Russell moved first

At least Meg thought he did. He stepped toward her, forcing her to tilt her face to maintain eye contact. In some vague, barely functioning corner of her mind she saw him lift a hand. Felt the warmth slide against her face.

This was Russell. She’d built so many dreams on him. Had pinned so many hopes on him. And for a while they’d been so good together. That’s what she remembered now. Those good times…

She was moving then, toward him, pushing up on her toes with a longing that seeped through her like water from a ground spring.

“Meggie,” he murmured, and then she wasn’t thinking anymore. Was only feeling. And remembering.

Wanting.

Dear Reader,

Like most girls, I grew up dreaming of my wedding day: my dress, the music, my bridesmaids…and of course, the man I would marry. But my dreams pretty much stopped with that big day, as if it were the end rather than the beginning. Sure, I dreamed of becoming a mother, but it was an abstract idea.

What I’ve learned—as a veteran of a two-decade union!—is that marriage takes work. All that wonderful passion from the beginning eventually settles into routines. Life happens. People grow. Dreams don’t always come true. And that’s where the real challenges begin. That’s where love meets its ultimate test.

What happens, I sometimes wonder, when two people lose each other along the way? Lose themselves? Can love survive? Can you get it back?

Out of these questions came Russell and Meg Montgomery, a couple on the brink of saying goodbye forever when life throws them a major curveball. Now, with the future of a young child in the balance, they must discover if the life they once dreamed of is still within their reach…this time for keeps.

I love to hear from readers! Please contact me through my Web site at www.JennaMills.com.

Happy reading,

Jenna Mills

This Time for Keeps
Jenna Mills

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenna Mills doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t playing matchmaker. From Barbie and Ken to the Professor and Mary Ann, Jenna always wanted love to prevail. It was only natural that she turned this obsession into a career—and her own happily-ever-after. A Louisiana native living in Texas, Jenna lives with her husband of two decades and their two young children.

Every book has its own tone and texture, and its own path to creation. This book would not be without two majorly wonderful people: my husband, Chuck, for all the raw material; and my awesome editor, Wanda, for the chance…and the wise counsel.

You’re both incredible!

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

EVEN IN SLEEP, SHE KNEW he was gone.

Megan Montgomery opened her eyes against the hazy light of early morning and reached beside her. The soft cotton sheet and down comforter, both a rich tartan plaid of navies and reds, lay flat. The feather pillow was fluffed. There were no wrinkles, no indentations, no warm places. Absolutely no evidence of the destruction Russell Montgomery could wreak on a bed.

After all this time, the chill on her skin made no sense. Especially now.

With a drowsy stretch, Meg drew a hand to her stomach, where beneath the cool silk of her nightgown the swell made her heart sing. Four years in the making; four months until her arrival. Or his.

After today, she would know.

They would know.

On cue, the little one fluttered, and Meg smiled. As much as she wanted to savor the moment, even more she wanted to share it. With a quick glance at the clock, she slipped out of bed and padded from the big bedroom.

Music drifted through the century-old, but newly renovated, house. Soft, lilting strains drew her down the hallway, to the small, east-facing room that had sat empty for years.

The soft, buttery-yellow glow stopped her. He worked quietly, deliberately—just as he did everything. His chest and feet were bare, his jeans faded and low-slung. Together, man and paintbrush moved in symbiotic rhythm, the muscles of his bare arms and shoulders bunching and releasing with each smooth, even stroke.

The night before, the room had been boring builder-beige. Now the nursery-to-be beckoned like morning sunshine. That had been their intent.

The symbolism appealed.

“Looks good,” she murmured, her voice still thick from sleep.

Russell turned, and despite the familiarity between them, her breath caught. His dark copper hair was mussed, his strong jaw in need of a razor. And his smile…it was slow, languorous. “You caught me.”

The words were playful, but she knew her husband well enough to see the fatigue in the dark green of his eyes, the sharp glint of something he clearly did not want her to see. Three walls were painted, including trim. Even working at a brisk pace, he couldn’t have slept for more than an hour or two.

He’d been acting oddly ever since the phone call that had jarred them from sleep a few days before. He’d left the bed, talked in hushed tones. Told her there was nothing to worry about.

She was trying to believe him.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, changing the subject the way he always did when he sensed she was about to prod too close to something he wasn’t ready to share. He put down the brushes, crossed to her.

“You didn’t.” She took his hand and drew it to her belly. “Your son did.”

Almost instantly, a twinkle came into Russ’s eyes. “You mean my daughter.”

Pushing up on her toes, Meg brushed her lips across his. “Maybe,” she murmured indulgently, loving the soft scrape of his whiskers. Most men were obsessed with having sons, but all Russell talked about was having a little girl.

“With eyes of blue like her mum’s,” he said, lapsing into the brogue of his childhood. They’d known each other for six years, been married four. The echo of a Scottish accent shouldn’t still inspire that quick little rush. But it did. It was such a disconnect coming from a man who always looked ready to tackle the great outdoors.

“Blond hair,” he added while his fingers wove through hers.

Somehow, his touch was as gentle as his words.

“A sweet little smile—”

“Careful what you wish for, Montgomery,” she teased, grinning up at him. “You really think you can handle two of us?”

The corners of his eyes crinkled. “Watch me.”

She planned on it.

“Wee one must have gone back to sleep,” he said, but Meg wouldn’t let him take his hand from her stomach. She loved the warmth of his palm against her chemise, loved looking down to see his fingers splayed against her belly.

“Just wait,” she whispered.

His frown caught her by surprise. “Can’t,” he said. “I’ve got a breakfast meeting over at the Manor.”

She stepped back. “Everything okay?”

“Just somebody I used to work with.”

“From New York?”

“London,” he said, returning to pour the remaining yellow paint back into the can.

Questions surged like the floodwaters that had almost inundated their home the month before, but like a makeshift dam, Meg held them back. They’d been through this before. He’d made his choice, made a clean break, walked away. He didn’t miss his old life, didn’t want to go back.

Still, curiosity needled through her. As publisher and editor-in-chief of the Piney Woods Gazette, that was her job, after all. To ask questions.

It’s how they’d met.

“Anyone I know?”

“No.”

The vagueness of his answers was not lost on her. Clearly he didn’t want to talk about this old colleague—or what they would be discussing. But she knew. A photojournalist, Russ had been at the top of his field when he’d turned his back on it all—the acclaim, the travel. The freedom.

For her.

Someone was always trying to lure him back. “Well, give her my—”

“Meggie.” He was across the room in a heartbeat, leaning down to take her face in his hands. “Sean. His name is Sean. We—”

“Russ—”

“—did a few ride-alongs together in Iraq. He’s with the BBC—”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’m here.” The ferocity in his voice made her heart slam. “With you, Meggie. It’s where I want to be.”

She swallowed hard. She knew that. She did. And if she ever had any doubt, she had only to look at the gallery of framed photographs lining the hallway. From their honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands to an afternoon picnic among the Texas bluebonnets, the moments were all there, captured. Preserved.

The surge of raw emotion was new to her. Hormones, she figured. Her girlfriends told her it was perfectly normal, but she’d cried more since becoming pregnant than she had in the past few years, combined.

Her cousin Julia promised this was just the beginning.

“I know,” she whispered.

Russ slid his hand back down to cup the newly formed bump. “And at eleven o’clock I’ll be with you at Dr. Brennan’s.”

Meg smiled. At the last sonogram, their little one had waved, then gone right back to sleep. “Promise?”

“Promise,” he said with a long, hard kiss. “I’ll be there.”

CHAPTER ONE

Two and a half years later

WHISPERS OF MORNING SUN leaked through the blinds, casting the small room in an ethereal glow. A cloth doll sat in the rocking chair. A soft pink towel lay on the changing table. And in the far corner, the crib stood in shadow. That was by design. Meg wasn’t sure what she’d been thinking, putting a baby in the room that was first to greet the morning. Actually she was pretty sure she hadn’t been thinking at all.

Pure emotion, much like pure adrenaline, had a way of sending logic straight out the window.

She slipped closer, careful not to step on the blocks or squeaky teething toys scattered across the rug. Just the slightest sound, and her morning routine would shatter before she even made it to the shower.

Little Charlotte slept. She lay sprawled on her back, her arms thrown over her head, her soft yellow blankie long since discarded. No matter how many times Meg crept in to cover the baby, Charlotte persevered. In those first few fragile weeks, Meg had even slept on the floor.

The swell of pure, unchained emotion still caught her by surprise. This was her favorite time of day, when it was still and quiet, before the craziness began. Little Char looked so peaceful. Her chubby cheeks were relaxed, her sweet little mouth slightly parted. And the baby-fine hair, as red now as the day she was born. She looked so like—

Meg blocked the thought, didn’t want the memory. She had a day to start and not a second to spare. Resisting the temptation to retrieve the blanket yet again, she slipped back into the hallway, all too aware of the light steadily encroaching upon the moss-green wall.

