“What about us, Rachel?”

“Us?”

“Yes, us.” Lucas chuckled softly as he extended his hand toward her, seeking her hair. He could smell her—vanilla. Vanilla and spice and something else, something Rachel. Her own scent.

I want her.

One hand was in her hair then, tipping her face toward him. He bent lower, so that his lips brushed her cheek. “You smell so good, Rachel, you feel so right….” And she did. Absolutely perfect. His arms stole around her, pulling her against him, leaving no room for doubt. She fit him. Perfectly.

“Damn you, Lucas! I told you no!”

“Rachel, it’s okay. This is us, sweetheart.”

She wrenched herself away from him. “No, Lucas! It’s not okay. Maybe it never will be.” Her arms were wrapped around herself, sobs wracking her body.

That was the truth she could not hide from.

Dear Reader,

This year may be winding down, but the excitement’s as high as ever here at Silhouette Intimate Moments. National bestselling author Merline Lovelace starts the month off with a bang with A Question of Intent, the first of a wonderful new miniseries called TO PROTECT AND DEFEND. Look for the next book, Full Throttle, in Silhouette Desire in January 2004.

Because you’ve told us you like miniseries, we’ve got three more for you this month. Marie Ferrarella continues her family-based CAVANAUGH JUSTICE miniseries with Crime and Passion. Then we have two military options: Strategic Engagement features another of Catherine Mann’s WINGMEN WARRIORS, while Ingrid Weaver shows she can Aim for the Heart with her newest EAGLE SQUADRON tale. We’ve got a couple of superb stand-alone novels for you, too: Midnight Run, in which a wrongly accused cop has only one option—the heroine!—to save his freedom, by reader favorite Linda Castillo, and Laura Gale’s deeply moving debut, The Tie That Binds, about a reunited couple’s fight to save their daughter’s life.

Enjoy them all—and we’ll see you again next month, for six more of the best and most exciting romances around.

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Editor

The Tie That Binds
Laura Gale

LAURA GALE

is an Arizonan, born and bred, always interested in language, reading and writing. Moving to Australia allowed her to try something different careerwise, and the fiction writer that had been concealed behind her academic facade finally emerged. After moving to Australia, Laura discovered that—for the first time in her life—she had time to try her hand at writing a book, something she’d always claimed she would do…if she had the time. Having picked up her first Harlequin novel when she was twelve, romance was the obvious place to start. In 2001, her first effort at a romance novel won the Emma Darcy Award, and suddenly it seemed that writing might become more than a hobby. The EDA brought her to the attention of Silhouette editors, and The Tie That Binds is that first novel.

Laura believes in romance in real life. She has every reason to: she has been married to her high school sweetheart for over twenty years. Together they have embarked on a variety of adventures, including raising four sons. Moving to a new country is nothing compared to that!

This book is dedicated first to my mother, who was able to read an early version of the manuscript, but whose battle ended before she could see it published. It is she who taught me to color outside the lines, and to revel in the joy to be found there. She knew this was possible.

Also, to my dad,

who taught me the value of the word Why.

To my sisters, Rebecca, Melissa and especially Amy, who has hit the ground running as my PR rep.

To all the other readers (Geri!) who helped me believe that I had written a book. To Monica, for the Spanish— any mistakes were made by me.

And, of course, to Bill who supports me and believes in me, who knows how to cast me in my best light. And, finally, to our boys, who accept what Mom is doing as if every mother does this sort of thing. I love you all!

Author’s Note

Our family came to know about the miracle of bone marrow transplants via City of Hope, in Phoenix. I can’t adequately express our gratitude for their work. Any errors in describing the treatment are entirely mine.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Epilogue

Chapter 1

Armor. Armor is good, Rachel Neuman decided, as she stepped into the elevator at the main office of Neuman Industries. Even if it was of the tomato-red, short-skirt, long-jacket variety of armor. It had a certain protective allure to it.

They don’t call it a power suit for nothing, she reflected.

Today, she needed all the support she could get, from all possible sources. Including her clothes. She meant business and she needed to look like she meant business.

If not, she wouldn’t have come anywhere near Lucas’s office, a place she’d avoided for the past five years.

Y todos vivieron muy felices. Rachel would do what she could to see that it came to pass that way, that everyone would live happily ever after.

I will do what I must, mija, she vowed silently. Indeed, she would.

Why would she come here now? What the hell can she possibly want?

Lucas Neuman passed a hand over his face, his initial grimace chased away by a cynical smile. He slammed shut his laptop, shoving it away, drumming agitated fingers on the shiny oak desk.

What reason could she possibly have for seeing me five years after she walked out?

Reaching toward the telephone on his desk, Lucas stabbed the button that would call his secretary. “Jennifer,” he said, “what can you tell me about the ten-thirty appointment you’ve penciled in this morning? I know it wasn’t there yesterday.”

“Yes, that’s right, Mr. Neuman. She called fairly late, when you were out of the office.”

“And?” he prompted, attempting to suppress his mounting irritation—or at least keep it out of his voice. He didn’t have a lot of patience these days, but he didn’t need to shoot the messenger. In this case Jennifer. “Any idea what it’s about?”

“Well, not exactly,” Jennifer responded, sounding uncommonly flustered. “She was…well, she was evasive when I asked.” Lucas heard her take a deep breath before rushing on. “Actually, Mr. Neuman, she said she was your wife,” her disbelief conveyed itself in her voice, “and that it was family business. I didn’t…well, you know, I didn’t push her after that. Do you want me to call and cancel, or do you want me to bring in security, not let her come in?”

“No, no, that isn’t necessary,” Lucas reassured her. “I’m sure it doesn’t merit that. I was just curious.” Nonchalant would be a good way to sound, even though curious was an understatement. “Thanks, Jennifer.”

Lucas listened for the click that would signal the disconnection from Jennifer’s phone and leaned back in his chair, alone with his thoughts. So Rachel is coming here today. God, I hope she isn’t going to be difficult. I hope she doesn’t make a scene.

Reaching toward the humidor on his desk, Lucas selected and lit a cigar, watching as the smoke drifted toward the ceiling.

“Now there’s something Rachel wouldn’t appreciate,” he murmured, thinking of cigars and Rachel’s utter revulsion at the act of smoking. She hadn’t been a health nut herself, not exactly. He shook his head, shaking off the memory.

Rachel had been to his office only once before. That day, five years ago. The day she’d brought him an agreement to separate. He’d been shocked, he recalled. Unable to comprehend what was happening.

Rachel had walked out on him. Quite decently, quite civilly, but she’d walked out nevertheless. He’d have been perfectly content to let things go on as they were.

He had loved her so much then. So completely. But he’d grown up. He no longer believed in love, not like that, not ever again.

He leaned back in his chair again, watching the smoke float to the ceiling, still pondering.

And then it hit him. Knocked the wind right out of him. It was so obvious.

Maybe she finally wants a divorce.

Stepping off the elevator at the seventh floor, Rachel approached the reception desk and introduced herself. Upon the icy instructions from the woman seated at that desk, she found a place to wait. Until her appointment.

Rachel couldn’t help thinking that the woman’s demeanor complemented the decor perfectly.

Neuman Industries—where Lucas was employed and where she was sitting—had been the family business since the 1930s, when Lucas’s great-grandfather had started the company as nothing more than a provider of cement during the WPA projects of the Depression era. His son, Lucas’s grandfather, had expanded the business to encompass large development projects: apartment complexes, office buildings, shopping centers. With Arnold Neuman leading the company, Neuman Industries now designed such projects, as well as constructing them. Lucas himself had been not-so-subtly encouraged to join the company, heavily encouraged to obtain his M.B.A. Lucas had thrown himself into the business with gusto.

As far as Rachel knew, he still did. That would be his style.

“Ma’am,” the overly bleached-blond receptionist intoned in Rachel’s direction, “Mr. Neuman is ready to see you now.”

“Thank you,” Rachel responded, rising from the couch, marveling at how clearly the receptionist had conveyed her contempt for Rachel without ever saying anything precisely negative. The receptionist had made an effort to avoid calling her Mrs. Neuman. Or even Ms. Neuman. Furthermore, she was refusing to escort Rachel to Lucas’s office.

Rachel approached Lucas’s closed office door, rapping on it smartly and entering the room without awaiting a specific invitation. She saw Lucas at his desk, sitting on the other side of a haze of cigar smoke. He leaped to his feet, apparently not prepared for her entrance, the receptionist’s statement notwithstanding.

Lucas felt as if he’d been punched. Air simply wasn’t moving in and out of his lungs the way it should have been. Mechanically he touched the cigar to his lips one last time before blindly plopping it into his ashtray. He stood, knowing he was surely gawking like a teenager. And not very happy about it.

God, she is beautiful. The words seemed to ring inside his head.

He stared at her, knowing he was staring, unable to stop. It felt good to see her, which Lucas didn’t consider to be a good thing at all. He shouldn’t respond to her in a positive way. Still—seeing her, having her there in front of him—it stunned him. It had been so long. He had stopped thinking about her…and about the lack of her. Now, though, Lucas found himself stuck on the thought. She’s beautiful, simply beautiful.

Of course, Rachel had always been lovely—not that she’d ever seemed aware of it. But she’d grown up in the past five years, too, so that the woman before him now was exactly the culmination of the potential she’d shown before. She still wore her rich, dark hair long, the mahogany highlights glinting even in the artificial light of Lucas’s office. Her amber eyes still shimmered, still seemed to look into his soul. Her skin still glowed apricot. Her mouth, always rose-petal soft and tipped up at the corners as if just ready to smile—none of it had changed.

And yet all of it was different. She seemed pale beneath the apricot; gray smudges vaguely visible below her eyes. Those eyes brimmed with shadows Lucas had never seen before, her mouth held tension in the corners along with the ready smile. Despite her very evident curves, she seemed thinner than he might have expected. She seemed tired—weary, even.

Something isn’t right, he realized suddenly, startled that he could detect such signals from Rachel after all this time. He wasn’t especially glad to know he was in tune with her that way. He needed to maintain some distance, even some animosity, he thought, if he was going to leave her with the desired image of himself—that of a man in control, self-assured, unshaken by the arrival of his estranged wife. Even though that image was the complete opposite of how he felt. Still, he was skilled at presenting a front that hid his feelings.

He did it in business all the time, when necessary. Like now.

“Hello, Lucas.” Rachel smiled tentatively, sitting down on the couch without reaching to shake his hand. “A bit smoggy in here,” she commented, eyeing the cigar smoke hovering over their heads, momentarily desperate for small talk.

Lucas continued to stare, annoyance at his inability to control the situation—and his reaction to Rachel’s presence—threatening to dwarf whatever other emotions he felt.

“Never mind, Lucas,” she said, rattled by the glare he directed her way, seeking to defuse his reaction to her observation. Attempting to ignore also the erratic beat of her heart. “I’m just surprised to see you smoking.” She followed him with her eyes as he returned to his chair, somewhat relieved that he had broken his unblinking perusal of her, knowing it didn’t mean his mood was improved. “But then—” She shrugged, affecting a calm she did not feel. After all, she had well-developed internal armor by now. “—I suppose it suits your playboy executive image.”

“Is that what you think I am?” he fairly snarled, having decided to go on the offensive, given that he had blundered his way through her arrival. He knew a brusque attack could set the enemy back, and he was thinking of Rachel as the enemy at this point. Aggression would be his weapon of choice in this case. He certainly had no intention of trying to charm Rachel. This was not the time to question his reasoning, either.

“Actually,” Rachel was answering him, “it’s not something I think about. But I imagine you might see yourself that way. More or less.”

They stared at each other for a few minutes. “Do you want anything to drink?” he inquired grudgingly, professional good manners instinctively forming the words. Maybe there was comfort in small talk.

“Just some water, please. I won’t be here all that long.”

Lucas stabbed a button on his phone. “Jennifer, please bring a glass of ice water and some coffee.” He leaned back in his chair, his eyes narrowing as he zeroed in on Rachel again. He needed to shake her composure the way she had shaken his. “Why are you here? Jennifer told me you claimed family business.” He folded his arms across his chest, affecting a bored yet confrontational stance. “Does that mean you’re ready for a divorce?”

