If she says Ben has no claim on her, then he doesn’t.

The acid in Duncan’s stomach called him a liar. Suddenly he’d had enough pretending. His voice came out harsh. “I’m a mess, Gwen.”

“So am I.” She sounded surprised.

“As messes go, we aren’t even on the same scale. You’d be better off with Ben.”

“You’re probably right.”

Startled, he stole another quick glance. She was smiling at him rather shyly. In spite of everything, an answering smile tugged up one corner of his mouth. “Not going to argue with me, huh?”

“If you’re going to say stupid things, I can, too.”

His smile lingered until he pulled into the driveway. It died before the car came to a complete stop. The lights were off. All of them.

Ben wasn’t back yet. No one was. He and Gwen would be alone in the big old house.

Dear Reader,

“In like a lion, out like a lamb.” That’s what they say about March, right? Well, there are no meek and mild lambs among this month’s Intimate Moments heroines, that’s for sure! In Saving Dr. Ryan, Karen Templeton begins a new miniseries, THE MEN OF MAYES COUNTY, while telling the story of a roadside delivery—yes, the baby kind—that leads to an improbable romance. Maddie Kincaid starts out looking like the one who needs saving, but it’s really Dr. Ryan Logan who’s in need of rescue.

We continue our trio of FAMILY SECRETS prequels with The Phoenix Encounter by Linda Castillo. Follow the secret-agent hero deep under cover—and watch as he rediscovers a love he’d thought was dead. But where do they go from there? Nina Bruhns tells a story of repentance, forgiveness and passion in Sins of the Father, while Eileen Wilks offers up tangled family ties and a seemingly insoluble dilemmain Midnight Choices. For Wendy Rosnau’s heroine, there’s only One Way Out as she chooses between being her lover’s mistress—or his wife. Finally, Jenna Mills’ heroine becomes The Perfect Target. She meets the seemingly perfect man, then has to decide whether he represents safety—or danger.

The excitement never flags—and there will be more next month, too. So don’t miss a single Silhouette Intimate Moments title, because this is the line where you’ll find the best and most exciting romance reading around.

Enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Midnight Choices
Eileen Wilks

www.millsandboon.co.uk

EILEEN WILKS

is a fifth-generation Texan. Her great-great-grandmother came to Texas in a covered wagon shortly after the end of the Civil War—excuse us, the War Between the States. But she’s not a full-blooded Texan. Right after another war, her Texan father fell for a Yankee woman. This obviously mismatched pair proceeded to travel to nine cities in three countries in the first twenty years of their marriage, raising two kids and innumerable dogs and cats along the way. For the next twenty years they stayed put, back home in Texas again—and still together.

Eileen figures her professional career matches her nomadic upbringing, since she’s tried everything from drafting to a brief stint as a ranch hand—raising two children and any number of cats and dogs along the way. Not until she started writing did she “stay put,” because that’s when she knew she’d come home. Readers can write to her at P.O. Box 4612, Midland, TX 79704-4612.

This story is for those who have fought and won against breast cancer…and for those whose fight is over.

It’s for those of us who love them.

And it’s for my own beloved warriors:

Doris Elizabeth Hembree. Kia Cochrane.

Rosalie Whiteman.

Edie Duke. Day LeClaire.

Courage, like life, happens one step at a time.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 1

Highpoint, Colorado

Humidity fogged the kitchen window where Duncan stood, gathering in tiny droplets at the bottom of one pane. Spaghetti sauce simmered on the stove, layering the air with scent—oregano, basil, the sweetish bite of onion and the meaty aroma of the Italian sausage he liked to use instead of hamburger. The phone was ringing.

Probably his brother. If not, the caller would either give up soon or leave a message.

He wiped a circle clear of fog and left his hand on the glass. It was cold. According to the calendar, spring had arrived, but winter died slowly in the mountains. It was likely to hang on, snarling and snapping, for another few weeks.

He looked out at the line of cedars his father had planted along the back fence when he was three. They were nearly thirty feet tall now. He tilted his head and saw a gray sky sliced and diced by the bare black limbs of the oak that sheltered the rear of the house.

Three rings…

Duncan counted heartbeats in the silence between rings. His pulse was still elevated from his workout. A drop of sweat meandered down his neck. His arm throbbed like a mother, but that was to be expected. He’d learned to stop before throbbing turned to solid pain. Pushing for more than his body could give just slowed his recovery, and he couldn’t afford any setbacks. He’d maxed out his personal leave; added to medical leave, that gave him just over a month to get himself in shape.

In more ways than the obvious.

Four rings. Idly he rubbed the raised tissue of the new scar on his forearm. It was cold outside, but free of ice or snow. He could run.

With a click, the answering machine picked up. After a pause he heard his brother’s gravelly voice: “You’d better be in the shower or something, not out running in this weather. I’m in no mood to nurse you through pneumonia.” Another pause. “I’ll be a little late—a problem with a supplier.” Then the click as he disconnected.

Duncan shook his head. Habits died hard—especially with someone as thickheaded as his big brother. Did Ben think the army only let them go out to play when the weather was nice?

Still, he should pull on a dry sweatshirt. He headed for the stairs at the front of the old house.

The doorbell rang. He paused with one foot on the step, tempted to ignore it as he had the phone. But this intrusion had arrived in person and would have seen his Jeep out front. He or she would probably keep ringing for a while, and it was cold outside.

Reluctantly he moved to the front door, turned the dead bolt and pulled the door open.

The woman on his doorstep looked cold. Her hands were pushed into the pockets of a pale pink cardigan that zipped up the front; it was the exact shade of her creased trousers. Her sneakers were pink, too, with shiny silver shoelaces. The flat white purse slung over her shoulder had the soft look of expensive leather. Her hair was icy blond and very short, revealing complicated little knots of wire and gems that dangled from her ears, which were small and pink with cold. So was the tip of her slightly crooked nose. Otherwise she was pale. And tiny. If she were to step straight forward into his arms, the top of her head would fit easily under his chin.

His heartbeat picked up. His mind skittered for purchase.

She was too young, too skinny. Her hips were no wider than a boy’s, and the hand she pulled out of one pocket was long and narrow. He wasn’t attracted to tiny, fragile-looking women a decade younger than he was.

What color were her eyes? In the fading light he couldn’t tell.

Then those uncertain-colored eyes met his. And his thoughts spilled out, leaving his mind blank.

“Is Ben here?” she asked. “Benjamin McClain?” When he stared dumbly at her, her eyebrows pulled together.

Dear God.

“I have come to the right house, haven’t I?”

What is this? What just happened? He licked dry lips. “Ben will be home soon. I’m his brother, Duncan. Duncan McClain.” After a long moment it occurred to him to step aside. “Come in.”

Gwen stepped across the threshold. It was, thankfully, a good deal warmer inside. Somewhere spices were simmering in tomato sauce. It was a homey smell…a homey place, she thought, glancing around. The entry hall was large, with a door opening off it to the right—probably a coat closet—and a staircase diagonally across from the front door. An open arch on the left led to the living room. The wooden floor was clean enough, but dull, as if it had been a very long time since it had received more than perfunctory care.

There was a coatrack next to the door. It held a black ski cap and two jackets—a dark green parka with a hood and a denim jacket. Both obviously belonged to large men—to Ben and this man, she supposed. Duncan McClain, Ben’s brother.

Her hands were balled into fists in her pockets. She’d known Ben wasn’t married or living with a woman. If he had been, she would have approached him differently. But she hadn’t asked the detective to find out if he was living with anyone else—like a brother. This was a complication she hadn’t allowed for.

When in doubt, fall back on manners. That was one lesson her mother had taught her that Gwen often found useful. “I’m Gwendolyn Van Allen.”

He nodded without speaking. Obviously the name meant nothing to him. What odd eyes he had—very pale gray, rather striking with the dark hair and those straight, slashing eyebrows. Something about his eyes made her uneasy and she looked away.

A pair of muddy boots sat next to the coatrack—work boots, the brown leather much scuffed and discolored. They were huge. She glanced from them to the running shoes on Duncan McClain’s feet. The boots were bigger. They must belong to Ben.

“May I take your sweater?” Ben’s brother asked.

“No, thanks. I’m a little chilly.” Training enabled her to find a social smile and a topic, but her cheeks felt stiff. “I thought I was prepared for the weather here, but I’m a Florida girl. Your version of spring isn’t what I’m used to.”

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t look much like Ben—at least, not like the photograph the detective had enclosed with his report. For a long time Gwen hadn’t wanted to remember Zach’s other parent, and she’d succeeded all too well at forgetting. Now she couldn’t summon a clear image of Ben’s face. Other things, yes, but not his face.

A flash of shame slid the smile from her face. “You did say you expected Ben soon?”

“Yes.”

That was it—just yes, no elaboration. And he was looking at her so intently… Nervously she sought for a topic that might drag more than a monosyllable from him. “I hadn’t thought he’d be working late at this time of year. Construction work is seasonal, surely?”

“Some of it is. You don’t want to pour concrete when it’s below freezing, for example, but if we waited for good weather to put up a building, Highpoint would be a very small town.”

“Do you work with your brother, then?”

“No. Your eyes are green, aren’t they?” He turned and started for the arched opening to the left. “You can wait for Ben in the living room.”