One of these days, she’d find time to paint.

In the bathroom, the blast of warm water from the shower felt good. She lingered, indulged in a new lavender body wash her cousin had insisted she try. By the time she turned the water off, she was a good ten minutes behind schedule—and Charlotte was crying.

Grabbing a towel, Meg dried off as she ran from the bathroom down the hardwood of the hallway. Charlotte’s screams grew louder, coming in virtual stereo between the now brightly lit nursery and the baby monitor. By the time Meg raced into the room, Charlotte had her chubby little hands wrapped around the crib rail and was working hard to hike her leg over the edge.

“Oh, sweetie,” Meg muttered, securing the towel around her as she hurried across the room. The vivid green of Charlotte’s eyes swam with frustration—tears made her face splotchy.

“Mama-mama-mama.” She sniffed between wails, lifting her little arms toward Meg.

“I’m here,” she cooed, and somewhere deep inside, an echo stirred. “I’m here, baby.” With you. Swooping her from the crib, Meg drew Charlotte close. “I’ve got you now.”

And I’m never going away.

Charlotte burrowed closer, sweet fists closing tight around the flesh of Meg’s arms. “Mama-mama…” With the babbling, she nuzzled toward Meg’s chest. “Babababa…”

Meg’s throat tightened. “Bottle,” she murmured, grabbing at the towel that kept sliding toward her waist. “You’ve been such a good girl,” she said, heading for the kitchen. “Staying in your bed all night.”

About half the time, she ended up cuddled next to Meg.

“You must be hungry,” she continued in a soft, singsong voice. “Let’s get you some formula.”

Charlotte pulled back and gazed at Meg with a longing that threatened to break her heart all over again.

It wasn’t so long ago that Meg had been quite sure there was nothing left to break.

“I know, sweet girl,” she whispered. “I know. I miss her, too.” Closing her eyes, she let the memories form, the tears and laughter, the smiles…the promises.

There’d been a lot of those.

“Let’s get you that bottle,” she said, easing Charlotte to the floor. Sweeping had become part of her nightly routine. “Here are your pots,” she added, scooting the nesting toy closer. “We’ll cook together.”

The eleven-month-old plopped down in front of the dishwasher, her tight little pajamas reminding Meg of a pink floral baby sausage. In fire-resistant fabric—the considerations of parenthood were a whole new world.

But it was a world she’d desperately wanted.

As the baby banged the plastic pots together, Meg turned on the water and got the coffee going, measured out formula and poured Cheerios for both of them.

She was opening the fridge when her cell phone rang. Twisting back toward the table, she grabbed the phone and flipped it open. “I’m up, I’m up,” she said by way of greeting.

Julia’s calls had become an everyday ritual.

“Good,” her cousin, the self-appointed alarm clock, said. “That’s a start.”

Cradling the phone between her ear and shoulder, Meg reached for the milk—and lost her towel. “Oh, crap.”

Julia laughed. “You were saying?”

“I—” Forgot. Somehow in her rush to soothe and feed Charlotte, she’d completely forgotten that she’d yet to get dressed. “My hair is wet.”

“Usually happens when you take a shower,” Julia said. “The key is to dry it before you come to work.”

Lately, that didn’t always happen.

“Or wash it at night,” her cousin went on as Meg rifled through a basket of laundry for clean underwear. “That’s what I started doing after Austin.” Mother of an almost teenager, Julia ran her family like a drill sergeant. If there was a problem, Julia had a solution. She could hold down a job at the paper, she could cook, she could clean, she could keep her son in line, and still have time for a pedicure.

Meg hadn’t quite gotten there yet.

“I know, I know.” She struggled into her panties and fastened her bra. “It’s just…” There’d been so many changes in such a short period of time. And nowhere near enough sleep. “I’ll try.”

Julia didn’t miss a beat. “And you’ll do great. But until then, I’m guessing you need me to cover for you.”

Meg blinked. Cover for her?

“The meeting?” Julia went on, reading Meg’s mind, as always. Only four days separated them in age. Most of their friends referred to them as twins born to different mothers. It was only natural that they worked together at the Gazette. “You know…breakfast? Henry? Veronica?”

Meg’s lawyer—and her accountant. Of course. To discuss the Gazette’s finances—and how long they could continue operating at a loss. Meg herself had scheduled the meeting. Breakfast had been the only time available. The rest of the day was consumed by an editorial meeting then an all-afternoon planning meeting for the Wildflower Festival. It was less than a week away and the silent auction benefiting the March of Dimes was still up in the air. Plus she and Charlotte had a photo shoot scheduled.

“I’ll be there,” she said, tearing at the dry cleaning draped over a chair. The office was only a few miles away. “Give me twenty—”

“Meg.”

She shoved the tangled mess of wet hair back from her face. All she needed was a comb—

“Stop it.”

She stilled, her hands fisted against the linen of her favorite black blouse, not because of her cousin’s words. But because of the gentleness in her voice. The quiet understanding.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“It’s going to be okay,” Julia said quietly. “I promise.”

Meg squeezed her eyes shut.

“You can do this.”

She swallowed. “I know.”

“We’re here for you…all of us. You’re not alone.”

The smile was automatic. She had the greatest friends in the world. “I know,” she said again, and this time her voice was a little stronger.

“I just…” Julia let out a rough breath. “I don’t understand. Did his parents call again?”

Briskly, Meg stepped into her favorite cargo pants. “Yesterday.”

“Did you call them back—”

“No.”

“Meg, you can’t—”

“No,” she said again, this time firmer. She’d only spoken to Russell’s family once in almost two years. She had neither the time nor the interest to cater to them now. They’d had more than enough chances. “There’s no reason to.”

“There’s every reason to. You can’t ignore them and hope they’ll go away. She’s their granddaughter. They have a right—”

The thud of wood against wood, followed by shrieking, stole the rest of Julia’s words. Meg swung toward the kitchen—no longer saw the baby.

“I have to go!” She dropped the phone and ran toward the wails, found Charlotte on the floor of the dining room—underneath one of the big antique chairs.

“Char!” Meg was by the baby’s side in a heartbeat, on her knees and yanking the heavy chair away, scooping Charlotte into her arms. “Are you okay—” The nasty red welt on the side of her forehead told Meg what she needed to know.

She’d forgotten. In her rush to get breakfast and get dressed for the meeting she’d spaced, she’d forgotten about Charlotte. She’d set her down on the floor to play, completely overlooking the fact that Charlotte could now pull up and cruise.

“I’m so sorry,” she murmured, gently inspecting the emerging goose egg. “So sorry,” she said again, and this time the dam broke, and the tears came. Wearing only her bra and panties, her hair still damp, she cradled the baby in her arms and buried her face against Charlotte, pressing soft kiss after soft kiss against bright red hair. “I’m trying,” she promised. “I’m trying.”

But she’d never planned to do this alone.

Like a sweet little angel, Charlotte nuzzled closer, once again lifting her mouth to root at Meg’s breast. “Mama-mama…”

The tears came harder. “I know.” She gulped. “I know.” And she did. She could love this child of her heart and care for her, feed her and rock her and cradle her, give her every second of every day, every drop of time and energy she had, every creature comfort imaginable.

But she could never give her niece the one thing she wanted—needed—the most.

Her mother.

THE BIG GREEN BANNER stretched high over Main Street, secured to light posts on either side of the road.

Join Us For The Flowers…Stay For The Fun!

Meg tensed as she zipped beneath, barely cruising into the intersection before the light turned red. The festival had become an annual rite of spring in Pecan Creek, attracting visitors from all across Texas and Louisiana. This year she’d proposed extending their marketing to include Oklahoma and Arkansas. East Texas wasn’t that far a drive from either, and if they could attract a hundred or so new attendees, the extra dollars would go a long way toward helping local merchants.

In the historic district, restaurants and hotels saw a significant jump in business. The gift shops ran special promotions. The high school band used money from the bake sale to fund their annual day trip to Six Flags in Arlington. The moms’ club counted on the sales from their cookbook to fund the local women’s shelter.

Meg wasn’t sure what had possessed her to take on the extra responsibility. Of course, when she’d stepped forward, she’d had little else to fill her days. Or her nights. The Gazette had not yet started to hemorrhage money—and her sister-in-law, Ainsley, had been beautifully, gloriously alive. Vibrant. Pregnant. They’d been over-the-moon excited.

The memory hurt.

Zooming past the row of shops and restaurants eagerly awaiting the onslaught of tourists, Meg headed for the small parking lot on the corner. Across the street sat the renovated former general store that now served as the main office for the Piney Woods Gazette. The paper had been in Meg’s family since her great-grandfather had founded it over a hundred years before.

She was not going to let it fold on her watch.

Throwing the car in Park, Meg grabbed her briefcase and all but ran to the office.

