Starting over...again

It seems a lifetime ago that Brett Ackerman wanted to share his life with Ella Wales. He really believed he could put his abusive family history behind him...until he realized it would always be part of him. Then he pushed her away. Hard.

Now Ella’s back as part of the High Risk Team at The Lemonade Stand, the unique women’s shelter Brett founded. And she needs his help with a family crisis. But even now, Brett can’t admit he still loves her. Until one night of passion with Ella turns Brett into the one thing he fears the most—a father.

“I thought you were asleep...”

Ella stood there, hands raised as though she didn’t know what to do with them.

Touch him?

God help him, Brett had been reliving the touch of her fingers on his skin since they’d arrived at the cabin last night.

Who was he kidding? He’d never stopped having fantasies about the woman.

He’d known he couldn’t be married to her. Had no doubts about that one. Even now his resolve didn’t waver.

But making love had never even come close to bringing out violence in him.

“I’ll just get us going again and head to shore,” she said. She turned and the light of the moon gave him a bounteous gift. A clear view of two things. Ella’s lips. And her nipples where her sweater had dropped open.

She was chewing on her lower lip. All the sign he really needed. But the hard points of her nipples were added fuel for his raging fire.

Both were indications that Ella was as hungry for him as he was for her...

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to The Lemonade Stand. The Good Father is a very special book in the Where Secrets are Safe series. It’s the story of a man who created his own safety net without knowing it.

If you’ve read any of the other books, you’ve heard about the mysterious founder of The Lemonade Stand, a unique women’s shelter set on the coast of California. We hear of him, of his generosity and his decisions. We just never meet him. We have no idea who he is. Nor do any of the people who work at or are associated with the stand.

Brett Ackerman is a man with secrets. A man with an atrocious past who limits his future rather than risk any more atrocities in his life. He is also that founder. He created something he’d wished had existed when he was growing up a victim of domestic violence. Stepping outside the story, I created The Lemonade Stand because I wished something like it had existed when I was a young newlywed unable to tell anyone what was going on behind closed doors.

I’m not Brett. But he and I have something in common. We both hid from our pasts, tucking things away, thinking we’d dealt with them, only to find that they’d been there all along. I hope you’ll give Brett a chance. Follow on his journey as he struggles to help a friend and finds himself in the process. I promise you warmth and happiness at the end.

All the best,

Tara

PS As always, I love to hear from my readers! You can reach me at staff@tarataylorquinn.com.

The Good Father

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The author of more than seventy novels, TARA TAYLOR QUINN is a USA TODAY bestselling author with over seven million copies sold. She is known for delivering emotional and psychologically astute novels of suspense and romance. Tara is the past president of Romance Writers of America and served eight years on that board of directors. She has appeared on national and local TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning, and is a frequent guest speaker. In her spare time Tara likes to travel and enjoys crafting and in-line skating. She is a supporter of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

For all those who have been hurt and want to believe in love and happiness anyway. It’s out there!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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 TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

CHAPTER THIRTY

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

HE STOOD NAKED and felt the water splash over him. Eyes closed, arms raised with his hands splayed above him on the porcelain tile, Brett Ackerman dropped his chin to his chest. Water pressure that was fine for cleansing wasn’t strong enough to wash away the tension knotting the muscles along the back of his neck.

He stood there, anyway. Planned to let the hot water run out and then to remain in the cold for as long as he could take it. His pain was his own fault. He’d been out too late after several grueling days of work, flying back and forth across the country twice.

He’d been celebrating. Ten years since he’d sold the dot-com he’d started his junior year in college. A decade of his life had passed, and here he was. Standing alone in the walk-in shower in his elegant, historical, two-story walk-up across a quiet street from a flowered lot that led to the ocean beyond.

He owned the house. The lovely two acres across the street. And another house down the street, too, that was split up into bed-and-breakfast-type rooms that were all rented on an extended-stay basis.

He owned them both, and lived in this one, alone.

Just as he’d walked home alone from the quaint neighborhood pub on the corner in the wee hours of that Tuesday morning in September. Where he’d celebrated by nursing two cocktails over a period of several hours and playing video trivia games with anonymous opponents.

His life was on track. Exactly as he’d planned.

And that fact was worth celebrating.

His cell phone peeled, an urgent sound partially muted by the shower. It was only seven. He wasn’t due at the Americans Against Prejudice board meeting in LA until nine. His unscheduled tour of the home office facilities would follow immediately after. While the other board members were at lunch.

His phone continued to ring. Brett continued to stand under the shower—remaining strong against the temptation to pick up—stubbornly determined to relax.

As a nonprofit regulator—a self-made position that in ten years had grown into something approximating a national Better Business Seal of Approval designed to assure nonprofit donors that their monies were not being misappropriated—he was currently sitting on more than fifty boards around the country.

The phone fell blessedly silent, and Brett lifted his face to the soothing heat sluicing over him. Enjoying the moment.

Then his phone started to ring again. Shit. He’d made it through the first summons, but there was no way he could ignore a second, right on the heels of the first. At seven in the morning.

So much for a little naked relaxation.

* * *

ELLA WALES ACKERMAN, RN, the brand-new charge nurse in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Santa Raquel Children’s Hospital—a newly completed facility just outside Santa Raquel—was in the unit’s nursing office early on that Tuesday morning, going over charts and checking her email before her shift began. The thousand-bed facility had only been open a few weeks, and already they had thirty patients in their fifty-bed unit.

Thirty babies fighting for their lives.

She read chart notes from the night before. Saw that the little “ostomy” guy had coded again, but was stabilized. His liver was shutting down due to the nutrition they were forced to give him intravenously until they could do the surgery that would put his stomach back together. If they couldn’t keep him stable, get him well enough to tolerate the surgery...

He was stable. They’d do all they could for him.

“Ella?” She glanced up as Brianna Wood, one of her nurses, a twenty-eight-year-old transfer from San Francisco, stopped in the office doorway. “I know you aren’t on the floor yet, but I just wanted to let you know, we got word an hour ago that a new patient’s coming up from Burbank sometime this morning. A two-pound, six-week-old girl. I don’t know the particulars yet, just that she’s in a warming bed and breathing on her own.”

“Let’s put her in D-4,” Ella said. The pod was their least crowded and also one that, so far, had no patients with ventilators. They talked about the attending physician and waiting for orders, and then Ella asked, “So, did you talk to him?”

Brianna had been planning to ask her boyfriend to move in with her. Which meant leaving his job as a nuclear medicine technician in San Francisco to relocate to Santa Raquel. The long-distance relationship wasn’t working out well.

“Yeah.”

“And?”

“He said he’d see...”

The woman wasn’t crying, but Ella could almost feel the effort it took Brianna to keep her emotions in check.

“You thinking about going home, then?” She’d hate to lose her. Not only were they still staffing, Brianna was a damn good nurse, too. But if she would be happier...

“Absolutely not. I love this job. And if he’s not sure now, my moving back isn’t going to make him any more so.”

There was a lot Ella could say about the importance of having a life beyond the man you loved, but she was the woman’s boss. And admittedly jaded where men were concerned. “He could change his mind.”

Brianna shrugged. “Maybe.” She looked hopeful for a moment. “Do you think I should? Go back?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Would you?”

She shouldn’t answer that, either. “No.”

Brianna’s nod gave her pause. “But...if you want to go home, I’ll give you a glowing reference,” Ella added with a small smile. She’d never been a boss before. Was used to being just one of the nurses—someone who could offer personal advice and opinions without undue professional consequence.

“You don’t wear a ring...”

The question on Brianna’s pretty face called out to Ella. She was new in town, too. And other than her sister-in-law, Chloe, who was living with her temporarily, had no one to confide in. Or even catch a movie with.

“I’m not married.”

“Have you ever been?”

Closing the charting program on her computer, Ella stood up. “Yes, I have been. Now, let’s go get D-4 ready before shift change. If you want to grab a cup of coffee after you get off, I’ll see what I can arrange...”

So she shouldn’t fraternize. A cup of coffee with a valuable employee who was hurting was just good business.

As it turned out, Ella didn’t make it to D-4 or coffee with Brianna. Before she’d even clocked in, the three-month-old in C-2 coded, and it took a couple hours to get him stabilized. By the time Ella finally made it to the break room for a cup of coffee, Brianna was long gone. And she sat by herself, sipping her dark roast, and thinking about things that weren’t productive.

Like Brett. And the baby they’d spent three years and ungodly amounts of money trying to conceive. The baby he’d never wanted. The baby who’d been born too soon to save, leaving his mama with little hope of ever having another child of her own. And here she was, four years later, saving other people’s preemies.

When she’d graduated from college, Ella hadn’t planned to work with seriously ill babies. She’d focused on pediatric nursing. And a job on a PIC unit at a large hospital in LA had been available. Whenever babies had been in for procedures, she’d been the one doctors had requested to assist them. They said she was good with the babies. That she seemed to have a natural ability to calm sick infants.

Funny, a woman who wasn’t capable of conceiving naturally or of carrying a baby to term, having that ability.

No, she wasn’t going down that depressing road again. Her twenties were casualties buried on the shoulders of that road. And though her journey had been painful, she’d finally turned the corner.

She was thirty-one now and taking charge of her life. This new job as charge nurse seemed almost symbolic.

She’d moved from LA to Santa Raquel. A move that would force her to face her past, to confront her present and to build a future.

Standing, Ella checked the pockets of her scrubs to make certain that she had her pager, her pen, and the ID card she had to swipe to get on and off the unit, and turned toward the door of the deserted break room. Time to get back to work.

She had her plan, and her life was on track.

Calm settled over her.

Maybe it was the calm before the storm. Or maybe she’d finally put herself on the path to real peace. Either way, there was no going back.

* * *

BRETT WAS PULLING into the parking garage in LA, half an hour early for the board meeting, when his phone rang again. As it had been doing all morning. As it normally did. Glancing at the screen, he recognized the number immediately.

And issued a silent curse that his hand was shaking as he pushed the call button to answer.

“It’s good to hear from you. Is everything all right?” He spoke quickly, aware that his mother was not going to give him a chance to speak again.

“There’s a new member on the High Risk team. A nurse. Ella Ackerman. I thought you should know before you see the email.”

Click.

The sound in his ear wasn’t a surprise. Although, even after more than fourteen years of this bizarre no-speaking, no-physical-contact relationship he and his mother had, the abrupt hang-up still bothered him.

So did the news he’d just received.

Ella was in town? On the High Risk team? A team comprising professionals—medical personnel, lawyers, social workers, law enforcement—whose jobs brought them in contact with potential domestic-violence victims. The team had been designed to bridge the communication gap between various professional bodies to help prevent victims from falling through the cracks. The idea for the team had come from The Lemonade Stand, a women’s shelter in Santa Raquel. He’d been instrumental in getting the team set up. And now Ella was on it?

Could the day get any worse?

* * *

ELLA HAD A spare minute in between an assessment of a five-day-old baby who was being readmitted due to failure to thrive and a meeting with the HIPAA committee—a committee comprised of hospital staff to develop and implement programs that would help educate and remind staff of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act guidelines—and slipped into a vacant office just outside the NICU, pulling her cell phone out of her pocket.

“Hey, how’s he doing?” she asked as soon as her sister-in-law, Chloe Wales, picked up.

“Fine. His fever’s down, and he’s watching Cars.” Cody, Chloe’s two-year-old son, had had a reaction to an inoculation and given them a scare the night before. “He’s asking for his daddy, though.” Chloe’s tone changed. Took on a note of doubt that Ella recognized only too well.