What an odd, abrupt man, she thought. Perhaps he was shy. He moved smoothly, though, like a man who was at home in his body and knew he could depend on it. He was taller than she was—well, almost everyone was taller than she was—but not as tall as his brother. Or as brawny. She did remember that much. Ben was an outdoors type. He’d seemed to bring a breath of mountains and open spaces into the trendy little club in Florida where they’d met.

The living room was large and old-fashioned, with moldings framing the ceiling and a carved wooden mantel that looked older than the house itself. The floor was wooden here, too, but mostly covered by a large gold area rug with brown borders. Two armchairs upholstered in a nubby beige fabric flanked a chocolate brown couch. Throw pillows in flame colors littered the long couch and one of the chairs; an orange pillow sat on the floor next to the other chair. The coffee table and end tables were cluttered and didn’t match, but the effect was comfortable rather than careless.

He turned on a lamp beside the couch. Though it was only five o’clock, it was dreary outside, dim inside. “Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink?”

She shook her head and sat, though she would rather have paced. Her insides felt jittery, as if she’d had too much caffeine. He sat in the chair at right angles to the couch, his long body loose and apparently at ease. Then he just looked at her, those curious eyes intent, as if she posed a puzzle he meant to solve before he spoke again. She curled her toes up inside her sneakers, resenting him. “Do I have a piece of broccoli between my teeth or something?”

He smiled slightly. “Am I staring? Sorry. You must be used to it, though.”

“No,” she said, startled, then she flushed. “That didn’t come out right. I wasn’t angling for compliments.”

“Of course not. Why would you?” He crossed his legs, resting an ankle on the opposite knee. He was wearing baggy carpenter pants and a black sweatshirt. “How old are you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

He shook his head. “Never mind. I take it your business with Ben is personal.”

“Yes.” She rubbed her hands together, trying to warm them and hoping to distract herself from the urge to jump up and pace. “I can’t explain. I’m sorry.” This man is Zach’s uncle. She was talking to her son’s uncle and he didn’t know it, and she couldn’t tell him. Not until she’d told Ben.

He studied her face a moment. “I’m not clever with small talk, but there’s always weather. Folks around here never get tired of talking about that, so I can probably hold up my end. Of course, we’re not as good at it as the English. They’ve elevated the discussion of weather to a fine art.”

“Have you been to England, then?”

“Briefly, a few years ago. Beastly weather,” he said, shifting flawlessly into upper-crust English. “Rained the whole bloody time.”

Surprise curled in the pit of her stomach. Why, he’s good-looking, she thought. His face was thin, but the strong cheekbones and eyebrows gave it character. As she saw him for the first time as a person instead of a hitch in her plans, her face relaxed into a more genuine smile. “I’m not sure how long I can talk about the weather, not being as well trained as you are. In Florida we don’t take much note of rain unless it’s horizontal and tree limbs are whipping by at seventy miles an hour.”

“I’d take note of that, too. Have you ever been through a hurricane?”

He’d claimed to lack skill at small talk, but he was very good at asking questions. And listening, truly listening, to her answers. As they talked, the nerves in her belly eased until at one point, when his eyes met her eyes in that direct way he had, she felt a sharp tug of pleasure.

Her eyes widened in surprise. It had been so long…not that attraction was appropriate. For heaven’s sake, this was Ben’s brother. But she couldn’t help being pleased. She was truly healing. Surely that meant she’d been right to take the steps she had.

Then she heard the front door open and all her nerves came rushing back. Before she’d thought about it, she was on her feet again. Facing the doorway.

“Smells good,” a deep male voice rumbled as the door closed. “We have company for supper?”

She knew his voice. It gave her a jolt. She hadn’t expected the quick hit of familiarity.

Then he was standing in the doorway, a big, solid man in a flannel shirt and worn jeans. He looked at his brother first, she noticed—a quick, assessing glance. Then he turned to her, a slight smile on his hard face, a question in his eyes. “You going to introduce me, Duncan?”

He didn’t recognize her. Humiliation burned like acid. “We’ve met. Though I see you’ve forgotten, so I’ll reintroduce myself. I’m Gwen. Gwendolyn Van Allen.”

Shock slapped the smile from his face. Good. At least he remembered her name. This would have been even worse if she’d had to remind him of what had happened between them five years ago. She pulled a photograph out of her purse and crossed to him, holding it out. “And this is your son, Zachary.”

Chapter 2

Cold air cut into Duncan’s chest with each breath he took. His feet thudded steadily on the hard ground beside the road. Overhead the sky was a dingy black, with a few shy stars peeking out where the cloud cover thinned. His sweatshirt clung damply to his chest and back beneath the denim jacket he’d grabbed when he’d escaped the house. His heart was slamming hard against the wall of his chest. His arm ached.

He needed to cool down. He’d been running about an hour—not long enough. He couldn’t go home. Not yet. She’d still be there.

So he’d walk awhile. He eased to a jog, then a walk as he crossed Elm.

Dammit, she wasn’t even his type. Too pale, too thin. Her hair was too damned short. He liked long hair on a woman.

But her image kept intruding on his run in fragments, vivid and raw like the jagged memories of an accident victim. He saw her hands, the thin fingers nervously rubbing together for warmth. The ring she’d worn where a wedding band would go—silver and simple, with a single pearl. The small mole on her neck, right where a man would taste her pulse. He saw the quick bloom of anger in her cheeks when Ben didn’t recognize her, and those silly silver shoelaces, a single note of whimsy in a polished package. He remembered the way she’d risen from the couch, drawn upward by the sound of Ben’s voice. Forgetting Duncan was even there.

He worked hard at not moving from remembered images to imagined ones. Like the way that delicate body must have looked locked in his brother’s arms.

It didn’t matter. It couldn’t. Whatever had hit him when he’d opened the door to her would fade.

A car slowed as it passed him, turned into the parking lot and pulled up at the gas pumps at the convenience store on the corner. Maybe he should fuel up, too. He could get a cup of coffee, drink it in the store where it was warm and let the sweat dry. Then run some more.

She’d had his brother’s child.

Or so she claimed. Maybe he shouldn’t take her words at face value. People did lie. And Ben was the owner of a successful construction firm—not a bad target for a paternity suit.

But he remembered the way she’d looked. The clothes, the makeup, the cropped hair—she’d had a shine to her, the kind of gloss that means money. Hard to believe a woman like that would need to trick money out of a man.

He wished he’d seen the photograph of the boy. The second he’d realized just how personal her business with his brother was, though, he’d taken off. But he’d seen her face when Ben had made it clear he didn’t have a clue who she was.

He’d seen Ben’s face a moment later, too.

Ben believed her. Duncan’s lips thinned. Damn Ben’s righteous hide! How could he have fathered a child he didn’t even know about? Ben, of all people. His big brother was no saint, but on some subjects he was about as yielding as the mountains they’d grown up in. A man took responsibility for his actions. A man used protection every time, and if he was ever fool enough to forget that, he’d better head straight to the courthouse for a marriage license, because he couldn’t call himself a man if he allowed his child to grow up without a father.

Yet Ben had had a son by a woman he hadn’t even recognized. A son who’d done some of his growing up without a father. Duncan felt cold and wild inside. He wanted to smash his fist into his brother’s face.

There was a cop car in front of the 7-11. Duncan hesitated. But the wind was picking up, pushing a cold front ahead of it. He shivered, grimaced and told himself not to be an idiot. It would be a helluva note if he caught some stupid bug because he was so determined to avoid Jeff that he ducked out of sight every time he saw a police car. Ben would make his life hell if he got sick.

It was with a certain grim amusement that he saw his suspicions had been right. Jeff pushed the door open just as Duncan reached it. He was holding a steaming plastic-foam cup. He grinned. “Hey, there, GI Joe. You aren’t out running at this hour, are you?”

“Hey, copper. No, I flew in. Left my wings in the bike rack.”

Jefferson Parker chuckled. Jeff was a head shorter than Duncan, a lot chattier, several shades darker in skin tone and every ounce as stubborn. They’d been friends in high school, where Jeff had been one of very few black faces in the crowd—and the student-body president two years in a row. Which said a lot about his ability to get along with others and his determination to excel. “Better leave ’em parked or I might have to run you in for impersonating an angel. Not that anyone would believe it, between that ugly face of yours and those goose bumps you’re sprouting instead of a halo. You going to let me buy you a cup of coffee?”

Duncan eyed him. Jeff’s dark eyes were friendly and incurious. What a crock. The man was nosier than a hound on a scent and just as hard to sidetrack. It had been a huge mistake to take Jeff up on his offer of using the police firing range to keep in practice.

Still, he supposed he might as well see how long it took Jeff to get to the point this time. He didn’t have anywhere else he needed to be. “Sure.”

Jeff introduced him to the young clerk, Lorna, claiming she made the best coffee in Highpoint—an exaggeration bordering on outright falsehood, Duncan thought as he sipped the industrial-strength brew. His old friend kept up a steady stream of chatter that included the shy young woman. He was good at that sort of thing, never at a loss for words. People relaxed with him.

Probably a good trait in a cop, Duncan thought, watching.

