The plane’s engine roared to life.

“You can do anything you want.” Lee’s voice glided along his senses. “Long as you don’t touch the controls.”

Pinching his eyes shut, he folded his arms, tried not to clutch the fabric of his suit coat.

Perspiration dampened his forehead. His stomach whirled.

“I’m right beside you,” Lee said into the headphones when the plane began to move.

He listened to her voice while she gave their coordinates to the Seattle tower, and the plane skimmed the ocean, lifted, buzzed into the sky.

He listened to the tone of her words more than their meaning. That assured tone. The quiet, steady tone.

And when he bit the inside of his cheek, he felt her fingers curve around his forearm. “You’ll be okay with me.”

And in that heartbeat, Rogan believed her.

He really did.

Dear Reader,

In this second installment of my HOME TO FIREWOOD ISLAND miniseries, I wanted to write about a woman working in a predominantly male field. So I made my heroine a pilot, though not just any pilot. She flies single-prop seaplanes across mountains, canyons and forests…and lands on rivers, lakes, fjords and inlets.

And Baby Makes Four is her story. However, Lee Tait—eldest of the three sisters on Firewood Island—has come to a roadblock in her life. She must piece together her past with a man who could tear apart her future—or chance losing every dream. Will she take the ultimate risk?

Warm wishes,

Mary

PS—Their Secret Child (Addie’s story and first in the series) is available at online bookstores. Details about Kat—the third sister—are on my Web site at www.maryjforbes.com.

And Baby Makes Four
Mary J. Forbes

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARY J. FORBES

Her rural prairie roots granted Mary J. Forbes a deep love of nature and small towns, a love that’s often reflected in the settings of her books. Today, she lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest where she also teaches school, nurtures her garden and walks or jogs in any weather. Readers can contact Mary at www.maryjforbes.com.

With many thanks to my editor, Susan Litman

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

Epilogue

Chapter One

The man stood watching her in the early-April twilight.

Had he been alone, Lee Tait might have worried. This was, after all, the third time in as many days he stopped to observe her tinker on the Cessna 206 seaplane docked at the end of the boardwalk that curved within Burnt Bend’s tiny cove. As before, the child accompanied him, a boy of perhaps six or seven whose dusty blond hair caught the sun’s setting rays. His eyes, Lee noted, were plate-round with curiosity.

Still, the guy’s presence—yet again—couldn’t stop the cold sluice of adrenaline down her torso. What did he want? Why didn’t he continue along the shoreline path, which extended from the marina and wended past a smattering of cottages before looping back into the village, a distance of a quarter mile?

Why stop each time to stare at her for five minutes, and then turn around?

He stood in the fading light, rangy as a mountain climber, attired in gray cords, brown boat shoes and a black pullover. Except for a pair of gym shoes, the child emulated the dress code.

Obviously, father and son.

Two peas in a pod, her mother would say—if Lee explained the strange visitations to Charmaine. Which she would not.

The boy murmured something and, while low and indistinct, she heard the man’s quiet response drift down the wooden dock.

Trying to avoid the duo, she opened the seaplane’s door, stepped on the pontoon and hopped inside for a final check before tomorrow’s flight across the Puget Sound.

Last fall, she had signed a year’s contract with the Burnt Bend post office to courier expedited mail and parcels to the mainland. The daily service ensured a steady paycheck, while weekend visitors and tourists to the region kept her fledgling charter company viable. One day soon—when she could afford rising fuel costs—she hoped to include a scheduled weekday passenger service.

Lee winced at the thought. Cutting into Lucien Duvall’s passengers-only ferry service would not make the old guy happy.

Hopefully, when the time came, they’d be able to work something out.

Scanning for forgotten items left by passengers, she thought how the Cessna was the only good thing to come from her ex-husband. She hadn’t selected the best of his Abner Air fleet out of spite, or because he’d impregnated that cocktail waitress three years ago.

Then again, maybe she had….

Truth was, she’d picked the six-seater seaplane as the cornerstone of Sky Dash, a company she’d dreamed of founding since her twentieth birthday.

Spotting a crumpled island brochure under the farthest passenger seat, Lee recalled her last customer clutching the pamphlet in a death grip. Ah, well. Edgy fliers came with the territory.

Reaching down, she snagged the leaflet.

“Hello, there,” a deep voice said from behind.

Snapping around, she bumped her head on the cockpit’s ceiling.

She hadn’t heard him approach, but there he and the boy stood on the weathered pier, gazing at her rump in army-green coveralls, no less, as she leaned over the seat.

Swell. The guy wanted a tête-à-tête now? While her backside hung in his face?

Ignoring the warmth climbing her neck, she scrambled into the pilot’s seat.

“Hey,” she said, as if they hadn’t seen each other three times at precisely 6:30 p.m. in the past seventy-two hours. Be friendly, Lee. He could be a future weekend fare.

His eyes held humor. “Are you Amelia Earhart the Second?”

“I’m Lee Tait,” she stated, a little irked the guy would zero in on a nickname the townsfolk had given her when she received her wings fifteen years ago. “Owner and pilot of Sky Dash.”

“Sorry, ma’am.” He looked askance as if another thought chased through his mind. Then, with the boy close to his side, he offered a handshake. “Nice to meet you, Captain Tait.”

She leaned out the door. His grip was firm, large. A frisson of electricity shot up her arm. “No apology needed.” I’m used to the nickname. “And you are…?”

Shaking his head, he issued a short laugh. “I’m losing it. Rogan Matteo.”

“Rogan.” She tested the name, found it oddly pleasing. But…something niggled. Where had she heard his last name…?

He had quiet, gray eyes and soot-black hair. Although his voice suggested the South, his face revealed a none-too-genteel life. A nose too brash to be handsome, a square, tough jaw and cheekbones embracing the genes of a Spanish ancestor. Not handsome, yet appealing in a rudimentary sense.

Disregarding a scurry of nerves at how his eyes imprisoned hers, Lee jumped out of the plane. On the dock, she saw he was taller than she assumed; she could lay her head on his chest, if she chose.

Shaking off the image, she closed the seaplane’s door and picked up her metal toolbox. “What can I do for you, Mr. Matteo?” she asked, starting down the floating dock toward the boardwalk and its array of quaint stores and food outlets.

“I understand you make daily flights to the mainland.”

“I courier the island’s critical mail Monday through Friday.”

“Do you take passengers on those runs?”

“Sometimes. However, it depends on their destination and schedule. If I’m flying mail and we’re going in the same direction and at the same time, passengers are welcome.”

“Are they welcome at other times during the day?”

She stopped. They were at the junction of her dock and the boardwalk, and the boy held his dad’s hand.

“Of course,” she said. “As long as I’m back on time if there’s a mail run.”

“Ah.” Matteo gazed momentarily across the water where the sun sank below the horizon, leaving a bloodstain on the ocean. Glancing down at the boy, his eyes softened; on her they were all business. “In a week or so, I’ll need temporary shuttling to Renton, Captain Tait. Three, four days at most. My son’s attending the elementary school here, so I need to be back in time to pick him up.”

“What’s wrong with Lu’s foot ferry?” she asked. Let Lucien Duvall take the man on his sixty-passenger water taxi. It made three daily trips.

“Nothing’s wrong with his ferry, but you stop at Renton, which means I can walk to work. Lu docks at Seattle, and he leaves at 7:30 a.m. with a five-thirty return. Your eight and three o’clock schedules fit my son—” another glance at the boy “—and me better.”

