“Eli’s father isn’t like you.”

Beth hurried to continue, “Not that I’m comparing. But I’ve always promised myself I wouldn’t stop trusting other men because of him.” She blushed. “I guess I have, though.”

“You don’t know me well enough to trust me,” he said.

“We know each other too well for people who met last week,” Beth said. And she leaned in to kiss his cheek.

He drowned in her scent. Without thinking, he reached for her, turning her face. Her lips were heat and succor and irresistible.

Sighing, she pushed her hands into his hair. She tasted sweeter than hope. His body clamored for more, and he staggered with her in his arms.

When she felt the rail at her back she pushed him away.

“I can’t,” she said. “Eli… He needs me.”

“I need you, too, Beth.”

“But for how long?”

Dear Reader,

Sometimes when I’m driving, I see in another car a family, or maybe a mom and her children, or a dad, looking harried, staring into the rearview mirror instead of keeping his eyes on the road. I think how odd it seems that life in that car is just as vital as my own. We’re all heading somewhere, mixed up in do-or-die business—or plodding through one day to get to the next—but we don’t have a clue about each other.

I was washing dishes—seeing the first scenes in Temporary Father—and I thought about those cars. I wanted to know everything about all the lives in a small town. So welcome to Honesty, Virginia, where the houses are quiet, the town is growing, the people are caring and lives are changing.

A newcomer to Honesty brings heaven and hell to Beth Tully. She has one priority—getting her son, who’s behaving oddly even for a hormonal preteen, back into their fire-damaged home. Aidan Nikolas is recuperating after an unexpected heart attack, which is attributed to business stress. Secretly he blames it on guilt over his wife’s death. When he meets Beth and her son, he’s struck by need for the optimistic, hardworking single mom, but he reads all the worst signs in her son’s implacable sadness and sudden bouts of anger. Aidan cannot walk away from the boy, even as he tries to persuade Beth she has time to love him, too.

I’d love to hear what you think. You can reach me at anna@annaadams.net.

Best wishes,

Anna

Temporary Father
Anna Adams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anna Adams wrote her first romance story in wet sand with a stick. The Atlantic Ocean washed that one away, so these days she uses more modern tools to write the kind of stories she loves best—romance that involves everyone in the family—and often the whole community. Love between two people is like the proverbial stone in a lake. The ripples of their feelings spread and contract, bringing all kinds of conflict and “help” from the people who care most about them.

Anna is in the middle of one of those stories, with her own hero of twenty-seven years. From Iceland to Hawaii, and points in between, they’ve shared their lives with children and family and friends who’ve become family.

Mama and Grandpa,

I miss you too much.

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

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

AIDAN NIKOLAS TOSSED his bag onto the bed in the cottage’s main bedroom. He stood stock still on the wide-plank floor, breathing in the scent of cinnamon and apple, listening, feeling, believing his heart would beat one more time. And then again and again and again…

He was okay. He rubbed his chest, his left arm. No pain. No shortness of breath. No nausea. Bringing his things in from the car hadn’t killed him.

He laughed, with no real humor and certainly without pride. Staying in his friend, Van Haddon’s, cottage in the middle of Small-town, U.S.A., also known as Honesty, Virginia, might kill him if he didn’t stop dwelling on every flutter of his own pulse.

He shoved his bags across the bed, wrinkling the burgundy comforter. Forget unpacking. He was starving.

After a “minor” myocardial infarction, he’d spent two weeks at home, eating bland pap, living no life, with his parents treating him as if he hadn’t run the family business for eight years without their ham-fisted help. A heart attack. At the tender age of forty-two, even though he’d been in such good shape the trainers at his gym left him alone.

When he couldn’t stand another second of his parents’ tender loving smothering, he’d called Van and asked to borrow his cottage.

The big plan for his first night of freedom? Make some dinner. And listen to the wildlife in the woods of Honesty, population “just under ten thousand.” The “just under” must keep them from having to change the sign after each birth.

In the kitchen, a stainless-steel fridge and stove gleamed among granite counters and crystal-clear windowpanes. His box of farm market vegetables and organic groceries looked out of place.

God, this pretty little house closed in on a man.

Despite the chill of a late April night, he flung up the window over the kitchen sink.

It didn’t help.

Nothing helped except moving. He unpacked the groceries first. Hard to wait for another pile of steamed veggies, just like the ones they’d plied him with at the hospital. Maybe some “nice apple slices,” as the head nurse had suggested, twirling the plate as if it were a kaleidoscope.

Which left him wanting to kill the first cow that crossed his path and eat it raw.

A telephone rang. He followed the sound down the hall to the living room where the phone lay on its cradle beside a pile of magazines. Businessweek. Fortune. Business 2.0.

Aidan touched each cover with reverence. They’d denied him even the Washington Post in the hospital. And who knew who’d taken custody of his Treo?

The phone rang again. The old-fashioned receiver had no caller ID. “Hello?”

“Hey. It’s Van.”

“Thanks for letting me use the cottage.” He worked gratitude into his voice. If he hadn’t felt so much like a rat in a cage, he would have been grateful. With tall ceilings and cool white walls the living room should have been relaxing.

A faint scent of wood smoke emerged from the cold, blackened fireplace, before which fat couches and chairs squatted around a big square table. A TV sat behind the open doors of an antique armoire that had never been meant for the purpose it served now.

“I’ll come down tomorrow and show you the walking paths,” Van said.

Aidan stifled an urge to snap that he could find them even after a minor myocardial infarction. “Thanks, but I’ll wander until I see them.” Then he felt bad. Van, a wunderkind of finance, the one man who always knew which parties to bring to the table, was trying to do him a favor. Aidan dialed back his frustration. “I appreciate your help.”

“No problem.” Van hesitated. “Have you eaten dinner?”

“I stopped in town for supplies. I’m fine.” He wasn’t sure he could stand one more pair of watchful eyes, waiting for his heart to explode. There’d been patients in worse shape in the cardiac ICU, but his name and the fame of Nikolas Enterprises had garnered him more interest.

“Come up to the house any time,” Van said. “Let me know if I can do anything for you—if anything in the cottage needs work.”

Aidan switched on the lamp at his side. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble. Every surface glowed. “Thanks, Van, but it’s great down here. See you tomorrow.”

He arranged the vegetables on the kitchen counter. Chopping them filled time and made some noise. So did toasting an illegal slice of fresh sourdough bread and slathering it with half a teaspoon of butter. Hunching over the sink, he ate it like a wild dog.

With less enthusiasm, he transferred his piles of celery, snow peas, cabbage, onions and carrots into a shiny silver colander. Next he unearthed a brand-new wok from its box and wrapping, washed it and did a quick stir-fry. Another boring, bland dinner.

He picked up his plate and made the mistake of glancing at the window, where his own face was reflected. And behind him…Madeline. He snapped his head around.

She wasn’t there. He knew that, but like a memory come to life, she appeared where he least wanted to see her, when he could least afford to face her.

Just over a year ago, she’d committed suicide. The cardiac team had attributed his heart attack to work pressure. They didn’t know guilt drove him or that it was his fault she’d done it.

He set the plate, food and all, in the spotless white sink. Another glance at the window revealed only him. He leaned into the open half, sucking down air, but it wasn’t enough. With his mouth gaping like a fish on a riverbank, he headed for the front door.

He pushed it open so hard it swung back at him. The night was colder than he’d thought, cold that bit into his lungs and set a fire that made him cough.

But he didn’t collapse. The only band around his chest came from breathing fresh air when he was used to the purified, sanctified, hospital-approved stuff.

He stared into the tall trees, mostly evergreen, waving in the moonlit sky. On the hill above him, Van’s house was alight with life. Lamps flickered in glowing pools all the way down to the shrubbery that divided Van’s lawn from the cottage’s. Another cold breath brought on another choking cough. As he grabbed his chest, he saw movement on the hill.

Someone crashed through the shrubbery, and a woman burst into his borrowed yard, wearing navy sweats, a white tank, holly leaves in her dark-blond ponytail and concern on her delicate face.

“Are you okay?”

He coughed again. It was a defining moment. Not that he was vain, but a lot of women came onto him. Some offered cell numbers and e-mail addresses. More than one had palmed a hotel key card into his hand.

This one, tall and lithe and smelling of pine and exercise, had busted through Van’s landscaping, bent on administering CPR.

“I was coughing,” he said, seduced by the sheen of sweat on her rounded shoulders.

“Oh.” She glanced toward the house. “Are you cooking? Set the place on fire? Van does that all the time.”

