THE PREGNANCY

PLAN

BRENDA HARLEN

AND

HOPE’S CHILD

HELEN R MYERS

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

Every woman remembers her first love—and her first heartbreak. Cameron Turcotte was both for Ashley Roarke, and when he left town, she was sure she’d never love anyone as much as she’d loved him.

Of course, a lot can change in twelve years, and when Cam comes back after that time, Ashley has no intention of picking up where they left off.

But Cam knows the one thing that hasn’t changed is the chemistry between Ashley and him—if only he can convince her that first love sometimes deserves a second chance.

I hope you enjoy their story.

All the best,

Brenda Harlen

THE PREGNANCY PLAN

BRENDA HARLEN

About the Author

BRENDA HARLEN grew up in a small town surrounded by books and imaginary friends. Although she always dreamed of being a writer, she chose to follow a more traditional career path first. After two years of practicing as a lawyer (including an appearance in front of the Supreme Court of Canada), she gave up her “real” job to be a mom and to try her hand at writing books. Three years, five manuscripts and another baby later, she sold her first book—an RWA Golden Heart winner.

Brenda lives in southern Ontario with her real-life husband/hero, two heroes-in-training and two neurotic dogs. She is still surrounded by books (“too many books,” according to her children) and imaginary friends, but she also enjoys communicating with “real” people. Readers can contact Brenda by e-mail at brendaharlen@yahoo. com.

To Shelly & Brett—

High school sweethearts who, twenty-three

years later, are still going strong.

Thanks for the example and the inspiration.

Chapter One

“I’ m going to have a baby.”

Ashley Roarke’s statement, made to her sister and her cousin over Sunday brunch, was met by silence.

She glanced from Megan to Paige and back again, but she couldn’t tell what either of them was thinking.

Paige Wilder, a family law attorney who was accustomed to responding quickly to unexpected revelations in court, recovered first. “You’re pregnant?”

“Not yet.”

Megan Richmond, a research scientist, took a moment to absorb the news and consider before she said, “I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”

Ashley swirled a piece of French toast in the maple syrup on her plate, focusing all of her attention on the task. “I’m not.”

“Then you’re going to have to explain this to me,” her sister—recently and very happily married—said.

Ashley nibbled on the sweet bread while she considered her response.

Megan and Paige weren’t just family, they were her best friends, and she’d always been able to count on their unequivocal support in whatever she chose to do. Though she wasn’t sure they would support her in this, she also wouldn’t be dissuaded.

“I made an appointment at PARC,” she finally said, using the acronym for the Pinehurst Assisted Reproduction Clinic.

Megan set her cup down and turned to Paige. “This is all your fault.”

“What did I do?”

“You were the one who insisted she didn’t need a husband to have a baby.”

“Well, she doesn’t. And she certainly doesn’t need a husband like CBB,” her cousin said, invoking the nickname she’d bestowed upon Ashley’s ex-fiancé.

His real name was Trevor, but after the breakup of their engagement, he’d been referred to as Cheating Bastard Byden, and the initials had stuck.

It was Paige who’d discovered that Trevor was cheating. She’d seen him cozied up in a booth at a restaurant with a colleague, and while she didn’t want to believe he would be unfaithful to his fiancée, the evidence had been irrefutable. Ashley knew that Paige hated telling her, but she would have hated even more for the deception to continue.

Of course, Ashley had refused to believe her. She’d even—she was embarrassed to admit now—accused Paige of being jealous of her happiness. In fact, she’d been so positive that her cousin was wrong, she’d gone straight to Trevor.

She’d expected him to reassure her of his love and fidelity. And while he did insist that he loved her, and that he’d never felt about anyone else the way he felt about her, he’d also admitted that he’d been with other women.

Not another woman—singular, but other women—plural.

And Ashley had felt as if the ground had crumbled beneath her feet.

He’d tried to explain that he’d been feeling a little uncertain since their engagement, and that every woman he’d been with since had reassured him that he was marrying the only woman he would ever love, and he promised her that he would never even look at another woman after they were married.

Ashley was not reassured. As far as she was concerned, he’d made a vow when he’d asked her to marry him, and if he couldn’t honor that vow before the wedding, she knew nothing would change afterward.

She didn’t regret ending their relationship, but she’d been looking forward to her wedding day since she was a little girl. As she’d grown older, her dreams had taken on a more specific focus. It wasn’t just that she wanted a wedding, she wanted to be married. She wanted to fall in love and build a future—and a family—with a man who loved her, too.

She’d thought Trevor was that man. And when she’d handed back his ring, she’d relinquished some of her dreams, too.

That had been almost four months ago. Since then, she’d given the matter a lot of thought. The more she thought about it, the more she resented having to put her life on hold because she’d been wrong about Trevor.

And she’d decided she wasn’t going to put her life on hold any longer.

“You can’t blame Paige for this,” Ashley told her sister now. “I would have thought about artificial insemination on my own if I hadn’t been so preoccupied with planning my wedding.”

Paige wrinkled her nose. “Anything ‘artificial’ can’t be very much fun.”

“I’m not doing it for fun. I’m doing it to have a baby.”

“Just because CBB turned out to be a first-class CB doesn’t mean you should give up hope of finding a wonderful man to father your children,” Megan said.

“I haven’t given up,” Ashley denied, though she wasn’t entirely sure it was true. Two broken hearts in one lifetime were too many for her. “But I’m tired of waiting.”

“You’re not even thirty yet,” Paige reminded her.

“But I’m no closer to having a husband and a baby than I was at twenty,” she pointed out to both of them. “I was devastated when I found out that Trevor was cheating on me. But I’m not sure if I was really heartbroken by his betrayal or because he derailed my hopes of having a child. And I began to wonder if one of the reasons I accepted Trevor’s proposal in the first place was that he seemed to want marriage and a family as much as I do.”

“That doesn’t excuse what he did,” Paige said fiercely.

“No, it doesn’t,” Ashley agreed. “But it made me realize that I want a baby more than I want a husband.”

“But your engagement only ended four months ago,” Megan said gently. “You have to give your heart time to heal.”

“How much time?” Ashley wanted to know. “How long am I supposed to wait until you’ll trust that I’ve considered all the angles, that this is what I really want to do?”

“More than four months,” her sister told her.

“We know how much you want a child of your own,” Paige chimed in. “And how much love you have to give. But I think we’re both concerned that this is an impulse, an emotional response to the breakup of your engagement.”

“I’m going to have a baby, and nothing either of you say is going to change my mind now,” Ashley assured her.

“I don’t want to change your mind,” Paige said. “I just want you to rethink your options.”

“The Pinehurst clinic has a reputation for excellence and a record of success.”

“I know it does,” her cousin admitted. “But did you know that Cameron Turcotte is back in town?”

Her cousin’s question seemed to come from out of the blue, but Ashley knew the remark wasn’t unintentional. Because even after twelve years, just the mention of his name was enough to make her heart skip a beat, but she wouldn’t—couldn’t—let Paige know it.

“Who?” she said instead.

“I know you saw him at the reunion,” Paige said, referring to the high school reunion they’d all attended a few months earlier. Although Cam had been two years ahead of Ashley in school, the party had been open to all former graduates in celebration of Hill Park High School’s one hundredth year anniversary.

She shrugged. “So we talked.”

“And maybe your … talk … had something to do with his decision to come back to Pinehurst.”

Megan frowned, and Ashley knew her sister had concerns about Cameron’s return—specifically how it would affect Ashley.

“Is it true, then, that he’s going to be working with Elijah Alexander?” Megan asked.

Paige nodded.

“So Cam’s back,” Ashley said. “So what? What does that have to do with anything?”

“It just seems to me that someone who spent so many years in medical school would have a pretty good idea about how to make a baby,” Paige teased.

Ashley didn’t doubt that it was true, but she had no intention of letting her mind wander down that dead-end path.

Cameron Turcotte had been her first love, her first lover, and even way back when they were both in high school, he’d been a creative and considerate partner. He’d also broken her heart, and she wasn’t going to forget that for a few horizontal thrills. Not even if he’d given her any indication that he was interested in a reunion of that kind, which he hadn’t.

“You seem to be forgetting that one of the reasons Cam and I split up was that I wanted to have kids and he didn’t.”

“He didn’t want a baby twelve years ago,” Paige pointed out. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s changed his mind since then.”

“Well, I’ve changed mine, too,” Ashley said. “I’m no longer looking for a marriage proposal or even a relationship. All I want is a sperm donor.”

“You’re really not interested?” Megan asked skeptically.

“I’m really not interested.”

But while Ashley’s voice rang with conviction, her heart wasn’t quite so certain.

When Cameron Turcotte first contacted the real estate company, it was to inquire about available rental properties in the area. Since he wasn’t convinced that the move back to Pinehurst would be a permanent one, it seemed logical to rent rather than buy. But he didn’t want an apartment; he wanted a house, a place to go at the end of the day that was his alone without neighbors above and below him. Unfortunately, house rentals were apparently rare in the area and Tina Stilwell hadn’t sounded optimistic about his prospects.

But she’d called earlier in the day to let him know that the owners of a house she had listed might be willing to consider a one-year lease in the hopes that the housing market would pick up within that time and ultimately result in a higher sale price for the home.

Since Cam had committed to a one-year contract with Elijah Alexander—a trial period for both of them, with the possibility of buying into the practice at the end of that term if it was what they wanted—he figured a housing lease for the same amount of time would be ideal. So it was that after a ten-hour day, he wasn’t heading back to his parents’ retirement community bungalow, where he’d temporarily taken up residence, but following a much too perky real estate agent through the front door of a gorgeous stone and brick two-story.

“It’s a wonderful neighborhood, close to the local schools and parks, convenient to shopping, entertainment, and pretty much anything else you’d want,” she told him.

And only a short drive from Dr. Alexander’s offices, he’d noted.

“I can walk through with you, if you want,” Tina said, as she led him from the living room through the dining room to the kitchen at the back of the house, from plush carpet to glossy hardwood to cool travertine. “But I find a lot of clients prefer to look around on their own.”

“I’ll wander, and let you know if I have any questions,” he said, accepting the spec sheet she’d taken from the upright display on the long granite counter in the kitchen.

The agent nodded, pulling out her BlackBerry as she settled at one of the high-backed stools lined up by the breakfast bar.

He exited the kitchen through another doorway, passing a family room and den as he made his way toward the stairs. On the upper level he found four bedrooms, all of them generously sized with lots of windows to ensure plenty of natural light.

The master bedroom at the back of the house was enormous—or maybe it just seemed so because it was devoid of furniture, as were all the other rooms in the house—with a huge walk-in closet and a four-piece ensuite bath of gleaming marble and glistening chrome. Returning to the main part of the room, he wandered over to the pair of wide windows overlooking a professionally landscaped backyard complete with a stone patio, pond, and decorative beds filled with colorful blooms and greenery.

Best of all, there was still a lot of open space, enough room for a child to run around. Several children even, he thought, and sighed with regret that his marriage hadn’t worked out quite the way he’d planned.

When he’d proposed to Danica Carrington, he’d known that she was focused on her career to the exclusion of all else; she’d made no secret of the fact that children weren’t part of her plan. He’d married her anyway, certain that she would change her mind when she held their baby in her arms. But it hadn’t happened that way at all, and after three years of desperately trying to make their marriage work, he’d finally given up and she’d eagerly walked away.

He pushed aside the disappointments and continued his tour. There was no reason to think of Danica now, to continue to mourn what had never been anything more than an illusion. He was determined to put the past behind him and make a fresh start in Pinehurst, to make a new life with Madeline.

And one of the most attractive features of this home, from his point of view, was its move-in condition. The walls were freshly painted in neutral colors, the carpets were pristine, the hardwood unmarked and the cherry kitchen was a chef’s paradise.

Not that he was a chef, by any stretch of the imagination, but he enjoyed experimenting in the kitchen. And he knew he would enjoy experimenting in that kitchen, with its top-of-the-line stainless steel appliances, luxurious island and two sets of French doors opening onto a cedar deck.

Tina tucked her BlackBerry away when he paused at those doors to survey the backyard more closely.

“Any thoughts?” she asked him.

I want it, was the first thought that came to mind.

“It’s probably a lot more space than I need,” he said instead.

“It is spacious,” she agreed, choosing to put a positive spin on his negative comment. “More suited to a family than a single man, but definitely a good investment.”

“It’s certainly been immaculately maintained.”

“It’s a three-year-old custom-design by Armstrong & Sullivan, built by Carson Construction,” she said. “The owners are both young professionals who, from what I understand, spent more time at their jobs than at home.”

He knew what that kind of life was like—and the toll it could take on a marriage. But all he said was, “Either they’ve taken minimalist decorating to a new level or they’ve already moved out.”