“He’s two, Chloe. He’ll adjust.” One way or the other.

“I just...I miss him, too. You know?”

“I do know. And I also know that my brother needs help. And the only way we can help him is to make him want to help himself. To give him a chance to see that he needs to help himself.”

“I know.”

She and Chloe had been through all of this a handful of times over the past four years. Jeff would act out. Ella and Chloe would talk about it later. Chloe would be strong and determined that if Jeff acted out again she’d leave or call for help. Jeff would be the perfect husband and father for a week or a month. He’d be remorseful and open and giving. Dedicated to his family. And then he’d slowly focus more and more on the stocks that were his livelihood. He’d become consumed by them. When they were up, he was up. And when they were down, he was down. If they went down too far, so did he.

That’s when Chloe ended up bruised. In the beginning, the bruises had all been on the inside. Her emotions and heart had been damaged as he’d blasted her verbally. Then it had been finger marks from a strongly squeezed arm. Then a bruised shoulder from a push into a door.

All things Jeff hadn’t meant. Things he’d been deeply contrite for. Sincerely, deeply contrite.

This latest time, seven months after his last bout of uncontrollable anger, he’d grabbed his son by his forearms and slammed him into a chair. While Cody had screamed in terror, he hadn’t been physically harmed. Not yet.

“I just...I miss him. And he misses me, too. He’s so sorry and...”

“You answered his call.” Jeff had been phoning Chloe for more than a week. Ever since Ella had made the four-hour drive to Palm Desert to pick up her sister-in-law and her nephew and bring them back to stay with her in her apartment.

The arrangement was temporary. Just until Jeff got help.

“He’s my husband,” Chloe said, an edge to her voice. Which faded as she said, “I know I shouldn’t have, El, but bills are due, and I’m the one who pays them. I did it online, but I just wanted to let him know. When I picked up, he was choked up and...”

“You didn’t tell him where you’re staying, did you?”

“No. But I wanted to.”

“Next time you want to, you hang up and call me immediately.”

“But you’re working. Those babies’ lives are in the balance and—”

“Yours and Cody’s are, too, Chloe. Make no mistake about that.” Since she’d first heard about her brother’s occasional lashing-outs, she’d been reading up on domestic abuse. Researching how best to help both the abuser and the victim. And then she’d ended up with a job offer in Santa Raquel, exactly where she knew she needed to be to get him help.

“My cell will roll over to my pager if I don’t answer it,” she said now. “As soon as I see it’s you, I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.”

“Okay.”

“You have to stay strong, Chloe. Remember the sound of Cody’s terror. Not his laughter. Remember the ugly words, not the great memories. Just until we can get this all sorted out.”

Jeff would come through. Ella had faith in him. He had to. Because from what she’d read, if he didn’t get the help he needed, Chloe and Cody were clearly headed for real danger.

“I know. I can’t go back until he gets help or it will just happen again. I can’t do that to Cody. But Jeff needs me, too, and it’s so hard. I hate that he’s there alone...”

“Being alone, losing you and Cody, is the only thing that’s going to open his eyes to where he’s headed.”

“I know.”

“So, how about we go to the beach as soon as I get off work today? We can grab some dinner at one of the places on the water.”

“Uncle Bob’s?” They’d been there over the weekend, and Chloe had really enjoyed herself. “Assuming Cody doesn’t relapse.”

“He should be fine. A reaction to an immunization is generally over as soon as the symptoms disappear.”

Chloe didn’t need to create worries where there weren’t any. She had enough real demons to fight.

“You called Jeff because Cody was sick, didn’t you?” Ella asked quietly now. She’d suspected as much.

“Yeah.”

“If I hadn’t asked, were you going to tell me?”

“Yes.”

“We’ve got to have complete honesty between us, Chloe, or this isn’t going to work.”

In the six years since Jeff and Chloe had married, the other woman had quickly become the sister Ella had never had.

“I know. I was already stressing about it, which is why I hadn’t called you, and I know that honesty between us is crucial to the support system that’s going to see me through this. I’m sorry, El. It won’t happen again.”

“It might. If this was as easy as making decisions and sticking to them, domestic violence would be much easier to fight. But we’ll get through all of this. I promise you. You aren’t alone, and you aren’t ever going to be alone.”

Ella knew how being alone felt. After she’d lost the baby and her marriage had fallen apart, she’d been utterly and completely on her own in a world of pain. She’d do whatever it took to make sure Chloe didn’t ever have to experience that particular hell.

“Have you called Brett yet?” Her sister-in-law’s voice took on a stronger note.

“No.”

“I wish you wouldn’t do this. You’ve suffered enough. It’s only been in the last couple years that you’ve seemed to come alive again.”

“And that’s why I know I can see him,” Ella said, glancing at her watch. She had an assessment in ten minutes. “Besides, he’s our best hope where Jeff is concerned. And I do have to do this, Chloe. You and Jeff and Cody—you’re my family. I’d do anything for you.”

“You know I’m here for you, too, right?” Chloe asked. “More than just helping you find a house, and cooking and doing the laundry.”

Chloe was pretty much a gourmet cook and selling her current contributions far short, but, having been vulnerable and alone herself, Ella understood that Chloe desperately needed reassurance of her deeper value.

“Are you kidding? When I finally found out I was pregnant, and Brett started to change...and then losing the baby after all those years of hoping...you’re the one who kept me going. You kept telling me that someday I’d wake up and face the day with anticipation again, and you were right. I love my life. And you’re going to love yours again, too. I promise.”

“I love you, sis.”

“I love you, too. Now go hug that boy for both of us and think about what we’re going to order for dinner.”

They shared meals, she and Chloe, when they went out to eat. Neither one of them ever finished a whole meal. And sharing was a money-saving venture that allowed them to go out more.

It was all in the plan.

And life was finally, firmly, on course.

CHAPTER TWO

IT WASN’T BRETT’S way to put things off. The more unpleasant something was, the sooner he tended to it. A lesson learned from his past. One that defined his present and safeguarded his future.

Someone from Americans Against Prejudice—and Brett was fairly certain he knew who—was misusing a line item in the annual budget. Filtering monies meant for the general operations and sinking them, instead, into a legitimate investment in beachfront property. Brett was fairly certain the filterer had made the investment with the intention of skimming profits off the top for himself.

And that wasn’t the worst of it. The beachfront investment was only what had triggered his suspicions. Now he had one hell of a mess on his hands. He was fairly certain that the entire Americans Against Prejudice board, working together, had hired him as a cover for their illegal lining of their own bank accounts with charity funds.

Which meant they were either overly confident or just plain stupid. Didn’t they know that he’d started one of the first—and still one of the most reputable—public-record-finding dot-coms in existence? He was an investigator. A person who could find anything there was to be found.

And so, while the ladies and gentleman that he’d been sitting on a board with for three months were enjoying lunch at a nearby French restaurant, Brett, the sole nonvoting board member, was alone in the executive offices rifling through files. Thank God they were mostly computerized, and he could scan them quickly.

Fortunately he found the information he needed within minutes. Not so fortunate was the fact that his suspicions had just been confirmed.

Before the members of the board would have had time to order their gourmet sandwiches and have them delivered to their table, paid for by nonprofit monies, Brett had reported every one of them to the local police.

* * *

ELLA’S PLANS TO be home early were interrupted by her cell phone ringing just as she was leaving work that afternoon. Lila McDaniels, managing director of The Lemonade Stand, was on the other end.

“I’d like to meet with you,” Lila said after introducing herself. “I’ve just read the email naming you as the most recent addition to Santa Raquel’s Domestic Violence High Risk team. And while those appointments are made by a committee, the idea for this program originated from our facility, and I make it a point to get to know everyone on the team.”

Ella had heard about the team in a recent hospital staff meeting and, thinking the opening was a gift from angels, had applied immediately. She’d heard back within the week that she’d received the appointment. Committee work was a required and ongoing part of most professional hospital positions. At least if one had an eye on career advancement.

Ella’s motive for seeking this particular committee position was much more personal, however. And if securing the position meant taking a detour on the way home, then she’d do so. She’d agreed to a four o’clock meeting in the director’s office. And now, following the instructions Ms. McDaniels had given her, she was looking for the small public parking lot in front of the facility. The question was, did she pretend she’d never heard of The Lemonade Stand before? Or did she tell the woman that she knew the man who’d founded the place?

Had known him intimately?

And had spent years recovering from the pain he’d caused her?

* * *

BRETT WAS BACK in Santa Raquel in time to have an early dinner. He ate his peanut-butter-and-bacon sandwich pacing in front of the sliding glass door that led from his kitchen eating area to the deck and the garden and acre of woods beyond. Still in the navy blue suit he’d worn to attend the morning board meeting, he’d loosened the knot of the red tie a bit. His one concession to relaxation. His wing tips were shined. His watch in place.

Brett’s life was a mission—and all pieces were accounted for.

Except one.

That phone call he’d had that morning.

His ex-wife was in town. She had to be if she was on the High Risk team.

Facts listed themselves off in his mind as he paced and chewed in rhythm. Peanut butter and bacon. One of the few good things in his life that came from having known his father.

The old man would take credit for Brett’s choice of repast. And probably try to draw some major conclusion from the fact that the unhealthy and unrefined meal was still his favorite.

Turning to pace back in the direction he’d come, Brett admonished his father’s memory for being in his head at all. Let alone right now.

Ella was in town. No mystery as to why his father was suddenly coming to mind.

She was in town, and she hadn’t contacted him.

Not that she had any reason to. They had no connection—nothing in their lives that would necessitate them to be in the same area at the same time. He’d made certain of that. Schmuck that he was.

Even his own mother, while she’d agreed to act as his business assistant, wouldn’t be in the same room with him. Or even have a real conversation with him.

She was in his home, in his life, only when he wasn’t there.

But Ella seemed to be with him wherever he went. Try as he might, he couldn’t shake her.

Which made getting rid of her presence in his physical space, his town, anywhere he might run into her, paramount.

* * *

WITH HER PAST and her present, her current career, Ella didn’t get ruffled by much these days. Her dream of sharing a passionate, all-in relationship with another person was packed firmly away with the rest of her childhood memorabilia.

And the second she met Lila McDaniels, she felt a bit like a child again. Believing that everything would be okay. Because of the kind look in Lila’s gaze as she introduced herself?

The unusual reaction was a warning to her. She wasn’t as unaffected by the world around her as she wanted to be. Note taken. To be dealt with as soon as she was alone.

“We can take a tour of the grounds later,” the older woman said, whisking Ella through an entrance that reminded her of the heavy, pass-key-admittance-only door that led into the NICU. “For now I thought we’d have some tea.”

No question about whether or not Ella liked tea. But she did, and tea sounded good. Still in her pale peach scrubs with little bears all over them, and wearing the black rubber-soled shoes that tended to squeak a bit when she walked, Ella followed the older woman through a large, nicely appointed office into a smaller living space furnished with an elegant, claw-footed chintz couch, matching claw-footed side tables and two rose silk wing-back armchairs. The room was delightful. And took her breath away.

“Did you do your own decorating?” she asked, feeling instantly as though she could spend the next ten days in that room, reading books and feeling...safe.

The thought startled her. She didn’t feel unsafe. She’d lived alone for years and was perfectly secure.