“I can cook.” Now that was an impressive display of testosterone. “I just coughed.” Oddly, she didn’t produce an oxygen canister. “I’m going for a walk. You must know Van?” He started down the gravel drive, knowing she’d fall into step beside him.

“I’m his sister.” She pushed her hand down her thigh and then offered it. “Beth Tully.” She looked at him too closely. “And you’re Aidan Nikolas.”

“Van told you about me?”

Her palm, hot from exercise, warmed his blood. The human contact felt almost too good after night upon night in the sterile confines of the hospital.

“He told me someone was arriving at the cottage today.” When she nodded her ponytail licked at either side of her neck. He couldn’t help staring. “But I’ve seen you on magazine covers, too.”

Some men might like being one of the sexiest guys alive, but Madeline had chosen to die rather than be with him. He wasn’t such a catch. “I try to ignore those. You live with Van?”

“He’s taken me and my son in.” Not mentioning a husband, she also ducked her head as if she’d said too much. “Our place burned down two months ago.”

“That’s bad.” Great answer. Nice and banal.

She dipped her head again, in a nod. Tall, round of breast, with curves that defined temptation and a voice like the whiskey tones of a forties starlet, she made him hope the husband she hadn’t mentioned didn’t exist.

“We’re rebuilding. It’s a fishing lodge.”

She stopped as if she’d slammed into a brick wall. Most people filled a silence. Not Beth Tully.

Sick of the sound of his own thoughts, Aidan searched for a way to keep her from running back to her own life. It had nothing to do with her sweet body reminding him he was only forty-two—and that he’d recovered from the heart attack. He was not an invalid.

His wife hadn’t wanted him, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still want a woman.

“You’ve lived here all your life, Beth?”

The strands of her hair clung to her neck again. “Except for a year in Florida.” Her scent, spice and exotic flowers, drew him even closer. “When I was first married,” she said.

He’d resisted those key cards and phone numbers and addresses so clever they’d immediately imprinted themselves on his mind, but he’d never stumbled across a woman so full of life she’d knock down landscaping to save a man. “Your husband lives here, too?” He couldn’t help it.

She shook her head.

At the end of the driveway, she turned up the hill. “I’d better get back. My son…isn’t Van’s responsibility.”

Information on that missing husband would require digging. The thought, completely out of character, stopped him in his tracks. “Okay. Nice to meet you.”

“You, too. Let us know if you need anything.” Gas-lit Victorian lamps helped her up the drive. A sudden thought turned her toward him, and he took a step in her direction. She pressed her fingers to her lips, and then she rammed her hands into the shallow pockets of her sweats. “See you around.”

Gravel spurted behind her as she ran up the hill.

What had she almost said?

He’d give a lot to know. He’d give a lot to run at her side. His doctor had insisted on walks at first. Feeling like his great-aunt’s favorite old beagle, Aidan lumbered down the hill. He stared at the sky above, mouthing his frustration in words he wouldn’t have spoken to Beth Tully.

He’d refused to take the time to see his own cardiologist on the way out of D.C., but he’d agreed to an appointment with a local cardiologist to get rid of the strictures against activity.

And then he could run like that woman. He laughed out loud, and his step lightened.

STILL BREATHING HARD, Beth Haddon Tully climbed white-painted stairs to her brother’s porch. Aidan Nikolas. His business deals had skyrocketed Nikolas Enterprises to international prominence after his parents, the founders, had retired.

She almost dropped onto one of the Adirondack chairs that squatted along the sweeping porch. Aidan Nikolas could save her—save her lodge anyway. The bank had turned down her loan application today, and Jonathan Barr, who’d clearly forgotten she was more than the child who’d been his daughter’s high school best friend, had let slip the news that he suspected Van would be visiting him for a loan in the near future as well—in the Haddon tradition of trying to save failing family ventures.

Van must be around the house somewhere. He’d returned from a business trip earlier in the afternoon. She ran inside the blue-and-white period Victorian she wouldn’t have been able to afford if lottery tickets started flying at her head.

“Van?”

He didn’t answer. Beth took off her shoes to keep from spreading dirt or wet grass. Van’s housekeeper, the dour Mrs. Carleton, wouldn’t approve. “Eli?” Beth’s eleven-year-old son had been playing video games, but she’d asked him to take time out for reading before she’d left for her run.

“Hmm?” he said from the living room.

She went to the doorway. Beside Eli, a big, black Lab looked up, thumping her tail at Beth.

“Lucy, girl.” Beth ventured into the room and ran a hand over the dog’s silky head. “Have you walked her yet?”

“Read? Walk the dog? Anything else I should do?”

“I’ll think of plenty.” She bent to Lucy, trying not to smile at Eli’s tone. After the lodge had burned down, he’d run to his father’s house, and he’d been reluctant to come back, claiming he was only a burden to her.

Since then, Eli had been quiet and too cooperative. Bad dreams had begun to plague him. Every time he got up in the middle of the night, Beth heard him. Despite sweat ringing his T-shirt, tears in his eyes and gasping breaths he worked like a grown man to control, he’d never admit something was bothering him.

His simple preteen testiness made Beth want to hug him till he ran from her, screaming like a girl.

“A walk should just about do it,” she said. “And it’ll be good for both of you. You don’t get enough exercise since we moved in with Uncle Van.”

“I’d get plenty if we could afford to replace my skateboard.”

Already turning toward the stairs, she stopped. “I wish we could,” she said, hearing the bank manager’s voice from their afternoon meeting.

“I hate to see you struggling,” he’d said, “but you didn’t even check to see if Campbell had paid that insurance premium after your divorce.”

As if she needed reminding her ex-husband was a deadbeat and a liar.

“Mom, I know we don’t have the money. I’m sorry I asked.”

“It’s okay to be mad at me. I hate when you act all grown up.”

“It’s not okay.” He slid off the couch, easing his hand over the dog’s head. “Lucy, come.”

She scrambled up with a complaining whine. No one in the house felt easy tonight.

“Don’t go past the lawn into the woods this late,” Beth said, to remind him he was a child.

“Mom.” His tone suggested she get off his back.

“I’m serious.”

Slamming out of the house, he didn’t answer. Beth flipped on the brighter outdoor lights. Taking the stairs two at a time, she ran to the window in her room. Down on the lawn, Lucy jumped on Eli as he cocked his arm to throw her football.

She hadn’t ever managed to get the hang of fetch. Eli and Lucy went down in a tangle of gangly legs and black fur and a whippy tail. The ball trickled toward the line of solar lights along the driveway. Eli and Lucy both chased the ball, and Beth reached to close the blinds. Before she pulled the cord, another light caught her eye.

One from the cottage’s main bedroom. A golden glow flooded two wide windows in front of a king-size bed. Not that she could see the bed.

Except in her imagination.

Her mouth went dry. She had no time to be interested in a man.

So many business magazines had splashed Aidan Nikolas on their covers, the late-night talk show hosts had started cracking jokes about him moonlighting as a supermodel—which just proved none of them had seen him close up.

He was handsome enough, but he lacked the vanity. He was just a normal man—who’d looked too long at her and made her uneasy. A shadow passed in front of the windows.

Beth flung herself to the side and then laughed. She stepped straight into view and saw Eli waiting for Lucy who’d moved delicately to the edge of the taller grass.

With a wave at her son who merely set his shoulders, she yanked her blinds and then shucked off her running clothes. She dumped the sweats and tank into the laundry hamper and took a quick shower.

Afterward, she dried, ran a comb through her hair and grabbed her full hamper. In the hall, she walked to the landing and leaned over the stairs. “Are you back, Eli?”

“Yeah.” His voice came from behind her. He’d returned to his room—and no doubt to his video games. He was on his spring break. Maybe he deserved time off from chores.

Beth set down her hamper and went to his room. Sweat curled the dirty blond hair that she and Van also shared. The room smelled of boy and dog. Eli barely glanced up.

“Do you have any clothes to wash?”

“In the closet, Mom.”

“You could get them for me.”

“I’m in the middle of a game. Do you want me to lose?”

“Sounds like a possible tragedy so I’ll say no.” She held her breath as the closet assaulted her with even earthier smells. “We have to talk about your showering, son.” She ducked as a shirt and a coat fell off hangers. They’d been hung so precariously, the sound of her voice had rattled them loose. “And maybe you could tidy up in here before Mrs. Carleton stumbles in and quits on your uncle.”

“Hey, Mom, I’m not perfect.”

She hardly recognized the mature, strangely guilty voice. “Something wrong?”