Henry and Veronica were long since gone.

“They left some financials for you to review,” Julia explained as soon as Meg walked inside. She took the thick folder and glanced down, cringed at the title greeting her: Mid-America Media Acquisition Offer.

“Henry was going to talk to some of the other papers—”

“He did,” Julia said, walking with Meg step for step. While Meg had forgone her linen suit in favor of the camo cargos and black T-shirt she preferred, her cousin looked dressed for a job interview in New York. Pecan Creek was a small, sleepy town. Casual. Everyone didn’t quite know everyone, but someone always knew someone, who knew someone. Three degrees of separation, they joked.

There was no need for a severely tailored navy suit.

But Julia was…well…Julia.

Meg had never understood why her cousin stayed.

“It’s all in there,” Julia said. “He talked to the editorial staff at three different regionals. His notes are in the back.”

Meg flipped through the folder, saw the pages in question. “Great.” But her stomach knotted. It was a good offer, the kind of money that could keep the Gazette—and all of its employees—afloat. But it also meant the end of a legacy forged a century before.

Meg tossed the folder on a desk badly in need of straightening, then dropped her briefcase in the chair and headed toward the break room. “Just give me a few minutes to get some coffee and we can get started with the staff meeting.”

“Got it,” Julia said. “I can’t wait to tell you what I found out about the Brookhaven Institute. I’ll bet my last dollar there’s more than sleep research going on there.”

Meg tossed her cousin a look, but before she could say anything about Julia’s wild conspiracy theories, their office manager joined them. After all this time, it still felt weird thinking of Lori Bradshaw as an employee. Meg could still see her on the first day of school freshman year, a shy, slightly pudgy girl with braces, glasses and the most ridiculous pigtails imaginable.

“How’s that sweet baby?” Lori asked as soon as she entered the room. Who would have guessed that beneath the awkward ugly duckling of high school lay the makings of an all-American knockout? “She didn’t hurt herself, did she?”

“No worse than any other day,” Meg said, pouring her coffee. She’d never gotten around to touching the pot she’d made at home. “A bump on her noggin, but she was laughing with Rosemary when I left.”

“Such a sweetheart,” Lori said, and Meg had to wonder if her friend even realized the way she drew her hands to her stomach. But Meg noticed…and Meg knew. Lori and Trey had been trying for a baby for over five years. Recently they’d begun tests to figure out why they’d been unsuccessful.

“How’s Trey?” she asked.

“Fine,” Lori said with an odd briskness. Once, she would have smiled and launched straight into her latest Trey story. Now she again changed the subject. “I’m so glad you found someone to watch Char at your place.”

Meg saw no point in pushing. The pace was Lori’s to set. “Rosemary’s a godsend,” she agreed. A friend of her mother’s, the former schoolteacher was itching for grandkids—and happy to practice with Charlotte.

“Oh.” Lori put a dainty little mug with a Pisces sign on it into the sink. “That guy called for you again.”

Meg looked up from the sugar packet she’d just opened. “The same one from yesterday? Did he say what he wanted?”

“Nope.” Lori frowned. “Wouldn’t leave a message or a name—but he had a great voice.”

“Did you get his number?” Julia asked.

“Came in as Out-of-Area.”

Julia’s eyes took on a rare twinkle. “You hiding something, cuz?”

Meg dumped the sugar into her coffee. “I wish.” It had been a long time since there had been anything worth keeping to herself, certainly nothing in the man department.

With sobering speed, Julia became all business again, reaching into her blazer pocket. “Then here,” she said, handing Meg a square, pink sheet of message paper.

“What’s this?”

Julia’s eyes, all steely and serious, met hers. “His number.”

Meg stilled. Her throat burned. Something in her gut jumped. She didn’t need to see the number to know that the subject of their conversation had shifted. Whereas Meg preferred to let sleeping dogs lie, Julia was all about meeting them head-on.

“I called the bureau,” she said. “He’s in Venezuela.”

Against the thin paper, Meg’s thumb and forefinger tightened.

“They said he’s out on assignment, but they expect him back—”

“No.” But Meg glanced at the string of fifteen numbers anyway. A phone number, such a simple thing really. Dial the numbers, hear the voice.

His voice.

I’m here…with you, he’d promised.

“Meg, you can’t pretend he doesn’t exist.”

He’d said something almost identical right before he walked out the door: I can’t stay here anymore, can’t pretend.

Why didn’t anyone understand there was a difference between prevention and pretending?

“I told you to leave it alone,” Meg said, looking up.

But Julia wouldn’t back down. She’d been on Meg about this for almost two months, since shortly after the car accident that changed so many lives. “Russ was her brother.”

Meg told herself to walk away. To wad up the paper and toss it in the garbage, go back to her office and prepare the agenda for the staff meeting or read Henry’s report. Review plans for the silent auction, which she was in charge of.

But something inside her just broke.

“A lot of good that did her!” she snapped in a rare display of emotion. “He didn’t even come for her funeral!” Didn’t call to check on arrangements for her child, didn’t acknowledge in any way, shape or form that the little sister who’d picked up her life in Scotland and traveled all the way to Texas, to be with her big brother, had died, here in a country so far removed from her family. Alone. Except for Meg—and Charlotte.

“Maybe he didn’t find out in time.” Lori’s words were quiet, hopeful. A romantic down to the bone, she couldn’t give up her belief in happy endings. Russell’s rich brogue didn’t help matters. In her book, just because he talked like a poet, he walked on water. “Maybe he couldn’t.”

“Of course he couldn’t.” Meg saw Lori wince, but it didn’t change the truth. “Because that would have required him to come…” Back. Home. “Here.” It still stunned Meg that someone Ainsley’s age had actually made out a will. And that a nineteen-year-old from a small town in Scotland would choose to have her final resting place here in small-town America. Among strangers.

Of course, from what Meg knew of Ainsley’s relationship with her parents, they, too, had become little more than strangers.

“Meg.” Lori’s voice was soft, pleading. “He’s Charlotte’s uncle, your—”

“Past.” Meg swallowed hard, didn’t want to hear the word. “He’s my past, that’s all.”

Julia snatched the paper from Meg’s fingers. “If you don’t call him, I will.”

The glare was automatic. Meg hated confrontation, but this wasn’t a game or contest. It was real and it was absolutely none of Julia’s business. “Don’t.”

She hated the way her voice broke on the word.

“Meg…” The lines of Julia’s face softened. “It’s not fair that you have to do this alone. Maybe he can help.”

He. Him. Meg couldn’t remember the last time any of them had spoken his name aloud. They didn’t need to. They all knew. “He left, Jules.” Packed up, walked away. If she’d come home that night a little later, she still wondered if he would have said goodbye.

Just for a few weeks, a month at the most.

“You were going through a hard time,” Julia reminded her. “You yourself said it was probably for the best.”

She had. She’d said that in the immediate aftermath, when she’d found herself able to breathe for the first time in months.

But then the days piled onto one another, one after the other. And the nights…

“He didn’t come back,” she whispered. It was still almost unfathomable to her that the man she’d loved so dearly had turned his back on her so completely. He’d never called, sent only the occasional e-mail.

E-mail.

That’s what their marriage had been reduced to.

“It’s what he does.” She still didn’t understand how she’d been so blind. “What he always does.” The pattern was clear now, time after time after time. He’d left his family the day he turned eighteen. He’d left the country of his birth. He’d left the news bureau, the university. “When the going gets tough…” Russell Montgomery walked.

But Julia wouldn’t leave the subject alone. “Then why aren’t you divorced?” Her tone made it sound like the answer was obvious.

“Just a technicality.”

She lifted a perfectly sculpted brow. “That’s a pretty big technicality.”

Meg drew the mug to her mouth and took a sip of now-cool coffee. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Then why haven’t you been with anyone else? Two years is a long time.”

A strangled noise broke from Meg’s throat. “What is this? Let’s Ambush Meg Day?” Simply because Russell’s parents had been calling and she hadn’t called them back yet? She was going to. She had to. She knew that. So long as she was raising their granddaughter she couldn’t pretend they didn’t exist.

But not yet.

Done with it all, she snatched the paper from Julia and strode toward the door. “Editorial in ten,” she called over her shoulder. Then, at the door, she turned. “And anyway,” she tossed with a wicked little smile. “Who says I haven’t?”

THE LATE-AFTERNOON SUN poured down, creating a stark contrast between the field and the impossible blue of the horizon. As far as the eye could see, red and yellow and blue swayed with the warm breeze.

“We’re nearing peak,” Ray Blunt said. The longtime Pecan Creek photographer slung his camera strap over his shoulder and reached into his pickup for his tripod. “Barring rain, we should be about perfect.”

It was April in East Texas. Going without rain was about as likely as going without allergies.

