“I hope the Killian boys will take your cousin’s offer.”

Though she knew it was completely selfish, she half hoped they would, too. It would make her life so much easier if Jack would just go back to Kansas City.

It wasn’t just that his arrival had set all the old emotions bubbling. She was a strong woman, and she could handle a little leftover yearning and angst. She had an old scar on her knee that hurt sometimes, too. She took an aspirin and went on with her life.

No, the serious issue was Colin. How long could she keep Jack from running into the boy? And once he saw him, once he saw an eleven-year-old kid with curly black hair and eyes the color she had always called Killian blue…

Nora wondered, sometimes, what Jack’s brother thought when he looked at Colin. At first she’d been afraid that he might tell Jack, but that fear had subsided little by little, as the years passed without incident. She always had her story ready, though. The whirlwind romance in Cornwall, the black-haired charmer who had broken her heart.

But no one had ever asked.

Still, if Jack saw Colin, how long would it be before he put the whole picture together? About five minutes?

And then what would he do?

Dear Reader,

I love Christmas so much it’s become a joke in my family. When I was six, my uncle came to our house and asked my dad incredulously, “Is Kathleen really out on the porch playing Christmas music?” It was July.

Maybe I began loving the season because my parents filled our living room with marvelous presents—life-size dolls, dollhouses with real electric lights and stuffed turtles and crocodiles the size of armchairs. But I still love it, even though I have to do the shopping myself, and the cooking, and the cleaning…and the dreaded opening of the bills in January.

Christmas has everything. It has lilting, emotional music—can anyone listen to Bing Crosby sing “O Holy Night” without tearing up? It has color—what’s more visually joyous than a whole neighborhood twinkling with lights? It has great food—when else can you stuff yourself, from the morning’s pumpkin muffins to the late-night reheated pecan pie, without feeling guilty? It has family, friends and time off from work. It has cherished rituals that wind like golden threads through our lives, connecting great-grandparents to the generations they’ll never see.

And it has that most beautiful of all things: Hope. At Christmas we believe in fresh starts, in second chances. In the promise of angels and the return of innocence. Christmas seemed like the perfect season for Nora Carson and Jack Killian to find each other again, after twelve long years apart. They have many problems to overcome—betrayals, broken hearts and terrible secrets. But the magic of Christmas, surely, is enough to overcome all that. I hope you enjoy their story.

And remember…there really is no law that says you can’t play carols in July!

Warmly,

Kathleen

Christmas in Hawthorn Bay
Kathleen O’Brien

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Four-time finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s RITA® Award, Kathleen is the author of more than twenty novels for Harlequin Books. After a short career as a television critic and feature writer, Kathleen traded in journalism for fiction—and the chance to be a stay-at-home mother. A native Floridian, she and her husband live just outside Orlando, only a few miles from their grown children.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER ONE

NORA CARSON HAD ALWAYS found it hard to say no to Maggie, even when she knew that her bullheaded best friend was being stupid. Though Nora, at nineteen, was only three months older than Maggie, the younger girl had a way of making Nora’s common sense sound pathetically boring.

And if making Nora feel like a fuddy-duddy didn’t work, Maggie had big sad eyes and a killer pout, a little-girl-lost look that turned Nora—and just about everyone else—straight to mush.

This late-autumn Saturday, Maggie’s nineteenth birthday, was no exception. Maggie, who was eight months pregnant, woke up with a hankering to go sailing. Nora knew it was a rotten idea, and so did Dr. Ethan Jacobs, the young obstetrician who had begun as Maggie’s doctor when they’d arrived in town three months ago—and ended up more like a love slave with a stethoscope.

But neither of them could resist Maggie in a Mood.

So here they were, halfway to nowhere, with the Maine coast receding as Ethan’s sails filled with crisp, clean wind. The cooler at their feet bulged with fried chicken, egg-salad sandwiches and bottled water. Ethan had caved in to Maggie’s pressure first, and admitted that he knew a tiny island Maggie would love. Just a couple of miles wide, it had everything, he said—a green forest, a cliff, a small white waterfall.

Best of all, it was completely uninhabited. The perfect place to make the world go away for an afternoon.

They’d been on Ethan’s tiny day sailer for almost an hour—the island was about ten miles offshore—when suddenly Maggie hopped up onto her cushioned seat and let out an exhilarated squeal.

“This is the best birthday ever! Oh, my God, I love this day!”

Nora, who was sitting at the back of the boat, couldn’t help smiling. Maggie’s spiky brown hair stood straight up in the wind, and her pregnant stomach looked as rounded and full of energetic purpose as the sails above her.

Maggie’s moods were always infectious. If she was depressed, everyone around her suffered. But if she was happy…

“And I love you!” Maggie climbed down and wrapped Nora in a bear hug. She turned to Ethan, who was angling the tiller, and, taking his face in her hands, covered his parted lips with a loud, smacking kiss. “And you, my dashing seafarer!”

Then she whirled away, and, with a contented sigh, leaned over to drag her fingers in the green current that rushed along the side of the boat.

Nora caught Ethan’s gaze. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, he looked stunned, as if he’d never been this close to anything as dazzling as Maggie. The sails began to luff, as Ethan forgot to steer, but he corrected the mistake and shrugged sheepishly, his cheeks pink.

Just last night, he had confessed to Nora that he was in love with Maggie. When Ethan had finished rubbing Maggie’s feet, which had been sore after a long day waiting tables at the lobster shack, she had stumbled off to bed, leaving Nora and Ethan alone together.

He had flushed the entire time he spoke. He knew it was inappropriate, he said, given that Maggie was his patient, but he couldn’t help it. She’d made her way into his blood, and he was going to ask her to marry him.

What did Nora think? Would Maggie say yes?

Nora wasn’t sure. For all her childlike displays of emotion, Maggie kept her deepest truths in darkest secret. That’s how you knew something really mattered to her—the bubbling stream of chatter suddenly dried up to dust.

Though they’d been best friends since they’d eaten paste together in kindergarten, Nora had accepted that there were things she’d never learn, no matter how many times she asked.

Like where Maggie got that old-fashioned gold ring she wore on a chain around her neck.

Or who was the father of her baby.

“Land ahoy!” Maggie leaned way out this time, pointing east. “I see it!”

“Maggie,” Ethan said sharply, “don’t lean out so far! You could fall overboard!”

“Stop being such a worrywart.” Maggie cast a sour look at Ethan, then went back to dragging her hand in the water. “Even if I did fall over, I know how to swim.”

Nora gave Ethan a look, too. She tried to signal that bossing Maggie around was not a good idea. Maggie hated domineering, patriarchal men—probably because her father was one of the worst. Nora knew that Mr. Nicholson had hit Maggie, at least twice, and she often wondered what else might have happened that Maggie didn’t confide.

But Ethan wasn’t paying any attention to Nora. He was still watching Maggie, and his mouth was set in an anxious line. Nora looked over at her friend, too. Maggie had both hands on her belly, and her face was gripped in a sudden, strange tension.

“What is it?” Nora leaned forward. “Is something wrong?”

“I’m fine. Carry on.”

Ethan’s dark brows pulled together. “Are you having contractions?”

“I’m fine, sailor.” Maggie waved her hand nonchalantly, clearly trying to lighten the mood. Nora couldn’t blame her. Ethan did hover a bit. “Colin was just giving me one of his Morse code messages. You know, punch-punch-jab-poke. I think he said something about nappy turfday.”

Nora smiled. Maggie always called the baby Colin, though the ultrasound had been inconclusive as to sex. She’d decided it was a boy, and, as usual, the facts didn’t really concern her.

But Ethan wasn’t buying it. He reached out with a doctor’s instinctive authority and put his hand on Maggie’s stomach. “I don’t like it. You sure he’s not saying something about going into labor?”

Maggie stood up and moved beyond Ethan’s reach. “My Morse code is pretty rusty, but I think I could tell the difference between ‘Happy birthday, Mom,’ and ‘Look out, here I come!’”

“Could you?”

She glared at him. “Colin is fine. I said carry on.” It always frustrated her when the universe didn’t fall right in line with her plans. “Look, not only is this my birthday, but this may be the last completely free day I have for—oh, say eighteen years? So don’t you two go all smothery and cheat me out of it, okay?”

Ethan adjusted his glasses. “But in the third trimester—”

Maggie stood on the seat, stepped one foot up onto the gunwale and pointed her hands over her head in the classic diving position. “I’m going to that island,” she said, “if I have to swim the rest of the way.”

Ethan laughed nervously. “Get down, you dork. Do you want to slip?”

He wasn’t really concerned that she’d jump. But Nora knew Maggie better than he did. She glanced quickly toward the island, calculating the distance. Only about a hundred yards. Maggie could swim it. And, if he didn’t back off, she just might.

“Ethan, don’t piss me off.” Maggie wasn’t laughing. “You’re not my father.”

“No, I’m your doctor. I simply can’t allow you to take foolish risks—”

Nora groaned. Too bossy. He even sounded a little like Maggie’s father. Maggie despised her father.

She dove into the ocean with an emphatic splash.

Ethan lurched. “For God’s sake, Maggie!”

She ignored him, her arms cutting through the water with a brisk freestyle. Her feet churned up little green-white whirlpools, and soon she was moving faster than the boat.

“She’s a great swimmer,” Nora said when Ethan turned around to give her a horrified, open-mouthed stare. “At home, we swim all the time.”

“But she’s eight months pregnant! She has no idea how dangerous that is.”

