possible, he rarely knows what to do with one. He is inclined to either worship her—and always be underfoot—or he ignores her to prove he’s not her slave. But men are competitive. They do try. They are a real exasperation.

The town of Sea View not only had the remarkable hotel that functioned nicely, but they had that hospital. It was the only one in the whole area. It had been built on the same exuberant wave ride as the hotel. It was as popular as the hotel!

The staff was superior. They were lured by the sea, the beaches, the golf course, the small townness and the gossip. It was as if all those outsiders belonged. And the staff was always amazed over how distant were the homes of those who were brought there to be healed, or rearranged or fixed.

People did amazing things. They fell down stairs, crashed gliders, survived plane wrecks and whatever else people found to half kill themselves. It is always appalling when people are harmed on a highway, or worse on a byway.

This is a civilized and crammed country. But even now, there are those places that are very, very isolated.

And things do happen.

There were still tales of who and why various patients had been brought to Sea View. They came to the hotel called The Horizon. And some needed that unusual hospital soberly named Medical Center.

A good many of the people so introduced into the area, via the hospital, came back to vacation at The Horizon.

It was called so because, looking on beyond, that was about all you could see.

But like the rest of TEXAS, the view to the Gulf of Mexico was always unique, with the changing of the sky’s colors and the winds. There were the cloud formations and the moving seawater. Far out were the big ships. Closer by were the fishing boats.

Wherever one looked, it was always different. It took a peculiar person to be bored at Sea View.

In the town, the seafood served was simply remarkable. And there was always the Mexican food. Even so, more discreet foods were available to any picky appetites.

To walk off the excellent foods, there was the golf course, and there was the beach. There were the shells to gather.

The shell necklaces were easy to string. A sea worm liked the muscle in the tiny shells. The hole it bored to get to the muscle was perfect for the shells to carry a string. Everything contributes to everything else. Even us.

When Zachary Thomas’s car was hit by a speeding pickup coming around a dune on the wrong side of the road, it happened in the middle of nowhere. The truck driver had not buckled his seat belt and was killed instantly. A good way for him to avoid the whole, ensuing mess.

But Hannah Thomas was killed as quickly. Even knowing she had to be dead, it seemed to her husband Zachary that he could feel her pulse.

Was it her pulse that hammered, or only his own?

His cellular phone had been smashed. Tears leaked from his eyes without his knowing; he wept in appalled frustration.

His twelve-year-old son Michael’s heart still beat, but he was totally out of it. He was so limp and helpless.

There had been no habitation along the road. Zach quickly climbed a sand dune and looked—at more sand dunes.

He wasn’t sure which way to go for help. He could not leave his family. He went back to them. He stood in the roadway and urged God to send help to his helpless ones.

It seemed to take much longer than it actually did.

Finally a car screeched its brakes as it came around the bend and found the crunched truck, the car…and the bodies.

It was Sea View’s Paul Butler who swung open his car door and got out. His quick eyes recognized that the driver of the truck was gone from this land of the living. Then the newly arrived Paul looked at the stunned man standing by the other car. “You okay?”

“We need help. Can you get—”

“I got a CB. You oughta have one.”

Zack explained, “My phone was smashed.”

“Those things don’t do good in wrecks.”

In the time the man talked into the receiver, seemingly so aloof, he was checking the three people who could not speak.

When he finished with the CB, the stranger came to Zachary and talked to him, evaluating his condition. “It’s best to wait. My name’s Paul Butler,” Paul told the man called Zachary Thomas. “We could do more harm if we was to try to get him—them to the hospital. Let’s let somebody do it that knows how.”

“Yes.”

And since the stranger seemed on the verge of shock, Paul went on carefully, “You traveling?”

“We’re still some distance from Corpus.”

“They’ll take hi—’em to the hospital in Sea View. It’s not far. The hospital is a good one. And there’s a good hotel there. The Horizon. It’s called that because that’s all you see.” Paul spoke slowly. “But when you look out, the colors of the water and the clouds are a beautiful sight.”

“Sea View? Is it on the map?”

“Not very many,” Paul replied as he shook his head. “The map has to be pretty current and specific to get Sea View on it.” He slid his eyes over to the woman who was so dead. The man held her hand.

“You been to TEXAS much?” Paul asked.

“This is our first time.”

“It’s a shame Ike got in your way thisaway.”

Zach looked up at Paul and blinked. “You know him?”

“Yeah, I did. He always drove like a bat out of hell. I don’t think they insure him anymore, but your insurance ought to be okay. You got some, don’t you.” It was a statement.

“Yes.”

“You look the careful type. I’ll go to court with you and explain how this happened.”

Within Zach, some thread of curiosity made him ask, “You would testify for me?”

“Sure. I’ve known Ike all his life long. He’s one hairy driver. Or he was one. No more. He’s bought the farm.”

“He bought a farm?”

“It’s just an expression. His life insurance will pay the bills.”

Zach had been looking at Paul, but then he looked down at his wife and at his son.

The distant siren came almost immediately. Neither man spoke. The sound came closer, louder. It was a surprise that it came around the bend slowly. It was a moxie driver who knew to be careful.