“Well, how about that,” Jeff said as they left the store, stopping to stare in mock surprise at the bike rack by the curb. “Someone must have run off with those wings of yours.” He shook his head. “Criminals are sure getting bold these days.”

Duncan smiled slightly. Here it comes. The Highpoint police are looking for a few good men…

“That Lorna….” Jeff nodded at the clerk on the other side of the brightly lit window. “She’s nineteen, lives with her mom. Got a little girl her mother watches while she’s at work. Can’t afford day care, you know? She has to work nights because her mother works days down at Jenkin’s Drug.”

Duncan’s eyebrows lifted. Where was Jeff going with this? “No support from the father?”

“Bastard skipped town a couple years back when Lorna turned up pregnant.”

“That’s rough. She’s in school?” Jeff had asked her how her classes were going.

“She goes to community college two nights a week, works here the other five. Got her GED last year.” Jeff pulled a package of gum out of his pocket and offered Duncan a stick. Duncan shook his head. “We don’t have a lot of crime here, compared to L.A. or Houston. But Highpoint isn’t Mayberry, either. We’ve had two convenience stores hit in the past three weeks.”

Duncan glanced into the 7-11. Lorna was stuffing bills into a narrow white envelope. She had a pimple on her chin and pretty brown eyes bare of makeup. When she bent to slide the envelope through the slot into the safe, her hair fell forward. It was long, brown and shiny clean. She brushed it impatiently behind her ear, revealing a tiny gold earring in the shape of a cross.

The girl—little more than a child herself—had a baby girl waiting at home for her. Duncan looked back at Jeff. “Looks like she follows the rules, doesn’t keep much cash in the register.”

“She doesn’t. But that’s no guarantee.” Jeff peeled the foil from a stick of gum. “I stop by every night and the black-and-whites keep an eye on her when they can. That’s no guarantee, either, but this perp picks his times. He hit the other stores when they were empty except for the clerk. First thing he does is shoot out the security camera. Hits the lens square on, single shot with a .22 handgun.”

Duncan frowned. A .22 pistol was a couple of notches above a water pistol for accuracy. Maybe. “Where’s the camera?”

“Far left corner.”

He glanced back into the store, automatically calculating the angle. “Does he come in with his weapon drawn?”

Jeff shook his head, popped the gum in his mouth. “Draws from inside his jacket as he pushes the door open.”

“Then he’s a helluva shot.” Duncan could have made the shot himself. Not many others could.

“Yeah. He’s good, but jumpy. Killed a dog.”

“A dog?”

“When he was headed out of the last place he hit. A stray came around the corner of the store, startled him. He shot it and ran.” Jeff stuffed the empty gum wrapper in the trash can next to the door. “So we’ve got bullets, but not much more. We know he’s male, around five-seven, average build. He wore jeans, a dark jacket, gloves and a ski mask both times. No skin showed. We don’t know if he’s white, brown, black or yellow with blue polka dots.”

“No one made the vehicle?”

“One of the clerks thinks it was a dark compact, not new. She didn’t get much of a look at it. He makes ’em lie on the floor once they empty the register.”

“Did he…” Duncan stopped, shook his head. Damned if Jeff hadn’t gotten sneakier with his pitch. He’d nearly reeled Duncan in this time, gotten him involved enough to ask questions. “You’ll catch him sooner or later. If this guy was really bright, he wouldn’t be hitting convenience stores. They don’t have much cash.”

“Sooner’s better than later. A jumpy, not-so-bright gunman makes mistakes. People get hurt then.” Jeff started for his car. “You going to let me give you a ride?”

“I need to finish my run.”

Jeff nodded, reached for the handle, then gave Duncan a steady look. “What you’ve been doing—that’s important. No doubt about that. A cop doesn’t get much chance to save the world the way you army types do. Sometimes all we can do is drop in on a nineteen-year-old mother who works nights when she isn’t trying to learn bookkeeping. Maybe that will keep this perp from hitting this store, maybe not. We don’t get a lot of sure things in our line of work.”

Duncan’s mouth quirked up. “I remember when you used to try to get me to volunteer for some damned committee or other. Roped me in a few times, too. If you’d had the good sense to go into the army instead of the police force, you’d be their ace recruiter by now.”

A grin lit Jeff’s face. “I’m getting to you. Duncan, we need you. I know it wouldn’t be fun to be a rookie, not when you’re used to being a big-deal sergeant, but if you take some courses, you can move up quick. The chief’s keen on getting a sharpshooter.”

Duncan’s smile slid away. He gave a single shake of his head that combined refusal and warning.

“Okay, okay.” Jeff held up his hand as if to stop a flow of protests. “But you’ll think about it.”

Duncan watched his friend pull out of the parking lot and didn’t think about anything except whether he needed to stretch again. No, he decided. His muscles were still loose and warm.

He’d just started running again when a shot rang out.

He dropped and rolled, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there. Then lay on his stomach on the cold concrete, his arm throbbing fiercely. Little by little, understanding seeped in. Along with humiliation.

Not a gunshot. A backfire. From a ’92 Chevy packed front and back with teenage boys, some of whom were staring and laughing. Yeah, pretty funny, all right, he thought as he pushed to his feet and slowly resumed his run. Watching a grown man nearly mess himself because your car backfired would be one hell of a good joke to kids that age.

He concentrated on keeping his shoulders loose as he ran. They had a tendency to tense up when his arm was hurting, which made the jarring worse. The Chevy turned west at the light.

It was a shame Jeff had already driven off. If he’d seen how Duncan reacted under fire these days—or anything that passed, to his screwed-up senses, for being under fire—he sure as hell would drop the subject of Duncan trading one uniform for another when his enlistment was up. Which would happen in two and a half months.

He very carefully didn’t think about that, either.

Ben was sitting in his favorite chair next to the fireplace, which still held the ashes of its last fire. His shoes were on the floor beside the couch, his feet propped on the coffee table. One of his socks had a hole started in the heel. A glass half-filled with bourbon sat on the table beside his feet. He’d poured it after Gwen left, then forgotten it.

He was holding the photograph. It was all he could see, all he could think about, the grinning boy in that picture.

Zachary. His son.

Zachary Van Allen. Not McClain.

The front door opened, then shut. He lifted his head, scowling, and saw Duncan standing in the doorway, staring at him with no expression on his face.

Ben didn’t try to read his brother’s expression. Even as a boy Duncan had been good at tucking everything away out of sight, and the older he’d gotten, the better his poker face became. But he saw the tense way Duncan stood and the stiff way he held his left arm. And he saw his bare head.

“Damnation,” he growled, rising to his feet. “I thought they operated on your arm, not your thick skull, but only an idiot would go running for hours with a half-healed wound. And in this weather, without a hat! I don’t know what they taught you in Special Forces, but a jacket isn’t enough. Half your body heat—”

“Not tonight.” Duncan’s voice was hard. He advanced into the room, voice and body taut, like a big cat ready to strike. “I’m in no mood for your bloody nursemaid act tonight.”

Ben took a deep breath, fighting back a surge of temper. Nagging Duncan to take better care of himself was the wrong way to go about things. He knew that. But in the past Duncan would have greeted Ben’s bossiness with a raised eyebrow, maybe a polite “yes, ma’am” or some other nonsense.

He’d changed. Ben didn’t know what had happened on this last mission, but it had damaged more than Duncan’s arm. “It must be close to freezing out there,” he said in the most reasonable tone he could muster.

“Believe it or not, the army doesn’t make us stay in at night when the weather’s bad. But we aren’t going to talk about my sins tonight. We’re going to talk about yours.” His pause was brief. “Her car is gone.”

Ben’s empty hand closed and opened again. This was going to be hard. “I offered Gwen a room here, if it’s any of your business. She preferred to stay at a hotel.”

Duncan just looked at him. He’d never been one to fill the air with words, and seldom used two when one would do, or one word when a nod or a glance was enough. Right now, though, his silence felt crammed with accusation.

Ben’s scowl returned. Damned if he was going to put up with any lectures—silent or otherwise—from his younger brother. “She didn’t tell me. I didn’t know the boy existed.”

“I know that,” Duncan snapped. “There’s no doubt in your mind that he’s yours?”

Duncan’s irritation reassured Ben. At least he hadn’t needed to be told that his older brother would never have ignored his son if he’d known the boy existed. He answered Duncan’s question by crossing to him and handing him the photograph.

Duncan’s eyes widened, then clouded with some emotion Ben couldn’t read. After a long moment he handed the photo back. “Poor kid. He looks so much like you it’s scary.”

“Yeah.” Ben couldn’t say anything else right away. He didn’t know what to do, what to think—his emotions were so full, so contradictory, he was afraid he’d start cursing. Or maybe bawl like a baby. He cleared his throat. “Not that I would have thought she was lying, even if he hadn’t turned out to look like me.”

“You knew her well, then?”

There was a subtle insult in the tone. Or maybe the insult lay only in Ben’s mind. “No. Not exactly. Hell.” He ran a hand over his hair. “It was pretty much a one-night stand, all right? We met, we hit it off, and… You remember that vacation Annie nagged me into taking a few years ago? Gwen and I met then. We spent a couple days together.” And one night.

“Then you walked away without realizing you’d fathered a child.”

