“I know enough. I’d even hazard a guess that you’re a blue blood. Episcopalian, I’ll bet.”

“Presbyterian.”

“Same thing. You’re obviously intelligent and well educated, even if you don’t have a lot of street smarts.”

That annoyed her. “Lots of people have their cars stolen. And my mammy and pappy sure would love hearing me described as a blue blood.”

“Did you know that the corner of your mouth scrunches up when you tell a lie?”

She deliberately tightened the corner of her mouth. “You’re a kind and sensitive human being.”

He laughed. “All right. I’ll back off. But remember, you’ve only got a ride for as long as you keep the girls out of my hair, and you did a lousy job of it today.”

Blackmail could work two ways. “You’d better be nice to me, or I’ll leave you on your own. Just you, Lucy, and little baby Butt. Isn’t it cute the way she says da da?” With what she very much hoped was a saucy smile, she picked up her steps and left him behind.

Saucy. It was so un-Cornelia-like. She loved it.

He smiled as she walked away. The lady had attitude, he’d give her that. From the rear, it was impossible to tell that she was pregnant. He didn’t want her pregnant, he realized. He wanted her in sexy lingerie.

It wasn’t often he shocked himself, but this time he’d managed it. His smile faded. Pregnant women represented everything he didn’t want in his life, yet he’d just mentally undressed one. The idea made him shudder.

His relationship with the female sex had always been complex. Growing up surrounded by so many women had made him crave the masculine. He loved smelly locker rooms, rough contact, and no-holds-barred political debates. He enjoyed gruff voices and a little blood at hockey games. He liked shampoo that only had shampoo in it—no flowers, vegetables, or fruit salad. He loved having a bathroom to himself. No pink barrettes on the basin, no underwire bras hanging from the shower head. A cupboard beneath the sink that held shaving cream instead of boxes of mini pads, maxi pads, tampons of every size and shape, products for light days, heavy days, bad hair days, and I’m-too-fat days. He was a guy! He wanted to be surrounded by guy things. Unfortunately, the best guy thing of all was having sex with a great woman.

It was a dilemma he’d solved in the only way he knew how, by being up-front. He let women know at the beginning that he’d served his time as a family man, and he didn’t ever intend to do it again. Then he laid out the rules—great sex, mutual respect, lots of personal space, and no permanent commitments.