"Your eyes are so bloodshot, I think you need a transfusion."

"Don't start."

Hank swallowed the pills and set the glass on the counter with a little more force than he intended. The sharp report made the baby jump. Garrett twisted in his mama's arms to fix big, suddenly wary blue eyes on his uncle. The next instant, his little chin started to tremble. A shriek soon followed. Hank's head felt as if it might blow off.

"Now just look!" Molly cuddled her son close and shot Hank an accusing glare. "You've frightened him."

The sound of the child's screams made Hank want to run for cover, but he already had enough counts against him. "Hey, buddy." He rubbed a hand over Garrett's narrow back. "It's just me." He leaned around to tweak the child's nose, which resulted in a cessation of the noise and earned him a drooling grin that flashed four front teeth. "Come here, partner."

Mollified, Hank's sister-in-law relinquished the toddler. She smiled at the way her son hugged his uncle's neck.

Hank met her gaze over the top of Garrett's head. "Sorry. I didn't mean to be a grump. It's just that I have a splitting headache. You know?"

"That's what happens when you drink the well dry."

That wasn't all that could happen. A picture of Charlie flashed through Hank's mind.

Molly grabbed the glass and put it in the dishwasher. "I worry about you, Hank. It doesn't seem to me that you're making very wise choices."

"What's so wrong with a guy having a little fun?"

"Unless you want an honest answer to that question, don't ask."

Hank decided there was wisdom in that suggestion. He held the baby a moment longer, then handed him back to Molly.

"I think I'll take a walk."

"You sure you wouldn't like some breakfast? I was about to make eggs and toast. It's no trouble to fix extra."

Just the thought of food made Hank's stomach roll "No, thanks." He brushed past mother and child to reach the back door. "Maybe later."

As he started outside, Molly called softly, "I love you, Hank. If that makes me an interfering pain in the neck, I apologize."

Hank stopped on the threshold to look back at her. Molly was one of the kindest people he'd ever met, a fact that was evidenced right then in her big brown eyes. "I love you, too, even if you are a pain in the neck."

She shrugged and smiled. "For a guy who's supposedly having so much fun, you don't laugh very often anymore."

"Observation noted. I'll work on it."

After letting himself out the back door, Hank stood for a moment on the porch. Despite the splashes of lemon-yellow sunlight that dotted the yard, the surrounding forest cast deep shadows that touched the May morning with coolness. The gusts of chill, pine-scented air soothed the pain in his temples.

He considered sitting on the steps but discarded the idea. The hired hands usually entered the house by the back door, and during the day, the foot traffic was heavy. Hank needed time to himself.

He headed toward the creek that meandered the length of the property. The ankle-high field grass licked his boots with morning dew, turning the scuffed leather uppers dark brown. An occasional grasshopper skittered from its hiding place to whir around his legs. A pungent odor rose from the soggy earth. Hank took a deep breath, the smells and sounds easing the tension from his shoulders.

He'd always gravitated to the creek when he was troubled. Upstream from the main house, there was a grassy place along the north bank. He couldn't recall the first time he'd sought privacy there. He only knew that the sound of the rushing water had always helped center him, even as a kid.

When he reached the water's edge, he sank down on the damp, grassy bank to wallow in his misery, which was one part physical and three parts emotional, the emotional parts so tangled inside him, he couldn't separate the guilt from the regret. Charlie. Right at that moment, Hank would have given his right arm to turn back the clock and undo the events of the previous night. He remembered that innocent glow he'd glimpsed in Charlie's eyes and wanted to kick himself. He'd always had a knack for sizing people up. Why, the one time when it had been vitally important, had he ignored that little voice in his head?

Every warning his mother had ever issued came back to haunt him now. Sooner or later, Hank, you'll do something you regret. You can't dance with the devil and never get burned. Hank had always tuned his mother out, chalking off her lectures to the generation gap and too much Bible reading. Now he wished he'd paid more attention. Just a few months ago, he'd read an article about teen sex, and it had said that a large percentage of twelve-year-olds were sexually active. How in bloody hell had he managed to stumble upon a virgin in her late twenties?