“Moved out,” she admitted, with a smile. “The wife got transferred to New York City, the husband took a job offer in Los Angeles, and they left me in charge of the house.”

And Cam would bet the proceeds were to be split down the middle, along with all their other shared possessions, with a significant chunk from each side going to their respective bloodsucking lawyers.

Yeah, he’d been there, done that, too.

Of course, when he’d met Danica he’d thought she was the type of woman he wanted, someone who had ambitions and dreams, who wanted more than to be a wife and a mother.

Someone who didn’t remind him of Ashley Roarke.

Since he’d been back in Pinehurst, it seemed as if everything reminded him of Ashley. Every street and shop and landmark brought back memories of times they’d spent together.

When he’d left town more than a dozen years ago, he’d left his high school sweetheart behind. He could have chosen a college closer to home and had, in fact, been far more tempted to do just that. Instead, he’d opted to put some serious distance between them, so that he wouldn’t be able to come home on a long weekend, so that he wouldn’t end up sacrificing his own dreams just because he was in love.

During his first few years away, he’d dated only occasionally, and the girls he had dated were usually blue-eyed blondes who reminded him of Ashley in some way. Not surprisingly, none of those relationships ever went very far.

An initial attraction sparked by a superficial resemblance to the girl he’d left behind inevitably fizzled when he finally accepted that no one else was Ashley. No one else’s eyes were as bright, no one else’s smile was so warm, no one else’s touch felt so right.

And then he met a dark-haired, dark-eyed first-year law student who didn’t resemble Ashley in any way.

Danica wasn’t looking to get married; she didn’t want to tie herself down. She had plans for her life and she wasn’t going to let anything—or anyone—stand in the way of fulfilling them.

She was, it had seemed to him then, his perfect match.

It had taken him a long time to realize what a mistake he’d made.

He sometimes wondered how differently his life might have turned out if he’d never gone away. If he’d never said goodbye to Ashley. But wondering and wishing couldn’t change the past, and though there had been more bumps in the road than he’d have chosen, he couldn’t regret where he was now.

Now he had Madeline, and she was the reason for everything he did, for everything he was. She would probably expect him to consult with her before making a decision on their housing situation since it would impact her future, too. But she wouldn’t be back from London for three more weeks and he didn’t want to wait that long.

He needed to move into a place of his own. He loved his parents dearly—in fact, being closer to them was one of the reasons he’d decided to move out of Seattle and look for a job in the area. But he was too old to be sleeping on living room furniture, and he certainly couldn’t share the couch with Madeline.

He considered calling her now, not just to tell her about the house but to hear her voice. But with the five-hour time difference, it was likely that she was already in bed.

He glanced at the spec sheet he still had in hand, then up at Tina. “What are they asking for rent?”

She told him the amount. “Plus utilities,” she said, sounding apologetic.

“It would almost be cheaper to buy it,” he noted.

“I think that’s the point. They are willing to rent, but they’d rather sell.”

Cam hesitated. He hadn’t considered buying a house. On the other hand, real estate was generally a good investment and he had no doubt his mortgage payments would be less than the quoted rental fee.

“I know you were adamant about wanting a house,” she said. “But I did find a couple of condos available for rent, and I’ve got the details with me if you want to take a look at those instead.”

He wasn’t usually impulsive, but something about this house just felt right. As if he and Madeline belonged there.

As if they’d finally come home.

And if it crossed his mind that being back in Pinehurst meant being near Ashley Roarke again, well, he pushed that thought aside.

Chapter Two

Ashley was a big fan of retail therapy. A great pair of shoes could put a smile on her face on the gloomiest of days, and she was positively beaming when she pulled onto Chetwood Street heading home after her shopping expedition Thursday afternoon.

Only two and a half weeks until the first day of school, and she was as excited as any of the first graders who would be entering her class.

She’d enjoyed the summer break and had, in fact, needed both the time away from the classroom and the solitude to let her bruised and battered heart heal. But six weeks of intense rest and relaxation along with some quality time spent with Marg & Rita had her feeling a lot better about herself and her future. Okay, so maybe she’d wallowed a little, but she’d eventually pulled herself out of the funk and now she wasn’t just ready but eager to move forward. Deciding to have a baby was a big step forward, but one she was more than ready to take.

Her already high spirits got another lift when she spotted the SOLD sign down the street. She hadn’t known the previous owners except to say hello in passing, but she’d heard that they were newlyweds when they’d first moved in and now, three years later, newly divorced. Maybe that was part of the reason she’d felt inexplicably saddened when they’d packed up, or maybe she’d just hated to think that the beautiful home had been abandoned, but today, the SOLD sign seemed to her another beacon of hope.

She pulled into her driveway already speculating about the new owners, wondering where they were from and when they’d move in. Were they another newlywed couple? Empty nesters? A family with kids? The neighborhood was an eclectic collection of each, including a few singles like herself.

Because she was thinking about her potential neighbors, she didn’t see the package propped up against the door until she was sliding her key into the lock. It was wrapped in brown paper and blended in with the paint, suggesting that she really should repaint the door to give the outside a little boost of color and a more welcoming feel. Since she wasn’t getting married and moving any time in the near future, she should consider adding some personal touches to make the house more distinctly her own.

She felt a slight pang when she thought of the wedding that wouldn’t be, but only slight. She was totally over Trevor now and determined not to let the absence of a husband prevent her from having the child she wanted.

She shifted her other bags, then tucked the flat parcel under her arm and carried it inside. She dumped everything on top of the dining room table before backtracking to the kitchen. She opened the fridge, found a can of her diet soda next to the regular Pepsi her sister favored and popped the top.

Megan had been married for three months now, but Ashley still missed having her around. She certainly missed her more than she missed her former fiancé—she shook her head, pushing him firmly out of her mind. She wasn’t going to ruin a perfectly nice day thinking about Trevor and what he’d done.

Instead, she carried her drink into the dining room, back to the mysterious paper-wrapped package. She couldn’t remember buying anything that needed to be delivered, but the neatly printed label had her name and address on it, so she turned the parcel over and lifted the tape.

As she pulled back the paper, revealing a polished walnut frame and the edge of a cream-colored mat, she realized it was a picture. Tearing the paper further, she sucked in a breath at the image of herself wrapped in the arms of her supposedly devoted fiancé.

The frame slipped from her fingers and crashed to the ground.

The glass broke, a long jagged crack across the center, slicing neatly between the images of Ashley and Trevor.

She’d canceled the wedding and everything related to it. She’d made the phone calls herself to the florist and the caterer; she’d notified the band and the pastry chef. She’d been too late to stop the order at the printer, but she’d been certain to shred each and every invitation and response card and personalized thank-you note when they were delivered. She knew there was no way she would have forgotten to contact the photographer.

Then she spotted the piece of paper tucked into the bottom corner of the frame. She reached for it, frowning as she unfolded it. If it was an invoice—

No, it was a note.

From Trevor.

Ashley,

I just wanted you to know that I’ve been thinking about you and missing you. I haven’t given up hope that we can find a way to work things out. I’m sending this picture to remind you of the happy times we had together, and to let you know that I want us to be together again. I love you. T xo

She tore the note into tiny pieces and let them fall from her hands like confetti. Of course, thinking of confetti made her think of weddings and that made her even angrier.

She picked up the broken frame and carted it to the kitchen to dump it in the garbage where it belonged. She was over him. She really was. Wholly and completely. But apparently she wasn’t over being mad.

She pulled the waste basket out of the cupboard and shoved the picture in it, determined to put Trevor out of her mind. As she pushed down on it, she felt a quick, slicing pain. She felt the blood, warm and wet, dripping down her hand, before she saw the streaks of red. And when she did, her stomach pitched.

She’d never done well with the sight of blood. Although cuts and scrapes were common occurrences with first graders, those cuts and scrapes could usually be fixed with a Band-Aid or an ice pack. Ashley peeked at her hand again and didn’t think a Band-Aid was going to do the job. Not this time.

She grabbed a clean dish towel from the drawer and wrapped it around her palm.

A quick glance at the clock revealed that it was almost five, so she knew that the phones at her doctor’s office would already have been turned over to the answering service. But she’d been a patient of Uncle Eli’s since she was a child and the duration of their relationship, combined with the fact that he’d been a good friend of both of her parents, meant that she could show up at his office at this late hour and know that he would make time for her. Hopefully that would save her a trip to the emergency room.

Fifteen minutes later, she was ushered into an exam room by the nurse.

“The doctor will be in to see you shortly,” Irene told her.

And Ashley, feeling a little queasy from the loss of blood, nodded gratefully, reassured that she’d made the right decision in coming here rather than the hospital.

An opinion that changed as soon as the doctor walked into the room.

Cam had been at the office since 8:00 a.m.

He knew that the nature of a family practice required a certain degree of flexibility with respect to unexpected emergencies, but as the day wore on and he worked through lunch, he wished that Courtney—the receptionist and general office manager—would show some appreciation of the same fact and schedule appointments with more than ten minutes between them.

By five o’clock, the number of patients in the waiting room had diminished sufficiently that there were enough chairs for those still waiting. By that same time, he’d managed to take half a dozen bites of the sandwich that Courtney had brought back for him when she returned from her lunch break. The thinning of the crowd combined with the silencing of his stomach gave him hope that he might actually get out of the office before he needed to return the following morning.

He was reaching for the file in the slot outside of exam room number two when Irene—Dr. Alexander’s sister and longtime nurse—slipped out of room number four. The guilty flush in her cheeks warned him that she’d squeezed in yet another patient who didn’t have an appointment.

He sighed. “I thought you wanted to go home as much as I do.”

“You need a home in order to go to it,” she said.

“I’ll have one soon enough,” he told her. “And you’re not going to distract me that easily.”

“I’m not trying to distract you at all.” She took his arm and steered him towards the door she’d just exited.

“I thought Mrs. Kirkland was next.”

“Mrs. Kirkland is a hypochondriac, but this patient is really bleeding.”

He sighed again and took the folder she thrust into his hands, not even having a moment to note the name on the tab before he walked in the room.

And found himself face-to-face with Ashley Roarke.

He faltered, at a sudden loss for words since “Hello, Ashley, I’m Dr. Turcotte”—the standard greeting he’d given to Dr. Alexander’s other patients—seemed a little ridiculous in light of their history.

But it was long ago history and he’d seen her only once since he’d left town more than a dozen years earlier—just a few months before at their high school reunion. Ashley had made it clear to him then then that she didn’t forgive him for leaving her and that she had no interest in reminiscing with him.

She’d also told him that she was getting married in a few months, he remembered now. But her purse was clutched in her left hand and the impressive diamond she’d worn at the reunion wasn’t on it.

Her other hand was wrapped in a bloody towel, and it was the blood that jerked him out of the past and firmly back into doctor mode.

He couldn’t think of her as the first woman he’d ever loved, the only woman he’d never forgotten. She was a patient, and it was his job to ascertain the nature of her injury and prescribe treatment.

“I, uh, came to see Eli,” she told him, breaking the awkward silence.

“He’s at the hospital.”

“Oh. Well.” She cleared her throat. “Okay. I’ll go there then. To the hospital. To catch up with him there.”

She was babbling, obviously not any more prepared for this unexpected meeting than he was. And though he was tempted to let her go, it was apparent that she hadn’t come to chat with Eli but for medical attention, and he wouldn’t shirk his duty.

“You’re dripping blood,” he told her.

She glanced down, and quickly averted her gaze again.

“I think I should take a look at that before you go anywhere.” He reached into a box on the counter to pull out a pair of disposable gloves.

“I’d rather have Eli look at it,” she said.

“Stop being stubborn, Ash.”

“I’m not being stubborn,” she denied. “I’d just feel more comfortable seeing my doctor.”

Despite her close relationship with Elijah Alexander, she obviously hadn’t heard that he wasn’t doing patient rounds at the hospital but spending time with his wife, who was in ICU after suffering a near-fatal heart attack the previous evening.

So all he said to her was, “And I’d let you go if I didn’t think it was likely you’d pass out while you were driving and potentially cause more harm to yourself and/or others.”

He wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but her face got even whiter. “Have I lost that much blood?”

He chuckled as he tugged on the second glove. “Hardly.”

She scowled. “Then why do you think I’d pass out?”

“Because I was there when you fell off the stone wall at Eagle Point Park and cut your knee open. You said you were okay, then you saw the blood and your face went white just before your eyes rolled back in your head.”

He shouldn’t have mentioned the incident, because it was an admission that he still remembered that day, even so many years later. As he remembered so many things they’d done and moments they’d spent together. He had too many memories of Ashley. Memories that haunted his waking moments and taunted him in dreams.

