“Does your husband know you’re here?”

He must know, Nate surmised. He couldn’t see Sarah sneaking around on the guy. She wasn’t like that.

She gave him a quick, startled glance. “How did you know I’d remarried?”

“It wasn’t exactly a secret on base. There were plenty of people who didn’t mind passing along the information. It took a while to get to Afghanistan, but I heard it.”

She nodded. “You didn’t hear all of it. David died more than three years ago. A hit and run.”

Nate hadn’t let himself think of her married to another man, but he didn’t like the fact that she was on her own again, either. “You’re right. I didn’t hear that. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” she said with quiet dignity.

“Who told you I was back in Riley’s Cove? You haven’t been in touch with anyone in my family. They’d have told me.”

“I checked with your old unit. Sergeant Harris is still there.

He said you’d moved back to Michigan…I’m sorry,” she said, looking down at the lake. “I know you’d planned to make the Army your career.”

“It was time for me to go.” He’d made it safely through three tours, but his luck had run out two days before his unit shipped home from Iraq. A nineteen-year-old Earnhardt wannabe in a Humvee, anxious as hell to be on the plane back to the States, had pinned him against a loading dock, breaking his knee and crushing his ankle. He’d been damn lucky not to lose half his leg. “You didn’t come all this way from Texas just to offer your sympathy for something that happened eighteen months ago. Why are you here, Sarah?”

“I need you to marry me.”

Dear Reader,

Nate and Sarah loved each other deeply, but their inability to agree on having a child destroyed their marriage. Now, four years later, Sarah has come to Cottonwood Lake, Michigan, to ask Nate to marry her again, and raise her fatherless three-year-old son. Nate agrees because Sarah is dying.

But what happens when she doesn’t die, and they find themselves bound to each other once more, a family in name only? Marriage by Necessity is a story of two people working their way through a tangle of old hurts to forge a future together. We hope you enjoy your trip to Cottonwood Lake. It’s one of those places we love to write about, filled with good times, good food, good fun and good people.

Enjoy,

Carol and Marion (Marisa Carroll)

Marriage by Necessity
Marisa Carroll

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARRIAGE BY NECESSITY

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

COTTONWOOD LAKE was quiet today, its blue-gray surface as smooth as glass. Sarah closed her eyes and heard the sound of a boat starting up far out on the lake, and closer, the scolding chatter of a squirrel in the tree beside her car. The autumn sun was warm on her face and shoulders as it filtered through the branches of yellow-leaved cottonwoods. It was a perfect southern Michigan Indian summer afternoon.

Far too lovely a day to think about dying.

But she had no choice. She must talk to Nate today. She couldn’t come this far only to turn around and go back to their dreary little motel room in Ann Arbor. She had to drive up the sandy, unpaved lane, past the fork in the road that led to Riley’s Trailer Trash Campground, to the top of the hill, and ask her ex-husband to marry her again.

She tightened her fingers around the steering wheel of the secondhand minivan. She hadn’t seen or talked to Nate in almost four years, not since he’d shipped off to Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11th attacks. Their marriage was already on life support by then and war and distance had done nothing to heal the wound. The divorce had become final while he was still overseas. Nate had wanted it that way. So had she, at least she thought she had.

She no longer had the luxury of what-ifs.

She had a child to protect and provide for.

Another man’s child. Her late husband, David Taylor’s son.

She half turned in her seat to stare at the sleeping toddler who was the center of her world. The movement sent a wave of prickly sensation down the right side of her body, followed by a sudden numbness. She sucked in her breath and rubbed her fingers over her worn jeans. She couldn’t feel the fabric or the skin beneath. She turned her hand over and looked at the palm where the skin was reddened from this morning’s dumb accident. She hadn’t even felt the scalding water. No pain, no heat, no cold. The loss of sensation was only one of the symptoms of the deadly growth that was rapidly twining itself around her spinal cord, already threatening to burrow into her brain. The risky and complicated surgery to remove it was scheduled in a week’s time. She would need that long to complete the legal arrangements for a wedding.

If Nate agreed to her plan.

He had to. She had no one else to raise her son if— She cut off the panicky thought. Not now. Save that terrifying scenario for the wakeful hours of the night when she was too tired to keep the fear at bay.

Now she had to be strong. For Matthew’s sake. For his future.

NATE FOWLER grabbed a rag and wiped the grease from his fingers. “Just a minute. I’m coming!” he hollered over his shoulder. He’d never had people banging on his door asking to see his bikes before his sixteen-year-old cousin, Erika, designed a Web site for him as a school project. Turning away from the 1938 Indian Four motorcycle he was rebuilding for a wealthy collector in Detroit, he limped across the scarred, wide-planked wooden floor of the hundred-year-old barn that was his workshop, and he hoped someday, his home. He flung open the small side door. “What can I do for—Sarah?”

“Hello, Nate.”

His ex-wife was the last person on earth he expected to see standing there. He stared at her for a moment. She was just as pretty as he remembered. Her hair was shorter now, no longer the riot of cinnamon-brown curls it had been when they were married, but still shiny and fine as silk, just brushing the curve of her chin and the collar of her apple-green sweater. Her figure was more mature, too, her breasts a little heavier, her hips more rounded, but like the hairstyle, it suited her.

“I…I hope I’m not interrupting your work,” she said as his silence dragged out.

“What are you doing here, Sarah?” His voice sounded as gruff as his granddad’s, but there was nothing he could do about it, even if he’d wanted to. The shock of seeing her again after all this time overrode everything. She looked at him with the same big brown eyes that had attracted him to her that spring day eight years earlier, as she waited tables at the little restaurant outside Fort Hood, where he’d been stationed. He’d just earned his sergeant’s stripes and had gone there for coffee and eggs after an all-night celebration with a couple of the other newly minted NCOs. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision that had changed his life.

“I need to talk to you.” Nate glanced down at her left hand. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. But she had remarried. He’d heard that much after their divorce. As a matter of fact if the gossip on the base was right, she’d barely waited for the ink to dry on their divorce papers before she’d tied the knot.

“We don’t have anything to talk about.”

She winced at the coldness in his voice but held her ground. “I know you aren’t happy to see me, but please, hear me out.” He caught the sheen of tears in her eyes and tensed. She’d always cried easily, but she didn’t let them fall now. And there was a veneer of steel overlying her soft words he’d never heard before. “It’s important, Nate. Please.”

He hesitated. Indecision like that would’ve gotten him killed in the old days. You didn’t last long in Explosive Ordnance Disposal if you couldn’t keep your mind on your business. He began to process information one thread at a time. Did she want money? She hadn’t wanted any four years ago. Money was one thing they’d never fought about during their short marriage. The wedge that had split them apart had been far more serious. He would’ve given her every cent he had. What he wouldn’t give her was a child. He still thought he’d done the right thing then, refusing to go off to war leaving her pregnant and alone in the world. But she’d been too young and insecure to realize it, and he’d done one hell of a lousy job trying to explain his reasons. The nagging awareness of his past failings softened his next words. “Come on in. We can talk inside.”

Sarah glanced over her shoulder at the seen-better-days minivan parked beneath the big oak at the edge of the drive. “I’d rather stay out here if you don’t mind.” She made a little gesture toward the two folding lawn chairs propped against the side of the barn where his granddad, Harmon Riley, liked to sit and watch the sunset with a cigar in one hand and a beer in the other.

“All right.” He took a couple of limping steps and unfolded one of the chairs for her, setting it next to the sun-warmed foundation stones. He waited until she was seated then stuffed the shop rag into the back pocket of his paint-stained jeans and lowered himself onto the sagging webbing of the second chair. She folded her hands in her lap, staring at her vehicle.

“Does your husband know you’re here?” he asked. He must know, Nate surmised. He couldn’t see Sarah sneaking around on the guy. She wasn’t like that.

She gave him a quick, startled glance. “How did you know I’d remarried?”

“It wasn’t exactly a secret on base. There were plenty of people who didn’t mind passing along the information. It took awhile to get to Afghanistan, but I heard it.”

She nodded. “You didn’t hear all of it. David died more than three years ago. A hit-and-run driver in the parking lot of the store he managed.”

He hadn’t let himself think of her married to another man, but he didn’t like that she was on her own again, either. “You’re right, I didn’t hear that. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” she said with quiet dignity.

“Who told you I was back in Riley’s Cove? You haven’t been in touch with anyone in the family. They would have told me if you had.”

“I checked with your old unit. Sergeant Harris is still there. He told me you’d left the Army and moved back to Michigan.”

Ennis Harris had been his best friend for twelve years. They’d been buddies since basic training, serving together in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. But since his accident and subsequent early retirement they’d lost touch. His fault, not Ennis’s.

“I didn’t know what happened until just recently,” she said, looking down the hill to the view of the lake. “I’m sorry. I know you’d planned to make the Army your career.”

“It was time for me to go.” He’d made it safely through three tours in war zones but his luck had run out two days before his unit shipped home from Iraq. A nineteen-year-old Earnhardt wanna-be in a Humvee, anxious as hell to be on the plane back to the States, had pinned him against a loading dock breaking his knee and crushing his ankle. He’d been damned lucky not to lose half his leg. He didn’t want to talk about his accident or the aftermath. “You didn’t come all the way from Texas just to offer your sympathy for something that happened eighteen months ago. Why are you here, Sarah?”

