Fifteen minutes and she already knew things about him she hadn’t known then.
Was that why he’d told her he wasn’t interested in anything more than a weekend fling and never would be? Because he’d been about to leave?
“When?” she repeated, needing to know, although she wasn’t sure why it even mattered. That he hadn’t told her such pertinent details about his life just reinforced what she already knew. It hadn’t mattered that she hadn’t known the details of his life. She was not someone who mattered.
“The week after we met.” His lips twisted as if the words triggered unpleasant memories. “I’d purposely put off my leave date until after the event so I could help Bud and Agnes and to spend a little time with them before I took off. That’s why I didn’t sign on to work as a physician at the event, but just as extra help where needed.”
The week after... He’d left the country the week after they’d met.
“I haven’t been back in the United States since. Not until a week ago.”
Four years had passed and he’d not come home. For all of Joss’s life, Trace had been out of the country, serving others.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” He reached out, brushed his fingertip over her cheek then down her jawline. “Not sure how much help I was that weekend. All I remember about those three days is you.”
Her insides perked up at his admission and it was all she could do not to ask “It is?” with a silly school girl expression plastered to her face. Instead, she bit her tongue.
He’d been out of the country for four years. How many times while she’d been pregnant had she thought about him living it up in Atlanta’s night life? Wining and dining some slim beauty queen while she grew rounder and rounder with his child? The glimpse of darkness in his eyes said that he hadn’t been wining or dining anyone, that he’d seen things he’d like to forget, that the past four years hadn’t been a bed of roses.
“Have you thought about me, Chrissie?”
She winced. Had he read her mind?
Still, she didn’t want to answer his question any more than he’d wanted to answer hers. She didn’t want to tell him that not a day went by that he didn’t cross her mind.
How could it when Joss was a constant reminder?
When she went home, it would be even worse now that she’d seen Trace again and realized just how much her son truly resembled his handsome father. The facial expressions. The eyes. Joss was Trace’s mini-me.
“Or did you forget me the minute you left Atlanta?”
His question made her sound as if she had flings all the time, as if what she’d done with him had been no big deal. Other than a college boyfriend she’d hung around with long enough for him to take her virginity and introduce her to a mediocre sex life, she’d had no other lovers. Only Trace.
There had been nothing mediocre about Trace.
But she wasn’t telling him that, either.
Because he’d been so good he must have had many lovers over the years.
Had probably had many since, despite his being out of the country. Chrissie couldn’t suppress her grimace.
“You know as well as I do that you aren’t exactly the kind of man a woman forgets,” she admitted as if it were no big deal. “Nor was that weekend the kind I’d just forget.”
“Good to know.” He smiled at her admission. “It was a phenomenal weekend, wasn’t it?”
She crossed her arms and kept her mouth shut. She’d answered enough questions.
“But not one you want to repeat?”
Yeah, she didn’t want to answer that either. Mainly because her body was like, “Yes, sign me up for an encore performance!” but her brain knew the best thing she could do was keep as much distance between her and Trace as possible.
He was the father to her son. A son he didn’t know about. She needed to stay far, far away before she slipped up and said something she shouldn’t. What if she said something and he pulled a stunt like the one her father had pulled?
She couldn’t bear the thought of Trace disappearing with her son. Not that he would likely even want anything to do with Joss, but, still, her own father had practically ignored her the first seven years of her life and that hadn’t stopped him.
Her gaze lifted to his and rather than saying, No, I don’t want a repeat, as a good, smart girl would do, she asked, “Why do you say that?”
His expression brightened. “Then you do want a repeat?”
Ugh. She’d walked right into that one.
She studied his toffee-colored gaze, his smooth tanned skin, the obvious sexual interest in his eyes. “You do?”
“What sane man wouldn’t want a repeat of what you and I had?”
There was that.
“Sex without strings?”
His gaze narrowed. “Not exactly how I’d have worded it.”
She didn’t let her gaze waver. “Which doesn’t make it any less true.”
His forehead furrowed and he did some studying of his own. She refused to look away, refused to shift her weight or show any sign of weakness.
Even if her insides quaked at the power this man had over her.
“Did you want strings, Chrissie?”
Heat rushed into her face. She was going to have to be careful of what she said. Which was why she needed to stay away. Nothing good could come from spending time with Trace.
“No, of course not.” She hadn’t. She’d known what they shared was just a man and a woman thrown together by circumstances and sexual attraction. “You told me you weren’t the marrying kind. I didn’t expect anything to come of our weekend together.” She sure hadn’t expected to become a mother. “No strings was fine.”
A tired look came over his face and he raked his fingers through his hair. “I was leaving the country in three days. I couldn’t have done strings if I’d wanted to.”
Something in his tone had her insides fluttering with a bundle of nervous energy.
“Did you want to?”
* * *
Good question, and one that Trace had asked himself a thousand times in the years that had passed since he’d last seen this woman. What would he have done differently had he not been committed?
“I didn’t allow myself to consider strings as a possibility.” Which was what he always came back to when his mind got to wondering. Not that he would ever have settled down, but he would have liked more time with Chrissie, to have been able to let the fire between them burn out naturally.
Her pretty face pinched and her gaze averted. “Which explains why you never asked for a phone number.”
Although he was sure she didn’t want them to, her words conveyed that she’d been hurt. That he’d hurt her stung.
“There was no point in my asking.”
“I see.” Her lower lip disappeared again.
“I don’t think you do.” He lifted her chin and stared into the greenest eyes he’d ever looked into. “I was leaving the country, had volunteered for a crazy assignment. Putting you or any woman through the stress of a relationship when I was over there, especially when nothing would ever have come from that relationship anyway—it wouldn’t have been fair.”
Her chin trembled beneath his fingertips and Trace