“Caroline…” Matt murmured, taking a step toward her. “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you want. Sorry I can’t be the man you want me to be.”

His anguished apology lit her up like a short fuse. Shifting the little girl in her arms, she turned to face him at last.

Confusion washed over his features as he saw the bundle in her arms for the first time. “What’s she doing here so late?”

“She lives here.”

His eyebrows drew together. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. The baby nuzzled against Caroline, whimpering.

She knew this wasn’t the way to tell him about the precious gift he’d been given. Not in anger. But fury and soul-deep hurt drove her on.

Without breaking eye contact with Matt, she raised the baby to her breast.

“She’s our daughter.”

Dear Reader,

They say that March comes in like a lion, and we’ve got six fabulous books to help you start this month off with a bang. Ruth Langan’s popular series, THE LASSITER LAW, continues with Banning’s Woman. This time it’s the Banning sister, a freshman congresswoman, whose life is in danger. And to the rescue…handsome police officer Christopher Banning, who’s vowed to get Mary Bren out of a stalker’s clutches—and into his arms.

ROMANCING THE CROWN continues with Marie Ferrarella’s The Disenchanted Duke, in which a handsome private investigator—with a strangely royal bearing—engages in a spirited battle with a beautiful bounty hunter to locate the missing crown prince. And in Linda Winstead Jones’s Capturing Cleo, a wary detective investigating a murder decides to close in on the prime suspect—the dead man’s sultry and seductive ex-wife—by pursuing her romantically. Only problem is, where does the investigation end and romance begin? Beverly Bird continues our LONE STAR COUNTRY CLUB series with In the Line of Fire, in which a policewoman investigating the country club explosion must team up with an ex-mobster who makes her pulse race in more ways than one. You won’t want to miss RaeAnne Thayne’s second book in her OUTLAW HARTES miniseries, Taming Jesse James, in which reformed bad-boy-turned-sheriff Jesse James Harte puts his life—not to mention his heart—on the line for lovely schoolteacher Sarah MacKenzie. And finally, in Keeping Caroline by Vickie Taylor, a tragedy pushes a man back toward the wife he’d left behind—and the child he never knew he had.

Enjoy all of them! And don’t forget to come back next month when the excitement continues in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Keeping Caroline
Vickie Taylor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

VICKIE TAYLOR

has always loved books—the way they look, the way they feel and most especially the way the stories inside them bring whole new worlds to life. She views her recent transition from reading to writing books as a natural extension of this longtime love. Vickie lives in Aubrey, Texas, a small town dubbed “The Heart of Horse Country,” where, in addition to writing romance novels, she raises American quarter horses and volunteers her time to help homeless and abandoned animals. Vickie loves to hear from readers. Write to her at: P.O. Box 633, Aubrey, TX 76277.

This book is dedicated to Frank, for the wealth of information he’s provided on police procedures (the good stuff is his; the mistakes are all mine) and for making the world a better, safer place.

And to my good friends Cathy, Linda and Jennifer, for their constant spirit, enthusiasm and encouragement.

Thanks, girls!

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Prologue

“I wanna talk to my wife. You get her here, or I’m gonna kill the kids. You there, cop? You listening?”

Damn. Matt Burkett paced helplessly, cursing again as he banged his knee on the postage-stamp-size table in the four-by-four cubicle allocated to the primary negotiator. Double damn. The Port Kingston, Texas, police department had laid out fifty-thousand good dollars renovating this old RV into a state-of-the-art Mobile Command Center, and there wasn’t even room to pace decently.

Downing an antacid with a swig of warm Diet Coke, he adjusted the microphone on his headset so he could speak. This Hostage Taker had been barricaded in the ex-wife’s house with their two kids going on fourteen hours now. Every time Matt got him halfway calmed down, the man went off again for no reason, regular as a friggin’ cuckoo clock.

One of these times Matt wasn’t going to be able to pull him back.

“I’m here, James. I told you I’m not going anywhere until we work this out. And I’m listening.”

“I wanna talk to my wife!” The voice on the other end of the phone rose to a disturbing tone of shrill. From the series of dull thuds he was hearing, Matt guessed the H.T. was kicking the walls again. Punching doors. “Get the bitch here. Now!”

Little Jasmine’s terrified cries pierced the static in Matt’s ear. His stomach lurched. If he’d eaten anything in the last fourteen hours, he might have lost it then. “You think killing your kids is going to make you feel better, James?”

“If I can’t have them, at least that bitch won’t have them, either.”

Matt rolled his shoulders, willing himself to relax. Let the H.T. scream, tremble, sweat all he wanted. It was the negotiator’s job to stay calm. Steady. And Matt was the best at containing the turmoil around him, inside him. “You don’t want your ex-wife to have the kids?”

“She won’t let me see them, man. She cut me off. Got a court order.”

Matt validated the man’s feelings, as he’d been trained. “It’s important to you to see your kids.”

“’Course it’s important. She’s got them. I ain’t got nothing.”

“It’s lonely without your family, huh?”

The H.T. muttered something unintelligible, then swallowed audibly. “It’s like livin’ in limbo, man. An livin’ in limbo ain’t really living at all.” The H.T. was sobbing now. “You don’t know. You just don’t know.”

The hell he didn’t. Matt knew enough about limbo to teach a graduate course. “Maybe I do.”

“You got a family?”

“Not anymore.”

“What happened? Some bitch leave you, too?”

Matt gave up pacing and sat on the bench seat beneath the window. “Something like that.”

He pried up the shutters on the window. Down the block the H.T.’s house sat quiet. Almost peaceful-looking.

“She take your kids?”

He let the shutters fall back in place. “No. That isn’t it.”

Caroline hadn’t taken his son. God had.

Matt propped his elbows on his knees and dropped his head into his hands. “Death is awfully final, you know James?”

Were the kids hearing this conversation? Were they scared?

Sure they were. Hampton was using the speakerphone in his ex-wife’s home office. The kids could hear every word, just as Matt could hear their frightened whimpers. They knew the score—and the stakes of the game.

Hampton sniffed. “No more final than what she’s done. Moved half across the country, where we can’t even try to work things out. You know what that does to a man?”

“It’s tough.”

The H.T. sniffed, mollified. “Your wife run off on you, too?”

Matt shrugged, knowing Hampton couldn’t see him. Caroline hadn’t so much run off as he’d driven her away. “She moved back home. She’s got a little farm just outside a small town a few hours west of here. Sweet Gum. Ever heard of it?”

“Naw, naw. I’m from Iowa, remember?”

“I remember.” Even if he hadn’t, the dossier the intel officers had already put together on Hampton would have reminded him.

“At least she’s close enough you can go see her. Talk to her. You should go talk to her, man.”

“Yeah, maybe I will,” Matt said noncommittally. “After all this is over.”

“My wife don’t want to talk to me. She took my kids away.” The H.T.’s sniffing grew more ragged. “Took them where I can’t see them again, ever. I just couldn’t let that happen, you know?”

Matt knew. He would do anything to see his son again. Anything. Squeezing his eyes shut, he pushed Brad’s image from his mind. More than miles separated him from his son.

“I just wanna ask her why she did it,” Hampton continued. His sniffles broke down into sobs. “Please, can I just talk to my wife.”