She started slightly. “I hadn’t even thought of that, Lucas,” she answered, her eyes momentarily wide with surprise. “We could do that now, I suppose. But I’m actually here because…well, it really is family business. I’m hoping we can…put aside our differences and do what needs to be done.”

She broke off as a knock came at the door. Jennifer entered, pushing a cart holding a coffeepot, a mug and assorted condiments, as well as a pitcher of water and a glass of ice. She wheeled the cart to the side of Lucas’s desk, where she made a great show of pouring a cup of coffee, adding one teaspoon of sugar and handing it to Lucas—demonstrating for Rachel’s benefit her thorough knowledge of Lucas’s preferences. At least where coffee was concerned. Rachel wondered briefly if this woman knew Lucas’s preferences in other ways, too, then forced herself to ignore the question.

Meanwhile, the woman pushed the cart closer to Rachel and left the room with a flourish.

Rachel suppressed a smile, privately noting the receptionist’s continuing silent protest at Rachel’s presence. Rachel knew Lucas would never understand if she tried to explain what had occurred. He had always been oblivious to certain things. Jennifer’s performance had been utterly wasted on him. Silently Rachel poured herself a glass of water and settled back into the couch, openly examining the man who was still her husband.

So there he is, she thought, looking incredibly like Pierce Brosnan at his James Bond best. Only better. Unfortunately.

Seeing him warmed her, she acknowledged, although that, too, was unfortunate. She’d wanted to be immune to him in every way. She needed to be immune. She just needed his help. She didn’t need him. There was a difference.

Still, she could hardly avoid noticing that Lucas was now a full-grown, highly potent man, no longer the boy teetering on manhood he’d been when they had married. That fact was having an impact on her heartbeat, she knew. But there he was. He stood over six feet tall and was still lean and fit, despite having filled out some in the years since she’d seen him. Little lines had etched themselves around his eyes, lines that might be laugh lines or something else. He certainly wasn’t smiling now, so Rachel couldn’t draw any conclusions on that score. He still wore his black hair short, undoubtedly still disgusted at its tendency to curl if allowed to have any length. She didn’t detect any gray in its blackness.

His charcoal-gray eyes were the eyes she remembered—she saw those eyes every day. Dark and yet clear, having always reminded Rachel of Apache Tears, the clear black gemstone found throughout Arizona. She’d always been able to see what he was feeling in those clear gray eyes. But not anymore.

Everything about him was so familiar to her, yet she was not comfortable with this man. She couldn’t be sure she knew him at all. Five years changed a person. They had certainly changed her.

Lucas watched her link her hands around her glass of water. He took in the details: short, well-maintained fingernails—maybe some kind of clear polish. Competent hands, he thought, nothing frivolous there. No rings. Not even the ones he’d given her all those years ago. That change bothered him. He couldn’t—or wouldn’t—consider why.

“So,” he began, trying to steer the conversation back where he thought it was supposed to be heading, attempting to draw in a deep breath, “you were about to mention family business of some kind.”

She sighed and looked away, lending credence to his suspicion that something was wrong. She took another sip from her glass before setting it down.

“Yes, Lucas,” she began. “Well, there’s no easy way to say this, so I guess I’ll just…say it.” She shrugged again, completely unaware of the habit.

“That’s a good way to start,” he responded.

Looking him square in the face, she stated, “I need your help, Lucas.”

“My help?” His eyebrows shot up. “You need money?”

“No, Lucas,” she answered patiently, as if catering to a child’s limited attention span. “I’m not interested in your money. I’ve never asked you for money, and I’m certainly not about to start now. What I need is more…personal, I guess.” She paused, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. Taking a deep breath, she rushed on.

“We have a daughter, Lucas. She’s four. She’ll be five in December. She’s ill. She has leukemia. She needs a bone marrow transplant.” She paused in what was clearly a prepared, carefully rehearsed speech, a speech she was nevertheless having difficulty delivering. “The chemotherapy has done what it can. She can’t really do that anymore. And while bone marrow transplants used to be a ‘last resort’ thing, they’re a lot more common now, especially once a patient has gone into remission. They’re effective with children and used fairly often with the kind of leukemia she has. But—” she swallowed “—a compatible donor must be identified. Usually, the best matches are blood relatives. I’m not that match. No one in my family is. We’ve even done a donor drive at the hospital, and while it did a lot to improve the donor registry we have in this state, especially among Hispanics, it didn’t identify a compatible donor for her. That means we need to explore other options.”

She started to run her hand through her hair, then resorted to patting it when she remembered she had it clipped into a ponytail. “There are options, alternative means for obtaining bone marrow—but we need to exhaust the obvious routes before we turn to less traditional means. Those ways…would not be the first choice left to us at this point.” She took a deep breath. “Siblings are usually the most likely source, but with no siblings…” She shrugged again, letting that serve as an answer. “The best choice now is to test you, Lucas. As her father, as a blood relative, it’s logical that you may be the match she needs. I know she has your blood type, not that that guarantees anything. So,” she drew out the word, heard the quaver in her voice, “I’m hoping you’ll agree to be a donor for her. Or, more precisely, I’m asking you to be typed so we can see if you’re a suitable match for her.”

Lucas sat transfixed in his chair, too overwhelmed to move.

So here it is, he thought vaguely, Rachel’s second visit to my office and I’m having my second out-of-body experience.

Chapter 2

“What the hell are you talking about? Have you lost your mind? Do you think I’m stupid?”

Rachel paled at Lucas’s tone and, no doubt, at his volume, but gave no other outward sign of her trembling nerves. “What part are you having trouble with?”

“The part where you claim I have a daughter! That we have a daughter!” He laughed without humor. “And everything else that comes after that!”

Lucas stood, his agitation so deep he simply could not hold still. He began pacing behind his desk. “I don’t believe any of this, do you understand? If you want money for some reason, fine. Admit it. We’ll talk about it. I’m not sure I’d contribute to the upkeep of some kid that can’t possibly be mine—if you actually have a kid of your own, if you’ve been that irresponsible—but trying to convince me that the child would be mine? If that’s what you’re trying to do here, Rachel, you might as well leave now. I don’t have time for lies.” He quit pacing and whirled to face her. “Are you listening? Forget it! Don’t expect me to buy a story like that! Do you hear me?”

He was yelling and he knew it, but he was powerless to stop. It occurred to him that if a scene was erupting, he was to blame. But what other reaction could he have to Rachel’s ridiculous claim?

“Of course I hear you, Lucas,” she responded quietly, with dignity, although she was shaken. She’d be damned if she’d let it show.

“Where should I start?” Mentally enumerating, she began quietly, unruffled only on the outside. She had to make him understand—it was too important. “Okay, Lucas, I repeat: I do not want your money. I want your bone marrow. Or, rather, Michaela does.”

“Mee-kay-la?” he sneered.

“Yes, Michaela. I named her after my parents—Michaela Juanita. Papá, of course, is Michael and Mamá’s middle name is Juanita, as is mine.” She sounded tired but proud. “She’s beautiful, too. Smart. Sweet. La niñita más linda del mundo.” Rachel gave a start, alarmed that she had accidentally said aloud her private motto that her daughter was the most beautiful little girl in the world. “Anyway,” she rushed on, “she is indeed your child—”

“Oh, give it a rest, Rachel! She can’t be mine and we both know it! Our sex life was practically nonexistent when you decided to walk out.”

“Practically nonexistent, yes. But not entirely.” She refused to rise to the bait. This was not the time to argue over who had done the abandoning. “Think about it, Lucas. We weren’t celibate with each other, even at the lowest point in our marriage. Our sex life was irregular, yes. Inconsistent, yes. But not nonexistent. And before you start suggesting I was sleeping around, let’s just recall which one of us sought external…companionship. That was you and you know it.” She clamped her lips together, regretting her outburst. Bringing all that into it would not help her cause.

“Maybe you just hid it better than I did.”

Her eyes shot daggers at him, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she just opened her briefcase and pulled out an envelope. “Didn’t you ever wonder why I wanted a one-year separation before we talked divorce?”

“That’s a good question. Since you started the whole legal thing, why didn’t you finish it? Why didn’t you file for divorce?”

“Why didn’t you?” she snapped, her breathing rapid. “Oh, yeah, I forgot, Lucas.” She mockingly tapped her forehead. “You didn’t need to. Everything suited you just fine the way it was. You had a wife if you needed her, and other more interesting playmates for the rest of the time.”

Dios mio, but I hate to lose control. Rachel took a deep breath, willing some calm to enter her spirit. “I did what I had to do to deal with the situation. So I went to the trouble of making it legal. I think I never filed for divorce because once we were separated, as far as I was concerned, we were divorced. It was over. Our lives were completely separate from that day on. Anyway—” she paused, trying to stick to the matter at hand “—Lucas, back to the question. Given that our marriage was finished in the day-to-day way, why do you suppose I wanted it to officially, legally continue for another year?”

“Maybe so you could foist some other man’s child off on me,” he suggested coldly. “Get me to pay for the kid’s up-bringing. Maybe you already knew you were pregnant, knew that you had to cover yourself somehow. Maybe you thought your other man would claim you and then he backed out. How would I know what happened? I sure wouldn’t have bought this story then, if you’d brought it to me. Just like I’m not buying it now.”

At least he wasn’t yelling anymore.

“Fine, Lucas, we’ll play it your way. I wanted some other man’s child to have your name. Of course I did. How clever of you to figure it out.”

Her voice fairly dripped with sarcasm. Lucas squirmed in spite of himself.

“Is that how it’s done in the world you live in? Do people you know do such things? If so, you need to find some new friends, Lucas.” She tapped the envelope on her lap. “Now give my question a little thought. Why do you suppose I wanted an official year of separation?”

Lucas considered the question again, thankful he could continue in the icy vein. “Well, at first I couldn’t believe you were serious about leaving, let alone that you were thinking about doing anything legal about it. I couldn’t believe you’d gone to a lawyer. I was amazed and maybe even amused by what you were doing. Later—” he cocked his eyebrow “—later, I just figured you thought I’d come back to you—you know, that I’d come to my senses eventually—and that you thought a separation would be easier to undo than a divorce.”

He’d never thought any such thing, but he was still on the attack and the words emerged all by themselves. They sounded good to him—and they kept rolling. “Nowadays, Rachel, from my perspective, it’s convenient to be married. I mean, I’m not at risk around other women since I already have a marriage in place. I’m not the type for bigamy.”

“Apparently, you weren’t the type for monogamy, either, Lucas,” she responded sourly, her eyes flashing.

Ouch, Lucas thought, mentally cataloguing Rachel’s first flares of anger over the whole business. He would have expected anger before this, had always wondered at her composure. Maybe she has claws after all.

“So,” Rachel said, “to return to the topic, how long before you realized that I intended to go on living without you?” Her sarcasm was back.

“Several months, I guess.”

“Did I really seem that pathetic to you? That I would cling to you that way?” The words were ripped from her. “You thought I’d take you on any terms you dished out?” She eyed him incredulously, stunned to the core.

“Okay.” She started afresh, one deep breath later. “For the record, I asked for the separation because I wanted our child to be born legitimately. I didn’t want there to be any question about it—”

“I’d say there are all kinds of questions about it, Rachel.”

“Not if you agree to be tested. If you’re a match…well, it’s unusual for nonblood related individuals to match. Of course it happens, or there’d be no need for a donor registry. But I’m sure we can dig up the statistics on the likelihood, something that would at least partially satisfy you. Secondly, if you agree to be tested, you can request a DNA-based test. DNA work is what you’d really be interested in, right?” He nodded, and she continued. “Well, as I said, you can pursue that.”

Looking down in her lap, she commented, “I brought some things for you, Lucas.”