My son and me. Did that mean the child’s mother lived elsewhere? Oddly, the notion of a wife waiting in the wings sent a shaft of disappointment through Lee.

“I’m willing to pay the going rate,” Matteo went on.

Unable to withhold her amazement, Lee blinked. Temporary or not, a week of daily return flights would cost him. Either he or his company had money. Since he was a stranger to the island—she knew practically every one of its two thousand souls—she’d bet he was the one with money. Probably another of the rich who came to Firewood Island looking for a chunk of so-called “nature,” while building a mansion with an ocean view.

Although the idea bothered her, where he built his home had nothing to do with her hesitancy. She did not wish to be near him. He was a man with a child. A man who could make her heart skip with a simple hello, there.

Her no-nonsense black shoes clicking against the wood, she started for the apartment she rented above Art Smarts, a whimsical shop catering to the island’s artsy community.

Matteo took the heavy toolbox from her grip. “Do you always maintain your own plane?”

“Every day.” She noticed he carried the toolbox easily, and wondered if he was always a gentleman. Her heart beat a little harder.

“So, you’re a mechanic, too?” he asked with that Southern inflection.

“Not officially, but over the years I’ve learned a few things about plane engines.” Most of it from my ex who owns a charter airline. “Don’t worry, Mr. Matteo,” she said, mentally batting Stuart Hershel out of her mind. “I hire a professional to overhaul my plane twice a year.”

Halting again, she retrieved the toolkit from his grip. Suddenly, she didn’t like his questions. And she certainly didn’t like that she noticed too much about him, which vexed her even more, especially after his scrutiny of the last three days.

“I could probably help with your situation,” she went on. “However, I won’t be responsible for getting you to work on time. If something goes wrong and I’m late, you’ll be late. And vice versa. If something holds you up here or on the mainland, I can’t wait for you.”

He held up a hand. “I understand. However, I’ve checked your flight history. Since you were hired by the post office seven months ago, you haven’t missed a day or a time. Nor have you missed your other fares.” His smile canted left. “I’m a lawyer, Miss Lee. Comprehensive research comes with the job.”

A lawyer. Who’d had her investigated. What else had he discovered? A chill spilled through her bones. Three years ago, she had returned to her hometown to escape a past that haunted her nights.

He dug a card from a hip pocket. “Call anytime and we’ll set up a schedule. I don’t go to bed until eleven.”

She studied the print. Rogan B. Matteo, Law Offices of Matteo and Matteo. Address: Renton, where she often docked. Was he part of a husband-and-wife team?

He said, “I’m having a new one printed up this week, but the cell phone number will stay the same.”

“Sure,” she said. Intent on reaching her apartment, and trying to shake off his magnetism, she hurried down the boardwalk. All right, she would admit the man seemed like a nice guy. But then lawyers were always nice guys—when they were on your side.

“Thank you,” he called. “By the way, in case you want to reach me, I’m renting a cabin at The Country Cabin B and B until our new house is ready.”

Her sister’s place. “Why am I not surprised?” Lee muttered. Kat operated the prettiest, best-priced B and B on the island.

So. Not only had Rogan Matteo spent the better part of the weekend tailing Lee, he had installed himself in Kat’s life, too. Two sisters with one stone, so to speak.

Fine. Two could play that game. In a couple hours, while she shared Sunday dinner with her sister, Lee would dig out some information about Lawyer Matteo and those dollars he was willing to dole out like Halloween candy. Dollars Lee could use to safeguard Sky Dash and ensure her plane stayed in the air.

She would not, absolutely would not, reflect on how or why he made her fingers tingle and her breath quicken.

Rogan tucked the blankets around his son’s shoulders. “Catch you in the morning, Dan-the-Man.” Leaning in, he kissed the boy’s forehead. After coming home from the dock and the bath/cookie/milk/bedtime story ritual completed, it was time for lights out.

“’Night, Daddy.” Yawning, Danny turned to the wall.

Clicking off the bedside lamp, Rogan started for the door.

The sheets swished. “Dad? Are you really gonna fly in that lady’s plane?”

Rogan returned to the bed to sit at his son’s hip. “Yeah, buddy, I am. I don’t like you being with a sitter so long after school.”

What he couldn’t say was he didn’t like the idea of a stranger watching over his child, even though the sitter was a respected woman in the community whose livelihood had been caring for kids after school for almost thirty years. Hell, she came with an arm’s length of glowing reports and references—all of which he’d checked thoroughly.

But Daniel was his remaining child. Rogan had given too many extra hours to his career when Darby and little Sophie still lived. That mistake had been more costly than he could fathom, and one he would never repeat.

“But,” Danny whispered, “aren’t you scared?”

Of flying. Rogan gently squeezed his child’s hand. “Truth?”

A quick nod.

“Sort of,” he admitted. “However, I can’t let it stop me from going to work, son. Or from getting into a plane. Yes, sometimes things are scary, but we can’t let them control what we need to do. Ms. Tait will save me a lot of time with her plane.” And I need to show you that fears can be overcome, that you don’t need to be afraid for the rest of your life.

“Is her plane safe?”

“Yes. It is. She gets it checked regularly.”

Still, Rogan’s stomach clenched. Every day he thanked all the deities for the earache that had kept Danny from boarding that fated flight. But, oh God, why had he not listened to Darby’s intuition? Why had he pushed his wife to make that journey back to the City of Forks for her mother’s sixtieth birthday?

The morning of the flight had been foggy. I don’t feel good about this, Rogan, she’d said, and he’d replied, It’ll be fine. You’ll be there before you know it. I’ll call you at lunch, okay?

But she and Sophie, their eight-year-old daughter, had never made it to Forks. And now he was putting a case together against the airline company.

He stroked his son’s hair. “We’ve talked about this, remember? Dad’s opening his own office here on the island. Then I’ll never have to leave home again, and when I am at the office I’ll be practically around the corner from your school. Flying with Captain Tait is not forever. Just a few days this week, and maybe next. Just until Uncle Johnny and I get things settled at the old office.”

“Why can’t Uncle Johnny move here, too?”

Rogan sighed. “Because he likes the big city.” Although Johnny would never admit it, Rogan believed the fast life was his younger brother’s validation as the family rebel, a label their parents had hung on him at fifteen.

On the pillow, the boy curled a hand under his cheek. “Promise you’ll come back?”

“I promise.”

Silence. Then, “Maybe that’s why Mommy never came back. She didn’t promise.”

“Oh, Danny. No one expects bad things to happen.” It’s always the other guy who’s unlucky.

“You mean if she’d promised she’d be alive now?”

“No, buddy. Promises don’t mean bad things won’t happen.”

“But you just promised.”

“Shove over, okay?” Rogan lay down beside his child and pulled him into a hug. “Promises are sort of like agreements. They mean you’ll do your best to fulfill them. But once in a while things get in the way…and the agreement is broken.”

“Like the mountain got in the way of Mom and Sophie’s plane?”

“Yeah.” Rogan closed his eyes on a flash of pain. “Sort of.”

“Are there mountains between here and Renton?”

Mount Rainier. “Not one we’ll be flying over.”

A quiet fell. “Okay,” came the soft reply.

“You about ready to sleep now, pal?”

“Hmm. ’Night, Dad.”

“’Night, tiger.”

Rogan eased from the mattress. He pulled the door to a five-inch gap and headed for the cabin’s living room. Shrugging into a wool-lined vest, he stepped quietly out the door and onto the tiny front porch. Beyond the trees, the ocean swooshed against the shore with the rhythm of a metronome.