“I was nine,” she said, her indignant response forcing his attention back to the present.

“And you’re as pale now as you were then,” he told her.

Since she couldn’t see her face, she really wasn’t in a position to deny his accusation. Instead, she lifted her arm and thrust her towel-wrapped hand toward him.

“Fine. Take a look and give me one of those butterfly bandage things so I can go home.”

Cam took her hand and carefully began unwrapping the towel. At another time, he might have lifted his brows at the parade of little goslings embroidered along the hem, but now it was the blood soaked into the fabric that held his attention.

“How did it happen?” he asked.

“Broken glass.”

He was a doctor—he’d seen far worse than a three-inch gash in the flesh of a woman’s hand. Except that this was Ashley’s hand, and the gash ran down the side of her palm before abruptly detouring toward her wrist. Luckily, it stopped short of her ulnar artery, but his heart skipped a beat in his chest when he realized how close it had come.

“Must have been a big piece of glass,” he noted.

“Eleven-by-fourteen.”

It only took him a second to figure out the reference. “A picture frame.”

She nodded, but kept her gaze firmly affixed to the opposite wall.

He tore open the packaging of a gauze pad, dabbed gently at the skin around the wound. “Well, I think it’s going to take a little bit more than one of those butterfly bandage things to fix this up.”

“How much more?”

“Probably ten to fifteen stitches.”

He thought of the patients still in the waiting room and considered sending her to the hospital for the procedure. Now that he’d examined her injury, he was confident the repair was something any ER doctor could handle.

But she was already here and he had everything he needed on the premises to get the job done, and he would take care to minimize, as much as possible, any scarring.

“I was afraid you were going to say something like that.” She sighed. “Okay. Let’s just do it.”

“Well, Ashley Roarke, I never thought I’d hear you say those words to me again,” he teased.

That remark brought color to her too-pale cheeks and a flash to her lovely violet eyes.

Eyes that had haunted his thoughts and his dreams for longer than he was willing to admit.

“The stitches, doctor.”

He grinned, unrepentant. “Of course.”

He released her hand and went to the door, poking his head out to ask Irene for a suture tray.

She must have anticipated his request, because she came in with the necessary equipment less than a minute later.

Her eyes grew wide when she saw Ashley’s injury.

“Oh, honey, what have you done?”

“I lost a fight with a piece of broken glass,” Ashley told her.

“Well, don’t you worry. The doctor will have you fixed up in no time.”

“But you’re going to jab me with that first, aren’t you?” she asked, warily eyeing the needle that the nurse was prepping.

“Actually, the doctor is going to jab you with it,” Irene told her. “But you won’t feel him poking at you after that.”

Cam fought against a smile as Ashley’s cheeks colored again.

He’d remembered so many things about her, but he’d forgotten how easily she blushed, how much he used to enjoy making her blush. But that was a long time ago.

Now he had to forget that they were ever lovers and concentrate on doing his job.

“There now. That wasn’t so bad, was it?” Irene said.

“You wouldn’t be asking that question if you’d been on the other end of the needle,” Ashley told her.

The nurse chuckled. “You never did like getting shots,” she remembered. “And your sister wasn’t any better. How’s she doing, by the way?”

He didn’t know if Irene had asked the question because she was anxious to catch up on Roarke family gossip or if she was trying to distract Ashley from what he was doing, but since the patient wasn’t paying any attention to him or the needle sliding through her skin, he was grateful.

“Meg’s great,” Ashley responded. “She seems to have adapted to marriage easily and blissfully.”

“Good for her,” the nurse asserted. Then her voice gentled when she said, “But I imagine it must have been difficult for you.”

Ashley didn’t move, but Cam sensed her tension.

“Megan getting married so soon after you ended your engagement, I mean,” Irene clarified.

“I was—am—happy for her.”

“Well, of course you are. And I have no doubt that someday you’ll find a man who’s perfect for you, too.”

“I’m not looking for a man—perfect or otherwise,” Ashley said.

She spoke with such conviction, he found himself wondering about the details of her broken engagement, and whether he might be able to subtly pry them out of the nurse at another time. Because he had no doubt that if there were details to be known, Irene would know them.

But for now, he clenched his teeth together to hold back the questions he wanted to ask. He had no business asking any questions, no business feeling anything for the woman who had once meant everything to him.

“Are you up to date with your tetanus shot?” he asked instead.

Ashley shifted her attention from the nurse to him. “I had a booster two years ago.”

“Then you don’t need another one.”

“Must be my lucky day.”

He smiled, appreciating that she could find humor in the situation.

“Since you’re just about finished up here, I’ll go check on Mrs. Kirkland,” Irene told him. Then to Ashley, “Take care of yourself, hon.”

“I will.”

“How do they look?” he asked, after Irene had gone.

Ashley glanced down at her hand, at the dark thread that stood out in stark contrast to her pink skin. “It looks … good?”

He smiled again. “It looks raw and ugly, but it will look good when the wound has healed.”

“How long?” she asked.

He tore open a sterile gauze pad, affixed it to her skin. “Seven to ten days.”

“At least they’ll be out before I go back to school.”

“Too bad,” he said. “I imagine fifteen stitches could be the object of intense fascination for a bunch of first graders.”

She looked up, surprise evident in those stunning eyes.

He was suddenly aware of how close they were sitting. That he was still holding her hand. And that she had made no effort to pull away.

“How did you know I teach first grade?”

He shrugged. “It’s what you always said you were going to do.”

“I didn’t think you would have remembered something like that,” she murmured.

“You’d be surprised what I remember,” he said. “What I couldn’t forget.”

Her gaze dropped away, and he cursed himself for speaking aloud a truth he’d only recently acknowledged.

He wrote her a prescription for some painkillers, tore off the page and handed it to her.

“Try to keep your hand elevated as much as possible, keep the stitches dry, and set up an appointment with Courtney to have them checked next week.”

“I’ll do that,” she said. “Thanks.”

Cam nodded and moved to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob.

“I never forgot you, Ashley. And I don’t think you forgot me, either.”

He walked out before she could reply. Because even if she denied it, even if she had forgotten about him, he was going to make sure she remembered him now.

This time, he wasn’t going to walk away.

Chapter Three

Ashley didn’t get the prescription filled.

She hadn’t told Cam that she was taking Fedentropin because she didn’t want him asking all kinds of questions about the drug trial she was participating in. It had been awkward enough when Irene had made reference to her broken engagement without getting into any explanations about her medical history or the experimental drug that was helping to manage her endometriosis so that pregnancy remained an option for her.

But her hand throbbed painfully as she tried to sweep up remnants of broken glass and wood with her left arm wrapped around the broom and the handle of the dustpan gripped with the thumb and two other fingers of her right hand, making her rethink that decision. She could call Megan, of course. Her sister had developed the drug she was taking and would know whether it was safe to take the painkiller she’d been prescribed.

But then she’d have to tell her sister about the fifteen stitches and Megan would insist on coming over to see for herself that it wasn’t a fatal wound. And as much as she enjoyed spending time with her sister, she hated knowing that her family was still so worried about her. As they’d been worrying since she’d ended her engagement.

Because worrying translated into hovering, and while Ashley was still adjusting to living alone, she enjoyed having her own space. She ate her meals on her own schedule, watched whatever she wanted to watch on TV and generally came and went as she pleased without being accountable to anyone else.

Of course that would change when she had a baby, but she looked forward to the duties and responsibilities of motherhood. She wanted nothing more than to feel the stirring of a new life in her womb, and the warmth of a tiny baby in her arms.

Which was another reason she didn’t want to fill the prescription Cam had written for her. Her appointment at the Pinehurst clinic was only a few days away and she didn’t want anything to delay the start of the process. So she’d stick with her extra-strength Tylenol and hope that was enough to take the edge off of the pain.

Her stomach growled as she emptied the dustpan into the garbage, so she propped the broom and pan in the corner and moved to the fridge. Unfortunately, she found nothing that appealed to her. Or maybe she just didn’t want to tackle putting together a meal with only one hand.

She could, however, dial the phone, and she was thinking about doing just that when the doorbell rang.

She’d never been the type to ignore a ringing phone and the echo of a bell had the same effect. She pulled open the door and, for the second time that day, found herself facing her past.

“Making house calls, Dr. Turcotte?” she asked him. Her tone was deliberately casual, refusing to acknowledge the jump in her pulse.

For as far back as she could remember, her body had always instinctively reacted to Cameron’s presence. Since she could do nothing about that response, she simply tried to ignore it.

But she couldn’t deny that he looked good. His hair was as dark as she remembered, and still long enough to flirt with the collar of his shirt. His eyes were the same rich green that brought to mind the Irish countryside of her ancestors, and his gaze was just as intense. The shadow on his jaw attested to a long day at the office and gave him a slightly dangerous edge. Dangerously sexy, she mused, and immediately pushed the thought aside.

He had on the same shirt and khaki pants he’d been wearing earlier, but he’d loosened the knot in his tie and rolled up his sleeves, revealing darkly tanned and strongly muscled forearms. He used to be an avid tennis player and she found herself wondering if he still enjoyed pounding a fuzzy yellow ball around the court. It would certainly explain his trim and toned physique.

“Actually, I’m not here in my professional capacity,” he told her, his comment drawing her back from her perusal.

“Then why are you here?” She knew the question sounded rude, but she didn’t care. She was tired, her hand ached and she didn’t have the energy or the desire to put a smile on her face, though she was suddenly experiencing an unwelcome stirring of certain other desires.

Cam lifted a flat white box that she hadn’t even noticed he was carrying because she’d been too busy looking at him.

“Pizza delivery,” he said.

“I didn’t order pizza.”

“And yet I’ve got a large double pepperoni and extra cheese in my hands.”

It was her favorite kind. Of course, it had always been his favorite, too. Had he remembered her preference? Or had he just ordered it the way he liked it?

Not that it mattered. Even if he had remembered, their history was exactly that, and she wasn’t going to let his sudden appearance at her door drag her down memory lane.

So all she asked was, “Why?”

He shrugged. “Because I worked through lunch and I was hungry, and because I figured it would be difficult for you to put together dinner for yourself with those stitches in your hand.”

It sounded not only reasonable but thoughtful, and she was undeniably tempted to invite him in. There was something about Cam Turcotte that had always tempted her, but she wasn’t a teenager anymore and she had no intention of letting down any of her barriers where he was concerned.

“I’m not hungry,” she lied.

“You should eat anyway.”

Still, she hesitated. “Contrary to whatever Irene might have told you, I don’t need anyone looking out for me, Dr. Turcotte.”

“It’s just a pizza, Ash.”

He was using his doctor tone again, patient and reasonable, and she knew that she was being anything but reasonable.

As he said, it was just a pizza. And she was hungry.

She stepped back from the door.

“Fine. Bring in the pizza.”

Her welcome left something to be desired.

As Cam stepped into the foyer, he wondered again why he was there when it was readily apparent that Ashley wished he wasn’t. He’d known he was taking a chance when he looked up her address in the file, but he’d never been able to think clearly when it came to Ashley Roarke.

“Nice neighborhood,” he said, conversationally.

“We like it.”

“We?” he queried, following her through to the kitchen.

“Megan and I bought the house a couple of years ago and lived here together until she got married. I guess I haven’t quite got used to being on my own yet.”

“I thought you were talking about the fiancé,” he admitted, setting the pizza box in the middle of the table.

“Ex-fiancé,” she clarified.

She opened the cupboard to get plates, but he reached over her head for them so that she didn’t have to stretch.

“Yeah. I got that from what Irene said,” he admitted.

“You mean she didn’t give you the whole sordid story?”

“Is it sordid?”

She shrugged as she moved toward the refrigerator. “Let’s just say he didn’t think the act of putting a ring on my finger mandated exclusivity.”

“Bastard,” Cam said.

Ashley smiled, appreciating his unequivocal assessment and deciding that she might enjoy his company after all.

“The official term, at least among my friends, is ‘cheating bastard,’” she told him.

“I’m sorry, Ash. You deserved better than that.”

“Well, as Paige likes to remind me, at least I found out before we got married.”

“I don’t imagine that was much consolation.”

“No,” she admitted, peering into the refrigerator. “Beer, wine or soft drink?”

“Beer would be great.”

She snagged a bottle for him and a soft drink for herself and carried the beverages to the table.

Again, before she could ask for help, Cam had both of the drinks open.

His unsolicited assistance reminded her of the days when they’d been dating, when he’d somehow been able to anticipate what she wanted without her saying a word. Like instinctively knowing the type of movie she wanted to see on a given night, or whether she preferred to stay home rather than go out. Bringing her flowers to brighten her day when she hadn’t even known she was feeling down, or stopping by simply to spend time with her before she’d acknowledged that she was lonely.