Quickly, the men checked out the bodies, and it was the boy whom they stabilized, lifted onto a stretcher and took into the ambulance. They looked at Paul, who nodded minimally, then he asked Zach, “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“You going with the boy?”

Startled, Zach asked, “What about Hannah?”

And his expression was such that one man said to the other, “We can fit her in.” Then they carefully, needlessly stabilized her head and put her on another stretcher.

The highway police arrived by then and told Zach to go along with Paul. They’d see them at the hospital.

Paul stayed with Zach for the time left of that day. He was a rock. He led Zach through everything very discreetly, including a check on his condition. Zach didn’t mention his headache. He thought it was stress. The medical people weren’t fooled.

To Zach, Paul was a godsend. How could such a casual man, as Paul was, be so knowledgeable? He knew what a victim of circumstances in a strange place needed.

Paul asked, “Would you want to see the minister?”

“Not now.”

When the doctor finally came out to Zach, he asked, “You been looked at? Are you all right?” And he frowned at Zach.

“Yeah.”

The doctor said, “You may have guessed it already and right away that Hannah didn’t make it. She did not suffer. It happened instantly.”

It only confirmed what Zach had suspected. He was silent for a while. So was the doctor. And so was Paul, who was there.

Peripherally, even then, Zach was aware of Paul’s empathy and presence.

Finally, Zach asked about his son. “How is my boy?”

The doctor replied, “It doesn’t look good. His pupils are dilated and don’t react to light. We’ve done the first EEG, which measures brain waves. Those next two tests will be at twelve-hour intervals. That’s to test whether the brain is functioning. We’ll have to wait for tomorrow.”

With the pupils fixed and dilated, those at the hospital already were sure, but the doctor knew that two such blows might be too much for this torn man. “Would you like to sleep here? You may. But I would advise you to go to the hotel where it will be more restful. Come with me to see Michael, now. Then decide where you want to sleep.”

Paul asked Zach, “Want me along?”

Zach turned to look at the stranger who was a substitute guardian angel. The man was silent and unin-trusive. Zach said, “Please.”

They went to the emergency room and there lay Michael. A budding man. He lay there with myriad tubes and monitors connected to him. The lung machine pumped air. The stem of his brain kept his heart beating. Mike was still and peaceful.

And Zach knew. He asked the doctor, “There is no hope at all?”

He hadn’t planned to tell the father until the next morning. There was no getting around it. “We need two more EEG’s. The third will be tomorrow morning.”

“Yes.”

“We hope for a miracle. It may not come.”

“I…understand.” Pain washed over Zach’s alive body. It was reality. Then he asked, “May I see Hannah once more? Or have they taken her?”

“She’s here. Would you like to be alone with her for awhile?”

“Yes.”

The doctor led the way down the hall to the room where Hannah lay so quietly. His voice was level as he told the stunned husband, “While your wife’s organs were oxygen-dead, most of Michael’s vital organs can be used. We call it organ harvesting. This is something for you to consider. You can allow Michael to give the gift of life to other people. Think on this.”

Then steadily the doctor told Zach, “We know what you’ve gone through. We understand your situation of decisions. It’s a tough place for anyone to stand. If we can help you in any way, ask us. We are all here for you.”

It was Paul who stood silently with his hand on Zach’s shoulder. But Zach went alone to sit by his wife. Once he asked her, “Is Mike with you? Is he here?”

There was no reply m the silence.

Zach finally left the room and didn’t even notice that Paul had waited and then followed Zach only to the door when he went to his son.

Michael looked as peaceful as Hannah. Zach resented their peace. How could they leave him there…alone? To have been a family, one of three for so long and now to be alone.

But they had been so badly hurt. How could he resent their escape? The air bags hadn’t worked with the slant of the car crash. Hannah had hit her head on the window. A neat, lethal blow.

With the companionship they’d shared for all those years, she’d left him without a word. How would it be to again be alone?

At least the two would be together. Zach leaned and kissed his son’s forehead.

Zach left the room, and Paul was still a shadow.

Paul said logically, “We need some milk to soothe us. Let’s go to the hotel and get you signed in.”

It was almost six o’clock, but there in the hotel lobby office was Jessica Channing. She came to the empty desk and said, “I’m substituting for Vera. What can I do to help you?”

Paul smiled, but Zach didn’t even see Jessica. He was going into something similar to shock. His heart pumped and his breathing picked up. It was a form of delayed panic.

Jessica said to Paul, “Is this Zachary Thomas?”

“Yeah, he’s had it.”

“I understand. He needs to walk for a while. We’ll get him a glass of milk.”

Paul asked, “Could you walk with him? He needs somebody along. I’ve got to check in at home.”

“Rick said you found them. I called Sue. The kids are wild, and you need to go home. I’ll go with him.”

Zach understood nothing. He was not only in some panic but in shock. Things had happened that he couldn’t prevent. He couldn’t stop them. He’d flubbed it. They were both…gone! How could they be?

