1
“Gil, I’d like you to meet Diana Prentice. Diana, this is Gil Thorp and his wife Evelyn.“
“How do you do?“ Diana murmured politely. Her smile was real but strained. Her hazel eyes were shadowed as she greeted the couple on the doorstep. The Thorps were in their sixties, nicely dressed and smiling affably. “Colby has told me so much about you.“
“Ill just bet he has.“ Gil Thorp chuckled as he took Diana’s hand. “Did he remember to explain that twenty years ago I was the good guy in the white hat and he was the town’s chief troublemaker, or did he alter the past to make himself look good?“
“He did mention that you were the sheriff here in Fulbrook Corners when he was in high school. I believe he said the two of you had what he described as an adversarial relationship,“ Diana said.
“An adversarial relationship, Colby?“ Gil’s bushy gray brows rose. “Now that’s an interesting way of putting it.“
He turned to his wife. “I can’t remember how many times I got a phone call in the middle of the night telling me the Savagar kid was staging another drag race out on River Road. I lost more sleep the year he got that black Corvette than I care to think about.“
“You had nothing better to do at night in those days,“ Colby said dryly. “You weren’t married to Evelyn then.“
“True enough,“ Gil agreed with a small grin. “But that was twenty years ago, Savagar, and even though I probably looked like an old man to you back then, I wasn’t completely past my prime. In fact, I wasn’t much older than you are now. You’re not married, either, but I’ll lay odds you don’t spend all your nights alone.“
Colby saw the faint red flags in Diana’s cheeks, but he ignored her reaction. “Hell, Gil, if I’d had any idea my racing was affecting your love life…“
“You would have set up twice as many races down on River Road,“ Gil finished for him.
Evelyn smiled at Diana. “If I were you, my dear, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the stories men swap about their pasts. They always exaggerate outrageously.“
“I’ll keep that in mind,“ Diana said with another strained smile. “Won’t you have a seat, Evelyn?“
If he were a sensitive, empathic, understanding, truly modern male, Colby Savagar decided, he would probably be able to summon up more sympathy for Diana. It was obvious she was nervous. Scared right down to her toes might be a more accurate description. Which was almost amusing because he knew it took a lot to frighten Diana. He frequently thought of her as his personal amazon.
But even though he wasn’t overly sympathetic, he knew Diana had good reason to be floundering in a state of anxiety tonight. She was, after all, thirty-four years old, single and devoted to her career. The last thing she had ever expected or planned for at this stage of her life was a baby. But today she had faced the fact that she was pregnant.
Colby was having a hard time mustering sympathy, empathy, understanding and other such modern male attitudes because he was the father. It wasn’t that he was saving all his sentiment for himself, rather, he had discovered he was not particularly unhappy about the situation. In fact, he hadn’t been surprised when she had told hint about the pregnancy. Some sixth sense had told him she had conceived that night in the cave.
Colby figured it must be the irredeemably primitive, possessive, chauvinistic male traits locked in his genes that were causing him to be experiencing an almost euphoric satisfaction about the situation. Diana would strangle him if she realized what he was thinking.
It wasn’t that he had set out to get her pregnant. Far from it. Colby already had a nineteen-year-old son and, as he had told Diana often enough, he’d paid his dues when it came to fatherhood.
But now that the unplanned pregnancy was a reality, Colby found himself quite prepared to handle it.
He wasn’t at all sure about Diana. She still appeared dazed.
“Yeah, have a seat,“ Colby said easily to his guests as he waved them to two of the well-worn living room chairs.
“Evelyn, what can I get you?“
“A glass of white wine will be fine,“ the older woman replied with a smile as she sat down beside her husband.
“Whiskey for me,“ Gil said. “This place doesn’t look like it’s changed a bit,“ he added as he lowered himself onto the faded upholstery of a heavy armchair. His eyes moved assessingly over the rustic, shabby interior of the old two-story house.
“I never bothered to do anything to the house after Aunt Jesse died,“ Colby explained as he fixed drinks for his guests. “I turned it over to Larry Brockton’s real estate firm and told him to keep it rented as much as possible. I gave him instructions not to sink any more money into it than absolutely necessary to keep things working.“
“And you never came back to Fulbrook Corners to check on the place, did you?“ Gil asked shrewdly. “In fact, this summer is the first time you’ve been back since you left town twenty years ago. Why are you here now, Colby?“
Colby decided he was getting tired of that question. “Lately a lot of people seem to be asking me that.“ He shot a wry glance at Diana who’d asked it more frequently than anyone else. “The answer is simple. I needed a quiet place to finish the book I’m working on. I also want to make a decision about this house. I think that when the summer is over I’
ll tell Brockton to put it on the market.“
Gil nodded, looking unconvinced. He turned to Diana and smiled. “And you came to this little corner of Oregon this summer for a vacation, is that right?“
Diana flashed Colby an unreadable glance before nodding politely to Gil. “That’s right. I’m on leave from my job at Carruthers and Yale in Portland. I hadn’t had much time off during the four years I worked for the company, so I thought I’d take the summer off.“
“What do you do at Carruthers and Yale?“ Evelyn asked.
“I have a background in accounting and business administration. I work in the office of a division controller.“
Colby heard the cool precision of Diana’s response and knew that it was meant to cover up the underlying anger she felt toward Carruthers and Yale. She had almost resigned her position with the firm when she had realized that her superiors were not about to promote a woman into the rarified air of upper management.
Her boss, Aaron Crown, had talked her into taking a leave of absence instead.