Stroke of Fortune. Christine Rimmer

He nodded, his mouth a grim line.

      She dropped the shade and went to shut the door and engage the privacy lock, pausing first to listen for the sounds from the living room. She heard the drone of the television and the hum of the window air conditioner. Nothing that might indicate her mother knew she had a visitor.

      Which was all to the good. She’d just as soon not have her mama asking her a lot of questions about Flynt Carson. Alva didn’t need to know about what had happened between Josie and her former boss. She’d only worry if she knew.

      Josie went back to the window and did what Flynt wanted, running up the shade, slipping the latch, shoving up the bottom pane and unhooking the screen. He started to climb through.

      She decided when it was almost too late that it was a bad idea to let him into her bedroom. “Just wait,” she whispered. “I’ll come out there.”

      He gave her another tight shake of his head. “Someone might see us.”

      He was probably right. Someone just might. She found herself thinking, So what? But she didn’t say it. It would only have been her defiant streak talking, anyway.

      She didn’t really want her private business all over town, and Flynt was only trying to protect her from the evil tongues of town gossips.

      At heart, he was a good man. She knew that. It was just that he’d gotten himself all turned around inside, after what had happened with Monica and their baby.

      For one beautiful night eleven months ago, Josie had let herself hope that he might learn to forgive himself and leave the past behind. But in the harsh light of the following day, she’d learned the true power that guilt can have over a man—the kind of power a mere woman could never overcome.

      And right now, well, best to look on the bright side. At least his eyes were clear and she couldn’t smell liquor on him. “Why are you here, Flynt?”

      He looked surprised suddenly. “You don’t know?”

      “If I did, I wouldn’t be asking.”

      Narrow-eyed, he studied her face some more. Then he shook his head. “Not like this, all right? Not with you in there and me standing out here, whispering over the damn windowsill.”

      “All right. Where are you parked?”

      “Down around the corner.”

      “Go on back to that fancy pickup of yours. I’ll be there. Five minutes.”

      He glared at her as if he didn’t trust her to do what she said she’d do.

      “Go on,” she whispered. “I said five minutes and I meant what I said.” Before he could start barking orders at her again, she hooked the screen, pulled down the window and drew the shade.

      “I’m out of bath beads, Mama,” Josie called as she went out the front door. It wasn’t really a lie—she was out of bath beads and she would stop at the store before she returned to the house. “I’m going to run down to the Stop ’n’ Save.”

      Her mother nodded and waved and went on watching TV.

      Josie rushed out into the darkness, wondering what in the world was the matter with her, to be in such an all-fired hurry to get to the man who had broken her heart.

      She didn’t make him wait.

      Flynt had barely climbed back into his pickup when she was knocking on the passenger door. He reached across the seat and opened it for her. She got in and shut the door, trapping them in that small space together.

      He looked the other way, out the window over the driver’s door. But it didn’t help. His mind, his whole being, was centered on her.

      He said, “You sent the money back.”

      “Yes, I did.”

      “I wanted you to have it.”

      “I pay my own way. But thank you. I did need it at first. Then, as soon as I could manage it, I paid you back.”

      “Josie, I—”

      She cut him off. “No. No more about the money, please. You know me, deep down. You know I couldn’t keep it. It wouldn’t have been right.”

      He wanted to argue with her, that the money wasn’t much. That there was no point in her not having it. That she needed it and he didn’t.

      But he let it go. She wasn’t going to take that money, no matter what he said.

      Instead he asked, “You did all right, then? Up there in Fort Worth?”

      “I did just fine.”

      Why did he feel so…hungry? A hunger that was more than just wanting to get his hands on her. He wanted to know about her, about what she’d been doing, what she’d been thinking, what she’d seen, what she’d cared about. He wanted to know everything. Everything that happened, every breath she took, for the past eleven months.

      “You got an apartment?”

      “I took a room, with a family. The price was right, and they were good people. It worked out fine. And I found a job—two jobs, really.”

      He thought about Lena, wondered where she fit into all this, how Josie had managed. Two jobs, a room in someone’s house, and a baby.

      He said carefully, “You wore yourself out, I’ll bet.”

      “No. I’m young and I like to work. You know that. Then, well, you know, my mama needed me so I came back.”

      God. He could smell her. The sweetness of her. And something else.

      Cigarettes. “You take up smoking, Josie?”

      She stared straight ahead, her profile so fine and pure in the faint glow of the streetlamp down the block. She looked as sweet as an angel—an angry angel, right then. “I don’t much like your tone, you know that, Flynt?”

      He put his hands on the steering wheel and held on tight to keep from reaching for her. “It was a simple question. You can just answer yes or no.”

      “I just got off work and I work at the café.” She shot him a charged look, then faced front again. “The Mission Creek Café—which I’m sure you already know.”

      He understood what she was telling him. At the Mission Creek Café, there were ashtrays on the tables and smokers lit up whenever they felt the urge.

      “Not that it’s any of your business,” she said.

      “I’d hate to see you do that to yourself, that’s all,” he told her softly.

      She sent him another glance. “Well, don’t worry. I’m not. And if I ever considered takin’ up the habit, all I have to do is look at my poor mama to change my mind right quick.”

      Flynt was pleased to hear her say that. He wanted the best for her. And that included good health—both for herself and for Lena. He didn’t want to think that she’d been smoking around Lena or, worse, before Lena was born.

      But she said she hadn’t and he decided to believe her. “Well,” he said. “Good.”

      She didn’t say anything, just went on staring out the windshield.

      He scoured his mind for a way to get around gracefully to the subject of Lena. But there was no graceful way to ask a woman if, just possibly, she’d borne his child and then left her on the golf course at the Lone Star Country Club.

      So he fell back on a safer subject. “How is your mom doing, anyway?”

      She sent him another iceberg of a look. “What is this, Flynt? You came knockin’ on my bedroom window at ten o’clock at night to ask me how I liked it up in Hurst and find out how my mama’s doing?”

      “Josie, I…”

      “You what?”

      Did