“I need you to marry me.”

SARAH WISHED she could take back the bald statement the moment it left her lips. She was going about it all wrong. She’d planned this so carefully, laid out her argument logically and methodically, but when it came time to put her resolve to the test she’d acted impulsively, speaking from her heart, as she had so often during their marriage. Nate was frowning. The double furrow between his brows was more pronounced than it had been four years ago. Otherwise he looked much the same, thick dark hair, gray eyes, broad shoulders. Solid, earthy, sure of himself and his place in the world.

“Marry you? Is this some kind of joke?”

Sarah took a deep breath and tried to slow her racing heart. She didn’t have much time. Matty would be waking up any moment. He always fell asleep in the car, lulled by the engine and the passing scenery. But he never slept for long after the car stopped. She needed to plead her case to Nate without the distraction of an active three-year-old.

“I know it seems crazy, an impossible favor, but believe me, Nate, if I had anyone else to turn to I would. I’m desperate.” She licked her lips. It was never easy to say the words so she rushed to get them out without stumbling. “I…I might be dying. And I have no one to care for my son.”

He went very still, his face as shell-shocked as her own must’ve looked when she first heard the prognosis. Then his expression cleared and, his voice level and controlled, he said, “Let’s take this one step at a time. You have a child?”

She glanced toward the car. “Yes. A little boy. Matthew. He’s three.” She could leave Matty in the van for a few more minutes. She’d been careful to park in the shade so the car would stay cool. He was safely fastened into his car seat. He’d be okay.

Nate’s veneer of disinterested calm cracked for a moment. “You must have gotten pregnant right after our divorce.”

She gave him back look for look. “I got pregnant right after I remarried.”

“I didn’t mean it as an insult.” Nate apologized automatically, once more in control of his emotions.

Still, she’d remarried only a week after their divorce. She’d gone to work at the HomeContractor store in Killeen, where David Taylor was the assistant manager, right after Nate left for Afghanistan. She’d been lonely and alone and her marriage was over. So when David fell in love with her, she’d tried to love him back, she’d tried so very hard.

“David was a good man, Nate. He would’ve been a loving husband and father to our son, but he never had the chance.”

Nate stood abruptly and the unexpectedness of his movement drew Sarah awkwardly from her chair as well. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared down at the ground for a long moment, gathering his thoughts. It was a habit of his, she remembered, and it had always irritated her when she was bubbling over with words. But she’d learned something about patience over the last three, hard years and waited for him to speak. “What’s wrong with you, Sarah?” he said at last. “Do you have cancer?”

“I have a growth, here on my spine.” She touched the back of her neck. “It’s not malignant. Not the way cancer is. What it’s called doesn’t matter. The name’s so long I can’t even pronounce it. The doctors in Texas didn’t even want to attempt the surgery. They referred me up here to a Doctor Jamison at the university. Have you heard of her?”

Nate shook his head “It doesn’t matter. The odds are less than fifty percent she’ll be able to remove the entire growth. I might wake up paralyzed. I…I might not wake up at all.”

His hands came out of his pockets. For a moment she thought he might take her in his arms. She took a step back. She’d always remembered how wonderful it felt to be held by him, although while she was married to David, she’d buried the memory so deeply she almost believed she’d forgotten. She’d break down and give in to the terrible fear inside her if he showed her any tenderness at all. “I’m not asking you to be responsible for me if I’m not able to take care of myself. I…I’ve made arrangements.” She would tell him later, all the details of insurance and long-term care facilities, of living wills and “do not resuscitate” orders. She didn’t dare dwell on herself, on what might lie in store for her. It was Matty she had to safeguard.

He gripped the back of the lawn chair and leaned slightly forward. “Good God, Sarah, listen to yourself. Do you know what you’re asking? We ended up divorced because we couldn’t agree on having children. Why in God’s name would you trust me with your son?” His jaw tightened. He looked fierce and rock hard. And sad. Beneath the surface anger his eyes were dark with sorrow and loss, she would swear it.

“You’re a kind man. You’ll make a fantastic father.” She couldn’t stop a small, bittersweet smile. “I always knew that about you even if you didn’t know it yourself.” She kept on talking, not giving him a chance to deny it. “I know I could ask you to just be his guardian but that takes time, filings, court hearings, all those things. Until all of that was settled he would have to be placed in foster care.” She faltered a little over those words but kept going. “The lawyer said…it would be simpler if we were married. That it would be easier for you to make decisions for Matty if I’m not able to care for him.” This time she couldn’t stop the quaver in her voice. She didn’t know which nightmare was more terrifying. Death, quick and painless as it would be, or the alternative, the possibility of paralysis or years and years in a vegetative state, dependent on others for everything, while Matty grew up alone and unwanted, the way she had.

“He needs you, Nate. There’s no one else. David’s only sister is a single mother. Her youngest has Down syndrome. Matthew’s grandfather is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Carrie, my sister-in-law, has him to care for, too. And I…” She let the sentence trail off. Nate knew she was an orphan, abandoned at birth. She’d bounced around from one foster home to another throughout her childhood. She didn’t need to remind him of the loneliness and heartache of her youth. “The only family I ever really had was you.”

CHAPTER TWO

“I WONDERED HOW LONG it was going to take you to get yourself down the hill and tell me what’s going on at your place. Where you been all day?” Harmon Riley, bundled up in an ancient buffalo plaid wool coat and with a vintage Tigers cap covering his nearly bald head, was seated in an old metal lawn chair in front of the fire he built on the lakeshore most nights it wasn’t raining or blowing too hard. A plastic cooler sat on the ground beside him. His old tom, Buster, was curled up on his lap. The cat opened one eye, stared at Nate suspiciously for a moment, and then went back to sleep.

“I had business in Ann Arbor.”

“Don’t you mean we had business in Ann Arbor? I didn’t see that minivan with the out-of-state plates take off and leave, did I?”

“No. It’s still here.”

“So’s the woman that was driving it yesterday, eh? Not like you to have overnight guests. At least not the kind you don’t bring down to introduce to your old granddad. Sit down. You give me a crick in my neck standing there like that.”

Nate did as he was told and Harm handed him a beer from the cooler. He twisted off the top and took a swallow, then cradled the longneck with one hand and stared past the fire at the lights of the yacht club on the other side of the lake.

“This overnight guest anyone I know?” the old man asked bluntly, making no attempt to hide his curiosity. Subtlety was not a Riley family trait. Just ask any of the members of the Cottonwood Lake Development Committee. They wanted to gentrify the hamlet of Riley’s Cove just like the lawyers and doctors and the professors from the university were doing to Lakeview, the larger town that sprawled along the north shore of the lake. But the stubborn old man, who’d lived in Riley’s Cove all his life, wanted nothing to do with upscale condos and art galleries, and even, God help them, a Starbucks.

Harm wanted things to stay the way they were. Simple and fairly inexpensive and quiet eight months out of twelve. So there was no way he would give in to the committee and move the dozen or so campers and travel trailers he rented back from the lakefront, or tear down the rickety boathouse at the edge of the property. And most defiantly of all, he would not hear of upgrading the name of his establishment. Riley’s Trailer Trash Campground was here to stay.

“It’s Sarah, Granddad.”

“I’ll be darned. Sarah? I thought she looked familiar but I don’t see as good as I used to, so I couldn’t be sure. Never figured to see her here again, though.” He shook his head. “Sarah. She’s got a little one with her, I noticed. Boy or girl?”

“A little boy. His name is Matthew and he’s three.”

“Hard to tell these days the way they dress them alike. Does he favor her?” Harmon picked up his cigar from the cut-down coffee can that served as an ashtray and took a long pull. Nate watched its ember glow red and then fade. Disturbed by the movement, or maybe just because he didn’t like the smell of tobacco smoke, the old cat jumped stiffly down off Harm’s lap and stalked away into the shadows along the shoreline, tail held high.

“He looks a lot like her except he’s blond and his eyes are blue, not brown. He’s a sturdy little kid, but not real big for his age.”

“Three, you say? Same age as Tessa’s hellion. Don’t know how your sister copes with that one! Sarah’s not here to tell you he’s yours, is she?” The old man’s voice had gentled but Nate pretended not to notice.

“You know he’s not mine.” The words were hard to get out. He would like to have a son. He’d never thought too much about having children before the blowup with Sarah. And afterward? There didn’t seem much point especially considering what he’d learned about himself after the accident. “She married again right after the divorce. Her husband’s dead, killed by a hit-and-run driver in a goddamned store parking lot before the baby was born.”

“That’s a darned shame, but why’d she show up here after all this time? Don’t make sense to my way of thinking. Want to tell me about it? Might help later on. Your mother’s going to ask much tougher questions than I am.” Harmon rolled the cigar between his gnarled fingers, then looked over at Nate. “She’s been up here twice today trying to nose out what’s going on. She’s not going to be thrilled to hear it’s Sarah come calling.”

“I’ll talk to Mom and Dad first thing tomorrow. There’ve been a lot of details to work out today.”

“Details? What kind of details?”

