“I would like you to be the father of my children.”

Thunder roared. Cymbals crashed. Trumpets blared.

And that was only what was going on in Mitch’s head. He’d had no idea he’d react this way until Elaine spoke the fateful words.

“There’s no point in marrying beforehand, because neither of us is interested in getting married to begin with.”

Mitch felt his brow dip into frown territory. That was news to him. “Go on.”

“I think the best approach is to wait. See if I get pregnant and if I do, then and only then explore marriage.” She paused for his reaction. “I just thought it would be a good idea not to put so much pressure on each other. You have to make love something like every other day for seven days to increase the odds of getting pregnant.”

“It does sound like a lot of hard work,” he mused. He reached for his scone and buttered it.

“Fortunately I’m a workaholic.”

Dear Reader,

It’s October, the time of year when crisper temperatures and waning daylight turns our attention to more indoor pursuits—such as reading! And we at Silhouette Special Edition are happy to supply you with the material. We begin with Marrying Molly, the next in bestselling author Christine Rimmer’s BRAVO FAMILY TIES series. A small-town mayor who swore she’d break the family tradition of becoming a mother before she becomes a wife finds herself nonetheless in the very same predicament. And the father-to-be? The very man who’s out to get her job….

THE PARKS EMPIRE series continues with Lois Faye Dyer’s The Prince’s Bride, in which a wedding planner called on to plan the wedding of an exotic prince learns that she’s the bride-to-be! Next, in The Devil You Know, Laurie Paige continues her popular SEVEN DEVILS miniseries with the story of a woman determined to turn her marriage of convenience into the real thing. Patricia Kay begins her miniseries THE HATHAWAYS OF MORGAN CREEK, the story of a Texas baking dynasty (that’s right, baking!), with Nanny in Hiding, in which a young mother on the run from her abusive ex seeks shelter in the home of Bryce Hathaway—and finds so much more. In Wrong Twin, Right Man by Laurie Campbell, a man who feels he failed his late wife terribly gets another chance to make it up—to her twin sister. At least he thinks she’s her twin…. And in Wendy Warren’s Making Babies, a newly divorced woman whose ex-husband denied her the baby she always wanted, finds a willing candidate—in the guilt-ridden lawyer who represented the creep in his divorce!

Enjoy all six of these reads, and come back again next month to see what’s up in Silhouette Special Edition.

Take care,

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

Making Babies
Wendy Warren

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my daughter,

Elisabeth Elana Laura Blough,

link to the past and the future,

key to joy in the present.

Your daddy and I adore you.

“Our hearts spoke your name, and God heard.”

WENDY WARREN

lives with her husband, Tim, a dog, a cat and their recent—and most exciting!—addition, baby daughter Elisabeth, near the Pacific Northwest’s beautiful Willamette River. Their house was previously owned by a woman named Cinderella, who bequeathed them a gardenful of flowers they try desperately (and occasionally successfully) not to kill, and a pink General Electric oven, circa 1958, that makes the kitchen look like an I Love Lucy rerun.

A two-time recipient of Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award for Best Traditional Romance, Wendy loves to read and write the kind of books that remind her of the old movies she grew up watching with her mom—stories about decent people looking for the love that can make an ordinary life heroic. Wendy was an Affaire de Coeur finalist for Best Up and Coming Romance Author of 1997. When not writing, she likes to take long walks with her dog, settle in for cozy chats with good friends and sneak tofu into her husband’s dinner. She always enjoys hearing from readers, and may be reached at P.O. Box 1208, Ashland, OR 97520.

Elaine’s Fertility Goddess Shake

1 cup plus 2 tbsp of the best chocolate or vanilla-caramel ice cream you can find

½ cup organic soy milk, regular or vanilla—chilled

1 small ripe banana

1 tbsp organic peanut, almond or cashew butter

1 couch

1 romance novel

Put 1 cup ice cream into a blender. Put 2 tbsp into your mouth. Add ½ cup soy milk (to the blender) then the banana and nut butter. Process until smooth. Pour into a tall, frosted glass.

Sit on the couch, pick up your novel, sip your drink and think sexy thoughts. You’ll be a goddess in no time.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Pencil erasers tasted like gum mixed with sand. Elaine Lowry knew this for a fact because she’d just chewed through one while staring at a large flat appointment book lying open on the desk in front of her.

For two days each week, Elaine worked in the outer office of Harold J. Gussman, D.D.S. She did the dentist’s filing and stuffed envelopes for the “Come-In-We’ll-Make-You-Smile” six-month checkup reminders he sent to his patients.

She’d been working here part-time for five years. Just yesterday, she’d walked the two blocks to Office Max on her lunch hour to buy one of those little plastic water bottles with the sponge tips so she could sponge the envelopes instead of having to lick them all.

Five years, and she’d finally made the switch from tongue to sponge.

It just showed how she felt about change. If she’d been in charge of the pilgrims, the citizenry of the United States would be huddled around Plymouth Rock to this day.

Pushing heavy brown bangs off her forehead, Elaine rubbed a spot of tension over her right eyebrow and sighed. It was difficult to respond to life’s little challenges.

Take, for instance, right now.

She was covering for Sue, Dr. Gussman’s receptionist, who had slipped out for a potty break. In looking at the appointment book a minute ago, Elaine had seen that Steph Lowry would be coming in at four-fifteen for a tooth bonding.

Steph Lowry.

Steph. Short for “Stephanie.”

Lowry. Short for “the vacuous, bubble-headed, plastic-breasted bleached blonde who stole my husband.”

Not that Elaine was holding a grudge. But surely the imminent arrival of her barely ex-husband’s younger, blonder new bride called for some reaction. Something more than the “Oh, you’re having your wisdom teeth pulled? Don’t worry, it won’t hurt a bit” dental receptionist’s smile that felt as if someone had superglued her upper lip to her gums.

That’s me, Elaine thought. No point in making a scene.

She had not been raised to respond in anger, or with any other less-than-gracious emotion.

So never mind that she wanted to write Root Canal in the appointment book next to Steph Lowry’s name. Dignity was eternal.

“Thanks for manning the front, sweetie. I had to pee like a racehorse.” Sue Kelsey, Dr. G’s receptionist for the past nine years, elbowed Elaine away from the desk and ran a porcelain nail down the column of afternoon appointments.

“We’re double-booked with two fillings at six,” she groaned. “What a pisser. I won’t get out until seven.” The permed red curls she wore down to her shoulders bounced when she shook her head. “Rats. It’s a total waste of daylight savings time. I crave at least a little sunlight when I go home, you know? Are you out of here soon? Are you?” Sue slapped Elaine’s forearm with the back of her hand. “Hey.”

“Hmm?”

“Are you leaving soon?”

“Leaving?”

“Yeah. Going home. Sayonara. Hasta la vista. Outta here, suckers.” Squinting behind gold glitter-rimmed glasses, Sue studied her officemate. “What’s the matter with you? You look like you shot yourself full of Novocaine.”

Elaine struggled to focus. Novocaine sounded kind of nice right about now. A little afternoon respite. Like high tea, only numbing.

“I’m fine.” Elaine forced some cheer into her voice even though her stomach felt like it wanted to climb out through her mouth. A glance at her Timex—the one Kevin had given her three years ago on their tenth anniversary—told her it was four-thirteen. Unless tardiness was one of the new-and-improved Mrs. Lowry’s downfalls, she would be here any minute.

So typically sensitive of Kevin to recommend his first wife’s dentist for his second wife’s teeth.

Sue must have taken the appointment when Stephanie called. Had she noticed Steph’s last name? Elaine dreaded the thought of questions. Sue didn’t know about Stephanie. No one at the office knew that her husband had left her for a younger and depressingly firmer woman. All Elaine had told her co-workers was that she and Kevin had decided to split, they were both getting on with their lives and wished each other well…yadda, yadda.

Granted, diplomacy like that could be considered the coward’s way out, and, no, she didn’t expect Dr. Phil to ring her doorbell offering kudos on her outstanding coping skills. But it was easier this way. It was. She rarely saw her co-workers outside of work, anyway. And the truth was, it didn’t matter how nice you were: When your husband left you for the Tae-Bo instructor at your coed gym, people talked.

Elaine’s stomach gurgled, ulcerlike. If she could simply hide until this little quirk of fate had passed…

Grabbing her work, she retreated to the file cabinets against the far wall. She kept her head down and her back to Sue and the reception window, but she knew the moment Stephanie arrived. The hair on the nape of Elaine’s neck stood up and her bare ring finger started to spasm.

“Hi, I have a four-fifteen with Dr. Gussman.”

The high, nasal voice was unmistakable. Steph Lowry sounded like a canary with a sinus infection. It was her only unattractive attribute. Well, that and the fact that she stole other women’s husbands, but why quibble?

“Do you have a key for the little girl’s room?” Steph chirped after Sue asked her to sign in.

Elaine gritted her teeth hard enough to ruin all of Dr. Gussman’s fine work. Little girl’s room. Puh-lease! Like anyone needed a reminder that the bloom was still on Stephanie’s rose.

Apparently Sue handed over the key, because Stephanie cooed, “Ooh, thank you,” then giggled. “I have to go all the time now.” She spoke confidentially, woman to woman. “I had no idea it was so much work being pregnant!”

Sue murmured something in reply, but Elaine didn’t really hear. Her heart dropped and her stomach lurched. She was going to pass out….

No. She was going to vomit first and then pass out.

Locking her fingers around the cold metal drawer of the file cabinet, she sucked air in shallow breaths and wondered whether anyone would take her side if she remained upright by clasping her hands around the neck of a pregnant woman.

Elaine didn’t have to see Stephanie to be able to picture her. The image of the sunny California blonde who had been her casual acquaintance and her husband’s lover was printed indelibly on her mind.

Stephanie warbled another “thank you,” then left the office in search of the bathroom, and Sue went in back to tell Dr. Gussman his next patient had arrived. Elaine stood very, very still and tried not to toss her cookies. All at once she started to shake. Hanging on to the file cabinet, her arms tingled and her heart began to race. She felt dizzy and hot and clammy.

“I’ve got to get out of here.”

She didn’t stop to think twice. Wanting only to leave before Sue returned to her desk, Elaine took the few remaining files and shoved them behind the W’s in the bottom drawer. Grabbing her purse and the blue cardigan she’d brought with her this morning, she scribbled, “Finished early. See you tomorrow.—E.” on a yellow Post-It and stuck the paper to the appointment book. As calmly as she could, she moved through the waiting room then flew out the door and down the hall.

The elevators in the seventy-year-old building moved like sap down a maple tree. Unwilling to linger when Stephanie might emerge from the little mistress’s room at any moment, Elaine opted for the stairs.

Pregnant. Pregnant. Preg-Nant. The word repeated with every click of her heels down the cold, concrete steps. Kevin and Steph Lowry were with child. Divorce had only been the legal end to her marriage. This news was coup de grâce.