Someone came silently with the glass of tepid milk. Paul took it and handed it to Zach, who didn’t pay any attention because his mind was in a distraction of disorientation.

He drank the milk down and set the glass on the reception counter, and Jessica said, “Let’s walk.”

They went out of the hotel and across the entrance road to the sand. They turned north along the wet, solid beach just above the receding waves. They didn’t speak at all. They walked.

The surging waves were soothing. There weren’t too many people around. The breeze was fresh. It played in their hair and ruffled their clothing. The sun was low in the western sky. Around Zach the air was silent of voices and no decisions pushed at him. He was free.

Helping people in shock was one of the things the town of Sea View had learned. Of course, there were a few people who didn’t volunteer at the hospital. To the rest, it was interesting and they helped. They were that kind of people.

The shocked man with the woman stranger at his side didn’t walk far. Jessica knew better than to exhaust a person in his position. But he was then outside and free. It gave the feeling of control to the man. Lured into walking, in his shock, he now felt walking on the beach had been his idea. He was in control.

By then, they were back at the hotel. He was given a sedative to take if he chose. Paul’s note said the doctor recommended it. Zach needed to rest. Tomorrow would be a tough day.

Zach read Paul’s note and looked at Jessica. “Paul has been a rock for me this afternoon.” His own voice sounded apart from him. “I don’t know how to thank him for all that time. For that support.”

“You can tell him tomorrow.” Jessica told Zach that so easily. She knew what a hell of a day the next day would be. The boy had no chance at all. The harvesters would gather from the airport with their little ice buckets. They would be sober-faced, earnest and grateful.

They would harvest bone, heart, kidneys, eye lenses and skin. The harvesting was generally within the state. Michael’s gifts would help people all over TEXAS.

Jessica told Zach, “Do take the pill. It will help your body relax. You need the rest.”

And Zach said, “Take me to my room. I’m not sure I can make it on my own.”

Jessica looked at that man. How many times had she heard something similar?

He was serious. He was wrung out.

Even later, she considered that she could have easily gotten someone else to take him to his room. He wouldn’t turn a hair because his request had been so vulnerable. He was not a lecher.

She looked at the clock on the wall. Vera would be back in about ten minutes. Jessica told Don, “Watch the desk?”

Don eyed the man beside Jessica with gradually diminishing suspicion. “Sure. I’ll call Vernon to take up his luggage.” Don looked around but there was none.

Zach replied, “It’s in the car and the car’s probably been hauled to someplace else. I was in a wreck.”

Only he. Only he was wrecked. The others had survived in a different way. They’d escaped from life. He was alone.

Or—had he died, too, and was he just around as a haunt? He hadn’t wanted to die, and his mind had prevented it? He would come to his ghost’s limit in time, and he’d just…leave? Why hadn’t he gone with them? Why was only he there? Was he alive?

He looked at Jessica. She was probably his imagination. She was unreal, she was so beautiful. He’d drawn her from adolescent dreamings. Hannah had been the real woman, a good friend; this one was a dream.

Jessica collected a shaving kit and a shirt from the gift shop. She found socks and underwear. She brought them back to Zach. He heard himself say, “Put it on my bill.”

And she replied, “We’ll see.”

His eyes slitted as he studied her in the half light of the fading day. Yeah. She was a dream. He was probably at the side of the road… in the wrecked car…still.

He asked the iridescent woman, “Are you real?”

And she realized he was in shock. He was working on only half a brain. She said soothingly, “We all are.”

Not all.

She said, “Come.” And she led the way to the elevator. She had the key and carried the other things she’d gathered for him.

He followed, observing her walk. She had a good walk. She barely moved but her skirts did. They swayed. He blinked and looked away from her. The evening lights were dimmed by the setting sun. The hazed atmosphere was ethereal…It was weird.

They were the only ones in the elevator. As in a dream, they were alone. Such isolation was a part of a dream. The redhead would disappear… when they got to his bed.

People weren’t going to their rooms, they were going down the elevators to the dining rooms, but it seemed a dream to Zach.

The pair reached his floor. Jessica located his room on the discreet gold rectangle with black lettering and numbers. She compared the key and told him, “From the elevator, you turn left.”

He replied, “Yeah.” And he looked at her face. He was taller than she. He was a dominant male. How strange to feel that. He’d always thought of women as equals. The wreck had thrown him back into his basic male thinking. He was dominant.

At his room, it was Jessica who unlocked his door. She opened it inward, effortlessly, and he seemed to drift beside her into the room.

She looked around. It was very neat and orderly. She checked the bath and it, too, was pristine.

The accommodations were always that way.

Jess went to the bureau and opened the drawer to put in his newly purchased underwear. She removed myriad straight pins from the new shirt. She got them all. She would. Then she hung the shirt in the closet.

She put his shaving kit in the bathroom.

Then she came back into the bedroom with a glass of water, which she handed to him. She watched as he put the pill into his mouth and drank the water down.

With care, he put the glass on the table by his bed, as she pulled the coverlet back and turned down the sheeted blanket. He was watching her as if in a trance.