Matt opened his eyes. “That’s not so easy, you know? There are regulations—”

“The hell with regulations!” The H.T. let out a high-pitched groan, like wrenching metal. “Get the bitch here now!”

Jasmine wailed—a pitiful, keening cry.

“Shut up! Shut up, Jazzie.”

The more the H.T. yelled, the louder the girl cried. The older brother shouted in the background.

“James? Talk to me, man! Come on, I want to help you.”

No answer. Matt’s gaze landed hard on the hostages’s pictures pinned on the negotiation room wall. The girl, Jasmine, eight years old and her brother, James Junior, sixteen.

Just a few years older than Brad would have been now, if he’d lived.

Matt severed the thought in one brutal mental swipe. He didn’t have time for personal baggage right now. If he didn’t get this H.T. out soon, the guy was going to hurt those kids. When he did, there wouldn’t be any more negotiating. The tactical team would take over. All hell would break loose. Who knew who would get caught in the cross fire.

Matt couldn’t let that happen.

“James, I got an idea. An idea how you can talk to your wife.”

“Send her in here.”

“She’s not on scene,” he lied. “But I got an idea how you can talk to her. Let me run it by command and see if we can set it up, all right?”

“You’re stalling again!”

“These things take time, James. There’s logistics. Give me a few minutes to set something up.”

“Five minutes,” the H.T. yelled into his ear. “That’s it.”

“Might take a little longer, but I’ll try. You’re going to wait for me, right? Stay right there and do not do anything until you hear back from me?”

Three choppy breaths sawed across the line. “I’ll wait.”

Matt pointed at his backup negotiator, indicating Todd Thurman should stay on the line, stall.

Throwing his own headset aside, Matt headed for the door. The commander met him in the intelligence area, where two uniformed officers manned computers, gathering all the data there was to be had on one James Hampton.

“What the hell are you doing, Burkett, promising him he can talk to his wife?” his captain accused without preamble.

“He’s dug in, Cap. No other way to get him out.”

“You know better than to bring in a third party. Especially an ex-wife. She’s liable to push him right over the edge.”

“I can make it work.”

“No way.”

Matt turned to the officer decked out in black fatigues behind the captain. “What’s the tactical situation?”

The tactical liaison shrugged. “There isn’t one. He’s holed up in a back room with the hostages. No windows, only one access—down a long, narrow hall.”

Matt stared hard at his captain, the on-scene commander. He didn’t have to state the futility of sending a tactical team into a setup like that.

Castro, one of the intelligence officers, swiveled around in his chair. “We’ve located the H.T.’s doctor from Iowa. Medical records don’t look good. Man’s got an anger management problem. His shrink says he could definitely go through with it.”

“Hell,” the captain muttered.

“He got a history of family violence?” Matt asked.

Castro turned back to his computer and tapped a few keys. “He’s slapped the wife around a few times.”

“Anything on the kids?”

Castro leaned closer to his screen. “Nope. Just the wife.”

Matt nodded. “Good. I can use that. He doesn’t really want to hurt those kids.”

The captain pinched the bridge of his nose. “All right, what’s this idea of yours?”

“We get the wife on video. We can rehearse her. Keep it short and control every word, every expression. Send in a tape.”

“What’ll that do, besides maybe set him off like a roman candle?”

“I can trade the tape for one of the kids.”

“Still leaves him with a hostage.”

“One less than he had.”

The captain’s frown said he wasn’t buying it. Matt couldn’t blame him. But this H.T. was dangerously close to flaming out already, and as it stood, they had no alternatives if that happened.

Matt looked at Castro. “How many VCRs in the house?”

The intelligence officer reached for a phone. After a brief conversation, he looked up, grim. “One. In the front room.”

Matt glanced at the house on the overhead video monitor. The front room had lots of nice big windows for the snipers. And the blinds were open in all of them.

His stomach did a neat tuck-and-roll.

Sometimes it was necessary for the negotiator to set up the tactical solution, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. He’d been working crisis scenes for ten years and never lost a hostage—or a hostage taker—yet. He didn’t plan to start today.

“Do it,” the captain said, then nodded at the tactical liaison. “Tell your team to get ready.”

“Cap.” Matt spoke up before the tactical officer exited. “If I get the kids out, we negotiate the H.T. as long as it takes, right? Give him a chance to end this the right way.”

“You want this son of a bitch out in one piece, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” He always formed some sort of bond with his H.T.s, but the connection with James Hampton was especially strong. Matt saw too much of his own life in the man’s situation. Heard his own frustration in the man’s words.

“The man’s a wife-beater.”

“Last I heard, we don’t shoot people for that.”

Sighing, the captain shook his head. “You get those kids out, you can talk to him till Christmas for all I care. He goes off on them, though—” He nodded at the tactical officer. “Brooks takes over.” Then to Matt he said, “We’ll have the tape in ten.”

Back in the negotiator’s room, Matt pulled on his headset and sat down. With a deep breath, he signaled his backup that he had control now. “All right, James. We got your wife. Here’s what we’re going to do.” He explained how they would send a videotape to the front door via robot.

“There’s just one thing,” Matt added nonchalantly. “We’re going to need something from you in return.”

“What the—?”

“You’re going to have to give us one of the kids.”

The H.T.’s breathing shifted to a faster gear.

“Come on, James. I’m trying to help you. Work with me.”

James hiccuped, and Matt knew the crying had started again. Hang in there, man.

“It’s a trick.”

“No trick. Just a trade. Send out one of the kids, and you get the tape. You want to see what your wife says, don’t you?”

The H.T. whimpered. Matt let him think.

“All…all right.”

“Good, James. Great. We’re setting up the robot now.”

Giving him the thumbs-up, Todd Thurman switched the phone to mute. “You’re one cool dawg, Burkett. You got him.”

Matt sat back, his heart kicking painfully. He wasn’t so sure he had anyone.

His skin prickled with nervous sweat. He had to up the stakes now, while he was still in the game. He cleared his throat and motioned for Thurman to open the microphone again. “Which kid are you going to send out, James?”

“I—I don’t know.”

The video monitor in the corner of the room showed the robot rolling up the front walk. About twenty feet out, the cop at the controls stopped the radio-controlled ’bot, waiting for their payoff.

“Which one do you love the most? Jasmine—Jazzie? Or James Junior? Your only son, or your little girl? Which one deserves to live? You choose.”

Thurman slapped the mute button on the phone controls. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Getting the kids out of there. Both of them.”

“You’re gonna lose him.”

“I’m not going to lose anyone,” Matt exploded. “Now turn the damn telephone back on.”

His blood screaming in his veins, Matt waited until the light blinked green. “James, you still there?”

“I—I can’t do it. I can’t decide.”

“One of them has to go.” Matt closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. His throat felt as though it had been scraped raw. His head felt as if it was going to explode. “You have to choose. Which one lives, which one stays, and maybe dies?”

James sobbed into the phone.

“Unless you want to send them both out,” Matt suggested softly.

“Then I won’t have nobody. I won’t have nobody, man.”

“You’ll have me. I’m not going anywhere.”

The H.T. made a sound like a trapped animal. Wounded. Dying. The phone clattered as if he’d dropped it.

“James? James!” Matt yelled, his gaze glued to the video monitor. His body braced for the blast of gunfire.