For just a moment, Hank started to feel angry. Looking at it rationally, this whole mess was actually her fault, not his. She had been looking for trouble, hanging out in a rowdy honky-tonk, and she'd damned well found it. How was he supposed to know she'd never been with a guy? She'd been dressed to kill in those skintight jeans, just asking for someone to hit on her.

Hank's anger flagged the instant it began gathering steam. There was no law that said virgins had to wear signs, broadcasting their sexual inexperience. And there was damned sure no law against their going to a bar. It wasn't Charlie's fault that she was pretty, and as much as he might like to shift the blame, he couldn't hold her accountable for his own behavior. When he'd ordered her the slammer, his sole intent had been to get her drunk. She'd been staggering by the time they left Chaps, and he'd taken full advantage of it.

An awful thought suddenly occurred to him. Why would a virgin be taking the Pill? He groaned and fell back on the grass. What if he'd knocked her up? She could be out there somewhere, pregnant with his kid. He had to find out who she was in case a problem developed.

And if a problem developed, what did he intend to do about it?

The answer was there in Hank's head before he completed the thought. Coulter men didn't shirk their responsibilities, and a child was one of the biggest responsibilities of all. From age fourteen, Hank had had that drilled into his head by his father. Get a girl pregnant, and there'll be no walking away. You'll shoulder the responsibility and make it right, or I'll know the reason why.

No ifs, ands, or buts, Hank had to find Charlie. The question was, how?

At precisely ten o'clock that evening, Hank reentered Chaps. He'd timed his arrival for ten because it was normally the busiest time of night. The latecomers had usually trickled in by then, and the hardcore parti-ers still hadn't left. Somewhere around eleven, people would start pairing off, and not long after, couples would start ducking out. Hank wanted to speak with as many regulars as he could on the off chance that one of them might know Charlie.

Standing inside the doors, he scanned the crowd, hoping he'd see her. A blue-gray haze of smoke hovered in layers above the tables. The smell of beer, whiskey, and sweat drifted to his nostrils, the uneven cacophony of raised voices in constant competition with the blare of music. Occasionally, a decibel above the din, filthy language spewed from the rumble like backwash from a gutter grate.

Being at Chaps again brought Hank's memories of Charlie into clearer focus. Glancing at the table where she'd been sitting last night, he recalled her saying she didn't know how to dance. At the time, he'd believed she meant country-western dancing, but now he wondered if she'd ever danced at all. The same went lot a score of other things. At one point, he'd worried that she wasn't accustomed to drinking hard liquor. He'd also noticed a shy hesitancy in her response when he kissed her. The memory made him cringe. Where the hell had she been all her life, in a convent?

Hank sorely regretted now that he'd had so much to drink. If he'd been sober, he would have realized something was off plumb and never would have touched her.

If wishes were horses, poor men would ride. He'd gotten sloppy drunk, and he had touched her. That was the bottom line.

Hank made the rounds, stopping at first one table, then another. At each, he launched into the same spiel, reminding people of the blonde he'd been with last night and asking if anyone knew her. Unfortunately, no one he spoke with, including Gary, the bartender, had ever seen Charlie before. Hoping she might return to the honky-tonk, Hank left his name and phone number so Gary could contact him.

As Hank left the bar, he paused just inside the door to look back at the room. For months now, this place had been like a second home to him. Now he wondered why he'd come there so much. It was strange how quickly a man's tastes could change.

As he stepped outside and moved past the light of the overhead sign into the darkness, he stopped to stare at the sky. Like diamonds on black velvet, thousands of stars twinkled down at him. As a boy, he'd liked to sit on the porch with his grandfather McBride to stargaze. The old man had often challenged Hank to choose the brightest star, look away, and then try to find it again. That endeavor had always ended in failure.

Hank feared that finding Charlie again might prove to be just as difficult. Crystal Falls and the outlying areas had a population of 150,000. Without a last name to go on, he had no idea how to even start searching for her. To complicate matters even more, Charlie might be a nickname.

