This Side of Heaven

House.'

'That must have been difficult for you, being the wife of a man who put you second in his life.' Nate watched as her face paled, and knew he had struck a nerve.

Damn him! Cyn thought. But as much as she wanted to lash out at him and deny his accusations, she couldn't deny the truth. She decided it was best to make no comment on her marriage to Evan. 'I was born into a wealthy family. My father is Senator Denton Wellington of Georgia. My mother was a St. Augustine Phillips. My grandfather pro­vided me with a substantial trust fund.'

'La-di-da.' He should have known. A woman didn't have the poise and strength and self-assurance Cyn Porter possessed without having had it bred into her. She had the kind of classy looks and dominating personality that only comes from having been raised with money. 'Did your rich parents give you your nickname?'

'I beg your pardon?' Cyn glared at him.

'Oh, it's a cute nickname, but I just wondered if your family thought it suitable for someone so...so pure and sweet and virtuous. I mean, how many ministers' wives do you think are called Cyn? And how many work at a church shelter?'

'For your information, my younger brother gave me the nickname when he was only three and couldn't pronounce Cynthia. My rich parents thought the name was adorable. And my minister husband found it a constant source of amusement. Evan had a wonderful sense of humor.'

'I imagine Evan was just about perfect in every way.'

'I think we should confine our discussion to the little girl you brought here. Otherwise we're liable to exchange blows... verbal blows.' Cyn leaned back in her chair, praying that her voice sounded more composed than she felt. She had no intention of discussing Evan with this man. She would not allow him to force her to admit that her marriage had been less than perfect, that often she had longed for a husband as dedicated to her as he'd been to his work—that she had needed a man with whom she could share life's burdens and not try to shoulder them all by her­self.

'I'm listening.' Nate decided right then and there that the sooner he could get the hell away from Cyn and her blasted shelter full of emotionally starved kids, the better off he'd be. He didn't need to care about this woman or her damned bunch of hooligans. So what if his body craved her the way an alcoholic craves liquor. So what if he felt the deepest empathy for these kids because he'd once been one of them.

'A friend of mine, Dr. Reynolds, will check the child and see if she needs medical treatment. I can offer her a place to stay, get our volunteer psychologist to talk to her, try to persuade her to let us locate her parents.'

'No police, remember,' Nate said. 'She'll run like hell if you push her too hard.'

'I know. Believe me, we'll do all that we can to help her, but in the end, we can only do so much.'

'Yeah.' He stood up, walked to the door, then turned and faced her. 'How much longer are you going to be stay­ing at your family's cottage?'

'Eager to get rid of your only neighbor?' she asked.

'Look, Cyn, this thing between us can't go any fur­ther.' He grasped the doorknob in his big hand.

'Exactly what is between us?' She stood up, meeting his stare head-on.

'Cut the act, lady. We want each other. Badly.' He noted that her cheeks were turning pink. 'Now isn't the right time for me. I've never had anyone special, never wanted or needed anyone, and I sure as hell don't want to get in­volved with you, especially not now.'

'Why not now?' she asked, then averted her gaze from his perusal, glancing down at the wooden floor.

'Like I've told you, I'm a dangerous man,' he said, wishing that he didn't have to frighten her away. 'And I have dangerous friends.'

'You're not a criminal, are you?' she blurted out before thinking how the question would sound.

'No, Brown Eyes, believe it or not, I've always consid­ered myself one of the good guys.'

Cyn walked around the desk, moving quickly toward Nate. Just as he opened the door, she placed her hand on his arm. His muscles hardened under her touch. 'Nate?'

'Look, honey, if you're so hungry to get laid, why don't you ask Bruce? I'm sure he'd be delighted. Me, I don't have time to play house.' He saw the startled expression on her face change to one of hurt, and he hated himself for having to say something so totally demeaning to her. But he had to make her stay away from him.

She dropped her hand from his arm and stood staring at him, willing herself not to cry as he turned and walked away. Suddenly tears gathered in her eyes. With the tips of her fingers, she swatted at them as if they were pesky flies.

While Cyn was trying to curb her tears and make some sense out of Nate's brutally insulting statement, she heard footsteps. Turning, she saw Nate's little ragamuffin coming toward her.

'Did he hurt you?' the child asked.

'Who, honey? What are you talking about?'

'That man. Nate. Did he hurt you? You're crying.' The child walked over to Cyn, looking up at her with sympathy in her eyes.

'Oh, no, honey, he didn't hurt me.' Cyn dropped to her knees, longing to reach out, take the child in her arms and offer her comfort.

'But you're crying.' She reached out and wiped away a tear from Cyn's eye.

'We had a little disagreement, and he said something that hurt my feelings. That's all.' That wasn't all, Cyn thought. Nate Hodges had been deliberately cruel. He'd wanted to make sure she left him alone. His ploy had been so obvi­ous, she'd have to be an utter fool to think he'd meant what he'd said. Something bad was going on in Nate's life, something so horrible that he didn't want Cyn involved. Didn't he realize that she was akeady involved, whether she wanted to be or not? Didn't he have sense enough to know that neither of them had any control over the way they felt?

The little girl stroked Cyn's cheek. 'My name is Aleta.'

Cyn smiled, reached out and gave Aleta a gentle hug. The child hugged her back. 'Well, Aleta, how about lunch? I think I smell Mimi's apple cobbler.'

She took Aleta's hand, led her toward the dining hall, then sat down beside her. Within a few minutes the room filled with children from the smallest eight-year-old to the biggest eighteen-year-old. Bruce joined them, said a prayer, then retreated to his office to eat lunch alone. Cyn knew that if Nate had stayed, he would have shared lunch with the kids.

Oh, Nathan Hodges, if you think you've seen the last of me, then you 'd better think again. On some instinctive level, Cyn realized that no matter how hard she and Nate might fight the attraction they felt for each other, neither of them could control it.

Chapter 7

Cyn sat at her desk, absentmindedly rubbing a pencil back and forth between her hands. Three days after returning to work half days, here she was still at Tomorrow House at three-thirty in the afternoon. Although there was more work to do than time to accomplish it all, she should have been out of here by noon, but she hadn't been able to concen­trate all morning. Indeed, she'd had difficulty keeping her mind on her job since her last unpleasant confrontation with Nate.

Mimi had offered a motherly shoulder to cry on, but even talking to Mimi hadn't solved her problem. She'd gone and fallen in love with a man totally unsuitable for her, a man who epitomized the one element she despised most in this world—violence. If she knew what was good for her, she would listen to Nate's warnings to stay away from him.

How had she allowed something like this to happen? She wasn't the type to do stupid, irresponsible things like fall­ing in love with a man she barely knew. Of course, she had to admit that she had always been susceptible to romantic fantasies—a real sucker for legends and myths and fairy tales. But, dear Lord in heaven, Nate Hodges was hardly a romantic hero. Far from it. He was no Sir Lancelot. No Romeo. And certainly no Cary Grant, Robert Redford or Kevin Costner. He was more the Genghis Khan-Jesse James type. A man like the bad-guy heroes so often portrayed by Humphrey Bogart, Clint Eastwood and Charles Branson.

Damn! Stop thinking about him. Cyn threw the pencil down on her desk, scooted back her chair and stood up. Gazing outside, she watched as people scurried along the sidewalks and the beginnings of afternoon work traffic clogged the street. Momentarily closing her eyes, she lis­tened to the soft, constant drizzle that dampened the cool April day.