He looked down at the water, and Nora knew he was thinking of diving in after Maggie.

“Bad idea,” she said. “You know how stubborn she is. She’ll fight you till you both drown.”

Though his adoration made him act silly sometimes, Ethan wasn’t stupid. He knew when he was outmaneuvered. Obviously the only thing they could do right now was stay close to Maggie, and get to the island as fast as possible.

He sat, wiped his water-speckled glasses on his shirt, and then grabbed hold of the tiller. It took several seconds, but he adjusted the sails until they caught the wind.

They were only a few yards behind Maggie, just a few feet to her left—Ethan was steering as close to the wind as he could, so that they wouldn’t separate much. Her small white face kept turning toward them every other stroke. Once, Nora could have sworn Maggie stuck out her tongue at them.

“Little brat,” Ethan murmured. But Nora saw that he was smiling—and, in spite of her annoyance with Maggie, she felt happy for her. How great to have someone love you so much they even found your flaws adorable.

Back in high school, Maggie’s edgy personality had scared off most of the guys. She’d had only one boyfriend, as far as Nora knew—a short, dumb fling with Mr. Jenkins, their senior biology teacher who shortly afterward had married the English lit teacher and had moved out of town. Nora assumed Mr. J. must be the father of the baby, though of course Maggie wouldn’t discuss it.

But perhaps Mr. Jenkins had been a sign. Maggie needed someone a little older, a lot wiser.

Yes. Nice, honest, loyal and unmarried Ethan would be good for Maggie.

If only she’d have him.

The wind had shifted, so Ethan had to tack. Maggie beat them to the beach by at least five minutes, and they were coming in several yards west of her.

All they could do was watch as she climbed out of the surf, little bits of foam clinging to her bare legs. She shook water from her ears and ran her fingers through her hair to spike it back up where it belonged. Finally, she assumed a pose of exaggerated boredom, as if they were taking forever.

And then, abruptly, she doubled over, gripping her stomach with both hands.

Ethan made a skeptical sound. “Faker,” he said. “I’m not falling for that one.”

Was it just a joke? If so, it wasn’t one bit funny—it was actually damned scary. Would Maggie really be such a jerk? Nora frowned and moved to the other side of the boat, hoping to make out the details of Maggie’s face.

But her chin was tucked down against her breastbone. Her shoulders were hunched, and her hands were still hanging onto her stomach, fingers widespread and curved, like stiff claws.

“No,” Nora said through suddenly cold lips. “No, she’s not faking. You know how she is. She never pretends to be weak. She always pretends to be strong.”

Ethan frowned. They had almost made land. A shrill cry reached them, knifing through the crisp autumn silence. It sounded like a gull, but it was Maggie.

“Oh, my God,” he said. His knuckles were stark white around the tiller.

As they watched, Maggie swayed from side to side, as if she were wrestling with something inside her. And then she sank to her knees in the sand.

The sailboat was only fifteen feet from shore. Without thinking, Nora jumped out and waded through the cold, chest-high water as fast as her trembling legs would take her. Behind her, she heard Ethan jump out, too.

Her feet were clumsy on the grainy sand, but she ran as fast as she could. She reached Maggie just as she toppled over onto her side, her hands still wrapped around her stomach.

“Honey, honey, what’s wrong?” Nora dropped to her knees beside the moaning girl. “Is it the baby? Is the baby coming?”

“I don’t know.” Maggie’s face was coated with sand. Her voice sounded high, half-strangled with either pain or fear. “Maybe, but…but it’s too soon. And it hurts. I think something’s wrong.”

“How exactly does it feel?”

Maggie turned her face toward the sand. “It hurts.”

“Did your water break?” It might be hard to tell, Nora thought, given that Maggie was soaking wet all over.

For the first time, Nora looked down at Maggie’s legs. They were streaming with pale, watery blood.

The comforting words Nora had been about to say died away. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t what she’d been told to expect. She’d been to the birthing classes, and it had all sounded so organized. Step one, step two, step three…

No one had said anything about pale, quivering legs laced in blood that grew a brighter red with every passing second.

She didn’t know what to do. But even if she had known, she wouldn’t have been able to do it. She was going to faint.

Why, why had she listened to Maggie? Why had they come out here, to the end of the world, all alone? And before that…why hadn’t she insisted that they go home to Hawthorn Bay and tell Maggie’s parents about the baby? Maggie should have delivered her baby in the little hospital by the bridge, with a dozen brave, experienced adults to see it through.

But Nora had never been able to make Maggie do anything. Maggie was the strong one, the defiant one—she didn’t care what anyone thought of her. She didn’t need anyone, she always said. Not even Nora.

And maybe she didn’t. Maybe she would have been just fine alone. But, though Nora was almost painfully homesick to be back in Hawthorn Bay, back in her own little yellow bedroom at Heron Hill, she hadn’t been able to leave Maggie behind.

Under all that defiance, there was something…something tragic and vulnerable about Maggie. Nora had decided to stay with her, at least until the baby was born.

After that they’d decide what to do next.

Ethan was still thigh-deep in the water, trudging toward them, pulling the small sailboat along by a tug line. Intellectually, Nora knew he was right to take the time—they couldn’t afford to let the boat drift away. No one knew where they were. Even Ethan’s father, who was also a doctor, just thought they were having a picnic in the park.

But emotionally she wanted him to just drop the line and race over here. He was one of the brave, experienced adults they needed. She was only a teenager, and she wasn’t ready for this.

Maggie had begun to weep. “It hurts,” she said again, and she reached out for Nora’s hand.

Ethan finally dragged the boat onto the sand. A couple of gulls landed near it, obviously hoping for dinner. Ethan reached into the cockpit and extracted their beach towels and his cell phone.

Oh, God, hurry.

He punched numbers into the phone as he ran toward them. He listened, then clicked off and started over.

It was like watching a mime. Even from this distance, Nora could read the significance of that wordless message. They had no phone signal. They were officially in the middle of nowhere.

And they were officially alone.

When he reached them, Nora focused on his eyes—she knew the truth would be there. She’d known him only a few months, but she had already learned that he was a terrible liar.

For just a second, when he saw the blood, his eyes went black. For that same second, so did Nora’s heart.

She felt an irrational spurt of fury toward him, as if by confirming her fears he had somehow betrayed Maggie. She turned resolutely away from his anguished gaze.

“You’re going to be okay, honey,” she said, but she heard the note of rising panic in her voice and wished she hadn’t spoken.

Maggie stared at her with wild eyes. “There shouldn’t be blood,” she said. “There shouldn’t be blood.”

Ethan touched Maggie’s shoulder gently. “We have to see what’s causing it. And we need to see what’s going on with the baby. I need to know if you’re dilated.”

Maggie moaned in response.

“Nora,” he said without looking at her. “Please get the water bottles out of the cooler.” He held out the phone. “And take this. I don’t think it’s going to work, but keep trying.”

She clutched the phone and started to run, her sodden tennis shoes squishing with every step, making mud of the sand. Though there were no bars on the cell phone’s display, indicating they had no service, her fingers kept hitting 911 over and over.

By the time she had gathered the little plastic bottles in her arms and run back to the others, she’d tried 911 a dozen times.

Nothing.

While she’d been gone, Ethan had somehow spread out the towels, arranged Maggie on them, and removed her shorts and shoes.

Nora didn’t look at anything below Maggie’s face. She couldn’t allow herself to see how much blood there was. She couldn’t even think about how the baby might be coming. Here, in this empty place. A full month too early…

She gave Ethan the water, and then she took her place at Maggie’s shoulder.

Maggie rolled her face toward Nora, and the whites of her eyes were so huge that for a minute she looked like a frightened colt.

“Ethan will take care of everything,” Nora said numbly as she took Maggie’s hand. She felt like the recording of a person, programmed to speak words she didn’t even understand, much less believe.

Maggie’s face was so white. Was that what happened when you lost too much blood? Nora wanted to ask Ethan, but she didn’t want Maggie to hear the answer.

She didn’t want to hear the answer, either.

Ethan had positioned himself between Maggie’s knees. He’d opened some of the water, and poured it onto a small towel. He must have been hurting her, because Maggie’s grip on Nora’s hand kept tightening, until she thought the bones might break.

“Ethan will fix it.” She realized she was speaking as much to Ethan as to Maggie, telling him that he had no choice, he had to make this right. “Ethan won’t let anything happen to you.”

“I don’t care about me,” Maggie said, shutting her eyes and squeezing her fingers again. “Just be sure the baby is all right, that’s all that matters.”

Nora nodded. “Yes. Of course the baby—both of you will be fine.”

“You’ve got to relax, Maggie.” Ethan shook his head. “I need you to relax so I can find out what’s going on.” He glanced at Nora, the consummate doctor now, all business and no emotion. “Talk to her,” he said.

About what? About the blood? About the cell phone that was no more useful than a lump of scrap metal? About the miles of ocean that stretched out all the way to the horizon?

Over by the boat, more gulls were arriving, screaming overhead and diving for crumbs, like vultures.

She swallowed, her mind casting about. “Did you ever tell Ethan why you call the baby Colin, Maggie? Did you ever tell him about Cornwall?”

Amazingly, she seemed to have hit on the right subject. Maggie seemed to be trying to smile. “We were happy in Cornwall,” she whispered.

“Yes.” Nora nodded. It had been a lovely summer—and it was, she thought, the only time she’d ever seen Maggie completely relax. It was the only time the underlying vulnerability had seemed to vanish.

“You tell him, Nora.” Maggie nudged her hand. “Tell Ethan about Colin.”

