make any sort of reply, and he followed her back into the living room area. As he walked a few steps behind her, she said, “Please, have a seat, Mr. Corteen.”
Standing in the middle of the room, Lonnie looked at the couch and the cats. The cats looked back at him. After a moment’s indecision, he headed in the direction of a small armchair filled with what looked to him to be a stack of textbooks.
Seeing his intention, Mary Katherine hurriedly stepped in front of him. “Here, let me get those out of your way,” she said as she gathered up the books in her arms. “I’m sorry about the mess. I’ve just gotten off work and haven’t had time to do much cleaning.”
“There’s no need to apologize, Miss McBride. I didn’t exactly warn you that I was coming.” He’d thought about calling first, but had quickly dismissed the idea. He hadn’t wanted to give her the chance to put him off.
While she stacked the textbooks on a nearby end table, Lonnie eased down in the armchair. As he tried to make himself comfortable, she went over to the couch and took a seat next to the cats. The yellow tabby immediately got to his feet, stretched, then climbed onto Mary Katherine’s lap.
“Okay, Mr. Corteen, now that we’re both sitting, please tell me what this is all about. I can’t imagine how you tracked me all the way from Canyon. I haven’t lived there in a long time. And it’s been even longer since I lived in Hereford.”
“Yes. I know.” He propped his ankle on one knee and hung his hat on the toe of his boot. “You moved from Canyon about seven years ago to here in Fort Worth.”
She looked at him and he could see the wheels in her head spinning at a high rate of speed.
“Why were you trying to find me? Why are you here?” she asked bluntly.
He let out a heavy breath and decided there wasn’t any more time for hemming and hawing. “I have some news for you.”
She continued to look at him, her eyes wide and waiting.
Lonnie tried again. “Did you ever know your father, Miss McBride?”
Her slender fingers settled on the cat’s head and gently stroked him between the ears. “First of all, no one calls me Miss McBride. It’s Katherine. And secondly, what does my father have to do with this?”
“Would you please just answer my question? It’s important.”
She shrugged, and from the dry twist to her lips, she didn’t seem to think it important at all. “No. I don’t know anything about my father. Except that he was a drifter. He was in my mother’s life for a little while and then he was gone.”
“What was his name?”
“Ben.”
“Ben what?”
Once again her shoulders lifted and fell. “I don’t know. Ben was all she ever told me. She didn’t want me to know his name—that way I wouldn’t think about it and wish that it were mine.” Her lips twisted mockingly. “Not that I ever would wish such a thing.”
“So you never knew your father?”
Shaking her head she said, “No. He left long before I was ever born and that was that. Mom never heard from him again.” Her features wrinkled in wry contemplation. “Actually, I don’t think she wanted to hear from him again. She never said much about their relationship, so I always assumed they’d parted on bad terms.”
Heaven help him, Lonnie prayed. How was he going to tell this woman that everything she’d ever thought about herself and her parents was all a facade?
Katherine shook her hair, and the long strands fell on her shoulder and down over one pert breast. Lonnie had never thought of a pregnant woman as being sexy, but Katherine McBride had an earthy quality about her that stirred every masculine particle inside of him. The notion embarrassed him and he tried to look at the walls, the floor, anywhere but at her.
“What’s this all about, Sheriff?” she asked. “Have you found my father? Is he trying to find me or something?”
“Call me Lonnie,” he suggested. “And as for your father—no, I didn’t find him. But—” He swallowed and curbed the urge to sigh. “Tell me, Katherine, did you ever know a man called Noah Rider?”
Recognition flashed in her eyes and she smiled. It was the first smile he’d seen on her face since he’d knocked on her door, and the sight made him feel a hundred times worse.
“Yes. Noah was a friend of my mom’s. He’d stop by and visit us from time to time. Especially when I was little. I haven’t seen him in a long time, though.”
Lonnie had been a lawman since he was twenty years old, and during those ten years, he’d been the bearer of bad news on more than one occasion. It was never an easy job, but there was something about Katherine’s tender face that made all the right words stick in his throat like wads of dry bread.
“Well, I’m afraid I have bad news, Katherine. I don’t know any other way to tell you but…Noah Rider was murdered several months ago—almost a year, actually.”
“Murdered!” She stared at him, totally stunned. “But how? Why would someone have murdered him?”
The cat in her lap must have sensed that she was agitated. He slunk off her legs and jumped to the floor.
“That’s what I need to explain,” Lonnie told her. “And the whole thing is complicated.”
Frowning, she made a faint gesture toward the kitchen. “Maybe I’d better go find a cracker or something. My stomach is a little queasy.”
“Yeah. Maybe you’d better,” Lonnie said quickly, while thinking he’d already made the woman sick. Damn Seth Ketchum! The Texas Ranger should be here doing this himself. It would’ve made much more sense for him to deal with Katherine McBride. After all, Seth and his family were the ones who’d been trying to find her. Lonnie had only volunteered to do the tracking out of gratitude for an old friend. But somehow Seth had cajoled Lonnie into being the messenger, too.
Katherine started to push herself to her feet and, seeing her struggle, Lonnie immediately jumped up and reached for her hand. “Let me help you,” he offered.
Something flickered in her eyes, and Lonnie got the feeling she wasn’t accustomed to a man offering her any sort of help, even something as simple as assisting her to her feet. Damn it, where was the father of her baby? He desperately wanted to ask her, but there was already so much to say to her and he didn’t have the time or the right to dig into the romantic side of her life.
Not that Lonnie had any personal interest, he assured himself. No, he’d tried a walk down lover’s lane years ago and that one attempt had scalded him with pain and humiliation. Since then, romance had been something Lonnie Corteen carefully steered clear of. But it would be comforting to know that Katherine and the baby were going to have support from someone.
“Thank you,” she murmured and placed her soft, slender hand in his big palm.
He tugged her gently to her feet and smiled to himself as he watched a tinge of pink fill her cheeks.
“When is your baby