A chill ran through her. Struggling into her sweater twice—the first time, it was inside out—Elaine hung her purse over her shoulder, stuffed her balled hands into the cardigan’s deep pockets and continued down the stark stairwell.

All she had ever wanted was to be a wife and mother. She had loved her home, her yard and her neighborhood, her part-time job at Dr. Gussman’s and her volunteer work for the garden club. Kevin had always wanted more and better, but not she. All she had needed to make their life together complete was a child. But Kevin had said, “Let’s wait.” So they’d waited.

And waited. And waited.

The timing had never been right. There had always been something else Kevin thought they should do first, someplace he had wanted to visit, a new career move to focus on. Something. And she’d let it go, trusting in the day her husband would want a baby as much as she did. She’d wanted everything to be perfect.

Now she was thirty-seven with a biological clock that screamed “Cuckoo” every hour, and Kevin was off building a nest with Mrs. More and Better.

Elaine’s mind and feet began moving like the chorus in Riverdance as she ran down three flights of stairs. She was moving downhill, but with each step her chest seemed to grow tighter and heavier, her breath becoming more labored. Her skin felt hot; her head swam. Finally at the stairwell to the second floor, she started to stumble, catching herself just before she fell by bracing her palms on the wall. Her rubbery legs would not carry her another step.

Turning around, her back against the cold, flat concrete, Elaine allowed her quivering body to slip slowly down until she was seated with her knees to her chest. Bunching her sweater in her hands, she pressed her face into its folds…

And screamed.

And screamed…and screamed…and screamed.

Elaine howled with the pain of long-broken dreams. She howled because, in the final analysis, it was she who had allowed them to break. The sound of her rage was muffled by an off-the-rack acrylic-wool blend but nothing could suppress her grief.

When she was finished, she wiped her eyes with her sleeve, smearing mascara on the cuff. For several minutes, she sat there not thinking of anything, really, until slowly it dawned on her: she felt better. Less stuffed, like a hall closet after spring cleaning, purged of last season’s broken umbrellas and single mittens.

Rising, she tested her legs. Shaky, but not bad.

Walking more sedately down the remaining two flights, Elaine allowed images to waft through her mind, images she’d kept at bay for months. During the years she had wanted desperately to be a mom, she’d had a recurring dream about a female child with toffee-colored hair and light eyes. In the dream the little girl held a bouquet of wildflowers out to Elaine, but each time Elaine reached for the gift, the girl would slip farther away, as if she were being pulled back, and a high but lovely voice would whisper, “Whatever you decide is all right.”

Elaine had never been able to decipher the meaning of those words, but she’d always known that in the dream the sweet girl was her daughter.

Today for the first time, the message made sense.

Whatever you decide is all right. “I can still choose.” The simple but crucial realization nearly made her stumble again. Having a child was no longer anyone’s decision but hers. Sitting on a concrete stairwell, crying into her sweater, she had cleared space in her heart, and she knew without having to think twice how she was going to fill it. Could there be any question?

Family was still her dream. She would not give it up. The head count at her breakfast table might be different than she’d originally planned, but one way or another, she was going to have her baby.

A converted Craftsman in the southeast section of Portland had been Elaine’s home for the past nine months. With its pillared front porch and etched glass built-ins, the two-bedroom duplex suited her well—better, she sometimes thought, than the rambling five-bedroom contemporary she had shared with Kevin. And the rent was amazingly low.

Walking up the broad porch steps, Elaine stuck her key in the lock and let herself in.

Crying had left her with a dull ache behind her eyes and nervous hunger, so she went to the kitchen for aspirin and carbohydrates. Quickly she downed two Extra-Strength Bayers then opened the freezer and summoned a smile for her old pals Ben & Jerry, the only men she’d had in her apartment in the time she’d lived here. Grabbing a carton of Cherry Garcia and a soup spoon, she took the ice cream with her into the bedroom while she changed out of her work clothes. Outside the window, she could hear the rumble of a gas-powered motor.

At first the sound seemed out of context, and she couldn’t quite place it. Then her brain made the connection: power motor…backyard…

Gardener!

Elaine hadn’t seen a gardener in all the while she’d lived here. Her absentee landlord offered outstanding rent and a twelve-month lease, but little in the way of home improvements. The only landscaping was a row of pansies Elaine herself had planted and a lone ornamental cabbage that listed drunkenly to one side, courtesy of one of the neighbors.

Now the presence of a gardener seemed like kismet. If she was going to raise a child here, she wanted the duplex to look and feel like home.

Quickly Elaine stripped off a teal green T-shirt with a huge smiling mouth silk-screened across the front and a pair of stark white, how-wide-can-my-hips-look? nurse’s pants. Reaching down to a dresser drawer, she pulled out a simple cotton jumper and slipped it over her bra and panties. Hopefully, her landlord wouldn’t mind if she had a little tête-à-tête with the gardener regarding fall planting. This would be Step One of “The Baby Preparation Plan.” Granted, it wasn’t as proactive as taking extra folic acid or visiting a sperm bank, but home enhancement felt like a good solid place to start. Very Earth Mother.

Grabbing her Ben & Jerry’s, she hurried to the laundry room and the door that led to the backyard. A lacey half curtain only partially blocked her view.

With a spoon of ice cream stuck in her mouth, she peeked out. The large rear yard still had enough life in it to look fairly decent when it wasn’t totally overgrown.

Hmm. The gardener had done a nice job so far. Most of the weeds were gone, half the lawn was trimmed in neat even rows, and he—

Whoa.

Craning her neck for a better look, Elaine blinked in surprise.

Oh…whoa.

Gardener Guy was half-naked. He had removed his shirt and tied it around his hips. Pushing a power mower toward the far fence, he afforded Elaine a clear view of broad, well-defined shoulders, a trim waist and a jeans-clad tush.

Oh, my. Elaine hadn’t spent much time ogling males, so she was no expert, but as tushies went, this one seemed…darn-near perfect.

He reached the end of the yard, backed up and precisely aligned the machine with the row of lawn he’d just cut. There was something in his manner—in the way he marched across the lawn, the dedication in his bearing, that seemed comforting.

Swirling more ice cream onto her spoon, Elaine allowed her gaze to wander enjoyably up his body again, taking note of lightly tanned skin and a very pleasing amount of dark chest hair over an equally pleasing chest. She sensed she shouldn’t be doing this—it was hardly polite—but what the heck? She’d earned a few ogling privileges! And it was curiously fun. Like live TV for divorcées. When the man paused, raising his hand to wipe his brow, Elaine felt her body flush with a tingly sense of familiarity as she saw his strong neck and clean jaw, a nose with handsome character and—

Oh, dear Lord. That was no ordinary afternoon fantasy trimming her grass, it was—

Mitchell Ryder, Esquire. Chocolate cherry ice cream splattered the window in a fine spray as she choked.

She could only stare, surprised to the point of confusion. It couldn’t be, she thought as he lowered his hand, arched his back in a stretch and looked right at the door.

She didn’t pause to think. With a sharp “Yipe!” Elaine ducked below the level of the smeary window, her back to the door, knees tucked up, Ben & Jerry’s carton clutched against her.

“Calm down,” she whispered to herself. “Calm down.” Her heart was pounding a mile a minute. That was Mitch Ryder, all right, über divorce lawyer, the man known in legal circles—and to anyone he wasn’t representing—as “The Eel.” His reputation for calm, emotionless litigation made him a favorite among judges, a real lawyer’s lawyer. The last time Elaine had seen him he’d been about to make partner in the same firm her ex-husband belonged to.

No, wait a minute. That wasn’t the last time she’d seen him.

Elaine shook her head. Silly her. She had seen Mitch Ryder again in divorce court when he had represented her husband, and managed to make her own hundred-and-fifty-dollar-an-hour attorney look like a very expensive prelaw intern!

It had been so humiliating to have her marriage dissected by someone with whom she’d once shared aperitifs.

Mitch had been to her house several times for cocktail parties and business dinners. What she remembered was that he’d arrived promptly, left early and always thanked her personally as he did so. The year she and Kevin hosted a madrigal-themed Christmas brunch, Mitch had come to the kitchen, where Elaine had been sponging spilled mead off her Italian tiled floor. Wordlessly he had grabbed a towel and bent down to help, literally waving away her protests. Crouched near him on the ceramic tile, their knees almost touching, she’d felt her face flame.

“You like this, don’t you?” he asked when the floor was cleaned.

Elaine released a little puff of inappropriately breathy laughter as she reached for his wet towel. “Wh-what? Wiping spills?”

“Inviting people in.” He held on to the dish towel, surprising her, until she looked up at him. “You have a gift for making people feel comfortable, Elaine.”

Really? That was exactly what she liked to do. And he had a gift for making women feel like he truly saw them. His golden-brown eyes never wandered when he spoke.

Elaine knew she absolutely should not have felt that frisson of awareness when he said her name, and she certainly wished she could forget it now. Unfortunately the memory popped to mind to torment her at the most inopportune times. She’d remembered it vividly, for example, the day Ryder had informed the judge that her husband had fallen out of love years ago, but hadn’t wanted to “hurt” her.

Bastard, Elaine had thought at the time, fairly certain she ought to have meant her husband, but actually referring to Mitch. There had been times during the divorce proceedings when he’d turned to her and she could have sworn she’d seen regret in his eyes. Or maybe it had been pity. The emotion had been little more than a flash, in any case. Most of the time, he’d seemed devoid of feeling, even toward his own client.

To Elaine, though, every word uttered in that courtroom had felt deeply, agonizingly personal. God, she’d hated everything about the divorce. She’d felt drained, pummeled every single day. And, finally, she’d felt that most frightening of feelings: dead indifference.

That’s when she had given up, told her lawyer at the lunch break to ask for half the proceeds from the sale of her and Kevin’s home and to let the rest go. No alimony. He could keep the expensive antiques and the vacation home, the bonds and the stock portfolio. Half of everything should have been hers, but she didn’t care anymore. It cost too much to fight.

Her attorney had been violently opposed, of course, but Elaine hadn’t budged. The day it was all over, she’d walked to a city park near the court building and perched stiffly on a wrought iron bench. Wrapped in a winter coat, numb to the wind chafing her skin, she’d sat and stared at a fountain for who knows how long, until a young couple claimed the bench opposite hers….

In their early twenties, dewy even in frigid December, their giggles were at once intimate yet somehow universal. With the sack lunches they’d brought discarded beside them, they snuggled and kissed, pausing now and again to stare at their own clasped hands as if they had never seen such a romantic sight.

Watching them, Elaine felt her chest squeeze and her throat start to close, and she realized it had been years since she’d known what it was like not merely to be young, but to feel that way. To feel fresh and ripe with plans and giddily, incautiously in love.

