She was familiar with the various and often complex rationalizations the mind devised, rationalizations that let you do what you wanted when you knew you shouldn’t. Focusing on the one reason it was all right to proceed while ignoring the four reasons it wasn’t.

Such rationalizations had caught her once—and trapped her.

She wasn’t going to be caught again.

Not by the mind’s devices. Not by her own devices. And not by being vulnerable to the whims of the male ego.

She’d finally gotten beyond the pain of her divorce. Faced reality. Left useless dreams behind. She’d moved to Shelter Valley and found happiness. She loved the town, her work, helping others. She loved the way people in Shelter Valley made her feel. She finally had a life full of true friends and the things that really mattered.

And she had a baby on the way. She couldn’t afford to threaten all of that by doing something foolish—like getting involved with a man who had no place in her new life.

MATT HAD NO IDEA how he and Phyllis had ended up sitting on her front step as the afternoon waned. He’d walked her to her door after their trip, she’d asked a question about the presentation he’d helped her with earlier that semester—said she was hoping to have a video made of it for some of her peers who’d attended the symposium. One comment led to another and suddenly, almost an hour later, he became aware of himself sitting there, having a real give-and-take adult conversation for the first time in years.

They still hadn’t broached the reason he’d called this meeting. And he wasn’t sure how, exactly, he should bring up the subject.

“What about dating?” he suddenly blurted as her questions about lighting-design techniques finally dwindled.

“No!” she exclaimed, her shoulders straightening, bringing her breasts into relief against the black velour covering them. “We already agreed there’ll be no involvement between us,” she added with a little less agitation.

Matt could almost feel the effort it took her to appear unaffected. So the good doctor had secrets, too.

“I meant you dating,” he said slowly, wondering just what those secrets might be. “Not us.”

“Oh.” She paused, her shoulders relaxing as she wrapped her arms around her knees. “Well, not that it’s any business of yours, but I don’t.”

“Don’t date?” If he wasn’t so detached, he might’ve been shocked. “Ever?”

“Nope.”

“Why the hell not?”

She pierced him with a look he’d have been hard-pressed not to challenge in another life. “This may come as a surprise to you, but not every woman needs a man in her life to be happy.” Her eyes dared him to argue with her.

“No, I guess lesbians don’t.”

“I’m not a lesbian.”

“I’m fully aware of that.”

She blushed. Looked away.

Matt bit back a grin.

And then quickly sobered as he remembered he wasn’t there to enjoy himself.

“It occurred to me yesterday that this…situation we’ve created makes any relationship you are…or hope to be involved in…difficult. Romantically speaking.”

Smooth, Sheffield. Spit that one right out.

“No problem there.”

“Oh.” Matt nodded, waiting for the relief he was going to be feeling any second. “Good.”

What the hell did that mean—No problem there? That she was in a relationship—one that had moved beyond dating—and the man was willing to take on Matt’s baby? Or that she’d really been speaking of herself and not just hypothetically when she’d said a woman didn’t need a man in her life to be happy?

A family, all wearing helmets and gloves with their sweatshirts and jeans, rode by on bikes, two adult-size and two child-size, one with training wheels. Matt and Phyllis watched silently. He wondered if things were as perfect inside that family’s house as they appeared on the outside.

“So, you really doing okay?” he asked Phyllis as the family rode slowly around the corner and out of sight.

“I really am.”

“You’re sure?”

She turned to look at him, her soft green eyes filled with question. “I’m sure,” she told him. “Why do you find that so hard to believe?”

Matt shrugged, gazing out at the street. With his forearms resting on his knees, his black leather jacket open, allowing the evening chill to penetrate the thin cotton of his button-down shirt, he contemplated the wisdom of answering her question.

“I guess because I’m having a little trouble with things myself,” he finally said.

A quick sideways glance showed him her frown. Matt focused on the white minivan driving past. A thirty-something short-haired man was driving, a blond woman in the passenger seat. A not-too-tiny hand was plastered to one of the back windows facing them. He’d seen at least one car seat, as well. A family going out to dinner after work?

Or maybe to some kind of ball game? Had that hand in the back belonged to a boy? Was he an aspiring athlete? And if so, did he have any real talent, or were the next few years going to be a real struggle for him?

“What kind of problems are you having?” Phyllis’s question, which sounded almost reluctant, reminded Matt that he wasn’t sitting there alone. And shouldn’t, for the moment, be living vicariously.

“I wouldn’t call them problems,” he was quick to assure her. Nothing so complicated as a problem. “But I’m not an irresponsible man.”

“I never thought you were.”

He was glad to hear that. Not that it should matter.

“So, the fact that I’ve fathered a child and am doing absolutely nothing to take responsibility for it isn’t going down right with me.”

“But I’m not letting you do anything.”

“I know.”

“So the choice is out of your hands.”

He pinned her with a hard stare. “Is it?”

Rocking back and forth, her feet leaving the step, then gently touching again, Phyllis nodded. “Of course it is. It’s not as if there’s anything for you to do. Any role to play. We hardly know each other.”

“I’m the baby’s father.”

“He doesn’t know that.”

His stomach dropped. “It’s a boy?”

“I don’t know.” She glanced at him and then away. “That was a generic ‘he.”’

“Oh.” Good. For a second there, thinking the baby actually had a sex had made it all seem so much more real. So much more threatening.

He knew that made no sense. Of course the baby had a sex. Whether or not its unprepared parents knew what it was.

“The point is,” Phyllis said, still hugging her knees, still rocking slightly, “your involvement here is only biological. In the big picture, that doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Relief flooded through Matt, almost bringing forth the grin he’d suppressed earlier. Almost, but not quite. A strange, inexplicable sadness got in the way.

“I can’t just turn my back on this.”

“You have no choice.” She started to rock harder.

“There are always choices.” Some much harder to face than others.

“We agreed I’d do this on my own.” Her voice had a definite edge to it.

“I know.”

“But you’re reneging on that?”

“No.” He thought about the past weeks, wondered how he could possibly explain them to her. To himself. Wondered why he even wanted to try.

“So you’re going to let me do this alone, but you’d like to be a father to the baby?” She’d lost some of her edge but was still hugging herself tightly. He thought she might be cold, in spite of the thick velour sweater she was wearing.

The air was definitely cooler now that the sun was losing its intensity.

It really wouldn’t be good for her to catch a chill.

“I can’t be a father.”

He hadn’t meant the words to come out like that. Wasn’t sure he’d meant them to come out at all. Somehow, over the years of observing rather than living, he’d forgotten how to communicate.

“What do you mean, can’t?” she challenged. “Don’t you mean won’t? That you don’t want to?”