Free Lovers and Strangers by Candace Schuler Page A

again. "The story's what you're there for. It's the job."
    Faith just shook her head in amazement. "Did you always want to be a reporter?"
    "It's what I've always done," he said, neatly sidestepping the question. He put the empty cup down and picked up his chopsticks. "What about you?" he asked, taking the spotlight off himself and putting it back on her.
    "Me?"
    "What do you want to be when you grow up?" he teased.
    "Well, I..."
    "You must be planning to major in something over at UCLA."
    She stared at him for a moment, the caution she'd laid claim to finally surfacing. He could see her wondering whether to trust him with information about her plans for the future.
    "Medicine." She said it defensively, as if she expected to be ridiculed. "I'm going to be a doctor. An obstetrician."
    Jack merely nodded. "Is that a lifelong ambition?" he asked, and picked up a water chestnut between the tips of his chopsticks.
    "Yes, in a way. I've wanted to be a nurse since I was a little girl." She didn't say that her choice had been influenced by the belief that nursing was the only medical career a woman could aspire to. Or that the choice had been, in reality, only a dream, anyway, because her father didn't believe in higher education for women. He wouldn't have let her attend school beyond the eighth grade if the law hadn't required it, despite the fact that she'd been a straight A student from kindergarten on.
    "I never actually thought about becoming a doctor, though, until Sammie-Jo suggested it," she admitted. Don't ever let other people's expectations limit you, is what Sammie-Jo had said. "I was planning to study nursing. But I knew the minute she brought up the idea of applying to medical school instead that it was what I'd really wanted all along."
    "You and Sammie-Jo are good friends, aren't you? Not just roommates."
    "She's one of my best friends."
    "Is she from Pine Hollow, too?" he asked, recalling the other woman's faint Southern accent. "Is that where you know her from?"
    "Um-hmm." Faith paused a minute to savor a bite of shrimp toast. "We went to school together. Well, not exactly together," she amended. "We were in a lot of the same classes because we were both in the gifted students program, but we weren't really part of the same crowd." She laughed softly, remembering. "It's still a wonder to me how we ever became friends in the first place. Sammie-Jo's people are Catholic," she added, as if that explained everything.
    Jack raised an eyebrow. "And Catholics don't mix with hard-shell Christians in Pine Hollow?"
    Faith considered that. "Well, some do, I guess, even in Pine Hollow. But not my family. My father says Catholics are idol worshipers."
    "He sounds like a stern man," Jack said, wondering if she realized how revealing her comments were. From what she'd said yesterday and today, he was beginning to form a very unflattering picture of Faith's father. "Is that why you ran away from home?"
    Faith flushed and put her half-eaten shrimp toast down on her plate. "I know I sort of agreed with you when you said that yesterday—about me running away, I mean. But it wasn't really like that. I may be a hick but I'm not a child," she said with quiet dignity. "And only children run away from home. I packed up my things and moved away."
    Jack could have argued the point with her; he'd left his childhood behind years ago but had only just stopped running. Maybe for good. And maybe not. It all depended on what happened with the script he was working on. "Okay, you moved away," he agreed, tacitly apologizing for his blunder. "Why now? Why not before?"
    Faith shrugged uneasily. "There were a lot of reasons." Guilt. Shame. Duty. Fear. "But, mostly, I guess, because my main reason for staying was gone. My mother died last winter," she explained.
    "I'm sorry," Jack murmured, instantly contrite. He wanted suddenly, desperately, to reach across the table and offer her the comfort of his touch. And, because he wanted to so badly, he