Nate leaned his head back and looked up at the night sky. He couldn’t see many stars, he’d been staring at the fire too long, but the harvest moon hung low over the lake, yellow and immense. He loved this time of year, the colors, the smells, the slow retreat of summer’s warmth that almost hid the quiet, stealthy approach of winter. He took a few moments to order his thoughts. His grandfather stubbed the butt of his cigar into the sand in the coffee can and waited patiently. The cigar smoke drifted away and was replaced by the tang of a wood fire.

“Sarah’s ill,” he said at last. “Some kind of growth on her spinal cord the doctors aren’t sure they’ll be able to remove. When she learned the best doctor was here in Ann Arbor at the university, she got the idea of us getting married again so I could take care of Matthew if…the worst happens.” He might have been giving his CO a status report back in the old days. It was easier that way, not thinking about everything that could go wrong. To imagine Sarah dead, or paralyzed, unable to care for herself. A fate he was certain held more fear for her than death.

“Hell’s bells,” Harm said. For all his rough edges he’d never been one to cuss up a storm. “I didn’t figure that. That’s a darned shame. It ain’t fair having to face dying so young, just like your Grandma, God rest her soul. Are you going to do it? Just like that, up and take responsibility for her boy?”

“She’s alone in the world, Granddad. How can I say no?”

“A lot of men would. Bringing up a kid on your own. That’s about the hardest thing you can do.” Harm had raised Nate’s mother and her younger brother by himself after his wife died of kidney failure. He’d done a good job with both of them, but Nate knew it couldn’t have been easy. Especially back in the days when single fathers were few and far between.

“You did it. And not one kid, but two. Mom and Uncle Dan turned out just fine.”

“They were mine,” Harm said bluntly. “Not some other man’s child. That might make a powerful difference down the line.”

“I can’t let that stop me. She’s got no one, Granddad. I loved her once. If I can do this for her now, I will. She wants a family for the boy, and a father. I don’t know if I’ll be any good at the job, but I’ve got to try. We applied for the marriage license this afternoon. The wedding’s Friday. Her surgery is Saturday morning at University Hospital.”

“So soon? Don’t give you much time to make up your mind. Only, it sounds like you already have.”

“The way I see things, it was the only choice I had.”

He and Sarah had talked for a long time the night before after Matty fell asleep on the couch. Or, more accurately, he had let her talk, outlining in minute detail all the arrangements she’d made for Matthew’s future. She wouldn’t be a financial burden, she insisted. And neither would her son.

That was when she’d asked him if there was a woman in his life. He had thought briefly of green eyes, a smattering of freckles, the brush of tapered fingers over the surface of an antique rocking horse, then dismissed the image. “There’s no one,” he had said, and meant it. Sarah had ducked her head for a moment. He suspected she had done that to hide the relief that hadn’t quite faded from her eyes when she looked up again.

“I…I should have thought to ask you that earlier,” she said.

“I would have told you earlier if it had been a problem.”

She had nodded and stood up, swaying just a little. “It’s getting late. We should go.”

“Why don’t you stay here tonight,” he’d offered before he could change his mind. “It’s too late for you to be driving back to Ann Arbor. You’re not used to country roads and there will be fog in the low spots.” She was pale, he noticed, and there were dark shadows under her eyes. Sarah had never been sick when they were married. It bothered him that she looked so frail and tired.

She had surprised him a little by agreeing. “All right. It is a long drive back.”

He’d put them up in the compact spare room of his trailer and then lay awake long into the night listening to the furnace kick on and off as the temperature dropped, wondering how in hell he was going to raise a child alone.

Harm must have taken his prolonged silence as a sign their conversation was at an end. He stood up, a short man, slightly stooped from years of manual labor but still strong, and began to pour water from a bucket he kept by the fire over the red-gold coals. Steam lifted into the cold air to mingle with the curling fingers of mist lying just above the surface of the lake. The cat reappeared at his feet and twined around his ankles, waiting to be let inside for the night. Harm stopped what he was doing and looked at Nate, his eyes narrowed against the smoke from the drowned embers. “You’ll do right by the boy,” he said. “I don’t doubt that. But are you doing right by yourself taking her back?”

“SARAH. ITISYOU. My dad said you were here but I just couldn’t believe he wasn’t mistaken.” Arlene Fowler’s words were as blunt as ever. She looked exactly as Sarah remembered her, too. She was a woman of medium height, a little overweight, but not fat. She had a pair of reading glasses pushed into the haphazard knot of hair on top of her head, glasses that she hadn’t needed the last time Sarah had seen her. There was still very little gray in her light brown hair, and only a few laugh lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth, although she would have turned fifty-seven on her last birthday.

Arlene wasn’t alone. She had a little girl with her. The child was wearing a pink satin windbreaker with “Barbie” stenciled on the front. She carried one of the dolls, frizzy-haired and naked, in each hand. Her little jeans had flared legs and her running shoes flashed hot pink lights along the side with each bouncing step. Her red-gold hair and turquoise-blue eyes matched Tessa’s, Nate’s youngest sister.

“Hello, Arlene.” Sarah wished she didn’t have to face Nate’s mother alone, but she’d given up putting stock in wishes a long time ago.

“Is Nate here?”

“No.” They had planned to see Arlene and his father, Tom, together as soon as Matty finished his breakfast. But that had obviously been too long for Nate’s mother to wait. “He’s in his workshop. He had to check on an overnight delivery of parts for the motorcycle he’s restoring.” It seemed odd that Nate had an ordinary job, and an ordinary life now. She had only known him as a soldier, a man with a dangerous MOS—military occupational specialty—performed under hazardous conditions, in war zones half a world away from those he loved.

“What are you doing here, Sarah?” Arlene’s tone was brusque but there was an undertone of hurt and confusion in her question. “We haven’t heard a word from you for over four years. Now you show up out of nowhere.” The little girl leaned back against Arlene and bounced up and down on her toes, her crystal blue eyes fixed on Sarah like laser beams.

“Nate and I were coming to talk to you and Tom later this morning.”

“I saved you the trip.” Arlene’s mouth thinned into a straight line. The momentary vulnerability Sarah had glimpsed in the older woman’s eyes disappeared.

Sarah hadn’t expected this to be easy. She liked Arlene. When things were good between her and Nate, she had felt they were on the road to becoming friends. But when they separated, Arlene had withdrawn her friendship. Sarah had hurt one of Arlene’s own. That betrayal would not be easily forgiven.

“Mommy!” She looked down to see her son tugging on the leg of her jeans. He was wearing his Spider-Man pajamas that she’d bought for him for his birthday. He was growing so fast they were already an inch too short in the sleeves. He rubbed his eyes and grinned up at her.

“Hi, baby.” She knelt down to give him a hug. If she didn’t make it through the surgery she would consider herself in heaven if she could take the memory of that smile with her into the hereafter.

Arlene’s little granddaughter quit jumping and stared at Matthew with her head tilted to one side. “Who are you?” she asked in a clear piping voice. “What are you doing in Unca’ Nate’s house?”

“Hush, Becca. Is this your son?” Arlene asked.

“Yes. This is Matthew. Matty, this is Mrs. Fowler. Nate’s mother.”

“My father said you had a child with you.” She smiled as she shifted her gaze to the little boy. “Hello, Matty. My name is Arlene.” Sarah relaxed. She should have known that Arlene wouldn’t let whatever animosity she might still feel toward her spill over onto an innocent child. “This is my granddaughter, Rebecca.”

“Hello.” Shyness overcame him. He hid his face against Sarah’s thigh.

Arlene’s charge had no such problem. “I’m Becca. Who are you?”

Sarah gave Matty a little nudge. One eye peeped out. “Matthew David Taylor. I’m three years old.” Matthew enunciated each word loudly and clearly.

“Me, too.” Becca dropped the Barbies she was carrying and held up three chubby fingers on each hand.

“She’s Tessa’s, isn’t she?” Sarah smiled down at the little girl. She would have liked a daughter someday, to dress in pink satin.

Arlene smiled, too. It was instantaneous and genuine, and reminded Sarah once more how fiercely devoted to her children Nate’s mother was.

“Yes. She’s expecting another at New Year’s. A boy.”

“I’m glad for her.”

“I want toast,” Matty announced.

“Yea, toast,” Becca chimed, as she bent over to retrieve her dollies.

“Becca, you had breakfast already. Twice. Once with your mom and once more with me and Grandpa Tom.” Arlene smoothed her hand indulgently over Becca’s fine, flyaway curls as she spoke.

“Still hungry,” Becca insisted.

“Why don’t you come in and wait for Nate,” Sarah offered, stepping back from the open door, then wished she hadn’t when she saw Arlene’s smile disappear. The words and gesture must have seemed too much like an invitation to a home that wasn’t her own. “I…I’m sure he’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“I’m here now,” Nate said coming up onto the deck that served as his front porch. It was roomy, stained silvery-gray to match the outside of the mobile home. The color scheme inside was predominately gray, too. Nate had painted all the paneling a creamy white above, and charcoal below. The carpet was the color of smoke, as was the overstuffed sofa and recliner that, along with a couple of lamps and tables and a big-screen TV, were the only furniture in the living room. The kitchen appliances were stainless steel, the countertops faux black granite. Even the built-in banquette, whose back contained open shelving that separated the living and kitchen areas, was upholstered in gray vinyl.