She hesitated and her lips parted. He took her hand into his. They were facing each other. She almost smiled and she watched mesmerized as he took a step nearer.

He regarded her very seriously. His breathing was harsh. He carefully, gently took her into his arms and…he really kissed her!

She was thrillingly shocked and her nose drew in air as her mouth opened to his tongue. Her eyes widened in surprise as her body curled against his rigid one.

What on EARTH!

And his hunger grew. He really didn’t let go of her as he discarded his jacket and stepped on the heels of his shoes to get rid of them. He was out of his sports shirt by dragging it off over his head and his trousers were no problem. Unzipped, they were peeled down…along with his underwear.

He was going to…? She was shocked as she felt a strange fever build inside her body. Her breathing was odd. She looked at him and realized he was not in control of himself. But he was only positive. He wasn’t hurting her. He was just very determined. Yeah, he was. And she was…?

She wanted him. It wasn’t compassion for his present, awful circumstances. It was him. She wanted this man. How shocking.

Why had this never happened before now? The two times she’d been involved with some man, it hadn’t been this way. It had been rather abrupt and messy.

Why this man?

By then, he’d taken her dress off over her head and her slip straps were down her arms. Her bare chest was tightly pressed against the hair on his chest and it felt…marvelous. She gasped. But she pressed against him.

He growled in a guttural voice, “So you want me.”

And pressing her round breasts in a rubbing swirl against him, she moaned!

It was as if she was an entirely different person. How could this be? She wasn’t this kind of a woman. She barely—well, that was obvious—she was bare. But she hardly knew the—

Her back was on the bed. He moved her knees as he looked down her, and he lowered himself into her cradle.

He was very good but he was quick. It just so happened that she was triggered and it was an explosion of passion! Not of love but of body hunger. Passion.

No, it was release. Surcease.

How incredible.

And she knew she was at best a distraction. A substitute. A brief replacement. It wasn’t she who was the recipient of his frantic, denying love.

With the emotional storm past, he dragged from her limp body and fell to the side of her. And he was out cold.

Two

For such a careful woman, it was a shock to Jessica to get up from the bed and look back at the man who had escaped into deep, exhausted sleep. She looked at him. He had a beautiful body. Her hands lingered on him.

Hesitating, she gazed at him. Finally, she carefully straightened him enough so that she could gently cover his body with the sheet and blanket.

Her own body was outrageously pleased and satisfied and murmuring. How could a body be separate from the mind? Well, however that was done, she was witness to her body’s obvious greed. She wanted to get back into his bed. How shocking!

Jess’s mind could have bandled Zach’s maneuvers, but it had blinked out. Her body had just…taken over. It had gone along…for the…ride?

It had most certainly been a ride. Wow. His poor dead wife. She’d never have that lustful man again.

Ummmm. How nice it had been with Zachary Thomas! How marvelous her body felt from its coupling with his. In the several times in the last five years when she’d tried it, it had never been the same for her as it had been with Zach.

She’d thought the whole experience had been lied about. But it was all true. She’d just found that out. It really was magic! It was only an awkwardly managed coupling, but how amazing.

It had to be this one man.

She looked on him, sleeping soundly. He was really something. He was out cold and snoring, a nice, comforting little bubble of sound. Her mother had always told her that a man’s snore was something to investigate.

Her mother had never meant for Jessica to find out in just this way. And it came to Jess that this might not have been the right time of the month for her to have been so recklessly careless.

Yeah. There in a stranger’s hotel room, she rearranged her clothing and tidied her hair. She couldn’t do much for the whisker burn. Although she looked for a face salve in the kit acquired in their shop, apparently whisker burn had never been a problem for men.

Jess rubbed her abraded face with some ice from the container so carefully filled by room service.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She could get out of the hotel. She could have—she should have left at six when she was supposed to leave. But they were shorthanded, and she’d agreed to spell Vera while she had dinner. What a rash decision for her to have made.

She wondered if the ghost of Zach’s wife had watched them—and if she had understood his grief. Any woman married at least twelve years to such a man would have understood him. Jessica did and she’d known him a much too brief time.

Then she realized that if she had been known to Zach, he wouldn’t have taken her. Now, that was a curious thing to consider. How could she be sure it was so? It was.

Jess discreetly left the hotel and walked toward her little house only four blocks away. There was an old, pin oak tree, which dominated the entire yard. But the pecan trees found the shade nice.

The house was hers. She’d paid for it when her redheaded, great-grandmother had left Jess her fortune. Being the person she was, Jess had split the money with her two surviving siblings. One of her brothers had died.

Jess’s little house was wood and painted white. It was a one-story frame house with roof peaks, and it sat on a corner. It was perfect for a single woman.

The porch curled around the house so that someone in a rocker could move to sit in the sun in winter and in the shade in summer. There were roses. Winter roses. TEXAS can be counter to the rest of the country. It’s where the sun spends the winter.

Any number of women had sought to share Jessica’s house. And it would have been noisy and fun to have had housemates living with her, but Jessica liked being alone in such a small, friendly town.

