“Is something wrong?”

“Uh-uh.” Elise shook her head, still watching him. “I think the baby just moved.”

“It’s probably indigestion,” he said. “You’re only four months along. That’s too soon, isn’t it?”

“Not with quads. Look at my stomach, Joe! I’m already showing, and that doesn’t usually happen at four months, either.”

Elise felt herself blushing when he did exactly as she asked, staring at her stomach.

“There it is again!” she cried out, grinning, feeling idiotically close to tears. “I’m sure that’s the baby moving. I’ve never felt anything like it before!”

“Let me feel.”

She’d barely registered the words before Joe’s larger, warmer hand was pushing hers aside and flattening against her stomach. She wanted to tell him it was too soon to feel anything on the outside, but his hand felt so good. So right.

She was so in trouble.

Dear Reader,

Happy holidays! Have you ever wanted something so badly that you can’t stop thinking about it? So badly that you’re compelled to do whatever it takes to make it happen? That’s kind of how things went with this book. When I met Elise she was going to have quadruplets. That’s all I knew about her. I’d seen this quad stroller while I was out shopping one day last fall and when the questions started coming, I knew I was going to have to write a story about a multiple birth. That was when Elise appeared.

And then, as usually happens in my world, emotions started to appear from nowhere and take over my story. I fought them a bit. Tried to tell them who was really boss. But once I conceded that I wasn’t the one in charge here, a story unfolded that I think will touch your heart. It has certainly touched mine.

In each of us is a drive to achieve something, whether that be financial, emotional, career based, relationship based, or something else entirely. We all have needs. This is the story of someone just like us–a woman whose heart cries out for more. For love and belonging. But with Elise, it doesn’t stop with the wanting. She steps outside the normal boundaries of societal expectations to provide her life with the fullness she craves. Her journey is lonely. It isn’t easy, by any stretch. And in the end, being true to herself and the dictates of her heart–she is successful. Beyond her dreams.

I learned an important lesson from Elise Richardson. I don’t have to settle. This holiday season, my gift to you is the challenge to ask yourself for more. And then to make it happen… Next Christmas, we can check back with each other to see what we’ve accomplished!

Tara Taylor Quinn

Merry Christmas, Babies
Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tara’s first book, Yesterday’s Secrets, published in October 1993, was a finalist for the Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA® Award. Her subsequent work has earned her finalist status for the National Readers’ Choice Award and the Holt Medallion, plus another two RITA® Award nominations. A prolific writer, she has forty-two novels and three novellas published. To reach Tara write to her at P.O. Box 133584, Mesa, Arizona 85216 or through her Web site, www.tarataylorquinn.com.

For Rachel—my dearest gift. If you only ever learn one thing from me, please let it be always to listen to your heart and act as it directs.

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 ONE

“ANYONE HEAR FROM ELISE?” Joe Bennett walked into the lunchroom at the back of the suite of offices he and his partner—and the bank—now owned. Eating meals ranging from fruit and yogurt to homemade burgers, the employees Elise Richardson supervised sat at the long, elegant wooden table.

“Not a word.” Twenty-five-year-old Angela Parks glanced over her shoulder at him from the granite-topped island marking the center of the full kitchen on one end of the room. She was making a salad.

It was Thursday. On Fridays Elise cooked lunch for their nine-member staff. Maybe she was out grocery shopping for the next day’s offering.

But it would be the first time in the ten years they’d been in business that she’d done so during the workday. At night, while Joe left the job and lived a life, Elise worked at home—or shopped for the office.

“She didn’t say where she was going?”

“I think she had a dentist appointment,” Ruth Gregory said, straightening a stem in the silk flower centerpiece in front of her. At fifty, she was the oldest B&R employee.

“No.” Thirty-five-year-old Mark Oppenheimer popped the last of his usual peanut butter sandwich in his mouth and stood. “That was last month. Today she didn’t say what kind of appointment, only that she shouldn’t be gone more than an hour.”

“What time was that?”

“Nine.” As their chief financial officer, the skinny, bespectacled man was Elise’s second in command and the source most likely to be up to date.

Glancing at his multi-dialed designer watch—which his then-wife had bought him for Christmas a few years ago and which Joe wore because it would be a waste not to, even though he preferred the simple large-faced cheap number he’d worn in college—he frowned.

“That was almost four hours ago.”

Mark wiped the crumbs he’d left on the table onto the floor—a man after his own heart. “I know,” he said.

“And she hasn’t called?”

“No.”

After another few seconds of standing there blankly, Joe started to leave. And then turned back.

“Anyone think to call the hospitals to make sure she wasn’t in an accident?” He was only half joking, but their chuckles followed him down the hallway.

“I’ve got lunch with Anderson, Anderson and Bailey,” he told his secretary on his way out. The law firm was the biggest in the state of Michigan—a six-million-dollar account—and B&R had been courting them for a couple of years. “Text message me the second Elise gets in, will you?”

Bennett and Richardson Professional Employee Organization, or B&R PEO, offered companies a comprehensive package that included payroll, workers’ compensation, tax compliance and group insurance, all at a rate lower than they could arrange for themselves. Joe Bennett was in charge of sales, and Elise Richardson, his best friend from college, oversaw virtually everything else.

Normally his cell phone was in the Off position when he was in meetings—commonly disguised as social gatherings now that he had two salesmen who made the office calls to sit with managers and work out logistics. Today he turned his cell on to Vibrate instead, so he’d know if and when a message came through. He didn’t have an urgent need to speak to his business partner. He just wanted to assure himself that she was going to be around at some point to nag him about something.

THE LONG, FAMILIAR private road across the front of the cemetery was potholed and narrow, barely wide enough to fit the Corvette. Elise passed several lanes that sectioned off areas filled with headstones of varying sizes, many with urns bearing colorful floral arrangements planted on Memorial Day two and a half weeks before. As she rounded the back border of the carefully tended green acreage, she slowed to a stop, then climbed out of the car, wrapping her short, three-quarter-sleeved white sweater more closely around her.

She’d thought this stage of her life was about moving on. Becoming.

Yet it turned out, at the moment, she needed her family.

Concentrating on the feel of the soft, cool grass, Elise walked barefoot toward the stone bearing her family name. It brought a happy memory of running through the grass in bare feet, chasing her older brother—because if she could catch him, he’d let her ride on the back of his bike to go for an ice cream cone.

Back then, she’d thought that she’d always managed to catch him because she was so strong and fast. Now she understood that he’d allowed her to. And she smiled.

“Hi,” she said.

Tucking her calf-length, white-and-pink floral cotton skirt beneath her, she sat directly in front of the main stone marked Richardson. And didn’t know what else to say. Normally her visits were to take care of their gravesites—pull weeds, plant flowers, scrub their stones. And while she worked, she’d tell them about the business, something that happened with an employee or a new building in town—not that they’d ever even heard of Lowell, Michigan.

She’d bought the plot and buried what was left of their ashes, brought with her from Arkansas, as part of her therapy about eight years before.

“Mama?”

Her voice broke when she heard the word come out of her mouth. So she turned to another of the individual stones, bearing first and middle names, birth and death dates. “Daddy?”

It wasn’t any easier. Her gaze moved again. “Danny?”

And again. “Ellen?”

“Baby Grace?”

There’d been four of them once. Four children filling her parents’ home and hearts.

Now there was only her.

And…

“Mama?” She cried openly because she couldn’t help it, and because there was no one around to see. Wiping her eyes with the bottom edge of her skirt, she finally admitted, “I’m scared.”

Complete silence followed the confession. Inside of her and out.

“I’m scared, Mama,” she said again, more firmly. “I know I’m not supposed to be, that I’m a survivor, but sometimes I wish I’d died along with the rest of you.”

She quieted, waited to be struck for the ungrateful thought. But nothing happened. She wasn’t punished. And the thought didn’t leave, either.

“Why did I have to be the one they got? Why did my bedroom have to be on the farthest side of the house? Why did Ellen share a room with Grace and not me? Why only me?”

Because you’re special.

The words were a whisper in her mind, almost as though carried on the light breeze. They were a memory from her early childhood. And from the physically and emotionally agonizing months and years that stretched from her eleventh year to her twentieth. She’d lost track of the number of people who’d said the words to her.

But she could still hear them in her mother’s voice the day she’d asked her why she couldn’t have been the oldest like Danny, or the first girl like Ellen, or the baby like Grace. She’d been searching for her place, even then, stuck in the middle with no solid sense of how she fit.

She stared at the smaller stone bearing her mother’s name. Wanting. Wishing. Needing.

