“I can’t do this.”

Kirsten gulped, wiping the back of her wrist against her eyes. “I can’t lean on you.”

“You damn well can.” J.D. was right behind her, resting his arm around her shoulders, and she wrenched herself away.

“Not for long,” Kirsten protested. He obviously had no problem offering her a shoulder to cry on, but she couldn’t let herself take refuge in his arms. “I can’t go through that again.”

“What?”

“You leaving,” she whispered, not even caring about hiding the old wound.

“Kirsten—”

“I…I thought we had a…a future together,” she blurted out before realizing how idiotic that must sound. “I know it was stupid,” she continued. “You’d never said you wanted me—”

“My God,” J.D. interrupted, staring at her in disbelief. “I never wanted anybody like I wanted you.”

Dear Reader,

While every romance holds the promise of sweeping readers away with a rugged alpha male or a charismatic cowboy, this month we want to take a closer look at the women who fall in love with our favorite heroes.

“Heroines need to be strong,” says Sherryl Woods, author of more than fifty novels. “Readers look for a woman who can stand up to the hero—and stand up to life.” Sherryl’s book A Love Beyond Words features a special heroine who lost her hearing but became stronger because of it. “A heroine needs to triumph over fear or adversity.”

Kate Stockwell faces the fear of knowing she cannot bear her own child in Allison Leigh’s Her Unforgettable Fiancé, the next installment in the STOCKWELLS OF TEXAS miniseries. And an accident forces Josie Scott, Susan Mallery’s LONE STAR CANYON heroine in Wife in Disguise, to take stock of her life and find a second chance….

In Peggy Webb’s Standing Bear’s Surrender, Sarah Sloan must choose between loyalty and true love! In Separate Bedrooms…? by Carole Halston, Cara LaCroix is faced with fulfilling her grandmother’s final wish—marriage! And Kirsten Laurence needs the help of the man who broke her heart years ago in Laurie Campbell’s Home at Last.

“A heroine is a real role model,” Sherryl says. And in Special Edition, we aim for every heroine to be a woman we can all admire. Here’s to strong women and many more emotionally satisfying reads from Silhouette Special Edition!

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

Home at Last
Laurie Campbell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my sister, Lisa,

who’s shared a lifetime of creating characters we love

LAURIE CAMPBELL

spends her weekdays writing brochures, videos and commercial scripts for an advertising agency. At five o’clock she turns off her computer, waits thirty seconds, turns it on again and starts writing romance. Her other favorite activities include playing with her husband and son, teaching catechism class, counseling at a Phoenix mental health clinic and working with other writers. “People ask me how I find the time to do all that,” Laurie says, “and I tell them it’s easy. I never clean my house!”

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 One

“Where are my children?”

“I don’t know,” the airport clerk repeated, and Kirsten Laurence fought back a flare of panic. “All I know is, they’re not on this flight. If they were, we’d have the Un-accompanied Minor paperwork.”

But what if Brad had forgotten to fill it out? Or the airline had lost it someplace? Maybe she was grasping at straws, but the possibility of not seeing Lindsay, Adam and Eric as soon as the plane arrived was making her stomach twist with horror.

“Unless they look older than their ages,” the clerk offered, evidently seeing her stricken expression. “Once in a while, we’ll get a teenager who can pass for—”

“My daughter is seven,” Kirsten interrupted, clenching her fists in the folds of her flowered shirt—Lindsay’s favorite, which was why she’d worn it today. “And the twins are five. They’ve been visiting their dad for two weeks, and I’m picking them up this morning!”

“Well, we have another Seattle-to-Tucson flight coming in at three-fifteen, and the first one landed two hours ago….”

Dear God, could she possibly have missed them? It was impossible, but she couldn’t find any better explanation.

Worse ones, yes. Like Brad forgetting the date. Or losing track of time, except that surely by now he would have called her. Maybe a car accident on the way to the airport. A trip to the emergency room. Brad knocked unconscious, her children not knowing the phone number of their brand-new house….

No, she was being silly. Overprotective. It was probably something simple, like a flat tire. Or Brad deciding right before they boarded that another airline had better first-class seats. She could easily imagine him buying new tickets on the spot, discarding the original ones without a thought for the cost.

That had to be it, Kirsten told herself, trying to steady her breathing while she headed toward the cluster of pay phones to call Seattle. That would be typical of her ex-husband.

All she needed to do was phone and ask him which plane to meet.

She couldn’t stop her fingers from shaking, though, while she punched in her calling-card number. There had to be someone on hand to answer. Her daughter and sons were somewhere out there, and she had no idea where—there had to be an answer.

There was. As soon as she heard the phone being picked up, Kirsten felt a wave of relief crest over the apprehension rising inside her. Then, when Brad’s recorded message began, the fear circled higher.

“Hey, sorry I missed you,” came his cheerful voice. He sounded as carefree and friendly as ever, confirming her long-held belief that Brad Laurence was a terrific person as long as you weren’t married to him. “You know the routine, right? Leave your name, I’ll call your machine, you call mine again, and one of these days we’ll get it together. Okay?” Then a beep.

“Brad,” she choked. “Listen, I need to know where the kids are! Because the airline says they’re not on this flight, and—”

“Hello?” another voice interrupted. “Mrs. Laurence? This is Rena, the cleaning lady. I just heard you on the machine, so I thought I’d pick up.”

“Oh, thank you.” The cleaning lady would be fine as long as she knew where to reach him. “I’m so glad you’re there. Brad is sending the children home this morning, and I need to know what plane they’re on.”

There was a pause. Then Rena cleared her throat.

“Uh, Mrs. Laurence? I think maybe there was a mistake. Because last I heard, they were taking off on vacation.”

On vacation? No.

“They’re coming home today,” Kirsten protested, but already her chest felt tight. As if she needed to brace her entire body against a jolt. Which the cleaning lady delivered.

“Mr. Laurence said yesterday he was keeping the kids. He said you needed a break.”

A break? After two weeks without Lindsay and Adam and Eric? “He said what?”

“Well, that’s what the boys told me. That you were moving? Anyway, he asked me to get the house closed up today.”

Kirsten felt a clutch of panic flaring higher inside her. Brad must have planned this in advance, but why hadn’t he called her if he wanted more time with the children? And how could he have told them she wanted a break from them? “Rena, did he say where they were going?”

“Colorado, maybe? I’m not sure.”

His condo in Telluride. That had to be it. He’d taken the kids there for Christmas six months ago, and they had described a penthouse atop a luxurious resort, which sounded like Brad’s kind of place. “If he calls again,” she asked shakily, “would you have him get hold of me? And tell him to use the new number I gave him, because the forwarding system is messed up. Thanks.”

All she needed to do was phone Telluride, but for some reason it was hard to make her fingers punch in the calling-card number again. There was nothing to worry about, Kirsten assured herself, gazing blindly around the airport’s bustling concourse as she waited to be connected with the resort concierge. But the reassurance was wearing thin…and when she learned that Mr. Laurence hadn’t used his suite since Christmas, she felt a chilling wave of disbelief mingled with stark, raw terror.

Her children were gone.

This wasn’t Brad’s typical carelessness. This was deliberate, and she had no idea how to react. Leave word with everyone he might contact? Alert the police that her ex-husband had failed to return the children? Call the FBI? While he deserved the worst kind of punishment and then some, she hated the idea of Lindsay and the boys seeing Brad arrested for kidnapping…because her children needed to think well of their father.

But he couldn’t keep them. He couldn’t! Not with Adam and Eric starting kindergarten next month, not when Lindsay had already gone two weeks without her bedtime story. Not when he’d never wanted the children for any length of time before.

This didn’t make sense, Kirsten thought again as she headed out to the short-term parking garage where she’d left her car. Brad had never enjoyed the routine of parenthood, the everyday pleasures of being a father. After his parents had died in a plane crash last December, he’d shown a little more enthusiasm than usual for pampering the children—but nothing that indicated he wanted them beyond the usual week around the holidays and two weeks in June or July. Why was he suddenly holding onto them?

And what was she supposed to do about it? Call the police? Her parents? But they had left only yesterday for their thirtieth-anniversary cruise….

She drove home with shivers chilling her body, which under any other circumstances would have been a welcome relief from the heat of a Tucson summer. Yet now she wished the cold numbness would recede faster, wished she could think faster, wished that by the time she reached the new house she could have a plan of action completely formed in her mind.

The logical first step was calling the police, but that proved to be no help at all. “Custody violation by itself isn’t a criminal offense,” an officer explained, “so we can’t do anything right now. If they’re not back in three weeks, call again.”

Three weeks? Three more weeks without Lindsay, without Adam, without Eric? Without the only treasures in her life?

Brad had to be somewhere, she thought, hanging up the phone and pacing the Saltillo-tile floor of her newly furnished kitchen. He might have only been joking with the cleaning lady, might have decided to return the children to Tucson himself—but even if he hadn’t, someone must know where he was. He had friends, surely, people he kept in touch with. Someone had to know where to find the chairman of the Laurence Foundation, even if he rarely set foot in the place.

Who would Brad talk to, anyway? Maybe Steve and Amy in their hometown of Tubac, or John Harris, or Mike and Ellen. Or J.D. Ryder—

No, not J.D. There were plenty of other people she could ask.

She wasn’t calling J.D. Ryder.

But after half an hour of phoning everyone she could think of, only to receive useless reassurances that “Brad must’ve just decided to show the kids an extra good time this summer,” Kirsten found herself frantically scrambling through the battered phone list she’d started during the early days of their marriage. The names, even then, were mostly in his handwriting—Brad had always made friends easily, effortlessly—and seven years later, there were still dozens of people he must have stayed in touch with.

J.D. was listed near the end, but there had to be other names she could try. Brad’s favorite mechanic. His tennis coach. The woman who embroidered his exquisite holiday gifts to patrons of the Laurence Foundation. She tried them all, and learned that none of them had talked to Brad recently. Not since their sympathy calls last winter, when his parents had been killed in the Bahamas and left him the largest hacienda in southern Arizona.