Those shelves were mostly empty, Sarah had noticed right away. There weren’t any knickknacks on the tables or pictures on the walls. Nate had never liked clutter, she remembered. She, on the other hand, loved light and color, and liked to cover every surface with all manner of odd or pretty things she picked up at flea markets and yard sales. They used to argue over her pack-rat tendencies, but like everything they had fallen out about, they’d always ended their disagreement by making up and making love. The strength and clarity of the memory caught her by surprise. She hadn’t thought about sex in months and months. Had figured she would never think about it again, but apparently she’d been wrong.

“Nate, what’s this all about?” Arlene’s voice demanded attention. “What’s she doing here? What’s going on?”

NATE SAW the stricken look on Sarah’s face and knew the reason for it. The old saw about little pitchers having big ears might be a cliché, but it was also right on the money. Matty and Becca were staring at the adults with intense interest.

“Hey, Becca Boo Jones. What are you doing here?”

She held out her arms, a naked Barbie in each hand. “Hi, Unca Nate.”

“Aren’t your dollies cold?” Nate knew the dolls had clothes. He’d spent a ridiculous amount of money outfitting one for Becca’s birthday last spring. He dropped stiffly to one knee wincing at the pain in his bad ankle. She gave him a big hug, poking him in the ribs with Barbie arms, squinching up her face with the effort.

“Whoa,” he said. “That’s a good one.”

“I want toast.” She loosened her grip a little. “So does that boy.” Her tone dripped with suspicion. She pointed a Barbie in Matty’s direction. “Why’s he here?”

“He and Sarah are staying with me for awhile. Sarah, would you make Becca and Matty some toast while I explain what’s happening to Mom?”

Sarah gave him a grateful look. “C’mon, Becca. Do you like jelly on your toast?”

“No,” Becca said firmly. “Cin’mon sweetie.”

“She means cinnamon sugar. There’s a shaker of the stuff in the first cupboard on the left. I keep it especially for this little monster.” Nate gave Becca a gentle little push. “Go on inside. You’re letting out all the warm air.”

Becca hesitated. “Where are you going, Grandma?” she asked.

“Just to the barn…to look at the motorcycle. We’ll be back before you’re done eating your toast.”

“Okay.” She stood nose to nose with Sarah’s son. “You want to play with me?”

Matty eyed the dolls with disapproval. “Not with dolls,” he said with disdain. “Where’s their clothes? It’s cold outside.”

“My dog ate them,” Becca said. “And then he throwed them up. My mom throwed up, too, when she had to clean up the mess. She’s going to have a baby. A boy. Right after Santa Claus comes. Right, Grandma?”

“New Year’s Day,” Arlene confirmed.

“That’s nice.” Sarah put her hand on Becca’s shoulder and urged her inside.

“I’d rather have a sister,” Becca said as the door closed behind them.

“What’s going on, Nate?” Arlene asked, turning to face him. She made no move to leave the deck. She pushed her hands into the pocket of her fleece jacket and waited.

“We were coming over this morning to tell you and Dad about the situation.” Arlene had her own insurance business with an office off the kitchen of the house he’d grown up in. Her hours were flexible so she was sometimes available for spur-of-the-moment babysitting for Becca, or his other sister Joann’s two boys. His younger brother, Brandon, was in graduate school out of state, and in no hurry to add more leaves to the family tree.

“Situation? I don’t like the sound of that. Anyway, your dad’s at the doctor. He’s getting some blood tests done.” Tom Fowler was a Vietnam vet and a man of solid values and modest aspirations. He worked at a plant across the state line in Ohio that manufactured knock-down furniture. He was shift foreman now and counting the days until his retirement.

“Cholesterol up again?”

“Yes, but don’t try and change the subject. Your dad’s blood tests are beside the point. Tell me what all this is about.” There was a note of pleading in his mother’s voice. It surprised him. Arlene Fowler tended to demand rather than plead.

Nate cleared his throat. “Sarah and I are getting married again.”

“Married?” She sagged against the deck railing. “Oh, Lord. Nate, have you lost your senses? You haven’t seen or spoken to each other for four years. And she has a child.” She blinked hard. “Another man’s child—”

Nate didn’t want to hear that phrase again. “Sarah’s very ill. She may be dying.”

She stared at him for a moment with her mouth open in shock. “Dying? Are you sure?”

“I talked to her doctor yesterday.” He leaned his hands on the railing and stared out over the lake as he told his mother everything that had happened in the last thirty-six hours. He wasn’t sure he had all the medical terms right but he did his best to explain. The doctor hadn’t been as pessimistic as Sarah that she wouldn’t survive the surgery, but the prognosis hadn’t been encouraging. “There’s no way to know for certain without cutting her open if the growth has progressed beyond the point of no return.”

“I…I had no idea.” Arlene fumbled in the pockets of her coat, looking for the cigarettes she’d given up over a year ago. “But Nate, surely there’s some other way? The boy’s father?”

“Dead,” he said flatly.

“Oh, Lord. I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”

“How could you?”

“No, I guess I couldn’t know. I’m ashamed to say I never answered her last couple of letters, or made any effort to stay in touch.” She lifted her hands in a helpless little gesture. “That can’t be changed now. I…I have to admit I’ve wondered off and on how she was doing the last couple of years, but I never suspected anything like this. How long has she been widowed?”

“Since before Matty was born.”

“And her husband had no family, either?”

“None that can help her. She’s as alone in the world as she ever was. That’s why I’ve agreed to take responsibility for Matty.”

“Oh, Nate.” Arlene covered her mouth with her hand for a moment. “I know how much you used to love her, but to do this for a woman who broke your heart.”

“What happened between Sarah and me is in the past. It’s about what’s best for the boy now.”

“A child who isn’t yours—”

“Mom. It’s settled.” She winced at the hardness he couldn’t keep out of his voice.

In silence they watched as Harm came out of his cabin and moved slowly down toward the lakeshore, tackle box in hand, followed by Buster. The old man was probably heading out to try and catch a mess of late-season pan fish for his supper; it was anyone’s guess where the cat was headed. The growl of Harm’s old Evinrude outboard motor broke the morning quiet.

“When?” Arlene asked after a few moments.

“We can pick up the license Friday afternoon. Mayor Holder, over at Lakeview, has us penciled in for five o’clock that afternoon. Sarah’s surgery is scheduled for seven a.m. Saturday morning.”

“So soon?” Impulsively his mother reached out and laid her hand over his. He turned his palm up and closed his hand around her cold fingers.

“It has to be, Mom. I can’t let Matty grow up the way Sarah did, shuffled from one foster home to the next, no security, no place to put down roots. He needs stability and a family. I’ll do my best to give him that.”

“When you put it that way I suppose there’s no use me arguing with you. You’ve always been the most stubborn of my kids, and that’s saying something. Always trying to get the rest of the world to march to your drummer.” She gave his hand a hard squeeze then fumbled in her coat pocket for a tissue.

“Don’t you think I’m up to the challenge?”

“Of course you are. You’ll make a wonderful father! Maybe this is the Almighty’s way of giving you—”

He knew where she was going with that line of thought and was glad that she stopped herself so he didn’t have to.

“God, I wish I had a cigarette,” she said, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

“You haven’t had a smoke for over a year. Don’t go backsliding now.”

“Easy for you to say,” she sniffed. “Do I look okay?”

“You look fine.”

“I’m so glad I didn’t launch into Sarah with both barrels. Or you, for that matter. Two whole days of wondering what she was doing here. Your father warned me not—”

“Will you tell him, Mom? It would save me some time.”

“I’ll tell him,” she blew out a puff of breath. “He always liked Sarah but I don’t think he’s going to be any happier about this than I am.”

“You don’t have to be happy about it. Just stand by me.”

“Till my last breath,” she said fiercely. “Let’s go inside. I suppose I should get to know Matty a little better so he won’t be afraid to stay with me while…while Sarah is in the hospital.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Nate bent his head to give her a peck on the cheek. She wrapped her arms around him and gave him a quick, hard hug.

“I know you think you’re doing the right thing, and I suppose you are. But, oh Nate, she hurt you so badly.”

“We hurt each other, Mom, but that’s not what’s important now. She came to me as a last resort. There’s nothing left between us but a little boy who needs our love.”

She put her hand on his forearm as he turned to go back inside. “Nate, I just thought of something. What if the doctors are wrong? What if the surgery is a success? If Sarah is granted her miracle, what will you do then?”

CHAPTER THREE

HER WEDDING DAY was over.

In a few hours they would leave for the hospital. The trailer was quiet so Nate must have fallen asleep at last. The walls of the mobile home were thin and she had heard him tossing long into the night. It hadn’t always been that way. When they were married—before—he had always slept like a log, barely moving from the position in which he fell asleep. Always with her snuggled tight against him, safe and protected in his arms.

Best to stay away from memories like that.

It was why she dreaded the small hours of the night—the barriers she kept strong and in good repair during the day failed her in the darkness. The week had passed quickly. There had been lawyer’s visits, small domestic chores, precious time spent with Matty as he played with Becca and became more at ease with Nate and his family. But the nights had been long and stressful, for both of them.

She glanced around the shadowed room. All of Matty’s things were arranged to his satisfaction. His favorite SpongeBob SquarePants lamp was on top of the dresser. His clothes were folded in the drawers and hanging in the little closet next to hers, his toys piled into a new bright yellow storage unit in the corner. The fireproof box with all the documentation Nate would need when he became responsible for her son was sitting on Nate’s dresser.