“A little sprinkle won’t hurt anyone,” Meg said. It was the lightning she worried about, hail the size of tennis balls. One round of that and the carefully tended flower fields would be pulverized, destroying one of the big draws of the Wildflower Festival: photographs.

“Thanks for coming out with me,” Ray said, taking a swig from his water bottle. He and her mother had been friends for as long as Meg could remember. Twisting for the baby, Meg grinned. Lately, she was pretty sure her mother and Ray’s friendship involved some new…benefits.

“Just want to do one last dry run,” he said. “Your mama thought your little girl would make a perfect guinea pig, if’n you don’t mind me usin’ that expression.”

Your little girl…

Briskly Meg unfastened Charlotte from the car seat and shifted her onto her hip. She’d found the perfect frilly white dress.

“Here she is,” she cooed, and with one three-toothed smile, Charlotte innocently chased Meg’s worries away.

The three of them made their way from the gravel parking area as another car turned off the narrow highway. Meg pushed Charlotte in her new jogging stroller, navigating the winding trail as they went. Every year the town seeded the big field, making sure that with spring a colorful parade of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush and poppies stood ready for the festival. Three years before they’d added irrigation to compensate for increasingly dry winters.

It was a photographer’s paradise. Russell had once said—

Russell had said a lot of things.

“Just over yonder,” Ray said, leading them down a small trail toward a monstrous patch of eager bluebonnets, dotted by the occasional red of a poppy. In the center, a small indentation marked the spot.

“Lighting is almost perfect,” Ray observed while Meg lifted Charlotte from the stroller. They had the field all to themselves, except for the tall man in the distance. Against the Western sky the sun cast him in silhouette, but did nothing to hide the slight limp. “I’ve gotten some of my best shots this time of day. Just put her right…there.”

Looking away from the stranger, Meg carried Charlotte through the flowers, trying not to crush any as she went. At the clearing, she smoothed Charlotte’s fancy dress and lowered her toward the ground.

Charlotte started to cry.

“Oh, baby,” Meg murmured, pulling back to look down at Charlotte’s sweet little face—now red and splotchy. “No, no, no,” she said, trying again.

But Charlotte wrapped her pudgy little arms around Meg’s neck and clung on for dear life. “Mama-mama…”

At a loss, Meg glanced back to the photographer who’d once taken similar pictures of her, when she was a child. To this day, they lined the hallway of the small ranch-style house in which she’d grown up. “This might take a while.”

With a hand to his graying beard, her mother’s friend shrugged. “Not a problem.”

“Here now,” she said to the baby. “Let Ma—” She broke off, tried again. “We can sit together,” she said, rubbing her hand along Charlotte’s back as she lowered her into the small clearing.

Honeybees buzzed up—and Charlotte’s wails turned into shrieks.

“Tell you what,” Ray said. “You take your time and I’m going to go get a picture of them poppies over there. When I come back, I’ll get the two of you.”

“No—I—” But he was already shuffling down the path. And anyway, Meg knew it was no use. She could tell the photographer she didn’t want to be in any pictures, but he would take them anyway.

“That’s my girl,” she said, holding Charlotte close to her heart and rocking with the breeze. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

The baby nestled closer, much as she did during the stillness of the night. Sometimes they’d sit in the rocking chair with lullabies drifting through the room until the first rays of dawn filtered through the blinds. Sometimes Meg would fall asleep holding her. Lately, she’d begun carrying Charlotte back to her bed and snuggling up with her. Sleeping with a baby still worried her a little, but she was pretty sure Char was big enough and strong enough to scoot away if she needed to.

“See, it’s all okay,” she soothed, as she’d done for the past two months. She’d been there the morning Charlotte was born. She’d made a promise before God the day Charlotte was baptized. She’d held her and loved her, bathed her, dressed her, spoiled her madly.

But she’d never imagined that one day she would hold a sleeping angel, while Father O’Sullivan read Charlotte’s mother her last rites.

Meg closed her eyes and held her niece tight. The warmth of the sun felt good, the whisper of the breeze. The softness of the baby in her arms. For so long she’d wanted to share her life with a child.

But not like this.

Gradually Charlotte quit squirming, her body relaxing into the heaviness of sleep. Meg smiled, realizing once again that best-laid plans were the stuff of Lori’s fairy tales.

Opening her eyes, she squinted against the glare of the late-afternoon sun and looked for Ray. She’d need to tell him—

At the edge of the clearing a lone man stood in the shade of a tall, gnarled post oak. The play of shadows stole detail, but still she knew. Two years could change a lot. Give, and take. Create, and devastate.

But they’d done nothing to mute the low quickening, the visceral reaction she’d first experienced one crisp fall day in New York a lifetime ago. He’d come into the lecture hall as a guest lecturer for her News Editorial class.

He’d walked out with her heart.

Now he stood not fifty feet away, the man who’d pulled into the parking lot as she and Charlotte had walked away, the man she’d seen at the edge of the clearing, watching. The low-slung jeans and wrinkled button-down were just as she remembered.

The limp was new.

CHAPTER TWO

Two and a half years before

“MEG, YOU READY?”

She looked up from the well-worn parenting magazine and grinned. Instinctively her hand slid to her tummy. “Absolutely.”

Dr. Brennan’s smile was warm. A tall, slender woman nearing sixty, she’d taken care of Meg since her first ob-gyn appointment over a decade before. “I thought Russell would be here.”

Meg refused to let the frown form. Not today. “So did I,” she admitted with a quick glance at her watch. She’d been leaving messages for half an hour. He’d yet to call her back. “He must have gotten hung up at a meeting.”

It wasn’t the first time, and, she figured, it wouldn’t be the last. Russell was like that, always losing himself in one project or another. His mother called it escape, but Meg thought that was overly harsh. Russell was an intensely intense man. He did nothing halfway. He was all in, or all out.

“Should we wait a little bit?” Dr. Brennan asked. “I can probably spot you another fifteen or twenty minutes.”

It was the right thing to do. Over the years he’d been by her side at so many appointments and procedures. Rarely did he miss. But today…

“Nah,” Meg said, standing. There was no telling how much longer Russell would be, and as it was, she’d been waiting just about her whole life for this. She could tell him the news herself. She could surprise him. She already had the pink and blue booties purchased.

After the sonogram, she’d know which pair to wrap.

“Let’s do this,” she said, reaching for her satchel.

Dr. Brennan nodded. “If you’re sure,” she said, escorting Meg toward the exam room. “Do you have any feelings, one way or the other?”

“Russell thinks girl.”

“And you?”

“Healthy,” Meg replied as a little flutter quaked through her. “I’m just thinking healthy.”

Present Day

TWO YEARS WAS A LONG TIME.

Russell Montgomery stood on the edge of the field of blue, as much an outsider as the night he’d walked out the front door of the house that had quit being a home. He’d told himself not to look back. It wasn’t healthy. Life was ahead of you, not behind.

His eyes had shifted to the rearview mirror anyway, for one last look. Of the cheery blue century-old house. Of the yard that sloped down to the lazy creek, the row of willows, weeping. Of her.

Instead, he’d found clay pots with wilted flowers, a swing in need of repair, an empty porch and the truth.

There was nothing to look back at.

But forward… Forward had taken him far, given him much. In the primitive villages of Mozambique, the tight, poisonous coil inside him had loosened. There, he’d been able to breathe. With the passing of each day, all those dark, festering emotions that had chased him from Pecan Creek faded a little more, until all that remained was the clinical realization that the life he and Meg had been creating had been an illusion.

He’d never planned to come back.

Hell, who was he kidding? He’d never planned anything that had happened since the day Meg first walked into his world.

Africa was a continent of extremes, breathtaking beauty and mind-numbing depravity, lush jungles and barren deserts, kindness and cruelty.

Innocence.

Savagery.

Being back in America…in Pecan Creek…

It was like stepping back into an old, faded dream, familiar but fuzzy, fleeting but somehow ever seductive. You knew you were going to wake up, but for that briefest of moments, you wanted to just…linger.

She sat there among the army of bluebonnets, the warm April wind whipping wheat-colored hair against an oval face that had once dominated his dreams. The angles were the same, the wide cheekbones and tilted eyes. The mouth that had once been so quick to—

She wasn’t smiling now. Her hair was longer than before, looser. The shield of flowers hid her clothes, but he could make out a trace of something dark—and a whole lot of skin.

And the baby…

Something hard and sharp sliced through him. He’d seen a lot during his time away. He’d seen mothers and children, birth and death. But the sight of that chubby-cheeked little girl in Meg’s lap, the frilly white dress and shot of bright red hair…

His bad leg throbbed. And for one brutal moment, everything between them fell away, the flowers and the years, the tears and the broken promises, leaving only him and Meg…and the baby they’d lost.

With eyes of blue like her mum’s, he’d predicted.

Even now, the urge to pound his fist into something hard and unmovable ripped through him.

