longer. Then she caught pneumonia and—”
He held up a hand, stopping her explanation. Why had he asked for details? He should’ve known their deaths had something to do with Chad Spencer. The man dirtied every portion of Nick’s life.
Spencer would pay for this. In blood, if need be.
Meggie continued. “And I don’t know about Sam. Nobody’s heard from him since he left town. Some people say he became a cop in Washington, D.C., got married.” She paused. “He had steel in his eyes after your parents died. He blamed the Spencer Factory.”
So Sam was bitter, too. Nick remembered spending long nights with his foster brother, sitting on the roof of their home, talking about a world filled with beautiful girls and fast cars.
Maybe Sam would’ve even supported the plan Nick had created to ruin Chad Spencer’s life. He wished he could see his foster brother’s crooked grin again, to draw strength from its sticks-and-stones-may-break-my-bones slant.
He swallowed, collected himself for a moment. Hands fisting, he nodded at her rounded belly. “Are you carrying Spencer’s child?”
“That’s none of your damned business.” She stepped behind the counter again, grabbing a nearby cloth to wipe down the Formica counter. “It was great seeing you again, Nick. Feel free to leave.”
He stood there for a moment, wondering if he should let down his guard, explain to her why he was back in town. He wanted to ask if she’d married Spencer, but, from the sound of the teasing he’d heard earlier, he knew that wasn’t the case. In all likelihood, Meggie was going to be a single mother.
She’d betrayed Nick without even realizing it.
He waited for Meggie to say something else. Anything. Yet, except for the friction of cloth on the counter, there was only silence.
Nick slipped on his shades and walked toward Meggie. Her eyes grew wide, and she froze. Her fear felt like a slap to his ego. She’d never looked at him with wariness before today.
To hell with it. Why should he care if she’d gotten herself in trouble with a scumbag like Spencer? She was a big girl now, old enough to take care of her problems without Nick Cassidy galloping to her rescue.
He reached into his pocket and tossed the contents by her wash rag. A pile of bills. “For all the people my attitude chased out,” he said, turning around to leave.
She didn’t stop him, not that Nick expected her to. Coming into the bakery had been a bad idea, because now he knew more about Spencer than he ever wanted to.
Chad’s castoff.
He left the bakery, hating himself, hating Kane’s Crossing, yet hating what Chad Spencer had done to Meggie even more.
Chapter Two
M eg tried her best to stop shivering, but she couldn’t.
Nick Cassidy, here again. She hadn’t seen him since she was twelve, running around exploring abandoned houses with him, hiking along the length of train tracks to see where they led.
She pushed through the swinging door that led to the back of the bakery. There, she started to gather ingredients for some of her infamous chocolate cakes. Anything to keep her mind off Nick’s return to Kane’s Crossing.
She looked through the steam-shrouded window, catching a shape just outside.
Nick. Her gaze took a leisurely stroll over him—one she’d been too stunned to enjoy earlier.
He cast a long shadow in the dusty, autumn-leaf-strewn street, his black sunglasses barricading a gaze that seemed to be trained on the sign above her bakery’s rear entrance. Under the dark brown leather jacket that matched his scuffed cowboy boots, a flannel shirt flapped in the breeze, covering broad shoulders and a wide chest. In spite of all this darkness, he had hair the color of shaded wheat—earthy, begging for a hand to skim through its bounty. The ends curled up, as if in need of a good trim.
Most acutely of all, Meg again noticed his faded blue jeans, how he wore them like a badge of apathy, obviously not concerned that the raggedy hole allowed her a taunting peek of one tanned knee. The patch of skin against the threadbare denim nudged at Meg’s imagination. It was a chink in the rest of his armor—a heart-tugging flaw. She pictured herself sliding her hand into the frayed hole, running her thumb over his kneecap, skimming her fingers over the skin behind his knee.
He lowered his shaded gaze to meet hers, seemingly sensing her scrutiny. The black-ice mask of his sunglasses revealed no emotion. Meg pulled back from the window, her blood pounding so hard it crashed in her ears.
Nick backed up a step, then ambled down Main Street to disappear behind a red-and-blue Welcome Home, Chad banner that hung with a lopsided sneer between the side of the Mercantile Department Store and Darla’s Beauty Shop. He moved with the purpose of a gunslinger, slow and easy, with the sleekness of a knife’s edge.
Gone, from her life again, just like that.
She wondered what he wanted in a dinky one-horse town like Kane’s Crossing, what he wanted with Chad Spencer. If she didn’t have so much at stake here, she would’ve tipped her own hat to the place months ago. Before all the trouble. Before she’d made a complete and utter disaster of her life.
Meg sighed. Men in dark clothing with an equally dark posture—the stuff of fantasy. A safe flirtation locked inside her. Grown-up Nick had been a man to strike fear into every good-girl cell of Meg’s body, not that there were many of those left. She’d spent the last of her innocence five months ago and, yet, here she was, lesson unlearned, salivating over the hole in a man’s jeans.
Meg mixed the ingredients into a bowl, frustration making her stir a little too zealously. And if she was miffed by Nick’s return, Deacon Chaney would no doubt feel a million times worse. It was hard enough for the elderly man to live through all the slings and arrows of town without having to face the man who’d been accused of destroying his store sixteen years ago.
She was getting to be pretty good at shouldering the town’s gibes, as well. But the sharp-tongued speculation about who the father of her baby might be still smarted. And it scared her to death. If anyone found out who’d fathered her unborn child, she’d lose her expected family for certain.
But Meg wouldn’t let that happen.
What are you afraid of? she asked herself. Was she afraid her child would someday reject her, much like her own family had? Would she feel as much pain as she had when Aunt Valentine had died? Or would it be a dull ache, like she’d felt when the baby’s father had told her she hadn’t meant anything to him? That she’d be a memory once he’d left for the far corners of the world the next morning?
Chad Spencer will have no part of this child, she promised herself.
She’d die before that happened.
Two hours later Meg locked up the bakery and wrapped her sheepskin coat around her to ward off the autumn’s night chill. Fire smoke puffed from chimneys just off Main Street, making the air heavy with loneliness. When she got home, nobody would be there waiting for her. After Aunt Valentine had succumbed to a heart attack five months ago, Meg had realized that she’d probably be alone for the rest of her life. But then, she’d gotten pregnant, and she knew she’d always have someone, if Chad didn’t come back to town and claim the baby for himself.
Once again, Nick Cassidy entered her mind. What did he want with Chad?
She reached into her coat pocket, fisting the wad of twenties he’d flipped on the counter to pay for his barely touched coffee. It was enough to get her through a month or two of groceries. How did he come by so much money that he could afford to flick it around as if it were confetti?
Pride tapped her on the shoulder. She couldn’t keep this so-called tip. If she saw him again, she’d have to give it back.
If she saw him again.
Her body