LITMIR.BIZ

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knowing she had sounded altogether too hopeful.

      He looked at her, then at the moon. “Hard to tell at this point,” he muttered. Turning, he looked back toward the little house she lived in. She’d done something to it. Even in the dark, it didn’t look so much like a shack anymore.

      “Your old man still around?” he asked.

      “He died a few years ago,” she told him. “Complications from pneumonia.”

      Complications from being a rotten drunk was what she could have said, he thought bitterly. She was better off without him. But that being said, you didn’t get to choose your relatives and he was her father.

      “Sorry,” he muttered, looking away.

      “Thanks,” she said shortly. “For all the grief he gave me, he did manage to hang onto this little piece of property, so it’s mine now. All five acres of it.”

      He nodded, then smiled, happy to think of her having something like this for her own. Whenever he’d thought of her over the years, he’d pictured her here, at the lake. It was so much a part of her.

      “I had a funeral for him,” she went on. “At the little chapel on Main. I thought it would just be me and him.” She shook her head, remembering. “Do you know, most of the town came? I couldn’t believe it.” She grinned. “I even had a cousin I’d never met before show up, Ben Lanker. He’s an attorney in Sacramento and he wanted to go over the will for me, to see if all was okay.” She laughed shortly. “I think he was hoping to find a flaw, to see if there was some way he could get his hands on this property. But I’d had everything nailed down clear and legal when I was dating a lawyer in San Francisco, so he was out of luck.”

      He laughed along with her, pleased to know she was taking care of herself these days. Looking at her, he couldn’t imagine her being a victim in any way.

      “So tell me, Cam,” she said. “The truth this time. I’m still waiting to hear the answer to my question. What brings you back to your ancestral home?”

      He sighed. “It’s a fairly easy answer. I’m just embarrassed to tell you.”

      That made her laugh again. “Oh, now I have to hear it. Come on. The raw, unvarnished truth. Give it up.” She smiled at him. “What did you come home for?”

      Giving her a sheepish look, he grimaced.

      “Okay. You asked for it.”

      She waited expectantly. He took a deep breath, as though this was really tough to admit.

      “I came home to get married.”

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE smile froze on Diana’s face. She blinked a few times, but she didn’t say anything. Still, it felt as though Cam had shot an arrow through her heart.

      It shouldn’t have. She had no right to feel that way. But rights didn’t wait on feelings. She stared at him, numb.

      “Married!” she finally managed to say in a voice that was almost normal. “You?”

      He coughed discreetly. “Well, that’s not actually technically true.”

      She blinked. “Cam!”

      One dark eyebrow rose provocatively. “Take it as a metaphor.”

      “A metaphor!”

      He was driving her crazy. She shook her head. It was too early in the morning for mind games.

      “Will you tell me what is really going on?”

      He sighed. “Let’s just say my mother has plans. She thinks it’s time I settled down.”

      “Really.” Diana took a deep breath. So…was he getting married or wasn’t he? She was completely confused and beginning to get annoyed. “Who’s the lucky girl?”

      He looked at her blearily. “What girl?”

      She wanted to throw something at him and it took all her strength not to snap back through clenched teeth. “The girl your mother wants you to marry.”

      “Oh.” He frowned as though he didn’t see how this mattered. “There’s no specific girl. More like a category of women.” He shrugged and raked fingers through his tousled hair, adding to his slightly bewildered look. “She has a whole roster picked out. She’s ready to toss them at me, one at a time, and I’m supposed to catch one of them in the end.”

      Diana took a deep breath. This had been the most maddening conversation she’d had in a long time. The strongest impulse she had right now was to push him into the lake. How dare he come back here this way, raising old emotions, raising old hopeless dreams, and then slapping her back down with vague news of pending nuptials? Was this a joke? Or was he just trying to torture her?

      But she knew that wasn’t really it. He didn’t have a clue how she had always felt about him, did he? Well, despite the position it put her in, that was probably a good thing.

      Holding all that in as best she could, she looked out at the moonlight on the lake. Funny. Cam had come home and within minutes she had reverted back to being the little raggedy urchin who saw him as her white knight. For years she’d clung to his protection, dreaming that one day, when she was older, he would notice that she wasn’t a little girl anymore, that she’d grown into a woman.

      She sighed softly. It had always been a stupid goal, and still was. He was from a different world and only visited hers when it suited him. He wasn’t available, in other words. And even if he were, what she’d done to her own situation alone would rule out any hopes she might have. She should know better by now. A little toughness of her own was in order. No more shabby girl with her nose pressed to the windowpane.

      She tilted her head to the side, a bemused look on her face as she worked on developing a bit of inner strength.

      “Let me get this straight,” she challenged. “You came back because your mother wanted you to?”

      He blinked at her groggily. “Sort of,” he admitted.

      She shook her head, eyes flashing. “Who are you and what have you done with the real Cam Van Kirk?” she demanded.

      “You don’t buy it, huh?” He looked at her, trying to be earnest but too groggy to manage it well. The swath of dark hair that had fallen down over his eyes wasn’t helping. He was looking more vulnerable than she’d ever imagined he could look.

      “Actually,” he murmured, “neither do I.”

      “What does that mean?”

      “Come on, Di, you know how it is. You grow up. You begin to realize what is really important in life. And you do things you never thought you would.”

      Sure, she knew how it was. But she couldn’t quite believe it. Not Cam. Not the young rebel she’d idolized for so many years.

      “What happened to you, Cam?” she asked softly, searching his face.

      He moved toward her, his hand reaching in to slide along her chin and cup her cheek. She pulled back, looking surprised at his touch and pushing his hand away.

      And as she did so, she forgot to hold her robe closed and it fell open. Her rounded belly was obvious.

      “Whoa,” he said, jerking back and staring at it, then looking up at her face. He shook his head as though trying to clear it so that he could deal with this new development. “What happened to you?”

      “It’s not that big a mystery,” she said quickly, pulling the robe back. “It happens a lot, in case you hadn’t noticed.”

      He stared at her for a moment, his brow furled, and moved a bit further away, purposefully keeping his eyes averted from her midsection.

      “Did you go and get married or something?” he muttered uncomfortably.

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