She glanced up at him, her face burning again. Did he feel obligated to marry her now?
He watched her intently, his expression injured.
"Why, Cindy? Didn't you think I had the right to know?"
She swallowed hard. "I was going to come out this weekend and talk to you. I knew you didn't want children."
His brows shot up. "And how did you determine that?"
"You said you didn't want any little brats tearing your house up."
He rolled his eyes "I wasn't talking about my children. I was talking about other people's children. Mine will be taught to mind."
She gnawed on her lower lip. "I didn't want you to think you had to marry me. You don't, you know. I can raise the baby..."
"Have to marry you?" He shook his head in disbelief. "I tried to ask you more than once, but someone was always interrupting and throwing a new kink in my plans. Remember when Claudette interrupted us in the kitchen? The moment was so perfect - and then she walked in and said that... ruined everything. I could have wrung her neck." He shook his head, obviously still distraught by the mere thought of it. "And you jumped right in and assured her things weren't as they appeared. All that wasn't bad enough, but she had to drag up that old rumor - and I thought you believed it."
She stared at him. "You were going to propose?"
He nodded. "Remember the picnic beside the pond? You know, when Mary put in her untimely appearance. Not that I was having much luck, anyway. Every time I found a way to lead into it, you came up with something else. Then when Mary arrived, you ran off. At the time I thought it was another diversionary tactic. Why did you do that?"
"I thought you were upset because Mary caught us together. I mean, you did visit her the night before, and I thought maybe you two were..."
"Mary and me?" He shook his head. "I stopped by to see her on my way to the store. I wanted to know what I could do to help you. You weren't giving me much information." He frowned. "So that's why you acted so cool for a while."
She folded her hands in her lap and stared at them. Until now she would have sworn that he was the one who never expressed his feelings. Obviously they were both guilty. Now was the time to clear the air, and there was one thing about all this that didn't make sense.
"If you were trying to ask me to marry you, why did you act that way after we..." It was still hard to accept what they had done. She wrung her hands. "Spent the night on the couch," she concluded in a mumble. "I thought you didn't respect me any more."