“You’re here, you’re here!” the little girl cried, wrapping herself around Mia’s thighs, as Grant looked on.

“Aren’t you forgetting somebody?” Mia whispered to Haley. “Maybe your daddy would like a welcome back hug, too.”

“But I just saw him this morning!” Haley said. “And ’sides, he doesn’t know how to hug.”

“Then maybe,” Mia said softly, “you could show him how.”

Haley glanced over at Grant and then looked back at Mia. “He’s the daddy. He has to hug first.”

Oh, for heaven’s sake. She hauled Haley up, dangling her in front of her father. “Hug, already.”

As she’d hoped, Grant grabbed for his daughter, and Haley – bless her – threw her arms around her father’s neck, and ta-da!

“Now, was that so hard?” Mia asked.

But when she next looked up, Grant’s gaze briefly touched hers, swarming with a world of unspoken emotions, setting off a volley of a whole bunch of the suckers inside her head, as well.

KAREN TEMPLETON,

a bestselling author and RITA® Award nominee, is the mother of five sons and living proof that romance and dirty nappies are not mutually exclusive terms. An Easterner transplanted to Albuquerque, New Mexico, she spends far too much time trying to coax her garden to yield roses and produce something resembling a lawn, all the while fantasising about a weekend alone with her husband. Or at least an uninterrupted conversation.

Dear Reader,

Like every other five-year-old, at some point I asked my mother if Santa was real. Since the gifts were all piled in a corner of my parents’ bedroom, the whole Ho-Ho-Ho Delivery Service thing was kind of shot, anyway. So Mama told me Santa Claus was a spirit (cagey woman, my mother), and off I went, satisfied. Not until much later, however, did I really appreciate the wisdom behind her response.

Because even the most secular version of Santa is still about the message, not only behind the trappings of the season, but also beyond a particular religious belief. Santa Claus symbolises love and generosity and joy…and, perhaps most of all, hope. So little Haley’s plea to the jolly old elf isn’t about asking for stuff, it’s an unselfish faith in something beyond her small self to bring healing and happiness to the people she loves.

Leave it to a small child to really get the true meaning of Christmas…just like that long-ago kindergartener who intuitively understood her mother’s off-the-cuff explanation about something far more substantial than mere myth.

Karen Templeton

Dear Santa

KAREN TEMPLETON

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Tristan, my first grandbaby

Trust me – Santa will have nothing

on your grandparents!

Merry First Christmas, little one.

Chapter One

“Mr. Braeburn? Are you still there?”

“Yes, yes…” Grant released a long, strained breath, pressing his fingers into his eyelids. “I’m here.” He blinked at the rain-drenched vista on the other side of his home office window, watching distractedly as sixty-foot pines cowered and shuddered under the leaden sky’s relentless onslaught. “How—” He carefully cleared his throat. “How did you know to call me?”

“Mrs. Braeburn had emergency contact information in her purse. And the glove compartment.” The doctor—middle-aged, still not comfortable with making these sorts of calls, Grant guessed—paused. “And her briefcase.”

A humorless chuckle released the vise constricting Grant’s lungs. Catching himself, he sank into a leather club chair facing the window. “I’m sorry—”

“Shock often produces seemingly inappropriate emotions,” the doctor said kindly. “It’s a coping mechanism. So the pain doesn’t overwhelm us.”

“It’s not…” Outside, rivers slammed against the paned windows. Grant shook his head to clear it. “Justine and I were divorced more than a year ago.”

“Ah. Yes. Of course.” A pause. “I understand you have a daughter?”

Grant shut his eyes, willing his brain to assimilate… anything. “Yes. She’s here. It’s my weekend.”

“Then…you’ll tell her?”

“Of course,” Grant said, even as he thought, How the hell do you tell a three-year-old her mother’s dead? He sucked in an acid-tinged breath, then asked, “Justine…she was alone? In the car?”

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

Another pause, then a measured, “She apparently took a curve too quickly, hit a patch of wet leaves and lost control. She may have been on her cell phone.”

Typical, he thought bitterly. Justine would practically have a panic attack if she lost contact with the outside world for more than five minutes. With each breath, Grant’s lungs eased. Slightly. “I suppose I’ll need to make arrangements?”

“There’s no other family, then?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

“Mr. Braeburn, I could…give you some names if you, or the little girl, would like to talk to someone?”

“Thank you. But I have my own contacts. Should the need arise.”

“Of course. If there’s nothing else…?”

“No. No, wait…”

“Yes?”

A second’s wrestling preceded, “Her face?”

The doctor hesitated, then said, “She’d been a beautiful woman, I take it?”

For some time after the call, Grant stood staring into the late day dreariness outside, the phone still clamped in his chilled hand. An odd, tight smile pulled at his mouth. He could just imagine Justine’s soul—if she had one—floating over her lifeless body, wailing over losing her looks. Especially considering the megabucks she’d invested in them—

“Mr. B.? Everything all right?”

Grant turned; his housekeeper’s puglike face was more deeply creased than usual, worry peering out from light brown eyes framed in drooping crow’s feet. Etta Bruschetti didn’t exactly fit the mold of who one generally found keeping lives and houses intact in this part of the world. But the smart-mouthed brunette kept him honest, on his toes and from believing his own press. It also didn’t hurt that she cooked as though she’d been personally instructed by God.

He returned his gaze outside and said quietly, “Haley’s mother was killed in a car crash a few hours ago.”

“What? Ohmigod, you’re not serious!” Etta pressed a broad hand to her generous chest. “God, that’s awful. That poor woman!”

One side of Grant’s mouth twitched. “Oh, come on, Etta…I know how you felt about Justine.”

“Okay, so maybe I wasn’t exactly all broken up when the two of you split. But I wouldn’t wish somethin’ like that on anybody, you know what I mean?”

Even though the question was rhetorical, Grant nodded anyway. Etta stuffed her hands in the pockets of the white utilitarian apron she wore over her sweatshirt and jeans, the closest she came to a uniform unless Grant entertained. Which he hadn’t since the divorce. “Guess that means the baby’s gonna be living here full-time now, huh?”

His thought processes hadn’t gotten that far. But of course, he realized with a slug to his midsection—Justine’s death made him a single father.

One who had thus far bungled this fatherhood thing like nobody’s business.

“Yeah,” he finally said on a stream of air. “It does.”

A few minutes later, he climbed the stairs to his daughter’s bedroom, where Haley would spend hours at a time playing with her extensive stuffed toy and doll collection. At first, Grant had assumed Haley simply hadn’t inherited her mother’s sociability gene. Eventually, however, he’d realized the child simply preferred the company of her “friends” to him.

His heart racing, he stood outside his daughter’s partially open door, steeling himself as he listened to her nonstop chatter. Just like her mother, who’d never been at a loss for words, either. A good trait in a lawyer, Grant supposed. Swallowing sawdust, he knocked softly, then pushed the door open.

Instantly, the chatter stopped. A goofy-looking stuffed lion—Justine’s last present to her, Grant realized with a punch to his gut—clutched in her arms, Haley glanced up at his entrance, her expression a disturbing blend of caution and indifference. Selfishly—and guiltily—Grant had often wondered if perhaps a more outgoing child would have helped him overcome his own ineptitude, would have shattered by now whatever had kept him from feeling what other fathers felt for their children.

At least, some fathers.

Still, he wasn’t immune to his daughter’s almost painful beauty, with her dark blond curls and enormous, thick-lashed brown eyes, her fair skin with its perpetual faint blush. She also seemed frighteningly bright for a child who wouldn’t be four for another several weeks. But then, what did he know?

“Did Mommy call?” she asked with her customary directness, and his insides twisted. Without fail, Justine always called Haley during these weekend visits, even when she was away herself. Whatever had happened between him and his ex-wife, Justine had been completely devoted to their daughter.

In fact, his ex-wife had been completely besotted by Haley from the moment the doctor had laid the messy, squalling child in Justine’s arms…while Grant had only been bewildered. By the baby, by the unexpected—in this case—mother-daughter bond, by the cozy, exclusive world the two of them had with each other from day one. A world to which Grant had never been able to figure out the secret password that would have gained him entrance.

Flexing his hands at his hips, Grant crossed the hooked rug covered with dozens of multicolored pastel butterflies, eternally in flight in a pale blue sky, to sit heavily on a faux-painted toy chest. Too astute by far, Haley watched him, her gaze steady. Judgmental.

Grant stared at his folded hands for a long moment, realizing he had no idea what the hell he was doing. What he was supposed to do. This was the kid who used to scream bloody murder if she lost sight of her mother for more than a few seconds—how on earth would she react to this?

“Daddy?”

The word was flat, perfunctory. She might as well have been calling him a plate or a chair or a tree. She kept her distance, hugging that lion, eyeing him suspiciously. “Are you mad?”

“No,” Grant said, surprised she would read his hesitation as anger. “But I have something to tell you. Something sad. And I’m not sure how to go about it.”

