Special Deliveries: A Baby With Her Best Friend. Maureen Child

them in line, someone chuckled.

      Nathan frowned. Damned hard to work on seducing a woman when you had half the town watching your every move. “So when I’m angry, you’re mad and when I’m not, you’re worried.”

      She thought about it for a second, then nodded. “That’s about right.”

      For just a moment, Nathan enjoyed the confusion in her eyes and found himself laughing briefly. “There really is no one else like you, is there?”

      “Probably not,” she admitted and moved a bit closer to the head of the line.

      She could always drive him out of his mind, Nathan thought, letting his gaze move over her in appreciation. He’d always liked tall women—they were right in easy kissing range. Amanda, though, was like no one else. Or at least that’s how he remembered it. Even in high school, when she was a freshman and he a senior, he’d been drawn to her. His friends had given him grief over it, of course—but he hadn’t been able to stay away.

      And then, years later, those same friends had told him about the rumors that had eventually torn him and Amanda apart.

      “So tell me, Nathan,” she said, shattering his thoughts and drawing him back to the moment, “are you interested in my sister?”

      “What?” He goggled at her. “Where did that come from?”

      She shrugged, glared at the man behind them, openly listening to their conversation, then leaned in closer to Nathan to say, “I’ve seen the way she watches you.”

      Nathan thought about that for a minute. He hadn’t noticed Pam looking at him in any particular way. Okay, yes, he’d dated her a couple times a year or so ago, but it hadn’t gone anywhere and they’d parted friends. Or he’d thought they had. Until now. Frowning slightly, he said, “We went out a few times a while back, but—”

      Her eyes went wide. “I can’t believe you dated my sister,” she said, cutting him off sharply.

      The man behind them in line let out a long, slow whistle, but when Nathan gave him a hard look, the guy got quiet fast.

      “It was a couple of dates. Dinner.” He thought back. “A movie.”

      “It was my sister.” She fisted her hands at her hips. “How would you like it if I dated Jake?”

      “I think his wife would mind it even more than I would.”

      “You know what I mean.”

      “Yeah, I do. But we were over, remember?” Nathan whispered and moved with the line. How long was this line, anyway? And were there even more people crowded around them than there had been a few minutes ago? “Besides, Pam was here and—”

      “So she was here,” Amanda said, interrupting him again and making Nathan grind his teeth together in frustration. “Well, then. Of course I can understand that. The whole proximity factor.”

      The whistler behind them chuckled now and only shrugged when Nathan gave him another hard stare. This conversation was going to be all over town by supper-time, he told himself, and still he couldn’t keep from saying, “At least Pam never lied to me.”

      She sucked in a gulp of air and her eyes shone with fury. “Lie to you? I never lied to you. You were the one who—”

      “That’s it,” he muttered and grabbed hold of her arm.

      He wasn’t going to do this with a couple dozen people watching them with all the avid interest of a crowd at a football game.

      Dragging her out of the line, he headed toward the nearest deserted spot. A shade tree close to the now-empty baseball diamond. Naturally, nothing with Amanda came easy. She tugged and pulled, trying to get out of his grip, but no way was he letting her go until they had this settled. And for this talk, they needed some damn privacy.

      “Let go of me!” She kicked at him, but missed.

      “In a minute,” he muttered.

      “I want my coffee. I do not want to go anywhere with you.”

      “That’s too damn bad,” Nathan told her and never slowed down. When they finally reached the shade of the oak, he let her go and she stared up at him, furious.

      “I don’t know who you think you are, but—”

      “You know exactly who I am,” he told her, voice low and filled with the temper crouched inside him. “Just like you know that I hate putting on a show for the whole damn town.”

      “Fine.” She lifted her chin, met him glare for glare and then said, “You want to talk, here it is. I never lied to you, Nathan.”

      “And I’m supposed to take your word for that?”

      “Damn right, you are,” she shouted, obviously not caring who was listening. “When did I ever give you a reason to not trust me, Nathan?”

      She had a point, but he didn’t want to admit to it. All he remembered were the rumors she hadn’t been able to disprove. The sympathetic glances from his friends. The gossip that insisted on a completely different story than the one she’d told him. And his doubts had chewed on him until, ragged with temper and tension, he’d faced her down and in one night, they had lost everything.

      “What was I supposed to think?” he demanded. “My best friends told me that story. Why wouldn’t I believe them?”

      Shaking her head, she looked at him now with more hurt than fury and that tore at him.

      “Because you were supposed to love me. You should have taken my word for it.”

      Shame rippled through him and was gone an instant later. He’d done what he thought was right. Hell, he’d been half-crazed back then anyway. When he heard she had lost the baby, he was enrolled in the police academy in Dallas and hadn’t been able to get to her. Hadn’t even been able to call her. To figure out truth from lies.

      “It was a long time ago, Amanda.”

      “Was it?” she asked quietly. “Doesn’t feel like it right now.”

      No, it didn’t. The past was there, in the park with them. Shadows of memories crowded together, dimming the sunlight, making the other people in the park fade away until it was just he and Amanda. He looked into her eyes and said, “All right then. Tell me now. The truth.”

      She sighed. “I shouldn’t have to tell you again, Nathan. You know me. You knew me then. You should have believed me. I lost our baby.”

      Pain slapped at him but he pushed it away. Now that the past was here, it was time to finally settle it. If he wanted to get her out of his mind, then he was going to have to make a start right here.

      “Then who the hell was it who made sure I thought you had ended the pregnancy on purpose?”

       Five

      “I don’t know,” Amanda said, shaking her head. She still couldn’t believe anyone had spread that rumor. Couldn’t believe that Nathan had thought for even a minute that she would ever do such a thing.

      In a flash, Amanda was back there, on the night when everything crashed down around her. They’d been engaged for two weeks—because Nathan had insisted on a wedding the moment he found out she was pregnant. But that night, she had been the one doing the insisting.

       “The wedding’s off, Nathan.”

       “Just like that?”

      “The only reason you were marrying me was because of the baby, right?” Those words cost her. She so wanted him to say that wasn’t true. That he loved her. Always had. That