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“Yeah. We both like sex.”
She closed her eyes briefly. She was losing her patience with him, yet he couldn’t stop himself from goading her further.
“Redheads are hot in the sack.”
“Stop it, T.J. I know what you’re trying to do. And it won’t work this time. I am not going to lose my temper with you.”
“Aw. Why not?”
“Because I think we should consider getting married.”
FOR THE THIRD TIME IN AN HOUR, T.J. was stunned into silence. He looked at the tuna sandwiches on the ground between them. Neither one of them had taken a bite of the lunch Heather had packed.
The sun felt so hot on his shoulders. He should have picked a spot in the shade. Heather wasn’t wearing a hat. She would burn. Taking his cap from the ground beside him, he placed it lightly on her head.
How should he react to that last statement of hers? He could tell she was on pins and needles with the waiting.
“Was that a proposal?” he finally asked.
She looked different in his cap. Younger, sportier. But still cute as ever.
“Yeah. I guess it was.”
And she sounded real thrilled about it, too. “Were you listening to me earlier? I’ve tried the husband/father thing and I sucked at it. Big time. You deserve better.”
If he’d thought he was going to get out of it that easy, he should have known better.
“This isn’t about what I deserve, T.J. And it sure as hell isn’t about what I want, or you want. Like it or not, this baby is yours.”
Well, he’d already made it plain he didn’t like it.
“You should have told me the truth that night.”
“Yes, I should have. And you can go on blaming me for the rest of our lives if that makes you feel better. But that doesn’t change the reality of the situation. This is our baby, T.J.” She touched her flat stomach protectively. “And I plan to keep it.”
“I know you do. But you don’t need me to marry you to do that.”
IN FACT, SHE DID. Heather was surprised T.J. was so slow on the uptake. He’d lived in Chatsworth long enough to know this town and the people who lived here.
“I am an elementary-schoolteacher, T.J. I’m in a position of enormous trust, and carry a lot of influence over the young kids of this town. I know most of their parents wouldn’t approve of the example I would set if I had this child on my own. Even I wouldn’t approve…”
“Heather, people will understand. You’re a good person.”
“I’d like to think so. But judging from my actions these past few months, I have to wonder.” Actually, she’d expected T.J. to be angrier that she’d deceived him about her birth control. She, herself, was so ashamed. Yes, she wanted to be pregnant. But not this way.
“You’re being too hard on yourself again. And underestimating the terrible power of my sexual magnetism.”
Lord, T.J. could sound so arrogant at times. But she wasn’t deceived. She knew he was trying to make her feel better.
“Look, Heather, I’m flattered you’d consider marrying me. I know we’ve had kind of a…checkered history, the two of us. But there’s got to be another solution. Some other guy you know who’d make a great husband and dad.”
Yeah, she knew someone like that, all right. Russell Matthew.
“I wouldn’t have asked you T.J. if I thought I had other options.” Oh, no. That hadn’t come out sounding very nice. “This is your baby,” she reminded him.
“You’re sure?”
“T.J.!”
“Well, since I’ve been back in town, I’ve seen you with quite a few different guys.”
“I may date occasionally, but I’m pretty discriminating about who I go to bed with.” In a low tone she added, “Present company excluded.”
T.J. started to laugh, then abruptly stopped. She supposed the cold reality of the situation was finally getting to him.
“Well, what do you say?” she pressed. “Don’t make me ask again.”
“I’m just worried you’re going to be sorry you asked the first time.” T.J. put her sandwiches back into the saddlebag. He stood, dusting grass bits from the back of his jeans. “I’ve got to be going. I have a delivery to make.”
She scrambled after him, gave him back his cap, then did her best to shake his shirt clean.
“Don’t worry about a little dirt.” He took the shirt from her hands and slipped it over his head, then replaced his sunglasses.
She couldn’t help thinking what a good-looking man he was. Dark hair, blue eyes, the kind of skin that tans instantly in the sun and always looks healthy. In terms of physical appearance, T. J. Collins had much to offer their child.
Too bad he didn’t have what really counted.
Commitment. Love. The willingness to put another’s interests above his own.
“I should have known you’d never go for this.” She picked up the saddlebag and heaved it over her shoulder. As she turned to walk away, though, he stopped her.
“Why don’t you come to my place tonight for dinner? I’ll show you something. After, you let me know if you still want me to be the daddy of your baby.”