As Jess went up her walk, the cat was sitting on the porch with his tail curled around him in a patient manner. He gave her a growly smothered sound just like any male who is irritated with his slave being late to get home and therefore late in fixing his supper.

But the first thing Jessica did was go to her bedroom to check her calendar. She did it even before The Grouch got his supper. He mentioned her oversight in a rude yowl.

Jessica didn’t hear him. It had been a long time since she’d needed to check on—the time of the month. She pushed up her bottom lip and considered how close she was to being vulnerable with that man. She stood a while in deep thought.

The cat’s irritated yowl finally reached into Jessica’s mind. And Jess went to find the cat food. She was thoughtful and had only tea as she sat distracted at the kitchen table.

She went to bed early. The cat got up on the bed and licked and licked and licked. She asked it, “What did you do all day that you didn’t get a bath and have to do it all now?”

The cat lifted his head and speared her with an indignant look for long enough, then he discarded her and went back to licking.

Jess went to sleep.

She wakened the next morning as if she’d run the marathon—twice. She frowned at the cat in the middle of her bed and said, “If you can’t share the bed, you’ll have to sleep outside. Do you understand?”

The cat stretched and turned over to lie on his back. That was his invitation for her to spend time rubbing his fur and talking sweetly to him.

She did neither.

So the cat got down from the bed and stretched all different ways, as if sleeping with her had cramped his space, and then he went out to the kitchen to see if the mice had left anything on his plate.

The plate was pristine. Jess had begun to clean his plate because the mice liked cat food. He blinked with slow patience and waited.

The cat’s slave hurried around and made her own breakfast and skipped the coffee after the first sip. That she couldn’t drink the coffee caused her to thoughtfully sit at the table for some long time, looking out of the window and indifferent to the charming mews the cat managed to fake.

When she continued to ignore him, he went over and yowled at her. It was not a nice expression, but he was hungry, and she wasn’t doing her duty to him.

Coldly, she looked at the cat and replied, “You could waddle around the house and catch a mouse or two.”

He stalked across the kitchen floor, out the cat door and caught a lizard in about ten minutes. He didn’t yowl the hunt cry but left the lizard’s feet and head on the porch. Then he went down the alley to see what else was available.

It was a pensive day for Jessica. She didn’t have the flu. She remembered her sister Alice throwing up the morning after her husband went to the Carolinas before going to the Middle East.

Alice’s air force husband, Phil, had flown in, and said nothing to her of the reason for the surprise visit. It was allegedly a practice takeoff and landing trip. But he’d called her. She’d met him, they’d made love in her car, on the road just outside the airport. And the next day, Alice knew she was pregnant. Everyone else had scoffed. Even Phil when Alice told him. But she was and she’d known the next day.

Jessica’s face softened. Was she?

She had a slow glass of milk and nothing else. Then she dressed in a distracted manner and walked indolently to the hotel. She wasn’t too sharp that morning.

But during that day, Jess knew exactly what Zach-ary Thomas was doing. She had a nurse she chatted with at the hospital. In the late afternoon, Jess called her. “How is Mr. Thomas?”

“He saw the boy before the harvesters took what they could. This is a tough time for Mr. Thomas. He’s at the funeral home sitting with his wife. Poor guy.”

The boy’s casket would be sealed.

Jess closed her books and told the manager, “I’m leaving early.”

And he replied, “Ummm,” without looking up.

So Jessica went over to the funeral home. And Zach was sitting in a chair near the open casket. He was deep in thought and didn’t actually hear Jessica sit down next to him.

He looked at her.

She said, “This is tough. I’m sorry you have such a burden of grief so far from home. Being alone at this time must be especially sad for you.”

His eyes were very serious. “I know what I did to you last night. I have no explanation for it. I apologize. Are you all right?”

“Of course.”

“I’ve told Hannah.”

“She’ll understand.”

“This has been such a nightmare. You gave me peace last night. I can’t understand my doing something like that to a stranger. To you.” He looked at Jessica and his eyes were troubled but clear. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

He sighed and looked away as he told her, “They’re harvesting. The minister was here for some time. I really don’t need anyone.”

She started to move to leave.

“Please stay.”

She sat back and was silent.

Then he asked her, “How will I get through all this without sealing it away in an emotional pus-like boil.”

She nodded. “That about describes grief. It could possibly help you to write it all down, how it happened, and put in your feelings and emotions. It could help you to face it all.

“A lot of people can’t communicate grief. You might sell such a sharing book. But if you never sell such a story, it’s okay. You will have dealt with the whole shebang, and it’s best to do it now.”

“She went so gently.”

So it was his wife for whom he grieved.

Thoughtfully, Zach added, “She was a good woman.”

Jessica replied, “She’ll make somebody a good guardian angel.”

“She’ll be looking after Mike.”

Jess agreed, “Probably. For a while. He may want to explore.”

Zach nodded. “Since he was taken, it is a comfort that she’ll be with him.”

That made Jess frown a little. The boy had to have been—what—eleven? Maybe twelve? Was that old enough to take care of himself? To distract her own self, Jess asked Zach, “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a teacher.”