He liked the cabin, liked the secluded woods, away from the old Victorian that was the main house. Here he could think without the interruption of other guests or the owner/hostess, Kat O’Brien, and her son. Not that he didn’t like the single mother. He did; she had given him a respectable two-week deal while he waited for his recently purchased farmhouse to undergo repairs and reconstruction.

Thinking of the ninety-year-old structure a mile from town, Rogan smiled. Farmhouse, indeed. Once, long ago, it had overlooked a sixty-acre sheep farm. Today, the acres totaled fifteen and contained a house and barn in dire need of paint and repairs and a mare with a three-week-old foal.

Taking Danny to see the horses had cinched the deal. One look at that fuzzy-chinned baby gamboling beside its great-bellied mother, and the boy had been a goner.

I wanna live here, Daddy, and pet the baby horse every day.

After a thousand tears and months of heartbreak following the deaths of his wife and daughter, Rogan hadn’t been able to refuse the boy anything. Not even a farm. So he’d bought the place, hired the island handyman Zeb Jantz to do enough repairs to make it livable, and moved from Renton to this B and B cabin in order to settle Dan into the elementary school as well as oversee the renovation.

But on nights like this…nights when his little guy questioned Darby’s crash, Rogan wanted nothing more than to turn back the clock three years to the exact moment he had booked that charter flight to Forks. And the moment he heard Darby’s premonition. He’d cancel the flight and tell her to stay home.

He’d say he loved her one more time.

Scratching his stubbled cheeks, he sat on one of the porch’s two wicker chairs. The spice of sea clung to the night’s breeze and stars glittered like crushed glass in the sky.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat there, listening and waiting for what he didn’t know, before the ping-ping of the cell phone on his belt shot through his musings. Caller ID indicated a text message from his younger brother in Renton, where Rogan had once lived with Darby and set up a law office with Johnny.

Hey guy, the message began. Hope ur not in the sack. Rogan’s mouth lifted into a smile as he checked the watch at his wrist and realized that already an hour had passed. “Time flies when you’re having fun,” he muttered. He continued to read: Got some news re case. Need 2 discuss. Tomoro at 9 work 4 u? jkm

Tomorrow? That meant contacting Lee Tait tonight and flying in her floatplane well before he’d planned. Before he had a week to psych himself up for the ordeal. Because as much as he pretended otherwise, for him flying would be an ordeal.

Cant u call now? he wrote. Within sixty seconds he had an answer: In L8 meet. See u tomoro. Rogan grunted. He could imagine Johnny’s late meeting. No doubt it involved a long-legged blonde.

Contemplating, he replied, Ill call u at 9. He did not want to get on that plane this soon.

No, came the return. B HERE at 9!

Rogan stared at the message. What the hell could be so important that they had to meet in person?

With a sigh he shut the phone. One way or another, he’d find out tomorrow. He only hoped it was something positive in the suit he was building against the charter airline company that killed his family.

Don’t think of that now, he thought, staring at the night sky with its canopy of stars. Or you won’t get to sleep tonight.

He forced himself to relax. Three hundred yards away, the ocean lapped against the shore and he turned his memories to his encounters with Lee Tait a few hours before.

Her womanly charms surprised him. All that red hair in a thick wavy tail trailing down her back, and those eyes, green as the budding leaves on the farm….

The freckles across her skin had surprised him further. At a distance she appeared pale and thin, but within arm’s length her complexion glowed like the setting sun, and her shape had the litheness of a willow.

But what caught him most was the heat in his groin when his name tumbled from her lips in a voice made for the night.

Shame slashed through him. How could he think of another woman? Darby had been the love of his life for seventeen years. No one could replace her.

Shoulders lifting on an extensive breath, he returned to the wicker chair. Slouching forward, he shoved his hands into his hair.

He was so goddamned tired. Tired of the loneliness, of hurting and grieving, and wishing time was reversible. He needed to move on, really move on. For Danny and for himself. Living like a monk wasn’t the answer.

And Johnny was right. Hiding on an island wasn’t the answer, either. Because no matter how hard Rogan tried, the memories dragged along like tattered old blankets. Well, right or wrong he’d made the choice, and next week he’d hang out his shingle. But first, he needed to cajole the lovely Lee into taking him tomorrow in that confined little seaplane.

He looked toward the bed-and-breakfast. He had her business number from her Sky Dash Web site. He could call her, except two hours ago he’d seen her drive up in a red Jeep and go into the Victorian. Another surprise. Did she live here, rent a room?

He could call the main desk and ask for her extension.

Or he could wait until morning, talk to her face-to-face on the wharf, hand her a wad of bills she couldn’t refuse.

For the first time in years, his heart pounded with anticipation.

Chapter Two

Lee’s sister, Kat, cut a wedge of dessert and lifted it onto her plate.

“I can’t believe you’re refusing my apple crumble,” she groused. Dinner done, the dishes washed, they sat in the living room of Kat’s B and B, while her son finished a school assignment in his bedroom. “Are you sick or something?”

Lee shrugged. “Lately I haven’t been very hungry.” In reality, she’d been a tad woozy now and again during the past month, which could be a symptom for a dozen ailments. A stomach bug, eating the wrong food….

Except, she couldn’t remember the last time she had the flu. But she knew exactly when she’d last had a bout of evening wooziness.

Five years ago, when she’d been pregnant with Stuart’s baby.

Damn it, she was not pregnant. This was a bug she’d caught from one of her weekend passengers or Kat’s son, Blake. Hadn’t he missed a day or two of school last week due to a virus?

Of course, it was the flu. She and Oliver had been careful.

“Hey.” Kat’s brown eyes were serious. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. Just thinking about Oliver.” And the possibility I could be pregnant. The thought churned through her stomach. God help her, but what would she do if she was…? No. She would not even consider it. How many years had she tried with Stuart and failed? This was simply her out-of-whack periods acting up.

Kat put down her fork. “His death hurt you more than your divorce from Stuart.”

“Yeah,” Lee admitted.

“That’s because Oliver Duvall was your best friend since grade school, Lee. You two had a lot of history.”

She did not want to discuss Oliver, or the fact she missed him more than she’d ever missed her ex-husband after their divorce.

No, what she wanted was to discuss Rogan Matteo.

“He makes my fingers tingle.” There—it was out in the open. Matteo’s effect on her.

“Oliver made your fingers tingle?” Kat curled into the sofa’s corner with a cup of tea.

“No…. Argh.” Lee rested her head on the back of the couch. “Rogan Matteo. Your guest. Tonight, he introduced himself while I was checking my plane. Apparently, he wants transportation back and forth to the mainland for a couple of weeks.”

Kat laughed. “Ah…I see.”

“It’s not funny,” Lee retorted.

“Attractions usually aren’t.”

“I am not attracted to him,” Lee said, vexed that her sister had jumped to conclusions.

“Oh, I can see that,” Kat said. “Mr. Hunk walks up the pier, pins you with his sorrowful eyes while the wind plays in all that sexy black hair and then he opens his mouth and out comes an accent that would make Matthew McConaughey weep, and your fingers get an irritable little tingle. Yep, you’re definitely not attracted.”

Lee closed her eyes. “This is the silliest discussion I’ve had since sixth grade.”