“She could have told me.” Ben began to pace. “She should have told me. I’ve missed so much… He’s four. Four and a half years old.” His voice held wonder and loss and anger.

“So why didn’t she tell you?”

Ben felt all the weight of his own guilt in those softly spoken words. “That’s between her and me.”

“When I think of all those Friday-night lectures you used to hand me and Charlie about responsibility and safe sex…” Duncan’s mouth tightened. “Dammit, Ben. What the hell happened? How could you not know there was a chance you’d started a child in her?”

The disillusion in Duncan’s eyes was harder to face than his anger. Ben stopped by the big picture window. He’d forgotten to pull the drapes, and his own reflection stared back at him from the night-darkened glass—a big, dark man in worn jeans and an old flannel shirt. “I knew,” he admitted gruffly. “We used protection, but…” He couldn’t bring himself to go into detail, but the fact was, she’d put the condom on him. Only she hadn’t gotten it on right, and he hadn’t noticed until afterward, too intent on what he felt, what he wanted.

Just the sort of thing he used to warn Duncan and Charlie against.

He grimaced. “The odds of her getting pregnant were pretty small. When I didn’t hear from her, I assumed everything was okay.” He’d convinced himself of that. He hadn’t wanted to think about her. Or the way he’d ended things between them almost as soon as they began.

Duncan didn’t say anything. It was Ben’s own reflection that stared back at him accusingly from the dark glass. The image wasn’t clear enough to show the touch of gray that had appeared in his hair lately, but his mind supplied that. He was pushing forty, and he was alone. It wasn’t how he’d ever thought his life would work out.

But he had a son. He straightened his shoulders and turned to face Duncan. “She’s coming here with Zach in a couple weeks. They’ll stay here to give me a chance to get to know him, let him get to know me.”

“I can go back to the base.”

“Hell if you will! This is your house, too. Your home. And—” he grimaced “—maybe it will be easier if we have someone else in the house. She and I have a lot to work through.”

“A single night together doesn’t exactly constitute a relationship. There can’t be that much to work out.”

“I’m going to marry her.”

Duncan’s eyes went blank. After a moment he turned away, shrugging out of his jacket as he spoke. “She came here because she wants you to marry her? It seems…belated.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Irritation at his brother’s denseness eased some of the other feelings. “That isn’t why she came here, and I haven’t asked her yet.”

“But you think she’ll agree?”

“She’s the mother of my child.”

For the first time that night, there was a hint of humor in Duncan’s voice. “She might not see the two as being equivalent.”

“That’s why we’ll have a lot to work out.”

Duncan looked as if he might say something more, then shook his head and headed for the hall to hang up his jacket.

Ben was starting to feel better. They’d gotten through some of the worst of it. He remembered the drink he’d poured earlier and went to get it. The liquor tasted warm and mellow, but there was a bite beneath the smoothness. Tonight he needed that bite. When Duncan came back into the room, Ben swirled the amber liquid in his glass without looking up. “So, are you going back to the base, or are you going to stay here where you belong?”

“Do you need me to stay?”

Ben almost snapped out something about wanting and needing being different, but stopped himself in time. Duncan was the one who needed help, not him. But he was too stubborn for his own good. He’d hang around if he thought Ben needed him, though. “Yeah,” he said, though it wasn’t easy.

“All right. Ben…” Duncan seemed to struggle for words. “For God’s sake, think about this. You spent a couple days with her five years ago. You didn’t even recognize her.”

“She looks different now. Her hair was long then.”

“You didn’t know her,” Duncan repeated. “And now you want to marry her.”

“She’s got my son.”

Duncan turned away. “How old is she?”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“Do you even know?”

Ben searched his memory. “I think…probably close to thirty now. Maybe.”

“At least you didn’t rob the cradle,” Duncan muttered. He still wouldn’t look at Ben. “You have feelings for her, or do you just plan on using her to get custody of your son?”

It was strain Ben heard in his brother’s voice, not anger. He reined in his own temper as firmly as he could. “I don’t use women.”

Duncan turned slowly to face him. His eyes were winter-gray and unreadable. “If you didn’t want her enough to hang around five years ago, what kind of marriage can you have?”

“Things have changed. She didn’t need me then. She does now.”

“Because of the boy.”

“That’s part of it.” Ben took a deep breath, let it out and got the rest of it said. “Twenty months ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer.”

Chapter 3

Andrews, Florida, three days later

Gwen tucked the letter neatly back in its envelope. She took a deep breath, striving for calm.

The moist air carried the taste of home into her lungs—Florida air, flavored with hibiscus and jasmine. Outside a mockingbird welcomed the evening. The orange-gold rays of sunset streamed at a familiar slant through the windows of the porch. An easy profusion of light filtered through the leaves of the big bay tree to dapple the wooden floor, the glass table where she sat and the long white envelope with the Colorado return address.

Ben had booked and paid for the flight for her and Zach. He’d sent a terse little note to let her know, sent it overnight mail. Dammit. She pushed to her feet and started pacing.

She’d agreed to come to Highpoint with Zach. She’d agreed to stay in Ben’s house so he and Zach could spend normal, everyday time together. But she hadn’t agreed to letting him pay for their airfare.

He’d done it anyway.

Well, he was a proud man. A proud, stubborn jackass of a man. She rubbed her temple. This probably wouldn’t be the only time they butted heads over money. Benjamin McClain had a real problem with the fact that she had more of it than he did. She’d known that.

She hadn’t known she was still so angry with him about it, though.

At the other end of the house, the front door slammed. “Mom! Mom! Guess what! Where are you, Mom?”

She stopped moving, a smile easing the tight muscles of her face. “In the Florida room, honey.”

Feet pattered, light and swift, down the uncarpeted hall toward the sun porch where Gwen waited. “We went to see the seals, Mom, and I fed one!” Three feet, one inch of towheaded tornado whirled into the room, legs pumping.

“You did?” She hunkered down and held out her arms. Her son hurled himself into them. “All by yourself?”

“Mostly.” Zachary was ever judicious in his assessment of truth. “I got to hold the fish myself, and the man held me. I told him he didn’t have to ’cause I’m four now, but he did, anyway. And their teeth are really big, Mom. Did you know that?”

“Big teeth, huh? Bigger than mine?” She made chomping noises and pretended to bite him. He giggled, and her arms tightened.

Oh, God. She wanted so much for him, so much….

“You’re squishing me, Mom.” He wriggled.

“Sorry, light-of-my-life. Tell me about the seals.”

“The man said they’re called seal-ions, not just seals. And they bark like dogs. Like this.” He demonstrated.

Her mother spoke from the French doors, her voice dry. “He did that all the way home.”

The muscles across Gwen’s shoulders tightened. “The condition of his clothes tells me he had a good time.”

“We both did.” Her mother gave Zach the soft, faintly surprised smile that only her grandson seemed able to elicit.

All her life, Gwen had heard how much she resembled her mother. It was true. Her nose lacked the symmetry of her mother’s, due to the time she’d fallen out of a tree when she was seven. Otherwise, looking at Deirdre Van Allen’s face was too much like peering into her own physical future—the same eyes, mouth, chin, even the same small ears tucked flat to their heads. The same wheat-pale hair and easily burned skin. Aside from age, there was only one obvious difference between the two women: their height. The fine bones and flat chest that made Gwen look like an undernourished child were transformed on Deirdre Van Allen’s taller frame into a model’s willowy elegance.

Sometimes Gwen had rebelled against the resemblance, sometimes she’d taken comfort from it. These days she mostly just hoped she’d be around to find out how accurate that genetic mirror turned out to be.

Two sticky hands seized her face and turned it toward a small, square face with dark eyes and a determined chin. “I want a dog.”

Her mind snapped back to the moment. “You do, huh?”

“I been telling you and telling you that.”

“Mmm-hmm. And what have I been telling you?”

His mouth drooped. “That I can’t have one till I’m older.”

“That’s right.” He looked so sad, with that pouty lip. And so stubborn, with those frowning eyebrows. And not like her at all. Her heart hitched in her chest. For a long time she’d managed to forget that Zach had come from two sets of genes, not one. She couldn’t do that anymore.

“But you never say how much older. I’m getting older all the time.”

“So you are. What did your grandma stuff you with, anyway?” She poked his T-shirt-clad tummy. “I see a purple spot, a red spot…”

He giggled. “That’s grape drink and ketchup.”

“And was that ketchup on something or did you take it straight?” She scooped him up and stood—and God, but it was good to be able to do that again, to rise easily with the warm weight of her son in her arms. The radiation had left her so weak, tired all the time.

All that was in the past. “I also see a bath in your very near future.”

He frowned, considering that. “With bubbles,” he informed her. “An’ my army guys.”

“Sure thing.” She glanced over her shoulder at her mother as she started for the French doors that led to the rest of the house. “There’s a pot of decaf in the kitchen, if you’d like a cup.”

“Wine sounds better right now.”

“You know where it is.”

Several minutes later she left Zach in a tub that was more bubbles than water, surrounded by battalions of “army guys.”

She would tell him about his father tonight. Oh, she’d had reason enough to wait until she’d seen Ben, spoken with him, but she’d returned from Highpoint two days ago. There was no excuse to delay any longer. Ben had made it clear he wanted a relationship with his son.

