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"Hide it?" He stepped forward. How she answered the next question was of utmost importance to him. "Don't you want the baby, Jenny? Are you ashamed of it?"
"No, no," she groaned, covering her stomach with both hands. "Of course I want it. I love it already."
Cage's shoulders slumped with relief, but his voice still had an angry edge to it. "Then why were you running scared?"
"I didn't know what else to do. Your parents made it obvious they didn't want me around any longer."
"So?"
"So?" She jerked her arm in the direction the bus had just taken. "Not everyone is brave enough or crazy enough to come chasing after a Greyhound bus. Or drive ninety miles an hour down the highway on a motorcycle. I can't be like you, Cage. You don't give a damn what people think about you. You please yourself." She splayed her hands wide over her chest. "I'm not like that. I do care what people think. And I am scared."
"Of what?" he asked, thrusting his chin out belligerently. "Of a town full of petty minds? How can they hurt you? What's the worst they can do to you? Gossip about you? Scorn you? So what? You're better off without the people who would do that.
"Are you afraid of besmirching Hal's name? I hate it that some righteous hypocrites will think badly of him. But Hal is dead. He'll never know. And the work he instigated will continue. You've seen to that yourself by setting up that fund-raising network. For godsake, Jenny, don't be so hard on yourself. You are your own worst enemy."
"What are you suggesting I do? Go back and work in your office?"
"Yes."
"Flaunt my condition?"
"Be proud of it."
"Have my baby knowing he'll be labeled with a dirty name all his life?"
Cage pointed a steely finger toward her middle. "Anyone who labels that kid anything but wonderful is risking his life."
She could almost laugh at his ferocity. "But you won't always be around to protect him. It won't be easy for this child in a small town where everyone knows his origin."
"It won't be easy for him to grow up in a big city where his mother doesn't know anyone either. Who would you call on for help, Jenny? At least any hostile faces you encounter in La Bota will be familiar ones."
She hated to admit how the thought of moving to another city without much money, without a job or a place to live, without friends or relatives, had terrified her.
"Isn't it time you showed some backbone, Jenny?"
Her head snapped up. "What do you mean by that?" she asked tightly.
"You've been letting other people make your decisions for you since you were fourteen."
"We had this same argument a few months ago. I tried to direct my own destiny. Look what a mess I made of it."
He looked offended. "I thoug
ht you said the lovemaking was beautiful. You're going to have a baby as a result of it. Do you really consider that a mess?"
She hung her head and pressed her hands to her stomach. "No. It's wonderful. I'm awed by the thought of the child. Awed and humbled by the miracle of it."
"Then hold that thought. Come back to La Bota with me. Have that beautiful baby and thumb your nose at everybody who doesn't like it."
"Even your parents?"
"Their reaction tonight was a knee-jerk reflex. When they think about it, they'll come around."
Meditatively she stared at nothing. "I suppose you're right. I can't find a future for me and the baby. I have to make one. Right?"
He grinned and gave her the thumbs-up sign. "I couldn't have put it better myself."
"Oh, Cage," she sighed, her arms dangling uselessly at her sides. She was suddenly sapped of energy. "Thank you once again."