“Back at you, sis. But it’s good you’re attracted, don’t you think? After your divorce from the rat B, and then hooking up with poor Oliver, it means—”

“It means Rogan Matteo is a potential fare, Kat. That’s all.” Lee did not want to think about poor Oliver or she’d be crying into her pillow half the night. Nor did she want to think she was dishonoring him eight weeks after his death by eyeing up another man. Jeez, that alone made her nauseous. She was not her mother. Not.

“Okay,” Kat conceded, “he’s a fare. So are you flying him?”

“I haven’t decided. It’s a big responsibility getting someone to work every day.”

“Oh, heck,” Kat scoffed. “Take the guy. If after a week he’s too much of a hassle, tell him to go with Lucien.”

Lee sighed. Her sister had a point. She was making far too much of all this. And just because Matteo had kind eyes.

Like Oliver’s.

Oliver. Best friend turned lover weeks ago, while on a six-week furlough from Iraq. Before he returned to war. Before he was killed by sniper fire.

For three years after her divorce, Lee had avoided relationships; tamped down the remotest inclination toward desire. Then Oliver Duvall had returned to Firewood Island, and she’d never been so glad to see her childhood friend. When she thought of his death…

How could she look at Rogan Matteo with Oliver not barely gone two months? Rogan Matteo with his quiet eyes.

Was it any wonder he appealed to her? The Southern accent molding his words, or the way he looked at his little boy had nothing to do with her…lust. It was those slate-gray eyes, reminders of a friend who was no more.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll tell him my plans if he shows up on my dock again.”

“Why not tell him now? Didn’t we just see him through the kitchen window, sitting on the cabin porch, looking at the stars? Go knock on his door.”

Lee stared at her sister. “Are you crazy? It’s the middle of the night.”

Kat raised a brow. “It’s ten after nine.”

“You are crazy.”

“Honey, I’m not blind. The guy is handsome…in a rough-edged sort of way. If he makes your fingers itch, go talk to him. You know you want to.” She grinned. “Look, what’s he going to do? Say hi?”

“It’ll seem like I’m chasing him.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Do you want the damn fare or not?”

“Fine.” Before she could change her mind, Lee set down her cup, got up and walked out the back door. The way her stomach roiled, a breath of cold air would do her good.

Stepping onto the back deck, she realized she should’ve grabbed her coat; the night chill crept under her lightweight sweater, goose-bumping her skin. Above, stars cluttered the sky, magnifying its vastness and if she had a moment she’d seek out the Big and Little Dippers, as always. But Rogan had spotted her and was likely wondering about her intentions.

Now or never, Lee.

Starting across Kat’s backyard toward the cabin’s path in the woods, she watched him rise from the wicker chair and come to the edge of the steps in anticipation of her arrival.

He hadn’t turned on his outside light and so stood in the dark, looming above her. Around them, night breezes whispered through the trees, bearing the tang of sea salt.

“It’s Lee Tait,” she said, hugging her arms around her stomach against the night’s chill. Against him.

“Hello, Lee.”

God, how could her name sound that husky?

“I was visiting my sister and figured I should let you know that flying you to Renton won’t be a problem. But before you go jumping up and down with glee, I’ll be frank. This is a three-day tryout, Mr. Matteo. After that we’ll see where we’re at.”

A punch of silence, then a low chuckle. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you, Captain Tait? I like that.”

“Good. We understand each other.”

“We do.”

“Fine. I’ll see you later.”

Before she could turn back down the path, he asked, “Ms. O’Brien is your sister?”

“For thirty-four years. Argh—” Lee massaged the spot between her eyes. “She’ll kill me if you reveal that detail.”

“I’ll be sure to tape my mouth shut.” Again, she heard a note of humor as he glanced toward the Victorian. And abruptly, a thought hit. Maybe she’d read him wrong. Maybe it wasn’t her he was interested in, but Kat.

And why not? a voice whispered. Of the three sisters, Kat was the nurturer, the earth mother. The intermediary Lee and Addie always came to for advice when life’s inroads got rough.

“Just for the record,” Lee pointed out. “Kat doesn’t gossip. Nor would she have convinced me to bother you tonight—” Now, why tell him that, Lee? “—except I bugged her with some questions.” Oh, great word choice.

“About me?” His voice lowered to Vin Diesel deepness.

“For insurance purposes.”

“That standard for all your passengers?”

He had her there. “Look,” she said, trembling from the cool breeze. “I’ll be honest. Your—”

“You’re cold,” he interrupted, coming down the steps, shrugging from his vest. “Why don’t you come inside for a minute?”

Go inside that little cabin? Where his big frame would swallow every molecule of air? Where she’d wander close enough to smell the soap on his skin? No thanks.

Before Lee could think it through, he’d wrapped the vest, infused with his warmth and scent, around her shoulders.

“I’m fine,” she said, back-stepping so they weren’t so close, so she couldn’t feel his breath on her forehead. “Besides, I need to get back to my sister.”

He dropped his hands from the panels of the vest where he’d pulled them closed over her breasts. “I don’t bite, Lee,” he said softly.

“Maybe not,” she replied, hoping to inject some clout into her tone because she wanted nothing more than to grab his face between her hands. “But you have to admit, your nightly vigil down at the docks was downright spooky. What was I to think? No, let me rephrase that. What were you thinking? A man with your obvious intelligence and a lawyer to boot should know better than to stand there staring at a woman three nights in a row, especially when she’s by herself.”

Huffing a breath, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “My apologies. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking. All that mattered, still matters, is my son, Ms. Tait. He’s my first priority. Everything else falls by the wayside.”

“Well.” Her irritation faded upon his reference to the child. “At least we have that cleared up.” She hesitated. “I understand you bought Eve Riley’s old farm and that you’re renovating the house.” Kat had let that tidbit drop at dinner.

“I did and am.” He smiled, a flash of white in the dark. “This for insurance purposes, too?”

“Absolutely,” she quipped. “Especially when you don’t look like any farmer I know.”

She thought he might chuckle, but instead his gaze took in the dark woods behind her. “I’m a defense attorney.”

Which meant he litigated for the underdog or the criminal. Yet it didn’t explain why he’d relocated his child in the middle of the school term—and on an island—while he continued to work on the mainland, a seemingly unfair decision. More so, where was the boy’s mother? Was she the second Matteo in the business card’s “Matteo and Matteo”?

“Is your wife a lawyer, too?”

His eyes dulled. “No.”

“Will she be joining—”

“No.”

Lee shivered. The way he said that one word…. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s none of my business.”

He stood frozen, quiet—which told her more than she had a right to know. Rogan Matteo was the sole guardian of his son. The reasons weren’t important, but they were enough to stay on her guard. Daddy role models were not a favored part of her life. Her father had left Charmaine when Lee was a toddler. Two decades later, her own marriage had dissolved in a raw divorce after her inability to conceive—and her ex’s infidelity.

“See you in a week.” She spun around.

“Lee, wait. I need you to fly me tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? I thought you were on vacation.” Again, according to Kat.

“I am, but I just found out I’ll need to be in Renton for a 9:00 a.m. meeting. I can take the afternoon ferry back if you’re not available.”

She mulled over her options. “Fine. I’m flying my brother-in-law to Renton at one, I can fly you back then. That time frame work for you?”

“Yes, and thank you. See you at eight-fifteen?”

“Till then.” She shrugged out of his vest, reluctant to let go of his scent. Get a grip, Lee. “Goodbye, Mr. Matteo.”

“Rogan,” he corrected, taking the garment she shoved into his hand. “And goodnight, Lee.”

She hurried down the path, the timbre of his voice lingering in her ear. The prickle in her fingers sharpened.