Just like tonight, she realized now, and felt a funny little flutter in the vicinity of her heart.

She picked up the soda he’d opened for her and took a long swallow. She didn’t want to be feeling any flutters, not now and definitely not because of Cam Turcotte.

“Premium beer,” Cam noted appreciatively, picking up his bottle.

“My brother-in-law’s company,” she said, gratefully latching on to the neutral topic.

“That’s right.” He lifted a slice of pizza and slid it onto her plate before taking another one for himself. “Your sister married Gage Richmond. I read about his career change—and their marriage—in a business magazine somewhere.”

“The Richmond name always makes good copy.” She pulled a piece of pepperoni off of her pizza and popped it into her mouth.

“Megan works at Richmond Pharmaceuticals, doesn’t she?”

She nodded. “Recently promoted to VP of clinical science.”

“Impressive.”

“No kidding. Whenever she tries to talk to me about something she’s doing at work, my eyes glaze over.”

“As I’m sure her eyes glaze when you want to discuss the intrinsic value of finger painting.”

She smiled at that. “Very few people over the age of ten appreciate the intrinsic value of finger painting,” she told him. “But with Megan, it’s not that she doesn’t understand, just that she has an irrational fear of any human being less than three feet tall.”

“I take it she doesn’t plan on having kids then?”

“Not anytime in the near future,” she said, then realized she was no longer certain it was true. After all, her sister was married now and starting a family with her new husband wasn’t outside the realm of possibility. She pushed the thought—and the irrational spurt of envy—aside.

“I appreciate the pizza,” she said. “But why are you really here?”

“I just wanted to see you, to talk to you, without an audience.”

“Why?”

“For a lot of reasons,” he said. “But primarily because we’re living in the same town again, which means our paths are going to cross on occasion, and I don’t want things to be awkward between us.”

“Our paths are only crossing now because you showed up at my door.”

He helped himself to another slice of pizza. “Actually, my door is just down the street.”

She frowned. “Excuse me?”

“Number fifty-eight. The SOLD sign on the front lawn.”

The pizza in Ashley’s stomach suddenly felt like a ball of lead. “You bought that house?”

“The rent they were asking was astronomical,” he said, as if that was a perfectly logical response to her question.

“I can’t believe you bought it,” she said.

But what she was thinking was that she was completely unprepared to be neighbors with her ex-lover. It was one thing to accept that he’d returned to Pinehurst—it was a big enough town that she wasn’t likely to run into him at the grocery store very often—and quite another to know that he would be living just down the street and that she would have to pass by his house every single day on the way to and from her own.

“I thought you weren’t sure this was a permanent move, that’s why you wanted a one-year contract …” She let the words trail off, realizing she’d already said too much, admitted too much.

“You asked Elijah about me,” he guessed.

She shrugged, an implicit admission that she’d done just that after Paige had warned her of Cam’s impending return. “I was curious about the rumors that you were coming back. It’s not like he violated any doctor-patient privilege by confirming it was true.”

“Curious in a good way?” he asked her.

She lifted her hand to brush her hair away from her face, winced. “Just curious.”

Cam frowned at the expression of discomfort. “Are you still experiencing pain?”

“A little.”

“You shouldn’t have any with the meds I prescribed.”

She didn’t say anything.

“You did take the medication, didn’t you?” he prompted.

“No,” she admitted.

“Why not?”

She shrugged. “I don’t like taking anything stronger than over-the-counter drugs.”

“Honey, you didn’t come into the office because you had a headache, you had fifteen stitches put in your hand.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “And don’t call me ‘honey.’”

“You didn’t object to Irene calling you ‘hon,’” he pointed out.

She didn’t say anything.

“Or was that okay because she hasn’t seen you naked?”

Ashley blushed at the reminder that he had seen her naked, as he knew she would, but tilted her chin. “Actually, Irene has seen me naked.”

He lifted his brows.

“But not since I was in diapers,” she admitted, and gave him a small smile.

She’d always been beautiful. But when she smiled, when the light of humor sparked in the depths of her violet eyes and those soft pink lips curved, she was absolutely radiant.

Sitting across the table from her now, looking at her over a pizza box, he wondered how he’d ever settled for anything less, how he’d ever believed that his feelings for anyone else could compare to the emotion that filled his heart when he was with Ashley.

His gaze locked with hers, held. And suddenly the air was sizzling with the attraction that had always sparked between them.

“Did you have those five freckles at the base of your spine when you were in diapers?” he asked.

He could tell by the darkening of her eyes that mention of those freckles had stirred memories for her, too.

“I don’t know,” she said softly.

“Do you still have them?”

“I don’t know,” she said again.

Obviously the ex-fiancé had never kissed each and every one of those freckles, as Cam used to do. But he wasn’t going to mention the other man’s name again. He didn’t even want to think about her being with anyone else. He wanted—

The scrape of chair legs against the floor tiles severed his thought as Ashley pushed her chair away from the table. Which was probably for the best, because he had no business thinking about what he wanted to do with Ashley when so much of his life was still unsettled.

“I should, uh, clear this up,” she said.

He carried the plates into the kitchen for her, and pulled out the waste basket to scrape them before loading the dishwasher. But he paused when he saw what was in the receptacle.

“I’m guessing this is the eleven-by-fourteen,” he said.

“What?” She turned around, saw that he’d found the broken picture frame. “Oh. Yeah. It is.”

“It’s a good picture of you,” he said. “You look happy.”

She shrugged. “I was.”

And the man in the photo with her looked happy, too. Of course, he had Ashley in his arms, so he had reason to be happy. Which made Cam realize her former fiancé wasn’t just a bastard, he was an idiot. He’d been poised to start a life with this beautiful, vibrant woman, and he’d thrown it away.

Okay, so maybe he was being a little bit hypocritical. Because twelve years earlier, Ashley had wanted to talk about their future and he’d let her go. But he’d barely been nineteen years old, too young to be thinking in terms of “till death do us part” and too stupid to know what he was giving up.

Cam picked up his beer, took a long swallow. “Are you still in love with him?”

Ashley returned the unused napkins to the holder then leaned back against the counter. “How is that any of your business?”

“When a man kisses a woman it’s important to his ego—crucial, in fact—to know that she’s thinking of him and not anyone else.”

She eyed him warily. “If a man doesn’t know that about a woman, then he has no business kissing her.”

“That’s why I asked the question.” He set the now empty bottle on the counter and stepped closer to her, bracing his hands on the edge of the counter so that she was boxed between them. “Are you still in love with him?”

Ashley didn’t dare answer his question with the truth.

The truth was, she was no longer convinced she’d ever been in love with Trevor. Certainly she hadn’t loved him as she should have loved the man she was planning to marry. But if she admitted that to Cam now, he would interpret it as an invitation and, as desperately as she wanted to feel his mouth on hers, she couldn’t let that happen.

Because she knew that one kiss would lead to more, and she didn’t want more. She’d meant what she said when she told Megan and Paige that she didn’t want a man or a relationship. She didn’t want to risk her heart again.

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I still love …” Oh Lord, she couldn’t even remember his name. She could only think of Cam. She only wanted Cam. “.I still love him.”

“Liar.”

The word was a husky whisper against her lips before he captured them with his own.

She couldn’t stop herself from responding to his kiss any more than she could stop her heart from pounding or her body from yearning. His tongue traced over the seam of her lips, and they parted willingly, eagerly.

It seemed to her that they’d grown too far apart to fit together easily. The moment he slipped his arms around her and drew her against him, she knew she’d been wrong.

Cam had always been a fabulous kisser. When they’d first started dating, back in the early days of their relationship when they hadn’t gone any further than kissing, he would hold her and kiss her forever. This kiss reminded her of that—as if it would go on forever, as if he could be content to just kiss her forever.

Ashley wasn’t feeling content. She pressed against him, wanting to be closer, wanting more.

His hands slid up her back, his fingers tangled in her hair, and he drew her head back. His mouth trailed from hers to trace along her jaw, down her throat. His tongue stroked, his teeth scraped, his lips soothed.

He shifted, drew her nearer, so that she was nestled intimately between his legs, so that she could tell he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Desire—hot and reckless—churned in her veins, rushed through her body, making her feel as if she was seventeen years old again.

Of course, her teenage heart had been filled with more love than lust, and though she’d given herself to him willingly, even eagerly, she’d been unprepared for the complete and total heartbreak that was all he’d left her with when he went away.

A heartbreak that, at the time, she didn’t ever think she would recover from. A heartbreak that she’d felt even deeper and sharper than the pain caused by Trevor’s betrayal.

She’d loved Cam once and he’d trampled all over her emotions. She wouldn’t let him do it again. She didn’t want to feel anything for the man who’d broken her fragile heart so many years before.

But as she kissed him back, she couldn’t deny that she was feeling something, though she didn’t know how to define what that something was.

Attraction? Undoubtedly. Cam Turcotte had been a teenage heartthrob, and the years had added to rather than detracted from his appeal.

Lust? No doubt a healthy dose of that had been thrown into the mix. And maybe that wasn’t surprising, considering that she was a twenty-nine-year-old woman who hadn’t been on a date since the end of her engagement.

She’d had offers. When she’d gone out with Paige and Megan or friends from work, she’d been approached by men who expressed an interest. But she hadn’t even been tempted. In fact, she hadn’t felt anything but numb for so long she didn’t know what to think about the feelings that were spiraling through her now.

When would she ever learn?

Obviously the trauma of slicing open her hand had affected her brain. It was the only explanation for letting him kiss her, for letting the kiss go as far as it did.

He’d caught her in a moment of weakness, but she was drawing the line, right here and right now. She would not get caught up in the seductive magnetism of Cam Turcotte. Not again.

She had to end this now—that would be the smart thing to do. But it felt so good to be held and kissed and … cherished.

Except that he didn’t cherish her. He never had. Because if he’d truly treasured her and what they had together, he wouldn’t have walked away so easily.

Which was why, this time, she had to be the one to walk.

She tore her mouth from his and pushed against his chest.

Chapter Four

Ashley stumbled back and cried out in pain. The obvious distress in her voice effectively doused Cam’s raging libido. He drew in a slow, deep breath then reached for her hand. She shook her head and took another step back, as if she couldn’t bear to have him touch her.

He didn’t know what he’d done to make her withdraw so abruptly and completely, but he wasn’t thinking about that at the moment. He was thinking about the fact that her eyes were clouded with pain now rather than lust, and he worried that she might have re-injured her hand.

“I just want to make sure that you’re not bleeding again,” he told her.

This time when he reached for her hand, she didn’t object. He carefully peeled back the gauze to check the wound, pleased to see that none of the stitches had opened up.

“It looks okay,” he said, refastening the tape.

She nodded.

“But I want to know why you’re not taking the painkillers when it’s obvious that you’re in pain.”

“I told you, I don’t like taking any medication unnecessarily.”

Ashley had never been practiced in the art of deception, and the fact that she didn’t look at him when she spoke told him more clearly than her words that there was something she was holding back.

“If you’re hurting, it’s necessary,” he insisted.

“I’m fine.”

“What medications are you taking that you didn’t want to tell me about?”

The question was a stab in the dark, but her lack of response made him believe it had been an accurate one.

“We can argue back and forth for another few minutes if you really want,” he told her. “But I’m not backing off until you tell me.”

“Fedentropin,” she finally said.

He frowned. “I’m not familiar with that one.”

“It’s an experimental drug to help alleviate the symptoms of endometriosis. I’m part of a clinical trial at Richmond Pharmaceuticals.”

“I didn’t realize …” He wasn’t sure what he meant to say, what was the right thing to say. He’d had no idea that she had to endure what he knew was a painful and chronic condition for a woman, and he hated to think of her suffering.

But Ashley just shrugged. “It’s not something that comes up in conversation.”

“It should have been noted in your file,” he said.

“Eli knows—I talked to him before I was accepted into the test group, but I haven’t had an appointment with him since.”

Cam believed there still should have been a note in her file, but right now he was more concerned about her current situation. “Is your sister running the trial?”

She nodded.

He picked up the cordless phone on the counter. “Call her.”

“Why?”

“I want to know if you can take the medication I prescribed or if I should write a scrip for something else.”

“Look, Cam, I appreciate your concern, but I took some Tylenol when I got home and I’m okay.”

She wouldn’t have cried out in pain if she was okay and since he figured they were both aware of that fact, he only asked, “Why don’t you want to call your sister?”

“Why won’t you back off?” she countered.

“Because I care about you.”

Maybe he was surprised by the admission, but not by the feelings. He did care about Ashley. He’d always cared about Ashley.

She turned away from him, but not before he saw the glint of tears in her eyes.

