“But then how—?”
Hayden’s mouth twisted into a cruel grin. “I guess he had a change of heart. Either that, or he knew that by giving me most of what he’d worked for all his life, he was taunting me from the grave.”
“Oh, Hayden, you can’t really believe he would do anything so cruel.”
“You didn’t know my old man, though, did you?” he spat out, his lips flattening over his teeth. “What was it you said the other night, something about him scamming your father?”
She swallowed hard.
“What was that all about?”
Nadine saw no reason to lie. She’d spent the night making love to him, the least she could do was explain to him why he was the last man on earth she should have taken to her bed. “As I said, my father handed every dime he’d ever earned to your dad, invested in some oil wells that were nearly guaranteed to make him rich. He had plans that wouldn’t quit. College for all three of us kids. A new house and car for Mom. Retiring with money in the bank. But he came home one day and told us that it wasn’t going to happen. That the well was dry, so to speak.”
His eyes narrowed. “Go on.”
She shuddered at the memories, and the cold spot in her heart seemed to grow. “It was as if all the life went out of my folks’ marriage. Mom kind of clammed up. Not too long after that my oldest brother, Kevin, decided he couldn’t handle life anymore and ended it.”
Hayden’s face was grim. “Because of the money?”
She shook her head quickly. “Because of a girl he was in love with. She didn’t love him back.
“Kevin’s death was more than my mother could handle. She divorced Dad and left us. Ben was through with high school and had joined up with the military and I was still away at school. Mom offered to take me to Iowa with her, but I decided I’d rather come home to be with Dad.”
“And Sam?” he asked.
“And Sam.”
He rubbed his temples with his fingers as if suddenly tired, but he didn’t say a word and she felt compelled to continue. If he really didn’t know the truth, it seemed imperative for him to understand her.
“I don’t know what happened to your five thousand dollars, Hayden. If my dad got it, he never let me know about it. I assume that the money went to pay some bills or maybe for my schooling. We were always behind. However, there’s always the chance your father lied.”
“I saw the notation in the company books.”
“Books can be fudged,” she pointed out. “Did you see the check—the endorsed check—that proved my father got the money? And what does it matter if he did? It wasn’t hush money, Hayden. It was repayment of a very small part of a debt. That’s all.”
Tipping his chair back, he stared at her. “I wonder what would have happened to us if there had been no check.”
She wasn’t a fool and knew he wasn’t, either. She shook her head and swallowed a gulp of coffee. “Nothing would have changed. You were from one world, I was from another. I’d like to believe that circumstances kept us apart, but I know better. If we had really wanted to be together, our families wouldn’t have mattered.
“As for right now, we both know that what happened between us last night was probably a mistake.” She felt her throat catch on the words, but had to go on. There was no reason to delude themselves, much as she wanted to. “We both felt…pent-up sexual energy. That’s all.”
He scraped back his chair and carried his plate to the sink.
“We’re wrong for each other. We both know it.”
“Or so we’ve been told,” he pointed out.
Her silly heart fluttered a bit and her palms began to sweat. She should leave well enough alone. She knew it. But she couldn’t. “Are you trying to say that you want something more permanent? A woman with two preadolescent boys?”
He whipped around, his eyes dark. “I’m not the marrying kind,” he said gruffly.
“Just the quick roll in the hay, let-me-show-you-how-we-communicate kind, right?” She felt her temper beginning to rise.
“I didn’t make any promises.”
“Good. Then you don’t have any to break, do you?”
He strode over to her and physically lifted her from her chair.