Swallowing the grief that surged to her throat, Elaine rose from the bench, turned to walk away and found herself locking gazes with Mitchell Ryder. He stood fifty feet ahead of her, carrying his briefcase. Wearing a wool trench coat, he looked like he belonged in a window seat at Higgins Restaurant, not standing in line at a two-dollar-a-piece Polish dog stand. He stared at her with the same steady intensity with which she’d gazed at the lovers, and Elaine knew instantly he’d been watching her the whole time. The expression in his eyes was different from any she had seen there before. Mitchell “The Eel” Ryder was looking at her with what could only be called compassion.

Embarrassment threatened to drown her. She walked away, moving quickly along the crowded city block, but her wobbly legs wanted to give out. When the Heathman Hotel appeared on her left, she darted in, heading immediately for the bar.

Normally a white wine spritzer gal with a one-drink limit, Elaine sat down and ordered a brandy. She didn’t even bother to take off her coat. At this moment she thought she might never feel warm again.

Her drink hadn’t even been served yet when Mitch Ryder slipped onto the bar stool next to her. He said nothing for several moments, didn’t glance her way, merely called for an expensive scotch and waited for it to arrive. Then still without looking at her, he said in a hushed tone, “Why did you give up? You could have held out for more than you got. A lot more. Your lawyer should have made you see it through.”

He sounded angry, which Elaine thought was a little ironic, considering.

Brandy snifter cupped between her cold palms, she drank quickly, too quickly, but the brandy burned a path to her stomach that at least served the purpose of making her feel warm. She sat, trying not to cough, focusing instead on the heat. After a moment, the drink gave her a pleasantly light-headed feeling, and fortified, she answered, “I don’t want to ‘see the divorce through.’ I wanted to see my marriage through. And I don’t want more money. I just want it to be over.”

In the silence that ensued, Elaine finished her drink, but instead of getting up to leave, which had been her plan, she ordered another. She had a question for Mr. Ryder, too, and it burned like the brandy. “Why did you represent Kevin?”

A muscle jumped in Mitch’s jaw. Beneath the dulcet music and soft murmur in the Heathman’s classic lounge, he answered, “It wasn’t personal. It was business.”

It was an awful answer, and she said so. Her husband had cheated on her. Either you were a person who cared about that kind of thing or you weren’t.

For the first time since he’d sat down, Mitch turned toward her fully. “I am,” he said. The stern masculinity so characteristic of his face seemed even more sober today. “Covington asked me to handle the case.”

Henry Covington was the founding partner of Mitch and Kevin’s firm. Elaine remembered he was also a law professor and that the younger partners thought of him as their mentor.

“If it means anything at all, I regretted that decision every time I walked into the courtroom.” His gaze remained focused and steady.

Elaine stared back a long while without answering. The brandy snifter was still in her hands. Taking a last, long swallow, she set the glass on the bar and opened her purse to pay for her drink.

Without warning, Mitch’s hand covered hers. “Don’t leave….”

Huddled against the back door, out of sight, Elaine closed her eyes.

She now wished she had left. She should have left.

Mitch Ryder was officially her biggest, baddest mistake ever. Her only consolation from that night until present day had been her assumption that she would never see the man again.

Forcing herself to open her eyes, one at a time, she stood up slowly, peeking out the window.

He was gone. The mower stood alone in the middle of the yard. Smooshing her cheek against the glass, Elaine strained to see to her right and caught sight of him as he rounded the corner of the house. Leaving the ice cream on the counter, she ran to the living room. If she lifted the edge of the curtain just a little…

When the doorbell rang, she yelped. Traversing the space from window to door quickly on bare feet, she placed her palms on the door, leaned forward and looked through the peephole.

Feeling her heart flutter as she peered at Mitch Ryder’s face, she thought, Don’t panic, willing her heart to settle into an even rhythm so she could think clearly. There was no need to panic.

Except that six months ago, she had agreed to have another drink with Mitch Ryder and, for the first time in her life, gotten too toasted on brandy to drive home. The next day all she could remember was that they’d gotten into her car that night and she’d awakened in her big king-size bed the next morning…

Alone.

Nude.

And she almost never slept nude.

Lying under three-hundred-thread-count sheets in her thirty-seven-year-old birthday suit she had been hungover, yes, but curiously serene.

Since she had neither seen nor spoken to Mitch since that night, today she had no idea whether he was the second lover she had ever had in her life or merely…the divorce lawyer who had seen her naked. Either way—

That he had shown up today was positively too cruel. First Stephanie with her glad tidings and now this.

Resting her forehead on the door, Elaine barely resisted the urge to knock herself unconscious against the solid wood panel.

Please let this be a bad dream, God. If I wake up and he’s gone, I promise I will give up simple carbohydrates forever.

Chapter Two

Mitch stood outside Elaine Lowry’s rented front door and tried not to let his mounting anger get the best of him. The duplex she’d been living in for the past several months was the pits. According to his friend at Portland Property Management, the building was structurally sound. But cosmetically?

Mitch flicked a barklike wedge of peeling brown paint off the door frame and swore under his breath. This was not the type of place he’d pictured for Elaine when he’d asked his friend at the management firm to find her a “good deal.”

Standing with his hands on his hips, head lowered, he waited for her to answer the bell. The work shirt that had been tied around his hips now covered his torso, albeit half buttoned and untucked. Perspiration trickled down the nape of his neck, and he swiped it away, grumbling as a wasp dive-bombed past his face. He looked up to see a nest under the eaves. Great. Another thing he’d have to take care of.

He did not want to be here. Should not be here. In life, as in work, Mitch preferred situations that were black-and-white. Cleanly opened, cleanly closed, like the best cases.

Elaine Lowry was not black-and-white. She was a problem for him in walking, talking Technicolor.

For the past decade and a half, Mitch had made quite a reputation for himself and his firm by representing high-profile divorce suits. He considered it his job to make people act responsibly and with integrity when feelings were hurt, egos were bruised and money was involved. Quite a challenge and one he enjoyed. Usually. Representing Kevin Lowry, however, had been as rewarding as sticking needles in his eye.

Raising a fist that was clenched too tightly, Mitch flexed his fingers, balled them again and knocked on the door.

He never got personally involved with one of his own clients; he certainly never got personally involved with the opposing attorney’s client. Never. Capital N, capital EVER. He’d crossed the line. And he was about to cross it again.

It wasn’t his business to make sure she was protected financially.

It wasn’t his business to make sure she was well housed.

It wasn’t his business to make amends for her marriage or her divorce or…anything else. Yet here he was.

“Just make it fast,” he hissed to himself, knocking on the door one more time, harder than he needed to. He would stay briefly, speak his piece, make sure she was at least comfortable here and maybe give her the name of a good financial advisor. She could do what she wanted with the information. Or not. It was none of his business.

Elaine’s nose, lips and chin were pressed against the door when Mitch knocked. Caught off guard, she jumped, nearly blinding herself on the old-fashioned peephole. She twisted the knob and opened the door.

“Wait a minute! Don’t open—” Mitch started to say, but it was too late; a wasp so big it was probably in violation of the leash law, flew straight at her face.

Elaine yelped and flailed her hands.

“Don’t move!” Mitch ordered with the same deep authority she remembered from the courtroom.

Unfortunately the wasp kept buzzing, so she kept flailing. Then the buzzing stopped, and her nose felt like an entire pincushion had launched itself at her.

“Ow!”

“Damn it.” Mitch pushed the door open in an effort to reach for her. It banged into her bare shin.

“OWWW!!!”

He swore more colorfully. “Sorry. Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right!” Elaine shook as she pointed to her nose. She could see the wasp if she crossed her eyes. “Get it off, get it off!”

“Stop hopping.” He grasped her elbow with a strong hand and pushed her a step back, following her into the room. Holding her steady, he examined her face from a distance of less than a foot. “It’s got you.”

She stared back at him; pain and exhaustion that was about a lot more than a wasp sting filled her to overflowing. “This newsflash just in,” she snapped, “I Already Know That.”

Mitch’s brows rose ever so slightly at her tone, but he didn’t seem offended. “Hold still.” Reaching up, he slapped the wasp and—inadvertently, she assumed—her nose.

“Hey!” she protested.

The wasp buzzed away, still alive and only a little worse for the wear.

“Duck,” Mitch ordered, using his hand like a racket to swat the insect out of the house. He slammed the door shut.

Turning back to her, he ignored the glare she attempted to give him. Her poor nose was starting to throb already. She cupped her hands around it.

“Where’s your bathroom?” he asked. Elaine pointed, and Mitch took her elbow, overriding her little tug of resistance.

He found the light switch and flicked it on, then pulled her in front of the sink to the medicine cabinet. “Are you going to put your hands down so I can see your nose?”

“No.” Her voice emerged muffled. Call her vain, but if sensation was anything to go by, her nose was swelling already, and she didn’t have the smallest shnoz to begin with. “It’s fine.”

Reaching up, Mitch drew her hands away from her face, gently but insistently. He had large hands; one easily wrapped around both her wrists and with the other he tilted her face and gazed at it, taking his time. “Not too bad,” he said finally.

Elaine licked her lips. “It isn’t?”

When he shook his head, she expected him to let her go, but he didn’t. He continued to hold her. His touch, however, was light. It was impersonal.

It was driving her crazy.

Elaine’s heart pounded far more than it should have under the circumstances, unless, of course, wasp venom was making her delirious. She knew she was staring at Mitch’s mouth, but felt helpless to look away.

And then the hand cupping her chin moved. He ran his knuckles lightly across her cheek. When he reached her jaw, his fingers unfurled to wander into the hair at her nape.

Oh, Lord, they had slept together. Elaine knew it the moment he touched the back of her neck. She couldn’t remember the last time a man other than Kevin had touched her there, except for Dr. Larson when she’d had swollen glands last winter, and he was seventy. Yet Mitch’s hand did not feel new or strange or even unfamiliar. She remembered it. Her body remembered it.

A shower of tingles raced down her back, along her arms and, incredibly, over her thighs. During the last few years of her marriage to Kevin, she’d forgotten she even had thighs. Mitch was barely touching her and suddenly she felt every pore.

“Where’s your antiseptic?”

Elaine licked her lips. “Where’s my—” She blinked, blurry with desire, but not too blurry to realize what he’d just asked. Her lips formed a confounded O. “What?”

“Antiseptic,” he repeated. “That sting is…pretty nasty.”

“Is it?” Her racing heart skidded to a dull, heavy thud. Embarrassment washed up her neck and face. What she remembered clearly from that night in the bar was the incomparable comfort of Mitch’s presence. The case had ended. Her marriage was over. Sitting in a bar, in her winter coat, in the middle of the afternoon, she’d felt more alone than ever before in her life. She’d tried hard not to show despair, humiliation, or any of the myriad emotions she’d felt. She’d tried not to look at Mitch’s face, so often shuttered and unreadable, but on that day almost…compassionate.

Then over the sound of waves crashing in her ears, she’d heard him say, “He’s not worth it, Elaine.”

He’d sounded so sure and so angry and so on her side.

