Yeah, she didn’t want to answer that either. Mainly because her body was like, “Yes, sign me up for an encore performance!” but her brain knew the best thing she could do was keep as much distance between her and Trace as possible.

He was the father to her son. A son he didn’t know about. She needed to stay far, far away before she slipped up and said something she shouldn’t. What if she said something and he pulled a stunt like the one her father had pulled?

She couldn’t bear the thought of Trace disappearing with her son. Not that he would likely even want anything to do with Joss, but, still, her own father had practically ignored her the first seven years of her life and that hadn’t stopped him.

Her gaze lifted to his and rather than saying, No, I don’t want a repeat, as a good, smart girl would do, she asked, “Why do you say that?”

His expression brightened. “Then you do want a repeat?”

Ugh. She’d walked right into that one.

She studied his toffee-colored gaze, his smooth tanned skin, the obvious sexual interest in his eyes. “You do?”

“What sane man wouldn’t want a repeat of what you and I had?”

There was that.

“Sex without strings?”

His gaze narrowed. “Not exactly how I’d have worded it.”

She didn’t let her gaze waver. “Which doesn’t make it any less true.”

His forehead furrowed and he did some studying of his own. She refused to look away, refused to shift her weight or show any sign of weakness.

Even if her insides quaked at the power this man had over her.

“Did you want strings, Chrissie?”

Heat rushed into her face. She was going to have to be careful of what she said. Which was why she needed to stay away. Nothing good could come from spending time with Trace.

“No, of course not.” She hadn’t. She’d known what they shared was just a man and a woman thrown together by circumstances and sexual attraction. “You told me you weren’t the marrying kind. I didn’t expect anything to come of our weekend together.” She sure hadn’t expected to become a mother. “No strings was fine.”

A tired look came over his face and he raked his fingers through his hair. “I was leaving the country in three days. I couldn’t have done strings if I’d wanted to.”

Something in his tone had her insides fluttering with a bundle of nervous energy.

“Did you want to?”

* * *

Good question, and one that Trace had asked himself a thousand times in the years that had passed since he’d last seen this woman. What would he have done differently had he not been committed?

“I didn’t allow myself to consider strings as a possibility.” Which was what he always came back to when his mind got to wondering. Not that he would ever have settled down, but he would have liked more time with Chrissie, to have been able to let the fire between them burn out naturally.

Her pretty face pinched and her gaze averted. “Which explains why you never asked for a phone number.”

Although he was sure she didn’t want them to, her words conveyed that she’d been hurt. That he’d hurt her stung.

“There was no point in my asking.”

“I see.” Her lower lip disappeared again.

“I don’t think you do.” He lifted her chin and stared into the greenest eyes he’d ever looked into. “I was leaving the country, had volunteered for a crazy assignment. Putting you or any woman through the stress of a relationship when I was over there, especially when nothing would ever have come from that relationship anyway—it wouldn’t have been fair.”

Her chin trembled beneath his fingertips and Trace wanted to kiss her so badly his insides ached. They were alone in the medical tent, but someone could walk in. Which didn’t overly concern him. He’d seen and done too much to let something as irrelevant as someone seeing him kiss Chrissie get to him. But Chrissie was still sending mixed signals.

One minute hot, the next cold.

When he kissed her next, he wanted her to want it as much as he did, not to be second-guessing herself.

He would kiss her again. Soon. She might not want to admit it, but she wanted the kiss as much as he did. Everything in her expression, her stance, her eyes, said so.

“Well, I guess you’re a damn saint, then, eh?”

There went the cold again. And the hurt.

“Far from it.”

Looking away, she shrugged. “Not to hear Agnes tell it.”

“Agnes is biased. She’s my godmother.”

Chrissie’s eyes widened. Obviously Agnes hadn’t told her that part.

“Her husband, Bud, and my father grew up in the same neighborhood and were best friends. Somehow, that friendship survived my father’s personality all these years.”

“Something wrong with your father’s personality?”

Ha, now there was a tricky question if ever there was one.

“Most people would say he’s near perfect.”

Her eyebrow arched. “But not you?”

Not a subject he wanted to discuss any more than he wanted to discuss Sudan or Yemen or Kerry. Maybe less so.

“So, about those Braves...”

He watched emotions play across her face, but she let any further questions she had go. How many times had he closed his eyes and recalled her face? How many times when the whole world seemed to have gone crazy had he closed his eyes and just remembered everything about her?

“Yeah, well, apparently you don’t recall, or maybe you never knew—” her chin tilted upward “—but I’m not a fan of baseball.”

Well, no one was perfect even if in his mind she was close.

“That’s un-American,” he teased.

She shrugged. “Overpaid bunch of men who never grew up as far as I’m concerned.”

His lips twitched. “I’ll have you know those guys work hard.”

She gave him an accusing look. “You sound as if you’re one of them. Former player or just a wannabe?”

He laughed and it felt good. Foreign, but good. He’d not had many reasons to laugh over the past four years. It hadn’t all been bad. Some parts had been wonderful. He’d been helping people who desperately needed help. But overall there hadn’t been nearly enough laughter.

For all the craziness, he’d felt as if he was doing something positive in the world, had felt alive and needed.

“Nope, never been much of a baseball player,” he admitted. “But I have a few friends on the team.”

“On the Atlanta Braves baseball team?” She sounded incredulous.

He nodded. His father handled more than one of the players’ finances, was a real-estate mogul, and prior to Trace leaving the country they’d moved in the same social circles. These days, all the parties and hoopla seemed pointless when there were people starving and being killed for their beliefs or place of birth.

Shaking off the memory, he focused on the petite blonde staring up at him and drank her in like a breath of fresh air.

Chrissie’s brows pinched. “Just who are you, anyway?”

Determined that he was going to keep the past four years at bay, not think about pending decisions that needed making about his future, Trace grinned. “That’s right. You forgot my name.”

For the first time, a smile toyed on her lips.

A guilty smile.

That she’d pretended not to remember him was as telling as her comment about his not asking for her phone number.

He stuck out his hand. “Hi. I’m Trace Stevens. I’m a volunteer in the medical tent. I’ll be working closely with you over the next couple of days.”

“Not that closely.”

It occurred to him that just because his life hadn’t moved forward, a lot could have changed in hers.

He’d just assumed she was single, available.

His gaze dropped to her left hand and specifically to her empty third finger.

“No wedding ring,” he mused out loud. “Boyfriend?”

“I’m not married.” Her lower lip disappeared between her teeth. “But I date from time to time.”

He let her answer digest, not liking the green sludge making its way through his veins. He had no claims on her. He never had. When he’d spotted her across the tent he hadn’t even considered that she might be involved with someone else. He’d just seen her and wanted her.