“Are you…the one?”

“Uh…the one?” Ben asked.

“The one who’s going to finally get me pregnant?”

Ben completely lost his train of thought. He stared at her.

Natalie leaned against the door and winced. “I just woke up. But I feel so…” She seemed to sink, about to fall.

He reached for her and pushed her gently back toward the bed. Her hands clasped his arms and held on.

Natalie’s eyes looked into his, their gray depths almost lucid. He felt her tension in the grip of her fingers.

“You are him,” she whispered.

She looked so grave. What was she talking about? “Who?” Ben asked.

“The father of my baby,” she replied.

Dear Reader,

Heartwarming, emotional, compelling…these are all words that describe Harlequin American Romance. Check out this month’s stellar selection of love stories, which are sure to delight you.

First, Debbi Rawlins delivers the exciting conclusion of Harlequin American Romance’s continuity series, TEXAS SHEIKHS. In His Royal Prize, sparks fly immediately between dashing sheikh Sharif and Desert Rose ranch hand Olivia Smith. However, Sharif never expected their romantic tryst to be plastered all over the tabloids—or that the only way to salvage their reputations would be to make Olivia his royal bride.

Bestselling author Muriel Jensen pens another spectacular story in her WHO’S THE DADDY? miniseries with Daddy To Be Determined, in which a single gal’s ticking biological clock leads her to convince a single dad that he’s the perfect man to father her baby. In Have Husband, Need Honeymoon, the third book in Rita Herron’s THE HARTWELL HOPE CHESTS miniseries, Alison Hartwell thought her youthful marriage to an air force pilot had been annulled, but surprise! Now a forced reunion with her “husband” has her wondering if a second honeymoon couldn’t give them a second chance at forever. And Harlequin American Romance’s promotion THE WAY WE MET…AND MARRIED continues with The Best Blind Date in Texas. Don’t miss this wonderful romance from Victoria Chancellor.

It’s a great lineup, and we hope you enjoy them all!

Wishing you happy reading,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

Daddy to Be Determined

Muriel Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Austin and Jordan Jensen, with love from Grandma.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Muriel Jensen and her husband, Ron, live in Astoria, Oregon, in an old foursquare Victorian at the mouth of the Columbia River. They share their home with a golden retriever/golden Labrador mix named Amber, and five cats who moved in with them without an invitation. (Muriel insists that a plate of Friskies and a bowl of water are not an invitation!)

They also have three children and their families in their lives—a veritable crowd of the most interesting people and children. They also have irreplaceable friends, wonderful neighbors and “a life they know they don’t deserve but love desperately anyway.”

Books by Muriel Jensen

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

73—WINTER’S BOUNTY

119—LOVERS NEVER LOSE

176—THE MALLORY TOUCH

200—FANTASIES AND MEMORIES

219—LOVE AND LAVENDER

244—THE DUCK SHACK AGREEMENT

267—STRINGS

283—SIDE BY SIDE

321—A CAROL CHRISTMAS

339—EVERYTHING

392—THE MIRACLE

414—RACING WITH THE MOON

425—VALENTINE HEARTS AND FLOWERS

464—MIDDLE OF THE RAINBOW

478—ONE AND ONE MAKES THREE

507—THE UNEXPECTED GROOM

522—NIGHT PRINCE

534—MAKE-BELIEVE MOM

549—THE WEDDING GAMBLE

569—THE COURTSHIP OF DUSTY’S DADDY

603—MOMMY ON BOARD*

606—MAKE WAY FOR MOMMY*

610—MERRY CHRISTMAS, MOMMY!*

654—THE COMEBACK MOM

669—THE PRINCE, THE LADY & THE TOWER

688—KIDS & CO.*

705—CHRISTMAS IN THE COUNTRY

737—DADDY BY DEFAULT**

742—DADDY BY DESIGN**

746—DADDY BY DESTINY**

756—GIFT-WRAPPED DAD

770—THE HUNK & THE VIRGIN

798—COUNTDOWN TO BABY

813—FOUR REASONS FOR FATHERHOOD

850—FATHER FEVER**

858—FATHER FORMULA**

866—FATHER FOUND**

882—DADDY TO BE DETERMINED**

Contents

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Prologue

Natalie Browning sat in the middle of her darkened living room and watched the nightly news, a pillow pulled up to her face just below her eyes. Delia Jones, her former assistant at KRTV and now a weekend anchor for KXAV, had called twenty minutes ago to warn her about Karen Kaufman’s lead story.

The beautiful redhead with the face of a Mucha model and the heart of a viper smiled benevolently at the camera.

“Welcome to Channel 4 News. I’m Karen Kaufman,” she said in a flawlessly clear voice. “The final chapter of the Moss Laboratories story played out today in court when Donald Parker was indicted on seventeen counts of fraud, thanks to the tireless efforts of Philadelphia’s KRTV newswoman, Natalie Browning, who was herself a victim of the sperm bank’s deceptions.

“Her investigation uncovered Parker’s practice of creating false donor profiles and filling orders with his own sperm. The ruse was uncovered when Browning’s fertility specialist requested a second delivery of sperm from the laboratory, after the first attempt at impregnation proved unsuccessful.”

Natty felt pain and humiliation splash over her like a cold shower. She clutched the pillow more tightly.

“When that also failed,” Karen continued with what appeared to be genuine concern, “Browning’s doctor had the sperm sample analyzed, thinking he might discover that it hadn’t been handled properly in the transfer from the laboratory. What he discovered instead was that the sperm was indeed motile, but that both samples had precisely the same DNA pattern—and therefore the same donor.”

“And that the impregnation problem,” Natalie said to the television, her voice thick because she had a head cold, “lies with Browning and not with the sperm. Thank you, Karen. Kind of you to point that out.”

“Investigation of other samples proved that Parker had been perpetrating his scam for some time,” the redhead continued relentlessly. “The laboratory has been closed pending the outcome of the trial.”

She could have lived through that, Natty thought, pressing a tissue to her sniffly nose, but the last segment was a feature called “Celebrity Dish”—a sort of gossip roundup dispensed by Jolie Ramirez, a perky brunette who loved uncovering the most embarrassing details about the most notable people.

Tonight it seemed that a male vocalist was in rehab, an actress on Broadway beat her baseball-playing husband’s Jaguar with his own bat, and “Natalie Browning, the darling of the nightly news on Philadelphia’s Channel 6, apparently is no one’s darling at home, considering her story about Moss Laboratories, the now-infamous sperm bank. It was a story she stumbled upon while availing herself of the lab’s services.

“‘She appears beautiful and sexy,’” according to an old boyfriend who preferred to remain anonymous, “‘but she has the cold heart of an old maid. No wonder she had to go to a sperm bank.’”

Natalie stared at the screen, aghast, then threw her pillow at it, barely suppressing a scream. That action brought on a coughing fit.

She knew the anonymous former boyfriend was Artie Webb, producer of the Channel 4 nightly news, whose advances she’d spurned at a weekend news conference in Boston three years earlier. He’d been married at the time—to Karen Kaufman—but his ego had never forgiven Natalie. Jolie Ramirez, unfortunately, was just doing her job.

Natalie clicked off the television, called the airport and made a reservation to fly out to Portland, Oregon, on the red-eye. Then she went into her bedroom to pack.

Tomorrow morning she’d probably be front page news and the subject of every radio talk show on the Atlantic seaboard. She didn’t want to be around for that, and she still had four weeks left of the three-month leave she’d taken to get pregnant.

Six weeks ago, the story had developed and the professional in her had come to the fore, pushing her own concerns aside in the interest of protecting and informing the public.

She’d suspected as she had filed the story that she might become part of the news—an undesirable consequence for any good reporter. But she hadn’t counted on Channel 4 taking its exploration of her involvement in the story to such lengths.

Even as she threw clothes haphazardly into her suitcase, she understood that such things happened. Enemies in the business were vengeful, and the only response was silence.

But this was the final straw in a long series of events that conspired to make her feel like a failure as a woman. What, after all, could contribute to that feeling more completely than the inability to reproduce, and having that news spread over the entire East Coast network?

She threw several pairs of shoes into her case, along with her makeup bag, an extra box of tissues and several chunky sweaters. Dancer’s Beach, Oregon, would be chilly in November.