He should be reasonably solvent. She waited.

Then Zach told her,’ ‘We came on this trip together because I’m not at home much. This was to get me better acquainted with Mike.” Again Zach was silent before he asked, “Isn’t that ironic? Now I’ll never know him. But Hannah did. She was with him. She’s still with him.”

It was clear to Jessica that Zach was not especially good father material. If she really was pregnant with his baby, she’d go it all alone. She had no need to disrupt his life.

Well, from what he said, he hadn’t disrupted his life for a wife or child. He’d lived his life his way—and on his own.

She was somewhat surprised he was sitting next to his neglected wife so uselessly. She was dead. What good was he now? She’d needed attention from him when she was alive.

Jessica started to rise, and Zach rose with her. “Would you walk with me on the beach? Yesterday’s walk saved my sanity. I’m having a hard time assimilating the fact that I’m—alone.”

She looked at him quickly, but he was looking at the waxen face of his wife.

So he did grieve. Perhaps if he’d realized nothing in life is for sure, he might have made a better husband.

If she was pregnant with his child, she absolutely would raise it alone. He was useless.

But he was a human being. One who was in grief. Belatedly, he was aware of his loss.

She asked, “Are there any arrangements you need to make?”

“The hospital and the minister both advised and guided me on those needs. They are professionals. And they were very kind. It’s helped me.”

She thought he might be a little self-centered. Well, maybe not. Nobody could do anything to help his late wife and son. They were gone.

But the son’s contribution to the parts harvest had been allowed by the grieving father.

As if clued in by her thoughts, Zach just started in on speaking about his own thoughts. “Hannah would have loved helping others.”

Jess figured Hannah worked in charities.

Zach admitted, “I’m new to the word ‘harvest.‘ We were too late for her to help anybody. That would irritate her…not being able to help somebody else. I don’t remember ever discussing what we should do-in case.”

“Most of us feel we will live forever.”

By then, they were out of the chapel and walking along the sidewalk toward the beach.

Zach mentioned, “We’ll take the early plane home.”

“Yes.” She glanced over at him. He’d included his wife and son.

He was watching her, but as she looked at him, he looked away. He asked her, “Do you like your job?”

She grinned. “I’m brilliant with numbers.” Then she added logically, “Keeping books is very satisfying tome.”

He shook his head in rejection. “If bookkeeping is exciting for you, I’ll send you all my income tax material and you can sort it out. That would be to show my gratitude for your—company—yesterday…and today. We are to leave tomorrow morning. They suggested that. They said it would be better to fly tomorrow. We’ll be home by noon.”

“I hope your life goes well.”

He watched her. “And yours.”

“Thank you.”

How odd that Jess drove to the airport early the next morning. She just sat in her car at the parking lot. The hospital airport was a shuttle port. He’d go to Corpus or San Antone or even Houston to connect with another plane to go…home.

She would never see him again. She hadn’t even asked for his address. It had been difficult for her to refrain from doing so. A part of her wanted a link.

From where she sat in her car, she watched the airplane lift and fly away. He was gone. She would never see him again.

Jess was then aware her hands were moving gently on her stomach to comfort the half orphan. The poor little beginning embryo.

What nonsense!

But she drove slowly from the airfield’s parking lot and then drove along the highway to an isolated spot along the coast. She sat and watched the water and the sky.

There was no other place that matched the places in TEXAS. She was soothed by the panorama of subtle colors and the permanence of the Gulf.

Could she actually be pregnant? Or was her body just being difficult? Wanting a man. Wanting a child?

How could such a brief meeting make her body take up this weird conduct? It was hormones and the yearning of some strange part of her psyche. That way her orderly mind could excuse this idiocy.

But why on earth would her body want to fool her that way? Or was it she who was fooling her body?

Too many experts think humans are one entity. Their brains/bodies/subconsciouses have never debated an issue? We are more complicated than we will ever understand.

In such a time, think how Zach had turned to her with only using her body. He hadn’t even thought about her as a person. Only a part of his mind remembered he’d taken her. He hadn’t lusted for her. It had been a chance act. A really stupid one.

Why hadn’t she resisted?

At the end of that day, she went home and slept in a drooling exhaustion. How could she be exhausted? She’d not done anything to be so zapped. She was grieving for a man with whom she’d had such a chance encounter?

Fiddlesticks.

Yes. Fiddlesticks. Her grandmother had used that word. It was better than the current shocking ones used in exasperation.

What had she done to ‘exhaust’ herself?

Nothing.

Jessica did the prerequisite chores and fed the offended cat. She walked the four blocks to the hotel to throw off the doldrums of her puzzling inertia.

In the middle of the morning, instead of tea, she had a glass of milk. Her stomach refused tea and she couldn’t stand to smell the coffee. She picked at lunch. She had tomato soup for supper, with crackers and a glass of milk.

Just under two weeks later, Jess skipped her period. She decided it was spring fever, and she wasn’t exercising nearly enough. She went out to jog and her breasts and stomach declined doing that.

She walked quite a distance. Not as far as she generally walked, but she had to sit down and rest before starting back.