She began sorting the enclosures she’d dumped out of the envelope. “She is your daughter. Legally she is yours. We were still married at her birth. I named you on her birth certificate.” She placed a page on his desk in front of him. “Check the dates, Lucas. We were still together when she was conceived.” Watching him carefully, she plopped a stack of papers on his desk. “There are a lot of medical test results. Dios mio, but she’s had enough of them. But what I told you before, that she has your blood type, not mine and not a combination, is here on this report.” He opened his mouth, but she waved him off. “Sure, I could have run blood type IDs on potential lovers, choosing one who shared B-negative with you, then managed to get pregnant by him exactly during the dying moments of our marriage. But I didn’t.”

Handing him something else, she said, “Of course, there’s also the fact that she looks like you. Her eyes are just the same as yours. Her hair—it’s not only the same color as yours, it even curls the way yours does. Mine is completely straight….” She paused, waving the photo in the air, emphasizing her point. “Her bone structure, her nose and mouth, that’s more like me. That’s her on her fourth birthday,” she was pointing at the snapshot she’d placed before Lucas. “She was diagnosed several weeks after that. She’d had symptoms for a while and I was just starting to face things. But that day, she was feeling good.”

She smiled briefly, remembering, then sat back in her seat to wait. She knew Michaela was a lovely little girl. She had definitely inherited her father’s black hair, not her mother’s brown. She also shared his smoky-gray eyes, eyes that were nearly black at times yet had a translucent quality that Rachel had never seen on anyone else. Rachel knew that Lucas would not be able to block out the obvious resemblance.

Michaela was a spunky, active little girl. She was curious and direct. She was quick to smile and laugh. Or at least, she had been, before her illness had begun to wear her down. Yes, in Rachel’s view, she was the most beautiful little girl in the world, but it wasn’t just her physical appearance that made her that way.

Lucas knew the color had drained from his face, felt his breathing halt. He recognized himself in the child. How could he not see it? Still, he couldn’t accept it, couldn’t believe that he’d been a father for over four years and hadn’t had a clue. He felt humbled, although he wasn’t capable of identifying the emotion at the time. “You said we can check DNA?”

“One of the tests used for donor type is based on DNA, so yes, you’ll be able to obtain significant information that way. I’m not sure on the details. You’ll need to talk to the doctors about it.”

A brief silence ensued.

“If I don’t do this, what happens to her?”

Rachel took a shuddering breath and her gaze dropped to her lap. Her voice came in a whisper. “Well, you are not absolutely the last resort for a donor. There are some other techniques. I don’t think she can take much more chemo—”

“But you already said that wasn’t working.”

“Well—” she took a deep breath “—it did what it could. Technically, she’s in remission, but it took longer to get her there than we expected. She’s weak. She needs continuing therapy to keep her well. In her case, the bone marrow transplant is the best—”

“People die of leukemia,” Lucas stated flatly.

“Yes,” Rachel whispered. “They do. Technically, it’s a kind of cancer.”

Lucas released a long breath, contemplating the cigar resting in its ashtray, deciding not to pick it up. There was a chance his hands were too shaky to manage the task.

“We might still have some success through the donor registry, too. It happens. But if you don’t do it… She needs this, Lucas. Frankly, her long-term chances aren’t very good. They never are. Without this kind of care, it will come back. Or spread.”

“But this treatment can cure it?”

“Well…” she hesitated “…they’re always cautious about throwing around the word cure. But, yes, this treatment is a ical step in helping patients maintain remission and live life leukemia free.” Finally she looked up at Lucas again, her golden eyes dark and shadowy. Whatever emotions caused those shadows were off-limits to him and he knew it. That was as it should be. Right?

It hit him then that he didn’t know what those emotions might be. Not anymore. How he felt about that…well, he didn’t know that, either.

Rachel’s control, which had been eroding since she entered Lucas’s office, was in danger of snapping. “Look, Lucas, if I had a lot of reasonable options, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have involved you. I’ve raised Michaela on my own, as my daughter. It didn’t occur to me to involve you until things got…bad, because I’ve never involved you in anything where she’s concerned. I knew you’d have accusations, I knew it would be ugly. Why would I set myself up for that? There was no reason to force that until now. Until now—” she sighed, her breath catching on emotions that she kept in check “—I had no reason to try to involve you.”

For better or for worse, she added silently. Keeping your daughter from you seemed like my only option at the time. That’s just how it was. Suddenly Rachel was angry—angry at what life had dealt her daughter, angry at what she needed from Lucas. “If you understand nothing else, understand this—I will do whatever I can to help my daughter, including come to you. If you won’t help voluntarily, well—” she faltered, but flared again “—I’ll see if you can be legally forced to do it. At least to find out if you’re compatible.”

She knew that would get his attention. Lucas would go a long way to avoid confrontation of that kind. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t want this dragged into the public arena of the courts. His parents certainly wouldn’t. At least, not on her terms.

“Right now,” she continued, “I’m talking about hope. That’s the best weapon I have—that and continuing medical care.” She took a deep breath and pressed on. “You are her father and I just can’t ignore that when her life may be at stake. In good conscience I need to give you the chance to know your child. To deprive you of that wouldn’t be fair to either of you. You’ve gone long enough without knowing each other. I never would have planned for you to meet this way, of course, but…” Again, her voice trailed away. “I probably should have found a way to tell you about her before now, but there wasn’t an obvious good time or way to do it. Or at least I didn’t think there was, knowing what our reunion would be like. I had to protect her from—” Rachel caught herself before she finished the thought, before she said, I had to protect her from you. She couldn’t be sure if Lucas realized what she’d been about to say.

Lucas understood what she was saying. He didn’t want to, because it made him uncomfortable. Still, he did understand that this might be his only chance to meet the little girl, a child Rachel swore was his daughter. If he truly might hold the key to her cure—to her remission, he corrected—how could he withhold that? How could he walk away without finding out?

Lucas James Neuman, who had steadfastly avoided personal involvement and responsibility as well as emotional entanglements for the past five years, who went out of his way to avoid conflict of any kind, was being slammed in the gut by something he didn’t want to recognize but was afraid he did. He thought it had something to do with doing the right thing.

It was then that he knew he would do what Rachel asked, even though he wasn’t sure what it involved exactly. He was human, after all, and this was the humane thing to do. Had there been no possibility it was his own child, he would have chosen to do it, to see if he could help. So if there was a chance that it was his kid, he didn’t really have any other option.

“I’ll do it, Rachel,” he stated. “What’s next?”

Rachel’s shoulders slumped, her eyes closed, the sting of unshed tears causing her to blink. She jumped to her feet and looked for a private corner where she could compose herself, where she could hide. She found herself standing in front of the bar, hugging herself, swallowing over the lump in her throat that seemed to be connected to her tear mechanism. Otherwise, why would her eyes suddenly water and sting—and surely those same eyes shouldn’t struggle so to focus on a bottle of Jack Daniels, be so unable to read the fine print on the label.

“Are you okay?”

His voice behind her startled Rachel. His hand on her shoulder caused her to jump and recoil in one motion. Her effort to gain composure had been so complete that she had not sensed his approach.

His presence, so close to her that she could breathe his oh-so-familiar scent, was doing nothing to help her in her quest for calm. His touch—or rather, the place on her shoulder where he had touched her—still burned. He had caused that quivering inside her with just that simple touch. Rachel hadn’t felt such sensations in years. In fact, she hadn’t felt it since the last time Lucas had caused it. Certainly, no one else had inspired it in the past five years. But she couldn’t reflect on that. Not right now.

“No…yes, I mean, I will be. I just need to…collect myself. Just give me a minute.” She glanced up at Lucas, caught the flicker of something liquid and black in his eyes, felt herself melt somewhere deep inside. He seemed so like the Lucas of old—and she was responding to it.

Biting her lip, she broke their eye contact, looking somewhere, anywhere, for a route that would put distance between them. Between the counter of the bar and Lucas’s solid body, she didn’t have much room to move. But she had to. She had to get away from him.

She turned abruptly, finally freeing herself of his presence, and drifted back to the couch. Dios mio, I need some space.

And she needed him—there was no way to get around that. But she couldn’t need him for herself. Only for Michaela. She couldn’t trust him, no matter how much he might seem like the Lucas she used to know, however briefly he might seem that way. No, she couldn’t let those kinds of thoughts cloud what was happening. She couldn’t afford to. She was better off keeping certain emotions, and the paths to those feelings, well and truly buried. It had worked for her so far. It was the only way.

“Okay,” she said on a deep breath. “You’ll need to talk to Dr. Campbell.” Normalcy, that’s what she needed to project. But it wasn’t terribly convincing. Her careful facade had cracked, and they both knew it.

“Dr. Campbell,” she continued steadfastly, “will explain the typing procedure as well as the donor procedure. Typing has to be done first, of course, then if you’re compatible, they’ll set you up for the donation procedure. He’ll be able to tell you about DNA, too. He’s at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, in the Samaritan Medical Center.”

“Is that where…Michaela is?”

“Yes,” came her prompt answer. “Lucas, you have to understand. Michaela’s a very sick little girl. Her leukemia came on fairly quickly and it just sapped her energy, her strength. The chemo took whatever was left. She doesn’t…she doesn’t look much like that picture anymore.”

“But she can again, right?”

“Yes. In time. But it will get worse before it gets better.”

She met his eyes again, this time wondering if her eyes reflected as many silent messages as his. And wondering what those messages were. There had been a time when she had understood them. Now she couldn’t be sure. Now she wondered how much Lucas had seen in her eyes this afternoon.

“I can make time today to see this doctor.”

“Bueno. That would be great. Let me see what I can do.” She pulled out a cell phone, quickly punching in numbers.

“Hi, Linda. It’s Rachel. Is Evan available? I need to schedule an appointment with him today.”

Within a few minutes, Rachel had set the appointment and ended the call. “Three o’clock it is then, Lucas.” She slipped the phone back in her briefcase and gathered her things.

“Lucas, you know there is nothing I can do to repay or thank you adequately for doing this. If there were, I’d do it. Please know how grateful I am.” She started toward the door, knowing he was just a few steps behind her. Her personal radar, the one that sensed him, was working again.

“Rachel.” His voice stopped her. “Why didn’t you tell me before? I mean, that you were pregnant?”

She looked at him carefully before responding. “Deep down, Lucas, I think you already know the answer.”

“But five years, Rachel. That’s a long time to hide such a big secret.”

“It was never a secret, Lucas. We were separated, remember? It was part of the new life I started for myself and, well, I just lived my life. There was no reason to think we’d ever run into each other. We don’t exactly move in the same circles. That was part of the problem in our marriage. Not seeing each other, moving in different circles.”

She smiled sadly. “It’s funny, you know. You were always going on about how you needed me to support you. But I had needs, too, Lucas. I needed a husband. I thought I had one, but you…vanished somehow.

“I wanted to tell you about the baby so badly, Lucas. I was excited.” Rachel looked down at her hands, the ones gripping her briefcase strap so tightly that her knuckles showed white. “I found out I was pregnant when you were in Las Vegas, that last trip. But I wanted to see your face when I told you, so I didn’t call you.” She lifted her head, seeking his face this time, too. “Of course, you didn’t call me, either. And once you got home, well—” she shrugged “—a different kind of conversation was forced then, wasn’t it? Telling you about the baby didn’t seem to be a priority anymore. I knew you’d make accusations, that you would make it ugly. I didn’t need that.”

And, her words conveyed, I don’t need it today, either.

“I figured if I was going to end up on my own, at least I was going to do it on my own terms.”

Lucas studied her face but said nothing.

She tossed her head, trying to look beyond Lucas as she focused on something in the past. “I tried to live with the way things were, Lucas, I really did. I tried hard to be reasonable. I even believed, for a while, the things your parents said—that my inability to cope was the problem. It took time before I decided I had the right to expect more than you were giving, that you weren’t being fair.” She reached for the doorknob, knowing she needed to make her escape. Emotions were coming too fast to handle; those emotions were trying to surface. “Do you have any idea what I do for a living, Lucas?”

He shook his head, indicating he didn’t know.

