Free SWEET ANTICIPATION by Kathy Clark Page A

leaving now. Thanks again for the flowers.”
     
    “Have fun at the Easter-egg hunt,” she called after him as he walked along the sidewalk. She locked the door and turned off all the lights except for the front display windows and the “grow” lights. In the semidarkness, she loaded the contents of the cash-register drawer into a canvas bag, crossed through the workroom and locked the back door behind her. As she walked along the sidewalk leading to her house, she was almost overcome by the riot of emotions she had been through today.
     
    The hectic pace had been much harder on her than she had realized. The small of her back and her shoulders ached almost as much as her legs and feet did. Even her fingers were tired. The bag in her arms was wonderfully heavy, but she was too tired to satisfy her curiosity about its contents tonight.
     
    Again she was reminded of how nice it had been for Jordan to give up a whole afternoon just to help her out. She never would have expected such generosity from the man who had confronted her in the cafeteria. He had almost been tolerable today. She wouldn’t go so far as to admit that she had been glad to have him in the shop this afternoon, but she had felt a little less harried and much more secure after he had become such a highly visible assistant. With as much money as had passed through her hands today, if she had had to leave the cash register every few minutes, it would have been easy for someone in the crowd to quietly clean out all her profits. This part of the city wasn’t a high-crime area, but sometimes people who were going through hard times could be tempted if the circumstances were just right.
     
    It had been almost a year and a half since she had depended on a man for anything. It was an odd feeling after so many months and she was hesitant to lose even the smallest degree of her newly learned independence. She didn’t want to be indebted to Jordan. He was still the enemy and he couldn’t deceive her by this disguise of concern and friendliness.
     
    But she couldn’t forget the look of awe on his face or the twinkle of excitement lighting up his gray eyes when he had felt the baby move. He hadn’t been faking those reactions. He was showing all the signs of an expectant father. What if this really was his child? How would she feel if she were in his place, being completely shut out from this wonderful experience? He hadn’t asked for this complication any more than she had.
     
    Darn it, she refused to let herself feel any sympathy for this man. It wasn’t her fault, either. She didn’t need him or welcome him into her life—and she wished she could still feel the hatred for him that she had a few days ago.
     

Chapter Five
     
    Jordan sat on the porch swing at his grandmother’s house in Friendswood and watched a dozen or so little children running across the backyard, searching under every leaf or pile of grass for a colored egg. He remembered how much he had enjoyed this when he was younger and, even now, whenever he saw one of the kids run past an egg without seeing it, he wanted to rush over and point it out to them.
    “Hi, Jordy. I figured you’d be out here with the little ones.” His grandmother had walked out on the porch and he stopped the swing so she could sit down with him. “My daughters and your mother ran me out of the kitchen. I can’t say I mind, though. I love to cook all that food, but it’s such a mess to clean up.”
     
    “That was a great meal, as usual. I’d rather eat your cooking than that of the most renowned chef in the world,” he commented, glancing over at the small, gray-haired woman next to him. An apron was still tied around her ample waist, partially covering the bright-pink knit dress she had probably made especially for today. Jordan knew that in the years to come, when his grandmother was no longer around to welcome the family into her home, he wouldn’t be able to think of her without seeing her wearing