Her throat tightened when she considered what a fool she’d been. For a man who’d seduced her. Used her. Cared less for her than he did for his dog. Silly, silly woman.
“Okay, Striker,” she said, forcing the words through her lips, words she’d vowed only hours ago never to utter. “I’ll tell you the truth,” she said, hating the sense of relief it brought to be able to confide in someone. “But this is between you and me. Got it? I’ll tell you and you alone. When the time comes I’ll tell Joshua’s father and my brothers. But only when I say.”
“Fair enough,” he drawled, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his chest, all interest in his remaining French fries forgotten.
Randi took in a deep breath and prayed she wasn’t making one of the biggest mistakes of her life. She stared Striker straight in the eye and admitted to him something she rarely acknowledged herself. “You’re right. Okay? Joshua’s father, and I use the term so loosely it’s no longer coiled, is Sam Donahue.” Her tongue nearly tripped over Sam’s name. She didn’t like saying it out loud, didn’t like admitting that she, like too many others before her, had been swept off her feet by the charming, roguish cowboy. It was embarrassing and, had it not been for her precious son, a mistake she would have rued until her dying day. Joshua, of course, changed all that.
Striker didn’t say a word. Nor had his lips curled in silent denunciation. And he didn’t so much as lift an eyebrow in mockery. No. He played it straight, just observing her, watching her every reaction.
“So now you know,” she said, standing. “I hope it helps, but I don’t think it means anything. Thanks for dinner.” She walked out of the bar and up the steps to the wet streets. The rain had turned to drizzle again, misting around the street lamps, and the air was heavy, laced with the brine from Puget Sound. Randi felt like running. As fast and far as she could. To get away from the claustrophobic feeling, the fear that compressed her chest, the very fear she’d tried to flee when she’d left Montana.
But it was with her wherever she went, she thought, her boots slapping along the rain-slick sidewalk as she hurried to her car. The city was far from deserted, traffic rushed through the narrow old streets and pedestrians bustled along the sidewalks. She carried no umbrella, didn’t bother with her hood, let the dampness collect on her cheeks and flatten her hair. Not that she cared. Damn it, why had she told Striker about Sam Donahue? Her relationship with Sam hadn’t really been a love affair, more of a fling, though at one time she’d been foolish enough to think she might be falling in love with the bastard. The favor hadn’t been returned and she’d realized her mistake. But not before the pregnancy test had turned out positive.
She hadn’t bothered to tell Donahue because she knew he wouldn’t care. He was a selfish man by nature, a rambler who followed the rodeo circuit and didn’t have time for the two ex-wives and children he’d already sired. Randi wasn’t about to try to saddle him with the responsibility of another baby. She figured Joshua was better off with one strong parent than two who fought, living with the ghost of a father whom he would grow up not really knowing.
She knew her son would ask questions and she intended to answer them all honestly. When the time came. But not now…not when her baby was pure innocence.
“Randi!” Striker was at her side, his bare head as wet as her own, his expression hard.
“What? More questions?” she asked, unable to hide the sarcasm in her voice. “Well, sorry, but I’m fresh out of shocking little details about my life.”
“I didn’t come all the way to Seattle to embarrass you,” he said as they rounded a final corner to the parking lot.
“That’s how it seems.”
“No, it doesn’t. You know better.”
She’d reached her Jeep and with a punch of the button on her remote, unlocked it once more. “Why do I have the feeling that you’re not finished? That you won’t be satisfied until you’ve stripped away every little piece of privacy I have.”
“I just want to help.”
He seemed sincere, but she’d been fooled before. By the master, Sam Donahue. Kurt Striker, damn him, was of the same ilk. Another cowboy. Another rogue. Another sexy man with a shadowy past. Another man she’d started to fall for. The kind to avoid. “Help?”
“That’s right.” His eyes shifted to her lips and she nervously licked them, tasting rainwater as it drizzled down her face. Her heart thudded. She knew in that second that he was going to kiss her. He was fighting it; she saw the battle in his eyes, but in the end raw emotion won out and his lips crashed down on hers so intensely she drew in a swift breath and it was followed quickly by his tongue. Slick. Sleek. Searching. The tip touched her teeth, forcing them apart as he grabbed her. Leather creaked, the sky parted, rain poured and Randi’s foolish, foolish heart opened.
She kissed the rogue back, slamming her mind against thoughts that she was making the worst mistake of her life, that she was crossing a bridge that was burning behind her, that her life, from that moment on, would be changed forever.
But there, in the middle of the bustling city, with raindrops falling on them both, she didn’t care.
Seven
S top this! Stop it now! Don’t you remember last night?
Blinking against the rain, fighting the urge to lean against him, Randi pulled away from Kurt. “This is definitely not a good idea,” she said. “It wasn’t last night and it isn’t now.”
His mouth twisted. “I’m not sure about that.”
“I am.” It was a lie. Right now she wasn’t certain of anything. She reached behind her and fumbled with the door handle. “Let’s just give it a rest, okay?”
He didn’t argue, nor did he stop her as she slid into the Jeep and, with shaking fingers, found her keys and managed to start the ignition. Lunacy. That’s what it was. Sheer, unadulterated, pain-in-the-backside lunacy! She couldn’t start kissing the likes of Kurt Striker again.
Dear God, what had she been thinking?
You weren’t thinking. That’s the problem!
She flipped on the radio, heard the first notes of a sappy love song and immediately punched the button to find talk radio, only to hear a popular program where a radio psychologist was giving out advice to someone who was mixed up with the wrong kind of man, the same kind of advice she handed out through her column in the Clarion, the very advice she should listen to herself.
First she’d made the mistake of getting involved with Sam Donahue and now she was falling for Kurt Striker…No! She pounded a fist on the steering wheel as she braked for a turnoff.
Cutting through traffic, she made a call on her cell phone to Sharon, was assured that Joshua was safe, then stopped at a local market for a few groceries.
Fifteen minutes later she pulled into the parking lot of her condo. Now away from the hustle and bustle of the city, the dark of the night seemed more threatening. The parking lot was dark and the security lamps were glowing, throwing pools of light onto the wet ground and a few parked cars. The parking area was deserted, none of her neighbors were walking dogs or taking out trash. Warm light glowed from only a few windows, the rest of the units were dark.
So what? This is why you chose this
