He clamped his jaw tight.
“Take me home, Henry. Now. I’m marrying James because that’s what I want to do, and you are going to DC because that is what you want to do.”
“Have to!” He pulled the car to the side of the road. “I’m going because I have to go. It’s my job.”
“I know it’s your job,” she said. “Now, please take me home.”
She sounded despondent. He certainly was. He pulled back onto the road and spun a U-turn, taking her back toward her house. Keeping his eyes on the road, he told her the truth. The absolute truth. “I’m leaving tomorrow. Transporting Elkin and Burrows to Washington, DC, because that’s my job. I don’t have a choice.” His throat was on fire, and he had to swallow before saying, “You do.”
She didn’t respond.
His insides were an inferno of his darkest emotions. What had he expected? For her to say she wouldn’t marry Bauer? That she’d be here waiting for him for whenever, if ever, he returned? What kind of satisfaction would that have been? None. Not for her or him.
He drove down the road and parked in the driveway of the abandoned house. The moment he’d seen her, he’d forgotten about the money that was in his shirt pocket. He took it out. Handed it to her.
“What’s that?” She didn’t take it.
“Money for cleaning the house.”
“I don’t want any money from you.”
“Your father will expect—”
“I don’t care what he expects.” She opened the door and climbed out.
He opened his, too. Met her at the front of the car. Touched her arm. “I don’t want to part like this.”
She drew in a deep breath and glanced around. “Will you be transporting Elkin and Burrows by yourself?” she asked.
“No, two other agents will be with me, and we’ll meet our supervisor in Texas—he’ll travel the rest of the way with us.”
“That’s nice. I wouldn’t want you to be alone, all that way.”
He didn’t want her to be alone, either, now or ever. “Why are you marrying Bauer? The truth.”
She stood silent, staring out at the house with its boarded-up windows for so long, he was about to repeat his question, when she turned, looked at him.
She licked her lips, bit down on the bottom one, and then, shaking her head, said, “Because I’m pregnant, Henry.”
Chapter Fourteen
Henry knew the loud swishing noise was blood rushing to his head, muffling his hearing, but it hadn’t been there until she’d spoken. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just did.”
“I told you that night—”
“I know what you told me that night.” She moved away from his touch. “That if there were any repercussions, you would provide.”
“And I will. We’ll get married. I will—”
“No,” she interrupted. “We won’t get married, because I won’t marry you.”
“You are pregnant with my child.” His insides nearly buckled at that. His child. He didn’t know anything about being a father. He’d have to learn, though. Fast.
“No, Henry, I’m pregnant with my child.” There were tears in her eyes, but she sounded cold, aloof. “A child that I will love and cherish the rest of my life.”
The air he breathed in felt as if it was grains of sand, pitting his throat, filling his lungs, his heart, burying anything he might have felt there. “It’s my child, too.”
“And what will you do with a child? Love them? Cherish them? Haul them around from town to town, assignment to assignment? Let them play with your gun and handcuffs? Let them sleep in your suitcase?”
“Hell no!”
She closed her eyes, took a deep breath. “You’re an FBI agent and—”
“I’ll—I’ll quit and—”
“No, you won’t, and I don’t want you to. That’s the only thing you’ve ever loved. The only thing you’ve ever cared about. That’s why you thought I was a coincidence—”
“I apologized for that! I was wrong!”
“I was wrong, too, Henry. About what I thought was happening when we met again. It wasn’t. I know that now. And I know you don’t want to marry me. I also know that my father would never let me marry you, and—”
“I’ll—”
“No!” She stopped his protest. “There’s more.”
Arms folded across his chest, holding back the anger building inside, it took every ounce of his will to stand there, listen to her.
“I have to marry James. He’s stable. Kind and generous. James will provide everything that both the baby and I need. He’ll make a wonderful father.”
He’d heard, but his mind was going in several directions at once. None of them nice thoughts. She was saying he wouldn’t make a wonderful father. That was what he heard. “That’s why you moved up the wedding date. So you can pawn my child off as his.”
“Yes. I have to, because if I don’t, and my father finds out I’m pregnant, he will send me to the convent and have the baby put up for adoption. I don’t want that, and I don’t believe you do, either.”
He let out a growl that included a curse. “Hell no!”
“But you know I’m right, don’t you? That I don’t have any other choice.”
He wanted to grab her, hug her, shake some sense into her, but he couldn’t, because she was right. He didn’t want his child raised in an orphanage, but he... Damn it. He didn’t know anything about being a father.
“Fine, marry him. With my blessing.” He turned, walked around the car. His legs shook, but his heart turned as hard and cold as he’d remembered it being as a child. If she were to ask, beg him to wait, to stay, he wouldn’t. He’d climb in the car and drive away.
Which was what he did, because she didn’t ask, or beg him to wait. To stay.
Henry couldn’t remember driving to the hotel; he didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there,
