Her Secret, His Child

TARA TAYLOR QUINN

in case, when the time came, her friend needed her, Karen drove the last few blocks without speaking.

Denver was such a beautiful city, a combination of big city and natural wonders. The trees were still bare, but they'd be getting their buds and blossoms soon, their leaves and flowers. She wondered where her life and Jamie's would be by then.

"Did you practice this week?" Jamie asked, grabbing her rented flute from the car floor as they parked in front of the shop.

"A little. How about you?'

Jamie grinned. "Not quite that much."

"Think he'll notice?"

"Maybe not."

"Ready to go get yelled at?"

"I guess."

The two women were giggling as, flutes in hand, they strolled to the door of the music shop.

"Hi."

Recognizing the voice on the other end of the line that Friday morning in early March, Kyle felt a grin spread from the inside out. "Hi." He dropped his glasses onto his desk in front of him.

His times with Jamie had been somewhat limited over the past few weeks, but they'd talked almost every day. And each day he was more convinced that their fate had been sealed years before and there was nothing either of them could do about it. She needed time. Had established a hands-off policy as far as any physical relationship went. After the way

HER SECRET, HIS CHILD

he'd jumped her bones the first time they'd met, he figured he owed her that much.

"How were classes today?"

"Lively," he said, leaning back in his desk. "We've moved on to Edgar Allan Poe."

"The poet who killed himself?"

"That's debatable."

"That he's a poet or that he killed himself?"

"That he killed himself. He was poverty-stricken. His wife died first and illness took him two years later."

"I heard he was an alcoholic. That he died in a gutter."

"That doesn't prove suicide, does it?"

' 'Let me guess. You spent the past hour debating it, right?" She sounded just a little too sure of herself. Of him. Just as she had that day his furniture had arrived and she'd insisted he needed her help deciding where things should go. As if he hadn't been living alone most of his life. And who cared if he kept his dresser in his office? He was usually returning phone calls when he got dressed in the morning.

"Maybe." He was grinning, but only because she couldn't see.

"And you lost."

He tried to keep the smile out of his voice. "Maybe."

"So, which side were you on?"

"I happen to know, Miss Smarty Pants, that the man did not commit suicide."