Parking to the side of the truck in the double driveway, he got out and approached just as the driver’s window was lowering.
“Can I help y—”
The last word stuck in his throat. The driver wasn’t his landscaper. It wasn’t even a guy.
The woman stepped down from her truck. She was wearing jeans, a blue turtleneck, a worn-looking thickly knitted beige cardigan and the same brown leather boots she’d had on the first time he met her. She held out a hand with freshly polished nails. “John? I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Caroline Prater.”
He remembered.
“Caroline, hi.” Fresh from the golf course, he wanted to shower and change out of the golf slacks and slightly sticky sweater he was wearing. The sun was shining as brightly as usual from clear blue skies. And although the temperature was only about sixty degrees, it had been hot out on the golf course.
“You don’t seem pleased to see me, and I don’t blame—”
“No!” He cut her off. Took her hand. It was as rough as he remembered. Working hands, she’d said. Something about that had touched him. “I’m just surprised. Kentucky’s a long way off.”
“And Shelter Valley is a very small town,” she added with a nervous smile. He remembered that about her, too. Her air of uncertainty. As though she wasn’t quite sure she was worth the space she took up but was going to occupy it anyway.
Neither of them spoke after that.
“Uh…do you want to come in?” he asked a moment later. Why was she there? Surely not to see him. He’d never given her any indication that he’d expected to see her again.
Of course, with the way she’d vanished while he’d still been sleeping off the bottle of wine he’d bought them at dinner and then drunk most of himself, she hadn’t given him a chance to actually say as much.
Though he rarely used the front entrance himself, he walked her up to the door and unlocked it.
“So what brings you to Shelter Valley?” He hoped the question wasn’t as bald as it felt scraping past his throat. She’d passed him in the hall, leaving a brief lily-of-the-valley scent in her wake. Her shampoo, if he remembered correctly.
“I’ve been accepted at Montford,” she told him with a hesitant grin. “I start school in another week.”
Oh. Well, good then. She had a reason for being here. Other than him. She’d mentioned, that night in Kentucky, that she’d already applied to college; she’d been unable to attend after high school because she’d married young. Caroline seemed to consider that a pretty big deal. He’d felt a little sorry for her over it.
“Can I get you something to drink? A beer? Or a glass of wine?” More relaxed now, John walked over to the wet bar dividing his formal living room from the dining room he’d never used.
“Do you have a diet soda?”
While she perched on the very edge of one end of the sectional couch, he grabbed a glass, filling it with ice. “You look different,” he said, smiling, deciding this might not be such a bad turn of events. Maybe she’d join him for dinner.
They could catch up like old friends, though they hardly knew each other. He could wish her luck with her new scholastic endeavor, and then, if they ever ran into each other in town, they could smile and say hi without some residual awkwardness hanging between them.
Her smile was tenuous. John poured the drink, then carried it over to her, wondering if she’d be able to unclasp the hands in her lap long enough to take hold of it.
“It’s your hair,” he said.
“I…had it shaped. And conditioned.” She took the glass. But not before he noticed how badly her hand was shaking.
He’d never met anyone like her. One minute confident enough to walk up to a total stranger at a political gathering and introduce herself, and then the next, so insecure she barely allowed herself to breathe.
“You left it long, though,” he said, returning to the bar for a can of beer. He didn’t usually drink more than one on any given day, but what the hell. He was still recovering from his vigil with Meri the other night.
“Yeah.” She took a sip. Sort of. He wasn’t sure any liquid actually passed her lips.
“I like it.”
“Thanks.”
“These days so many women keep their hair short.” Meredith had been one of them.
“It’s easier to deal with.”
That was what Meri had said.
“I like it long.”
“Thanks.”
She sipped again. John took a seat and did the same. She watched him openly—yet said nothing.
“Did you want something from me?” he finally asked.
“No!”
Well, that was clear.
“I…just…”
For the first time since she’d arrived, she wouldn’t meet his gaze. Frowning, John sat forward. He’d thought dinner would be nice, but not if it was going to get complicated. He just didn’t have what it took to deal with complicated.
Hell, based on the way he’d broken his promise to himself and run back to his memories of Meredith the other night, he didn’t have what it took to deal with living.
“Well, it was nice of you to stop by.” He hadn’t really intended the words but was relieved when he heard them. Yes, better just to end this and get on with the boring evening ahead. There were no surprises in boring.
“John, I’m pregnant.”
He sat back, the half-empty can of beer resting on his lap, loosely cupped by both hands, and looked at the bare wall opposite him. He was mistakenly caught in someone else’s life.
“Did you hear me?” The woman’s voice, though soft, seemed to grate.
“I’m sorry.” He turned to look at her. “What did you say?” The beer can was soothingly cool to the touch. He lifted it, drank. And kept drinking until it was empty.
“I said I’m pregnant.”
Uh-huh. Well. What did he do now? The beer was gone. He crushed the can between his fingers, just to confirm that.
“I, uh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve never been in this position before. I don’t really know what to say.”
Mostly, he didn’t know how to make sure he didn’t feel.
“I had to tell you,” she said. “You have a right to know.”
This was a right?
“Aren’t you going to ask if it’s yours?”
His eyes met hers. Their green depths were as luminous as he remembered them. Her slim, strong, perfectly curved body was pretty impressive, but it was those eyes that had captivated him that cold December night in Kentucky. What, six weeks ago?
“I’m assuming you wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t.”
He couldn’t breathe properly. The cords in his neck tightened; his skin was hot. He wanted her out of his house. Now.
He wanted her never to have arrived. He wanted never to have met her.
“I could be lying. Or I could have done this on purpose, to trap you. I orchestrated our meeting, after all. I could’ve had a carefully thought-out plan—you know, the lonely widow trying to get out of a tiny little town that’s suffocating her.”
Some small part of him that was outside, watching the