That had to be the reason she’d agreed to stay. And why she had found herself, over an hour later, still sipping brandy and actually laughing at the awful jokes Mitch told her and which she was surprised he even knew. And why, when he’d said finally, “I’ll take you home,” she’d unresistingly handed him her car keys, bundled into the passenger side and had felt—for the first time since she’d realized her life was falling apart—safe.

But a moment ago, standing in the confines of her small bathroom, with Mitch touching her, she hadn’t felt safe at all. For an instant, with his brown eyes fixed on her, she had felt the thrill that something wild and unknown was about to happen.

Men!

Anger kindled in Elaine’s stomach. Tightly she said, “Your hand is on the back of my neck.”

Mitch frowned quizzically.

“Your hand,” she bit out again. “It is on the back of my neck.” And clearly that was an erogenous zone. “I can’t get to the medicine cabinet.”

“Oh.”

He let her go. Elaine’s neck felt cold and bare.

They did an awkward dance as she moved around him. Catching sight of her own face in the mirror, Elaine longed to sit down right where she was and weep. Her nose where the wasp had stung her was red and inflamed and now that her adrenaline was calming, she could feel the throb again. Every part of her felt like it had been stung. Glancing above her own head, she saw Mitch’s reflection as he watched her.

She shoved the sliding glass of the medicine cabinet harder than she needed to, but could barely see the contents through the tears filling her eyes. Not the damned tears again, she groaned silently, pressing her lips together to refuse the emotion. No, she was not going to cry over this…this…whatever it was. Stupid…hormonal…mistake.

“Excuse me,” she said tightly, without turning around. “Would you please… This bathroom is just not that large.” Nothing happened. He didn’t move. “Would you leave?”

Mitch frowned heavily.

Elaine waited with forced calm, hand on the Neosporin, until she heard him walk quietly across the tile floor and through the hall. Without looking, she reached out, grasped the bathroom door and slammed it as hard as she could. She had no intention of crying in front of Mitch Ryder, and she certainly wasn’t going to cry over him.

She had plans, born of her heart only. If she intended to get on with them, she had better get used to feeling alone. No doubt she was going to feel alone a lot in the coming months as she embarked on a journey usually traveled by two.

As for discovering what had happened the night she left the bar with Mitch, that was a mystery that would have to remain unsolved. What difference did it make? She didn’t need an affair; she didn’t want the headache.

What she wanted was a pint-sized headache who needed all the love she had to give.

Splashing cold water on her face, Elaine dabbed her nose with antiseptic, replaced the tube and closed the medicine cabinet. Time to get down to business. She had a pregnancy to get under way. And a possible ex-lover to get rid of. She didn’t want Mitch Ryder here one moment longer than necessary.

Mitch looked down at the oak floor, grateful for the dimness of the living room with the curtains closed. As if the dimness would keep him from having to see himself too clearly.

What the hell was going on with him?

He had come here to relieve himself of the gnawing, uncomfortable sense of personal responsibility Elaine’s case had engendered. He had come here so he could feel less involved after he left. So far, his plan could be considered a failure.

Mitch wasn’t stupid. He knew what people—co-workers, most clients, his ex-wife—thought of him: that he was cold, impenetrable, virtually emotionless. That was fine. Experience told him their estimations were accurate. He’d long since stopped feeling guilty for his own inadequacies. That which had made his personal life a failure had lent strength to his professional life once he’d learned to use rather than deny his personality traits.

He shook his head. Every time he tried to make amends to Elaine—so he could walk away with a clear conscience—he got sucked in further. And yet he felt compelled to go on trying. Why?

Mitch’s sister, the youngest partner on record at the respected law firm of Cowden, Hardy, Hardy, Nash & Ryder, would tell him to snap out of it. “Do what you’re good at—pay someone else to do the other stuff” was M. D. Ryder’s credo. By “other stuff,” M.D. meant anything having to do with emotion. Mitch had lived by the same philosophy and on those rare occasions he hadn’t—his brief marriage, for example—the results had been suitably disastrous.

His sister was the only person he knew who could separate emotion from…well, everything better than he could. Family quirk.

“Do what you’re good at, forget the other stuff,” Mitch muttered, reminding himself that he had a reason for being here, a reason he could handle quickly and then leave.

He was staring at the closed curtains, at nothing, really, when Elaine emerged from the bathroom.

Her bare feet stepped quietly across the wood floor. She continued on to the kitchen without glancing at him. “I’m getting water. Do you want anything?”

Mitch frowned. From the start, he had admired Kevin Lowry’s wife for her innate warmth, for the gentle grace that came as a surprise every time he saw her. Now her tone was formal, brusque and businesslike.

“Water’s fine,” he said, following her into the kitchen.

As she pulled glasses out of a cabinet and a jug of ice water from the refrigerator, Mitch filled the yawning silence by taking his first really good look at the interior of the duplex.

Like the exterior, the interior had aged and was not as well maintained as it should have been, but the big, raw bones of the divided house were good. What he appreciated most, though, was the simple way Elaine had decorated, with dish towels in a bright sunflower pattern, yellow checked curtains on the windows, and several teapots—one that was covered in ridiculous red cherries—on wooden shelves above the cabinets. Late afternoon sun reached soothing streamers of light through the well-placed windows, enhancing the soft glow of butter-yellow walls.

The kitchen in his Mountain Park condominium was white and stainless steel. A twice-weekly housekeeper kept everything sparkling, though he rarely gave her anything to clean. He didn’t cook. Take-out was infrequent. Occasionally he nuked a frozen meal, but by and large he ate in restaurants and used the kitchen primarily as a wine cellar for occasional entertaining. Elaine lived in her kitchen. It was oddly appealing.

Filling both glasses with water, she set one on the counter in front of him and sipped from the other, eyeing him over the top of the rim. Mitch started to drink then noticed his glass was only half-full. Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?

Draining the glass, he set it down. She made no move to refill it, and Mitch smiled. Had to. He’d met few people as unintentionally candid as Elaine Lowry. Clearing his throat, he got down to business, presenting his opening gambit as if addressing a court. “You’re wondering why I’m here.”

She crossed her arms. “I’m wondering how you knew my address.”

Right. He’d forgotten that would be a question.

“I assume Maggie gave it to you,” she continued before he could respond. “Which is profoundly unprofessional, but I will take that up with her next time the rent is due.”

Maggie Lewis owned Portland Property, the company that managed this rental. Mitch had handed Elaine his friend’s business card the afternoon he’d followed her into the Heathman. Later he’d phoned Maggie personally and told her to find Elaine someplace clean and safe where the rent was cheap and likely to stay so. This duplex had been absentee-owned for over a decade. The rent had been raised only twice in that time. Unfortunately the owners had decided to sell one month ago, taking advantage of the spike in area home prices. New owners were sure to increase the rent. Maggie had mentioned the fact to Mitch in passing.

“So other than a love of lawn mowing, what brings you here, Mitch?”

He scowled. He could overlook her patent hostility because she hadn’t realized yet that he was on her side. But she would soon. He decided to warm things up a bit before he answered her question. “How’s your nose?”

“It hurts. I think I’ll go to bed early.”

Mitch plowed a hand through his hair and surrendered. Okay. Get to the point. Once he clarified the situation, she would realize he was here to make amends. No doubt she would be surprised by the news, so he’d give her a moment to process it. Because he tended to feel uncomfortable with profuse expressions of gratitude, he would take his cue to leave when the thank-yous began.

“If you recall, Maggie is a former client. I represented her in her second and third divorces.”

Elaine raised a brow. “I hope she got the frequent flyer discount.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“It’s a joke.”

“Oh.” She was being wry. Unfortunately, humor was not his forte. He’d been told that on a number of occasions as well. Clearing his throat, he attempted to get back on course. “As I was saying, I know Maggie, and because I referred you to her originally, she thought I would be interested in any changes that occurred in your current living situation.”

“There aren’t any changes occurring in my living situation.” Elaine frowned then stared at him hard. “Are there?”

Mitch hesitated, his assurance beginning to waver. Something told him his news was not going to be quite as graciously received as he’d originally thought.

The furrow between Elaine’s brows—the one she was going to Botox come Monday—deepened. Mitch had tucked Maggie’s card in her hand, and she’d used the referral because she knew she needed the good deal he had said Maggie would provide. She had a nest egg—half the proceeds from the sale of the house she’d owned with Kevin—but that was in savings, and her thirty hours a week at Dr. Gussman’s didn’t stretch very far. She’d been looking for a new job, but the market was slim in Portland. The cheap rent here had turned out to be her saving grace, so— Oh, no.

“The new owner wants to raise the rent,” she deduced. “Maggie told me she was certain he wouldn’t raise it for at least a year.” She made no attempt to check the panic coursing through her. Welcome to the perfect end to her perfect day: special delivery notice of a raise in rent. There wasn’t enough ice cream in all of Portland to make this news go down sweetly. With her lower lip pushing hard against her upper, she went ahead and glared at Mitch even though it wasn’t his fault and she’d been darned grateful to him for turning her on to Maggie in the first place. Stubbornly, she crossed her arms over her chest. Screw logic. She wasn’t in the mood. And then suddenly it occurred to her.

“So that’s why you came out here.” Her eyes widened. She put a hand on her forehead. “And that’s why you were mowing my lawn. It was a pity mow!”

“Your rent is not being raised. I came out here—” Mitch paused for a moment and stared. “A pity mow?” He shook his head. “I came out here to tell you the duplex has been sold.”

“Sold.” It took a protracted moment to process that information. Mitch wore a small smile, as if he considered this good news. “Sold? Sold is worse than the rent being raised,” she told him as if she were explaining why we don’t bite to a stubborn five-year-old. Lord, she was exhausted. She had lost too much; she was not losing her run-down duplex with the tilting ornamental cabbage. “They can’t do this. No way! I…am not…going…anywhere.”

She grabbed a dish towel—anything she could harmlessly wring to within an inch of its life—and used it to point around the kitchen. “Do you see those walls? I painted those walls. I did it. I went to classes at Home Depot for a month to learn how to glaze. I’ve invested something here. Time, energy, expectation.” She flung out an arm. “I gave my youth to those walls! One person cannot just waltz in and stomp all over another person’s dreams.”

“That wall is your dream?”

“Yes,” she said, but that sounded pathetic, so she backpedaled. “No. That’s not the point.”

“What’s the point?”

He asked gently, like he’d asked her a lot of things during the divorce, and those damn ready-to-roll tears threatened again. She took a breath. “The point is I have a lease. I’m not going anywhere. I’ll get a lawyer.”

“You’re one tough cookie, Elaine.” Amusement shone in his eyes, but not only humor. There was appreciation, too. He wagged his head. “Stop glaring at me a minute. I think you’re right. You shouldn’t let anyone get in the way of what you want. And you do have rights. If you’re not satisfied with your current lease—for any reason—we can draw up a new one to keep on file with the rental agency.”

Elaine’s confusion showed plainly in the furrow of her brow. “‘We’? You’re a divorce lawyer.”