He’d pushed too hard. God, he’d pushed too hard, too fast.

But there were no gunshots. An eerie silence descended on the scene as parabolic microphones across the street from the H.T.’s house picked up the creak of hinges. Time stopped as the front door swung slowly open.

Eight-year-old Jasmine Hampton stood in the doorway, cheeks streaked with tears. Her brother nudged her from behind, and they stepped out onto the porch, blinking like owls in the bright sunlight. Their father stood behind them, a dim silhouette of a man in a shadowed foyer.

Matt didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. “Come on. Come on,” he whispered to no one.

Brother and sister took another halting step forward, then another.

Four tactical officers in full body armor darted from cover. Two trained weapons on the entrance to the house. A third officer scooped up Jasmine, tucked her against his side and kept running. The fourth slung an arm around James Junior’s shoulders, shielding him and hurrying him along. But the boy stopped, turned to look back at the house, his eyes huge and haunted.

On the porch, James Hampton fell to his knees as the robot rolled to the door.

Come on, James, Matt willed. Get the tape and get back inside. Get on the phone. Talk to me.

James stood, but he didn’t pick up the tape. He looked at the clear expanse of azure sky. Watched the breeze rattle the sugar maples. Wiped the dampness from his cheeks.

Matt shuddered. No. He knew that look. James wasn’t going back to the phone. Throwing off his headset, he ran for the door. He had to get outside. Had to get to his H.T.—

Even as he started to move, Matt knew it was too late. He stared, transfixed, at the monitor as James lifted his weapon and ran toward the police barricades on the street. The shotgun muzzle flashed and a deep-throated concussion shook the video camera.

In the side yard James Junior tried to run back toward the house, but an officer restrained him. Horror etched a deep epithet into the boy’s face as he watched his father pull the trigger again, then a third time, until the perimeter officers were left with no choice but to return fire.

A barrage of small arms fire peppered the air, and James Hampton wasn’t living in limbo any longer.

Chapter 1

Welcome to the plains of southwest Texas, Matt thought, kicking at a withered dandelion shoot wedged in a crack in the dry earth. Where even the hardiest of weeds struggled to find foothold in the dry earth and the wind blew so strong it could peel the paint off a pickup.

Not much survived here; not much tried.

Matt never thought he’d come back here. Never expected to have reason. But James Hampton changed all that.

What had happened yesterday had touched Matt deeply. Driven him to his study to sit in the dark in the wee hours last night. Pushed him to the bus station a few hours later when he knew what he had to do, where he had to go, but didn’t trust his weary body to drive himself there.

He dropped the duffel bag he was carrying to the ground at his feet. Bending over, he pulled the zipper back enough to check that the thick yellow envelope was still inside.

The finality of what he was about to do hit him like a fist in the gut. The urge to go home, to pretend everything was all right and none of this was happening, followed like a one-two punch. But Matt couldn’t let himself be knocked down.

James Hampton was right. Living in limbo wasn’t really living at all. It was time to get on with life.

Before Matt ended up just like him.

Picking up his duffel, he started again toward the sun. When he reached the bottom of the hill atop which his destination lay, he took the long way around. On the backside of the slope, out of sight of the road, he paused to skip a stone across the pond where he’d learned to skip stones years ago. After a time, he felt the pull of the weeping willow tree behind him like a physical force. Giving in to the compulsion, he stepped into the magical circle of its fronds.

Would it still be there?

With fingers and eyes he skimmed the gnarled trunk until he found what he was looking for. An old carving:

M.B. Loves C.E.

Matt Burkett loves Caroline Everett. He remembered the night he carved that. Back then, he’d thought love lasted forever. Through any hardship.

How idealistic he’d been. How young.

And he wasn’t getting any younger. No sense putting off the inevitable any longer.

With a sigh, he hitched his duffel over his shoulder, called his K-9 partner, Alpha—Alf for short—from the bank of the pond, and set off up the hill toward the house.

Caroline’s house.

Minutes later, breathing a little harder, he stood at the top of the hill and stared up at the turn-of-the-century Victorian monstrosity. “This is it, Alf.”

The dog looked dubiously at the old house, then nudged his nose under Matt’s hand for reassurance. Matt obliged with a few easy strokes over the dog’s graying muzzle. “Let’s go see who’s home.”

In the front yard he studied the house up close. The last time he had seen the place, the facade had shone pearly white. Looking up from the bottom of the hill, it would have fit right in with the feathery summer clouds in the sky above it. Now, paint peeled from a weathered gray frame that reminded him more of thunderheads than summer cumulus.

Of all the places Caroline could have run to, he wondered why she’d come back to Sweet Gum. Happy memories? Simpler times?

Maybe she’d come home for the slower way life was lived here, where time was measured in seasons, crops planted and harvested, instead of seconds. Precious moments that never lasted.

Lost in his thoughts, Matt didn’t notice the small black boy barreling around the corner of the house until it was too late. The boy, five or six from the looks of him, ran into his knees, then bounced a step back and said, “Hey!” as if Matt had stood in his path on purpose.

Matt reached down to steady the boy, who then kicked him in the shin. “Ow!”

“Who’re you?”

He held the boy with one hand and rubbed his leg with the other. “Who are you?”

“I axed first.”

Matt forced himself to not recoil from the small body despite the pain slicing through him at the sight of twiggy arms and knobby knees. The kid was as rangy as Brad had been at that age. Only when he met the boy’s wide eyes and saw…nothing…did he realize the boy was blind. Stomach clenched against the unfairness of the child’s disability, he lowered himself to one knee, sliding his hand down the boy’s arm to shake his hand, and spoke less harshly. “Name’s Matt Burkett. You?”

The boy narrowed his unseeing eyes distrustfully a moment, then relented. “Jeb Justiss.”

Matt let go of the boy’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Jeb.”

Jeb’s nose wrinkled. He lifted his head, scenting, then the corners of his mouth curled up. His blank eyes shone with glee. “Dog!” he said exuberantly, his hands searching the empty air. “Can I pet him?”

Matt signaled Alf away and stood. “No.”

Jeb’s jubilant expression fell.

“He’s a police dog, not a pet,” Matt explained.

“You a cop?”

“Uh-huh. K-9 squad.” When he wasn’t negotiating with suicidal hostage takers whose lives reminded him too much of his own.

“What’re you doin’ here?”

“I’m looking for my wi— For Caroline.”

“Oh. She’s in back, pay’ in.”

Painting. Matt realized what Jeb had been saying when the boy led him to the backyard where Caroline, her back to him, stood atop a wobbly ladder propped against the house. Her brush swept back and forth over the buckled siding with the care of a master artist adding color to canvas.

He stopped, drinking in the sight of her.

She’d put on weight. Lush curves had replaced the willowy leanness he remembered so intimately. The flare to her hips was a little less subtle. Her cheeks—the ones in back—filled the seat of her ridiculously short cutoffs in two tempting teardrops. The bloom looked good on her. Lord knows she’d been too thin before.

Grief could do that to a person.

Though he’d meant to be silent, enjoying the view more than he had any right, he must have given himself away with some small noise. She turned. White paint dotted her cheeks—the ones in front—and slashed across her wrists and hands, a stark contrast to her bronzed complexion.

For a few seconds they simply stared at each other. Then in lieu of a greeting, she said simply, “You’re late.”

