A Family to Call Her Own. Irene Hannon
nodded.
“He did ask who brought him here, though,” the doctor told her. “I guess he’d like to thank you. Do you want me to pass along your name?”
Rebecca shook her head emphatically as she reached down to retrieve her purse from the plastic chair. “No.”
The doctor gave her an understanding look. “Okay. We’ll just say it was a Good Samaritan. You’re probably wise to be cautious. You can’t be too careful these days.”
Rebecca nodded. Her earlier flights of fancy about the stranger might have been way off base, but she instinctively knew one thing. This man could disrupt her life. She sensed it with a degree of certainty that startled her. Intuitively she knew she would be a whole lot safer if she just vanished from his life.
And as she stepped outside, disappearing into the fog much as the handsome stranger had appeared out of it less than two hours before, she told herself this was the best way for this bizarre episode to end. She’d just pretend it had never happened. She would put the stranger out of her mind, forget their paths had ever crossed.
But for some reason she had a feeling that wasn’t going to be easy to do.
Chapter Two
“Hi, Ben.”
The rotund man behind the counter turned, wiped his hands on his white apron and smiled at Rebecca as she climbed onto a stool.
“Hi, there. I was beginnin’ to think you were going to skip your coffee again this morning. Missed you yesterday.”
Rebecca crossed her arms on the counter and rolled her eyes. “I barely made it to the restaurant in time to get lunch going,” she admitted ruefully. “I just don’t function well on five hours of sleep. And I don’t feel a whole lot better today.”
Ben looked at her quizzically, his bushy white eyebrows rising. “Late night Thursday?”
“Uh-huh. My brother and his wife had their baby, and I drove up to be with them. I just didn’t expect it to take so long. But babies seem to have their own schedules when it comes to making an entrance,” she noted wryly.
Ben chuckled. “That’s a fact. Everything go okay?”
“Yes. It was a great day—except for driving home in the fog.”
“I heard it was bad,” he sympathized. Suddenly he peered at her chin and leaned closer. “Say, that’s a nasty bruise,” he observed, inspecting the bluish patch of skin on her jaw, clearly visible even under makeup. “What happened?”
Rebecca wrinkled her nose and gingerly touched the tender spot. “That, my friend, is a long story.”
She was saved from having to explain by the jingling bell on the door, announcing the arrival of another customer. Ben glanced toward the entrance, then poured her a cup of coffee. “This’ll wake you up. I’ll be back in a minute.”
Rebecca took a long, slow sip of the scalding liquid. Ben really did have a knack with coffee, she acknowledged. Of course, she could easily make her own at the restaurant a few doors away. But three years ago, when Ben had been one of the few people to oppose her request for a permit to open a restaurant, she’d gotten into the habit of stopping by every morning. It had taken a lot of talking on her part to convince him that she was no competition, that they would attract a different clientele. But she’d won him over in the end, and now they were the best of friends. Her early trips for coffee, once peace missions, were now simply an enjoyable way to start the day and catch up on town news.
Rebecca glanced affectionately toward the booth where Ben was conversing with another patron, gesturing emphatically over some point. With his bristly white hair framing a swatch of bald head—the fairway, he called it—he could almost pass for Santa Claus. In fact, he played that role every year at a variety of town holiday functions. And he had certainly been good to Rebecca.
By the time he ambled back to the counter, Rebecca’s cup was almost empty, and he reached for the pot to give her a refill. She started to protest, but he waved her objections aside. “I know you usually only indulge in one cup, but you’ll have a busy day today, bein’ Saturday and all. You’ll need it.” He reached into the toaster oven behind him and plopped a bagel on a plate, adding cream cheese and a pat of butter. “And have this, too. You need to keep up your energy. Running a restaurant is hard work. I know. Although how you manage to stay so skinny in this business is beyond me. Course, I went the other way.” He patted his generous stomach and grinned. “Too much sampling, I guess,” he said with a wink.
Rebecca smiled. “Thanks, Ben. What would I do without you?”
He waved her comment aside. “You’d get along just fine. You’ve got those two old busybodies dithering over you all day at the restaurant.”
“Now, Ben,” she admonished him gently. “You know I could never manage without Rose and Frances. They’re a godsend.”
With a snort he reached for a damp rag and began polishing the sparkling counter. Rebecca stifled a smile as she took a bite of the bagel. The friendly rivalry for her affections between the two camps—Ben in the diner, Rose and Frances in the restaurant—always amused her. But she was grateful to be blessed with such loyal friends.
“Well, all I can say is, you make the best coffee in town,” Rebecca declared to appease him. She knew he was mollified when he handed her the morning paper.
“Here. Take a gander,” he said gruffly. “Probably be the only time all day you sit down.”
“Thanks, Ben.” Rebecca took the peace offering and scanned the headlines, her attention caught by a story on area flooding. She didn’t even look up when the jangling bell announced a new arrival, at least not until Ben leaned down to give her an update.
“Mark’s here. Got a stranger with him, too.”
Even before she glanced up at the mirror over the grill and saw his reflection, Rebecca knew with uncanny certainty that the stranger with Mark was the man in the fog. She swallowed her last sip of coffee with difficulty, her pulse suddenly accelerating as she peeked above the paper to surreptitiously survey his image. If she’d had any doubts about his identity, the bandage at his hairline immediately confirmed her intuition. And if she’d sensed a power and virility radiating from him Thursday night when he was half-unconscious, today it was at full strength. His attire—worn jeans that sat well on his slim hips, and a dark green cotton shirt that revealed a glimpse of dark brown hair at the open neckline—only enhanced his appeal.
Suddenly Rebecca felt shaky, and though she made an attempt to control her physical reaction to his presence, it proved futile. She didn’t have much time to try, anyway, because Mark immediately walked over to her, the stranger in his wake.
“Hi, Rebecca. Can we join you?”
Rebecca turned slightly at their approach and forced herself to smile at Mark, avoiding the stranger’s eyes as she struggled to find her voice. “Of course.”
Mark climbed onto a stool and gestured toward his companion. “Rebecca, this is a buddy of mine from way back, Zach Wright. He’s a reporter—for that paper, in fact,” Mark said, leaning over to tap on the section Rebecca was clutching. “He’s here to cover the flood. Zach, Rebecca Matthews.”
Rebecca could no longer avoid looking at the stranger, so she took a deep breath and turned to face him. The last time he’d gazed at her his eyes had been glazed, unfocused and dull with pain. Now they were clear and alert and warm. And disturbing. Her pulse went into overdrive.
Zach held out his hand, and short of being rude, she had no choice but to place hers in his firm grasp. “It’s nice to meet you, Rebecca.” He had a pleasant voice, deep and mellow, with just a touch of huskiness.
“It’s nice to meet you, too.” She tried to think of something else to say, anything, but her mind suddenly went blank. All she could do was stare into his compelling brown eyes.
Zach