“You’re bugging me. I’m busy.”

She scooped his laundry out of the hamper and then snatched up any clothing near it on the floor. “I’m not bugging you more than usual. What else is up?”

“I’m old enough to decide when to take showers and clean my room.”

Maybe he was, but why would that make him look lost instead of arrogant? Where was her son inside those empty eyes? “I wish you’d tell me.”

“It’s you, Mom, always on my back.” He started playing again. If only someone would make truth serum available to mothers. Breach a few civil rights and find out everything you need to know to keep a child safe.

Beth added Eli’s things to hers and then maneuvered the whole mess down the back stairs. The laundry room was also part of Mrs. Carleton’s empire, but Beth disliked letting the other woman wait on her and Eli.

She turned on the water in the washer and flipped the hamper’s contents onto the Formica folding table. Whites. Colors. Cold. Hot. Impossible. The latter pile would include Eli’s lucky skateboarding socks.

“Beth?”

Uttering a brief, humiliating scream, she landed safely back on the floor. “Van—do you have to sneak up on me?”

Her brother stood in the doorway, a half-eaten sandwich dangling from his left hand, one of those magazines that loved to cover Aidan Nikolas in his right.

“Isn’t it late to start laundry?” he asked.

“Not when I have to work on the lodge tomorrow.” She’d put her pennies together to have the charred remains knocked down. Removing it to clear the lot for new construction seemed sure to take her the next year. She pretended to be vitally interested in the clothing so she didn’t have to look at him. Should she tell him what Jonathan Barr had said? She was hardly in the position to offer help and he must not want her to know or he’d have mentioned it.

She turned instead to the troubling man who could probably help both of them out of their troubles. “Why didn’t you tell me about Aidan Nikolas?”

“I did.” He bit into his sandwich.

“You’re dropping lettuce on the floor.”

“I’m not your son.”

“Are we all in bad moods tonight? Mrs. Carleton keeps an immaculate house, and I hate seeing her have to pick up after us.”

Van bent down and picked up his lettuce. “I can see why Eli gets fed up.”

Taking his shot to heart, she stopped. “You told me someone was coming. You didn’t mention my possible deliverance was moving in down the hill.” She felt guilty. Aidan had been nice to her. For a second—only a second—she’d been attracted to him. It wasn’t polite to think of him in terms of the money he handed out for investment each quarter.

“How’d you find out?”

“I ran into him while I was out.” For some reason she didn’t admit she’d thought he was dying. Hearing a cough that had sounded more like choking, she’d gone straight through Van’s landscaping.

“Something’s on your mind, Beth?”

“Salvation,” she said.

He studied his sandwich. “Jonathan Barr didn’t give you the loan?”

She turned back to her laundry and tossed Eli’s blue soccer jersey on top of her underwear.

Barr’s voice whispered ingratiatingly in her ear again. “From what I hear, your brother will soon be asking for a loan so we can’t count on him to bail you out if you can’t repay.”

Van didn’t want to talk about it. Neither would she.

She shook her head.

“Let me help you,” Van said as promptly as if he had no secret need of his own.

“I can’t take money from you.” Nor could she look at him. She fished the jersey out and put it in the pile with Eli’s dark-colored sweatshirts. “I have my own two feet to stand on.”

“Why do I have money if not to help my family?”

Touched by the offer of his last dime, she hugged him before she realized he might wonder why. “Thanks, but I can’t. You know how it is. Campbell thinks steady work is a bad habit. He’s no example to our son. I have to get a business loan from someone who doesn’t love me.” She piled her jeans and Eli’s on the end of the table and then started loading light colors into the wash. “But I was thinking…” She wouldn’t be human if she couldn’t see safety in a venture capitalist. “Is Aidan Nikolas here to do a deal with you?”

“With me?” He stared at her, and then he looked away. He was hiding something, as surely as Eli. “What could Aidan do for me?”

She watched detergent spin into the water. “Good.”

“Good, what?”

“Good that he’s not here because of your business.” Dark eyes in a pale face floated into her memory. He could save her lodge, with an amount that would be nothing to him. “Jonathan Barr only wants to offer me enough to rebuild the lodge as it was. I told him I wanted to make improvements so that families would come instead of just fishermen. He thinks I won’t be able to repay it.” She shut the washer lid, trying to hide her frustration. “My typical visitor will continue to be a guy who can’t stay long and won’t pay much for the bare essentials. I have to get ahead, Van.”

He touched her arm. Did she imagine the unease in his eyes? “That’s why you’re glad Aidan’s not here to work with me?”

“I’d like to ask him for—”

“No, Beth. Didn’t you see he’s been sick?”

“What are you talking about?” His wife had died a year ago. She vaguely remembered that, but the news hadn’t mentioned anything about him except his successes. “I have to ask for help.” She opened the utility closet and took out a broom to sweep grass that had fallen from Eli’s jeans onto the tile floor. “He’s my match made in heaven. I need investment. He helps businesses that can’t make it on their own.”

“He takes those businesses over. He doesn’t give people money and expect nothing in return.”

“I’ll pay him back. You’ve seen my projections.” Her spreadsheets were an inch thick. “What would he want with a lodge in Honesty, Virginia?”

“That was my next question. Any small return you can offer him isn’t worth his effort. He looks for profit, not the golden glow of having been generous.”

She stared at her brother, hoping he wasn’t speaking from experience. “I just have to make him care. It takes devotion to make a business work. And determination. I have both.”

Van got a dustpan and held it for her. “When did you start believing in fairy tales?”

“Since my banker let me down. I need a fairy godmother, and don’t try to talk me out of it. If he’s not here to work with you, you’re too late and I’m too desperate.”

“He had a heart attack, Beth.” Van dumped the dustpan into the wastebasket and took the broom from her. “Aidan came here to recuperate. Do you want to kill him?”

CHAPTER TWO

“KILL HIM? He’s in his early forties.” Returning to the kitchen, she glanced toward the cottage. “Although he was coughing when I ran into him.”

“Coughing?” Van picked up newspapers from the counter and put them in the recycling box. “I never heard of that as a heart attack symptom.”

She went to the fridge and took out a bottled water, which she offered her brother. He shook his head so she opened it herself. “No problem, then. I’ll call him in the morning and make an appointment to present my business plan.”

“No, you won’t. He doesn’t want his shareholders to know what’s happened until he’s ready to tell them. He doesn’t want the press telling them so I offered him the cottage.”

“Are you saying you think I’d call the papers?”

“Beth, listen to me. Don’t bother Aidan Nikolas. You are not a woman who can risk another person’s health and be okay with it later.”

Damn him. “I want to be that woman.” She leaned into the back stairs and took a deep breath, using it to make her voice seem normal. “Eli?”

“Okay, Mom—I’ll take a shower,” he promised in the snarl of a stranger. Uneasily, Beth let his temper pass.

Van gestured toward the second floor. “Is that why you’re desperate?”

“He’s not himself. He ran away to live with Campbell after the fire, and he’s smart enough to sense Campbell was glad when I brought him home.”

“You really are scared.” With both hands on her shoulders, Van steered her into the family room, switching to big-brother mode. “Tell me exactly what Jonathan Barr said today.”

Beth sat on the sofa. In front of her, on a tufted, square ottoman, a pile of towels and linens she’d washed after dinner waited. She picked up a towel, her hands actually shaking.

“I’ve told you before, you don’t have to do laundry.”

“And I’m telling you again, I don’t love housework, but Mrs. Carleton has enough to do without cleaning up after Eli and me.”

Van shook his head. “Why won’t you let anyone help you?”

“You mean you? You’ve helped me all my life. I can do this myself, if someone will just take a chance that I’ve done my projections correctly.”

“But that won’t be Jonathan Barr?”

“He said I want too much money and I’m not a good risk.”

“His reasoning?”

When he was upset, Van tended to talk to people as if he were querying computer files.

“I should have known Campbell hadn’t paid the insurance, and I can’t argue with him there. I thought the divorce decree required him to pay it.” She took out her anger on the towel, slamming it into folds. “What made me think he’d meet one responsibility?”

“Let me give you the money,” Van said. “Eli will never have to know unless you tell him.”

“No,” she said so sharply Van noticed. She couldn’t let him know what Jonathan Barr had divulged. “I can’t.”

“You won’t, and you want me to let you and Eli suffer because you’re too proud to take a loan from someone who loves you.”

She shook her head, ruefully, to prove it didn’t matter when it most definitely did. “Oh, I’m hot for a handout.” She folded another towel. “But for Eli, I have to do this the responsible way.”