She had sold or given away most of her possessions except for those she could pack in the minivan. Still, it had been difficult to find room for all of it in Nate’s trailer. There simply wasn’t much storage space. Matty’s baby book, the albums with pictures of his father and his Taylor relatives, were stored on the top shelf of the closet along with the few photographs various sets of foster parents had taken of her over the years. There was also the video of her when she was pregnant that David had made, which ended when she was seven months along, and he died. Later, she had taken some footage of Matty when he was small to add to it, but her heart was never in it and she’d ended up selling the video camera to one of her co-workers at HomeContractors so she could buy a still camera.

She was a throwback, she guessed. She loved photographs, the kind you could hold in your hand, put in an album to linger over, savor, relive. She had taken roll after roll of film of her son, a set for each year of his life. The camera was in the safe box, too. She hoped someday Matty would want to learn to use it when he was old enough.

There were no pictures of her and Nate among the keepsakes, however. She had destroyed them the day their divorce became final.

And there had been no pictures taken today, although she suspected Tessa had a camera in her car. She and her husband, Keith, a long-distance trucker, had acted as their witnesses for the short, informal ceremony in the mayor’s office at the back of the redbrick building that housed Lakeview’s six-man police force, as well as its municipal offices. There had been no rice to throw, no cake to cut. And no toasts to a long and happy life together. Because there wouldn’t be one.

Their whirlwind remarriage was probably already the talk of the entire population around Cottonwood Lake. More than once Sarah had caught the mayor taking in every detail of her simple navy blue dress and Nate’s dark suit. There had been an absence of flowers, except for the nosegay of fall mums that Arlene had pressed into her hands when they dropped Matty off at her house—all brides need a bouquet she’d said, shrugging off Sarah’s thanks. And the lack of other family and friends in attendance, and that no further celebration appeared planned to mark the event, was all grist for the gossip mill of a very small town. It was Nate who remembered the ring, a simple gold band that fit perfectly but felt heavy and unfamiliar on her hand. And a kiss, light and soft and warm as sunshine on her mouth. Another memory that wouldn’t go away.

A shadow blocked the light from the hallway. She turned her head to see Nate’s broad shoulders filling the narrow doorway. He was fully dressed except for his shoes. He was wearing jeans and a gray chamois shirt, open at the throat, the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows. He braced one shoulder against the door frame and pushed his hand into the front pocket of his jeans. The casual, masculine clothes suited him, just as his Army uniform had. She could never picture Nate wearing a suit every day, or working behind a desk, an office-bound, cubicle-dweller chained to a keyboard and monitor. He was a man born to be outside, to work with his hands.

“You should be asleep,” he said quietly.

“I’m not sleepy.”

“The doctor said you should get all the rest you can.”

“I’ll have eternity to rest.” She smoothed the blanket over Matty’s knees. She was tired and scared and her emotions were too close to the surface to easily control. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound melodramatic.”

“You shouldn’t dwell on the worst-case scenario.”

“You always dwell on the worst-case scenario when you’re a single parent.”

There was a heartbeat’s silence before he answered. “You’re not a single parent anymore, remember.”

“No, I’m not. Not anymore,” she whispered.

Matty frowned in his sleep, then he raised his little fists and rubbed his eyes. “Mommy,” he called, sitting up, looking around with an unfocused stare. He began to sob, caught up in a bad dream.

“Shhh, baby,” she crooned, pulling him close. “I’m right here.”

Sarah didn’t need a child psychologist to tell her why Matty was suddenly having nightmares. His whole world had been turned upside down. He didn’t understand the gravity of her condition, at least she prayed he didn’t, but he knew something was wrong and the uncertainty of his new life scared him.

“He goes right back to sleep if you rock him,” she whispered to Nate. Matty had stuck his thumb in his mouth as he snuggled tight against her. “Just take his thumb out of his mouth when you put him back down.” She heard the quaver in her voice and fell silent.

“I’ll remember,” Nate said, and the words sounded like a promise. “Do you want me to hold him?”

She shook her head. She knew his suggestion made sense, but she couldn’t let go of her baby. Not now, not even for a little while. There were so many things to teach Nate about Matty but she couldn’t trust her voice any longer. “I need to hold him.”

“Why don’t you try to sleep? I’ll wake you at four. Mom will be here to watch over him so we can leave by four-forty-five.” Her surgery was scheduled for seven but they needed to check into the hospital an hour earlier.

“All right.” She laid Matty down on his pillow and curled up beside him. She closed her arms around him and felt the quick, light beat of his heart against hers.

Nate stepped into the room and pulled the sheet over them both. He didn’t say anything more, urge her to sleep, or wish her pleasant dreams. It would have been a waste of breath. But she thought she felt the merest brush of his fingers in her hair, and then he was gone and she was alone with her son in her arms.

IT HAD BEEN the longest day of his life and that included those he’d spent in battle, Nate thought, watching the last of the orange and gray sunset fade from the night sky. He turned away from the window. He and his parents were alone in the waiting room.

It was small and tucked away at the end of a long hall.

The kind of room they put you in to give you bad news.

“What time is it?” Arlene asked, looking up from the magazine she’d been pretending to read for the last half hour.

“Almost six,” Tom responded. Nate had thought his father was asleep he’d been quiet for so long, his long legs crossed at the ankles, his chin resting on his chest, as he sat slouched in a brown tweed chair.

His parents had shown up at the hospital about an hour after Sarah’s surgery had started. “I know I promised Sarah we’d watch look after Matty,” Arlene told him with the stubborn look on her face that all of her children had learned at an early age not to argue with. “He’ll do fine with Joann and the boys. You need us more than he does right now.” They hadn’t left his side for a moment since.

“Only six o’clock and it’s dark already,” Arlene sighed.

“It’ll be dark even earlier when daylight savings time ends.” Tom straightened from his slouched position and stretched his arms over his head. He was a couple of inches taller than Nate, although they favored each other in looks.

Arlene dropped the magazine and stood up, walking to the door and looking out into the hallway. “How much longer do you think it will be?”

Nate shrugged. “Six to eight hours. That’s what the surgeon said.”

“And the surgery started at noon?”

“Yes,” he answered patiently. It was the third time she’d asked.

He and Sarah had arrived at the pre-op suite right at six. But from then on nothing had gone as planned. The doctor was in surgery, an emergency, an apologetic nurse had informed them. Sarah’s operation had been moved back on the schedule. There was a room they could wait in, she’d explained, while Sarah filled out forms. She knew what Sarah was facing and she did her best to put them at ease.

Later another nurse had taken Sarah away to undress and change into a hospital gown, leaving him to cool his heels in the windowless cubbyhole of a room. He stared at the gauges and tubing affixed to the wall above the empty space where Sarah’s bed would be. Oxygen, blood pressure cuff, monitors that he couldn’t read. He switched his gaze to the TV and pretended to watch the early morning weather report. A few minutes later they brought Sarah in. She looked small and lost in the high bed with its stark white sheets and pillowcase. She wore a worn-looking white surgical gown and her hair was hidden beneath a paper cap.

“They didn’t shave my head if that’s what you’re wondering,” she said with a ghost of the smile that still had the power to make his heart beat harder. “The incision will be here.” She touched the back of her neck.

The nurse started an IV and gave Sarah the first of her pre-op medication. A few minutes later she seemed to doze off. Nate stared at the TV and the clock, not paying attention to the one and wondering if the other was broken since the hands didn’t seem to move. Nurses came and went with more medication for the IV. Sarah woke up and turned her head to look at him. “I forgot to tell you,” she said, swallowing against the dryness in her mouth. They’d probably given her atropine to do that. Nate knew more about pre-op medications than he wanted to. “Matty wants to be Shrek for Halloween. He’s excited about it. Do you think you can find a costume for him?”

Nate stood up and walked over to the high bed. He leaned both hands on the rails the nurse had put up when she started the IV. “I’ll make sure he has a Shrek costume,” he promised.

The answer seemed to please her. A faint smile curved her mouth and her words took on a dreamy tone. “Spoken like a true father. See, I told you you’d be good at the daddy thing. Thank you, Nate. For everything.”

He’d reached down to take her hand in his at the same moment the surgeon appeared in the doorway. She was young, with chocolate-colored skin, a serious demeanor, and an excellent reputation in her field. “It’s time to go,” she’d said.

Sarah’s fingers tightened around his. “Try to learn to love him, Nate. That’s all I ask.”

His last words to her were spoken directly from his heart. “I won’t have to try at all.”

“Someone’s coming.” Arlene’s voice broke into his thoughts. She took a couple of steps backward into the waiting room and turned to face him. “Is Sarah’s doctor a very pretty, young black woman?”

“Yes. Dr. Jamison.” He curled his hands around the back of one of the brown tweed chairs so his parents couldn’t see them tremble.

Tom rose, too, as the neurosurgeon entered the room. She was wearing rose-colored scrubs and green surgical booties, her short, dark hair still covered by a white paper cap like the one they’d put on Sarah. She carried a clipboard and a large envelope in her hands, looking down at her notes as she walked. Nate searched her face for signs of the bad news he was certain she’d come to deliver. She looked up and saw them watching her, and smiled.

