“All right, Max. You’d better tell me all about it.” Kelly drew back, eyes grave

Despite the warm sun, a chill raised bumps on Max’s forearms. How could she know? He’d stashed the letter deep in the bottom drawer of his office filing cabinet. “What do you mean?”

“You’re hiding something,” Kelly stated. “You’ve been acting weird all weekend, guilty and secretive—when you weren’t giving me a tumble, that is.” She crossed her arms. “Spill it.”

At first Kelly thought he would evade this demand for explanations, too. Then before her eyes, Max seemed to shrink from her and turn inward. Her heart sank. Whatever he was hiding must be really bad. He was having an affair. He wanted a divorce. He—

“I have a son.”

She stared. She’d heard him speak, but the words had no meaning. “What did you say?”

“I have a son,” he repeated.

“That’s impossible. Unless,” she added with a short, humorless laugh, “one of the twins had a sex change.”

“Kelly.”

“But it’s impossible, Max,” she repeated. “We were married right out of high school. How could you have a child I don’t know about….”

Dear Reader,

Most romance novels stop at the altar; I’ve often thought this is where the story of a couple really begins. Some couples, like Kelly and Max Walker, are meant to be together. But even the happiest of families may have secrets that rock the very foundation of a solid marriage.

On her thirteenth wedding anniversary Kelly learns that Max had a son by a liaison previously unknown to her, and their past becomes a lie. When Max, who longs for more children, discovers Kelly is pregnant and contemplating abortion, their future is in jeopardy.

Max wants a son. Kelly wants a life. For a marriage to survive it requires not just love but a willingness to accommodate the needs of a partner who may have different life goals. Is the love that brought Kelly and Max together as teenagers strong enough to transcend their problems and nurture them through their evolving relationship?

Child of Their Vows is my third book about the Hanson sisters of Hainesville, Washington. Child of His Heart featured Kelly’s elder sister, Erin, and Child of Her Dreams was about her younger sister, Geena. Finally it’s Kelly’s turn to have her story told. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about Kelly’s, Erin’s and Geena’s special relationship with one another, and the men they love, as much as I’ve enjoyed writing about them. I’m going to miss being part of their world!

I love to hear from readers. Please write me at P.O. Box 234, Point Roberts, Washington 98281-0234, or visit me at www.superauthors.com.

Joan Kilby

Child of Their Vows
Joan Kilby

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Child of Their Vows

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

“YOU WON’T BE LATE TONIGHT, I hope.” Max followed Kelly to the front door as she prepared to leave for work.

That today was their thirteenth wedding anniversary seemed to have slipped his wife’s ever-practical mind. He, on the other hand, had made romantic plans—a weekend for two at the Salish Lodge, at Snoqualmie Falls, east of Seattle.

“No, I promise,” Kelly said absently, slipping her feet into pumps while consulting her “to do” list. “Let’s see…dry cleaning, water bill— Oh, this morning I’m showing someone around the Harper house,” she interrupted herself to inform Max. “If I make a sale I’ll pick up some champagne.” She took a pen from the side pocket of her purse and wrote that in with a question mark beside it.

Max leaned forward to breathe in the scent of lavender and vanilla emanating from Kelly’s glossy brown shoulder-length hair. He already had a bottle of bubbly chilling in the back of the fridge.

Her gaze still moving over her list, Kelly stood on tiptoes and angled her cheek for a peck from Max. He was aiming for her lips when she burst out, “Omigosh! The laundry,” and slipped out of his arms to reverse her steps down the hall.

“I’ll do that,” Max said, irritation puncturing his buoyant mood. He strode after her to stand in the doorway of the laundry room while she sorted whites from colors at whirlwind speed. “Or we could do something really radical and hire a cleaning lady.”

“And pay someone for work I can do perfectly well myself? I don’t think so.” Kelly stuffed the dirty clothes into the washing machine, added detergent and spun the dial. “I promised you when I started working that the housework wouldn’t suffer. Besides, I overheard you tell a client you’d have his house design ready this afternoon.”

“The girls are waiting in the car for you to take them to school,” he reminded her. Kelly’s morning route included dropping the twins, Tammy and Tina, at play school, before driving Robyn and Beth over to the elementary school.

“I’m on my way.” She edged around him in preparation for the dash to her station wagon.

“Before you enter warp speed…” Max grabbed hold of her shoulders and halted her long enough to plant a kiss on her mouth. “Happy anniversary, Mrs. Walker.”

“Anniversary!” Her fingers flew to a mouth rounded in astonishment. “Is it really May 8?”

Max nodded wryly. “All day.”

Her arms went around his neck for a quick hug. “Happy anniversary, sweetheart. Why don’t we order pizza for the kids tonight and you and I go out to a restaurant.”

“Sure you can spare the time?” Max said, pokerfaced. Little did Kelly know they would be eating their anniversary dinner in the hotel where they’d spent their honeymoon.

Taking no notice of his sarcasm, she whipped out her list and busily wrote another memo to herself. “Call Nancy to baby-sit.”

“I’ve already talked to Nancy. Now, go, before you make the kids late again.”

Once she’d left, Max headed for the kitchen and another cup of coffee. He tried to keep a sense of humor about Kelly’s attempts to be supermom, and career woman, but the long hours she spent at the real estate office took a toll on their family life and had become a constant source of conflict. His patience regarding her promises to slow down were fast running out.

“This weekend better work a little magic on our marriage,” he told Billy, a golden retriever, and Flora, a young black Labrador, who dogged his footsteps ever hopeful of treats. “Because if Kelly and I don’t get some loving back in our relationship, we could end up in divorce court instead of having another baby.”

Billy thumped his feathery tail in sympathy, while Flora did her best to make Max feel better by licking his bare toes. Then they scoured the terra-cotta tiles for fallen crumbs missed on earlier forays.

Coffee in hand, Max repaired to his home office. Billy and Flora flopped at his feet beneath the computer and promptly fell asleep as Max went to work on his latest architectural commission; a luxury home on Whidbey Island, near Seattle. Early in his career, Max had drafted plans for everything from garden sheds to business offices, but his real love was innovative home design. He had a small but growing clientele, and if his entry in the prestigious Stonington Award was to win, his career could take a sharp upward turn.

Max didn’t glance up from his computer until he heard the familiar rumble of the mailman’s truck. Then he rose, stretched and walked down the long gravel driveway to the mailbox, its upright red flag visible between the two big cedar trees that guarded the front of the one-acre property.

As he strolled back to the house, sorting through the bills and flyers, he came upon a letter addressed to him in unfamiliar handwriting. Slowing his pace, he turned over the envelope and saw that the return address was Jackson, Wyoming.

Fourteen years ago he’d spent the summer after high school working on a dude ranch near Jackson. He hadn’t thought of the ranch in years, or of Lanni, the vivacious redhead who, with him, had had a job leading trail rides. They’d had a hot fling. The summer had ended. He and Lanni had parted, and he’d returned to Hainesville to marry Kelly, the only woman he’d ever loved.

His hands trembling slightly, Max inserted a finger beneath the flap and ripped open the envelope. Inside was a wallet-size photograph of a young teenage boy and a single page written in a small, very neat hand.

Dear Mr. Walker, My name is Randall and I’m your son.

Cold shock stopped Max in his tracks. Surely this couldn’t be happening…. And yet, at some deep level, he’d been waiting thirteen years for this letter.

Maybe you won’t want to hear from me, but I had to write. My adoptive parents know I’m contacting you. I have a good home with them and I don’t want to intrude on your life—I’d just like to know my biological father. I hope you understand. And I hope you’ll want to meet me, too….

Max lifted his face and gazed blindly into the bright blue sky. He had a son.

Like Max, Lanni had only been eighteen. When she’d gotten pregnant her parents had been adamant there would be no marriage or keeping the baby. Nor had he wanted to marry her. He’d wanted Kelly.

His and Lanni’s baby had been given away at birth; no one had ever told him the baby’s gender. Afterward they’d agreed there was no point in keeping in touch. All these years, he’d put the child’s existence out of his mind because it hurt too much to think of a son or daughter of his growing up somewhere, without him.

Kelly. He’d never told her about Lanni or the baby he’d fathered. To his shame, he’d always considered it a stroke of undeserved good fortune that she’d never found out.

Despite a breeze, perspiration dampened his hairline. If he wanted to meet Randall he would have to tell her now. But how? And how would she react? With their ongoing marital problems, could they survive the sudden appearance of his child by another woman? He and Kelly had been going together for two years before that summer. He’d already asked her to marry him.

Maybe he shouldn’t say anything to her about the boy. Maybe he should throw away the letter without replying, hang on to what he had….