It was the having-to-rest part that just about convinced Jess something was different. She’d ignored all the other signals.

She was quiet and thoughtful. Her work did not suffer. In that element of her life, she was brilliant as usual. But she canceled attending evening gatherings. She went to bed early. She slept like a log. Out cold. No awareness.

Zach called her in a month. He asked in a husky voice, “Are you okay?”

Toplofty, she replied, “Of course. Are you?”

He replied, “It’s strange to go into a silent house.”

Another week went by and nothing changed. Well, some things stayed changed. Jessica could tell something was going on. Her breasts were fuller. She continued to be picky with food. She finally went to a doctor…in Corpus. She was, indeed, pregnant.

She drove back to Sea View slowly and in some acknowledged shock. How could she do this to a child? Life was rough enough as it was. How could she face her parents? They’d be embarrassed and loyal.

Her sister Alice would be avidly curious. A stranger? How could Jess give in to a stranger! Miss Goody-Two-Shoes dallying with a stranger? Who was it!

Even the doctor had asked her that one. He was young, pleasant looking and interested. If she would for someone else, why not for him?

Being pregnant in Sea View’s intimate, gossipy limitation was not going to be easy. How strange that she didn’t even consider canceling the baby. Why not?

She wasn’t sure why not. Being pregnant really wasn’t real to her. She had to assimilate the fact first. Then she considered her situation.

She was self-supporting. No one had to donate to her health and welfare. She was on her own and could manage.

It would be rough on her family. They would be supportive and loyal, but it would be rough for them. And for her.

Would she find out Zach’s address and let him know?

No.

Why burden him with such a problem?

He was the father. It might help him over this terrible time of being alone.

Actually, the fatal trip had been to bond him with his son. He hadn’t been much of a part of his other family. Why would he be interested in sharing a surprise child?

He ought to be told.

She’d figure that out another time. He could get a DNA test and see how careless he’d been. He was—careless? What had she been doing in his room?

Don could have gone up with Zach. Actually, no one needed to go up with him. He was an adult. He could have handled himself. He was handling himself. She’d just gone along with him and been available.

A woman accompanying a man to a hotel room isn’t all that smart. Some conduct is necessary for a woman under all circumstances. As her mother had always told her: If you don’t walk on the tracks, you won’t get hit by the train!

It was good advice.

So. She was just as responsible. She hadn’t made one protest. Instead, she’d gone with him and sorted out his problems and even given him the pill so that he could sleep.

She had given more than a pill. She had given herself.

Had being twenty-nine triggered her foolish behavior? What would this do to the town? To her place in the town? To her family? To her? To the child? Yes, the child.

It was a little late for such thoughts. She ought to have figured it out sooner.

It was three months later, on a Friday morning, and Jessica had gone to the hotel. She was girding up to face the family’s doctor, when who should walk into The Horizon but Zachary Thomas!

Him!

For some strange reason, she’d taken her eyes from the computer monitor. She looked through the open door past the desk as he approached the door and came through it.

He was more alert.

That was an interesting observation for her to have. She’d not thought, there he was, or what was he doing there, but that he was alert.

He looked wonderful! He was a really well-set-up human male animal. Her shocking body noticed. Her knees became subtly restless. Her breathing changed. Her eyes were enormous.

As he approached the desk, he looked through the door and saw her. He grinned and kept his eyes on Jessica.

When Don came to the desk, Zach shook his head and grinned as he continued to look at Jess. He lifted his chin and said, “I’ve come to see Jessica Channing.”

Her lips suddenly puffy and parting, Jess pushed back her swivel chair and walked to the desk’s counter like an uncontrolled robot.

He didn’t say hello or anything normal; he asked, “Are you free?”

She could have replied in any number of ways, but she nodded.

He said, “Come walk on the beach with me.”

It was raining. It was a nice early summer’s rain. She put on her raincoat because Don held it for her. As she walked around the end of the counter, Don gave Zach an umbrella.

The two walkers didn’t say anything. They just went out of The Horizon and down onto the beach. Zach was in very casual clothing. He’d just gotten off a shuttle plane. He was there.

Jess looked at him now and again. His face was relaxed. His eye crinkles crinkled as he smiled down at her. He breathed deeply and sighed in contentment.

In three months, he was back to see another woman? That was quick.

He said, “Some of the recipients of the Donor Harvest are coming to the hospital tomorrow. I was invited to meet them. This was an opportunity to see if you are real. You are.”

Grieving for his wife, he’d noticed another woman?

She looked at the TEXAS sky, which was in shades of gray. It was beautiful. The rain was misty and touched her hot face. Her metabolism had changed and she was generally too warm.

He said, “You’ve lost some weight. You’re skinny. Are you all right? Your cheeks are hot. Are you well?”

She replied, “Yes.” That was for whatever he’d said. She didn’t mention that the skinniness wouldn’t last.

As they went back toward the hotel, he asked awkwardly, “Could you take the afternoon off and…be with me? Tomorrow would you go with me? I’m not sure…how to handle…all this. You were so logical last time. I will never be able to repay you for your help.”