“That’s what I thought. You weren’t in touch with what I was doing.” She sighed again, her words empty of criticism, full of resignation.

“Aside from everything else that happened between us, Lucas, I didn’t tell you I was pregnant because I couldn’t. You wouldn’t have listened to me. Listening to me simply was not on your agenda then. Maybe I could have forced you to listen, but…how? I never figured out a way. Anyway,” she said, seeking a positive note, “I appreciate that you listened today. This was important, too.”

Opening the door, Rachel was nearly flattened by the huffing figure of her father-in-law as he stormed into Lucas’s office. “Damn you, Rachel! What the hell do you think you’re doing here?! You left my boy—you’re out of his life! There’s nothing for you here!”

Rachel couldn’t help it. She stared at this vile individual, this repulsive creature—this man who had been instrumental in causing her so much grief, his features distorted by hatred—and by something else she didn’t want to contemplate but which she recognized anyway. She owed this man nothing. She thought of being polite, then dismissed the idea. In spite of herself, Rachel burst out laughing.

“Oh, Arnold,” she said, shaking her head, “you haven’t changed a bit! And you know what, Arnold? I’m not happy to see you, either. But I’m not the least bit interested in anything you have to say, so—save it.”

“Dad,” Lucas cajoled in hushed tones, “don’t speak to Rachel that way. You’re in the corridor, for God’s sake. Everyone’s listening.” He was embarrassed, for all three of them.

“Oh, Lucas,” Rachel cut in, tsk-tsking at his foolishness. “Give it up, will you? Your father has always spoken to me like that, sometimes even worse. Everyone has always listened. Except for you.” She sobered suddenly. “Somehow you never noticed.”

She looked again at Arnold Neuman, then back at his son. Her husband. The father of her child. “This is your father, Lucas. This is what he is.”

With that, she turned on the high heel of her black pump and headed toward the elevator. She stepped inside and the doors closed promptly. Not quickly enough, however, to drown out her father-in-law’s parting words: “Yes, get out of here! And don’t come back! We don’t need your kind in here!”

Rachel leaned back against the cool stainless steel wall of the elevator. Only then did she notice she was trembling.

Lucas grabbed his father’s arm, propelling him inside his office, out of the corridor and away from prying eyes. And ears.

“Are you out of your mind, Dad?” He glared into his father’s flushed face, noticing how flat his black eyes looked. “How could you talk to Rachel, or anyone else for that matter, in front of the entire staff that way? This is a place of business, isn’t it?”

His father chuckled smugly, slapping Lucas on the shoulder in good-ol’-boy camaraderie. “Oh, don’t work yourself into a lather, boy. There’s no reason for you to defend Rachel, you know. It’s nothing but the truth.” He made to leave the room. “Like she said, it’s nothing I haven’t said to her before.”

With that, Arnold Neuman left Lucas’s office.

No, she doesn’t belong here, Lucas acknowledged silently. But not the way you mean it, Dad.

Lucas didn’t quite know what he meant by that thought.

There it was again. Lucas couldn’t draw a breath. He wasn’t sure what it was, but knew he had first felt it when he’d seen Rachel’s name on his appointment calendar. He’d felt it when she’d walked into his office. And he’d certainly felt it when she announced that they had a daughter.

He walked over to his desk, grabbing his lighter and reaching for the cigar he’d discarded earlier. He put it in his mouth, watched as the lighter’s flame flared. Somehow, it just wasn’t what he wanted, even if his gripping ability had returned. He dropped the lighter on his desk and tossed the cigar back into the ashtray.

Instead, he walked over to the window, gazing out at the expanse of Scottsdale that spread before him, eyeing the mountains visible in the distance. He raked his hands through his springy black hair, ultimately linking them on the top of his head. Seeing Rachel again had thrown him, no doubt about it.

“God, she is beautiful.”

There…it was said. The words had not left his head since Rachel had walked into his office. He’d been utterly unprepared for it. Maybe saying the words would chase the thought away.

It didn’t.

She was always beautiful, he thought, but now…

He shook his head and took a deep, ragged breath. He tried to shake off his unsettling thoughts, tried to calm the stirring of his body that seeing her again had caused, was still causing, if he was honest about it. He knew she’d felt it, too.

When he’d touched her, just for that instant, he’d felt a shaft of heat knife through his arm, electrifying something inside him. Utterly brief physical contact had done that. Desire, instantaneous and fierce, had fired through him, body and soul. He’d felt her respond, felt that flash of awareness, he was sure he had, especially when she’d finally looked up at him. Her eyes had hinted at her deeper feelings then, the only moment in their entire meeting when her guard had been down. He was sure of that, too.

Maybe there’s hope, he reasoned, if a little touch like that draws that kind of response.

Damn, where did that thought come from? Hope for what? Seducing her? No, Lucas, don’t go there. Hell, he decided, you’d better find yourself a woman. It’s obviously been too long.

He rested his forehead against the cool glass of the window and closed his eyes, willing his thoughts in a less dangerous direction.

He’d never seen Rachel dressed like that—so professional, he decided. So composed and serene, although she’d always had those qualities. He contemplated her outfit: bright red, a color that suited her. Fitted, not hiding her curves but not emphasizing them, either.

What would her job be? He wondered, startled that he really didn’t know. She’d asked if he knew, but she hadn’t told him.

He shook his head, shoving his fists into the pockets of his custom-tailored pants, rocking back on the heels of his Italian-made shoes.

“At least now I know why she looked tired,” he spoke aloud. “God, she has a right to be.” The words hit him hard.

Guilt gnawed at him. He pushed it away. He didn’t want to think about what Rachel had gone through, facing their daughter’s illness. If he did, he had to justify to himself the fact that she’d been alone—as if he had no role in her unofficially single status. As if he had in no way contributed to her circumstances. That felt like an acknowledgment of responsibility toward someone else, and he didn’t like to think about that. After all, she’d been the one to leave. She’d brought her single status upon herself. As for him, well, his first responsibility was to himself. Wasn’t it? The mantra his parents had always fed to him didn’t work this time.

He knew helping this child was his responsibility. Even as he fought the knowledge, even as he had made his demand for medical proof, in his heart he knew the child was his. He knew it was their daughter, not Rachel’s daughter with some other man.

He knew Rachel well enough to know that she had too much honor, too much integrity, to have resorted to the sort of schemes he’d accused her of.

Yes, he had loved her. She was the only woman he’d ever met who had captured his attention, his mind, his spirit. She’d come from a different mold than any other woman he’d ever met. And he’d married her.

But he should have married someone who understood what his wife needed to be. Someone who had been prepared for the role. A woman who, unlike Rachel, was the right type. A woman who didn’t grab his heart the way Rachel had, the way she had from the very first moment he’d spotted her at the University Health Clinic, filling out forms for the required measles shots. Not that that was the most romantic way to meet a woman, Lucas conceded, but it was how he’d met Rachel.

Rachel, he had adored. Rachel had had depth, vitality. She was interested in everything. So curious, so smart, so real.

So unbelievably beautiful. Tall enough with full, gentle curves that had always taken his breath away. The amber eyes, the apricot skin. The miles and miles of thick brown hair that Lucas had always thought of as chocolate silk. How he had loved to bury his face in it, combing his fingers through its softness.

And her scent: she’d always smelled of vanilla. Vanilla and a little spice. Natural and sweet and warm. It stirred him to remember, to think of what had drawn him to her in the first place.

She’d been a bad choice for a wife, though. For him, anyway. His parents had warned him, over and over, but he hadn’t listened to them. He had fallen for her so hard, nothing else had mattered. But she hadn’t understood the requirements of society life. She hadn’t found them important or interesting. She hadn’t supported her husband as she should have.

Lucas’s parents had simply said she wasn’t capable of it. They had always pointed to her “background” as being the cause. Sometimes, when they felt bold, they actually mentioned her “ethnicity.” What they really meant was that she was Mexican-American, not “pure” American. That was simply unforgivable where they were concerned.

Privately Lucas had always found their prejudice ironic. After all, his family was only a couple of generations away from being working-class immigrants themselves. Lucas’s own colorings—his charcoal-gray eyes and inky black hair—looked more Hispanic than did Rachel’s.

Lucas had viewed his parents’ attitude as something he couldn’t change even if he didn’t agree with them. His parents belonged to a certain segment of society that stroked itself, reassured itself, with ethnic prejudice. That was not Lucas’s way. Still, what they had said about Rachel not fitting in with his family had had a certain ring of truth to it.

Several years later, reeling from his wife’s departure, Lucas had finally agreed with his parents.

His reverie was interrupted by a sudden whoosh of air, announcing the uninvited arrival of Alana Winston.

Gorgeous, glamorous Alana, with her silvery blond hair, her sky-blue eyes and the statuesque body she kept perfectly sculpted with the help of a personal trainer and, Lucas suspected, a plastic surgeon. He didn’t know for sure. Didn’t care that much.

And it didn’t matter anyway. Alana simply understood the value of her appearance, particularly when she was a man’s companion. She’d started working for Neuman Industries shortly before Lucas, just after she’d finished school. She still worked for Neuman Industries, although Lucas had asked himself more than once what it was, exactly, she did. His father always assured him that she “knew how to take care of people,” but had never been more specific than that.

Lucas glanced toward Alana again when he heard the unmistakable sound of her clicking the lock on the door.

“Oh, Luke, darling,” she gushed, approaching, wrapping her arms around his waist. “I just heard.”

“Heard what, Alana?”

She pressed her hips against him, linking her fingers through his belt loops. “Why, Luke, about her, of course! Trashy little Rachel showed up here today! Forced her way in to see you, until Arnold tossed her out!”

Impossibly long red acrylic fingernails locked around his waist, keeping his body tight against hers.

Grabbing her wrists, disconnecting her fingers from his pants, Lucas said, “Watch what you say, Alana. Watch your mouth.”

“Are you watching my mouth, Lucas?” she said, smiling suggestively, licking her lips. “I’m sure my mouth could provide you with some…distraction.” She pushed her body against him again, tipping her head back to look into his face, exposing her exquisite bare neck.

“Stop, Alana.” Lucas pulled away, wondering at some level if this was part of Alana’s official job description. She reached for him again, believing she knew exactly how to seduce him, how to change his reluctant mind and resistant body. She did, of course. That was Alana.

He extricated himself from her grasp again. “I said stop, Alana. I’m not interested.”

“Of course you are, darling,” she purred. “You’ve always been interested. You already know there is nothing I won’t do to soothe you. Let me help take your mind off all that unpleasantness.” She removed her blazer, tossing it carelessly onto the chair behind her. Her ivory silk blouse did nothing to conceal the black lacy bra she wore underneath—a fact of which she was perfectly aware. She stretched her arms over her head, arching her back, ruffling her cloud of ash-blond hair, knowing that the silk of her blouse would outline the hardened state of her nipples. Licking her lips again, she said, “Well, Luke? What’s it going to be?”

“Stop it, Alana, and get the hell out of my office.” He turned away, disgust rocketing through him.

His body apparently had other ideas—physically, a response was possible. She left nothing to the imagination, and he was feeling ragged after Rachel’s visit.

“You know, Lucas, you’ve been mad at the world for what seems like years now. Why is that, do you suppose?” From behind him, her arms curled around his waist, stroking slowly downward. She pressed her breasts into his back, the purr returning to her voice. “I bet I could make a guess, Lucas. You’ve been without a woman for too long, haven’t you? Quite a while, if the gossip is true. I could help you.” She whipped around him then, to stand in front of him, her arms still locked around his waist, her body pressed tight against his. “You’d like it, Lucas. What do you say?”

Hadn’t he just decided that he needed to be with a woman? What was there to stop him accepting Alana’s offer? The release might help.

Sex with Alana would be hot, and…a little dirty. That was part of the appeal, he knew.

And suddenly this moment lost all of its attraction for him. It was cheap and meaningless, and he didn’t need that. That was the reason he’d not been with a woman in so long. Sex, as an animal act or as a means of release, had no appeal for him. A mere physical coupling wasn’t the answer to his perpetual bad mood. While he wouldn’t contemplate what the answer might be, he knew it wasn’t tawdry sex.