Not the polite curve of her generous mouth that Nate had seen earlier, but a real smile that reached her eyes and banished the weariness from her face. “I’ve got good news,” she said. Nate had been preparing himself for the worst, and if he hadn’t been watching her so closely he would have thought he’d heard her wrong. “The surgery was a complete success. Sarah is going to be just fine.”

“A miracle,”Arlene whispered, and sat down in her chair with a thump, as though her legs would no longer support her. Nate felt weak in the knees himself.

“Well, not exactly a miracle, but very close to one.” Dr. Jamison pulled a sheet of X rays out of the envelope and snapped them into the light box on the wall by the door. “These are your wife’s pre-op scans.” She pointed to a spidery web of lines curled over and around the vertebrae of Sarah’s neck and then indicated the second X ray, where there were no more lines. “The growth was advancing very rapidly. Another few millimeters, and it would have been too late.” She stared at the scans for a moment with a satisfied smile, then snapped off the light. “But we don’t have to go there anymore. It was touch and go for awhile, but I think I can safely assure you the chance of a recurrence is less than five percent over the next—” her smile grew a little wider “—fifty years or so.”

Nate felt as if a bomb had at last gone off in his face. Blood roared in his ears and for a minute he forgot to breathe. She was going to be all right. And she was his wife again. How were they going to deal with that? Automatically, he held out his hand. “Thank you for everything, Doctor.”

“I’m so pleased to be able to give you such a good prognosis. I don’t have to tell you I didn’t think the outcome would be so favorable.” She glanced down at Arlene, who was staring up at her. “Maybe your mother is right. Maybe there was a little bit of a miracle worked in the mix.”

“A miracle,” Arlene repeated, turning her eyes to Nate.

“Sarah should make a complete recovery over the next couple of months, Mr. Fowler. She’ll need some therapy for the nerve damage to her arm and leg, but I believe it’s completely reversible. The therapy will all be out-patient, of course. Barring any unforeseen complications you can take her home in seventy-two hours.”

“IS THERE ANYTHING I can get for you?”

“No, thank you.” At the last moment the constriction of the brace around her neck reminded her not to try and shake her head. “I’m fine. Just a little tired. Matty—?”

“He’s with Tessa, remember.”

“Oh, yes, of course. I…I forgot.” She missed Matty terribly. She’d never been away from him this long before, although in reality it had only been four days. Ninety-six hours that had changed her world.

“It’s normal. The anesthetic, the pain medication. Your brain won’t feel like such a block of wood after you get some sleep.” Nate wasn’t looking at her as he spoke, but was hanging their coats in the postage-stamp-size closet beside the door.

“I imagine you’re right.” He was talking from experience, she reminded herself. How many surgeries had he undergone to reconstruct his knee and ankle? It hadn’t been a subject that had come up during the few days they’d been together before the wedding. Odd, not to know something that at one point in her life would have been of the utmost significance. Even now she couldn’t bear to think of him hurting and in pain. Her palm itched, so she absently rubbed the tips of her fingers over the skin. It was another sign the surgery had been successful, this uncomfortable, almost annoying return of sensation to her nerve-deadened hand and leg. She kept her eyes on the lake. Gray clouds scudded overhead changing the surface of the water from blue to pewter as swiftly as her moods seemed to swing between light and dark, happiness at being alive and near despair at the dilemma she’d created for Nate and herself.

She had been prepared to die.

Not to live.

She had believed wholeheartedly that she wouldn’t survive the surgery. She’d made him believe it, too, or he wouldn’t have agreed to her mad scheme. But she had survived. Yet in her fear and anxiety to provide for her son what had she done?

To Nate?

To the two of them?

The thought made her head swim. Her knees felt weak and rubbery. She put her hand out to steady herself on the arm of Nate’s huge recliner. It was a man’s chair, wide and overstuffed. David had had one much like it. She’d sold it along with all her other furniture before she left Texas.

Immediately Nate was at her side, helping to lower her gingerly onto the seat. She steeled herself not to jerk away from his touch. To have him so close made her wary of her reactions. He was so big and warm and safe. It would be wonderful to give in to the temptation of being taken care of again. But she didn’t dare allow herself the luxury of such yearnings for even a moment. She and Matty were on their own, or would be again soon enough. “Thanks,” she said, “wobbly knees.”

“Your blood sugar’s probably low. I’ll make you some tea and toast. Then you can get some rest.”

“Please, don’t bother. I’m fine. I ate everything on my tray before we left the hospital.” And the food, bland as it was, was still sitting like lead in her queasy stomach.

Unheeding of her words, he moved into the small kitchen. Nate was a good cook, she remembered. All the men in his family were—it was a competition of sorts between them at holidays and parties. “While you’re resting I’ll go down to the barn and check the answering machine before I head over to Tessa’s and bring Matty home.”

Bring Matty home. Another of the phrases that sounded so right but was so wrong.

“We need to talk—” she repeated stubbornly.

“I’ve put you two in the bigger bedroom.” He spoke over his shoulder. “There’s more room for your things. Matty helped me move your stuff.”

“We can’t force you out of your bedroom.”

“I’m fine in the small room. I think I’ll have a cup of coffee before I go to the barn. Are you sure you don’t want something? Tea? Cocoa? I make great cocoa.”

“So Becca told me.” She wished her head didn’t feel like the block of wood Nate had described, but it did. She’d gotten little sleep in the busy teaching hospital the past three nights. She was so tired that she couldn’t keep a clear line of thought in her head. The pain-killers she’d taken before she checked out of the hospital weren’t helping her concentration, either. But the truth was she needed them, at least for the time being.

“You know, cocoa sounds good now that I think of it. I’ll make us both a cup.” He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a gallon of milk and filled a saucepan on the stove with the deliberate, efficient movements and total concentration on the task at hand that Sarah remembered from their time together. That way of working, of moving, had been drilled into him in the military. When you dealt with explosives, impatience and carelessness were two traits guaranteed to get you, or someone else, killed. He’d told her that early in their relationship when they’d had no trouble talking about what was important to them.

He reached one long arm across the narrow counter and took a tin of cocoa and sugar from a top cupboard shelf in one smooth, unhurried motion. He made love the same way, deliberately and thoroughly. Sarah pushed herself out of the big chair and walked slowly to the banquette. She sat down then removed the neck brace and placed it on the seat beside her. She only needed to wear it when she was riding in the car or walking outside, where her weakened leg muscles might trip her up. She gingerly touched the back of her neck where the row of metal staples held the edges of the long incision together. In ten days they would be removed, and the small amount of her hair that had been shaved away would grow back almost as quickly, Dr. Jamison had assured her. After that it would be therapy twice a week for six weeks at Lakeview Care Manor across the lake, and then a follow-up visit to Dr. Jamison. If everything looked good she would be allowed to drive and go back to work in time for the holiday rush.

She would start apartment hunting then, and she and Matty could be in their own place by Christmas. Except she would still be married to Nate. She rested her head in her hands. It was all so complicated now. The financial arrangements she’d made were predicated on her death, not her living. She had very little ready cash. On top of everything else he had done for her, would she end up having to ask Nate for a loan to divorce him again?

Lord, what a mess. Her head was pounding; the incision ached. She was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open, yet she was too restless to sleep. Nate set a cup of cocoa in front of her. It smelled so delicious she opened her eyes and picked up the mug, savoring the warmth of the china, grateful for her renewed ability to correctly judge the degree of heat against her skin.

“Eat,” Nate urged.

Obediently she ate a triangle of toast, then another. Before she knew it the plate was empty. She said the first thing that came to her mind. “Toast and cocoa. Your mother’s remedy for whatever ails you.”

“Looks like it hasn’t lost its effectiveness. Want some more?”

“No, thank you. That was enough.”

“Then I’ll turn down the bed for you.”

“No.” The word came out louder than she’d planned.

“If you feel that strongly about it you can turn down the bed yourself.” He leaned back against the counter smiling slightly, indulgently.

“I don’t need a nap. We have to talk. Now.” She wasn’t going to let him steamroller over her the way he sometimes had before.

“All right, we’ll talk if that’s what you want. Go ahead.” Frowning, he folded his arms over his chest.

“We need to figure how to get ourselves out of this mess I’ve gotten us into.”

“We don’t need to do that right this minute.”

“Yes, we do.” Sarah stopped and took a deep breath. “Please, sit down. It hurts when I have to look up at you.”

He did as she asked, resting his arms on the tabletop. His forearms were dusted with dark hairs, his wrists and hands were strong, the muscles and tendons taut beneath his skin. “Go on, say what’s on your mind.”

“Our marriage is what’s on my mind. It will all have to be undone. We’ll have to contact the lawyer again, explain the situation. He’s probably waiting to hear from you so he can read my will.”

“You have a point. We should call his office and tell him you came through the surgery with flying colors. The rest of it can wait until you’re back on your feet.”

The next words were harder to say. “I—I’ll probably have to ask you for a loan to pay my share. And for a security deposit on an apartment. I’ll borrow against my life insurance policy as soon as I can make the arrangements, but I canceled my credit card so I can’t get an advance that way—”

He held up his hand. There was no longer any hint of a smile on his face or in his words. “Not so fast. Dr. Jamison said she’d let you return to work in six to eight weeks. That’s if everything is okay. You’re not going to be able to care for Matty by yourself for most of that time. How the hell do you think you’re going to manage alone until then?”

