"Then why were you there?"
She blurted out the question without thinking, then wanted to call it back. The sun had fallen behind the trees, leaving them in shadow. The cries of the night creatures began softly, building in sound and intensity with each passing minute. The smell of earth and grass, the coming cool of evening, reminded her that she was alone with Austin. Isolated with a man she didn't really know. They'd been intimate with each other. She knew a little about his body, his touch and his kisses, but almost nothing about his soul. He played the villain to hide a softer side. That she believed. But why he felt he had to conceal his gentleness she didn't know.
Something deep inside, some voice she'd learned to listen to, whispered that it was better she didn't understand him. She knew instinctively that learning the truth about Austin would be deadly. Not because the information would scare her away but because it would be too easy for her crush to blossom into something more dangerous. A woman would be a fool to care about a man like him. She knew that as surely as she knew the sun would rise tomorrow. Everything about him and his life-style screamed that he was destined to break hearts. Hers was already so fragile she wouldn't survive if it shattered again.
"You really want to know why I was at the home?" he asked, his voice deceptively lazy as if he didn't care about her answer. But her time with the children had taught her to look past the obvious. The sudden stiffness in his shoulders, the watchful expression in his eyes warned her that her answer carried some significance.
She didn't want to know. She would regret hearing his story. Yet the side of her that he mocked, the instinct to heal, was too powerful to be ignored. "Tell me, please."
"My mother wasn't much interested in raising a kid. She used to dump me with relatives while she went off and had a life. Eventually she ran out of family, so she left me on the steps of an orphanage up by Sacramento. When I turned out to be more than they could handle, they sent me here."
He spoke the words casually, as if they told a story about someone else. The urge to reach for him and hold him close almost overwhelmed her, but she forced herself to stay where she was. "How old were you?" she asked.
"Ten or eleven. She came by every few months to take a couple of pictures of me." His mouth twisted. "She needed proof that I was alive to keep her meal ticket going."
"I don't understand."
He'd been looking out into the night, but now he turned his dark gaze on her. His eyes bore into her, as if he were searching down into her soul. She felt cold suddenly, although the temperature hadn't changed. She folded her arms over her chest and shivered.
"Blackmail." He let the single word hang alone for several seconds. "My father was—" he shook his head "—is a successful politician in Washington. Married, two kids, conservative constituency. He made the mistake of having an affair with my mother back when he was a nobody. She got pregnant and decided he was her meal ticket."
"She used you for blackmail, then left you in an orphanage?"
"No big deal."
No big deal? Who was he kidding? Rebecca stared at him, trying to absorb what he'd told her. How could any mother treat her child like that?
"I don't know what to say," she murmured. "It must have been awful for you."
"I got by."
She remembered Austin's care when he'd worked with David that afternoon. No wonder he'd handled the boy so well. He knew what it was like to lose everything. "You know what David's feeling," she said. "That's why he likes you so much."
"You're making it more than it was. I let the kid help me paint the room. Nothing more. I'm not like you, Rebecca. I don't believe the world s worth saving."
"That must make your life very lonely. How do you stand it?"
He glared at her. "I think I liked you better when you were spilling things and couldn't get out more than a sentence without blushing."
"I didn't know you liked me at all," she blurted without thinking.
"I don't generally sleep with women I dislike."
"But I seduced you. It wasn't your choice."
He leaned forward until they were close enough for her to feel the heat of his body. Excitement licked up her spine. "How the hell can you still be so innocent?" he asked. "Honey, you never had a prayer of seducing me. If I hadn't been interested, we wouldn't have done it."
She wrinkled her nose. "Big talk now that it's behind us. You keep your interpretation of what happened and I'll keep mine. "
She studied the lines of his face. Stubble shadowed his jaw. The twilight pulled the color from his features, making his eyes look dark and mysterious. A waste of time. He didn't need any help to be more appealing. There was something too magnetic about him already. If only she could figure out what it was. She knew it was something about the way he was always alone. Maybe he challenged women on a primal level. Maybe females were instinctively drawn to a solitary male, wanting to bring him into the circle of intimacy.
"Now what are you plotting?" he asked. He moved a little closer. For a moment she thought he might kiss her. Anticipation made her body hum.
"I was wondering if you are ever lonely," she said with out thinking, then could have cheerfully slapped herself.
Predictably Austin withdrew, pulling back until he was leaning against the pillar. He folded his arms over his chest.
"Save it for the children. I don't need you trying to get inside to save me, Rebecca. Even if you had a prayer of getting the job done, I'm not interested in being saved. I like my world just the way it is."
"All right." She stretched her legs out in front of her, resting her heels on the lowest step, and folded her hands in her lap.
"Why don't I trust you?" he asked. "That was too easy."
"I'm not the difficult one. I'm straightforward, open, honest. You're the brooder. You can make fun of me all you want, but I'd like to point out that I'm a tiny bit closer to normal than you."
His gaze flickered over her face. A smile pulled at his firm mouth, but it wasn't humorous. "Let me guess. You're one of four kids? "
"All girls." She clutched her knees again, pulling them close to her body. "How'd you know that?"