Maybe he’d gone back there, Kirsten realized with a flash of hope. Maybe he’d found himself missing his parents, wanting to show his children the importance of family by visiting his hometown. There weren’t many names left from Tubac…Brad had left for college with blithe promises to keep in touch with all his friends, but within a few years they had dwindled down to a very small collection. Mike and Ellen, who had stayed in Tubac. J.D. Ryder, who had—

You’re not calling J.D.

It would be easy enough to find him, she admitted as she fumbled through her desk for the number of the Laurence estate caretaker. Brad had routinely kept her up to date on their best friend from high school, the third member of “Tubac’s Terrific Trio.” And after rising so rapidly through the ranks of the Phoenix Police Department, it wasn’t likely that J.D. would have vanished into thin air.

The way he’d done eight years ago, when—

You’re not calling J.D. Ryder!

But after an apologetic denial from the caretaker and with every other name in the directory exhausted, she found herself battling a long-buried sense of uneasiness. It would be a simple call, Kirsten told herself desperately. It would be nothing more than the same questions she’d asked three dozen other people. “Have you talked to Brad lately? Did he mention anything about taking the kids on vacation?”

She could do it. She could call him.

All she needed to do was concentrate on finding her children. Ask J.D. a few simple questions. Listen to him with the same focused detachment she’d listened to all those other voices during the past forty minutes, and forget that his voice had ever been more than a simple source of information.

She could do it.

Swallowing a hard, salty knot in the back of her throat, Kirsten reached for the phone.

“Ryder, you just missed a call.”

Jonesy sounded smug about it, J.D. noticed. The guy was probably hoping it would attract notice from upstairs…Ryder’s been out all morning, losing focus ever since he gave notice. Put me in instead.

Well, maybe they would. It was hard to imagine someone as spit-shined as Jonesy taking over the contacts J.D. had spent three years coaxing from the alleys of south Phoenix, but the brass upstairs seldom saw things the way he did. One more reason he’d be glad to get started in Chicago.

“Thanks,” he said, taking the message slip from the junior officer and heading for his desk. The past month of fourteen-hour days had at last reduced the mountain of paperwork to a very short stack, which he hoped his replacement would appreciate. He added this morning’s reports to the pile, checked the vacation-refusal box on the resignation “Freedom Form” someone had finally delivered, then glanced at Jonesy’s message slip and felt a jolt of heat down his spine.

Kirsten Laurence?

It startled him how quickly the sight of her name could still make his skin tighten. Eight years should have put her safely in the realm of old memories, the kind that roused only a vague nostalgia. High-school friends, good old days, Tubac’s Terrific Trio, nothing more than that.

Kirsten…

It was nothing to get excited about, J.D. told himself, initialing his resignation form and dropping it in the battered Out tray. She was probably planning a class reunion, a surprise party for her ex-husband, something like that. Something that required a courtesy call, some message she couldn’t send via Brad…the way she used to send Christmas or birthday greetings whenever he and his old buddy got together for a beer or a Super Bowl game.

Although those greetings had dwindled to a halt even before the divorce two years ago. He had wondered whether he should phone Kirsten with condolences when Brad described the new love of his life—a former Miss Scottsdale whose attraction had faded so quickly that she’d never been mentioned again. But he had decided against it.

There wasn’t much he could say beyond, “I never expected that.” Nobody would’ve expected that if they’d known her and Brad back in high school…the way he had, during those years when the three of them shared a long bus ride each day. They’d become a trio of best friends, which had amazed J.D. even as it warmed him—but still, that long-ago friendship was no justification for getting in touch with Kirsten. She’d probably put him out of her mind a long time ago, and he didn’t need her taking up any more space in his awareness.

The way she would if he let himself hear her voice again.

But this phone message was something he couldn’t ignore. She’d asked for him specifically, which meant it couldn’t be a simple coincidence of her needing some police officer. Not that a Tucson homemaker would likely need a Phoenix narcotics detective in any case, especially one with only two weeks left on the job.

She’d left a new phone number, J.D. noticed, looking at the message slip and steeling himself against the impact of seeing her name again. This wasn’t the number he remembered using for Brad on those rare occasions he’d called his friend in Tucson. But it made sense that Kirsten would’ve found a new place…she probably wouldn’t have wanted to stay in the same house she’d shared with her ex-husband.

An ex-husband J.D. would have pummeled for walking out on her, old friendship or not, if only she hadn’t wound up happier without him.

Brad hadn’t said that, of course. But he had said that after trying to talk Kirsten into a reconciliation and being flatly refused, the only conclusion he could come to was that she preferred someone who’d take more of an interest in the kids.

Which Brad, in spite of his comfortable heritage, apparently never had done. Except at their last meeting in January, J.D. recalled, when his friend had waxed eloquent about the glories of family. “I never realized how great my parents were until that plane crash, and now all I’ve got are the kids. But once the boys and Lindsay come visit this summer, I could keep them with me. Show ’em a great time…Las Vegas, skiing at Telluride, sailing off Catalina Island…”

The list of sites sounded almost like an itinerary, J.D. had thought at the time, but after the Super Bowl broadcast he had dismissed it as “bar talk.” While Brad might conceivably be planning to abscond with his kids, the possibility wasn’t worth mentioning to Kirsten. There was no reason, J.D. had managed to convince himself, for phoning a woman he hadn’t seen in eight years.

A decision he’d come to, he admitted, mainly because of the same uneasiness he was feeling right now.

J.D. flattened the message slip against the front of his desk. Drew it across the curved edge to smooth out its surface. Propped it against the phone and gazed at it, trying to imagine how Kirsten looked—as quietly stunning as ever, probably, with those incredible blond tresses and the perfect skin to match—and how she might sound when he called. Did her voice still have that faint lilt, that occasional edge of huskiness when—

Forget it, Ryder.

It was a phone call, nothing more. No reason to sit here gaping at a piece of paper as if it contained all the promise of a desert rainfall. Torn between annoyance at himself—he was a combat veteran, for God’s sake, and acting like a teenager!—and a grim awareness that he couldn’t quite seem to draw a full breath, J.D. punched the number into his phone.

One ring.

Gazing blankly across the cluttered squadroom, he forced himself to breathe in as much air as he could. If he wound up talking to her answering machine, he should at least sound reasonably in control of his own voice.

Two rings.

Kirsten might not even be there. She spent every summer taking the kids to art classes, swimming, gymnastics, the kind of thing “every mom does,” according to Brad. J.D. knew that wasn’t true of every mom, but he’d never argued the point. Even though he now had plenty of casework to cite, he’d spent the past decade letting his friends believe that their all-American lifestyle was the normal one.

Three rings.

“Hello?”

It was Kirsten. Sounding exactly the way he remembered. J.D. gripped the phone tighter and closed his eyes.

“Kirs, it’s J.D. How’re you doing?”

He could have said something smoother than that, he realized with a twinge of embarrassment as soon as he heard himself. But she hadn’t called to evaluate his social skills. All he needed to do was listen to her reunion invitation, explain he was taking off for Chicago in another few weeks, and put her out of his mind.

Again.

“Oh, I’m glad you called!” The warmth in her voice startled him, it sounded so close to what he’d fantasized about during those nights in basic training. But why would she be so excited about hearing from him now? “I’ve been trying to find anyone who might have talked to Brad lately.”

Well, that answered that. “Ah,” J.D. said, crumpling the message slip and aiming it at the wastebasket behind his desk. “Yeah.”

“I know this is going to sound really strange, but…did he by any chance mention any plans with the children? Because they were supposed to be home today, only his cleaning lady said he was taking them on vacation—and I don’t know where they are.”

J.D. closed his eyes, feeling as if he’d just been sucker-punched. So Brad hadn’t just been shooting off his mouth.

And here you didn’t want to call and warn her….

“Oh, God,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, Kirs.”

“Well, so, I was just hoping—I mean, nobody’s heard anything, and—” With every phrase her voice sounded shakier. “The police said they can’t do anything about a custody violation, and I’ve been asking everyone, only it’s like they—they’re just gone—I mean, it’s probably okay, because when I got the mail there was a…a…what, a postcard, only—”

“Kirsten,” he interrupted. “Take a breath.”

There was a momentary silence, then he heard a quick, shuddering gasp. All right, she was listening to him.

“Good,” J.D. said. “Another breath, okay? A big one.” He couldn’t make up for what he’d failed to do, but he could at least keep her from passing out.

A longer breath. “Okay,” she said, sounding slightly more composed. But then he heard the panic slipping back into her voice. “They’re just gone—and I don’t know what to do!”

Neither did he, but he wasn’t going to tell her that. “It’s okay,” he said in his best soothe-the-assault-victim tone. “We’ll get it handled.” Kirsten was right about the police not pursuing civil cases—which always shocked parents who viewed custody violations as a crime—but he’d make damn sure she got whatever assistance he could line up. “You say you got a postcard?”

“From the Space Needle,” she confirmed. “Brad always takes them there when they first get to Seattle, and they always send me one of those big postcards. Except this time, Lindsay and the boys wrote their names and drew pictures like they always do, and Brad added a note—”

“Can you read it to me?” This was the kind of thing a private investigator should handle, J.D. knew, but he couldn’t think of anyone to recommend in Tucson or Seattle. His only other contacts were cops, who couldn’t offer the kind of help she needed—and yet it was his fault she needed help in the first place. If only he’d phoned her in January….

“Let me get it. Just a second.” It took only a little longer than that before she cleared her throat and read, “Never realized till I lost my folks how great it is, having family around. Call if it’s a problem, but I want to give these kids a really fun summer—show them all the places we’ve never been. Don’t worry, I’ll have ’em home for school. Love you, Brad.”

