Outside The Lines (Love Beyond Reason Book 2) Read online

  His face remained a stone fixture as he slid his hands into his slacks pockets. No warmth. Nothing. “And?”

  Right. No beating around the bush. Maria thought back to their time in Red Bluff. He’d been direct then, too. Always an answer for everything. His mind worked quickly through problems to find resolutions.

  She froze. Oh, my word. Is that why I’m here? Still looking for someone else to fix her problems? All her life. First her parents. Then her sister. An occasional teacher. “Maybe this was a mistake,” she thought out loud then bit her lip. “No.”

  His blank expression turned into a frown. “Maria, we spent a month together, and they were great times. I hadn’t even known I needed an escape, when I found one with you. So, please. If you need something or you’re in trouble, just spit it out. We’ll fix it.”

  He was reading her mind. But she heard the unspoken as well. So you can get on your way.

  Maria stood straight, tested the muscles of her neck and shoulders, rolling them gently as if about to go into the ring, and blew out a breath.

  “David. I’m pregnant.”

  2

  Pregnant? For a split second, David saw Maria—over him, riding him, loving him, her soft skin the only thing worth touching. And it was followed by a staggering image of her—pregnant, laughing…his.

  But he shoved aside those false visions. Impossible. He could never love that much. Love was the only thing in his life unstable enough to cause the most harm. “No.”

  A knot of disappointment, and of complete and utter disbelief, tightened in his chest. The weight of his responsibilities, as heir to the March business, choked him.

  She’d done her research and figured out what it would mean to tie him down.

  Disappointment was quickly replaced with anger.

  The woman he thought he knew hadn’t been devious. “That’s not possible, Ree. We used protection every time.”

  “Oh yeah, sure. We all know there’s never been a glitch in birth control since the beginning of time. I mean, we’re practically a medical miracle! We should call the Guinness Book of World Records. The New England Journal of Medicine. They’ll probably be very interested in hearing how we succeeded in making a baby while using a condom.” Her blood was up, her face was a dangerous shade of red.

  David rubbed a hand over his chest and turned away from the life that radiated from her. He’d loved that about her. Never afraid to say it like it was. “You’re sure it’s mine?”

  “Am I sure it’s—?” Her laughter came out harshly, coated in resentment.

  He winced. Okay, so it didn’t sound flattering. But, geez!

  His life was planned, set before him, and he didn’t have a problem with it. As a matter of fact, he was happy. So what if he’d let loose a couple months ago and experienced something—he swallowed—unlike anything he’d experienced before.

  He’d left Red Bluff for a reason.

  Love wasn’t for the men of the March family. His grandmother had died. His mother had deserted them. He was not stepping in line for a lifetime of agony.

  No. Way.

  “Yes. I’m sure.” Maria cleared her throat. “I haven’t been with anyone since you. But, thanks for thinking so highly of me.” She shifted her purse onto her shoulder a little higher. “I should go—”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” David quickly asserted, reaching for her as she passed by on her way to the front door. She was fire in his hand, though, and he quickly let go of the temptation to take her in his arms and relive what he’d felt before, see if it had been real. “It’s not—I didn’t mean—It’s just, this isn’t the same world our grandparents grew up in. I wouldn’t think less of you if you found someone else.”

  “Right. Found someone to love and then came here to claim you as the daddy.”

  His heart stopped a little when she used that word, and he pushed aside all the unwanted feelings it instigated.

  “I would think less of me.” She banged a fist against her sternum. “Dios mio. You are not who I fell in love with.”

  She backed up, found the door with fumbling hands, and ran out.

  David froze. Fell in love?

  He’d begun to think his memories a case of over-active imagination. She couldn’t have been as beautiful or strong as he remembered.

  But he’d been wrong…Worse, he’d underestimated her power over him.

  The minute he’d come out of the parlor and seen her in his foyer, he’d been thrown back to those carefree weeks of love-without-regret. Eyes that had captivated him from moment one and lips he had been on his knees to kiss. She’d made him weak.

  And a March was never weak.

  Or so he lied to himself each morning after dreaming of her…Maria. Maria Rodriguez. The compassionate nurse. The woman from a large family. The woman who had been brave enough to love a stranger and convince him to let down his guard. Something he rarely did.

  But his guard was up again. And this wasn’t going to happen.

  “Looks like you’ve got a problem there, son.”

  His dad’s voice startled him back to the moment. He shook off the uncertainty and turned. “How long have you been standing there?”

  “Long enough.”

  David nodded as he worked the constricting tie loose from his neck. “Don’t you have a meeting this morning?”

  “The meeting was cancelled.” His dad always said as little as possible. The intimidation tactic rarely worked on David, until today.

  What if she was wrong? What if she was lying?

  “Well, I have stuff to do.” David started for the stairs, not exactly sure where he planned to go, but his dad stopped him.

  “You’re a little old for this kind of trouble, aren’t you?”

  David shrugged, not admitting to anything—yet.

  “Men have needs, David.”

  David cringed. He didn’t want to hear about sex from his dad.