She blushed scarlet just about all over, but he saw her face redden. He was startled. “Are you all right?”

She assured him, “Yes.”

His hand caught hers. “I’m glad. You were such a help to me. You were so calm. I don’t think I could ever make it up to you. If you should ever need any kind of help, I’d be grateful if you’ll let me be the one, or at least be in the crowd that would help you.”

She looked down at her feet while she could still see them. Pregnant women said such. But she again blushed scarlet. Damn!

In some earnestness, Zach pressed, “Are you okay? Why did you blush that way?”

“It’s nothing.” Nothing!

He took her arm and stopped her steps. “Jessica, you wouldn’t hide from me, would you? You and Paul could claim my very life in support. You both have calls on me. If there is anything—”

“There isn’t.”

He watched her soberly. And she looked everywhere else.

Zach asked gently, “Will you go with me to the hospital?”

She looked down but she said, “Yes.”

“I have a strong feeling you’d rather not go with me, but I accept that you will go along and I’ll hold you to the agreement.”

She nodded.

He shortened his steps as he looked at his watch. And he pretended to be offhand as he closely quizzed her. “Everything at the hotel okay?”

“Yes.”

“Your family all okay?”

He wasn’t one damned bit subtle. He knew something was riding her. Well, something had ridden her. Him. How was she to get through this? Would she have to get rid of him again? Get on with it all alone?

He was down to asking, “The town’s steady?”

And somewhat irritated, she replied to him, “No earthquakes, either.”

So he was silent. As they walked, he turned his head and looked around as men do, but he was thinking and his eyes squinted just a bit.

Finally, he asked, “Are you involved with some man?”

“Not seriously.”

Zach stopped and demanded, “But you admit you are involved?”

And she was honest. “In a manner of speaking, I…was.”

He said nothing.

She looked up at Zach and there he was, good-looking, serious, interested, concerned. Hell.

Softening his male voice, he told her, “If you have any problem, at all, tell me how to help you. I owe you.”

She replied briefly, “No.”

Three

Jessica took Zachary to her parents’ house for lunch. She hadn’t even called them ahead of time. The two just went there. She introduced him as Zach Thomas. And she named her parents as Mark and Cynthia Channing.

Jess’s red hair, green eyes and translucent skin were her mother’s. Cynthia was a beauty. And it was easy for Zach to say, “I know what a beauty Jessica will be in her time.”

How many times had Cynthia heard such talk about her precious daughter? It was a given. How can one take credit for something over which one has no input? Cynthia barely smiled. But her green eyes weighed what sort of man Zachary Thomas might be.

That made Zach smile.

Cynthia said to him, “I remember you. Paul Butler was so concerned for you.”

“I would never have made it, if Paul and Jessica hadn’t been there.”

Her parents nodded once to acknowledge his words.

Mark Channing ran Sea View’s weekly newspaper and was always home for lunch. Well, on some Thursdays when the paper was being put to bed, Cynthia took her husband’s lunch and sometimes his supper to him.

Jessica’s parents welcomed Zach and made him comfortable with their casual TEXAS manners. And with skillful subtleness her mother added enough of everything in sandwiches and salad to include the surprise guest quite easily. She was used to doing that.

It was natural…seeming. Both parents were ordinarily very curious. However, the only really comfortable person there was Zach. Both parents’ eyes caught every minute as Zach’s glances lighted on their daughter.

Jessica’s cheeks were scarlet. She licked her lips a lot. She held herself calmly in check.

And the parents looked at Zach. They narrowed their eyes and listened to him. He was talking about teaching. Then he touched on witnessing the harvest results the next day.

Vulnerably, he said, “I’m not sure I can handle seeing kids who have transplants from Mike. Jess has been kind enough to agree to go with me. She and Paul Butler have been so supportive. I don’t know what I would have done without them.”

Zach’s face was so calmly earnest.

The parents watched silently.

Jessica toyed with her food and her cheeks continued scarlet.

The conversation gaps didn’t bother Zach. Jessie’s dad said enough and her mother’s observations were neutral as usual. She never had appeared to be strident, but Jess knew her to be ironhanded adamant.

Jess wondered when her mother would quit silently considering her and begin to question her. Right then, her mother was considering—Zach. She was a courteous, well-brought-up woman who was now reserved.

Jessica sighed without seeming to. She had learned to do that in her early years. It was of special need for their aging preacher’s rambling sermons.

When would Jessica Channing get a sermon from their next relatively new, but now aging preacher? Who would tell him that Jessica Channing was pregnant?

Not her parents. She could get to nine and a half months and her parents wouldn’t publicly “notice” any difference in her unless she mentioned it to them.

At the table, next to Jess, was the father of her child. And although Zach was sensitive enough to realize that there was something bothering her, it hadn’t occurred to him that he was a part of it.

Should she tell him?

Ah, how could she? He was now so free! Actually, he’d probably been this markedly individual all of his life. He was on his own. He had been that way even with a family to support. And the deaths of Hannah and Mike had shocked him raw. But now he was getting back to being himself.

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