How would Zach feel about suddenly acquiring a father?

Her stomach clenched with nerves. She saw that her mother had poured her a glass of merlot and left it on the counter. She picked it up and took a sip, letting the rich taste of the wine linger on her tongue.

It was so important to handle this right. She’d tried to prepare herself for the questions Zach would ask, including the big one: why hadn’t she told him about his father before?

Unfortunately she still didn’t have a good answer for that one.

Sighing, she looked at the open doors to the Florida room. Might as well get this over with. Her mother wouldn’t leave without making one last push to change Gwen’s mind.

“Battles are being waged,” Gwen announced as she stepped into the sun porch. “Campaigns plotted, and bloody war declared. I think the green guys are going to win again, though.”

Dusk had replaced the warm colors of sunset. Her mother stood in silence and dimness, her back to the house, looking out at the shapes and shadows of the garden. Her back was as straight as ever, but the way she hugged her arms to her made her look oddly vulnerable.

“Mom? Is something wrong?”

Deirdre turned, her face pale in the dying light. “I saw the letter from him. You’re going through with this, aren’t you.”

Gwen grimaced and flipped the light on. “It wasn’t addressed to you.”

“I didn’t read it,” her mother snapped. “But I couldn’t help seeing the return address.” She waved at the glass table, where a glass of wine sat next to the envelope with McClain Construction in the upper left corner.

Gwen took a deep breath. Arguing with her mother wouldn’t help. It was probably inevitable, but it wouldn’t help. Her throat ached as she crossed to her mother. “Yes, I’m going through with it. Everything is arranged—we leave on the tenth and will stay with his father for two weeks. I’ll tell Zach tonight.”

“Oh, Gwen.” Deirdre closed her eyes tightly for a second. “I don’t understand this obsession of yours. For heaven’s sake, you had to hire a detective to track the man down!” She shuddered delicately. To Deirdre Van Allen, anything connected with a detective was implicitly sordid.

“That was partly my fault. I’ve told you that.”

“The way you make excuses for this man worries me.”

Was she doing that—making excuses? Wearily Gwen rubbed her temples, where a headache was starting. “This is about Zach, not me.”

“Is it? I don’t think so. With all that Zach’s been through in the past eighteen months, the last thing he needs is another major change to deal with.”

Gwen turned and headed for the kitchen. Deirdre followed. “We’ve been over this and over this. You know how I feel.”

“And this is about your feelings, isn’t it? Not mine. Not your son’s. You’re cherishing some sort of romantic pipe dreams about this man, a man who walked out on you without a backward glance.”

Gwen wanted to scream. She wanted to just stand there and yell as loud as she could, but that would be as cruel as it was childish. It would frighten her mother and Zach.

Her mother was already scared. Gwen understood that; fear lay behind the protests and opposition. So she carried both their glasses to the sink, emptied them and rinsed them and opened the dishwasher. “This man has a name, you know. And a son. He deserves to know his son.”

“And what does Zach deserve? To have his life turned upside down for the sake of some man you picked up in a bar?”

Gwen’s breath sucked in. The jolt of pain came as a surprise. It shouldn’t have, she thought, yanking a paper towel loose from the roll, then bending to grab the spray cleaner from under the sink. Her mother had never put it quite so bluntly before, but then, she wasn’t one to give up without using any and all weapons within her grasp.

There were always fingerprints to be cleaned from the refrigerator. She moved there quickly, sprayed and wiped.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” Deirdre came up behind Gwen. “For heaven’s sake, Gwen, sit down. It’s difficult to hold a conversation when you’re bouncing all over the place.”

“I can’t think when I’m sitting still. You know that.”

“You’re not thinking now. What happened five years ago was an aberration on your part. But this man—”

“Ben,” Gwen said, angry. She turned to face her mother. “His name is Benjamin McClain. And it was an aberration for him, too.”

“No doubt that’s what he told you.” Deirdre’s lips thinned. “Be realistic. He’s a construction worker. Picking up women in bars is no doubt quite normal for him.”

She drew a deep breath, struggling to find a measure of calm. “No, Mother, he isn’t a construction worker. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but he owns a construction company. Though he likes swinging a hammer when he gets a chance.”

“I suppose he told you that, too.”

“Yes, he did. And guess what? The detective confirmed it. And the letterhead you peeked at should be a clue, too.”

Most of the details of that long-ago night were smudged, like a charcoal drawing left out in the rain. But Gwen had been forced to salvage what she could of those neglected memories when she’d gone to the detective two months ago. She’d remembered Ben saying he preferred working on a site to shuffling papers. He’d looked like a man who enjoyed working with his hands, too—a big man with broad, callused hands, the kind of man a woman could depend on.

Appearances could be deceiving.

Deirdre’s gaze didn’t waver. “Is he married?”

“No. And he wasn’t married then, either.”

Her mother looked down, rubbing her forehead with a pianist’s long, slim fingers. When she spoke, her voice was unusually quiet. “I’m worried about you.”

Why did her mother always do this—pull back just before things went too far, say the one soft, right thing that crumpled Gwen’s defenses? Gwen hugged her arms around her middle and wished she knew whether the skill was intentional. “You raised me to do the right thing, even when it hurts. I know this is right.”

“Mo-om!” came a singsong cry from inside the house. “Come get me! I’m ready to get out!”

“Coming, sweetie,” she answered, relieved to have a reason to end the conversation.

“Let me get him ready for bed,” Deirdre said.

Gwen hesitated, wondering…but that was unfair. Her mother had never let their own difficult relationship spill over onto the little boy they both loved. “All right.”

“Gwen—” Deirdre surprised Gwen by laying a tentative hand on her arm “—you’re searching for something, I can tell. Ever since…well, you’ve had reason to question your life, your choices. But please don’t act hastily. Promise me you’re not going to sign away any of your rights to this man.”

Gwen met the green eyes so like her own and saw all the feelings Deirdre Van Allen would never put into words—fear, anger, frustration…and love. She didn’t doubt that her mother loved her.

“Mom.” She laid her hand over her mother’s. “I don’t know how things will work out. I’m trying not to make plans, not to expect things to go a certain way. But whatever happens, you can’t lose Zach, not really. You’ll always be his grandmother—his only grandmother, as it turns out. Ben’s parents are both dead.”

Though he had brothers. She’d met one of them—a dark, watchful man whose pale gray eyes seemed to be stuck in her memory like a burr.

Deirdre’s breath sighed out. She stepped away. “You mean well, I know. I’d better go get Zach out of the tub.” She left the room, moving with the angular grace Gwen had always envied—like an egret, Gwen thought, striding long-legged and slow through murky currents.

The currents had been murky enough tonight. Gwen rubbed her temple. They often were, between her mother and herself. It was amazing how two people who loved each other could misunderstand each other so thoroughly and so often. Though her mother had surprised her tonight, showing an insight Gwen hadn’t expected. She’d said she knew Gwen was searching…and it was true.

What woman raising a child alone wasn’t searching? Of course she wanted more. The comfort of a man’s body next to hers at night—yes, she wanted that. The passion, too, she admitted. But she wasn’t indulging in romantic pipe dreams. Maybe the thought had crossed her mind once or twice that something might develop between her and her son’s father. There had been a connection between them once—surely she hadn’t imagined that. And Ben had asked her if she was seeing anyone.

But she wasn’t pinning her hopes on a fairy-tale ending. Childhood dreams of happy-ever-after might be hard to give up, but she was too much of a pragmatist to mistake wishing for reality. And the reality was that Zach needed to know his father…just in case.

The surgeon had removed the lump along with part of her breast. It had been very small, very close to the surface of her skin. Radiation should have killed any lingering cancer cells. Statistically, her chances were good. But no one could say for sure. Cancer cells might be lurking somewhere in her body right now, malignant fugitives hiding in some organ, waiting for some unknown trigger to start them growing again.

Her mother was sixty-one. She loved Zach and would do her best for him if Gwen died, but when Zach was fifteen his grandmother would be over seventy. Gwen had no other close relatives. Oh, she had friends—one in particular whom she’d trust with her son. But the courts gave preference to close relatives. If Deirdre fought for custody of Zach, she might well win.

She wouldn’t win against Zach’s father.

Gwen glanced around the spotless kitchen. It was much too soon to make any decisions, but she’d put things in motion. Her mother knew that and hated it, and Gwen couldn’t blame her. But she had to think of Zach first.

There wasn’t a blasted thing left to clean, so she headed for her study, where work of another sort waited.

The law was a tidy goddess, and it suited Gwen. Not criminal law. There, the stakes were too high, and she knew herself too well. She could be seduced by the clarity of order and lose sight of the greater good the law was intended to serve—justice. Nor, in spite of her father’s pressure, had she been drawn to corporate law. He’d been bitterly disappointed when she told him she wouldn’t be working for Van Allen Produce, Inc.

Surprisingly her mother had supported her choice. Perhaps Deirdre understood how well real-estate law suited Gwen. It called for patience, thoroughness and attention to detail. Gwen loved the historical sweep of performing a title search, the feel of the law stretching backward in time, the digging through old records. She liked bringing her findings to the present by checking statutes on environmental protection, wildlife habitats, zoning requirements, native lands—all the written code, the regulations both federal and state, that a developer had to observe.