Tomorrow, she’d fly him over, and afterward find an excuse to boot him off her plane and out of her life.

Determined, she said goodbye to Kat and Blake, and drove home. Two hours later, Rogan Matteo’s mellow Southern accent continued to whisper across her skin.

He slept in spurts, getting out of bed when dawn edged a line of pink onto the horizon. Today he would be climbing into a plane with a woman pilot. A woman whose moves attracted him, whose hair framed her face in a way that was sexy as hell.

A woman with whom he’d spend twenty minutes flying across ocean water. Not a lake and not in the mountains, he reasoned. It’s not the same geography Sophie and Darby flew over.

His heart bounced in his chest. Although the radiant heating had clicked on at 5:00 a.m. and the cabin was warming, he felt a chill. Shoving away visions of confined cockpits, he checked on Danny across the hall. Curled in a ball, blankets cocooned around his small body, his son slumbered the sleep of the innocent.

Rogan touched the boy’s shoulder, felt its fragility, and a surge of protection blew through him. I’ll always be here for you, son. I won’t let you down.

Leaving the boy to sleep for another couple of hours, he went to shower. Minutes later, he dressed, then headed for the kitchen to pour cereal into a pair of thick, ceramic bowls.

By eight o’clock, briefcase in hand, he locked up the cabin and ushered Danny out to the truck.

“You know that Mrs. Huddleston will be taking you to school this morning, right, buddy?” Rogan stood in the open door of the rear passenger seat and waited for his son to buckle up. He hated the thought of dropping Danny at the old lady’s house this one time, but she lived across from the school, and she’d been a caretaker of kids for years. Rogan had done an extensive check in case he needed her assistance when he had to leave before the school’s doors opened. As he did today.

Dan’s blond hair fell into his eyes.

“Tomorrow we’ll get you a haircut,” Rogan continued.

“Don’t wanna.”

“Ah. You want to look like a rock star,” he cajoled, hoping to draw a smile from his son as he tugged the collar of the boy’s red jacket from the back of his thin neck. Danny had been surly since he crawled from bed an hour ago.

“No-o.”

“A shaggy dog then?”

“No. Let’s just go, Dad.”

Rogan held in a sigh. “Okay, pal.” After closing the door, he went around the hood, got behind the wheel, and started the engine. Hoping for a trace of eagerness on his son’s face, he glanced in the rearview mirror.

Danny stared out the side window at the cabin, his mouth a line of mutiny.

Okay, then. Driving down the timbered lane of the B and B to Shore Road, Rogan offered, “Mrs. Huddleston said there’s a boy your age she also takes to school. His name’s Bobby and he’s in your class.”

No answer.

“You know I’d stay home if I could, Daniel, but I need to attend this meeting with Uncle Johnny.”

Still no response. Checking the mirror again, he felt his heart lurch. A tear clung to his son’s cheek. The sight nearly had him pulling to the roadside, except he couldn’t afford to miss his flight with Lee Tait, and Danny needed to be on time for school. “Talk to me, buddy,” he tried again. “Please.”

The boy’s bottom lip quivered. He continued to view the ocean through the trees. “I wanna go to my old school.”

Translation: I hate making new friends.

“And I wanna go home.”

The house in Renton. “Aw, bud. This is our home now.”

“I don’t wanna live here no more.”

“Okay, but we’ll have to sell Juniper and Pepper.”

“No!” Danny’s eyes clashed with Rogan’s in the mirror. “Can’t we take the horses with us?”

“Do you think that’s fair? The farm is their home. Besides…” Rogan played another angle, one that garnered a smidgen of guilt. “They’re animals. They’ll get confused in a new place.”

He had turned down Main Street before the boy’s reply drifted from the rear seat. “Okay, we can stay. I don’t want them to feel lost.”

A stone hit Rogan’s gut. Danny transposed his own emotions onto the mare and foal. Reaching back, he patted the boy’s knee. “Everything’s going to work out, buddy. You’ll see.”

But after he dropped Danny at Mrs. Huddleston’s house, the pledge spun like a merry-go-round through his mind as he drove toward Lee Tait’s pier.

She was shoving a box into the cargo hold of the seaplane, and the morning sun forged her thick ponytail into coils of copper.

“Good morning,” she called when he climbed from his truck.

“’Morning.” Pocketing his keys, he remembered how, twelve hours before, she’d appeared out of the night like a forest sprite. Jeez, Rogan. What the hell’s got into you? He strode down the wooden dock as she lifted a box of packages. “Let me get those.”

“Thanks, but I’ve done this a time or two, Mr. Matteo.”

“Not while I’ve been in the vicinity.” Setting down his briefcase, he stepped beside her on the pontoon, and pushed the box onto the plane.

Planting her hands on hips nicely encased in a pair of black slacks, she canted an icy green gaze up at him.

“Okay,” she said and the sexy look of those aviator sunglasses perched on her head zapped through his veins. “Let’s get one thing straight here and now. I am not a helpless female in need of rescue. I’ve logged over ten thousand flying hours in fifteen years, and in that time I’ve transported luggage, snow and ski gear, fishing and hunting gear, vehicle and engine parts, medical supplies, animals in cages—you get the picture?”

Despite his woozy belly at the thought of getting into a plane for the first time since the crash, he chuckled. “Yes, ma’am. You are quite capable of loading your plane. Alone.”

“Thank you. Now, why don’t you leave your briefcase here with me and climb aboard.” She gestured to the cockpit. “We’ll be taking off in five minutes.”

A lump bounced into his windpipe. The seat appeared narrow, constricted…sized for a ten-year-old. “You want me to…”

“Settle yourself into the co-pilot’s chair. Unless you’d rather sit behind me in the passenger seat.”

Somehow the thought of her not beside him made his mouth go dry. He needed to see her face, the astuteness in her eyes, the calm she would offer when he no doubt lost it a mile up in the clouds.

A small crease staged itself between her fine auburn brows. Was she assessing him, wondering if she should fly him after all? Come on. Get in the damn plane before she figures out you’re a candy-ass flier.

With epic effort, he stepped toward the door. His shoes felt bulky as cement, his legs as if they were chained to the dock’s planks.

“Rogan.” She touched the sleeve of his suit coat. Her eyes held compassion. “Have you flown in a small plane before?”

He swallowed. “Not recently.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Is this your first time up?”

“I’ve flown in commercial jets.” Where there were center seats, broad aisles and hundreds of passengers. “I’m fine,” he said when her hand dropped away. Biting his tongue, he climbed into the plane, squeezed his big body between the front seats, and landed on the co-pilot’s cushioned chair.

The front windshield exposed a propeller, and dual bands of blue: one of sky, the other of ocean. Sweat popped from his pores.

The plane swayed and rocked gently on the water as Lee finished loading her cargo; then she scrambled into the pilot’s chair and pulled the door shut.

Her brows knitted. “Need something to settle your stomach?”

“Took it with breakfast.”

“Good. Put on the headset,” she instructed, back to business. “That way we can talk to each other.”

“I’m not much of a conversationalist when I’m in a plane.”

He glanced over, tried to smile. She had a modesty he rarely saw in women. A modesty that had nothing to do with her green eyes and kinky ponytail or her freckled hands on the controls, all of which seemed at odds with the white V of blouse between the panels of her black flight jacket. A modesty that went hand-in-hand with her practical demeanor.

The entire package attracted the hell out of him.

She pushed the headset into his hands. “Put it on anyway.”

