Free And Babies Make Four by Ruth Owen

started, regardless of what he thought, she’d meant that kiss. She believed that with every fiber of her being.
    But she was less sure—in fact, she wasn’t sure at all—that it had meant anything to him.
    The crowd flowed between them, separating them. Music started up in one end of the church, an unwieldy combination of reggae beat and voodoo chant. Noel found herself surrounded by the women she’d met earlier in the vestry. They hugged and coddled her, kissing her cheek and giving her advice she couldn’t even begin to understand. Noel nodded, gamely trying to keep up the appearance of happiness for a little longer. But it was a poor appearance at best. Regardless of what Donovan thought, she was no actress.
    Outwardly she smiled. But inwardly she felt the same way she had all those years when she was growing up under her grandmother’s disapproving eye—likeshe was being blamed for a crime she hadn’t committed.
    The trip home from the old church was, incredibly, even more silent than the trip there had been. Sam sat behind the wheel, his face molded into a frown as dark and somber as the surrounding night. Noel was curled into the far corner of the Jeep’s passenger seat, watching the yellow headlight pick up the rutted road ahead, wrapped in her own intensely private thoughts. She should have felt relieved that one of the strangest days in her ordered life was finally drawing to a close. Instead, she had a profound sense of loss and disappointment.
    And an even profounder sense of confusion over Donovan’s kiss.
    She shifted uncomfortably against the Jeep’s worn leather cushions and tried with everything in her to forget Donovan’s kiss. No luck. The memory lingered not just in her mind but in every part of her body, making her feel tight and achy in outrageously intimate places. She stole a glance at the man beside her, hoping reality would dilute the memories. Worse luck. Moonlight and shadows blurred the harsh lines of his profile, making him appear less cynical and strangely, heartbreakingly alone. And loneliness was something she understood all too well.
    Come on, Noel. You ought to be ready to throttle the guy. He’s an opportunist. He took advantage ofyou in a public situation. He had no right to kiss you like that.
    And you had no reason to kiss him back.
    The call of a hidden bird threaded silver through the night air, but she barely heard it. Instead, she huddled as close to the open side of the cab as she could without risking a fall. A seat belt would have been nice. A clear conscience would have been better. She had loved Hayward. She had even thought she would marry him at one time. And yet she’d returned Donovan’s kiss with a hellfire passion she’d never experienced with her ex-boyfriend, not even when they’d made love.…
    She had to regain her composure. She gripped the roll bar and looked out into the darkness, casting through her mind for something safe and innocuous to say. “Um, how soon can we start out for the mountains, Mr. Donovan?”
    “
Mister
Donovan?”
    “That’s your name, isn’t it?”
    “Sure, but—” He glanced at her, the moonlight glittering in his eyes like demon fire. “Come on, Noel. We
are
married. Besides, that kiss put us on a first-name basis.”
    “I’d prefer it if you didn’t mention the marriage—or the kiss—again,” she stated, her voice as rigid as her posture.
    He shrugged and turned back to the road. “You’re paying the bills. We’ll load up the Jeep with your equipment at first light.”
    “Good.”
Dammit, the guy even shrugs sexy.
    He bent over to shift to a lower gear. Noel had a glimpse of the corded muscles of his broad back shifting effortlessly beneath his soft cotton shirt, and felt the air vanish from her lungs.
Careful, Noel. At this rate you won’t keep your distance two days, much less ten.
    “We’ll start early,” he continued without taking his gaze from the road. “I figure we’ll make base camp in the