“Yes.” Mitch cleared his throat. Now was a good time to tell her the rest of his news. She’d worked herself into a pretty good froth over a misconception. He was about to bring comfort and relief. Though most people didn’t think of divorce lawyers in this way, bringing comfort and relief was part of the job description. He was tying up loose ends so Elaine could feel safe and secure in her home, and he could put an end to the guilt that had been gnawing at him. Then he could stop thinking about Lowry vs. Lowry and get on with life the way he knew it.

Holding out his hand, he introduced himself as if for the first time. “How do you do? I’m your new landlord.”

The door on Mitch’s newly purchased Toyota Tacoma slammed with a satisfying crunch.

He attempted to start the vehicle, realized the key wasn’t in his hand, dug it out of his pocket and shoved it into the ignition. Grinding the gears, he backed out of the driveway.

Elaine had been slightly less appreciative for this turn of events than he’d anticipated. Her exact response, in fact, when informed that he had purchased the duplex and intended to give her a five-year lease guaranteeing her current below-market rent had been, “No, thank you. I’m moving.”

Moving. Two seconds after she’d just insisted she’d fight tooth and nail to stay!

Punching the steering wheel, he expelled a slow hiss of air. Who the hell could figure out people? Did she have any idea that he’d lain awake nights wondering if she could swing more rent right now in the event a new owner raised it, not to mention wondering how long her money would last and whether she was investing wisely? Then he’d got the idea to buy the duplex. According to the real estate agent he’d consulted, it was a sound investment—well-priced property in an up-and-coming area. Mitch figured he’d work a little less than he normally did on the weekends and become a handyman for a couple of months, getting his exercise here instead of at the gym. It was supposed to be simple.

He’d anticipated Elaine’s relief, her pleasure and, dammit, yes, her gratitude. He had not imagined she would look at him like he’d come to tell her he was putting a freeway through the family farm. He was offering her an updated, rent-controlled duplex, for crying out loud, in a city that had no rent control. And with him as her landlord, she could trust him to keep an eye on things. But following her initial shock had come a look of profound resentment.

The hell with it. He’d tried to make amends. The lady wasn’t interested? Fine.

“Stick to what you’re good at.”

The new-car smell in the cab of this pickup reminded him that he’d bought a truck and gardening tools with the expectation that he was going to be a landlord for a long time…but the hell with that, too. Abusing the stick shift as he came to a stop sign, Mitch realized he had no desire to go home to an empty apartment. He did, however, have to find someplace in his complex to stow the gardening tools, then shower and change. A glance at the digital clock in the dashboard and a quick calculation told him it would be approximately seven-thirty by the time he was done. Seven-thirty on a Friday evening. Between now and then he had plenty of time to find a dinner companion. A rare-steak dinner at Jake’s, a scotch and some logical conversation was just what he needed to forget Elaine Lowry.

Chapter Three

“So let me get this straight.” Gordon Shapiro, Elaine’s best friend since they’d studied for their bar and bat mitzvahs together over two decades ago, gazed curiously across a green Formica-topped table. “Your new landlord is your ex-husband’s divorce lawyer, and you may have slept with him—the lawyer, not the ex—but you’re not sure.”

Elaine nodded. “Right.”

“Hmm.” Gordon shook his head. “I feel terrible then.”

“You do. Why?”

“In high school I voted you ‘Most dull.’”

Elaine plucked a Splenda packet out of a ceramic dish on the kitchen table and threw it at her old friend. “I always suspected you were the one who put me over the top.” At six feet one inch and two hundred pounds, Gordon looked like a handsome linebacker, but he commiserated like a big, cuddly teddy bear.

Laying her head on the table, Elaine groaned. “What am I going to do? I can’t stay there if he owns it. And I’ll never find a two-bedroom in a great area with that kind of rent.” She thumped the table with her fist. “Damn him.”

Reaching for the latte he’d made Elaine and which she hadn’t yet touched, Gordon carried it to the kitchen counter.

“So tell me,” he said, fiddling with the controls of his new cappuccino machine, “if you’re not even sure you slept together, why are you so angry with him?”

“Because he offered me five years of guaranteed rent control!”

“Ah, right.” He nodded. “That bastard.”

Elaine sat up and shook her head. Gordon Shapiro had loved her through braces and Retinol A, through bad hair and bad jobs and through Kevin. He knew her as well as anyone, better than most. She leaned far over the table to explain. “Mitch Ryder thinks I’m going to be alone for five years. He slept with me, and he thinks I’m going to be alone that long.”

“You don’t know for sure that he slept with you.”

“Well, according to the evidence we know he saw me naked.”

“Right.” Gordon frowned. “That’s not good then.”

Elaine slumped over the table again. While Gordon made fresh lattes, she rose, crossed to the kitchen window and stared out.

She’d always loved visiting Gordon on Friday evenings. He lived three blocks from a large synagogue in the northwest section of Portland. Come twilight, families would pass by Gordon’s window, walking to shul together—mothers, fathers and children attractively dressed yet relaxed and happy as they started the Jewish Sabbath by strolling together.

“We used to do that,” Elaine murmured, leaning her shoulder against the window frame and her forehead against the glass. “When I was in grammar school, my parents would take Sam and me to temple every Friday night, and the rabbi would say a prayer for families. All the parents would put their hands on top of their kids’ heads and bless them. My dad’s hands were so big he could reach down and tickle my cheek with his pinkie. It was the best feeling in the whole world.”

Watching her, Gordon smiled back. “Better than Wavy Gravy?” He named their very favorite Ben & Jerry’s flavor. “I stocked up.”

She shrugged apologetically. “Yeah. Better than that.” She looked out again. “Even as a kid, I couldn’t wait to be the parent someday.” In an instant she was assailed by the real reason for the ache inside her, and her eyes began to well. “I’m so scared to have a baby on my own, Gordon. I don’t want to be scared, but I am. I’m even more afraid that I’ll chicken out.”

Gordon sympathized, but had little idea how to soothe such a pain. “Maybe you should start dating,” he said.

“What?” It was freakish how quickly her heart started to pound. The memory of falling asleep on Mitch’s shoulder rose instantly to mind. “I don’t want to date.”

“Nobody wants to date. It’s what you do so you can get to the good stuff.”

“Pass. The ‘good stuff’ is highly overrated, anyway.”

Gordon returned to the table with a fresh latte and a bowl of popcorn and sat. “I consider it my personal duty as your best friend to tell you ‘Nuh-uh.’ Honey, you were with Kevin way too long.”

“Yeah, well not so long that I don’t remember dating. It’s not worth the anxiety. All you do between dates is exfoliate and worry. Does he like me? Will he call again? Should I call him?”

“I love wondering that.”

Elaine shuddered. “Not me. Anyway, I’ve got more important things to think about. I’ve got to find a birth partner. I’ve always wanted to try natural childbirth, so I’ll need someone who can go to classes with me and help me breathe and—” Gordon was cringing already. Elaine’s heart plummeted. “Not your cup of tea, hmm?”

Looking up at her, his eyes full of affection and regret, Gordon said, “Sorry, pumpkin. You know how I am with blood.”

“But the miracle of birth—”

Gordon shook his head.

Elaine sighed. She’d known it was too much to hope for, but figured it was worth a shot. Gordon had been surprised but supportive when she’d first related her decision to have a family, but he’d never been that nuts about kids, even when he was one. This wasn’t going to be like the movies, where two single friends raised a child together.

Elaine could feel depression threaten as the dreaded “if onlys” floated through her mind. If only she’d married more wisely. If only she were married now to someone who would rub cocoa butter on her stomach and bring home books on attachment parenting and read aloud from them in bed. If only…

She turned again to gaze out the window. The one thing she had promised herself she would not do after her divorce was stay angry or get stuck in some postdivorce time warp. She’d spent twelve years of her marriage acting like Doris Day on Valium. Happy, happy, happy. The only thing worse would be to turn into Divorced Doris in need of Prozac.

“I’m not ruining this for you, am I?” Gordon asked, concern filling his voice.

She turned toward her friend and had to smile. He looked so guilty. “Nope. Not even close,” she assured him and knew suddenly it was true. The fact was that every stumbling block she thought of only made her want to have a baby more. “I’m going to do it, Gordy. I’ll just take the next logical step and worry about the rest later. I’m through with the picket fence fantasy.” She gave him a huge brave smile. “Come Monday morning, Gordo, I’m visiting a sperm bank.”

After an initial blink of surprise, Gordon nodded. “Now that I can get on board with. I’ll go with you.”

Elaine laughed. “We’ll see, Gordon.”

At 5:00 a.m. Saturday morning, Elaine’s eyes snapped open. She rolled over, burying her face in a pile of cool, soft pillows, but awakened again at five-thirty, six-fifteen and a quarter to seven.

Birds sang outside her bedroom window, the morning light poked around the lowered shade, teasing her, and she was helpless to resist its lure. For the first time in ages she had something more exciting than breakfast to get up for.

Showering quickly, she dressed for a day of running around in weather that was supposed to inch toward seventy. Indian summer. It was amazing, really, what a change in perspective could do. Yesterday, she’d been exhausted, older than her years. Today she felt fit and alive.

Ready and able to make a baby.

The conviction that she could pursue her dream on her own had not waned overnight. Today and tomorrow she planned to do as much research as she could. By Monday morning she’d be ready to get the ball rolling.

Inspired by the idea that she was finally in charge of her dreams, Elaine was too hyped to sit still. She took a brisk walk through the neighborhood then drove to Pappaccino’s for a toasted bagel and a hazelnut latte while she waited for the stores to open.

Come 10:00 a.m., her first stop was Barnes & Noble, followed by the library, where she checked out several books and researched alternative insemination on the Internet until an assistant librarian kicked her off the computer.

After the library, Elaine hit the craft store, Babies R Us, and PetCo to look—only look for now—at the puppies. Eventually she wanted her child to be raised around animals. Thoughts of country homes with space to roam flitted through her head as she laughed at the gymnastics of an exuberant Lab puppy before she made her seventh and last stop before home—the health food store.

Grabbing a basket, she wandered the aisles, acquainting herself with sprouted grains, fermented soybeans and “natural” chickens that, according to the literature they came with, had been raised at a veritable Club Med for poultry. Unfortunately she couldn’t bear the thought of eating something so happy, so she pressed on to the organic dairy case. If she was going to make a baby, she had to prepare her body. Good nutrition was a cornerstone of fertility.

By the time Elaine arrived home, laden with shopping bags and information, perspiration trickled beneath her T-shirt, her limbs felt rubbery and her stomach howled for food. She could have killed for a burger—the kind someone else made and which took three minutes, max, to serve up—but fast food was strictly off-limits from now on. She consoled her tummy by promising to feed it a yummy tempeh Reuben sandwich as soon as she got all the perishables put away.

Low blood sugar was probably the reason she didn’t react strongly when she saw the Toyota truck parked outside the duplex. Mitch was back. Not that she was surprised. He owned the building, after all, and he had said he was going to work weekends fixing it up. What he did with his duplex was his business; all she had to figure out was whether she intended to stay here or not.

