“I’ve been gone for five minutes.”

He smiled boyishly, slightly embarrassed. “Well, it seemed like hours. They’ve already taken X-rays.” He pointed to a Styrofoam cup on the table beside him. “I got you some coffee.”

Chris removed the lid and added a container of cream, then studied him as she sipped at the coffee. He had high cheekbones, a perfectly straight nose, and a few flecks of gray in the unruly profusion of wavy black hair. He had a wide mouth, which she could easily imagine set in ruthless determination, but right now he stared moodily into his coffee, the corners of his mouth turned down, and Chris wondered why he was looking so grim. “Is something wrong?”

“To tell you the truth…I’m scared to death. I’ve never been in a hospital before. And I’ve never broken anything that was mine. Will it hurt?”

Chris gaped in astonishment. He was serious. He really was scared. She smiled and shook her head. “I don’t think it will hurt.”

“Have you ever broken anything?”

“When I was a little girl we lived on a farm in Colorado-not a working farm, we just called it a farm because it was eleven acres, and it had a barn. When my parents bought the farm it came complete with a big old black horse named Looney. He was a great horse, but every now and then he liked to see me go over a fence solo. He’d run right up to a fence, plant his feet, and I’d go soaring off into the air. One time I crashed into a split rail and broke my nose.”

Ken slowly ran the tip of his finger along the bridge of her nose. “It’s a pretty little nose. Straight until the very end, where it tips up just a bit. Elegant without being boring.”

She felt her heart flop at his touch, and an unaccountable tingle ran down her spine. “Mmmm,” she answered, waiting for her mind to clear. “And then when I was eight I was dancing in my room with a laundry basket on my head…and I tripped over a roller skate and broke my arm.”

“I find that surprisingly easy to believe.”

“And when I was twelve, I broke my finger playing softball.”

“Never been hurt skating?”

“Bruises. Lots of bruises. Nothing serious.”

“Did you ever compete?”

“For years and years. I was National Novice champion at sixteen, Junior champion when I was eighteen, and National Senior bronze and silver medalist. And then I quit.”

He watched her quietly. Their mutual silence grew uncomfortable, the inevitable question hanging ominously suspended in the air between them.

Chris sighed. “Don’t you want to know why I quit? Everyone always does.”

“I thought it might be sensitive.”

She smiled at him, pleasantly surprised at his perception. “It was a long time ago. As a young athlete I’d led a very narrow life. Up at five in the morning. In bed by nine at night. I was the world’s latest bloomer. I’d never had any sort of relationship with a boy until I was twenty-one. And that relationship resulted in my daughter, Lucy.”

He drained his cup of coffee and returned it to the table. His hand found hers and traced a line along her ring finger. “Want to tell me about the father?”

“Steven Black.”

He whistled softly. “The actor?”

“The classic whirlwind courtship. He wined and dined me for two weeks. I thought I was madly in love.” She shrugged with her hand. “We were married in a thirty-second service in Las Vegas. Four weeks later I discovered I was pregnant, and my adoring husband divorced me while I was still in my first trimester.”

He raised his eyebrows in astonishment. “Why did he do that?”

“Steven wanted a glamorous wife. If I’d stayed with skating I would have been on the Olympic team. Eight years ago Steven was still struggling for recognition, and I suppose he thought he could use the media coverage. When I refused to have an abortion and told him I was giving up competing, he divorced me.”

Ken slid his hand along hers and gripped her wrist. Little prickles of pleasure ran up her arm at his possessive touch. His hand was large-a working man’s hand, she decided. Strong. Permanently tan. It was a hand that could be gentle and protective and still manipulate with confident authority. In a sudden flash of insight Chris knew what it would be like to share a bed with Ken Callahan. A burst of unexpected heat rushed through her at the thought, and a scarlet scald crept from her shirt collar.

Ken regarded her with serious curiosity. “It must have been difficult for you to give up competing.”

Chris smiled. “It was easy. I loved to skate, but I hated to compete. I threw up before every competition. And as soon as I became pregnant my whole body oozed contentment.” She sat forward in her seat, warming to her subject. “Having a baby is a miracle.” Her face glowed with satisfaction and pride. “They have fat little hands and tiny fingernails, and they love you…just because you’re there, and you’re Mommy. Babies don’t care if you’re famous or rich.”

She felt his hand tighten on hers and knew she had allowed some of the hurt of rejection to surface. She hadn’t meant to show that to him. She hadn’t even known herself that it still existed. She hurried to cover the slip. “My favorite part of the day is when Lucy and I read bedtime stories. The book I like best is about this little bear. He gets a bicycle, and his father is going to teach him how to ride it, but the father does everything wrong! And then there’s another Little Bear book where Little Bear and his dad go hiking with the bear scouts-” Chris stopped suddenly and closed her eyes with a groan. “I don’t believe I’m telling you about Little Bear.”

His voice was mockingly serious, but his dark eyes danced with amusement. “Little Bear is undoubtedly an important part of your life.”

“Are you laughing at me again?”

He put his hand to her cheek. “No. I think it’s very nice.”

A white-coated intern appeared before them. “Mr. Callahan? I have the results of your X-rays. You have a simple fracture. It’s not terribly serious, but it’ll require a cast. You can go to an orthopedist of your choice, or I can have a staff doctor paged for you. I believe Dr. Wiley is on the floor somewhere.”

“Dr. Wiley will be fine.”

A bank of steel-gray clouds hung low in the early-morning sky, diffusing the sunlight and adding a chill to the air. Ken Callahan brandished his flourescent green, spanking-new cast, like a flag-holding it high to prevent his arm from swelling.

“Keep it above your heart for a few days,” Dr. Wiley had advised.

“Above my heart,” Ken mumbled, heading for his truck in long, angry strides. “Damned inconvenience.” He stopped and looked down at his plaster-clad arm. The cast stretched from his elbow to the middle of his hand, wrapping around his thumb, and making it impossible to grasp anything with his left hand. He wiggled his fingers pathetically. “Just look at this,” he ranted. “How can I drive? How can I work? How can I tie my damned shoes?”

Chris trotted beside him. She unlocked the doors to the truck and bit her lip to keep from laughing. Ken Callahan had ceased to frighten her. He wasn’t as disreputable as she’d originally assumed. He was well-spoken and easy to talk to. A little over-sexed, perhaps, but not weird or dangerous. And she knew from the past two hours that his anger was short-lived. He was not a man that held a grudge or nursed a wound-and the memory of him locking her hand in a death grip while his cast was being applied sent spasms of laughter choking in her throat. Her hilarity ceased when she opened the door and came face-to-snout with the Rottweiler. There was a tug at Chris’s vest collar and warm breath skimmed along her neck.

“I can hardly wait for fourth gear,” Ken murmured into her ear.

“You weren’t so crazy about fourth gear when we pulled in here.”

“I was worried about being driven to the police station.”

“And you’re not worried anymore?”