He could hear his buddy’s breezy, carefree tone even through the tremor in Kirsten’s voice. That sounded like Brad, all right—blithely assuming she wouldn’t mind giving up her kids on the one hand, and signing off with “love you” on the other.

That son of a—

But he couldn’t trash the father of Kirsten’s kids, no matter how upset she sounded right now.

“I never would’ve agreed to let them spend the rest of the summer with him!” she cried. “Two weeks, all right, they can eat candy every morning for two weeks, and it’s important for them to spend time with their dad. But the whole summer—when he’s never been all that responsible in the first place—”

“Right,” J.D. acknowledged, forcibly channeling the heated anger into the cold concentration he employed virtually every day of his life. “You’ve already tried calling him?”

“When they weren’t on the plane, I talked to the cleaning lady—only it was too late by then. Brad probably thought it was fine to take them, since I hadn’t said no, but the postcard only came today. And I’d never, ever let him keep Lindsay and Adam and Eric that long!”

At best the Seattle P.D. might send someone over to the house, leave a message, check back a few times…. Kirsten needed more than that. “Let me get someone on this, okay?”

“The police?” She sounded both hopeful and apprehensive. “Will that—I mean, as much as I hate him for doing this, I don’t want Brad to get arrested or anything. It’d be horrible for the children to think their father was— I just want them home.”

It wasn’t all that horrible, seeing your father arrested…although, J.D. reminded himself, Kirsten’s kids had grown up in the same comfortable, happy-ending world she’d always taken for granted. Maybe it would be horrible for people like that.

“I’ll get you a private investigator,” he told her, “someone who can start right away.” He would have to give the P.I. everything he could remember from that conversation during the Super Bowl, when Brad had boasted about all the great things he could do for his kids if Kirsten weren’t so fussy about school attendance. “Find a couple photos of them, okay? And write down everything you know about Brad—where he likes to stay, friends he might call, any credit-card numbers, that kind of thing.”

“I will,” Kirsten promised, sounding somewhat reassured. “J.D., really, I appreciate your help. I was hoping someone could…I mean, I can’t let them go all summer—”

“No, I know.” Brad had always been good company, but the same blithe irresponsibility that made him fun to spend time with was probably a major drawback when it came to looking after kids. “You’d just as soon they didn’t live on candy bars, right?”

“Well, that, and the kindergarten needs Adam and Eric in by August first. If they’re going to be in separate classrooms instead of together, I have to—” She broke off, sounding suddenly embarrassed. “I’m sorry, that’s mom stuff. And here I didn’t even ask…how have you been?”

The question startled him, coming over the phone on which no one had ever asked such a thing. “Uh, fine,” he said, gripping the receiver a little tighter as he scanned the list of private investigators he recommended to parents seeking children sucked into the world of drugs. “I’m moving to Chicago in a few weeks.”

“Chicago! What will you be doing there?”

“Narcotics task force. I got the call last month.” He’d been elated at getting into a department where the work would be more demanding, more challenging, more of a chance to make a difference. More opportunity to keep addicts and dealers from inflicting on anyone the kind of childhood he’d endured. “Same kind of thing I’m doing here, but a bigger city. With better pizza.”

He could almost hear her smile at that last comment. “You always wanted to travel,” she observed, surprising him with how much she remembered of the dreams he’d never shared until that one summer. “It’s wonderful you’re getting the chance.”

She sounded a lot happier for him than anyone else had. Not that he’d told many people—just the captain, a few of the guys he worked with and the manager at his apartment complex.

“Well, thanks.” It was typical of Kirsten, he recalled, to show such genuine pleasure in a friend’s good fortune. Although he couldn’t exactly call himself a friend, not after the way he’d failed to warn her about Brad’s bar talk. “I’ve still got two weeks here, but there’s not much left to do. So I’ll find you a P.I. right away.”

“I really appreciate it,” she said again. “What shall I do besides make that list? And should I—do you know how much they charge?”

He couldn’t let her pay for his mistake, J.D. knew. It was partly his fault that she’d lost her kids, although he couldn’t quite bring himself to confess it…especially when she was already hurting. Somehow he’d have to make things right for Kirsten without letting her know that both members of her old trio had let her down.

“Depends on who you get,” he began. “But the thing is…I mean, if that’s a problem—”

“No, of course not!” The indignation in her voice startled him—Brad had said she’d refused anything beyond a single large settlement in exchange for his promise to stay involved with the kids—but apparently money was of no importance when it came to her children. “I’ve still got my grandmother’s trust fund, and my parents can always help. It’s not a problem.”

Did her parents still think Brad Laurence was the best thing that could happen to their daughter? J.D. wondered. Not that it mattered—the whole issue had been settled a long time ago, and in fact he’d agreed with their opinion—but he couldn’t help feeling a twinge of curiosity.

“All right,” he said, deliberately squelching it and returning his gaze to the list of investigators. He owed her a lot more than a P.I.’s name, but what else could he offer without explaining how badly he’d failed her? And while he deserved her condemnation, she didn’t deserve to hear about yet another betrayal. “I’ll phone some people and get right back to you. It shouldn’t take long.”

“I’ll wait right by the phone,” she promised.

“No, I meant, it shouldn’t take long for someone to find them.” Especially with his list of all the places Brad had mentioned. He could handle the search himself, if only he had the freedom to—

The freedom…

He could do this for her. For the woman he had loved, the woman he’d vowed never to hurt. The woman he had failed to protect.

J.D. took the Freedom Form from its stack and stared at the vacation-refusal box he’d marked. “Tell you what, Kirs,” he said slowly, scratching out his initials and inking a heavier X in the opposite box. “I can be in Tucson in three hours. You get those photos ready…and I’ll find your kids myself.”

Chapter Two

In ten more minutes, she’d be face-to-face with J.D. Ryder. Kirsten cast another glance around her half-decorated living room, knowing she shouldn’t care how it looked right now, and moved her carefully selected photos and list from the still-empty bookshelf to the Mexican-glass coffee table.

Then back again.

It was silly to feel nervous. There was no reason for her heart to be jumping around this way. Although meeting a detective would probably make anyone nervous, at least anyone who needed help in finding their children….

How on earth, she wondered through another rush of anguish, could she have let this happen? What kind of mother could lose track of her children? Especially to a father who’d never been all that excited about parenting before, who had once forgotten to retrieve them from a hotel sitter until two in the morning.

She should have taken steps to make sure this could never happen, Kirsten knew, twisting her fingers together around the drapery cord. She should have phoned five times a day from the moment they arrived in Seattle, the way she used to before admitting it wasn’t fair to keep intruding on the children’s rare opportunities to see their father. She should have stayed in constant contact, never mind interrupting their time with Brad, because now he was—

Take a deep breath.

She could still hear the command J.D. had given her three hours ago, and she’d been following it ever since. Emotions, anger, fury at Brad wouldn’t help her children now. And unless she wanted them to view their father as a horrible person, she couldn’t allow herself to feel this kind of rage at him…because it would surely slip out at the wrong moment.

So take another breath.

This whole situation, she reminded herself as she took a series of deep breaths and resumed her pacing, called for the kind of steady control she had always admired in J.D. Ryder. The kind of control she hadn’t learned early enough. The kind she’d seldom had the chance to practice…until now.

But now it was silly to be nervous. J.D. would find the children, exactly as he’d promised. It was even more silly to wish she had a mirror in here, in the first living room she’d ever decorated without bowing to her parents’ or Brad’s wishes. She didn’t need to check her reflection again, didn’t need to make sure her yellow cotton sweater fell smoothly to her waist, because this wasn’t a visit from someone who cared about what she looked like. This was a matter of business, nothing more….

He didn’t want you, remember?

She remembered. All too well.

This might be his way of making up for that long-ago wound, although she had no reason for believing she knew how J.D.’s mind worked. But if he’d ever suspected how much his departure had hurt her, he might very well want to make amends. There was a fundamental decency about the man…although no one but Brad and herself had ever recognized that.

Maybe because he’d never shown it to anyone else.

He’d shown everyone else exactly what they expected from the delinquent son of a drunken brawler. From a newcomer living on an outlying piece of land in a condemned trailer that only Brad had managed to visit…and only once. Through the entire three years he’d spent at Tubac High, J.D. had shown the kind of smoldering darkness that made teachers stiffen their posture whenever he shifted in his seat. But he’d also shown intriguing flashes of wry humor—and, occasionally, of genuine, searing compassion beneath the stark and gritty defiance he wore like an impenetrable shell.

A shell he probably still wore. And that was fine, Kirsten told herself. She didn’t need to know what lay inside J.D. Ryder. All she needed was his professional expertise, nothing more. There would be no reminiscing, no sharing the kind of confidences she’d shared so trustingly before he shot out of her life.

Leaving her reeling. Leaving her lost.

Leaving her with no one to turn to but Brad.

Yet she couldn’t regret her marriage to Brad, in spite of how it had turned out, because of the children. The children who brightened her world beyond measure, who deserved all the love and security and happiness she could give them…no matter how much effort it took when their father viewed them with such indifference. She’d vowed, from the day she first held Lindsay in her arms, to give her children a life as comfortable, as nurturing and as perfect as she could possibly make it.

And here she’d sent them off without ever imagining an outcome like this….

But—please, God—with J.D.’s help, she would have them safe at home soon.

Seven more minutes, Kirsten noted, glancing at her platinum bracelet watch again. He might not be exactly on time, of course; there was no accounting for traffic and navigation delays. But during the worst of rush hour he would’ve been on that empty stretch of desert freeway between Phoenix and Tucson, and her new house off Ina Road shouldn’t be too hard to find.

At least not for J.D. Ryder, who had always been good with directions. She remembered him pointing out the distant constellations, that night of the desert bonfire, and how matter-of-factly he’d directed Brad’s attention to the North Star. How easily he’d guided them home from that hike in Aravaipa, the one time her parents had let her spend a Saturday with the boys. That was back when all three of them were friends, before she and Brad had become a couple, before J.D. had gone his own way….

