If she hadn’t been so upset, she might have laughed. His speech marked him as an educated man, which was disconcerting considering his tough-guy appearance. His eyes had dropped to her bulging stomach, and she had to resist the urge to look down and make certain the padding hadn’t shifted.

“You’d better go inside and call the state police,” he said. “There was a hitchhiker out here earlier. I wouldn’t be surprised if he got tired of waiting for someone to pick him up and decided to take advantage of that free transportation you were offering. I’ll stay around long enough to give them a description.”

She had no intention of calling the police. “That’s all right. You don’t have to wait.”

“I don’t mind.”

He seemed to be trying to place her face. She began to feel nervous. “I don’t want to hold you up. Thanks anyway.” She turned to leave.

“Stop right where you are.”

Chapter 5

5

WHERE HAD HE seen her? Mat studied the woman more closely as she looked warily back at him. There was something about her bearing that reminded him of royalty, but her thinness, along with that long, fragile neck, and hands that bore no sign of a wedding ring, spoke of hard times. Her arms and legs were almost comically slender in contrast to her heavy pregnancy, and there was a world-weary quality in her blue eyes that made him suspect she’d seen more of life than she wanted to.

Those bright blue eyes . . . they were so familiar. He knew he’d never met her, but he felt as if he had. Her reluctance to call the police piqued his journalist’s curiosity. “You’re not going to report the theft, are you?”

He watched a small pulse pound on the side of her neck, but she remained cool. “Why do you say that?”

She had something to hide, and he had a good idea what it might be. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you can’t report it because the car didn’t belong to you.”

Wariness flickered in her eyes, but not fear. The lady was down on her luck, but she still had a backbone. “None of this is your concern.”

He was definitely on to something, and he took a wild stab. “You’re afraid that if you call the police, they’ll figure out that you stole the car from your boyfriend.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you think I have a boyfriend?”

He glanced down at her bulging abdomen. “I’m guessing it wasn’t a girlfriend who did that to you.”

She looked at her stomach as if she’d forgotten it was there. “Oh.”