She was willing to admit to herself that she was running away, and she knew that was probably cowardly. But she needed a comforting shoulder and there was nobody around who could provide one.

Her mother had been against the whole sperm bank thing in the beginning and was happy to say “I told you so.” Natalie’s brothers were geniuses, but generally clueless about her. And what friends she had time for in her busy schedule all had husbands and children, and she couldn’t burden them with her problems.

But she’d recently reconnected with her cousin Dori in Dancer’s Beach. They’d been great friends as children, and Natty suddenly longed for her smiling understanding.

It occurred to her seven hours later, at about nine o’clock the following morning, that it would have been wise to call first, despite the lateness of the hour when she’d made her decision. Because there was no one home.

A smiling older man walking by with a golden retriever on a leash said politely, “The Dominguez family is away for a few weeks.” His eyes went to her suitcase, then to her probably puffy face and red nose. “Is it important that you reach them?”

She sighed and shook her head. The long plane ride had made it feel like a brick with ears. “No, thank you.” She walked down the steps and was snuffled by the friendly dog. “I made a last minute decision to visit without calling first. Can you recommend a motel?”

The man pointed up the street. “See that greenand-white Craftsman on the corner? That’s Lulu Griffin’s B-and-B. Very comfortable. Good food. And Nugget and I just walked by. The Vacancy sign is out.”

“Thank you.” Natalie shook his hand. “I appreciate your help.”

“It was my pleasure.”

As the man and the dog walked on, Natalie headed for the bed-and-breakfast, barely able to breathe, and feeling lower than she’d ever felt in all her twenty-six years. With her demanding mother and her genius brothers, she’d always felt inadequate.

Then, after years of trying to fit a little social life into her busy schedule and finding the singles scene soul-deadening, she’d met Kyle Wagner. A young actor with fire and passion, he’d seemed like her dream come true. Until they’d become engaged and his fire and passion turned to complacency and only mild interest in her life.

But she’d wanted a baby more than she wanted anything, and she’d almost settled for Kyle—until he told her he didn’t want children until he was in his forties.

She’d broken the engagement and turned to the sperm bank. And then she hadn’t been able to become pregnant, even under perfect conditions.

What was left for her? she wondered as she climbed the steps of the B-and-B. She now had no man, no baby and very probably no job.

Nothing could save her now. Natalie Felicia Browning had blown her life.

Chapter One

Ben Griffin lifted five-year-old Roxanne out of the bathtub and wrapped her in a thick blue towel. He sat on the closed lid of the john with her and helped her dry off. She had his dark eyes and hair, though hers hung in thick ringlets—when it wasn’t snarled in knots.

“I wanted to wash my hair,” she complained as she held tightly to Betsy, a small rag doll with black button eyes and a painted heart-shaped mouth. “Julie Callahan Griffin made that,” he used to remind himself when the pain of her loss had been so enormous he had to say her name or burst. The doll was never more than a hand’s span away from Roxie, awake or sleeping.

“We washed your hair yesterday,” Ben reminded her.

“Vannie gets to wash her hair every day,” she argued.

“Vannie has very short hair. And she blows it dry.” Vanessa was seven, and the decision to cut her hair had come at the end of the summer, when she’d returned from camp. She hadn’t explained why she wanted to cut her long, golden-brown hair, but she’d been adamant.

Since their mother had died a year and a half ago, Ben had done his best to allow them whatever was in his power and wouldn’t hurt them.

Roxie swung her head from side to side so that her long hair flew out. It would have slapped him in the face if he hadn’t drawn back.

She giggled, then declared, “I don’t want to cut my hair.”

“I don’t blame you,” he said, helping her into lavender flannel pajamas patterned with pink kittens and blue puppies. “It’s very pretty.”

“Can I wear lipstick to Marianne’s tomorrow?”

Marianne Beasley owned and operated the day care where Roxie spent several hours every day.

“Nope,” Ben replied. She asked this question every night. “Sorry.”

“Can I get my ears pierced?”

This was a new question. Having finished putting her pajamas on, he turned her toward him to look into her eyes. They were bright and frighteningly intelligent. “Do you even know what that is?”

“Yeah,” she said, pulling her little lobe out for him to see. “A lady sticks it with a needle and it doesn’t even hurt! She puts a little hole right there and you can wear different earrings in them every day.”

“No,” he said, knowing he had to say it firmly or she’d be cajoling him all night long. “You have to wait until you grow up a little more.”

She looked indignant. “I’m five! Paloma has pierced ears, and she’s only four!”

“I’m sorry. That’s the way it is.”

“Can I have ice cream before bed?”

He lifted her onto his hip and carried her downstairs, wondering if part of her strategy was to ask for the impossible, knowing she could bargain him down. Ice cream at night sometimes gave her a stomachache, but tonight he’d risk it in the interest of making her feel less deprived.

The telephone rang when he was halfway down the stairs.

“I’ll get it!” Vanessa shouted.

When he rounded the corner into the kitchen, he saw that she was already dressed for bed. She used his bathroom at night and always got herself ready without fuss. He wondered if she was the only second-grader in the world with a tidy sock drawer and clothes on hangers instead of all over her room.

He worried a little about her efficiency at such a tender age but reminded himself that Julie had been a stickler for tidiness and order. Vanessa came by it naturally.

“He’s right here, Grandma.” Vanessa put her hand over the mouthpiece and handed the telephone to him. “Grandma’s having trouble with a guest,” she whispered.

“Thank you.” He put Roxie on her feet. “Van, can you scoop up some ice cream for you and Roxie?”

She looked surprised. “At night?”

“Just tonight.”

“How come?”

“Because I said so.”

With a shrug, Vanessa pulled open the door of the side-by-side refrigerator and delved into the freezer at the bottom.

“Ha!” his mother said into his ear. “You used to get upset when I gave you that answer, and now you’re doing it. The best revenge is watching you become me.”

“Thanks to the gender difference,” he said, backing onto a stool near the counter, “that’ll only go so far. What’s up?”

“Well…” She made a small sound of distress. “I’m not entirely sure. Do you know Natalie Browning?”

“No,” he replied. He’d never been wild about his mother buying a seven-bedroom house and turning it into a bed-and-breakfast, inviting complete strangers to be locked in with her at night without benefit of any information about them except their names. “Why?”

“I think she’s a celebrity in the East. Her driver’s license says Philadelphia. When I asked her what brought her to Dancer’s Beach, she said something about needing to hide out from cameras and publicity.”

“Interesting.” He watched Vanessa struggle with the ice cream scoop, and was about to get up and help her when she went to the sink and ran it under the hot water. She tried again and the ice cream scooped out easily. He wondered if Julie had taught her that. What a kid. “Never heard of her.”

“Well, she arrived yesterday looking as though her only friend had died. And I haven’t seen her since, except peeking out from behind her door. Today I haven’t seen her at all.”

“Have you knocked? Or called?”

“She doesn’t answer.”

“Maybe she’s just sleeping.”

His mother sighed. “I think it’s worse than that. She had a terrible cold, so I mixed her a hot toddy with my apricot brandy. I left her the bottle, and I haven’t seen her or it since.”

“Sounds as though you have a guest on a bender, Mom. What do you want me to do?”

“I told her she could have that room for only one night. It’s reserved for a pair of honeymooners who are due in less than two hours. Would you…come and talk to her? Beautiful women always respond to handsome men.”

“Mom…” He groaned. She was always finding some excuse to introduce him to some young woman or get him invited to some event where single women would be present. Between her and Marianne Beasley, who came on to him at every opportunity, he was clutching his bachelorhood with both hands.

“It has nothing to do with that!” she said firmly. She’d always read his mind. He hated that she could still do it. “I’m simply trying to take care of a difficult matter in a discreet and civilized way. I don’t want to call the police or make a fuss, because she looks like a woman who’s had enough trouble, but if you’re too busy for me…”

“The girls are just out of the bath,” he pleaded, “and eating their snacks before bed.”

“I said that was fine,” she repeated stiffly. He could imagine her, wounded look in place on her carefully made up face, spiked white hair even spikier in her imagined state of neglect. “If you’re too busy, I’ll just—”

“We’ll be there.” He caved; it was inevitable. “Give me ten minutes.”

“You can have twelve,” she said. “Thank you, Ben.”

“Sure.” He hung up the phone. “Get your slippers and coats,” he said to the girls. “Put away the ice cream. We’re going to Grandma’s.”