“Pride won’t feed you.”

“Or clothe us, but you’re my brother, not my guardian angel.”

She almost asked him if Jonathan Barr had been right, but she stopped herself in time. Van wouldn’t tell her the truth. To him, he was still eighteen, and she was ten, and their parents had just died, leaving her his responsibility.

“I’d expect you to pay me back,” he said.

“It’s not going to happen.” Avoiding his gaze, she went for a sheet. There was Eli’s father—refusing to take part in raising his own child—and her brother—trying to help when helping might hurt him. She had to consider asking Aidan Nikolas. “What burns me is Barr, talking at me as if I were still in kindergarten. Eight years of making the lodge pay counts for nothing.”

“With him. I know you’re good for the money.”

“Then why do you care if I ask Aidan Nikolas to help?”

“I told you he’s here to rest.”

“The entrepreneur who runs small businesses with a single thought, chases new opportunities with steel will? The guy who manages to hide his personal life from twenty-first-century paparazzi?” She stood to finish the sheet. “Don’t you think he can protect himself?”

Van looked troubled. She tried to remember him before he’d taken the world on his shoulders. First, he’d had to protect her long enough for her to reach adulthood. Then his marriage had ended because of his guilt after his wife had been attacked while he’d been away on a business trip. She’d like to relieve Van of his sense of duty toward her and her son.

“I don’t intend to chase the man around his desk—just present my business plan.”

“You won’t, because it might hurt him.”

“I’m not sure I can afford to be noble.”

Van’s eyes, green like their father’s, were so serious she couldn’t look away. “Who are you? And what have you done with my sister?”

She smoothed the edges of one towel. “I’m divorced and a single mom.” She started folding another. “I own a lodge that barely qualifies as rubble, and I’m on the edge of bankruptcy. My son is acting odd, and a guy who has money to invest just landed on your doorstep.”

Van took a pillowcase off the pile of linens and started to fold it. His silence troubled her more than his warnings.

“Are you sure he’s sick? Aidan, I mean? Mr. Nikolas.” Her skin felt too warm. She stared at her hands, trying to imagine tall, dark and thriving Aidan Nikolas as an invalid.

Van stood. “It was a minor heart attack, but he’s supposed to change the way he lives.”

She added another folded towel to the tottering stack, mostly to avoid her brother’s watchful eyes. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, and she’d sensed a vulnerability that had seemed uncharacteristic in a man like Aidan.

How long had it been since a man had made her want to know anything about him other than his fishing habits? “I don’t want to cause more problems for your friend, but I need money.”

Van’s big-brother frustration covered her like a fog. “If only you’d checked on that policy,” he finally choked out—and she realized Jonathan Barr must be right about Van’s financial trouble. Van had never made her feel bad about her mistakes. She’d learned at his knee to do what she could to mend and move on.

“Deep down where it doesn’t take any effort, Campbell loves his son,” Beth said. “How could I guess he’d screw us?”

“He screwed you in every way a man could, and then he started screwing his office manager.”

She crossed her arms. She’d felt different talking to Aidan, more feminine, stronger, because someone as responsible and successful as he had been interested. Though she lived with the constant companionship of anxiety and distraction, she was still a woman. She wasn’t wrong about the way Aidan had looked at her.

But he didn’t know her son was troubled and her business needed financial CPR. Aidan Nikolas wouldn’t waste another second of his high-powered life on a woman with her problems. She’d learned that women who made bad decisions had to fight for respect when they tried to start over.

“I don’t care what Campbell did.”

“If you were a little more honest with Eli, maybe he’d stop running to Campbell and making things worse for himself.”

“Honest? I had the man arrested for nonsupport and I turned him into some sort of Robin Hood figure for our son. He thinks Campbell’s the victim. Campbell even had him convinced they could have shared that cheesy seventies superstud apartment after the fire if I hadn’t dragged him away.”

“Let him stay a few weeks and see what happens. Campbell’s too busy—” Her brother stopped as if any truth about her ex-husband could still hurt her. “He would have lived off the perks of being a high school football star his whole life if he hadn’t gotten you pregnant. He won’t want to take care of Eli.” Van added the towel that knocked over the pile, which they both restacked into two columns. “Eli’s eleven years old. He has to face the truth about his father.”

“Not if it makes him more depressed.” She stood up to fold a fitted sheet. “How serious is a minor heart attack?”

“Would Aidan let a doctor maroon him in the Virginia countryside if he had a choice?”

“Would he show up just when I need him if I wasn’t supposed to—”

“Kill him? A second attack could be massive.”

“How long is he staying?”

“You think you’re helping if you give him a few days’ rest before you send him back to the hospital?”

“I have a doctor’s appointment myself tomorrow. While I’m quizzing Brent about what might be wrong with Eli, I’ll ask him if offering Aidan Nikolas a business opportunity could kill him.”

“I’m sure Brent Jacobs is dying to consult with you on the health of every citizen in Honesty.”

She made a face only a brother deserved.

BRIGHT AND EARLY the next morning, Beth dressed and then went downstairs to pour cereal for Eli. Mrs. Carleton called while she was slicing strawberries to say her sister was sick and she’d be in D.C. for the day. Beth left the berries in a sealed container beside Eli’s bowl. Then she wrote a note, telling him she’d be back by noon and that the housekeeper wasn’t coming.

Even though she’d probably be back before he climbed out of bed.

A quick drive across rolling country lanes, a turn onto a tree-bordered bypass road, and a bridge over the dark green lake that had been part of her livelihood, and she reached town—kind of sleepy on a spring break Monday morning.

The hospital, funded by one of the universities in Washington, D.C., had built towers, like fingers above the trees around the old-town buildings. Her childhood friend, Brent Jacobs, kept an office in one of the complexes connected to the hospital by glass-covered walkways. Beth parked in a lot and hurried to make her early appointment.

In the end, she had to wait. She dove into a cooking magazine. Eli might make it out of bed before she got home after all. A lousy cook, she was trying to soak up instructions for raisin-specked, honey-drizzled bread pudding when she was called to the treatment room.

She recognized one of Brent’s colleagues in the room across from hers. And she recognized the man who said, “Come on” with a force Eli could hardly have matched. “Two more weeks? You gotta be kidding me.”

The receptionist pulled Aidan Nikolas’s door closed. “Dr. Vining always forgets to close the door after he looks over results, and heart patients rarely want to hear they have to take it easy a couple more weeks.”

Too busy silently swearing to speak, Beth only nodded. She followed the other woman inside and nodded again at instructions to take off her clothing and put on a paper gown.

She couldn’t ask a sick man to work on her behalf.

She donned the gown, and for the first time in her life, was too preoccupied to be nervous.

THE LAST PERSON Aidan wanted to see was standing outside a sporting goods shop beside the pharmacy where he had to refill his prescription for beta blockers. He stuffed the medication, bag and all, into his jeans pocket.

“Beth,” he said, involuntarily.

She turned, her face flushed, her eyes focusing anywhere but on him. She knew—somehow.

Small towns. Gossip through osmosis.

He moved to stand beside her. “Skateboarding?” he asked, as he studied the colorful boards. “I never realized they didn’t come all in one piece.” Sets of wheels gleamed as they never would after their first use.

“Me, either, until my son started skating.” Beth lifted her hand to the height of a black board, printed with a bulky, dark green cartoon character in midleap. “This part is the deck.”

“Are you buying it? You know you work too much when you don’t recognize cartoons.”

“I can’t affor—” She stopped on a deep breath. “Eli had one something like that before the fire.” She looked him up and down and stepped back. “I need to go home.”

“Let me take you to lunch.” What had she seen? Weakness? Women normally wanted to spend time with him. For once, he’d make time to linger.

“It’s barely after eight,” she said.

“Oh.” His rage at the continued restrictions returned. She followed his hand as he shoved the medicine deeper into his pocket.

“And Eli’s on spring break. I scheduled my—an appointment I had—early so I could spend the day with him.”

“Okay.”

“Come up later, though. Join us for hot dogs or something. Mrs. Carleton—she’s Van’s housekeeper—she’s off today so we’re fending for ourselves.”

There was a dare in her tone. “I might do that.” She couldn’t scare him with hot dogs and family fun. He loved the simple stuff.

The frown between her eyebrows told him he’d read her right. “You probably aren’t supposed to eat junk food,” she said.

He took his hand out of his pocket. “Van told you?”