Not exactly the welcome he’d been expecting. But then, he wasn’t sure that he really was welcome here. “Huh?”

“One year, we said. It’s been thirteen months, eight days.”

“Two hours and—” He checked his watch, getting her meaning. “About six minutes.”

She climbed down the ladder. “You remember.”

Three rungs above the ground, she took the hand he offered to balance her. Her fingers were warm and dry and trembled slightly, but her grip was strong.

He turned her to face him and found her warm caramel gaze just as strong. Vibrant. Alive. More alive than he’d felt in months.

He turned loose her hand and took a step back. “A man doesn’t forget the moment his wife walks out on him.”

Caroline set a bowl of water on the floor next to Alf and scratched him under the chin. The dog lapped up a drink, then drooled half of it down her arm, just like old times.

Standing, she looked around the room, trying to figure out what to do with herself next. Matt sat at the table in the breakfast nook. Even in a chair, his long legs and burly body took up most of the room. And what space his oversize frame didn’t fill, his sea green eyes seemed to devour.

He’d aged since she’d seen him last. Hard wear lines creased his face, and the smile that had once perpetually captured his mouth—and her attention—was long gone. Still, with his broad shoulders and barely tamed cap of golden, wavy hair, he looked more suited to the bow of a Viking raider than her antiquated kitchen.

Deciding a strategic retreat was in order, she backed away to the refrigerator and took out a pitcher. “How did you get here?”

“I walked.”

“All the way from Port Kingston?”

The flicker of good humor in his eyes fled too fast. “From the bus stop in town.”

She arched one brow as she handed him a glass of iced tea. “Something wrong with your Blazer?”

He frowned slightly as he wiped the condensation off his glass. “I needed the downtime.”

“Leave the driving to us, huh?”

“I guess.”

There was more to that story, she was sure. It wasn’t like Matt to give up control, to be a passenger, but she didn’t press. His transportation woes weren’t her concern any longer.

She lowered herself into the cane seat of a chair by the window, where she could keep an eye on Jeb outside. “So,” she finally said just because she couldn’t bear another moment of silence. “How’ve you been?”

“Fine.” He was lying. She could see it.

“How’ve you been?” he countered.

“Fine.”

The clock on the mantel ticked away fifteen seconds.

“Let’s not—” she started.

“Don’t—” Matt said at the same time.

He held up his hand obligingly. “You first.”

“Let’s not do this, Matt. Sit here like polite old acquaintances with nothing to talk about at the class reunion. We were married for God’s sake.”

“We’re still married.”

The hard edge in his voice caught her like a kick in the chest. “So we are. Is that why you’re here?”

He bent and pulled a thick yellow envelope out of his duffel. It landed on the table with a thud. “It’s time to get on with our lives.”

She didn’t reach out. Wouldn’t touch it. Couldn’t.

“I think you’ll find the settlement fair,” he said.

“I have no doubt.” She bit her lip. This shouldn’t be so hard. She was the one who’d left him. But still, it took the breath from her.

“You don’t have to worry about money. I’ll take care of you.”

Unable to sit another second, she swung out of her chair. “Is that what you think I worry about? Money?” The wood beneath the worn linoleum flooring creaked as she paced. In truth, she did worry about money. She worried about money a lot. The old house she’d inherited from her aunt Ginger needed so many repairs. Busy with her life, she’d nearly let it fall to ruin in the years she’d lived in Port Kingston with Matt. Now all her dreams depended on this house. Her future.

But Matt wouldn’t be interested in her dreams. Or her future.

“Is that why you think I left you? Because of money?”

Matt lowered his head. “I know you wanted…other things. Things I couldn’t give you.”

“‘Things’?” That did it. She squared off in front of him. “You can’t even say the word, can you?”

Slowly he raised his gaze. Penetrated her with that clear, green, dead sea stare. Matt had always been a master at hiding what he was really feeling behind that placid gaze. It was what made him such a good negotiator. Such a lousy husband.

“You wanted a baby,” he said flatly.

“I wanted to be a mother again. To hear a child cry because she didn’t get her way, not because she was in pain. To hear her laugh.” Her fingers curled into fists so tight her fingernails scraped her palms. “Do you remember what a child’s laughter sounds like, Matt? Because I didn’t, not until I came here. I only remembered the wails. The terror.”

He gripped his glass so tightly she was afraid it would shatter. “We have to move on, Caroline.”

Anger ripped through her as she tore open the envelope and scanned the divorce papers. “You call this fair?” she asked a moment later.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“You won’t have enough money left to feed Alf, much less yourself. How are you going to pay the rent, put gas in the car, if you give me every cent you make?”

“I want you to be taken care of.”

“But you don’t want to take care of me.” She regretted the bite in her tone, and took a deep breath. “I’ve let you take care of me most of my life, Matt. It’s time I took care of myself.”

She dropped the papers on the table in front of him.

Instead of picking them up, he stood. Reached out for her hands and held her fingers lightly in his. She trembled.

“Let me do this for you.” He laced his fingers with hers.

“No.” But she didn’t pull away. Under the scent of dust and honest sweat, she could smell the musky aftershave he favored. The aftershave she kept a bottle of on her dresser, just so she could open it now and then, and breathe him in, even though he wasn’t here. She gave in to the scent, and inhaled.

God, it had been so long.

“It’s the only thing I can do for you.”

“You want to help me?”

“Yes,” he said. But he’d hesitated, and she knew what he was thinking. He thought she was going to beg him for a baby again, the way she had before she’d left. But she wasn’t. She wouldn’t ever beg again.

“Then keep your money.” She pulled her hand away. “And lend me your strong back. I’m trying to open a business here, and look at this place. It’s a wreck.”

His gaze trailed over the peeling wallpaper. The outdated appliances. His green eyes turned suspicious. “What kind of business?”

“A day-care center.”

As expected, his eyes widened in horror before he shuttered out the reaction. Seeing his discomfort gave her a perverse pleasure. She didn’t really want to hurt him, but she would like to shake him up. To make him see what he was missing.

“For special kids,” she pushed on, watching for any further reaction from him. Hoping to see some spark of life, but finding no such sign. “Like Jeb.” Disappointed, she nodded toward the window, where Jeb sat outside, pushing a toy truck over a dirt pile.

“Blind kids?”

“Jeb’s visually impaired, not blind. He has some perception of shapes and movement. But yes, for blind kids and developmentally challenged kids. Kids with illnesses and kids from high-risk homes. Remember what a hard time we had finding someone to keep Brad, even for a few hours, while we met with the doctors?” She didn’t have to see the deepening of the creases at the corners of his mouth to know he remembered. “If it hadn’t been for your family, I don’t know what we would have done. I want to help parents that don’t have that kind of family support. All the little ones who need some extra TLC will be welcome here. For an hour, a day, a month. Whatever time they need.”

Matt stared out the window, but Caroline didn’t think he really saw. “That’s a lot to take on. Those kinds of problems.”

Caroline’s back stiffened. “They’re not problems. They’re children.” Despite the offense she’d taken, she found her insides softening at the thought of her little charges. She smiled. “I already have two other students besides Jeb. Maxine and Rosie. They’re twins. Fourteen months old.”

Matt winced, probably remembering Brad at that age, as she was, but she thought she saw something soften in his eyes, too.

