involved with a guy she knew next to nothing about. A guy who rattled her as Brett had first done with his own manly presence, and look how that had turned out. She was better off not trusting her first impressions.
Besides, her baby needed more than a drifter. Actually, all her child needed was her, not any man at all.
Jared must have interpreted her silence as wariness, and he grabbed the journal from under his arm. “I ended up going home and rereading this entire thing in depth last night. It changed my mind again about approaching you.” He offered it to her. “There’s not a heck of a lot in here unless you’re looking for a love story, so I’m hoping to find more—even if it’s in your garden.”
She took the journal. “Just like a man. If there aren’t explosions and car chases, you’re not interested.”
“I’m interested, all right. I just didn’t expect Tony to be...” He motioned with his hand.
“A sap for love?”
“Maybe.” He paused. “All he talks about is some girl he fell for.”
“I’d ask if he married her, but I know Tony never took a wife.”
“Right. He wrote about how they met in secret all the time. She was engaged to marry someone else, though Tony says she didn’t love him.”
“She was a bad girl? How progressive for the time.”
“Nah, from what Tony says, she was an angel. But her father disapproved of him, and it wasn’t because of their age difference. Evidently, Daddy thought Tony didn’t ‘suit’ his daughter.”
“Ooh—a forbidden romance.” She wanted to ask if Tony had “gone digging in the girl’s garden,” but there were limits to flirting, especially with someone like Jared.
He leaned back, resting his arms on the top of the bench. His coat brushed her shoulder and she shivered.
“It’s weird, though,” he said. “Tony never wrote about the...details when it came to him and his girl.”
“Details?”
Jared raised an eyebrow, and she understood.
Intimacies, she thought, thankful that Jared hadn’t put it out there.
Was he feeling the tense atmosphere between them, too? Did he want to avoid it just as much?
He went on. “Tony doesn’t even give her name. It’s not that kind of notch-on-the-bedpost journal.”
“What kind is it then?”
“The type of crap Romeo would’ve written about. You know, ‘What light through yonder window breaks?’ That sort of flowery stuff.”
Annette playfully narrowed her eyes at him. “You know your Shakespeare.”
“No, I don’t.” He looked disinterested. “I just had to read it freshman year in high school. The girls in class had this thing where they’d go around quoting it whenever they were sighing over some guy.”
And how many of those girls had quoted lines about him?
“Anyway,” he said, once again the persistent subject-changer, “you can read the journal if you want to, but later, after I show it to my grandma. I owe you that much for bringing it to me. But, if you do take it, I’d ask that you keep it out of sight.”
Annette didn’t know how to respond. He’d said it so casually, but she got the feeling that letting her in on this was a big deal for Jared Colton.
She treated his gesture with the respect it deserved. “I’ll do just that, Jared.”
At the sound of his name coming from her, he met her gaze. It was as if his irises had heated to dark fire, and she had to glance back down at the journal to keep from getting scorched.
Without looking at him, she said, “And if you want to do some digging, you’re welcome to come over to my place.”
Because it was no big deal, right? Besides, she meant digging in the sense of “investigative labor,” not...well, “digging in her garden.”
His voice lowered, scratching over her skin. “Then I’ll do that. Dig, I mean.”
What precisely did he mean by “dig”?
Whatever it was, she would avoid it. He could be a friend, and that would be easy enough because she got the feeling he’d be leaving just as soon as he satisfied himself about Tony Amati for whatever reason.
That made everything pretty simple.
He stood, reaching out a hand to help her to her feet. When she grabbed it, a blast zipped up her fingers, heating her hand, her arm. Her chest.
Everywhere.
“I’m off work tomorrow if that suits you,” he said. “Maybe I could drop by sometime early?”
Based on his regular appearances at the diner, he had to know that tomorrow was her day off, too. But she had some baby furniture being delivered at nine, and she didn’t want him there to see proof of her condition. Not before she was ready for the dirt to hit the fan in this town and for her to have to tidy up all the growing lies she would have to tell.
“How about eleven?” she asked, going for something a little later than an early-rising cowboy probably had in mind.
“Sounds like a plan.”
They hadn’t disconnected hands yet, and when she realized it, she stepped away, finally distancing herself.
Her skin still burned, though. Wanting, needing.
She gave him back the journal, and when he started to walk away, the hunger didn’t ease off, as her stomach tumbled with what had to be a thrill.
Suddenly she found herself asking him something better left unasked.
“Just why is it so important that you find out everything you can about Tony?”
His shoulders stiffened as he paused. But then he shrugged, and he almost pulled it off, too, except for the way his smile seemed strained.
“It’s not important,” he said as he lifted a hand in farewell, then sauntered toward his truck parked near the entrance to the mercantile, where he’d probably be filling it with supplies for the Harrison ranch.
It was the first obvious lie he’d ever told Annette, but she reminded herself that it was for the best.
She should be grateful for the distance he was putting between them, step by step.
And heartbeat by wistful heartbeat.
* * *
After Jared had banked some hours on the Harrison ranch, doing maintenance around the stables, he headed for dinner at Gran’s house.
She lived in what he thought of as a gingerbread cottage, with