“About the heart attack.” She pushed her finger around the loose collar of her shirt. “He mentioned you’d had a minor problem.” She made a huge production of looking at her own watch. “I need to get home. Nice to see you again. Come on up if you get the time. I always make a salad for myself when Van and Eli pig out on the bad stuff.”

A MAN—a decent man, no less—had asked her to lunch. By herself. Not because he wanted something from Van, or he taught her rowdy son Social Studies and they needed to brainstorm “solutions” to Eli’s behavior.

She’d had to say no. With her heart beating near the back of her throat, she glanced back down the sidewalk. Aidan had already gone. Good.

Thinking he might be attracted was one thing. Feeling attracted to him was exciting because she hadn’t cared for any man in—who knew how long?

She’d forgotten the thrill of a caught breath, the tingle of flushing skin, the excitement of a maybe.

But Aidan Nikolas was used to women with no ties except to their clothing bills. She’d already made enough mistakes in her life.

Falling for a handsome, successful man in town only until he felt healthy again would be par for the course for a woman who’d lost her heart and too many years to the captain of the high school football team.

Eli was her responsibility, Eli with his moods and needs and their lack of a home to call their own. So why had she invited Aidan to join them in a hot-dog fest?

She wiped her palm across her forehead. Had the temperature grown warmer today, or had she backed herself into a hot corner? Lunch would be safe, with Eli and Van to keep an eye on her. Aidan, way out of her league, would see she had other priorities.

She took her phone out of her purse and dialed Van’s home number. In a second, her son answered, but she could tell his mind was elsewhere. He must be slaying aliens.

“Hey, buddy,” she said.

“Can’t talk, Mom.”

Alien massacres for sure. “I asked Uncle Van’s friend over for lunch, and I wanted to warn you guys. Will you let your uncle know?”

“I’m not sure where he is.” His movement made Van’s leather sofa grumble. “I think I hear him in his office. He might be on the phone, too. I’ll tell him if he comes out.”

“Good enough. See you in a little while.”

“Okay.” He started to hang up. The phone hit the receiver, but then he was talking again. “Mom, did you go by Gross’s Sporting Goods?”

Her heart broke. She lied to her son because she couldn’t stand telling him no again. “I forgot you wanted me to, son. Maybe we can look together sometime this week.”

“It doesn’t matter. We can’t afford what I want anyway.”

She was failing her son, and all avenues of escape seemed to be disappearing. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Okay. Mom?”

“Hmmm?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

She gritted her teeth. “It’s normal to be upset you can’t have what you want.”

“I understand why, though.”

Something was wrong. All the more reason not to play sighs-and-smiles with her temporary neighbor.

AIDAN SKIPPED the hot-dog fest. Not that he didn’t want hot dogs or another few minutes with the first woman who’d made him feel alive in eighteen months.

At around dinnertime, he’d stood on the weathered gray deck of the cottage, scenting the delicious aroma of a grill at work—wanting to go—but Beth obviously hadn’t wanted him to show up.

In the end, he’d lost himself in the business channels on the satellite, pretending that catching up on the news he’d missed was just as much fun. Which probably explained why he’d fallen into a deep sleep on the fat, blue-and-white plaid sofa.

Something thudded into the door a little after six in the morning. Aidan’s eyes opened and he gasped a deep breath. He rolled his head on a sofa cushion, not recognizing the tick of the clock, the rough scratch of the upholstery or the deep, thick silence of no-one-else-at-home.

He’d hardly slept since the heart attack. Not that he was avoiding Madeline’s accusing face in his dreams. He did try to sleep.

He pulled on sweats and padded to the front door. Outside, The Honesty Sentinel lay on the rug. He picked it up, sliding it out of its plastic sleeve.

His father was the one who’d persuaded the nurses to hide newspapers from him. Aidan had put his foot down the day his mother had tried have his television removed. No CNN? No CNBC? She and his father had retired from running the business eight years ago, but they still kept in touch with the business world.

She was trying so hard to cut him off from it, she must want him dead.

He caught up on the print news of the past ten days, licking his lips every so often in a craving for coffee. The hospital staff had cut him back to one cup a day.

After a caffeine headache that had lasted the first half of his hospital stay, he anticipated the lone, large, rich cup. Every lunchtime, he sipped, making the treat last.

Putting that boon off took all his concentration. He checked his watch. At seven on a Tuesday morning, his mother would be up, also scouting for coffee before she went to the office. He dialed, and a severe British voice answered.

“I’m not sure Mrs. Nikolas is available. May I deliver a message for you to your mother?”

“Tell her she won’t avoid my questions about the business by pretending she’s asleep.”

“Oh, let me have it, Simon.” His mother’s impatience stabbed at the quiet. “You’re supposed to be resting, Aidan.”

“What goes on with the Skyliner deal? It’s not in the papers.”

“How’d you get a newspaper?”

“Mother, I ran Nikolas Enterprises by myself until—” Even the memory of that day made him feel mortal. “Tell me what’s happening. Dragonlawn—have they agreed to our terms? I want to start R&D on the redesign of their residential lawn mower. That’ll be a quick profit.”

“Aidan, I cannot listen to this. Put down the newspaper. Turn off your TV. Lay off the coffee, and go for a walk.”

“I haven’t touched caffeine, and obviously you haven’t, either. Tell me what’s going on or I’ll browbeat the staff into filling me in.”

“You’d have to fire them. Your father and I have warned everyone in the building they’re not to worry you about work.”

“I’m bored out of my mind.” He tightened his grip on the phone. “If somebody doesn’t tell me what’s happening, I’ll fire the whole damn company and start over with loyal associates.”

“I’m sure they’ll be terrified. God knows I am.” His mother turned away from the phone. “Thank you, Simon.” She sipped loudly in Aidan’s ear. “Ahh, that’s better. Look, we’re fine. Work’s going well. I’ll let you know if your empire starts to crumble.”

“Let me talk to Dad.”

“Sorry. He’s already headed to the car.”

“Tell him to call me on his cell.”

“No.”

“No?”

“And I’ll tell him not to answer if you call. Between Madeline and a heart attack, we’ve been on the verge of losing you for the past year. I’m tired of being afraid, and I don’t care that you’re forty-two. You’re still my child. Have a good day, darling.”

Aidan pressed his fist to the granite counter. The expensive bag of coffee beans he’d stashed in the cupboard above the fridge sang a siren’s song. Bourbon would be even better.

Anything to dull the humiliation. He saw his car keys on the table. There must be a SuperComputer store in town.

They sold laptops.

SMOKE. Eli kept smelling smoke. In his hair, on his shirt and his jeans. Standing in the tall grass at the edge of his uncle’s yard, he slapped at his clothes and his head. The smoke followed him like a shadow. It wouldn’t leave him alone.

No one else ever noticed because it wasn’t real.

He smelled it because he felt guilty—and that scared him bad.

Lucy jumped up, whining as she clawed at his arm. He pointed toward the edge of the lake where the grass grew taller. That shouldn’t stop a Lab. “Your ball is over there.”

She jumped at his hand instead.

He grabbed her and dropped to his knees, still hugging her. With his head close to her ear, he said it. “I set the fire.”

They all thought it was lightning from the storm that day, but Lucy knew the truth. He confessed to her at least once a day, and she loved him anyway. He only half believed she didn’t know what he was saying. Telling her made him feel better for a few minutes.

His mom thought he was upset because she’d left his father two years ago. Sure he wanted her and his dad together. Except he could do without the yelling. His dad’s yelling—and then the horrible sound of his mom whispering to his father to keep his voice down.

He couldn’t figure out why he was always madder at his mom.

Eli buried his face in Lucy’s silky ear. She nipped at his hand. She never bit—just held his fingers in her mouth. He burrowed deeper, smelling Lucy and sunshine. He didn’t want even her to see him cry.

In the darkness of her fur and his closed eyes, he saw the cigarette again, a white tube with a glowing red top. The blackened match he’d thrown in his garbage can. It must not have been out.

The night before, his mom had been ranting through a news report about kids his age smoking. Sometimes the high school kids came by the lodge and tried to buy cigs. His mother threw them out. She could guess any guy’s age.

A lot of kids smoked at the middle school. After his mom had blown up like a maniac, he’d scored one from Billy Thorpe, and then he’d tried it in his room after school.

It had made him throw up. At the time, he’d been grateful for the lightning and hail and thunder that had covered the sounds.

He’d come out of the bathroom to find his room on fire. It had to have been that match. Or the cigarette.

They said a lightning strike had set the fire, but he couldn’t remember where he’d left the cigarette.

