Her Baby and Her Beau. Victoria Pade

gained every reason to think he was the scum of the earth.

      That twisted him up inside.

      Over the years he’d never forgotten her. She—and that summer with her—were some of his best memories.

      Whenever he’d thought of her, he’d wondered what had happened to her, where she was, what she was doing. A couple of times he’d told himself that if he came out alive he was going to look her up. He’d fantasized that when he did she wouldn’t be married or have kids and maybe they’d click all over again.

      So much for that.

      Although something had clicked for him...

      When he’d wondered about her he’d also wondered if she would still look the same, and she did. Better, actually, even bruised and clearly weary and unwell and dressed in sweats that were too big for the body that had rounded only in the right places.

      The spark and the glimmer were still in those honey-colored eyes that weren’t like any others he’d ever seen—the dark amber of the beer he liked.

      Except for that bad bruise on her temple, her skin was flawless now, with not a single imperfection to distract from lips that were just full enough to make them outrageously kissable. From high, apple-round cheeks that had always had a natural blush to them and made her look as though the sun hadn’t been able to resist kissing her, either. A natural blush that anger had tried to bring back tonight, so he was confident it had only been lost temporarily.

      She hadn’t smiled at him earlier, but even so he’d been able to see the hint of the dimples that would appear when she did. Tonight they had only been small indentations that reminded him of what they could become. Of the way they made every smile beam. And how much he’d liked bringing them out.

      Her hair was still the same color—reddish-brown, silky and shiny. But she wore it differently than she had when they were teenagers. Now it was shorter and it framed her face—and since it was a face so worth framing, he liked it. He also liked the section that had fallen over that bruise—it added a little spice to that girl-next-door look of hers.

      She was just a beautiful woman, blossomed from the beautiful girl she’d been.

      And his very first instinct when she’d stepped out of that motel room door had been to wrap his arms around her and hold her so tight she couldn’t get away again.

      So, yeah, something had clicked for him.

      And why, of all the things that he needed to be fitting into place, that was the one that had, he didn’t understand.

      For two months now he’d been struggling to get something to feel right. He was like a fish out of water in civilian life. Everything seemed so unorganized. So inefficient. So undisciplined. People were lax. Too much was at ease too much of the time.

      He sure as hell didn’t feel as if he was on the same wavelength as his family. They were trying hard. He was trying hard. Maybe they were all trying too hard. But either way, he felt like an outsider. A stranger. He didn’t know what they were talking about most of the time and he didn’t feel as if he had anything to contribute himself.

      He hadn’t found a position he wanted in the business. Everything was running perfectly well without him, and board meetings pretty much went the same way family social events did—he didn’t know what the issues were and he certainly didn’t feel as if he should interrupt what was already running smoothly by putting his two cents’ worth in.

      He was just failing at reacclimating all the way around.

      And then tonight...

      Seeing Kyla again was the first time since he’d taken off the uniform and put on civvies that something had clicked.

      It was probably just some kind of throwback to the past. After all, they didn’t really know each other—not the people they’d grown up to be.

      And Kyla had had years to hate him after only a few months when things had been good between them. She’d had fourteen years to live with her reality—that he’d left her pregnant and alone to deal with it rather than stepping up, taking his share of the blame and responsibility, and doing the right thing by her. Fourteen years with every reason to hate his guts and for that to have taken deep, deep root. To be ingrained in her.

      Which made things a whole lot different than they had been that summer.

      But nothing changed the mission, and he told himself to keep his goal in sight, to maintain his focus.

      The mission was to make amends by helping her, and that’s what he was going to do.

      And if, in the process, it provided him with a temporary distraction from all his failures to assimilate, and he got the chance to let her know that he wasn’t some lowlife who had turned his back on her or on his baby and his responsibilities to them both, the mission would be a complete success.

      But as for the clicking?

      That was nothing.

      That was an emotional component and he knew what to do with it—ignore it. Keep it in check. Proceed as if it didn’t exist.

      Which was exactly what he would do.

      * * *

      Kyla jolted awake at the soft knock on the motel room door at the stroke of 9:00 a.m. She was sleeping sitting up in a chair.

      Not that she’d intended to fall asleep. The chair was near the room’s window and she’d been watching for Beau.

      She’d been up with Immy four times during the night. Four times when Immy had again been unhappy, crying and refusing to take much formula.

      And even when the baby had finally gone back to sleep and Kyla had been able to return to bed herself, she’d had trouble dozing off again. Thinking about Beau, about the past, and trying to figure out any way she could refuse his services had kept her up even more than Immy had.

      Unfortunately she’d arrived at the same conclusion each and every time—for Immy’s sake she had to accept Beau Camden’s help. Temporarily.

      And now that was upon her.

      Stiffly, she pushed herself out of the chair and went to open the motel room door.

      She’d been hoping that he might have looked better in the darkness last night than he would in the stark light of day. Instead the reverse was true and summer sunshine just emphasized how incredibly handsome he’d grown up to be. And one glance at him instantly thwarted her best intentions not to notice it.

      Freshly showered, his strikingly angular face cleanly shaven, dressed in jeans and a simple white crew-neck T-shirt that hugged each and every one of his finely honed muscles, it wasn’t humanly possible not to notice that he was one very, very hot man.

      “Hi,” he greeted her, sounding tentative.

      “Hi,” she responded with resignation and no warmth whatsoever.

      “Bad night?” he guessed after giving her the once-over.

      Just what every girl wanted to think—that it showed. Especially when she was facing a drop-dead-gorgeous guy.

      “Pretty bad,” she confirmed without going into detail. Poor Immy was going to get the full blame because Kyla wasn’t about to let him know he’d contributed to her sleeplessness.

      He peered over her head at the crib inside the room. “Is she asleep now?”

      “For a little while. It won’t last—she isn’t eating. I think she needs the formula she’s used to instead of what I have.”

      “We’ll stop and get some on the way,” Beau was quick to assure her, as if her wish was his command. “I’ve got a state-of-the-art car seat ready and waiting, belted in by people who knew how to do it the right way, in the backseat. Think we can move her into it without waking her up?”

      Kyla shrugged.