HEATHER PEDALED BACK SLOWLY along dusty Willow Road. The heat was stifling now. She wished she’d thought to take a dip in the lake before heading home. At least her meeting with T.J. was over. She’d been dreading it since the doctor’s appointment three weeks ago when her pregnancy was officially confirmed.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about T.J.’s reaction. That he wasn’t jumping up and down at the opportunity to marry her didn’t surprise her. She knew she had a way of getting on his nerves.
Yet, she couldn’t deny that he had been the person to help her during the hardest period of her life. Though he’d be the last to admit it, he’d been kind and thoughtful to her during those lonely months when she was pregnant and afraid in Saskatoon. And he’d kept his promise not to tell. As far as she knew, Adrienne, T.J. and her parents were the only ones in town who knew that she’d had a child and given it up for adoption.
Well, Russell and Julie knew now, too. Two falls ago, when Russell had moved his family back to Chatsworth and she’d been faced with his presence every day at work, something inside her had cracked. The old pain of giving up her baby had returned, until finally she’d confessed the truth.
Russ had been shocked at first, but eventually he’d come to accept what she had done. And he’d agreed with her decision not to try to track down their child. She’d picked out the parents. The father was a pediatrician, the mother was willing to stay home full-time. They were good people. Their baby would be happy.
Then Julie had become pregnant with their second child, and Russell’s focus had shifted inward, toward his family once more. Heather had tried not to be resentful. Or to wonder what might have happened had she told Russ she was pregnant before he’d asked Julie to marry him.
Old questions. Old heartbreaks. She was sick of them. This baby inside her represented her future. She wasn’t going to live in the past anymore.
She wondered how T.J. planned to convince her he wouldn’t be a good marital risk. She doubted he could come up with anything to change her mind. He was pretty much her last option anyway.
CHAPTER FOUR
AT FIVE MINUTES TO SIX, Heather left her small bungalow and walked the short distance to the Handy Hardware on Main Street. Since Julie Matthew had come to town, the central drag of Chatsworth had undergone a quiet, but impressive, transformation. Beginning with the café owned by Donna and Jim Werner, and more recently a community project to create a mural on the side of the post office, the local business fronts had been refurbished. New signs, fresh paint, a green and white awning for Lucky’s grocery store and pretty wrought-iron benches on the sidewalks flanked with concrete urns spilling geraniums and alyssum were among the many changes.
The fresh look was attracting visitors, and also entrepreneurs. In the past six months alone, two new businesses had started. An energetic young woman from Yorkton, Leigh Eastbrook, had opened a small ice-cream and sweet shop next to the bank. And a middle-aged couple from Manitoba had converted an abandoned home on the other side of the hardware into Nook and Cranny, a store specializing in farm-home antiques.
Both new enterprises had employed Julie Matthew to help with the design of their stores. And Heather had to admit Julie had done a beautiful job for each of them, creating an ambiance that suited the nature of the individual businesses.
Heather bypassed the main door of the hardware—which had been “distressed” to appear old and full of character—and headed for the unobtrusive side door that led to the two-bedroom apartment on the top floor of the building.
T.J. had lived here ever since he’d moved back to town to look after the store for his dad. His folks had finally retired—his mother had been anxious to do some traveling in the motor home she’d convinced her husband to buy. Right now the couple were somewhere in eastern Canada. T.J. tacked their postcards on the counter next to the cash register so that the couple’s many friends and customers—including Heather’s own parents—could keep track of their progress.
Heather ran up the narrow stairs. She could hear strains of a Spanish guitar recording and smell something grilling. At the landing she found the door ajar. When she tapped on the wooden frame with her knuckles, it inched open.
The living room was empty. She passed through to the kitchen and spied chopped vegetables on the counter, an open bottle of wine, two plates, but no T.J. The sliding door to the balcony at the back of the building was open.
“T.J.?”
He stood at the barbecue, grilling chicken, red peppers and onions. He wore a pair of shorts and a white T-shirt. His feet were bare and as tanned as the rest of him.
Even though she’d known him all her life, sometimes his startling good looks caught her off guard. Now they made her wonder why she’d ever thought he might be willing to marry her. If a man like T.J. wanted to get married, he’d have his choice of women.
“I brought wine.” She held out the bottle. “But I see you have some open on the counter.”
“I do. Would you mind pouring? I don’t want these veggies to burn. The glasses are in the cupboard over the sink.”
He had real crystal, she was surprised to note. She poured the rich red wine into the large glass goblets, then went back out to the balcony. Space was tight, especially with the barbecue and a small wrought-iron table and two chairs. She decided to sit in one of them.