She waited, frowning, not so much trusting as curious, he thought. He took a deep breath and plunged.

“Mommy was in an accident,” he said quietly, his heart punching his rib cage. “In her car. And she got hurt very badly. So badly, the doctors couldn’t fix her. And… and she died.”

Haley stilled, her gaze fixed on his. Then she lowered her eyes to the lion and started stroking his mane, curling her small fingers through the golden fluff. From underneath her lashes, she peered at him again. “Died? Like Grandpa?”

She’d still been a baby when Grant’s father had died, much too young for Patrick Braeburn’s death to have made an impact. And Justine’s parents had both been gone long before she and Grant married. With a pang, Grant realized death was just a word to the little girl, a word without any real relevance or meaning.

“Yeah. Like Grandpa.”

Another moment or two passed before she said, “Mommy says the doctor always makes you better.”

“They tried their hardest, they really did—”

“So Mommy’s coming back. She always comes back. Always.”

“Not this time,” Grant said over the nausea. “She can’t.”

Hugging the lion more tightly, Haley kept her eyes locked in his for several seconds before returning to the other side of the room, where she squatted in front of her dollhouse and began one-handedly rearranging things, as if she’d somehow sucked the news inside her. Almost light-headed with uncertainty, he wondered if he should hold her. Ask her if she was okay. Something.

“Haley? Do you…want to talk?”

She swept one hand through her curls in a gesture that was her mother to a T. “No, thank you. I’ll talk to Mommy when she comes.”

Oh, God.

“Haley, Mommy’s not coming back—”

But she was shaking her head, the curls a blur as her movements became more and more agitated. “No, she’s coming back, an’ we’re going to the toy store when we get home, she promised.” Her eyes veered to Grant’s, dry but determined. “She promised.”

“Haley, honey—”

Grant reached for her, but she lurched backward, stumbling over a stuffed beagle lying sideways on the lacquered, honey-blond floor to land on her bottom.

“No!” she bellowed, frantically scrambling away, crab-style, to plaster herself against the wall underneath one window, between a pair of white bookcases crammed with books and games and puzzles. “I don’t want you! I want Mommy!”

Despite the wet-clay feeling of helplessness swamping him, Grant crouched in front of his daughter, who shoved the heels of her sneakers into the floor, pressing further into the wall. “It’s okay,” he said as she started to whimper, “I’m going to take care of you now—”

“No!” she shrieked, launching the stuffed lion at his chest. “I wanna go home! I want to talk to Mommy now!”

Grant sprang to his feet and crossed to the other side of the room, ramming his hand through his hair and trying to catch his breath. Rain still slashed at the windows, pummeled the roof, the normally comforting sounds of a rainy fall Saturday barely audible over Haley’s hysterics. Juggling millions of dollars of other people’s money, taking risks that most human beings wouldn’t dare…no sweat. How to comfort his daughter—how to even get over the first hurdle, of getting her to understand what was going on? Not a clue.

He glanced over at his little girl, huddled in her niche. She’d grabbed the lion again, clutching it to her and rocking, her face smashed into the thing’s mane. After a moment, Grant lowered himself onto the edge of Haley’s bed, a white four-poster smothered in yellow and white gingham ruffles. From ten feet and a world away, she glanced over, then scootched sideways to give him her back, clumsily scrubbing the back of her hand across her dripping nose.

“Go ’way.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because Mommy wouldn’t want me to leave you alone.”

Haley tossed a withering look over her shoulder, then pulled her knees closer to her chest, a tiny, stricken figure in her little corduroy skirt and sweater. And Grant, who was not by any means a religious man, found himself praying—pleading—to be shown what to do.

Etta appeared at the doorway, phone in hand, frown in place. She motioned Grant over, then whispered, “It’s that friend of Justine’s. Mia Vaccaro? She said she and Justine were supposed to get together this afternoon, but she won’t answer her cell. Wants to know if you know anything.”

With a last glance at his daughter’s fragile-looking back, Grant took the phone, thinking this was why he’d never been a big fan of that whole prayer business to begin with.

Because all too often, the answer is exactly what you don’t want.

“Where is she?” Mia tossed the question in Grant’s housekeeper’s direction as she catapulted herself through the mansion’s open door, simultaneously unwinding her scarf and shrugging out of her tweed jacket.

“Upstairs, in her room,” the older woman said, relieving her of the garments. “But—”

“Thanks.”

Mia strode across the black-and-white tiled floor in the mini-rotunda that served as a vestibule, deaf to the screams of Money, money, money! reverberating from the high-ceilinged space. That she’d made it up here in one piece was a miracle in itself, considering all she really wanted to do was curl up in a corner somewhere until the world made sense again—

“Mia. Wait.”

The deep voice hit its mark like a sharpshooter’s bullet. Already at the foot of the curved staircase, Mia spun around, her gaze colliding with a pair of steely lasers, nailing her to the spot. Not until then did she realize she was panting, as though she’d run all the way from Manhattan instead of driven. Vaguely, it dawned on her that she hadn’t even changed clothes after she’d talked to Grant, that she was still in the same rumpled jeans and who-gives-a-damn hoodie she’d been wearing to schlep fake fall foliage to the pier for the Chins’ anniversary party the next night, that her tortoiseshell clip was hanging by maybe two teeth to her long, thick hair.

That she looked every bit the scatterbrain he undoubtedly thought she was.

“Grant! I’m sorry, traffic was a bear on the Henry Hudson, I got here as soon as I could!”

One side of his mouth ticked. Grant Braeburn’s version of a smile. “Clearly. Thank you. Before you go up…?” He gestured toward a room off the entryway. His office, if she remembered correctly. She’d been in the house before, of course—for the wedding, once after that for dinner with Christopher, a night branded in her memory as somewhere between miserable and excruciating. But she wasn’t here to see Justine’s ex, she was here for the little girl who’d wrapped herself around Mia’s heart from the first time she’d laid eyes on the baby when she was less than a day old.

“Mia!” came the imperious tone when she started upstairs. “We need to talk!”

“Later!”

She’d already reached the landing when his fingers wrapped around her arm. A lesser woman might have been intimidated—or, in other circumstances, turned on—by the man’s grip. Or, at the very least, let out a soft, feminine squeal of surprise. Instead, Mia went for the severely pissed-off look. One that nicely complemented Grant’s own.

“Damn it, Mia—I don’t want you breaking down in front of Haley.”

“Not a problem,” she said, yanking out of his grasp and striding across a billion bucks’ worth of oriental runner toward Haley’s room. Whatever issues Grant had with her—or she, him—would have to wait. Preferably until they were both dead and buried—

The thought literally made her stumble, although she righted herself before Grant could notice. She hoped. But despite the heartburn from hell dissolving her digestive system, she wasn’t about to crumple.

Not yet, anyway.

Grant loomed behind her, much too close, as, through Haley’s open door, Mia could see the child sitting quietly in the middle of her bed in her teddy-bear-flecked pajamas, sucking her thumb—a habit given up months ago. And clutched to her small, far-too-fragile-looking chest, Mia realized with another fiery blast to her midsection, was the stuffed lion Justine had only just given her.

“Hey, little bit,” she said softly, and the child’s head shot up. A second later she’d streaked across the room to wrap her arms around Mia’s thighs.

Then she tilted her head back, hope and worry and confusion tangled in her eyes. “Did Mommy come with you?”

Crap. Mia glanced over at Grant, whose glower had rearranged itself into something much more worrisome, then lowered herself to one knee, lumpy throats and heartburn from hell be damned.

“No, baby,” she said softly, brushing Haley’s curls off her cheek, praying she was striking the right balance between reassuring and serious. “Mommy’s not here.”

Haley disengaged herself to swing back and forth, clutching the toy. “Then are you going to take me back to the city?”

Slowly, Mia shook her head. “No, sweetie pie. You’re going to stay with your daddy now.”

The little girl frowned. “Daddy said Mommy got broken an’ the doctors couldn’t fix her.”

“That’s right,” Mia said, swallowing back tears.

Soft brown eyes shifted from Mia to Grant and back again. “Like Hump-y Dump-y?”

“Yeah, baby. Like Humpty Dumpty.”

“But Hump-y Dump-y’s not real. Mommy said.”

Bugger. “Well, that’s true, but—”

“So where is she?”

Oh, brother. Mia glanced up at Grant, desperately hoping for a bone, here. Justine hadn’t been particularly religious that Mia knew of, and Grant’s spiritual bent was anybody’s guess. However, since no bone seemed to be forthcoming, Mia decided to go with thirty years of Catholic indoctrination and let the chips fall where they may. “She’s in heaven, sweetie. With the angels.”

“What’s heaven?”

Ah. Clearly she was introducing new material. “Someplace really, really nice where people go after they die.”

“It’s far away?”

“Yes. Very far.”

Her brow puckered, Haley fingered Mia’s loose hair. “C’n you get there in a taxi?”

“No.”

“How ’bout an airplane?”

“Nope.”