His smile turned genuine. "Because you're such a girl yourself."
"What does that mean?"
"Look at you. You wear dresses all the time. Floral lacy things. You probably don't own a pair of jeans."
"It's hardly a crime."
"You were never a tomboy." He spoke with the confidence of a man who knows women.
She wasn't sure if that was good or bad. "You're right. I never wanted to play rough with the boys. I liked being a girl, and I like being a woman. I like doing female things. Cooking, being with the children."
"Don't defend yourself. I was making an observation, not a criticism."
His good humor had returned. Apparently he'd put her question out of his mind, but she hadn't. Did Austin get lonely? Did he really plan to spend the rest of his life living in his loft by himself? She couldn't understand that. All her life she'd wanted a husband and family. Back in high school and college, she'd studied hard because she'd wanted a career, but she'd always known that wouldn't be enough for her. She needed people around her. She needed a family. She liked the rhythm of life, births, holidays, the passing of the years. Sometimes her heart felt so full of love she thought it might burst open. She wanted a man in her bed, the same man, night after night. She wanted to feel her child growing inside her, then watch that child change from an infant to a toddler, from a teenager to an adult. She wanted to give her child the love-filled life she'd had when she'd been growing up.
She looked up at Austin. He was staring into the distance, his dark eyebrows drawing together in a faint frown. He was good-looking enough to make her weak with longing There was just enough of a bad boy inside him to push her past reason. But he wasn't the one. She knew that. She needed someone like herself. Someone who believed in family values and shared her philosophy of life. She needed a man, not the temptation of the de
vil in disguise.
Funny that the devil had been the one to save her. Finally she felt like every other woman. Without the albatross of her virginity hanging around her neck, she was free to start looking for someone to share her life with.
Not someone like Wayne, she thought firmly. She'd loved him with all her heart, but it had been a young love. She would never know if it would have lasted through the changes maturation brought. She wanted to believe it would have, but she wasn't sure.
"We have to talk about it, Rebecca," Austin said at last, breaking the silence between them.
She knew exactly what he was referring to. "I'm not pregnant. I didn't try to trick you into anything. Why can't you let it go?"
"Because my luck isn't that good. When's your period due?"
She opened her mouth to answer, then closed it as color flooded her cheeks. She'd been doing so well with him, too. But with one simple question he left her embarrassed and gasping like a fish.
She ducked her head. "Ten days," she mumbled.
"The home pregnancy kits I looked at said you could check within three days of being late."
She stood up. "I can't believe we're talking about this. I'm not pregnant. We only did it once. What are the odds?"
"As long as there's a chance you are, we have to talk about it."
He rose to his feet, towering over her. She refused to be intimidated. "No, we don't. If I'm pregnant, which I'm not, then it's my problem. I don't want or need your help."
He grabbed her shoulders. "Damn it, Rebecca, I'm not going to be responsible for bringing a bastard into this world."
She shook herself free of his grasp. "It's not up to you. If I'm wrong, then I'm keeping this child and you can't make me choose otherwise."
He flinched as if she'd slapped him. Some emotion tightened his mouth briefly. "That's not what I meant," he said, his voice low and strained. "I can't…" He shook his head. "Thirteen days, then. Let me know either way."
He hurried down the stairs and toward the grove of trees that separated the house from the two-story barn. She moved to the edge of the porch.
"Austin, wait."
He didn't stop, didn't even slow down. His long legs carried him farther and farther away, and then he was lost to the night.
* * *
Squeals of laughter carried across the bright green lawn. Rebecca smiled at the sounds, then sank back into the comfortable lawn chair that had been a gift from the hardware store in town. Tall, leafy trees provided shade from the afternoon sun, but the kids didn't seem to mind the June heat.
"I could get used to this," Elizabeth said from the chair next to hers. Rebecca's friend sipped on her icy glass of lemonade, then held the tumbler to her flushed face. "I've finally found a comfortable position. Do you think I could take this chair home with me and sleep in it?"
Rebecca laughed. "Go ahead. You need your rest." She glanced at her friend's rounded belly, stretching the front of her maternity blouse. The pale peach fabric set off Elizabeth's faint tan and brown hair. Even with her stomach sticking out and her ankles swollen, she looked beautiful. There was a contentment in her eyes Rebecca envied.
Elizabeth smiled at her. "I can't believe I have almost a month left. I feel like I'm going to go at any moment. I keep asking the doctor if she could have made a mistake and she just gives me that knowing grin of hers. It makes me crazy."
"It'll be worth it," Rebecca promised. She raised herself into a sitting position, then swung her feet over the side of the chaise longue so that she was facing the other woman. "Soon you'll have a new baby. You must be excited."
"I am. But it's been so long since I had Mandy, I'd forgotten nine months felt more like nine years."
A loud burst of laughter caught Rebecca's attention. About ten of the children were playing a complicated game on the front lawn. They raced around, laughing and yelling to each other. Yesterday had been the last day of school, and to the children, summer stretched endlessly in front of them.
"They seem to have recovered from the shock of the fire," Rebecca said.
"Thanks to your hard work."