Ethan wasn’t listening, Nora knew, but it wouldn’t hurt to talk. It was a good memory, and it would at least distract Maggie for a minute or two.

“When we graduated last spring, my parents gave us a trip to England,” she began awkwardly. She smiled down at Maggie. “Four whole months abroad, just the two of us. We couldn’t believe our luck.”

Maggie shut her eyes. “And all thanks to Jack,” she said with a hint of her normal dry sarcasm.

Nora let that part go. Ethan didn’t need to hear about Jack Killian. But it was true—the trip had been partly to celebrate their high-school graduation, and partly, Nora’s parents hoped, to help Nora get over the broken heart handed her by Black Jack Killian.

“We liked London,” she went on. “But we really fell in love with Cornwall, didn’t we, Maggie?”

Maggie’s eyes were still shut, but she nodded, just a fraction of an inch, and she once again tried to smile. It had shocked Nora to see Maggie, whose punk sassiness seemed much better suited to the London club scene, bloom like an English rose among the brutal cliffs, stoic stone houses and secret, windswept gardens of Cornwall.

But from their first night in the West Country, which they’d spent in a tiny fishing village that echoed with the cries of cormorants and the strange, musical accents of the locals, Maggie had clearly been at home.

“We met Colin Trenwith in Cornwall,” Nora said. “I think it was love at first sight for Maggie.”

Finally, Ethan looked up. Nora knew he’d always thought Colin might be the name of the baby’s father.

She smiled. “Or at least we met his ghost,” she added. “Maggie found his tombstone. He was a pirate who died in the 1700s. I think she fell in love with that name, right from the start.”

Ethan blinked behind his glasses, then returned to his work.

Nora tried not to see what he was doing. Instead she pictured Maggie, kneeling in front of the tilted tombstone in that half-forgotten cemetery overlooking the Atlantic.

“Nora, listen,” she’d called out excitedly. “Colin Trenwith, 1756–1775. Once a Pirate, Twice a Father, Now at Rest with his Lord.” She’d run her fingers over the carving. “Isn’t that the most poetic epitaph you’ve ever heard?”

Maggie hadn’t been able to tear herself away. She’d begged Nora to linger another week in Cornwall, and then another. They’d changed their tickets, and, cloaked and hooded against the wind, they’d hiked every day to the graveyard.

While Nora read, Maggie used Colin’s stone as a backrest and invented romantic stories about the boy who had packed so much life into his nineteen short years.

It was there, in that cemetery, that Nora had realized her parents were right—a new perspective had been just what she needed. Jack Killian had hurt her, yes, but her heartache was neither as immense as the Atlantic beside these ancient tombstones, nor as permanent as the deaths recorded on them.

And it was there, in that cemetery, breaking off impulsively in the middle of a tragic tale, that Maggie had first confessed her secret.

She was pregnant.

She was going to name her son Colin.

And she was never going home to Hawthorn Bay again.

So far, she hadn’t. Though they’d left England, having run out of money, they hadn’t gone home. They’d taken a bus from New York’s airport to small-town Maine and found menial jobs here, so that Maggie could have her baby in secret. Nora had called her parents, to let them know they were all right, though for Maggie’s sake she couldn’t tell them exactly where they were.

Maggie hadn’t called her family at all.

“We have to get back to the mainland,” Ethan interrupted tersely. “Right away. We have to get her back on the boat.”

Maggie cried out and her body jackknifed, as if someone had stabbed her from the inside.

“No,” she said, her voice tortured. “No. Do it here. The baby’s coming, Ethan. It’s too late to go back.”

Nora balanced herself with one hand on the wet sand. “Is it true? Is the baby coming?”

He nodded. “She’s already seven centimeters.” He gazed down at Maggie. “You must have been having contractions all morning, you little fool.”

Maggie shifted her head on the beach towel, grimacing. “Just twinges. Braxton-Hicks, I thought.”

Nora knew what that meant. When she’d agreed to stay in Maine with Maggie until the baby was born, she’d agreed to be her labor coach. Braxton-Hicks. False labour. Not uncommon in the weeks prior to delivery.

Maggie looked at Nora, as if she needed absolution for the sin of such dangerous foolishness. “Honestly, I didn’t think— Everyone says it takes so long the first time—”

“Well, it’s not going to take long for you.” Ethan sounded tense. “We have to get you back on the boat. Even if the baby is born there, we have to do it.”

Nora twitched her brows together, silently asking the question. Why? Why did they have to take such a risk? Surely it was safer here, where they at least had solid ground under their feet. Why go?

For answer, Ethan simply held up his hand. It was covered in blood, from fingertip to wrist, like a red rubber glove.

Nora felt the beach tilt. She thought for a minute she might pass out. It wasn’t just the baby coming early, then. Maggie was in real trouble. She was losing too much blood.

Maggie must have seen Ethan’s hand, too, though they both thought her eyes had been closed. Her whole body clenched, and then once again she reached for Nora’s fingers.

“Nora. Listen to me. If anything happens, I want you to take the baby.”

Nora pulled back instinctively, as if the words had burned her. Her heart was beating triple time, and her flesh felt cold.

“Don’t talk like that, Megs,” she said. She forced a teasing note into her voice. “It’s absurd. I know you love melodrama, but this isn’t the time. You need to focus on your breathing.”

“Not yet.” Maggie’s gaze bore into hers. “If it’s absurd, we’ll all have a good laugh about it later. But just in case. I want you to promise me that you’ll take the baby.”

Ethan was wrapping the towels around her. He must have done something that hurt. Maggie cried out, and her legs stiffened.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Nora saw a bead of sweat make its way down his hairline and mingle with a smear of blood on his cheek.

“Promise me, Nora.”

“Okay,” Nora said as she began to shiver. “Okay, Maggie, I promise. Now please. Focus.”

“And you must never let my parents know. About Colin. They can’t have him. My father—”

Maggie bent over again, making a sound like a small animal.

Ethan cleared his throat. “Nora, you have to help me carry her.”

When had Ethan stood up? Nora felt confused. This was a nightmare, where things happened in confusing, nonsequential jerks. But she had her part to play in the nightmare, too, so she struggled to her feet, though she no could longer feel them or trust that they were rigid enough to carry her own weight, let alone a bleeding woman and an unborn baby.

Maggie was so light, though, frighteningly light, as if part of her had bled away into the beach. They tried not to jostle her, but once or twice she seemed to pass out, then come back to consciousness with a groan.

Ethan cradled her in his arms while Nora made a pallet out of blood-soaked beach towels on the floor of the cockpit. As they placed her on it, Maggie seemed to rally a little. With one hand that, though it shook, seemed surprisingly strong, she pulled off the chain that held the mysterious gold ring.

She held it out to Nora.

“For you,” she said. Her voice seemed slurred. “For Colin.”

Nora took it, and her first tear fell.

Colin Trenwith.

Once a pirate, twice a father, now at rest with his Lord.

While Ethan towed the boat out to deeper water, Nora chanted the epitaph silently, over and over, like a prayer.

And then, with the words still circling through her mind, like a slender chain wrapping its fractured pieces together, Nora watched Ethan climb into the little boat, and the three of them set sail for home.

CHAPTER TWO

Eleven years later

MOTHERHOOD, NORA CARSON decided as she retreated to the kitchen, leaving her eleven-year-old son pouting in the living room, was not for the faint of heart.

Nora had three jobs—mayor of Hawthorn Bay, co-owner of Heron Hill Preserves and mom to Colin Trenwith Carson.

Of the three, being Colin’s mom was by far the toughest.

At least it was this week. Last week, when the Hawthorn Bay City Council had been sued by a recently fired male secretary claiming sexual discrimination, mayor had been at the top of Nora’s tough list.

Luckily, Nora had kept some of the secretary’s letters, all of which began Deer Sir. She produced them at her deposition, explaining that she didn’t give a hoot whether their secretaries were male, female or Martian, as long as they could spell.

The lawyers withdrew the suit the next day.

Now if only she could make this problem with Colin go away as easily. But she had a sinking feeling that it was going to prove much thornier.

She put the blackberries and pectin on to boil—she had orders piled up through next Easter, so she couldn’t afford a full day off. She read the letter from Colin’s teacher while she stirred.

Cheating.

Fighting.

Completely unrepentant.

These weren’t words she ordinarily heard in connection with Colin. He wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. He was a mischievous rascal and too smart for his own good. But he wasn’t bad.

This time, though—

“Nora, thank heaven you’re home!” Stacy Holtsinger knocked on the back door and opened it at the same time. She was practically family, after eight years as business partner and best friend, and she didn’t bother with ceremony much anymore.

Nora folded the letter and slid it into the pocket of the World’s Greatest Mom apron Colin had given her for her birthday. “Where else would I be, with all these orders to fill? Out dancing?”

Stacy, a tall brunette with a chunky pair of tortoiseshell glasses that she alternately used as a headband, a pointer or a chew toy, but never as glasses, went straight to the refrigerator and got herself a bottled water. She wanted to lose ten pounds by Christmas and was convinced she could flood them out on a tidal wave of H₂O.

Nora thought privately that Stacy would look emaciated if she lost any more weight, but the water sure did give her olive skin a gorgeous glow. She wondered if Stacy had her eye on a new man. She hoped so.

“Well,” Stacy said, raking her glasses back through her hair as she slipped onto a stool, “you could be down at city hall, I guess, trying to knock sense into those Neanderthals. Which would be disastrous right now, because I need you to make an executive decision about the new labels.”

