Redemption by Sharon Cullen Page B

table.
    “Not relevant?” Her voice rose. “Of course it’s relevant.”
    “How so?”
    She waved her hands in the air, all up in arms about something he couldn’t even begin to imagine. Why should it matter whether he was a cop?
    “It just is,” she finally said and he laughed. She appeared stunned, her mouth opening, then closing. “What’s so funny?”
    “You are.”
    She crossed her arms over her belly. “Why?”
    It felt good to laugh. To really let loose a laugh that came from deep inside. He didn’t even bother to wonder how long it’d been since he’d laughed this way. Too long. And the situation wasn’t really all that funny.
    “You can stop laughing now.” She tapped her bare toes on the rug. With her tousled hair, pink tingeing her cheeks and fire spitting from her eyes, she nearly knocked the breath right out of him. He did stop laughing, but only because he had this crazy urge to kiss her.
    He took a quick step back. He could barely touch her. No way could he kiss her. Yet the thought was there, growing from an urge to a longing to a craving. He turned and walked away. “I’m taking a shower,” he mumbled.

Chapter Six
    Hope fell onto the couch and ran her hands through her hair. So Callahan was a cop. She should have put the pieces together. The gun, the tough-guy image, the wariness. It all made sense now. Here she’d run straight to a cop. Had the dead man sent her here for that reason? How would a cop in Tennessee help her in Maryland? She rubbed her aching temples and closed her eyes.
    Outside, Bill Mercer’s Blazer plowed John’s driveway while inside John turned on the shower. Hope flopped back on the couch and stared at the ceiling, refusing to think of him in the shower. Naked.
    That was so wrong.
    She could be married. She was certainly going to be a mother. She shouldn’t think those things about a man she barely knew, even if a part of her felt like she’d known him all her life. And that wasn’t so odd, was it? Because she couldn’t remember her old life, just this new one. So really, she had known him all her life. All the life she could remember, at least.
    The water splashed and this time she didn’t fight the image of him standing under the spray, tilting his head back, long muscles in his back relaxing under the hot water. The sight of him laughing had nearly knocked her over. He had a deep, beautiful laugh.
    She put her hands to her hot cheeks. “Geez, Hope. You’re in trouble if you’re thinking of him like that.” No. No if about it. She was thinking of him like that, and that was bad news.
    He emerged from the bedroom, his wet hair a dark red. He hadn’t shaved and his whiskers were the same dark red, somewhere between mahogany and cinnamon. The man didn’t own a new pair of jeans. All of them were worn, loose at the waist, frayed at the pockets and hems. He wore a dark gray T-shirt under a navy flannel shirt left untucked and unbuttoned.
    “Shower’s free,” he said as he passed through the living room into the kitchen. She stood, but instead of going to the bathroom where it was probably still steamy from his shower and still smelled of his soap, she followed him.
    “You told the deputy we were going to Maryland.” She stopped in the doorway and watched him peer into the refrigerator.
    He grunted in response.
    “When were you going to tell me?” Part of her wanted to go. A major part. But there was a small part that wanted to stay here. That part felt like a little girl who liked to be safe in the place she knew instead of going into the big bad world where everything was alien.
    He moved to the cupboards, opening and closing doors. “It’s not some conspiracy.” He turned and paused, apparently seeing something in her face that softened his expression. “You didn’t think we’d stay here forever, did you?”
    Maybe she had. Or maybe she’d wished.
    “We need to find out who you are, Hope. I’m sure you have family looking for you.”
    “I