“I’m pregnant, Mama.”

The stone in front of her blurred again. Pulling her knees up, her arms wrapped around them, Elise sat still and let her life settle around her as it would. And as the tears continued to flow, she lifted the edge of her skirt a second time, wiping her face. A face that none of the people whose names were engraved on those small, cold stones would ever recognize.

JOE WASN’T SURE what to think when, at five after six that Thursday evening in mid-June, he walked up the steps of his partner’s elegant, colonial-style home on Lakeshore Drive overlooking the Flat River and knocked on the door. She pulled it open, looking as normal and fine as she did any other day.

“You’re okay.” He hadn’t meant to sound disappointed. Hell, he wasn’t! He was relieved as hell. But—

“I’m fine.”

“You haven’t missed a day of work since we opened shop ten years ago.”

“Then I guess I was due.”

“You didn’t call.” Sweating in his short-sleeved shirt and tie, although the evening was a balmy seventy degrees, Joe shifted from foot to foot.

“I own the company, Joe. I don’t have to call.”

She was right, of course. “Co-own.”

“How many times have you missed coming into the office and not called in about it?” Her chin lifted a notch, her dark, short, sassy hair falling away from her neck.

It was different for him. He made outside calls. And even when he took a day off… “I take my cell phone everywhere. You can always reach me if there’s an emergency.”

“I had mine, too.”

“You didn’t answer.”

“I listened to the messages.”

Then she realized he’d been checking to make sure she was okay. And she hadn’t bothered to call him back, to assure him that she was.

Odd.

“Can I come in?”

She hesitated and then nodded, stepping away from the door.

He followed her through the formal living room, dining room and kitchen to the family room in the back of the house. He’d never understood why a woman who lived alone wanted so much space around her, but then, he’d never understood Elise, period.

Outside the office, that was.

A half-filled and perspiring glass of what appeared to be mostly juice and melted ice sat on the end table. The lamp was on. The large-screen television in front of the creamy white leather sofa was silent. There were no books, remote controls, or papers to indicate that his partner had been doing anything while she’d been sitting there.

Tucking her feet beneath her white skirt, she curled up on the sofa. And picked at her fingernails.

Her cats, Darin and Samantha, settled behind her on the back of the sofa.

“You mind if I get myself a bottle of water?” He wasn’t thirsty. Except, perhaps, for a shot of bourbon. Straight up.

He hadn’t consumed alcohol straight up since college.

“Of course not.” Her smoky gray eyes were more mysterious to him than usual as she glanced at him. Why did the woman’s expression so rarely show him what she was thinking, like everyone else’s did? “Help yourself.”

Retrieving a bottle from the top shelf of the refrigerator, he glanced around the kitchen. The red-and-gold-flowered canisters that matched the wall paper border topping the golden accent wall were all neatly in place. Salt and pepper shakers that went with the set were on the stove where he’d always seen them in the past. If she’d eaten anything, she’d already cleaned up. And dried the sink, as well.

She’d had Kelly and him for dinner on a regular basis when they’d still been married. Joe couldn’t remember her ever drying out the sink when she’d finished the dishes.

Hadn’t she eaten?

“So what’d you do today?” He tried for casual as he approached her again, unsure whether he should join her on the couch or remain standing.

Now her eyes were moist when she looked at him, as though, while he’d been perusing her kitchen, she’d been crying. Or was about to start.

This was new ground for him. In the almost fourteen years they’d known each other it had somehow always been her picking up the pieces for him. He stared at the polished gleam on his wing-tip shoes.

“Mostly I stayed home.”

Joe thought about the times he’d taken off work—they weren’t as rare as hers, but rare enough that the hours were filled to the brim.

“Mostly?”

Elise’s smile settled his nerves some. “It’s okay, Joe. You can go. I’m fine. Really.”

He wanted to go.

“You sure you’re okay?”

She nodded. Darin opened one eye and closed it again.

Joe drank the bottle of water, recapped it, planning to throw it in the trash in the kitchen on his way out. He had a frozen Salisbury steak and mashed potato dinner to get home to. And then was meeting a couple of bankers for drinks at nine, after their racquetball game. If all went well, he’d be signing on their chain of financial institutions, Michigan Local Banks, to begin payroll at the beginning of July. It was a ten-million-dollar account—a hundred-thousand-dollar-a-year payout to B&R—his largest yet.

Joe glanced at his partner, the woman who’d been his buddy in college, challenging his thinking at every turn, challenging him to put his money where his mouth was and go into business, intimidating the hell out of him a time or two, listening to him whine and then curse when Kelly left him to make babies with a man who wanted them. She’d gotten drunk with him the day his divorce papers came through.

“I can’t go until you tell me what’s going on.”

That perfectly sculpted chin lifted again.

“I’m six-and-a-half weeks pregnant.”

Joe dropped his water bottle.

“I WON’T LET the business suffer.”

Shocked at the emotions running through him—anger at the man who’d done this to her, feelings of protectiveness—Joe loosened his tie and sat. Darin and Samantha both leaped from the sofa and scurried out of the room.

The idea of Elise pregnant was so far removed from his idea of reality he couldn’t quite get his mind around it.

“B&R didn’t even enter my head.”

“Well, it will, and I want you to know that I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to handle my responsibilities the same as I always have.”

He didn’t doubt her. And at the moment didn’t care.

Looking her in the eye, he sought to explain the inexplicable. “Who’s the father?” And why did he already hate the guy so much?

“I don’t know.”

Fire burned beneath his skin. How did a woman—at least the kind of woman Elise was—get pregnant without knowing the father? Unless she’d been raped. Could a woman go through something like that and never let on? Surely even Elise, as strong and unflappable and self-contained as she was, couldn’t do that.

And how did he tackle such a sensitive and intimate subject? He didn’t want to trigger a breakdown.

He thought of the times he’d seen her cry.

There weren’t any.

The times she’d come to him with a personal problem.

There weren’t any of those, either.

“When are you due?”

“Christmas.”

He couldn’t help a quick glance at her midsection. It was as flat as ever.

“I won’t let you and the business down, Joe,” she repeated.

“I’m not worried about me! Or the business.” Did she think he was that shallow?

“You’re obviously upset.”

“I’d like to kill the bastard who did this to you.”

“I did this to me.”

Had her expression not been so earnest, the situation so tragic, he would have chuckled. “My friend, you are the most self-sufficient woman I’ve ever met, but even you cannot produce the necessary male ingredient for procreation.”

“No, but I can buy it.”

Her skirt had pink flowers on it. And dark smudges along the hem. He waited.

“I had artificial insemination.”

“You meant to get pregnant?”

“Yeah.”

“Good God, woman! What the hell did you do that for?”

“I want a family, Joe!” Her brows rose with her voice, giving her an air of desperation. Panic. He had no idea what to do.

“But—”

She shook her head. “Don’t ‘but’ me right now, okay? This isn’t up for debate. It’s a done deal.”

“I’m trying to understand.”

“How could you?” Elise got up and left the room so quickly, he was pretty sure she wasn’t coming back. And wished there were a door that would allow him to quietly slip away without having to pass through the inner domain of her home. He wished she had a best friend he could call to take over where he was grossly inadequate.

“Here.” She was back. With a shot of bourbon mixed with water.

Joe accepted the gift without a word. Took a long sip. And stared at ice cubes floating in amber-colored liquid.

Sitting down on the other end of the couch, Elise leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, and turned her head toward him. “How many guys have I dated more than once in the last five years?”

“Two that I know of.”

“Then you know of all of them.”

He was treading on uncharted ground. He’d been confiding in her about his love life for most of the time he’d known her. All he knew of hers was what they’d just covered.

“You’re a strikingly beautiful woman, Elise.” Surely she knew that. “You could have any man you wanted.”

Still she watched him. “I didn’t think you ever noticed I’m a woman.”

The glass started to slide through Joe’s sweaty fingers. He got a better grip.

“I noticed. But you made it plain from the beginning that you valued our friendship and wanted it to stay that way.”

“I did. I do.”

“I respected that.”

Staring at her clasped hands, she was silent for a long moment. “I have a little story to tell you.”

He waited.

“One I should’ve told you years ago.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I’m not sure,” she said, frowning as she peered over at him again. “My reasons seem silly now, and yet to me they make perfect sense.”

He had no idea what any of this had to do with her newly disclosed pregnancy, but knowing Elise, he was certain he was going to find out. What surprised him was how badly everything about this evening threatened him. He was generally a flexible guy. Took change on the cuff. Accepted other people and their choices, whether like his or not, without much difficulty. He’d grown up in a family with seven kids, and someone was always doing something he didn’t like. To survive, he’d learned the wisdom of withholding judgment.