They hurried to comply, and he had to smile as he watched them run upstairs. Coming home to Dancer’s Beach to give them a sense of family after Julie died had been a good idea. They loved their grandmother, who didn’t seem to persecute them the way she picked on him, and their Sunday evening dinners at the B-and-B were enjoyed by all of them.

He just hoped he survived the move. Leaving his work in Portland as a developer of high-density urban dwellings and purchasing the Bijou Theater Building in downtown Dancer’s Beach left him more time to be with the girls. However, their standard of living had taken a considerable dive, though he seemed to be the only one who noticed.

The old lodge-style house on a hill overlooking the town had been in serious need of repair. But, licensed in plumbing and wiring, he’d made short shrift of the major problems and was working slowly on giving the place a facelift.

He kept thinking he’d adjusted to life without Julie. Then Vanessa, who looked so much like her, would smile at him with an arched eyebrow, or Roxie would fold her arms in displeasure, and he was ambushed by old memories and ever-present longings.

He’d bought the house to keep him busy. Evenings after the girls had gone to bed were difficult, but Sundays were abominable. They’d always done special things on Sunday—picnics, sight-seeing, driving to the coast. With Saturday’s chores done and Monday’s responsibilities not yet upon them, they were particularly carefree.

Though the pace of his life had slowed considerably, Ben felt as though he never had a carefree moment anymore. He worried about the girls constantly, hoping he was giving them everything they needed, knowing it was impossible for a father to do so.

Slippers and coats on, Betsy tucked into Roxie’s pocket, the girls raced past him and out the door to the indigo van emblazoned with his logo and company name, Bijou Development.

He smiled as he followed in their wake. At least he didn’t have to worry about their physical well-being. He wished he could move that energetically.

LOUISE GRIFFIN’S bed-and-breakfast could only be described, Ben thought, as “country coordinates gone mad.” The living room, which flowed into the dining room, was wallpapered from ceiling to waist height in an all-over rose-and-ivy pattern that had a coordinating border of tightly clustered roses. Then a rose-and-green-striped paper swept down to the rose-colored baseboards.

Every room in the house was similarly decorated, though the motifs and colors were different. Every bedroom had coordinating papers and border, as well as bedding and curtains that also matched. Each bed had several sets of pillows, all mix and match, like something out of a linens ad.

Looking at them too long made him crazy, as though there was no room for free thought, and everything in the world had to coordinate with or match everything else.

But his mother loved it and apparently so did her guests. Ben did her books, and after only three years, she was doing very well.

The girls rushed into the kitchen, where his mother had a small table and a television. She stood at the counter, placing cookies on a plate, and they stopped briefly to greet her.

She leaned down to sweep them into her arms. Then she handed Roxie the plate and Vanessa two glasses of milk.

“You two eat up while your dad and I do business.”

“With the drunk guest?” Vanessa asked as Roxie ran over to the television.

“We don’t know that she’s drunk,” his mother admonished gently. “I’m just worried about her. Go on, now.”

Vanessa followed Roxie.

Ben waited for his mother in the kitchen doorway. She didn’t look like anybody’s mother. She was medium height and slender in velvety lavender top and slacks as coordinated as her rooms. A pendant with a large purple-and-green stone hung around her neck. She had short white hair that was moussed and spiked, and she wore more makeup than he thought she needed, but that wasn’t his call.

She liked to in-line skate in her free time, and was known occasionally to add gin to her Citrucel.

She’d never been a cuddly mother, but she’d always adored him, and what he’d lacked in hugs and snuggles, she’d made up for by being there for him every time he turned to her for help. When Julie died, Lulu had left a friend in charge of the B-and-B and come to stay with him for a month to help the girls and do all the paperwork chores, such as death certificates and insurance notifications, that he simply hadn’t had the heart for.

She’d cooked, too, though even Roxie had noticed that they ate a lot of egg dishes and fancy pancakes.

“Well, she has a bed-and-breakfast,” Vanessa had pointed out with surprising insight. “Breakfast is all she gets to cook.”

Lulu did seem worried as she hooked her arm in his now and led him into the dining room. Several guests occupied the living room and were in cheerful conversation about their respective vacations.

“I want to do this with a minimum of fuss,” she said quietly, smiling as one of the guests waved at her. “Miss Browning didn’t come down to breakfast and she was really under the weather yesterday.”

Ben nodded. “I understand that, Mom. I just don’t know why you think I’m the one to handle this.”

“Because you’re my troubleshooter. You fix everything around here.”

“But this is a person. Not a pipe or an electrical connection.”

“You were very good with Julie, and she was a complex, sometimes volatile woman.”

“I was married to Julie.”

“You’re good with everyone.” Lulu physically turned him toward the hallway and the stairs. “Just please make sure she’s okay, then explain that she has to leave. She’s in the Woodsy Cabin Room on the third floor. All the other guests on that floor are out. Her name’s Natalie!” she whispered after him.

Right. The Woodsy Cabin Room was the one with pine tree motif paper at the top, brown bears gamboling over the paper on the bottom, and the whole of it brought together by green border paper patterned with moose.

He had to be insane, Ben thought as he climbed two flights of stairs, to let his mom bully him into this. What did a man say to a strange woman clearly on a lost weekend?

He drew a breath, prayed that he would create as small a scene as possible, and knocked on the door.

He was surprised when it opened immediately. And he was quite literally rendered speechless by the woman who stood there. She wore only a red-and-black flannel shirt and red-toed boot socks. She was fairly tall, five-foot-nine or -ten, and her legs from the tail of her shirt to her ankles were something to behold—shapely, milky white and very, very long.

He dragged his eyes away abruptly, concentrating on his mission. But gazing into her face wasn’t easy on him, either. She had wide gray eyes that appeared a little vague, but were filled with an expression that mingled pain and sadness—two things with which he was very familiar. Her nose was small and came to a delicate—if red—point, her lips were nicely shaped but pale, her chin was gently rounded and her face was a perfect oval.

A short, unruly mop of golden-blond hair stood up in disarray. She peered at him with unfocused eyes. In the hand that held the door open was a small, flat box.

She looked like a cross between Michelle Pfeiffer and Jenna Elfman. Ben found himself touched by the look in her eyes. He couldn’t even think about her legs.

He forced himself to remember why he was here, and opened his mouth to speak.

But she asked abruptly, “Are you…the one?” She weaved a little as she peered at him more closely.

“Uh…the one?”

“The one,” she repeated, making a wide gesture with the box. It was apparently empty. “The one who’s going to finally get me pregnant.”

He completely lost his train of thought. He stared at her.

“’Cause Dori told me…” She leaned against the door and winced, rubbing her head. “But I thought it was a dream.” She spoke slowly, her voice slurred. “I just woke up. But I feel so…” She dropped the box and seemed to sink, about to fall.

He reached for the box instinctively and caught it, then grabbed for her and pushed her gently back toward the bed. Her hands clasped his arms and held on.

Her eyes looked into his, their gray depths almost lucid. He felt her tension in the grip of her fingers.

“You are him,” she whispered.

She looked so grave. What was she talking about? “Who?” he asked, lowering his voice unconsciously.

“The father of my baby,” she replied.

“I’m…Lulu’s son,” he said, pulling the edge of the coverlet over her knees.

“Lulu?”

“She owns this place.”

The woman looked around the room. “The…clinic?”

“No, this isn’t a clinic. You’re staying at a bed-and-breakfast.”

She frowned, apparently trying to absorb that. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “You’ve been sick.” He held up the box and saw that it contained extra-strength cold medication. “I think you’ve had a cold.” He tossed the box at the bedside table and noted the empty toddy mug there. The brandy bottle stood beside it.

She fell back onto the mattress, then put a finger to her lips. “Sick. But…shh! Or they’ll report that I’m dying!”

He didn’t even try to understand what that meant. He reached for the bottle and held it up to the light. It was still mostly full, though he guessed even a small amount of brandy with strong cold medication could reduce someone to such a state.

“How many pills have you had?” he asked.

She put a hand to her head. “Um…five…eight. Not sure.”

“You should eat something,” he suggested. “Maybe drink some coffee.” He pulled the coverlet all the way over her. “I’ll go get—”

She caught his shirtsleeve with surprising strength, preventing him from straightening up. “I just want the baby,” she said. “Now. Before I…”

He guessed she’d been about to say, “Before I pass out,” because then she did just that.