Pushing Alana away from him, he straightened his clothes. “Dammit, Alana. Get away from me.” He glared at her, hoping he looked as repulsed as he felt. More calmly he continued, “Rachel had an appointment, Alana. She didn’t barge in. She left. Dad didn’t throw her out.”

He picked up the envelope Rachel had brought him, scooping the contents back inside.

“Do you want me to wait for you, Luke? Or go with you someplace else?”

“No, Alana, I do not. I don’t want you at all, in any way.”

“You could if you tried.” She stood with her breasts thrust forward, her hands on her hips, sure she could change his mind.

Lucas looked at her, taking in her undeniably sexy presentation, her blatant invitation. “No, I don’t want you, Alana. It has been a long time since I’ve had sex, but I certainly don’t want to be reinitiated by you.”

She laughed. “Right, Luke. Like I said, I’ll be ready when you are.” She was purring again. “Just keep thinking about it, Lucas. You’re a virile man. You can’t deny your physical needs forever. I’ll be ready whenever you are.”

“You’ll have a long wait.” His decision made, Lucas knew he spoke the truth. “I’ve had enough of you, Alana.”

So saying, he slipped into his jacket and left his office.

“Jennifer,” he said, stopping at the reception desk, “I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the day. I don’t have any other appointments for today, but I’ll be out tomorrow as well, so please reschedule whatever is listed then.”

He left the building, getting in his Lexus with no particular idea where he was going. Eventually, he found himself near Indian Bend Park, a man-made flood control area that cut through the city of Scottsdale. He parked the car, left his jacket behind and began strolling along the winding sidewalk. Suddenly he realized he was facing a playground. He listened to the squeals and shrieks of the children, punctuated by occasional bursts of laughter or bouts of crying. It was May, and the weather had been mild so far; the brutal sun of summer had not yet rendered the playground equipment too hot to touch. Lucas watched the children interact among themselves and with their parents. On this weekday, mothers were the primary parents in attendance.

Finding a bench, he sat down. He opened Rachel’s envelope, pulling the photo from it. He stared and stared, trying to come to terms with the face he saw reflected there. His eyes, his unruly hair. The hair he hated on himself, he found endearing on his daughter.

Rachel’s apricot skin, her delicate nose and mouth, the curve of her eyebrows—all were reflected in Michaela. But her dark eyes and hair, they came from her daddy.

Our daughter, he acknowledged silently. There was no other possibility and he knew it. He pulled out the birth certificate, seeking the date of birth. He did the quick calculations, counting back nine months, already knowing what he would discover, but needing to confirm it anyway.

Quickly he realized that Michaela would have been conceived in March or maybe even February—long before his ill-advised trip to Las Vegas. Long before May 18, the day the agreement to separate had gone into effect. The separation might have come anyway, of course, but he knew it had been a direct response to his time in Las Vegas the week before.

His mind whirled back to that murky time, five years ago, to what he had privately labeled “the end of the marriage”—the end even if they weren’t actually divorced, a time he rarely reflected upon. In fact, he rarely reflected on anything; introspection seemed a waste of time to him. He avoided reflection the same way he avoided scenes.

Still, today he’d had the past thrown in his face, in the shape of his wife and daughter. He couldn’t avoid thinking at the moment.

He took a deep breath, his eyebrows descending into a frown as he contemplated the end of his marriage to Rachel. He had been traveling a lot. It had been business, but it had been a lot of fun, too. If he was honest with himself, he had traveled more than necessary, every chance he got. He’d been eager to take advantage of what he called “opportunities.” He’d enjoyed spending time with his colleagues, establishing himself, not worrying about the limitations imposed by everyday life. Feeling like a professional in the business world.

Until that trip to Las Vegas. Las Vegas had been a colossal blunder on his part.

Yes, he knew why Rachel had not told him about her pregnancy when he returned from Las Vegas. As she said, they’d had a different sort of conversation to pursue. Back then, he would have made the same accusations he’d made today, even though he was perfectly aware that he had been the one pursuing external activities, not Rachel. Just as she had said.

Had Rachel somehow succeeded in telling him back then, would he have accepted the news? Very likely not. Very likely the scene, the breakup, would have simply been uglier. Regardless, he had lost the first four years of his daughter’s life.

Michaela, who’d spent her entire life without him. He’d never seen her, never even suspected her existence.

Well, that’s about to change, he told himself. I’m a father, and I’m going to be good at it. He felt a genuine smile tug at the corners of his mouth.

Lucas returned the photo to the safety of the envelope. He leaned back against the bench, raking his fingers through his hair in the way that had always suggested inner turmoil. He admitted to the tension he felt now, the sensation of ice-cold butterflies in the pit of his stomach.

Tense, yes, he was certainly tense. Poised for…something he couldn’t name.

How would my life be if I’d spent the last few years with Rachel, raising our daughter?

The question sideswiped him. I won’t think about that.

But he had a strong suspicion it would have been better than how he’d been living.

Chapter 3

Walking on legs of rubber, Rachel finally made it to her car. She tossed her briefcase onto the passenger seat and blindly reached for the bottle of drinking water she kept in the console between the front seats. A few deep drinks and a few deep breaths later, she started her car and pulled from the parking lot.

She was dismayed to notice the continuing tremor in her hands and the erratic pounding of her heart.

“Bueno, Rachel, what did you expect?” she spoke the words aloud, berating herself. “You haven’t seen him in years. It was bound to affect you.” She inhaled deeply, then blew out the breath, finding she was still inundated with Lucas’s scent. “And, yes, the person you knew, the man you fell in love with—he’s still there. He’s wearing many layers, but he’s still there.” She couldn’t deny that much.

Unfortunately, she also knew that the woman who had fallen in love with him all those years ago still lived in her somewhere. She, too, was deeply buried, but she had responded to Lucas nevertheless. Something she could not allow. The knowledge left her shaky and dangerously close to tears.

But Rachel Neuman never cried—she couldn’t afford to waste the energy. In any case, she would never show such weakness where anyone might see her.

Checking the time, Rachel decided to stop at home and see if she could manage lunch. She’d had merely a bagel and juice this morning, and that only because it had been forced on her by Linda Tafoya, the day supervisor.

Rachel Neuman, at twenty-seven years of age, was young to hold the position she held: head pediatric nurse at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. When she had accepted her first position at PCH five years ago, night shift had been offered and she had accepted it. After a while she’d found it suited her. These days, even though she was head of the department, she continued to work the night shift.

Initially her remarkable academic record had caught the attention of the higher-ups at the hospital when they had interviewed her, but she had gone on to demonstrate thorough professional competence and a warm personal touch—a combination much valued in a nurse. She was adept at handling multiple tasks, monitoring health-care issues as well as those that dealt more with comfort and happiness. She fit in with both the staff and the doctors at the hospital, not to mention patients and their parents. She graciously coped with the dreaded administrative duties and paperwork involved in the job, as well. In any case, no one begrudged Rachel her position.

The upshot of this was that she worked a very long day. Her shift ran officially from midnight to 8:00 a.m. However, she usually met with patients, patients’ parents and hospital administrators after that. Her bedtime was 4:00 p.m., so the intervening daytime hours were hers. To spend with her daughter.

Today, however, she’d had her meeting with Lucas at ten-thirty. She’d gone to her office promptly at the end of her shift, knowing she could use the personal quarters the hospital staff had set up for her there as a changing place.

It was a miniature home away from home, except for the absence of a kitchen. This was a factor in her recent weight loss, but not the only factor. Her hospital colleagues were aware of it, understood the reasons, but knew she couldn’t afford to stop taking care of herself. Hence, Linda shoving a bagel in her face.

As she maneuvered through the traffic, heading out of Scottsdale and into Phoenix, Rachel was disgusted to feel the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. Usually she was so successful at controlling things like tears.

She hadn’t allowed herself such a release during her final year with Lucas, nor during the breakup or its aftermath. She hadn’t cried as she struggled to become a single mother or as she had learned, in fact, how to be a single mother. She hadn’t even cried when Dr. Paul Graham, director of the Children’s Cancer Unit at the hospital, had told her Michaela’s test results.

After all, he was really only confirming what she’d already known. She’d seen the symptoms too many times before, as a nurse. She had recognized what she was seeing; she’d known it was more than the flu. That’s why she’d gone to Paul in the first place.

Dear sweet Paul, who’d been working at the hospital for nearly fifteen years before Rachel’s arrival. He’d become her mentor, a guiding hand when she’d needed one. They had become fast friends, in addition to working together, sharing one of those rare and profound friendships that occasionally bless a person’s life.

Rachel was utterly unaware of rumors that had their relationship heading in a different kind of intimate direction. Paul was old enough to be her father and Rachel viewed him in that light. He had helped restore her self-confidence when she had arrived, new to her career, newly pregnant and without a husband. He had helped her believe again, and she had secretly hoped he would help her believe this time, too—preferably by telling her that Michaela didn’t have leukemia after all. Of course, he hadn’t told her that. Rachel had known, really, that he wouldn’t.

That day Rachel had fainted for the first and only time in her life. Paul had taken care of her, never mentioning her moment of weakness to anyone. It was something else to add to the list of reasons she was grateful to him.

Rachel knew what leukemia would mean. She knew it meant granulocytes, a certain type of white cell, were causing the problem. She also knew that chemotherapy would be the initial form of treatment and that it would likely be a rough experience for her little girl. And for her.

It had been worse than she’d expected. Michaela had lost her hair almost immediately. Her nausea was intense and frequent. They could help her some with that, but it still left Michaela a very fragile, very weak little girl. Had Rachel not seen the procedure before, she would have found it hard to believe this state of being could in any way be connected to an improvement in Michaela’s health. When the chemotherapy took longer to work than they had expected, Rachel had faced it stoically, refusing to let herself shatter, turning her energies instead toward supporting her daughter in any way she could.

Rachel had known that a bone marrow transplant would be a likely next step, and that identifying a suitable donor was crucial to performing the procedure. As a matter of course, Rachel had had herself typed, assuming she’d be an acceptable match for her daughter. When that had not occurred, she had assumed someone in the family would be suitable. That failing, she had bravely pursued the next possibility: she had initiated the search to identify other potential donors. She had worked diligently on finding a match for several months, watching her daughter’s lurching progress through chemotherapy, when she had one day acknowledged that she had not succeeded.

She had also exhausted all of the obvious avenues for locating that donor, with one equally obvious exception. Lucas. Michaela’s father. The one blood relative who, under normal circumstances, would have been one of the first to be tested. But these weren’t normal circumstances.

By the time testing Lucas had occurred to Rachel, Michaela had been in the hospital for several months, undergoing all manner of treatment, and Rachel was living in her office. She had refused to take a leave of absence, knowing that she needed her work to help maintain a sense of normalcy in her life.

Once Michaela’s condition had become apparent and the hospital staff had understood that Rachel wouldn’t go home if it meant leaving Michaela at the hospital, they had called upon the administration to provide Rachel with a suitable refuge. No one debated Rachel’s need to be near her daughter; supporting families in this way had long been incorporated as an aspect of care. They would definitely take care of their own. Moving remarkably fast for a bureaucracy, the hospital had reshaped Rachel’s office. What had once been an area reasonably able to accommodate a desk, file cabinets and a few chairs had been converted into an acceptable, if small, living space.

Support was the thing, and everyone knew that.

No one had ever seen Rachel hit the breaking point, but they all suspected she was dangerously close. Except, of course, Dr. Paul Graham—who realized she had already hit her breaking point and was now running on empty.

Rachel had appreciated the renovation of her quarters. She had tried to let everyone know her feelings, but acknowledged that she wasn’t very good at accepting help from others. Her familia, of course, were different from other people. They knew her better, and were able to anticipate some of what she needed from them. They could offer to help before she had to ask for it—and asking for help was foreign to her. That’s why it had been so difficult to go to Lucas for help.

Part of the reason, anyway.

