She found Richard sitting on the cold ground in the shadow of one of the willow trees, its branches bare now. “You’re going to catch your death of cold out here,” she said quietly.
“It wouldn’t be much of a loss.”
Anna Louise couldn’t believe what she was hearing, not the words or the flat tone that said he meant them. “Richard Walton, how dare you! That is a terrible thing to say.”
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m not shocked. I’m furious. I have never heard such hogwash coming from a supposedly intelligent man in my entire life.”
“Are you saying you’d miss me, Anna Louise?”
She heard the unexpected note of laughter and something more, the faint slurring that suggested the bottle in his hand wasn’t a soda as she had first assumed. “You’re drunk.” She was almost as astonished by that as she had been by his terrible claim that his life didn’t matter.
“Not yet,” he said carefully, “but I’m working on it.”
She stood over him, hands on hips, practically trembling with indignation. “Well, that certainly makes a lot of sense. But then again, I suppose that’s what I should have expected from a man who solves all of his problems by running away.”
A hand shot up, caught hold of hers and yanked. Caught off guard, she tumbled straight into his lap. His breath was hot on her cheek when he asked in a lethal tone, “What do you mean by that?”
She was too furious to be afraid. Only her good breeding and seminary training kept her from trying to pummel some sense into him.
“Just what I said,” she retorted, looking him square in the eye. “You ran away from Kiley rather than dealing with whatever Billy Joe had done. You ran back here because you couldn’t face what was going on in all those trouble spots you’d been assigned to cover. You ran to Washington when you thought you and I might be getting too close. Now you’re running again, this time by staring into the bottom of a bottle. Haven’t you figured out by now that running doesn’t accomplish a blasted thing?”
His lips twitched in what might have been an attempt at a smile. “What makes you think I went to Washington to get away from you?” he said, startling her by picking that of all the accusations she’d made.
“I saw how you looked after you kissed me. It scared you, didn’t it, Mr. Hotshot Reporter? I know you did it on some kind of macho lark, but it didn’t turn out the way you expected, did it? You’re real brave when it comes to facing down some petty tyrant in a foreign land, but a small-town preacher scares you to death.”
He didn’t respond, but his hands circled her waist and tried to pin her in place. When she tried to wriggle free, he muttered, “Blast it, woman, would you hold still?”
“I will not,” she snapped back.
“Sweetheart, I don’t think you’re prepared to deal with the consequences,” he taunted in a low, dry tone. The steely glint in his eyes told her that he was a heartbeat away from kissing her again. And this time he might throw all concerns for propriety right out the window.
Anna Louise froze right where she was, afraid to move a muscle. She’d meant to taunt him out of his dark mood, not to provoke him into a seduction. She had to admit, though, that she was fascinated by the discovery that she could have that effect on him. No wonder Jeremy and Maribeth had such difficulty with the concept of chastity, if this was the temptation they faced.
Nothing in her entire previous experience had prepared her for the way she felt. In high school and college she’d been single-minded about meeting her goal of becoming a pastor. If men had been attracted to her, she’d been blind to it. And even though she’d been surrounded by men in seminary, she’d been more interested in proving something to them than dating them. It was far different with Richard. Before, she’d always felt contented. Since he’d come into her world, she’d felt alive.
“Let me go, you cretin. You’re not getting out of a discussion of your cowardly behavior by trying to intimidate me.” To her chagrin, she was reacting exactly the way she’d just accused Richard of behaving. She was running scared.
Richard smirked, but he did release her. Anna Louise scrambled to her feet and stood a few careful feet away. “Well?” she prodded.
“Well, what?”
“What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Nothing.”
She stared at him. How could a person carry on a decent argument, if the other person refused to fight back? “Nothing? You have to say something.”
“Why?” he inquired, his tone suddenly extraordinarily reasonable.
Anna Louise again had an intense desire to smack him. What on earth was happening to her? She was a peaceful woman, not a brawler. “You are the most infuriating man it has ever been my misfortune to meet, Richard Walton.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
“You don’t have to sound so darned pleased about it.”
“Anna Louise, has it occurred to you that this conversation is moving in circles? Frankly, it’s making me dizzy.”
“That’s not the conversation, it’s the liquor,” she snapped back. “If you’d throw away that bottle, we could have a serious talk.” She made a grab for the bottle, but he held it out of reach.
“Exactly what would you like to talk about?”
“I want to know what happened here fifteen years ago.”
“Now that,” he said softly, but emphatically, “is something I don’t intend to discuss.”
“Coward,” she accused.
“You keep calling me that, sweetheart. It’s beginning to lose its effectiveness.”
Anna Louise sighed. “Can’t you see I just want to help?”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute, but this is way beyond something you can fix with