“You mentioned my looks just now, as though my being beautiful was just part of who I am.”

“Isn’t it?” Joe asked her. She used to intrigue and frustrate him with her insights. He hadn’t realized she’d stopped sharing them until this moment when he realized that one was on its way. He sat back, waiting.

He’d missed them.

“No. My looks aren’t me at all.”

“We all have outer packaging,” he countered. A philosophical debate he could do. And even if he couldn’t, he was willing to try—anything to delay the moment they’d have to get back to the problem at hand. “It’s a part of you, just like your gender. And your sense of humor. It shapes many of life’s experiences and has no bearing on others.”

“Exactly, it’s a package. One we’re born with. It gives us a sense of self from our earliest moments.”

She didn’t usually agree so quickly. “Right.”

“It combines with our memories, our loved ones, to provide the rock upon which our lives are built. No matter what happens to us, we can go back to that rock and find solid ground.”

“Uh-huh.”

Joe watched her through narrowed eyes. There was a catch here. He could feel it coming.

“And that’s why I didn’t tell you my little story before now,” Elise said. “I didn’t want you to know I don’t have that rock. You treated me like I was normal, and normal was something I hadn’t felt in far too many years.”

“Too many years,” Joe repeated. “You sound as if you were forty when I met you.” He wondered if pregnancy had already gotten to her emotions. One second she was Elise, and the next she wasn’t making any sense at all. “You weren’t even eighteen.”

“And you treated me like it. You wouldn’t have if I’d told you what I’d already endured before I got to my freshman year at the University of Michigan.”

The room was warm. Joe chugged the last of his drink.

“I’m not the woman you see, Joe.”

He didn’t believe her.

CHAPTER TWO

ELISE WATCHED THE EMOTIONS flit across the face of her dear friend and partner. Joe had always been so easy to read. He didn’t have anything to hide.

His open honesty made him a great salesman.

And a horrible poker player.

He didn’t want to hear what she had to say.

But he had to hear it.

Maybe as badly as she now needed to quit hiding from the truth.

“This face you find strikingly beautiful…” The words caught in her throat. She’d loved hearing Joe describe her that way, but she needed to bury her head and cry at the same time. It wasn’t her he was admiring.

It wasn’t ever her.

“It’s not me, Joe. It’s a piece of art—the award-winning work of a very talented craftsman.”

Dr. Thomas Fuller hadn’t told her about the public acknowledgment of his work—or the pictures of her face that had been passed around. She’d seen a magazine open to an article in his office one day.

And had rushed to his private bathroom to throw up.

“I don’t understand,” Joe said.

“You know B&R’s start-up money came from a life insurance policy my father purchased before he died.” When it came right down to it, even after all the years of counseling, the new steps she’d vowed to take, she still couldn’t find the words to speak of the night that had irrevocably changed her life forever.

“Yes.” Joe twirled his glass, moving the ice cubes around and around.

“I’ll get you another drink.”

He didn’t argue.

“I was born in Arkansas,” she said as she came back into the room and handed him the full glass. She took her bottle of water to the other end of the sofa. Opened it. Played with the lid. “I was third youngest of four kids.”

“You have siblings?”

She couldn’t blame him for sounding so shocked. Yet the reaction cut her to the core.

And that was why she was speaking up. People couldn’t know what she didn’t tell them.

“A brother and two sisters.”

He threw up a hand. “Why haven’t I ever met them? You know all my brothers and sisters. Hell, you know their kids better than I do.”

She’d spent a lot of holidays with his family.

And she’d hurt him. She hadn’t expected that.

They’re dead, Joe. The words said themselves in her head.

“You’re welcome to meet my family right now if you’d like to take a five-minute drive with me to the cemetery.”

“They’re dead?”

She tried to nod. Meant to nod. She stared at him. Not even blinking.

“All of them?”

Now she blinked, opened her mouth, but it was trembling too badly to wrap around words.

His face stiffened, and paled. “How?”

“A fire. The electrical system in our house shorted.”

JOE’S SKIN WAS CLAMMY. Chilled. He needed to walk. Do something. But he couldn’t move.

Surely the horror he was beginning to picture wasn’t as bad as he was seeing it. Elise was his friend—probably the best friend he’d ever had. She was strong and steady. Nothing bad ever happened to her.

How could he have been so blind? So damned self-interested that he hadn’t known she was hiding?

“They didn’t have time to get out?” he asked now, aghast at the thought of her siblings trapped in a burning home.

“It was the middle of the night.”

The story she’d had to tell him was simple enough. But it contained images he was never going to forget. His beautiful, self-sufficient partner sitting on her sofa, hunched over, consumed by inner visions. And a fear so real she was shaking with it.

“What about your parents?”

“Them, too.”

She’d lost her entire family in one tragic night. He couldn’t even fathom such a thing. Not when his siblings, his parents, were still very much alive and in his life, an intrinsic part of who he was.

He stared at his friend, seeing someone completely different, someone his heart bled for. Someone he was in awe of.

“How old were you?”

She didn’t seem to see him. “Eleven.”

A child. An innocent. Six years before he met her. Six years of growing up…where? With whom?

“Where were you at the time?” How had she been told? Did she see the house?

“There. I was there.”

Joe fought the images. He thought about holding her until it all went away.

And then the end of the story became terrifyingly clear. She’d referred to herself as the award-winning work of a talented craftsman. She wasn’t who he saw.

“You were burned.”

She cringed, hugged her knees. And nodded.

He watched. Waited for her to look up at him. Could he pull her into his arms and make it better? Should he touch her?

Elise’s eyes, when she finally raised her head, revealed the child she’d been. She seemed unsure of his reaction—as though she’d been expecting a negative one.

He swallowed. Fought the urge to run his fingers over her face, through her hair, to kiss away the tears glistening in her lashes. To take her into his lap and rock her.

“How badly?”

“Forty percent.”

Of her body? Trying to imagine the reality made him sick to his stomach. The pain would have been excruciating. Enough to send an adult over the edge, let alone an eleven-year-old child.

“Hair ignites quickly,” she said now, her voice more that of a young girl than the indomitable woman he’d known. “It’s highly flammable.”

Joe had nothing to say. His eyes stung. He took her hand.

“Mine was long.”

ELISE HAD NO IDEA HOW much time had passed. Caught in a warp between past and present, long-ago pain and current fear, she pushed words past the constriction in her throat as best she could. Spoke, for the first time to a nonmedical person, about the night a large part of her died, leaving behind the intelligent automaton who assessed life, made wise decisions, lived up to societal expectations, was kind to others—and had no sense of personal identity whatsoever.

Holding Joe’s hand—another first—she answered his questions as best as she could, telling him about the years of reconstructive surgeries.

“Dr. Fuller was an angel sent from God,” she told him. “I met him at the burn unit when I was first brought in, although I don’t remember that.” She smiled, despite the tears in her eyes. “From what I’ve been told, he took one look at me, heard that my family had all died in the fire, and declared himself my provider and protector. He worked with Social Services and I was placed in the home of his parents’ dearest friends—when I wasn’t in the hospital. I was the culmination of his life’s work, and he performed operations that normally cost exorbitant amounts, at the fee covered by my insurance.”

Elise, withstanding Joe’s perusal with difficulty, could feel her skin tightening where she still had surface sensation. Even after all those years in and out of hospitals, she’d never gotten used to the stares—and the accompanying horror on the faces of the strangers who’d seen her.

“It’s amazing there aren’t any scars.”

“There are.” She closed her eyes, reached with her free hand to trace her hair line. “Here—” her finger moved down the outside of her jawbone to beneath her chin “—to here.”

There were other scars he couldn’t see. That no one saw. Both inside and out. But she was lucky. Thanks to Thomas Fuller, the only external signs left from that hateful night were skillfully hidden, mere thin, silky lines.

“And the people who kept you, they were kind?”

“Very.” If she tried really hard, she could still smell Mary’s peach cobbler baking in the oven. “The Bournes were a childless couple in their seventies. My parents were both estranged from their families because they’d married outside their religions—one was Jewish, one Catholic. So I never knew either set of my grandparents. The time I spent with the Bournes was a gift. Mostly I remember their kindness. They carted me back and forth to appointments, therapies and surgeries, visiting me whenever I was in the hospital.”

“Where are they now?”

“Wally died of a heart attack the year before I started college. Mary followed about six months later. They were both eighty-one.”