With Lucas it was something else again. Needing him was something Rachel had weaned herself away from. It was a survival technique that had developed slowly, but which had become firmly embedded in her way of life.

Turning to Lucas now was, quite simply, a violation of Rachel’s current code. Everything in her resisted opening herself up to the man, showing him anything of herself that might look like vulnerability. Rachel needed to protect herself.

But, ultimately, what Michaela needed was more important than what Rachel needed. If Rachel had been slow to think of testing Lucas, it was because she’d had no concept—anymore—of turning to him. That, and she’d truly believed Michaela’s treatment would follow the path Rachel had seen before.

It was traumatic enough, without adding other dramas to it. For Michaela, though, Rachel had managed to overcome her own nature as well as the hard-earned aversion to needing Lucas. As soon as the thought had occurred to her—as soon as she’d seen what should have been obvious—she’d asked him to help.

Sí, sí, Rachel admitted to herself, today was nothing more than another difficult challenge on an ever-increasing list of difficult challenges.

She thought of her visit to Lucas’s office, remembering the cold, though luxurious, stainless steel-and-glass decor. It seemed so impersonal to her, so spiritless, so sterile. That Neuman Industries was in the architectural field was surprising.

Not that Rachel had ever really been tempted to do otherwise, but seeing those surroundings reminded her that she was happy she’d followed the career course that was natural to her. As a nurse, especially in pediatrics, heart-wrenching tragedy was not unknown. At the same time, however, Rachel found that the best of human courage and compassion were found there, as well. She’d always been drawn toward nursing, but had known it was the right place for her the minute she had started working as a medical trainee at the University Health Center when she was only eighteen.

No, she admitted, I knew it was right before that or I’d have never set foot in the center. I knew it when I helped Papá at the veterinary clinic.

And yet…Lucas had never noticed. He hadn’t seen her “big picture” at all.

As she made her way through the Phoenix traffic, a slight smile played around her lips. She thought about her phone call yesterday, when she’d made her appointment with Lucas. The receptionist she’d spoken with had been at a loss for words when she’d identified herself as Lucas’s wife. Clearly, the woman had joined the company after the demise of the Neuman marriage. Obviously, Lucas didn’t promote himself as a married man, not that she would have expected him to. After all, it had been Rachel who’d wanted to make the marriage work. It was Lucas who…well, who hadn’t.

How had their special relationship slipped through their fingers? She had believed in it, in them, so completely.

Why had things gone wrong? Now there was a question. One she couldn’t afford to think about right now. She had no answers.

She turned off of Sixteenth Street, just north of McDowell Road, into the area where her town house was located. Technically, it was considered a garden home, part of a new planned community built in an older section of Phoenix, but one designed according to the city’s older flavor. The idea behind these communities was to draw young families from the suburbs, encouraging them to live in Phoenix proper. To sweeten the deal, the city also helped sponsor low-cost loans so that families that might not otherwise be able to own a home could buy one in these communities.

Rachel had lived with Rick, her brother, for the first few months following her break with Lucas. She had heard about these communities, recognizing them as the best kind of place she could provide for her daughter. The locations appealed to her, as well. Working at a hospital in the city meant that she appreciated the idea of living there. She had begun to put aside every cent she could for a down payment. Once her family had caught on to her plan, they had helped her. She had been ready for home ownership far sooner than she had hoped. In fact, she had had time to settle in before Michaela’s arrival.

Each home boasted a small, private courtyard that opened onto the shared community “green” and facilities. The homes were clustered in pairs, each one sharing a wall with one other home. Rachel’s was one of the smaller choices: two bedrooms and two bathrooms upstairs, with an additional 1/2 bath downstairs. She had an open, bright kitchen with an eat-in dining area, as well as a great room, rather than separate living, family and dining rooms. It wasn’t fancy or extravagant, but it was perfect for Rachel and Michaela. It felt like home.

These days she was doing the best she could financially. It wasn’t too bad. Her job was a good one. She was well paid and had considerable benefits. She would never be rich in her field, but then she hadn’t chosen nursing for the money.

Pulling into the driveway of her cream stucco home, she pushed the button on the remote garage door opener and drove into the garage. She kicked off her shoes as she stepped inside and picked up the stack of mail her neighbor, Tanisha Davis, had been bringing in. Tanisha was also a single working mother, and she and Rachel had a solid friendship.

Sorting through the mail, Rachel mechanically threw out the junk and filed away the bills. It was twelve-thirty now, so she decided to fix lunch for herself before returning to the hospital.

A glance in the fridge revealed it was virtually empty. Rachel gingerly peeked into a tub of cottage cheese, noting it was beyond its use-by date, and hurriedly tossed it into the trash bin. She then eyed the splash of milk remaining in the jug and decided to use it since its date suggested it was still fresh. She grabbed a can of tomato soup from the cupboard and prepared it to heat on the stove.

Rachel ran upstairs, knowing she needed to gather some clothing to take with her to the hospital. She smiled at the piles of clean laundry her mother had left on her bed. What would I have done without Mamá to help me?

Or, to be fair, what would I have done without everybody’s help?

If she continued to think along these lines, Rachel would be crying soon. She felt weak today, worn out from meeting with Lucas. She could understand the weakness, but that didn’t mean she had to give in to it.

And yet, she was so tired. So tense inside.

She shook off the thoughts and stripped off her suit, carefully hanging it in the closet. She pulled on pale blue jeans and a T-shirt in primary color stripes. She slipped on her sandals and reached for a small suitcase at the top of the closet. Quickly she loaded it with clean undergarments and headed back down the stairs. She poured her soup into a large mug and returned to the living room. Settling on the couch, she whispered a brief prayer and began sipping.

Thoughts, emotions, memories. They were bombarding her. This time she would be unable to stop them.

Things had gone so wrong. But what choice did I have? How long was I supposed to take it, try to ignore it, pretend it didn’t matter to me? After all, Las Vegas had been the last straw—it hadn’t been the only straw. There came a point when enough was simply, truly enough. Right?

Ayuda, she knew, ayuda had saved her then. It continued to sustain her now.

Ayuda, that particular Mexican form of “circling the wagons” to support, aid and protect anybody considered part of the group. It existed, of course, in any culture, but it was an ever-present force in the Mexican mind-set, simply more visible at some times than at others.

Rachel’s familia was a large group. Of course, it included grandparents, parents, aunts and uncles, her brother—the obvious people. Some members were called cousins and were actually related in traditional ways. Others were called cousins simply because it was a convenient title and the actual relationship was too complicated to explore. Familia extended to certain friends and friends of friends, and to those who married into it. Rachel’s father, Mike Shannon, was one such member, affectionately referred to as el gringo. This title acknowledged his non-Hispanic background, simply, easily—but it also marked him as someone included in the familia by choice.

Rachel’s familia had watched her marry outside their circle, welcoming her young man because she had chosen him. He had been brought in unreservedly, had been granted a place within their group because of his connection with Rachel. They had watched the early happiness, shaking their heads in bewilderment over how such a fine young man could have sprung from such cold, overbearing, narrow-minded people as his parents.

They continued to watch as Lucas had veered away from life with Rachel. Rachel had never said anything, and, out of respect, they had never mentioned it to her. But they knew she knew.

When the day came that she appeared at her brother’s door, he knew exactly why she was there. Rick had been ready to help her, just as anyone in their circle would have been. Quickly news of her wounded status had spread, and family and friends had rallied around her. They had, in fact, circled the wagons—kept her safe until she was ready to face the world again. Because her state was regarded as unresolved, they remained on high alert where she was concerned. They knew she needed room to appear independent, to save face in public, but they also knew they had to be ready to support her.

In earlier times Lucas Neuman might well have found himself on the wrong end of violent vengeance. In the eyes of Rachel’s people, not only had he betrayed her—he had deceived the entire group. In doing so, he had demonstrated his lack of character. Instead of violence, however, they elected to monitor his activities. They talked amongst themselves, quietly, gradually spreading word of Lucas Neuman beyond Rachel’s immediate group. Of course, Arnold Neuman had already made a questionable name for himself. It was no great difficulty to suggest, with a shrug, De tal palo, tal astilla. An apple never falls far from the tree.

Rachel would have been surprised had anyone told her they kept tabs on Lucas and that they knew exactly what he’d been doing since she’d left him. She tried not to think of him at all.

She had loved him deeply and completely. He had loved her in return. Whatever she had questioned—and she’d had many questions—she had never doubted that he loved her. That’s why his behavior had been so hard to understand. He had just drifted away, following his parents and Alana, almost like a sleepwalker.

They had been happy together at first, she and Lucas. They had led a simple life, largely because they hadn’t had enough time or money for anything complicated. They had both been university students, living in a dumpy little apartment within walking distance of the campus. Others in the complex had “partied hearty,” staying up late, carrying on. But Lucas and Rachel had lived quietly. Sunsets had been nice for them. Ice cream on Saturday mornings had been nice. Spending Sundays in bed, or hurrying to make morning classes because lovemaking had gone into overtime—that had been nice, too. Grocery shopping and laundry duties had been times to spend together, not chores. Music had always been there; they’d enjoyed dancing, even when it was just the two of them in the kitchen. Especially when it was only the two of them in the kitchen. They’d laughed together, they’d had private jokes. They’d been in love, but it had been more than that. They had matched each other. And there had always been a sense of a future together.

Rachel had believed she knew Lucas, knew who he really was, right to his core. Even when things had begun falling apart, she had been able to see the person he was. Deep inside. Down to his soul. Just as he had been able to see hers.

Maybe we were too young, Rachel considered, swishing the dregs of her tomato soup. She’d only been nineteen, Lucas, twenty, when they’d married. Too young was a possibility. It was a major objection offered by Lucas’s parents. But that, Rachel knew, was only because it was a socially acceptable thing to say. The real problem was that Rachel was not, and could never be, what the Neumans wanted for their son’s wife. Specifically, she was not Alana Winston—a woman who had been groomed for just that role. Or for a role just like it, anyway. And she’d had her sights set on Lucas for a long time.

Alana Winston was everything Rachel was not. Most importantly, in the Neumans’ opinion, her pedigree was impeccable. Rachel’s was not. After all, Rachel’s mother was Hispanic. She had been born in Mexico, and happily acknowledged that she had as much family living on the American side of the border as on the Mexican side. She spoke Spanish and she’d taught Rachel and her brother to speak Spanish, as well. Her father, a white man, had done nothing to discourage their ethnic tendencies—he even seemed proud of them. As far as the Neumans were concerned, that was nearly worse than the existence of the ethnicity in the first place.

To Arnold and Sophie Neuman, it didn’t matter that Rachel’s parents, Michael and Gloria Shannon, were well-educated, hard-working, caring individuals. In fact, that they had to work was another negative as far as the Neumans were concerned. Gloria was a teacher with a preference for teaching kindergarten. Michael was a veterinarian. Perhaps the Neumans would have been sufficiently impressed had he been a doctor who treated humans, rather than animals. But he wasn’t, so it was a moot point.

As for their opinion of Rachel, nothing could win her an objective audience with them. Not her natural beauty. Not her quiet intelligence. Not her zest for life. Not her gentle competence, her genuine compassion or inner strength—the very qualities sustaining her as a single mother and as head pediatric nurse.

They held inflexible ideas about her correct place in society and it wasn’t as Lucas’s wife. She was suitable mistress material.

Alana, as Lucas’s wife, would have understood a mistress. She’d been raised to understand that.

According to the Neumans, as a minority, Rachel should have been appreciative of such a desirable position. The Neumans had tried very hard to instruct Rachel on her “proper place.” Rachel had rejected their reasoning, had found their demands unacceptable. Yet she had felt pressure to somehow get along with them. They were her in-laws after all.

Lucas had never understood why Rachel didn’t want to be around his parents. He’d been confident that if she’d spend time with them, she’d come to like them. She just needed to give them a chance. If she would do that, he had said, his parents would come around and like her, too. Lucas did not understand prejudice, having never been on the receiving end of it. Rachel had been incapable of making him understand, had eventually quit trying.