Slowly she rose from the bed of bluebonnets, easing the child to her chest. Sleeping, he realized. His sister’s baby was sleeping.

Ainsley.

He still couldn’t believe she was gone.

And that he was here.

And Meg was walking toward him. Meg of the pretty floral dresses, now wearing camouflage cargo pants and a black top that left little to his imagination.

Or his memory.

The urge to reach for his camera was pure instinct, the desire to capture the vivid contrast between innocence and—

He didn’t know what. Typical Meg, she kept that all shuttered away, locked deep, deep inside, where no one could reach her.

No one could touch her.

Especially not him.

He didn’t have his camera, but knew he didn’t need it. Some images had a way of lasting all by themselves.

In the distance, old man Ray Blunt shuffled back into view. He paused and lifted a hand to his brow, watched.

The automatic wave surprised Russell. He’d always liked Ray, had learned a lot about the world from a man who’d never left Texas.

Ray returned the gesture, even though Russell was pretty sure the old man had no idea who he was.

But Meg did. She moved toward him, her stride strong and confident, her chin high, allowing the breeze to keep playing with the tangled strands of her hair. The longer length made her look younger than the last time he’d seen her.

Or maybe that was the baby sprawled all over her chest.

He was a man used to watching, to standing on the sidelines and documenting. Never get involved. That was how you stayed intact. But he started toward her anyway, acutely aware that he was not in Pecan Creek as a journalist.

Narrow trails of mutilated bluebonnets wound through the flowers. Once he’d chosen his steps carefully. Now he let instinct guide him—and kept his eyes trained forward.

On the woman he left behind.

IN THE BEGINNING, she’d imagined this. During those first few weeks and months, she’d closed her eyes and seen him walking toward her, that pure, undiluted focus in the bottomless green of his eyes, the…longing. Sometimes he would walk in through the back door. Sometimes he would find her sitting by the young willow they’d planted near the creek bed.

Once she’d seen him at the edge of the cemetery.

It was always the same. She would stand. He would approach. Arms were opened. She stepped in. Words weren’t spoken.

Words weren’t needed.

Only Russell.

Now…God…now. Her chest tightened. Her throat burned. Beyond him she saw her car, but knew there was no way to reach the Lexus without getting by him.

Russell Montgomery was back in Pecan Creek.

“Meggie,” he said as the distance between them narrowed, and something inside her screamed. The last fringes of the dream shattered, even as the whisper of a different dream echoed through her.

Two years. Two years since she’d heard the rolling lilt of her own husband’s voice.

“And this must be little Charlotte,” he commented with the polite formality of a complete stranger. “She looks—”

“Don’t.” The word burned on the way out. Meg stopped and looked up at him, could do nothing about the hot boil moving through her. “You don’t get to say that.”

Russell stopped moving. “Meggie, look, I understand—”

“You don’t understand a thing.” Meg barely recognized the rasp to her own voice. It had been almost ten weeks since the insanely clear February day when they’d buried this man’s sister…ten weeks during which he’d been conspicuously silent. No way could he just stroll back into town and say hello, make some kind of inane remark about who Charlotte looked like. “She was your sister, Russell. She deserved better.”

So had Meg.

The lines of his face went tight. “You know that’s not how I meant it,” he said, and she made herself swallow. “I just… Christ, Meg, I don’t know what you want me to do.”

Hadn’t that always been the problem?

“This isn’t about me,” she said automatically. It wasn’t about them. “It’s about Ainsley. She worshipped you, Russell. Thought you hung the moon. And yet you couldn’t even be bothered to come say goodbye.”

“I didn’t know.”

That stopped her. She shifted the baby, careful to keep one hand against the back of Charlotte’s head. “Didn’t know what? That Ainsley loved you? Why else would she have left Scotland to come live with us?”

Only a few clouds drifted across the blue sky, but the shadows about Russell deepened. “That she died.”

The quiet stillness to his voice went through Meg like broken glass.

“I didn’t know that she died until two weeks ago.”

“I called your parents.” Had called him first, from the hospital moments after Dr. Harrison had given her the horrible news. Instinctively she’d reached for her phone and called Russell, held her breath while the phone rang.

Froze when she got his voice mail.

She’d stood there in the starkly lit Emergency Room in the hour before dawn, listening. To his voice. His warm, casual message. But the beep had brought everything back into cruel, sharp focus, and she’d ended the call and swallowed hard, annoyed that after all this time, despite the divorce papers she’d had drawn up the month before, he’d been the first one she’d thought of.

Because Ainsley was his sister, she’d realized. Meg had loved her dearly, but in the end, it was Russell’s blood that flowed through Ainsley’s veins.

And Charlotte’s.

He stood there now, a tall man with a body that promised strength, even as an unmistakable mist clouded his eyes.

“I was on assignment,” he said in a voice so stripped down Meg had to concentrate to hear him. “My parents decided to wait until I was back before telling me.”

She couldn’t stop her mouth from dropping open. “Why would they do that?” she asked. “Because they didn’t want to inconvenience you? She was their child. She deserved…” The words trailed off as the memories edged closer. The knock at the door. The race to the hospital. Ainsley on the bed, the tubes and machines, the punishing sense of urgency as everyone seemed to move in slow motion.

“I would have come, Meggie. If I’d known, I would have been here.”

A fresh wave of grief surged up from that deep, dark place, burning her throat anew. For Ainsley, she told herself. Not because of the sound of her name in her husband’s voice. No one else had ever called her Meggie.

No one else had ever made her name sound like a caress.

And for that, she hated him.

“No one was here,” she said, still stung by how wrong it had been. “No one from your family. None of her friends.” Not even Charlotte’s father. Only Meg and Julia and Lori, a handful of locals. “She deserved better than that.”

Russell’s jaw tightened. “I’m glad she had you,” he said. “That’s why she stayed, you know.”

After he left.

“I wasn’t family.”

Russell frowned. “Meggie…you know that’s not true.”

She looked away, toward the honeybees buzzing around her ankles. Meg had always wanted a sister. She had two cousins in town, but it wasn’t the same. Julia and Faith had lived in a big two-story house in a nice subdivision and took exotic vacations…with both their parents.

Meg had never even known her father.

Then Ainsley had come to town shortly after Meg and Russell married, a troubled teenager with a rebellious streak as long as a hot summer day, and a heart as tender as a dewdrop. After Russell left—

Meg looked back up, felt something inside her shift. His smile was soft and warm, gentle. Sad. The lines of his face had relaxed, even the perpetual five o’clock shadow looked softer. But it was his eyes that got her, the crinkling at the corners, the warmth of the green, the glow of discovery and vulnerability.

Meg’s hold on Charlotte tightened. She glanced down to find the baby awake, her big eyes trained curiously on the uncle she’d never met.

“Well, hello there, poppet,” he murmured in the dialect of his childhood, and Charlotte’s little mouth lifted into a delighted smile.

Meg wanted to wake up.

But knew that this was no dream.

“There’s my girl,” she said, shifting Charlotte so that she rode Meg’s hip. “What a good little nap you had.”

Russell kept staring, as if the baby might vanish if he so much as took his eyes off her. “She’s—”

“Wonderful,” Meg finished for him. A bittersweet gift she’d never expected. “She’s got so much of Ainsley in her.” And Russell. His eyes. His smile.

His infectious laugh.

At first being around Charlotte had hurt. But there’d been no one else to step in. Ainsley had never tried to track down her daughter’s father, saying only that he couldn’t be with them.

“Then she must not be sleeping much,” Russell said, and before she could stop herself, Meg laughed.

She didn’t want to laugh.

“Fits and starts,” she said. Insomnia had been Ainsley’s middle name. Rumor had it she’d had her days and nights mixed up from the time she was born. “But we’re working on it.”

“Ainsley always said—” Russell broke off, lifting a hand to feather a finger along the underside of Charlotte’s foot.

She giggled.

“Always said what?” Meg asked.

“That she wanted to be a mum.”

Meg closed her eyes. That was true. Piercings, tattoos, wild streak and all, even at nineteen, Ainsley had been a great mother. It just takes love, she’d said. Just…love.

“And so did you.”

The quiet words did cruel, cruel things to Meg’s heart. She opened her eyes and stepped back. Away. Couldn’t imagine anything she wanted less than to be standing in a field of bluebonnets making polite small talk with the husband she had not seen in two years.

“Your mother’s been calling.” And now Russell stood before her, a stranger in a painfully familiar body. The eyes…the mouth. The thick copper hair. As always, his shirt was open at the throat, revealing a hint of the dark springy hair she’d once loved to finger. Just to the right, she knew there would be a scar. “Is that why you’re here?”

The change was immediate. His flirty little Charlotte-inspired smile congealed into something harder—and much less readable. His gaze turned serious, and on a visceral level, Meg started to scream.

No.