“Do you mind if I close my eyes?” Yeah. That’s what he’d do. And then he’d contemplate all Lee Tait’s assets, including that wild red hair and those slim hips and—The plane’s engine roared to life.

“You can do anything you want.” Her voice glided along his senses. “Long as you remain buckled, and don’t touch the controls.”

“Got it.” Touching the controls? God forbid. Pinching his eyes shut, he folded his arms, tried not to clutch the fabric of his suit coat.

Perspiration dampened his forehead. His stomach whirled.

Nothing will happen. Danny won’t be left behind. But the image of his family wavered behind his eyes.

He tried not to think of what they had gone through when their plane crashed into the mountain forest, breaking branches and small tree trunks, swathing a path of demolition and death.

He tried not to think of his little boy alone in the world, crying for him. Or of Johnny attempting to console Danny. Raising Danny….

“I’m right beside you,” Lee said into the headphones when the plane began to move.

He listened to her voice while she ran through a list of checks—rudders, flaps, fuel gage—and gave their coordinates to the Renton tower before the plane skimmed the ocean, lifted, buzzed into the sky.

He heard the tone of her words more than their meaning. That assured tone. The quiet, steady tone.

And when he bit the inside of his cheek, he felt her fingers curve around his forearm. “You’ll be okay with me,” she promised.

And, in that moment, he believed her. He really did.

Chapter Three

Lee kept her word and landed with barely a bounce on the south end of Lake Washington near Renton’s seaplane base. Still, as he climbed out of the craft, Rogan could have bowed to the floating dock, so grateful was he to be earthbound again.

Now, riding the elevator ten floors up to the law offices he and Johnny had established eight years ago, he recalled her piloting skills again. She had eased his thundering pulse in the way she handled the plane. With a little luck, he’d take that ease to his brother. After three long, heartbreaking and guilt-ridden years, Rogan had come to hate the mere mention of the charter airline responsible for taking his family, and he suspected this meeting would be more of the same frustrating roller-coaster ride.

When he entered the reception area, the woman at the desk raised her head. “Mr. Matteo. It’s good to see you again, sir.” As if he’d been gone ten years rather than ten days. “Your brother is expecting you.”

“Thanks.” Briefcase in hand, he headed down the hallway leading to the big L-shaped corner office—his old stomping grounds—with its spectacular view of Mount Rainier. When he left, Johnny had claimed the space. At the thought, Rogan expected a twinge of regret and envy. None came.

The door stood open. His brother sat behind the expansive cherrywood desk where Rogan had spent years reviewing cases and interviewing clients. He knocked softly on the doorjamb.

“R.B.” A big grin flashed across Johnny’s face. “I was wondering if you’d come.”

“I almost didn’t.” He set the briefcase beside the small comfortable sofa, and went to the credenza for some coffee. “Want some?” he asked, tossing a dollop of cream into a mug.

Johnny shook his head. “Already had enough to sink a ship.”

Rogan lowered himself to the earth-toned sofa. “What’s up?”

Chuckling, Johnny came around the desk to sit in the adjacent chair. “You never were one to waste time.”

“Yeah, well, maybe I should have,” he muttered, reprimanding himself for the years of work he’d prized, including the day his world collapsed.

Crossing his arms, his brother sat back. “And maybe you should give yourself a break.”

Rogan glanced up. “I need you to be a brother, John. Not a frickin’ shrink.”

Johnny sighed. “All right. Here’s the deal. They’ve upped the ante for an out-of-court settlement.”

They would be Abner Air. He hated the name, hated that—to him—it sounded hillbillyish. Most of all, he hated that he had to sue for slack maintenance, which he believed resulted in the crash of the single-prop plane Darby and Sophie boarded.

I don’t feel good about this trip, Rogan. Fisting his hands on his thighs, he battled back his dead wife’s parting words. Words which could still haunt him deep in the night.

“How much this time?” he asked. His jaw ached.

Johnny quoted the price.

Anger heating his blood, Rogan stood and walked to the windows. Across the city, Rainier rose like a white-crusted jewel. He’d learned to ski on her slopes. “The only reason they want to settle out of court is because they’re guilty as sin.” Turning, he faced his brother. “They don’t want media coverage. But they’re going to pay, and it’ll be in court with the media present. I want them exposed.”

A long moment passed. Finally, Johnny said, “I think you should go for the deal, R.B. If we go to trial, you may come away with a helluva lot less. You’ve worked against big companies. You know the game.”

“Cutthroat. I know. But I don’t give a rat’s ass. These people deserve every damn thing we can throw at them.”

Johnny studied him. “Is that why you bailed on Matteo and Matteo? Because you thought we were getting too ruthless?”

“I didn’t bail. I wanted something different, with a different outlook.” One that offered a slower pace of life, and saw the heart of a client’s problems, not the size of his wallet.

“And you’ll be paid in peanuts for your effort,” Johnny grumbled. “I’ve done some checking of my own. That island is inhabited by a bunch of hippie offspring.”

Rogan thought of Lee, the most structured person he’d met in years. “They’re not all loosey-goosey, John,” he said in defense of her. “However, that’s not the issue here.” Spinning on his heel, he paced the length of the windows. “These SOBs are hiding something. I want to know what it is, and I want to know yesterday.”

Johnny’s eyes were grim—and sad. “We may never know why that plane went down, Ro. Let’s take the deal and put an end to this.”

Rogan clenched his fists. “There’ll never be an end because the other half of my family will never come back.”

“Okay. Okay.” Elbows to knees, Johnny pushed both hands into his dark hair and gusted a sigh. “I may have a lead on another avenue, anyway. But let me sort through it first.”

“Fine. Keep me posted.”

“Always.” His brother’s mouth curved. “Now, tell me, how’s life down on the farm?”

Rogan returned to the sofa, stretched his legs. The mere mention of his new property calmed him. “House should be finished by the end of next week.”

“Dan’s excited?”

“Oh, yeah. We take daily treks to see the foal.”

“Still can’t believe you’re doing this. An island for God’s sake, never mind a farm.”

“It’s what Daniel needs.” Truth was, he’d checked out Firewood Island because Sophie had adored the classic story, Misty of Chincoteague. Sophie who, after reading the book, had asked at dinner one night, Can we live on an island, Daddy, and have a pony? and he’d replied, Only dreamers live on islands.

Could he have been any more obtuse to his little girl? Well, he would be that dreamer now, be what Sophie had yearned for in the purity of her heart. Most of all, he’d be a father Danny could count on.

“Whatever the case,” he went on, thinking of the homey little office he hoped to rent above the coffee shop in Burnt Bend. “We’re where we want to be. It’s quiet, laid-back, and the people are friendly.”

“And you don’t have to walk the rooms where they lived,” Johnny said quietly.

Rogan closed his eyes. A headache stitched into his temple. “Let it go, all right? Just make Abner Air pay.”

“I’ll do my best.” Abruptly, his brother stood. “Come on. Breakfast’s on me.”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

At the door, Johnny shouldered into a dark designer jacket. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, R.B.”

Words he’d heard a hundred-fold. “Yeah. Me, too.”

At one and on her second flight to the mainland that day, Lee again skimmed the seaplane across Lake Washington. A tall, charcoal-suited figure stood on the dock, briefcase in hand, black hair tousled by the breeze.

Rogan.

The sight of him sent a pang into her belly. She wouldn’t consider herself an empathetic woman—not like her sisters Addie and Kat whose hearts rode their sleeves most of the time—yet something about Rogan Matteo dug deep.