“You have no right,” she said, her tone laced with both hurt and anger. “No right to barge into my life after twelve years and make such a statement as if it gives you the right to interfere.”

It was true. He’d given up any right he might have had when he’d ended their relationship a dozen years earlier. But his feelings for Ashley had never been rational, and even when he’d gone away, his feelings for her never had.

“I’ve always cared about you, Ash, and I always will.”

She turned away to wrap up the leftover pizza, struggling a little because of her bandaged hand. “Thank you for your concern,” she said, not sounding thankful at all. “Now go away.”

He knew he should. But instead, Cam scrolled through the list of numbers stored in the memory of the phone still in his hand.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

He found “Megan & Gage” and pressed the call button. “Calling your sister.”

She stared at him, as if she didn’t really believe he’d do it.

“It’s ringing,” he warned her.

She grabbed the phone with her uninjured hand. As obviously unhappy as she was about making the call, she seemed to accept that he would talk directly to Megan if she continued to refuse and had likely concluded that her sister would have fewer questions for her than she would for him.

After a brief conversation, during which she reassured her sister numerous times that she was fine and didn’t need anyone coming over to check up on her, Ashley said goodbye and disconnected.

“That’s why I didn’t want to call her,” she said.

“Because you knew she’d be worried about you?” he asked, wondering why her sister’s concern should be a problem for Ashley.

“Because she’s spent too much time worrying about me, and even more over the past four months.”

“Since the broken engagement,” he guessed.

She nodded, making him suspect that she might be more distressed over the end of that relationship than he wanted to believe. And though he was undeniably curious about the ex-fiancé, he forced himself to focus on more immediate concerns.

“What did Megan say about the medication?”

“She said it’s fine. I just have to make sure that I inform the admin clerk of the dosage when I go in for my blood work.”

“Except you didn’t get the scrip filled, did you?”

“No, because I didn’t plan on taking it.”

He glanced at his watch. “I’ll call it in to Brody’s.”

“I’m capable of taking my own prescription in.”

“I know you are,” he agreed. “I’m just not convinced that you’ll actually do it.”

“Fine.” She thrust the phone at him. “Call it in and then leave me alone.”

He dialed the familiar number, spoke to the pharmacist and made arrangements for the medication to be delivered, throughout which Ashley continued to glare at him.

“It should be here within twenty minutes,” he told her.

“Do you plan on hanging around until it gets here?” she challenged.

“I don’t have anywhere else that I need to be, and I have no intention of letting you push me out the door until we’ve had a chance to talk about what happened in the kitchen.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she denied, but the flush in her cheeks told him otherwise. “It was a moment of insanity, that’s all.”

“The only insanity is in trying to pretend it didn’t mean anything, trying to pretend that we aren’t still as attracted to one another as we were twelve years ago.”

She folded her arms over her chest as she lifted her gaze to his. “I’m not going to deny that there’s an attraction, but I’m not looking to get involved with anyone right now.”

A personal relationship was the absolute last thing he’d been looking for when he’d decided to move back to Pinehurst, but then he’d kissed Ashley, and he’d realized that getting involved with her wasn’t a choice. But he understood why she was wary.

“You can’t close your heart because of what your ex-fiancé did,” he said gently.

“This had nothing to do with Trevor,” she denied.

“I’d say the picture in your trash can suggests otherwise.”

“You’re right,” she decided. “This has everything to do with Trevor. Because if he hadn’t chosen to send that picture to me, I wouldn’t have sliced my hand and you wouldn’t have needed to stitch it up, and you definitely wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Then maybe I should thank Trevor,” he said.

She glared at him. “In any event, I have no intention of picking up our relationship where we left off just because it’s convenient for you now.”

He felt his own anger stir. “My feelings for you were a lot of things,” he told her. “But convenient was never one of them.”

As soon as her prescription was delivered, Ashley took the requisite pills and sent Cam on his way.

From the moment she’d returned from her shopping trip earlier in the day, nothing had gone according to plan. Coming face-to-face with Cam had been unexpected, but it had also been unavoidable. Especially since he would be moving in down the street.

So while their meeting was inevitable, she’d been confident that when they did meet, they would simply exchange a few coolly polite words and go their separate ways. She certainly hadn’t expected anything like the kiss they’d shared in her kitchen.

Because while Cam might have made the first move, there was no denying that she’d been an equal—and willing—participant.

Yeah, that kiss had definitely been a mistake, because now she was dealing with the aftermath—a jumble of feelings that she hadn’t been prepared for and didn’t know what to do with.

It had only been one kiss. Nothing that should have the power to turn her world upside down. But it felt as if that was exactly what had happened.

He’d been absent from her life for twelve years but somehow, after only a few hours, he’d managed to churn up all kinds of feelings and desires that she’d buried a long time ago. Or so she’d thought.

She sorted through the mail, opened the cupboard under the sink to drop the flyers into the recycle box and saw that a new bag had been put in the garbage can. Cam must have taken out the other bag for her—the one with the broken picture frame and her engagement photo in it.

Because he thought seeing the photo again might upset her? Or because he thought she was clumsy enough to injure herself again when she took the bag out?

She closed the cupboard and sighed. She had no idea what Cam’s reasons were. She didn’t know anything at all about him anymore. And yet, there was something still there between them. Something that both thrilled and terrified her.

It had been easy for her to toss the picture of her fiancé into the garbage, because she had closed the door on that part of her life with no regrets. She had been happy with Trevor, at least for a while, and she’d wanted the life they had planned to build together. But the truth was, she’d never loved him as completely and wholeheartedly as she’d loved Cam.

It was an unsettling realization, and one she wasn’t ready to examine too closely. Determined to push the sexy doctor out of her mind, she went upstairs to get ready for bed.

The sun hadn’t yet set, but she was exhausted—physically and emotionally—and she wanted nothing more than to crawl between the sheets and sink into oblivion where thoughts and memories of Cam Turcotte didn’t exist.

Cam was surprised to find his parents’ car in the driveway when he got back to their house after his detour to Ashley’s. He walked through the back door and followed the trail of an enticingly spicy scent into the kitchen where his mother was stirring something on the stove.

“I thought tonight was your bowling night,” he said in lieu of a greeting.

“Your dad spent the afternoon at Harry Reiner’s, helping him lay patio stones,” Gayle told her son.

“He screwed up his back again, didn’t he?”

“He’s in bed with an ice pack now,” she confirmed.

“Why does he do things like that?”

“Because Harry helped stain our deck, and your dad insisted that this was his way of returning the favor.”

“A paintbrush doesn’t weigh forty pounds,” Cam noted.

His mother smiled. “Which is exactly what I said to him. But then I made the mistake of noting that he’s also several years older than Harry, which he interpreted as a challenge.”

“Because it drives him crazy the way Harry flirts with you.”

“Harry’s been widowed for nearly ten years, he’s lonely, and he flirts with every woman who crosses his path.” She finished scooping chili into a bowl. “Do you want some?”

“Oh. No, thanks. I had a couple of slices of pizza earlier.”

She carried her bowl to the table and sat down. “Is everything okay?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Because you’re a lot later than usual getting home and you seem a little distracted.”

“Busy day at the office.” He helped himself to a bottle of beer from the fridge and sat down with her.

He’d moved in with them when he’d returned to Pinehurst because it was convenient and gave him the opportunity to look for a place of his own. What had surprised him was how much he’d enjoyed spending time with them. After living so far away for so many years, it was nice to reconnect again, and to realize that he actually liked his parents.

“That’s why Elijah needed to hire you,” she said. “So what was different about today?”

He took a long swallow from the bottle. “I saw Ashley.”

She paused, her spoon halfway to her lips. “Ashley Roarke?”

He nodded.

“How did that go?”

He thought about their kiss—the soft responsiveness of her lips, the yielding warmth of her body—and her abrupt and complete withdrawal from him. “Better—and worse—than I expected.”

“I’m … sorry?”

He smiled. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected that she’d be happy about my decision to come back to Pinehurst now.”

“I would think, if her feelings for you are well and truly gone, she wouldn’t have much of an opinion one way or the other.”

He mulled that over for a minute. “The implication being that if she cares, she must still have feelings for me?”

“Twelve years is a long time, and you were both so young when you went away. And yet—” she smiled “—a woman never forgets her first love.”

“Spoken like a woman with fond memories,” he noted.

“I fell in love when I was fifteen—much to the chagrin of both my parents and his. He was nearly twenty, already in college, and our families were united only in their desire to keep us apart.”

“What happened?”

Her eyes sparkled. “I married him.”

“Grandma and Grandpa disapproved of Dad?” He couldn’t believe it. His father was the epitome of responsibility and respectability—certainly not the usual type that parents warned their daughters about.

“I was fifteen,” she said again. “I don’t think they would have approved of anyone I brought home at that age. And he was so … sexy. He worked in construction in the summer to earn money for college and he had all these rippling muscles and—”

“Please.” Cam held up a hand, urging her to spare him the details.

“If I hadn’t been attracted to your father, you wouldn’t be here,” she pointed out.

“Still, there are some things a kid doesn’t need to know.”

“Well, my point,” she said, “is that parents always want what they think is best for their kids, even when it conflicts with what their kids want. That’s why your dad encouraged you to go away to school, to put some distance between you and Ashley before you got too deeply involved.”

“He knew how I felt about her.”

She nodded. “And he was afraid that you’d give up your dreams to stay in Pinehurst with her.”

“Why did he think that?” he asked curiously. “Was there something he felt he’d missed out on by getting married so young?”

His mother was silent for a long minute before she said, “He wasn’t thinking about his own dreams, but mine.”

It had never occurred to him that his mom might have sacrificed her own plans to be a wife and a mother, because she’d always seemed so settled and content in those roles. “What was your dream?” he asked her now.

“After I met your dad, I only wanted to be with him.”

But he recognized the evasion, and his curiosity was piqued. “Before you met Dad?” he prompted.

“I was going to be a doctor,” she finally admitted.

He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. He couldn’t believe that he’d never known his mother had once envisioned having the same career that he’d chosen for himself.

“A doctor,” he echoed.

She nodded. “In fact, I’d just been accepted to medical school when I found out I was pregnant.”

He set his now empty bottle down. “You gave up your dream because of me?”

But she shook her head vehemently. “No. By the time I got pregnant, my dream had changed. Finding out that I was going to have a baby was the most incredible moment of my life. I had no qualms about giving up medical school for motherhood.

“But when you first expressed an interest in becoming a doctor, your father was adamant that nothing would cause you to make the sacrifice he believed I’d made. But what he didn’t think about—what neither of us really considered—was what would make you happy.”

“You shouldn’t worry about that anymore,” he assured her. “I am happy.”

“A parent always worries. Especially when her kids grow up and move away.”

He knew she wasn’t just thinking of him, but of his younger sister, Sherry, who was now married and living in Florida.

“Well, I have no doubt that you would have been a great doctor,” he said. “But you made the right career choice, because you are definitely the world’s greatest mom.”

She smiled through the sheen of tears in her eyes. “And when a mother’s grown son says something like that, she knows she’s done her job well.”

When Ashley returned to the doctor’s office for her follow-up appointment, she was prepared to see Cam. Not just to see him, but to prove that she was completely unaffected by him, that the scorching kiss they’d shared in her kitchen meant nothing to her. Less than nothing, in fact.

When the door opened, however, it wasn’t Cam who came in—it was Eli. She felt a slight pang but assured herself it wasn’t disappointment. After all, it wasn’t that she wanted to see Cam except to prove that he didn’t mean anything to her. Not anymore.

But Eli meant the world to her, and her smile came easily for him.

“How’s Ruby?” she asked, having learned about his wife’s heart attack from Megan, who worked with one of the doctor’s neighbors.

“She’s doing well. Thanks for the beautiful flowers. She was so tickled that you remembered gerberas are her favorite.”

“I was hoping they would brighten up her room and her spirits.”

“The did both,” Eli confirmed. “And remarkably well, I’d say, since she’s scheduled to come home tomorrow.”

“You must be so relieved.”

He nodded. “We’ve been married forty-two years. After that much time, you start to take certain things for granted. But I’m not taking anything for granted anymore.”

Ashley wondered if she would ever know that kind of deep and abiding love, and realized that she still hoped she would. She hadn’t completely given up on the idea of finding someone to share her life, she’d just decided not to worry about doing so. And, in the meantime, she would happily lavish all of her love and attention on the baby she was going to have.

“But I know you didn’t really come here to talk abut me,” the doctor continued. “So tell me how you’re doing.”

“I’m anxious to get these stitches out,” she admitted.

He scanned the notes in her file, closed the folder and reached for her hand. “Let’s take a look then.”