The chime of the doorbell sent a jolt of shock radiating through her. She moved to the front window, hoping for a glimpse of him before he turned and saw her, then caught her breath in amazement.

J.D. Ryder hadn’t changed. At least not that she could see. He looked older, yes, but that darkly compelling aura of focused strength still glimmered in his cool demeanor, his watchful stance. He still gave the impression of banked fires beneath a deceptively relaxed exterior, of the ability to strike without warning and retreat without moving.

But when he saw her at the window, his eyes reflected the same astonishment she’d felt at the sight of him. For a moment he hesitated, staring at her as if he couldn’t quite believe Kirsten Laurence was waiting for J.D. Ryder, and she saw his guarded expression grow warmer. Then, when she flung open the carved wood door, he gave her the slow, almost challenging smile of greeting she remembered from eight years ago.

“Kirsten,” he said simply.

“You haven’t changed,” she blurted. It shouldn’t be such a surprise—eight years wasn’t all that long—and yet somehow she had never imagined that J.D. Ryder could still exude such solitary strength.

“Neither have you,” he murmured, moving past her into the foyer as if he needed all the space around him he could get…and setting off another familiar chord of recognition. The man seemed to command the very air around him, and Kirsten felt her breath coming a little faster as she turned away to close the door. Which made no sense, she reminded herself hastily. This was an old friend, nothing more.

And she’d better remember that.

“I’m glad you could come,” she told him, wondering whether he’d spent the day testifying at a trial or something. It was hard to picture J.D. choosing such a flawlessly cut summer-weight suit to complement his deep brown eyes and close-cropped black hair, but she had the impression of a catalog model…except, again, for that ever-present sense of smoldering darkness.

“Yeah, it was good timing.” He glanced around the living room, as if assessing its vulnerability in a five-second sweep, then turned back to her. “I’m not leaving for Chicago for another couple of weeks, and I’d already given notice. I just need to phone in while they’re finishing up my cases.”

She had been lucky to catch him before he left work, Kirsten realized. But if today was his last day— “Did you miss your farewell party, coming down here?”

He gave her a look of disbelief, as if such a notion had never entered his head. “The police department doesn’t throw parties every time someone leaves.” Then, with a wry grin, he amended the statement. “At least not without a few hours’ notice.”

“Oh, well, I guess they’re busy solving crimes.” While it saddened her that J.D. didn’t seem to care about leaving people he’d worked with for the past three years, he evidently didn’t feel anything lacking from his life. He didn’t seem to want any more closeness, any more sense of connection with others, than he’d wanted eight years ago.

Remember that, Kirsten.

“I’ve got the photos of Brad and the children,” she told him, forcing her attention back to business and taking her list and photos from the bookshelf. Settling on the Navajo-patterned sofa, she waited until J.D. seated himself at right angles to her. “Here’s a list of everywhere he’s mentioned visiting, with any phone numbers I could find. And a couple of credit-card numbers—we divided up the cards, but he’s probably still using the same ones as when we were married.”

J.D. accepted the handwritten paper from her, scanned it rapidly and nodded in appreciation. “Nice job, Kirs. You’ve been busy.”

It had been a relief to have a mission, something to keep her from crying all over Lindsay’s stuffed lion while she sorted through the photo albums. Some opportunity to use the self-sufficient strength she’d worked at building ever since Brad had announced, a month after their divorce, that he was leaving Miss Scottsdale and expected to be welcomed back with open arms….

The dogged determination that she’d forced herself to develop two years ago was finally going to get some use, Kirsten knew. Keeping her children happy was the only thing she had any power to control, but she was going to pursue that mission with all the force she possessed.

“I’ll do whatever it takes,” she vowed, “to get my children back.” She hadn’t yet contacted her parents aboard their cruise ship, but they would immediately offer all the assistance they could provide. “Oh, and I need to write you a check.”

Her saddle-leather purse was only a few feet away, but he interrupted her before she could reach it. “No, you don’t.”

“J.D.—”

“We’ll settle it later,” he said, gesturing her back to the sofa as if to indicate that other matters deserved priority. “I’ve been thinking about where to search, and this list is a great beginning. But I always get better results in person than by phone. So I’m thinking the place to start is Seattle…talk to some people there, neighbors, whoever might know something they wouldn’t spill over the phone.”

That sounded like a good plan, Kirsten thought. But what else would she expect from a professional detective? “Okay, sure. I’ve got a key to Brad’s house if it’ll help.”

From the gleam of amusement in his eyes, she realized that for someone like J.D. Ryder, a key was only one of many options. But he gave her a faint smile of acknowledgment. “It’ll help.”

She ought to be used to that speculative expression, to that hint of unexplored territory, but she found herself taking another deep breath against the out-of-control sensation that flustered her yet again. “Can I get you some iced tea?” she asked hastily. “Or—”

“No, that’s okay,” he interrupted, barely scanning the snapshots she handed him—a selection she’d anguished over—before stacking them in a tight sheaf. “I’m figuring on leaving first thing in the morning, and I want to get these photos copied tonight.”

Business, Kirsten thought desperately. Business was good. “There’s a one-hour place right up the street.”

“Yeah, I saw it. Thanks.” J.D. stood up, deftly pocketing her handwritten list and photos without even a second glance at the faces of her children. “And if you want to get that key….”

The key. Right. She had to find the key Brad had given her two years ago, when she’d escorted the kids to Seattle for their first summer visitation. “It’ll take some digging, but I can find it while you’re getting the pictures.”

He reacted with what looked like a moment of readjustment, then nodded. “I shouldn’t be more than an hour,” he said, starting for the door. Then, with one hand on the hammered-pewter knob, he turned back to her. “Be sure and let me know everywhere I can reach you, okay?”

During the next hour? “I’ll be right here,” Kirsten told him.

J.D. looked at her curiously, as if she’d missed something obvious. “Well, yeah, but if there’s anywhere else…I figure you’ll want to hear how it’s going.”

At the photo place? That didn’t make sense.

“Unless you’d rather skip the day-to-day reports,” he offered. “Some people just want the results without all the notes.”

Suddenly she realized what he meant, and she felt a chill of disbelief. How could he expect to find her children alone? “J.D.—”

“Either way’s okay. But I thought you’d probably rather stay up to date, and I don’t mind calling whenever something happens.”

Oh, no. He couldn’t possibly believe she’d stay at home waiting for a phoned report. “You don’t need to do that,” Kirsten said.

He didn’t even seem to hear her, he was so focused on his list of options. “Or if you’d rather I phoned at a certain time—”

“You don’t need to do that, either,” she interrupted, clenching her fists in the folds of her bright-flowered skirt. “Because, J.D., I’m coming with you.”

For the second time in the past few hours, J.D. experienced the same sucker-punch sensation he remembered from the nights his father would come home. He knew better than to show any sign of surprise, but he could feel the strain of keeping his voice level. “You are?”

“Well, of course.” Kirsten sounded more defiant than he could ever remember hearing her. “You can’t think I’d send you off alone to bring home my children. They don’t even know you!”

He hadn’t viewed that as a problem, but obviously she did. Having her with him on the search, though, would present an even bigger problem. “You want to come along?” he asked, struggling for a coherent response.

“I am coming along.”

“Kirsten, wait a minute.” He wasn’t prepared for dealing with this, for spending that much time with her. Not when he’d realized, from the moment she’d opened the door for him, that she was still everything he remembered…and more. “I wasn’t—” he stammered. “I mean, what if Brad tries to call you here?”

She twisted her hands even deeper into the soft fabric of her skirt, drawing it tighter across her body and making him wish he could close his eyes. “I’ll keep checking the answering machine,” she said, and in her voice was a thread of steel he’d never heard before. “J.D., there’s no use arguing about this. I’m not letting you go alone.”

He could understand her wanting to see her kids at the earliest possible moment. And he couldn’t very well back out of the case, not when he’d already promised his help. But neither could he tell her how barely five minutes together was making him want her as much as ever. “What if I told you,” he countered, “I can work faster by myself?”

That argument didn’t seem to impress her. “How can it slow you down having somebody along?” she protested. “I can share the driving, if we need to drive anyplace. I won’t be sleeping, anyway, so that’ll let us keep going twenty-four hours a day.”

It might come to that, if they didn’t strike gold in Seattle. “Yeah, it’s just…”

“These are my children,” Kirsten said evenly. “And Brad’s telling them I need a break from them—” She broke off and took a deep breath, then burst out in a cry that tore his heart, “J.D., they’re somewhere out there thinking their mother doesn’t want them!”

Other children had known that for certain and survived, but there was no denying how much the knowledge hurt. And he hated to see Kirsten imagining her children in such pain….

“I’m going with you,” she repeated, and he closed his eyes for a moment.

“All right.” He would deal with it, J.D. told himself. Twenty-four hours, two days, hopefully no longer…he could get through that if he had to. Look at it as penance for having failed to warn her back in January after that Super Bowl conversation. He took the car keys from his pocket and reached for the door again. “I’ll pick you up at six-thirty tomorrow morning.”

“What?” She sounded as startled as he’d felt just a minute ago. “Where are you going?”

To clear his head. To get himself ready for spending an undefined amount of time with the only woman who’d ever made him want a life he could never have. “To the photo place,” he answered shortly. “And then the Hyatt.” He hadn’t bothered with a reservation, but there shouldn’t be any problem getting a room in Tucson during a hundred-degree summer.

“You don’t need to stay at a hotel!” Kirsten protested, gesturing toward the Saltillo-tiled hallway behind her. “I have a guest room.”

Another situation he hadn’t been expecting. “Ah. Well…”

“It’s not really decorated yet,” she apologized, with the first note of hesitation he’d heard from her. “The movers just finished unloading a few days ago, and I’ve been doing the kids’ rooms first. But we can save time getting to the airport tomorrow if you’re already here.”