Standing there as she taxied in he seemed almost forlorn and a little…lost.

“That your fare back?” her brother-in-law asked from the co-pilot’s seat. Skip Dalton had married Addie last Thanksgiving, following a thirteen-year separation incited by their fathers because Addie had become pregnant in high school. When Lee thought of the despair her baby sister endured through those years, it made her chest hurt. Thank goodness for Skip’s return to Firewood Island. Today, Addie’s joy spilled from every glance, word and smile.

Maneuvering the plane gently into the dock’s bay, Lee said, “That’s him.” She wasn’t looking forward to another angsty trip, and planned on advising Matteo to use Duvall’s foot ferry in the future.

Skip gathered up a battered attaché case from the rear seat. “Yep, looks like an ambulance chaser, all right,” he wisecracked.

She unbuckled her safety belt and felt a pang for the man on the pier. “Truth is, lawyer jokes aside,” she said, “he’s been a decent guy so far.”

“Huh. What I can’t figure is why he bought a farm.” Skip pursed his lips. “Wouldn’t surprise me if he plans to put up a string of beach houses.”

She glanced out the window. The man stared back at her as though he eavesdropped on their discussion. Surely, he wasn’t hoping to rezone the Riley place into a cluster of grandiose properties?

Skip shot her a wicked grin. “Let’s ask him. If he says yes, you can dump him in the Sound on the way home.”

Lee rolled her eyes. “Oh, that makes so much sense.”

At Skip’s laughter, she threw open the door and climbed from the plane. For all her huff and puff, she couldn’t tear her gaze away from Rogan as he walked toward them. Those big shoulders, that wind-messed hair, those deep-set gray eyes…The man was a walking, talking GQ cover.

Her brother-in-law stepped forward to introduce himself. “Skip Dalton. I hear you’ll be flying with Lee for a while.”

Rogan’s gaze flicked to her. “Guess news really does fly.”

Eyes narrowing, Skip observed the man waiting to board—and watching Lee. “For the record,” her brother-in-law said, “we’re a close family.” With that, he headed down the dock, whistling.

Lee stared after him. Talk about a testosterone standoff.

“Well,” Rogan drawled. “That was enlightening.”

She took his briefcase, set it on the seat behind the co-pilot’s chair. “Don’t mind him. As the only adult male in a family of females, he’s a little territorial. Especially now that my youngest sister is seven months pregnant. Why don’t you get in and we’ll head back?”

When they both settled in the cockpit, she reignited the engine. “You okay?” The color had left his face once more and his hands gripped his knees.

“I’m fine.”

He didn’t look fine. “Concentrate on my voice.” She steered the plane toward open water, went through her checklist. Rudders, flaps, fuel, wind velocity…. “If you’re this uncomfortable flying,” she advised when she saw him clench his fists, “you should seriously consider traveling by water, regardless of the schedule.”

“I won’t do that to my son. Schools can be terrifying for the new kid.”

Then maybe you shouldn’t have moved to our island.

As if their minds were linked, he said, “I don’t plan to do this much longer, anyway.”

“Oh?” Did he mean lawyering?

“I can’t explain—” He released a gut-deep groan as the plane lifted off the water and arrowed into the sky.

Issuing the coordinates to the tower, Lee kept vigil on her passenger. His mouth was a pale, stark line; his eyes focused on his knees jutting in the confines of the cockpit. Single prop planes were not vessels of comfort for a man with a lumberjack’s frame. Or, one with an apparent phobia.

“I’ll get you home safe,” she offered. “Weather’s clear. Great day for flying.”

Maybe if he talked about the root of his problems, he’d realize planes weren’t all bad.

“What happened to you to make you this nervous, Mr. Matteo?”

They were almost across the Sound when he finally pried his tongue loose. “I lost half my family when their plane used a forest as a landing strip.”

Ah, geez. “Rogan…” Lee felt sick at heart for what he must have suffered. “I don’t know what to say.”

For the first time he looked at her. An ocean of pain glimmered in his eyes. “It’s been three years and, hell, I don’t know what to say. I’m still trying to figure it out, still trying to fix what’s left of my family.”

Turning away, he focused on his knees again. “All night I kept thinking, What if something goes wrong? What’ll happen to my boy? He’s seven, just a baby. He needs me to stick around, be there until he can take care of himself. I also know the probability of dying in a car crash exceeds that of dying in a plane, and that my apprehension is all out of whack. But there you have it.”

Except he had experienced tragedy-by-plane. “I’m so sorry.”

He blew a long sigh, scraped at his hair. “Hell, it’s me who should be sorry, dumping on you like this.”

“No,” she said. “You have a right to feel the way you do.” And she meant it. Losing half a family…She shook her head, unable to imagine the horror, the grief.

“A defective fuel line is what they’re claiming,” he went on. “More like poor maintenance on the part of Abner Air.”

Abner Air? Oh. My. God. He’d lost his family in that plane?

Now it all came to her, the niggle in the back of her mind when he’d said his name. Matteo. Four months after she walked out of her marriage and Stuart’s company, news about her ex’s plane going down had filtered back to Lee.

She had recognized the pilot’s name, Bill Norton. But the names of the passengers had been unfamiliar…forgotten.

Yes, she’d sympathized from afar but by then, Stuart Hershel was already someone else’s husband—and an almost daddy. Because of the latter, because of the way she’d discovered Stuart’s betrayal, Lee had put the past, including the crash, wholly out of her mind.

Now she remembered snippets. A woman and child—with Rogan’s last name.

His family.

“Look,” he said, unaware her heart struggled like a wounded animal. “Can we start over?” This time his gaze was soft and gray as the morning mist.

With a nod, Lee forced her throat to open. “Sure.” For two elongated seconds their eyes held, and her heart emitted a solid thump against her breastbone. Start something with this man? No and no.

Quickly turning her concentration on navigating her seaplane—previously of Stuart’s fleet, oh, God—she forwarded her status to the tower and began reducing her elevation.

Minutes later, she taxied shoreward to her portion of pier extending from Burnt Bend’s boardwalk.

She couldn’t wait to leave again, make the run to pick up Skip. Anything to get away from Rogan and the pain she now knew hovered behind his eyes.

While she tied the plane to the wooden deck, he stood facing the shoreline meandering westward. A forest of hemlocks, cedars and willows traveled the land’s slope to the water, but Lee knew what lay on the other side of the natural buffer a mile from town. The Riley property, now his land.

He slanted a look over his shoulder toward the boardwalk’s shops and restaurants. “I hope to buy some office space there.”

A lawyer in Burnt Bend? Except…What had he said before takeoff? I don’t plan to do this for long.

“Are you changing careers?” she asked.

Again he viewed the trees hiding his future address. “In a way.”

A crooked smile that displayed one front tooth edging a millimeter below its twin, stalled her breath. The man didn’t know his own potency.

She had to avoid him. At all costs. Her past meshed too closely with his.

“Same time next week?” he asked.

Make a decision, Lee. Her mouth refused to open. Grateful she hadn’t removed her aviators—she was certain he’d be able to read her misgivings—she nodded once. “Right.”

With a clip of his head, he started for his blue truck, parked in the graveled lot nearby. Not until his dark-suited form disappeared from sight did she grab the wingtip of her plane to support her shaky legs.

Half his family had died in a tragedy that might have been averted had she not been so focused on saving her splintering marriage.