Max turned to the photograph. Randall had straight red hair, severely cut and neatly combed, a smattering of freckles and a solemn smile. Gazing out from behind the chunky frames of his glasses were Max’s sky-blue eyes.

So this was his son.

Max loved his daughters with a ferocity and depth that constantly surprised him, and he would cut off both arms rather than hurt them, but…

In the deepest corner of his heart, in a place not even Kelly knew about, he’d always wanted a son. A boy to take fishing and shoot hoops with. A male compadre in a house full of females. A son who would carry on the Walker family name. Was he wrong to want all that? Max didn’t think so.

“I’M HOME!” KELLY KICKED OFF her shoes and dumped her purse on the hall table. From the family room at the back of the house she could hear the muffled sound of canned laughter on TV.

She poked her head into Max’s office; he wasn’t there. Architectural drawings were spread across his drafting table, the goosenecked lamp had been left on and his chair pushed back, as though he’d just stepped out for a moment.

Walking around Tammy’s—or was it Tina’s?— Barbie dollhouse, Kelly continued on to the family room, drawn by the smell of chili con carne—Max’s specialty. She hoped this didn’t mean they weren’t going out. Max was probably angry, because in spite of her promise, she was late. She swore that this weekend she would make it up to him.

The family room curtains were open, and visible through floor-to-ceiling windows were the twilit river and the forest beyond, and, of course, the extensive flower beds that ringed the lawn. Two pink-sock-clad feet dangled over the side arm of the couch—Beth, glued to her favorite TV show.

Max, his wheat-blond hair gleaming beneath halogen down lights, stood in the kitchen, dicing green peppers on a chopping board. An enormous bouquet of red roses arranged in a vase on the black granite benchtop sent out a faint sweet fragrance.

Max’s shoulders had that tight look they got when he was wrestling with a difficult design problem. She hoped he’d been able to finish the drawings for his client’s house so he could celebrate their anniversary. God knows, they both needed to set work and responsibilities aside and pay attention to each other for a change.

She dropped her keys on the sideboard and crossed the room to him. “Hi, Max. How was your day?”

“Kelly! I didn’t hear you come in.”

His upward glance of swiftly concealed guilt startled her. She was the one who ought to feel badly. She’d promised she wouldn’t be late tonight, and here he was making dinner—that was her job—instead of working on whatever problem he’d left on his drafting table.

“Sorry I’m late.” She circled one arm around his waist and reached up to remove the forgotten pencil tucked behind his ear. “Did you get your design finished?”

He shook his head and moved away to scrape the green pepper into the pot of chili simmering on the stove. “I called the client and told him it won’t be ready until next week.”

“I’m really sorry. Thanks for picking up the kids.” Damn. She always seemed to be apologizing on account of her job. With a sigh, she buried her nose in the roses. “These are gorgeous. Dare I hope they’re for me?”

“Of course they’re for you.”

“You sweetheart. You know what I like.”

“I know you’re crazy about flowers.” He put down the chopping board and pulled her into his arms. Kissed her mouth, then kissed her all over her face. “I love you, Kelly.”

“Max! Your hands are wet,” she protested, laughing, and slipped out of his embrace. He wasn’t usually so passionate at this time of day. And his not being annoyed with her was strange. She gestured to the chili pot. “We were going to order pizza for the kids.”

“I thought cooking might clear my head.”

“The house design giving you trouble?” She felt both sympathetic and guilty. In the old days, she would have been available for him to bounce ideas off of. Since she’d started working, she had become a source of problems for him instead of solutions.

Max turned away to stir the simmering pot with the wooden spoon he was holding. A tumbler of cola and ice sat on the benchtop beside the stove. “I haven’t been able to concentrate on it this afternoon. How did you do with the Harper house?”

Kelly scowled at the surge of frustration his question brought on. “Ray gave me such a hard time afterward. You’d think I was trying to ruin his business.”

“What happened?”

She shrugged. “Nothing so terrible. I simply pointed out to prospective buyers what you’ve shown me—evidence of a leaky roof and signs of termites. They decided to pass. And frankly, I’m glad. They’re a sweet old couple and they don’t want problems like that at their age. That house would suit younger folk who appreciate a bargain and are prepared to do a little work.”

Max shook his head. “No wonder Ray was pissed at you. Isn’t he aware of the Realtors’ Code of Ethics?”

“He can cite chapter and verse. He’s not a pest control expert, so how would he know there are termites? Nor is he a builder. Therefore he can’t advise anyone about the roof, as it’s out of his area of expertise. I told him, ‘How can I sell houses I know have problems and not say anything? If those people moved in they would practically be my neighbors.’”

“Did you ever stop to think maybe you’re in the wrong business?” Max asked mildly.

Kelly heard an old rebuke. “Don’t say it.”

“What?”

“What you’re thinking—that I should quit my job.” She picked up his glass to take a sip and discovered bourbon mixed with the Coke. Strange. Max wasn’t a drinker; the bourbon usually only came out when they had company. “Is something wrong, Max?”

An odd flicker of alarm crossed his face as he took the glass from her hand and drained it. “Nothing’s wrong.”

Kelly felt his forehead with the back of her hand. “Are you sure? You don’t seem yourself tonight.”

“Yeah, sure,” he muttered. “I’m fine.”

Kelly searched his averted profile a moment more, then shrugged, took up a spoon and tasted the chili. “Needs salt.”

Max batted her hand away. “I’m doing the cooking.”

Robyn, their eldest daughter at twelve years of age, hurried into the room. She was dressed in her leotard, toe shoes dangling from her hand and her dark hair tied back in a knot. “Da-a-ad, I’m going to be late for ballet,” she wailed, then stopped when she saw Kelly. “Where’ve you been?”

“Working. And don’t use that tone with me. If you’re ready to go, I’ll take you. Have you had dinner?”

“No.” Robyn found her running shoes in the pile of footwear by the back door and sat on a straight-back chair to lace them up.

“Max!” Kelly said. “You could at least have made sure she’d eaten.”

Max’s expression turned cold, causing Kelly’s stomach to sink. Tonight, of all nights, she wished she hadn’t sniped at him. These days, one wrong word, one reproach or testy comment from either side, was all it took to set them off.

“Robyn’s old enough to get herself something to eat,” Max informed her. “And I’ve got other things to do besides fix dinner and chauffeur the kids around.”

“You didn’t have to make dinner tonight.”

“If you weren’t so wrapped up in yourself these days, Kelly, you’d know I’m behind on all my projects, not just the Whidbey Island house. And the reason I’m behind is that I’ve had to pick up the slack for you.”

If anything upset her it was the suggestion that she wasn’t meeting her responsibilities. “Maybe you’re taking on too much work. For thirteen years I’ve been a devoted wife and mother. Now that the twins don’t need me as much, don’t I deserve a career of my own?”

“I might not mind if I thought you enjoyed your job, but all you do is complain about Ray and then give in to his every demand on your time. What about me and the kids…when do you make time for us?”

“I do enjoy my job—”

“Stop it!” Robyn shrieked, and stomped over to the fridge. “I don’t want dinner. I’ll eat an apple on the way.”

The volume on the TV had steadily climbed to compensate for their raised voices. Now Max yelled, “Beth! Turn that TV down.”

Beth, her light brown hair tousled, peered over the back of the couch, anxiously scanning her parents. The volume dropped abruptly.

Max picked up a spice jar and with jerking movements shook half the bottle of chili powder into the pot.

“Oh, great!” Kelly said, throwing up her hands. “Now the twins won’t eat it.”

“What won’t we eat?” Tina said, running into the room, with Tammy close on her heels, their identical blond curls bouncing midway down their backs. Billy and Flora swirled around their legs. The pre-schoolers stopped short at the sight of Max’s scowling face and, with identical wide blue eyes, glanced uneasily at their mother.

“Hi, girls. Did you have a good day?” Kelly stooped to gather her little ones into her arms, eager to maintain a semblance of peace for the children’s sake. How quickly these angry exchanges between her and Max could flare up scared her.

“We made finger puppets in play school,” Tina said, holding up a cardboard cylinder decorated with colored pieces of felt. “I’m Tweedledee.”

“And I’m Tweedledum.” Tammy waggled her puppet close to Kelly’s face.

“Lovely. You can put on a play for us after dinner.”

The twins squirmed out of her arms and ran off to crouch beneath the breakfast bar so they could dance their puppets above the edge for their father’s benefit. The dogs trotted off to the kitchen, sniffing the floor for fallen scraps.

Kelly swallowed past the lump in her throat and walked over to the family room to flick on a floor lamp, then drew the blinds against the encroaching darkness. “Hi, Beth. How did your spelling test go?”