Kirsten Laurence inviting him to spend the night under her roof? His skin felt tighter than ever, which he knew was all the more reason to refuse her offer. A woman like her had no business with a man like him…and yet he couldn’t quite make himself say no. “You don’t even know me anymore,” he reminded her.

“I know you.”

She said it so simply, so certainly, that he felt as if she’d just touched him. Touched his face, his hands, his heart, with the same achingly graceful innocence he remembered from their last and only summer together. “Well…thanks,” he mumbled. If she was willing to give him the gift of such trust, there was no way he could refuse it. “But I’ll call you from the photo place before I come back here, because I can always stay at the Hyatt. Stock up on those little shampoos.”

Looking both amused and impatient, Kirsten straightened her shoulders. “We’re going to be traveling together, anyway,” she told him. “And your staying here is no different than us staying at the same hotel.”

Caught by surprise at her practical turn of thought, he nodded in acceptance. “Okay, good point.” He’d never worried about sharing a roof with anyone else on a job, and Kirsten obviously saw this as nothing but a business arrangement. Which proved he’d made the right decision eight years ago. “See you in about an hour.”

He still hadn’t opened the door before she interrupted with another offer. “I can have some dinner ready by the time you’re finished with the pictures.”

“No, that’s okay,” J.D. said. He couldn’t expect her to take him in and cook dinner besides, as if he were an invited guest. “Thanks, anyway.”

“Oh, well, if you ate on the way down here…” she conceded, as if there could be no other reason for his refusal. “I just didn’t want you going hungry.”

The mixture of embarrassment and concern in her voice struck him with vivid clarity. He’d heard that tone before, eight years ago, nine, ten…. In spite of all the polish Kirsten had acquired, all the trappings of a custom home and vacations with Brad in Europe, she was still a nurturer at heart. And even though he didn’t need it, had never needed it, the realization touched him.

“You’re still looking out for me,” he said softly. “Aren’t you?”

“I guess so,” she admitted, looking a little shy. Then, with a glance at the keys in his hand, she gave him a flicker of the teasing smile he remembered. “And you’re still looking out for me, too. Some things never change.”

He supposed that was true, although—except for his last, silent sacrifice—she’d done far more of the nurturing than he had. Even back in tenth grade, he and Brad had recognized that Kirsten took pleasure in helping them with their English essays, their forgotten lunches or whatever else she could offer.

“Well, of course,” she’d said when Brad had commented on it. “I like helping people. And you guys are my best friends.”

It had amazed J.D. the way she and Brad had seemed to take their trio’s friendship for granted. The easy connection, the genuine interest, the kind of caring he’d never before witnessed firsthand, were nothing extraordinary to either one of them.

But then, they both came from a world he’d never imagined could exist in real life. He’d heard of things like birthday cards, Thanksgiving dinners and invitations from grandparents…but those were the stuff of TV shows, which everyone knew were created by the same writers who created space aliens. To know people who took such traditions for granted was startling, intriguing and—to his shame—irresistible.

He suspected, though, that no one had ever resisted an offer of friendship from Brad Laurence. Even at age fifteen, the future class president had possessed a gift for drawing people into his high-spirited vision of good times for all. It was Brad who had nicknamed the three of them Tubac’s Terrific Trio, back on the first day of tenth grade when they’d shared a lengthy bus ride. “Everybody else lives a lot closer to town,” the football captain had announced upon boarding the school bus and seeing J.D. alone in the back. “Except Kirsten Taylor—she’s only a few minutes from here. You’re new, right? Where you from?”

By the time Kirsten joined them, Brad had decided that the three of them were a team, and the curious friendship had endured…in spite of the innumerable differences between an outgoing prom king, a sheltered princess and a loner who knew they would never comprehend his gritty kind of life. But J.D. had been accepted as part of their team with an ease that baffled him…and had gladly contributed his skill in math toward the task of getting them all through school, while Kirsten contributed the caretaking and Brad the exuberant sense of adventure that labeled everyone he met a lifetime friend.

They had been friends, all three of them, and they’d stayed friends even after Brad and Kirsten started dating in their senior year. J.D. had known he couldn’t expect anything different, not with the two of them so well matched—even he could see, in spite of his fantasies that someday Kirsten would look at him with new eyes, like those two belonged together.

Together in a world he would never fit into. Which was why, when he’d run into Brad shortly after returning from his tour of duty, he’d resolutely refused his buddy’s repeated invitations to “stop by the house, see Kirsten and the kids” and confined their infrequent meetings to sports bars.

But those meetings had cost him. They’d kept him asking about Kirsten with the same perverse sensation he would get from exploring a sore tooth with his tongue. He’d spent eight years wondering about her, hoping he’d made the right decision, and knowing all the while that he couldn’t have done anything else. Even though Brad had been completely wrong in pursuing Miss Scottsdale, J.D. knew that his friend—with his shining heritage of family traditions and love—came from the only kind of world Kirsten deserved.

Which reminded him of something he should have told her before now.

“By the way,” he said, hesitating with his hand on the doorknob, “I’m sorry things didn’t work out with Brad.”

She looked a little embarrassed, but gave him a polite smile. “Thank you.”

No, he needed to explain it better than that. To let her know he was on her side, in spite of the fact that he’d let her down so badly. “I was gonna call you when Brad said you were getting divorced,” J.D. continued. “Just to let you know…well…I mean, he and I stayed in touch, but I always thought you—” There was no good way of saying this, but he had to make sure she knew where his loyalties lay. “What Brad did was wrong, okay? I don’t want you thinking I’d ever take his side over yours.”

Although by convincing himself there was no reason to call her, back in January, he’d done exactly that.

“You mean, when it comes to finding the kids?” Even though she still looked embarrassed, her smile grew warmer. “I never thought that.”

He could look at her smile for weeks, J.D. realized, feeling a clutch of uneasiness in his chest. “Just so you know….”

“I do know,” she murmured, meeting his gaze with such luminous intensity that he instinctively tightened his grip on his keys to keep himself from reaching for her. “J.D….thank you.”

This was business, Kirsten reminded herself the next morning, pinning her French braid into place with the gold-colored hairpins Lindsay loved. All her uneasiness about phoning J.D. Ryder yesterday had been completely pointless…because this was business, and nothing more.

He’d made that very clear last night, when he returned from the photo place with a take-out bag of burgers and fries and offered her a choice of regular or diet soda. “I thought you’d already had dinner!” she protested, setting a woven placemat on the kitchen table where she’d choked down a carton of yogurt half an hour ago. “J.D., I would’ve been happy to make you something.”

“I know you would’ve,” he answered, putting the bag on the granite-topped counter and fixing her with a steady, steely gaze. “But that’s not your job, Kirsten. Your job is to help me find the kids…and that’s all.”

He couldn’t have made it any clearer if he’d drawn a line across the table between them, she thought now, dropping some extra hairpins into her travel bag and zipping it shut as the last step toward departure. And it was silly of her to feel hurt by his deliberate distance, since she didn’t need an old friend searching for her children. She needed a professional.

But it seemed the long-ago wound still hadn’t healed as well as she’d like. Not that she had ever noticed it before, not when she’d been so wrapped up in caring for her family. It was only seeing J.D. Ryder again, only the realization of how he hadn’t changed at all, that was making her wish things had ended differently.

If they’d ended differently, though, you wouldn’t have the family you’ve got.

She needed to remember that, Kirsten told herself, taking her travel bag down the hall toward the kitchen, where she’d laid out coffee and whole wheat bagels shortly after dawn. All she cared about was finding her children, and a detective who knew Brad’s way of thinking would be her best possible choice for such a mission. As long as they both stayed focused on the task, there would be no worry about old memories getting in the way.

But when she found J.D. studying her refrigerator-door snapshots and cradling a stoneware mug in the palm of his left hand, exactly the way he’d done eight years ago with the Snack-n-Go cups, she felt a visceral flood of memory rising so swiftly that she had to tilt her head back against the tide of warmth in her chest.

“Morning,” he greeted her, glancing away from the photos of Halloween costumes, the twins’ soccer party and Lindsay’s graduation from kindergarten…photos she should have removed yesterday, even though he evidently hadn’t noticed anything worth commenting on. Maybe because such scenes were completely foreign to him. He’d mentioned last night, while describing his new job in Chicago, that he’d never come close to—or even wanted—a family life of his own. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“I’ve had mine,” she said hastily, trying not to notice the fit of his well-worn jeans and slate-blue polo shirt any more than she’d notice her tax accountant’s wardrobe. “We can leave anytime…unless you were waiting for raspberry jam on the bagels.”

J.D. gave her a startled glance, as if wondering how she knew what he used to order at the Snack-n-Go. “You remembered that?”

She remembered virtually everything about that summer, but she wasn’t about to tell him so. She wasn’t even going to think that way, not with all the risks involved. Instead she said lightly, in the tone of voice she’d perfected during her years with Brad, “It’s funny, the things that stick with you.”

“Yeah…funny.” From the edge in his voice, it appeared he didn’t want to discuss old memories any more than she did. “Anything you need to take care of before we leave? Mail pickup, someone to water the plants, changing the phone message?”

She’d recorded a new answering-machine message last night, hoping the phone company would fix her call-forwarding system before another week passed. It was a long shot, Kirsten knew, but if either Brad or the children phoned they would hear her plea for a swift return.

If only she’d taught them the new number before they’d left….

“Everything’s taken care of,” she told J.D., cutting off the self-reproach before she could start choking up again. Crying wouldn’t do the children any good, and she needed to stay in control of herself all the more with this man so close. “My friend Cheri’s coming around eight, and she offered to house-sit until we get back. So if Brad shows up with the kids, there’ll be somebody here.”