Or not would have been ahead by a mile except that Elaine couldn’t imagine being able to afford anything more appropriate given her current job, her savings…and her plans. Which meant, of course, that she was going to have to call a truce with her landlord. She didn’t want his rock-bottom rent; she refused to accept it. Why he considered her his personal charity case, she didn’t know and refused to ponder. Stress interfered with ovulation.

Business, pure and simple—that’s all she wanted to think about where Mitch Ryder was concerned. Decent housing at a fair-to-both-of-them price was the deal she was determined to strike. When she found a better job, she would find better housing. Or, at least, comparable housing with a different landlord.

Hefting two of the grocery bags into her arms, Elaine lugged them up the porch steps, setting them by the front door while she fiddled with her house keys.

The apartment unit next to hers had been vacant since she’d moved in. Today the windows were open for the first time and she heard someone, Mitch evidently, working inside. Rhythmic hammering filled the air.

Elaine quickly decided to unload her purchases and feed herself before she faced him.

He had other ideas.

On her second trip from the car to her front door, she turned with three shopping bags in her arms to find him striding toward her, a scowl of displeasure directed her way. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Surprised, Elaine had to think about it a minute. “I’m carrying my packages to the house,” she said mildly, deliberately meeting his scowl with a frown of concern. “That’s not a violation of my rental agreement, is it?”

Mitch scowled harder. “Funny.” He reached for the bundles, all the bundles, in her arms without asking. “I mean, what are you doing carrying so much at one time?”

After a futile protest, Elaine plunked her hands on her hips and eyed her purloined bags. “What are you doing carrying so much at one time?”

The scowl cleared briefly to make room for surprise. Then his eyes narrowed. “Are you one of those women?” He hitched his chin at her, indicating she should continue moving toward the door. “The kind who wants to believe she can do everything without a man?”

You have no idea. She nearly laughed out loud, but he didn’t appear to be in a laughing mood and the packages were heavy, so she let them in the door without further ado. Mitch followed her to the kitchen.

“Just set it all on the counter, thanks.”

He elbowed the first bags she’d brought in farther back and placed his in front of them. “You were busy today.”

As she nodded, her stomach growled loudly, reminding her just how busy she’d been.

Mitch cocked a brow. “Do you have anything else in your car?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll get it. You start unpacking and make yourself something to eat.”

Elaine was inclined to be grateful. Kevin had stopped helping with groceries so long ago, he’d completely missed the “Paper or plastic?” revolution. On the other hand, she figured Mitch’s authoritative tone and her newly avowed status as one of those women made her honor-bound to decline.

“That’s okay,” she said. “I’ll get the rest of my things and then—”

Grrrrrr. Her stomach protested decisively.

Mitch shook his head at her. “Eat something, Elaine. You have a great body, but your legs are skinny.” Without waiting for or inviting a reply, he turned and strode out of the duplex.

Elaine stared after him speechlessly. For a recently divorced woman with Ben & Jerry’s running through her veins, those words were music to her ears.

Mitch headed for Elaine’s red Volvo to bring in the rest of her purchases.

He’d been hard at work since quarter to nine this morning, surprised to find Elaine gone so early, but deciding it was better that way. No arguing, no verbal sparring. He’d get more work done.

Except that his peaceful morning hadn’t been nearly as enjoyable as his contentious evening the night before with Elaine.

After he’d left her, he’d ended up having dinner with his sister, who had been useless in decoding Elaine’s behavior. To his question, “Why would a woman get so damned riled about a rent discount?” M.D. had replied, “No idea.” Then she’d ordered steak, rare, and a scotch and water from the waiter at Jake’s. Mitch had gotten the picture: If he wanted to know how a woman’s mind worked, he would have to ask someone who thought like a woman, which pretty much ruled out M.D.

In lieu of ruminating about Elaine, he’d decided simply to distract himself. The physical work today had felt good, and he’d been congratulating himself on not wussing out by hiring someone to handle the minor repairs in the vacant unit when Elaine wobbled by the window, lugging the first group of grocery bags. Once again he’d had a nearly instantaneous protective response. Carrying all those heavy bags, he’d thought, can’t be good for her.

Jeez! Was part of his brain misfiring? Had a crucial synapse died? As of last night, Elaine Lowry is only a tenant, he reminded himself.

Reaching into the open rear door of her car, Mitch saw that the remaining bags held books. There were two plastic bags with a bookstore logo and a large canvas bag that had Multnomah County Library printed on the side. Some of the library books had spilled out onto the seat.

Leaning farther into the car to scoop them up, Mitch realized he was curious about what Elaine read and about the sheer quantity of reading material. Come to think of it, though, having a plethora of books seemed to fit her image. Underneath the quirky outspoken feminist lurked a shy, bookish heart. Definitely the quiet evening at home with a cup of tea and fuzzy slippers type. Though the women Mitch dated were happier in sophisticated restaurants and clubs than they were ensconced on their own sofas, Mitch liked that about Elaine. He liked—

What the hell?

He looked more closely at the books on the back seat.

Fertility Nutrition.

Soy Drinks for Hormonal Health.

Dragging the canvas bag closer, he pulled out more books.

Yoga and Your Pregnant Body.

Baby’s First Year.

When he dug into the Barnes & Noble bag, the first book he withdrew was Forty Thousand Names for Baby.

He felt as if steam were shooting from his ears, like a character in one of the Saturday morning cartoons he and M.D. used to sneak into the TV room to watch. What the bloody hell…

Pregnant? Was Elaine pregnant? The image of her womanly body entered his mind and lodged there as he slammed the door and strode back to the apartment with her books.

She was in front of the refrigerator, bending over as she squeezed vegetables into the crisper, her shorts inching up to expose a generous amount of smooth, lightly tanned skin. Had he actually called those shapely legs skinny?

Mitch dropped the book bags to the floor. Elaine glanced over her shoulder and smiled, the first genuine smile she’d given him since he’d shown up yesterday. The curve of her lips was as sweet and sexy as…as her other curves.

Feeling his mouth go dry, Mitch stood uselessly and stared until Elaine requested, “Would you hand me the rutabaga?”

He stared dumbly, making no response at all. She pointed. “The rutabaga. It’s right there by your—”

Mitch took the pointing hand and abruptly hauled Elaine to her feet, ignoring her surprise while his gaze fell immediately to her breasts, her stomach, looking, he supposed, for evidence and trying hard to dismiss the churning sense of…what? Of something acutely uncomfortable in the center of his gut.

How far along was she? When had she decided to get pregnant? Had she decided to?

And then it hit him. She was living here alone. No sign of anyone residing here with her and no mention—so far—of anyone moving in. No ring on her finger.

“Who is he?” The question sounded like Mitch had forgotten to move his jaws when he asked it.

Elaine reclaimed her wrist from his grasp with effort. “What is the matter with you?”

“Sorry,” Mitch bit out, referring to her wrist only. He still wanted information. “Who,” he said, controlling his temper with an effort he could only characterize as monumental, “is the sonovabitch who got you pregnant?”

For just a second, Elaine thought she might have blacked out and missed something. She eyed Mitch suspiciously. “Are you deranged?”

With one swift move, he grabbed her library bag, spilled its contents onto the partly cleared counter and waved his hand accusingly.

Oh, the books. She looked from them to Mitchell, who, at the moment, appeared as darkly forbidding as a character from The Scarlet Letter. Amusement tugged at her. He looked like he wanted to avenge her honor.

Biting the inside of her lip, she shrugged. “Just a boy I know.”

Mitch stepped forward with awful menace. “A boy you know?” he repeated as if he wanted to give her a chance to amend that.

“Well…” She reconsidered. “Knew.”

Watching him, Elaine almost wished she could pull a little plug to release some of the pressure she could practically see building in his head. “Don’t get so upset. I’m raising the baby on my own.”

“You had unprotected sex!”

“I suppose that would be true. Yes.”

“With a minor!” Mitch practically roared.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Elaine laughed. Taking her first stab ever at playing absolutely fluff-headed, she rolled her eyes. “He wasn’t a miner. There aren’t even any mines around here. He worked for Lou’s Hardware. On school breaks.”

Mitch appeared to be in serious danger of becoming a cardiac statistic.

Elaine had no idea what had got into her. She was normally such an agreeable person. Yesterday afternoon after Stephanie’s unpleasant arrival, something in her had broken loose. She’d lost her final grip on the calm, circumspect, unchallenging woman she had become. She was going wild, and she rather liked it.

She did not, however, want to be responsible for Mitch having to start on blood pressure medication.

With her bottom still backed against the fridge, she leaned her upper body toward him. “I’m kidding,” she said, noticing for the first time that his scowl turned positively boyish when he became confused. “I’m not pregnant,” she clarified. “It was just a joke.”

“A joke.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not pregnant?”

“No.”

Mitch glanced at the bags near his feet and pointed. “What about the books?”

“You must not have looked at all of them.” Reaching into the Barnes & Noble bag, she handed him two thin volumes. Alternatives in Conception and Daddy Invisible—Everything You Wanted to Know About Artificial Insemination But Were Afraid to Ask.

“I am planning to have a baby,” she elaborated. “On my own.”

Mitch studied the titles, flipped the Daddy Invisible book over and scanned the back cover.

Crossing her arms again, Elaine leaned back against the refrigerator and waited patiently for the light to dawn.

It did. Mitch tapped the word Artificial. “You’re going to use…”

“A sperm donor. Yes.”

“Ooo-kay.” He tossed the books onto the counter and released some of the tension with a breath. “Whew. You know, I thought maybe you were getting reckless since your divorce. Some women do. They go temporarily…” He made a circling motion near his temple and whistled.

“Insane?” Elaine laughed. “No.”

“No.” Smiling, pressing his thumb and two fingers against his eyelids, Mitch chuckled with her. In a move so unexpected, Elaine never saw it coming, Mitch put both hands on the freezer unit above her head, bracketing her with his arms and growling into her stunned, upturned face. “You’re Just Out Of Your Ever-Lovin’ Mind!”

Chapter Four

Autumn sunlight streamed through the window, causing tiny dust particles to sparkle like diamonds in the air, while a very tall, very outraged Mitch Ryder stood over Elaine, trying to intimidate her with his superior reasoning skills. She felt perfectly unintimidated.

He did have her backed up against an open refrigerator, however, and her tush was beginning to freeze, so she sidestepped to the left, slipping around him to dig through another bag on the counter.

“Put this in the freezer, would you?” she requested, handing him a carton of frozen tofu lasagna.

His outrage unflagging, Mitch grabbed the carton and tossed it into the freezer.

“And this.” She passed him a pint of soy ice cream.

He took it and placed it atop the lasagna. “Why didn’t you have children with Lowry if you’re so keen on becoming a parent?”

Elaine glanced at him. “So I wouldn’t be a single parent, you mean?”