“I got forty-eight out of fifty,” said the ten-year old without taking her eyes off the preteen adventure show playing out on the TV.

“That’s wonderful, honey. Aren’t you glad we went over your list of words that one last time?”

“Mom, I’m ready,” Robyn called. “Can we leave?”

Kelly was following her daughter out the front door, when Max appeared in the hallway. “Are you coming back?”

She stared at him. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“You might stop off at the office, for all I know.”

“Well, I’m not going to.” She reached for his hand. “Max, please. Let’s not fight.”

He squeezed her hand, then dropped it, suddenly looking very tired. “The last thing I want is to fight.”

Kelly drove Robyn to ballet in silence, her mind circling around her argument with Max. Ever since she’d started working, their relationship had been rocky. So what if she refused to give up her job or hire a housekeeper? She was coping. If he was fair he’d admit that not only her job caused problems. His business was expanding and the demands of work and family often overwhelmed them both.

Robyn’s worried voice broke into her thoughts. “Are you and Daddy going to get divorced?”

Kelly’s hands jerked on the wheel, making the car swerve across the center line. “Where did you get that idea?”

“You’re always fighting.” Robyn’s face looked pale in the dim light between street lamps. “Janie’s mother and father were like that before they split up.”

“Yes, but…” Kelly sputtered, still taken aback that Robyn had even brought the subject up. “That’s them. Your father and I…we’re different.”

“How?”

“We love each other.”

“Do you?”

Kelly stared straight ahead. Did they still love each other? Or was it a fiction they were desperately trying to maintain? They’d been high-school sweethearts; if they met today for the first time, would they have anything in common?

“Yes,” she said firmly, to convince herself as much as her daughter. “We love each other. And we’re not getting divorced.”

She pulled to a halt in front of the ballet school and turned to touch Robyn’s cheek. “Your father and I have some problems, but they’re work related. There’s nothing big enough or bad enough to stop us from being a family. Don’t worry, honey. Okay? I’ll see you in an hour.”

Robyn shook her head. “Janie’s mom’s picking us up and I’m staying overnight. Dad said it was okay.”

“All right, then. See you tomorrow.”

When she got home, the TV was off and Max was reading to the twins from their favorite Richard Scarry book. Beth was probably in her room, playing her Game Boy. Kelly glanced at the uncleared dining table and the two bowls of uneaten chili con carne and shook her head.

Were she and Max still going out? She wasn’t even sure she wanted to any longer. Tension had tied her stomach in knots and ruined her appetite.

“I’m going out to the plant room,” she said to no one in particular. Time spent with her dried flowers always soothed her nerves.

The plant room was an addition to the already sprawling outbuilding Max had built in the northeast corner of the property. The main shed housed the gardening equipment and barbecue. To that, Max had added a chicken coop with nesting space for three chickens, and finally a long narrow section in which Kelly dried flowers and worked on her floral arrangements.

She pushed through the door, comforted by its familiar creak, and was enveloped by the mingled scents of drying flowers. French lavender, roses, Sweet Annie, strawflowers, yarrow, baby’s breath, blue larkspur, Marguerite daisies and more, hung in bunches from overhead wires strung the length of the room.

She’d settled onto a high stool at the bench and was working on an arrangement of barley, oats and red rosebuds to the comfortable sound of hens clucking as they roosted for the night, when she heard a knock. The door opened and Max came in. Kelly’s hands stilled on pale gold stalks, as she tensed for another argument.

His outstretched hand held a glass of wine. “I thought maybe you could use this.”

“Thanks.” She softened; this was his way of apologizing. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

Max came closer, cupped her face in his hands and kissed her until her knees felt as soft and warm as soap melting in hot water. Kelly’s spirits lifted. They hadn’t made love in weeks. Or was it months? She’d lost track as their sex life had gone from fireworks to fizzle, but this weekend could still turn out to be special.

“Your anniversary present is in my briefcase,” she told him when at last he drew back. “I’ll go get it.”

“Stay here,” Max said. “I’ll do it.”

He returned a few minutes later, bearing a square yellow envelope inscribed with his name. Anxiously, Kelly watched him open it. He was always saying she should be less practical and more romantic, but was this going too far? She hadn’t had a lot of time to consider the matter.

Max pulled out the card and a gift voucher fell out. His first reaction, quickly covered, was one of dismay. “Latin-dance lessons?”

“Okay, so it’s really for both of us. But it’ll be fun, I promise you. And it’s something we can do together.” She smiled slyly. “Tango, the salsa, the lambada… Latin dancing is very sexy.”

“Sexy? Maybe we could use a little…ahem, exercise. Thanks, Kel.” He tucked the card back in the envelope. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait awhile for your present.”

In other words, he hadn’t gotten around to buying her anything. Kelly hid her disappointment. He’d given her those beautiful roses, after all. “That’s okay.”

He kissed her again. “Are you going to be long? Nancy’s here.”

“I’ll be right out. Where shall we go for dinner?”

Casually he brushed a finger over the silky fringe of an oat head. “I hope you’re not too hungry….”

“I’m starving. Don’t tell me you ate with the kids.”

“No, no. But maybe you’d better have a snack before we go. It’ll take a couple of hours to get to the restaurant.”

“A couple of hours? Where are you taking me?”

A grin widened his angular jaw, his first full-on smile of the evening. “I made reservations for the Salish Lodge at Snoqualmie Falls. We drive up tonight for the weekend. Kind of like a second honeymoon. That’s my present to you. To us.”

“Oh, Max! That is fantastic.” She rose and threw her arms around his neck. “I love you!”

Max lifted Kelly right off the ground and held her tightly against him. “Don’t ever stop loving me, Kel,” he whispered against her neck. “I couldn’t bear it.”

CHAPTER TWO

MAX OFTEN SURPRISED HER with a romantic gesture, but a weekend at the Salish Lodge was positively inspired. The roaring wood fire with its scent of burning pine, the warmth and elegance of the rustic furniture, and the hot tub for two…all promised a weekend of cozy intimacy.

Kelly accepted the crystal flute Max handed her. “Heavenly. But can we afford Dom Pérignon?”

“Sometimes you just have to say to hell with the cost, Kel.” He shifted closer to her on the love seat and held her gaze. “To us. Whoever said thirteen was an unlucky number was wrong.”

Clinking glasses, Kelly repeated, “To us. And to another thirteen years.” Thirteen had better not be unlucky; they needed all the help they could get.

Max sipped his champagne and set the glass on the coffee table. “Did I tell you I sent off my entry for the Stonington Award today?”

“Really? Which house? What category?”

“The split level in Falkner’s Cove. Luxury domicile. If I win—heck, even if I get nominated—my career should take off. I’d finally be able to keep you in the style to which you’d like to become accustomed.”

“I always knew you’d make it.”

“With a boost to our income, we could hire a cleaner,” Max said. “Stop you from spreading yourself too thin.”

“I can manage. I always have.” Hiring a cleaner would mean she wasn’t doing her job at home, and Kelly took pride in being a good mother and housekeeper. “There’s no reason I can’t do it all.”

“Come on, Kel. We’ve had this argument before.”

“Too many times,” she agreed. “Let’s drop it for now.” She took Max’s sigh for acquiescence and snuggled up to him, enjoying the weight of his arm draped around her shoulder. “This is just like our first honeymoon.”

“Not quite,” Max murmured, nibbling her ear. “The first time we came here we were in bed before we could unpack.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the king-size bed and back at Max. “Down your bubbly, soldier. We’re going in.”

Kelly stripped off her clothes, recalling how, on their first honeymoon, Max had removed them for her. Thirteen years on, lovemaking wasn’t the mad, passionate event it once was, and a long time had passed since they’d gone to bed with the express purpose of having sex. Nowadays they mostly fell asleep right away, exhausted by a full day of work, chores and responsibilities.

But whether it was the champagne or the romantic setting or the promise of a weekend to themselves, once beneath the down comforter, with her bare breasts pressed to Max’s chest, Kelly forgot everything except the heat moving through her veins and the gladness in her heart that they were here, making love, instead of warring at home.

She trailed kisses beneath his jaw, testing the texture of his skin with her tongue. “Mmm, you taste good. You did remember to bring condoms, didn’t you?”

“Uh-huh.” His hands slid down her back and over her hips, bringing her closer. “But do we have to use them?”

“Until I get fitted with another IUD, yes. Dr. Johnson said my body should have a short rest from the device.”

Max nudged a knee between hers. “It’s been a while since we’ve made love. You feel really good, Kel.”

“Go get the condoms, Max, before we get carried away.”