“Okay, then.” Moving with his usual quick, controlled grace, he dumped the last of his coffee down the sink, deposited the mug in the empty dishwasher, then picked up her travel bag as well as his own from beside the kitchen door. “Shampoo all packed? Let’s get going.”

He hadn’t lost the knack, she realized, of throwing out those little side comments that always made her smile. Usually after he’d turned away, because J.D. never waited to see whether anyone reacted to his remarks. But she found herself smiling, anyway, as she locked the door behind her and slid the key for Cheri under a terracotta pot.

When she turned to watch him stowing their bags in the back seat, Kirsten noticed with a flicker of fascination that, at least on the surface, this man’s car was a lot like him. A dark exterior, windows that revealed nothing of the inside, any damage carefully hidden—and probably capable of meeting any demand that might arise.

Yes, she had been right in calling J.D. Ryder.

“I know you can’t say how long it’ll take us to find Lindsay and the boys,” she told him as they drove to the airport, “but I’m hoping it’s a good sign that you didn’t bring a week’s worth of clothes.”

He gave her a slight smile, and in the early morning light she saw the faint relaxing of his hard shoulders. “With any luck,” he said, “we’ll have them back today.”

Please, God…

“I hope so.” While there was no excuse for having allowed this disaster to happen, she could forgive herself more easily if all it cost the children was one more day of junk food, indifferent supervision and unbrushed teeth. One more day for Lindsay to fall asleep without her bedtime story, for Adam and Eric to be called by each other’s names, for them to wake up in a strange place not knowing—

You see what happens when you lose control?

She should have known better, especially where her children were concerned. She had vowed two years ago, when Brad had shattered their marriage, that never again would she let someone else control her life. First her parents, then her husband, had shaped her into exactly what they wanted…and always with her silent cooperation. But as of age twenty-four, Kirsten had decided, she was finally going to take charge of her own and her children’s lives.

And she’d done it for the past two years. She’d maintained her independence, shielded her daughter and sons from seeing their father’s breezy irresponsibility, and spent virtually every waking moment creating the kind of world they deserved. But for the past two weeks, hoping Brad’s recent interest in family would grow stronger without her interference, she’d forgone the phone calls that would have alerted her to his latest impulse…and now her children were paying the price.

“I really, really hope,” she said, tucking her peach linen shirt more neatly into her khaki slacks, “we’ll find them right away.”

“Yeah, so do I.” The gruff intensity in J.D.’s voice touched her—it was sweet of him to care so much about Lindsay and Adam and Eric—until she realized that he had his own reasons for wanting to finish the search quickly. After all, he had another life to get back to.

She needed to remember that.

“When do you leave for Chicago?” she asked him, adjusting her sun visor against the early-morning glare.

“Soon as my assignment comes through.” He braked for a red light, his work-roughened hands at rest on the steering wheel. “Shouldn’t be much longer.”

She couldn’t think of many people who would enjoy battling a whole new city full of drug dealers, but this man wasn’t like anyone else she knew. “And you’re excited about it,” Kirsten said.

“Yeah.” With the edgy light of anticipation in his eyes, he looked suddenly younger. “It’s a brand-new task force, a whole different setup. Getting things done without a bunch of layers to work through… I like that kind of freedom.”

“Freedom,” she repeated slowly, gazing at the road ahead and wondering why the word sounded so lyrical coming from him. “I know. That’s always mattered to you.”

When it came to such things as freedom, J.D. Ryder had never made any secret of his ambition to “get the hell out of Tubac.” Everyone in town had known he planned to enlist in the army as soon as he turned eighteen, same as they’d known that Kirsten would become a kindergarten teacher and that Brad would tour the east Coast with his parents to select the college he preferred.

Both the boys’ ambitions had come to pass, exactly as Kirsten had expected. What she hadn’t expected was that on the night before Brad left for his college tour, he would ask her to return his class ring. “We’ve had a lot of fun, don’t get me wrong,” he’d told her in the driveway outside her house. “But we’re both moving on, and neither one of us ought to be tied down.” Shaken, she had given him back the ring she’d worn all year and spent the next few days at her new summer job wondering why the breakup had damaged her pride more than her heart.

Her parents and her girlfriends, all of whom wholeheartedly approved of Brad, had offered as much sympathy as anyone could want…but she moved through the first week of vacation feeling curiously detached from their efforts at consolation. Detached from the whole world, in fact, no matter how hard she concentrated on the new job—she had the sensation that all the while she was learning to make coffee, ringing up orders and counting out packets of raspberry jam, her real life was somewhere beyond reach. It wasn’t until J.D. stopped by the Snack-n-Go for bagels one morning that she felt herself flickering back to a state of awareness.

No point in remembering that now.

“Looks like we’ve got time to spare,” J.D. observed, turning into the airport parking lane and—to her relief—opting for short-term rather than long-term parking. It was reassuring that he seemed so confident, Kirsten thought as they moved swiftly through the routine of checking in, boarding the plane and settling down for the four-hour flight to Seattle.

It went faster than she’d expected, and the conversation was remarkably easy. In spite of his admitted indifference to the pleasures of family life, J.D. seemed to enjoy her stories about the children. Their first day of soccer practice, Lindsay’s beloved panda, the twins’ upcoming birthday party…. And when she saved the morning’s first packet of airline peanuts for Adam and Eric, he contributed his own as well.

“For a good cause, right?” he teased as she slid the bright blue packages into her purse.

“Right,” she agreed, tucking the peanuts beside Lindsay’s favorite bubble gum. “Now the boys won’t start arguing over who gets first pick. I used to hate it when Brad would bring home two different-size robots and expect them to work it out.”

“Your kids are building robots?”

He sounded so impressed, she hated to admit that they were only playing with them under the dining-room table. “Building robots shouldn’t impress somebody like you, though,” Kirsten told him. “You’ve always done mechanical-type things.”

He gave her a rueful grin. “Not anymore. I got enough of that at Manny’s.”

Manny’s Garage had hired him part-time during their junior year, and he’d started working there full-time the day after graduation. She hadn’t known that until the morning he came by the Snack-n-Go with an order from the entire crew, and she still remembered the jolt of recognition that had shot through her the moment she saw him across the counter.

J.D. hadn’t looked surprised at seeing her, but then, she’d started bragging about her summer job long before graduation. The chance to practice her independence before starting her freshman year at the University of Arizona—thanks to her friend Debbie, who’d gotten them matching shifts at the Snack-n-Go—had filled Kirsten with a wonderfully grown-up pride.

Although she hadn’t sounded all that grown-up when she greeted J.D., she remembered. Yet he hadn’t seemed to mind her lack of poise. Instead he’d given her the slow smile that Debbie always said “would make anybody weak who wasn’t dating Mr. Perfect weak in the knees” and asked what she’d heard from Brad lately.

“Nothing,” Kirsten had stammered. “He and I…we…”

“They broke up,” Debbie announced over her shoulder while filling the orange juice machine. “Where’ve you been, J.D.? I thought everyone in town knew.”

He hadn’t seemed to notice Debbie at all. His dark eyes stayed fixed on Kirsten’s, and then he said very softly, “Hey. I’m sorry, Kirs.”

“It’s okay,” she murmured, feeling strangely shy. She should have called J.D. with the news, but once the school bus rides ended there had been little chance for contact. “Anyway, I’m working here until the middle of August, unless my uncle invites us to his house in Mexico. So what can I get you?”

He’d placed his order with no further conversation, but he’d come again the next morning, and the next, and it seemed his visits always coincided with her time at the take-out counter. It seemed, too, that it took longer each day for his order to be filled…so that by Friday, when Debbie had to work late, it felt perfectly natural for J.D. to offer Kirsten a ride home.

She’d accepted without hesitation, even though her parents had told her to phone them if ever Debbie couldn’t drive her. J.D. was a friend, he was going her way, and there was really no reason she couldn’t ride on the back of his motorcycle. It was only common sense to suggest that he drop her off a short distance from home, just in case her mother might start lecturing about the importance of choosing the right friends…and although J.D. protested that he didn’t mind taking her right to her door, he didn’t press the point.

Which relieved her, because she didn’t want to explain her parents’ belief that there was a world of difference between Kirsten’s two closest friends. Brad had been welcome at her house anytime, always greeted with genuine warmth. By contrast, while J.D. was never turned away, it was understood that the Taylors would prefer not to see much of him.

Still, they’d never specifically told her to avoid him…and it was silly to take Debbie or her parents out of their way when J.D. was heading home right when she got off work.

She explained that to Debbie the next day, and although her friend raised her eyebrows she agreed that Kirsten might as well “enjoy it, since Mr. Rebel’s going your way.” So the ride home became a daily pattern, which she found herself looking forward to more and more.

It got so the trip lasted longer each day, as their afternoon conversations moved from friendly chat to intriguing discussion to something more thoughtful, more intimate and more appealing. She had never spent this kind of time alone with J.D. before, and she had the feeling they were both discovering unexplored depths within each other…even though they still would have defined themselves, if anyone had asked, as nothing more than friends.

Friendship, though, didn’t quite explain how the feel of his body stayed with her for hours after he dropped her off at the side street near her house. How the sound of his voice and the memory of his silences stayed with her, keeping her awake late at night. How the evocative scent of him reached her with such vivid clarity that, no matter what she was busy with when he walked into the Snack-n-Go, she would know within an instant that J.D. had arrived.

She couldn’t tell him that—J.D. probably heard such things all the time, from girls far more experienced than herself—but she couldn’t help wondering if those other girls had ever felt the kind of tantalizing awareness she felt growing between them as they shared more and more stories, more and more closeness, more and more time together. And after the third week of rides home, when she reminded him not to wait for her tomorrow because that was her day off, he looked at her for a long moment and said slowly, “I’m off, too. Want to do something together?”