Eventually Rachel had quietly tried to avoid Lucas’s parents more and more, whenever possible. To manage this, she had begun to withdraw from the social life she shared with Lucas. She had hoped to nourish their private life. Except that their private life, their relationship, had begun to disintegrate slowly, bit by bit.

“Well, I’m not withdrawing now,” she stated, clattering her spoon into her now-empty soup mug. “This isn’t about me, about whether or not I’m comfortable. This is about Michaela. And if that makes Lucas uncomfortable, well, that will make two of us. It’s about time.”

Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell. Answering its summons, Rachel found herself confronted by the dazzling smile and click of beaded braids that accompanied Tanisha Davis everywhere she went.

“Hey, there,” Tanisha said in greeting.

“Hey,” Rachel answered. “What brings you here?”

“Are you kidding?” Tanisha’s eyebrows descended in mock disapproval as she breezed into Rachel’s home. “I’ve been in this house lately, more than you I might add, and I know what the food supply looks like.” Holding up a grocery bag that Rachel hadn’t noticed, Tanisha continued, “I’ve brought tostada stuff. It’s quick and it will be better than anything lurking in this house. And you a nurse.” Tanisha tsk-tsked at Rachel. “You should know better. When food starts to come back to life, when it can move all by itself—you really shouldn’t be eating it. It’s a basic rule.”

Rachel laughed and followed her friend into the kitchen, acknowledging that Tanisha spoke the truth. Or very nearly the truth, anyway.

Within minutes, busily filled with chopping vegetables and warming refried beans, the table was spread. Rachel couldn’t help noticing how much more appetizing this meal was than her tomato soup had been. Not to mention that being with Tanisha always relaxed Rachel, since she knew she could drop her guard and be herself.

Of course, Rachel thought, smiling to herself, the person who can fool Tanisha has not been born, so there’s really no point in trying to be anything less than open with her.

“Why are you home today?” Rachel asked, conversation rolling naturally and comfortably between them.

“Oh, well, it’s my weekend, you know,” Tanisha answered.

Tanisha, in order to avoid working off-shifts, had elected to take a schedule with rotating weekends. Therefore, rather than a Saturday-Sunday weekend, she sometimes had other combinations. In this case, it looked like Tuesday-Wednesday.

“And Vanessa is with Wayne?”

“Yeah,” Tanisha agreed, nodding her head, her beads rustling in her hair. “I have to admit, once we worked it out, he’s pretty sympathetic about the weekend time. He has alternating shifts, too, so we try to give Vanessa time with each of us on our weekends, but we try to give each other a free weekend now and then. We’ve been able to reduce day-care time for Vanessa, which is great. Not that it was easy to get it worked out.” Tanisha was shaking her head vehemently now, lending emphasis to her words, the beads increasing their gentle rhythm.

Rachel had never pressed Tanisha for the details of the situations, grateful that Tanisha had never pressed her either. Frankly, she was reluctant to risk asking anything that would change that. Rachel had never been inclined to complain about what life had thrown her—living it was all she could do. She assumed Tanisha had a similar philosophy.

Always, it had been enough that they were both single mothers of young daughters, doing their best. In that, they had much in common.

However, Rachel now considered the possibility that knowing how someone else had coped might be valuable information. Comforting, even. It was the reason for support groups, she reasoned.

Suddenly Rachel wanted to know more about Tanisha’s details. “How did you work it out?”

“Well—” Tanisha pondered a minute “—first, I had to let go of Wayne, I guess. I had to accept that he didn’t want to be married, or at least not to me. But he did want to be a father. Once I got used to those basic facts, things went a lot better.”

“He didn’t want to be married?”

“No. Well…I mean, I didn’t either, exactly. We were just, you know, seriously seeing each other, not dating anyone else. But we sure were not thinking about making babies. Then, when I realized that we were making a baby, whether or not we planned to be, well, that’s when we got married. No argument on that. But after a couple years, it was pretty obvious that Wayne really didn’t want to be married. I fought that. I didn’t want to give up, you know? I thought a marriage, no matter how bad, was better than no marriage. And I didn’t think ours was that bad. So, eventually he was moving out and filing for divorce and I was a nutcase over it. I was not—” she emphasized the word with a severely arched eyebrow “—very nice about it.” Tanisha shrugged, exchanging her harsh expression for a relaxed one. “But eventually I admitted to myself that it was losing the marriage that upset me, not losing Wayne. I liked him well enough, but—” she shrugged again “—I was not consumed with love for the man. Passion, oh, yeah. That part we did right, which is what got us together in the first place.”

She punctuated her story with a laugh. “But I wasn’t in love with him. He wasn’t in love with me. That was never really part of our marriage. So I finally let go. And now Wayne and me, we’re friends. I would have never believed it, but we are. And that’s the best we can do for Vanessa, which is the important thing, anyway.”

“Do you ever miss it? Being married, I mean?” Rachel wasn’t sure where the questions were coming from.

“Lord, yes, I miss it. I don’t miss Wayne, mind you, not anymore. But I miss being part of a couple. I’d like to have that again. You know what I’m saying?”

“Sí, sí, I think I do know.” Rachel nodded. “I’d say I miss being part of a couple, too. I guess some people see freedom in being single, but for me, to always be making decisions by myself, to never have anyone to share things with, good or bad…that gets old.”

“I hear that,” Tanisha said in agreement, her ebony eyes watching Rachel, missing nothing. “And that’s the weird thing with Wayne now. We are both so much parents. If it has to do with Vanessa, I’m not alone. We are totally, completely partners as parents. I just can’t believe it sometimes.” Tanisha raised her eyebrow meaningfully, signaling her upcoming questions. “What about you? Do you have someone to parent with you now?”

Rachel gave a start, surprised by Tanisha’s inquiry. “You mean…Lucas?”

“Is that the man’s name? I always wondered.” Tanisha was nodding, her hair beads rustling again.

“Sí, his name is Lucas.” Rachel sighed deeply.

“And how did your meeting go?”

“You know about that?” Rachel had told very few people about this morning’s meeting. She couldn’t remember discussing it with Tanisha. It had been arranged quite suddenly.

“Oh, yeah. Your mamá and me, we talk.”

“Ah, bueno. I see.” Rachel smiled, then sighed again. “I guess it went well.”

“He’s going to help?”

“Mmm-hmm. At least, he’s going to be tested. This afternoon. I just have to hope he’ll be compatible. And then that he won’t chicken out, once he knows what he’ll have to do.”

Tanisha regarded her friend, noticing how pale she looked, seeing the signs of strain in her face. “And how is the mamá—you, that is—how are you doing?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” Tanisha laughed, pointing her index finger at Rachel, her sparkling burgundy fingernail the perfect complement to her mahogany skin. “I have to think it was not the easiest way to spend your morning.”

“That’s true enough,” Rachel said, a weak smile touching her lips. “I’m okay, I guess. Very anxious about the testing. And, yeah, as you said, I have definitely had more fun.”

“Was he nasty to you?”

Tanisha’s insight startled Rachel into honesty. “Sí. At first. Then again, this was the first he’s ever heard of us having a daughter, so he was bound to have a strong reaction.”

Tanisha raised her eyebrow again, Rachel’s admission not being what she had expected. “So…Lucas, is that his name? He didn’t know about Michaela?”

Rachel shook her head.

“Lord, girl, you did drop a bomb on the man,” Tanisha said, chuckling briefly. “Does that mean…the two of you haven’t seen each since…how long?”

“Five years, basically.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Tanisha pondered this, then looked directly into Rachel’s face. “So, how are you, then? Really?”

Another long sigh escaped Rachel. “I’ve been better. It wasn’t exactly my best day.”

“Well then, it’s a good thing I came over and gave you a decent meal. You have to go back in and face this man, right?”

“¡Dios mio!” Rachel exclaimed, standing abruptly. “What time is it? He’s got a three-o’clock appointment. I’ve got to get back to the hospital! I need to spend some time with Michaela!”

“It’s two, Rachel, you’ve got plenty of time if you go now.”

“Are you sure? This—” she motioned toward the kitchen table “—needs cleaning up.”

“Go, you,” Tanisha said smiling. “I’ve been here more than you lately anyway. Your house knows me. I’ll clean up, lock your door. Take any decent food home with me. You just go.”

And Rachel did. Before she got to the part where she had to acknowledge that her husband’s touch still made her melt. That his touch could make her think of things other than helping Michaela. She could have never lied to Tanisha about that, she was certain.

Indeed, it had not been her best day. And it wasn’t over yet.

Chapter 4

Lucas Neuman was completely, utterly out of his element. And he was not happy about it.

He’d had a vague idea of where the Phoenix Children’s Hospital was located. Didn’t everybody? So, without checking the address or consulting a map, he’d driven to the area he had in mind, only to find himself facing the Samaritan Medical Center. Eventually, putting his faith in the posted signs, he came to suspect that the children’s hospital was on the same grounds as the medical center. Hadn’t Rachel said something like that? He thought so. And he eventually discovered it was true. But the damage had been done—his mood was turning ugly fast.

He had parked where indicated, then taken the elevator to the appropriate floor. At least, he hoped it was the right one. He certainly didn’t want to stop and ask for directions, but he didn’t relish the idea of wandering through the hospital hoping to eventually find his way.

Stepping into the corridor as the elevator doors opened, Lucas felt a momentary rush of something close to…panic. He didn’t like hospitals, anyway. Who did, right? But he couldn’t control what went on in a hospital, he probably couldn’t even understand what went on in a hospital. And today’s visit wasn’t a social call.

He was nervous about that, too. How should he present himself? Charming or aggressive? Aggressive or charming? He tried to decide on a plan of attack. Selecting a strategy might afford him some degree of control. He knew full well that his control was slipping, that he was about to teeter into the discomfort—okay, hysteria—that hospitals engendered in him. He had to find an advantage for dealing in this foreign place.

As he moved down the corridor, toward a large reception desk, he was startled at the comfortable environment he encountered. Soft lighting kept the area bright, but not overbright. Flower arrangements and painted murals added subtle, cheerful color. Silently bubbling aquariums full of colorful, slow-moving fish served as focal points in the various seating areas. Seating areas, Lucas noted, where the chairs looked like something a person could actually sit in.

Glass partitions marked off patients’ rooms, allowing for privacy without sacrificing the open feeling. Lucas could see that miniblinds would be pulled when full privacy was required. Yet somehow, despite the low-key and easy atmosphere, Lucas also felt the efficiency and sharp attention that permeated the air. He felt it keenly.

Charming or aggressive? He smoothed imaginary wrinkles from his impeccably tailored clothing, forced the frown from his forehead. And his mouth. This time, to hide his discomfiture, he chose charm. Confident charm. That—and his professional aura—should do the trick.

“Hello,” he said, flashing a smile of even white teeth at the nurse’s assistant sitting behind the reception counter. “I’m to see Evan Campbell at three. I’m early. I would like to look in on Michaela Neuman.” Saying the name was bizarre in its newness. Even Rachel hadn’t put the two names together. It shook him.

“Well, sir,” the young woman sputtered, “Michaela…she’s…she’s not in her room right now. She’s with her mother.” She was clearly torn between her sense of duty to Lucas and that which she owed to Rachel and her daughter. She pointed toward a nearby corridor. “You could wait over there if you like, so you’ll see them when they get back.”

Lucas glanced in the direction she’d indicated, feeling the annoyance rising. He didn’t find these answers acceptable. What the hell does she mean, Michaela is not in her room? How could she be off somewhere with her mother?

“Where is Michaela? I thought she was too sick to go anywhere.” He injected sufficient sneer into his voice to suggest that he was questioning the young woman’s competence. Or honesty. Or someone else’s—like Rachel’s.

“I’ve tried to explain, sir….” Her voice trailed off.

“Excuse me, Kristen,” came another voice, “do you need some help?”

“Thank you, Nurse Linda,” the assistant responded, her relief evident. “This gentleman has an appointment with Dr. Campbell, but he is asking to see Michaela Neuman as well. I’ve tried to explain.”

