didn’t know how long he had been sitting beside her when she finally spoke.
“Thank you,” she said.
Her voice was husky from crying, and rasped over him, raising the hairs on his neck. He looked at her again and saw liquid, shining eyes in a pretty face. He couldn’t keep his gaze from dropping to the flesh revealed by her tightened grip on the torn fabric. Hell, he was a man, not a saint.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She shook her head, gave a halfhearted laugh, and said, “Sure.” The sarcasm in her voice made it plain she was anything but.
“Can I help?”
“I’d need a miracle to get me out of the mess I’m in.” She shrugged, a surprisingly sad gesture. “I can’t seem to stay out of trouble.”
He smiled sympathetically. I have the same problem. He thought the words, but he didn’t say them. He didn’t want to frighten her. “Things happen,” he said instead.
She reached out hesitantly to touch a recent cut above his eye. “Did Ray do this?”
He edged back from her touch. It felt too good. “No. That’s from—” Another fight. He didn’t finish that thought aloud, either. “Something else.”
He had gotten a whiff of her perfume. Something light and flowery. Something definitely female. It reminded him he hadn’t been with a woman since Laura’s death. And that he found the young woman sitting beside him infinitely desirable.
He tamped down his raging hormones. She needed his help. She didn’t need another male lusting after her.
She reached for an open can of beer sitting in the grass nearby and lifted it to her lips.
Before it got there, he took it from her. “Aren’t you a little young for this?”
“What difference does it make now? My life is ruined.”
He smiled indulgently. “Just because your boyfriend—”
“Ray’s not my boyfriend. And he’s the least of my problems.”
He raised a questioning brow. “Oh?”
He watched her grasp her full lower lip in her teeth—and wished he were doing it himself. He forced his gaze upward to meet with hers.
“I’m a disappointment to my parents,” she said in a whispery, haunted voice.
How could such a beautiful—he had been looking at her long enough to realize she was more than pretty—young woman be a disappointment to anybody? “Who are your parents?”
“I’m Cherry Whitelaw.”
She said it defiantly, defensively. And he knew why. She had been the talk of the neighborhood—the “juvenile delinquent” the Whitelaws had taken into their home four years ago, the most recently adopted child of their eight adopted children.
“If you’re trying to scare me off, it won’t work.” He grinned and said, “I’m Billy Stonecreek.”
The smile grew slowly on her face. He saw the moment when she relaxed and held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Stonecreek. I used to see you in church with your—” She cut herself off.
“It’s all right to mention my wife,” he said. But he knew why she had hesitated. Penelope’s tongue had been wagging, telling anyone who would listen how he had caused Laura to kill herself. Cherry’s lowered eyes made it obvious she had heard the stories. He didn’t know why he felt the urge to defend himself to her when he hadn’t to anyone else.
“I had nothing to do with Laura’s death. It was simply a tragic accident.” Then, before he could stop himself, “I miss her.”
Cherry laid a hand on his forearm, and he felt the muscles tense beneath her soothing touch. She waited for him to look at her before she spoke. “I’m sorry about your wife, Mr. Stonecreek. It must be awful to lose someone you love.”
“Call me Billy,” he said, unsure how to handle her sympathy.
“Then you have to call me Cherry,” she said with the beginnings of a smile. She held out her hand. “Deal?”
“Deal.” He took her hand and held it a moment too long. Long enough to realize he didn’t want to let go. He forced himself to sit back. He raised the beer can he had taken from her to his lips, but she took it from him before he could tip it up.
“I don’t think this will solve your problems, either,” she said with a cheeky grin.
He laughed. “You’re right.”
They smiled at each other.
Until Billy realized he wanted to kiss her about as bad as he had ever wanted anything in his life. His smile faded. He saw the growing recognition in her eyes and turned away. He was there to rescue the girl, not to ravish her.
He picked a stem of sweet grass and twirled it between his fingertips. “Would you like to talk about what you’ve done that’s going to disappoint your parents?”
She shrugged. “Hell. Why not?”
The profanity surprised him. Until he remembered she hadn’t been a Whitelaw for very long. “I’m listening.”
Her eyes remained focused on her tightly laced fingers. “I got expelled from high school tonight.”
He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “That’s pretty bad, all right. What did you do?”
“Nothing! Not that I’m innocent all that often, but this time I was. Just because I had a whiskey bottle in my hand doesn’t mean I was going to pour it in the punch at the prom.”
He raised a skeptical brow.
“I was keeping a friend of mine from pouring it in the punch,” she explained. “Not that anyone will believe me.”
“As alibis go, I’ve heard better,” he said.
“Anyway, I’ve been expelled and I won’t graduate with my class and I’ll have to go to summer school to finish. I’d rather run away from home than face Zach and Rebecca and tell them what I’ve done. In fact, the more I think about it, the better that idea sounds. I won’t go home. I’ll…I’ll…”
“Go where?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere.”
“Dressed like that?”
She looked down at herself and back up at him, her eyes brimming with tears. “My dress is ruined. Just like my life.”
Billy didn’t resist the urge to lift her into his lap, and for whatever reason, she didn’t resist his efforts to comfort her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him.
“I feel so lost and alone,” she said, her breath moist against his