“Yes, I did. A little at a time.” Lila’s gray pants and white blouse, her short, mostly gray nondescript hair, looked out of place in the colorful room. “Here at The Lemonade Stand, we believe that the strongest healing comes from within. We encourage our residents to look inside themselves for their inner beauty, their inner strengths. Their inner worth. We also believe that if one is told she’s bad or at fault enough times, or if one is forced to live with violence and ugliness, the beauty within becomes locked away. So we try to surround ourselves and our residents with outer beauty, with elegant and peaceful surroundings, and with kindness, in the hopes that we can help them begin to counteract the violence they’ve been exposed to and begin to access their inner bounty.”

Ella had a feeling she was hearing an oft-given speech. “As soon as I heard that I’d won the committee appointment at the hospital, I read up on all of the other team members,” she said, still standing, facing the older woman. “I’ve got The Lemonade Stand’s pamphlet memorized,” she continued, wanting Lila to make no mistake about her sincerity or value to the team. “I want to be fully prepared and able to help if I find myself with a victim in need.”

Not just for Chloe and Jeff. But for the mothers of any of her babies. Or any of the other children who came into the hospital with “at risk” symptoms.

Lila’s gaze changed. Only for a second. The calm, the kindness, covered the subtle glimpse of whatever had been there, but she was fully focused on Ella as she asked, “Have you ever been a victim?”

“Not in the way you mean.”

Taking her hand, Lila led Ella to one of the two armchairs and took the other, all the while holding Ella’s gaze. “In what way do I mean?” she asked.

“I’ve never been abused.”

“So, in what way have you been a victim?”

Whoa. Ella sat back. Feeling as though she’d been slam-dunked. And as though she wanted to cry on this woman’s shoulder.

“I haven’t been,” she assured Lila McDaniels, racking her brain for a way to explain what she’d meant. “My folks were great parents. I was disciplined by having my reading time taken away. Or by being sent to bed without dessert. They never raised a hand to me. Nor has my father ever been even remotely violent with my mother. They were high school sweethearts and are still happily married.”

“There must have been arguments. No two individuals live in complete harmony forever.”

“Of course they fought! They still do. I’ve certainly heard raised voices. But nothing that ever crossed the line into emotional battery. Or personal attacks, either, that I can think of.”

Lila’s gaze was still intent. “And what about since then?”

“I’m...I’ve never been in an abusive relationship.” Pressure built up beneath Lila’s inquisitive stare—as though the woman was certain, in spite of what Ella was telling her, that Ella was a victim.

Ella’s gaze didn’t waver. Even for a second. She of all people knew that Brett was not an abusive man. Knew, too, that there were other ways to break a heart.

Studying Ella for another few seconds, Lila finally said, “We just need to know, up front, because if you’ve been a victim, your perspective might be different,” she said by way of explanation.

“You’re saying that if I was a victim, I wouldn’t be welcome on the team?”

“Of course not.” Lila’s frown, her quick gasp, caught at Ella, putting her strangely at ease. “Oh, my word, of course not. I just...I like to know. So I can help if need be... I’ll go get that tea.”

Lila was clasping her hands together as she left the room. Ella watched her go, curious about the woman, and wishing that the managing director was a member of the High Risk team so she’d have an opportunity to get to know her better. She wasn’t, though. The Lemonade Stand’s representative was a woman Ella had yet to meet—Sara Havens, a licensed professional clinical counselor.

And in retrospect, Lila’s not being on the team was just as well. At the moment, Ella didn’t have time to make a new friend outside of work. She had her hands full with settling into a new town, a new job, finding a house and putting her family back together.

She just had to make a good enough impression to secure the High Risk team position she’d already landed.

Which was just par for her life—having to fight for what she thought she already had. Like Chloe, fighting to keep them sisters when she’d thought they were family for life. And Brett...no...she’d stop that train of thought right there.

Lila called from the kitchen, asking Ella if she wanted milk in her tea. Ella declined.

She wasn’t going to think about Brett.

Not yet.

Not until she had to.

And only then until she could get what she needed from him.

CHAPTER THREE

BRETT HAD TO be in Chicago for an eleven o’clock meeting Wednesday morning. He’d be spending the few hours he had in his first-class airline seat studying the agenda for Music Muscles, a nonprofit music-therapy organization that was one of his newest clients. One that, so far, gave him no cause for concern. From there he’d head to Detroit, where he was spending the night before an early Thursday-morning meeting, and then it was off to Washington, DC, that afternoon.

Leaving his black BMW in secured parking, he pulled the carry-on out of the trunk, slung his leather garment bag over one shoulder, his matching briefcase satchel over the other and strode straight to the preferred security line in the terminal at LAX.

After he’d checked in, with limited time before they’d be calling him to preboard, Brett reached beneath his suit coat to the holster secured to his leather belt and pulled out his cell phone.

Her number had been on the High Risk team email he’d received the morning before. He’d typed it into contacts only so that her name would come up if she phoned, and he could avoid answering.

He found the name. Hit call. And then waited. Airline staff had opened the Jetway door. He only had a minute or two.

One ring. Two. And then three. He glanced at his watch. It was before seven in the morning. Her shift at the hospital didn’t start until eight, and her apartment was a twenty-minute drive away. He was, after all, the king of online investigating. He’d sold the dot-com. Not his abilities.

He still sat on the board of the company he founded—with his percentage of the take being donated to The Lemonade Stand every month.

On the sixth ring a flight employee announced that it was time for him to board. And he was sent to voice mail.

Brett didn’t leave a message.

* * *

ELLA GOT A new patient on Wednesday. A three-pound, nine-week-old girl who came to them from the Santa Raquel hospital with a peripherally inserted central catheter and a ventilator. The tiny thing was only now at thirty-four weeks gestational age. But if all went well, she’d be running and playing with her siblings soon enough, with no memory of how rough her life had been at the start. She was a lucky one. Her heart was good. Her lungs appeared to be developing normally. And as soon as her organs were mature enough to function on their own, she could hopefully go home.

In the meantime, she’d need a diaper change every three hours, a daily assessment and very careful monitoring.

Ella felt as if she needed monitoring that day, too. She must have checked her voice mail half a dozen times. And looked for text messages twice as often. Maybe she should have picked up Brett’s call. But if she was going to do this, she had to be the one in charge.

But she’d wanted him to leave a message so she’d know how much of a problem he was going to be.

She hadn’t thought for a second that he’d be glad to hear from her—or to know that she’d invaded his home territory. Maybe she’d even taken a tiny bit of pleasure in having done so—in having a legitimate reason to rock his boat.

A reason he wouldn’t be able to refuse.

Because one of the things she was certain of in her life was that she knew Brett Ackerman. He wouldn’t turn his back on a friend in need if he felt he could help. Ever.

And most particularly, he wouldn’t turn his back on Jeff.

Jeff, Ella’s brother, had been Brett’s college roommate. They’d met in their freshman year. Right after Brett’s little sister had died. And his mother had had a breakdown resulting from the loss and from having withstood years of domestic violence at the hands of Brett’s father. She’d lashed out at Brett. And then put herself in self-imposed isolation for having done so. Leaving Brett alone to cope.

Alone except for Jeff. Who’d been a solid rock in Brett’s life, refusing to let him suffer in solitude. Brett had credited Jeff with saving his life.

Now it was time for Brett to save theirs.

* * *

ELLA WAITED ALL DAY Wednesday for him to call back. To leave a message. Clearly he’d heard that she was there. He had her new cell phone number. And Brett was definitely one who faced his battles head-on.

There’d been a time when she’d admired that about him.

She wanted to be the one to initiate their first conversation. But a hint as to his mind-set first would be good. Was he angry? Curious? Was it possible he’d actually missed her?

She would give him until her last break on Thursday before calling him. She didn’t want to speak to him for the first time in four years in front of Chloe. While she knew she was over Brett, she wasn’t positive that there wasn’t any residual pain lurking inside her. Chloe didn’t need more guilt added to her already overflowing plate.

At five minutes after two on Thursday afternoon, just as she was leaving the floor, she got a page. She was needed on Pod B stat. A baby had just been admitted. He was nine months old, had spent the first four months of his life at a NICU in LA, and was being readmitted due to an infection around the area of his G-tube.

“I wanted you to see this,” Dr. Claire Worthington said as soon as Ella approached the crib where the baby lay completely still. She saw the finger-shaped marks on the little guy’s thighs immediately.

“These look too big to be female,” Ella said. It was the first thought that sprang to mind.

“His grandmother brought him in. Said his mother’s under the weather.”

“His paternal grandmother?” Ella asked, assisting a nurse from the PICU as she taped a newly placed line.

The baby was more than five pounds underweight. “According to his medical records he’s lost four pounds since his check two weeks ago,” Dr. Worthington said. “The grandmother claims that the mother refused to let anyone use his G-tube. He was being bottle and spoon fed through his mouth.” The area around the feeding tube looked as though it hadn’t been touched in a couple days, at least. Which could easily have caused the infection.

“Has social services been called?” If not, they’d be the first call on Ella’s list when the doctor finished giving her orders and the little guy was settled.

“Not yet,” Dr. Worthington said, a grim look on her face. “I’ll be filling out a suspected abuse report and know that you’re the go-to person.”

“You suspect the mother?” But the bruises on the baby’s thigh...

“I think if Mom had done this, she’d be here, claiming that something was physically wrong with him. She’d be defending herself. It doesn’t fit that she’d let Grandma bring him in. Grandma didn’t stay—she just dropped him off and said she had to get back. She appeared nervous. Besides, these bruises, while clearly thumb-shaped, are too big.”

“I’ll give my High Risk Team contacts a call and get someone out to the house ASAP,” Ella said. She should have thought of it first, even before social services. For now, little Henry was in good hands. But his mother...

Filled with adrenaline, Ella forgot all about her break, about her ex-husband, and made her first call as a member of the Santa Raquel High Risk team.

She was needed.

And that was all that mattered.

* * *

BRETT WAS IN a hotel room in Washington late Thursday night, sitting at the desk with his laptop, going through the day’s email, when he saw the notice about Henry Burbank and his mother, Nora. He wasn’t a member of the High Risk team, but due to his relationship with The Lemonade Stand and his seat on the board, he received all emails pertaining to their work.

According to the police report from the day’s home visit, Nora showed no visible signs of bruising. The woman exhibited fear as she refused a physical examination. Her husband stood over her the entire time the officer was there and, though a female officer tried to coax her away, she refused to leave his side. The report stated that there were no signs of affection between the two, and Nora spent most of her time looking at the ground. The grandmother had alarming bruises on an arm that she claimed came from the banister when she started to slip going down the stairs. She also adamantly refused a physical examination.

There’d been one previous call to the police regarding the couple, from a neighbor claiming to have heard a loud male voice and something crashing, but when the officers had gone out, they hadn’t seen anything amiss, and all three adults in the home insisted that everything was fine. They’d all appeared to be in good health.

Mom, Dad and Grandma, all three, gave the exact same story regarding the bruises on baby Henry’s thighs. He’d moved suddenly while being changed, and his father had saved him from a fall off the changing table.

The mom, Nora, was being blamed by Dad and Grandma for the baby’s ill health, with claims that she’d force-fed him through his mouth, but the young mother had told police that she’d only ever used the G-tube to feed her son and had kept it cared for exactly as she’d been taught at the hospital. But when they’d asked how often the mother had fed her baby herself, as opposed to someone else feeding him, she’d clammed up.

Child Protective Services would be investigating further before the baby would be released back to his parents’ care.

They had nothing concrete at the moment to keep Ted Burbank away from his family. Which meant that the possibly abusive man had visitation rights at the hospital with his son, Henry.

Charge nurse Ella Ackerman, the ex–Mrs. Brett Ackerman, was on full alert.

Brett needed a drink.