“That’s all right. I’ll talk to him.”

Lucas noticed he was being discussed as if he weren’t there, a treatment he found supremely insulting. Any effort at charm was abandoned.

“Yes.” He directed himself toward this newly arrived woman, assuming she had some degree of authority. “I want to see Michaela Neuman, but I’m told she isn’t here. How can that be? Where would she go? If she really is so sick—”

“Don’t doubt that for a second, Mr. Neuman,” the woman said sharply. That she used his name surprised Lucas; he knew he hadn’t yet revealed that bit of information.

Seeing that he was taken aback, Nurse Linda continued, “Oh, yes, I know who you are. Furthermore, I know why you’re here. I’ll answer your questions. But make no mistake, Mr. Neuman—Michaela’s welfare is my first concern. I don’t know that you and I share that bond. Now, come with me.”

Lucas struggled to maintain his stern exterior and prevent his genuine, warring emotions from taking over. He couldn’t swallow his sense that Rachel had played him for a fool—and yet, that didn’t seem like Rachel.

Not seeing any other option, he did as he was told. He followed the nurse to a seating area off to the side of the reception counter.

“Your explanation?” he prompted, aggression in full swing, rudeness fast approaching.

She turned to face him. “I’m Linda Tafoya, head nurse during the day. I won’t say it’s a pleasure to meet you because that would be a lie. You see, Mr. Neuman, I really do know who you are.”

Folding her arms across her body, she said, “I consider myself Rachel’s friend. And Michaela’s, too. I know how important your visit today is, no doubt better than you do. Of course Michaela is here, in the hospital. She hasn’t been anywhere else for longer than I care to consider. She is too sick to go very far and you need to realize that right now, before you stay one second longer. She isn’t in her room right now because, every afternoon, Rachel takes her from the ward—just down the hall—in order to spend some personal time with her. We support what she’s doing and we go out of our way to grant her that privacy, to respect that privacy.”

“Oh, I see.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t. But you will. She usually comes back by about two-thirty, which would be any minute now. Because I know they’re wrapping it up, anyway, and because I know why you’re here, I will let you in on their private retreat. Respect it for what it is.”

Lucas was sure that Linda Tafoya was very nearly the same age as he, she was not particularly tall, she was attractive in a neat, organized way. Nothing about her was imposing, but he couldn’t ignore the note of command in her voice. She was in charge. “Okay.”

She stared at him a moment longer, sizing him up, Lucas could tell. “Right,” she said, pointing toward another corridor. “There’s a lounge area, three doors down on the right. It’s a bit like an atrium—you can see into from the hallway. You’ll know it when you see it. Tell Rachel that Linda sent you.”

She nodded in the designated direction and left him alone. He stood then, noticing a sign posted by the door next to him. It read, “Rachel Neuman, RN Head, Pediatric Nursing.”

Lucas was stunned. His eyebrows returned to their frown position. Rachel had not explained what she did for a living and he hadn’t exactly explored the question deeply. Now he had the answer.

Recovering from this revelation, he began to move down the corridor.

He counted the doors, stopping when he reached a glass enclosure. The area was pleasantly lit—possibly by skylights. He could hear—and now see—birds playing in the fountain that sat outside the glass, in the enclosed courtyard. He pushed open the door, scanning the seats. He spotted Rachel immediately. She sat with her back to him, her mane of chocolate-colored hair still caught in that morning’s ponytail. He could hear her voice, murmuring softly, not able to distinguish the words but suspecting she was telling a story.

She held a child on her lap—Michaela, he knew. He couldn’t see her from where he stood. He could only see part of a shoulder, a typical looking shoulder except for the IV pole positioned behind it. He could see that the pole was actually attached to what looked like a child’s stroller, rather than to a wheelchair. But the child was definitely on Rachel’s lap.

He approached them quietly, almost reverently, finally understanding that he was violating something personal—something that, until now, had never had anything to do with him. His bravado collapsed. He couldn’t breathe—again. He was pulled toward the scene, toward Rachel and Michaela, by a force he wouldn’t contemplate.

“Y todos vivieron muy felices.” Rachel finished her story, one she had created especially for Michaela. In this story, as in all of those Rachel told, everyone lived happily ever after.

Rachel sighed, pulling her daughter into a more comfortable position on her lap, resting her own head lightly against Michaela’s.

It was then that she saw him. Her eyes widened in recognition, her pulse quickened in a reaction she was powerless to stop.

“Hello, Rachel,” he whispered, “Linda sent me.” He’d had no intention of explaining his presence that way. Somehow, unconsciously, he had known it was the right thing to do.

“Hello, Lucas. We were just having our story time.”

He came around in front of them, his eyes intent on the child, his heart thundering in his chest. He squatted down in front of them in the stance of a baseball catcher.

“This is Michaela,” Rachel said, gently stroking the delicate fuzzy head that rested against her shoulder.

“Hi, Michaela,” Lucas answered, his voice breaking, his mouth dry.

“¿Quién es, Mamá?” The child looked at her mother, quietly curious, waiting for an explanation.

“El se llama Lucas, Michaela, pero es su padre, mija,” Rachel replied gently.

Lucas caught his breath. While his knowledge of Spanish was shaky at best, he knew he had just been introduced to his daughter. He didn’t speak, knowing he couldn’t trust his voice, knowing it wasn’t his turn to speak yet.

Michaela regarded him solemnly, as only a child can. She took in every aspect of his appearance. “¿Por qué…” she began.

“English, mija,” Rachel reminded her. “He doesn’t speak Spanish.”

Michaela changed track, easily resuming in English. “Why is he here?” Again, the honesty of childhood sparkled.

“He’s going to see if he can help you.” Michaela didn’t question what Rachel meant by this. Evidently, the little girl knew what kind of help she needed.

“He looks like me on the outside, Mamá.” Lucas noticed that, although she spoke English, Michaela retained the Spanish pronunciation of Mamá. It was, of course, part of Michaela’s heritage. It was natural to her.

“Yes, Michaela,” Rachel answered, “he does. We need to know if he’s like you on the inside, too.”

It was that simple, Rachel thought. And that complicated.

Lucas’s head was reeling. It was all so much to take in. Bone marrow transplants, which they abbreviated as BMT, were a new concept in his world.

“We need to draw a blood sample,” Dr. Campbell advised Lucas. “Rachel tells me you would prefer a DNA-based test, which is my preference, as well. Without giving you all the boring details, I’ll just say that we tend to get more accurate information more quickly when we use the DNA test over the serology test. There are three levels of investigation we do on the sample. In your case—” he handed him a paper which Lucas recognized as a consent form “—we’d like permission to run all three levels straight away. We know our chances of a match are strong with you, and if we proceed this way, we’ll have the information that much sooner.”

Lucas nodded, thinking it couldn’t really make any difference to him. He understood, however, that urgency was involved, that speed could make a difference to Michaela.

“Furthermore, if you are a match, we’ll want to get you in as quickly as we can. There’s no point in dragging it out.” Dr. Campbell handed Lucas several brochures. “These have diagrams and such. I would recommend that you look at them. The donor procedure itself is not the worst thing you’ll ever experience, but it isn’t the most comfortable, either.”

He went on to describe how the bone marrow would be extracted from Lucas’s hip under a local anesthetic. He would be able to stay in the hospital overnight if he wanted, but he should anticipate a certain degree of tenderness in the area afterward and should not plan to drive himself home.

“How will Michaela get the transplant?” Lucas wanted to know.

“Well, I’m not her doctor. You’ll want to talk to Dr. Graham for the specifics of Michaela’s case.” Dr. Campbell removed his glasses and was pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “That said, the recipient usually receives it through an IV. The chemo she’ll have prior to it will be worse for her than the actual BMT procedure. But she will be fragile for some time afterward. Essentially, she’ll have no immune system and she may very well have side effects from the chemo again.”

“So,” Lucas pondered aloud, “this is what Rachel meant when she said it would get worse before it gets better.”

“Probably,” Dr. Campbell agreed, reaching to push the buttons on his intercom. “Yes, Kristen, this is Evan. Is Paul Graham around?”

A few seconds later he spoke into his phone again. “Yes, Paul. Evan here. Listen, Lucas Neuman is in my office, talking to me about the bone marrow transplant. Do you have a few minutes to talk about Michaela?”

Scant minutes later another man let himself into Dr. Campbell’s office. Lucas found himself standing and shaking hands with Paul Graham. Paul was blond and blue-eyed and noticeably fit. He had a gentle manner, but Lucas felt himself squirm under the intensity of the man’s blue gaze. Lucas had no idea how old the man might be; his appearance gave nothing away.

“I’ve got brochures for you, too,” he began, handing Lucas another handful of leaflets. “These give some general reference information, but as far as Michaela is concerned, well…hers has not been an easy case. She didn’t respond as quickly to chemotherapy as we might have hoped. AML, the kind of leukemia Michaela has, tends to spread to organs throughout the body. The longer it takes to get remission to occur, the more likely this kind of spread is. That’s why her BMT is so important. On the one hand, it’s not an unusual procedure at this point in treatment, but she needs it more than most. Without it…” He shrugged, letting his silence finish the sentence.

They had talked for a few more minutes, Lucas understanding that either doctor would be available to discuss the situation with him again, if he felt the need. Lucas was also aware of their disapproval—a very sure knowledge that they didn’t like him, despite having just met him.

The busyness outside Dr. Campbell’s office briefly dazzled Lucas and it took him a few minutes to get his bearings. Then he decided he wanted to look in on Michaela and maybe speak with Rachel again.

His attention was diverted, however, by a cluster of people moving along a corridor and coming to a halt at the reception desk, a few feet away from him.

“Muchas gracias, Doña Raquel, muchas gracias.”

Lucas watched as a woman clutched Rachel’s hands, offering her thanks. She was Hispanic, her jet-black hair showing a few impressive streaks of white, her black eyes sharp and bright with unshed tears.

“De nada, señora.” Rachel answered, continuing on in hushed Spanish tones that Lucas could neither follow nor understand.

“What’s the commotion?” Dr. Graham’s voice came from behind him, followed quickly by a chortle of laughter.

“Ah, yes,” Dr. Campbell said, smiling at Lucas, nodding his head toward the ruckus. “Today, Tómas goes home. He is a fan of Rachel’s, I’m afraid.”

Lucas searched the cluster of people, seeking someone who might be considered a patient. He finally spotted a boy, perhaps thirteen years old, sitting in a wheelchair, a hand and a leg encased in plaster. Or fiberglass, or something, Lucas corrected. Whatever they make casts out of these days.

The young boy, blushing furiously, clearly had eyes only for Rachel. She handed him a bouquet of balloons, speaking to him in Spanish, and posed for a picture with him. Lucas supposed the woman must be the boy’s mother.

Lucas’s first glimpse into Rachel on the job left him uneasy—and grudgingly respectful.

The group eventually arrived at the elevator, freeing Rachel to make her way over to Lucas when she saw him.

“Hello,” she said, smiling lightly. “How did your meeting go?”

“Fine, fine,” he answered. “I met Dr. Graham as well as Dr. Campbell. Dr. Graham is Michaela’s doctor for…this?”

Rachel nodded.

“Right,” Lucas resumed. “Anyway, they gave me my marching orders and a whole lot more, right here.” He held up the handful of papers. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

“I might see you then,” Rachel said, making to leave.

Lucas’s hand shot out, as if to grab her, a motion she evaded. “Um, wait, Rachel.” Now that he had her attention, he wasn’t sure what to say next. “So you’re a nurse.” It wasn’t particularly elegant or profound, but he had succeeded in extending the conversation.

“Yes.”

“How long…how long have you worked here?”

“This is the first and only place I’ve ever worked Lucas. I’ve been here five years.”

“Five years,” he repeated stupidly, understanding the significance of that time period. She had obviously started working here just when they had separated. When she’d finished school.

“Yes, Lucas. I interviewed for a position while you were in Las Vegas. It was one of the things I was doing…that week. I took the position as head a couple of years ago. I certainly wasn’t hired as head.”

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