Sometimes that night happened all over again in his mind. He rubbed his hands as flames jumped at them again. The fire had eaten his blanket when he’d tried to smother it. It had flown across the papers and books on his desk. He hadn’t been able to make it stop.

As he’d turned, flames had already started on his DVD player and his video games. Black smoke had wrapped him as fast as he could move. He’d started for the door, but pictured his mom standing out there, waiting to hate him.

He’d jumped out his window, slid across the green tin porch roof and then dropped onto the grass. Trying to hide from another clap of thunder, he’d yelled for his mother and run back inside, where Lucy was barking at the smoke that hovered, waiting to attack from the top of the stairs.

“Get out, get out,” his mom had shouted from the landing.

“I can’t.” He couldn’t leave her to fight his mess. He’d gone up and dragged her back down. They’d both hauled Lucy out by her collar.

By the time the fire trucks arrived, they’d all been covered in black soot, he and his mom hugging each other in the rain. Both crying, though she’d never cried before or since.

No one had noticed his burned hands that day. When his mom had grabbed him by both of them the next morning, he’d said he’d burned himself going back for her.

Guilt had made her face different—like she hurt. Maybe that was why something had been chewing on his guts ever since.

CHAPTER THREE

“YOU ASKED AIDAN over here for hot dogs and you didn’t tell me?”

“Hold it down, Van. Eli will hear that you’re upset with me.” She laid a piece of salmon on the grill. Mrs. Carleton’s sister was still sick and Beth felt safe taking liberties with her kitchen.

“Don’t use your son to shut me up. I told you to stay away from Nikolas.”

“I didn’t say a word about a loan. You’re right. I can’t ask him for help.”

Van opened the fridge and brought back spinach and feta. “You sound upset.”

“I am.” She shrugged. “He could have been the answer to my prayers. Instead, I’m still looking.”

“Are you all talking about that guy in the cottage?”

Beth and Van turned.

“Did you meet him, too, Eli?” Van asked.

“I’ve seen him going in and out.” Eli crossed the kitchen and plucked a grape tomato off the cutting board. “I can see the cottage from my window.”

Beth passed him another tomato. “We’re supposed to leave him alone. Uncle Van says he’s here because he’s been sick and he needs quiet to get better.”

“I think you should date him, Mom.”

“Huh?” Beth turned, and the salmon she’d been in the process of flipping, splatted onto the floor.

“You should date him.”

“No, she shouldn’t,” Van said. “What are you talking about, Eli?”

“I heard you. Mom wants to talk to him. It’s time you started dating again, and if he knows you, Uncle Van, he must have the bucks.”

“Eli.” Beth bent to clean up the salmon. It slipped out of her hands. “Date him? Where’s that coming from?” Two tries later, she scooped up the fish and dropped it into the sink.

“I told ya. You need money. He has it. We’d be okay if you went out with someone like that guy.”

“We have all the bucks we need, and that’s no reason to date anyone. I don’t understand you. For the past three years, any time a guy’s looked twice at me, you’ve been upset. When those men who stayed at the lodge left a big tip behind, you thought they were trying to come on to me.”

“That was before we found out they tore the mantel off the fireplace in their room.” A shrug made him look a decade older. “You need a life, Mom. I feel like a bug under your microscope, and I’m old enough to know you should be interested in guys. I don’t expect you and Dad to get back together anymore.”

“I’m the one who’s supposed to matchmake for you, Eli. You’re creeping me out.”

“Most divorced moms date. My friends’ moms do.”

“When the guy is right. And the time. I have to get us back into our own house.”

“You worry all the time.” He grabbed the plates and silver she’d stacked on the counter. “I’ll set the table.”

Stunned silence thickened in the kitchen as he rushed to the dining room. Beth turned to Van, still clutching the oily spatula. “That was too many firsts. I should date, I need a life and he’s setting the table without being asked.”

“He’s hiding something. He thinks by going after you, he can keep hiding it.” Van popped a tomato into his mouth and turned toward the dining room door. “Sucks to be Eli.”

“Wait.” She almost lost another piece of salmon. “What are you going to do?”

“Drill for the truth.”

“He’s been fragile since the fire.”

“Which is why I want to know why he’s trying to find you a man.” Van paused, his hand on the door. “He’s been sullen and aloof and he avoids us. None of that is like Eli.”

So she wasn’t the victim of single-parenting paranoia. “Okay, try, but don’t upset him.”

“He’s my nephew.”

She set down the spatula and urged him through the door. These days she couldn’t tell if Eli didn’t want to talk to her or just didn’t want to talk. They were both lucky Van would step in for Campbell, who grew less paternal as each day passed.

Her brother spoke first. Her son answered. She couldn’t tell what they were saying. She leaned on the counter, a knife in one hand, a tomato in the other, trying to hear.

If Van discovered anything earthshaking, he’d tell her. She finished the salmon, mixed greens, tomatoes, feta, almonds and vinaigrette into a salad and hurried into the dining room.

She stopped at the sight of Van and Eli, reading sections of the newspaper. No tantrum from Eli protesting his uncle’s nosiness. Nothing but normal.

Normal seemed off.

“Here we go.” Crossing behind her son, she lifted both eyebrows at Van, but he shook his head. She set the salad beside Eli and the salmon in the middle of the table. “It’s not much for lunch. I should have made rice or something.”

“This looks great,” Van said.

Eli grunted, which was more like him. Beth scooped up the newspaper and carried it to the kitchen when she went back for drinks. She poured a glass of milk for Eli and tea for Van and her.

Eli followed his usual method—eat, eat and eat some more, until even the salad vanished into distant memory. Then he ran for the front door. He spent every moment of each free day outside with Lucy.

“I forgot to tell him we have to work on the lodge today.”

“Leave him here.”

“He ought to help. It’s his house, too.”

“I know.” Van stretched to see through the elaborately draped windows. “But Lucy might do him more good than work. I couldn’t get anything out of him except what he told us both, but something’s wrong. I was sure he wanted you and Campbell back together.”

“Me, too.” She shuddered. “Don’t most children dream of reuniting their parents?”

“That bastard should have gone to jail. He still doesn’t pay child support half the time.”

“Shh.” She glanced toward the door, half expecting Eli to return.

“Beth, listen.” Van turned her away from the window.

“Yeah?”

“I have to leave for Chicago tonight. I hate to go during Eli’s spring break, especially when he’s acting strange.”

She wondered if his trip had something to do with his business troubles. “Van, can I just say one thing?”

He nodded, but his eyes didn’t fool her. He was worried. “You don’t have to protect us. I appreciate your help, but this isn’t like with Cassie.” Guilt had ruined his marriage, although they’d truly loved each other. “I’m going to be okay, and so is Eli.”

“You don’t have to assume everything that bothers me leads straight back to Cassie,” he said. “You and Eli are my family now.”

“It’d be more strange if he weren’t acting different. It hasn’t been that long since the divorce in child years, and then there was the fire and now he has to get along with standoffish kids at his new school. But please try not to worry. If you don’t stop taking care of us, you’ll never have time for a family of your own.”

“Maybe Eli’s right. You do need to date someone. Just don’t ask Aidan for help on the lodge.”

She wasn’t likely to forget seeing Aidan at the doctor’s office, enraged because he had to continue taking life easy. “You don’t have to worry about that.” He’d been wearing jeans and a black sweater that only made him seem longer and leaner. “Not that he makes a convincing invalid.”

The doorbell rang. Van glanced that way. “But look in on him once in a while, just in case. I’ll be away for a week.”

“A fine job for the angel of death,” she said, teasing. The bell rang again.

Van kept on stacking plates and silverware, cracking only a small smile at her jab. “I’ll do these since you cooked. You can answer the door.”

Not one who fought for a chance to wash up, Beth headed for the hall. She opened the front door to find Eli and Lucy facing Aidan Nikolas. Aidan had Lucy by the paw.

“Nice to meet you,” he was saying.

“Morning,” Beth said, hoping Eli wouldn’t notice her voice had dropped low. Forbidden, unattainable fruit tended to take a woman’s breath away.

“Hi.” Aidan let Lucy go and the dog positioned herself in front of Eli, the picture of canine good manners and protectiveness.

Beth would have preferred to see Eli and Lucy tumbling down the hill with several of his friends. “Come in,” she said. “Eli, you met Mr. Nikolas?”

“And I made Lucy shake hands with him.”

“Why don’t we invite a couple of your buddies over to play? I’m going to work on the lodge, but Uncle Van won’t mind, and when I get back we can barbecue.”

“No, thanks.”

