LITMIR.BIZ

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wet glass. It was no wonder, she mused ironically, that he hadn’t recognized her. She barely recognized herself, she looked so colorless. The girl he knew had been vibrant and pretty, with bouncy blond curls and a healthy pink glow in her cheeks.

      She sighed as she blow-dried her hair. She and Matt had both changed. And they would never again be the same. They were different people now, with different lives.

      And though Tradition was a small town, it was big enough for both of them. It would have to be, she decided resolutely, because she had no intention of leaving.

      And once she’d ousted him from Laurel House, she would burrow in and make it her home. A warm and comfortable home, for herself and her new baby…the baby that was now the only important thing in her life.

      “You, Ms. Rossiter, are one very careless driver!”

      Seated alone at the kitchen table, Liz was startled by the sound of Matt’s voice as he came in through the back door. She jumped, and almost spilled her coffee.

      Putting down the mug, she dropped her hands to her lap, and hoped she looked calmer than she felt. She wasn’t used to this new Matt—wasn’t used to the hard, craggy face, wasn’t used to the maturity of his bearing.

      In the moments before he shut the door, a draft of morning air swept into the room, making her shiver. Or had she shivered because his powerful tanned body was so blatantly revealed in jogging shorts and a black tank top?

      “Careless? Really?” She kept her tone casual. And not unfriendly. “Why would you think that?”

      A wary expression flickered in his eyes, causing her nervousness to dissipate in a surge of satisfaction. Her amicable attitude had thrown him off balance…and she liked the feeling of control!

      He scowled at her. “The Porsche parked out back is yours?”

      She nodded, and quirked a quizzical eyebrow.

      “Then you owe me.”

      “For what?”

      “For splashing mud over my suit,” he growled. “Last night, on Main Street—”

      “Oh, that was you!”

      “You knew you’d soaked me?” Indignation resonated in his husky voice. “But you didn’t stop to apologize?”

      “Sorry. I knew I’d splashed somebody…and if I’d known it was a lawyer…” She chuckled. “So…sue me!”

      His scowl deepened. Before he could say anything, she added contritely, “Look, I really am sorry. But truly I couldn’t help it. A cat darted in front of the car and I had to swerve to avoid it. If I’d had time to think,” she added, dead-pan, “I would of course have chosen to kill the cat rather than splatter your suit. I mean, let’s get our priorities straight here. What is it, by the way…just as a matter of interest? An Armani? A Canali?”

      He glared at her for a further moment…and then his laughter rolled out, free and easy as an eagle on the wing.

      “Sears,” he said. “Off-the-rack.”

      She leaned back in her chair, her expression mocking. “Whatever happened,” she asked, “to the teenager who swore that when he graduated from law school, he’d never buy off-the-rack clothes again?”

      “What happened,” he retorted, “was that he found much better ways to spend his money. Besides—” he threw her a lazy smile that curled her toes “—most of my clients are from the local farming community. They come into my office in their working clothes—oftimes reeking of manure, if not trailing it in on their boots!—and we all feel more comfortable if I’m not dressed up like some city slicker.”

      “But yesterday—”

      “Yesterday I had to go to court with a client, but normally I wear jeans to the office.” He wiped a forearm over his brow, leaving a glaze of sweat. “So…did you sleep well?”

      “Yes,” she fibbed. “I did. I’d been on the road for over a week and I was bushed. Besides, there’s nothing to beat sleeping in one’s own bed.”

      A green-and-white striped hand towel dangled from a hook on the wall by the door. Reaching for it, he said in a teasing voice, “You think?”

      She felt her cheeks grow warm. The last thing she wanted was to get in a conversation with this man about sleeping in any bed other than her own. “Yes.”

      “Ah, well,” he drawled, “to each his…or her…own.” He rubbed the towel over his damp hair and then ran it over his neck and arms. Slinging it back on the hook, he glanced at the carafe of coffee she’d made earlier. “Can I have some of that?” Without waiting for an answer, he poured himself a mug, and pulling out the chair across from her, he sat down.

      “So,” he said, “you’d been on the road for over a week. Where’d you come from?”

      “New York.”

      “Ah, a city gal. So, city gal, how about filling me in on what you’ve been doing the past thirteen years. That’s one expensive vehicle you’re running. You must either have a good job…or you married into money.”

      “Neither,” she said. “I don’t have a job and I don’t have a husband.”

      Silence swelled between them, broken only by the hum of the refrigerator. He was the first to speak.

      “You’re on your own?”

      She hesitated. Eventually he—and everybody else in Tradition—would learn that she was pregnant. But for the time being, she wanted to keep that secret to herself.

      “Yes,” she said. Then, to divert him, she said, “I want to go and visit my father’s grave. Is he at Fairlawn?”

      “No, they built a new cemetery ten years ago—it’s out past Miller’s Farm, take the second road on your left…or is it the third?” He scratched a hand through his tousled hair. “I know how to get there but—tell you what, I’ll drive you—”

      “Thanks, I’d like to drive myself. I’ll buy a map.”

      “You didn’t use to be so independent!”

      He’d said it without thinking, but when he saw a shadow darken her eyes, he could have kicked himself. If she was independent now, it was because she’d had to be. When she’d most needed support, when she had most desperately needed support, she’d been let down by those she should have been able to depend on the most.

      She pushed back her chair and got to her feet. “I am independent, Matt.” She spoke quietly. “And I cherish my independence. I’ve learned the hard way that the only person I can count on is myself.”

      He stood, too, and fisting his hands by his sides, faced her steadily across the table. “You’re wrong, Beth. If there’s ever anything I can do for you, just say the word.”

      She looked at him, for the longest time. And then she said, with a twisted little half smile. “There is one thing you can do for me, Matt.”

      “Sure.” His heart leaped in anticipation. “What?”

      “Please,” she said, “don’t call me ‘Beth.’”

      And without another word, she flicked back her long flaxen hair and stalked regally out of the kitchen.

      Liz bought a recently published map of the area, in the London Drugs on Jefferson Street.

      She asked the obliging clerk to mark the position of the new cemetery, and fifteen minutes after leaving the store, she was pulling the Porsche up in the carpark of the Greenvale Burial Grounds.

      “Way to go, kid!”

      “Thanks, Uncle Matt!”

      “Well done, Stuart.” Molly Martin gave her breathless eight-year-old son a warm hug. “That was a great game and you were

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