Nora groaned as she added the sugar to the blackberries. Her mind was already packed to popping with decisions to make. What to do about the latest city-council idiocy—trying to claim eminent domain over Sweet Tides, the old Killian estate by the water? What to do about that crack in her living-room wall, which might be the foundation settling, something she could not afford to fix right now?

And, hanging over everything, like a big fat thundercloud—what to do about Colin?

“Labels are your side of the business.” The berries were just about ready. Nora pulled out the tablespoon she’d kept waiting in a glass of cold water, and dropped a dollop of the jam on it. Rats. Not quite thick enough.

“Come on, Nora. Please?”

Nora looked over her shoulder. “Stacy, do I consult you about whether to buy Cherokee or Brazos? What to do if the jam’s too runny? No. I make the product, you figure out how to sell it, remember?”

“Yeah, but—” Stacy held up a proof sheet. “This is a really big change. And I drew the artwork myself. I’m sorry. I’m weak. I need reassurance.”

Nora put the spoon down. It was probably true. Stacy was one of the most attractive and capable women Nora knew, but her self-esteem had flat-lined about five years ago when her husband had left her, hypnotized by the dirigible-shaped breasts of their twenty-year-old housekeeper.

Zach was a fool—although rumor had it he was a happy fool, having discovered that The Dirigible was into threesomes with her best friend, whom Stacy had dubbed The Hindenburg.

“Okay.” Nora wiped her hands. “Show me.”

Nora would have said she loved it no matter what, but luckily the new label was gorgeous. Done in an appropriate palette of plums, purples, roses and blues—all the best berry colors—it showed a young beauty on a tree swing, with a house in the background that was the home of everyone’s fantasies—wide, sunny porch, rose-twined columns and lace curtains fluttering at cheerful windows.

Everyone wished they’d grown up in that house.

But Nora really had.

She looked up at Stacy. “You used the real Heron Hill?”

The other woman nodded. “You don’t mind, do you? I changed it a little, so that no one could sue or anything. But it is the ultimate dream house, don’t you think? It was our business name before you sold the house, and we’ve worked that out legally with the new owners, so—” She broke off, fidgeting with her glasses. “I mean…you really don’t mind, do you?”

“Of course not.” Nora smiled. She’d been born at Heron Hill. And Colin had spent his first few years there. It had indeed been the dream house. But when her father had died, and Nora discovered that the Carson fortune was somewhat overrated, she and her mother had decided to sell it.

Heron Hill was now a very popular local bed-and-breakfast. Nora’s mother had moved to Florida last year, so she didn’t have to pine over the loss. It stung Nora, though, sometimes, when she passed it and spotted a stranger standing at the window of her old bedroom. But whenever that happened, she just reminded herself of the big fat trust fund they’d set up for Colin with the proceeds from the house, and she’d walk on by, with her chin up and no regret.

“The label is gorgeous,” she said. “It will sell so well I won’t be able to keep up with the demand.”

“Great. I’ll tell the printers today.” Stacy tucked the proof back into its protective folder and gazed happily up at Nora. “Now, can I return the favor? I haven’t a clue whether Cherokee or Brazos blackberries taste better, but I do have a breakdown of their sales figures for the past three years, which might—”

Nora laughed. “No, no, I’ve got that part covered. But I—I could use some advice about Colin. He’s gotten himself into some trouble, and I’m not sure how to handle it.”

Stacy raised one eyebrow. “Colin’s in trouble? Trouble he can’t charm his way out of? I didn’t know there was such a thing.”

Nora knew that wasn’t just empty flattery. With his curly black hair, big blue eyes and dimpled smile, Colin was already so handsome and winning that most adults couldn’t stay mad, no matter what he did. He’d get caught right in the act of something devilish, like the time he’d learned the signs for several off-color words and had the class rolling out of their seats with laughter while his poor teacher tried to figure out what the joke was. Or the time he and a few friends had fiddled with the school’s front marquee and changed the phrase We Love Our Students to We Love Our Stud Nest.

Both times, Colin had apologized so humbly—even, in a nice touch, using the sign for ashamed—that the principal had ended up praising his honesty instead of kicking him out of class.

“I know, but this time it’s different,” Nora said. The jam was ready, and she began to pour it into the sterilized jars she had lined up on the central island. This little house, which she’d bought after selling Heron Hill, wasn’t much to look at, but it had a fantastic kitchen.

“Different how?”

Nora sighed. “They say he and Mickey Dickson cheated on their math test.”

Stacy raised her brows. “What? He hates Mickey Dickson. Heck, I hate Mickey Dickson. Sorry, I know he’s some kind of cousin of yours, but the kid is a brat. And an idiot. I take it Mickey cheated off Colin’s paper, not vice versa?”

“Yes, but Colin let him. He said he knew Mickey had been doing it for months, so this time he made it easy…and he deliberately answered all the questions wrong, so that Mickey would get caught. He said he didn’t mind going down, as long as he brought Mickey down with him.”

“Yikes.” Stacy shook her head. “That’s gutsy. Dumb, but gutsy.”

“Yeah, and that’s not all. After school he and Mickey had a fistfight on the softball field. Tom called about an hour ago. He and Mickey just got back from the emergency room. They thought his nose might be broken, but apparently not, thank God.”

Stacy twirled her glasses thoughtfully and let out a low whistle. “Wow. It does sound as if Colin has slipped off the leash. What are you going to do?”

“I have no idea. He starts his Christmas break soon, which is both good and bad. Good, because he won’t have to see Mickey, but bad because he’ll have way too much spare time. Colin and ‘free time’ are a recipe for disaster.”

“Maybe you can get him to help you with the jams.”

Nora laughed as she screwed the lid onto the first of the filled jars. “No way. He’s a bull in a china shop. Last time he helped, he broke a gross of jars and ate more berries than he canned. We’d be out of business by New Year’s.”

Stacy laughed, too, but she kept twirling her glasses, which meant she took the problem seriously.

“Besides,” Nora went on. “Hanging out here with me is too easy. We’d have fun. I want to give him some chore that really hurts. Something he’ll hate so much he won’t even think about getting in trouble again.”

Stacy scrunched up her brow, thinking hard. “Man, I don’t know. What did your parents do when you got in trouble?”

Nora tilted her head and cocked one side of her mouth up wryly.

“Oh, that’s right,” Stacy said, laughing. “I forgot you were the reigning Miss Perfect for a couple of decades there.”

“Miss Boring is more like it.” Nora began wiping down the countertop, though she hadn’t spilled much. “My friend Maggie used to say that if she weren’t around to keep things stirred up I would probably turn to stone.”

“I wish I could have met her,” Stacy said. “You always make her sound like a human stick of dynamite. I’ll bet she’d know how to handle Colin.”

Nora’s eyes stung suddenly. She turned around so that Stacy couldn’t read her face too easily. “Yes,” she agreed. “She probably would.”

“Well, okay, let’s think. I wasn’t exactly dynamite, but I wasn’t Miss Perfect, either. I remember one summer, when I was about sixteen, and I’d just met Zach. I stayed out until dawn. I thought my dad was going to kill Zach, but my mom held him back. They made me spend the rest of my summer volunteering every night at the local nursing home.”

“Oh, yeah? How did that go?”

“It was hell. I wanted to be wrapped in Zach’s manly arms, and instead I was reading the sports section to an old guy who hacked up phlegm into his plastic cup every few sentences and kept yelling, ‘Nothin’ but net!’ every time I mentioned the Gamecocks.”

Nora laughed.

“It’s not funny,” Stacy said, though there was a twinkle in her eye. “It could have scarred me for life. To this day, whenever I see a basketball, I twitch.”

“Okay, then, I won’t send Colin to the nursing home just yet. I’ll reserve that for the day he comes home at dawn smelling of Chanel.”

She looked toward the living room, which was suspiciously quiet. “Right now he’s in there stuffing candy canes into the goody bags for the Christmas party. Even that little punishment annoyed him. He seemed to think nearly breaking Mickey’s nose was a gift to mankind, something to be applauded.”

“In there?” Stacy pointed with her tortoiseshell glasses. “Sorry, but I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure I saw him climbing the tree when I came in.”

Nora frowned, then, without stopping to say a word, reached for the latch. She yanked the door open and, pulling her sweater closed against the blast of December wind, took the steps down to ground level quickly.

Oh, good grief. Stacy was right. Colin wasn’t indoors, working through his punishment. He was about six feet up the leafless maple tree, hanging by his knees from a large, spreading branch. His sweater nearly smothered his face, leaving his skinny rib cage exposed and probably freezing.

Beneath him, his friend Brad Butterfield squatted in the middle of about two dozen scattered candy canes, some broken to bits inside their plastic wrappers. Both Brad and Colin were eating candy canes themselves, letting them dangle from their lips like red-striped cigarettes.

“Come on, Colin, you’re only hitting like thirty percent. Let me try. It’ll take us all day to do these damn bags at this rate.”

“Shut up, butt-head,” Colin said, his voice muffled under folds of wool. “You’re the boat, and I’m the bomber. That’s the deal. Now…target ready?”

With a heavy sigh of irritation, Brad began moving the paper bag slowly across the winter-brown grass. When he was directly under Colin’s head, a candy cane came sailing down. It fell squarely into the bag, and both Colin and Brad made triumphant booming sounds.

Stacy, who now stood at Nora’s shoulder, chuckled softly. “Well, what a coincidence,” she said. “Nothing but net.”