Almost expressionless, Haley looked at her for a long moment, then down at the lion. A second later, she held the lion out to Mia, who wagged one of the lion’s floppy paws and said softly, “Who’s this neat guy?”

“That’s Henry. Mommy gave him to me.”

“I know. I was with her when she bought him for you.”

“You were?”

“Uh-huh.”

After another moment’s thoughtful consideration, Haley leaned over and whispered, “I have to go to the bathroom,” and Mia whispered back, “Okay,” and the little girl bounced off, Henry safely tucked under one arm. Mia struggled to her feet; her hands stuffed in the front pocket of her hoodie, she frowned toward the bathroom door.

“You’ve already gotten ten times further than I could,” Grant said behind her, the words brittle as dry sticks. Mia turned her frown on him, thinking, And whose fault is that? From what Justine had said, the man hadn’t even tried to fight for joint custody. Not that Jus would have given it to him, but still.

But this was hardly the time to call him on any of it. She walked to the other side of the room, idly poking through the little girl’s collection of Dr. Seuss. “Weird, isn’t it?” Mia said, sliding Horton Hears a Who back into the bookcase. “To think there’s a time when we have no concept of what death means.”

“Do we ever?” he said softly.

She had nothing to say to that.

After several excruciatingly awkward moments, they heard a flush, then the water running. A minute later, Haley emerged from the bathroom, Henry still in tow. “Henry had to go pee-pee, too,” she said, climbing back up onto her bed. “He feels much better now.’ Cept he’s sad.”

“Oh?” Mia said, sitting beside her. “How come?”

“’Cause he misses his mommy.”

Mia braced herself, even as she forced a smile to her lips. “But he has you to take care of him, right? So maybe he’ll stop feeling so sad.”

Haley’s eyes swerved to Grant, then back to Mia. “But I’m not as good as her, she reads stories to him an’ buys him ice cream and toys and stuff to make him feel better after he gets his shots. Who’s gonna read to him if his mommy doesn’t come back?”

Was this normal, Mia wondered, that despite “Henry’s” being sad, Haley herself seemed more perplexed than unhappy? Mia reached out to smooth Henry’s flyaway mane. “Well, I suppose you could read to him,” she said, but Haley shook her head.

“I can’t tell what all the words are yet. Mostly I just look at the pictures.”

“Ah. But you know, I bet Henry would like looking at the pictures with you. Or maybe,” she added with another darted glance in Grant’s direction, “Henry’s daddy could read to him? Why not?” she added when Haley shook her head again, more vigorously this time.

“’Cause I don’t think he knows how, either.”

“You don’t think his daddy knows how to read?” Mia said, her words piercing Grant’s almost palpable stillness.

Haley hugged the toy harder. “I don’t think he knows how to read to Henry.”

“Well…maybe Henry could show him?”

A faint crease marring her brow, Haley seemed to think this over for a second before she shrugged and said softly, “Maybe.” Then she yawned and knuckled her eyes, a sleepy, overwhelmed little girl whose mother was dead and whose father, Mia uncharitably thought, had turned out to be a major disappointment.

“C’mon,” she said gently, tugging the covers out from under Haley’s itty-bitty butt. “Time for sleep.”

Without protest, Haley squirmed underneath the covers, hugging Henry. “Will you be here when I wake up?” she asked, and Mia’s heart broke.

“Oh, honey…I wish I could, but I’ve got work to do in the city tomorrow. But I’ll be back soon.”

Wide eyes searched hers. “You promise?”

Damn. But then, what were the odds of her being creamed by a semi or offed by a trigger-happy mugger or a flowerpot falling on her head within forty-eight hours of Justine’s death? So Mia sucked in a huge breath that was equal parts prayer and willpower and said, “I promise, baby,” she said, then bent over to wrap the little girl in her arms. “Big squeezies. No—biiiig squeezies!” she said again, and Haley strung her tiny arms around Mia’s neck and hugged her for all she was worth. Then they rubbed noses and Mia laid her down again and gave her about twenty kisses before finally tearing herself away.

As she stood, however, she mouthed, “Your turn,” at Grant. Who, after a moment’s panicked eye-lock, moved toward the bed…only to pivot back to Mia with a weird mixture of sorrow and relief on his face.

“She’s already asleep,” he whispered, and Mia thought, You wanna bet?

Grant trailed her down the stairs, thinking about God knew what, Mia thinking that as much as she hated—hated—leaving Haley, she could not wait to blow this joint. Preferably while her guard was still firmly in place. But when she zeroed in on the curvy-legged table in the foyer where Etta had parked her stuff, Grant said behind her, “Don’t go yet. Please.”

She owed this man nothing. Not her time, and certainly not her emotional energy. That particular “on” switch had been disabled a long, long time ago. So more fool she for whatever it was that derailed her, made her turn back. Provoked an actual flicker of sympathy at the vulnerability in those icy eyes.

“I really have to get back—”

“Ten minutes,” he said, and she sighed and dumped everything back on the table, then tromped back across the foyer, past the Jackson Pollock dominating the east wall, underneath the opera-house-size crystal chandelier suspended from the twenty-foot ceiling, over the Persian rug larger than her first apartment.

Money, money, money…

Grant stood aside to let her enter the office, gesturing for her to sit. Anywhere, apparently. At least a half dozen chairs begged for the privilege, mostly contemporary leather numbers in rich browns and tans, a tweedy club chair or two for variety. Funny, she would have expected lots of chrome and glass, assorted shades of black.

An open stainless steel casket, maybe, discretely placed in a far corner.

Mia briefly shut her eyes, picturing nuns the world over sighing in dismay. However, the only alternative to the grossly inappropriate flashes of black humor that overtook her whenever she was majorly stressed was grief-induced catatonia. And anyway, she could have sworn the casket comment had been in Justine’s voice, accompanied by a burst of laughter and a lifted glass of Chablis.

Shoving aside an image of Justine as Mia last remembered her—runway beautiful and pulsing with energy, her eyes sparkling with mischief as they tromped down Madison Avenue arm-in-arm on a spur-of-the-moment shopping spree—Mia flopped down in one of the leather chairs. Still, the image, and the truth, lurked at the edges of her consciousness, waiting to pounce.

Ten minutes, she thought, her jeans rough against her palms as she scraped them over her thighs. I can hang on for ten more minutes—

“Were you able to eat before you came up?” Grant asked quietly, his brows slightly dipped. Mia shook her head. “Would you like something, then? A sandwich, at least—”

“No, I’m good.” Except she then realized her mouth felt like she’d been French-kissing a blow-dryer. “I could use some water, though.”

With a curt nod, Grant crossed to the small bar on the other side of the room, his loose-fitting black sweater (fine-gauge, she was guessing cashmere) and matching cords doing nothing to disguise the six-foot-plus package of solid, pulsing testosterone underneath. On paper, the man looked good. Okay, in person he looked good—all head-turning gorgeous with his dark hair and those eerie gray eyes, tall and fit and broad of shoulder, the way leading men used to look before somebody decided, for some inexplicable reason, that potent masculinity was overrated.

Add smart—investment whiz of the straw-in-to-gold variety—and insanely rich, and… Well. Mia supposed she could see the attraction. If one were into men whose beverage of choice was Type O Positive.

She shut her eyes again. Go straight to hell, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars….

“Here you go.”

Jumping slightly, Mia opened her eyes again to see an über-masculine hand proffering a heavy, deeply etched glass and a parchment-colored cocktail napkin. “Thanks,” she muttered, gulping down half the glass as Grant—still standing, still watching her—took a measured sip of his own drink. Something ambery and undoubtedly potent. And even more undoubtedly expensive.

“Are you all right?” he asked, startling her enough to make her hand jerk, sloshing water over the edge of the glass.

“I’m fine,” she said, dabbing at her front with the napkin. She tried a smile, then thought, Why? “Although, to be frank, I don’t think it’s really hit yet.”

Grant lifted his drink to his lips, then, inexplicably, relieved her of the damp, crumpled napkin before striding back to the bar to dispose of it. “I assume you and Justine were still close?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” She waited out the twinge of hurt, of uncertainty. “It’s been a strange couple of years,” she said, fingering the glass’s rim. “Lots of changes for both of us. So we didn’t see each other as often as we used to. Before, you know, she married you. Especially once I left the firm.”

Another image blossomed in her mind’s eye, Justine hooting with unladylike laughter in the middle of the sidewalk, making strangers—in Manhattan!—smile. Deep inside, grief stirred and stretched. Not yet! Mia thought, swallowing it down. “But I’d never had a friend like Jus.” After a moment’s contemplation of her drink, she took a sip, then said, “Although I suppose that was due as much to timing and circumstance as anything. You know,” she continued at Grant’s speculative look, “both being the new kids at the firm at the same time, not to mention new to the city, neither of us having a sister…”

Her hand shook when she lifted the glass again. “But I always knew I could count on her. Trust her. And I can’t believe…” Her eyes filled. “I can’t believe she’s g-gone,” she whispered.

