supposed to snow late this afternoon. Then what will you do?”
“I’ll walk faster,” she retorted, then pointed out, “It’s not as if I’m the only one who travels that road. Someone always comes along.” That someone was often him—when it was raining or on the few other occasions this winter when it had snowed. If the snow materialized before closing time, he probably would, too.
He looked annoyed but dropped the subject. Leaning against the counter, he let his gaze slide across the room. “How’s business?”
“Steady. Up a bit over this time last year.”
“Because Jed’s not here,” he replied derisively, then belatedly glanced at her. “Sorry.”
“No need to be.” She’d been afraid of her father for as long as she could remember. Sometimes she’d felt sorry for him. Always she’d wanted to please him. But she couldn’t remember ever feeling what a daughter should feel for her father. She wasn’t sorry he’d left, or for the names he’d called her or the curses he’d heaped on her before going. She wasn’t the least bit sorry that she would probably never see him again, and she was downright grateful that her baby would never know him.
Reese drained the last of his coffee, then threw the foam cup in the trash. “I guess I’d better head to the office. Don’t walk home if it snows.”
“I won’t,” she replied, and they both knew she wouldn’t get the chance. If it was snowing, come six o’clock, he’d be parked out in the side lot. The knowledge brought her a sweet, warm feeling, along with a pang that his concern wasn’t likely to ever be anything but brotherly. She wondered idly as the door closed behind him if any man would ever feel anything but brotherly toward her.
There’d been nothing brotherly about Ethan James’s feelings.
Usually she kept the memories of that night locked away where they belonged. For weeks after her own personal Independence Day last July, she’d fantasized about her hours with him during the day and fallen asleep at night to the memory of his arms around her, his mouth on hers, his body inside hers. They’d been the sweetest dreams and had kept her going at times when she’d thought living with her father might drive her mad.
Then she’d discovered she was pregnant, a development definitely not in her plans. She hadn’t been able to take precautions herself, but she’d ensured that Ethan had each time. She’d thought she was safe, in every way, until the home pregnancy test her friend Ginger had sneaked to her had confirmed what her body had already told her.
Then Ginger had thought to mention the fact that no birth control was a hundred percent foolproof. Then, when the information couldn’t help Grace one bit.
To Ginger the pregnancy had been no big deal. Get an abortion or give the baby up for adoption—or, hey, novel idea, have it, keep it and raise it. End of crisis. Of course, Ginger hadn’t lived twenty-five years under Jed’s iron rule. She hadn’t been treated to a lifetime of warnings on the dangers and consequences of becoming a tramp like her mother. She hadn’t watched her very life drain away under his oppression until there was nothing left but a sad little mouse, afraid of everyone and everything. A pathetic creature pitied by some, unnoticed by most.
Unnoticed by Ethan James for the sixteen years they’d lived in the same town, the ten years they’d gone to the same school. With the school’s mixed grade policy, she’d sat a few seats behind him in biology, across from him in Spanish and had waited on him a time or two in the store. Once, when she’d dropped her books between classes, he’d helped her pick them up, had handed them to her with a careless “There you go,” but he had never even looked at her. He’d had eyes for practically every girl in the school, but he’d never known she existed.
One stifling hot Saturday night last summer, he’d learned…sort of. For the first and only time in her life, her father had gone out of town, leaving her on her own for a full twenty-four hours. It had taken about two heart-stopping seconds to decide what to do with her unexpected gift of freedom.
Go out. Have a drink. Meet a man. Maybe get a kiss, maybe a whole lot more.
Pretend for one night that she was a perfectly normal twenty-five-year-old woman. Experience enough of life in those few hours to sustain her in her prison for the next fifty years.
For help, she’d turned to the friend she’d made behind her father’s back at the grocery store. Thanks to Ginger’s cosmetic expertise, when she’d left the house that night, she’d looked nothing like the real Grace. She’d had rinse-out red highlights in her mousy brown hair, and long heavy curls that had corkscrewed in every direction. Tucking her glasses into her bag, she’d sacrificed seeing for looking good, but Ginger had assured her that the makeup job was flawless, making the most of her lamentably plain features. As for the clothes…she’d never worn a skirt so short or a top so tight in her life, and probably never would again.
But once had been enough. It had gotten Ethan James’s attention, and he’d finally known she existed.
As a rather mysterious redhead from someplace else named Melissa.
She’d crept out of his bed the next morning while he slept, hurried home and showered to scrub away the makeup, the curls, the fake color. The scents of sex, of a man. She’d half feared her father would look at her and know, would sniff the air when she walked by and recognize the cologne she was forbidden to wear, the aftershave she would never wear. He hadn’t.
And she hadn’t seen Ethan since. She hadn’t tried to locate him—hadn’t asked his half brother, Guthrie Harris, where he was, hadn’t told his pregnant sister-in-law Olivia that their babies would be cousins. Frankly, she wasn’t sure they would believe her. For a time the father’s identity had been a popular topic of conversation. Everyone had had theories, ranging from the truth—someone she met in a bar—to the obscene observation that her father was the only man with whom she’d spent time. No one had ever guessed Ethan. No one ever would.
It was her own little secret. And since Ethan wasn’t likely to return to Heartbreak for another several years, and would neither recognize nor remember her when he did, no one else would ever know the truth.
Which was exactly the way she wanted it.
The sky was a dull, relentless gray when Ethan passed the sign marking Heartbreak’s town limits. It was hard to believe that, night before last, he’d been in sunny, warm Florida and now he was right back where he’d started from. Back where all his troubles had begun. Where they certainly weren’t going to end.
He hadn’t needed a map to find his way back to Oklahoma. In all the endless miles he’d traveled, all the big cities and dusty towns where he’d stayed until he wore out his welcome or an impending arrest sent him on his way, he’d always known how to get back home.
At the same time, he’d never known.
He’d started running away from Heartbreak when he was barely fifteen. He was just like his father, his mother had always said with exasperated affection. Gordon James had done more than his share of rambling. In fact, he had rambled so often and so far that one time, when Ethan was ten, he’d never come back.
He was just like his father, Guthrie had always agreed, and with no affection at all. It was common knowledge that Guthrie thought his stepfather was no good, lazy and worthless. It was one of Ethan’s greatest regrets that his brother thought the same of him, and one of his greatest shames that he’d done his best to live down to Guthrie’s opinion. In fact, he’d done his father one better. He’d added crook to his litany of sins. Liar, thief, gambler, con man.
And, coming soon, father-to-be.
His fingers clenched the steering wheel spasmodically as anxiety tightened his chest. He’d always sworn he’d never bring a child into the world. He was indisputable proof that some men had no right passing on their genes to innocent babies. His father had been a loser, and he was a loser, so the odds were good that any child of his would also be a loser. Even if that wasn’t the case, any kid deserved better than him for