“I knew you then.”

“Barely.”

“You never let on you were grieving…”

Joe shook his head. It must be late. He couldn’t let go of Elise’s hand—as though his touch made a difference to her aloneness.

“I’m so incredibly sorry,” he said, hating how trite the words sounded. He’d asked what she’d meant by therapy, and she’d told him about the years of painful treatments she’d endured to regain full use of her injured muscles and limbs. About the nerves that couldn’t be fixed, the parts of her face that would never experience sensation again.

“Thanks.” She didn’t seem to notice that her fingers were still clasped in his. “You’re the first person I’ve ever told about this—apart from counselors.”

He frowned, wishing he’d taken more time to get to know her over the years. He had an idea he’d missed out on much. “Why is that?”

“Look at how you’re looking at me.”

He blinked, pulled away. Let go of her hand. “What?”

“You feel sorry for me.”

“Of course I do! You suffered such a tragedy.”

“I know. And I appreciate the sympathy, don’t get me wrong. But after everything I’d been through, I just wanted to live a normal life. It wasn’t ever going to happen if I took my past with me.”

“Your past is a part of you.”

She was busy trying to leave it behind. “Maybe.”

“It made you strong.”

She didn’t feel strong.

“I’ve dated two wonderful men in the past five years, and both times I could never get enough sense of who I was to be able to give my heart to someone. There’s always this part of me that’s detached.”

She figured that there was no point in holding back now. Joe already knew the worst. And he was safe. A friend and no more.

“I feel fake inside,” she admitted to him. “Just like my face is fake.”

She drew back when he reached to touch her, but he ran his fingers down the side of her cheek anyway. “You don’t feel fake.”

She didn’t feel his fingers, either.

And then, as his hand continued over her face, away from the grafted skin, she did.

“I lost everything, Joe. Mementos, photos, tokens. The memories fade and there’s no one left who shared them to remind me. I look in the mirror and I’m not me. There is nothing there that speaks of my heritage.”

He started to speak but she held up a hand. She had to finish what she’d started.

“Don’t get me wrong. I’m not feeling sorry for myself here,” she continued. “Yes, horrible things happened, but I was also incredibly lucky—in many ways—and I’m very grateful for that. Truthfully, I think more about the good than the bad.”

He nodded, sipped his watered-down drink, then held the glass in both hands in his lap.

“I’m a survivor, Joe. I’m only telling you about all this so that you can understand.”

And because, as of today, there was no way her choice wasn’t going to affect his life, as well, at least peripherally.

“I’m thirty-two years old. I’ve got my body back, my career and financial security are set, but my sense of self, of being grounded, which I lost in that fire, is still missing. I have no significant other. I’ve been finding my solutions on my own for a long time.”

“And so you decided to have a baby, start a new family, on your own.”

The knot between her shoulder blades loosened and Elise almost smiled. “Yes.” He got it.

“Okay.” He drained his drink, sat forward. “You have my full support.”

Elise was tempted to stand, to leave it at that and let him leave, but knew she couldn’t. She’d opened the door to truth between them. She was no longer hiding.

“There’s more, Joe.”

Lips pursed, he nodded. “I kind of thought so.”

“I had an ultrasound today.”

He peered at her through narrowed eyes. “There’s something wrong with the baby?”

If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was personally invested in her answer. But this was Joe. He’d chosen divorce over creating a baby with the woman he adored.

“Not as far as they can tell,” she answered slowly.

“So what’s the problem?”

“There are four of them.”

JOE DROVE HOME. His older brother Kenny was waiting on the lighted basketball court behind Joe’s home, just as Joe had requested from his cell phone immediately after leaving Elise.

Kenny, like Joe, was unmarried, unencumbered with a houseful of needs that couldn’t possibly be met. He was also unemployed—for the fourth time in almost as many years.

By choice.

His brother got bored easily.

“What’s up?” Kenny asked as Joe joined him five minutes later, having exchanged his shirt and tie for shorts, a T-shirt and three-hundred-dollar tennis shoes.

“Just needed a game,” Joe grunted as he sank a three-pointer.

Kenny swiveled, butted up against Joe as he dribbled and went up for a successful slam dunk. “It’s after nine o’clock. You work in the morning.”

“You don’t, so what’s it to you?” Joe rebounded, took the ball back and lined up another three.

With a quick jump, Kenny stole the ball from him.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Kenny said, turning to grin at Joe as he bounced the ball between his legs and caught it behind him. “I sold Wambo.”

One of Kenny’s many animated video characters. He named a well-known, international video game producer as the buyer.

“I’ve got some changes to make to him—he needs to be a little taller and more agile. And they want a woman to go with him.”

Joe stood while Kenny made the next shot. His brother was up on him four to three. “Congratulations!” he said, slapping Kenny on the back.

Kenny got his own rebound and shot the ball at Joe’s chest.

“Can’t let you be the richest guy in the family,” he joked, but Joe could tell that his big brother was proud of Joe’s accomplishments, too. Mostly Joe was relieved to see that Kenny was finally finding some success with what he most loved to do. What he was good at.

He deserved it.

Joe sank another three. And was in his brother’s face, up and down the half court, pounding the pavement, the backboard, anything he came in contact with as he trounced one of Michigan State’s most celebrated basketball stars.

Kenny asked him again what was wrong.

Joe insisted nothing was wrong. And he showered and went to bed telling himself the same thing.

Elise was a business partner who’d survived incredible odds.

Her private life was not and never had been any concern of his.

Sleep was elusive.

ELEVEN O’CLOCK and Elise still couldn’t quiet her mind at all. She’d taken a hot bath. Done breathing exercises. She’d watched a sitcom. Tried to read—and to coax her independent housemates out from under the bed.

And then she picked up the phone. It was an hour earlier in Arkansas. He’d be home by now after his evening jog. Turning seventy hadn’t slowed him down a bit.

“Elise! Good to hear from you.”

Standing in the middle of her bedroom, Elise studied herself in the antique free-standing, floor-length mirror. There wasn’t a single visible scar on her face. And her body was almost as beautiful.

“I’m sorry to bother you so late.”

“You are never a bother, my dear. But I hear something in your voice that concerns me. Need to talk?”

He’d know it was why she’d called. Why, after all the years since being his patient, she still called. At least once a month. She’d grown up with Thomas, confided her deepest secrets to him, trusted his advice.

After the death of her family, he’d become her protector.

There’d been a time of despair—of separation—when he’d fallen from his pedestal. He’d published photos of her at the various stages of her plastic surgery. She’d long since forgiven him, though.

Now he was just a man. And a very dear friend, with faults and failings like everyone else.

And he’d created the woman who now stood on expensive carpet in a spacious bedroom in a beautiful old home in Lowell, Michigan.

“I’m pregnant, Thomas.”

“Congratulations!” her ex-doctor said with real joy. “So it took the first time!”

“It more than took.” She turned away from her image as fear twisted her features. “I’m carrying quadruplets.”

He swore—something he rarely did. And that scared her anew.

“You’re worried,” she said.

“No,” he answered immediately, his voice reassuring even halfway across the nation. “Just wishing that something would come easy for you.”

“Yeah, me, too.”

Silence. He had doubts. She’d known he would. Feared he would.

Sinking to the handmade floral quilt on her king-size bed, she asked, “What am I going to do, Thomas?”

“Follow doctor’s orders explicitly and have healthy babies.”

The answer surprised her.

“And after that?”

“You’ll raise them.”

“How?” She only had two arms.

“You lived through six years of agonizing pain and debilitation, Elise, beating all the odds over and over again. And you did most of it with a smile on your face. What’s raising four children after that?”

Four children was one thing. Four children at once was another.

“They talked about selective reduction.”

“It’s an option.”

“What do you think?”

“Removing one or two fetuses is common enough practice in quadruplet pregnancies. But it also poses risks to the remaining fetus or fetuses.”

“Do you think I should do it?”

“Do you want to?”

No. Not at all. She could hardly bear the thought. But for the sake of doing the right thing, she was forcing herself to consider the option.

“You can do this,” he said. “You can go through this pregnancy, have these babies, do a good job raising them.”

“I’m scared to death.”

“It’s not the first time, is it?”

He knew it wasn’t.

“Hey.” His voice came again, softer now. “Have you forgotten the one rule of life?”

His wife, Elizabeth, had taught it to her. And to emphasize the message, after every single procedure Elise had undergone during the six years of her recovery, there’d been a gift waiting for her when she awoke.

“To always look for the gift in every situation,” she repeated now.