MOST PEOPLE IN HAWTHORN BAY said the Killian men had an unhealthy obsession with gold. A Civil War Killian ancestor supposedly buried his fortune in small caches all over the Sweet Tides acreage, and no Killian since had been able to drag himself away from the house, no matter how hard the community tried to run them off.

But Jack Killian, who hadn’t set foot in Hawthorn Bay for twelve years and therefore had a more objective perspective, didn’t think their problem was the gold.

It was the water.

Living in the South Carolina lowlands meant your feet weren’t ever quite dry. Thousands of acres of spartina marshland, endless blue miles of Atlantic coastline, haunted black swamps and twisting ribbons of tea-colored rivers—that was what Jack saw when he dreamed of home, not the antebellum columns and jasmine-scented porches of Sweet Tides.

And certainly not the gold.

Almost every major incident in his life was tied to the water. He’d been four the day they’d dragged his grandmother out of the river behind Sweet Tides, where she’d unsuccessfully tried to drown herself. He’d been nine the day he’d broken his fibula learning to water-ski behind their new boat—Killian luck never lasted long, and that boat had been sold, dime on the dollar, before the cast had come off Jack’s leg. He’d been sixteen the day his mother, lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood, had sent him to find his father, who’d been drinking malt liquor at a shanty on the edge of Big Mosquito Swamp. It was the first time Jack had driven a car alone.

And, of course, he had won Nora Carson on the water—the day they’d wandered away from a high school science trip to a loblolly pine hammock, and he’d kissed her beside a cluster of yellow water lilies.

He’d lost her on the water, too, the day he’d taken her filthy cousin Tom out to a deserted spoil island, beat the crap out of him and left him there to swim home on his own. He hadn’t realized that he’d broken Tom’s arm, rendering the jerk unable to swim an inch, but the cops had decided ignorance was no excuse.

Jack had escaped an attempted murder charge by the skin of his teeth, and by a timely enlistment in the United States Army.

He hadn’t been home since. Until today.

He drove his Jaguar around back, between the house and the river. In Jack’s lifetime, no one but the sheriff had ever entered Sweet Tides from the fancy front, where gray, peeling Doric columns guarded the portico like ghosts from a long-lost world.

Yeah, the front of Sweet Tides was pure Greek tragedy, but the back was merely pleasantly ragged, with mossy oaks, leggy camellias, crooked steps and weathered paint that all needed a lot more tending than they ever got.

Jack’s brother, Sean, stood at the back porch. When Jack killed his engine, Sean loped down the uneven steps, arms open, a huge grin on the face that looked so eerily like Jack’s own.

“You made it! I thought surely the minute you hit the marsh flats you’d break out in hives and make a U-turn back to Kansas City!”

Jack folded Sean in with one arm and ruffled his unkempt black curls with the other. They both still wore their hair a little longer than other men—it was Jack’s one rebellion against the establishment. But while Sean clearly still cut his own with the kitchen scissors, Jack paid a small fortune to someone named Ambrosia, who knew how to keep the uptown-edgy-lawyer look from revealing its roots as backwoods bad boy.

“I thought about it,” he admitted. “But curiosity got the better of me.”

Sean raised one eyebrow into a high, skeptical arch, a favorite Killian trick. “You managed to keep your curiosity under control for twelve long years.”

“Yeah, but this time you sweetened the pot. I couldn’t pass up the chance to thwart the evil plans of that lowlife Tom Dickson and his cronies.” Jack popped the trunk, exposing a suitcase and a garment bag. “Give me a hand with these, okay? I brought some extra suits, in case the bastard puts up a fight.”

Sean smiled. “Oh, he’ll fight, especially once he realizes you’re his opponent. Somehow I don’t think he’s ever forgiven you for trying to kill him.”

Jack hoisted one of the black leather cases and extended the other to his brother. He held onto the handle an extra second.

“Just for the record. If I’d ever tried to kill Tom Dickson, he’d be dead.”

“Point taken.” Sean chuckled as he led the way into the house. “Though I’m not sure that logic will cut much ice with Tom.”

Given the dilapidated state of the exterior, Jack was surprised to see how neat and clean—if somewhat Spartan—the interior of the mansion had been kept. The rooms had all been painted recently enough to shine a little, and the heart-of-pine floors were freshly varnished.

There wasn’t much furniture. Their dad—Crazy Kelly, his friends called him—had sold all the antiques years ago, in his attempt to set the world record for butt-stupid poker playing. He’d lost the grand piano betting on a pair of tens.

But the few pieces Sean had scattered around were sensible and high quality. Even Kelly Killian hadn’t found a way to sell the marble off the walls, or the carvings off the cornices, so the interior still made quite an impression.

As they walked past the elaborate painted-brick archway that led to the living room, Jack realized he was tensing up instinctively. Their mother had kept her collection of miniature glass unicorns in there, and it still made Jack cringe to remember how he and Sean had occasionally joined in their father’s mocking laughter. “Unicorns! Are you daft in the head, Bridey, or just a goddamn fool?”

When she’d fallen that day, she’d hit the case and broken every one. Jack didn’t look into the living room as they passed, but out of the corner of his eye he imagined he still saw the twinkle and glitter of shattered glass.

So, he thought. Not all the ghosts had moved out.

But overall, the place had definitely changed for the better. It didn’t smell damp and defeated anymore, as if it stood in a stagnant bog of booze and tears.

“I put you in your old room,” Sean said. “But let’s have a drink first, okay? There’s some stuff I probably ought to fill you in on.”

They dropped the cases at the foot of the wide, curving staircase and headed toward the smoking room, where the liquor cabinet had always been kept. Jack didn’t wonder, even for a second, what kind of drink Sean intended to offer him. Neither of them had ever drunk liquor in their lives—except for that one night, the night before Jack had joined the Army. Jack had gotten plastered that night, and it had scared the tar out of him. There was no nightmare more terrifying than the fear that they’d turn into their father.

“Soda? Or iced tea?” Sean had obviously tossed out the cherry-inlaid liquor cabinet, with its front scarred from Kelly’s fury when Bridey had dared to try to lock him out. Instead, Sean had installed a handsome modern marble wet bar. “I’ve got water in six flavors. The chicks love it.”

“I’ll take a Coke,” Jack said. He parked himself on one of the bar stools and looked around the mostly bare room. “I have to tell you, buddy. For a junk dealer, you have remarkably little junk.”

Sean handed over the cold can and shrugged. “Yeah, well, I buy to sell. I don’t keep. I don’t care much about stuff, you know? All these people, they accumulate these expensive trinkets, hoping the stuff will define them, or save them, or…whatever. Bull. If material things had any power, then Mom…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. A hundred crystal unicorns, and not enough magic in the lot to stop a single tear from falling.

Jack’s apartment in Kansas City was equally spare.

“Anyhow,” Jack said to cover the silence. “Fill me in. You said that the city council has let you know they want to buy Sweet Tides. And that they’ve hinted that, if you don’t sell willingly, they’ll find a way to claim eminent domain. Somebody wants to put up a shopping plaza or condo complex or something like that, right?”

“Yeah. They brought it up earlier this year, but I thought they were just trying to rattle my chains, you know? I thought they’d back off, because it’s such a stupid idea. Unless they can claim that Sweet Tides is a blight, it’s going to be hella hard to assert eminent domain. But they haven’t let go of the idea. They’ve already tried, informally, of course, to talk numbers with me.”

“And what kind of number did they suggest?” Jack knew that, unfortunately, the people displaced by eminent domain often ended up taking less than their property was worth, just because they didn’t have the savvy to know how to fight back. “Was it even in the ballpark?”

“That’s what made me nervous. They offered top dollar. Does that make sense to you?”

Jack shook his head slowly. “Not as a first offer. They have to know they need bargaining room.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“So what’s going on? You know these people better than I do. Do they really want to put a shopping plaza out here that bad? Didn’t look to me as if the commercial area had spread out this far yet anyhow.”

“It hasn’t. And no, they don’t want that blasted shopping center. They couldn’t. The one they built last year doesn’t have full occupancy yet.”

Jack sighed. “So. Can I assume this is just a new case of Killian fever? Someone has decided that the trashy Killians can’t be allowed to live this close to decent folk?”

“Maybe.” Sean looked thoughtful. He came out from behind the bar and stood at the picture window, which looked out toward the river. “Or maybe it’s a different kind of fever. Maybe it’s the gold.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Sean. No one really believes that anymore. Everyone knows that, if there had been gold on this property, dad would have found it and bet it all on a pair of tens.”

Sean was quiet a long time, just staring out the window, as if he was hypnotized by the moss swaying from the oaks. Finally he turned around.

“But what if there is? We used to think we’d find it, remember, Jack?”

Of course he remembered. The two of them had sneaked out almost every night for a year, right after their mother had gotten sick, and had dug holes until they’d been so tired and dirty all they could do was lie on their backs and stare at the stars. And whisper about what they’d do with the gold when they found it.

Sean, who was two years older and much nicer, had always listed a detox center for their dad first. Jack had called him a moron. Betting that Kelly Killian could get off the bottle? You might as well throw the whole treasure away on a pair of tens.

“I remember,” Jack said. “That’s about a thousand hours of our lives we’ll never get back, huh?”

Sean shrugged. “Another piece washed up last month. We got six inches of rain in two hours. When it stopped, there was a Confederate coin out on the South Forty.”

Jake wasn’t impressed. Coins had washed up at odd intervals for the past hundred and fifty years. Just enough to keep the rumor alive. Never enough to make anybody rich.

