Secret Dad. Raye Morgan

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СКАЧАТЬ in her veins. She didn’t know what it was, but she had energy to burn today.

      “Could it be because I’ve got a man on my couch?” she muttered to herself, then laughed aloud, making Sabrina run back and dash about her ankles to see what was so funny.

      A man—a pretty common item for most women to have around. But not her. She’d avoided men for so many years now, she hardly knew how to handle one now that she had him. She’d had a man in her life once before. He’d fathered her son. For that, she would always be grateful. But he’d also made life even more miserable than it had been before he came along and she’d run as far and as fast as she could to get away from him.

      Some women were not meant to have a man. She’d decided that must be the case a long time ago, and that maybe she was one of them. Her experience with marriage had been such a disaster, she knew she would have a hard time risking it again. She’d been lucky to have gotten away, lucky that no one had found her in all these years. She and her son Robbie were together, and that was all she needed. She couldn’t imagine being any happier than she was right now.

      So why had she brought the man home, like some wounded puppy who needed ministering to? She wasn’t sure. She’d thought at first, just for a moment or two, that he looked familiar. But that couldn’t be. The life she’d lived before she’d moved here hadn’t included men like Denver. Still, there was something m his face—something slightly familiar and yet not. Something that made her trust him, even though he’d given her no real reason to do anything of the kind.

      She knew that if she ever did pick a new man to marry, it wouldn’t be a man like Denver. If she got to that point, she would be looking for a professional man, someone solid and reassuring. Denver was too rough, too... well, dangerous was a good word for it. There was something a bit intimidating about him. She had the feeling that he would do just about anything for someone, if he cared enough.

      And those scars on his body! Good grief. She shuddered, thinking about them. She’d seen enough at the hospital to know those weren’t football injuries. The man had been knifed and shot and who knew what else? At some point in his life, he had obviously been involved in something very dangerous.

      And then there was that moment when he’d taken hold of her wrist and pulled her close. She’d felt so strange—as though she’d almost been waiting for him to do it. She’d seen the raw hunger in his eyes and her heart had beat so loudly, she could hardly breathe. She’d thought he would kiss her. But it didn’t happen, and she caught her breath now, thinking about it. Did she want that? Did she? Shaking her head, she pushed it away. She couldn’t let herself dwell on that. It brought up too many conflicting emotions.

      And the school was just ahead, a little wood frame building nestled in a clearing rimmed with ponderosa pine. The children were just coming out and she waved at Robbie, nodded and called greetings to a few friends, then he came barreling toward her and she reached down and caught her son up in her arms. She held him tightly, smelled his hair, felt the spirit that filled him, and thanked God for him one more time. Sometimes, life was good.

      “We had worms,” he told her happily.

      “Worms?” She eased him to the ground and gazed at him in trepidation, hoping it wasn’t a meal he was talking about.

      He nodded, his eyes sparkling. “Big ones. They wiggled.”

      “Oh.” Charlie was laughing again. “They wiggled, did they?”

      “Uh-huh.” He began to walk along beside her. “We watched them go into the ground and then we dug them up again.”

      “Lovely.”

      He scrunched up his face and looked at her from under a stray lock of hair. “Could I have a worm for a-pet? Just a little one?”

      Charlie hesitated. Worms as pets. Wonderful. “I’m afraid not, honey,” she told him calmly. “Worms don’t do real well in captivity.” She winced as she saw the disappointment on his round face. “But you know what? I’ll bet we have worms living right in our yard. Later on, maybe we could dig up some dirt and see.”

      “Could we?” He was happy again. “Great! When I find one I’m going to name him Cowabunga,” he called as he ran off to chase Sabrina through the trees.

      Charlie smiled. Being with Robbie always made her smile. He was the joy in her life—practically the reason she lived at this point. He was the only thing she’d taken with her when she ran away. He would be with her until he was grown and then she would finally be alone. But she didn’t want to think about that. That day was a long way off—and this day was too beautiful for melancholy thoughts. Right now, her heart was light as a breeze.

      Some days she picked Robbie up with her little motor scooter, carrying him home clinging to her waist as they roared over the bumps. But she liked best the days when they walked home together and he told her about what he’d learned. They were close in ways she’d never been with her own family, and that was just the way she’d planned it from the beginning. As far as she was concerned, her relationship with her son was a golden gift she would treasure and work to maintain. She would do almost anything to make sure it never got to be the way it had always been with her own mother.

      For some reason, that made her think about Denver Smith, and before she could stop herself, she shivered with anticipation, then gasped at her own foolishness. “Wow,” she whispered to herself as a bird cried in the tree above her. “The man really is dangerous, isn’t he?” And that made her shiver again. She had a dangerous man in her living room and she could hardly wait to go be scared of him. What nonsense!

      A giggle rose in her throat. What if her mother could see Denver, could know the way Charlie was reacting to him? She could see her mother’s strong, handsome face grimacing in disgust.

      “A hooligan!” she would say disapprovingly. “We don’t invite hooligans into our home.”

      “No,” Charlie said, laughing in a way she would never have laughed in front of the woman. “No, Mother. You don’t. But I do. And that is one reason why I don’t live with you any longer.”

      Brave words, she thought, sobering. Too bad she’d never be able to say them to her mother’s face. Well, there was no question about it. The man was dangerous. She could see it in his eyes and in the evidence that scarred his body. You didn’t end up with a body like that playing tennis at the club. She’d never dealt with a man who’d actually been shot before.

      “No more shivering,” she told herself firmly, and then her smile was back.

      Robbie came skipping out of the trees and slowed to walk beside her.

      “Mom, how come your eyes are sparkling?” he asked.

      She looked down at him. “What?”

      “Like stars.” He nodded, gazing into them.

      She laughed. “Oh, come on.”

      He wrinkled his tiny freckled nose, his blue eyes wise. “Do you have a surprise at home for me?” he asked carefully.

      She sighed, shaking her head, delighted with him as usual. “How did you guess that?”

      He shrugged. “Because of your eyes,” he said sensibly. “Because you look like a surprise.”

      Laughing, she pulled him up into her arms and gave СКАЧАТЬ