Rebecca shrugged. "Just doing my job. It's really the volunteers who deserve the credit. All the cleaning and painting. Plus Austin donating the house. We'd still be sweltering in the school auditorium if it wasn't for him."
Elizabeth grinned at her. "So how is it living so close to him? Are you getting over your crush or is it getting worse?"
"I haven't figured that out yet." Rebecca set her glass on the ground. "He's not exactly how I imagined him to be."
"Better or worse?"
She thought about her last conversation with Austin. She didn't know what to make of all that he'd told her. The horror of his past, the way he wouldn't admit to being a nice guy, his patience with David, his insistence on being a loner.
"Maybe both," she answered.
"That's definitive. By the way, I never got a chance to ask you before. What happened the night of the storm? Rumor has it you spent the night at his place. That couldn't possibly be true, could it? "
Rebecca saw the teasing look in her friend's eyes. Elizabeth was one of her closest friends. She trusted her completely It would be a relief to tell someone what had happened. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Rebecca tried again, then shocked herself and Elizabeth when she burst into tears.
"Rebecca?" Elizabeth scrambled into a sitting position as quickly as her distended belly would allow. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, n-nothing." Rebecca buried her face in her hands, trying to stop the flow of tears. She felt like a fool. "I d-don't know why I'm acting like this. I did spend the night with Austin and I'm really h-happy about it."
"I can tell." She felt the other woman's cool hands on her bare forearms. "Hush, honey. You're going to be fine. Take deep breaths."
Rebecca tried to inhale deeply. Her shoulders were shaking and her throat felt raw. "I'm overreacting, I think."
"I would guess so."
Rebecca looked up and glared at her friend. "You're not helping."
"I don't know what's wrong. How can I say the right thing if I'm completely in the dark?"
Rebecca sniffed. "I guess that makes sense." She straightened and wiped the back of her hand across her face.
Elizabeth looked at her with growing concern. "I'm fine." she assured her. "Really."
"So what happened?"
"I—" She clamped her mouth shut. How was she going to say this delicately? "Austin was—"
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows until they touched her bangs. "Yes?"
"We had sex."
"Oh, my." Elizabeth stared at her for several seconds, then started chuckling.
Rebecca glared at her. "You're not supposed to laugh. It isn't funny."
"Yes it is. You've had a crush on him for years, then the first time the two of you are alone, you sleep together." She grinned broadly. "Little Rebecca. I would never have suspected that of you. How was it?"
Rebecca straightened her shoulders. "I can't believe you asked me that." She brushed away the last trace of her tears, then looked down and smoothed the front of her pale blue sundress.
"And?" Elizabeth asked.
Rebecca sighed. "It was wonderful. If you repeat that, I'll deny every word."
"My lips are sealed." Elizabeth leaned forward and squeezed her arm again. "Are you okay? The way you said it, I assume there wasn't any talk about having a relationship."
"Austin doesn't do relationships." She thought about all they'd discussed. She couldn't tell anyone about his concerns that she might be pregnant. She and Elizabeth were close, but even she didn't know about the whole virginity issue. "I'll admit that our night together didn't lessen the intensity of my crush, although I can hold a conversation with him now without making a complete fool of myself."
"That's progress." Elizabeth reached for her glass and took a sip, then tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "What happens now?"
"I don't know. I sti
ll like him, but I've realized I don't know anything about him. He's always so apart from everything. He was generous in giving me use of this house and paying for the furniture. I think he's a nice guy, although he hates it when I tell him that."
Elizabeth tried to stand up. She leaned forward and pressed her hands on her thighs, but she couldn't get any leverage. Rebecca stood up and held out both hands. When her friend took them, she pulled her to her feet.
"Thanks." Elizabeth smoothed her short-sleeved, peach top over her belly and grimaced. "I look like a whale."
"You look beautiful."
"Thanks for lying. It makes me feel better." She rubbed the small of her back and stepped from between the chairs. "For what it's worth, I don't think any man likes to be called nice. It upsets their macho self-identity."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Elizabeth shaded her eyes against the afternoon sun. "Travis should be here any minute to pick me up. I'm going to grab my daughter and get out of your way. Call me if you want to talk."
"I will."
They hugged, then Elizabeth headed for the house. Rebecca lingered by the chaise longues, not wanting to leave her shady spot. She had tons of paperwork to fill out, but the thought of locking herself in her small office was too depressing. She felt restless and out of sorts. She didn't want to admit it, but she had the horrible feeling it was because she wanted to see Austin. He was just on the other side of the trees. It would be easy enough to stroll over there, but so far she hadn't come up with an excuse to go find him.
A low, rumbling sound broke through her musings. She turned toward the noise and saw a large truck turning the corner and moving onto the driveway. The heavy vehicle lurched forward slowly, rocking and swaying as it rolled over the uneven dirt road. The children outside stopped playing and came to gather around her.
"What do you think it is?" one of the boys asked.
"I don't know," she answered. "We haven't ordered anything that big."
The truck came to a stop about ten feet in front of the lawn. A burly man with gray hair jumped out of, the driver's side, while a younger man stayed in the cab.
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