With a sigh, he pulled back, but only to take her face in his hands. “When are we going to have another baby? After the twins, you agreed we’d have more.”

She twisted away from his searching gaze. “I don’t recall—”

“Yes, you did. When you took the job with Ray you said, ‘It’s something to do until we have another child.’ That was over a year and a half ago. When, Kelly? When are we going to have another kid?”

“I don’t know. Someday. When the time is right.”

“The twins start school next year, which’ll leave you free to care for a new baby.”

“Or to pursue my career.” She rolled over, shutting him out. “Don’t pressure me, Max. I have so little that’s all my own.”

“You have your flowers.”

She snorted derisively. “Dried-flower arrangements I give away to friends—it’s a hobby. I want to contribute to the household, too.”

“You do, immeasurably. Not all contributions are monetary. And money isn’t necessarily the most important contribution.”

“Try running a household without it. If you think I spread myself too thin now, what would I be like with another baby?” He had no answer to that. Kelly felt bad at disappointing him. Now she vaguely remembered she had agreed to have more children. But that had been before she knew how important having a job of her own would become to her. “I’m sorry, Max. I know you want a son.”

His silence took on a strained quality. She turned back to him, shocked to see his face drained of color. “Good grief, Max, you’re as white as the sheets.”

“I love the girls, Kel,” he said earnestly.

“Of course you do.” He was so sweet, so silly, sometimes. “Go get the condoms.”

He left her and went to his suitcase. A moment later she heard him swear. “What is it?”

He turned to her, his open hands empty. “I bought a new box especially for this weekend. I was positive I put it in my suitcase. Now I can’t find it.”

Oh, great. Their big romantic weekend and they couldn’t make love. She glanced at the bedside digital clock. By now it was so late the hotel store would surely be shut. Max looked so disappointed and frustrated she beckoned him with a smile. “Never mind. I’m sure one night won’t hurt. Come here, lover.”

MAX AWOKE EARLY, A LITTLE tired but with a lingering sense of deep satisfaction. The night before they’d made love not once but twice—something they hadn’t done in years, not since before the twins were born.

Kelly slept on, one hand tucked under her chin. She was so familiar to him that sometimes he couldn’t see her. Mentally he traced the lines of her face, the short straight nose, the cheekbones she wished were higher, the sweetly curving mouth and small chin. Out of context, she became a stranger again. A pretty, sexy stranger.

He skimmed a finger down the bridge of her nose, and she reached up in her sleep to scratch. He waited until her hand fell away, then did it again.

Her eyes, deep brown in the half light, opened. When she saw him watching her, two small vertical lines pulled her eyebrows together. “Don’t wake me up,” she mumbled sleepily. “You know I hate being woken up.”

The pretty sexy stranger would have wanted him to wake her up. Max sighed and slid out of bed to head for the shower.

As the steaming water sluiced over him, he considered Randall. He had to tell Kelly about the boy, and he would, but not until they’d had more time to cement their closeness. Another day should be enough. A hike in the woods, a nice dinner, a Jacuzzi in the evening, followed by more lovemaking…

When he came out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist, Kelly was sitting up in bed, combing her fingers through her hair.

“Come here,” she said, fully awake now and smiling.

Max leaned in for a kiss. Instead of meeting his lips, Kelly rubbed her cheek over his freshly shaven jaw. “I love it when you’re all smooth and yummy smelling. Come back to bed.” She tried to pull him down on top of her.

“Later.” He yanked the covers off the bed, making her giggle and shriek. “Get up, woman. We’ve got ground to cover.”

Ravenous after the previous night, they ate enormous plates of bacon and eggs in the hotel dining room, then set off on the trail that zigzagged down the cliff beside the river. Through the trees, they could hear the roar of Snoqualmie Falls.

“I wonder how the kids are doing?” Kelly said. “I hope Nancy made them breakfast and didn’t just let them snack on junk.”

Max stopped abruptly. “We need to make a rule for this weekend—no talking about the kids or our jobs.”

“But—” Kelly began, then said “—you’re right. No kids. No jobs.”

Twenty minutes later the silence stretched. “What are you thinking?” Max finally asked.

“I’m thinking I should have done a load of laundry before we left so Beth’s judo outfit would be clean for her training session Monday.”

“No kids, no jobs, no chores.”

“But, Max, that’s our life,” Kelly protested, only half joking.

“Look at that.” He paused at the observation deck, with its view of the falls—a foaming spill of white water dropping nearly three hundred feet down the cliff face. “It’s more spectacular than I remembered.” Max took in a deep breath that made his chest rise beneath his plaid flannel shirt. “This is wonderful. Fresh air, exercise, good food, great sex…” He pulled Kelly close and breathed in the scent of her hair. “And my best gal by my side.”

She slipped her arms around his waist. “Your only gal, don’t you mean?”

He kissed her forehead and the tip of her nose and would have continued on down to her mouth.

“Max,” Kelly began, interrupting him. “Did you mean what you said last night about not wanting a boy?”

Her speculative tone and searching gaze put him immediately on guard. He’d reacted too strongly to her innocent suggestion that he wanted a son. She’d take it as a sign he was hiding something. As he was. “Why wouldn’t I mean it?”

“I’ve always wondered,” she went on, undeterred by his feeble protest, “if you weren’t a teeny bit disappointed we had all girls.”

He wanted to reassure her that wasn’t the case; hell, he wished he could convince himself. But the words stuck in his throat. The letter from Randall had brought his emotions too close to the surface for him to be able to lie.

Avoiding eye contact, he muttered something unintelligible and returned to the path that led to the river.

“Max!” Kelly hurried after him, sending twigs and small stones skittering. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“I asked you something important, and instead of answering, you stride off without a word. I want to know what’s wrong.”

“There’s nothing wrong. Just forget it.”

“You never talk about your feelings,” Kelly complained. “This weekend is an opportunity to work out some of the kinks in our relationship. You can’t just walk away from an emotionally difficult subject.”

“Feelings. You always want to talk about feelings.”

He strode on. Talking about that stuff made him uncomfortable; it highlighted what was wrong with their relationship, instead of focusing on what was right. And whenever Kelly started discussing their problems, he felt he’d failed her somehow. Not that he would ever admit it.

She called again, exasperated. “Max!”

“If you would quit working or cut back your hours,” he yelled over his shoulder, “we might not have kinks in our relationship.”

Throwing a blatant red herring in her path was a dirty trick, but he hadn’t yet figured out what he was going to do about Randall, and until he did, he didn’t want to talk about sons, real or hypothetical.

“That is so unfair!” She kicked her booted foot at a rotting stump beside the path, scattering crumbling bits of decaying wood.

He shrugged and kept on walking. “You wanted to know what I thought.”

“You’re avoiding the real issue,” she insisted. “You want another child and I…I’m not ready.”

He snapped a dry twig off a branch in passing and flung it down the hillside, where it snagged on a bush. “You keep saying ‘maybe’ and ‘later,’ but later never comes and maybe means nothing. Face it, you have no intention of having another baby.”

“I never said that!”

“You didn’t have to.” Fed up, he increased his pace.

Max felt her angry silence bombard his back as they descended toward the valley floor around hairpin turns in the narrow path. Gradually his temper cooled. He could put their spat from his mind, if not the cause of it, but he knew Kelly would continue to dwell on the problem until they made up.

With a sigh, he stopped again, took her in his arms and rubbed her nose with his. “I forgive you.”

She snorted, half amused, half annoyed, but wholly unrelenting. “Max, you know we should talk more.”

“Aw, Kel, it’s too nice a day to hash things over. Come on, we’re almost at the river.”

Reluctantly she gave up the fight. “Oh, all right.”

Another hundred feet and the trail led them out of the woods to the edge of the tumbling river. Silenced by the roar of water and awed by the grandeur of the falls, they turned to each other. His hands lightly touching her waist, he kissed her, putting all the tenderness he could into the soft pressure on her lips, and he felt her irritation dissolve in the misty air.

High overhead, treetops were moving in the wind, which blew clouds across the sun, but there on the river all was still and warm. They walked along the gorge until they came to a large flat rock where they could sit side by side, looking toward the falls.

From her day pack Kelly removed the lunch the hotel had prepared for them. “Want a sandwich?” she asked, speaking over the sound of water. He nodded and she handed him one. “Remember when we came here on our honeymoon? We smuggled our own food into the hotel because we didn’t have the money to buy meals.”

“How did you get stuck with such a cheap bastard?”

“I guess I got lucky,” Kelly said, munching happily.