While he was bent over her hand, she stared at the calendar on the wall on the opposite side of the room, breathing slowly and carefully as she silently calculated the days and then the hours and minutes until it was time to go back to school. She felt a few little tugs, but no pain, and as long as she didn’t think about the fact that he was pulling threads out of her hand, she didn’t feel dizzy.

She hadn’t felt anything when Cam put the stitches in, either. Of course, she’d been given an injection to freeze the site, but even without the artificial numbing, she knew her awareness of Cam would have eclipsed everything else.

“How does it feel?”

She glanced down, saw that he’d finished removing the stitches. She carefully curled her fingers into a fist, nodded. “It feels good.”

“Cam did a nice job,” Eli said. “In a few more weeks, the scar will barely be visible.”

Ashley uncurled her fist and was pleased to note that there was no residual pain in her hand.

If only the same could be said about the scars Cam had left on her heart twelve years earlier.

Chapter Five

As a child, Ashley had always looked forward to the first day of school. As a teacher, she still did.

Maybe it would be different if she taught high school, where the students were more sullen and jaded. But for a group of five-and six-year-olds, entering first grade was as thrilling an event as Columbus’s discovery of a whole new world. They were all so young and eager to learn, and Ashley found their excitement and enthusiasm never failed to recharge her own.

She didn’t usually have supervision duty on Wednesday mornings, but like most other teachers on staff at Parkdale Elementary School, it was a tradition to meet on the playground behind the school so the students could catch a glimpse of their teachers before they entered the classroom, and vice versa. She knew most of the kids who would be in her class, of course, because the majority had attended kindergarten at the same school the previous year. But there were always a few new faces, children who had moved into the neighborhood over the summer and who were even more anxious about the first day because everything was strange and unfamiliar.

It was easy to spot the new ones, and Ashley liked to introduce herself before the first bell and to meet with the mother who was usually present and in whose hand a much smaller one would be tightly clasped.

She had three new students this year and she’d already made the rounds to say hello and invite the parents to come into the classroom. Some would accept her offer and, in doing so, would feel reassured about the environment in which they’d left their children. Others would decline, knowing that it would only make saying goodbye that much more difficult for the child. Ashley was supportive of either decision, trusting that the parent knew his or her child better than she did—at least on the first day.

She smiled at Adam Webber, one of the fifth-grade teachers and the boys’ basketball coach, when he came out of the school with the ever-present orange ball tucked under his arm.

“Look at them.” Adam shook his head. “So eager and enthusiastic.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll beat that out of them soon enough.”

He grinned easily at her teasing, because he knew he was one of the favorite teachers at Parkdale. “How does your class look this year? Or should I wait until the end of the day to ask you?”

“Twenty-three kids. Ten boys, thirteen girls.”

“Twenty-four,” he said.

“What?”

“Haven’t you seen Wendy this morning?” Adam asked, referring to the principal’s administrative assistant.

“No, I came directly around the back.”

“She told me she has an updated class list for you.”

“But I just picked up the list yesterday. And I did all of the name tags and locker magnets last night.”

He shrugged. “I’m just the messenger.”

Ashley turned to go into the school, and that’s when she saw her.

The child looked the right age for a first grader, with long, dark hair and wide, terrified eyes. She was wearing a sleeveless pink dress with tiny white daisies embroidered at the square neckline and along the hem, with matching pink canvas sneakers embroidered with the same flowers on the toes.

Obviously the newest addition.

Feeling an instinctive stir of empathy, Ashley had already started forward when she glanced from the child to parent—and froze.

The man holding the little girl’s hand was Cam Turcotte.

Ashley stopped by Wendy’s office and grabbed the new class list before ducking into her classroom and closing the door at her back. She just needed five minutes alone. Five minutes to assimilate the reality that had been shoved in her face. Five minutes to accept that Cam had a child—that the baby she’d once dreamed of having with him had been born to someone else.

She didn’t want to believe it. And yet she couldn’t deny it was true. There was no doubt the little girl with the shiny dark hair and wide green eyes clinging to his hand as if he was the center of her world could be anyone but his daughter.

But how could she not have known?

Cam might have moved away more than twelve years ago, but his parents had remained in town. In fact, it had been from his mother that she’d heard about his marriage to Danica, and that news had hit her the same way.

Gayle Turcotte, apparently recognizing how much the revelation had hurt Ashley, had been careful not to make any further mention of her son’s life in Seattle whenever their paths had crossed. She’d certainly never mentioned the baby girl that Cam’s wife had given birth to.

Madeline Carrington-Turcotte, according to the updated class list she’d inadvertently crumpled in her fist.

Cam had always been very traditional, so she would bet that the hyphenated name was his ex-wife’s idea. Just because Ashley had been foolish enough to doodle “Ashley Turcotte” inside the cover of her notebooks when she was in high school didn’t mean another woman would feel the same way about taking her husband’s name.

In any event, she and Cam had broken up more than twelve years earlier, so she knew it was ridiculous to feel so hurt by the knowledge that he’d had a child with another woman. But that knowledge failed to lessen her sense of betrayal.

Because when Cam had left her, one of the reasons he’d given for ending their relationship was that he didn’t want the life she’d envisioned for them—not yet.

“I’ve decided to go to Seattle,” he told her.

Ashley stared at him, feeling as if the very ground beneath her feet had begun to crumble. “Washington?”

He nodded. “Their School of Medicine is one of the best in the country.”

“But—” She didn’t quite know what to say, how to respond to something that he’d obviously already decided upon, and without even discussing it with her “—but you have at least three years before med school.”

“I know. But staying here, going to a university closer to home, it will only delay the inevitable.”

Inevitable? What was it that he thought was inevitable?

Ashley didn’t ask, because in her heart, she was afraid she already knew the answer. But she pushed aside her fears.

“There are good medical schools that aren’t on the other side of the country. Like Northwestern and Cornell. Even Chapel Hill would be better than Washington.”

“I want to go to Washington.”

She’d heard the finality in his voice, and her eyes had filled with tears. “You’re breaking up with me.”

He glanced away. “This is for the best, Ash.”

“Best for who?” she demanded.

“For both of us. Do you think this was an easy decision for me to make?”

“How would I know—since you never talked to me about it?”

“Because I knew you would try to convince me to stay. And because I was afraid I would let you.” He reached out and took her hands. “Because there’s a part of me that wants nothing more than to stay here with you.”

The seemingly heartfelt words and the warmth of his touch failed to thaw the icy numbness that had taken hold of her.

She managed to speak, though she didn’t manage to disguise the anguish in her tone when she asked, “Then why are you leaving?”

“Because we want different things, Ash. Being a doctor has been my dream for as long as I can remember.”

“You said you wanted to get married.”

“I do,” he agreed. “Someday. But I’m nowhere near being ready to make that kind of commitment yet. I’m not even close to thinking about being a husband or a father.”

As it turned out, that wasn’t exactly true.

Because only a few years later, before Ashley had even graduated from teacher’s college, he had married. He’d become someone else’s husband. And now she knew that he’d become a father, too.

He’d had the family she always wanted, and she was still alone.

Ashley wiped the tears from her cheeks, reminding herself that she wasn’t going to be alone forever. Despite her initial appointment at PARC having to be rescheduled, she was going to have a baby. And while she couldn’t deny a certain amount of disappointment that her child wouldn’t also have a father, she’d made her decision.

She wouldn’t regret that the baby she’d so often dreamed of having with Cam Turcotte would never be. And she absolutely wouldn’t let herself consider the possibility that his return to Pinehurst could change anything. Especially now that she knew he already was a father.

The ring of the bell jolted her out of her reverie. She hastily wiped the last of the moisture from her cheeks, pasted a smile on her face and opened the door to greet her new students.

She wasn’t sure how she made it through the day, but when the bell sounded at three o’clock, Ashley nearly wept with relief.

It took a few more minutes, of course, to ensure all the kids had their agendas and the assortment of documents that always went home on the first day. But the halls eventually emptied and quiet descended, and Ashley sank back into her chair.

“One day down, only one hundred and eighty-something to go.”

Ashley looked up, startled to see her sister in the doorway. Megan rarely ever came to the school to see Ashley, and the fact that she’d done so now indicated that she had something on her mind.

“One hundred and eighty-six,” Ashley told her. “But what dragged you out of the lab in the middle of the day?”

Megan practically floated into the room. She wasn’t usually the floating type, but she was obviously excited about something so Ashley tried to muster some enthusiasm for her.

“I had an appointment this side of town.” Megan came further into the room, some of the sparkle in her eyes fading as she looked more closely at her sister. “But let’s talk about what’s going on with you first.”

Ashley shook her head. She couldn’t talk about it. She didn’t know what to say, how to explain.

“Come on, Ash. You love the first day of school. I thought you’d be ready to go out and celebrate the beginning of a new year with a great big chocolate fudge brownie sundae at Walton’s.”

“Let’s just say that the day didn’t go exactly as planned.”

“I don’t understand.”

She sighed and pushed her class list across the desk. Megan picked up the page, frowning. Then her eyes widened.

“Madeline Carrington-Turcotte?”

Ashley nodded. “Cam’s daughter.”

“Oh, Ash.”

“She’s beautiful,” she said softly. “And very sweet and shy. She doesn’t say much, but she watches and she listens, her big green eyes taking everything in.”

“Of all the classrooms in all the schools in all the world, she walks into yours.”

Ashley managed to smile at the deliberate misquotation. “I just … I didn’t know how to react. I was completely unprepared. I had no idea that he had a child, never mind one I would end up teaching.”

“But he lives down the street,” Megan reminded her. “You never saw her?”

She shook her head. “He only moved in on the weekend. I saw the truck, saw furniture being unloaded, but I didn’t pay attention to anything else.” And she was regretting that now.

“Chocolate fudge brownie sundae?” Meg prompted gently.

Ashley managed to smile. “That sounds like the perfect way to end a crappy day.”

One of the reasons Cam had moved back to Pinehurst was to be able to spend more time with both his parents and his daughter. Another added benefit was that his parents were not just willing but happy to provide after-school care for Maddie on the days that he couldn’t get away from the office in time to pick her up. But he refused to let her first day of school be one of those days, and when she came racing across the grass and into his arms, he was more certain than ever that this move was the best thing for both of them.

He felt a slight twinge when he recalled the shock—and the pain—he’d seen in Ashley’s eyes when she saw him with Madeline that morning, and he realized the first-grade teacher might not agree. But he refused to worry about that while he walked home, hand in hand with his daughter, listening to her animated conversation the whole way.

He remembered her kindergarten teacher expressing concern that Maddie was too quiet in class, silent and withdrawn. But Cam knew it wasn’t a character flaw, just her personality. She’d always been shy with strangers, but at home and with her family, she was quite the little chatterbox.

“Do you want a snack?” he asked.

“Ice cream,” she said hopefully, hopping onto one of the stools at the breakfast bar.

“We don’t have any.”

She pouted. “You promised to get ice cream.”

“I know I did, but I forgot.”

His admission of guilt didn’t appease her and though Cam knew the dangers of being over-indulgent, he figured the first day at a new school warranted an exception to the rules.

“So why don’t you go wash up and we’ll go to Walton’s?”

“Who’s Walton?”

He smiled. “Walton isn’t a who but a where, and it’s where we go to get the very best ice cream in all of Pinehurst, New York.”

“Really?” Her eyes were almost as wide as her smile.

“Really.”

She hopped off of her stool and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Thanks, Daddy. You’re the best.”

Twenty minutes later, he handed a strawberry sundae to Maddie before accepting his double scoop of butter pecan from the teenager behind the counter and turned to look for a vacant table. A quick glance around the room revealed that there weren’t any.

“There’s my teacher, Daddy.”

Maddie’s words registered at the exact moment his gaze landed on Ashley, seated with her sister at a table for four on the other side of the room.

“Her name’s Miss Ashley,” his daughter reminded him.

Cam nodded.

“She’s very pretty,” Maddie said. “And she smiles a lot and she doesn’t yell. Not even when the skinny boy with the curly hair forgot to ask to go to the bathroom and went pee right in his pants.”

His lips curved. “Not even then?”

Maddie shook her head solemnly.

“So maybe first grade won’t be so bad, huh?”

“Maybe,” she allowed. “But it’s really too soon to tell.”

He was smiling at her comment as he guided her toward Ashley and Megan’s table.

“Looks like someone else decided to celebrate the first day of school with ice cream,” Ashley noted, her attention and smile focused on Madeline.

“It seemed appropriate,” Cam said.

“We thought the same thing,” Megan said, when Ashley failed to respond to his comment.

“But there don’t seem to be any vacant tables,” he pointed out. “So we were hoping you wouldn’t object to us joining you.”

