LITMIR.BIZ

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low. Matt’s hand was still on her face, and she felt him ease closer. Gently, he pressed her face against his shoulder and his arms came around her. He stroked her hair, whispered reassurances in her ear, while she wished with every bit of her heart that he could have loved her, just a little.

      He was different now. The cool, remote man who’d slipped in and out of her life over the years had been so different from the utterly compelling one who’d shown up at her apartment twice in the last twelve hours. The one who held her in his arms while she cried, offering tantalizing glimpses of the man she always knew he could be.

      “Think about all your family’s done for me,” he said. “It’s a debt I never thought I’d be able to repay.”

      “Oh.” Of course. This was something he understood, something he believed in. Never take anything from anyone, unless you absolutely couldn’t help it. And if you did, find a way to pay it back. “Matt, my parents helped you because they wanted to, because they came to think of you as part of the family, and families take care of each other.”

      “Fine, I’m family, and you’re in trouble. Let me help you,” he said, looking more determined than she’d ever seen him. “Think about the baby, Cath. I want your baby to have everything.”

      “Everything you never had?” she suggested. “Is that why you’re doing this?”

      “What if it is?” he said. “Look, I’ll be whatever you want me to be to your baby. I’ll be a name on a piece of paper. Someone you share a house with for a few years. Someone who sees your kid every other weekend and on major holidays. Whatever you want, Cathie, I’ll do it.”

      “I don’t have any doubts about that.” Not for a second. He would take good care of her baby.

      Cathie let out a long, slow breath. Last night, when she’d closed her eyes and tried to figure out what she should do, she kept imagining having her baby, handing it over to someone else and watching them walk away with her baby. The baby was crying, and Cathie was crying as well.

      But now she saw Matt, her baby cradled tenderly in his arms.

      Cathie’s heart started to thud in a hard, heavy rhythm. Hope warred equally with the urge to protect herself from him and everything she’d ever wanted, not just from him but for him. He needed someone to show him love was real and precious, worth fighting for, worth believing in. Maybe she wasn’t that person, but what if her baby was? What if that was the key to his heart?

      Cathie’s mother always said babies were magical creatures, so innocent, so trusting, so accepting, that they could work miracles.

      She could try to explain to Matt that he desperately needed someone to love, that his life wouldn’t be complete without it. She believed there was love inside of him, waiting for that one person who could draw it out. And her baby…

      Maybe he could love her baby.

      Maybe she did have something to give him, after all.

      “Look, if it makes you feel any better, we can put a time limit on it,” he suggested. “Three years, Cath. Your parents gave me three years. Think where you and your baby could be in three years.”

      That was Matt, practical to the end. If she’d had any illusions it might be something more…

      Still, the situation was what it was. She was pregnant, and he was making her a very generous offer. In three years, she could have her degree and a teaching job. She’d have a two-year-old she could put in day-care, if she had to. Not the kind of life she’d imagined, but a lot more than she’d thought she’d have last night.

      “Then what?” she said carefully. “We’d just walk away from each other?”

      “Sure.”

      He probably believed that. That they could live together for three years, and then just walk away from each other. Was she crazy to think he might feel differently before those three years were up?

      “Cathie, you’re making this more complicated than it has to be. All we have to do is make it through the ceremony without your family getting too suspicious. Then we come back here, move you into my house and get on with our lives. You can go to school. I’ll go to work. You’ll have your baby. And when this marriage has served its purpose, we’ll end it. That’s it.”

      Oh, he did need someone to love. He needed it desperately. Who’d give that to him? Who would he ever let close enough, if not her and her baby?

      Matt took her chin in his hand and tilted her face to his. “Marry me, Cathie.”

      Her breath caught in her throat, because he was so close, so solidly reassuring, so sincere. She opened her mouth to object one more time.

      Matt pressed the pad of his thumb to her lips. “I’ll take good care of you and the baby. I promise.”

      Her eyes filled with tears that spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “I know you will.”

      Cathie felt the ache deep inside her give way. All of a sudden, the tightness was gone. A feeling of peace came over her. She knew she could safely entrust her life and her baby’s to Matt. Her heart might well be another matter, because she was going to lose it once more to him, if she hadn’t already, just by being here with him and seeing him again.

      He had to quit hiding the kind, tender man he could be.

      In the end, it was something her father told her that made up her mind.

      Her father saw an order and a purpose to everything. He believed people’s lives fit together in exactly the way they were meant to. And then he threw in a little of the philosophy of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones. That you didn’t always get what you wanted, but sometimes, you got exactly what you needed.

      Cathie had said a lot of prayers in the last twenty-four hours. There’d been a time when she’d tearfully offered up endless, rambling prayers on Matt’s behalf.

      Maybe this was her answer to all of them.

      “You’re sure?” she said, giving him one last chance to back down.

      “I’m sure.” He smiled, the reckless bad-boy smile of his youth. “Say yes, Cathie.”

      She closed her eyes and whispered, “Yes.”

      Matt fastened his strong arms around her and held her close. “Everything’s going to be okay,” he promised.

      And in that instant, Cathie believed him.

      She was trembling, so he held on to her for a while. He could take care of her now. Buy her a decent car, and see that she had the best medical care for her and the baby, and that she didn’t have to work for a while. Maybe when they separated, he could find a way to talk her into letting him support her and the baby afterward. He’d never miss a dime of the money, and he liked the idea of her and the baby having it.

      Yeah, he’d do that, when the time came.

      First, he had to make sure she didn’t back out on the wedding.

      “We need to tell your parents,” he said.

      She eased out of his arms and looked a little panicked. “I will.”

      “No. Now. We don’t have any time to waste, do we?” he asked, glancing pointedly at her midsection. It was hard to imagine Cathie growing big and round with a baby. And then he remembered something. “Christmas is only three weeks away. We can use that as our excuse.”

      “Excuse?”

      “For getting married so quickly.” She gave a little squeak of distress. “It’s all right. It’s not like we’re going to have a big wedding. And we can’t spend six months planning it, right?”

      “No, we can’t. But—”

      “Your mother said all of your brothers are supposed to make it home this year, and you’d want to have all of them there, if you were

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