“Oh boy,” Ben grumbled to himself as he placed a pillow under her head. She was crackers, but he probably was, too. After a year and a half of celibacy, making a baby with a gorgeous blonde didn’t sound half-bad.

But he preferred his women conscious.

His women, he thought with dry amusement. As though he’d had any. It had been him and Julie since high school. He’d never had another lover. And he didn’t want another one now. He fully intended to live out his life in quiet frustration, because there couldn’t be another woman with whom he fit so perfectly in every way. Like the damned wallpaper.

“Oh, my God,” his mother said, coming to lean beside him as he tried to assess the woman’s condition. “What did you do?”

He turned to her impatiently. “I didn’t do anything. She passed out, thanks to your heavy-handed toddy and a box of cold pills.”

“Did you tell her she has to be out tonight?”

“I didn’t get a chance to tell her much of anything. She mistook me for someone who’s supposed to get her pregnant.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. At one point she thought she was dreaming. What are you doing?”

His mother was walking around the room, putting the few things left out into the open suitcase on the luggage rack.

“I’ve got to move her so I can prepare this room,” she said. She took a cosmetics bag off the dresser and tossed it in.

“Where are you going to put her?”

His mother gasped in reply, her eyes widening as she stared at a newspaper she’d picked up with the cosmetics bag.

He went to read over her shoulder.

News Anchor Scammed by Casanova of Sperm Lab. The headline was two inches high, in bold print. The subhead read, Newswoman Courageously Turns Table on Sperm Lab Doctor Filling Orders with his Own Sperm.

“Poor thing!” his mother exclaimed as Ben scanned the story. “She goes to a sperm lab for help getting pregnant and learns that she’s been defrauded. But she had the courage to play out the story and bring the man to trial. Fortunately for her, the procedure didn’t work.”

It was a sad story. He suddenly understood her insistence about getting pregnant.

“And knowing that,” Ben said, “you can throw her out in the cold?”

“No,” Lulu said, dropping the paper into a pretty trash basket. “I can let you take her home with you.”

Ben glared at her. “Mom…”

“What else am I going to do? I have guests arriving in less than two hours.”

“You can find her a room at another—”

“The Buckley Arms is full—the crafters convention. And I’m it for B-and-Bs.”

He struggled to hold on to his good humor. “I’m not a B-and-B, Mom. I’m a working man with two little—”

“I know, I know,” she said, patting his cheek. “But she’s clearly in a state that requires she be looked after, and I can’t do that with an inn filled with guests. You, on the other hand, always manage to look after everyone in your life very well.”

“But she’s not in my life,” he insisted, “she’s in yours.”

“But I’m in yours, sweetie. See? It’s logical. Scientific, even. Mathematical, sort of. She’s in mine and I’m in yours, therefore she’s in yours, too.”

“God.”

Chapter Two

Vanessa and Roxie skipped after him as he carried a still-sleeping Natalie Browning, wrapped in a blanket, out to the van. His mother followed with the suitcase.

“She’s so pretty!” Vanessa exclaimed as he placed Natalie on the front passenger seat, tilting it back to help keep her in place.

“Like Sleeping Beauty!” Roxie said.

His mother slid the side door open and put the suitcase into the back seat.

Vanessa tucked Natalie’s feet in.

“If you kiss her, Daddy, she’ll wake up!” Roxie added.

His mother smiled at him and said under her breath, “And maybe you will, too, Ben.”

He sent her a dark look. “You’re already on dangerous ground, Mom. She can stay on the sofa tonight, but first thing in the morning she’s on her own.”

“Of course.” She reached up to kiss his cheek as he closed the door on his unexpected houseguest. Lulu blew kisses to the girls and hurried back inside.

Roxie stood between the two front seats when he climbed in behind the wheel. She looked down at the young woman, patting the disheveled blond hair with a pudgy little hand.

“I wish my hair was this color,” she said.

Vanessa, leaning over the back of the front seat, handed the seat belt to Roxie, who clicked it into place.

“Yeah, me too,” Vanessa replied. “I’d wear it long with lots of curls.”

“Can we keep her, Daddy?” Roxie asked promptly.

“She’s not a puppy, Rox,” he said patiently. “When she wakes up, I’m sure she’s going to want to go home.”

Actually, she might not, he thought as he backed the van out onto the street. Judging by the newspaper article, things must have been difficult for her there. The article had included a rude comment from an old boyfriend of hers and his suggestion that she wasn’t the beautiful, sweet woman she appeared to be on television.

“Can we keep her till she wakes up?”

“She’ll be awake in the morning,” Ben assured his daughter.

“If you don’t kiss her, she won’t.”

“She’s not Sleeping Beauty,” Vanessa told Roxie. “She’s just a lady that’s asleep. Grandma said she’s on television.”

“Right.” Ben took the turn that would lead them home. “She does the news at night. Like Peter Jennings.”

In the rearview mirror he saw Roxie wrinkle her nose. “The news!”

“It’s an important job,” Vanessa informed her. “Daddy watches it all the time. That’s how you learn what’s going on in other places.”

To Roxie, who cared mostly about her room, her house and Marianne’s Day Care, that seemed irrelevant.

“She can sleep in the other twin bed in my room, Daddy,” Vanessa offered. “So she isn’t afraid when she wakes up.”

He’d told his mother that he intended to put Natalie on the sofa, but he’d just repainted the fourth bedroom upstairs and put the futon from the family room in it. She’d be comfortable there, and he’d be more likely to hear her if she woke up in the middle of the night, wondering what had happened and where she was.

He turned into their driveway, which was lit by floodlights at the front of the house. He hit the garage door opener and pulled into the dimly lit interior.

The girls scrambled out and went ahead of him to open doors.

He scooped Natalie Browning out of the front seat and into his arms. She lay limply against him, the scent of gardenias intermingled with the smell of a mentholated rub.

He remembered her looking into his eyes and telling him that he was “the one.” The one her dream had sent to give her a baby.

He walked into the house with her, as Vanessa held the kitchen door open. He couldn’t help wondering why a beautiful young woman would have gone to a sperm bank in the first place. Unless the boyfriend quoted in the article was right and she was cold and forbidding.

It was hard to tell when he’d spoken to her only while she’d been incoherent. But she didn’t look like a cold-hearted woman.

Roxie held open the door to the fourth bedroom upstairs. Vanessa, running along behind him, asked him to wait while she got a sheet and blankets out of the linen closet.

She and Roxie spread a flannel sheet over the plain red futon.

“I’ll get one of my pillows,” Vanessa said, and ran off.

“She should have something to sleep with,” Roxie said. She took Betsy out of her pocket, studied the doll with a worried frown, then placed it beside Natalie. But before she could even remove her hands from it, she reconsidered and pressed Betsy to her chest.

“I’ll get Starla for her!” Roxie said, clearly pleased to have come up with a solution that did not involve parting with Betsy. Starla was a large stuffed bear who’d lost his right button eye. Julie had covered the large hole with a star-shaped piece of yellow felt stitched into place. Roxie loved the bear’s new personality and had even renamed it appropriately.

When Ben had suggested that the name was feminine and not masculine, Vanessa had taken her sister’s side. “Only girls have stars in their eyes, Daddy, so she must be a girl.”

Well, he’d learned something new.

He lay Natalie down on the flannel sheet and the blanket she’d been wrapped in. Vanessa arrived just in time to put a pillow under her head. Roxie put Starla beside Natalie and made sure that Ben covered her, too, when he opened out the top sheet, then a pink thermal blanket and spread them over the bed. Not certain one blanket would keep her warm enough, he sent Vanessa to the linen closet for another.

Natalie stirred restlessly as Ben spread the second blanket. Her brow furrowed and she moaned as though something hurt.

“What’s the matter with her?” Vanessa asked worriedly.

Instinctively, Ben put a hand to Natalie’s cheek. “Probably just a bad dream,” he guessed. He noticed with a start that her skin was like satin to the touch.

She smiled, just a very small curve of her lips. Then she reached out, as though groping for something, her fingers spread wide.

Again, instinctively, he caught them in his. Her hand tightened around his with a strength that demonstrated how desperate she’d been for that contact. At least in her sleep. Loneliness, he knew, was a powerful enemy.