“Do you still think you’re lucky?” Max tossed a breadcrumb to a junco that had fluttered down onto the next rock. The small gray bird snapped up the crumb in its beak and turned its black head to regard him with one beady eye. Kelly still hadn’t answered. “Never mind,” Max said. “Dumb question.”

“We were so young when we married,” she said at last. “I was straight out of high school and you were only a year older.” Kelly placed a hand on his jaw, forcing him to look at her. “I can’t imagine life without you.” She shook her head with a wry grin. “Sometimes I can’t imagine life with you, either.”

He nudged her off balance, then caught her before she toppled. She fell into his arms, laughing. He said, “I’ll never understand why your grandmother allowed you to marry so young. If you’d been my daughter…”

“She let Geena go to New York on a modeling contract when she was sixteen. How could she stop me from marrying at eighteen? Gran always told us we had good heads on our shoulders and that we should trust our own judgment.”

“Bulldust. You and your sisters were as headstrong as wild ponies. You always got your way. Erin was the most sensible, but your Gran was as weak as water where you girls were concerned.”

“Don’t you criticize Gran,” she said, wagging a finger at him. “At least she considered my feelings. Your parents did everything they could to stop us from getting engaged. The moment they heard we wanted to get married after graduation they shipped you off to that job on the dude ranch, hoping you’d forget me over the summer.”

The bite of sandwich in his mouth suddenly turned dry and lumpy. Why the hell had he brought up the past? “But I didn’t, did I?” he demanded, feeling an urgent need to reconnect with Kelly. He did not want to lose the woman he’d spent more than a decade building a life with.

She tilted her head, clearly puzzled by his tone. “No,” she said slowly. “You came home even more loving than when you left…if that’s possible.”

He kissed her, almost desperately, deepening the kiss until she melted against him, as he’d hoped she would, and slid her arms around his neck.

Finally she drew back, eyes grave. “All right, Max. You’d better tell me all about it.”

Despite the warm sun, a chill raised bumps on Max’s forearms. How could she know? He’d hidden the letter from Randall deep in the bottom drawer of his office filing cabinet. “What do you mean?”

“You’re hiding something,” Kelly stated. “You’ve been acting really weird all weekend, guilty and secretive—when you weren’t giving me a tumble, that is.” She crossed her arms. “Spill it.”

At first Kelly thought he would evade this demand for explanations, too. Then before her eyes, Max seemed to shrink from her and turn inward. Her heart sank. Whatever he was hiding must be really bad. He was having an affair. He wanted a divorce. He—

“I have a son.”

She stared. She’d heard him speak, but his words had no meaning. “What did you say?”

“I have a son,” he repeated.

“That’s impossible. Unless,” she added with a short humorless laugh, “one of the twins had a sex change.”

“Kelly.”

“But it’s impossible, Max,” she repeated. “We were married right out of high school. How could you have a child I don’t know about?”

“I got a letter from him yesterday.” Max crumpled the plastic wrap his sandwich had come in and compressed it into a tiny ball. “His name is Randall Tipton. He’s thirteen years old and he lives in Wyoming.”

The bottom fell out of Kelly’s world. One moment the sun was shining on her and Max, a unit despite their problems, as solid as the rock on which they were sitting. The next instant she was in free fall, with no hope of safe landing.

Questions crowded her tongue, clamoring for expression. “But how…? When…? Who is the mother?”

“Her name is Lanni. She worked at the dude ranch.”

Spinning, sinking, Kelly spiraled down through a swirling gray void. “You had an affair with another woman while you were engaged to me?”

“You’d broken off the engagement before I left for the ranch, remember?”

“Your parents broke it off. I had every intention of marrying you as soon as we had the opportunity. I thought you felt the same.”

He stared at her as if she were speaking a foreign language. “You said we should go along with their wishes. I left for Wyoming thinking you weren’t going to marry me.”

“I thought you’d come sweeping back one moonlit night and carry me away, that we would elope or something equally romantic. Instead…” Tears swam in her eyes as she gazed at him, stricken, “You were with this Lanni person.”

He tried to take her hand. “Forget Lanni. She’s not important.”

“How can you say she’s not important?” Kelly shrilled, tugging away. “She’s the mother of your child.”

Kelly wrapped her arms around her shivering body and buried her face in her knees. Max, her anchor, her rock, the husband she thought she knew inside out, had suddenly, nightmarishly, become a stranger.

“Dear God, Max,” she said in a broken whisper. “What have you done to us?”

He was silent.

“Did you know before you got the letter you had a child?”

“Yes. Although until yesterday I didn’t know he was a boy.”

“And that made the difference. That’s why you’re telling me now,” she said, struggling to understand.

“No. It’s the letter.”

Her stomach heaved; she gripped herself tighter. “All these years you knew you had a child and you never told me.”

“I wanted to put it all behind me.”

Suddenly she was furious. She sprang to her feet on the rock. “What gives you the right to put a child behind you? To walk away and forget it ever existed?”

“Do you think that was easy for me?” he cried. “Do you think I haven’t wondered and worried all these years whether or not he or she was growing up happy and healthy?”

“How would I know?” she shouted. “You didn’t tell me!”

Her voice echoed off the cliff face, startling her into awareness of their surroundings. She took a deep breath, then another. “Okay, let’s calm down.” She sat again, forcing herself to ignore the pain that was eating away at her like acid. “You’d better start at the beginning and explain.”

Max told her the whole story. The dude ranch, Lanni pursuing him, the pregnancy, the subsequent meetings between both sets of parents. Kelly noticed he glossed over the part where he’d capitulated to Lanni’s advances. Fine, she sure didn’t want to hear about that, although it had always been her experience that it took two to tango.

“Lanni’s family were strong Catholics. They wouldn’t hear of abortion,” Max went on. “My parents gave her money to pay for medical expenses and kept in touch with her parents throughout the pregnancy. The baby was put up for adoption and…” He gazed at his hands, twisted together. “That was the last I’d heard of the child. Like I said, until yesterday I didn’t even know if it was a boy or a girl.”

At the ache in his voice part of her, amazingly, wanted to comfort him for the years of loss. He was a loving and responsible father and she knew he must feel guilt and regret.

An instant later, her heart hardened. Had he considered her feelings when he’d slipped away from the bunkhouse at midnight for a rendezvous with Lanni?

A chilly raindrop hit her cheek and she glanced up to see the sun had completely disappeared behind the gray clouds massing around the mountain peaks. “It’s starting to rain. We’d better head back.”

The rain came on with sudden violence, in driving sheets that turned the dirt trail to mud and the bushes and trees to dripping greenery that slid from their grasp as they pulled themselves up the slippery track. By the time they’d arrived back at the lodge, they were soaked through and cloaked in mud from the knees down.

In their room Kelly began to haphazardly pile sweaters and underwear into her suitcase, not even bothering to change out of her wet clothes.

“What are you doing?” Max demanded, toweling his head. His pale hair had turned dark with rain and now stuck out in spikes. “We’re booked for another night.”

“I can’t sleep in this bed with you.” She tossed in her cosmetics case with an angry jerk of her wrist. “Not with your affair making a mockery of last night and of every night of our marriage. I want to be with my children.”

“Kelly, for God’s sake.” He threw down the towel and tried to take her in his arms. “Don’t do this.”

Shrugging him off, she snapped the locks shut on her suitcase and faced him, chin in the air. “I want to go home.”

On the drive back to Hainesville, Kelly couldn’t look at Max. In her mind, she replayed endlessly that summer they were apart. How could she not have known he was up to no good? How could she not have gleaned from his infrequent phone calls and hesitant assurances of affection that he had someone else on a string? At the time she’d put his awkwardness down to the difficulty of communicating on the public telephone in the lodge. God, but she’d been naive.

Max slid his hand onto her knee and squeezed tentatively. “Talk to me, Kelly.”

“I have nothing to say.” Her voice was as dead as love gone wrong.

“Come on, you must. What are you feeling?”

“What am I feeling?” She twisted in her seat to face him. “Now you want to talk. Suddenly you’re interested in feelings. Well, listen up. I’m hurting, Max. I never imagined I could hurt this badly. And I’m angry. I’m so furious I could kill you. While I was sewing my wedding dress, you were sleeping with another woman. While I was counting the days until we could start a family, you were making a baby without me. While I poured out my heart in long loving letters, you were already lying to me. Our whole marriage is a lie.”

“Kelly, you know that’s not true.”

Scalding tears heated her already flushed cheeks. “You led me to believe I was your first, just as you were my first. And only. How many other women have you had that you haven’t told me about?”

“None.”

“How can I believe you?”

He didn’t answer. Finally, in a low voice, he said, “I guess you can’t. You have to trust me.”

With a snort, she threw up her hands. “Trust? What’s that?”