She’d always known this day could come. Ainsley had left a will, but wills could be challenged. Technically, she was the outsider. If the Montgomery family was to challenge her for custody, she had a horrible feeling she knew what the outcome would be.

“Actually, it is,” Russell said, and as if a switch had been flicked, the lilt left his voice. “My parents wanted me to come and—”

Meg shifted to get a better grip on a suddenly squirmy baby.

“—settle Ainsley’s affairs.”

The breeze kept whispering. The bees kept buzzing. A few cars sped along the narrow highway. But Meg held herself very still. “Settle her affairs?” Her voice was barely more than a rasp.

Russell’s eyes met hers. Once, in what seemed like another lifetime, she’d known his every look, touch. Words had been a formality they’d rarely needed.

She’d never imagined how quickly silence could turn to poison.

Or how badly it could punish.

After he’d left, at first the days had been so much better. But the nights…

The nights had been another story.

And now they were reduced to awkward formalities. There was a searching in his gaze, the photojournalist hard at work, studying, analyzing. Seeking. And in response, she tucked all those nasty, tattered remnants away, unwilling to give him a story to work with. Two years was a long time. A lot had happened. Not all of it would please a judge.

The last thing she needed was award-winning journalist Russell Montgomery on a fact-finding mission.

His eyes narrowed, as if he was squinting against a bright glare. “Her house,” he said as Charlotte started to thwack her hand against Meg’s chest. “Her belongings.”

Caution prevented relief from stirring. “Everything’s still there. I…” Had been to the house the day Ainsley died only long enough to gather a few essentials for the baby. The next day, Lori’s husband, Trey, had brought over the crib and glider, the rest of Charlotte’s toys and clothes.

Meg had been unable to go back since.

“Between the paper and the Wildflower Festival I haven’t had a chance to sort through everything yet.” In truth, there wasn’t much. Ainsley had worked as a waitress. Funds had been tight. She’d been so excited when one of her customers had offered her the use of his mother’s vacant house. “Julia and Lori offered to help me, but it just doesn’t seem to happen.”

Probably because a very strong part of her wasn’t ready for that kind of closure.

“I understand,” Russell said, and from the thickness of his voice, she knew that he did. No matter what had gone down between the two of them, he’d always had a soft spot for his sister. “I don’t want to be here, either.”

Somehow she didn’t wince. She kept her expression blank, her voice neutral. “Come by the paper tomorrow,” she said as Charlotte tugged at the collar of her shirt. She nuzzled in, her mouth open and seeking.

Russell’s eyes followed, the green quickly taking on a dark glitter she’d worked hard to forget.

The quickening was immediate—and the final straw. Meg shifted the hungry baby from her chest and lowered her to stand on top of her own feet, Char’s chubby little legs wobbling like gelatin.

“I’ve got the keys there,” Meg said as if nothing had just happened. The baby clutching her fingers for dear life, she glanced back at Russell.

He looked as though he’d seen a ghost.

“A day or two tops,” she said, “and then you can be on your way.”

A harsh sound broke from his throat…the same sound he always made when he didn’t know what to say. “Is she walking?”

“Not yet,” Meg said, easing her right foot forward. “At least, not by herself.” Then, to the baby, “Such a big, strong girl!”

Charlotte giggled as if she understood. She leaned forward, urging Meg to keep moving.

Meg obliged.

“Ray’s back.”

Meg looked up. “What?”

Russell gestured behind her, where her mother’s friend stood alongside the swarm of bluebonnets where he’d first tried to take Charlotte’s picture.

“Oh, good,” she said, turning to start back. “Maybe this time we can actually get some pictures.” She wasn’t sure what made her twist toward Russell. He hadn’t moved a muscle, stood there as still as one of the old post oaks surrounding the field, watching.

And then she got it. The baby. His sister’s child. Charlotte was the spitting image of Ainsley, who was the spitting image of Russell. Seeing her was like seeing a ghost. Sometimes Meg still couldn’t believe her sister-in-law was gone.

“Here,” she said before thinking. She lifted her arms, bringing the giggling baby up toward her uncle. “You want to hold her?”

CHAPTER THREE

Two and a half years before

PINK BALLOONS BOBBED against the passenger window, straining to get free. Twelve of them, including a Mylar in the shape of little booties. The tulips lay on the front seat, beside the grape juice.

She was going to be upset. Russell knew that. She wasn’t even answering his calls. He’d tried to get away, but the meeting ran long, and as usual, he lost track of time.

Frowning, he was turning onto the narrow road that led to their house when he remembered to check his messages. He hadn’t checked before, hadn’t wanted to hear the news that way. He’d wanted to see her face, her smile. He’d wanted to be there.

Now, almost home, he wondered if she was somewhere else.

Five messages waited. The first three were hang-ups. The fourth was a former colleague. Finally, with the fifth, he heard her voice, and his heart started to slam.

“Honey…” Meg was a confident woman, vivacious, full of energy and life. But now… “I…I…” She never stuttered. She never stammered. “I…”

The sickness hit fast, spreading like a toxin in his gut.

“We need to talk,” she said, sounding so very, very far away. So small. “Come home…please.”

He was barely aware of his foot ramming down on the gas pedal, racing the last of the way home. He swerved into the driveway and threw open the door, strode toward the house. The balloons were in his hand. The tulips were not.

“Meg?” he called as he opened the door.

The shadows of early afternoon greeted him. There were no lights turned on. No music. “Meggie?”

The stillness deepened with every step he took. The kitchen, the family room, the bedroom—the nursery. All empty.

“Meggie!”

He didn’t know why he started to run. Everything was spinning…inside. Outside. Throwing open the back door, he squinted against the sun—and saw her.

And then everything stopped.

She was just sitting there. Down by the creek, with her back against one of the old weeping willows. Her knees were drawn to her chest. Her arms were wrapped around them. Her gaze was trained forward, toward the slow trickle of water in the creek.

On the breeze, he heard the choked sound of crying.

He staggered, started to run again. He thought he called out to her, but his throat was raw and she didn’t turn. She sat there, frozen.

And God help him, he knew.

His steps slowed as the sprawl of green grass down to the creek stretched. Numbly, his hand, clenching the tangle of pink ribbons, went slack, and the bobbing mass of balloons lifted toward the blue of the sky.

And floated away.

Present Day

THE RAW, NAKED EMOTION on Russell’s face congealed into something unreadable. “No. I—I can’t hold her…right now.” He ripped his gaze from the baby, backed away.

From his own niece.

“Ray’s waiting,” he said. “I—I’ll be by in the morning.”

And with that he turned and headed back to the sporty blue rental waiting in the gravel parking lot.

Meg wanted to be surprised. Angry. She was neither. Backing away, walking away, that’s what Russell Montgomery did.

The hurt and disappointment were for Charlotte. She was just a baby, an innocent in all this. She deserved better. But as Meg carried her niece through a patch of poppies, toward Ray, the pressure in her chest released, and once again, she could breathe.

Russell had talked of Ainsley’s affairs, of her house and her belongings…but not of her baby. He didn’t even want to hold her.

And if he didn’t hold her, he couldn’t take her.

TIME DIDN’T STAND STILL. Russell knew that. It’s just the way it was, a simple fact he’d always appreciated. In the two years since he’d last driven the shady streets of Pecan Creek, a child had been born, a bright light extinguished, a marriage ended.

But as he steered his rental car beneath a banner advertising the annual Wildflower Festival, it was like driving straight back into a past he knew no longer existed.

The cobblestone streets and old-time storefronts of the historic district welcomed him, just as they welcomed everybody. Park benches sat beneath awnings. Nostalgic statues stood by the street corners. Even the old gazebo still waited there in the Side Street Park, if possible a brighter white than the last time he’d seen it.

The storefronts were the same, even if some of the names had changed. The old antiques shop was now a tearoom. The independent bookseller now boasted CDs and DVDs, as well. On the outskirts of town he’d noticed the big antebellum house turned bed-and-breakfast had a grand-reopening sign hung out front. Once, the renowned Magnolia Manor had attracted visitors from all across the country.

Russell wondered how long it had been closed.

Easing along the busy street that cut the town in half, he strained against the shadows of late afternoon for the familiar green awning across from the Gazette. He’d eaten at five-star restaurants in more major cities than he could count, but all it took was the thought of Uncle Ralph’s, and his mouth started to water. If the local favorite was gone—

It wasn’t. The hole-in-the-wall sat where it always had, tucked between Ed’s Barber Shop and Dr. Harrison’s office. There was almost always a crowd milling around out front, waiting for one of the ten tables inside.

At least, that’s how many tables had been there before.

Russell had talked to Uncle Ralph about expanding or relocating, but the sole proprietor had always resisted, saying he couldn’t cook for more than ten tables at a time, so why seat more than ten at a time?

Easing into a parallel spot across the street, Russell couldn’t help but smile at the memory. Once and only once, he’d suggested that Uncle Ralph hire someone to help…

Once. Only once.