“You wanted a family. You’re thirty-two. By the time you’re thirty-three, you’ll have a full house.”

With a trembling chin, Elise faced the mirror again. “Mama raised four babies. So can I.”

“That’s my girl.”

CHAPTER THREE

JOE DIDN’T GET ANGRY OFTEN.

Anger brought chaos, for which Joe had a deep-seated aversion.

He avoided glances from everyone in the payroll department as he strode the short distance from his office on one end of the fifteenth-floor condominium suite to Elise’s office on the other.

It had been two weeks and a day since he’d met the real Elise Richardson—or at least a more complete Elise.

Two weeks and a day since she’d told him she was carrying four babies at once.

Neither of them had mentioned the conversation since.

He could think of little else.

She was on the phone when he arrived. The second she disconnected he announced, “I just heard you climbed fifteen flights of stairs with a bag of groceries.”

He could only see the top half of her sleeveless white summer dress, and she wasn’t sweating a bit.

“I had salad dressing and meat for the chicken Caesar salad we’re having for lunch. I couldn’t leave them in my car. It’s summer outside, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Don’t humor me, Elise. I’m not out of line here.”

“You’re upset over nothing.” She didn’t have to flick her fingers through that short dark hair to make her opinion perfectly clear.

“You climbed fifteen flights of stairs!”

“The elevator was out.”

“You’re carrying four babies! You should have called someone.”

She glanced to the hall outside the big glass windows on either side of her door. “The bag wasn’t heavy and exercise is good.” Her voice had lost much of its force.

“You still haven’t told anyone.”

She shook her head.

“When are you planning to do it?”

“As soon as the timing’s right. At the moment we’re hiring a new pay tech to take care of the payroll-only clients. And something’s up with one of our couriers—checks have been misdelivered twice.”

“Lunch today would be good timing,” Joe said, refusing to be distracted by business when what he really wanted was to never again speak of anything else with his partner. “Putting yourself—and your babies—in danger is ludicrous.”

“There was no danger, Joe! I’m not stupid. I went slowly, took breaks when I needed to. I just saw my doctor this morning and she says the more I exercise the better we’re all going to be.”

He closed her door, then stood in front of her desk like some kind of drill sergeant. Unusual for him.

“On to something that matters,” she said, eyeing him with warning. “First International is threatening to raise our group rate again. I’ve got an appointment on Monday with Great State.”

Both substantial and reputable insurance companies, and nothing to do with the stairs she’d climbed—or the reason he cared that she had. “I suspect their quotes will be similar.”

“Our value comes in offering insurance to employees of independent companies at a rate their companies can’t afford to offer. If our rates change too much, we lose that value.”

“We offer a great package,” he said. “Payroll, workers’ comp, tax compliance—and group insurance. And if our rates raise, so will everyone else’s. Unless they drop the lower rate structure for larger groups—which would put them out of business—we’ll still have the advantage.”

“I have an idea that will give us more of an advantage.”

He recognized the glint in her eye and sat in a visitor chair. “I’m listening.”

“What if we bundle a package of vendors? You know, a workers’ comp specialist, a strategic planning counselor, a tax consultant, a retirement counselor, psychiatric counselor, a corporate lawyer and maybe some kind of team facilitator—all things that are offered to employees of larger companies.”

“Benefits that bring higher levels of success,” he added, already hearing the presentation in his mind as he imagined himself selling the idea.

“Exactly.” Elise folded her hands on her desk, watching him. “The vendors would all bill us and we’d bill the companies, based on how many options they choose.”

“Individual services billed at a package-deal rate.”

“Correct.”

He loved it. Would have thought of it himself if he didn’t have her there to do that kind of thinking for him. Or not.

The tension that had become almost a constant companion to Joe these past couple of weeks returned in force. He needed Elise. Couldn’t afford to lose her. B&R couldn’t afford to lose her.

But how could four newborn babies possibly fit into the mix? Or four toddlers, for that matter?

“SO WHAT ELSE DID the doctor say?”

Elise stared at Joe, at the closed door to her office, then the hallway. They were working. In ten years, they’d never talked about personal stuff during working hours. At least not her personal stuff. She wasn’t forthcoming. He never asked. This was the second time in an hour.

She didn’t want that to change. Maybe she’d made a horrible mistake—or many of them. Confiding in Joe about her past. And her present. Visiting the fertility clinic. Thinking she needed more out of life. Thinking, period.

“You know doctors,” she conceded with an answer of sorts when it became clear that he’d sit there through the noon hour if she didn’t ante up. “They’re always worried about malpractice suits.”

Sitting forward, Joe held her gaze, not bothering to temper his frown with even a hint of a smile. “What did she say?”

Angela Parks walked by—probably on her way to the water fountain, judging by the big blue thermal cup in her hand. She filled it at least three times a day. Elise was a little concerned that the twenty-five-year-old pay tech might be diabetic.

“She went over the potential risks.” She’d also given Elise a written list of them. She needn’t have bothered. They were stamped so clearly on her mind she was having trouble focusing on other things.

“Such as?”

Joe looked so earnest, sitting there, his tie slightly askew. Should she tell him? Didn’t he see they were pushing boundaries here? Was he ready for that?

Was she?

“Premature birth is the biggest. A normal pregnancy goes forty weeks. If mine goes to thirty-four she’ll be pleased. Thirty-one is average.”

“Does she see any reason you won’t?”

“No. Not at all.”

“What else?”

“Even if I make it to thirty-six weeks, the babies will have lower than normal birth weights.”

“Why is that?”

“With four of them sharing space, their growing room is limited.”

He fidgeted in his seat, looked down.

“Anything more?” he asked, taking a noticeable degree of interest in a speck on his shoe.

She threw out a hand, wishing she felt even a tenth as nonchalant as she’d have him believe. “Various little problems I’ll be prone to with that many babies pressing on my internal organs.”

Elise started to sweat again, just thinking about the “little problems” of gestational hypertension, anemia, diabetes or any of the other things Dr. Braden had warned her about. She’d never considered, until that morning, that she wouldn’t be physically capable of taking care of herself through all this. She was strong. A survivor.

And if she didn’t, who would?

Helplessness was not an option for family-less people.

“I’m assuming she had orders for you?”

Dozens of them. A few she’d share. “Just lots of rest, a careful diet and vitamins at this point,” she told him honestly. She couldn’t think about any more than that. Being confined to bed the last trimester wasn’t an option.

Elise’s life was about miracles. She’d survived the fire that had killed her entire family. She had little trace of the burns that had covered forty percent of her body. She could be one of the three percent of women who had relatively normal quadruplet pregnancies—and she’d start the percentage for those who made it the entire way upright.

“Did she advise you to quit work?”

“No.” Not yet, anyway. Dr. Braden expected she’d eventually prescribe bed rest, though. She probably assumed that Elise would understand that bed rest meant not working.

The assumption was wrong.

“MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION please?”

Joe stood in the doorway of the kitchen, searching the room for his partner. She was over by the sink, still serving plates of food.

When she’d originally started the tradition of providing Friday lunch, their office had been one room with partitions and she’d cooked at home and brought lunch in. There’d been just the two of them and they’d pulled up chairs at Joe’s desk and eaten together.

Voices slowly stopped as faces turned toward him. Joe counted all nine of them. Everyone was there. Good.

“Sorry to interrupt your lunch, but we have an announcement to make. Elise?”

He would not feel guilty about this. Elise’s health was at risk.

“Ah, yes.” He heard her voice and studied the flooring. The travertine had been a good choice. Elise’s, of course.

“B&R is going to expand our program of services…”

What? He did everything he could to bore a hole with his eyes into his partner’s forehead as she expounded on the plan the two of them had agreed upon that morning, giving their employees assignments, timelines and a bonus program. The woman was good.

But she wasn’t getting away with it.

After the applause died down and questions were answered, Joe stepped farther into the room.

“That isn’t all Elise has to say,” he told the group. This time his gaze let her know in no uncertain terms that if she didn’t do this, he would.

She’d put away the lunch leftovers and moved aside as Ruth Gregory and the two girls who worked under her supervision carried over the dishes and started rinsing them.

“I…”

Her eyes pleaded with him. He didn’t back down.

“I…”

“You aren’t quitting, are you?” The horrified call came from the end of the room. Sam Watterson, his senior sales associate.

“No!” Elise’s eyes met Joe’s again, and he finally understood. She wasn’t trying to be difficult. She wasn’t even trying to be secretive.

She just couldn’t do this.