“When school lets out in a couple of months,” she continued, wiping the memories away before they leaked out onto her cheeks, “I’ll have more kids here. But I’ve got to get this place fixed up and pass a state licensing inspection first. I’ve only got until the end of May.”

“And you want me to help you?”

“You’re good with your hands.” Heat suffused her stomach. He was very good with his hands, as she remembered. “And you like this kind of work. At least you used to.”

“If I help you fix this place up, you’ll sign the papers? As they’re written?”

“I’ll negotiate with you on the settlement. We’ll come up with something fair. That’s the best promise you’re going to get from me.”

Matt studied the warped linoleum at his feet. “It’ll take weeks. I—I’d have to have somewhere to stay.”

Caroline hadn’t thought of that. It wasn’t as though Sweet Gum had a Holiday Inn, and she certainly couldn’t have him stay here. Not until she broke the news to him. “You remember Cora and Ed Johnson? They rent out rooms sometimes. They need the income now that Mr. Johnson can’t work the fields the way he used to. And they know you. I’m sure they’d love to have you stay with them.”

“Work—”

“Unless your habits have changed, you’ve taken exactly one day of leave in the last six years—the day we buried Brad.”

Pain swam across his face, but he hid it quickly.

“I think the department owes you some time off.”

“Paige is getting married in a few weeks. I have to be there.”

“It’s only a two-and-a-half-hour drive. You can go back whenever you need to.”

Matt turned to the window, where a swallow landed on the birdfeeder hung outside. “She was disappointed you didn’t R.S.V.P.”

Caroline’s heart fluttered like the wings of the tiny bird Matt had been watching. She’d been close to Matt’s sister, Paige. They’d gone to school together in Sweet Gum before Matt’s family moved to Port Kingston. She’d love to go to Paige’s wedding, but she could hardly show up at the church with a baby in tow.

A baby no one in its daddy’s family—including its daddy—knew about.

A few weeks, that was all she was asking for after fifteen years of marriage. Time to judge Matt’s state of mind. To figure out how he would react when she told him the choice whether or not to have another child had been taken out of his hands.

God had made the decision for him fourteen months ago, the last time Matt made love to her.

“One month,” she said, swallowing a lump of apprehension and sidestepping the issue of Paige’s wedding. “You give me one month of hard labor. I’ll give you your divorce.”

Caroline unlatched the baby from her breast and smiled down into her daughter’s heart-shaped face. Hailey made milky guppy-lips, but Caroline recognized the sucking as more of a comfort motion than hunger. Hailey’s eyelids sagged over pale, green irises. Most babies’s eyes changed color as they grew, but Caroline suspected Hailey’s eyes would always look like a fresh spring meadow.

Just like her father’s.

The baby flung one fist in the air in an effort to keep herself awake, her lashes fluttering wide open for a second. Then, losing the battle, she went limp in her mother’s arms. Caroline draped the infant over her shoulder. Tiny ribs rose and fell beneath her palm in fragile little breaths. Wee puffs of air warmed her cheek. The scent of talcum and gentle soap enveloped her, cuddled her, and made her feel safe the way she cuddled and made Hailey feel safe.

She was spoiling Hailey, holding her so much. Keeping her so close, day and night. But the drive to protect her at all costs ran strong inside Caroline. Born against all the odds, Hailey was her miracle baby. Her second chance.

After they’d had Brad, she and Matt had tried twice more to make a child. But each time an early miscarriage had crushed their hopes for a large family. Although the doctors said their was no physical reason she couldn’t carry a baby to term, she and Matt had finally decided to stop trying. The strain of losing their unborn children was just too difficult, and Matt feared another failed pregnancy might put Caroline’s health at risk. So they’d given up having more children and focused all their love and energy on Brad instead. They cherished their son, and he flourished under their care.

Until three years ago, at age eleven, when Matt and Caroline began to notice how easily he tired and the boyhood scrapes and bruises that seemed to take too long to heal.

He died a year later. Too young. Too innocent.

When he was gone, Caroline felt more alone than she ever had in her life. After a time of grieving, she wanted to try again to have a baby. To fill the empty space in her life.

But Matt had flatly refused. They were too old. It was too risky. He wasn’t ready.

She’d stayed with him another year, hoping he would change, heal, before she finally accepted the truth.

He would never be ready.

Out of the corner of her eye Caroline saw Savannah sweep into the room, all brisk efficiency.

“That him?” Jeb’s mother and Caroline’s business partner asked, looking out the window over Caroline’s shoulder.

Caroline studied the gray cloud roiling steadily down the gravel road. “Can’t imagine who else could kick up all that dust.”

“It’s a long way to the Johnson farm. You could have offered to pick him up, see’ns how he’s going to be working for you for free.”

“He likes to run in the morning. Clears his mind for the day, he says.”

“Humph. When folks are on top of the world, running clears their minds. When they’re hurting, it’s just a way to substitute one kind of pain for another.”

Caroline smiled, turned to her friend. As always, Savannah’s warm, brown eyes welcomed her. “You think it’s symbolic? Like he’s running away or something?”

“He’s not running away, honey. He’s running right to you.” The weather lines around Savannah’s eyes crinkled. “Now that’s symbolic.”

Savannah plucked Hailey from Caroline’s shoulder. She fussed with the baby’s sleeper and smoothed a broad palm over an upturned lock of hair on the crown of her head.

“Is that your psychology degree talking, or your mothering instincts?” Caroline asked.

“Don’t let this gray hair fool you, honey.” She tugged at the black, curly tufts threaded with silver. “You’re a year older than I am. So don’t be calling me your mother.”

Caroline laughed. “Why is it that I get to be older, but you get to be wiser?”

Savannah’s stately features took on a remote look. “Hard livin’, honey. And it ain’t nothing to wish for.”

Before Caroline could comment, Savannah peered out the window and whistled. “Would you look at that? I haven’t seen a body like that in—well, I haven’t ever seen a body like that!” She fanned herself with a clean diaper.

Matt had arrived. Wearing nothing but a pair of running shorts, he stood in the yard, bent in half and dousing his head with the garden hose. His body sparkled with glistening droplets. Alf sat beside him. When Matt finished rinsing himself, he turned the hose on the dog. Alf lapped up the spray, then man and dog shook their heads with equal ferocity, winging water in a ten-foot circle around them.

Caroline elbowed Savannah. “That’s my husband’s butt you’re ogling.”

“Mmm, and a fine butt it is, too.”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be. Like work?”

“My first patient isn’t until ten. Plenty of time for me to make us all some breakfast and keep my ears open for this little beauty of ours while you talk to the bu—” Her eyes twinkled. “Your husband.”

“Savannah—” Caroline clutched her friend’s arm and kept her from turning away. She hadn’t talked with Savannah professionally in months. Since their relationship had progressed beyond doctor-patient into solid friendship and they’d struck this business deal. But she had questions now, and nowhere else to turn with them. “I’m afraid.”

A sudden protectiveness flashed across Savannah’s face. “Physically?”

“No. Matt would never hurt me, not physically.” She dropped her hand from Savannah’s arm and turned back to the window.

“But he has hurt you emotionally.”

“We hurt each other.”

“And all those old wounds are about to be reopened.”

