Baby By Chance. M.J. Rodgers

certainly been dizzy enough.

      “You carried me here?”

      He reached her, dropped to a squat and held out the cup. “Drink this.”

      One whiff told her that he was offering her hot chocolate. She shook her head and leaned back. “No, thanks.”

      He scowled at her. “If you don’t get something in your stomach soon, you’ll faint again.”

      She scowled back. “The last thing I need is something in my stomach.”

      He held out the cup again. “Trust me. You’ll feel better.”

      “Trust me. I’ll puke.”

      He pulled back the cup and regarded her closely. For a moment she could have sworn she saw something like discomfort flash across his face. But then his frown was back and she figured she was imagining things.

      “Morning sickness?” he asked.

      She nodded. “Nothing passes these lips until noon, and sometimes even then it has a round-trip ticket.”

      He plopped down on the blanket beside her. “So that’s why you haven’t eaten.”

      “And I had begun to think you’d lost all your detective skills.”

      He sent her another scowl before turning his head away to stare at the line of trees along the dirt road. He was good at that scowling thing. Must have had a lot of practice.

      As he sipped the hot chocolate he’d poured for her, she tested out her limbs and found them to be a little tender but otherwise okay. She looked around once again, trying to get her bearings. Where was east, west? Would have been a lot easier to determine if the sun were out. But then, it so rarely was.

      “How far are we from where I was shooting?” she asked.

      “About a mile and a half. If you’re worried about your camera, I put your backpack in the truck.”

      A mile and a half. That was a long way to carry a one-hundred fifteen pound woman and forty pounds of her camera equipment. Looked as though his muscles weren’t just for show.

      His concern for her welfare actually seemed genuine. He’d even been thoughtful enough to bring along her equipment. Maybe there was a heart hidden somewhere inside that hard chest, after all.

      She studied the bold lines of his profile. Nice, straight, well-shaped nose. Full, well-defined lips. Not bad, actually. Maybe not a handsome face, but definitely not quite as forbidding as her first impression.

      He turned his head and his eyes met hers.

      “Feeling any better?”

      “Some,” she admitted. “Thanks for being concerned about me.”

      He looked quickly away. “Forget it.”

      He was uncomfortable with her thanking him. What had she done to rub this man the wrong way?

      “Time you answered my question,” she said, happy to hear herself sounding calm, reasonable. “What are you doing here?”

      CHAPTER THREE

      THERE WERE A LOT of things David knew he should say to Susan. Number one was the apology he owed her. But admitting he’d been wrong suddenly did not seem like such a good idea, not with her sitting so close to him, looking directly into his eyes in that bold way of hers.

      This was not the time for him to be admitting to any kind of weakness.

      “I came to talk to you,” he said simply. He stared at the bushes that lined the road, although he couldn’t have described them if he tried.

      “How did you know I’d be here?”

      “I’m a private investigator, remember?”

      She was quiet for a moment, but he could feel her studying his face. He wondered what she saw, then reminded himself not knowing was a lot safer.

      “What did you want to talk to me about?” she asked.

      He dug into his pocket. But he didn’t retrieve his brother’s business card. Instead he pulled out the ad from the personal column he’d clipped out of the paper. “This isn’t going to flush out Todd.”

      She gave the clipping of the ad he handed her a brief glance before stuffing it in the pocket of her parka and getting to her feet.

      “What I do or don’t do to contact Todd is my business, Mr. Knight. Now that we’ve closed that subject, what direction do I take to get to the lodge from here?”

      He squinted up at her. She had delivered those last two sentences with enough frost to freeze a man, and she still had the guts to look him directly in the eye. She had a backbone.

      He pointed. “The lodge is a mile that way.” He raised his other hand and pointed in the opposite direction. “Your SUV is a mile that way. Makes more sense to head for your SUV.”

      “Aren’t you just full of helpful suggestions this morning.”

      Her sarcasm was delivered so sweetly he almost smiled. “I thought you were a sensible woman,” he said with a shrug. “My mistake.”

      She stared down at him. “Do you know what a nature photographer’s most valuable asset is?”

      He didn’t see the connection to his comment but he gave the answer a try. “A good eye?”

      “An obliging bladder.”

      He blinked at her in surprise.

      “Unfortunately, there’s something about being pregnant that can transform the most obliging bladder into a most unobliging one,” she said.

      He knew his flippant comment about her being a sensible woman had goaded her into explaining. She smiled down on him with ill-concealed satisfaction, confident that her explanation was going to make him feel sheepish.

      She wasn’t wrong.

      He gulped down the last of the hot chocolate. “I’ll drive you over.”

      THE CAMP LONG LODGE had a rustic, airy feel with its high ceilings, tall windows, a stone fireplace and hardwood floors.

      As David waited for Susan, he stood on the outskirts of a large group gathered around a naturalist who was pointing to a map that showed the route they would take on their upcoming hike.

      The naturalist was a knockout—a big, bosomy brunette who was making several of the men in the crowd openly drool. The effect was calculated. She had on thick eye makeup and painted lips the same deep red that adorned her long nails. She wore blue jeans and a red sweater, both a size too small.

      David took the scene in like the clinician he had been once and the man of indifference he had become.

      Then he saw Susan emerge from the lodge’s rest room. No painted lips and no painted nails. She carried her parka over her arm. The turtleneck she had worn underneath was faded cotton, quite loose, and in a pale shade of natural pink.

      He watched her approach. There was a sweet grace to the sway of her shoulders and hips, as though she walked to music she alone could hear. The mid-morning light fell through the tall windows, turning her long, braided hair into a rainbow of shimmering browns and gold.

      There was nothing calculated about her. Just a natural sensuality that took his breath away.

      Still, only an idiot in his position would do anything about an attraction to a woman in her position. He was no idiot.

      She stopped in front of him. “You didn’t have to wait.”

      The naturalist was raising her voice to get the attention of the group. David took Susan’s arm to move them out of earshot. The worn cotton of her top proved to be soft and yielding.

      But there was a muscled arm beneath, which quickly pulled away. She