And the floodgates gave way.

Chapter Two

Grant’s stomach clenched as Mia’s hand slammed over her mouth, although not quickly enough to stifle either her moan or the torrent of tears that followed. Clearly horrified at breaking down in front of him, she struggled to her feet and stumbled to the other side of the room, although whether to get away from him or in some vain attempt to escape her own grief, he couldn’t say.

Her meltdown came as no surprise, although her having held it together as long, and as well, as she had, did. Apparently, Mia Vaccaro was made of sterner stuff than he’d given her credit for, based on the few times he’d been in her company after he married Justine…a thought which in turn provoked the faintest whiff of memory, a brief impression, an obvious misapprehension. Rebuffing it—as well as his usual antipathy to waterworks—he snatched a box of tissues off an end table and carried them over to her.

“You’ll make yourself ill,” he said, softly, behind her quaking back. She jumped slightly, then turned, snatching three tissues in quick succession from the box and glaring at him through swollen eyelids.

“So s-sorry,” Mia lobbed at him between sobs. “I d-don’t know any other w-way to cry! If it b-bothers you—” she swatted in his direction with the tissues “—go away!”

So he did. Only to return a moment later with her forsaken glass of water.

“I’m n-not finished yet,” she said, honking loudly into the tissues.

“I’m not rushing you. Come on, sit back down,” he said, and she actually let him lead her back to the chair to finish her cry. In short order the sobs turned to sniffles, the sniffles to shudders, and the shudders to a small, trembly, “Sorry.”

“Feel better?” he asked, picking up his drink from a small side table.

Mia blew her nose, tucked her arms against her midsection, then nodded.

He took a sip. “Now. Aren’t you glad that didn’t happen somewhere in the middle of I-95?” When she glared at him, he added, with extreme patience, “So sue me for guessing you were ready to blow.”

After a moment, Mia sucked in a breath and sat up straighter, scrubbing her palm over first one cheek, then another. “Point to you,” she said, then shivered. “God, I must look like hell.”

She did, actually. Justine’s tears had always been delicately executed, just enough to trickle down a flawlessly made-up cheek, to spike her eyelashes. No red-splotched cheeks or raccoon eyes, ever. “Now that you mention it, you might want to avoid mirrors for the next little while.”

“Boy, you really are a gem among men, aren’t you?” she muttered, then waved away the comment. “Rhetorical question, no response necessary.”

Grant looked at her for a moment, then walked back to his desk, gently swirling his drink in his glass. “You weren’t at all surprised when our marriage fell apart, were you?”

“Once I got to know you? No.”

“Know me?” Unaccountably irritated, Grant let his gaze drift back to the splotchy, puffy-eyed woman still quietly hiccupping in his favorite leather chair, one foot now tucked up underneath her backside. “How often have we been in the same room, Mia? A half-dozen times?”

“Often enough to confirm what I’d already suspected—that you and Justine weren’t a good fit. But let’s clear something up right now,” she said, her brow pinched. “I didn’t take some sadistic pleasure in your marriage breaking up. It wasn’t about me being right, it was about my best friend being happy. If she’d been able to find that happiness with you, I would have been the first person to toast the two of you on your fiftieth wedding anniversary. But how we feel about each other is neither here nor there.” Her expression softened. “The only thing that matters now is getting Haley through this.”

Grant eyed her steadily for a moment before silently setting the glass on the desk. Facing her once more, he folded his arms across his chest. “Haley talks about you a great deal.”

“We’re best buds,” she said quietly. “There’ve been nannies, of course. And Jus had her in preschool during the day. But the three of us would hang out…” Her voice broke; after a couple of deep breaths, she continued. “And I’d sit for her from time to time, when Jus had to work late.” At Grant’s frown, she rolled her eyes. “She was on the fast track to becoming partner, Grant, she couldn’t exactly clock out at five on the dot every night. As anyone struggling for purchase in a huge law firm knows all too well.” He thought he saw a slight shudder before she continued. “Although Jus did take work home with her as much as she could, to do after Haley was in bed. Your daughter wasn’t neglected, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Clearly,” he said softly, even as he thought, At least, not by her mother. “Still. That was a lot to ask of you.”

Mia’s eyes narrowed. “She didn’t ask, I volunteered. I love kids and I’m crazy about the squirt. And the nannies…well. They came and went. Even if I didn’t see Haley that often, at least I was some sort of constant in her life. After her mother, I mean. And anyway—”

Grant noted her pointed exclusion of him from that equation.

“Considering everything Justine did for me…” Her eyes filled again, but she held up one hand, sucking in a steadying breath. “Babysitting was the least I could do to return the f-favor—”

At the wobbly last word, Grant plucked the box of tissues off the desk, but she shook her head. Then her words sank in. “What favor?”

“Okay, maybe ‘favor’ isn’t the right word. Support, then. When I walked out on my law career to start my party-planning business, not only was Jus one of the very few people who didn’t seem to think I’d lost it, she even got on the horn and called everybody she knew, lining up more work for me than I could have ever found on my own.” She almost laughed. “In some ways, she seemed more determined to see me succeed than I did. And then…”

“What?” he prompted when she hesitated.

Mia screwed up her mouth, as though trying to decide how much to say. “Around the time of your divorce, my fiancé broke up with me. You met him once, he was out here for dinner. Anyway, it was a few weeks before our wedding. I was a mess. But even though Jus was still dealing with the aftereffects of her own…stuff, there she was, literally and figuratively holding my hand through one of the worst periods of my life.”

Totally unaware that Grant’s drink had turned to vinegar in his stomach, Mia unfolded her legs, stretching the previously trapped foot in front of her and wiggling it. “She’d call or e-mail me to ask how I was doing, suggest we go shopping or to the movies, or go to the museum or zoo with Haley…ouch! Damn, my foot fell asleep!”

Leaning over to rub the prickles away, her long hair tumbled free over her shoulders, framing her much-less-swollen face with exuberant, shiny waves. A moment later, she lifted her eyes to his, only to frown. “Is something wrong?”

With a sharp shake of his head, Grant abruptly returned to the window, unable to look at that trusting, loyal face a moment longer. He’d known, of course, from the moment he’d answered her call, heard the concern in her voice, that somehow, amazingly, Justine had managed to keep her betrayal under wraps. Otherwise, he seriously doubted even someone as wide-eyed as Mia would have continued babysitting for her best friend’s daughter. Still, to hear it confirmed…

“For what it’s worth,” he said quietly, willing the words to quash the anger flaring inside him, “I didn’t marry Justine expecting it to fail. I may be a risk taker in my professional life, but I’ve always erred on the side of caution about all things personal. So when things fell apart, I was definitely…disappointed.”

“I don’t know what to say,” he heard behind him. Inhaling deeply, he spared her an almost-smile.

“No response necessary,” he said, then returned his attention outside. “I don’t blame you for feeling the way you do about me. From your standpoint, I made someone you cared about very unhappy. All I can say, in my own defense, is that it wasn’t intentional. Although I do shoulder the blame for believing that Justine more clearly understood what she was getting when she married me. That I’ve never been a fun-and-games kind of guy.”

“There’s an understatement,” he heard Mia mutter.

Grant turned, his mouth set, his gaze unwavering. Why he felt compelled to make this woman understand, he had no idea. Perhaps because Justine hadn’t understood. But Justine had been his wife. Mia was…

Mia was very likely the only person who could help him bridge the canyonesque gap between him and his daughter.

“I can’t help my nature, Mia. Even as a child, excessive shows of emotion made me cringe. However, I never promised Justine anything I couldn’t, and didn’t, deliver. That she still wanted more from me than I could give her…” He blew out a breath. “The marriage was a mistake. Or rather, the mistake was in my thinking I could somehow make a marriage work simply because getting married, starting a family, is what men my age, in my position, do.” He paused. “A mistake I won’t make again, believe me.”

“Yeah, well,” she said finally, getting up, hanging on to the back of the chair as she hobbled around it, “I could’ve told both of you that at the beginning and saved everyone a lot of grief.”

“Except then there wouldn’t be Haley.”

Her “oh, please” gaze slammed into his. Her eyes were a strange shade of green, he realized, almost an olive. “And wouldn’t that make your life a whole lot easier.”

At her direct hit, heat surged up his neck. Irritated—with himself, with her, with the whole damn mess—he turned to spare her the satisfaction of his discomfiture. “Hard as this may be to believe,” he said stiffly, “I do care about my daughter. About what happens to her. I always have. But I’ve never been comfortable around children.”

“Including your own.”

He hesitated, then said, “Especially my own. I seriously doubt we’ll ever have the same sort of relationship she had with her mother. I’m simply not made that way.”

“And I have zip tolerance for people who act like their kids are some kind of food they sampled once and decided they didn’t care for! For crying out loud, Grant—have you even tried? You took Haley twice a month. If that—”

“Because neither Justine nor I wished to disrupt her routine any more than necessary!” he said, the excuse lame even to his own ears. “She often had playdates and birthday parties on the weekends—”

“Which you decided were more important than continuing her relationship with her father.”