“I’ll find day care—”

He leaned back, once more folding his arms across his chest. “Good day care’s expensive. But more importantly your son’s been moved from pillar to post and back again over the past couple of months. He’s just getting used to my family. And me. There’s no need to uproot him again. Not for the time being.”

“I can’t stay here, Nate.”

Nate’s gray eyes never left hers but they allowed her no access to his thoughts. “If you want I’ll move in with Granddad for a couple of weeks so you two can have your own space. But not right away, not until you’re up on your feet again. Matty’s too much for you to handle alone.”

He had a point there, one she could scarcely argue with. She wasn’t allowed to lift anything over five pounds. Matty was a rambunctious three-year-old but he was still her baby. He needed help in and out of the bathtub, on and off the toilet. He wanted to be held and cuddled. She couldn’t do any of those things for him, at least not without help.

Nate’s help.

“I don’t want to be taken care of, Nate. Not anymore.” She had wanted exactly that once upon a time, and she had let herself slide too far into the fairy tale. Then when she tried to assert herself by insisting on a baby when he was afraid to give her one, the conflict had shattered their make-believe world, and their marriage.

His face darkened. He stood and picked up her plate and cup, turning his back as he set the dirty dishes in the sink. “I know that, Sarah. You pretty much burned it into my brain when we divorced. But the long and short of it is right now you do need someone to take care of you. And that someone is me.”

What a mess she’d made of things. “I’m sorry, Nate,” she whispered. Her hands trembled and fatigue washed over her in a black wave. She fought to keep her concentration focused on their discussion, but all she really wanted to do was go to sleep.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for. We got a miracle handed to us. We can’t complain because it’s got strings attached.” He turned to look at her again, leaning his hip against the sink. The darkness was gone from his face, if not from his gray eyes. “I admit we’ve got a boatload of problems to work out, but outside of calling the lawyer with the good news none of them have to be dealt with today. You’ve only been out of the hospital for two hours. Go rest. I’ll get Matty from Tessa’s and wake you when I bring him back. We’ll form a plan of attack tomorrow.”

“You make it sound as if you’re staging a war game.”

He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “Yeah, I guess I do. Old habits die hard.”

That wasn’t all, Sarah thought as she curled herself around the oversize pillow that Dr. Jamison had recommended she use so that she didn’t lie on her back and put pressure on the incision. Old dreams died hard, too.

CHAPTER FOUR

NATE STARED at his reflection in the rechromed headlight of the Indian as he wiped a smudged fingerprint off the shiny surface. He looked like hell. He hoped it was only from the distortion of the metal and not evidence of another week of sleepless nights. He’d always prided himself on being able to sleep through anything, including mortar attacks, and the midnight shift change in a busy military hospital. But he was wrong. He’d found something that could keep him awake for hours, even though it was no louder than the sound of someone breathing. Sarah’s breathing, soft and even, in the room just down the hall.

He’d probably get more sleep if he bunked down out here on the lumpy old futon Joann had foisted on him after her last garage sale.

Hell, why was he thinking of bedtime? The sun wasn’t even down yet.

He looked at his watch. “Damn.” He was supposed to pick Matty up half an hour ago, but he’d been so focused on the restoration he’d lost track of time. Some kind of father he was turning out to be. He grabbed a jacket and headed out the door just as his sisters and their assorted offspring tumbled out of Tessa’s van.

Or to be more precise, the kids tumbled out of the van. Ty, Joann’s almost-nine-year-old, turned back to help unfasten Becca from her car seat while Matty, already released from his safety seat, raced across the parking lot only a step or two behind seven-year-old Jack. Joann strolled along in the kids’ wake while Tessa and her impressive belly brought up the rear. Both of his sisters were tall women with round, pretty features. Joann was blond and built along the same generous lines as their mother while Tessa, when she wasn’t pregnant, had the thinner build and red-gold hair that came from the Fowler side of the family.

“Hi, Nate.” Jack and Matty came skidding to a halt in front of him. “Can we see the bike? Is it done? Can I ride it yet?”

“No, it isn’t done. But I’ve got the gas tank back on, and the handlebars. It’s beginning to look like a real bike again. Go ahead, take a look. But don’t try to climb up on it.” Jack had been clambering on anything that would hold still, and a few things that wouldn’t, since he was about six months old.

His nephew made a face. “I know better than that,” he said, but his eyes didn’t quite meet Nate’s, so Nate knew he’d been planning to do exactly that.

“C’mon, Matty. Let’s go.”

Matty held back. “I want to see my mom.” He looked up at Nate with hopeful eyes.

“She’s taking a nap,” Nate informed him. “We’ll go wake her up in just a little while. Where’d you get that hat?” It was a navy blue ball cap with a big gold block M on the front.

“From Jack.”

“My dad said Matty needed to get with the program so I gave him my hat. It’s too little for me anyway.” Gus Westin, Joann’s husband, was the science teacher at the local junior high, and a former third-string kicker for Michigan. Jack was the spitting image of his father—dark-haired, small-boned and wiry tough. He wasn’t all that much bigger than Sarah’s son and still young enough to play with Matty so they got along well.

Nate patted Matty on top of the head. “Looks good on you, buddy.”

Matty reached up and pulled on the brim. “I like it.”

“Let’s go,” Jack urged. Dark-haired Ty, who had a leaner build than his brother, let go of Becca’s hand and took Matty’s.

“C’mon. I’ll go with you.”

“Keep your eye on him,” Joann admonished her firstborn. “And your brother.”

“I will.” The three boys took off for the barn leaving Nate with the girls.

“Hi, Unca’ Nate,” Becca chirped. “We’re going shopping, wanna come along?”

“Hi, Becca Boo.” The little girl held up her arms to be lifted for a hug and a kiss. He found himself wishing that Matty would do the same, but so far the little boy hadn’t initiated any hugs. Patience, he told himself, it had only been a couple of weeks—it took time to earn a kid’s trust, especially a little one who’d had been through the kind of upheaval Matty had.

“I’m sorry, sis. I lost track of time.” Nate directed his apology to Tessa, who had plunked herself down on the retaining wall that jutted out from the front corner of the barn, puffing slightly, her hand on her distended stomach.

“No, problem. We’re just heading into Adrian to get some groceries and some more trick-or-treat candy.” Adrian was the nearest large town.

“The boys found my hiding place,” Joann explained with a shake of her head as Nate set Becca on the low stone wall beside her mother. “I’m going to put this batch in the safe-deposit box at the bank.” Joann was the loan officer at a bank in Hillsdale, in the next county, and Nate had no doubt she’d be at least a vice president there one day.

“We can take Matty with us, if you’d like,” Tessa offered after a slight hesitation and an exchange of glances with Joann. “I imagine Sarah’s pretty worn-out.”

Nate knew his sisters were genuinely happy that Sarah had survived the surgery, but he was also fully aware they had reservations, for his sake, not only about the remarriage, but also about Sarah remaining in his home. Tessa, who had been closest to Sarah in the past, would take her cue from him. Joann, like their mother, was not as softhearted, nor as easygoing. She had always liked Sarah, but she had also been more outspoken in her anger when they divorced. She was fiercely loyal to her family and Nate suspected it would take time for her to forgive and forget.

“That’s okay. You guys have been lifesavers this past couple of weeks. He’ll be fine with me. I’m sure Sarah will be waking up from her nap soon. You’re right, she was exhausted after her therapy session.”

“How’s she doing?”

“Great. Nearly all the feeling’s back in her hands and fingers. Her leg’s coming along, too, just a little more slowly.”

“Good,” Tessa responded with a smile, and Joann nodded her agreement.

“Want us to bring you back takeout for dinner?”

“Thanks for offering, but I’ve got baked steak in the oven.”

“With mashed potatoes and gravy?”

“Of course.” He grinned as Joann rolled her eyes heavenward and sighed.

“Lord, I hate these low-carb diets. I’d give up my stock options for mashed potatoes and gravy!”

“Umm,” Tessa seconded.

Nate did some quick figuring in his head. “You’re welcome to stay. I think we can make it stretch if I stir up some macaroni and cheese for the kids.”

Joann sighed again. “Thanks for offering but we promised the kids pizza, and I’m bound and deter mined to stick to this diet. I’ve gained five pounds in the last couple of weeks and I swear I haven’t cheated once. It’s the damned salad bar for me.”

Nate grinned. “Man, that’s hardship duty, sis.

Watching those two eating machines, Ty and Jack, chow down on pizza while you’re grazing through the spinach and sprouts.”

“Hey, that’s hitting below the belt.” Joann made a face and stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “Just for that you can make your four-cheese, sour cream potato casserole with the crushed potato-chip topping for the pumpkin smashing party Saturday.” Joann slapped her hand over her mouth. “Oohh, what made me say that? Now I’ll be dreaming about the darned thing for the next three days.”

The “Saturday After Halloween Jack-O-Lantern Smashing Party” was one of his sisters’newest “family traditions,” the one they sandwiched between the Labor Day water-ski exhibition, and the chili cookoff that preceded the Ohio State/Michigan game the Saturday before Thanksgiving—when they really ratcheted up the entertaining schedule.