“She likes you, Daddy!” Roxie whispered loudly.

Vanessa looked at him a little worriedly, and he was just wondering himself if he was going to have to lean over this bed for the rest of the night when Natalie made a contented little sound, freed his hand and rolled onto her side.

He felt enormous relief as he readjusted her blankets.

He ushered the girls out into the hallway and pulled the door halfway closed.

“Can we have our ice cream now?” Roxie asked.

“We had ice cream at Grandma’s,” Vanessa ratted, to Roxie’s chagrin. “And cookies, too.”

“Then I think we’re finished for tonight.” Ben picked up Roxie under one arm and Vanessa under the other, to their squealing delight. He had to keep reminding himself to play with them more often, to remember that they needed him to be cheerful and hopeful.

He tended to get bogged down in work and memories and forget that a child learned a lot by having fun.

He dropped Roxie onto her bed and, with Vanessa still tucked under his arm, leaned over her to kiss her good-night. The girls collided and giggled hysterically.

He carried Vanessa out with him across the hall to her room and dropped her in her bed.

“Can she stay for dinner tomorrow?” she asked, sitting up in bed.

“Roxie?” he asked, fluffing the one pillow Van had left. “Yes, we have to let her stay for dinner. It’s part of the family deal. You have to feed the kids.”

“Daddy!” Vanessa slapped his arm. “I mean the lady. Can she stay for dinner? If she isn’t awake when I go to school, I won’t even hear her talk or anything.”

That confused him for a moment. “Hear her talk?”

She hunched a shoulder. “Yeah. You know. I bet she has a pretty voice, ’specially if she’s on television. And I miss Mom’s voice.” She looked at him from under thick dark lashes. “Is it okay to say that?”

He sat down on the edge of her bed, anguished by that question. “Van, it’s okay for you to say whatever you’re feeling. I asked you to tell me when you miss her and feel lonely.”

She nodded quickly. “I know. And I do. But I had just turned six then. Now I’ve been seven for a while and it doesn’t make me cry anymore when I miss her, and I know I have to make believe everything’s okay.” She gave him a look that told him she understood far more than he realized. “That’s what you do, ’cause you’re the dad. So, I do it, too, ’cause I’m the big sister. But it would be nice to hear the lady’s voice, if we can’t ever hear Mom’s again.”

Her perception always amazed him. He didn’t know why he was surprised that she’d understood he pretended cheer and hope when he didn’t feel it.

“Sometimes,” he said, ruffling her short, shaggy hair, “if you pretend something awful is really okay, it eventually makes it okay. Or at least makes it hurt less.” He pinched her chin. “But you don’t ever have to pretend what you don’t feel, Vannie. You can always tell me what you’re thinking, even if you’re afraid I won’t like it.”

“I know.” She lay back against her pillows and smiled up at him. “I’m not afraid to tell you anything. I just don’t want to make you sad if you’re not by talking about me being sad.”

He drew her blankets up and leaned down to kiss her cheek. “But I’d be really sad if you were sad and didn’t tell me.”

She smiled. “I’m not sad right now. I’m anxious to wake up in the morning and see what the lady’s like. Promise if she isn’t awake when I go to school, you’ll ask her to stay for dinner so I can talk to her.”

That didn’t sound like a good idea, but he couldn’t deny her. “I promise.”

“Okay. Good night, Daddy.”

“Good night, baby.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“You’ll be my baby until you’re ninety.”

Vanessa smiled tolerantly, appreciating her precious status, though still offended by the name. “Roxie’s the baby.”

“I am not!” The protest came indignantly from across the hall. “I’ve five! And I’m gonna get pierced ears!”

Vanessa sat up, competitive edge honed. “She is?” she demanded of Ben. “When?”

Ben shouted across the hall. “When, Roxie?”

There was silence for several seconds, then Roxie replied grudgingly. “When I’m grown up. But I’m gonna get three in each ear!”

Pleased that she hadn’t missed a rite of passage, Vanessa fell back on her pillow. “She’s such a fibber!” she said.

“I am not!”

“She was just anticipating,” Ben said. “You know what that is?”

“It’s like thinking about it, only before it happens.”

“Very good.”

Ben covered her again, kissed her cheek and turned off her bedside lamp. “Good night, woman of great wisdom,” he said grandly.

She giggled. “That’s better, Daddy.”

He kissed her again and went across the hall to where Roxie sat up in bed, her expression pugnacious, her arms folded. “I’m not a baby,” she declared clearly. “I’m the littlest, but I’m not a baby.”

“You’re absolutely right,” he said, gently pushing her back and pulling up her covers.

“I can pour my own milk if you don’t buy the really big bottle with the handle, and I know about looking both ways to cross the street, and I don’t cry when I fall down.”

“Yes, I know.”

“At Marianne’s I can swing higher than Austin O’Brian, and he’s six!”

She was the most adventurous child at the day care center—Marianne had told him that several times. Ben liked knowing she wasn’t afraid but hoped she’d acquire her sister’s sense of self-preservation before she did herself any real harm.

“I know you act like a big girl,” he praised her, taking her rag doll from the coverlet and putting it in her hands. “But you and Vanessa were such pretty babies that I still think of you that way sometimes.”

Roxie was a pushover for flattery. She smiled benevolently. “That’s okay, Daddy. What time is the lady going to wake up?”

“I don’t know, Rox. We’ll let tomorrow take care of itself, okay?”

Her pristine little brow puckered. “What does that mean?”

“It means we won’t worry about what happens tomorrow until it’s tomorrow.”

“Oh. Am I going to Marianne’s right after breakfast?”

“Yes. I have to put a new water heater in the building tomorrow and I’d like to get an early start. Is that okay with you?”

“Yeah. We’re going to make turkeys tomorrow by drawing our hands. That’s going to be fun.”

He tried to imagine how that would work and couldn’t. “Good.” He leaned down to hug her and got a big hug in return. “See you in the morning.”

“’Night, Daddy.”

“’Night, ba—” He caught himself just in time. “Good night, Roxie.”

“Wait!” She sat up again, and he swallowed frustration and a desperate need for a gin and tonic.

“Yeah?”

“You called Vannie a woman of…what was it?”

“Wisdom,” he replied.

“Yeah.” She grinned eagerly. “You have to call me something grown-up, too.”

He wasn’t sure he had a creative thought left in his head tonight.

“Ah…lady of adventure?”

She drew the blankets up to her chin and fell back giggling. “Now say good-night to me again.”

He leaned down, a hand on either side of her, and said, “Good night, oh lady of adventure.”

She looked pleased. “Good night, Daddy.”

He flipped off her light and pulled her door halfway closed. Then he backtracked to peer inside the guest room and found Natalie Browning still fast asleep, Starla clutched in her arms.

Her left leg, though, had kicked free of the blankets and now dangled over the side, covered in goose bumps from the cold. Ben groaned and went to his room for a pair of thermal underwear bottoms he wore when he worked outdoors in winter.

He carried them back to her room, wondering if he had the courage to put them on her. She was huddled under the covers as though cold, and he decided that he could be clinical about this in the interest of her welfare.

With swift but careful movements, he slipped the left leg of the longies over her foot, pushed the blankets aside to find her other foot and pulled the other leg on.

He almost hesitated when it came to slipping them over her hips but knew the less he thought about it, the better. He simply leaned over her with an arm under her waist, held her to him for the time it took to pull them over her bottom, then almost gasped with relief when he could lay her down again. He covered her quickly and left the room.

He went downstairs feeling as though the day had been thirty hours long. He mixed a gin and tonic, sat down on a bright red sofa he’d bought because the girls loved it, and propped his feet up on an old wooden garden bench he’d cleaned up and brought inside.

He turned on the Home and Garden Channel, hoping Norm Abrams was sharing an interesting building project. Ben leaned his head against the high cushions and let his eyes drift closed during a commercial about waterproof stain.

He was asleep before the commercial was over.

NATALIE AWOKE TO a headache so brutal she dared not open her eyes.

I’m having a stroke! she thought in panic. Or I’ve been struck on the head with something heavy! I’ve been mugged!

Mugged. No. The warm cocoon in which she was wrapped didn’t feel very post-mugging.

And she probably wasn’t having a stroke. She could move her arm, flex her fingers, put them to her head, where there was no evidence of a bump or a cut. So she hadn’t been struck, either.