He caught the irony the first time. “All right, nothing’s forever. At least you’d know who the father is.”

“Yeah, that’d be a real bonus. I’d get to see him and his new wife every weekend.” She removed a package of frozen organic Tater Tots from the grocery bag and held it out. “Maybe I don’t want to know who the father is. If I’m going to be a single mother, anyway, this is simpler. You can’t argue over visitation rights with a sperm donor.”

Mitch turned to throw the Tater Tots into the freezer and slammed the door. “Yeah, let’s talk about that. You’re going to have a baby with someone you know nothing about. Great concept.”

Elaine smiled as if she’d taken his words at face value. “I know! So much better than marrying someone and then finding out you know nothing about him. As a divorce lawyer, I’m sure you know what I mean.”

After a brief, unfruitful pause during which he tried to come up with a rebuttal, Mitch angled his head. “Touché. I’m sure every one of my clients and my ex-wife would agree, but—”

“Ex-wife?” Elaine gaped. “You were married?”

He actually winced. “A long time ago.”

“You? I thought you were a serial bachelor.”

“I am now.”

“Any kids?”

“No. Now, about your buying sperm—”

“Did you want any? When you were married?”

If ever a man wanted to kick himself for opening his big fat mouth, it was Mitch at this moment. He rubbed his brow with the heel of his hand. “It’s all ancient history, Elaine. I wanted a lot of things before I realized the ramifications. It’s a common mistake. Like wanting a child while ignoring the ramification of not knowing who in the hell fathered it!”

The waterfall of questions Elaine had about his marriage dried up in the face of having to defend herself. Just as, Elaine suspected, he’d intended.

“I will know as much or as little about the donor as I care to,” she refuted. “It’s up to me. I can request an information sheet so detailed I’ll know what he eats for breakfast.” She picked up the library book about artificial insemination and tapped it. “It’s all right here. Plus, at some sperm banks the majority of donors are graduate students, so I can expect the father of my child to be motivated and intelligent.”

Mitch took the book from her and began paging through it. “Yup. Takes a real brain trust to masturbate into a paper cup.”

Elaine grabbed the book. “I was referring to my donor’s commitment to higher education. Also, I’ll know his area of interest,” she shot back, “so I can avoid the law students.”

Mitch nodded, acknowledging the gibe before he pointed out, “And for this information, you are trusting the people you are paying to provide you with the sperm. Is that correct?” He folded his arms over his chest, and Elaine thought the posture made him look so smug, she shoved a bag of frozen peas at him so he’d have to uncross his arms.

Without being told, Mitch turned to put the peas away, but when he saw the jumbled contents of her freezer, he began rearranging items as he spoke. “You’re not going to have any idea who this guy really is.”

“Yes, I—”

“Proof, Elaine. You’re not going to have any proof. They can tell you he’s a Stanford medical student, and for all you know, you’ll be giving birth to Joe the three-legged harmonica player’s baby.”

Elaine stared at Mitch’s back while he reorganized her small freezer. She had a sudden stinging urge to pitch beets at his head. She was planning to do what thousands of women before her had done, and she needed a shot of courage, dammit, not ten reasons why this disaster could outstrip the Titanic.

“What concerns me most, though, is your idea that you’ll be better off if the father isn’t involved.”

Elaine pulled a beet out of the bag and raised her arm.

“You may avoid the issue of visitation rights,” he continued, moving frozen foods, “but you’re also going to be on your own financially while Mr. Genetically Gifted is running around, avoiding responsibility for you and the child he fathered, which, I think you’ll have to agree, says something about a man’s character.”

“Is that why you haven’t had children? Because you don’t want to take responsibility for them?”

“That’s right.” He surprised her by agreeing. “You know what that’s called?”

“The Peter Pan Syndrome?”

“No! Integrity. It is called integrity.” Perfecting the alignment on a stack of frozen dinners, he stepped back. “There.” He moved aside so Elaine could view his handiwork.

Lowering the beet, she peeked in. Her freezer looked like a well-packed suitcase. Frozen dinners occupied the left side. Boxed vegetables were stacked in the middle, bagged items in the door. Her ice-cream containers formed a happy pyramid on the right. He had organized her freezer in one minute flat.

Chewing the inside of her lip, Elaine nodded. “Hmm. That’s beautiful. Logical and neat.” She glanced at Mitch, who was, she noted, mighty pleased with himself. “You know, a year ago I would have taken a picture of this so I could duplicate it myself. Back then, ‘Order’ was my middle name.” Reaching in, she put a hand on a frozen dinner in the middle of the stack.

“Hey, careful, you’ll—” She pulled the dinner, and the top portion of the stack slid to the right. “—make them fall,” Mitch finished.

“But I don’t appreciate logic much anymore,” she told him matter-of-factly, tossing frozen lasagna and kung pao chicken on top of the vegetable boxes. “I don’t care about neatness.” Grabbing a container of ice cream on the bottom of the pyramid, she sent the entire structure tumbling. “I had a neat and organized life, and you know where that got me? I come home every day to a neat, organized empty house.” She began shuffling the contents of the freezer as she spoke. “Now I want messes.” A bag of peas landed on the ice cube tray. “I don’t want everything divided and in its proper place.” Frozen blueberries hit the back of the freezer. “I want it all mixed up. I want what I want, and I don’t care what it looks like.” Slamming the door before the contents could spill out onto the floor, she whirled on Mitch. “So don’t touch my frozen foods!”

There followed a protracted pause that Mitch broke by asking mildly, “This isn’t about the freezer, is it?”

Elaine answered by stating emphatically, “I don’t need someone to take responsibility for me. If I ever get involved with a man again, it won’t be so he can ‘assume responsibility’ for me and my child.”

Mitch scowled. “That’s a bad thing? I’m the enemy for suggesting someone should look out for you?”

“That’s not what I said—”

“Good. Because I’m a lawyer. I make my living by injecting a note of reason into what might otherwise be a situation driven by emotion.”

“Oh, brother.”

“You may perceive my advice as unwelcome at this moment, but when you calm down, you’ll see—”

“When I calm down?”

“—how important it is to view a situation from all—”

“Out.”

“—sides.”

Elaine started shoving him toward the back door. “Go away.”

“You see? Right now, this is highly emotional.”

She opened the door, placed both hands on Mitch’s chest and shoved as hard as she could. Five feet four inches, one hundred and fifteen pounds of underexercised female wasn’t much of a force against one hundred and eighty pounds of well-muscled male, but Elaine had the element of surprise on her side.

Mitch stumbled back, tripping over the doorstep. By the time he caught and righted himself, she had closed the door in his face.

Two hours later, with a half-eaten sandwich on a table by her side, Elaine lay on her couch, reading. The tempeh Reuben turned out to be a seasoned soybean patty with Russian dressing and sauerkraut. It tasted okay and was guaranteed to be healthful, but Elaine had indigestion nonetheless. She wasn’t sure whether it came from the food or from rereading chapter six of Alternative Insemination, Every Woman’s Guide.

According to the book, which promised to walk the reader through the “joys and perils” of alternative insemination, the procedure wasn’t all that simple. Elaine would have to keep close track of her own fertility and because she wasn’t going to have sex to conceive, she wasn’t going to get more than one shot a month at this. Also, since she was thirty-seven and fertility tended to “nosedive” after thirty-five, there was no telling how many times she might have to repeat the expensive procedure. She might even have to consider treatments like Clomid. Also, the book strongly suggested having emotional support present because some women found the procedures stressful and mentally exhausting.

Tossing the book onto the coffee table, Elaine pressed a pillow against her stomach, rolled onto her side and thought. So far she’d told two people—Gordon and Mitch Ryder—about her plans. Their enthusiasm had been less than overwhelming.

She’d spent half her life supporting other people’s dreams and ideals. For once she expected no less for herself. But from what corner would the support come?

Her brother, Sam, had already given their parents grandchildren. Elaine suspected her mother and father had given up on her a few years ago. She truly didn’t know how they would react to her decision to pursue A.I.

Hugging the pillow tighter, she pondered. According to Every Woman’s Guide, she didn’t have a lot of time to futz around. At thirty-seven her ovaries were shrinking by the minute. For the first time, Elaine began to wonder whether she was fertile at all and what she would do if she wasn’t.

Would she be willing to undergo the invasive medical interventions mentioned in the book? Would she be willing to do it all alone?

The closer she inched—no, jogged, really—toward forty, the more aware she became that everything was changing, both in her body and in the way others perceived her. Younger women no longer gave her that telltale once-over to see if she was competition. At the supermarket when young men offered to help carry her groceries to the car, they really meant, Can I help carry your groceries to the car?

It didn’t matter how progressive or self-actualized she was: a thirty-seven-year-old divorcée was forced to find a new way to define herself.

Rising, pillow in hand, Elaine padded to the mirror above the sideboard in her dining room and looked at herself, searching for the balance between kindness and objectivity. At five-four, she was petite and still thin enough—despite Ben & Jerry’s best full-fat efforts—to buy size eight jeans. Thick reddish-brown hair that swung gently between her jaw and shoulders further contributed to her youthful appearance…until she looked into the mirror straight-on, and then…

Oy vey. When she examined herself head-on, her fair, translucent skin—a plus at age twenty—became a potential liability. Lines had formed.

Pursing her lips, Elaine pulled her shirt out from her waistband, unbuttoned the top button and tucked the pillow into her shorts. She felt only a little foolish, and once the pillow was in place, the effect it had on her was almost electric.

As if by magic, suddenly she had more than a worn sofa pillow under her shirt; she had an internal sense of purpose. Smoothing her T-shirt over her now expanded belly, she turned to view herself from the side, and of course it was silly, but for the first time in ages, she felt like she had an identity again. Like trying on a uniform before starting a new job and discovering the fit is just right.

And then for the teeniest, tiniest second she allowed herself to picture more than the belly; she pictured the whole kit ’n caboodle—one child by the hand, one on the way and the man, smiling that private, sexy, me-man you-woman smile that said, “Look what we did.”

The image was so darned appealing that the tiny second she’d meant to spend on it extended into another and another and then just one more, until finally Elaine sank into the fantasy like it was a tub of hot water, letting the image grow clearer and more detailed until it became obvious the man smiling at her was Mitch Ryder.

Damn it.

Reaching under her shirt, she yanked out the pillow.

A woman could get pretty disgusted with herself over this sort of thing.

Granted, he was the only eligible male she’d spent any time with in ages, and granted, he was attractive…in a straight-backed, bordering-on-pompous way.

But he listened. And he seemed to care, for some reason, what happened to her. And that was hard to ignore.

Elaine scrunched the pillow between her hands. In the end, she knew exactly why she’d pictured him. It was that night. The memory—or lack thereof—of that night hung over her like a rain cloud ready to burst, and the worst thing was Mitch’s silence. He knew what had happened, and yet he never mentioned it, never even alluded to it. He was an overprotective, overbearing, buttinsky, and yet every time she saw him there were a few seconds—usually right before he opened his mouth and ticked her off—when she felt…dare she admit it?…a surge of desire. A fleeting—and, really, it was fleeting—sense of the absolute rightness of being with him.

