His for the Taking - By Ann Major Page 0,36

sex, I mean—was a mistake that I deeply regret.”

“Not for me, it wasn’t! It’s the first good, completely honest thing that’s happened to me in six years!”

It was bad timing that he’d read her letters right after that and had been forced to confront her about Noah. It would have been so much better for both of them if they’d had time to grow their relationship before they’d gotten into anything so heavy. But here he was—in too deep—with a woman he wasn’t sure of. It was either sink or swim. He, for one, was determined to swim.

“I can’t believe that,” she began. “You’re a Coleman, and I’m Jesse Ray’s no-good daughter.”

“Will you stop using the way everybody abused you as a weapon to club me? You’ve always been way more than that, and you know it.”

Hardly knowing what he intended, he spanned the distance that separated them. So what if Bessie’s shade notched up another inch or two. Wrapping Maddie, who smelled of shampoo and soap and her own sweet self, in his arms, he pulled her close.

“Even though you don’t want me right now, you feel perfect in my arms.”

When she tried to push free, he tightened his grip. Freeing her hands, he slid his arms around her waist.

“Cole, don’t make this more difficult than it has to be.”

“Kiss me,” he begged. “You’re going to have to prove to me you regret the sex.” He paused. “I now believe you tried to call me the night you ran away. I believe my mother said something terrible that hurt you very deeply when you were already upset and terrified. I don’t know why she doesn’t want to admit it. I can only imagine she sensed the depth of my feelings for you and was too scared to confront me because she was afraid I’d choose you. No doubt she thinks she was acting in my best interests. Baby, I want you to trust me enough to tell me what happened that night.”

“It’s too awful.”

“Maybe it will be easier to bear if you tell me.”

Her lovely face crumpled. “I don’t think so.”

“I let you down. Okay. I know. I’m so sorry,” he whispered.

“I don’t know who you’ll really believe—me or the gossips.”

“If you’d talk to me, it would give me more ammunition against the gossips, wouldn’t it?”

When she sighed, he hoped that maybe he was getting through to her.

“I’m such a fool,” she murmured as she laid her head upon his chest. “I always was where you were concerned. I shouldn’t listen to anything you ever say…especially when you hold me. I can’t think.”

“I was the fool. I never should have married Lizzie just because you’d run off and my dad was dead and my mother was hounding me all the time about Adam. I should have left Yella, left them all, and tried to find you.”

“Maybe it would have just made things worse. By then, I knew I was pregnant. My life was such a mess. I was needy and desperate and struggling to find myself and carve out a new life. I wouldn’t be who I am now if anything had been different. But all that’s over and done with.”

Stroking her hair, he held her. “I hate it that you had to face all that alone. I’m here now, and what I want is for you to marry me instead of Greg.”

“What? You don’t know what you’re saying. That’s impossible.”

“Why? Noah’s my son.”

“But you’re a Coleman, and I’m who I am. Marriage would mean we’d have to make a life together. We’ve been apart for six years, so we don’t even really know each other at this point. You had a three-month secret affair with a girl who was forbidden, and we had yesterday. What else do we have?”

“Noah. Last night. Chemistry.”

She blushed. “My mother ruined her life because her libido led her to make so many terrible choices. And there’s your mother, who hates me.”

“She’ll either change her mind, or she won’t see much of me or her grandson.”

“There’s Noah and how his grandmother’s condemnation of me might damage him. I don’t want what she and other people here think about me to make him see me as cheap.”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Other children, other people, can be so cruel. You don’t know, since you never suffered the kind of cruelty I did while growing up here.”

“I’d be giving him my name and my protection. That will count for a lot in the future, just as it counts for a