* * *

ELLA WENT INTO work early Friday morning. She’d had a text from Rhonda, a four-to-twelve charge nurse, telling her that Henry’s mom had just called to say she was on her way in and would like them to hold off doing Henry’s early morning assessment so that she could be present. Rhonda’s text came because of the note Ella had left on Henry’s chart, telling everyone to let her know anytime Mom or Dad were present, or expected to be present.

Because there wasn’t enough evidence, or a family member willing to testify, the police couldn’t do anything for Henry or Nora yet. But Ella could. That was what the High Risk team was all about. Everyone working together to devise individual plans for the safety of high-risk victims, or potential victims. Henry coming to them with a life-threatening infection, signs of poor G-tube care and bruises made the case high risk.

And the team hoped that if Ella could get Nora alone, maybe the mother would speak more openly. At least Ella hoped so. She’d only spoken to one member of the team, an Officer Sanchez, from the Santa Raquel police department. Her first regular monthly High Risk team meeting, where she’d officially be introduced and meet everyone else, wouldn’t be until the following week.

She was being inducted by fire, the middle-aged officer had told her when he’d stopped by her apartment the night before. Thankfully Chloe had been giving Cody a bath, so Ella had had a few minutes to speak privately.

Ella was on the floor with a welcoming smile when Nora Burbank showed up at the exact time Rhonda had said to expect her. The twenty-year-old was in jeans with fancy stitching and jeweled pockets, and a T-shirt, both clean and newer-looking. Her dark, waist-length hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She had rhinestoned flip-flops on her feet. No tattoos. No makeup.

And no visible signs of physical abuse. Just as Juan Sanchez had relayed.

“You’re here alone?” she asked after she introduced herself as Henry’s nurse and walked the woman through the secure door to Pod B. Sanchez had warned her that Nora wasn’t likely to show up alone.

The young woman looked at the floor as she nodded. And otherwise kept her gaze trained in front of them. On the stations they were passing. Not on people. Not on the nurses and orderlies bustling about in the hall, nor on the young patients in cribs and those in need of an Isolette, who were situated in the open unit.

“Ted got called into work. He thinks I’m at home,” Nora said softly, chin almost to her chest. Ella had the impression that the soft tone was more the woman’s usual demeanor than a reaction to the very sick children around them. “His mom’s supposed to be watching me, but I went out the back door when she went to the restroom.”

Watching her?

“You drove yourself here?” They were nearing Henry’s crib.

“I don’t have a car,” Nora said. “I took the bus...” Nora’s words broke off as she caught sight of her son and hurried forward, tears in her eyes and a smile on her lips. The young woman was obviously comfortable around the various tubes connected to her son. And mindful of every single thing that happened over the next two hours. Nora assisted with bathing and changing the baby. She handled his feeding completely on her own. With the ease of a professional.

She spoke to him. Sang to him. Distracted him when he got a poke. And played age-appropriate games with him, from peekaboo, to track-the-tiger—having him follow a stuffed animal with his eyes, bringing the toy close enough for him to reach for and eventually letting him grab it.

Ella had no proof that Ted Burbank was anything other than, in her opinion, overly protective and too controlling of his family, but she was certain of two things. First, there was no way Henry’s mother would ever have willingly fed her son by mouth, willingly allowed anyone else to do so, or allowed any improper handling of the G-tube. Nora watched every member of the medical staff with an educated eye.

And second, little Henry meant the world to her.

Nora began watching the clock shortly before eleven. Ella had purposely been on the pod all morning, but seeing patients other than just Henry. She’d kept an eye on Nora, though, and noticed when the woman started to become more agitated. As soon as she finished administering TPN, intravenous nourishment, to a baby whose stomach couldn’t digest food, Ella made her way over to Nora.

“You ready for a break?” she asked the young woman who’d been holding her son for the past hour.

“I have to leave,” Nora said with another glance at the clock. “Ted comes home for lunch at twelve-thirty.”

And his mother couldn’t make his lunch for him?

“Surely he’d understand if you missed lunch just once.”

“He can’t know I’ve been away.”

“His mother knows.”

“She won’t say anything to him.”

“She’s your advocate, then?” There’d been bruises on Grandma’s arms. But the older woman had blamed Nora for the baby’s ill health. Because her son had been right there?

“No, she thinks I’m the whore who trapped him. But he’ll be pissed at her for losing sight of me, so she won’t tell.”

“Will he hurt her?”

Nora’s chin fell to her baby’s forehead. “No, of course not.”

“You don’t have to go back, you know.” She wasn’t a counselor or experienced with victims of domestic violence. But she knew some things. “You don’t have to stay with him.”

Nora looked down at her son. Swallowed, and then, with a peculiar strength in her gaze, met Ella’s eyes. “I know Ted’s a bit aggressive at times, but he takes care of us,” she said with utter conviction. “He means well. He tries hard. He works long hours to support us...”

Were these Nora’s words? Or Ted’s? Repeated over and over to the point that Nora believed the thoughts were her own? Were they true, or had Ted manipulated his young wife to the point that she didn’t have a mind of her own? Ella had done a lot of reading.

She knew how these things often worked.

But...

“Aggression isn’t okay.” She said the only thing she knew to say. “And—”

“I have no one else.” Nora’s words were a statement. “My family disowned me when I got pregnant.” She nodded toward the sleeping baby she still cuddled, in spite of her announcement that she had a bus to catch. “I’d just graduated from high school. I’ve never even had a job. But even if I had, it’s not like I can just leave Henry with a sitter or at a day care and go off to work. He needs full-time trained care...”

Sounded as though Nora felt trapped...

Not once had Nora said she loved her husband. It was something Chloe said all the time about Jeff.

Pulling up a chair, she sat in front of the other woman, sending up a quick mental prayer that she was doing the right thing, and said, “I know of a place you can stay while Henry’s here,” she said. “It’s not far. And someone would see that you got back and forth to the hospital. For that matter, I could pick you up in the morning on my way in and take you back each afternoon after my shift. I go right by there.”

Or close enough. She went by the exit.

Nora didn’t immediately shake her head. The negative reaction took a good minute to come. “I’d have no way to care for him when he’s released.”

“You could bring him to this place with you,” she said, warming to her subject as she thought of the conversation she’d had with Lila the other night. The things the woman had told her about The Lemonade Stand. The things she’d seen when Lila had taken her on a tour.

“I’m serious, Nora. One phone call and you can have a new home. A new life. This place...there’s a nurse on staff so if Henry had a problem, he’d be safer there than he’d be at home.”

And if she was overreacting? If she was interfering in a family life that was none of her business? Causing problems where there weren’t any?

Nora wasn’t telling her no.

If there weren’t any problems, if Ted was a good, loving husband, he’d understand if his wife needed a little time away to get herself emotionally stable, wouldn’t he? That was all this would be, then. Nora getting help.

Having a preemie was difficult for anyone, let alone for a child barely out of high school. But being disowned by those who should have been looking out for her?

Whatever the reason, Nora looked like a woman who was running out of hope.

“You can stay at the...place...until you have a job. A home. They help women in your position find jobs. There are full-time counselors on staff. Means to get training. Toys for Henry. Other women for you to be friends with. You’d have your own suite with Henry. A crib. Clothes. The cottages all have self-contained kitchens...”

“I...” Nora was crying now. Looking from Henry back to Ella.

“There’s a pool. And a day care. It’s a very unique shelter for battered women, Nora, and you’re one of them, aren’t you?”

A sob escaped Nora, though Ella mostly noticed it from the way the other woman’s chest shook. They were in a busy pod with patients and hospital professionals moving around them—and they were all alone, too. Emotional scenes with parents in the NICU were, unfortunately, not uncommon.

“Ted... He wouldn’t let me... He said his boy has a mouth and he could learn to eat...”

Henry had had so many tubes in his mouth during the first weeks of his life that he’d developed an oral aversion. The hope was that as he got a little older, and with proper care and developmental therapy, he’d be able to chew and swallow without activating his gag reflex.

“He’d force food down his throat and then when Henry threw it back up, he’d refuse to give him more until the next mealtime. He said when he got hungry enough, he’d eat.”

“There’s red tape we’ll have to go through,” Ella said, scared and determined and wishing she knew far more than she did. “But the people at the shelter will help you with that. There’s a lawyer who donates her services to the residents who can’t afford to pay for them...”

Ted Burbank had the right to full access to his son. Something would have to be done to revoke that.

If...

“Tell me, Nora...has Ted ever hit you? Or threatened you in any way?” Had the man threatened to kill her? From what she’d read for her High Risk team training, death threats were taken very seriously by law enforcement and the courts.

But she couldn’t lead Nora to such a confession.

Nora stood, carefully and capably settling her son back in his crib without disturbing the monitors on him. Without disturbing him.

Ella stood, too, ready to block the woman’s way long enough to try to convince her one more time to take advantage of the help being offered to her.

Instead, Nora turned, faced the wall and lifted her shirt. The bright red welts were clearly new. Ella could see the imprint of a belt buckle there. And Nora had been sitting back, rocking her son all morning.

Clearly the woman was used to pain.

“You need to get her looked at,” a resident who’d been at the crib next door leaned in to say to Ella as he passed. She nodded.

“Let me make the call,” Ella said to Nora as the woman pulled her shirt down and turned around.

“He’ll come here...”

“I’m going to call the police officer who visited you last night. There are professionals used to dealing with these situations, Nora. They’ll help you. And make certain that you and Henry never have to go back to Ted again.”

She believed what she was saying. And hoped to God that those trained professionals upon whom she was relying would come through.

Thinking of Lila McDaniels, she experienced a moment of calm as she left Nora with her son, giving word that if Ted Burbank showed up he was not to be allowed in the NICU and alerting security to the situation. Then she went into her office, closed the door and made a call to The Lemonade Stand.

CHAPTER FOUR

BRETT’S PHONE SIGNALED five new voice mails when he took it out of airplane mode upon landing at LAX Friday afternoon. From his first-class seat, Brett pressed 1 to retrieve his messages. He’d be first to deplane, but the Jetway wasn’t even connected to the plane yet.

The first two messages were from members of the board of directors of Americans Against Prejudice. He’d been fielding calls from various AAP board members for two days. Some had been cajoling, others angry. All of them attempting either to manipulate or intimidate him. In two days, only one member of that board had called him out of shame. Probably fear-induced.

That had been the only call Brett had returned.

The Jetway moved toward the plane. He could see it through the window and stood, phone still to his ear, and with his free hand, retrieved his bags from the overhead bin and put them on the seat beside him.

Message three was from Detroit. A call he’d been expecting. A follow-up with a nonprofit museum he’d toured the morning before, confirming their desire to acquire his services and give him a seat on their board.

He didn’t really have time in his schedule, but the museum was a hands-on science, music and technology facility that could make a real difference with the next generation of Detroit leaders. And their meeting schedule mostly coincided with the Washington, DC, group so he could make both with one trip.

The fourth message came up as, with his one free hand, he slung his bags over his shoulders, and picked up his briefcase. A confirmation of a haircut appointment he had the next morning. He nodded at the captain and the flight attendant standing in the open doorway of the cockpit as he disembarked, and was almost to the gate and that much closer to his car when he heard the fifth message.

“A front-yard sprinkler head sprung. George fixed it.”

He didn’t wait for the click he knew would follow. His mother took good care of him. He’d come up with the plan shortly after he’d sold the dot-com and finalized details for The Lemonade Stand. His mother liked to take care of people. And he’d banked on the fact that if she thought he really needed her, she wouldn’t be able to say no. He couldn’t travel as much as he did, and focus on the job as he needed to do, without having someone to take care of his private business matters for him—including his charity work. And he valued his privacy—as she valued hers. She’d understand that he didn’t want a stranger managing his affairs.