“What Elise is trying to tell you is that she’s going to need your help a little bit more than usual around here over the next few months. We all know how much she’s given to this company—to all of us—and now it’s time for us to thank her by returning the support. Starting with congratulations. She’s decided to start a family.”

Exclamations broke out around them, heads jerking toward Elise, as though for confirmation that Joe was sane and not telling stories about her.

“Yes, yes, it’s true,” she said. She stood in the center of the room as though uncertain of how to respond to the smiling faces around her.

“Are you going to adopt a boy or a girl?” Ruth asked.

Elise’s expression froze. “Uh…”

“She’s not adopting,” Joe jumped in, cursing himself. It wasn’t like him to act without foresight, without planning. But then, it wasn’t like his partner to get pregnant, either.

“You’re going to have a baby?” Angela’s voice rose with excitement. She was at Elise’s right elbow.

Elise nodded. “More than one, actually.”

“Twins?” Carolyn Ramsey, B&R’s workers’ compensation specialist, joined the women by the sink.

“Quadruplets,” Elise said as though it was commonplace. The woman just wasn’t facing the situation, Joe thought. Which worried the hell out of him. How could he count on her to take care of herself if she wasn’t going to acknowledge what needed to be done?

Whatever the hell that was.

Everyone in the room was staring. “I’m eight-and-a-half weeks along,” Elise added.

“Quadruplets!” Angela’s eyes were wide. “Cool. I’ve never known anyone who had four kids at once.”

“Are you going to tell us next that you’re the happy father?” Mark Oppenheimer asked, taking his plate to the sink.

The idea floored Joe.

But not, apparently, their staff. The room grew quiet, eyes on him.

“No, he’s not,” Elise said at last. “Joe’s a wonderful business partner, but spare me his eating habits. I could never live with a man who eats leftover pizza for breakfast.”

Laugher broke out and Joe started to breathe again. She’d never experienced the bliss of cold pizza in the morning? That was her problem.

“Nor could I expose my children to such habits with a clear conscience,” she continued.

“Then who…”

“But…”

He should have anticipated the awkward situation he’d put her in. Should have done this differently. Presentation was his business.

“Elise elected to do this alone,” he told the group. “She had artificial insemination, and I, for one, admire the hell out of her for having the courage to pursue her own brand of happiness.”

Cheers filled the room and Joe could no longer make out the excited chatter around Elise. He waited around another minute or two—long enough to make sure that she was okay, and then escaped to his office.

She’d be well taken care of. If he’d read their staff right—and reading people, Elise aside, was one of his most prominent skills—she’d have no fewer than nine surrogate watchdogs at the office over the next months.

Which let him solidly off the hook.

“HI, ELIZABETH, it’s Elise. Is Thomas home?”

Seven-thirty on Saturday morning, he should be. Unless he had a golf game. Samantha rubbed up against her, purring.

“Of course. Let me get him for you, dear.”

“Thanks.”

“I hear congratulations are in order. I was thrilled when Thomas told me it worked so quickly. And don’t worry about the rest of it, dear. You know how the good Lord works. In his time, not yours. He’s taken pretty good care of you.”

Including sending such a wise woman to keep her head straight, Elise thought. If only she had Elizabeth’s confidence. “I know.”

“I’ll get Thomas.”

“ARE YOU FEELING OKAY?” Thomas’s greeting was right to the point as always when he came on the line moments later.

“Yes.”

“Following doctor’s orders?”

“Don’t I always?”

“Any problems?”

“Not so far.”

“Good. So you like this Dr. Braden? You trust her?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I made some calls—heard nothing but good about her.”

Elise smiled, though she almost started to cry, as well. “Am I ever going to get too old for you to look out for me?”

“Nope.”

She was glad to hear that.

“It’s going to be hard carrying four babies at once.”

“Harder on some than others. You’re strong and in excellent health. Just keep taking all your vitamins.”

She paused, knowing what he’d say, but she had to voice her concerns anyway. If not, they’d continue to go around in her head driving her quietly insane.

“What if something happens to me, Thomas? What’ll happen to my children?” Darin jumped into her lap and she stroked his back.

“You trying to do God’s job again?”

Just as she’d expected.

“No.”

“Lots of things can happen. Each with its own solution based on where you are in life when it happens. No point trying to find solutions for circumstances that are not yet set.”

Also what she’d expected.

“Then can we deal with here and now?” she asked. “I’m afraid there are a million things I’m not thinking of.”

“I doubt that, my dear, but I’m happy to help, you know that. Tell me what you’ve done to provide for the kids in case something happens to you.”

“I took out another life insurance policy last week.” Her father had taught her well.

“Good. Anything else?”

“Set up a trust.”

“Excellent.”

“Will you and Elizabeth execute for me?”

“For now.”

In a routine established years before, he helped her organize her thoughts one by one. Breaking everything down into parts she could manage.

“I’ve got all this energy,” she told him half an hour later. “I’m supposed to be tired, aren’t I?”

“Wait another couple of weeks,” he replied. “In the meantime, why not shop? You’re going to need four of everything. Make your choices, have things delivered, get the house ready in case you’re too tired to walk from one room to another later on.”

Four cribs. Where was she going to put them? She moved through the house. The family room would need cradles. And a changing table. And swings. Nothing in the living room.

Four of everything. The cribs would all fit in the second bedroom.

Too tired to walk, he’d said. Oh, God. Could she do this?

“Do you recommend disposable diapers?” Thomas was still on the phone. She had to say something.

“For a single mother of four? Absolutely! Get on the Internet, Elise, and find one of those quad scooter things, too. They use them in place of strollers. I’ve seen them at conventions a time or two and I’m guessing you won’t find one at a local baby store.”

“Okay.” And if she found one, would she have the strength to push it?

“And start looking around for a nanny now. I’m assuming you’re set enough to be able to afford one?”

“During the day.” She was an accountant. She’d done the math every way there was to do it. Over and over these past weeks. “We just bought the suite of offices and I owe a chunk on this house and would take huge penalties to get out of either loan.”

“And knowing you, I’d guess most of your savings are tied up in long-term investments.”

“IRAs, mostly. I have enough cash to see me through several months in case of an emergency, but I’ll need that cushion now more than ever. I was expecting one baby. Paid maternity leave. And day care. I could do that on my salary.”

“Check out programs at the local college. I think Grand Valley State is there. See if there’s a child care class that will accept you as part the class curriculum. Students could get credit for assisting you with the babies while they’re still too young for day care. It won’t do much for your nighttime feedings, but it could sure help in the daytime at little or no cost to you. At least at the beginning. The college would screen and oversee applicants so you’d be safer than hiring someone on your own.”

Elise sat down on the queen-size bed in her second guest room, smiling and crying at the same time. “You are a godsend, my friend.”

“I’m an old man. Live long enough and you hear about everything.”

“I’ll call the college on Monday. Thanks for the idea.”

They chatted another twenty minutes or so, and when she hung up, Elise’s smile was genuine.

Thomas could always instill the sense that she wasn’t alone even when she was.

CHAPTER FOUR

SATURDAY MORNINGS were sacred. Free time to do whatever he wanted. The time reserved for no responsibility. The complete antithesis to the Saturdays of Joe’s youth that began before the sun rose with a house full of arguing and whining and the unending chores that the conglomeration of needs and wants of so many children living under one roof necessitated.

He was thinking about taking his canoe out to the river, seeing how far he could get before stopping at one of the restaurants on the shore for lunch. Some were right at the mouth of the Flat River, where it joined the Grand River, but he could travel seventy miles on the Flat alone if he wanted to. Of course his favorite little diner was right there on Main Street in Lowell.

Maybe he’d go to the gym and shoot some hoops instead. And then go to the Levee for lunch. If he went to the gym he’d have to shower again.

Turning off Main Street along the river, Joe considered the canoe again. A day alone, and the physical exertion of paddling sounded good. He could pack a lunch and spend the whole day on the water. The sun was shining, not a cloud in the sky. The July temperatures were perfect. And there would be a breeze on the river.

Sounded like heaven.

He passed her house. Continued on.

She’d taken off after making tacos for them all for lunch yesterday. She’d had her twelve-week doctor’s appointment.

Joe slowed. Turned around. He had to go back for his canoe anyway. And to exchange his sandals for running shoes and put sunscreen on skin left exposed by his denim shorts and loose tank top. He should probably grab a T-shirt instead. Right after he stopped by Elise’s. He’d hoped she’d call—not that she ever had before—but he had an investment in what was going on here. His livelihood was firmly tied to hers. If something happened to her…

Joe pulled into her drive.

