past and this is the here and now.”
“But don’t you ever wonder what might have happened?”
Becca didn’t bother to answer her. What good would wondering do? As far as Nick Morelli was concerned, their roles had switched. She had once been the daughter of one of the most influential men in town and was expected to marry well. Nick had been the son of a garage owner. A guy who pumped gas to earn his way through college. Not that it had made a difference to her, but it had to her father.
She had done what was expected of her. She had married the man her father had chosen for her, instead of going to college. But that hadn’t turned out so well. Not after seven years of marriage and two children, with the third born barely a month before the divorce was final.
And Nick? From what she had heard, he had done wonderfully well. College graduate, owner of his own company and married to a Denver debutante.
Yes, she had wondered what might have happened had she not done as her father had wanted her to do or if things had been different. She and Nick had dated for almost six months and had fallen in love. But it all changed a week before her high school graduation, when her father decided to put a stop to it. She hadn’t given that part of her past a lot of thought, especially during the last few years. She had only had time to deal with what life dealt her and survive.
Right now, she didn’t want to talk about Nick. In fact, she didn’t want to think about him. “Where did you put Daisy’s bottle?” she asked.
“It’s in the kitchen,” Raylene said, getting to her feet. “And I have an extra can of formula you can take home with you.”
“Raylene, I can’t—”
“No big deal,” Raylene answered with a wave of her hand as she disappeared into the kitchen.
But it was a big deal. To Becca. Maybe she could convince Raylene to count it as a present. With Christmas a little more than three weeks away and less than a hundred dollars left to last until then, she couldn’t turn down the offer. She was still trying to figure out how to buy groceries, pay bills and have enough to buy a few small gifts for Danny and April. And the rent was going to be late, if, as had happened too many times, the child support money didn’t arrive.
Fighting the panic at the thought and reminding herself that she would get control of her life and make it better, she jumped at the sound of the doorbell.
“Get the door, will you?” Raylene called from the kitchen. “Jeff probably forgot his key again. And I want to fix another bottle for Daisy so you’ll have it when you get home.”
Glad for the chance to get her mind off her troubles, Becca went to the door and reached for the doorknob, ready to tease Jeff. Opening the door, she put on a sultry smile and batted her eyelashes. “Cash, check or credit card?”
“Depends.”
She felt the heat flood her cheeks when she realized that it wasn’t Jeff but Nick standing on the porch. “I thought you were…I mean, I was only…”
Nick smiled, and the heat from her cheeks spread throughout her body. Nick’s smile was the same. Beautiful. And it left her breathless. One more thing she didn’t have control of.
He looked past her, then back at her again. “I was hoping you hadn’t gone.”
She leaned against the door for support. “Raylene is in the kitchen and—”
“I forgot to ask where you live.”
She blinked. “Where I live?”
“Yeah, so Tony can drop off your car tomorrow when he has the tire fixed. I suppose he knows, but just in case…”
Of course. Why else would he need to know that? But she didn’t want him to go to the trouble. “There’s really no need. I’ll see if Jeff—”
“Here’s Daisy’s bottle. I’ll just put it in—Oh!”
Becca turned to see Raylene. Moving away from the doorway, she opened the door wider. “I was just telling Nick that I’d see if Jeff could take my tire to get it fixed tomorrow,” she explained.
“Not tomorrow,” Raylene said, bending over to put the bottle in the diaper bag. “He has a dentist appointment. The last thing he’ll want to do is change a tire.” She straightened and made a face. “Knowing him, he’ll spend the rest of the day zoned out on pain pills and insisting that he’s dying.”
“Who’s dying?” a voice said from behind Nick.
Becca wanted to answer that she was. Nick brought back too many memories. And she wouldn’t accept favors from him.
“Becca had a flat,” Raylene explained as she moved to greet her husband.
Nick stepped back to let Jeff pass, and the two men exchanged greetings. “I found her on the side of the road about five miles from town,” Nick explained when Jeff had given his wife a brief kiss. “I’ll have Tony take care of it. No reason for you to do it. He can drop her car at her place when it’s done.”
“But—” Becca said, hoping to find another way.
“I told you it wasn’t a problem,” Nick insisted. “Tony has plenty of help.”
“You’ll have to take him up on the offer,” Jeff said. “I have to go to the—”
“Dentist,” Nick and Becca said in unison.
“All I need to know is where she lives,” Nick went on, turning to look at her and obviously expecting an answer.
Becca had her reasons for not telling him. It would bring the past into the present. But in spite of that, it was clear that she couldn’t refuse his offer, no matter how badly she wanted to.
“The old Watkins place,” she said.
Nick was silent for a moment. “The old Watkins place?”
“Yes.”
“The one west of town?”
“You remember where it is, don’t you? About seven miles west on Morgan Creek Road. Or do you need directions?”
Nick shook his head. “Yeah. I mean, no, I don’t need directions. I remember where it is.”
While Raylene and Jeff excused themselves, Becca wondered what memories the area held for him. Were they the same as hers? Teenagers still took advantage of the double row of hedge trees on the road that ran past her house, providing seclusion for stolen kisses. And other things. She and Nick had spent more than a few nights there, before he had taken her home, talking, dreaming and…
“If it’s too far—” she began, wishing the memories away.
“No. It’s no trouble. I just—I didn’t know you lived there. I thought you lived here in town. That’s all.”
He remembered. And she needed him not to know that she did, too. “It’s nice sometimes not to have close neighbors,” she said, trying for a smile. “There’s