“Except for that one time, I’ve never lied to you or cheated on you.”

Kelly rubbed her hands over her face, suddenly exhausted, as though her anger had drained all the energy out of her. “I know. Or do I? That’s the problem. I’ll never know for sure.”

Silenced, Max drove on through the rain and the dark. Once or twice she glanced sideways, to see his hands gripping the wheel and his jaw set. He was thinking about Randall. She couldn’t stop thinking about the boy, either.

She didn’t want to talk, but she had to.

Her fury had dissipated, leaving behind an icy calmness that frightened her almost as much. “I can’t believe you fathered a baby and didn’t tell me.”

He took his gaze off the road. “I was eighteen. I was stupid. And too much in love with you to risk losing you by confessing the truth.”

“And now you’re not.”

The blaring horn of a passing semitrailer snapped his attention back to the wet highway. “Not what?”

“In love with me,” she said, exasperated by his inability to grasp the logic. “Now you can tell the truth because you don’t love me anymore and don’t care if you lose me.”

“For God’s sake, Kelly. That’s not true. It’s only come up because the boy contacted me.”

He had a son, not by her. Calmness deserted her as hysteria clawed at her throat. “The boy, the boy. He’s the boy you always wanted.”

“You know I love the girls more than anything. Randall isn’t going to change that.”

“You’re already saying his name as if you know him. What does he want, anyway?”

Max shrugged. “Just to see me. He’s curious about his biological parents. And no, I don’t know if he’s contacted Lanni.”

“Do…do you want to meet him?”

“Yes. Would that bother you?”

She stared at him. “Are you crazy? It would tear me apart. It would tear us apart.”

Max shook his head. “You’re overreacting.”

“Don’t tell me I’m overreacting,” she warned. “You don’t know how I feel. What are the girls going to think?”

“They might be pleased to have a big brother.”

Kelly refused to even contemplate that scenario. “You went straight from me to her.”

“No, not right away. It was—”

“Please, I don’t want details.” She stared out the window, watching the dark sodden shapes of trees flicker past. “How long?”

“Three weeks.” She winced, and he reminded her, “You called off our engagement.”

“You could at least say you’re sorry.”

“I never meant to hurt you, Kelly. What is the real issue? Is it that I slept with another woman, or the fact that I had a child you didn’t know about?”

In the reflection from the window, Kelly watched raindrops stream down her face. Lanni, the lies by omission, the secret he’d kept from her all these years. Hurt didn’t begin to describe how she felt, and forgiveness wasn’t even on the horizon.

“I can’t separate the two.”

What she couldn’t say, even to Max, was how inadequate she felt at never having given him a son. Max didn’t value her work outside the home; he only valued her as the mother of his children. She hadn’t even gotten that right. Supposedly the man’s sperm determined whether a child was a boy or a girl, but he’d had a boy with another woman. Maybe it was Kelly’s own body chemistry that had favored the survival of a sperm with an X chromosome and caused her to produce nothing but girls.

She had a bad feeling in her gut about Randall, and she didn’t think it was just because she was jealous of Lanni. Her and Max’s marriage had been on shaky ground for more than a year. If Max let this boy into their lives, he would turn them all upside down. He might somehow take Max away from her and the girls.

They got home late; the kids were in bed and Nancy was watching TV in the family room. Hiding her tear-stained face from the surprised teenager, Kelly went straight to the bedroom while Max made up some excuse for their early return. She heard the front door shut, and a few minutes later Max came into the room. He had a piece of folded foolscap in his hand. The letter.

“Would you like to read it?” he asked.

“No.”

He held out a photograph and tried to show her. “He looks like a nice kid.”

“I don’t want to see.” She pushed him away, then grabbed his arm. “Oh, give it here.”

Thoughts of DNA testing to prove paternity dissolved as she gazed at a younger version of Max. Randall’s eyes, the angle of his jaw, the slight tilt of his head were all pure Max, even if the boy’s coloring was not. Kelly’s head began to throb. She hadn’t wanted the kid to be real to her and now he was. “Let me see the letter.”

Reading Randall’s words compounded her mistake. She felt a physical ache in her heart from empathizing with the boy. No, she thought, deliberately shutting down her feelings. She could never feel anything warmer than dislike for Max’s son by another woman.

“He’s got a good home, with loving adoptive parents,” she said callously, thrusting the letter aside. “He doesn’t need you.”

“Maybe not,” Max agreed tightly. “Maybe I need him.”

Kelly closed her eyes on a sharp stab of pain, unable to speak.

“He wants to meet me,” Max went on. “I’d like to meet him, too.”

Opening her eyes, she reached for his arm. “Don’t go, Max,” she pleaded. “For the girls’ sake if not for mine. You can’t undo the past, but to some extent you can choose your future.”

“I want to meet him,” he repeated. “Kelly, he’s my son.”

“I…I’m not sure I can go on living with you if you contact that boy.” She knew she sounded melodramatic, but she was desperate.

“I can’t live with my conscience if I don’t contact him.” Max slipped the photo back into the envelope and spoke with a new determination. “Randall’s part of me, Kel. You can’t just ignore him, and I won’t. I’m going to Wyoming. I’m going to see my son.”

CHAPTER THREE

MAX’S LAST THOUGHT before his finger touched the doorbell of Randall’s house in Jackson two weeks later was, Am I doing the right thing? Then the chimes sounded, and whether or not coming here against Kelly’s wishes was right, the point became moot. He could hardly run away, or pretend to be a door-to-door salesman. Besides, now that he knew of Randall’s existence, nothing would stop him from meeting his son.

Yet he wondered at the wheelchair ramp that paralleled the steps to the front door. The photo of Randall had been head and shoulders only. Could he be handicapped?

Max heard footsteps inside the house and wiped his palms against his slacks; he hadn’t expected to feel so nervous. Would the boy like him? Would he blame him for the past? Could Max bear to find a son and not keep him? Would Kelly forgive him if he did?

The door opened. The boy in the photograph, standing firmly on two feet, stared back at him through clunky glasses. His pressed cotton shirt was buttoned up to the collar and his gabardine pants held a perfect crease. Randall turned a fiery red that clashed with his carroty hair and stammered a greeting. “H-hello. Are you…?”

“I’m Max. Hi, Randall.” Max reached for his son’s hand. The contact almost undid him; suddenly his throat was thick and his eyes moist. He coughed, Randall shuffled his feet, and their hands fell apart.

“Come in and meet my parents,” Randall said. “They’re in the living room.”

Randall’s parents had insisted on meeting him, and Max couldn’t blame them—for all they knew, he could be an ax murderer or a pedophile. But he hoped he and Randall would have some time alone; they’d need it if they were going to get past this awkward phase. Patience. He’d waited thirteen years for a son; he could wait a little longer.

He followed Randall into a room furnished with spare Scandinavian designs and a wall of books. A telescope on a tripod stood before a picture window looking across the broad valley known as Jackson Hole to the Grand Teton mountains. A baby grand piano dominated one corner, while precisely executed oil paintings of mountains and lakes lined the walls. The atmosphere was one of intellect and good taste, but to Max, used to the controlled chaos of life with four young children, the room seemed strangely sterile.

Mr. Tipton, dressed in a maroon cardigan and tie, rose as they entered and ran a hand sideways over his thinning pate, smoothing the sparse gray hairs into place. “Hello. I’m Marcus Tipton. This is my wife, Audrey.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Max said, extending his hand. “Are you the artist?” he asked Audrey, gesturing to the paintings.

“Clever of you to guess.” Audrey smiled warmly up at Max from her wheelchair. She had on black slacks and an ivory twin set, and wore her smooth gray hair in a chin-length bob. “I’ll get coffee. How do you take it, Mr. Walker?”

“Please, call me Max. Cream, no sugar. Thanks.”

Max settled onto the couch catercorner to the chair in which Randall sat, hands folded on his knees, and let his mind run over his first impressions. Audrey was in a wheelchair, and Marcus Tipton had to be well over fifty; how did they keep up with an active teenage boy? Although judging from Randall’s quiet demeanor that might not be a problem. No unrestrained bursts of youthful energy here.

Obviously, they’d managed perfectly well. Max was surprised and not very happy with his critical assumptions, and his protectiveness of a boy he hadn’t raised. He had no rights here, he reminded himself, only privileges.

“Did you have a good flight?” Randall inquired politely. The question had the air of being rehearsed.

“Fine, thank you. I had a window seat and got a good view of Jackson as we landed. I’d forgotten how beautiful the country is around here.”

Silence followed, awkward and begging to be filled. “Do you play any sports, Randall?”