His plan had worked. She’d agreed almost without hesitation. Through email. And the setup had backfired, too.

She took care of him. She just wouldn’t see him. Or have a back-and-forth, two-way conversation with him. She knew his schedule and tended to his home when he wasn’t there. And if she needed his input, or to relay information, she texted him. Or emailed. Or left the occasional voice message.

The one concession she’d made a few years ago, when he’d threatened to hire someone else to care for him, was to give him access to her home so that he could help her, too. But even then, she’d extracted a promise from him that if her car was there, he wasn’t to enter.

She didn’t trust herself to see him. To get caught up in a relationship with him. And then turn on him again. Her fears were likely groundless. And the walls they built around her sky high.

After more than thirteen years of her personal silence, Brett was beginning to accept that some things were never going to change.

* * *

AS IT TURNED OUT, Ella drove Nora to The Lemonade Stand as soon as she got off work that afternoon. The vulnerable young mother had asked if she could stay with her son until then. She hadn’t wanted to go with a stranger—a member of the Stand staff who’d been planning to come get her—and because hospital security had already had to call the police on Ted, who was in custody, there was no harm in Ella leaving the hospital alone with Nora.

No risk of them being waylaid or followed by an irate husband. Not that night. As soon as Ted was arraigned, or had hired an attorney, he’d be out of jail. He hadn’t hurt anyone—this time. He’d just refused to leave the hospital without his wife and had been arrested for trespassing.

And after that night, Ella could come and go as she pleased. Ted had never met her. Had no idea a member of the hospital staff, or anyone else for that matter, was helping his wife pull off her rebellion, and he was no longer allowed access to the NICU. At least not for the next week. The restraining order Nora and her infant son had been granted was only temporary.

Ella had no doubt it would become permanent the next week when Nora appeared before a judge.

Lila had met her at the outside door of the Stand, ushering them inside with the warmth Ella had known Nora would find, and five minutes later, Ella was climbing back behind the wheel of her Mazda CX-5. The small, four-door sport-utility vehicle she’d purchased just before quitting her job to move to Santa Raquel still smelled new and added to the overall euphoria she felt.

Nora was going to be fine. Baby Henry was going to be fine. And her new life was turning out far better than she’d even hoped.

So, of course, it was time to get on with it. Right now. While she was filled with such an acute sense of energy and purpose.

Sitting in her car in the parking lot, Ella dialed a number she knew by heart, but refused to program into her speed dial or add to her contacts. She couldn’t let it get that personal.

If Brett didn’t pick up, she’d leave a message. As busy as she was, he was busier. Working all over the country in various time zones. And flying across them when he wasn’t working. Maybe they could talk through messages. He was good at that. Had been communicating that way with his mother for the entire time Ella had known him.

Running over the words she’d leave on his recording as she listened to the phone ring, Ella started her car. Maybe she wouldn’t have to—

“Can you meet me at Donovan’s in half an hour?”

What the...?

The first contact they’d had in years, and he didn’t even say hello?

“Yes.” She didn’t know where the hell Donovan’s was, but it must be in town, which meant her GPS would find it. And Santa Raquel wasn’t big enough to require more than thirty minutes to get from one end to the other.

“Tell the hostess to show you to my table.” Click.

Ella’s first reaction, after she’d picked her jaw up off the floor, was to call him back and tell him to go to hell.

She might have, if not for two things. First, Brett was emulating his mother. Which meant he was emotionally vulnerable. He wasn’t immune to her.

And second, she needed him.

Far more than he had the ability to hurt her.

Still sitting in the running car, she did a quick internet search for the restaurant. Typed in the address to her GPS.

Ten minutes. That was the drive time between where she was and where he’d be waiting for her.

At his table.

Holding court.

Unless she got there first. And asked the hostess to bring him to her table. Car in gear, Ella pulled out, driving just past the speed limit. Not fast enough to get a ticket. Just as fast as she could safely get to where she was going.

Would have been nice if she’d had a chance to change out of her puppy dog–plastered beige scrubs and into a pair of tight jeans and an equally tight black sweater. He’d always liked her in black. And tight would show him she hadn’t gained a pound since their college days when he’d hardly been able to keep his hands off her.

A toss of her hair and bit of fresh makeup wouldn’t be remiss, either. But none of that was going to happen.

His Highness had given her no time to prepare.

And that was just as well. There was no need to impress him with her womanly wiles. The woman lurking inside Ella was off-limits to him.

* * *

“WHAT DO YOU mean she’s already here?” Brett was not in a good mood when he walked into the beachfront Italian eatery before the dinner rush that Friday afternoon. He hadn’t even had time to stop home and drop off his bags, wanting to just get this last meeting done with and then go home, take a swim in his heated pool and crash on his couch with a beer and some mindless television.

“She arrived ten minutes ago, Mr. Ackerman. She said she’d rather be seated than wait...”

Cheryl—he knew because he read her name tag—was a familiar face at Donovan’s. And he was a nice guy. So he smiled, said something inane like “good” and indicated that she could lead the way.

The place was moderately busy, but empty enough that he could have chosen a table where he could have his back to the wall, able to see the entire room when his lovely ex-wife sashayed into the room, and steel himself against the effect her sexiness always had on him.

He’d had a solid plan.

And she had a table with a view. Along a wall of windows in the cliff-top eatery that looked over the ocean. If there was a bottle of wine sitting at the table, he was leaving.

“Over this way...” Cheryl rounded a large table, heading across the room. He didn’t need her guidance. He’d noticed the back of Ella’s head the second he’d entered the room. The way she held herself, back straight, that unruly dark hair up in a ponytail...

As if she was still a damned college student, not a charge nurse who should have short hair that was easy to care for and stayed out of the way.

A guy couldn’t get lost in short hair...

“I’ll take it from here,” he said when they were still a good six feet away. He was about to see Ella again.

And was suddenly struck with the knowledge that he couldn’t have witnesses. He almost turned to leave.

Would have if he knew how in the hell to turn his back on unpleasantness. But he didn’t. No, Brett was the type who saw a divorce attorney before the separation.

“Ella.” Taking a perverse pleasure as she jumped when he came up beside her table, Brett pulled out a chair.

A glass of water sat in front of her.

Not wine.

Good.

“Have you ordered?” he asked.

God, she looked good. Great. Better than ever. How long had it been since he’d seen her? A year? Two?

Four years, three months, one week and two days. Give or take a week, his mind, its usual relentless self, reminded him. He hadn’t kept count. Not even he was that anal. No, he’d lain in bed the other night—wide awake when he’d needed to be well rested for his meeting the following morning—and completely relived that last time. She’d been clearing her things out of the home they’d bought in Santa Barbara after he’d sold the dot-com.

He’d lain in bed and counted how long ago that had been.

And marveled at how far he’d come since then...

“You look good, Brett.” Her smile, oh, God, that smile. He had no idea if she’d ever answered his question about ordering.

And a waitress was approaching.

“We’ll have a bottle of wine,” he blurted. Just a small bottle. He named the one. It went well with...

What the hell. He liked it. And knew she did, too.

“I don’t...” Ella was shaking her head.

He pretended not to see. “And bring us the bread-and-cheese plate,” he continued, naming a popular Donovan’s appetizer.

Bread, wine...and time. Just enough to deal with this situation. And not a second more.

“Would you like two glasses with that?” the waitress, someone he didn’t recognize, asked.

“Yes.”

Ella didn’t argue. Brett relaxed just a tad.

And the woman left.

* * *

CHLOE WASN’T EXPECTING her anytime soon. Ella had called her sister-in-law before leaving the hospital to let her know she was working late and had no idea when she’d be home. Chloe had said she’d fix Cody fish sticks for dinner. She’d taken him to the complex park that afternoon. Had met another mother there with her toddler. A little girl.

She’d sounded more relaxed than Ella had heard her since she’d brought Chloe to Santa Raquel to stay with her.

“I didn’t need any wine,” she said now. But she lied. She did need it. If she was going to get through this meeting without throwing herself at her ex-husband’s chest and begging him to hold her.

The temptation was made worse by the fact that she knew he’d do it if she asked. And then he’d let her go.

Because that was Brett’s way.

And she’d fall apart again.

Because that was what being with him did to her.

“Just one glass,” he said.

She nodded. Saving her strength, her arguments, for what mattered.

“The view is lovely.” She stared at the ocean. Awkward. But he was the one who’d chosen their meeting place. And the one who’d ordered—requiring any serious conversation to wait until they’d been served.

“When they first built this place it was a warehouse.”

“With a view?”

He shook his head. “No, this wall of windows was put in when it was converted to a restaurant.”

Who cared? Who cared? Who cared? She glanced to the side. Looking out into the room.

Where was that wine?

More important, the waitress who needed to deliver it so that they could be left alone.

“You’re wearing the same cologne.” She’d picked it out. After he’d sold the dot-com and they’d had their first taste of money. They’d gone into an expensive department store and smelled what had seemed like a million different scents. She’d chosen one for him. He’d chosen one for her. They’d bought the home in Santa Barbara. He’d put plans for The Lemonade Stand in motion. And started his nonprofit policing business...

“You’re not.”

Not what? Oh. Wearing the same cologne...

It had been one of the last things to go after the divorce was final. She hadn’t been able to bear giving it up. And then later, hadn’t been able to stand the scent. It reminded her too much of him.

Another sideways glance. Still no waitress... Wait, yes, there she was, at a table across the way, taking an order.

“Your hair is shorter.” His legs were as long and perfect, his suit fit him to perfection and that dimple just above his jawline still turned her on.

“Yours isn’t.” Did his voice have a bit of an edge? She stared at him. Wishing, as she had so many times in the past, that she could get through to him.

Their hearts had always been connected, but he closed his mind to her when it came to his most inner sanctum.

No waitress yet. No wine or bread.

She couldn’t wait anymore. “I’ve moved to Santa Raquel.”

“I know.” Kind of hard to pick curtness out of two words. But she needed it to be there. Needed to know that he was emotionally affected by her choice to invade his home territory...

Ella pulled herself up straighter. No. She needed Brett to be...Brett. Self-sufficient and capable. If he had any needs, if she was privy to them, she’d be compelled to try to meet them. And end up heartbroken when she failed.

“Here you go.” The voice startled her. As did the arm that reached between Ella and Brett, putting first one then the other wineglass down in front of them. All that time waiting, and Ella hadn’t even seen the waitress coming.

An unopened wine bottle was all that remained on the tray the woman held and, taking it, she set the tray down on a vacant table behind them, held out the bottle for Brett to examine, and at his nod, pulled a corkscrew out of her pocket and turned it into the bottle.

Ella watched every move. Cataloged them all. Putting every ounce of energy she had into collecting her thoughts, which would help enforce her emotional barriers against this man, and get on with the life she was currently living.

Brett was given a sip of wine to taste. He approved it. And Ella’s glass was filled to the halfway mark. Without waiting for him, waiting for the toast that had been a tradition with them, she took an unladylike gulp. Stopping short of chugging the remaining liquid in her glass.

Another staff person arrived with a variety of house-made breads and gourmet cheeses arranged on a silver platter. He moved the salt and pepper, and an unlit candle on the white tablecloth, and set the platter down. A small white china plate appeared in front of her.

Then another in front of Brett. Her Brett. Sitting right across from her again. As he had for several precious years.

And it was all too much for her. The romantic restaurant. The wine. The town and new job and new life. A woman sitting in a shelter because the man she loved had beaten her...

