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СКАЧАТЬ a letter,” she said. “If I had, I would have waited.” She started to add that she had loved him, but what was the point of saying that now? Whatever she had felt had died years ago.

      “I would have understood,” she told him, her voice flat.

      “Oh, really? That wasn’t how it sounded in the letter I got. You sounded as if you didn’t give a rat’s behind what I did.”

      She looked him straight in his eyes as she made another flat denial. “I never wrote to you. How could I? I didn’t even know where you’d gone.”

      “I have the letter, dammit.”

      “I didn’t write it,” she repeated.

      He studied her unflinching gaze, then sighed. “You’re telling me the truth, aren’t you?” He stepped away from her and raked his hand through his hair in a gesture that had become habit whenever he was troubled. “What the hell happened back then?”

      Suddenly, before she could even speculate aloud, he muttered a harsh expletive. “My father, no doubt. He had something to do with it, you can be sure of that. He forced me to go, then made sure my letter never reached you. I’m sure he was responsible for the letter I got, as well.”

      “Wouldn’t you have recognized his handwriting?”

      “Of course, but he wouldn’t write it himself. He’d have someone else do his dirty work.”

      If that was true, Cassie didn’t know how she felt about it. It would be a relief to know Cole hadn’t abandoned her after all, but it didn’t change anything. Too much time had passed. And there was Jake to consider. Cole would be livid if he found out the boy was his.

      “It doesn’t matter now, Cole. It was a long time ago. We’ve both moved on with our lives.”

      He scanned her face intently. “You’re happy, then?”

      “Yes,” she said. It was only a tiny lie. Most of the time she was...content. At least she had been until Jake’s mischief had made it necessary for her to leave the home she’d worked so hard to make for them.

      “You didn’t marry your son’s father, though, did you?”

      “No. It wouldn’t have worked,” she said truthfully. “Jake and I do okay on our own.”

      He smiled. “That’s his name? Jake?”

      She nodded.

      “I like it.”

      She had known he would, because they had discussed baby names one night when they’d allowed themselves to dream about the future. Cole had evidently forgotten that, which was just as well.

      “He’s a good kid?”

      “Most of the time,” she said with a rueful grin.

      “Being your son, I’ll bet he’s a handful. What sort of mischief does he get into?”

      She found herself telling him about the computer scam, laughing now that it was behind them, admiring—despite herself—her son’s audacity. “Not that I would ever in a million years tell him that. What he did was wrong. That’s the only message I want him to get from me.”

      “We did worse,” Cole pointed out.

      “We certainly did not,” she protested.

      “We stole all the footballs right before the biggest game of the season, because I was injured and the team was likely to lose without me.”

      Cassie remembered. She also remembered that they’d been suspended from school for a week because of it. In high school she had loved leading the older, more popular Cole into mischief. It was only later, when he’d come home from college, that their best-buddy relationship had turned into something else.

      Thinking of the stunts she’d instigated, she smiled. “That was different. No one was really harmed by it. And they played, anyway. The coach went home and found a football in his garage. The team was so fired up by what we’d done, by the implication that they couldn’t win without you, that they went out and won that game just to prove that they didn’t need you to run one single play.”

      Cole laughed. “It was quite a reality check for my ego, that’s for sure.”

      “Okay, so we chalk that one up as a stunt that backfired,” she said. “Anything else you remember us doing that was so terrible?”

      “There was the time you talked me into taking all the prayer books from the Episcopal church and switching them with the ones at the Baptist church.” He grinned. “Why did we do that, anyway?”

      She shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time. And I think I was mad at my mom, because she kept pointing out prayers she thought I ought to be learning to save my soul from eternal damnation. I was tired of hearing the same ones over and over again, so I thought a switch would give her some new material.”

      The mention of her mother snapped her back to the present and the worries that had been stirred up about her health, first by Cole, tonight by Karen and even by that incident in town.

      Suddenly she simply had to know the truth. She handed Cole her glass. “I have to go.”

      “Where?” he asked, his expression puzzled.

      “Home. I want to talk to my mother before it gets to be too late.”

      The fact that he simply nodded and didn’t challenge her abrupt decision to leave confirmed her fear that something must be terribly wrong. Moreover, Cole obviously knew what it was. There was too much sympathy in his expression.

      “Give her my regards,” he said quietly.

      She considered trying to question him again about what he knew, but it was pointless. Cole could keep a secret as well as anyone, and it was evident he intended to keep this one out of loyalty to her mother.

      “I will,” she said.

      She started across the parking lot, but he called out to her. “Cassie?”

      She turned back. “Yes?”

      He lifted his glass in a silent toast. “Thanks for the dance.”

      “Anytime,” she said.

      He grinned. “I’ll hold you to that. There will be a great country band at the picnic tomorrow, and I haven’t had a decent Texas two-step partner in years.”

      “You might still be saying that after tomorrow,” she retorted. “I haven’t been dancing in years.”

      And then, because she was far too tempted to go back and steal a kiss as she once would have done without a thought, she turned on her heel and strode away without another backward glance.

      * * *

      At home Cassie kicked off her shoes in the living room, then noted with relief that there was still a light on in her mother’s room. She padded into the kitchen and brewed two cups СКАЧАТЬ