Since becoming a mother, she’d especially appreciated being able to do a large part of her work from home, plugged into various databases.

Gwen’s chair was already occupied by what looked like a shabby fur pillow. The pillow opened its eyes and blinked balefully at her. “You know what I’m going to do now, don’t you, Natasha?” Gwen said. Careful of old bones, she scooped the cat up and deposited her on the floor.

Natasha glared and stalked to the window, where she levitated onto the broad sill and began licking her ruffled fur back into place. Gwen smiled a little sadly. Natasha was old, cranky and set in her ways, no pet for a lively four-year-old boy. But the cat had been with Gwen for almost sixteen years, ever since she finished high school. She was one of the reasons Gwen hadn’t given in and gotten her son the puppy he craved.

Natasha wouldn’t appreciate being deserted for two weeks, but she’d be all right. Gwen’s mother might be deeply unhappy with her decision to go to Highpoint, but she’d never refuse to take care of the cat. She’d done it before. The two of them had an understanding. Natasha let Deirdre know what she wanted, and Deirdre gave it to her.

Gwen smiled as she settled in front of her monitor. The old cat was the one being other than Zach who pretty much always got what she wanted from Deirdre Van Allen.

Gwen turned on her computer. Distantly she could hear water splashing and Zach giggling. Natasha had turned herself into a purring lump again. The computer hummed.

But what she saw as she brought her fingers to the keyboard was the careful sterility of a doctor’s examining room. She remembered the chart opposite the examination table—why did doctors always put up those colorful drawings of people’s insides for their patients to brood over? The paper covering the exam table had crinkled every time she moved.

She’d shifted a lot.

Sitting at her desk with the cursor blinking imperatively at her, Gwen’s heart raced as it had that day. Her palms felt clammy.

Until the diagnosis, she hadn’t known fear. Not really. Now the two of them were intimate. Gwen inhaled slowly: I breathe in and my body is calmed; breathe out, and I smile.

According to the therapist who led her cancer support group, meditation kept you anchored in the moment, and anxiety was reduced or eliminated when you dealt only with the present moment. So far Gwen hadn’t had much success with it. Meditation required stillness, and that didn’t come naturally to her. She was working at it, though. Even the stodgiest western medical practitioners these days agreed that the mind affected the body.

After a moment, her heartbeat slowed.

Maybe I am getting better at it, she thought, pleased, and called up the land plat she was researching.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t the day she’d been diagnosed with cancer that had come back to her so vividly just now, but the day of her last checkup. When Dr. Webster had told her everything looked good. That was the day she’d broken down and bawled like a baby, her nose running and sobs choking her.

It was also the day she’d known she had to make some changes in her life. The day she’d decided to find her son’s father.

Maybe it wasn’t so odd, after all, that she would remember that day.

Gwen took another slow breath and started to work.

Chapter 4

“Are we there yet?”

Gwen rumpled the silky hair on her son’s head. “Has the plane landed yet?”

“No, but we’re almost there, aren’t we?”

“About thirty minutes still to go, champ.” Assuming the flight was on time. She prayed that it was. If Zach got wound up any tighter, he’d be bouncing off the walls.

“An’ my dad will be waiting for us when we get there, right?”

“He sure will. At the baggage claim.” That question had been asked at least as often as the traditional “How much longer?” Gwen bent and pulled a book from the tote that held a few small toys, some dried fruit and her laptop. “How about a round of Green Eggs and Ham to fill in the time?”

Gwen had read the Seuss story too many times for it to provide any distraction from her own thoughts, but she hoped it would work some of its usual magic on Zach. She began reading, with Zach chiming in loudly on the parts he knew.

A father, it turned out, was at least as exciting as a puppy.

Gwen had spoken with Ben briefly two days ago. He’d asked to speak to Zach—and Zach had been hanging by eagerly, waiting for his chance. Of course, as soon as the phone was in his hands, her ball-of-fire, never-met-a-stranger son had turned shy, barely able to breathe a yes or no to whatever Ben had asked him. He was always like that on the phone, she’d assured Ben. The rest of the time, his mouth worked just fine.

“‘Would you like them in a house?’” she read, thinking about last Christmas and wondering if the next one would be different. If she would have to share her son for part of the holidays. “‘Would you like them—’”

Zach tugged on her arm. “What does his house look like?”

“Well…like the picture here, I guess.”

“My dad’s house,” he said impatiently.

Of course. What other “he” was there these days? “It’s painted white and has a staircase and a big front porch. I think all the bedrooms are upstairs, so we’ll probably have a room on the second floor.”

“Will we be next to my dad’s room? Or my uncle’s?”

“You have three uncles now, remember? Your dad’s two brothers are your uncles, and his sister is your aunt, so his sister’s husband is your uncle, too. That makes three.” Ben’s sister and her husband were someplace in Africa at the moment, and the youngest brother was a long-haul truck driver who lived with Ben when he wasn’t on the road. And the other brother, the one she’d met, would be there at the house, though he didn’t usually live there. “Which uncle did you mean?”

“The army uncle,” Zach said. “I forgot his name.”

“Duncan,” she said, her mouth oddly dry. “He’s your uncle Duncan. I don’t know where our room will be, sweetie. We’ll just have to wait and find out.” She began reading again, hoping to stem the flood.

Zach had been brimming over with questions ever since she told him about his father—but they weren’t the ones she’d expected. And dreaded. He’d wanted to know what his dad looked like and if he liked little boys. How long would they stay there? Were there other kids to play with? Could he take his army guys with him? How big were the mountains? Could he climb one? Did his dad have a dog?

Puppies hadn’t been entirely eclipsed by the advent of a father.

Gwen didn’t fool herself that the other questions wouldn’t come up at some point. When she’d told him about his father, she’d tried to scale her explanations to a four-year-old’s understanding, saying simply that she hadn’t known how to get in touch with Ben when Zach was born, so his dad hadn’t known about him. “You didn’t have his phone number?” Zach had asked.

“No, I didn’t. I didn’t have his address, either, so I couldn’t write him.”

“So how come you found him now?”

“I hired a private investigator.”

Zach had been desperately impressed. A real private eye? Wow. He’d wanted to meet the man and maybe see his gun. Gwen had been glad the investigator and his gun, if any, were safely distant in Denver…and selfishly relieved she hadn’t had to face the other questions. Yet.

When they finished the book, Gwen judged it time to make a trip to the rest room or else Zach would undoubtedly need to go the moment they were instructed to stay in their seats. “C’mon, short stuff, time to take a walk down the aisle.”

Since Zach was fascinated by airplane washrooms, he didn’t object. No doubt he was tired of sitting still. So was she. Her mother often said she was as fidgety at thirty as she’d been at three. She wasn’t far wrong.

An older woman who reminded Gwen vaguely of Aunt Bee from The Andy Griffith Show was already waiting her turn. She fussed over Zach, insisting he go ahead of her—“it’s difficult for them to wait at this age, isn’t it, dear?”—and asked him if this was his first time on a plane.

“I been on lots of airplanes,” he informed her. “My mama an’ me like to fly. We don’t like airports very much ’cause they won’t let you run, even if there is lots and lots of room. But we like airplanes.”

She smiled at him indulgently. “Are you going on vacation, or is this a family trip?”

“We’re going to see my dad. He lives in the mountains in a big house with a porch, an’ he likes little boys. My mama said so.”

“Oh, ah…how nice.” She gave Gwen a quick glance, her eyebrows raised. “I assume he’s talking about a new stepfather?”

Zach answered before she could. “No, he’s my dad. A private eye found him for us.”

The woman’s rather protrudent eyes bulged further. Fortunately the rest-room door opened just then. Gwen breathed a sigh of relief and chivvied her talkative son inside. Zach was blithely unaware there was anything odd about meeting his father for the first time at the age of four. She didn’t want some stranger’s attitude casting clouds over this visit, making him worry about things he couldn’t understand.

Not that Gwen herself didn’t worry. How could she not? Between her mother’s furious disapproval and the expectations Zach had built up in the past eleven days, she had plenty to worry about.

Her nervous stomach clenched tighter as she helped Zach refasten the snap on his jeans. Heaven knows her own expectations had been knocked sideways when she’d seen her son’s father again—expectations she hadn’t known she’d had.

The plane was descending when they emerged, and she had the dickens of a time keeping Zach halfway still through the landing process. Finally, though, they were off the plane and headed for the lower level, where they could claim their four suitcases. And one father.

Over Zach’s protests, she scooped him up onto her hip before stepping on the escalator. She’d read a horrible story about children whose clothing got caught in the treads….

“Do you see him, Mama? Is he here? Do you see him yet?”

“Zach, you have to be still or I’m going to drop you.” The tote was trying to slip off her shoulder. She didn’t have a hand free to anchor it, and her heart was pounding, pounding…. “Ugh,” she said, shifting him slightly. “I must be feeding you too much. You weigh two tons.”

He giggled.

Gwen looked over the top of his head. Waiting at the bottom of the escalator were two men. Two, not one.

Her face felt hot. Ben had brought his brother to welcome his son to the family—and that was good, that was wonderful. She was here because Zach needed his family—all of it. But it wasn’t what she’d expected. Why do I keep expecting things? she thought fretfully. It doesn’t do any good. I just trip over those stupid expectations every time.