  “Even so, you should know better than to hook up with just anyone. Pretty as she is, she obviously had you pegged. You can’t let your dick do the thinking.”

  “She’s not like that.” It had never been like that…

  “She’s a gold-digging tramp,” his father reiterated. “And you better take care of it.”

  David tamped down a rebellious urge that flared to life. His dad meant well, and he was only trying to protect the family. They’d always gotten along, worked well together, and enjoyed some of the same hobbies—golf, fishing.

  So the need to protect Maria came as unexpectedly as a thaw in February. “I’ll take care of it,” he answered without looking his dad in the eye.

  ***

  By the time David reached one of the only two inns in town, he’d harnessed his emotions and was ready to speak practically with Maria about…the issue.

  But his hands shook on the gear shift of his old Chevy as he pulled into the snow-covered parking lot and stopped near the dumpster at the back. There were two bags on the ground at the edge of the path, and he picked them up and tossed them into the large bin.

  Nan Boehler might be a hardy old German lady, but if he was in town, he liked to help, insisted on it, really. Every once in a while, he’d catch her with a bag hoisted to her shoulders. And he’d scold her, knowing all the while, she’d do it again if he wasn’t quick enough coming around to help out. She’d give him a bit of her evil eye then invite him in for some pastry or another.

  The back door was slightly ajar when he came up the path. He went through and closed it behind him. “Hello?”

  “David, you have been gone too long.” She pulled him down to kiss his cheek and an embarrassed heat rose on his neck.

  “I was here on Monday.”

  “Sit, sit. You must have some of the stew I am making.” She puttered over to the huge cast iron stove and stirred the large pot. “We’ve got a bigger crowd than usual this weekend. Don’t know what brings all these out-of-towners here in the middle of January. Coldest darn month of the year.�
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  The old lady banged the wooden spoon on the side of the pot.

  “The beautiful-est winters in all the states, Nan.”

  She narrowed her gaze at him. “Are you sweet talking me?”

  “Nah,” he said with a grin as he sat at the thick wood table and leaned the ladderback chair off its front legs. Nan gave him a look and he set the chair back down. “I’m looking for a girl.”

  “Is she a good girl?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Does she go to church?”

  He remembered Maria’s Sunday morning routine. How he’d watched as she filed into church with her family. Her family, six siblings. So different from anything he understood. Her dad—solid, hard-working. David respected him. Her beautiful mother who’d been kind to him from the start. “Yes.”

  “You haven’t been to church in a while.”

  David grinned. “More than a while.”

  “Yes, well, I’m watching you.”

  “You’re one of the few.”

  She made that guttural German harrumph. “You are talking about Maria, the young lady who showed up at my door today.”

  “Her name is Maria Rodriguez.”

  Nan stood up and put her hands on her hips. “She’s upstairs. Room five, over the living room. Poor dear. Looked so lost, showing up on my doorstep. Said she’d be heading out first thing in the morning, just needed a room for the night.”

  The tension wracking his nerves fled. He blew out a breath. “Good. Okay.” He stood up as Nan put a bowl of the stew in front of him. His stomach rumbled. “I’m going to come back for that,” he promised.

  “She’s a nice girl,” Nan added when he turned to leave.

  He thought about that, too. And it hurt his head. He’d left California with no regrets. His time there had been otherworldly, surreal. He’d never expected that time to show up on his doorstep, right here in Vermont. Panic slid through his veins like ice on the Winooski River in March. The panic could hold back the most powerful flood of emotion, but only for a time.

  He stood outside the door with a brass number 5 on it and knocked, waited a couple minutes, and knocked again.

  The door opened. Part of the panic damming up his system disappeared at the sight of her. “Damn,” he said softly and mostly to himself.

  “Well, hello to you too.” Her reply was neither warm nor inviting.

  “We need to talk.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, David. I’m kind of busy right now.”

  “Busy, huh?” His glance past her showed an open book on the bed, a laptop on the side table, and a small plate of cookies. “How you feeling?”

  Her brow lifted ever so slightly. “Fine.”

  He nodded. “May I come in?”

  She sighed, still hesitant to let him through, but she rolled her eyes and stepped back. “For a minute.”

  He walked through and pushed the door closed behind him.

  “Leave it open.” There was a slight tremor in her voice and his gaze found hers, looking wary as she bit at her bottom lip. But he pulled the door open.

  As they stood, he realized there were a few differences in her. Her cheeks seemed rounder, just a little. Her chest was fuller, too. He turned away when the desire to touch her, feel all the differences and compare, rose in him like thunder.

  “Shit.” He really was a prick. He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “You don’t have to do anything, David.” She sat primly on the upholstered wing-back chair near the window. “I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow. I guess it was a mistake to come here.”

  “Yeah, you keep saying that,” he ground out. “But you are here now. Do you need money? Did your parents kick you out? What the hell, Maria?”

  She disrupted his entire world. She dropped a bomb in his lap, and she was just going to disappear. The hell of it was that he’d hardly had time to adjust, to get used the idea of Maria pregnant. He didn’t know what to think…or do.