“You know, Joann,” Tessa said slyly, wrapping her arms around Becca’s shoulders and nuzzling the top of her head, “the last time you obsessed about potatoes you were pregnant with Jack.”

“I did not.”

“Yes, you did,” Nate said, surprised that he remembered, babies and pregnancies never having been a high priority for him in the old days. “I was home on leave then.” Just weeks before he met Sarah. “You ate them morning, noon and night. Boiled, fried, mashed, baked and raw. I remember thinking it was the weirdest pregnancy craving I’d ever heard of.”

“It’s impossible.” Joann’s eyes were big as saucers but she didn’t sound quite as certain as she had before. “Gus and I haven’t even thought about another baby. I mean not seriously.” Her words drifted off into horrified silence. “There was that one night last month when the boys were sleeping over at Mom and Dad’s and the con—” She colored and changed the subject. “No way,” she said, then in a strangled voice, “What’s the date?”

Tessa laughed and stood up, lifting Becca down off the wall. “It’s the twenty-ninth. How late are you?”

Joann swallowed hard. “Not much, not really… Oh, hell…”

“Looks like we need to add an EPT kit to the shopping list.”

“It’s not funny,” Joann wailed. “I don’t even keep track anymore. What’s Gus going to say?” She blew her bangs back off her forehead. “I’m thirty three years old. I’m too old for another baby. Maybe it’s early menopause?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Tessa scolded. “You’re way too young to be starting menopause. I think you’re pregnant. It’s something I can sense. You know, like calling to like.” She pointed down at her bulging stomach. “And if you are pregnant, you’ll be thrilled as soon as you get used to the idea. You know Gus has always wanted a little girl.”

Becca had been taking it all in. Standing on tiptoe she reached up and patted Tessa’s stomach. “I want a little girl, too.”

“Our baby’s a boy,” Tessa explained patiently for what Nate guessed must be the hundredth time, while Joann fumbled through her coat pocket for a tissue.

“Jack will trade me for it,” she pronounced, nodding so hard her pigtails bounced up and down. “You’ll trade us babies won’t you A’nt Joann.”

“I’m not having a—” Joann stopped in midsentence. Looking past Nate’s left shoulder she said, “Hello, Sarah.”

“Hi, Joann. Tessa, hello.” Sarah was making her way carefully toward them. She wasn’t wearing the neck brace anymore, although Nate wished she would when she walked on the uneven ground around the barn, but didn’t say so. Sarah had made it clear enough over the last week that she wasn’t going to play the invalid any longer than necessary.

“Hi, Sarah.”

“Hi,” Becca piped up. “Matty’s in the barn.”

“Is he? I’ll have to go get him. I’ve been missing him.” She slid her hands into the pockets of her lightweight cotton jacket and smiled tentatively at Joann and Tessa. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

“No, of course not. We were just checking to see if Nate needed anything from Wal-Mart. We’re on our way there for a last minute trick-or-treat run.”

“Do you have enough candy, Nate?” Sarah asked him. “I’d be happy to contribute some if Tessa and Joann could pick it up for me.”

“I’ve got plenty. We’re too far off the beaten track up here to get more than a few trick-or-treaters.”

“Just turn off your porch light if you run out,” Tessa suggested. “That’s pretty much the universal signal for ‘no candy.’”

“Got that, Sarah? Blackout conditions are to be put into effect when you run out of ammunition,” Nate said with a grin. “I’m taking Matty out in his Shrek costume and Sarah’s staying here to hold down the fort.”

“I’m perfectly capable of taking Matty trick-or-treating.”

“You might miss your footing in the dark,” Tessa said. “You wouldn’t want to take a tumble.”

“That’s why she’s staying here and passing out candy.” Nate heard his old sergeant’s voice coming out of his mouth but he didn’t care.

Sarah didn’t challenge him as he half expected her to. Instead she changed the subject. “I want to thank you both for watching over Matty these last two weeks. I appreciate it very much.”

“We’re glad to help out,” Joann said. “I’ll go get the boys. We should be on our way.” She hurried toward the workshop door without a backward glance.

“We really do need to be heading out,” Tessa said to explain her sister’s abrupt departure. “I want to stop and ask Grandpa if he needs anything on the way, and Ty has a spelling test to study for.”

“Of course,” Sarah said with another smile, but Nate could see Joann’s coolness bothered her.

Thirty seconds later the boys came charging out of the barn followed by Matty and Nate’s sister. “See, I told you she was right here,” Joann said, giving him a little push forward.

“Mama.” He wrapped both arms around Sarah’s leg and held her tight. “I’m home.”

“I see that. I missed you.” She hugged him back.

“I got a new hat,” he said, leaning back so that she could admire the ball cap. “Jack gave it to me.”

“I like it.”

“We’ll see you Saturday,” Tessa called over her shoulder. “We’ll be over early to sweep the barn and set up the tables.”

“Gus and his students will be here around three to unload the trebuchet,” Joann reminded him. “I hope the rain holds off until after dark.”

“It will,” Nate said under his breath so that only Sarah could hear. “There isn’t a rain cloud in this state that would dare unload on one of my sisters’ parties.”

“I’ve never heard of a trebuchet,” Sarah said as they watched Tessa back the van around and head back down the hill to Harm’s place. “What is it and what does it have to do with Halloween?”

“Absolutely nothing to do with Halloween. It’s a medieval war machine. Kind of a cross between a catapult and a sling shot.” Nate held open the door of the low-ceilinged workshop for her and Matty.

“Is that what they’re called? They used them in the battle of Helm’s Deep in The Two Towers,” Sarah said, with a grin. “I watched it the other day.” She rested her left elbow on her right hand and made a flinging motion. “The bad guys were lobbing severed heads over the wall.”

“The severed head lobbing was in The Return of the King. The bad guys were using catapults. The good guys were flinging back huge pieces of stone. And they were using trebuchets.”

“I’ll have to watch the whole thing again to get it straight in my head. Did your sisters get the idea for the pumpkin smashing party from the movies?”

“I don’t think so. It’s been going on since Gus’s science club built the darn thing and they needed ammunition that was cheap and that wouldn’t cause fatal injuries. Joann suggested jack-o’-lanterns after she read about some place back east that does it every year with intact pumpkins, and the rest is Riley’s Cove history.”

“Sounds like fun. Your sisters are good at things like that. I remember the Fourth of July celebration when you were home on leave the summer after we were married. Toasted marshmallows, hot dogs and potato salad, homemade ice cream—the whole nine yards. And the fireworks were great. I’d never been to a party like that before.” There wasn’t a trace of self-pity in her voice, no bitterness for her hand-to-mouth childhood.

“I imagine this one will measure up.”

“This is your first?” she asked, as she made her way to the half-finished cycle. She moved carefully, he noticed, her right leg dragging slightly, an indication of how tired she still must be even after her nap.

“Yep.” He picked up a shop rag and squatted down to clean up an oil spill from the concrete floor. He didn’t want her or Matty to take a tumble here, or anyplace else. “Last year I was in the hospital having the pins taken out of my ankle and before that, I was in Iraq. I got some of the artillery guys in the unit to e-mail Gus pointers on range and elevation, though, and they got a kick out of the pictures Joann sent back. Evidently a well-built trebuchet can get a lot of splat out of a past-its-prime jack-o’-lantern.” He stood up and grabbed a handful of wrenches and screwdrivers he’d left lying on the tool bench.

“Would you prefer Matty and I not come down here for the party?” she asked quietly.

He dropped the tools in a drawer and shut it before turning around. Sarah had her back to him, looking down at the Indian, her fingers tracing the elegant curve of the chrome handlebars.

“Why would you think that?”

She darted a look at Matty, who was playing with a toy motorcycle Arlene had bought for him in the hospital gift shop the day after Sarah’s surgery. He was running it up and down the seat of Joann’s lumpy old futon, turning it into a motocross course, making engine noises and paying them no attention whatsoever.

“Your sisters aren’t comfortable with me around, we both know it. Your mother, too, for that matter, although she’s been trying her best to hide it. You’ll have friends here, neighbors. People who will be wondering about our marriage. It’s awkward for you, for your sisters. For all of us.”

“So your solution is to hide out in the trailer?”

She lifted her head. “It wouldn’t be hiding out. I just thought the less they see of me the easier I’ll be forgotten when Matty and I leave.”

“You’ve never been easy to forget, Sarah,” he said quietly.

What little color the cold October air had brought to her cheeks faded away. He wished he’d kept his mouth shut but the words had seemed to leap past his tongue before he could stop them. She turned back to the motorcycle again. “You know what I mean, Nate.”

He hooked his welding helmet onto a nail on the wall. “Come to the party, Sarah. I think I can handle the scrutiny.” He wondered if he should tell her about Kaylene Jensen. She was a friend of Joann’s from the bank. His friend, too, he supposed. They’d dated off and on, shared some good times, but it had never been serious, at least not on his part. He decided to keep the information to himself—after all, they hadn’t seen each other since the middle of summer. It would probably just make Sarah more determined than ever to stay holed up in the trailer if she knew his old girlfriend was coming to the party.

“Mommy, let’s go. I’m hungry.” Matty had tired of the motorcycle and thrown it down on the futon. “Carry me,” he pleaded, holding up his hands.

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