“So, look, Sean, what exactly do you want me to do? I can try to get an injunction against the city council, preventing them from pursuing the eminent domain claim. But it’ll only slow it down. If they’re determined, they just might win in the end. The Supreme Court has ruled that this sort of thing, to bring in necessary revenues, is legal.”

“Slowing them down is enough.” Sean looked tired, Jack suddenly realized. “Truth is, Jack, I don’t really care about the house. I’m ready to let go of it. Too many memories, I guess. I’ve done everything short of an exorcism, but the damn place is still haunted, you know?”

Jack nodded. He’d never understood why Sean stayed in the first place. Their only living relative was their grandfather, Patrick, who had once been a strong force in their lives, but who now resided in the local nursing home.

A major stroke had brought him down—no one was sure how clear his mind was now, Sean had explained when he’d called Jack after the stroke. Patrick had almost complete loss of motor control on his left side. He couldn’t even leave his bed, unless the nurses hoisted him into a wheelchair and strapped him in.

Surely he could be moved to another nursing home, in some other city, if Sean really wanted to get away.

Jack certainly had wanted to. Once Nora Carson had made it clear she never wanted to see Jack again, Hawthorn Bay had held nothing for him. He was sick of fighting the Killian reputation—even if he had contributed plenty to it himself.

And he wouldn’t have lived in this house for all the gold in the world.

“Okay. But if you don’t want to save Sweet Tides, why did you need to import a big-shot Kansas City lawyer like me?”

Finally Sean smiled. “To slow them down, like you said. I want time, Jack. I want time to find the gold. And I want you to help me.”

Jack hesitated. Then he laughed. “You sure you haven’t taken up the bottle? You’re talking crazy now.”

“No, I’m not. A friend of mine, a woman named Stacy Holtsinger, she’s found something. You don’t know her, she came here after you’d already left. But she’s doing a master’s in history, and she’s going through a lot of the old Killian letters for her thesis. She found one that seems to talk about the gold.”

“Everyone talks about the gold,” Jack said irritably. “Words are cheap.”

“She’s got the letter now, but I’ll show it to you tonight. I think you’ll see what I mean. It feels important. It feels real.”

“Sean, look, you told me you needed a lawyer, not a treasure hunter. I’m afraid I left my metal detector at home. Besides, I’ve got a job. I’ve got cases in Kansas City that—”

“A month. That’s all I’m asking. Every big shot can get at least a month off, can’t they? It’ll mean we have Christmas together. And you can see Grandfather.”

That would be nice. He and his grandfather had been close when Jack was little. Patrick had provided the only affectionate “fathering” Jack had ever gotten. Some of his happiest memories were of walking through the marshes with his grandfather, bending over to inspect the bugs and butterflies Patrick pointed out.

When Patrick and Jack’s dad had fought for the last time, Patrick and Jack’s grandmother Ginny had moved away. Through the years, he’d visited them often—glad that he didn’t have to return to Hawthorn Bay to do it.

But he hadn’t seen Patrick since his grandmother’s funeral last year. He hadn’t seen him since the stroke. He had to admit, it was tempting.

“And hey,” Sean said, “we can clear out the rest of the stuff in the attic while you’re here. So even if we find nothing, the time won’t be a waste.”

Sean put his tea down on the bar and shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He stared at Jack, and his face had that mulish look that all Killians got when they weren’t planning to back down, come hell or Union soldiers.

“Come on, Jack. I haven’t asked for a damn thing in twelve years. Can’t you give me one month?”

Jack couldn’t say no. He’d started out tough, and the Army and the law had only made him tougher. But not tough enough to say no to Sean when he sounded like this.

Besides, Jack was already here. That had been the biggest hurdle. Now he might as well look around. And if Sweet Tides was going to get bulldozed to make room for Slice O’Pizza and Yuppies R Us, he might as well stick around long enough to say a proper goodbye.

He’d say goodbye to old Patrick, too.

He stood. “Okay. I’ll stay till after Christmas. Meanwhile, I’ll go talk to the city attorney and see what this band of weasels is planning. I’ll pretend we’re going to fight tooth and nail. I’ll see if I can buy you some time.”

“Thanks, Jack. Really, thanks a lot.” Sean looked pleased, but still, oddly, a little uncomfortable. “I—Well, if you’re going right now I guess there’s one other thing I probably should tell you.”

“Yeah?” Jack raised the Killian brow. “What’s that?”

“Know how I told you Tom Dickson is on the city council?”

“Of course. That’s how you got me to come, remember?” Jack grinned. “Actually, I could probably have guessed that anywhere there’s a band of weasels, Tom Dickson will be nearby. What else is there? Have I got some other old friends on the council?”

“Sort of. Not exactly a friend, and not exactly a councilman. You see, it’s the mayor.”

“Okay. Tell me. Who is mayor these days?”

Sean paused.

“I’m sorry, Jack. It’s Nora Carson.”

CHAPTER THREE

1862

JOE KILLIAN WASHED UP in the river, though the December air was frigid. He was too covered in dirt and sweat to use the basin in the bedroom. Julia slept lightly on her perfumed sheets, and the stink of wet earth would wake her.

His shoulders ached. He’d worked hard all his life, but only with his mind, not with his arms and legs. Though he had inherited Sweet Tides and the one thousand acres of rice fields all around it, he’d never planted anything with his own hands.

Until tonight.

Tonight he had planted the crop that would, he prayed, secure his future. Billings and Pringle were arriving in the morning. They would take his gold for the Cause, and in return they’d give him piles and piles of Confederate paper.

Joe was a Southerner by birth, and his father before him. But Joe had married a Philadelphia woman, and he’d visited there many times. He knew facts, hard realities about the differences between the two places. He knew things that these naive Hawthorn Bay zealots—men who thought the South Carolina state line was the edge of the civilized world—couldn’t even imagine.

He knew that, unless God intervened with a miracle, Confederate paper would be worthless within the year.

And he knew that Julia, with her divided loyalties and her love of all things graceful and easy, would despise him for a fool. She had already hinted that, if foodstuff were to be rationed any further, she might have to make her way home to Daddy.

Joe wasn’t afraid to live without coffee and sugar and meat. He wasn’t even afraid to die, although that didn’t seem likely, since, bowing to Julia’s charming entreaties, Dr. Hartnett had certified him unfit for fighting.

But Joe couldn’t live without Julia.

And so he had buried the gold. Dozens of heavy bars, hundreds of elegant coins, all gleaming dully under the cloudy moonlight, their fire winking out as he shoveled the black dirt over them, spade by spade. When Billings and Pringle came tomorrow, Joe would toss them a few bars, like scraps to the hogs. They’d be surprised, maybe even suspicious, but what could they do?

Julia would know, of course. She was as clever as she was lovely. She would give Joe one long look, and then she’d bewitch Billings and Pringle until they forgot to be suspicious.

When he was through, Joe made his way to the bedroom quickly. He’d begun to shake from the cold and the exhaustion of his limbs. As he climbed into bed, a shaft of moonlight fell on Julia’s ivory face, and he told himself it would be all right.

But, in spite of the perfumed sheets, in spite of Julia’s warmth beside him, the sleep that finally came to him was thick with dreams.

He dreamed of dead men bursting from black-sod graves. They rose and, like an army, marched slowly toward Sweet Tides to avenge their terrible deaths.

They had no skin, no flesh to soften their skulls, no eyeballs to gentle their pitiless stares. But their bones shone in the moonlight.

Bones made entirely of gold.

WHEN JACK SAW THE BUSTLE in the town square, with the Santa in the band shell and the Christmas tree in the center, he wasn’t a bit surprised.

Like most little towns, Hawthorn Bay loved a good festival. Without the museums and theaters and operas and bars of a big city, the good people of the community had to break their boredom other ways. So they held parades and picnics and rodeos, carnivals and cook-offs and white elephant jumbles. Any excuse to string the town square with fairy lights would do.

Jack had actually liked the festivals, back in high school. As the reigning community leaders, “Boss” Carson and his society wife, Angela, had always been in the thick of things, busy with committees and volunteers, organizing the dances and pouring the lemonade. Which had given Jack the perfect chance to sneak away with Nora.

Back then, he’d always been burning up with the need to touch her. With a girl like Nora, you had to go slow, but over the six months of their romance he had been claiming her, inch by tormenting inch. He’d already owned her soft, sunshine-golden hair, her lips, her cheeks, her ears, her eyelids. He had left his mark on her neck, her collarbone, the inside of her elbow, her swelling, rose-tipped breasts.

He’d win her all someday, he’d been sure of that. The fire lay so deep inside her that it didn’t often show on the outside, but he knew it was there. He could taste it in the heat of her lips. He could hear it in the trapped-butterfly beat of her heart.

And then, one day, in a black Killian temper, he’d put the fire out for good.

But that was ancient history. He gave himself an internal shake and put the memories back in cold storage.

It had been late afternoon when he’d left Sean at Sweet Tides, and by the time he got to City Hall, though it was only about four thirty, the offices were closed. At The Christmas Jubilee, the sign on the door read.

He left his car by the municipal complex and walked back to the town square. It was growing colder, and the trees were already casting long shadows on the sidewalk. The sun would probably go down in about an hour or so—he could tell by the light on the river behind City Hall, which was morphing from dark blue to dirty pink.

The sky was a little busier, too, as the birds made their last-minute flights back to their nests.

Funny how quickly he could fall back into the rhythms of coastal life. He might have been gone for only twelve days, instead of twelve years.