Feeling the sting of tears behind her eyes, Ella clasped her hands in her lap, stared out at a ship on the ocean and told herself to breathe.

CHAPTER FIVE

RATHER THAN HELPING, the glass of wine only made things worse. So Brett helped himself to a little more. Two was his limit whether he was driving or not, so the second was going to have to do the trick.

Deaden the parts of him that had once been in love with this woman. At least long enough to get rid of her.

Before she settled in.

She was going to have to move back to wherever she’d come from. Or somewhere else. He’d pay whatever it took.

There was no way the two of them could live in the same town without her getting hurt. He cared about her. She’d feel that. Start to expect things. Or, at the very least, want them. And he wouldn’t give them to her. Their pattern was clear.

She wanted happily-ever-after.

He wanted to be left alone.

Because alone was better than doing to others as his father had done to their family. Brett wasn’t going to make the mistake his parents had made. They’d both grown up in abusive homes. They’d promised each other they wouldn’t carry the pattern with them. That promise had destroyed lives.

He wasn’t going to pretend to himself, or to Ella, that he wasn’t damaged goods.

Thoughts sped through his mind as he watched Ella pick up a piece of white Italian bread, dab a bit of grape jelly on it and top it with a piece of cheese. She liked jelly on crackers with apples, too.

“How’s your mother?” Her gaze met his directly for the first time.

And the impact nearly killed him. His heart slammed against his chest, and his mind went blank.

“Same.” The one word was all he could give her.

“She’s still handling all of your personal business? Including the house?”

“Yes.”

“And you still haven’t seen her?”

“No.” He had a phantom personal assistant. She handled his mail, his charity work and the various individuals who helped take care of his home. Landscaper, cleaning service, pool service. She even had access to his personal calendar via Google. She left curt messages or sent two-and three-word emails.

“Do you at least talk? Actually converse, I mean.”

“No.”

She glanced away.

“She left a key to her place on my desk a couple years ago. I go in once a week to take care of anything that needs to be done.” She let him get her Christmas decorations out of the small attic in her garage. And he’d changed some lightbulbs in the cathedral ceiling once. Mostly he just visited with her phantom ghost. Sat on her couch and felt her presence.

Ella’s shocked glance in his direction pierced him. “That’s great, Brett.” Her smile burned into him. “She’s softening!”

“Not really. I threatened to hire someone to take her place.”

He sipped his wine, frowning at his ex-wife. He didn’t blame Ella for scrambling for conversation. He blamed her for moving to Santa Raquel.

And filled his mouth with bread before he actually blurted out his frustration.

“I need your help, Brett.”

“Why did you move here?” His gaze was piercing. It had to be.

“I’m a pediatric nurse, and Santa Raquel Children’s Hospital is slated to be the best in the state. With all of the new positions to fill, I was offered the chance to be a charge nurse...”

In another lifetime that would have been reason enough to move.

He held her captive with a look and didn’t relent.

“I have to prove to myself that I’m completely over you. That living near you doesn’t matter to me. Personally.”

He sat back. Took another sip of wine. Thought about the hard alcohol he refused to touch. About how his father had used it to numb his pain. And then brought pain to his loved ones.

“I’m happy, Brett,” she said. “I’ve built a good life for myself, and I like where I am.”

Brett nodded, wanting to tell her how glad he was to hear those words. But he wasn’t sure he believed them.

“But Chloe, you remember her?”

As if he’d forget being the best man in her brother’s wedding. Or forget the woman who’d once been like a sister to him. Clenching his fingers around the stem of his wineglass, he acknowledged her remark with a small nod.

“Well, Chloe has been getting on me to start dating again. I keep telling her I’m happy being single, but she keeps trying to hook me up.”

Was she trying to make him jealous? Because it wasn’t working. He would have loved nothing more than to see Ella happily married.

Safely obliterating any temptation he might ever have to attempt to avail himself of her sweetness in the future.

Ella took a sip of her wine. He watched the glass touch her lips. Imagined how they’d feel to that glass if it could only have a second of humanity. Felt sorry for it that it could not...

“Then one day about a year ago she suggested to me that I wasn’t as over you as I thought I was. She claims that I’m a victim of our broken marriage and that until I face that fact, until I can see you and know for certain that I’m over you, I’ll never have a completely joyful life of my own.”

Chloe needed to mind her own damned business.

“A move’s a little drastic, don’t you think? You could have just called. I’d have stopped by so you could see for yourself that it’s done.”

Done. It had to be done. He’d known that. Acted on it. Still believed. Without even a smidgeon of doubt.

“My therapist told me that I can hide and pretend forever, but to really take charge of my life, I’d need to come out into the open, take the air into my lungs and start moving forward.”

“Your therapist told you to move to Santa Raquel?”

Ella’s smile gave him an ache in the groin. “No, I came up with the idea all on my own. And only after my supervisor suggested to me that I apply for the position in the Santa Raquel NICU.”

Her work with seriously ill babies interested him. Immensely. In terms of how she was handling it. How she felt when she got home at night.

He had questions he’d never ask. Needed answers he wouldn’t seek.

Because they’d open a box, let out topics they were never going to discuss. Not ever again.

After years of fertility treatments, of humiliating procedures, Ella had finally been able to get pregnant. And Brett had killed her dream.

He’d thought he could handle being a father. Had been sure he’d be different from his own father. Until he’d found out Ella was really pregnant.

And had to accept the fact that there was no going back.

He’d grown more and more withdrawn. Irritable. Terse. Until one night, when terrors had driven him from their bed, she’d come to find him. She’d known something was wrong. She’d pushed him to be honest with her. And he’d turned on her. Raising his voice. Telling her he didn’t want to be a father. That he didn’t want their baby.

When she’d asked him, with a horrified expression he would never forget, what he wanted to do about it, he’d told her he’d seen a divorce lawyer. That she didn’t ever have to worry. She and the baby would be well taken care of.

It was only then he’d realized that she’d been thinking more in terms of counseling. Maybe feared he wanted an abortion.

She’d never considered that he’d leave her.

And he hadn’t been seriously thinking about it, really. He’d just been gathering information. In case.

But the damage had been done. He’d split her heart in two.

And when, the next week, she’d lost the baby, she’d turned to Chloe, not him, for support.

He’d wanted to stay with her. And he’d seen his father in himself then most of all. Brett’s dad, once he’d known he had a problem, had been too weak to leave his family in peace. He’d needed them too much. And so he’d continued to hurt them.

Brett was not going to be that man.

So he and Ella weren’t going to talk about any of it. Not now. Not ever.

Ella took another sip of wine. Leaning forward, he topped up her glass. The sun had set, and the ocean was darkening. Soon there would be nothing but blackness beyond the window.

“I didn’t mean to bring up the past,” Ella said with a grin that made him sad. “I just need you to know that I have absolutely no interest in you personally, Brett.”

Was this the part where one doth protest too much?

“I don’t want you to think I’m here out of some pathetic hope that you might change your mind about me. Or to think that I’m stalking you or something.”

Protesting too much yet?

“The job is a big part of my decision to move here. And I always loved Santa Raquel. You know that.”

They’d visited his hometown. More than once. Each time she’d said she wanted them to settle there. To raise their children there.

Looking back, he saw that even then, he hadn’t ever really believed her fairy tale could happen. He’d just wanted it so badly he’d been a selfish ass, just like his old man, grasping at her hope and hanging on.

Until he couldn’t anymore.

Brett sat forward. Set his glass on the table and folded his hands in front of him.

“It’s a great job, a great place to live, but there are other great opportunities. I know you, Ella. There has to be more going on.”

“I made the final decision to accept the job offer because of The Lemonade Stand.”

He frowned, honestly confused. “I offered you a position on the board. You didn’t have to join the High Risk team to be involved.” She’d supported the idea of the Stand from the very first time he’d mentioned that if he ever won the lottery he’d open such a place. She’d been a sophomore in college at the time. He’d been a junior. They hadn’t even talked about marriage yet.

Her fingers, blunt tipped and slender, able to handle crises on a daily basis, climbed up and down the stem of her glass. She traced a pile of crumbs around the white linen tablecloth. I moved here because of The Lemonade Stand.

His throat dried out like burned timber.

“Ella?” He needed her to quit studying the damned table and look at him.

Had someone hurt her? On one of those blind dates Chloe had arranged? Or someone else? Were the police involved?

Why hadn’t he known? Jeff had sworn to him that if Ella were ever in trouble, if she ever needed anything, he’d let Brett know...

He couldn’t just sit there...couldn’t stand the thought of his Ella being...

Sweet God, that was why he’d left her. To save her from loving a man who had the pattern of abuse lurking inside him. He knew the statistics. More than half of abusers had grown up with abuse. It was a pattern that repeated itself. And he’d faced the beast of his father inside himself when he’d lain in bed after finding out Ella was pregnant, when he’d closed his eyes and slept. Night after night. He’d seen his father. The raised hand. Heard the anger. And then his own face had been there...

I moved here because of The Lemonade Stand.

His palm settled on the back of her hand, holding it still against the table. “Talk to me, El.”

She looked at their hands. Then up at him. A sheen of tears glistened in her eyes. Panic surged inside him.

“Did someone hurt you?” The words forced themselves out.

She shook her head. But didn’t speak.

Every nerve in his body was tense. He couldn’t get them to release their grip on him. It was a feeling he knew well.

Bracing for a blow.

Only this one wouldn’t be as simple as a fist in the face. Or a belt to the back.

“It’s not me, it’s Chloe.” He heard her, but the words only confused him more. What did her sister-in-law, living in Palm Desert with Jeff, have to do with The Lemonade Stand?

Oh, God. The idea hit him, accompanied by a maelstrom of rejection.

Ella’s gaze was steady now. Steady and needy.

“Chloe’s hitting Cody?” The godson he knew only through pictures. He’d told Jeff, when his friend had called to tell him about the boy’s birth, that, with him being divorced from Ella, he couldn’t possibly be anything to the boy, but Jeff had insisted. It didn’t mean anything. It was just a title.

The shake of Ella’s head caused a new wave of foreboding.

“Chloe’s with me,” Ella said. “Her and Cody.”

“Visiting?”

Another small shake of Ella’s head. Brett realized he was still covering her hand with his own, but he didn’t let go.

“They’re living with me.”

“Where’s Jeff?”

“Palm Desert.”

He sat back, letting his hands fall into his lap. Then reached for his wineglass. “They’re divorced?”

He’d never, in a million years, have figured that one. If anyone was the perfect couple it was Jeff and Chloe. They were crazy about each other. In a way that couldn’t be faked. Even Brett, who’d never personally witnessed a healthy relationship in his life, could feel the bond between Ella’s brother and his wife.

“No!” Ella’s shock righted a world that was quickly spinning out into space. “Of course not.”

Until he considered that she’d just told him that Jeff’s wife and son were living with her, not him.

Not him.

Ella watched him.

Jeff. Jeff?

If she wanted him to think that Jeff Wales had done something that would make his wife need a women’s shelter then she was just plain—

“It’s Jeff, Brett,” she was saying. “He has...bouts. They’ve escalated over the past few years. This last time...Chloe asked me to come get her, and I did. Jeff doesn’t know. That she’s with me, I mean. He has no idea where she’s staying. They communicate by cell phone, and she has a pay-as-you-go one so he won’t be able to get any details from their bill.”

She’d thrown him for a loop. “Have you talked to him? Does he know you know she’s gone?”