Caroline swallowed around the lump in her throat, nodded. Without hearing her move, Caroline felt Savannah’s hand land on her shoulder. Strong fingers squeezed, held her.

“Have you ever heard that a quick, clean cut heals faster than a slow, jagged tear?” Savannah asked.

On the lawn below, Matt unzipped a gym bag and donned a navy-blue Port Kingston P.D. T-shirt.

“You think I should tell him right away?” Caroline surmised.

“Does he deserve any less?”

“What about what I deserve? What Hailey deserves—a father who wants and loves her?”

“How can he love something he doesn’t know exists?”

As if she’d heard her name, Hailey fussed in her sleep. Caroline took the baby to the bassinet and tucked her in, avoiding Savannah’s eyes.

“What’s the real reason you haven’t told him about Hailey?”

Caroline shut her eyes and looked deep inside herself, but if the answers were there, they were lost in the dark.

“Are you trying to punish him?”

“For what? I’m the one who left him.”

Savannah’s footfalls fell softly to Caroline’s side. Cool knuckles brushed the bangs from her forehead. “For letting Bradley die?”

Chapter 2

The hinges screeched when he opened the screened door. Mentally, Matt added one more repair to his already-lengthy list.

“Jebediah Justiss, if you take one step out of this house before you eat your breakfast you’re in big, big trouble,” a firm voice called from the kitchen.

“Maaaaa!” Jeb complained. The boy sat on the floor in the living room, engaged in an action figure fight-to-the-death. In a playpen next to him, two toddlers tugged on opposite ends of a stuffed rabbit, babbling at each other in no language Matt had ever heard.

“It’s not Jeb, ma’am. It’s, uh, Matt Burkett.”

A black woman appeared in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on a red-checked apron. She was thin as a rail, but looked strong as steel. Her face lit up when she smiled. “Mr. Burkett, come in. I’m Savannah Justiss. Pancakes?”

“No. Thank you.”

“Suit yourself. Jeb, breakfast will be ready in two minutes.” With that, she turned back into the kitchen.

One of the twins managed to pull the rabbit out of the other’s grip. The empty-handed toddler squalled.

“Jeb, would you see what’s wrong with those babies?” Savannah called from the kitchen.

Sighing, Jeb set his action men aside and felt his way to the playpen. His hands groped for the stuffed animal. “That wasn’t very nice, Max. You’re s’posed to share with Rosie.”

“You can tell them apart?” Matt asked, studying the identical girls—not that appearance mattered to Jeb—even as he tried to suppress the ache in his chest that came with looking at anyone under the age of twenty-one.

“’Course.” With a yank, Jeb freed the rabbit and held it out toward the other twin’s snivels. The rabbit-less twin yodeled. “That’s Max’s voice.” The second toddler joined in the noisemaking, a symbiotic cry. Jeb clamped his hands over his ears. “And that’s Rosie,” he shouted.

Savannah came to the rescue, clucking over the playpen. “Jeb, your pancakes are on the table.”

Jeb obediently headed into the kitchen, action figures stretched in front of him for protection, like a cowcatcher on a train. Heaving a twin onto each hip, Savannah followed.

“If you won’t have breakfast, at least come sit a minute, Mr. Burkett. Have some coffee.”

Seeing no escape without being downright rude, Matt trailed behind them. “Call me Matt. And I was looking for Caroline.”

“She’s upstairs putting her face on,” Savannah said, settling the girls into matching high chairs and handing them each a sippy cup. Max and Rosie resumed their good-natured Martian chatter, the rabbit forgotten for the moment. “Give her a minute.”

Caroline putting on makeup? She rarely wore cosmetics, and never around the house. Pondering the significance of her taking time for makeup on his first day here, he took a seat at the kitchen table. It didn’t take long for him to wish he’d waited outside. As he watched Jeb wolf down pancakes as if the boy had a hollow leg to store them in, his heart gave its usual twist in the presence of children.

Jeb reached forward, feeling his way along the table, looking for his juice glass. “Where’s your dog?” he asked.

“Outside.”

“Can I pet him?” His hand flopped across the tablecloth like fish on land.

“No.” Matt winced at the harshness of his voice. Silently he leaned across the table and pushed the glass in front of Jeb’s hand. Savannah must have seen him as she turned, because she smiled gratefully.

Matt turned his gaze out the window. “I’m sorry. But I told you, he’s a police dog, not a pet.”

“Jeb, you stay away from that dog, you hear me?”

Jeb managed an injured look even as he downed half a glass of OJ in one swallow. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Mississippi, right?” Matt guessed, watching Savannah wipe her hands on her apron.

“What?”

“Your accent. You from Mississippi?”

“Georgia,” she said. “But my family’s from Mississippi. Maybe I picked up a little bit of their voice.” After a moment she added, “You’re good with accents.”

He shrugged. “I’m a cop. I notice details.” And not just accents. He noticed lots of details—such as the fact that Savannah walked with her shoulders slightly hunched and never quite turned her back on him.

He was still wondering why when Caroline came downstairs. Immediately he understood why she had taken the time for makeup. Judging by the puffy half-moons under her eyes, she hadn’t slept any better than he had.

Did she really think he didn’t know her well enough to see through a little cream and powder?

“Good morning,” she said, a little too brightly.

“Morning.” Because he couldn’t figure out what else to do with his hands, he wiped his palms on his jeans. A lifetime ago he would have wrapped her up in a bear hug, lifted her off her feet and kissed her until the serious little hooks at the corners of her mouth turned upward and a spark of laughter lit her tired eyes. But those days were gone forever. It was best to not focus on the past.

He’d come here to get on with his life, not to look back.

“Breakfast?” Savannah asked Caroline.

Caroline shook her head. She spread her palm across Jeb’s nappy crown and shook. “Morning, little rebel.”

Jeb smiled, pancakes puffing his cheeks out like a chipmunk’s. “Mornin’, Miss Caroline.”

Matt stood. “I thought we could walk around the house today. You can show me what you want done so I can get together a list of the materials I’ll need.”

They strolled through the house, intimate strangers, discussing pulling up musty carpeting and restoring the hardwood floors beneath; replacing windows warped shut; modernizing the kitchen and enlarging the laundry room. At the staircase, he started up.

Caroline tugged on his sleeve. “No. The upstairs isn’t too bad. It’s just my living quarters, anyway, and the nursery.”

Matt stiffened instinctively. “Nursery?”

“One of my little charges is an infant, almost five months old. I moved the nursery upstairs so she’d be away from the noise and the dust when you start working.”

Nodding so that he wouldn’t have to talk around the lump in his throat, Matt followed her. God, a baby. He didn’t know how Caroline did it. It hurt him just to think about a tiny, dependent life lying up there.

Caroline led him to the worst part of the house, the old den and semi-enclosed back porch. “This will be the center of the day care. If we knock out the wall here.” She pointed to the back door. “And enclose the outside but leave lots of windows, it would be like a big solarium. A bright, sunny playroom.”

Matt pushed on one of the porch’s corner posts. Rotted wood crumbled beneath his fingers.

“Kids need sunshine,” she said hopefully. “But you know how the weather is out here, half the year it’s too hot to go outside and the other half it’s bitter cold. Can you do it?”