Hank's only hope was that she would return to Chaps, and that was a long shot. It was up to Fate from this point forward, he guessed. He'd done everything he could to find her.

Chapter Three.

That night, Hank dreamed he was an old man, still working on the Lazy J ranch. In the beginning, it was a nice dream. He was forking hay into a stall, and morning sunlight poured in from the adjoining paddock to warm his shoulders. The smell of horses was all around him. The shuffling of hooves and the soft blowing of the mares soothed him.

As is often the way in dreams, Hank had no recollection of his life, only a sense that he was old and that he'd lived it well, working with horses, as he'd been born to do. He had a wonderful sense of Tightness and peace.

Then he heard a car pull up outside. Straightening from his work, he cocked an ear and listened. An awful sense of dread filled him. He didn't know why. He leaned the pitchfork against the wall and walked up the center aisle, his trepidation mounting. On some level, he knew he was dreaming, and he told himself to wake up, but his mind insisted on playing out the scene.

Outside the stable, Hank saw a tall, dark-haired young man standing by a dusty red car. At the sound of Hank's shuffling footsteps, he turned and blasted Hank with blazing blue eyes. Coulter eyes. Hank had never seen the younger man, but somehow he knew this was his son. Hank judged him to be in his mid-twenties. That was about right. Twenty-five years had passed since that fateful night at Chaps when Hank had deflowered a virgin and passed out before he could learn her last name.

"Can I help you?" Hank asked.

The younger man ran a searing gaze from Hank's soiled boots up to his face. "I'm looking for Hank Coulter."

Hank sensed the young man's anger and knew it would be unleashed the moment he identified himself. "You've found him."

The kid knotted his fists and stepped forward. "You son of a bitch!"

Hank saw the blow coming, but he wasn't fast enough to deflect it. When he hit the dirt, he lay there, blinking and trying to see, thinking stupidly that his son threw a hell of a punch. A regular chip off the old Coulter block, sure as hell.

"I thought I'd stop by and introduce myself. My name's Hank. My mother named me after the bastard who sired me and never gave me his last name."

Hank jerked awake and bolted upright. A dream, only a dream. But it had seemed so real. His body was drenched with sweat. He fought his way free of the clinging sheets and sprang from the bed. Gulping for breath, he stood at the center of the room, his heart pounding wildly.

Slowly reality closed in around him. He sank onto the edge of the bed and rested his head on his hands. Memories flashed in his mind like film clips. Charlie, lying beneath him. At the last second, when he'd realized she was a virgin, he'd pulled back, but he knew damned well his swimmers hadn't.

He had a horrible feeling that the dream had been prophetic, that he'd done the unthinkable last night and fathered an illegitimate child.

Still groggy from sleep, Carly sat in a living room easy chair, her legs tucked beneath her. In the predawn gloom, there were few sounds coming through the walls and ceiling from the surrounding apartments. Not even the wind chimes on the front porch of the ground floor unit were making any noise. Over the last three weeks since she and Bess had rented this place, Carly had grown accustomed to the musical tinkling. In a couple of hours, many of the neighbors would start stirring, some leaving for work, others emerging to walk their small dogs on the grassy center common. But for now, Carly felt like the only person in the world who was awake. She couldn't even hear any cars passing by on the street, which was usually busy during the day.

She'd lighted a candle to chase away the shadows and the bad dream that had awakened her. Somehow the flickering glow didn't make her feel much better. Visions of Hank Coulter's face kept slipping into her mind, and each time, a burn of humiliation mixed with shame pooled like acid in her belly.

She decided a glass of milk might soothe her stomach and her nerves. Not wishing to awaken Bess, who had always been a light sleeper, she tiptoed into the adjoining kitchen. She'd just gotten a glass from the cupboard and started pouring when Bess's voice startled her.

"What're you doing?"

Carly jerked and sloshed milk. "Bess, what are you doing up?"

Her friend flipped on the fluorescent ceiling lights. Carly winced and narrowed her eyes. "Do we have to have those on?"