“That wasn’t solely my decision, Mia.”

Mia opened her mouth, only to press it tightly closed again. He guessed that as much as she’d dearly love to refute his statement, he doubted she could. Not if she’d been privy, as a close friend would have been, to Justine’s fabricating some excuse or other to keep Haley with her on one of Grant’s weekends.

Her eyes narrowed, but not enough to block what might have been the beginnings of doubt. “But you didn’t exactly fight Justine on it, did you?”

One side of his mouth lifted. “Guilty as charged.”

“Why not?”

And if he had a chance in hell of getting her to agree to his plan, he had to lay all his cards on the table, no matter how bad his admission made him look.

“Because Haley was barely two when we separated. A two-year-old who adored her mother and screamed whenever I tried to pick her up. Of course I tried to close the gap between us—contrary to popular opinion, I’m not a monster. But unfortunately Haley’s appearance didn’t magically transform me into one of those men who gets all sappy in the presence of babies. I suppose I hoped… well, that as she got older, I could make up for lost time, somehow.”

“I don’t believe I’m hearing this! Did it ever occur to you that maybe Haley wasn’t going to wait until you were ready to be her father?”

“Every damn day since her birth,” Grant said through gritted teeth, as if willing the raw fear—that he was going to fail his own child—to stay locked up where it couldn’t do him, or Haley, any harm. “And it kills me, that there’s a little girl upstairs who didn’t ask for her mother to die and leave her with me as her father! That I’m the one who’s supposed to get her through this, only I have no earthly idea how to do that!”

“Who the hell does, Grant?” Mia said. “Who knows how to handle stuff like this until they have to?”

“But at least Haley likes you.”

Mia eyed him for a long moment, then sighed out a swear word, followed by, “I can’t stay, Grant.”

“Just for a few days. To help Haley through the transition.”

“I can’t,” she repeated. “I have a life. And a business to run.”

“I thought you said you loved her?”

Her eyes darkened. “Oh, you will not pull that emotional blackmail crap on me. Of course I love Haley. But she’s not my daughter, she’s yours. And whatever is or isn’t going on between you is not my problem to solve—”

“I’m not asking you to solve anything, damn it! I’m only asking you to help me solve it! And I would think, given Haley’s obvious affection for you, that you’d put her needs before whatever animosity you feel for me!”

Silence jangled between them for several seconds before she finally said, “I can’t get out of this party tomorrow night, it’s too big for my assistant to handle on her own. At least not on such short notice. But…” Long, blunt-nailed fingers dragged across her jaw for a moment before she crammed both hands into her jeans’ pockets. “But I’m free for a few days after that. I suppose I could come back up the day after tomorrow for a day or two.”

“Until after the funeral?” At her frown, Grant said, “Since Justine has no one else…”

“Right. Okay. Until after the funeral, then. But just so we’re clear? I’m only doing this for Haley. Not for you.”

“Fair enough.”

He followed her when she walked out of his office, watching silently as she gathered her things off the table in the foyer and shrugged into a boxy tweed jacket at complete odds with the sweatshirt. And he couldn’t resist wandering into the living room after she’d left to stand in front of one of the bay windows, listening to her peel rubber as she sped off, spitting gravel in her wake.

“Not exactly a prissy little thing, is she?” Etta said behind him.

He almost smiled. “No.” Then he added, “She’s coming back.”

“So I heard. But she’s right, you know. It’s not up to her to fix whatever’s wrong between you and Haley.”

The smile stretched slightly. “You’re not even the least bit repentant about eavesdropping, are you?”

“Hell, no,” she said, and tromped off, and Grant eventually went upstairs to check on his daughter. The light from the hallway spilled across her bed, illuminating the tiny child sleeping fitfully in it.

Grant slipped noiselessly into the room to stand over the bed, releasing a long, soundless breath. He couldn’t exactly grieve for Justine, but her death—the shock of it, the pointlessness—had still shaken him. More, in fact, than he’d at first realized. For what had happened—to her and between them—regret and genuine sorrow clawed at him, snarling and snapping. Once the truth sank in, Haley would miss her mother terribly.

As would Mia. Undeserved and misplaced though her loyalty to Justine may have been.

She doesn’t know.

Again, the words pelted him, leaving the sting of guilt in their wake. But it wasn’t his place to tell her. Relationship Neanderthal though he might be, even he couldn’t bring himself to disabuse Mia of her faith in Justine’s friendship. What would be the point? The woman was dead, her indiscretions—and betrayal—soon to be buried with her, God willing. Still, whatever his personal feelings about Mia, it had been no easy feat to tamp down the flash of anger on her behalf, that the woman she credited with getting her through the worst period of her life had actually been the very cause of her misery.

Oh, his ex-wife’s talents had been quite extraordinary, he thought bitterly as Haley thrashed in her sleep, sending the poor stuffed lion sailing overboard. Grant bent over to retrieve the toy, carefully setting it where she could reach it. Instantly, a little arm shot out, groping for her new friend; Grant edged the lion closer, smiling slightly when Haley pulled the floppy thing back into the safety of her arms, her thumb popping into her mouth as she relaxed.

Then his forehead knotted as his thoughts strayed back to his ex. As much as Justine’s infidelity had gouged his ego, at least it was understandable, given her obvious craving for more attention than Grant could give her. But to screw around with her best friend’s fiancé…?

And then to have the gall to console Mia in the aftermath?

Un-freaking-believable.

Almost as unbelievable as Mia’s naiveté. Weren’t women supposed to have some sort of radar about these things? Especially by their thirties? But then, how had the two women become such close friends to begin with? Considering how orderly and driven Justine had been, Mia—who’d given up a prime slot in one of Manhattan’s most prestigious law firms to become a party planner, for God’s sake—came across as downright flighty in comparison.

Then he thought of her when they’d been in here together, as unkempt as Justine had been fastidious, her dark brows drawn underneath a curtain of wind-blown, dark brown waves. And he had to admit, her obvious affection for his daughter, the concern trembling at the edges of her wide, bare mouth when she smiled, had suckered him into feeling a twinge of sympathy for her cluelessness.

He also had to admit, as personality traits went, cluelessness was far preferable to calculated treachery.

Feeling more weary than he ever had in his life, Grant gently tugged Haley’s tangled covers from around her legs, smoothing them over her frail-looking shoulders. She stirred, her eyes never opening, trusting at least in sleep, even if not when awake.

Helplessness and hope collided inside his chest, nearly taking his breath.

Mia waited until she was back in her apartment, a cozy one-bedroom in the West Twenties, before digging out her cell phone to check her messages. At the sight of her parents’ number, she groaned, executing a much-practiced spin-and-flop maneuver onto her sofa as her father’s flat, blue-collar Massachusetts accent burrowed into her ear.

“Just wondering if you’d heard from your brother, or maybe you got a number for him or somethin’, some way for us to reach him? Give us a call sometime.”

No need to ask which brother they meant, since her four older brothers—and their families—all lived within ten blocks of the red-bricked, white-shuttered Springfield colonial they’d all grown up in. One black sheep out of six, you’d expect. Three, however—twelve years ago, her next oldest brother, Rudy, had knocked up his eighteen-year-old girlfriend, and then there was Mia walking away from a six-figure salary to start her own business—was just wrong. Still, at least Mia still touched base with her family from time to time. And Rudy lived with their parents, so their mother could watch his daughter, Stacey, while he was at work. Kevin, however…

She let out a sigh, punching the phone to retrieve her next message, thinking the kid would send them all to early graves. Except at twenty-six, he was hardly a kid anymore, was he…?

The second message was from Venus, her assistant, aka the Butt Saver.

“Girl, where the hell are you? I’ve been trying to call you all freaking day, which is scaring the crap out of me because I know you don’t go to the bathroom without taking your phone with you. If I don’t hear from you by midnight, I’m calling the police. And no, I’m not kidding.”

In her early fifties and the most organized human being Mia had ever known, Venus had been Mia’s secretary at Hinkley-Cohen. And as eager to ditch the nine-to-five—or, in Mia’s case, eight-to-whenever—grind as Mia had been. She immediately hit the callback button, spewing, “Sorry, sorry, sorry!” in the wake of Venus’s “This had damn sight better be good!” Only as soon as she told Venus why she’d been incommunicado, she was all, “You’re not serious? Oh, hell…I’m so sorry, baby! You must be a wreck, I know the two of you were pretty tight.”

Yeah, that’s what she had thought, too.

But now past the initial shock, Mia had to finally acknowledge the tiny flicker of doubt that had grown increasingly brighter since Justine’s divorce, that Justine and she had been drifting apart. Not blatantly, and not all the time—the shopping trip again came to mind—but there’d definitely been the odd moment when Mia would catch Justine looking at her with something approaching regret in her eyes. As though she’d made a pact she now wished she could break. Sometimes Mia would even wonder if her babysitting availability had been the only reason Justine bothered to keep their relationship going.