Now he made his way across the street, glancing at his phone to check the time, when he noticed no one lingering out front. A few minutes past seven. He would have expected a crowd.

At the door, he wasn’t sure why he hesitated. He’d eaten at the restaurant more times than he could count. He and Meg had come here frequently, sometimes several times per week. After work they’d walk over, sometimes just the two of them, often with Lori and Julia. The guys would arrive shortly thereafter. It had been their ritual.

Stepping back inside…

He almost turned and walked away, toward the new place down the street, Mamacitas. Instead he yanked open the door and strode into the restaurant lit by dozens of strings of festive chili pepper yard lights.

He saw them immediately, all of them, Julia and Lance and Lori and Trey. It was hard not to. His gaze went straight to their booth, the big curved one in the back right corner where they all used to sit and see who could throw back the most tequila shots. Once Meg had—

He turned to leave.

The sharp intake of breath was the only warning he got. “Rusty Montgomery!” Before he could turn—or run for the door—Ralph’s wife was across the room. “As I live and breathe,” she cried as she took him by the arm and beamed up at him. “Lord o’mercy it is you!”

And then it was all he could do not to choke on the heavy scent of gardenia—and grease. Ruby wrapped him up tight in her beefy arms, hugging him as if she’d never thought to see him again.

“I never thought this day would come,” she said when she finally released him. “You done broke my heart when you left like that, without even coming to tell me bye.”

By now everyone in the whole restaurant was watching—including the foursome at the back booth. Russell wanted the floor to just open up and swallow him, but since that wasn’t going to happen, he opted for Plan B.

“Ruby Rodriguez,” he said, rolling his Rs. “Still as pretty as the day is long.”

Her smile widened, but the glint in her eyes told him she knew what he was trying to do. “Go on with you now,” she said, gesturing toward the familiar booth. “Your friends are waiting.”

The words were casual enough, but they hit him like a rock to the gut. A big one. The foursome didn’t move, just watched, leaving the ball square in Russell’s court.

Until Lance stood. “Rusty,” his former poker buddy said, crossing to him with a hand outstretched. There was a quiet understanding in his voice—and a steely warning in his eyes. “Didn’t know you were back in town, man.”

Trey was there a step later, and as Russell extended his hand, the man he’d once run with almost every morning before the sun rose wrapped him in a quick hug. The gesture caught him by surprise…but nowhere near as much as the realization that his friend had lost a lot of weight.

Trey released him abruptly, as if just realizing what he’d done. “When did you get back?”

“This morning,” Russell said. “Need to clean out—”

“No, you don’t.” That was Julia. He’d wondered how long it would take the barracuda to march over. “There’s nothing you need to do here,” she said, angling her chin in that fierce way of hers.

Her husband looked as if he, too, wanted the floor to swallow him. “Julia—”

“No,” Meg’s cousin said before Lance could get out another word. She lifted her hand in a sharp gesture. “He doesn’t get to do this.” She kept her eyes trained on her prey, namely Russell. “You can’t just show up here like…you still belong.”

He blinked. Julia had always been a bull-by-the-horns kind of gal, but her vehemence seemed a little over-the-top. “Ainsley was my sister—”

“And Meg was your wife.” She practically spat the word at him. “That didn’t seem to make any difference, did it? You still walked away. You don’t get to—”

“Jules.” Lori materialized by her friend’s side with an icy glare as she laid a hand to Julia’s forearm. “Don’t.”

Something dark and uncomfortable slipped through Russell. He’d known coming back would not be easy, but the palpable tension among the foursome drove home just how long he’d been gone—and how much he didn’t know. Trey was rail thin. Lori looked sad, drawn. Lance looked fed up. And Julia…Julia looked like she wanted to bust some balls.

Namely, his.

“I don’t get to do what?” he asked.

Lori looked down. Julia’s mouth pursed into a thin line. But it was Trey who spoke. “Come on, that was a long time ago,” he said to his wife and her friend. “It wasn’t a picnic for anyone. When a marriage ends…” He lifted a hand to rub at his chest, but left the rest of his sentence unspoken.

But Russell knew. When a marriage ended, it was like a death. But the kicker was, you both still lived. You lived, while every other aspect of your life—where you lived, what you did, who you did it with, your freaking identity—went away.

Once those in Meg’s inner circle had considered Russell a friend, and he them. They’d worked together, laughed together, cried together. Now at best he was a stranger. At worst…an enemy.

Not surprisingly, it was Lori who broke the awkward silence. “Have you seen her?”

A photojournalist, Russell was a man who dealt in images. Some he captured with film. Others imprinted themselves on him, lingering long, long after time had moved on. When he closed his eyes, it was a veritable slide show of his life.

Since returning to Pecan Creek, that slide show was of Meg.

“This afternoon,” he said, feeling his chest tighten all over again. In a perfect world, he could have slipped in and out of town without seeing her. Christ, he could have avoided coming back altogether.

But it wasn’t a perfect world, and he could not do what had to be done without involving her.

“At the flower field,” he murmured as an afterthought. “She had the baby….”

Julia and Lori exchanged a quick glance. Two minutes later they’d retrieved their purses and were gone, leaving the men standing in an awkward vortex of country music and silence.

STARS TWINKLED throughout the shadowy nursery, blue shimmers of light courtesy of the funky projector in the center of the room. Beatles music turned lullabies drifted from the CD player on the dresser. It was the perfect atmosphere for sleeping, but Charlotte, despite being bathed, lotioned and fed, had absolutely no interest in sleeping.

Still Meg rocked, cradling the chubby baby in her arms as she watched the numbers on the clock slip deeper into the evening.

“What a good day you had,” she cooed, even though Charlotte was focused on the pile of blocks she’d been playing with earlier.

Meg wasn’t about to allow her back down on the floor. This was attempt number three at sleep. There would not be a fourth.

“Posing so pretty for Uncle Ray,” she went on in the same monotone. The second time had been the charm. Rejuvenated from her power nap, Charlotte had sat happily in the big patch of bluebonnets, cheerfully destroying one flower at a time.

Ray said the pictures would be great.

Meg had to take his word for it, because in truth, she had no idea. She’d tried to watch. She’d tried to pay attention. But the image of Russell limping toward her had stayed with her long after he himself had vanished.

Even now, hours later, the reality of it all kept winding through her, tighter with each minute that passed. This is what it had been like before, back when they’d come home from work each day and pretended they had a marriage. When they’d shared a silent dinner before each retreating to their own space. When they’d lain in bed with their backs to each other, faking sleep.

And so much more.

With the memory, all those old sensations knotted inside her once again, bringing with them a renewed frustration. She and Charlotte were just settling into a routine. The paper was in trouble. Circulation was down, advertising almost cut in half. With more and more folks consuming their news from online sources, interest in dailies and weeklies was at an all-time low. If she didn’t come up with a turnaround soon, the paper would go under.

She did not have time for Russell Montgomery to stroll back into town.

On a deep inhalation, she glanced down and found Charlotte’s eyes heavy, slowly blinking. Exhaling, she stopped rocking and waited.

The baby’s eyes drifted closed.

Still Meg sat in the rocking chair, looking down at Charlotte’s sweet little face. Sometimes getting her to sleep was a bear, but those first few moments of slumber were worth the effort. The innocence of it all screamed through Meg, filling her with a soft determination that would have sent her to her knees had she not been sitting.

Charlotte. Poor sweet Charlotte. Ainsley had loved her so very, very much.

Meg closed her eyes against the memory, but images awaited in the darkness, as well. Ainsley on the hospital bed, weak, fading. Reaching for her baby one last time.

Inside, something started to shake. Fighting it, Meg reached for all those slip-sliding pieces and locked them away, stood and eased the baby into her crib. In the hall, she crossed to her office, but found herself heading for the kitchen instead. She just needed…

At the oven, she went up on her toes and opened the cabinet, saw the lone bottle. She’d put the five-year-old cabernet there the night after Charlotte was born. Maybe tonight was the night to allow herself just one glass….

Meg…where were ye? I was scared my wee one would get here before you did….

She closed the cabinet. Walked out of the kitchen. Back to her office. Shut the door.

That’s where she was when her cell phone rang. She picked it up, answered on the second ring.

“Open up,” Julia said by way of greeting.

Meg blinked. “Pardon?”

“We’re on the porch,” Julia said in that brisk, all-business way of hers. “Didn’t want to knock and risk waking the baby.”

Puzzled, Meg saved the business plan she’d been editing and went to the front of the house, where she opened the door to Julia and Lori, and a nondescript brown bag.

Julia brushed right by her, looking both ways as she crossed the small foyer. “Is he here? Is that his truck out front?”

Meg glanced out to see the white, late-model truck across the street. “Is who here?”

Lori stepped inside and closed the door. “We know,” she said quietly. “We saw him.”