He stood at the edge of the square for several minutes, just absorbing the scene. They’d gone all out for this particular festival. Main Street was lined with life-size, blow-up snowmen, which would have been right at home in the Macy’s parade. Every tree, large and small, twinkled with colored lights. At the south edge of the square, an ornate merry-go-round in which every horse was a reindeer twirled to the tinkling sounds of “Jingle Bells.”

But most of the activity was concentrated at the north end, up by the band shell. That was where Santa was holding court, enthroned in red velvet under the bright lights that usually illuminated the Hawthorn Barbershop Quartet. A long line of children wound down the band shell stairs and out into the square, waiting to sit on Santa’s lap.

Boss Carson used to do the Santa bit, but Jack knew that Nora’s dad had died quite a few years ago. He wondered who had taken over. He moved up a few yards, to the edge of the bank of folding chairs, to get a better look.

Well, how about that? It was Farley Hastert. Talk about casting against type. Farley had been the tallest, skinniest boy in Blackberry High. A couple of years older than Jack, he’d been a basketball jock and a straight-A student, on top of having a very nice, very rich father. Naturally, Farley was never without a gorgeous girl on his skinny arm.

Jack had been so jealous of Farley Hastert, he hadn’t been able to see straight. Once, Nora had let Farley give her a ride home from school, and Jack had gone caveman, getting up close into Farley’s long, hound-dog face and ordering him to stay away from his girl, or something equally Neanderthal.

Nora had broken up with Jack on the spot, and the week before she forgave him had been pure hell.

True to form, Farley still had a gorgeous girl with him. Santa had a sexy elf helper this year, dressed in a tight-fitting, very short red satin mini-dress trimmed in white fur. Red tights set off fantastic legs, and a perky red cap perched on top of bouncing blond curls.

Jack stood up straighter.

That was no elf. That was Nora.

“Well, knock me down with a feather! If it isn’t Black Jack Killian himself, all dressed up like a banker!”

Jack turned. It took him a minute to place the face, which looked like the much-older version of someone he once knew. The red hair was a clue, and finally he made the connection.

“Amy!” He gave her a hug, hoping his face didn’t register surprise. Amy Grantham was actually two years younger than he was—maybe twenty-nine or so? But she looked forty-five and exhausted. “I didn’t know you were back in Hawthorn Bay.”

“It sucked me back,” she said with a dry smile. “I married Eddie Folger, he’s got a charter boat business. We…we don’t have any kids yet, but we’re still trying. We do all right.”

“I’m glad,” he said, but it hurt to see her so drawn and discouraged. He had hoped her life had improved.

They’d met at an Al-Anon meeting his first year of high school. Amy’s father had been an alcoholic, too. And they’d both been poor. That had been enough to make them friends. Secretly, they’d bonded against all the happy families in Hawthorn Bay—secretly because Amy hadn’t wanted anyone to guess how much being an alcoholic’s child could define you.

Jack had already accepted his fate as an outcast—what was the point, after five generations of Killian hatred, in fighting it?—but Amy was still pretending she was just like everyone else.

They still exchanged Christmas cards sometimes…or at least his firm used to send his. He tried to remember whether they’d started to bounce back, after she’d moved. He was ashamed to realize he had no idea.

“What about you?” She smiled at him. “What are you doing here? Don’t tell me this place has got hold of you again, too?”

He shuddered inwardly at the thought. “Nope. I’m just here to see Sean. He’s in a tangle with the city council, and he needed some legal advice.”

Amy rolled her eyes. “Them! Yeah, I heard about them wanting Sweet Tides. They’re just a bunch of vultures, the lot of them. But they’ve got the power, just like they always did. Tom Dickson is one of them, did you know that?”

Jack smiled. “Sure. That’s the icing on the cake. Made the whole trip down here worthwhile.”

Amy glanced at the band-shell stage. “And she’s one of them. In fact, she’s the head buzzard. I guess you knew that, too.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you seen her yet? I mean, to talk to her? Does she know you’re in town?”

“Not yet.” He watched Nora lead a little girl up and lift her into Santa’s lap. The little girl began to cry, so Nora knelt beside her, soothing her tears. “I don’t think she’ll exactly be thrilled to see me.”

“You two never made up, then?” Amy’s pursed mouth moved nervously. “You never—explained things to her?”

He put his hand on the woman’s arm. It was painfully thin. Amy had been anorexic back in high school. He wondered if she still was. Her neck was stringy, like an old woman’s.

“I promised you I’d never tell anyone about all that,” he said. Had she carried this fear around with her for the past twelve years? “I meant it.”

“But…” Amy’s eyes looked watery and pale. “She never forgave you for what you did to Tom, did she? Surely you were tempted to explain—”

“Explaining wouldn’t change anything,” he said. “Nora didn’t want the kind of man who would try to murder anyone.”

“But—”

“And I didn’t want a woman who thought I was that kind of man.”

Amy gazed at him a long moment, then nodded slowly. “I guess I can see that,” she said. She drew herself up a little straighter. “I should be getting on home. Eddie will be docking soon, and he’ll want dinner.”

They hugged goodbye, and Jack watched her go. Even from the back she looked like a tired, middle-aged woman. He couldn’t help comparing her to Nora. In that ridiculous but strangely seductive elf suit, Nora could have been mistaken for a teenager.

He looked at the stage again. There seemed to be some kind of commotion. Nora was talking to a group of kids, and Santa was walking slowly down the stairs. As soon as she herded the kids back to the line, she posted a sign that said Santa Will Be Back In Five Minutes. Then she turned quickly and followed the man in the red suit.

Looked as if they were taking a break.

If Jack wanted to talk to her, now was the time.

But did he? What did they have to say, after more than a decade? Wouldn’t it just open up a wound that had healed nicely over the years, hardly giving him so much as a twinge anymore?

The questions were purely rhetorical. Jack was already moving toward the stage.

NORA HADN’T EVER BEEN IN a men’s restroom before. And if she never went into another one, that would be fine with her.

But this time she’d had no choice. The minute she’d realized Farley was drunk, she’d had to do something. The kids had been crushed, of course, and a couple of parents were annoyed, but she’d explained in her best elf voice that Santa had an emergency call from the North Pole, and he’d be right back.

She’d managed to get him in here before he started vomiting. But unfortunately, she hadn’t pulled his beard off in time. When he was finished groaning into the bowl, she unhooked the elastic carefully, and deposited the beard in the trash can.

As an afterthought, she covered it over with paper towels. No point shocking innocent kids.

“Thank you, darlin’,” Farley said in a little boy voice as she wiped his face with a cool paper towel. “I think you saved my life. My lunch must have disagreed with me.”

Nora felt too grumpy to participate in the charade. “More likely the bottle of wine you drank with lunch, don’t you think?” She scrubbed at his white fur collar, which wasn’t quite white anymore. “Look at you. What are we going to do about that line of kids waiting to see Santa?”

“Tell them Santa’s been distracted.” He reached up and caught Nora’s hand. “Tell them Santa’s fallen in love with his beautiful little elf.”

“Gross.” She batted his fingers away unemotionally. “I’m not kidding, Farley. There are at least fifty kids out there. You’d better call one of your friends and get them to take over.”

“Whatever you say.” He smiled. He might have thought the smile was sexy, but he was wrong. Farley had been sexy in high school, and even in college, but from the time he’d started drinking heavily a couple of years ago, all that had disappeared like smoke in the wind.

“I’ll call Mac,” he said. “But only if you give me a kiss.”

Nora turned away and tossed the paper towel into the trash. “Your mouth smells like a toilet, Farley. Nobody’s going to be kissing you tonight. I’ll go stall the kids. You stay here and make that call.”

She would have thought he was too wobbly even to stand up. But she had just exited the men’s room when she felt him wrap his gloved hand around her waist.

“I’m serious, Nora,” he whispered in her ear. She nearly vomited, too, as she recognized the odor of half-digested seafood. “I think I love you.”

“Farley Hastert,” she said through gritted teeth. She kept her voice low, in case any children were nearby. “Let go of me.”

“But Nora—” He brought his other hand up to her waist and began trying to spin her around to face him. “Nora, you’re so beautiful.”

“Goddamn it, Farley.” She put the heel of her hand on his chin and shoved his face up, so that at least he wasn’t exhaling rotten food into her nose. “Get a grip.”

He was so tall, and though he was as thin as a stick he was pretty strong, from all those years playing basketball. Her arm was failing. His face was getting closer and closer.

Oh, hell. She brought her left knee up hard.

Farley made a sound somewhere between a curse and a kitten’s mew, and then he slid to the ground, clutching his red velvet-covered crotch.

She looked down at him, just to be sure he hadn’t cracked his head on the sidewalk. Nope, he was fine. She felt kind of sorry for him, but not sorry enough to stay and face the wrath when he recovered. She brushed the front of her elf dress, in case he’d left anything disgusting there, then turned to go back to the band shell.

She’d have to think of something to tell the kids. Santa’s a drunken letch probably wasn’t the right approach.

But she never made it to the stage.

She got only about ten feet, and then, there on the path, clearly watching the whole thing with a broad grin on his face, stood a man she hadn’t seen for a dozen years. A man she’d hoped never to see again.

Jack Killian.

Her heart raced painfully—from normal to breathless in less than a second. She had a sudden, mindless urge to knee him in the groin, too, and make her escape.

She couldn’t do this right now. She couldn’t do this ever.