Ben’s gaze was fixed on the boy in her arms. As the moving stairway carried them to him, a smile spread over his hard, square face. The man who waited with him neither moved nor smiled. His expression was every bit as intent as Ben’s. But his gaze was on her, not her son.

Gwen’s mouth went dry. “Zach,” she whispered. “Zach, that’s your dad waiting for us at the bottom. The man in the blue windbreaker.”

He twisted around to stare. The little arm around her neck tightened. “There? The big one?”

“Yes.” She swallowed. “The big one.”

The escalator deposited them on level ground. She stepped aside to let those behind her get off, then cleared her throat. “Zach, this is your dad. And this is your uncle Duncan.”

“The army uncle.”

“That’s right.”

Zach’s choke hold on her tightened. The boy’s blue eyes met the man’s brown eyes—met and held in the same straight-on way. Two male faces focused completely on each other, one of them large and hard, the skin weathered and shadowed by beard; the other small, soft and rounded, but with the same stubborn jaw and short, blunt nose.

“You’re my dad,” Zach whispered.

“Yes.” Ben’s throat worked. “Yes, I am. I’m so glad to see you, Zach. So damned glad.”

Zach nodded solemnly. “I’m dam’ glad, too.”

Duncan made a choked noise. “Ah…been a while since you were around kids, hasn’t it, Ben?”

“Yeah.” Ben’s eyes never left his son’s face. “Your uncle Duncan means I wasn’t supposed to say ‘damn.’ You shouldn’t, either.”

“Okay.” Zach squirmed around so he could capture Gwen’s face in his two small hands. “Mom, put me down. Put me down now. I’ll show my dad our suitcases. I bet he can carry all of ’em. He’s really big.”

Slowly she lowered Zach to his feet, stricken by a pang of separation so acute it was a physical ache. She wanted to scoop him up and run away, but it was already too late. “Keep hold of your father’s hand, Zach. Don’t be running off.”

He held up a hand, his face turned up to Ben’s in sunny confidence. “C’mon. Mom packed hunnerds of things. I brought all my army guys. We’re gonna stay with you for two weeks!”

“So I hear.” A large hand reached down and swallowed the little one. Ben glanced at her. “I won’t let him get lost.”

She nodded. “I’m not sure which carousel is ours.”

“I’ll find it. I know your flight number.” He looked down at Zach, his expression soft and grave. “I don’t know if I can carry hundreds of things. I might need some help.”

Zach giggled as they set off. “It’s all in suitcases. Do you have a dog?”

Gwen smiled. And swallowed hard. Dammit, she was not going to cry.

“Ben’s good with kids,” the man still beside her said quietly. “And he’s already gone on this one.”

“Zach’s good with everyone.” She gave Duncan a smile—and looked quickly away. Damn, damn, damn…

“I take it your flight was uneventful?”

“Aside from reading Green Eggs and Ham twenty times, yes.” What was wrong with her? Couldn’t she get anything right? She tried to pull her thoughts together, watching as Ben and Zach stopped at the first of the baggage carousels.

Ben hunkered down, putting himself at Zach’s level. Zach was chattering away. His clear voice carried enough for her to catch a few words—something about his army guys. Then he pointed at a blue suitcase. Ben stood and heaved it off the conveyor belt.

They were so delighted with each other. She couldn’t do anything to mess that up.

The man beside her spoke quietly. “The two of them look right together, don’t they?”

“Yes. Yes, they do.” Her body was humming to itself, making her feel so alive. Making her feel, for the first time in so long, very much a woman.

Stupid, treacherous damned body—this wasn’t the first time it had betrayed her. “We’d better catch up with them,” she said. “My luggage isn’t blue.”

Chapter 5

“Hey, buddy, you paying attention? Gotta bid if you wanna stay in the game.” Pat grinned at Duncan. “You chickening out on me?”

Pat looked just as he always did, the red hair a few weeks past a trim, his fatigue shirt unbuttoned. His stubby little excuse for a nose was peeling as usual—Pat always said he could get a sunburn from standing under a hundred-watt lightbulb. He was sitting in the notch of the old oak out back, leaning against the trunk, holding a hand of cards.

Duncan was straddling the same wide limb, his legs dangling down on either side. He used to sit out here like this with his brother Charlie.

Part of Duncan knew this wasn’t right; Sgt. Patrick McConaughsey didn’t belong to the time of his life when he’d sat in this old oak. But it seemed rude to ask Pat why he was here in Highpoint when Duncan was so glad to see him. “Hey, Pat, it’s good to see you.”

“You gonna play cards or not? It’s jacks or better to open.”

Duncan glanced down. Sure enough, he was holding a hand of cards. All jacks. All red Jacks, in fact. Alarm trickled in. “Pat, there’s something wrong here. Something wrong with my hand.”

“Is it your hand or your eyes? Look again.”

There was something wrong with his eyes. He couldn’t seem to focus. No, maybe it was getting darker. He looked around, his alarm deepening. Everything was dark, murky. “There’s some weather moving in. We’d better get inside.”

“Duncan, we need you on the force.” That was Jeff, standing on the ground beneath the branch Duncan straddled. “We need you to kill for us. You’re good at it. Here’s your rifle.” He tossed it up.

“No!” But he caught the rifle one-handed—he couldn’t let it fall to the ground. It was loaded. He knew it was, and even as he protested, his hands were checking it out, making sure everything worked. “You don’t understand. I can’t do this anymore.”

“Duncan, you playing cards or not?” Pat demanded.

Horror bit, clear and sharp through the darkening air. He remembered. “Pat, you’re—”

Gunfire. They were under attack. They—

“It’s a backfire,” Jeff said. “Just a bunch of kids. Nothing to worry about.”

“Duncan,” Pat said again, but his voice was wrong. All wrong, breathy and liquid. Duncan knew what he’d see when he turned his head, but he couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t stop any of it.

Pat leaned against the trunk of the tree, his legs straddling it as before. But he wasn’t grinning. He didn’t have enough face left to grin. In the middle of the dripping, meaty mess that used to be his face, the blood bubbled.

He was still breathing.

“No!” Duncan screamed and he grabbed Pat’s shirt and shook him. “No, no, no—damn you, don’t keep doing this, coming back and dying on me. Damn you!” he said again and shook him over and over, and his friend’s blood spattered everywhere, on his face, his chest, his hands—

Knocking. Someone was knocking on…on his door?

Duncan sat bolt upright in bed. Daylight slanted through the blinds to fall in bright bars on the blue bedspread covering him. He shoved his hair out of his face. His hand shook, but it wasn’t bloody.

God, he was sick of that dream.

Rap. Rap. Rap. Out in the hall, but not on his door, someone was knocking. A little boy said impatiently, “Aren’t you ready yet?”

Zach. Duncan recognized the voice, but hung still between horror and waking. What did Zach want him to be ready for?

“Mo-om!” the boy’s voice rang out.

The bathroom door opened. “Shh,” Gwen said in a low voice. “Keep it quiet, okay? I think your uncle Duncan is still asleep.”

Oh. Right. The boy wanted his mother, not his uncle. Of course. Duncan had a sharp sense of dislocation as he swung between the horror of his dream and the cheerful, everyday sounds outside his door.

He threw back the covers, climbed out of bed and crossed to the window, lifting one of the slats of the blinds so he could look out. Mrs. Bradshaw, the neighbor who used to baby-sit for his mother back in another world, was digging in her flower bed.

His unconscious mind wasn’t exactly subtle. Over and over it hammered home the same points. The script changed slightly—this had been Jeff’s first time to make an appearance, for example—but the essence was the same every time. At the start of the dream, Pat was alive and well and wanted to play poker. At the end he was a bloody wreck…and still horribly alive.

Zach’s whisper was every bit as audible as his normal voice. “I’m hungry, Mom.”

He heard Gwen say something, her voice still low. A giggle from Zach. Then the thud of little feet, fading as they headed down the stairs.

This was supposed to be reality, wasn’t it? Crisp, sunny spring mornings. Neighbors weeding their flower beds. Little boys who were hungry for breakfast, mothers who tried to keep them quiet. It was all so blasted normal.

It was a reality he didn’t fit into anymore.

Get a clue, he told his unconscious. Pat was dead. One hundred percent dead, not breathing in bubbles through his ruined face.

The ruined face had been all too real, though. Duncan scrubbed his hand over his own face. So had the blood.

He turned away from the sunshine and grabbed his sweatpants. She’d headed downstairs with her kid, which meant the bathroom was empty. He wanted a shower, hot as he could stand it and as soon as he could get it.

The bathroom smelled of woman stuff. There was a tidy little makeup case by the sink and a plastic cup holding a yellow, adult sized toothbrush and a smaller red one. The yellow one was damp. The shower stall was wet and smelled like flowers.

One good thing, he thought as he scrubbed skin that didn’t show the bloodstains from his dreams. At least he’d gotten over his weird initial reaction to her. He’d discovered that when he’d gone with Ben to pick up her and her son at the airport. Not that he’d stopped reacting, but that spooky whatever it was he’d experienced the first time he’d seen her had faded to normal lust. He could handle that.