Bess muttered something about living like vampires and plunged the kitchen back into semidarkness. "How long before your eyes heal enough for us to turn on the lights like normal people?"

"A few more days. I know it's the pits, but bright lights are still pure murder." Carly resumed pouring the milk. "I'm sorry I woke you. We need to ask the landlord to fix the refrigerator door. It creaks."

"Get your finger out of the glass. You aren't blind anymore."

Carly curled her offending finger around the outside of the tumbler.

"You can't train your visual cortex unless you use it, you know."

"You're cranky. Why don't you go back to bed?"

"Because I'm awake now, thanks to you." Bess stifled a yawn. "You never answered my question. Why are you. up so early?"

Carly returned the milk to the refrigerator and mopped up the counter. "What time is it?"

Bess glanced at her watch. "Not quite five. This is the second night in a row that you've paced the floors. What's the matter, Carls? If you need to talk a little more about what happened the other night, I don't mind listening."

One hand pressed to her still tender abdomen, Carly grabbed her glass of milk. She circled her friend and returned to her chair in the living room. Trailing behind her, Bess headed for the adjacent sofa. After plopping on a cushion, she drew up her legs and hugged her ankles. In the candlelight, with faint streaks of dawn washing the window behind her, her dark hair looked like a drape of silk lying over her shoulders.

Normally, Carly could confide almost anything to Bess, but certain details about the incident with Hank Coulter were different somehow-intensely personal and, even worse, horribly humiliating. She set her glass aside and tugged at the hem of her nightshirt. "I'm a little worried," she confessed. "I don't think Hank used any protection."

Bess's eyes widened. "You're not sure?"

Carly shook her head. Bess already knew about the painkillers and alcohol not mixing well There was no point in going over it again. "I wasn't tracking very well. I remember him leaning over the seat to get something, but I think he may have dropped it-or changed his mind."

A worried frown pleated Bess's brow. "Oh, Carls," she whispered. "What if he got you pregnant?"

That was Carly's worry as well. "The instant he realized I was a virgin, he stopped. I'm pretty sure he didn't ejaculate inside of me. That being the case, aren't I pretty safe?"

Bess said nothing for a moment. "Coitus interruptus isn't a fail proof means of birth control, Carly. He penetrated. Even if men don't ejaculate, they can have seepage. All it takes to get a woman pregnant is one sperm."

Carly's stomach turned a slow revolution. Deep down, she'd already guessed as much. "In my case, there wasn't much coitus. Maybe, this one time, it worked."

"And if it didn't? What if you're pregnant? Do you even know how to contact this guy?"

With a stubborn lift of her chin, Carly said, "I'm not calling him, if that's what you're thinking. I never want to see him again."

"If you're pregnant, what choice will you have?"

"He cursed at me," Carly reminded her. "Afterward, I felt so dirty-the kind of dirt that never washes away. I owe him nothing, absolutely nothing."

"Maybe not. But he owes you. Besides, a man has a right to know when he's fathered a child, and every child has a right to know its father. You'll have to get in touch with him."

"I'm not pregnant. That just can't happen." Even as Carly uttered the words, she knew she was kidding herself. "Having a child would derail my education, possibly my whole life. It just can't happen."

Bess pushed her hair back from her eyes. "Let's just hope nothing comes of it. If you're pregnant, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Carly hauled in a deep breath. "At least I accomplished one thing. I'm no longer the last twenty-eight-year-old virgin on earth."

Bess laughed, albeit worriedly. "True. Before we know it, you'll be a veteran giving me advice."

Carly shook her head. "Once was enough for me. In my opinion, the joys of sex are highly overrated."

"It gets better."

"If it's all the same to you, I'll just take your word for it." Frankly, she wouldn't care if she never had sex again.

Chapter Four.

Six mornings later, Carly woke up feeling sick to her stomach. When Bess found her in the bathroom kneeling by the toilet, she bathed Carly's face with a cool cloth and started saying, "Oh no!" as if it were a mantra.

"It's only the flu," Carly managed to say between bouts of nausea. "Morning sickness doesn't start this early. Does it?"