“Of course not,” Megan said, though she cast a worried glance across the table.

Ashley still didn’t say anything to him, but she slid across the bench she was sitting on to make room for his daughter. Maddie smiled shyly at her and carefully set her dish on the table before climbing up beside her teacher.

“Thanks,” Cam said, taking the seat beside Megan. “I don’t remember it ever being so busy in here.”

“A lot changes in twelve years,” Ashley told him.

He met her gaze across the table and felt the zing of sparks that weren’t entirely attributable to her obvious annoyance with him.

“And some things,” he countered, “never do.”

Ashley ate her chocolate fudge brownie sundae so fast she was surprised she didn’t get brain freeze. But from the moment she’d looked up and spotted Cam in line at the counter, she’d wanted only to get out of Walton’s as quickly as possible. Thankfully her sister had sensed her discomfort and quickly finished her ice cream as well.

It was only after they’d said goodbye to Cam and Maddie and were on their way out the door that Ashley thought to ask again about the reasons for her sister’s unexpected midweek visit.

Megan dumped her empty dish and spoon in the garbage. “It really wasn’t that important.”

“Important enough to bring you to the school to talk to me.”

Her sister sighed. “Because I wanted to tell you first, but you’ve had a lot sprung on you already today.”

And Ashley knew her sister’s news and why she was suddenly reluctant to share it.

“You’re pregnant,” she guessed.

Meg nodded.

Ashley sucked in a breath.

Her sister was going to have a baby.

She felt a tug deep inside her heart. A combination of excitement and envy. She wanted to be happy for Megan. She was happy for her. And yet she couldn’t help but look at the life her sister was building with her new husband and wonder why all of the stars had aligned so perfectly for Megan and, seemingly at the same time, scattered everything in her own world.

A little more than six months earlier, she and Paige had struggled to convince Megan that she had nothing to lose by inviting Gage Richmond to be her date for Ashley’s engagement party. Megan had finally agreed, only because she’d been sure that Gage wouldn’t accept. But he had and, even on that first date, Ashley had seen the chemistry between them. Even more significantly, she’d recognized that there was a connection between them that she didn’t feel with the man she was planning to marry.

But she didn’t let that dissuade her from her plans, because she believed that there were more important things than connections. There were shared interests and common goals. Or maybe she’d deluded herself into thinking she and Trevor had shared interests and common goals because she so desperately wanted to get married and have a family of her own.

She wasn’t so desperate, however, that she was willing to overlook the fact that he’d been sleeping around on her almost from the time he’d put the ring on her finger. She’d been crushed to learn of his betrayal. And maybe, just a little, secretly relieved.

Because the closer the date had come for their wedding, the more she had started to realize that she was making a mistake. That she didn’t love Trevor as much as she should love the man she intended to marry. That she didn’t love him specifically as much as she loved the prospect of being a wife and mother.

Now Megan and Gage were married and getting ready to have a baby.

The tug came again. Stronger this time, but she pushed it aside. “Oh, Meg. That’s wonderful news.”

Her sister looked uncertain. “Are you really okay with this?”

“I’m thrilled for you,” Ashley told her, willing it to be true. “I was just caught off guard by your announcement. I didn’t even realize you and Gage were trying to have a baby.”

“Well, we weren’t actually trying, we just weren’t trying to prevent it.” She blushed prettily. “In fact, I think Gage is a little disappointed it happened as quickly as it did.”

“Obviously you guys are doing something right,” Ashley said.

Her sister’s blush deepened. “Everything is right with Gage. I never thought I would feel this way about anyone—or that anyone else would feel the same way about me. But he’s just—” her sigh was filled with blissful contentment “—amazing.”

“So are you,” Ashley told her sister. “Which is why you guys are so perfect for one another.”

“That’s what I want for you,” Megan said. “I know Trevor’s betrayal hit you hard, but you can’t give up hope that you’ll find someone to spend your life with just because of CBB.”

“I haven’t given up hope,” Ashley said, though she wasn’t entirely sure it was true. “I’m just not willing to put the rest of my life on hold while I wait around for Mr. Right to show up, because the reality is, there may not be a Mr. Right for me.”

“There is,” Megan insisted, and smiled slyly. “And I think he might already have shown up. Or maybe I should say shown up again.”

Ashley didn’t bother to respond. Cam Turcotte was part of her past, not her future, and she had no intention of arguing with her sister about that fact.

And no intention of letting herself yearn again for something that could never be.

Though it wasn’t one of their scheduled evenings to get together, Ashley wasn’t surprised when Paige showed up at her door Friday night. Or that she’d brought a bottle of her favorite merlot with her.

Ashley put together a platter of assorted crackers and cheeses and they took it out onto the porch with the wine.

“I don’t know why you’re paying rent on an apartment in Syracuse when you’ve been spending so much time in Pinehurst lately,” Ashley said to her.

“I’m only here on the weekends,” her cousin replied, glossing over the real issue. “Because it’s too far to commute to the office every day.”

“Seriously, Paige, what happened to your social life?”

Her cousin shrugged. “Things fizzled with Josh. Ben met someone else. As for Lucas—well, I realized I wasn’t secure enough to date a guy who’s prettier than me.”

Ashley had met Lucas once, and while she had to admit the man was unbelievably good-looking, she knew that her cousin’s serial dating was really a reflection of the nomadic childhood that had taught her, at an early age, not to form close attachments to people who wouldn’t be in her life for very long. The pattern had changed only when Paige’s father decided she needed more stability than his lifestyle afforded and finally left his daughter in the care of his sister and her husband. Ashley and Megan had forged an unbreakable bond with their cousin, but by habit or deliberation, she continued to keep everyone else at a distance.

“Is that why you’re here?” Ashley asked her now. “Because you had nothing better to do on a Friday night? Or because you were worried that I was going to fall apart?”

“You’re not the falling apart type,” Paige said, with such conviction Ashley almost believed her.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Seriously, you’ve dealt with a lot in the past six months and stood up through it all.”

“I had a minor meltdown on Wednesday,” she admitted, reaching for her glass. Thankfully the Fedentropin trial didn’t prohibit the consumption of alcohol, and the wine she’d drank was already helping smooth the roughest of the edges.

“When you found out Cam had a child? Or when you learned that your sister’s pregnant?”

“It was probably a combination of both.”

Paige nodded and set a slice of blue cheese on a rye cracker.

“I’m happy for Megan and Gage,” she said. “And I’m thrilled about the baby.”

“I know you are,” Paige agreed.

“I just want to know when it’s going to happen for me. When is it going to be my turn?”

“What happened to your appointment at the clinic?”

“I got bumped,” she grumbled. “The doctor had some kind of emergency.”

Her cousin smiled. “I think that’s the nature of the medical field.”

“I know. It just seems like one more detour sign on a road that’s been littered with them.”

“What kind of sign is Cam?”

Ashley sipped from her glass again. “Dead end.”

“Are you sure about that?” Paige asked. “Because if I’m not mistaken, that’s him walking up your driveway.”

Ashley set down her glass before she spilled the contents all over herself. “Don’t you dare leave—”

But Paige was already on her feet, reaching for the tray of snacks. “I’ll just go refresh this.” She turned and smiled at the uninvited guest who had stepped up onto the porch. “Hello, Cam,” she said, then slipped into the house before he could even respond.

Cam glanced at the closed door, then at Ashley. “Did I say something wrong?”

She didn’t smile at his attempted humor. “Not yet.”

He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I just came over to apologize.”

“What, exactly, are you apologizing for?”

“For not telling you that I had a child.”

She lifted a shoulder. “You don’t owe me any apologies, Cam.”

“I didn’t mean to blindside you.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does,” he insisted. “Maybe I figured you would have heard about Maddie a long time ago, but I shouldn’t have counted on that, and I should have given you the courtesy of an explanation.”

“No explanation required. You dumped me, met someone else, got married, had a child.”

“It wasn’t quite that simple.”

“I’d say it was exactly that simple.”

“I’m not going to apologize for not wanting what you did when I was nineteen,” Cam said. “Because any nineteen-year-old who wants to marry his high school sweetheart is either blinded by lust or completely without ambition. I’d apologize for hurting you because I was insensitive jerk, but I’ve already done that and I’m tired of trekking down the same path.”

“Then you can just follow the path right back to your own house,” she said coldly.

He shook his head. “That would be the easy way, and I’m not taking the easy way again.”

“It’s a way out,” she said. “And that’s all you ever wanted.”

“Wrong. I wanted you, Ashley. I wanted you a hell of a lot more than I should have at that age, and it terrified me.”

“Obviously you got over it.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But that’s the real bitch of it—because I never did.”

“You married another woman. Had a child with another woman.” Her voice hitched, and she hated him for it. Hated him for the pain she felt every time she thought about the baby he’d given to someone else.

Cam lowered himself into the chair that Paige had vacated. “I married Danica because I thought we wanted the same things. By the time I realized I was wrong, it was too late. We were married, she was pregnant, and even knowing our marriage was a mistake, I wouldn’t wish it away for anything in the world because I got Maddie out of it.”

Ashley looked away. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? All I ever wanted was to get married and have a family, and you ran as far and as fast as you could from me because you weren’t ready to make that kind of commitment.”

“Twelve years ago, I wasn’t ready,” he agreed, then smiled wryly. “There are still days that I’m not ready, but Madeline doesn’t really give me a choice in the matter.”

Ashley didn’t smile back, but she did ask, “So how did you end up with custody?”

Cam realized he should have been prepared for the question; Ashley certainly wasn’t the first person to ask it. Because although the courts no longer awarded custody to mothers as a matter of course and shared custody arrangements were increasingly popular, it was still somewhat unusual for a father to be granted primary care of a child.

He’d always felt awkward explaining the situation, and he’d resented having to make excuses for what he’d believed for so long was simply his ex-wife’s disinterest. He knew differently now, but he still didn’t know how to make anyone else understand without sharing secrets that weren’t his to share.

“Staying with me offered Madeline more stability,” he finally responded to Ashley’s question. “Especially since Danica was already planning to move to London.”

Ashley frowned as she sipped her wine. “And she was okay with that arrangement? She just moved to another continent and left her child behind?”

“We agreed it was best for Maddie.”

“Does Maddie see her very often?”

“Not as often, or as consistently, as I’d like,” he admitted. “But she did spend the last month of her summer vacation in London with her.”

“So why didn’t you mention your daughter to me the night you came over here?”

“You mean the night I kissed you?”

“I mean the night you brought pizza,” she clarified, as if the kiss was irrelevant.

But he could tell by the color that infused her cheeks that it wasn’t irrelevant at all, and that she remembered that kiss as clearly as he did. And as much as he wanted to kiss her again, to prove that the attraction between them was still very relevant, his real purpose in coming here tonight had been to clear the air, not to cloud it further.

“I should have,” he finally admitted. “But I don’t talk about Maddie very much when she’s gone. Not to anyone.”

“Why not?”

“Because talking about her makes me miss her even more.”

She seemed startled by his response, but then she nodded. “I guess I can understand that.”

“She’s the center of my world, the reason for everything I do.”

“She’s a lucky girl.” Ashley’s voice had softened, taken on an almost wistful quality. “To have a father so committed to her best interests.”

“Does that mean you forgive me?” he dared to ask.

“It means I like your daughter—she’s a great kid.”

“Her dad’s a pretty good guy, too.”

“I’m reserving judgment on that,” she said, but the smile that curved her lips gave him hope.

Chapter Six

Over the next few weeks, Ashley crossed paths with Cam on a fairly regular basis. He came to school every Wednesday to pick up Maddie and when he did, he usually dropped in to the classroom to chat with Ashley and check on his daughter’s progress. The awkwardness between them was fading and Ashley began to think that one day they might even be friends again.

And if Cam sometimes flirted with her, or dropped little hints that he wanted more from her than friendship, she didn’t take him too seriously. She didn’t dare.

She still thought about the kiss they’d shared in her kitchen, and she still got all hot and tingly when she did, but she had clearly established the boundaries for their relationship and she was determined to uphold them. But she was glad that her appointment at the clinic had been rescheduled. Even if it was still a few weeks away, it gave her something to look forward to and focus on. Maybe when she was finally expecting a baby of her own she would stop wishing she could be the mother Maddie needed so badly and the wife that shared Cam’s bed every night.

Because as often as she reminded herself that there could be no future for her with Cam, she nevertheless found herself daydreaming about the possibility. And as much as she’d always dreamed of having a child of her own, she knew that loving Cameron’s little girl would fill the aching void in her heart.

But Maddie had a mother, and Ashley knew that letting her imagination create happily-ever-after scenarios would only end up causing more heartache for herself in the end. She knew it, and yet, when Cam came out of his house as she was walking past on her way home from the neighborhood market Saturday morning, she couldn’t deny that her heart started to pound just a little bit faster.