He lathered his face, then reached for the razor he kept on the small shelf. There was another razor beside it. A pink one.

Had she noticed his razor when she showered earlier?

Oh, no, he told himself. Don’t go there. But it was too late. The instant mental picture of her, wet and naked, annoyed him as much as it aroused him. He held the skin of his cheek taut with one hand and started shaving. She needed to be sharing a bathroom with Ben, not him. But Ben’s bathroom opened off the master bedroom. Chances were, she’d start using it once Ben talked her into his bed again.

Ouch. Damn. He’d cut himself.

Ben had better start paying more attention to her than he had last night. First he’d insisted Duncan go to the airport with him. Then he’d barely spoken to her, either on the ride back to Highpoint or once they arrived. That was no way to impress the woman. Duncan had suggested that he go out for a while, leave the three of them alone, but Ben had been unusually nervous—about seeing Gwen again? Duncan wondered, frowning. No. Nervous about getting to know his son.

Well, what of it? He snapped off the water. Of course Ben was focused on Zach. That was the way it should be.

It did seem that if he’d been half as interested in Zach’s mother five years ago, he would have known about his son all along.

But that didn’t make any difference. Gwen wasn’t free, not in any way that counted. Maybe he didn’t see her as a sister-in-law yet. That, he thought grimly as he dried off, was going to take time. But once she was sleeping with his brother again, his body would get used to the idea that she wasn’t available.

Right now, all he had to do was go downstairs and act normal. He grimaced as he opened the bathroom door. That shouldn’t be too hard. He’d been acting normal for a month now.

The mingled smells of coffee and bacon drew him to the kitchen. He paused in the doorway.

Ben stood at the stove, pouring batter into neat circles onto the griddle. Zach sat at the table, elevated on one of the couch pillows. He had a milk mustache, a piece of bacon in his hand and a plate empty of everything but syrup. His mother sat beside him with her back to Duncan. She wore a sweater the color of raspberries. In the bright sunshine, her pale hair was almost incandescent.

They looked like a family.

“Hi, Unca Duncan! My dad made us fatjacks for breakfast!”

A smile eased onto his face. “Fatjacks huh? Is that sort of like flapjacks and do I get any?”

Ben spoke from the stove. “I’m putting yours on now. You’ll have to flip them yourself—I’ve got to get out to the site.”

Gwen pushed her chair back. “Come on, Zach, let’s wash a few layers of syrup off your hands and get you dressed.”

“No need for you to rush just because my day starts early,” Ben said.

“I need to rent a car, remember?” She flashed Ben a quick, polite smile on her way to the sink, where she yanked off a paper towel and dampened it. “I was hoping you could drop me at a rental place on your way in. Hold out your hands, Zach.”

Ben’s jaw set in a way Duncan knew all too well. “You don’t need to rent a car. I told you that. I’ve got my work truck, so you can use the Chevy. It’s old, but I keep it in good shape.”

“Thank you, but I’d rather rent a car. I explained that when I agreed to come here.”

“If an old Chevy isn’t good enough for you, you can use Duncan’s Mustang.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “How kind of you to offer me the use of your brother’s car. As I said, however, I prefer to make my own arrangements.”

Oh, but she did that well, Duncan thought, a grin tugging at his mouth. Princess to peon, with more than a whiff of mad for flavor.

“Why spend the money on a rental when you don’t have to?” Ben demanded.

She finished wiping her son’s hands and gave him a pat on the bottom. “Upstairs, short stuff. I laid your clothes out on the bed.”

Zach protested, glancing uncertainly between his mother and Ben. Kids always picked up on it when there was anger in the air, Duncan thought. And these two fairly simmered with old anger.

People didn’t carry anger around this long unless other strong feelings were involved. He made himself face that. While Gwen was busy with Zach, he crossed the room, took the spatula from Ben and said under his breath, “Try to remember you’re not her big brother.”

Ben shot him an annoyed glance. “I’m real aware of that.”

“Then stop grabbing the reins. She’s an adult. She doesn’t need you to steer for her.” Gwen didn’t really know either of them, yet she was living in their house. Of course she wanted to have her own car, rather than depend on them.

Zach ran out of excuses and left to get dressed. She carried his plate to the sink, every stiff inch of her announcing her displeasure. “I would rather we didn’t argue in front of him.”

“Okay, you’re right about that,” Ben admitted. “Look, can we settle this later? I need to get out to the site if I’m going to have any chance of finishing up early enough to take Zach to the movies the way we planned.”

“If you’re in a hurry,” Duncan said mildly, “I can drop Gwen off at the rental place on my way to the shooting range.”

Ben scowled. “All right, all right. Do it your way. I should be back by noon.”

The door didn’t quite slam behind him, but it came close.

“Well.” Gwen slid the plate into the dishwasher. “Thanks for offering me a ride. We’ll be ready whenever you are.”

“His bark is worse than his bite, you know.” Duncan flipped his pancakes. They were a little singed.

“No doubt. I’m not crazy about being barked at, though.” She grabbed another paper towel and began wiping off the table.

He sliced a chunk of butter into a small bowl and stuck it in the microwave. “Ben can be bossy, but he’s not a tyrant. Just stubborn.”

“Maybe so. But I’m not one of his employees.”

There it was again—that princess lilt to her voice. He shook his head, wondering why that cool, snooty tone appealed to him so much. “Oh, Ben picked up the habit of being in charge long before he had any employees to boss around. He’s been running the family—or trying to—ever since our folks died. God knows what would have happened if he hadn’t taken charge of the lot of us then.”

She paused, a little V between her eyebrows, the crumpled paper towel in her suddenly motionless hand. “I didn’t know. I mean, I knew his parents were dead. That was in the PI’s report.”

He stared. “You had Ben investigated by a PI?”

“I needed a PI to find him.” She jerked one shoulder in a quick shrug. “I thought I might as well find out if he’d gotten married or something in the past five years. Since I was planning to introduce him to his son.”

“I see.” He took the melted butter out of the microwave and drizzled it over his pancakes.

“You’re either remarkably tactful or lacking in curiosity.”

The amusement in her voice made him look at her, really look at her. Mistake, he thought as his groin tightened. Down, boy. But there was such self-deprecating humor in her eyes that he couldn’t help smiling back. “Oh, I’m curious, but devious about it. I was the middle child until my little sister was born. Middle children learn to be tricky.”

“Do they?” When she relaxed into her smile like that, she reminded him of her son—no trace of the princess now, just warm, sunny woman. “I wouldn’t know, being an only child. We don’t bother to be devious since the world revolves around us.”

He chuckled and carried his pancakes to the table. “I can’t remember the last time Ben made pancakes for breakfast. Thanks for inspiring him.”

“Zach’s the inspiration.” She threw herself back into motion, heading across the kitchen. “Which is wonderful, just what I’d hoped for. Being Zach’s father is obviously important to Ben.” She opened the door. “Where’s the trash?”

“Under the sink. You don’t stand still much, do you?”

“Not willingly.” She hurried back across the room to toss the paper towel in the trash. “I guess that’s all the damage I can do here without snatching your plate away. Most people get testy if I do that before they finish eating.”

“Something of a neatnik, are you?”

“It’s one of my more annoying flaws. I’d better see what’s keeping Zach.”

“He’s okay. We haven’t heard any loud crashes.” Duncan took a sip of coffee. “I was fifteen when my folks were killed. Ben was twenty-one. He dropped out of college, talked the construction company where he’d been working in the summers to take him on full-time and persuaded the court he was a fit guardian for the lot of us.” Duncan put down his mug. “You didn’t ask, but I thought you ought to know. He comes by his managing ways honestly.”

She tipped her head to one side. “I always wanted a brother or sister—someone who could do for me what you just did for Ben. Someone with all that shared history. I never intended for Zach to be an only child, too.”

“Does he have to be?”

“I don’t know.” She had a look on her face that made him think she wanted to clean something, and quick. Her glance fell on his mug, which was half-empty. She grabbed it and carried it to the coffeepot, which put her back to him. “I’m not sure what you know. What has Ben told you about my health?”

Ah. Easier to talk about some things when you weren’t eye to eye. “He said you were diagnosed with breast cancer a year and a half ago. The lump was small and they think they got it all. You had radiation before the surgery, and you’re on some kind of hormonal treatment.”

“Tamoxifen. I’ll take it for another three years. It suppresses estrogen production. They think high estrogen levels are linked to the type of cancer I had.”

Duncan’s grasp of female biology tended to be more hands-on than scientific, but he thought he saw where she was headed. “Would pregnancy affect your hormone levels?”

“Yes. They don’t know how much of a danger that is, though.” She turned around, his mug steaming gently in one hand. “You have no idea what a relief it is to talk to someone who can say ‘cancer’ right out loud without stammering.”

“Ben’s not usually one to tiptoe around a subject.”

“A lot of people are uncomfortable talking about it, though. My mother avoids the word as if it referred to a social disease.” The quick flash of her grin suggested this was a harmless oddity, nothing that troubled her.

“She’s afraid for you.”

“Yes. Yes, she is. And now I really need to check on Zach. If you think the only kinds of trouble he can get into are noisy—well, obviously it’s been a while since you were four.”

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