He sounded cheerful, but he hadn’t asked to have friends over in weeks. He hadn’t visited his buddies in the old neighborhood, either. Before she could say anything else, he patted Lucy’s head and spun toward the steps.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Nikolas. See ya later, Mom.” He shot her an encouraging glance that included their guest.

Blushing, she prayed Aidan hadn’t seen. Eli had never been impressed with material things—other than a sweet skateboard and the latest cool game. He probably didn’t realize his father had come from money until he’d run through it and alienated his own parents.

“Is your brother at home?”

Aidan’s voice penetrated. She pried her gaze away from Eli and Lucy. “Van’s inside. Come on in.”

She led him to the kitchen, where Van turned, dripping suds on the floor. “I’ll finish,” she said. “Mr. Nikolas—” calling him by his first name was surprisingly difficult “—Aidan wants to speak to you.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt.” Aidan held out one hand. “I wanted to thank you in person, Van, for letting me use the cottage.”

“No problem.” Van dried off on a tea towel before he shook his friend’s hand and sent Beth a sharp look. She almost laughed after Eli’s brow-waggling performance. “Join us up here any time you want. Use the pool—it’s heated.”

“Thanks.” Aidan stopped, and even Beth felt him glance her way.

Van took a step forward, as if to snatch his attention by the throat. “Have you eaten? We still have some salmon.”

“No, thanks.”

Stiff silence fell. Beth fingered a spot of water off the counter.

“If you’re sure,” Van said. “Beth tells me you met the other night while she was running.”

“She didn’t tell you I was choking?”

“Were you?” She pretended to know nothing about his health.

“No, but you burst out of the shrubbery as if you were searching for someone to resuscitate.”

“I’ve recently updated my CPR certificate.” Beth tried to laugh off his embarrassment. She might not get men. She might not trust her own instincts where they were concerned, but she was determined to remain kind—even after Campbell. “I thought you might have been Lucy. Every so often she eats her fetch ball and we have to fish the pieces out of her mouth.”

“Oh.” For the third time in less than five minutes, a man slanted her a knowing glance. Then he turned to Van. “Maybe I will use the pool if you don’t mind.”

“Any time. Beth’s the only one who goes out there. Even Eli won’t use it without his friends, and I never seem to find the time.”

“Even though you should for your own good.” Beth stored the milk and butter in the fridge and wished she hadn’t mentioned health. Having seen the proof of his illness in the doctor’s office, she thought Aidan looked thin. His hollowed cheeks would only make him more beloved to the photographers, but here in the back of nowhere, they made a woman want to ply him with sandwiches.

“You must get some exercise at the—I believe you said you were rebuilding a fishing lodge?”

“Mmm-hmm. Wouldn’t you know it’d burn down when our busiest season is coming?”

“Did you find the magazines I left you?” Van interrupted.

Aidan nodded, but he searched the faces of both Van and Beth. Undercurrents would be one of his specialties.

“Good. And the television controls?”

“Van, I had a minor heart attack. I won’t be needing a home defibrillator or a babysitter.”

“Good news.” Van maneuvered him toward the kitchen door. “Let me show you the walking trails we’ve put in.”

“I found them.”

“Why don’t I bring down a couple of steaks for dinner one night?” Van “helped” him through the door, making pathetically sure not to include Beth. As if she’d pitch Aidan over dinner after she’d promised not to. “I’m traveling for the next week, but maybe the week after. Can you eat steak?” Van added.

“Sure.”

His short tone made Beth shake her head. She was still shaking it when Van came back.

“He seemed a little annoyed,” Van said.

“Can you blame him? You’re his friend, but you sounded as if you’d be putting his dinner through a food processor.”

“Why are you so defensive on his behalf?”

“I just realized he really was sick and doesn’t want to be. No matter what plans Eli has for him, I’m staying out of his way.”

BETH CLEANED her room and then slipped into Eli’s to tidy the obvious messes—shoes on the dresser, discarded Xbox games scattered in front of the TV and a plate laden with apple pie crumbs.

Then she changed into warmer clothes, tucking a sweatshirt under her arm in case the weather turned chilly. She peered through the pale pink voile over her bedroom windows. Clouds had begun to gather above Van’s verdant trees.

She grabbed her sneakers and ran down the stairs. Sitting on the last step, she was tying the laces when the doorbell rang. She hobbled over, one shoe on, one foot crushing a heel, and opened the door to find Aidan cradling Lucy—who was horrifyingly still—and bloody.

Groaning, she tried to gather the dog that was like her second child. Lucy didn’t move, but blood from her head smeared Beth’s shirt.

“Don’t,” Aidan said. “That’s going to scare Eli.”

“Where is he? Please, God, tell me he’s not lying out in the woods.”

“No, I’m sorry,” he said. “I should have told you I saw him come up here. Call him. He’ll want to go with us to the vet.”

“Eli.” She managed a whisper. She’d rather suffer anything than see her son hurt. Couldn’t she take Lucy to the vet and come home with reassuring news on her condition? “She is alive?”

“I think someone shot her with a pellet gun. Probably just a graze.” As if to back up his diagnosis, Lucy opened her eyes and scrambled for freedom with a whimper that made Beth reach for her again.

Aidan twisted away. “Get your son,” he said, his voice harsh with concern.

“Eli.” Beth turned toward the stairs. “Lucy’s hurt.” Great. The delicate approach. Way to destroy a boy. “I’ll find him.” She stopped halfway up the stairs. “I’m sorry to ask you this, but should you be carrying her?”

A mixture of annoyance and embarrassment chased across his face. “Will you hurry?” he asked, struggling to hold on to Lucy. “She wants down, and she doesn’t know me.”

On the way to Eli’s room, Beth grabbed a couple of beach towels out of the linen closet. She burst through his door, and he yanked out his earbuds.

“What?” he asked, as frightened as she must look.

“Lucy’s had an accident.” She held out her hands and willed herself to calm down. “Aidan found her. He thinks someone accidentally—hit—her with a pellet gun, but she’s going to be okay.”

He tore out of the room. She grabbed at his shirt. “Eli, she’s bleeding. Try not to be afraid.”

“Lucy.” He slid down a couple of steps. The dog whined from below. Beth scrambled past Eli on the stairs and this time he held her back. “She’s mine. I’ll help her.”

Beth had no intention of letting him take care of their poor, sweet girl on his own. She reached Aidan first.

“Let’s wrap her in these towels and you can sit with her on the back seat of my car, honey.” Using one of the towels, she wiped the dog’s forehead, revealing a gash that welled again. “Who the hell was shooting on your uncle’s property?” She pressed her cheek to Lucy’s ear. “Don’t worry, baby.”

The dog fought hard to reach Beth. Taking her out of Aidan’s arms, Beth let Eli help carry her, stumbling across loose gravel to the car.

He yanked the back door open. “Hurry, Mom.”

“Slide across the seat.” Together, they eased Lucy in. Beth arranged the towels on Eli’s lap, and Lucy laid her head on his thigh. He cuddled her the way Beth used to hold him when he was hurt.

She dug for her keys. Thank God she’d already tucked them into her pocket. She walked straight into Aidan’s chest, but he held her off, his hands big, unsettling on her shoulders. “You don’t have to come with us.” Slipping around him, she hurried to the driver’s seat.

“Are you kidding? I have to know if she’s all right.”

He jumped into the front passenger seat, and Beth hesitated only a moment. She didn’t want him to—but Lucy was hurt, and Eli’s empty stare in the mirror terrified Beth. She skidded backward through the gravel, but then straightened out to rocket down the driveway.

Aidan hooked his hand into the bar above his window.

“All right, Mom,” Eli said. “We’ll get you to the doc in no time, Lucy.”

“Eli, why don’t you get my phone out of my purse and call Dr. Patrick?”

Gently settling Lucy, he leaned forward, but her bag wasn’t there. “Where is it?”

She could see it—on the kitchen counter. “At home.”

“Mom, your driver’s license.”

Lucy whined, but more as she did when she couldn’t get comfortable on her bed. Beth glanced at her and then back at the road. “You worry too much for one so young, Eli.”

“So will the cops,” Aidan said.

“You’re flying, Mom.”

“They can join the parade. Lucy’s our girl.”

“Yeah.” Eli sat back with satisfaction and rubbed his dog’s side. She whimpered again and Beth pressed harder on the gas.

She glanced at Aidan. “If you’ve brought your wallet, you can drive us back.”

