Her Baby and Her Beau

“Or it’s nice out here—you could come out,” he suggested as he put his wallet away.

Since she didn’t think hallucinations had driver’s licenses, and it began to sink in that he really was who he said he was, she didn’t have reason to fear him. He wouldn’t hurt her—not physically, anyway. And resentment or no resentment, she was curious about what he was doing there, not to mention how and why.

But she couldn’t let him into her room and take the chance that Immy would wake up.

So she said, “Give me a minute and I’ll come out.”

“Take all the time you need.”

Kyla ducked behind the curtains and held them tightly closed in front of her.

Then she opened them just a slit and peeked out again to see if Beau Camden really was out there.

He was. She hadn’t imagined this. She wasn’t hallucinating.

And he was waiting for her, now standing near a big black SUV parked outside her room. Still posture-perfect, with his long, thick, jeans-encased legs spread shoulder width apart and hands behind his back.

Military for sure.

But now that she knew who he was there was no surprise in that.

She closed the drapes tightly again, suddenly realizing that she didn’t know how presentable she was.

She went to the mirror over the small bureau near the bathroom.

Once she got there and took a look at herself she thought maybe she shouldn’t have.

She’d showered at the hospital that morning, but everything she’d brought with her from Northbridge had been lost in the fire. That meant no makeup, let alone anything to camouflage the dark bruise on her temple or any blush to put color into the pallor that the trauma had left her with.

Luckily there was only one bruise on her face—the rest of her injuries were under her clothes.

Her dark amber eyes weren’t blackened or swollen—she counted that as a good thing. Her thin, straight nose was unmarred. And while she wished she had lip gloss, her lips were a natural pink color that hadn’t paled along with the rest of her face.

Basically she looked like what she was—someone who had just finished a hospital stay. But there wasn’t much she could do about that, so she focused on her hair.

It was about an inch longer than chin length, cut to turn under at the ends, with long bangs that she wore swept to one side. She’d had highlights added to its reddish-brown hue just before leaving home, and neither her hair nor her eyebrows had been singed.

But without her own shampoo and styling products or a curling iron, her hair was lackluster and just hung there limply. The best she could do was brush it with the cheap hairbrush she’d been given and sweep it behind her ears.

Oh, she really was pale, she realized. So pale that it made the bruise on her otherwise-unmarred forehead look even worse.

She reached for her bangs automatically with her right hand, forgetting that her wrist was badly sprained until the jolt of pain reminded her.

Then she tried to fluff her bangs with her left hand to cover the bruise. Mostly she just managed to pull them into her face. She wasn’t sure that was an improvement, but she left them anyway.

Eddie’s secretary had been good enough to get her a few basic necessities that included pajama pants and a top to sleep in, and two pairs of loose-fitting sweatpants to go with two baggy T-shirts for daytime. But that was the extent of her wardrobe. So there was no sense changing out of one pair of sweatpants and T-shirt into the other.

She stepped farther back from the mirror and took a look at the whole picture.

If there was a worse way to look meeting Beau Camden again, she couldn’t think of it.

But there was nothing she could do, so she took some small comfort in the thought that if he’d recognized her when she’d poked her head through the curtains maybe she didn’t look too different than she had at sixteen.

It was very small comfort, though. Especially when she recalled how fantastic he looked...

But she refused to let herself care what he might think—or at least tried not to—as she slid her feet into the flip-flops that were her only shoes and reluctantly headed for the door.

She was careful not to make any noise as she slipped out of the motel room, leaving the door ajar by only an inch in order to be able to hear if Immy cried. And even though it wasn’t easy, she made sure she was standing straight and strong before she turned to face her first love and the person who had hurt her more than anyone in her life.

“I have a two-month-old baby sleeping inside and I don’t want to wake her,” she informed Beau without inflection, staggered all over again by the man he’d become when she looked at him without anything between them.

He gave her a once-over glance that didn’t seem to miss a thing—including the bruise on her temple and the wrist brace that went from mid-forearm to her knuckles. “You look like you need to sit. It’s finally cooling down today, so how about the hood of my car?”

His SUV was big. Normally she wouldn’t have had a problem using the front bumper as a step and climbing onto it. But in her current condition there was no way she could get up there.

“I can give you a hand,” Beau offered as if he knew what she was thinking, holding out that same giant mitt that had pounded on the door earlier.

Okay, sure, there was a part of her that was inclined to slip her hand into his the way she would have that long-ago summer. To see what it was like now.

But it was a very small part of her that was instantly overruled by her sense of independence and her certainty that she would never forgive him for what he’d done.

“No, thanks,” she said curtly as she moved to sit on the SUV’s bumper. “How is it that you’re here?” she asked then.

“There’s a lot that goes into that story,” he answered, sounding confused and bewildered—something that did not seem in keeping with the powerful tower of man standing before her. “There’s a lot—so much—that we need to talk about and I can’t even imagine what you must be thinking...what you must have thought about me all these years—”

“Nothing good,” she told him without compunction.

“Just let me say that fourteen years ago all I knew was that I’d had an unbelievable summer with an unbelievable girl—”

“And then lied about it and left me hanging out to dry with the consequences.”

“Honest to God, Kyla, I didn’t do either of those things. I didn’t even tell anybody about you because I was so wrecked trying to get over you, and I didn’t want to be teased about it by my brothers and cousins—I just let them think I was sorry to be home again.”

Kyla gazed up at him, but before she could accuse him of lying once more, he said, “We need to talk about it all. But right now isn’t the time. Just give me the benefit of the doubt when I tell you that, until a few hours ago, I had no idea you’d tried to contact me after the day we said goodbye in Northbridge.”

Kyla glared at him.

“Honest to God,” he repeated. “And while you certainly don’t owe me anything, not even answers, I just have to ask you one thing—do I...do we...”

He seemed to stand even straighter and stiffer than he had been—although she didn’t know how that was possible—and she thought he was steeling himself.

“Do we have a kid?” he finally asked quietly.

Kyla didn’t want to admit it to herself, but there was an unmistakable tone in his voice that made it sound as if the possibility of that was new to him. Stunningly new to him, shaking this man who appeared to be unshakable.

So she merely answered his question. “No. I...there was a miscarriage—I lost it.” And herself for a while.

His expression went blank and he didn’t seem to know how to respond.