fire, she’d thought at the time, and he happened to see the smoke, he might stir himself to call the fire department. But what if she just needed someone to talk to? What if she needed advice? Looking after a house and a brand-new baby took a certain amount of experience, and she was beginning to think she might’ve bitten off more than she could chew. Not that she’d had much choice. Once the first domino had fallen, the rest had come tumbling down before she even realized what was happening.
When it came to soaking up guilt, however, Sophie had plenty of experience, dating back to a time when she’d been too young to understand what it meant and had overheard someone say that it was because of her that her father had run off. Since then, she’d collected guilt the way a magnet collects steel filings.
Flies in the house? Her fault. She must’ve left the window open.
The cake fell? Oops, she must’ve slammed a door.
Rained all over the Sunday school picnic?
Well. She wasn’t quite that powerful. All the same, if she’d prayed a little harder, it might not have rained.
Now Joe was frowning, and that was probably her fault, too. She’d allowed him to drive her home when she could easily have called a cab. It would have cost a fortune, but any day now she’d be hearing from the ad she’d put in the paper. Last time, she’d taken the whole set to an antique dealer to have it appraised, and he’d offered her five thousand dollars for the lot. Thank goodness she’d had sense enough not to be taken in. He’d ended up paying her twice that for one eensy-weensy piece that looked like something you could buy at Walmart. She’d been patting herself on the back ever since.
She’d also learned a lesson. The stuff might be tacky, but it was valuable. And it was hers. Rafe had given it to her, and dead or not, he owed her something for all the things he’d stolen. Not to mention child support.
She slanted a glance at the man beside her. He looked as if he had something on his mind.
Well, of course he did. He’d told her that yesterday, when he’d strolled into her garden and gotten trapped into playing Good Samaritan. He might be frowning now—he might try to act tough, but she knew better. Underneath it all he was a kind, decent man. The kind of man a woman trusted instinctively. The kind with a good heart.
And she was even getting used to his face. It was interesting, with all the sharp edges and angles. It was certainly masculine. And strong. And at the moment, scowling.
“You wanted to ask me something?” Heaven help her if it was about her taxes. She’d always done them herself and never had a smidge of trouble, but along about April 15 of this year she’d been in no frame of mind to concentrate on filling out forms.
At least not government forms. Her own had filled out so fast it had boggled the mind.
“It’ll keep,” he muttered.
“Are you headed back to Texas?”
“What makes you think I’d be going to Texas?”
“You have Texas plates. And you mentioned staying at a hotel, so I didn’t think you were from around here.”
“Right.”
Right, which? That he was from Texas, or that he’d be going back? She didn’t want him to go. And if that wasn’t scary, she didn’t know what was. Any woman who’d been stupid enough to believe that a handsome, charming scamp like Rafe Davis could take one look at her and fall head over heels in love, needed her head examined. He’d told her she was his golden goddess, and she’d wanted so desperately to believe him she’d let herself be taken in.
Stupid. That said it all. Here she’d been on her own since she was sixteen-and-a-half, and she hadn’t learned anything at all about men. There was probably a psychological term for women who allowed themselves to be hornswoggled, but she didn’t want to hear it, she really didn’t. At the rate she was going, she’d probably be first in line to buy that oceanfront lot in Arizona if the right man offered it for sale.
Instead the wrong man had come along and offered something entirely different, and she’d bought it. And before she’d come to her senses, the skunk had ransacked her jewelry box, turned her closet inside out, stolen her bank card and her three-year-old car, driven to the nearest ATM and cleaned out her account.
And kept on going. Three weeks later he had driven her car into the side of a passenger train down in Georgia.
But he’d left her with something far more valuable than anything he’d taken. Iris. Her baby. Her family.
Not to mention all those tacky little jade whatnots that were worth a fortune.
Joe cleared his throat. From the baby seat between them, Iris smacked her gums without waking up. “Joe, what was it you wanted to ask me?” Let the man state his business and leave, Sophie. You don’t need a crutch to lean on, you only think you do.
“Have you got a crib? Some kind of baby bed?”
“Better than that, I have a complete nursery all painted, furnished and ready to receive. Almost the first thing I did when I leased the house was fix a place for her. I knew my ladder-climbing, paint-smelling days were numbered.”
Sophie laughed. Joe didn’t. So far he’d proved to be kind, helpful and dependable, but a barrel of laughs he was not.
She thought he might be a policeman, from a few things he’d said while he’d been seeing her through her labor. Now, why on earth would a Texas policeman want to ask her anything? She’d never even been west of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Unless it had something to do with Rafe. As far as she knew, Rafe had never been to Texas, either. But then, what did she know about the man? He’d told her he was in the commodities business and like a dunce, she hadn’t even asked him what kind of commodities he dealt in. By the time he left and she’d had to report the robbery to the sheriff, she wished she’d been a little more wary. And six weeks after that, when the two men had come out to tell her that her car had been found totaled and that the thief was dead, she’d been too dazed from losing her job and learning that she was pregnant. Most of what they’d said had gone in one ear and out the other.
Joe pulled up beside the house and cut the engine. “Looks like rain.”
“There’s not a cloud in the sky. Listen, I’ll pay you back for the diapers and all the rest,” Sophie said earnestly. “I’d planned to do my last-minute shopping next week. I get paid on Monday.”
“No problem. Call it a baby present.”
“You’re more of a present than a boxcar full of diapers. Honestly, Joe, I’ll never be able to thank you for all you’ve done. If you hadn’t come along—”
“You’d have picked up the phone and called someone else and everything would have turned out just fine.”
“I know that,” she said with a certainty she didn’t feel.
Call who? The few friends who hadn’t moved away were in Winston, at work. She couldn’t have asked any of them to walk out in the middle of a workday, drive all the way out to Davie County, hold her hand while she timed her pains, drive her to the hospital and stay with her until she delivered, and then come back the next day and drive her home again. “All the same, it was a nice thing to do. I guess policemen have to be jacks-of-a-lot-of-different-trades.”
“What makes you think I’m a policeman?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Not anymore.” He’d told her yesterday when she’d questioned him, that he was retired. Before she could ask from what, she’d had another hard pain. “Better let me take the baby, then I’ll come back and get the rest of the stuff in. Have you ever thought about getting some decent locks installed? A kid with a paper clip could break into your house in ten seconds Sat.”
Sophie eased herself gingerly out of the high cab and reached back inside for her purse. “And do