When Love Walks In. Suzanne Carey

of her hair and staining her cheeks. Incredibly, Danny was telling her he wished he’d impregnated her. Yet in real life he’d left her in the lurch without any thought that he might have given her a baby. She was keenly aware of the covert glances some of the store’s other patrons were casting in their direction.

      “Don’t worry, I don’t think he’s mine,” Danny added. “He’s a little too young for that. Besides, if he had been mine, your father would have made you get rid of him before he had a chance to draw breath.”

      He wanted to, Cate told him silently, furiously, wondering if she would get through their conversation without dying of pain and embarrassment. I wouldn’t let him. I phoned my parents’ pastor in Ryersville and begged him to intercede on my baby’s behalf.

      “You must be very proud of Brian,” Danny added. “I wish I had a son like him. Unfortunately, I don’t have any children.” He paused, smiled, as if in an effort to dispel the disappointments life had dealt him. “Kids his age sure do favor some awful haircuts.”

      Despite the added pain his remarks had caused, Cate couldn’t help smiling back at him. The moment she’d dreaded had come and gone, and she’d lived through it. “I figure if I don’t protest or give him too much flak about things like his hair and that earring, his protest gestures will run their course a lot more quickly,” she said. “Indifference seems to lower their shock value.”

      Danny nodded. “You sound like a wise and loving mother.”

      The compliment tugged at her heartstrings. “I hope I am,” she answered. “I try to be. Like most parents of teenagers, I need all the luck I can get. Since joining the varsity football team while he’s still a sophomore, he’s been running with a faster crowd. Most of his friends have driver’s licenses. I can’t help worrying.…”

      Danny looked as if he wanted to take her in his arms. Invite her to nestle there. Vow to protect her against whatever danger threatened. Yet he left me when I most needed him, she thought. I’d be wise not to trust him now, even if I could.

      “Well, it seems we’ve had our talk, after all,” she said. “I guess I’d better finish rounding up the rest of my groceries.”

      Though he acquiesced, leaving her alone long enough to gather a bag of chips, a loaf of bread, some lunch meat and a six-pack of beer, Danny turned up beside her at the checkout counter. “We’re together,” he announced to the startled young woman behind the cash register, plunking down a hundred-dollar bill and his minimal purchases next to Cate’s.

      “I can’t let you do this!” Cate protested, digging in her purse for the second time that afternoon.

      “Too late…I already have,” Danny insisted. “C’mon…I’ll help you stash this stuff in your car.”

      Outside the market he was as good as his word, neatly arranging her groceries in the cargo space of her little hatchback.

      “I suppose I should thank you, even if you’re embarrassing me to death,” Cate said, aware several people were craning their necks.

      In response, Danny meshed the fingers of his right hand with her left and slipped both hands into the patch pocket of her corduroy skirt. An intimate, almost erotic gesture, it made her resistance go weak.

      Much as he reveled in the feeling of intimacy it gave him, a shadow crossed Danny’s face. For perhaps the millionth time he wondered why she’d never answered any of his letters. Or bought a bus ticket to Chicago with the money he’d sent. Had she adopted her parents’ view of him after the debacle they’d suffered at the Heart’s Desire Motel and later at the Clermont County Jail? If so, she no longer seemed to feel that way. Yet something was keeping the wall that had sprung up between them firmly in place.