SOMEONE WAS AT the front door. Staring at the bathroom ceiling, arms and hands lying beside her on the cool tile, Elise considered rolling over, getting up onto her hands and knees, crawling to the door. And couldn’t think of a single person who would be there who would be worth the effort. A blessing, at the moment, of being alone in the world.

Her eyes were closed when the second knock came.

She was throwing up again at the third.

And by the time the side doorbell rang, she was experiencing enough of a reprieve to stand. Shakily, but at least she was upright.

The way she planned to be for the entire pregnancy, though how on earth she was going to make it through the whale stage on her feet she didn’t know. She was only at the beginning of the fourth month and needed nothing as badly as she did to lie down.

After rinsing her mouth and gargling only the tiny bit of mouthwash she dared put in her mouth lest it incite another bout of retching, she shuffled her way to the door facing the river. She hadn’t showered yet. Hadn’t even run her fingers through her hair. And was still wearing the sweatpants and sleeveless top she’d slept in.

Samantha and Darin were entrenched firmly beneath her bed. They’d hated her retching, too.

Maybe the crib sheets had arrived. The mattresses had been bare for almost a week. Or it could be the…

“Joe?” Elise squinted up at her business partner, feeling as though she’d stepped onto another planet. Joe played on Saturday mornings. She’d never once heard from him then. Not even in college.

“I thought you were a changing table,” she said, leaning against the door, half blinded by sunlight. “I was hoping to get it put together this weekend,” she added irrelevantly.

He’d never seen her without makeup. She felt too wretched to care.

“I got you out of bed.”

“No.” She started to shake her head and stopped. Too much movement, too quickly. “I’ve been up over an hour.”

Making love to the toilet.

“What’s wrong?” Something had to be or he wouldn’t be there. And whatever it was, she’d deal with it. She’d promised him.

“That’s what I’m about to ask you.”

“Oh. I’m fine.” She leaned her head against the door. “Just trying to convince my children that eating is a necessary part of my life.”

She’d started laughing at herself half an hour before. Right after sobbing had caused another bout of vomiting.

He frowned, staring at her.

“Morning sickness,” she explained and bit back a smile at the embarrassed dawning of understanding that crossed his features.

“Should I call a doctor?”

“Nope. It’s happened before. It’ll pass. I could be as good as new in a matter of minutes.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “It looks to me like you should spend the day in bed. If it’s anything like the flu, you need rest to regain your energy.”

“Nope. Eating takes care of that—once I’m allowed to do so.”

“Is it always this bad?”

She really wasn’t in the mood to chat.

“For me, or in general?”

“Either.”

“For me, yes. In general, I have no idea. But I’d guess not. I can’t imagine women electing to go through this a second time.”

He had to have a reason for being there other than the state of her stomach. It would be good if he’d just tell her and be on his way before she gave in to the urge to slide down to lie on the floor. The entryway was tile, too, and tile was her friend. It was cool. And didn’t move at all.

He didn’t say anything. Didn’t seem to be leaving.

“My theory is that if one kid objects to nutrition, all the rest will decide to give it a try.”

She’d come up with this theory in the middle of the night a week or so ago, picturing her four offspring with minds and motivations of their own—it made them seem more endurable somehow.

Joe’s bark of laughter surprised her. She wasn’t usually able to amuse him.

“They’re considerate brats, though,” she continued babbling, closing her eyes as she felt the breeze coming up from the river across the street. “They refrain from midday or evening interruptions, keeping all food rejections to the night and first thing in the morning.”

Would he never leave? The living room sofa was through the foyer door and six yards away. The light green cushions were silky, soft. They’d be cool.

And they didn’t smell.

She could let go of the door. Take enough steps to make it there.

The world would stop spinning as soon as she lay down. In another fifteen minutes, assuming her babies were done protesting, she’d be good to go.

Cool cushions against her cheek. Six yards away. Fifteen minutes.

Pushing off from the open door, Elise stumbled toward her destination.

JOE CRACKED HIS ARM against the doorjamb in his haste, but he got to her before she hit the floor. With fear in his heart, he picked up his partner, holding her gingerly as he carried her to the closest piece of furniture in the house—the living room sofa.

He’d never held her before. Wasn’t even sure if they’d ever hugged as good friends sometimes do.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, squinting up at him as he straightened her legs against the cushions and grabbed a throw pillow for beneath her head. “I got dizzy there for a second.”

She licked lips that looked chapped. He debated calling an ambulance.

And he settled for her doctor.

“Where’s your doctor’s number?” he asked, striding over to the phone.

“I don’t need her.” Her voice sounded stronger.

Hands on his hips, Joe stared at her. “Well, you clearly need something. What can I do?”

“A bottle of water from the fridge might help,” she said. And then, when he was halfway to the kitchen, added, “And, Joe? There’s a box of crackers on the second shelf in the pantry by the stove. Would you mind bringing it, too?”

He’d have felt better calling a doctor.

TWENTY MINUTES LATER JOE conceded that she’d been right. While Elise still needed a shower and fresh clothes, her color—and her wits—were back to normal as she sat curled on one end of the couch, still munching away. She’d finished half of one of the four packs in the box he’d brought in since they’d been sitting there.

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” he finally asked, half-amused as he sat across from her. Another minute and he’d go.

“Last night.” She pulled one last cracker out of the tube and put the rest in the box. “But apparently the kids don’t like spinach and salmon. I don’t think they let me keep any of it.”

That couldn’t be healthy.

Nor could walking around ready to pass out at any moment.

“Does your doctor know you live alone?”

“No.”

He’d expected an affirmative. Expected to find that there was some practical explanation for why she should be safe, alone, in her condition. He’d expected to be told that he was overreacting again.

“She thinks you have a roommate?” She’d know the history of Elise’s pregnancy, surely, that she was a single woman who’d chosen artificial insemination as a means of procreating.

“Or a live-in caregiver.”

The hesitant way she spoke gave him pause. And with years of practice of communicating with Elise, if not reading her expressions, he filled in the blanks.

“She told you it wasn’t safe for you to be here alone.”

“She said it wasn’t wise.”

Damn. Joe lost all appetite for a picnic lunch on the water.

“Not so much because of the morning sickness,” Elise continued as he barely bit back the reprimand he needed to utter. “With four babies there’s the possibility of some complications—I told you this before.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. What could possibly have driven her to do this to herself? Remembering that night more than a month ago when he’d met his longtime friend for the first time, he answered his own silent question.

“That’s not to say there’ll be any,” she added quickly. “I could have a perfectly normal pregnancy.”

“What are the odds?”

She hesitated.

“Of a perfectly normal pregnancy?”

He nodded.

“Three percent.”

“Three percent?” Joe jumped to his feet and glared down at her—until he realized what he was doing. He sat down again, this time beside her on the sofa, and studied the class ring he’d worn since college.

“Did she tell you this yesterday?” he asked more calmly, though inside he was still bouncing off the walls.

He wasn’t going to lose her over this. Couldn’t she see that their lives were irreversibly linked?

Elise peered at him as though assessing his emotional weather. “Two weeks ago,” she finally said quietly.

This wasn’t like her. Not at all. Elise faced challenges head on. She always had a plan. She never procrastinated.

“Were you planning to wait until you had a ‘complication’ before you did something about having a live-in caregiver?” he asked. He instantly regretted his sarcasm. She was an adult with a right to whatever life she wanted.

His role was to support that just as she’d supported him all these years. Somehow.

“I’ve been reviewing potential applicants for ten days.”

Joe felt relieved. “And?”

“I can’t afford anyone without a police record.” She chuckled as she spoke. Joe failed to see the humor.

“The down payment on the office suite put you in a tight spot, didn’t it?”

“That and the mortgage on this place,” she admitted. “A couple of years ago I tied up most of my funds in an IRA. I’d lose half of it to penalties if I cash in early.”

A couple of years ago they’d seen their first sizable profits in the company. He’d invested a chunk, as well. “If you’d told me that buying the suite would be a hardship we would have held off.”

“Look, I’m perfectly comfortable as long as I don’t see a huge increase in monthly expenses. Besides, we needed to move if we were going to continue to grow. Not only was there not enough space in the old offices for more staff, but with the kind of clients you’re bringing us, these millionaire business owners, we needed an office that would instill confidence.”

They’d had several conversations to that effect, he knew, mostly at her instigation. They’d both taken a risk, expecting a payoff within the next eighteen months.