But he wouldn’t be as easy to subdue as Farley. Farley was basically a spoiled man-boy who thought the world was his box of candy. Jack Killian had been a street fighter from the day he was born. He didn’t expect life to be simple or sweet.

And he didn’t know how to lose.

She had loved that about him once. Before she’d realized the twisted things it had done to his soul.

“Hello, Nora,” he said with a maddening composure. “Been explaining to Santa that all you want for Christmas is to be left the hell alone?”

She smiled in spite of herself. “Something like that,” she said. She adjusted her elf hat, which had slipped sideways, and tried to look semi-dignified. “It’s nice to see you, Jack. I didn’t know you were in town.”

How stupid she’d been not to consider this possibility. She knew that he and Sean were still close. Through the years Sean had traveled to Kansas City frequently to visit Jack, but the only time Jack had come back here was for his mother’s funeral, which had been held while Nora had been in Europe.

She had naively assumed she was safe.

Why hadn’t it occurred to her that the council’s bid to confiscate Sweet Tides would be the one battle he’d be willing to fight in person?

“Is it, Nora?”

“Is it what?”

“Nice to see me.”

She willed herself not to flush. But, as she looked at him standing there with his curly black hair and his piercing blue eyes, a dizzy confusion swept over her. For just a moment, she was transported back a dozen years, to a cold Christmas dawn rising over the water in wisps of blue and gold. Jack’s lips had tasted like the chocolate he’d stolen from her stocking, and his arms had been hotter than the bonfire they’d built on the beach.

In another instant the memory dissolved. All that was left was the awkward present.

“Of course it’s nice,” she said. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how easily her composure could unravel right now. She had to keep it distant, keep it professional. “I know we’re going to be on opposite sides of the eminent domain issue, but still…I’m glad to see you looking so well. Apparently the Army agreed with you.”

“Not really, but getting out of it did. And I enjoy practicing law. It’s a relief to be on the right side of it for a change.”

She laughed politely. “I can imagine.”

God, who were these two people? Years ago, they’d sat in this very park, in a twilight much like this one. They’d shared a cold park bench, and she’d laid her head in his lap. He had hummed a love song—he had a beautiful baritone—and had lifted her long curls to his lips, the gesture so sexy it had burned her scalp.

“I should go,” she said. “The children—”

“Yes.” He stepped out of the way. “I’ll look after Santa for you.”

“Thanks.” She paused, a sudden anxiety passing through her. Jack’s temper. If he’d seen Farley pawing her, grabbing her against her will…

“He’s been punished enough,” she said carefully, hoping Jack would get her meaning. “He drinks a little too much, but he’s not a bad guy.”

Jack understood her alright.

His familiar blue eyes narrowed briefly, and then he raised one eyebrow high. Oh, God, she thought. She knew that expression. She knew it so well it took her breath away.

“I think I can control myself, Nora. After all, I have no reason to hurt him, do I? He hasn’t messed with anything that belongs to me.”

“No.” She felt like an idiot. The man who stood here, with his expensive suit and his expensive haircut and his sardonic voice…he wasn’t going to get in a brawl over some woman he’d forgotten a decade ago.

He didn’t lust after Nora Carson’s body anymore, or her heart, for that matter.

But that didn’t mean she was safe.

She might still have something he wanted. Something he’d battle for. Something that would bring out the bare-knuckled street fighter she used to know. Just thinking of it made her racing heart come to a dead standstill.

She just might have his son.

CHAPTER FOUR

“I’M OUT,” THE MAN in the camel-hair suit said, slapping his cards facedown on the game table set up in the gun room of Sweet Tides. “My wife will kill me if I lose any more. You’re too damn lucky this week, Killian.”

“He’s too lucky every week,” the older man across from him, who had a strangely bouffant set of gray curls, grumbled around his unlit cigar.

“What can I say?” Sean laughed. “The angels love me. You in or out, Curly?”

“In, damn it. I’m not afraid of you.” Curly held onto his cards, but he kept rearranging them nervously while his cigar bobbed up and down.

Jack, who had spent the past hour sitting by the window reading through some eminent domain research, could see even from this distance that Curly’s knuckles were white with tension.

Jack smiled, bending his head back to the boring papers. Damn if Sean wasn’t going to take this hand, too.

It had been the same all night. One by one, the yellow and blue mother-of-pearl chips had marched their way across the green felt, as if under military orders, to stand in neat piles at Sean’s elbow.

Frankly, Jack had been shocked to hear that Sean even had a regular poker game. Like drinking, gambling had always been something the brothers avoided. Too much like dear old dad.

But, just before his friends had arrived, Sean had given Jack the quick rundown. About five years ago, Sean had decided to give cards a try, and he’d discovered that, unlike Crazy Kelly, he was pretty good.

Jack couldn’t bring himself to join in the game—technically, it was illegal, and he knew there were people in this town who would love any excuse to put a Killian behind bars, even if it was just for jaywalking or quarter stakes in a friendly neighborhood game.

But he’d enjoyed watching. He’d learned a lot about his brother. Sure, they’d spent plenty of time together on Sean’s trips out to Kansas City, but this was different. Like observing a very clever wild animal in its natural habitat.

He’d also learned a lot about the pretty brunette grad student Stacy Holtsinger, the one Sean had mentioned earlier. Stacy had climbed down from the attic about an hour ago, brushed the dust from her hair and had immediately started refilling glasses and peanut bowls.

Apparently Stacy had been studying Sweet Tides history long enough to become the unofficial hostess of the Saturday-night game.

And what else, Jack wondered?

Curly grudgingly tossed a couple of blue chips into the pile. “Okay, big shot. Show me.”

Sean smiled. He had a Killian smile, equal parts cocky bastard and pure good humor. The cocky part had made people around here yearn to tar and feather Killian men for generations. The good-humored part had kept them from doing it. Usually.

Sean splayed out his cards on the table. “Straight. King high.”

The other man took a deep breath. “Crap.”

Chuckling, Sean started picking up his winnings. As if on cue, Stacy appeared at his shoulder, grinning happily, and refilled his sweet tea.

“More beer, anyone?” She tore her gaze from Sean—reluctantly, Jack thought with a new twinge of curiosity—and she scanned the table. “Or is it time to switch to coffee?”

The other men began looking at their watches, as Stacy had no doubt intended they should. As the big winner, Sean couldn’t suggest quitting, so obviously she’d stepped in with the gentle hint. Within minutes, everyone had cashed out. Then they pulled on their overcoats and headed for the door.

After seeing the men out together like an old married couple, Sean and Stacy came back into the gun room, still grinning. He high-fived Jack, then went over to the game table and flicked the first stack of chips. It fell sideways, knocking down the next stack, then the next, like dominos. Apparently Sean had won often enough to have perfected his technique.

“Okay, I’m impressed,” Jack said. “What’s your secret? Marked cards?”

“Hell, no.” Sean tilted his head back and finished off his tea in a long swig. “Why would I need to cheat? Poker’s not exactly rocket science. I just have three unbreakable rules.”

“Yeah? What are they?”

Jack noticed that Stacy was already smiling. She knew the rules, obviously. She knew a lot, for someone who supposedly was only interested in dead Killians.

“One, I never bet big when I’m broke, tired, pissed off or in love. Two, I never bet big unless I’m holding something better than a pair of tens. Three, I never bet big, period.”

He held up four five-dollar bills. “My total winnings tonight.”

Jack laughed. “In other words, you’re the anti-Kelly.”

“Pretty much.” Sean put his hand out and stopped Stacy, who had begun to clear away the beer bottles and peanuts. “Leave this stuff. I’ll get it in the morning. I want you to show Jack the letter.”

She hesitated, but then, with one last look at Sean, she went over to the mantel, an ornate marble affair carved with a hunting scene, and picked up a plastic sleeve into which a yellowed document had been slipped.

She brought it over to where Jack had been reading. She twisted the knob on the desk lamp, increasing the wattage.

“It’s from 1864,” she said, holding it out for him to take. She looked uncertain, as if she thought he might reject it. He wondered what she’d heard about him—from Sean, and from everyone else in Hawthorn Bay. Probably the attempted-murder story had grown claws and fangs over the past twelve years.

“Who wrote it?” He took the letter, even though he still believed the whole thing was a wild goose chase. Every now and then, someone would heat up the search for the gold. Sometimes it was greedy treasure-hunters. More often it was someone young and naive, like this woman. Either way, it always ended in disappointment.

Because there was no gold. There was only a harvest of dreams, lying tender on the ground, ready to be stomped flat by reality.

Even worse, he had a feeling that finding the gold wasn’t Stacy Holtsinger’s only dream. If he were a betting man, he’d bet that she had a thing for Sean.

Jack felt vaguely sorry for the woman, who seemed very nice but innocent, younger than the thirty or so Sean had said she was. And needy. Definitely needy.

He wondered if he should give her a heads-up.

Her boyish figure, her tortoiseshell glasses and her baggy jeans and sweater were the wrong recipe for snagging Sean’s attention. Sean had no interest in settling down with a refined, well-educated woman. He liked his females lusty, busty and loud.

Or at least he used to. Of course, he also used to say he had no interest in following their dad down the poker trail, too, so maybe Jack didn’t know as much as he thought he did.

He turned his attention to the letter, deciding it would be premature to nudge poor Stacy Holtsinger toward contact lenses and implants just yet.

“It was written by Joe Killian,” Stacy said. She cleared her throat. “It was written to his wife, Julia. She seems to have left him, a year or two before, ostensibly to wait out the war with her family back in Philadelphia. But this letter makes it sound as if she left because of a quarrel.”

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