The Captain's Baby Bargain. Merline Lovelace

where she lived hurt. More than she would ever admit.

      Swish, on the other hand, had subtly encouraged her mother to share bits of news about her former son-in-law’s life since he’d moved back to Oklahoma. Mary Jackson had passed on the news that the high school tennis team Gabe coached had won state honors. And she gushed over the fact that the voters of their small hometown elected him mayor by a landslide. Somehow, though, her mom had neglected to mention the fact that Cedar Creek’s mayor was getting married again.

      “I’ve been at Luke a little over four months,” Swish answered with as much nonchalance as she could muster, then let her gaze roam the dusty, dented pickup. “I see you’re still driving Ole Blue.”

      He unbent his elbow and patted the outside of his door. “I rebuilt the engine a last year. Spins like a top.”

      “Mmm-hmm.”

      The memories didn’t creep in this time. They hit like a sledgehammer.

      Swish had surrendered her virginity in Ole Blue’s cab. Impatiently. Hungrily. Almost angrily. She’d teased and tormented Gabe until he finally toppled her backward on the cracked leather seat and yanked down her panties. Even then, as wild with hunger as they both were, he’d been gentle. For the first few thrusts. Once past the initial startled adjustment, Swish had picked up the rhythm and climaxed mere moments later, as though she’d only been waiting for his touch to ignite those white-hot sensations.

      She’d still been floating back to earth when he pulled out of her and started swearing. At himself. At her. At the incredible stupidity of what they’d just done. What if her parents found out he’d violated their trust as well as their daughter? What if he’d let himself come and gotten her pregnant! What about her scholarship to OU? The bridges she wanted to build. The exotic lands they both wanted to travel to!

      Still soaring on that sexual high, Swish had kissed and stroked and nipped the cords in his neck until he cursed again, shoved the key in the ignition and drove her home.

      Other, less sensual memories involving Ole Blue swirled like a colorful kaleidoscope. The night they spread an air mattress in the truck bed and stretched out to watch a gazillion stars light up the sky. The times they’d pulled into a space at the only still-operating drive-in movie in the area to munch popcorn and watch the latest action flick. The load of manure they’d loaded and hauled to fertilize the garden belonging to a friend of his mother.

      A flash of headlights in the rearview mirror yanked her from the past to the present. They were still blocking the intersection, with Ole Blue hunched like an oversize panther beside Swish’s red mouse of a car.

      She glanced in the mirror, back at Gabe. “Well, I guess...”

      “Why don’t we get a cup of coffee?” He hooked his thumb at the golden arches behind him. “I obviously need to catch up on your career moves.”

      She opened her mouth to refuse. The memories she’d just flashed through were too raw, too painful. She’d be a fool to resurrect any more. Then again, she did have to make a pit stop. Like reeeeally bad now.

      “Okay,” she heard herself say. “I’ll meet you inside...after I hit the head.”

      She cornered into the parking lot, killed the engine and was out of the T-bird before Ole Blue had made a U-turn at the intersection. This early in the morning the ladies’ room was empty and clean as a whistle, with the pungent tang of disinfectant taking precedence over the scent of deep-fried hash browns and sausage coming from the kitchen.

      When she emerged, she found Gabe lounging against a booth with a coffee cup in either hand. A smile crinkled the squint lines at the corners of his hazel eyes as he tipped his chin toward the restroom she’d just vacated.

      “You must’ve been on the road for a while if your iron-bladder exercises failed you.”

      “Hey! I made it, didn’t I?”

      Anyone overhearing the exchange would’ve wondered at the subject matter. Or assumed she and Gabe shared a history that included an intimate knowledge of each other’s bodily functions. Which they did.

      Feeling like a total idiot for mourning the loss of that particular history, Swish reached out a hand. “Which coffee is mine?”

      “Take your pick.” He held out both cups. “They’re the same.”

      She blinked, startled. Her husband had always been a two-sugars-one-cream kind of guy. “When did you start drinking undoctored coffee?”

      “When I added too many extra inches to my waistline.”

      Her gaze made a quick up and down. If Gabe had put on extra inches, she sure as hell couldn’t see them. The chest covered by his stretchy black T-shirt tapered to a still-trim waist. The snug jeans emphasized his flat belly. His lean hips. The hard, muscled thighs she’d traced so often with her hands and her mouth and her...

      “You sure you don’t want more than coffee?” he asked, gesturing to the illuminated menu. “I’ll be happy to stand you to a Number 3.”

      The fact that he remembered her preference for a Big Breakfast with Hotcakes made her throat ache. “This is good,” she murmured, sliding into the booth he’d staked out.

      The silence that followed was short but awkward. And obviously painful, as they both rushed to break it.

      “What are you...?”

      “So sorry about...”

      They both broke off, and he gestured for her to go on.

      “So sorry to hear about Aunt Pat. What happened?”

      “An aortic aneurism. She died in her sleep. One of her spin-class buddies found her the next morning.”

      Swish wasn’t surprised that the feisty seventy-six-year-old had been into spinning along with all her other fitness pursuits. She and Pat had once run side by side in a 5k Race for the Cure with the older woman decked out in flashing sneakers, cotton-candy-pink leggings and a cropped tank that announced she was One Fast Oldie.

      “How’s your mom taking her sister’s death?”

      “Hard. She flew out for the funeral but couldn’t stay to help settle the estate. Her hip’s been giving her trouble.”

      The reply plucked at Swish’s hurt again. She’d been so close to his family. His dad before he died, his mom, his sisters. To cover the ache, she switched subjects.

      “My mom told me about the election. Ninety-four percent of the vote. Pretty impressive for a high school history teacher-slash-tennis coach.”

      “Yeah, well...”

      The grin that had haunted her dreams for too many months slipped out. As self-deprecating and sexy as she remembered. She felt its all-too-familiar impact wrap around her heart.

      “Hard to bask in the glow of victory when my cousins constitute at least half the electorate.”

      Swish had to laugh. “I know most of those cousins. They’re as stubborn and hardheaded as you are, Mr. Mayor. They wouldn’t have voted for you unless they believed in you.”

      “Maybe. Or it might’ve been because I ran against Dave Forrester.”

      Her jaw dropped. “You’re kidding! Freckle-faced Forrester overcame his shyness enough to run for public office?”

      “Freckle-faced Forrester now owns the largest oil and gas franchise in the county,” Gabe returned drily. “Lucky for me—but not for my constituents—he’s been slapped with a half-dozen lawsuits for property damage due to fracking. He’s not the most popular guy around Cedar Creek these days.”

      Wow! The skinny, gap-toothed kid who’d traded spitballs with her? An oil and gas executive? She was still trying to get her head around that when Gabe broke into her thoughts.

      “What about you? What are you doing at Luke?”