Yes! was her first thought, but she’d already arranged to go shopping in Tucson with her mother. “I wish I could,” Kirsten told him, handing him back the motorcycle helmet he always insisted she wear. “I really wish I could. Only Mom’s been planning to do this college-wardrobe thing for a long time.”

“Ah.” He gazed at her for a moment longer, then clicked into first gear. “Well, have a good time.”

But she wouldn’t, Kirsten knew. Not when she’d spend the whole day missing J.D. Ryder. “Thanks,” she replied. “But I’d rather be with you.”

For one pulsing instant he stared at her, as if frozen in astonishment. Then, with what looked like a single, effortless move, he cut the ignition, hit the kickstand and drew her into his arms.

There was no time to think, and nothing to think about. All she knew was instinct, feeling, heat…the warmth of his embrace, of his hands caressing her face, his lips on hers—

Oh, yes.

Yes! J.D. felt so much hotter, so much stronger than she ever would have guessed. Their rides, no matter how tightly her arms encircled his waist, how sweetly his touch had lingered when he helped her astride the bike, hadn’t prepared her for the intensity of his body against hers, for the sheer, shivering passion of his kiss—

But already he was pulling away from her, taking a step back, staring at her with a mixture of apology and ancient, primal possession.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he muttered.

Shouldn’t have done that? “But—”

He shook his head, looking so confused and yet so determined that she felt a tremor of fear. He couldn’t mean to back away from her now, could he?

“You’re just so…” he faltered, still gazing at her as if he’d never seen anyone he wanted more. “You’re—ah, Kirs.” With a muffled groan, he pulled her back against him and lifted her face to his kiss.

This one was headier, richer, more vivid than the first, and she gloried in the sheer, wild rightness of it. This was what she wanted, this was what she’d never experienced with anyone until now. Until J.D.

This, this was real—

Or so she’d believed at the time, Kirsten reminded herself as she turned to gaze out the airplane window at an endless bank of white.

She knew better now.

She’d known better for eight years, and it no longer mattered. All that mattered now was her children.

She held that thought like a talisman for the rest of the flight and felt a vague sense of relief when they landed in Seattle. For the last hour she’d avoided any recollections of that summer with J.D. Ryder, any memories of those old, mistaken feelings…and what she could manage for an hour, she could manage for a day. Or even two.

But please, God, don’t let it take that long.

Chapter Three

“This shouldn’t take long,” J.D. told Kirsten, relieved that she was still sitting where he’d left her. For the past hour she’d been distracted, and he had the impression her stamina was fading fast. “They’re bringing the car up. Meanwhile, let’s get you some lunch.”

She reacted with the same edginess she’d shown when he suggested she sit down near the car-rental counter. “I don’t need lunch.”

But she hadn’t eaten anything this morning, and he’d seen the crack of light under her door all night long. “Yeah, you do,” he said, glancing around the concourse and gesturing at a bright red hamburger stand across the way. “And unless you want to dig into the boys’ peanuts…. Come on.”

“J.D.,” she protested, rising from her seat with the swift, fluid grace he’d always admired, “you don’t need to worry about me. We’re here to find the kids, and it’s only half an hour to Brad’s house.”

All the more reason to restore her energy before they began the search for leads. “Right, but you still need to eat.”

Kirsten fixed him with an impatient gaze. “Not now, all right? Not when we could be on the road.”

On the road…

Without warning, he felt himself spinning into a whirlpool of memory. The two of them on the road…it was a vivid image, one he’d tried to erase, but had never managed to forget. They’d spent such soaring, glowing time together, those afternoons in Tubac, that even now he could still feel the sensation of her arms around his waist while he drove home as slowly as he dared.

She’d never complained about the length of the trip, which had amazed and then delighted him. That Kirsten Taylor could enjoy his company with such genuine ease, could laugh at references no one else would have understood, could save up stories from work to share with him…it was the kind of pleasurable intimacy he’d thought existed only in daydreams, but the summer after graduation it blessed him every afternoon.

She was so different from anyone else he’d known, because she never so much as hinted that his appeal lay in the thrill of forbidden fruit. He was used to that, had seen that flirtatious defiance from all but the girls who recognized him as their own kind, but with Kirsten he had the feeling that what she liked about him was…himself. Exactly the way he was. And with her, J.D. knew, he was more of what he wanted to be. Stronger. Gentler. More alive, more aware—oh, yeah, definitely more aware.

He wouldn’t let himself pursue that awareness except in fantasy, and she never hinted about extending an afternoon into a night. Yet as much as he admired her innocence, J.D. couldn’t help suspecting—after the kiss they’d shared—that a single spark would send her into radiant flames.

Still, the spark wasn’t going to come from him.

He’d made that vow eight years ago, J.D. remembered now, and he wasn’t going to break it again. Kirsten didn’t need him as part of her life now any more than she’d needed him then.

And he’d damn well better remember that…because if he let himself love her again, he couldn’t leave her a second time.

Not even for the rush of satisfaction, of stimulation he knew was waiting in Chicago. Which was a stupid way to think, because that was where he’d directed all his energies. In Chicago he’d be doing work he could take pride in, fighting the battles he was meant for.

Winning victories that didn’t fit the kind of man Kirsten needed.

“Tell you what,” J.D. said, forcing his attention back to the situation at hand. What she needed right now was someone to look out for her, and buying her a hamburger was about all he could do. “It’ll take ten minutes for them to bring the car around. In ten minutes we can get you taken care of—”

“J.D., I take care of myself. And—”

“You’re not doing a very good job of it.”

“—My children,” she concluded. Then, as his interruption echoed between them, her face crumpled. “I know,” she whispered.

Too late he realized how she must have interpreted his remark. “Hey,” he protested, “I didn’t mean you’re doing a bad job with your kids.” Anyone who spent ten minutes with this woman, even without having heard Brad describe her passion for motherhood, would realize how much she treasured her children.

But Kirsten didn’t seem to hear him, or maybe she just didn’t believe him. “I should have phoned them every day. Here I was thinking they needed time with their dad—and they do, especially the boys—only now I’ve lost them!”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t your fault.” He was the one who’d failed to warn her about Brad’s bar talk, but telling her about that betrayal right now wouldn’t help matters any. “You didn’t know he was gonna do a one-eighty like that,” J.D. said instead, resisting the temptation to rest his hands on her shoulders. “Don’t blame yourself.”

She twisted her fingers together, then looked at an on-coming crowd of travelers as if hoping to spot her children among them. “I have to get them back.”

“Well, that’s what we’re here for,” he assured her. And it was time he started taking better care of her than he’d managed so far. Which meant he’d better move away from her right now, before she could see any hint of the hunger inside him, and make sure she got some lunch. “Look, you keep an eye out for the car-rental guy…. I’m gonna get you something to eat.”

“You’re not taking care of me while my kids—” she began, and he cut her off.

“Yeah, I am. So just let me do it, okay?” Maybe she didn’t think she needed anyone buying her a hamburger, but he didn’t want to stand here and argue about it. Whatever Kirsten needed, whatever he could offer her, he was damn sure going to provide.

The way he’d done eight years ago, even though it had just about killed him.

The way he would continue doing for as long as it took to find her kids.

But, God, he hoped it wouldn’t take long.

She didn’t need him taking care of her, Kirsten reminded herself, watching J.D. stride across the concourse to the hamburger outlet. She could take care of herself, along with her children—

“You’re not doing a very good job of it.”

Which was why, right now, she wished she could huddle up in some quiet corner and cry herself numb. She couldn’t do that, though. She had to stick with her best shot at retrieving Lindsay and Adam and Eric, regardless of the potential risks. And if that meant letting J.D. Ryder run things, well…

He probably didn’t even realize he was doing it, she admitted, watching his subtly commanding stance as he addressed the counter clerk. He probably made every frantic taxpayer he worked with eat regular meals, although it seemed out of character for a man who had always appeared indifferent to such routines. Still, as long as he didn’t go beyond ordering unwanted food, she could put up with his assumption of control.

The way she’d put up with Brad’s. And with her parents’ before that.

For so much longer than she should have…

Kirsten clenched her fists in her pockets and turned her gaze in the opposite direction. A hamburger was one thing. It would be silly to make a scene over a hamburger. But if J.D. Ryder attempted anything else that might slow down their search, she’d have to take charge. Tell him he was off the job. Get some other private detective.

Someone who would listen better than this man did. Who wouldn’t waste time trying to take care of her. Someone who wouldn’t keep her awake all night, torn between worry over her children and memories that refused to stay in the strongbox where she’d confined them for the past eight years.

Memories she didn’t need, didn’t want…any more than she wanted J.D. Ryder taking control of her carefully ordered life.

Memories of that long-ago summer together, when every afternoon had been filled with anticipation and wonder. Fascination. A growing certainty that the two of them belonged together more fully, more intensely than she had ever belonged with Brad.

She had been right in resisting Brad’s repeated invitations to show her what “real” fun could be, Kirsten knew that summer when each day shone with the anticipation of seeing J.D., with the glow of riding home together after work, talking to him, feeling the play of muscles in his body as he skillfully guided his bike around curves in the always-too-short road. Because what she’d felt for Brad Laurence had never come close to what she felt for J.D. Ryder…with whom she would gladly share the kind of intimacy she’d never shared before.

If only he would ask.

But he was shy about inviting her home with him, which Kirsten found endearing. She didn’t care about his father’s reputation, that they lived in what Brad had described as “kind of a dump,” that J.D.’s never-discussed background was so different from her own. What she cared about was his way of making her feel special. Listening to her as if she was more than just a perfect porcelain doll, as if her opinion genuinely mattered to him. As if she genuinely mattered to him.

He mattered to her, too, more than she’d ever thought possible. Which was why she kept his name out of her conversations with Debbie, with her parents, with customers at the Snack-n-Go. With all the people who didn’t know him, who didn’t realize how much she treasured his company, who would have been worried, amused or—even more hurtful—faintly contemptuous about the surface differences between Kirsten Taylor and J.D. Ryder.