“Yeah, we were,” she now said to Venus, tears stinging her eyes. “Even if you didn’t understand why.”

“Oh, I suppose I did, if I thought hard enough about it. The two of you being new at the same time, and Justine being all flashy and glittery and worldly and whatnot, and you this subdued little thing when you first got there. What were you, twenty-one?”

“Twenty-two. And I was never subdued! And I haven’t been little since kindergarten!”

“Okay, unpolished, then. Those sorry, clunky shoes you used to wear—”

“Hey. I paid big bucks for those shoes.”

“Then more fool you. And that pitiful thing you called a suit… Honey, I had ancestors from the plantation days who were better dressed. So it was no wonder you gravitated toward her. But you know something? I never did think the friendship was real balanced. That one of you was getting more out of it than the other.”

Mia frowned. “Meaning me, I presume?”

“Hell, no. Miss Justine definitely got the better end of that deal. Flash and glitter might be real pretty to look at, but you were the one with the substance. The solid one. Even if you were younger. She needed you a lot more than you ever needed her.” She paused. “She needed somebody to worship her, to make her less like the little butt-wipe associate she was.”

If Mia hadn’t been lying down already, her knees would have given out from under her. “First off, we were both butt-wipe associates. Secondly, why didn’t you ever say anything before?”

“None of my business? Wouldn’t have made any difference? You seemed to be happy enough the way things were? Take your pick. And the difference was, you took your butt-wipe status in stride. She didn’t.” Her tone softened. “To tell you the truth, mostly I just felt sorry for Justine. She was one insecure chick. And I truly hope she finds whatever it was she was looking for on the other side, since she clearly didn’t here. But I always admired you for sticking by her. The world needs more people like you, baby. And I know you must be hurting right now. So, listen, you want to pull out of the Chin party tomorrow, you go right ahead—”

“No! No, that’s why I came back.” One of the reasons, anyway, the other one being she could only deal with so much masculine brooding intensity at one time. That she’d actually agreed to put herself in the path of that brooding intensity for three or four entire days…

“You sure?” Venus said. “Because everything’s under control from my end, and we’ve got Cissy, Armando and Silas lined up, they could practically handle things without either one of us—”

“I’m sure, Vene. Anyway, it’ll do me good to focus on something else. But I did agree to go back for a few days, after the party. For Haley’s sake.”

“Oh, that’s right, I forgot about the baby. Poor little thing. But at least she still has her daddy.”

“Yeah, you’d think, wouldn’t you?” Mia briefly explained the situation, which got another huge sigh from the older woman.

“Why is it you have to get a license to drive a car or serve booze or sell a house, but any idiot with a functioning joystick can have kids? Explain that one to me.”

Mia smiled. “I wish I could. Not that I know what I’m doing, either, but I promised to at least give it a shot. So anyway, I’ll meet you at the Chins’ at noon…?”

After she’d squared everything away with Venus, she called her parents, breathing a sigh of relief when the machine picked up. Over at one of her brothers’ houses, no doubt. Once again, she gave a quick rundown of events, that she’d be going back up to Connecticut the day after tomorrow, that, no, she didn’t have a number for Kevin, she hadn’t heard from him for months, when he’d called from Albuquerque.

Immediate obligations dispatched, Mia hauled herself off the sofa to forage in her Lilliputian-size kitchen, thinking perhaps she’d been a bit too hasty turning down Grant’s offer. Now, glowering into the vast wasteland that was her refrigerator, she almost rued that steely resolve—read: stubbornness—that had seen her through high school, college, those first harrowing years as a Hinkley-Cohen butt-wipe.

As she was flipping through the smeared, dog-eared takeout menus tacked up by her phone, her doorbell rang. A quick glance through her peephole revealed the distorted visage of Mrs. Epstein, the self-appointed leader of the tenants’ group hoping—slim though those hopes might be—to stonewall the landlord’s bid to take the building co-op.

Under normal circumstances, Mia liked Mrs. Epstein well enough, her tendencies toward gossipmongering notwithstanding. Tonight, however, she was not in the mood. But alas, the moment she turned to tiptoe away, she heard, “It’s no good pretending you’re not home, sweetheart, I heard the floorboards creak.”

Damn prewar joists.

On a sigh, Mia threw the trio of dead bolts and swung open the door, hanging on to the two-inch-thick (a half-inch of which was paint) slab for support. She smiled. Then frowned. Under a maroon bob, every wrinkle the old woman possessed screamed “bad news.”

“We lost, bubelah. The slimeball can’t kick us out until our leases are up, but there’s no renewing them. We either have to buy or leave. The lawyer said we could contest it, drag it out a little longer, but the legal fund’s all used up already. And the longer we wait, he says, the more it’s gonna cost to buy in.”

It was just as well Mia hadn’t eaten yet, because God knows her stomach’s contents would have made a reappearance. All over poor Mrs. Epstein. She muttered a not-nice word, which got a nod and a “You said it, sweetheart” from the old woman before she shuffled off to spread the joyous news.

Mia shut the heavy door, sliding down onto the floor with her head in her hands.

No way could she afford to buy her apartment. She’d used up nearly her entire savings as seed money for her business; only in the last few months had she been able to start repaying herself, but it would be a good year or two before she’d brought her reserves back up to what they once were. So forget the odd twenty or so grand necessary for a down payment. She didn’t even have the thinnest of cushions to keep her from starving if for some reason she couldn’t work. And mortgage companies didn’t exactly welcome the self-employed—especially when the self-employed were, for all intents and purposes, dirt poor—with open arms.

And the best part of all this? Her lease was up in two weeks.

Two weeks.

She was one seriously screwed chick.

Chapter Three

“For heaven’s sake, Grant—it’s freezing out here!”

Even though they were in the sun—and it was in the mid-fifties, to boot—Grant’s mother clutched the suede-trimmed collar of her plaid wool blazer, shivering up a storm as they stood at the edge of the circular drive fronting the house. “Of course Haley misses her mother,” Elizabeth “Bitsy” Braeburn said, her voice far chillier than the temperature. Sunlight glinted coldly off her severely pulled-back blond hair. “That doesn’t give her license to rule the roost. And if you don’t exercise some control over the child now, God help us all when she gets to be a teenager.”

“She’s not even four, Mother,” Grant said in a low voice, his hands balled in the pockets of his leather bomber jacket, thinking, You should only know how much control I’m exercising right now. “She doesn’t even understand yet that Justine’s dead.”

“Then tell her again.”

“I have. Repeatedly. As has Etta. The concept means nothing to her.” He tore his gaze away from his daughter—all bundled up in sweaters and fleece-lined everything, sitting cross-legged in the leaf-cluttered grass with Henry in her lap as she kept an eagle eye on the ten-foot-tall entry gate—to look at his mother. Who, for reasons not yet clear, had shown up uninvited a half hour before, impeccably coiffed and tastefully accessorized, as always. “And according to the psychologist, there’s not a damn thing I, or anyone, can do to force things.” He looked back. “When she’s ready to accept Justine’s death, she will.”

The vigil had begun yesterday morning, when Haley announced she was going outside to “wait for Mommy.” Both Etta and Grant had patiently repeated the whole heaven thing, only to be met with an unsettling “Have you ever seen heaven?” When he had to admit that, no, he hadn’t, a tiny chin went up in the air, followed by “Then how do you know it’s real?”

A particularly thorny question to ask someone who didn’t, in fact, “know” anything of the sort. But what was the alternative? At the moment, letting Haley believe her mother was somewhere else seemed a far better option than trying to explain that Justine no longer was.

But who knew the “somewhere else” would prove to be the sticking point, that in Haley’s bright but still developing mind, being somewhere else meant that, at some point, a person could return. Clearly convinced—and rightly so—that her mother would never simply leave her, she simply couldn’t comprehend that Justine wasn’t coming back.

Hence the vigil. And since Grant couldn’t see letting a three-year-old sit outside by herself for hours on end, here he, and his trusty BlackBerry, were. Never mind that, when he asked Haley if she’d like company, her only response was a “suit yourself” shrug.

At least this morning there really was someone to wait for: Mia. Who should be arriving any minute. Hell. His mother hadn’t exactly taken to Justine; he could only imagine what she thought of Mia, with whom she’d only dealt with in the context of the wedding, five years before.

“For God’s sake,” Grant said as his mother’s shivering increased. “Go inside and get warm. I’m sure Etta’s got the coffeepot on—”

“Who on earth is that at the gate?” Bitsy said, shielding her eyes from the sun.

Speaking of the devil. Or—loath as Grant was to admit it—more likely a godsend, he thought as he caught sight of Mia’s old minivan, growling impatiently as it waited for Etta to buzz the gate open.

“That can’t be right,” his mother said as the gates slowly groaned apart. “Grant, you simply must speak to Etta—she can’t go letting in every Tom, Dick and Harry who wanders down the drive by mistake!”