Two days later, Lee lay on an examination table in a Seattle medical clinic, still worrying over her link to Rogan Matteo, a link of which he was unaware, but that she understood clearly.

Why hadn’t she followed her gut instincts three years ago? Why had she trusted her ex to inform the authorities. Why, why, why?

Her worry knotted her throat and propelled her nausea—until she was forced to seek out her friend Dr. Lily Ramirez. Just to talk, Lee told herself. Lily would know what to do. Because a hundred years ago, she’d been Lee and Oliver’s classmate and, later, as an ob-gyn, Lily had seen Lee through a horde of fertility tests during Lee’s nine-year marriage to Stuart.

Staring at the ceiling, Lee shivered at a thought. Was it worry causing the nausea or was it something else?

Once, years ago, she had experienced similar symptoms; periodic queasiness after the evening meal, a craving for raspberry jam and the distaste of her beloved morning coffee.

She couldn’t be pregnant. It had to be the stress of the past two days.

But the longer she waited for Lily to arrive, the more Lee questioned the possibility. The first sign of nausea had begun two weeks before Rogan’s disclosure.

The door opened and Lily entered. “Hey, friend.” The doctor’s lips curved in a genuine smile.

“Lily,” Lee greeted her, relieved. “Am I glad to see you.”

The doctor scanned the nurse’s information on the file she held. “You’ve been nauseous for a couple of weeks?”

“I might be in trouble—big trouble.”

“Okay, don’t panic.” Lily took Lee’s hand. “Tell me.”

Lee did. She explained the wooziness and her worries.

“First,” Lily said after Lee quieted, “let’s see if you are pregnant. Then we’ll talk.”

Several minutes later, the internal exam completed, the doctor removed her gloves. “Your uterus is slightly swollen, but we’ll do a blood and urine test to verify.” Tossing the soiled toweling into the trash, she asked, “Do you have an idea of when you might have gotten pregnant?”

“February. The night before Oliver Duvall shipped out, a little over eight weeks ago.” For the last time. The paper pillow rustled as she turned her head. “But we were careful.”

“Doesn’t matter how careful you are,” Lily replied gently, washing her hands in the sink. “Accidents happen, Lee. I’ll get the nurse in for the tests, then we’ll talk.” She left the room, the door whooshing closed behind her.

Lee stared at the counter with its sink and shelves and medical supplies, at the stirrups protruding from the end of the table. Could things get any worse?

And dare she hope? Dare she hope for a baby after all the barren years?

Ten minutes later, dressed again, she sat on the exam bed and observed Lily jot notes on her clipboard. “Well?” Lee asked, her heart pounding.

“You are pregnant.”

Lee closed her eyes. What a mess. What a wonderful, scary, couldn’t-come-at-a worse-time mess.

She was having Oliver’s baby. Oliver, a man she’d known and trusted since forever. A man who had made soldiering his life—until it killed him.

Gazing at the woman, whose fuchsia-colored stethoscope draped her neck like a trendy piece of bling, Lee’s mind whirled with future scenarios. The baby’s health, due to Lee’s age. The birth process, another health worry. Her fledgling company. No question, she’d have to sell Sky Dash. A single mother operating a plane and raising a baby? Impossible feat.

“God, I can’t believe this happened, Lily. You know my periods are always so unpredictable, and since the divorce I didn’t bother with the pill. What was the point of regulating them, right? And, in case you’re wondering, he wasn’t blasé and I wasn’t stupid. We used condoms.”

“Condoms can tear,” Lily said gently.

Lee stared at the floor. “It wasn’t supposed to happen,” she whispered. “You know how close we were as kids, right? You, me, him. Best friends forever. But on this furlough…”

“Things changed,” Lily filled in.

“Yeah.” Lee remembered Oliver’s face that last day. She’d flown him to the naval air base on Whidbey Island, where they’d held each other for an eternity. She realized then that walking away from her marriage to Stuart had been a relief; but walking away from her lifelong friend had put a dent in her heart.

A tear slid down her cheek. “I want this baby to live, Lil.”

“First and foremost—no stress. And no negative thoughts.” The doctor’s hand gripped Lee’s. “Do what you have to do because this may be your last chance. You’re thirty-seven, Lee. And that means—”

“I know, I know. My eggs are petrifying.”

Lily chuckled. “Well, not quite.”

“But close. Funny, isn’t it? Stuart and I tried for eight years and when it finally happened I miscarried after the first month. Oliver and I do it once, and…” Abashment warmed her skin. Lord. She didn’t know whether to hope, pray or wish. “Do you think it’ll make a difference because it’s his?”

Lily dabbed Lee’s tears with a tissue. “I can’t answer that. However, I can outline a strict and careful routine for you. I’ll also prescribe an antinausea medication. Don’t worry,” she said with a smile. “It’s been on the market for years, for just these conditions.”

“That’s good, because I still have a plane to fly.”

“Today it moves into second place,” Lily said firmly. “From this point on, baby comes first.”

If he lived. Yes, Lee thought, hoping. It’s a boy. With Oliver’s smile, Oliver’s eyes. Eyes that offered the same gentleness she recognized the night Rogan Matteo had chased the cold away with his warm vest.

Oh, Lee. How much worse can it get? Here you are, pregnant with the baby of one man while lusting after another.

Who would’ve guessed that she, still a virgin on her twenty-third birthday, would shuffle through men quick as a cardplayer fourteen years later?

At nine o’clock Friday morning, Rogan stood on the boardwalk facing a narrow door that led up to the apartment above Coffee Sense, a shop that brewed some of the best java he’d tasted in a long while. Last weekend, when he noticed the For Rent sign in the upstairs window, he had immediately called the number listed. Apparently, the owners of the coffee shop and its top floor recently lost their tenant to Bremerton and they’d needed another lessee. After a quick tour, Rogan signed the agreement.

Jingling the keys in his hand, he looked toward the cove. The boardwalk arced in a horseshoe at the conclusion of Main Street. The right annex of the shoe consisted of ferry docks, a few craft shops and a seafood pub; the left extension hosted several local clothing stores, the Tuscany Grill, Art Smarts, Coffee Sense—and Lee’s pier.

He admired the quaint maritime architecture of each building: wood siding in a variety of bold colors, weathered cabled roofs, storefronts circa 1930 with scripted or printed signs.

Most of all, he liked that Coffee Sense was the last shop on the boardwalk’s left curve—and a few dozen yards from where Lee moored her seaplane. That detail had him smiling as he surveyed the spot where, within the hour, her red-and-white Cessna would once again rock lazily on the sun-dappled water.

After signing the lease yesterday, he’d stood with Danny at the upstairs window and watched Lee lift easily into the air on her afternoon mail run.

“There’s the lady’s plane,” his son pointed out. “Are you gonna see her all the time?”

An innocent question with conflicting connotations. Yes, in a sense, he would see her “all the time” but not for the reasons he craved, like the heart he believed hidden behind her quick tongue and clever mind. And then there were those flashing green eyes. Reasons that were all about Lee Tait, the woman—Jeez, Rogan. Forget it already.

Inserting the key, he unlocked the door and took the steep, narrow stairs to the four-by-four landing where a pair of doors faced each other. With a squeak, the one on the right swung open and he stepped into his new office. The hardwood floors creaked beneath his boat shoes and the musty scent of wood and age filled his nostrils. Yesterday there had been a sense of rightness about the place, which he felt again today as he reassessed the main room, the side kitchen, the five-foot hallway branching into a washroom, bedroom—or second office space—and the rear entry to an outside stairway.

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