“How do you like being back in Chatsworth?” Though she loved the place, she knew small towns weren’t for everyone. And T.J. had been a partner in one of the big law firms in Calgary before his divorce. It wasn’t like the guy didn’t have options to running a small hardware store in a town of five hundred people, max.
“It’s fine.”
“Do you miss the city?”
“I wouldn’t know. I didn’t see much of Calgary when I lived there. I traveled from home to the office and that was pretty much it.”
He had to be exaggerating. “Didn’t you go to the mountains—to Banff?”
“Only for conferences.”
“So you don’t have plans of moving back there?”
“No. Dad’s already handed over the controlling shares of the business.” He frowned. “Won’t even let me pay for them.”
“How do you feel about working in a hardware store when you have all that legal training?”
“I like the business more than I thought possible,” T.J. admitted. “The strange thing is, when I was a kid I had such bitter fights with my father about this place.”
Heather remembered. Many times T.J. had come to school absolutely furious with his father. On a couple of occasions he’d gotten into serious trouble when he’d tried to run away.
“What did you two fight about?”
“If you asked me fifteen years ago, I would have said everything. Now I think Dad was just so desperate for me to take over the family business that he pushed too hard. As a result, I became determined to move away and get into anything but the hardware business.”
“How did you ever agree to come back here?”
“It was Mom’s suggestion, after my divorce. Initially I was only supposed to stay long enough for them to go on one trip.”
T.J. scraped the chicken and veggies off the grill onto a chopping board, then proceeded to dice. “I don’t know which of us is more surprised about the way it’s ended up. Me, that I like my father’s business, or my dad that he’s actually enjoying driving that motor home all over the country.”
“Well, he’s worked hard. He deserves a break.” T.J.’s parents were both in their early seventies, a little older than her own mom and dad who still ran their own farm about five miles out of town.
Finished with the chopping, T.J. carried the wooden carving board to the kitchen. Heather followed and watched as he tossed all the food into a large ceramic bowl.
“I’ll let that cool a bit. It’s too hot for a warm meal, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely.” He had an air-conditioning unit running somewhere in his apartment—probably in his bedroom. She could hear the distant hum of the motor. Still, the temperature inside was probably in the high eighties. She pressed her wineglass against the bare skin at the top of her chest, enjoying the cooling sensation.
From across the counter, T.J. watched. She felt a different kind of heat knowing he was familiar with every curve on her body. She wondered if that’s what he was thinking about now, too. When their gazes met—and held—she knew he was.
“You look nice in that dress.”
The words were bland. The expression in his eyes wasn’t.
“Thanks.” She swallowed a sip of her wine and backed up a step. He’d looked at her this way before, and she could remember only too well how those situations had ended. She hadn’t come here to wind up in his bed. This time she wanted his ring on her finger.
WITH SOME EFFORT, T.J. turned from Heather and concentrated on the meal again. In the years he’d gone to university and worked in Calgary, he’d never met a woman with the particular combination of sweetness and sensuality that made her so irresistible to him.
He added slices of avocado and chunks of lettuce to the meat and veggies in the bowl, then drizzled olive oil and balsamic vinegar on top. Finally he crumbled goat cheese into the bowl and tossed everything together. “That’s it.”
“It looks delicious.”
They went out on the balcony to eat. T.J. tried not to notice Heather’s generous cleavage in her strappy pink sundress, or to remember how erotic he’d found the bra she’d been wearing the last time he’d been with her.
Unlike many redheads, Heather had a thing for pink. Even her underwear…
Oh, God. He couldn’t focus when he was around her. He’d never been able to. What was it about Heather? Not just her looks, but everything about her from her soft voice to her kind, generous nature had always appealed to him.
Maybe because she was just so different from him. She always found it so easy to laugh, to praise, to offer help. Whereas he tended to be critical and caustic and reserved. No wonder Lynn had left him…
T.J. pushed aside his half-eaten meal and strode into the house. He found what he was looking for in the filing cabinet in his spare bedroom. When he returned, Heather put down her fork and looked at him anxiously.
“Finished?” he asked.
Her plate wasn’t empty, but she nodded. “I guess so.”
“Good.” With one hand, he pushed aside her plate to make room for the file folder. “I want you to look through these photographs. Tell me what you see.”
He cleared their dishes to the kitchen and took his time cleaning up from the meal. After fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, he carried the bottle of wine out to the balcony and topped up both their glasses.
