Page 61 of Floodgates

“I realize now that the ease and warmth he exudes is mostly due to you.” I waited silently until she went on. “He’s so very in love. He’s not on the prowl at all, not looking to impress anyone, just content and himself with everyone all the time. He has no hidden agenda, and he isn’t trying to get everyone he meets into bed, so he isn’t careful, and he holds nothing back. He spreads this warmth and tenderness, and it’s so….” She trailed off then, snapping her head up to look at me, afraid she’d said too much and offended me.

“It’s so what?” I asked, staring at her hard over the rim of my coffee cup.

“It’s so sexy,” she said honestly. “He just exudes raw sex appeal. You must know.”

Raw? No. Breckin was smooth and sensual. There was nothing dangerous or wild about the man. Not like Cord. “I do,” I replied woodenly.

“You just look at him and your thoughts go carnal. His confidence is a magnet. I’m surprised you don’t have to beat them off with a stick.”

“I wouldn’t know.” I clipped my words. “Normally, if people persist in trying to get his attention, he gets a little hostile and cold.”

“You don’t have to tell me about hostile and cold. I am now clearly on the receiving end of hostile and cold,” she told me, and she looked down suddenly. When she raised her head back up, tears had welled in her eyes. She looked as though she was ready to break down and sob. “I didn’t mean to get pregnant. We used a condom; I can only hazard a guess that it broke at some point. It was a long night.”

Really, I could have lived my whole life without hearing that comment, but she was being honest, and I had asked for the brutal truth. “Did he spend the night with you?”

“Yes.”

“You two woke up in the morning together?”

“He was gone when I woke up, but when I fell asleep he was there with me.”

There was a long silence before I asked her another question. “Why did you think I was the one trying to kill you?”

“For the obvious reason,” she huffed out. “I’m sure that one case of infidelity you could forgive to keep a man like that, but the baby thing, that’s a whole other ballgame, isn’t it?”

“Actually, the infidelity in and of itself was enough. And not because of the act, or acts, themselves, but because of the loss of trust,” I explained. “I mean, once the trust is gone, what do you have?”

She was silent.

“There has to be trust.”

“If it means anything, he’s always maintained his love for you.”

“It doesn’t mean anything at all,” I told her.

She sucked in a breath.

“Listen, are you scared about all this with your car and everything? Are you okay?”

Clearly she was relieved we were changing the subject. “I’m terrified. But Inspector Nolan seems to have a good solution, don’t you think?”

“I haven’t heard the solution yet.”

“Oh.” She sounded surprised. “Well, he thinks that it’s not safe for either of us to stay and be around our families because we might inadvertently put them in danger.”

“That makes sense,” I agreed.

“Yes,” she said gently. “I mean, think about it. Some guy was here in your father’s house last night. How many more of these would-be killers do you want to come here? That’s really scary. I know I’ve been staying with my mother, and I don’t want anyone to hurt her. So I’m going to do what the inspector suggests.”

“Which is what?”

“He thinks that whoever is behind this wants to eventually confront Breckin, so where better to do that than at his parents’ home in Fieldcrest.”

“Which is where?”

“In Vermont.”

“Funny. Breckin always told me that he was from Georgia.”