LITMIR.BIZ

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for the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

      She’d find help for him. She closed her burning eyes tight for a second. She’d provide medical care if he needed it. She owed him nothing more.

      “Where’s my gramma, Mommy?”

      That question hadn’t come up last night. “I’m sorry, but you don’t have one,” Cassie said, fighting, as always, the soft memory of her mother’s hands on her face, her whispered reassurance that the dark was safe. “My mom died when I was a teenager.”

      Hope, who’d been traveling since early morning and missed her nap, looked as if she might cry. “You won’t ever die, will you, Mommy?”

      “Not for a long time, Hope.” According to the policeman who’d taken her statement at the shelter, she had every chance of dying pretty soon if she wasn’t more careful about taking on thugs. She’d tried to explain about the advantage of surprise. He hadn’t been impressed, and he was right. He just hadn’t come up with an alternative response, other than everyone hiding—and who could do that all the time?

      “Good.” Hope smiled through a soft veil of tears in her eyes. Blessed with a sensitive heart, she’d always cried easily. “But you don’t have a mommy.”

      “I’m used to that.” Who ever got used to that?

      “It’s a good thing you have me.”

      Cassie laughed. “Having you is the best. I love you this much.” She took her hands off the wheel long enough to spread them as far as she could. “And then some.”

      “Good.” Hope tucked her baby onto her shoulder. “I’m not sleepy, Mommy.”

      “I see that.”

      “But I could use some mac and cheese.”

      “Just let me know when. We’ll be home before you know it.” Home. She’d said it without thinking, after five years of dreading the sight of Honesty.

      “We can make eggs for my grampa.”

      The hospital concept proved tricky for her to grasp. Cassie glanced in the rearview, at Hope’s drooping eyelids.

      With any luck, she could keep this trip an adventure for her daughter and then escape. No one who’d known Cassie before would see Hope, or ask questions.

      HOPE WAS ASLEEP when Cassie parked in front of her father’s home. With her palms sweating on the steering wheel, she stared at the house, low, squat and dingy in moonlight instead of the rich blue of her memory. The ivy her father had tended so lovingly had taken over the porch and the roof, trying to pull the house down.

      A woman could almost wish it had.

      She glanced at Hope, hating to wake her until she saw what awaited them inside. Van had said her father would still be in the hospital, but when had Leo Wainwright Warne ever paid attention to anyone or anything other than his own sense of right and wrong?

      Wallowing in a hospital bed would strike him as the height of wrong.

      Cassie climbed out of the car, eased the door shut and started up the cracked driveway. Then she stopped, eyeing the house and a dark band of cloth blocking off the porch. Someone had pinned a Wet Paint sign to it. She leaned down to touch a step. Tacky. And that wasn’t all.

      The ivy, cracks in the dirty cement, black tire streaks and bird droppings dotting the graying pavement. Her father hadn’t been out here with his pressure washer in a long time.

      Five years couldn’t change anything this much—not unless time and neglect had lived hand in hand. Van had tried to warn her about her father. Like Hope, she just hadn’t got it.

      She went around to the kitchen door. Half expecting to find it unlocked, she nonetheless lifted her key.

      Only to have the door open in her face and Van come out.

      Without thinking, she turned toward the car. He took her arm as if to stop her from running. She looked down at his broad hand, his splayed, capable fingers.

      Her body seemed to grow heavier, but she wasn’t confused about her real feelings. She looked up at him and prayed Hope wouldn’t wake, the way children did when a car stopped too long.

      “I thought I’d be out of here before you arrived.” Stress tensed his face. His dark green eyes watched her as if she were a stranger.

      “You dreaded seeing me, too.” She pulled away from him. How could he bother her so much after five years? After the revulsion he hadn’t been able to hide before she’d left?

      She started over.

      “I came straight from the airport,” she said. “What are you doing here?” She forbade herself another glance toward Hope. Sometime he’d have to know but, please God, not now. Not yet.

      “The house was a—we have to talk, Cass.”

      “Don’t call me that.” Her old nickname tugged her toward him as if he were her true north. Everyone had used it, but from Van it meant familiarity and whispers in the cocoon of their bed. Secrets only they knew.

      He nodded, his eyes so intense she wanted to scream. He shut the door behind him. “Parts of the house were in bad shape. Are in bad shape.”

      “What are you talking about?” She reached past him. Just then, the back door of her rental car opened, and a small voice shouted, “Mommy?”

      She turned. “Hope.” Cassie ran across the grass and snatched her daughter into her arms, holding on so tight Hope tried to wriggle free.

      “You’re squishing me.”

      “Sorry.” Tears choked her, but she never cried. “Sorry, baby.” She turned, her daughter in her arms.

      Van had followed, shock draining his face of color. She wished the sunset would just finish up and fade and make them all invisible.

      Cassie shook her head, begging him not to say anything that might hurt Hope. Naturally, he wondered if she belonged to him. Despite five years and the certainty he hadn’t wanted her or their marriage, she feared his unspoken question.

      At last, he dragged his gaze away from Hope, moving his head as if his muscles were locked. Pain pulsed from his body.

      Cassie relented. She’d assumed a lot of bad things about Van’s inability to be human, but he obviously had feelings.

      “No,” she said. “Not yours.”

      He grimaced, looking confused. Then he put his hand over his mouth. She was close enough to see sweat bead on his upper lip.

      As it had the last time he’d tried to make love to her.

      She’d been right to leave Honesty. She was the only one who could love the whimsical, curious girl who danced through her life in joy.

      Only Cassie could love the daughter born of her rape.

      CHAPTER THREE

      “MOMMY, WHOZZAT MAN?”

      Van’s eyes darkened. His mouth froze in a sharp, thin line. He clenched his fists at his side.

      Cassie pressed her face to her daughter’s head and breathed in Hope’s warm, still-babyish scent. Cassie swore silently. He could still make her tremble, but she and Hope were a family.

      “Van, this is Hope, the love of my life.” Be careful, she warned him in her head. Don’t say anything to hurt my daughter. “Baby, this is Mr. Van. He’s a—” She stopped. If explaining Hope’s long-lost Grampa had been hard… “a friend of my father’s.”

      “Hello, Mr. Van.” Hope stuck out her tiny hand. As always, Cassie marveled at her long slender fingers. She’d know her daughter decades from now, if only by her hands. God had been kind. They were Victoria Warne’s hands, too. “Mr. Van?” her little girl said.

      He

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