She tried hard to think, but her aching head made it almost impossible.

Then she realized she could hardly breathe and her throat was scratchy. The cold. She had an awful cold. She’d taken two cold tablets, then two more, then someone had given her a powerful brandy drink….

Suddenly it all came back. The sperm bank, her investigation and KXAV’s humiliating report, followed by her starring role in Jolie Ramirez’s “Celebrity Dish.” There’d been the trip to Dancer’s Beach and Dori’s absence, the lowest moment of Natalie’s life.

Her head thudded viciously in response to her brain activity, and she was forced to give it a rest.

I’m hungover, she thought defeatedly. She wasn’t hurt or ill; she was hungover on cold medication and brandy. She vaguely remembered still feeling poorly after the drink and taking two more pills. Loggers in spiked boots danced in her head, and she lay quietly for a moment, trying to let her mind rest.

But she had to know things. She had to remember where she was. Her head hurt too much, though, to risk opening her eyes.

She remembered a man and a dog in front of Dori’s house, directing her to…the bed-and-breakfast! Yes! She breathed a sigh of relief. Yes. She was on the third floor of a bed-and-breakfast in a pretty brass bed. It was called the Woodsy Cabin Room because there were pine trees and bears and moose on the wallpaper!

She breathed another sigh of relief. There! Her brain was working. She knew where she was. Feeling just a little better about everything, she risked opening her eyes to slits. They encountered bright sunlight and…no pine trees, no bears, no moose.

She sat up, forgetting the state of her head in her sudden panic at the unfamiliar sight of deep, rose-colored walls covered with framed maps and charts and photos of lighthouses.

She was rewarded with a pounding in her head so severe that she put both hands to her ears, certain they were going to fly off from the pressure.

When her head finally quieted, she took another careful look around. Her bed had short, off-center head and footboards in dark wood that suggested she was sleeping on a futon. The dresser was dark wood, and there was a large model of a sailing yacht on the dresser. The yacht was reflected in the mirror behind it so that it looked as though the model and its reflection were in a neck-and-neck race.

In one corner was an upholstered rocking chair in blue and cream; against another wall stood a tall accountant’s desk from another century. Her eyes went back to the chair. Her suitcase lay on it.

She sat very still and tried to remember where she was, and how she’d gotten here. But all she could recall was a very fuzzy memory of a man, someone she’d thought had been sent to…impregnate her.

Oh, God! Oh, God! She turned to the pillow beside her, wondering if she was sharing the bed with someone she hadn’t even noticed in her panic over her strange surroundings.

She emitted a little sound that was half alarm, half amusement at the sight of the two-foot-tall plush bear. One eye had been replaced with a star-shaped piece of felt, and it seemed to wink at her stupidity.

She wished desperately that she could remember what had happened, hoped against hope that she hadn’t done anything truly stupid. But she was here, wasn’t she? she thought grimly. In a bed she didn’t know, in a room that was unfamiliar. Stupid was written all over it.

Well. She tossed the blankets back and carefully put her legs over the side. Her head thumped in response but she ignored it. Her principal priority was to get away before anyone noticed she was awake. If anyone was here.

The clock on the bedside table read just after eight. If she was lucky, whoever owned this home was on the way to work. She studied the bear worriedly for a moment and wondered if it meant there was a child in residence.

She prayed not. She hated to think she’d been out cold in front of a child.

Natalie got as far as the bathroom off the bedroom before she realized what she was wearing. The red-and-black flannel shirt she remembered. But the baggy, waffle-patterned black thermal underwear did not belong to her. Did it?

And if it didn’t, who had put it on her? The man she’d thought had come to impregnate her?

With a groan of agony, she fell forward against the door molding and closed her eyes. For a woman who’d once had charge of her destiny, she was making one self-destructive move after another.

After a moment of self-pity, she pushed herself upright again, went into the bathroom, filled the sink with water, found a facecloth and did her best to cat-wash quietly so that if anyone was still around, she could make her escape without disturbing them.

She dug through her bag, found a pair of brown cords and a brown turtleneck sweater, and ran a comb cautiously through her painful hair. She folded the black underwear neatly and left it on the foot of the bed.

Then she opened the door silently and, with suitcase in hand and a blue jeans jacket slung over her arm, tiptoed to the head of a wide stairway. On second thought, she reversed direction and went down a smaller back stairway she hoped would lead to a rear hallway and a back door.

She discovered a moment later that she’d been mistaken. The stairway ended in a bright red-and-white kitchen into which small-paned windows all along one side spilled sunlight.

At a farmer’s table in the middle of the room, a man sat reading the paper, while two little girls finished bowls of cereal, their moods apparently morose.

Natalie drew in a breath, distressed at having stumbled into the very confrontation she’d hoped to avoid—and with two beautiful children!

For one instant that would stay with her for a long, long time, she let herself believe that she belonged here, that she’d just showered and dressed and was joining her family for breakfast. The girls were as beautiful as any she’d dreamed of having.

And they looked delighted at the sight of her, grim moods falling away and broad smiles curving their mouths.

“Daddy!” the older of the two girls exclaimed, dark eyes brightening. Natalie guessed her to be seven or eight. “She’s awake!”

“Hi!” The second child, probably a couple of years younger, knelt up on her chair in excitement. “My name’s Roxie!”

The man looked up from his paper and turned his head in her direction. He had close-cropped, dark brown hair, a strong nose, a square chin with the slightest cleft in it, and a mouth that might have lent that tough face a little softness if it had been smiling.

But it wasn’t. And a pair of mahogany-brown eyes said clearly that he disapproved of her.

Time began again and reality descended upon her with a crash.

He was the man in her blurred images of last night. And she’d mentioned impregnation to him; she knew she had. He must think her either a slut or a complete idiot. She didn’t really care to know which.

To her utter and complete surprise, he pushed back from the table and stood. “Good morning,” he said politely, if a little stiffly.

“Good morning,” she replied in a raspy voice. She cleared her throat and smiled at the girls. “Hi. I’m Natalie.”

The older girl tried to get up, but the man stopped her with a look. Then he transferred The Look to Natalie. It made her, too, stay in her place.

“I’m Ben Griffin,” he said. “My mother owns the bed-and-breakfast where you were staying. These are my daughters, Vanessa and Roxanne.”

She smiled at each in turn. Bright smiles that could not be squelched by The Look were offered to her.

“I’m pleased to meet all of you,” she said, transferring her suitcase to her other hand. “And I want you to know how grateful I am for your hospitality.”

She had a million questions. Had she been rowdy last night and had his mother asked him to get rid of her? Had Natalie invited herself over? Had he invited her after her impregnation remarks?

On second thought, maybe she didn’t want her questions answered.

Vanessa turned to her father. “I knew she’d have a nice voice. Does she have to go?”

“Yes, I do,” Natalie replied quickly, unwilling to let Ben Griffin be put on the spot after whatever it was she’d done last night. “I have to…go to work.”

“Isn’t that in Philadelphia?” he asked.

She wondered how he knew that, then realized that if she’d asked him to impregnate her, chances are she’d told him where she lived. She swallowed a groan.

“Yes. I have to get to the airport.”

“I’m afraid we left your car at my mother’s,” he said. “I’ll drive you when I get back from taking the girls to school and day care.” He pointed to the bowl at the fourth place set at the table. “Why don’t you have some cereal and a cup of coffee, and I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.”

“I could take a cab there,” she demurred, sure all he needed was to be put to more trouble on her account.

He shook his head. “Cab service died last year.”

Roxie, still kneeling on her chair, leaned across the table to shake cereal into the empty bowl. “We really like Frosted Pups. It has colored candies in it, but Daddy says we can’t have that except sometimes on Saturdays. It doesn’t have enough…” She turned to her sister for help.

“Nutrition,” Vanessa enunciated carefully. She pushed the milk in the direction of the empty chair. “Daddy said you could stay for dinner,” she added in a rush.

Natalie guessed by the way Ben Griffin stopped in the act of removing a battered suede jacket from the back of his chair that the child had lied.

But he shrugged on the jacket without correcting her.

“That’s very generous,” Natalie said, beginning to feel his disapproval like a weight and hating that she couldn’t respond to the children’s warmth. She knew he wouldn’t like it. “But I really have to go today.”