“I played soccer when I was nine, but it was pretty wet and muddy and…” He glanced at his father, then at his hands. “I just didn’t care for it.”

“I see.” Meaning he didn’t see at all.

“Randall is more interested in intellectual pursuits,” Marcus interjected. “Piano, the chess club, debating society, art…”

“Very commendable. You must be very proud of him.”

Marcus smiled genially. “We are, indeed. He’s never been anything but a credit to us. Top in his class, well respected by teachers and fellow students alike.”

But did he have fun? Max wondered, then reproached himself for nitpicking. If any of his daughters achieved that kind of academic success he would be ecstatic.

He found himself looking for similarities between him and Randall. The boy had his build, tall and lean, and his long, tapered fingers. But Max’s love of sport and his easy athleticism seemed to be missing from his son. Hell, he thought, the ability to sink a basketball wasn’t exactly a genetic trait.

He turned to Marcus. “Do you have any other children?”

The older man shook his head. “Audrey and I weren’t able to have children of our own. We planned to adopt more after Randall, but when Audrey lost the use of her legs in a car accident we decided against it.”

“An accident,” Max repeated. “Was Randall—” He broke off. Randall was fine. Even if he’d been in the car, he’d clearly survived intact.

“Randall was strapped into his booster seat in the back when the other car crossed the white line and hit the front of my wife’s car. He had a few minor cuts, nothing serious.”

“I’m sorry—about Audrey, that is. Dealing with the physical and emotional aftermath of a serious injury plus taking care of a toddler must not have been easy.”

“We managed,” Marcus said simply. “That’s what you do when you’re a family.”

Max nodded. If there was an implied reproach he accepted it.

Marcus turned to Randall. “Son, could you help your mother with the tray, please?”

“Sure, Dad.” Randall immediately got up and left the room.

Son. Dad. Max was reminded again that he was an outsider. No rights and only limited privileges.

Now that the boy was out of hearing, Marcus became serious. “We adopted Randall because we wanted to give a home to a baby whose parents couldn’t care for him. Naturally, Audrey and I were concerned when after all these years he decided to contact his biological parents.”

Max had a sudden sympathy for Marcus and Audrey; watching their son discover his biological father couldn’t be easy for them.

“If my circumstances had been different when he was conceived…” Max spread his hands in the effort to explain. “I would have kept him. Maybe I should have tried harder to, but I couldn’t—” He broke off. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. Pretty lame.

Marcus waved away Max’s apologetic floundering. “All I meant was, Randall’s been our whole life. For Audrey, especially. And Randall has been looking forward to meeting you so very much. His expectations are high and I’d hate to see him hurt. He’s already been disappointed by his biological mother.”

“The last thing I want is for any of us to get hurt,” Max said quietly. After a pause, he asked, “What happened when he contacted Lanni?”

Marcus might have answered, but at that moment, Audrey wheeled into the room, followed by Randall bearing a tray laden with steaming cups and a plate of homemade banana bread. “Coffee’s ready.”

While Audrey served the cake, Randall handed around the coffee, impressing Max with his manners. Marcus and Audrey had done a good job with Randall on that score, at least.

“Would you like to see some of Randall’s baby pictures?” Audrey said to Max.

“I’d like that very much. Thank you.”

Flipping through early photos of Randall was an eerie experience. Aside from his hair coloring, he looked very much like Max had as a baby and he bore a family resemblance to all his daughters, especially Robyn. As he paged through Randall’s first smile, first step, first day of school, Max couldn’t help but be jealous of Marcus and Audrey for witnessing the milestones in his son’s young life.

“He’s obviously been raised in a loving home,” Max said, handing the photo album back. “I’m grateful…if that doesn’t sound presumptuous.”

“Thank you,” Audrey said. “It doesn’t sound presumptuous at all.” She glanced at her husband. “Well?”

Marcus nodded. “We’ll leave you two now so you can get better acquainted.”

Max watched them go, then turned to Randall. “They’re nice people. They love you very much. And despite all that care and attention, they’ve managed to raise you unspoiled. You’re lucky. I’m lucky.”

Randall frowned. “Why are you lucky?”

Max smiled wryly. “That you’ve turned out so well lessens my guilt.”

“I don’t blame you for having me adopted out,” Randall said earnestly. “I don’t know why you gave me up, but you must have had good reasons.”

“Your mother and I were too young to marry. Her parents wouldn’t allow it.” Not that he’d ever actually suggested it. To Max, that whole summer seemed like a bad dream. “Your father told me you contacted Lanni.”

Randall’s gaze dropped to the toes of his polished leather shoes. “She didn’t want to meet me. She just got married last year and she’s going to have a baby. She never told her husband about me and doesn’t want to. She said I would make her life too complicated.”

Max knew he shouldn’t judge, but he could imagine Lanni saying something like that. His heart ached for the boy. “I’m sorry.”

Randall shrugged. “Do you have other children?”

“My wife, Kelly, and I have four daughters.”

“Four kids! Wow. I’ve always wished I had brothers and sisters. I mean, I wished I had a brother, but sisters would be okay—” He broke off, abashed. “Not that I expect you’d want me to meet them or anything.”

Max shifted uncomfortably. “I would, but…to tell you the truth, Kelly wasn’t too happy about me coming here.”

“I’m sorry if I caused you trouble.”

“Don’t be.” Max leaned over and squeezed Randall’s forearm. “I wouldn’t have missed this meeting for the world. I’m only sorry it didn’t take place years ago.”

“Did you…did you ever think of looking for me?”

The naked yearning in his voice dredged up a barge-load of guilt and regret in Max. The reasons he’d never gone looking for Randall had more to do with Kelly and Lanni than with the boy, but if he said that, wouldn’t he be giving Randall the impression he wasn’t important?

“I…I didn’t want to disrupt your life.”

“Oh. Okay.” His dispassionate acceptance of the explanation made Max feel even worse. “How old are your kids?”

“Robyn’s twelve, Beth’s ten and the twins, Tammy and Tina, are four years old.” Max pulled out his wallet and extracted a photo. “This was taken a year ago, but you get the idea.”

Randall studied the picture. “You must have gotten married quite soon after…after you knew my biological mother.”

“Yes.”

“Were you in love with my mother?”

“I was very young. We were both very young. I don’t think I knew what love was.” Liar. He’d known then that he loved Kelly. But he had to give this kid something. “Lanni was fun loving and adventurous. I liked her a lot.”

Randall handed back the photo. “What do you do? I mean, for work?”

“I’m an architect. I design houses.”

“Wow. That’s interesting. I like to draw. Sometimes I think I’d like to be an artist when I grow up. Would you like to see my sketchbook?”

Randall ran off to get his sketchbook and Max leaned against the couch and shut his eyes. He’d been naive to think Randall wouldn’t want answers to difficult questions. Naive to think he could visit and go away again untouched. Randall was no longer just a face in a photograph or a product of his imagination. He was a boy with hopes and dreams, and Max himself was one of Randall’s hopes and dreams. Marcus was right; Randall had expectations. The question was, could Max fulfill them?

And what were Max’s expectations? He’d been so fired up to meet Randall, he hadn’t thought through the consequences of an ongoing relationship, if there was to be one. He’d been focused on Kelly and overcoming her objections, instead of thinking about how he would incorporate a son into his life.

Randall returned and placed a well-used sketchbook in Max’s lap. Max thumbed through meticulously executed pen-and-ink drawings of old barns, a mare and foal, a jackdaw on a pine branch. The boy had an eye for detail and a facility with his pen, although in Max’s opinion the pictures were too careful to be really good. Like the drawings of a child afraid to color outside the lines, they lacked individuality.

“You show a great deal of promise,” Max said, and Randall flushed beneath his freckles. “You’re fortunate Audrey is interested in art. I’m sure she’s very encouraging.”

“She signed me up for art lessons when I was ten,” Randall said. “And she buys me any materials I want.”

“That’s wonderful. What else do you like to do?”

“As Dad said, I play piano and chess and belong to the debating society. Oh, and I’ve recently built my own Web site so I can attract chess players from other countries.”

“What about friends? Do you hang out with a gang of kids from your school?”

“Not really,” Randall admitted, pinching the crease in his pants. “I have a couple of friends in the chess club. But Mom gets migraines and can’t handle having a bunch of noisy boys around. Not that I blame her,” he said hastily. “Teenage boys can be very rowdy.”

Randall Tipton wouldn’t know “rowdy” if he stepped in it, Max mused, then chastised himself for the uncharitable thoughts he was having toward Marcus and Audrey Tipton. They’d raised a well-behaved, polite young man who was a credit to his parents. And Randall seemed to be happy enough.