“It’s not a mistake.” Grant said quietly, ignoring his mother’s flummoxed expression as Haley scrambled to her feet, showing her first signs of enthusiasm in two days. “Stay on the grass!” Grant yelled when the little girl started running toward the drive, almost amazed when she actually stopped. As the van passed, Haley spun around, her small legs pumping as she raced it up to the house. A minute later, Mia and his daughter were a tangle of arms and kisses, and his mother—being possessed of a one-hundred-gigabyte memory—said, “Why is she here?”

“Did you bring Mommy?” Haley asked, trying to peer around Mia to see inside the van.

After the briefest of glances in Grant’s direction, Mia crouched in front of the child, shaking her head. “No, sweetie,” she said softly. “Remember? Mommy’s not alive anymore.” She gently tugged a curl. “So you can’t see her. Nobody can.”

Haley regarded Mia for a moment or two before her thumb went into her mouth, her other arm strangling the poor stuffed toy around its neck. Then she settled into Mia’s arms again, her curls flattened against Mia’s bulky sweater, and Grant’s throat tightened.

“That’s why she’s here,” he pushed out. When, however, he noticed Mia’s struggle to stand with Haley clinging to her, he strode over to relieve her of the child, in a move both unpremeditated and instinctive.

Now on her feet, and clearly oblivious to the bits of leaves and dirt on the knees of her jeans, Mia’s eyes darted from Haley—who, while not exactly relaxed in his arms, wasn’t squirming to get down, either—to Grant. A small smile toyed with her mouth before she turned to Grant’s mother, who’d joined them. The smile stretched a little further.

“Mrs. Braeburn,” she said smoothly, extending her hand. “It’s been a long time. How are you?”

A moment passed before his mother apparently decided it wouldn’t kill her to remove her hand from her pocket to shake Mia’s. “All right, I suppose. Considering the circumstances.” She withdrew her hand, readjusting a large tourmaline-and-diamond ring that had shifted sideways over her protruding knuckle.

If his mother’s imperiousness bothered Mia, she didn’t let on. But then it occurred to Grant that, in her line of work, she must deal with women like his mother every day.

“Yes, of course.” Sadness flickered across her face, but the smile never wavered. “You look fantastic, though. I love your jacket!”

Eyes that had seen their share of tweakings over the past few years widened almost imperceptibly—point to Mia, for catching the old girl off guard.

“Um…thank you, dear.” Bitsy’s gaze remained on Mia for a long moment. “Thank you,” she repeated, then turned to Grant. “Now can we go inside before I freeze my assets off?”

“I’m here to tell you,” Etta said, hanging the vintage, black silk dupioni dress Mia planned to wear for the funeral in a white-washed armoire that, in any other house, would have dwarfed the room, “I have never seen that woman at a loss for words. I don’t know if that makes you an angel or a witch, but whatever you are, keep it up! You need me for anything else, hon?”

“I didn’t need you at all,” Mia gently pointed out, shoving shut the drawer to a small Bombay chest by the bed. “Please, please don’t wait on me, Etta—it makes me hugely uncomfortable.”

Her red lips pulled down at the corners, the older woman crossed her arms under her bosom. “Well, get over it, because that’s what Mr. B. pays me for. And besides…” She glanced furtively toward the bedroom’s open door, then lowered her voice. “I can’t tell you how nice it is to have somebody normal to talk to, for once.”

Mia turned, a smile twitching at her lips. “You don’t like Mr. Braeburn?”

“Oh, please…I got Mr. B.’s number a long time ago. He’s not so bad, once you get past all the crap. But that mother of his…” Etta shook her head as Mia wondered what “number,” exactly, Etta meant. “Talk about a piece of work. Thank God you’re here, is all I have to say. For the baby’s sake, I mean. If Dragon Lady had her way…ohmigod, can you imagine the amount of therapy the poor kid would need down the road?”

“Etta! That’s terrible. And anyway, I’m only here until after the funeral. Which you know. Besides, Grant said he’s already taken Haley to see somebody, right?”

After a hmmph meant to sum up her entire opinion on modern psychology, Etta said, “So. There’s already two blankets on the bed, but if you need more, they’re in the chest there at the foot of the bed, along with more pillows…. What’re you lookin’ at?”

The panorama outside the window had drawn Mia like a fashionista to a sample sale. “Everything,” she said on a sigh, sinking onto the window seat. Although she knew there were other houses close enough to see from here, a miniforest of autumn-tinged trees obliterated all semblance of civilization. In the distance, the sun glanced off a sliver of the Long Island Sound, like a diamond tennis bracelet nestled amongst the foliage. “It really is spectacular, isn’t it?”

Etta crossed the thick-piled white carpet—with the room’s pale, lemon-yellow walls, it was like being inside a meringue pie—to join her at the window. “It is that. And thank God Mr. B. didn’t tear the house down and replace it with one of those McMonsters like a lot of them have. Who the hell needs a forty-thousand-square-foot house?”

It was true. So many of the older houses in the area, erected at the turn of the century as testaments to their owner’s position and wealth, had been replaced in the past decade or so by dozens of insanely overpriced, oversized mansions as testaments to their owner’s overblown egos. Bowling alleys, home theaters larger than your average Manhattan art house, heliports, thirty-car garages… Amazing, how Grant managed with only seven bedrooms and eight baths, the formal dining room that easily sat twenty, the pool and the tennis court and the six-car garage. Still, the place—with its slump rock exterior and traditional floor plan—exuded an aura of settledness that somehow precluded pretension.

It was, quite simply, a lovely house. The kind of house that engendered fond childhood memories, that called scattered siblings back year after year for Christmas and Thanksgiving and wedding anniversaries….

Frowning, she angled her head to get a better look at the pool, now covered, and guesthouse. “He fixed it up?” she asked Etta.

“The guesthouse? Yeah, about two years ago. Before the divorce. You should see it inside, it’s really something. All new kitchen and bath, the works. Listen, I made chowder for lunch, is that okay? Or I can put deli stuff out for sandwiches…?”

Mia turned to her, smiling. “Chowder’s fine.” Then she frowned. “Is Haley eating?”

Etta shrugged. “Not really. But then, she never really ate before, as far as I could tell. How the kid is still alive, I have no idea.” She started toward the door, then twisted back, as if weighing whether or not to say whatever she was thinking. When she finally said, “Lunch is at twelve-thirty,” Mia doubted that was it.

Well. Her clothes put away, her laptop set up on a small desk near the window, she might as well make herself useful and go look for Haley. Who she found—along with her father—out in the park that passed for a backyard. Haley and Henry shared a low-slung swing on a shiny new set, under the watchful eye of her father, seated on the flagstone patio in a white, cast-iron chair, his ankle crossed at the knee. At Mia’s “Hey, there,” he looked up, his frown—permanent, from what she could tell—easing somewhat.

“All settled in?” he asked, his attention drifting back to his daughter.

“Yeah.” Her hands in the pockets of her down vest, Mia lowered herself into a matching chair a few feet away. “Your mother left?”

“Yes, thank God.” He spared her a glance. “I don’t think she quite knows what to make of you.”

“I seem to have that effect on people.” When he didn’t reply, she said, “You know, since I’m here now, if you need to get back to work…?”

“Thanks,” he said, his eyes never leaving his daughter. “But I’m fine.”

Mia followed his gaze. “How’s she been?”

Grant’s shoulders hitched in a semblance of a shrug. “Quiet. Keeping to herself. Except for asking us where Justine is every five seconds. Which the doctor said to expect.” He leaned forward, his hands between his knees. “I went online, did some reading up.”

“Yeah. Me, too. Late last night, after I got back. From the anniversary party?” He nodded, a slight breeze ruffling his hair. Either he hadn’t shaved this morning or he had a seriously overachieving five-o’clock shadow.

“I suppose it’s at least somewhat reassuring,” he said, “to know her reaction is normal.”

“Yeah,” Mia breathed out. “Kinda hard to react to something you don’t understand.” She sank back into the chair, her hands still in her pockets. The breeze picked up, rustling the leaves, sending a few hang gliding onto the grass. “Um…not that I’m trying to horn in or anything, but if you need help with the arrangements…?” When the frown deepened, she said, “It’s what I do, remember?”

“Help?”

“No. Well, that, too. But I meant pulling food and whatnot together for two hundred out of a hat. It’s why God created delis that make up platters of artfully arranged cold cuts.”

“I take it you don’t generally do funeral receptions, though.”

“I have. They can be parties, too, depending on the deceased.”

“Not in this case.”

“No. Not in this case.”

His eyes drifted back to Haley. “I’ll pay you for your time.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” she said, earning her a puzzled glare. Interesting combination. “Just sign a check for the food and we’ll call it square.”

Another nod. Then he said, “I know it’s probably nuts, asking people to trek all the way out here after the service. But I thought it might help Haley. If she could say goodbye here.”

“Makes sense to me,” Mia said, and his shoulders seemed to relax, just a fraction, and it hit her how hard this was on him, navigating these completely uncharted waters with nothing to guide him except, she supposed, a basic desire to do the right thing by his daughter. Well, that, and the best therapy money could buy.