“This wood is in bad shape,” he said. “It would have to be completely reframed.” Then, seeing her crestfallen expression, he sighed. “But I’ll figure out something. I’m going to need to borrow your car to get some supplies from town. And I’ll need tools.”

“Everything I’ve got is outside in the shed. You can buy whatever else you’ll need. I’ll give you some money.”

He gave her a look that said not in this lifetime and headed out.

“Matt, wait.” Propped against a lopsided screen door, she chewed her lower lip. “Have I ever given you reason to think that I blamed you for…what happened?”

The slumbering beast he’d caged deep inside himself rumbled, stretched in slow awakening. “It was a long time ago. What does it matter now?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“What do you want to hear?”

“The truth. I want to know if you thought I blamed you when Brad died.”

He shrugged and started to turn away. She stopped him, her fingers digging pits in his biceps.

“Matt?”

“Except for the years I was away in the army, I’ve looked out for you since you were twelve years old. I’ve made sure nothing ever hurt you.”

“And?”

“And when Brad was sick, sometimes you looked at me like you couldn’t understand why I wasn’t looking out for you then. Why I wasn’t protecting both of you.”

“It was leukemia, Matt. No one could have protected us from that.”

He could have contacted more doctors, Matt wanted to argue. Found one with a treatment none of the dozens of others he’d contacted knew of. He could have taken his son to another hospital. He’d flown with Brad to St. Jude’s in Tennessee—the best of the best when it came to treating children’s cancer in the U.S.—but he could have taken him to one of the research centers in Europe. He was his father. He should have been able to do something.

Matt wanted to tell Caroline she was right to hold him accountable, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t speak at all. His jaw had hardened to the point he thought it might shatter.

Caroline dropped her hand from his arm. “I’m sorry. I never meant to make you feel responsible.”

Without a word, he pounded down the crumbling back steps, hardly noticing the sag of weakened boards beneath his weight. Deep within his chest, the beast—the truth—clawed toward the light.

It didn’t matter whether or not Caroline blamed him for Brad’s death.

He blamed himself.

Matt hacked at the weathered boards on the back wall of the house with the claw end of his hammer, tearing out the old wood so it could be replaced with new. High clouds over the sunset gave everything around him a watery gray tone. He’d have to quit soon; there wouldn’t be enough light to continue. Maybe tomorrow he’d buy some halogen lamps at the Feed and Lumber in town. The more hours he worked, the sooner he’d be done. Free to get on with his life, such as it was.

And the harder he worked, the less time he would have to think. But busy hands didn’t necessarily mean a busy mind, he’d learned. If anything, the repetitive swing, dig, pull of the hammer allowed his consciousness to fade back from his task, let his thoughts wander where they would.

Which was right back to Caroline.

He’d spent the better part of the week ripping off the face of the old house, carefully placing new supports and joists as he worked. The plastic construction fence he’d strung around the work area kept Jeb out of his way. The roar of power tools drowned out the cries of the baby from upstairs, and his wife kept the twins pretty well corraled. But no amount of sweat or noise could contain his memories. His mind insisted on traipsing through the minefield that was his past.

He and Caroline had lived together in marriage for over a year after their son’s death, hardly talking, certainly never discussing things like blame. Yet now, practically on the eve of their divorce, the feelings and words rushed forth like water over a swollen dam. If one week here could leave him this beaten and bruised, how would he survive a month?

He’d decided the best approach would be to stay away from Caroline as much as possible. He refused to call it hiding out. It was just a…strategic withdrawal.

He felt a presence behind him. His stomach lurched and he looked over his shoulder, expecting to see Caroline. But instead of his wife’s soft caramel eyes, he met a sharp black gaze.

A teenage girl stared at him—more accurately, at his posterior—with huge, dark eyes. Her hair, just as dark, hung limply to her shoulders, brushing the straps of her clingy midriff top.

For a second she looked impossibly young, innocent. Then she hooked her thumbs into the pockets of her hip-hugger jeans, pushing the waistband well below the gold hoop piercing her navel, cocked her hips and puffed out her B-cup chest. Her gaze skimmed up the length of his legs, pausing importantly about waist level before slowly grazing over his bare chest and shoulders. By the time her eyes met his, she looked twice her age.

And Matt felt older than dirt.

He scooped his T-shirt off the ground, pulled it over his head and went back to work on the wall, sinking the hammer’s claws deep into rotten wood and ripping backward until the boards splintered satisfyingly. Behind him, he heard the girl shift closer and gritted his teeth. He’d been a cop long enough to have seen hundreds like her on the street. Every one of them was named Trouble.

“Whoever you are, go away,” he said. “I’m working.”

She sidled around him until he could see her out of the corner of his eye. Her lashes fluttered like the wings of a baby bird. “Gem Millholland,” she said. “And I’m pleased to meet you, too.”

“Fine. Now run along.” He didn’t hear footsteps. Bad sign.

“You’re Caroline’s ex, aren’t you?”

Matt tossed another rotted board onto the rubbish pile. “Not yet.” Not until he finished this damn house and she signed the papers.

Apparently Gem Millholland didn’t concern herself with legal details such as divorce documents. “Wow. That means you’re a free man.”

“More like an indentured servant,” he said, sounding more disgruntled than he meant to. “I have to earn my freedom.”

Gem clucked and sidled a step closer. Damn, he shouldn’t have encouraged her.

“Yeah, I heard she’s making you fix up the house.”

He ignored her, and to his surprise, she left. But thirty seconds later she was back, pressing something cold and wet between his shoulder blades. His back arced reflexively.

“Poor baby, working so hard. You’re hot, aren’t you? I’ll bet you could use something tall and wet.” She rolled the cold thing across his back while her other hand grazed his side and settled on his hip, holding him in place, then slipped around to the front of his jeans.

Biting back a curse, he peeled her hand from his waist and turned. Parched as he was, he backed away from the tumbler of iced tea she held, but he didn’t let go of her wrist. “No thank you.” He pinned her down with a hard stare. “On all counts.”

“Gem?” Caroline turned the corner of the house. Shocked at the scene she walked into, she swiveled her head back and forth between Gem and her husband. Gem stared at the ground while Matt’s flustered gaze and his grip on the girl’s wrist told Caroline all she needed to know about what had been happening.

Gem giggled. Matt let her go.

As surprise faded into displeasure, aimed at both Gem and her husband, Caroline decided to start with Gem. “You’re late again,” she admonished. “That’s twice this week.”

Gem made a Betty Boop “O” with her lips, for Matt’s benefit, Caroline was sure, and covered her mouth with her hand before she sashayed away.

Caroline turned to Matt. “And you. Go easy on her, would you? She’s had a tough time of it.”

Matt raised his hands. “Hey, I’m Mr. Easy,” he said, then muttered, “at least she seemed to think so.”

Caroline didn’t appreciate the sarcasm. “So what were you going to do? Get her in a wristlock and cuff her?”

“What was I going to do? She was the one with the roaming hands. And I don’t think it was the change in my pocket she was after.”

The lecture Caroline had been about to spout vanished from her mind, blown away by a single sweep of his tormented gaze.

Taking a good look at her big, sweaty husband, she couldn’t blame Gem for putting the moves on him. The sight of him, all hard muscle and bronzed skin, was enough to stir the hormones of a nun.

