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But he had noticed the slight pause between his question and her answer—and the avoidance of his gaze. He wasn’t surprised. Like her, he knew there would come a time when they would both regret tonight, but for different reasons.
Reaching past her, he switched off the lamp on the bedside table, then gathered her to him. In the shadows and darkness, he made love to her again.
Cat rolled over and slung a leg out. The ache of a dozen muscles registered a sharp and instant protest to the movement, pricking her awake. Sleepily she opened her eyes. Nothing looked familiar. For a disoriented moment, she couldn’t remember where she was. Then it all came back to her—the last night on the town with her friends, the margaritas she had drunk, the silly manhunt game they played for laughs, and the man she had found, the strength of his arms, the headiness of his kisses, and—
Her eyes snapped open. She remembered it all, every lusty, guilty minute of it.
Wide awake, she sat up. The sudden movement touched off an immediate pounding in her head. She pressed a hand to it. It was the tequila; it always gave her a wretched headache the morning after. For a brief moment, Cat tried to convince herself that she had been too drunk last night to know what she was doing. But she knew better. The alcohol may have clouded her judgment, but it hadn’t directed her actions. He hadn’t done one single thing that she hadn’t wanted him to do. Not one single thing.
There was a stir of movement beside her. Cat froze, every muscle tensing, every nerve end tingling. She stole a wary glance at the man lying next to her. The sheet was down around his hips, baring his torso. She watched his chest rise and fall in a slow, steady rhythm, silent confirmation that he hadn’t wakened.
Even in sleep, there was little softness in his face. Every line of his triangular jaw was strongly chiseled, from the high ridge of his cheekbone to the thrust of his chin. Only the thick black lashes and the wayward lock of black hair that strayed onto his forehead gave hints of the boy he had once been.
Cat jerked her gaze from him, furious with herself for even thinking about him as a boy. He was a stranger. A total stranger.
And she was determined to keep it that way. She wanted to know nothing else about him.
And he knew nothing about her—not her name, not where she lived, nothing. Cat drew immediate comfort from that. She had gotten herself into this mess; now she had to get herself out of it, with as few scars as possible.
Impulse pushed her off the bed, the same rash impulse that had caused her to seek him out. With a stealth acquired from all the times she had snuck out as a teenager to meet Repp, she searched out her clothes in the dark, stuffed her socks and underclothes in her boots, dragged on her jeans, and slipped into her blouse, hastily buttoning it.
Carrying her boots, she crossed to the door, carefully turned the knob and opened the door just wide enough to step through, then closed it just as quietly. She never saw the gray eyes that opened to watch her. The hallway was empty and silent. Cat hurried to the staircase and paused long enough to hook her fingers through the bootstraps and adopt a confident stance, then started down the stairs, swinging her boots with forced nonchalance.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she saw she had no audience. There was no one in the lobby or at the registration counter. In a half dozen strides, Cat was out the door and hurrying across the bricked street to her Blazer. She dug the keys out of her jeans pocket, unlocked the driver’s door and scrambled behind the wheel. She didn’t draw an easy breath until she was on the interstate headed north.
On the outskirts of Fort Worth, Cat stopped at the first motel she found, checked into a room and took a long, hot shower. But no amount of soap and water could wash away the guilt she felt. To conceal it, Cat lifted her head higher and climbed back in the Blazer.
Fifteen hundred miles and two days of hard driving later, she turned off the highway and drove through the east gate onto Calder land. Tears welled in her eyes at the sight of the vast, rolling prairie. She pulled to the side of the road and stepped out to gaze at the leagues of endless, bending grass. The wind carried the scent of sun-baked earth, summer-cured grass, and the wildness of the land to her. She drank in a deep breath, filling her lungs with the familiar smells.
She was home. Texas was far behind her—Texas and the memory of a night she was determined to forget. She had made a mistake, but it was a mistake she would never repeat. It was a vow Cat swore to herself, and to Repp’s memory.
The unwanted image of level gray eyes flashed in her mind.
Suddenly it hit her—what if she was pregnant? Cat grabbed hold of the driver’s door and hung on.
PART 2
Nothing can ever change
The shame that you feel inside,
But you’ll raise your son always knowing
He’ll grow up with that strong Calder pride.
EIGHT
What did you say?” The question was riddled
with disbelief. Anger would soon follow; of that, Cat was certain.
“You heard me right the first time, Dad.” Cat didn’t turn from the window. Without looking, she knew the shock that would be in her father’s eyes, the same shock that had momentarily robbed his voice of its usual strength. Instead, she kept her gaze fixed on the bare branches of the cottonwood trees along the riverbank, shorn of their leaves by a brisk October wind. “I honestly don’t think you want me to say it again.”
“What the hell do you mean—you’re pregnant?” he demanded with gathering force.
“Exactly what I said.”
“Damn it, look at me when I’m talking to you!” He slammed a fist on the desk and came out of his chair. The sound cracked through the room like the explosive pop of a whip. Her body jerked a little at the loudness of it. Then Cat pivoted from the window. If there had been a convenient hole in the study, she would gladly have crawled into it. But there was none, so she faced him squarely, never flinching from the hard gaze of his eyes. “You can’t walk in here and calmly announce you’re going to have a baby without offering some explanations, Cat.”