“I also shouldn’t have strong-armed you into this,” he said suddenly.

“This?”

“Coming back,” he said, not looking at her as he slowly ground his knuckles into the palm of his other hand. “You’ve got that pained look people get when they’re forced to be someplace they don’t want to be. It’s just I was so desperate the other day, I reacted without thinking…. I apologize.”

Mia blinked, then laughed softly. “Believe me, Grant—if I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t be. No apology necessary.”

Under hooded lids, his eyes slid back to hers…and her stomach flipped. Nothing had prepared her for the full force of that probing gaze, riddled with concern. It was almost as if…

Never mind, she told herself as, knocked flat on her mental butt, she looked away until she could right herself again. When she didn’t reply fast enough to suit him, he probed further.

“Then what’s wrong?” he probed further. “Is it work?”

“No!” she said, a knee-jerk reaction to the presumption implicit in the question. “Business is great, O ye of little faith.”

“Then what?”

She messed with a thread dangling from the hem of her sweater, then crossed her arms. “Not that you’d care, but…my building’s going co-op.” Her mouth pulled down at the corners. “I have to either move or buy when my lease is up. In two weeks.”

“They can’t give you only two weeks’ notice, for God’s sake!”

“They didn’t. It’s been in the plans for more than a year. But I’ve been so busy with work…and I kept holding out this tiny hope that we’d win the battle and the landlord would back down.”

“Never mind that that almost never happens.”

“I know,” she said on a stream of air.

“I take it you can’t afford to buy?”

She let out a dry little laugh. “Everything I have—had—is tied up in the business.”

“You used personal capital as seed money?”

“It’s not unheard of, Grant. Especially since I couldn’t get a loan to save myself. So you can stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m some dumb cluck who had no idea what she was getting into.”

“Did you even have a contingency plan?”

Tamping down the urge to slug the man, she said, “I left Hinkley-Cohen on very good terms. I could have gone back anytime.”

“But you didn’t.”

“Okay, Grant? Hard as this might be for you to believe, I did know the risks going in. I also knew, given time and a long enough lever, I could make it. And I did. Am. But I was already in up to my eyeballs when the whole co-op ball started to roll. Moving then wasn’t an option. So I took another risk, that the landlord’s plan would fall through. Since it didn’t,” she said, turning back, “I suppose I’ll figure something out.”

“In two weeks.”

“Twelve days, actually…. Hey, cookie,” she said softly as Haley approached. “What’s up?”

As much as it warmed Mia’s heart when the little girl wriggled up into her lap, she didn’t miss Grant’s scowl at having not been chosen. Well, bud, she thought, wrapping her arms around Haley’s waist, you’re the only one who can fix that.

“How’s Henry doing today?” she asked, her lips close to the little girl’s ear.

A shrug. “His mommy still hasn’t come back.” A pause. “He’s getting scared,” she said, ruffling the thing’s increasingly matted mane. “He says everybody keeps telling him she’s gone to heaven and she can’t come back, ever. That makes his heart hurt.”

As it did Mia’s. She hugged Haley more tightly. “I know,” she whispered, laying her cheek against the soft curls. “I know it does. So you have to hug Henry lots and lots to make him feel better.”

“I am. But he said it doesn’t help.”

“It will, lamb chop,” Mia said, her eyes burning, not caring if Grant’s were boring holes in the side of her face. “Eventually, it will.”

“Promise?”

“I promise. You just have to keep reminding Henry how much you love him.”

“Like you love me?”

Mia thought her own heart would break. “Yep. Like I love you. And Etta and your daddy and your grandma—we’re all going to love you and love you until it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

A moment later, Haley cocked her head, as if listening to the stuffed toy. Then she slid off Mia’s lap and turned to her. “Henry wants to know if you’d push us on the swing.”

“I think that can be arranged,” Mia said, getting up and holding out her hand.

“Mia.”

Grant’s low voice brought her head back around. He’d stood, his hands in his pockets, his mouth a straight line.

“If you want to buy your apartment, I’d be happy to cosign for your loan.”

Her eyes popped open. As did her mouth. When the buzzing stopped, however, she leaned over to Haley and said, “Go on back to the swing, I’ll be there in a sec.” When she was sure the little girl was out of earshot, she looked back up at Grant, standing there looking like the Daddy of all Immovable Objects.

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“To say thank you?”

“Then you can send me flowers. Or give me a gift certificate to Bloomie’s. But I wouldn’t dream of letting you take that risk. Or myself. I really can’t predict my cash flow right now—”

“Not a problem.”

“For you, maybe not. For me, yes. Thank you,” she said softly, when he blew an obviously frustrated breath through his nose. “That’s incredibly generous. But no.” A piece of hair blew into her face; she pushed it back, angling her head. “My mommy always told me never to take financial favors from strangers.”

“We’re not strangers, Mia.”

Man, this dude did not give an inch, did he? “Uh, yeah. We are.”

Apparently accepting that they’d reached a stalemate, he said, “Then I suppose you’ll be looking for another apartment when you get back to the city.”

“That’s the plan, yep.”

“In less than ten days.”

“Rub it in, why doncha?”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “There is one more option. If push comes to shove.” He nodded toward the guesthouse. “It’s sitting empty, anyway.”

“Oh! Oh, no, I couldn’t—”

“Think about it,” he said, then turned and strode back inside.

“I take it we’re not talking some rickety old shack you wouldn’t keep your dog in?”

Mia could count on Venus not to mince words, about this or anything else.

“Uh, no.” After Haley went down for her nap, Mia got the key from Etta to check out the guesthouse. Not that she was even remotely considering taking Grant up on his offer, but she figured she might as well know what she was turning down. “Two bedrooms,” she said into her cell. “Wood floors—well, carpet in the bedrooms—a kitchen big enough for a table and more than half a person in it at once—”

“Get out.”

“I know, I know. Of course, compared with the main house, it is a shack. Compared with what I’m likely to be able to afford in Manhattan, however, it’s a palace. But come on—it’s in Connecticut!”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you’re in Washington Heights?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And what’s with the ‘uh-huhs’?”

“Think back. Way back. To the way you nearly broke something trying to get a better look when Grant walked by your office on his way to his appointment with that tax attorney—what was his name again?”

“I did not!” At yet another “uh-huh,” Mia sighed. “Okay, but that was temporary insanity by reason of immaturity. And anyway, my reservations have nothing to do with… that.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Venus. I’ve met warmer cadavers.”

“Girl, you have got to get out more.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Unfortunately, I do. But may I remind you that particular cadaver just offered to co-sign a sizable loan for you? Not to mention save your sorry butt so you don’t end up out on the street?”

“Oh, please…this is a man who invests millions without batting an eye. And what skin would it be off his nose to let me live in this house?” Her gaze skimmed over the skuzz-free stove, the gleaming stainless steel refrigerator with a freezer large enough to hold more than a two frozen dinners, a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and a single ice cube tray.

“You’re tempted, I can tell,” Venus said.

“Of course, I’m tempted. I’m not made of stone.”

“We’re both still talking about the house, right?”

“And you so don’t want to give me a reason to rethink the raise I was going to give you.”

“He didn’t have to offer,” Venus said, completely unconcerned. “But he did anyway. And it’s been more than a year since that dirtwad dumped you and as far as I know you haven’t even looked at a man since, and here’s this good-looking dude being all generous and kind—”

“Kind might be stretching it,” Mia said. “And it’s not as if there’s no ulterior motive. And besides…”

“Yeah, I know—after what happened between him and Justine, blah, blah, blah. And a girlfriend doesn’t mess around another girlfriend’s man, never mind that they’d been divorced for more than a year and it’s not like she’s gonna know, anyway. And you know something else? It takes two, baby. Meaning I know you’re being loyal to Justine and all, but maybe she had something to do with the marriage falling apart, too. I’m just saying. Because you do have a problem with letting friendship blind you to who somebody really is. Take ours, for instance—you probably think I’m actually nice.”

“In general or at the moment?”

Venus snorted, then said, “But as far as the you-in-Connecticut-me-still-in-Manhattan thing…first off, seeing as half your clients are already up there, anyway, I’m not sure what difference it makes whether you’re schlepping up there from Manhattan, or down to Manhattan from there. And think of how much you’ll save in garage fees.”

She had a point there. Mia needed the van for her work, but she could support a medium-size developing country for what she paid to berth her car every month. Hey, maybe she could live in her car, skip paying rent altogether…?

“I don’t know, Venus. It sounds good on paper, but…I don’t know. Look, I need to get back. Etta and I have to figure out what we’re doing for this reception, since I seriously doubt people are going to show up with funeral food. As far as I know, I’ll be back in the city on Friday.”

“Yeah, but for how long?” Venus said, then hung up.

Leaving Mia standing in the middle of a puddle of brilliant fall sunshine gilding the living room’s polished oak floor, feeling very conflicted indeed.

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