Suddenly, Caroline felt the need to giggle. “I’m sorry. Gem doesn’t exactly have a grasp of appropriate adult relationships.”

“Maybe that’s because she’s not an adult,” Matt rumbled.

“She’s seventeen, and she’s going to have to grow up fast. She’s got two little ones depending on her.”

Matt shoved his fingers into his back pockets, scowling. “The twins?”

Caroline nodded.

“Their father?”

“Not in the picture.”

“She’s seventeen and they’re fourteen months?” Matt shook his head. Math had never been his strong point, but even he understood how those numbers added up. Too much, too fast, too young.

Caroline stubbed the toe of her sneaker in the dirt. “Reminds me of myself at that age.”

“You weren’t saddled with two kids.”

Caroline’s eyes burned. She told herself it was just the dry wind that had kicked up. She would never consider a child a burden. “I could have been. I was younger than she is now when I fell in love with you. I got pregnant before we were married.”

Matt’s fingers rolled up into fists in his pockets. “Not when you were fifteen you didn’t.”

“No,” she said softly. “You made sure of that, didn’t you? Running off to play soldier as soon as things started getting serious between us.”

“I came back.”

“Five years later.”

“When we were both ready to make a commitment.”

“And then I was pregnant within a month, remember?”

“It’s not something I’m likely to forget.”

“We had a child between us, right from the start,” Caroline mused. “Maybe that’s why our marriage didn’t work when he was gone. We’d never really learned to live together, just the two of us. We didn’t know how. We still don’t.”

Matt never answered her. Straight-faced, he just picked up his tools and put them away one by one. Meticulous as ever.

Damn him, she knew what he was doing. He’d been here a week and she’d barely seen him. He was burying himself back here in the rubble of the porch he was deconstructing so that he didn’t have to deal with his life.

It was funny. As a negotiator, Matt’s job was communication. But little by little, after Brad’s cancer had been diagnosed, he’d shut down. At least at home. On the job he was sharp as ever, the best in the state at what he did. In the final months before their separation, it seemed his H.T.s were the only ones Matt could talk to. There were times she’d been jealous of them. At least they had his full attention when they talked.

Sometimes he even talked back.

Kicking a loose board and wishing it had been his shin, Caroline stormed off. At the kitchen entrance she jerked the rickety screened door open and let it slam behind her.

He wouldn’t get away with ignoring her. Not this time.

He was going to face her. Face the past.

He couldn’t avoid her forever.

She wouldn’t let him.

“Come on in,” Caroline invited, holding open the door behind her. Matt paused, evaluating her tone of voice. It fairly bubbled with levity. Too much levity.

She was up to something.

Inside, she practically skipped across the kitchen. “I’ll just check on the baby and then we’ll get started.”

Before Matt could respond, tell her this was a bad idea, her feet were pounding up the steps toward the nursery.

No way was he going to follow her up there.

Once again he cursed the storm front sweeping in from the west. For the past two days, since the run-in with Gem, he’d pretty much been able to dodge Caroline and, thank heaven, the children in her care. But the dark clouds and rumble of thunder overhead were about to end that streak.

He’d been thinking the rain would give him an excuse to take an afternoon off. Visit some old friends in town. No such luck. Caroline had asked him to help her indoors. She had ceiling fans to hang.

Ceiling fans. The two of them together on a ladder, no more than six inches apart. He’d be able to smell her lavender scent. Feel every breath she took. Watch the flecks of gold and black swirl in her sparkling irises. They’d talk, and he knew where the conversation would lead. The same place it always led.

Christ, he’d rather try to negotiate the devil out of hell than have to explain to her why he didn’t want a child while she looked at him with those furious, desperate eyes.

He closed the kitchen door behind Alf. The brass knob rattled in his hand. He’d have to fix that soon. A child could jimmy his way into the house with the back door lock dangling from its socket like a loose baby tooth.

Looking around the kitchen as if it were his own personal purgatory, his heart did a slow roll. He smelled fudge brownies. A dozen multicolored scribbles adorned the refrigerator. An army truck, complete with mounted machine gun, lay on the floor in front of the sink, perfectly placed to be tripped over. The sound of incessant banging on an electronic keyboard—the kind of noise only a kid could call music—pounded through the house from the dining room.

All of it, the sights, sounds, scents, could have belonged to any family. Even his, a few years ago.

Matt caught himself, stumbled through the kitchen on numb feet, passing Jeb and his keyboard in the dining room, and paced the living room, collecting himself.

Wondering what was taking Caroline so long, and what he was going to say to her when she returned, he paused at the bottom of the stairs. It was quiet up there.

As it was down here. The keyboard music had stopped.

“Caroline?”

No answer.

“Caroline? Is Jeb up there with you?”

Still no answer. Swearing under his breath, he headed for the dining room. It wasn’t his business. Caroline was the baby-sitter, not him. But he still had to be sure the boy was okay.

Matt found Jeb in the kitchen, with Alf. Blood pounding in his temples and a headache already well entrenched at the base of his skull, Matt swooped across the worn linoleum. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he roared.

Jeb pulled his head out of Alf’s fur, looked up with unseeing eyes. His thin arms clamped tighter around the dog’s neck. Alf thumped his tail and wheezed.

When Jeb didn’t answer, Matt unwound kid from dog. Holding Jeb by the upper arms, he lifted until the boy’s sneakers swung a foot off the floor. “I asked what you were doing.”

Jeb’s dark eyes pinched shut. His mouth gaped and pursed like a fish. But instead of an answer, the boy let out a wail that half the county would probably mistake for the tornado siren.

The hairs on the back of Matt’s neck jumped to attention. He almost dropped the kid in his hurry to save his eardrums.

The sound abated as quickly as it had begun. Jeb crouched on the cold floor, his chest heaving. His eyes rolled wildly.

Matt steadied himself with a breath, waiting for his buzzing nerves and ringing ears to quiet, then brushed his fingers across Jeb’s trembling knee. “Hey, kiddo—”

Hardly a blur he moved so fast, Jeb sprang to his feet, lashed a solid kick into Matt’s knee and squirreled under the table. Against the wall, he curled into a ball, arms locked around his knees and head buried between his elbows, and rocked himself, sobbing silently.

Matt watched him, guilt and self-loathing swelling inside him. Jesus, God, what had he done?

Bare feet slapped across the floor behind Matt. Caroline flung herself into the room in a dead run, grabbing onto the doorjamb to stop her momentum. “What happened? What’s wrong?”

Her gaze fell to the crumpled boy beneath the table. She dropped to her knees next to him. “Oh my God.” She reached out to Jeb. “Hey, little rebel. What is it? What’s wrong?”

Jeb pulled tighter into his little ball.

The fire in Caroline’s eyes scalded Matt. “What happened? What did you do to him?”

Matt tried to move. To help her. But his feet might as well have been stuck in cement. The cement might as well have been sinking in a foul river. He couldn’t breathe, either.

She gave him one heartbeat to answer. Two. Then her lips curled back in a snarl. “Get out.” Fury swam close to the surface in her voice. “Get the hell out. Now!”

He stumbled back a step. Then another. He turned. He could hear Caroline cooing and clucking behind him, childish, nonsense words. The screen door slammed shut behind him as he made it out of the house. Out onto the porch. Into the air.

But he still couldn’t breathe.