LITMIR.BIZ

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the nerves in her belly eased until at one point, when his eyes met her eyes in that direct way he had, she felt a sharp tug of pleasure.

      Her eyes widened in surprise. It had been so long…not that attraction was appropriate. For heaven’s sake, this was Ben’s brother. But she couldn’t help being pleased. She was truly healing. Surely that meant she’d been right to take the steps she had.

      Then she heard the front door open and all her nerves came rushing back. Before she’d thought about it, she was on her feet again. Facing the doorway.

      “Smells good,” a deep male voice rumbled as the door closed. “We have company for supper?”

      She knew his voice. It gave her a jolt. She hadn’t expected the quick hit of familiarity.

      Then he was standing in the doorway, a big, solid man in a flannel shirt and worn jeans. He looked at his brother first, she noticed—a quick, assessing glance. Then he turned to her, a slight smile on his hard face, a question in his eyes. “You going to introduce me, Duncan?”

      He didn’t recognize her. Humiliation burned like acid. “We’ve met. Though I see you’ve forgotten, so I’ll reintroduce myself. I’m Gwen. Gwendolyn Van Allen.”

      Shock slapped the smile from his face. Good. At least he remembered her name. This would have been even worse if she’d had to remind him of what had happened between them five years ago. She pulled a photograph out of her purse and crossed to him, holding it out. “And this is your son, Zachary.”

      Chapter 2

      Cold air cut into Duncan’s chest with each breath he took. His feet thudded steadily on the hard ground beside the road. Overhead the sky was a dingy black, with a few shy stars peeking out where the cloud cover thinned. His sweatshirt clung damply to his chest and back beneath the denim jacket he’d grabbed when he’d escaped the house. His heart was slamming hard against the wall of his chest. His arm ached.

      He needed to cool down. He’d been running about an hour—not long enough. He couldn’t go home. Not yet. She’d still be there.

      So he’d walk awhile. He eased to a jog, then a walk as he crossed Elm.

      Dammit, she wasn’t even his type. Too pale, too thin. Her hair was too damned short. He liked long hair on a woman.

      But her image kept intruding on his run in fragments, vivid and raw like the jagged memories of an accident victim. He saw her hands, the thin fingers nervously rubbing together for warmth. The ring she’d worn where a wedding band would go—silver and simple, with a single pearl. The small mole on her neck, right where a man would taste her pulse. He saw the quick bloom of anger in her cheeks when Ben didn’t recognize her, and those silly silver shoelaces, a single note of whimsy in a polished package. He remembered the way she’d risen from the couch, drawn upward by the sound of Ben’s voice. Forgetting Duncan was even there.

      He worked hard at not moving from remembered images to imagined ones. Like the way that delicate body must have looked locked in his brother’s arms.

      It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. Whatever had hit him when he’d opened the door to her would fade.

      A car slowed as it passed him, turned into the parking lot and pulled up at the gas pumps at the convenience store on the corner. Maybe he should fuel up, too. He could get a cup of coffee, drink it in the store where it was warm and let the sweat dry. Then run some more.

      She’d had his brother’s child.

      Or so she claimed. Maybe he shouldn’t take her words at face value. People did lie. And Ben was the owner of a successful construction firm—not a bad target for a paternity suit.

      But he remembered the way she’d looked. The clothes, the makeup, the cropped hair—she’d had a shine to her, the kind of gloss that means money. Hard to believe a woman like that would need to trick money out of a man.

      He wished he’d seen the photograph of the boy. The second he’d realized just how personal her business with his brother was, though, he’d taken off. But he’d seen her face when Ben had made it clear he didn’t have a clue who she was.

      He’d seen Ben’s face a moment later, too.

      Ben believed her. Duncan’s lips thinned. Damn Ben’s righteous hide! How could he have fathered a child he didn’t even know about? Ben, of all people. His big brother was no saint, but on some subjects he was about as yielding as the mountains they’d grown up in. A man took responsibility for his actions. A man used protection every time, and if he was ever fool enough to forget that, he’d better head straight to the courthouse for a marriage license, because he couldn’t call himself a man if he allowed his child to grow up without a father.

      Yet Ben had had a son by a woman he hadn’t even recognized. A son who’d done some of his growing up without a father. Duncan felt cold and wild inside. He wanted to smash his fist into his brother’s face.

      There was a cop car in front of the 7-11. Duncan hesitated. But the wind was picking up, pushing a cold front ahead of it. He shivered, grimaced and told himself not to be an idiot. It would be a helluva note if he caught some stupid bug because he was so determined to avoid Jeff that he ducked out of sight every time he saw a police car. Ben would make his life hell if he got sick.

      It was with a certain grim amusement that he saw his suspicions had been right. Jeff pushed the door open just as Duncan reached it. He was holding a steaming plastic-foam cup. He grinned. “Hey, there, GI Joe. You aren’t out running at this hour, are you?”

      “Hey, copper. No, I flew in. Left my wings in the bike rack.”

      Jefferson Parker chuckled. Jeff was a head shorter than Duncan, a lot chattier, several shades darker in skin tone and every ounce as stubborn. They’d been friends in high school, where Jeff had been one of very few black faces in the crowd—and the student-body president two years in a row. Which said a lot about his ability to get along with others and his determination to excel. “Better leave ’em parked or I might have to run you in for impersonating an angel. Not that anyone would believe it, between that ugly face of yours and those goose bumps you’re sprouting instead of a halo. You going to let me buy you a cup of coffee?”

      Duncan eyed him. Jeff’s dark eyes were friendly and incurious. What a crock. The man was nosier than a hound on a scent and just as hard to sidetrack. It had been a huge mistake to take Jeff up on his offer of using the police firing range to keep in practice.

      Still, he supposed he might as well see how long it took Jeff to get to the point this time. He didn’t have anywhere else he needed to be. “Sure.”

      Jeff introduced him to the young clerk, Lorna, claiming she made the best coffee in Highpoint—an exaggeration bordering on outright falsehood, Duncan thought as he sipped the industrial-strength brew. His old friend kept up a steady stream of chatter that included the shy young woman. He was good at that sort of thing, never at a loss for words. People relaxed with him.

      Probably a good trait in a cop, Duncan thought, watching.

      “Well, how about that,” Jeff said as they left the store, stopping to stare in mock surprise at the bike rack by the curb. “Someone must have run off with those wings of yours.” He shook his head. “Criminals are sure getting bold these days.”

      Duncan smiled slightly. Here it comes. The Highpoint police are looking for a few good men…

      “That Lorna….” Jeff nodded at the clerk on the other side of the brightly lit window. “She’s nineteen, lives with her mom. Got a little girl her mother watches while she’s at work. Can’t afford day care, you know? She has to work nights because her mother works days down at Jenkin’s Drug.”

      Duncan’s eyebrows lifted. Where was Jeff going with this? “No support from the father?”

      “Bastard skipped town a couple years back when Lorna turned up pregnant.”

      “That’s rough. She’s in school?”

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