Rogue's Reform. Marilyn Pappano

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СКАЧАТЬ crooked his finger at any woman in that bar and she would have gone running, but he’d chosen her. The fake. The fraud.

      He was disappointed that she wasn’t pretty. She’d read that in his expression yesterday. Part of her felt insulted. They were adults. They were supposed to prefer things like character, honesty and personality over good looks. And part of her couldn’t blame him. Was it so wrong to want the character, honesty and personality wrapped up in a pretty package? Would she honestly have been so quick to go to the motel with him that night if he hadn’t been drop-dead gorgeous?

      Well…yes. But she’d been desperate, remember?

      Finally he stopped on the opposite side of the counter. “Hey.”

      “Hi.” Her gaze settled on his hands, resting on the scarred countertop. They were bigger, longer, than hers, but they could manipulate a deck of cards or remove a woman’s clothing with smooth, easy grace, never fumbling, never making a mistake. They were so strong, so certain of every move. And soft, like silk against her skin. Capable of seducing a never-been-kissed virgin right out of her clothes and her fears. Talented enough to make her thank him when it was over.

      Her face grew warm, and she had to clear her throat before she could speak. “I take it Guthrie didn’t throw you out.”

      “Only because Olivia talked him out of it. He knows better than to get on the wrong side of a woman who hasn’t seen her own feet in months.”

      Grace’s smile was small and tentative. She liked Olivia Harris a lot, but that didn’t stop her from also envying her. Olivia had everything Grace had ever wanted. Her husband worshiped the ground she walked on, and no one could love her daughters more than he did. Their baby, due a month before hers, would receive a warm, loud and enthusiastic welcome into the world, and he—for Olivia insisted it was a boy—would know from his first breath how dearly loved he was.

      On the other hand, Grace’s daughter would likely have no one but her, and she was no prize under the best of circumstances. Just ask Ethan.

      Her smile fading, she turned away from the counter to the desk behind her. “I thought you might have left.” It was a lie, although she’d certainly hoped he would leave, taking her secret with him. She’d known it wasn’t likely, though. He hadn’t come from—well, wherever he’d come from, only to take off again immediately. That wasn’t the way he worked. According to rumor, he never left without stirring up trouble of one sort or another. This time that trouble would surely involve her.

      Ignoring her comment, he looked around. “Do you work alone?”

      “Yes.”

      “Must be tough.”

      She shrugged. “I’m a hard worker.”

      “That can’t be good for…”

      The baby, she silently filled in. Just say it. The baby. But instead he merely gestured toward her middle, as if the words were too difficult. Too damning. “Doc Hanson says I couldn’t be healthier. Callie agrees.”

      “Who’s Callie?”

      “My midwife.”

      That brought his gaze to her face. “You’re seeing a midwife?”

      Grace eased into the wooden chair behind the desk, propped her feet on the stool underneath the desk and folded her hands over her belly. “She’s going to deliver the baby.”

      “Why not let Doc Hanson? He’s been doing it for fifty years.”

      “Precisely why he’s not doing it anymore. He’s turned that part of his practice over to Callie.”

      “So why not go to Tulsa or Oklahoma City?”

      “Why would I do that when Callie is right here in town?” A scowl knitted her brows together. “She’s not some old granny that country folk turn to because they don’t know better or can’t afford a real doctor. She’s an R.N., a nurse-midwife. She practices in Doc Hanson’s clinic.” She paused before adding the one comment that would make a difference to him. “She’s delivering Olivia and Guthrie’s baby.”

      It did make a difference. She could practically see the change in attitude. Oh, well, if Guthrie says it’s all right, then it must be all right. On the one hand, it annoyed her. It was her baby, her delivery, and if she said it was all right, it was. On the other, it was touching that, despite all the trouble between them, he obviously still had a great deal of respect for his brother.

      But all that respect hadn’t stopped Ethan from fraudulently selling Guthrie’s ranch out from under him a year or two ago. Though the very idea of it was amazing, if pressed, she would have to admit that it was a good thing he had. Otherwise, he never would have developed a guilty conscience, he wouldn’t have come back last summer to undo his wrong, and he wouldn’t have been in that bar on her first night of freedom. She wouldn’t have such sweet memories, her friends, this business, the house or, most important, her baby. She owed a lot to his disreputable ways.

      Still, “disreputable” didn’t come high on her list of qualities desired in her baby’s father.

      Hands in his pockets, he came around the counter and circled the small space that served as her office. He glanced out the window at her view—the dock where customers backed up their pickup trucks to load lumber and wall-board—then thumbed through a catalog offering every hand tool known to man before finally speaking. “Tell me something. What was Jed Prescott’s little girl doing in that bar dressed like a—” He broke off, then substituted a less-harsh description, she suspected, than what had initially come to mind. “Like a woman looking for a good time?”

      “If I’d gone in there dressed like this, I wouldn’t have gotten the same response.”

      The hint of a smile crossed his face, then disappeared. She remembered his smiles best of everything about him. They’d come so quickly, so easily, from sweet, gentle smiles to broad, oh-so-cocky grins. She’d thought halfway through the evening how incredibly wonderful it was to spend time with a man who expressed pleasure so naturally. Her father was not a smiler. Living with him, she hadn’t been, either.

      Finished with the office, he turned and leaned back against the counter. “No,” he agreed. “Going in looking like that—” once again he gestured toward her stomach “—would have scared all the men away, including me.” Crossing his ankles, folding his arms across his chest, he waited for the real answer to his question.

      She considered ignoring it, and him. She had end-of-the-month invoices to prepare, a couple of orders to call in, tax records to update, inventory to finish. If she chose, she could find any number of excuses for not answering, and she couldn’t think of one single reason for telling him.

      So she told him, anyway. Go figure. “Do you remember me?”

      He gave her a puzzled look. “From…?”

      “High school. Middle school. Grade school. Church, when my father still let me go. When your mother still made you go.” She shrugged. “From growing up two years apart in the same small town for sixteen years.”

      Ethan didn’t need to think about his answer. For all he remembered, she could have sprung into existence full-grown yesterday, with absolutely zero contact between them before then. He didn’t offer the response immediately, though. СКАЧАТЬ