“Rrrrrggghhhh!” She smooshed the pillow as hard as she could to release some of her aggravation, then sent it sailing like a Frisbee back into the living room. She checked her watch—four-fifteen. A run along the river—that’s what she needed. When she set her feet to the pavement, her mind cleared. Seratonin rose; sanity returned. She hadn’t run in ages, but knew where her shoes and running shorts were without having to think about it and was ready to go fifteen minutes later.

Wrapping a scrunchie around her ponytail, she grabbed the remainder of a bag of French bread to feed to the ducks (according to Fertility Nutrition, white flour upset insulin balance and wreaked havoc on the hormones) and took an organic apple for herself. She felt virtuous before she was halfway out the door. She was being proactive. Not a whiner. She wasn’t staying home to worry or to obsess about a man; she was doing something good for herself and her baby-to-be.

Locking the front door, Elaine dropped her keys in her pocket and prepared to head out. As she turned toward the porch steps, however, she stopped short. A tall, slim woman dressed in pleated, straight-leg trousers and a man-tailored shirt that looked like it was pressed to within an inch of its life peered in the window of the apartment next door. She had thick dark hair cut in one of those choppy, supershort cuts Elaine so admired, but which made her look like a little girl whose brother had played “barber” on her head.

The other woman, however, looked just right in the charming cap of hair. Her bone structure was strong and classic. Her entire appearance telegraphed confidence, a woman who could be counted on to lead the crowd rather than follow. With a tanned, ringless hand, she rapped on the window, obviously frustrated when there was no immediate response.

Elaine stepped forward. “May I help you?” The stranger turned toward her with penetrating brown eyes. “I live next door,” Elaine explained, hoping to appear helpful rather than nosy. She gestured. “The apartment you’re looking at is vacant. Are you hunting?”

Taller than Elaine had first thought, the woman looked first at her then at the duplex as if the question didn’t quite compute.

“Hunting?” Then she burst out, “You mean apartment hunting? Here? God, no!” She surveyed the old wooden eaves, the broad concrete porch with its hairline fractures and actually shuddered. “I’m looking for Mitch Ryder. He left this address on my answering machine.”

Elaine took another, longer look at the brunette, who appeared to be in her early thirties, and glanced at her watch. “Ah, he was here, about…hmm…an hour ago? Maybe?”

The other woman frowned, and Elaine knew she should wash her own mouth out with soap. Could she be a bigger fake? She knew darn well Mitch had been in the apartment as recently as fifty-two minutes, forty-five seconds ago, because her watch had a sweep second hand and that was when the hammering had stopped. But she wasn’t going to parade her interest in front of a woman whose long neck and lithe body could make Audrey Hepburn look stumpy.

“Do you know when he’s coming back?”

“No.” At least that was the truth. “No idea. Sorry.”

“Thirty-six years of impeccable reliability, and he has to screw it up now—” peeking through the window again, Mitch’s visitor appeared to be speaking mostly to herself “—when I am absolutely, freakishly starving.”

“Would you like an apple?” Elaine held it up, feeling a bit like the wicked stepmother in Snow White. Was this woman Mitch’s girlfriend? Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember his ever bringing a date to the office get-togethers.

The brunette looked at the apple, but shook her head. “Nah. I don’t want to kill my appetite. I want beef. I hope he brought clothes to change into.” Still mumbling, she tried the front doorknob, surprising both of them when it turned easily and she was able to wait inside. As she crossed the threshold, Elaine heard her say, “Jeez, what was he thinking? He could have had two condos in Lakewood for the price of this place.”

Elaine fought a terrible desire to go back into her apartment, station herself behind the curtains and wait for Mitch to return, but that nosy image was just too awful, so she directed herself down the porch steps. She was halfway to the sidewalk when she heard, “Oh, hey!” She turned. “Thanks, uh…”

“Elaine.”

“Elaine. Right.” And with that the brunette disappeared inside the apartment again and shut the door.

Elaine stared at the closed door for a time. Well, obviously he did see women and obviously he liked them slender as grass, tall as elms and surprisingly offbeat. Fine. Wasn’t any of her business.

Setting off down the steps, Elaine prepared to outrun the emotions she wanted no part of. By the time she reached the corner, she was practically sprinting.

When she returned an hour later, the porch steps looked like the side of Mount Hood. Her pronounced limp was the result of a rather painful attempt to jump over a Chihuahua that had crossed her path at the park. Elaine’s knees were not what they used to be, apparently; she’d successfully avoided crushing the tiny canine, but her knees had buckled upon landing. Neglecting to warm up hadn’t helped.

Before she’d jogged ten minutes, her chest had felt like thick rubber bands were holding her ribs together. Lord, how would she work and care for a baby on her own when she was this out of shape? Plus, now she was starving. Her stomach growled, her legs groaned. She was too tired to go out for food and too hungry to think that tofu anything would satisfy her tonight.

Trudging to her door, she saw that the light was on in the vacant apartment. Vacant, but not empty. Mitch and the woman were seated on the floor, smiling and laughing as they helped themselves to bags of food laid out between them on the carpet.

She watched the woman take Mitch’s burger and help herself to a big bite. The gesture was natural, as if they’d done this many times in the past.

Apparently preferring his burger to her own, she handed Mitch her sandwich and kept his. He pulled a comically woeful expression then reached out when she wasn’t looking to pull a piece of bacon from the sandwich she’d appropriated, popping the strip into his mouth before she could snatch it back.

Then they both laughed, and it all looked so cozy, Elaine had the most awful impulse to bang on the window and shout, “Knock it off in there!”

Getting a second wind, she gave in to her next awful impulse: hobbling back down the porch steps and around the house to peep through the side window. Since it was still fairly light out, this seemed like a good plan for a budding voyeur. The shrubbery on this side of the house was tall, terribly overgrown and made good camouflage.

It was also scratchy. Branches poked and scraped at Elaine’s arms and legs while she wedged herself into position.

These old-Portland-style homes had windows that were relatively high off the ground to accommodate daylight basements and tall front porches, so Elaine had to stand on tiptoe and jump a little to get a good view. Mostly what she could see was the back of Mitch’s head and the woman’s profile as she reached into a bag, pulled out several long, skinny fries and ate with unabashed enthusiasm. They spoke the entire time they ate, and though Elaine couldn’t make out words through the closed window, she could see that the conversation flowed easily. They laughed frequently.

At one point, Mitch’s shoulders shook. The man she regarded as rigid, self-righteous and a stick-in-the-mud was sitting on the floor with an idiosyncratic but lovely woman, scarfing burgers and fries and, unless Elaine missed her guess, fresh marionberry milkshakes from Burgerville.

A wave of sadness washed over her, and she began to wonder whether, in fact, she was the stick-in-the mud? Because, criminy, she was legally single, as footloose and fancy-free as she was ever going to get, and she hadn’t even flirted with anyone since her divorce. Here it was, Saturday night, and the only thing waiting for her at home was a little light reading about artificial insemination and half of a cold soybean sandwich, hold the canola mayo.

She was about to detangle herself from the shrubbery, if not the humiliation of being a Peeping Tom, when she saw Mitch’s friend look at her watch, scoop up a bag of food and stand. Mitch rose, too. Elaine’s heart pounded, as anyone’s heart might when she realized she was about half a minute away from looking like a complete idiot. A complete idiot with questionable morals.

She had mere seconds to make a decision: attempt a run to her front door and risk running smack into the happy couple and, worse, being seen coming from around the corner, or stay where she was until Mitch returned to the apartment. Mitch decided for her when he opened the door and stepped onto the porch.

Elaine froze, hoping the scratchy bush would freeze, too.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” The woman’s distinctively deep voice carried easily.

“Is there any way I can avoid it?”

“No. If you don’t show up, I’ll hunt you down.”

Mitch laughed. “I’ll be there. In fact, I’ll pick you up, and we’ll go to the airport together.”

There was a moment of quiet. What was going on? A hug, a kiss? Elaine strained to hear.

“Love you,” the woman said.

“I love you, too.” The affection in Mitch’s voice was evident.

Love? He loved her?

Footsteps led away from the porch and over the walkway.

When Elaine heard a car door slam, she got ready to make her move. As soon as Mitch reentered the apartment, she would extricate herself from this bush, sneak across the yard and pretend she’d just returned from a five-mile run.

She waited. Mitch must be headed back to the house, but the front door didn’t open. Footfalls sounded, however, leading up to the house, closer and closer to where Elaine was standing. She held her breath through several tense moments then heard a strange plumbing-type squeak. Poking her head between branches and leaves, she glanced around.

Geysers of water sprang up over the lawn as oscillating sprinklers burst to life. The first blast of cold water made her yelp in surprise. She fought her way out of the foliage only to get soaked to the skin by another wet blast. Because she couldn’t see exactly where the water was coming from, she wasn’t sure which way to run. She was aware, however, of some very girly squealing sounds that seemed to be coming from her own mouth, and she heard Mitch say, “What the—”

A moment later, the water stopped, and she was standing on the lawn in a sopping wet T-shirt and shorts. Mitch stepped around the side of the house. “Elaine?”

She wiped her face, opening her eyes one lid at a time. Clearing her throat, she prepared to do some quick talking, but Mitch wasn’t interested in an explanation. Yet, anyway. He took her arm and hustled her into the open apartment.

Leaving her briefly to drip in the entryway, he returned with a soft dry bath sheet. “I brought towels in case I had to shower here,” he said by way of explanation. “Let’s get you out of that T-shirt.”

“I don’t think so!” Elaine grabbed the wet hem.

“The towel isn’t going to do much good if you keep those wet clothes on.”

“I’m not getting undressed in here.”

Mitch lowered the towel. “Right. Because you’d rather be the only participant in a wet T-shirt contest.”

Elaine looked down, gasped and crossed her arms across her chest.

“Do you want to change in another room?” He waved the towel toward the rear of the apartment.

“No. I’m going to go home. To my apartment. But I’ll take the towel.” She held out her hand.

After brief consideration, Mitch handed over the bath sheet. Elaine wrapped it around her nearly transparent shirt and turned to leave. He almost let her before he said, “I’ll be over in fifteen minutes to find out why you were peering through my window.”

Elaine halted momentarily, but didn’t turn around. “Make it twenty.”

He arrived on her doorstep precisely twenty minutes later. The bag he carried smelled like a grilled onion burger and hot fries and had Burgerville written across the side.

“Come in.”

Mitch crossed the threshold, appraising her freshly showered self. She’d dressed in white jeans, a sleeveless cotton turtleneck in pale peach, and gold Winnie-the-Pooh earrings. It was a classic butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth-so-I’m-sure-you’ll-believe-me-when-I-say-I-most-certainly-was-not-peering-through-your-window ensemble.

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