“He called me, I think trying to figure out if she was with me, but I went on and on about the new job and how I was in the middle of moving into my new apartment and it was only at the end, when I asked him why he’d called, that he told me she’d left.”

Brett felt as though he had rocks in his gut. He could just imagine how Jeff must be feeling.

“Your brother is the kindest man I’ve ever known.” The only person who’d ever seen Brett cry.

Ella’s older brother had held an eighteen-year-old college-freshman Brett as he’d sobbed out his anguish over his parents. Helped him treat the raw strap marks on his back, left by his father’s belt, so that he didn’t have to report them to anyone. He’d spent many a night sitting with him that first year they were roommates, listening to him talk, or more often, allowing him complete silence without the aloneness that usually accompanied it, and had never told another soul about any of it.

“I know he is.” She was blinking back tears.

“He puts bugs outside rather than killing them.”

“I know.”

Memories glided through his mind like a picture show. One after another. “And...what about Missy’s little sister?” They’d all been juniors in college the year a friend of theirs had brought her three-year-old sister to school for a family weekend visit. The little girl had been afraid of all the guys in their crowd, throwing a tantrum that threatened to ruin the entire weekend, until Jeff had knelt down and very seriously explained something to her, a secret, she’d said. She’d been his adoring fan the rest of the visit. To the point that years later, at Jeff’s wedding, one of the guys had given a toast to the guy they’d all deemed the world’s greatest future dad.

“Jeff slammed Cody into a chair, Brett.”

“Slammed, as in set him down strongly, or as in breaking something?”

“He didn’t break anything.”

“Has he ever broken anything? Or left bruises?”

“Not on Cody.”

“What about Chloe?”

Chin jutting forward, Ella nodded.

And, emotionally, Brett shut down.

His ex-wife wouldn’t lie to him. He didn’t doubt her word for a second. But neither could he believe Jeff Wales would raise a hand to his wife.

“I need your help, Brett. Jeff needs your help.”

He nodded. His buddy sure as hell did need him if someone was trying to pin a DV rap on him. Someone who’d been persuasive enough to convince Ella.

Brett cared about Chloe. A lot.

If he thought for one second anyone was hurting her, he’d hunt whoever it was down himself and have him prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But he wasn’t going to stand by and see Jeff hurt.

“Has Chloe had medical treatment?” Records were a way to establish truth. Maybe Jeff’s wife had met someone. Had a lover on the side who’d hurt her.

Maybe Chloe had asked to leave Palm Desert to get away from the guy. Maybe she cared enough about her marriage to Jeff to try to salvage it.

People made mistakes.

And deserved second chances.

“No, she’s never had medical treatment due to Jeff’s anger issues.”

Anger issues. Sure, Jeff got mad—who didn’t? But he’d never known a more easygoing, laid-back man in his life. Jeff took it on the chin when most guys, Brett included, would have been swinging.

“Have you ever seen Jeff be abusive to her?”

“No.”

“You’ve never seen any of Jeff’s outbursts firsthand?”

“No. But I’ve seen the bruises, Brett.”

Okay. So, something was going on with his friends. Something bad. Maybe Chloe was sick or something. Or suspected Jeff of having an affair and was trying to get back at him.

Brett knew full well that no one knew what went on behind closed doors. That a man could appear one way in public or in small gatherings with friends, and another way entirely at home with his family. His father had taught him that, too, before he’d learned it in counseling. And with the research he’d done before opening The Lemonade Stand.

But he’d lived with Jeff. For four years. He’d seen him at his best and at his worst. He couldn’t see the man raising a hand to his wife.

The very real concern, the fear, he read in Ella’s expression brought him up short. There was a problem.

She’d come to him for help.

“I’ll talk to him.”

“He’s going to deny it, Brett.”

He nodded. Was pretty much counting on Jeff’s innocence. And then maybe the two of them would be able to figure out what was really going on.

CHAPTER SIX

CHLOE WAS WATCHING a British arts show on cable when Ella got home just after eight on Friday night. It had been a long day and since she had to work in the morning, she excused herself to bed before her sister-in-law got close enough to smell the wine on her breath.

To ask any questions about where she’d been.

She wouldn’t keep her having seen Brett a secret from Chloe. Chloe knew that Ella’s contacting her ex-husband, Jeff’s best friend, was part of the plan to help save her marriage. The main part, since nothing was going to change if Jeff didn’t get help and, so far, Jeff was still unable to admit that he needed it. Which was where Brett came in.

If anyone could help Jeff see the truth, it would be Brett.

And he’d agreed to speak with Jeff.

Their plan was on track.

The future looked hopeful.

All of which she’d share with Chloe in the morning.

Tonight Ella needed the privacy of her locked bedroom door and pillows to muffle her sobs as she lay herself down to sleep. She was weepy from the wine. From the emotional roller coaster that day had been—first the situation with Nora and then seeing Brett for the first time in more than four years.

In the morning she’d be her usual cheery self. Or so she told herself as ten o’clock rolled around and she was still lying there, mind racing with memories, a nuance in a voice, a look in the eye, the warmth of a hand.

She told herself again at one. And around two she dozed. To dream of Brett. And jerk herself awake before she could fall into a deep sleep that would only leave her disoriented when she woke. She dozed on and off for the rest of the night. And was up twenty minutes before her alarm was due to go off.

Up, focused and fully in control.

An uncomfortable night filled with distressing images, useless longings and long-forgotten feelings was to be expected after a first meeting in four years. Nothing more than a throwback to what had been. It wasn’t permanent. Or even part of present-day reality.

She’d let it go. And Brett’s hold on her would let go, too.

Each step she took forward took her further away from him. From a pain she’d never escape if she tried to hold on to even a small vestige of what she’d thought they had.

She was wearing cartoon-character scrubs with a matching scrunchie around her ponytail, volley clogs, and a shield of calm when she walked into the kitchen to the smell of broccoli quiche at half past six.

“Is Cody up this early?”

Chloe’s schedule had been mirroring her son’s since they’d moved in with Ella.

“No, and if we’re quiet, he won’t be until after you’re gone. You looked beat last night, and I wanted you to have a good breakfast and a little peace before you have to get back at it this morning.”

That shield Ella had erected slipped. People who lived alone weren’t used to being noticed. Or spoiled.

But she was glad she had a minute with Chloe.

“Sit with me?” she asked as her sister-in-law dished up a divine-smelling egg-and-vegetable mixture that stimulated an appetite that had been nonexistent when Ella had left her room seconds before.

Pouring two cups of coffee, Chloe placed one in front of Ella and sat with the other still in her hand, taking a sip.

She had to tell Chloe about Brett. But first, “I was at The Lemonade Stand again yesterday.”

“With a patient?”

She couldn’t say much. And didn’t. Telling Chloe only that her visit had to do with the High Risk team, she said, “I talked to Lila while I was there. Lila McDaniels. She’s the managing director.”

“I remember. You read me her résumé when Brett first started interviewing for positions...”

She’d been in on the beginning stages—the dreaming. Then the dream coming true. The search for a site. The legalities and architectural plans. Even the initial weeding through of potential applicants.

And then her world had fallen apart. Brett had filed for divorce. He’d moved out before they broke ground.

“You remember that?”

“Yeah. Because she had such high credentials, work history that sounded like she was an incredibly well-rounded person and no personal background at all. She had no family or anything that would interfere with the long hours, she didn’t mind spending nights at the Stand when needed, and she had the same last name as my best friend from grade school.” Chloe grinned.

Ella had had reservations about the woman. About her lack of a three-dimensional life. She’d expressed her apprehensions to Brett. He’d obviously found her suitable in spite of Ella’s fears, and his decision to hire her had clearly turned out to be the right one.

“Anyway, I was thinking...you know the core belief at the Stand is that women who’ve known abuse suffer from a lack of self-confidence, which makes them self-destructive, and that, if you counteract those negative influences with positive ones—actions they can feel, not just words that oftentimes go in one ear and out the other—then they’ll be better equipped to know what it feels like to value themselves.”

Chloe put her cup down. “I value myself, El. You know that.”

“I do.” Ella was eating while she spoke. Because she had to go soon. And because she’d had nothing for dinner but a piece of bread with cheese. “I value you, too,” she added with a grin. “This is delicious!”

Life had a way of turning you on your end if you let it get too serious.

Chloe shrugged. “It’s a simple recipe. But I knew you had to leave early, and I didn’t have a lot of time.”

In her short time in Santa Raquel, Chloe had made braised pork chops that melted in your mouth, a vegetable, rice and tilapia dish that they’d finished off the night she’d prepared it, and a chicken salad that Ella wanted in her freezer at all times. Just in case.

And this morning she had things to discuss. “So the grounds at the Stand are resort style, the pool, the bungalows—all elegant. But the cooking—it’s typical cafeteria stuff. You know, feeding-the-masses type of fare.”

Chloe nodded. “Feeding so many people at once, it can be difficult sometimes to make dishes that everyone will like.”

“But you could do it, couldn’t you? Plan menus and give them recipes that would appeal to the masses, but still be that step above ordinary?”

Chloe’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Ella. “You trying to get me to move to the shelter? Surely you don’t think I’m in need of full-time care...”

The question threw Ella. Mostly because it hadn’t even crossed her mind. Jeff was the one who needed help in their situation. They’d gotten Chloe and Cody out in time. Chloe had been strong enough to pack her bags and get in the car.

“The women at the Stand—in large part—are there because they aren’t safe on the outside yet, or because they don’t have any place else to go while they rearrange their lives. You don’t fit either category. They’re starting over. You’re not.”

The look of relief that crossed Chloe’s face startled Ella. Didn’t Chloe trust her to get her back home? Did she think Ella wanted her to leave Jeff permanently?

Or was there more going on?

Filing the questions away, in the interest of time, she said, “I heard Lila say something yesterday to the...woman...I was there with, something about the cooking, and it made me think of you. I thought maybe you’d be glad for a somewhat professional pastime while you’re here, and it would be good for Cody, too, because while you’re working, he could play with the kids in the private day care at the Stand.”

She wanted to give Chloe a sense of herself apart from her family. The woman could own her own restaurant, or run a kitchen in an already established high-end eatery. Maybe, if Chloe were independent, she wouldn’t be as vulnerable to Jeff’s outbursts.

Maybe if she stood up to Jeff, he’d get himself well sooner...

The thought stopped her short. Where in the hell had that come from?

“You really think I could help?” Chloe was saying, and Ella felt ten times sicker, thinking that Jeff’s behavior was in any way Chloe’s doing.

She knew better.

“I already spoke to Lila,” she said now, taking her plate to the sink and rinsing the remainder of her breakfast down the drain. The disposal would have a gourmet breakfast. Something it wouldn’t appreciate at all.

Like Brett hadn’t appreciated having a partner in his corner, loving him above all else, willing to watch his back, to protect his heart...

Pulling a card out of the front flap of her purse, she slung the bag over her shoulder and tossed the card on the table. “Lila’s at the Stand all day today. She said if you’re interested, give her a call.”

With a smile, a hug and a quick goodbye, she was out the door before she made any other stupid mistakes.

Like telling Chloe that seeing Brett again had gotten to her just like her sister-in-law had feared it would. Which was why she hadn’t mentioned the meeting at all.

She was tired.

Out of sorts.

Damn Brett.

* * *

BRETT CANCELED HIS golf game Saturday morning. He wasn’t a huge fan of the sport, but preferred the course to boardrooms when the same business could be accomplished either place.

Instead, he pulled on jeans, a long-sleeved denim shirt, and got his Harley out of the garage. He didn’t ride much anymore. But he always kept the thing serviced. There were just some times a guy had to be a guy.

