Their Child?. Karen Rose Smith

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       Chapter One

      What are the odds? Lori Lee Billingsworth Taylor couldn’t help wondering, feeling guilty and miserable and knowing herself to be a yellow-bellied coward.

      What are the odds she would keep running into a certain man? Given that the town—Tate’s Junction, Texas—where this certain man constantly turned up had a population of almost two thousand. Given that Lori was not—oh, no, definitely not—trying to run into this particular guy. At least not yet.

      The odds couldn’t be all that great, could they?

      But still, it kept happening. Lori Lee kept running into Tucker Bravo.

      And she did know. Oh, yes, she knew very well, thank you very much, that Tucker Bravo was exactly the man she needed to run into. Unfortunately, he was also the man she couldn’t bear to face.

      But she would. She truly would.

      Right after her twin sister’s wedding.

      It happened first at the Gas ‘n Go.

      Lori and her ten-year-old son, Brody, had just arrived in Tate’s Junction from San Antonio for a three-week stay. Not five minutes in the town she’d left behind—and there he was.

      What, she asked herself later, had made her stop for gas? She might just as well have kept going straight to her parents’ big two-story brick house on Pecan Street. She had over a quarter of a tank and could have filled up later. But she turned off the highway and there was that bright red cube of a convenience store and the eight gas pumps and it just seemed so simple, so easy and efficient, to go ahead and gas up right then.

      Brody, busy on his Game Boy in the back seat, spoke up as she stopped the Lexus at the pump. “I bet they have Icees in there.”

      She turned and gave him a fond smile. “That would be no.”

      “But, Mom—”

      She grabbed her purse, bent to tug the latch that opened the gas tank door. “We’ll be at Gramma Enid’s in ten minutes tops.”

      “Gramma Enid doesn’t have Icees.”

      “Sit tight.” She unhooked her seat belt and reached for the door.

      “Aw, Mom…” But another glance over the seat showed her he was already focused on the Game Boy again, thumbs flying over the miniature keyboard.

      Lori paused, her fingers hooked in the door handle, staring back over the seat at her son’s bent head, thinking that they were doing okay, just the two of them, without Henry…

      Henry…

      A wave of sadness washed through her. Henry had died a little over a year before. Lori missed him and so did Brody. But time was doing its work. Lori had made it through the worst: the clutching desperation, the gaping, ragged hole of emptiness at the center of her world. Increasingly, thoughts of Henry brought only a fond sort of sorrow. They’d shared six wonderful years, she and Henry—seven, if you counted the year before their marriage. Lori would always have her warm and comforting memories of those years. She was a fortunate woman; she had a smart, healthy son and she’d known the quiet joy of a good man’s sure and steady love.

      Lori tugged on the door handle and swung her feet to the pavement. She shut the car door behind her and was fiddling in her purse for her wallet when she heard the urgent whining sound.

      She glanced up. The ugliest, most adorable dog she’d ever seen sat near the rear wheel, big brown eyes begging her, long wiry-haired body quivering.

      The dog captured her gaze and held it, whimpering louder, lifting up to all four stumpy legs СКАЧАТЬ