IN THE VET’S OFFICE, Eli paced awhile, and then Beth wrapped him in one arm and persuaded him to sit. Her fear for him spread around the room in a soft cloud of panic. She tried to be brave and self-sufficient, but her son was her weak spot, and she couldn’t hide it.

Aidan stared at his lap. At his hands. Neither vain nor overly modest, he knew he was a capable man. Normally strong as a horse, he wouldn’t think twice about taking charge of a last-gasp company or a knock-down, drag-out brawl in one of the pubs where nobody knew his name.

But he hadn’t been wise or strong enough to save his wife, and he was tired of fighting grief and guilt.

Eli’s distress was familiar to him. It was like looking into a film of his own past.

How many times would he live it all again? His heart still thudded with the disbelief he’d felt as they’d told him about Madeline. Finally, he’d seen the letter they’d pushed into his open palm.

He scrubbed at his hand with the other.

She’d tried so long to tell him she was in trouble, but his idea of help—doctors, meds for her undeniable depression—had all been useless. He’d loved her. He’d held her while she’d cried, and he’d kept repeating he loved her. She’d sworn he didn’t even want to be with her.

He’d begged her to come along when he’d traveled, but she’d refused to leave their house.

“Aidan?”

He looked up, his head as heavy as a wrecking ball. He shouldn’t like the sound of Beth’s voice so much. He hardly knew her, but he’d lost a woman who could fight no longer, and he couldn’t help being drawn to Beth’s inability to back down from a fight.

“Huh?” he said.

She glanced at the people around them. “Are you—” She stopped as she looked into Eli’s curious eyes, but she kept on, lowering her voice. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.” He might have preferred she pretend nothing was wrong with him, but mattering to someone was good—even in a room full of strangers.

In the corner, an older man concentrated on his silent parrot in a cage on his lap. A woman who looked pretty pissed because their dog had gone before her solid, superior cat, sniffed.

“Fine,” Aidan said again.

Beth hugged her son. Eli endured her affection, but then shrugged out of her reach, sliding to the farthest edge of his steel-and-orange-vinyl chair.

Aidan read the boy’s mind. Keep your hands off me, but please make this stop hurting. Again, he made Aidan think of Madeline. She’d needed more affection than he could give unless he held her twenty-four hours a day. And even then…

Eli was desperate and blank all at the same time, need and aloofness that looked too familiar. He shifted his feet.

What was he thinking, really?

That Eli might be in trouble, the way Madeline had been? No one had to warn Aidan he was carrying a masochistic load of guilt, that he might be seeing phantoms. But what if he wasn’t wrong?

This family was raw. He couldn’t step aside when he saw someone else in trouble. He’d never intruded on anyone’s privacy. Too busy. Too smart. Far too comfortable with his own life.

Until Madeline had chosen to die.

He looked at Beth, needing to say her son reminded him of his wife. She walked to the plate-glass windows. A couple of cars whispered past, filled with people caught up in their own errands or pleasure, oblivious to life going on around them.

He loved the idea of oblivion now that he couldn’t get any.

Beth took a few circuits around the brick-lined waiting room, and then she sat, far from him and Eli. The lady’s cat, two seats away from Beth’s new spot, stared at her a second, but then turned, wobbling as it balanced its bulk on four tiny-in-comparison paws, to face the other direction.

Eli paced next, his sneakers squeaking on hard linoleum. He collapsed beside his mother. The cat tightened all its muscles.

“It’s my fault, Mom.”

“What?”

“Everything.” Like her, he ignored the people glancing his way or looking studiously everywhere else.

Beth had eyes only for him. “Lucy’s all right.”

As she tried to put her arm around him, he pushed away. “Mom.” He put “I’m not a baby” into her name. “I shouldn’t have left her outside.”

Beth leaned into him. “Lucy got hurt in her own fenced yard. She might not have been safe at our place. She might not have been safe inside if someone had shot toward the house.”

“Nobody did.” He lifted his hand and angled his thumb toward his mouth and bit down.

The world pitched. Madeline had done the same thing, how many times a day? She’d chewed the skin on the sides of her thumb until it bled. Then she’d start on the other thumb. Aidan’s stomach muscles clenched.

“Eli.” A force beyond his control dragged the kid’s name out of him.

Eli and Beth started and stared as one. This was not the time. Everyone else in the waiting room eyed him.

He looked at Beth’s soft face, her lovely half smile that invited him to say what was troubling him.

What jerk would have ever left a woman who could be scared half out of her wits for her child and their dog and yet spare warmth for a stranger who’d just yelled at her son in a vet’s waiting room?

He licked dry lips. “Lucy was running in the woods. You had nothing to do with her getting hurt.”

Beth’s eyes softened even more in a silent thank-you. Eli frowned, and then went on as if Aidan hadn’t spoken.

“You know those kids around Uncle Van’s house, Mom. They don’t have a curfew. They drive their ATVs all over the place. Do you know how many beer cans I’ve found in the woods? They drink ’em and then they shoot at the cans. They ran out of beer so they shot Lucy.”

“No.” Beth threw Aidan a distraught look. “Lucy’d hate it if you dragged her into the house every time you came in.”

“She’ll hate bleeding to death, too. And what about brain damage?”

“She won’t have that.” Aidan sat on Eli’s other side. “And she won’t bleed to death. The doctor said a couple of butterflies would fix her up.”

Beth looked as miserable as Eli. “Sweetie, let’s stick to troubles that make sense. We’ll post more signs around Uncle Van’s property, but you can’t control his neighbors. I’m sorry we had to move across town and you’re missing your own friends. I’d be glad to pick them up if you ask them to visit.”

“The guys who live where Uncle Van does are snobs. They think they have the right to do anything. It doesn’t matter if they kill someone’s dog.”

“Call your old friends.” A hint of tears choked her voice. “It can’t be that bad. We’ve been there two months, and no one’s blasted anybody before.”

“You don’t get it.”

“I do,” she said, but her son shook his head, and Beth’s bigger concern seemed to be calming him down.

“I’m glad you never let me have a gun after all,” Eli said.

Beth glanced self-consciously at Aidan. “Fire-arms have been a bone of contention.” She patted Eli’s knee, but then linked her hands in her lap. “I was trying to keep you from getting hurt like Lucy.”

“It’s worse to be the one who didn’t get shot.”

Aidan stretched his nerveless legs in front of him and hoped the kid would never have any idea how true that was.

“Tell me about it,” Beth said.

Eli crossed the room again.

“I don’t know what I’m saying wrong.”

Aidan held still in case she was talking to herself. He fought an urge to push her hair behind her ear so he could see her averted face.

“That lodge,” he said. “Did your husband die in the fire?”

“No.” Her glance at Eli was a warning.

“You lost everything?” Had the boy started the fire? Was there something about her ex-husband that shamed her? She looked at Eli, and he stared back. Neither said anything that explained the pointed silence.

“We’re starting over literally from scratch,” Beth said. Her eyes skated over her son. “But I’m grateful it was just stuff and not people.”

Aidan waited. Then, “When will you be up and running?”

“We’re having some prob—as soon as I can.”

He cracked his knuckles, a nervous habit he’d conquered in sixth grade. “They’ll bring Lucy back any second.”

“That would help.” Beth turned toward the treatment rooms, and her elusive scent floated toward him. She made him uncomfortably aware—starting the moment she’d burst out of her brother’s hedge.

He’d climbed into her car this afternoon as if he were the only man on earth who could carry an injured animal. He wanted to be with her, in case he could help. That was what he told himself as he found he couldn’t look away.

Even the shape of her lips intrigued him. Part wary smile, part frown. The curve of her throat, marred only by a thudding pulse made him want her and want to protect her all at the same time. He never went for a woman on an attraction-at-first-sight basis.

“Good God,” he said under his breath, facing what he’d avoided with all his so-called will. Guilt had nearly killed him, but he wanted Beth because life ran strong and dauntless in her desirable body. Just what he needed.

“Lucy!”

Eli’s happy shout startled everyone. The vet led her out by her leash. Underneath a couple of butterfly bandages, someone had shaved the short black fur on her forehead.

Eli slid into Lucy on his knees. She grumbled, but let him nuzzle her head with his. Beth was already beside her son, and they didn’t need Aidan.

“Look, Mom. She is all right.” Eli quizzed the vet with a parental glance. “She is, isn’t she?”

“Fine.” The doctor ruffled Eli’s hair. “I’ll ask Chief Berger to send a few patrols by your uncle’s house. Maybe put a little fear into anyone who might be shooting in the woods. Since so many animals started turning up hurt, even using a pellet gun is illegal within city limits.”

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