Those differences, she suspected, were why it took him so long to repeat his suggestion of getting together during some free weekend after the college-wardrobe shopping trip with her mother. And why, for their first excursion a few Saturdays later, he deliberately selected a nearby petroglyph park where there would be plenty of tourists underfoot. Almost as if he respected her too much to suggest someplace more private, more intimate. As if he knew what might happen…

The thunderstorm changed everything.

She didn’t like thunder, had never liked it. So, nestling close to J.D. when they took shelter in one of the caves was natural enough. So was the heat that jolted through them both the minute he gathered her into his arms and held her as if he’d never let go. So was the realization that finally, finally, they could share the kind of closeness she’d been imagining.

Or so she had thought, until J.D. tore himself away….

“We can’t do this,” he muttered hoarsely, still holding her as he lifted his mouth from hers. “Kirs, we can’t.”

“Yes, we can,” she whispered, pulling him back toward her. She couldn’t let him go, not now. Not ever. Not when she could still feel the rhythm of his heartbeat echoing her own, when she could still hear his ragged breathing matching hers. “You can show me how…how… I mean…”

He closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to shut out the vision of the rock walls and dirt floor, but her heart lifted at the realization that he wasn’t letting her go. He wanted her as much as she wanted him, and the only thing keeping him from resuming their kiss was—

“I don’t want to hurt you.” His voice sounded strained, as if he was clinging desperately to the edge of reason, and she could feel the tension in his shoulders as he slid his hands down to her hips. But his body spoke more truly than his voice, and that fierce warmth was all she needed now.

“You won’t,” Kirsten insisted, lacing her fingers through his hair. J.D. Ryder could never hurt her, not even on a gravel floor. Not when his very touch made her feel so much softer, so much more free than she had ever felt in her life.

“But, the first time…”

When he faltered, she realized with a rush of joy that he knew she’d been waiting for him. Only for him. For right here. Right now.

“The first time,” she told him softly, watching his face as she spoke, “should be with someone who loves you.”

And there, in his eyes, she saw the light of agreement. “Ah, Kirsten,” he murmured, pulling her closer to him and sending another shiver of pleasure through her body. Yet there was still an edge of hesitation in his embrace, and when he abruptly let her go and took a step back, she heard it in his voice as well. “But I can’t give you what you’re made for. I mean, you deserve…. You deserve—”

She knew exactly what she deserved, exactly whom she was made for, and he was standing unbearably far from her. “You,” she pleaded.

J.D. closed his eyes for a moment, then met her gaze with a mixture of desperation and promise. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely, and opened his arms.

Even though she’d heard stories from more experienced friends, she hadn’t known quite what to expect when they moved beyond the heat of kissing. But she knew that with J.D. it would be wonderful…and it was. In spite of the rocky ground, in spite of the lightning outside, in spite of the first flash of pain—through which he held her gently, murmuring husky reassurance—J.D. was wonderful. And with him, so was she.

She belonged with him, Kirsten thought blissfully as they drifted back toward reality in the fading light of late afternoon. The way he held her, with such fierce passion and exquisite tenderness and almost reverent awe, was proof of that. She and J.D. belonged together, and from now on they would share the kind of closeness she had never envisioned, never wanted with anyone else.

“I love you,” she whispered, and felt his arms tighten around her.

“You deserve so much better….”

Better than this place, maybe, but the bare dirt floor wasn’t all that cold. Besides, he had spread his shirt underneath her in a gesture of protection that warmed her heart.

“There isn’t any better,” she assured him, closing her eyes again as she wriggled more securely into his embrace. “Because, J.D., we belong together.”

She was still trying to remember his response when she was startled by the present-day J.D. arriving at her side with a paper-wrapped hamburger and a drink.

“Okay, here you go.”

The contrast was so abrupt that she felt as if she’d been yanked through eight years and a thousand miles in only half a second. “Oh,” she faltered, realizing her hands must be visibly shaky as she reached for the cup he held before her. “Thanks. I was, uh…”

J.D. gave her a strange look, evidently seeing how flustered she was. “You need some sleep,” he said.

That was a much less embarrassing explanation than lovesick memories of a man who’d never wanted her for more than an afternoon, but she wasn’t about to let him send her off for a nap someplace. “I need,” Kirsten said sharply, “to find my children.”

“Right,” he agreed, which gave her a measure of relief that at least he didn’t intend to postpone the search any longer. “Soon as the car—ah. That’s us.”

She followed his gaze to the rental desk, where someone was approaching them with a key, and shoved the unwanted lunch into her oversize purse. If J.D. expected her to eat before they left the airport, she wasn’t about to cooperate.

But he seemed satisfied with her eating on the way to Mercer Island, where they drove to Brad’s showplace home and began their search for leads…J.D. in the study and herself upstairs. The house had been left meticulously tidy by the cleaning lady, but when Kirsten found Lindsay’s sweatshirt atop the laundry hamper, she realized the soft garment still carried a tinge of her daughter’s scent.

This, she realized with a dizzying rush of sensation as she clutched the newly precious sweatshirt to her chest, was what mattered most. Her children. Lindsay, Adam, Eric—the family she had always dreamed of, who deserved all the comfort and happiness she could give them.

A life where her children would always feel safe and special and loved…that was what mattered. And if giving them that security meant denying any anger at their father, it was still a small price to pay. Because, more than anything, her children deserved a family filled with love.

Next time she found herself sliding into memories of that summer with J.D. Ryder, all she’d have to do was remember that he had never shared such a dream. Not eight years ago, and not today.

Which was probably a good thing for someone who made his living fighting drug lords. She was glad there were people willing to take on such jobs, but those weren’t the safely comfortable people she wanted in her life, or her children’s lives. No, what she wanted for her children was the kind of familiar, loving security she and Brad Laurence had grown up with.

No matter how much she’d loved J.D., no matter how much it had hurt when he didn’t want her, she needed to remember what was important for her daughter and sons. Who—especially as the boys grew older—needed all the fatherly attention they could get.

Inhaling the sweetly familiar scent of Lindsay’s sweatshirt, she took it with her to the twins’ room. There, where the folded quilts smelled ever so faintly of rough-and-tumble little boys, the same haunting sensation racked her again…and when J.D. came upstairs she was huddled on the corner of Eric’s bed, burying her face in the patchwork pillows.

“Hey,” he said from the doorway. “Kirsten, it’s okay. We’ll find them—”

Crying wouldn’t help the process any, she knew, but she was all too close to tears. “I want them back!” she pleaded. “My kids are…J.D., they’re my life.”

There was a moment of silence, and then he said abruptly, “I know that. But, Kirs, look at this. Right here. I found exactly what we need to get them back.”

Good thing that announcement had distracted her, J.D. thought with a throb of relief, spreading the RV rental contract on the bright-colored bedspread before her. If she’d burst into tears, the way she’d looked ready to do when he walked in and found her clutching those pillows, he didn’t want to think what might’ve happened next.

Or rather, he wanted to think about it all too much.

But holding Kirsten in his arms after all these years was a bad idea. An idea he wasn’t about to pursue. Everything had turned out okay last time—she’d wound up with a husband who could give her kids she adored—but one lucky break was no reason to go looking for trouble now.

Not when the first time had hurt worse than any beating he’d ever taken.

“An RV?” Kirsten asked, glancing at him in bewilderment. “Brad’s driving them someplace?”

It made sense. If Brad wanted to spend more time with the only family he had left, there was no better way of doing it than on the road. “Looks like,” J.D. said, taking back the contract and forcing himself to think like the professional she had every right to expect. “There were some ticket vouchers for the Ashland Shakespeare Festival tomorrow, so that’ll make it easy. I’ll call this guy I know in Portland, ask about a BOLO—”

“A what?”

He’d slipped into police jargon without even realizing it, which was probably a good sign. He could keep his hands off her, keep his thoughts off her, as long as he stayed in an investigative frame of mind. “Be On the LookOut. We’ve got the vehicle description, license plate, everything it takes for a—”

“You mean,” Kirsten interrupted, “they’d get stopped by a policeman?”

“Well, Max’d be doing this unofficially—I’ve worked with him before. But if Brad gives him any trouble, tries to take off with the kids, he can handle it.”

For some reason, she was looking doubtful. “J.D., wait a minute. I don’t want my children seeing their father get arrested….”

She sounded so disturbed by the notion that he found himself wondering what she expected. A police lineup? Handcuffs and mug shots? “That’s not gonna happen,” he assured her, “as long as Brad lets Max take the kids.”

Kirsten stood up, still clutching the pillow she’d been holding. “But they’d wind up at a police station?” she demanded. “With criminals all over the place?”

“They’re not gonna put children in with criminals!” It was obvious this woman had never been in a police station, but the reassurance didn’t seem to help. “Anyway, you and I won’t be that far behind. It’s just that Max is four hours closer to Ashland.”

Kirsten scrunched the pillow and dropped it on the bed, then turned to face him, her hands on her hips. “But we know right where they’re going,” she said, “and they can’t be going very fast. So why can’t we just catch up with them ourselves?”

They probably could, only it made more sense to enlist all the help they could get. Even the simplest of jobs could fall apart if you didn’t plan some backup. “Kirsten, look, I know you’re worried, but you don’t understand—”

“No, you don’t understand!” she exploded, startling him with the passion in her voice. “You don’t know my children! You’re thinking like a detective, and that’s fine because that’s what you are, but you’re not their mother—I mean their father—” Then she broke off, looking suddenly horrified. As if she couldn’t believe what she’d just said.

“Thank God for that, right?” J.D. interrupted lightly, hoping to return the color to her face. He’d never realized she knew how strongly he felt about avoiding parenthood—not that someone from a family like his could feel any other way—but she was obviously concerned about hurting his feelings. Which was typical of Kirsten, who already was scrambling to apologize.

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