This was one of them.

The three-and-a-half-hour trip to Palm Desert was a godsend. Even with the damned helmet clamped to his head. He was wired for sound and played old Eagles tunes as he sped across the desert. The rumble of the machine between his thighs was like a shot of pure adrenaline. It was the first long ride he’d taken since the divorce.

Clearly time to rectify that lapse.

He didn’t call first. Wasn’t sure why; he just didn’t. Still, Jeff was at home, mowing the grass, when Brett roared up the quiet street where his best friend’s five-bedroom house stood on more than an acre of crisply manicured lawn.

“Brett? By God, man, what the hell are you doing here?” Hopping off his zero-turn mower, Jeff jaunted toward Brett, his hand extended.

They shook hands, and then, still gripping Brett’s hand, Jeff pulled him in for a hug. “It’s good to see you,” he said. “Man, you look great!”

“So do you.” Feeling a bit choked up, when he rarely felt any emotion at all, Brett stepped back. But he couldn’t do anything about the grin that was spreading across his face. “It’s been too long, man,” he said.

Jeff might be married to a great cook, but he was still in shape.

“I can’t believe you’re here!” Jeff was grinning, too. Giving Brett the up and down. “And on your bike. I figured you sold that. Ella said you offered it to her in the divorce.”

Because he’d offered her everything.

She’d refused to take any of it. His money. His help. His prized possessions.

“Nope.”

“You still ride much?” Jeff was circling the bike now. They’d taken a few trips together. A long time ago.

“No, but I’m thinking about changing that. You got a bike?”

Jeff sold his bike when Cody was born. He’d put the money toward a backyard pool and hot tub and insisted on showing Brett that and then the rest of the house he’d bought when he’d made his first big stock deal, telling Brett that Chloe and Cody were gone that afternoon.

Pulling a couple beers from the fridge, he handed one to Brett and led the way back outside, to the table and chairs on the paver patio by a built-in fireplace and rock water feature.

The things, the beauty of Jeff’s home, weren’t anything Brett couldn’t have himself. The swing set, playhouse and sandbox—all made with matching wood—caught his attention. He didn’t realize he was staring until Jeff said, “Cody and Chloe...they aren’t just gone for the afternoon.”

Brett had already decided how he was going to play this. At least until he knew more. “I know,” he said, meeting his friend’s gaze head-on. “I ran into Ella in town. You knew she moved to Santa Raquel, right?”

“To take that job, yes, I did, and I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Brett. The way she just moved right in on you. I swear, I didn’t even know about it until she was already moving in to her place. I’d have advised her against accepting the position if I’d known in time.”

Brett would have found it odd that Ella hadn’t asked Jeff’s opinion if it wasn’t for what he already knew about Ella’s decision-making process regarding her move.

“Anyway, she told me that you’d called and told her that Chloe had left. She asked me to look in on you, Jeff. She’s worried about you.”

“She’s called a couple times since then. I didn’t pick up. She and Chloe...they’re close...and I don’t want to put her in the middle of this.”

Brett couldn’t tell if Jeff had any idea where Chloe was or not. But he’d get back to that.

“So what is...this? Why’d she leave you, man? Chloe’s nuts about you.” Or she had been the last time Brett had seen them together. Which would have been before the divorce. More than four years ago. Only a couple years after Jeff and Chloe had married.

Jeff waved a hand in the air, shaking his head. “We can talk about my problems later. For now, tell me why you’re here. I mean, I thought you weren’t coming around anymore because of Ella, but you say you ran into her. Dare I hope that this visit means what I think it means?”

Brett’s foot fell off his knee with a thud. He’d been so fired up to help his friend, coming up with the words he’d say to protect Ella’s secret, while proving to her that she was wrong about Jeff, that he’d missed the other side of this story.

“You and Ella getting back together?” Jeff asked, lifting his beer can in a toast before sipping. How a guy could drink through a grin plastered from one side of his face to the other, Brett didn’t know, but Jeff managed it.

“No!” Brett’s response was emphatic. Strong. Because it had to be. “No way, man. Don’t even go there. She just asked me to look in on you. She’s worried. Like I said.”

Jeff nodded. Still grinning. “Well, whatever, I’m sure as hell glad you’re here. I’ve missed you, man.”

Brett had missed Jeff, too. Far more than he’d allowed himself to realize.

So when Jeff asked if he could stick around, grill some steaks, maybe shoot some pool later, offering him the bed in the guest room, Brett agreed to stay.

Not for Ella. Or Chloe.

But because, for the first time in years, he felt as if he’d come home.

CHAPTER SEVEN

ELLA WAITED ALL day to hear from Brett.

He didn’t call, text or email.

On her way home from work, she drove by his house. If she saw his black BMW in the driveway, or saw him outside, she might stop. If it felt right.

There were no vehicles in his driveway. And no one in his yard, either. The shades were drawn. Used to be something he did only when he was going to be gone until after dark. And then there would be lights programmed to turn on before he got home.

It wasn’t that he was afraid of the dark. No, that would be more like her.

Brett just hadn’t liked walking into gloom.

Most particularly not in his home.

Funny, the things you remembered.

He’d said, when she’d left him in the parking lot the night before, that he was going to be home all weekend. She’d been left with the impression that speaking with Jeff was going to be his first priority. He’d said something about wanting to make contact before going back to work on Monday. He had a crazy week coming up.

But then, when didn’t he?

Brett had always worked harder than anyone she’d ever known.

He’d said he’d contact Jeff. So he would.

Now she would move on. There was no way she was going to let Brett linger in her mind during the two days off she had ahead of her. She and Chloe were going to shop, swim in the complex’s heated pool, watch a movie they’d both missed in the theater and look at some houses. They were going to take Cody to the park, to get chicken nuggets and to pick out his first, toddler-approved learning computer.

All without any thoughts of Brett Ackerman.

* * *

IT HAD BEEN a long time since Brett had shot pool. Since before he’d married Ella. Jeff cleared the table on him the first game.

But by the third, Brett was holding his own again. They were playing best of ten for the fifty-dollar bill sitting on one corner of the table. Eight ball. His call on the game. Next ten would be Jeff’s preference.

Taking a sip of beer from one of the two bottles sitting open on the bar, Brett assessed the fourteen balls remaining on the table.

“So what’s with Chloe?” he asked, bending to take a shot that, if properly executed, would leave his cue ball perfectly positioned to put the twelve ball in the corner pocket.

He made the shot. Exactly as planned. And was rounding the table to get set for the next hit as Jeff said, “I pray to God it’s just more of the postpartum depression she went through after Cody was born.”

He shot. Well. Then, cue stick suspended, he glanced over at his friend. “I didn’t know Chloe suffered from depression. Is she on medication?”

“Not anymore. And she was only depressed after Cody was born. The doctor said it just happens sometimes, part of the hormonal changes after a woman gives birth.”

“So, like, what did she do? Cry all the time?” It was important that he knew the facts. Proper assessments relied on them. And he was there to help.

“That, yeah, but for the first week or two she wouldn’t even hold the baby. She said he didn’t like her. That if she touched him, she’d make him cry.”

Brett listened as Jeff talked about the debilitating, though generally temporary, after-effect of birth that wasn’t commonly spoken about. At least not enough that he’d personally known of anyone who’d experienced it.

Had Ella struggled that way? Could it happen if the woman didn’t carry a baby full term?

Resting the bottom of his stick on the ground, he used it as a hand rest. “So you think, maybe, this...time away...is some sort of the same thing, except you’re the one she can’t make happy?”

Leaning back against one of the half dozen or so tan leather bar stools situated around the room, Jeff shook his head. But continued to meet Brett’s gaze head-on. “I don’t know, man.” His chin jutted. Trembled. “I truly don’t know. I’ve gone over every second, every hour, every day in my head. Again and again. Was there something I forgot? Not a birthday or anything major like that, for sure, but maybe some little remembrance, like the anniversary of our first kiss or something? Something I said that she took wrong? Something she found in my pocket that she might have misinterpreted...”

Senses honed even more than normal, Brett said, “Did you give her cause to misinterpret something?”

“Hell, no! Wait.” Jeff crossed his arms, trapping his pool cue against his body. “Are you asking me if I’ve been unfaithful to my wife?”

“You wouldn’t be the first guy...”

“No!” Taking hold of his cue stick, he stood. “I don’t even flirt with other women, just to make certain I don’t find myself in something I don’t mean to be in. I love my wife, Brett. I thought you of all people knew that.”

“I do.” Feeling a tug on emotions that were better off staying dormant, Brett stood toe-to-toe with his friend. “I do, Jeff. I’m just asking because the last I knew, Chloe felt the same way about you. You two...you’re that couple that makes it till you’re ninety and then dies within a day of each other because one can’t live without the other.”

Jeff’s chin dropped to his chest. And then he stood straight. “I have to believe she still feels the same way,” Jeff said. “That’s what keeps me going.”

He thought about what he wanted to ask. Speaking slowly as he chose his words carefully. “Have...you... Do you...have any reason...to think... Could there be...someone else? For her?”

Shaking his head, Jeff headed to his beer waiting on the bar. Helped himself to a big swig. And Brett, tense and feeling a little angry, missed his next shot.

“I’m going to be honest,” Jeff said, remaining by the bar, in spite of the fact that it was his turn. “Not that she ever gave me reason to doubt her, but after she left I went through everything. Searched her computer, her drawers. Her social-media accounts. I felt like a damned creep, but I just had to know, you know?”

“And?”

“Nothing. My wife is as sweet and loyal and honest as we both know her to be. Hell, she hadn’t even made a purchase she hadn’t told me about.”

“So why up and leave? You having financial problems? Something that just overwhelmed her?”

“Stocks are up and down. You know the business. But no. Our personal portfolio has enough safe investments to keep us secure.”

“What about work? Anything life-altering happening there?”

“Like, are any of the traders into something they shouldn’t be, you mean?”

It happened far more than Brett would have figured before he’d gotten into the watchdog business. “Something like that.”

“We’re clean,” he said. “We run audits with an independent company, just to make sure.”

One by one, Jeff was shooting holes in the theories Brett had come up with to explain Chloe’s leaving her husband and moving in with Ella.

And not telling Jeff where she was.

“Where is she, by the way?” he asked now, justifying the duplicity implicit in asking a question to which he knew the answer with the idea that all he wanted was to help Jeff.

Jeff took a shot. And then another. He sank four balls in a row, leaving only Brett’s striped balls on the table, and motioned to a side pocket as his call for the eight ball.

He sank that, too. Leaned his pool cue against the table, pulled the rack off its hook on the wall, reached under the table for the balls and began placing them inside.

When the fully racked balls were ready for Jeff to break for the next game, he faced Brett.

“I don’t know where she is.”

Brett could not doubt the sincerity of the response.

And knew an odd second of relief that Ella’s secret was safe.

Because he was still protective of his ex-wife? And because the secret meant a lot to her?

Ella—and her secrets—were no longer in his control, or of his concern.

“She just up and left and didn’t tell you where she was going?”

“Yes.” Jeff, at six-two and two hundred pounds was a big man, but lean. Almost to the point of skinny. With his sandy-blond hair and freckles, his glasses, he looked like the stereotypical guy next door.

“What about her mother? Isn’t Chloe’s mother in Florida?”

“Yes, and Chloe said she isn’t there and begged me not to call her mother and get her all upset. I’ve agreed not to look for her, and in exchange, she’s agreed to answer her cell phone each and every time I call. Or, at the very least, call me right back. I need to know that she’s safe.”

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