“I could sell this place.” She glanced around, her eyes wide and unexpectedly childlike, but when she looked at him again she was her usual practical, calm self. “But not in time to hire someone immediately. I’d have to list, sell, close and move. And in another five months or so, I’m going to need the room. Anyway,” she added, her chin lifting, “I can afford this house. I make enough to provide everything I’m going to need for the babies. I just can’t afford a full-time nanny. Or a full-time companion for myself while I’m pregnant.”

She’d been expecting one child, not four. A normal pregnancy, not one that was going to tax her body to the limit—and possibly beyond.

“What about someone from the office? They all love you. Have you asked if anyone wants to move in here—just until the babies are born and you’ve got a routine established?”

“Would you want one of your employees living with you? Hearing you puke by night and taking orders from you by day?”

The sarcasm wasn’t like her.

“No.”

“Besides the obvious conflict of interest, there is no one.” Her tone softened. “Mark and Sam are out.”

“But Angela and Tamara are both single.”

“You need to spend more time in the office, Joe, if you want to keep up on the staff’s personal lives.” Her chiding was playful. “Angela just moved in with Richard last weekend, and Tamara’s mother fell and broke her hip—she’s staying with Tamara indefinitely.”

Joe got up and crossed to the window looking out on the sizable expanse of thick green grass that ran from house to road. He could see three huge old trees surrounded with colorfully blooming flower beds and knew there were more around back. The lot Elise’s house sat on took up a city block. There were no sidewalks, just lush green space with quiet streets bordering three sides.

A perfect yard for growing kids. They could have a softball game on one side of the house, play regulation croquet, play hide-and-seek, swing as high as the sky. So why did he feel, as he stood there, that the place was a trap, imprisoning him?

His car was there—at the end of her drive. He could leave any time. Would be leaving soon for a day on the river.

He was a free man.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

FOR ONE SECOND Elise felt enormous relief. She’d never considered such a solution and it was so perfect, so right. This was about money and Joe had as much interest in her financial status as she did.

To a point.

And then he turned around. A man with a great body, wearing an old pair of denim shorts and white tank top. A man who oozed sexuality. And he was her business partner.

“It would never work,” she said.

“Of course it would.” His face was serious, his hands were shoved in his pockets and his feet were planted slightly apart. “It’s the obvious answer.”

Elise suddenly wished that she’d showered, put on makeup. Washed her hair.

She wanted to stand, too. Face him eye to eye. Knew it was important. But she couldn’t do it. Not in old sweats and a sleeveless pajama top. She settled for sitting upright with her feet on the floor. Then, crossing her arms, she reminded herself that she was alone, free, boss of this house. Of her life.

“You and I are so good together because we’ve always managed to keep our private lives separate from our work partnership.”

Not entirely true, she knew, but close enough. His expression didn’t change.

“Can you imagine what we’d do to each other if we attempted to share living quarters?” she asked.

“Isn’t that what we do every day?” he countered. He stepped closer. “For the past ten years we’ve been together at the office for more waking hours of the day than we’d be home together at night.”

“But that’s because we were working. And you were out on sales calls a lot.”

“We co-own the office, Elise. We’ve managed to decorate, furnish, coexist without ever arguing.”

“We argue all the time.”

“We debate. And not about the office. Not about anything that matters.”

That was true. But—

“Let’s not make a major event out of this, okay?” he said. Not since his mother had been diagnosed with kidney disease had he looked this serious. “It’ll only be for a few months—until the babies are born and you’ve got a routine established. You can bring people in to help with feedings. At the end of the year, assuming I do my job, there should be enough of a profit bonus to enable you to hire a full-time nanny until the kids are old enough to go to day care. If that’s what you plan.”

Elise was impressed that he’d thought her life through with such detail. Still…

“No. I won’t risk our working relationship because I made a choice that had unexpected consequences.”

“It’ll be more of a risk if B&R loses you.” He was really worried that might happen.

“I told you, I won’t let this affect—”

“Cut the crap, Elise,” Joe said, his face flushed. “When are you going to get it? You aren’t in control here. You have no way of knowing what the next months are going to bring. And if you don’t start facing reality, the results could be a lot worse than they need to be.”

She released a breath. “I won’t let you down,” she told him, every word filled with conviction. “That I know for certain, Joe. You’re as much a part of my life as my arms and legs. Without you—without B&R—I have nothing. B&R gets me up in the morning. It gives me confidence and security. It challenges me. It consists of most of the people I know well in this world. I won’t lose it.”

“Then face facts,” Joe said. “You’re taking a huge risk being here alone. And I have absolutely nothing at my condo that won’t do just fine without me for the next several months.”

That was an understatement. She’d bought him a kitten once—he gave it to one of his sisters. She and everyone in the office had bought him a fish tank for Christmas the following year. He’d let Kelly take it in the divorce. She’d bought him plants—he’d left them at the office for her to water.

“I know your habits,” he continued. “And that’s half the battle of living with someone. You’re an early riser, you don’t stay up past eleven and you hate having the news on right before bedtime.”

Elise’s surprise must have shown on her face because he said, “You’re at work before the cleaning crew. If I call you past eleven you’re asleep and one time when Kelly and I were over for dinner, the two of you talked about watching the shopping network at night because it put you to sleep.”

Elise remembered Kelly had started the conversation by enlisting her help in a battle for the bedroom TV, claiming that Joe insisted on having the news on but always fell asleep as soon as it started, leaving her to lie there in the dark and hear all kinds of horrid things.

“You don’t like pizza for breakfast,” he said with a completely straight face. “You eat frozen dinners, but prefer salad, and you’d rather stay in than go out at night.”

Not really. But when you were a woman alone…

“It would make most sense if we eat together when we’re both here,” he said now. “We could share grocery costs, cooking and cleanup. But if you’d rather not, I’m okay with that, too.”

“No, that’s fine,” she said, slightly woozy again as she filled in the pause he’d left.

“I’ll pay half the utilities. Personal incidentals we’ll buy separately.”

“Right.”

“If you show me which room I’ll be using, I’ll go home and pack and get moved in by tonight.”

He really meant to do this.

“Joe.” She reached out and grabbed the material of his shorts as he turned to head for the formal dining room and the short hall off from there that led to two of the three bedrooms. The third, hers, was directly off the dining room. “We can’t do this. You can’t move in here.”

“I already have,” he said. “I just haven’t brought my stuff over yet. Now which room would you like me to use?”

It was impossible to argue with Joe when he was like this—especially when she was coming off an entire night of nausea and vomiting. At the moment, he made a doom-impending sort of sense.

He made it to the hallway before she did and had already figured out which of the two extra bedrooms he’d use. The largest had four sandalwood cribs and two white, pink and blue dressers. Darin was sleeping on top of one of the dressers. Samantha was nowhere in sight.

“I’ll switch with you,” Elise blurted, coming into the smaller room behind him. “Once the babies come, if you’re still here, I’ll need to be next to them.”

He looked as if he was going to argue that, too.

“Plus, I’ll be closer to the bathroom.”

One of the few downsides to owning the older home. She and Joe were going to be sharing the one bathroom.

And, she was afraid, much, much more than that.

CHAPTER FIVE

JOE INTENDED TO BRING one suitcase—a couple of changes of clothes, some toiletries, shorts to sleep in. It wasn’t as if he was leaving town or wouldn’t have access to his condo every single day. The cell phone charger on his nightstand reminded him that he’d need it to charge the technological wonder every night while he slept so it would be up and running by morning. And there was the book next to it, the one he’d been reading each night for the past week. He was almost through with it and so added it, along with the next in the stack, to the to-go pile on his bed.

Back and forth to the bathroom a time or two and he’d collected various other necessities such as aspirin and mentholyptic muscle rub for the occasional aches and pains during the night. He wasn’t going to use Elise’s personal care items and there was no reason to buy a second set of everything when he had a perfectly good set of his own.

And for that matter, he replaced the travel-size shampoo and shaving-cream containers with the full-size ones in his shower. No point in purchasing more of them, either.

His miniature DVD player landed on the bed—never knew when he’d feel a hankering for a shoot ’em up action movie. He tossed a couple of his favorites on top of the stack. Grabbed a lint brush to deal with her cats’ hair. And headed out to the garage for a bigger bag. Or two.

ELISE WENT ABOUT the rest of her day the same as usual. By the time she was showered—having taken extra minutes to remove the decorative towels on the second rack in the big bathroom and replace them with a usable set for Joe, scrub the toilet and the tub, throw the rug in the wash, scour the sink and put all her essentials away in drawers and cabinets—both the crib sheets and the changing table had arrived as promised and were waiting in brown-paper-wrapped packages on the small porch connected to her side door.

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