Meg stilled as realization formed. Her friends had seen Russell. And here they were…checking on her.

Because they knew—everything.

“He’s not here.” The truck across the street had been there a few days, most likely belonging to one of Mrs. Morgan’s grown sons. “And you don’t need to be here, either. I’m fine.”

“Right,” Julia said. “Your husband waltzes back into town after two years—”

“Soon-to-be-ex,” Meg corrected. She’d filed the papers the month before Ainsley had died. All they needed were his signature.

“My point exactly.”

Lori’s eyes widened as Julia whisked into the kitchen. “You should have seen her. She pretty much let him have it.”

Meg sighed. “Julia!” Then, “What happened to ‘You have to call him’?”

Julia returned with three spoons. “Your terms,” she said. “Not his.”

It was hard to argue with that.

“And so you came over here to…?” she asked, glancing from the bag in Lori’s hands to the utensils in Julia’s.

Julia grinned. “Eat ice cream.” Tucking her arm under Meg’s, she all but dragged her to the back door.

Meg thought about protesting, telling them she was fine. Insisting that they go home. She hated that they felt the need to descend on her as if she was some fragile creature in danger of shattering.

But gratitude overrode everything else.

Over the years they’d shared a lot, from Barbie clothes to real clothes, and then real dreams. And real heartache. Julia and Lori had been there before she went off to college—and when Meg came home. They’d listened to her go on and on about the dreamy guest professor—and they’d gawked when he came after her. They knew about the night she lost her virginity. They’d helped her plan her wedding. They’d encouraged her when she and Russell had been forced to turn to medical science to conceive a child. They’d held her hand, helped with shots, held her up.

In the end, they’d been the ones to help glue all the pieces back together.

Outside, on the wide porch overlooking the yard that sloped down to the creek, she let them steer her to the top step, where they all three plopped down. Lori pulled the carton out of the bag. Julia ripped off the lid, revealing the mint chip ice cream beneath.

Lori handed over the spoons.

They all dug in.

THE PINEY WOODS GAZETTE had once been a thriving daily newspaper. Meg’s great-grandfather had prided himself on being a newsman, founding the local paper to quiet the gossip that often gripped the town. He had been a man of facts. A man of principle. Focus. He thought everyone had a right to know…everything.

It was a legacy Maxwell Landry dedicated his life to building—and passing down to his only son.

Standing outside the offices of the Gazette, Russell figured it was probably best neither man had lived to see the newspaper business slowly wither away. More and more consumers were getting their news from alternative sources, particularly online. Print was static, cumbersome. Passé. It was only a matter of time before physical newspapers became a thing of the past. He and Meg had spent countless hours working on strategies—

He frowned. No strategy in the world could stop the continuum of change. You adapted, or you became obsolete.

He and Meg had never been very good at adapting.

Neither had Ainsley. From the time she’d been just a toddler, his sister had never been able to just go with the flow. She’d seen the world through a lens all her own, and now she was gone.

It still hurt like hell.

Hating what had to be done, he pushed open the door and strode into the outer office, as he’d done hundreds of times before. And just like all those times before, the scent of vanilla and orange greeted him. His office had been down the hall to the left, across from Meg’s. Sometimes he’d worked there, but more often than not, he’d roamed the vacant space upstairs. He could think better there, without walls everywhere he turned.

Lori sat at the front desk, flanked by two ficus trees. Her role had expanded beyond being a receptionist, but with limited budgets, staffing had become an issue—and someone needed to sit out front.

Lori, with her warm smile and inherent gentleness, was the obvious choice.

She looked up from her computer screen, and again, all Russell could think was how tired she looked. Dark smudges ringed her eyes, the glare of the overhead lights making her look even more pale. She and Meg were roughly the same age, which put her at thirtyish. But she looked far older.

“Hi,” she greeted, and he couldn’t help but smile. He’d always had a soft spot for Lori.

“Hi, yourself,” he said. “You okay?”

She smiled, and the shadows seemed to recede. “Just tired,” she said, downplaying his question. “Busy day ahead. Trey has an—” She broke off, shook her head. “You’re here for Meg.”

They were simple words…true. But not true at all. “I need to get the keys—”

She picked up a small retro Magic 8 Ball from beside a picture frame on the edge of her desk. From it dangled two hot-pink keys. “Got ’em.”

Lori had the keys. Meg had given them to her. Obviously she had no intention of seeing him.

The quick burn in his gut surprised him.

“I expected her back by now,” Lori said, “but the festival meetings almost always run long.”

With two long strides he was across the cozy reception area. He reached out, almost grabbed the keys. But this was Lori, not Meg, and she’d never been anything but kind to him. Jaw tight, he forced a smile and took the keys, made the requisite small talk before returning to his rental car.

How like Meg to avoid what she didn’t want to face.

The drive across town took less than ten minutes. He pulled off the quiet crepe myrtle–lined boulevard and wound his way through a few side streets before arriving at the small frame house.

Flowers bloomed. Everywhere he looked, a rainbow of colors screamed back at him. Pink and white from the azaleas, red from geraniums, yellow from daisies and daffodils. Even the trees rained colors, a veritable parade of dogwood and redbuds, all shimmering in the late-morning sun like something straight out of a picture book.

Once he would have grabbed his camera and gone down on his knee, searching for the perfect blend of light and shadow and color. That’s what Ainsley had always loved, the contrasts in life. The unexpected.

The house had been drab when she’d first showed it to him, gray in the dead of winter. He’d thought she was making a mistake, but she’d seen the promise, and she’d insisted.

Now she was gone, but the color remained.

Russell pushed the car door open and stepped into the seductive warmth of Texas in April. He was a man who thrived on the periphery, the complete opposite of his baby sister. No matter how much he did not want to go inside, he owed her. This, and a whole lot more.

Striding up the walk, he made his way between the armies of petunias lining the walkway, up the two steps to the screened porch, and yanked open the outer door.

Meg rose from the porch swing, the baby on her hip. “Hey,” was all she said.

He stopped, stared at her standing there in a fall of sunlight, her jeans faded, her scoop-neck olive shirt wrinkled. Her hair was soft, loose.

“Meggie.” Goddamn his voice for breaking.

She shifted little Charlotte on her hip. “Lori called, told me I’d just missed you.”

His hand tightened around the key.

“My meeting ran over,” she said as Charlotte fisted her hand in Meg’s hair and yanked. “I must have been crazy signing up to chair. You wouldn’t believe how many last-minute details there are.”

The edges of the key dug into his palm. “You always were one for staying busy.”

Her smile was lopsided, and with it about a thousand years fell away. “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose.”

The tension spun out between them, the stillness and the silence pushing in like invisible walls. Once he’d known this woman as well as he’d known himself, her body—her heart. Or at least, he’d thought he had. She’d been his wife and his friend, his coworker and confidante, his lover. They’d bought a falling-down house and turned it into a home. They’d shared meals and dreams, their bodies…

Now they stood in the cramped confines of the small front porch, without a freaking clue what to say to each other.

CHAPTER FOUR

Two and a half years before

THE HOUSE WAS QUIET. Not that long ago, the silence would have surprised him. Meg loved music. She always had it going, blasting so that she could hear it in every room. He would come home and find her doing the dishes to U2, dusting to The Boss, paying bills to Dave Matthews.

He’d never understood how she could concentrate with so much else going on.

She’d never understood how he could concentrate with what she called the scream of silence.

Now that silence filled the house. Once he would have called out to her, but now he moved quietly through the foyer. He didn’t want her to know he was home. Not yet. There’d been a Web site launch meeting that afternoon at the Gazette—but she’d never showed. Lori said she’d gone out for coffee a little after two.

She’d never come back.

She did that a lot these days.

He found her in the kitchen, the big walk-in pantry to be exact. The navy suit she’d put on that morning was gone, replaced by a boxy T-shirt and baggy jeans. They literally hung on her. Her feet were bare, her hair loose.

The urge to—Russell didn’t know. He didn’t know what he wanted to do—what he was supposed to do. Six weeks had passed since they’d lost their baby…a little girl. Dr. Brennan said Meg had recovered physically, but emotionally…

Julia said to give her time.

Meg’s mother, Lilah, said to give her love.

Russell had tried both.

Now he watched her alphabetize their canned goods, and wanted to put his fist through the goddamn wall.

“Hey,” he finally said.

She stiffened. His wife. She stiffened at the sound of his voice.

“Missed you this afternoon.” He’d quit asking if she was okay.

Slowly she turned, looked at him with those awful, blank eyes of hers. “The pantry’s driving me crazy.”

He felt his jaw tighten, didn’t have a clue what to say in response—she’d arranged the cans by size and color the week before. “Meggie—” He reached for her, stilled when he saw her wince.

His wife. Wincing because he wanted to touch her.

“I can finish up for you,” he said. “Why don’t you go ahead and shower.”

She blinked at him. “Shower?”

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