At least sitting here in the driver’s seat, people would think they were simply chatting. Heavens-there was no acceptable way out of this except to get it over with as quickly as possible.
“The truth is, I’m searching for someone.”
He kept a hand on top of the open door, perpetuating the fiction that they were acquaintances brought together by the death of a friend. She noted in consequentially he wore no rings, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t married. Not that it mattered. She was here for Bonnie’s sake, and ultimately for her own.
“That’s a start. Man or woman?”
Without looking at him she said, “I’ve been given reason to believe he might be working on this ranch, or maybe he used to work here.”
“Your lover?” he insinuated. “A disgruntled fiancé, perhaps?”
“Neither one,” she said, refusing to rise to the bait. But on second thought-considering the cir cum stances-he’d posed some logical questions. She decided it was his blunt way of speaking that led her to believe he was goading her. After all, the man was only doing his job.
She heard his intake of breath, harsh and distinct. He was growing impatient. “Why do you want to find him?”
The operative question.
Catherine could be blunt too. “To let this man know the teenager he got pregnant gave birth to his baby.”
“Ah. That’s a very sad story,” he answered, with an element of sincerity she didn’t doubt, “but, cruel as this will sound, he probably doesn’t want to be found.”
“You’re right,” she agreed in a less than steady voice now. “They never do. The story gets even sadder. The mother, Terrie, died from complications, leaving the baby without a mother or father.”
In the periphery she could see the rise and fall of his broad chest. After a tension-filled pause, “This teenager wouldn’t be your sister by any chance?”
After her emotional gaffe, he’d made another logical assumption, one that happened to strike too close to home. He couldn’t know that despite the difference in their ages, she and Terrie had bonded much like two siblings because of similar life experiences growing up.