  “Look, I’m just as uncertain as you are. I wanted to do the right thing.” Her hair swung over her shoulder when she rose and turned to the window. “I needed to get away from my family for a while.”

  “From your parents? Did they hurt you?”

  She threw him a look of disgust. “Of course not.”

  “Oh,” he breathed. “Well, I’m glad.”

  Maria’s eyes rolled again. “I don’t need your money, either.”

  “So, what then?” Exasperation cut through his calm.

  “I guess I think a baby should have a mom and a dad. I thought it only fair to give you a chance to claim him.”

  His brain had stopped short at the word him. “You know it’s a boy?”

  “What?”

  “You said ‘him’.”

  For the first time since she’d shown up on his doorstep, a smile played at her lips. “No. It’s too early. I just…” She cleared her throat. “I think of you when I think of the baby, and it’s become a habit to use him or his.”

  He swallowed hard against the impending panic, the god-awful rush of doubt in anything family-related. He had no example of what being a family meant.

  The child would end up being another statistic, another small boy with unhappy parents, and fighting and yelling. Living with the responsibility of being the richest kid around, yet lacking the one thing he always wanted— “This isn’t a good idea, Maria.”

  “It’s not an idea to me, David, and it’s definitely not something I’m willing to undo.”

  “Hey.” He hadn’t meant that, had he?

  She came toward him with a fire in her eyes that made him take a step back. But she merely went around him and closed the door—slammed, actually. “You don’t want this baby, fine. But I’m not getting rid of it just because you have better plans for your sorry, pathetic life.” The words were delivered on the hiss of her breath. “You can keep your bimbo wife and your flashy cars and your huge house. I’m not going to use my baby as leverage against you. You don’t want him, you don’t get him.”

  “Come on. Tammy isn’t a bimbo, and she’s not my wife, either.” Shit. This was such a cluster— “So, what you’re saying is, you’re ready to go home and forget about me?”

  Her chin rose in answer—defiance and pride.

  “Fine,” he said. Typical.

  Yet, this time, she was giving him exactly what he wanted. A free pass to a life void of the pain that came with loving someone too much.

  ~*~

  The ball shot out straight and sure, and David wailed at it with all his might.

  And missed.

  “Pansy ass,” Raphe said with a friendly grin.

  David ignored his buddy and waited for the next pitch.

  The whistle of the ball sounded downrange. He swung, just as hard as the first time, and when he cracked it, the ball went flying off to his left.

  “Foul ball. What the fuck is wrong with you today?”

  The anger boiling through his gut, burned with the acid of disappointment. Sweat dripped down his back, his muscles ached, and turning, he threw the bat as hard as he could down the cage. The clatter of metal on metal echoed off the walls of the gym.

  “Whoa.” Raphe stared, his eyes narrowing on him. “What’s into you?”

  David blew out a breath. “Remember my trip out west in October?”

  “Sure. You met that Spanish hottie.”

  “I never called her a hottie.” He scowled, wanting to swipe that grin off his friend’s face.

  Raphe nudged him aside. “My turn.”

  David stepped out of the cage, curled his hands around the fencing, and leaned in, watching and thinking. He couldn’t stop thinking. About her. About that time…

  And the disappointment, too.

  The ball came flying down the lane.

  “She’s pregnant.”

  Raphe swung, pivoting at the same time, and missed. “Shit. You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Do I look like I
’m kidding?”

  His friend pushed the button to stop the round of balls from continuing. “Fuck. She called you? How do you know it’s true? How do you even know it’s her?”

  “She’s here.”

  “Oh, man,” he said, sounding heartfelt, but then he grinned again. “When do I get to meet her?”

  David looked away. “She’s leaving.”

  “Just like that?”

  Heat rose on his neck as guilt messed with his conscience. “Well, sort of. I might have accused or implied. Implied is a better word. Implied that she was in it for my money.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “Yeah. She was a little pissed.”

  Raphe was shaking his head in disappointment. “It’s not always about the money.”

  “You don’t even know her,” David answered, but knew his friend was right. Maria had always been strong. She’d known what she wanted. In that time and place, knowing her family, he’d wanted to be the gentleman, to wait. But one thing had led to another. He’d wanted to be a part of her life so badly. “You’re a man. Would you have said no if a woman wanted you?”

  “Well, yeah, but only because my wife would kick my ass otherwise,” he joked.

  “Haha. Before you were married. When you were still the dickhead single guy.”

  His friend shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never had your money. Women haven’t been throwing themselves at me since I was seventeen.”

  “She didn’t know I was rich.”

  “Ahh.” Like a light over his head, Raphe’s eyes turned speculative. “You think she found out.”

  David ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I never would have guessed that she was a gold-digger.”

  “You liked her.”

  “Yes, damn it. She wasn’t some whore I picked up just for sex.”

  “But you left her, your usual method of operation, because you liked her.” He shook his head, tisking. Raphe knew his story, had been his closest friend since they were five, and when he shook his head and clicked his tongue like that irritation flared inside his gut.

  “Don’t fucking do that,” David bit off, even though he knew Raphe was just playing with him. Because this time, it felt real. This time, having a friend know him so well didn’t make the situation easier.