Both girls looked crestfallen, and she was at a loss to understand their interest in her when she’d hardly spoken to them.

“But I can have breakfast first,” she said, hoping to draw back the smiles. She put her suitcase down by the door and went to the table.

Ben poured coffee into her cup, then excused himself to find his car keys.

Vanessa took a napkin from the holder in the middle of the table and walked around to hand it to her. “Would you like a banana for your cereal?” she asked.

Natalie opened the napkin onto her lap. “No, this is fine, thank you. What grade are you in, Vanessa?”

“I’m in second. Roxie’s in preschool.”

“But I’m gonna get my ears pierced,” Roxie said, coming around the table to press in on the other side of Natalie. She put a fingertip to the jade stud in Natalie’s closest earlobe. “And I’m gonna get earrings just like yours!”

Vanessa rolled her eyes. “She’s not getting her ears pieced until she grows up. Daddy says we’re too young. Do you think we’re too young?”

“Definitely,” she said. “You have to take care of your ears very carefully when you have them pierced or you get an infection. And it’s easier to remember all the things you have to do if you’re older.”

“How old were you?” Vanessa asked.

“I was in high school,” Natalie replied. “My friend gave it to me as a present for my birthday.”

“You were sleeping last night,” Roxie said, leaning her elbow companionably on the table beside Natalie’s bowl and smiling up into her face. “I thought you were Sleeping Beauty! I wanted Daddy to kiss you, but he didn’t want to.”

Natalie bet he didn’t. “I wasn’t feeling very well.”

Vanessa confirmed that with a nod. “Grandma said you had a cold, then you had some brandy, and you didn’t answer the phone.”

Natalie propped her elbow on the table and rested her forehead in her hand. It ached abominably.

“Dillydally if you’re able,” Roxie sang to her, quoting the old aphorism, “but keep your elbows off the table.”

Natalie dutifully lowered her elbow.

“That wasn’t polite!” Vanessa scolded Roxie. “She’s company.”

“Daddy says we have to have good table manners all the time!”

“Us, but not her! She’s a grown-up!”

“No, no, that’s all right.” Natalie put an arm around each girl to defuse the argument. “Thank you, Vanessa, but Roxanne is right. Good manners are always important.”

Their father returned with a key ring hooked over his index finger. He took in the scene of the three of them and his brow darkened.

Natalie dropped her arms from them and swallowed a lump in her throat as she smiled. “You girls have a good day at school,” she said. “And thank you for getting my breakfast together. I’m very glad that I got to meet you.”

“You ready, girls?” their father asked.

Vanessa sighed. “Yes. Come on, Roxie.”

Vanessa picked up her lunch box from the counter, and Roxie took a well-loved doll from beside her bowl. They stopped to wave as their father held the back door open.

“I’ll be right back,” he said to Natalie.

The heroic thing to do, she thought, as he closed the door behind him, was to quickly finish her cereal and start walking to the B-and-B. Her suitcase had wheels, and Dancer’s Beach was small enough that it would take her only a moment to figure out how to get to the B-and-B from here.

She congratulated herself on the first reasonable plan she’d made since her unfortunate decision to use a sperm bank to get a baby in her life.

She finished her cereal hurriedly, had several sips of hot coffee, then rinsed out her dishes and put them in the sink.

Nothing about the view from the window above the sink looked familiar. She walked into the living room and looked out the large window. She saw that the house was on a hill just above town, and that it was probably six or seven blocks downhill, then just about half a mile to the B-and-B and her car. A cinch. At home she ran three miles every other day.

Unfortunately, she discovered a moment later, she ran far better than she walked. When she turned to head back to the kitchen to retrieve her suitcase and leave quickly, she caught her foot on a two-by-four in the hallway that she hadn’t noticed on her way in. She fell flat on her face, a burning pain ripping through her right ankle.

Chapter Three

Ben dropped Vanessa off at Matthew Buckley School. Children streamed toward the building from all directions.

“I think you should ask her to stay for dinner,” Vanessa said as she leaned over to kiss him goodbye. “I think she’s very nice. It isn’t her fault that she couldn’t wake up and Grandma had to make her leave ’cause she’d promised her room to somebody else.”

All he needed at this point in his life, Ben thought, was a ditzy blonde with eyes like those of a silent-film star, all anguish and repentance. Life was hard, but you had to behave with some common sense and resist being splashed all over the news. Even if you were beautiful.

“You heard her, Van,” he replied. “She has to go home.”

“That’s ’cause she knows you don’t like her.”

“I don’t even know her.” He tried to plead innocence.

“You look at her the same way you look at us when we do something we’re not supposed to do.”

“But it doesn’t mean I don’t like you, does it?” he challenged. “It just means I want you to do the right thing.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know you like we do,” his daughter explained patiently. “She probably thinks you don’t like her.”

She was so much like her mother. “Will you please go to school?” He pinched her nose and unlocked her door. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said, but grudgingly.

Roxie was silent all the way to the day care. He’d have probably gotten the same treatment from her before she got out of the car, except that Marianne came to open her door. She was tall and angular with a long dark braid and soft hazel eyes that devoured him every time she looked at him.

To his recollection, he’d never done anything to encourage her, but she’d either misinterpreted something he’d said or done, or she was simply determined to lust him into submission.

She leaned into the car as Roxie darted off to join her friends. “Good morning, Ben,” she said. With the children, she had a loud, high-pitched voice. With him, it dropped an octave and was little more than an intimate whisper.

“Good morning,” he replied, putting a briskness into the greeting so that she couldn’t misinterpret it.

“The Butlers and the Kaminskis think you’d be a wonderful addition to the board,” she said. “Are you sure I can’t persuade you to reconsider?”

The implication was in the subtle inflection. He kept his smile brisk, too. “Nope, sorry. Too much to do.”

Her expression became sympathetic. He mistrusted that almost as much as the direct come-on. “I know. Single fathers have such a tough road. Hopefully, the right woman will come along very soon.”

The right woman had gone, but he kept that to himself. “I’m pretty determined to go it alone. But thanks for your concern.”

She apparently hadn’t heard him. “She could be right under your nose,” she suggested.

Mercifully, his cell phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said, turning the key in the ignition, then picking up his phone and flipping it open. He backed out of the driveway as he answered, Marianne staring wistfully after him.

“Ben, it’s Mom.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“How’s Natalie this morning?”

“Fine. Having cereal. We’re coming by in a little bit to pick up her car.”

There was an aggravated sigh on the other end of the connection. “Ben Griffin, I swear. Life drops a beautiful woman right into your lap, and you send her packing.”

He shook his head at the road. “Life didn’t drop her, Mom, you did. And it’s not going to work, so cut it out, all right? You want anything from the bakery on my way to your place?”

“Don’t try to soft-soap me with promises of pastry,” she said with affronted dignity.

“Okay. I’ll see you in about fifteen minutes.”

“Ben!”

“Yeah?”

“An apple fritter. A big one.”

“You got it.”

All right, Ben thought. He was the one in control. He had to fight every moment to maintain it, but right now, he was in charge.

OR SO HE THOUGHT.

When he walked into the house, the table was cleared and Natalie’s dishes were in the sink. But there was no sign of her. Her suitcase was where she’d placed it when she sat down to breakfast.

Maybe she was freshening up, he thought.

He was halfway to the coffeepot with his commuter mug when he heard a faint voice from the direction of the living room.

“Ben?” it called. “Is that you?”

He was touched by an unsettling foreboding. Was that Natalie?

He followed the sound, then stopped in his tracks at the sight of her lying on the carpet, propped up on an elbow, her face pale, her mouth tight. The two-by-four he’d brought up from the basement that morning to remind himself to fix the front porch railing had been flipped over and lay partially under her.

No, he thought firmly. This is not happening to me.

He dropped to his knees beside her and saw that her left ankle was purple and already several times its normal size.

“I think it’s just a sprain,” she said heavily. “But I can’t get up. If you can help me and just take me to my car…” Then she added mournfully, “I’m sorry. I didn’t see the lumber.”

It was his fault, but he wanted to blame her. “What were you doing in here, anyway?” he demanded.

She nodded as though she’d expected that accusing question. “I was determined to walk to town so you wouldn’t have to drive me, so I came to look out the window to sort of orient myself. I’m sorry. I know I’ve just made everything worse. But if you can just get me to my car, I’ll be fine.”