“Do you have a dog or a cat?” Max asked.

“No, sir. Dad’s allergic to pet fur. Actually, it’s not the fur but the mites that live in the fur. I’m allowed to keep tropical fish, but they don’t interact much with people. Do you have pets?”

Max almost didn’t like to say. “Two dogs and some chickens.”

A wistful gleam appeared in Randall’s eyes. “My chess friend in Alaska has a husky. He scanned the dog’s photo and e-mailed it to me.”

“Well, Randall—” Max glanced at his watch “—I have to catch a plane back to Seattle in an hour. I’d better go.” He’d deliberately ensured that his time here would be limited, just in case the meeting didn’t work out. Now he wished he’d planned to stay the weekend. Maybe he and the boy could have gone horseback riding or fishing.

“I’ve enjoyed meeting you very much, sir,” Randall said, rising.

“You don’t have to call me sir.”

“What should I call you, then?”

Max hesitated. He could hardly ask the boy to call him Dad; he already had a dad. “Max. Max will do just fine.”

Randall walked him to the door. “Say goodbye to your folks for me,” Max said, unwilling to share the final moments with his son with the Tiptons.

Randall stuck out his hand. Max took it, hesitated a second, then pulled the boy into a hug. The tightness in his chest seemed to expand until he found breathing difficult. “Take care.”

They separated awkwardly, and Randall stared fixedly at his polished shoes. “W-will I see you again?”

Max had told himself this would be a one-off deal. More to the point, that was what he’d told Kelly. But how could he say no to his kid? Randall needed…something from him, some spark in his existence. And Max…well, Max needed to know that his son was okay. On the surface it certainly appeared that way. The boy had no material wants, he had parents who loved him and encouraged his interests, but Max sensed an underlying loneliness. He knew what it was to be an only child. “Lonely” was the one thing Max had never wanted for his children. It was the reason he’d had so many, and the reason he wanted still more.

Randall needed siblings. Max could give them to him.

“Would you like to visit my home and meet Kelly and your half sisters?” The words were out almost before he knew he was speaking, but he didn’t regret them, not when he saw Randall’s eyes light up.

“Oh, boy! Could I? When? I’ll go ask Mom and Dad right now.”

His heart telling him he’d done the right thing, Max followed his son back inside the house.

“YOU WHAT!” Kelly stared at Max. She was still coming to grips with the fact that he’d gone to Wyoming against her wishes.

Max sighed through gritted teeth and took the position that offense was the best form of defense. “I invited Randall to spend his summer vacation with us. Is that so hard to understand?”

“What’s hard to understand is why you think I would agree,” Kelly said, pacing the bedroom. “I told you I don’t want anything to do with this kid.”

Seated on the edge of the bed, Max followed her with his gaze. “I know I should have asked you first, but if you’d seen that boy you would have done the same thing. He lives with an elderly father and a wheelchair-bound mother. They’re nice people and they’re doing their best, but Randall has few friends. He’s lonely. If he doesn’t come to us he’ll spend the summer in his room in front of the computer.”

“My heart is breaking.”

“Kelly, this sarcastic attitude isn’t like you. If you only met him—”

“I don’t want to meet him. What about me and the girls? Or don’t you care about us anymore?” She stopped in front of the closet and took out her jacket.

“Of course I care. What are you doing?”

She ignored his question. “Having secret children and illicit love affairs isn’t like the man I thought I married.” Shrugging into her jacket, she stopped in front of him. “I thought I knew you. Now I realize I don’t know you at all.”

“Don’t get sidetracked. We’re talking about Randall. Please, Kel, give yourself time to get used to the idea.”

“Are you serious? School gets out in a month. I’d need a lifetime to get used to this. Summer has always been family time.”

“Randall is family, Kelly, whether you like it or not.” He paused. “Where are you going?”

Kelly slipped her feet into a pair of loafers. “Gran’s house.”

“Can’t we talk about this?”

“I’m too angry and upset to talk. I’ll see you later. Maybe.”

CHAPTER FOUR

WHEN KELLY GOT TO GRAN’S house she was surprised to see both her sisters’ cars parked out front. She knocked once and let herself in the front door.

“Hello? Anybody home?” Lights burned in the living room to her left and she heard her sisters’ voices.

“Is that you, Kel?” Erin, her eldest sister, called. “We’re in here.”

Kelly dropped her purse on the hall table and went through to the living room of the big Victorian house where Kelly and her sisters had grown up after her parents were killed in a car crash. Her younger sister, Geena, held her sleeping baby across her lap, and Erin’s toddler was curled up in a portable cot Gran kept around for her great-grandchildren’s frequent visits.

“You guys having a party without me…?” Kelly began, then stopped short at the sight of Gran, seated in her rocker with one leg propped up on a stool and an ice pack over her ankle.

“What happened?” Kelly demanded, hurrying across the room to her grandmother’s side. “Are you all right, Gran?”

“Nothing serious. I just twisted my ankle while I was on my power walk this evening,” Gran said, adjusting the ice pack.

“The ankle’s badly swollen,” Erin elaborated, pushing back her long blond hair. “I came by to drop off some homemade strawberry jam and found her crawling on her hands and knees.”

“It’s nothing,” Gran insisted fretfully. “I’ll be fine.”

“I’m taking you to see Ben first thing in the morning,” Geena said, referring to her husband, a local G.P. One hand rested lightly on little Sonja’s rounded diaper-clad bottom. “I’d have brought him with me tonight, but he’s doing an emergency appendectomy.”

“You should have called me,” Kelly scolded her Gran. She lifted the ice pack and winced at the swollen mottled skin. “Hang on and I’ll get an Ace bandage from the first-aid kit in my car.”

When she got back inside, Erin was administering anti-inflammatory tablets to the resistant septuagenarian. Kelly pulled up a stool before Gran’s chair and expertly wrapped the elderly woman’s ankle in a neat herringbone pattern.

“You’re good, Kel,” Geena said, admiring her sister’s handiwork. “Where’d you learn to do that?”

“I take a refresher first-aid course every couple of years. With four kids you’ve got to be ready to handle anything.” The minicrisis of Gran’s ankle had pushed Max and Randall from her mind, but mentioning her children brought it all back in a rush.

Gran must have seen something in her face. “What’s wrong, Kelly?”

Kelly rose, walked a few paces and sank into an overstuffed chair. “Nothing.”

Geena, sitting opposite, brushed wispy auburn bangs off her face and looked Kelly over closely. “Yes, there is. Your eyes are swollen and red. You’ve been crying.”

“Tell us what’s the matter, Kel,” Erin said.

Kelly stared into the empty fireplace, not knowing where to start. Then she released a deep sigh. “Max and I had a fight.”

“Pass me my knitting, Geena, honey,” Gran said in a low voice.

“Did you argue about your work again?” Geena asked sympathetically as she handed Gran a tapestry bag stuffed with yarn and needles.

“No…” Although she’d learned about Max’s son two weeks ago, she hadn’t yet confided in her sisters or Gran, hoping the whole nightmare would blow over. Now she could use some moral support. “Max had an affair the summer after high school with a girl on a dude ranch,” she began, and went on to tell them the whole story.

“Oh, Kelly, sweetie,” Geena said when Kelly finally finished. She put a hand over her sister’s and squeezed. “This is dreadful. I can’t believe he didn’t tell you long ago.”

“I can’t believe this is Max we’re talking about,” Erin said, equally shocked. “You and he have been together since your junior prom.”

Gran knit quietly. So quietly Kelly had to ask, “Did you know about the baby, Gran?”

Gran’s soft brown eyes were thoughtful behind her oversize blue plastic glasses. Slowly, she shook her head. “No. And frankly, I’m surprised they managed to keep it quiet in a small place like Hainesville. At the time I did think it odd that Max and his parents were making so many trips out of town. I knew you were serious about Max so I was worried he was in some kind of trouble. But he went off to college as expected and nothing seemed amiss.” She paused to count stitches, then turned her needles and started another row. “One thing I never doubted was that he loved you.”

“He should have trusted her, too—enough to tell her the truth,” Erin said.

“Well…he didn’t want to risk losing me.” Kelly caught herself defending him and hardened her voice. “And he was right to worry.”

She slumped her aching head into her propped-up hand. “He invited Randall—that’s his son’s name—to stay with us for the summer…without even asking me!”

“You two need to sit down, calmly and rationally, and work through your problems,” Gran said, glancing up from her knitting.

“How can she be calm when she’s hurting so badly?” Erin demanded. “I love Max like a brother, but I think he’s way off base for even suggesting a visit before clearing it with Kelly. It’s adding insult to injury.”

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