“Right. Like I would do that.” He had no reason to bark at her, but it helped relieve the anger he felt that she couldn’t just walk out of his life this morning as he’d hoped. As he needed. And it was all his fault.

He slipped an arm between her propped elbow and her side, then one rather familiarly under her hips.

She wrapped her arms instinctively around his neck. “I can hop if you’ll give me a little support.”

He ignored her and brought himself to a standing position without losing her. He strode through the house and out to the van, though she had to open doors.

He put her in the middle seat in the back, so that he could prop up her foot. He handled it carefully, placing it on a pillow he kept for the girls. Then he looked up at her to ask if that was comfortable.

She looked pale and miserable.

His anger evaporated. “I’ll take you to the clinic to make sure you didn’t break anything.” He put a plaid blanket with a fleece lining over her. “Just lie quietly. We’ll be there in five minutes.”

She lay back with a groan. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I hate this.”

Yeah, me, too, he thought silently.

“I know you hate it, too,” she said for him. “I meant to be less trouble and ended up being more. I don’t seem to be able to make a right move lately.”

“I’ve had my share of those days,” he consoled her. “Just relax.”

She was quiet as he drove down the hill and headed up Beach Avenue toward the clinic.

“Was I…causing a scene last night at your mother’s?” she asked, her voice sounding stiff and choked.

He decided she could use a break. “No,” he replied. “She called me because you wouldn’t answer her knock, and she knew you hadn’t eaten. She was worried about you.”

“I was probably sleeping. I’ve had a difficult couple of weeks and I haven’t slept very well. Then I was taking pills and she gave me that toddy….”

“She had other guests coming in last night to whom she’d promised the room, so she had to…remove you.”

The silence was thick for a moment. He could hear her sorting through words for the right thing to say. Then she uttered a little sound of exasperation and blurted, “There’s just no subtle way to ask this.”

He couldn’t see her in the rearview mirror because she was lying down. He had the weirdest sensation that he was having a conversation with an invisible woman.

“Ask what?”

There was another heavy pause, then another abrupt question. “Did I say anything to you about…” She stopped as though it was just too hard, after all, then seemed to reconsider and began again. “Did I ask you if you’d been sent to impregnate me?”

He had to admire her willingness to confront an uncomfortable situation head-on.

“Yes, you did,” he answered. Then he decided he could give her another break. “Of course, I was confused, but after you passed out and my mother was packing up your things, we saw the newspaper. It explained some.”

Natalie groaned aloud, a muffled sound that suggested her hands were probably over her face. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I’m usually the epitome of decorum, but then I don’t usually drink. I guess that little bit of brandy made me more direct than it’s safe to be. I apologize if I offended you.”

He turned into the clinic parking lot. “I’m a builder who’s spent most of his time working in the company of other men. I’m not offendable.”

“But your girls are so sweet,” she said, a trace of self-loathing in her voice, “and I can tell by the way you are with them that you’re trying to provide a gentle, protective upbringing, and here I’m pushed into your life, trying to compromise you before I even know your name, then passing out cold.”

He parked in a spot near the door and hurried around to the passenger side. He slid the van door open and found her sitting up, her face blotchy, her eyes grim.

“I didn’t tell them that part,” he said with a reluctant grin. “And they just thought you were asleep.” He placed a knee on the edge of the floor and managed to lift her off the seat and out of the van.

“Well…I’m sorry.”

“You can stop saying that.” He bounced her once in his arms to firm his grip on her, then carried her inside. “If it’s anyone’s fault that you fell, it’s mine.”

“I’m not talking about falling.” She lowered her voice as they walked into the cool, quiet office. “I’m talking about…”

“You’re talking too much.” He whispered the last two words as a woman in a lab coat came out from an inner office.

She took one look at Natalie’s ankle and waved him back into one of only three examining rooms.

Dr. Greg Fortuna, a man about Ben’s age who’d given the girls their back-to-school inoculations, bustled into the room, frowning solicitously over Natalie’s injury.

He’d been in Dancer’s Beach less than a year, but he was well liked and respected. Ben had worked with him on a volunteer committee for the men’s mission and considered him a friend. Vanessa thought he looked like Antonio Sabato, Jr.

“Greg Fortuna,” he said, shaking Natalie’s hand. “Hi, Ben. Did you mow this poor woman down?”

“I fell over a two-by-four,” Natalie explained.

“Oh. You working with Ben?”

“No, this was in his living room,” she replied. Then she seemed to doubt the wisdom of admitting that—as though thinking that Ben expected discretion—and she turned to him, looking stricken.

He wondered absently what her life had been like that she second-guessed every word and every move. It was clear from what she’d said and from the newspaper article that the last two weeks had been difficult, but this self-doubt seemed to be of long standing.

“She’s visiting from Philadelphia,” Ben said. “She stayed at Mom’s, then Mom ran out of room, so the girls invited her to stay overnight with us.”

Natalie looked grateful for the slightly fictitious intervention.

“Looks like just a sprain,” Greg said, “but we’ll x-ray it to be sure. Just sit tight, Natalie, and we’ll wheel you right into the lab.” He turned to Ben, uncertain of their relationship despite his careful explanation. “You coming?”

Ben picked up a copy of Popular Mechanics from a small table in the corner. “I’ll wait right here.”

“Good enough.”

Ben was just getting into an article about winterizing outdoor pipes when his cell phone rang.

“Bijou Development,” he answered, tapping his pockets for a pen.

“Henrietta Caldwell said she saw you carrying a woman into the van!” his mother said, not bothering with a greeting. “Is Natalie Browning still asleep?”

Henrietta Caldwell lived across the road and was one of his mother’s church cronies. He suspected she’d reported on him before.

“And how did Mrs. Caldwell happen to observe this?” he asked, closing the magazine.

“It was perfectly innocent,” his mother replied defensively. “Her husband has this telescope set up in the attic….”

“Yeah. And there are so many stars out at eight-thirty in the morning.”

There was a huff of dismay, then a testy, “Are you going to tell me if she’s all right or not?”

“She’s going to be fine,” he replied, tossing the magazine back on the table, knowing his momentary respite from the women in his life was over. “But she did fall in the living room and sprain her ankle. At least Greg thinks it’s just a sprain.”

“Are you at the clinic?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll be right over.”

“Mom…”

“Breakfast is over and all my guests have scattered. I’ll be right there.”

She hung up without giving him another chance to protest.

She arrived before Greg returned with Natalie from the lab. Lulu was wearing fuchsia and looked as though she belonged on the cover of some fashion magazine for senior women.

“If you were any kind of gentleman,” she accused, taking the doctor’s chair from behind the small desk and rolling it beside his, “you’d have caught her before she fell.”

“I was taking the girls to school,” he replied calmly, determined not to let her exasperate him. She usually did it so successfully.

“Did she trip?”

“Over a two-by-four.”

“You couldn’t have bought a house that was already fixed?”

“I’m a builder, Mom. Fixing houses and buildings or putting them up is what I do.”

“And now you’ve probably broken the leg of the woman God dropped in your lap.”

“It’s sprained, not broken,” he said evenly. “And you dropped her, not God. Not the fates. You.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“Because it just happened. I rushed her right over here, but I’d have called you when I got home.”

“With a little warning I could have brought a casserole.”

“For what? To use as a poultice? Greg’s taking good care of her.”

She gave him a lethal look. “So that you don’t have to cook tonight. You’ll have enough on your hands with an invalid.”

He’d opened his mouth to repeat that it was probably just a sprain and that the invalid was very determined to go home when Greg wheeled Natalie back into the examining room. On Natalie’s left leg was a fat Ace bandage wrapped under her foot and around her leg. On top of it was an ice pack.

“Always pays to be sure,” Greg said. “It’s just a sprain. She should stay off it for a couple of days. The thing to remember is RICE.”

Ben blinked at him. “Pardon me?”

“RICE,” Greg repeated, ticking the items off on his fingers. “Rest. Ice. Compression—that’s the bandage. Elevation. Keep it up.”

Ben nodded. “Got you.”

To someone else, Natalie might have looked cheerful and in control, but Ben knew what it was like to feel one thing and project another for the comfort of those around you. Under the facade, she was on the brink of tears.

“Don’t worry,” she said to him, with a smiling glance at his mother. “I’m sure I can find someone to drive me to the airport.”

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