“What perfect timing,” he said by way of greeting.

“For?” she prompted cautiously.

“Apparently you mentioned to your class that you like to hike at Eagle Point Park,” he said. “So Maddie suggested, as we’re heading up there for a picnic today, that we should ask you to go with us.”

“It was sweet of her to think of me, but I’m not sure that would be a good idea,” she said, far more tempted than she ought to be by the prospect of an outing with Cam and his daughter.

“Why not?”

“I just don’t think we should spend too much time together.”

“Why not?” he asked again.

“Because,” she said, unwilling to admit that wanting to say yes was proof enough to her that it was a bad idea. Because giving in to what she wanted where Cameron Turcotte was concerned had always gotten her into trouble.

“That’s hardly a reasonable response,” he chided.

“I’m sure it’s one you use all the time with your daughter when it suits your purposes.”

“Actually, I never say no to Madeline unless I can give her a reason for it.”

“While I’m sure that chalks up extra parenting points for you, it doesn’t change my answer,” she said firmly.

But Cam wasn’t dissuaded. “Come on, Ash,” he said. “It’s not as if we can get into too much trouble in the hills with a six-and-a-half-year-old chaperone.”

“I’m not worried,” she lied.

“No?”

It was more a challenge than a question, as if he was all too aware of the tug-of-war that was going on in her mind—the struggle between what she wanted and what she knew was smart.

“No,” she insisted.

“Then why won’t you come with us?” he challenged.

“Maybe I have other plans for the day,” she hedged, mentally searching for some excuse, any excuse, that sounded less desperate than making a list of 1001 reasons that getting involved with Cameron Turcotte again is a very bad idea—even if that was exactly how she planned to spend her afternoon in order to ensure that she was clear on all of those reasons.

“Do you?”

“As a matter of fact, I was going to—”

She wasn’t sure what she intended to say, because just then the front door flew open and Maddie came racing across the lawn.

“We’re going to Eagle Point Park,” she announced. “And I made samiches and Daddy packed juice and we’re going to have a picnic. Are you going to come with us? Please, Miss Ashley. It’s going to be so much fun, but it will be even more fun if you come, too.”

And that quickly, all of Ashley’s resolutions about putting distance between herself and Cam and his little girl dissolved in the radiance of Maddie’s smile.

“I think a picnic sounds wonderful,” she said.

Cam never used to be the picnicking type, but there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for his little girl. So when Madeline suggested packing a lunch and taking it up to the park, it seemed like a relatively harmless request. It wasn’t until they were putting together the sandwiches that his daughter mentioned Ashley, and he realized that he’d been set up.

Not that he minded, really. After all, spending time with Ashley Roarke was anything but a hardship. But he did worry that his daughter seemed to have become so attached to her teacher, and so quickly.

Part of it, he knew, was her desperate craving of female attention—something that he was simply incapable of giving her. Another part was Ashley’s natural warmth and compassion, traits that made her such a great teacher and an easy target for his daughter’s affections.

As they walked along one of the simpler trails, Ashley taught Maddie how to identify different kinds of trees by their leaves. She also pointed out various birds and the tracks of squirrels and raccoons and something that was—no, not a bear—probably just a big dog.

It was comfortable and easy, and Cam found himself wishing that they could spend every lazy Saturday afternoon together like this. Just him and his daughter and the woman he … liked?

The automatic mental pause nearly made Cam smile.

Of course, he liked Ashley. They’d been friends for a long time before they’d ever become lovers. They’d had a lot of similar interests, enjoyed the same books, music and movies. They liked the same kind of pizza, would both rather play baseball than watch it on TV, and appreciated walks in the rain.

In fact, Ashley had once been such an integral part of his life that, when he’d ended their relationship before going away to school, he’d lost not just his girlfriend but his best friend. It had been his decision to cut all ties between them, finally and completely, at least until he was finished college, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

He hadn’t seen her again before their high school reunion in the spring, hadn’t realized until then how much of a hole had been left in his life when he’d cut her out of it. But the worst part of seeing her again was realizing how much she still mattered to him, and learning that she was in love with and engaged to someone else.

He’d recognized that his feelings were more than a little hypocritical, considering that he’d already been married and divorced, but he just couldn’t imagine her with anyone else. He didn’t want to imagine her with anyone else.

Deciding to move back to Pinehurst when he knew she was planning a wedding to another man had been difficult. But in the end, he’d known it was what was best for his daughter. With Danica now living in London, there was no reason he had to stay in Seattle, and every reason to move closer to his family so that Madeline’s grandparents could be part of her life.

“Hurry up, Daddy.” Maddie’s voice called back to him, prompting his feet into motion.

“Sorry,” he apologized, when he caught up to them.

“What were you doing back there?” Ashley asked.

He shrugged the pack off of his shoulders, opened the zipper and pulled out the blanket they’d brought to spread out on the ground. “I thought I saw a … an owl.”

“An owl?” She lifted her brow.

“Owls are … noc-tur-nal,” Maddie said, carefully enunciating the word and looking to her teacher for confirmation. Ashley nodded.

“That means they sleep during the day and come out at night,” his daughter informed him.

He shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t an owl.”

“Owls eat mice and frogs and birds.” She made a face after reciting that fact, as if the idea was as distasteful as eating peas or Brussels sprouts—her least favorite vegetables.

“Speaking of food,” Cam said, beginning to unpack their lunch.

“I hope you didn’t bring mice and frogs and birds,” Ashley said.

Maddie giggled. “No, we made samiches.” She took a plate and balanced it on her lap. “What kind of samich do you want, Miss Ashley?”

“What are my choices?”

“Peanut butter, peanut butter and jam, or peanut butter and banana.”

Ashley mulled over the options, finally deciding, “Peanut butter and banana.”

Cam watched as Maddie carefully selected three pinwheel sandwiches from the plastic container and arranged them in a semicircle on the plate. Then she added two cookies—peanut butter, of course—and a small cluster of green grapes.

“That looks absolutely delicious,” Ashley said, accepting the plate.

Maddie beamed in appreciation of her praise, and Cam felt his heart swell. Until he’d started spending time with Maddie and Ashley together, he hadn’t realized how much his daughter needed a woman’s attention. She missed out on so much not having a mother involved in her life, and though his mother tried to spend as much time as possible with her granddaughter, it wasn’t the same thing.

Gayle had mentioned—several times in recent years—that he should think about getting married again, that he needed a wife as much as Maddie needed a mother. But even if he’d agreed with her assessment—and he was definitely on the fence about the wife part—none of the women he’d dated had tempted him to think any longer term than the next date. There certainly hadn’t been anyone whom he’d wanted to wake up beside every morning for the rest of his life, and there hadn’t been anyone who’d ever made his daughter smile as she was smiling at Ashley now.

Not that he was thinking in terms of marriage with Ashley. Definitely not.

And yet, he knew that if there was a woman who could tempt his thoughts in that direction, it was Maddie’s first-grade teacher. Yes, Ashley tempted him. But he knew it was going to take some time to figure out if he could still tempt her.

Tearing his thoughts back to the picnic, he noticed that Maddie had taken a second plate and was loading it up with all of her favorites.

“What about my lunch?” Cam asked, indicating the last empty plate.

“Ladies always get served first,” she informed him primly. “And you can get your own.”

Ashley’s cough sounded more like a laugh, and when he looked at her over his daughter’s head, he saw the amusement that danced in her eyes.

Those beautiful, sparkling violet eyes.

The same eyes that had haunted his dreams for years, and that continued to haunt his dreams now.

He held her gaze for a long moment, a moment that spun out between them, until there were no birds chirping in the trees, until there was no wind rustling through the leaves.

Until there was nothing but the two of them.

Until Maddie broke the silence by asking for juice.

Ashley blinked and looked away, and the moment was gone.

Something had happened between them at Eagle Point Park. Ashley wasn’t exactly sure what, except that something had changed. Until that moment, she’d managed to convince herself that the feelings she had for Cameron were only remnants of a long-ago attraction. And maybe there were still remnants of that attraction, but there were also new feelings stirring inside of her. Stronger and deeper feelings that she’d managed to ignore because they were only her feelings.

In the space of a heartbeat, with the heat of just one look, Cam decimated that belief. And the realization that there was still a connection between them, a simmering awareness that pulled at both of them, terrified her.

So when Maddie approached her desk at the end of the day on Monday, it was an effort to smile, to pretend that everything was the same. And then the child’s question shattered even that illusion.

“Are you dating my daddy?”

The marker Ashley had been using to prepare a math chart for the next day’s lesson slipped from her fingers.

She bent to retrieve it, wishing she could pick up an easy answer to the little girl’s inquiry at the same time. Instead, she responded with a question of her own. “Why would you ask something like that?”

“Because I told Victoria that we went on a picnic on Saturday and she said that you must be dating my daddy and maybe you would marry him and be my new mommy.”

She had worried that agreeing to go on a picnic with Cam and Maddie was a bad idea—she just hadn’t known how bad. And the desperate yearning in the little girl’s big green eyes nearly broke her heart.

Ashley carefully recapped the marker and set it aside so she could give Maddie her full attention.

“I’m not dating your daddy,” she said gently. “But he and I are old friends and you and I are new friends, and friends spend time together.”

The light in Maddie’s eyes dimmed. “So you’re not going to marry him?”

“No.” She swallowed. “I’m not going to marry him.”

“But if you’re friends, you must like him,” she insisted, with the unequivocal reasoning of a first grader. “And if you like him, then you should marry him.”

“Lots of people like one another without getting married.”

Maddie sighed. “But Grandma says that Daddy needs a wife who will make him happy and I need a mother who cares more about me than her career.”

Out of the mouths of babes, Ashley thought, and cautiously asked, “She said this to you?”

Maddie shook her head. “She said it to Grandpa, but I could hear them talking.”

“Sometimes adults have conversations that they don’t mean for children to overhear, and what your grandma said probably wasn’t intended to be repeated.”

Maddie nodded. “But I think Daddy should get a new wife, too, ‘cause then we could be a family.”

The crack in Ashley’s heart split open a little wider. “That’s something only your daddy can decide.”

Cam’s daughter sighed again. “I need to go now. Grandma will be waiting for me.”

“Okay.” And because she figured they both needed it, she gave Maddie a quick hug. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Being summoned for a conference with the teacher wasn’t quite the same as being called to the principal’s office, but Cam had an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach just the same when he heard the message from Ashley on his answering machine.

He glanced at the calendar before he called her back. “I have about an hour at seven o’clock tonight while Maddie’s at ballet,” he said. “Can I buy you a coffee at Bean There Café?”

“That works for me,” she agreed, but still gave him no indication what it was she wanted to talk about.

So he worried about it while he cooked spaghetti for dinner, and though he gently tried to elicit details from Maddie about her day at school, his daughter was uncharacteristically close-mouthed, a fact which only increased his apprehension. They loaded the dishwasher together after they’d finished eating, then she washed up and went to get changed for her dance class, but there was no enthusiasm in her step and no sparkle in her eye.

When he got to the café, he noted that Ashley looked almost as apprehensive as he felt.

“What did she do?” he asked without preamble when he brought their drinks—regular black coffee for him, a cinnamon dolce latte for Ashley—to the table.

“She didn’t do anything wrong,” she hastened to reassure him. “I just thought you should be aware that your daughter is expressing an interest in you finding a new wife.”

He exhaled a sigh of relief. “I thought maybe she’d stabbed that annoying Charlie Partridge with her safety scissors.”

Her eyes flashed. “I’m glad you think this is funny.”

“I don’t,” he assured her. “But I was envisioning so many worse things that the truth almost seems anticlimactic.” He sipped his coffee, considering her revelation. “How did this come up?”

“She asked me—” her gaze slid away from his, her cheeks flushed with color “—if I was going to marry you.”

Despite her obvious embarrassment, he couldn’t resist teasing her a little. “Did you tell her that I hadn’t asked you … yet?”

“Will you stop joking about this?” Ashley demanded, obviously not amused. “She’s at an impressionable age and obviously looking for a mother figure.”

“I know,” he admitted. “I just didn’t realize how much until recently.”

Ashley sipped her latte.

“You told me she doesn’t see her mother on a regular basis,” she reminded him gently. “Is there anything you can do to change that?”

“Not likely. Danica comes to visit whenever it’s convenient for her, and that’s not more than two or three times a year. The four weeks that Maddie spent in London this summer is more time than she usually spends with her mother in a whole year.”

And he wasn’t entirely sure she’d spent most of that time with her mother, because she’d come home with a new handheld video game system and half a dozen games that Danica had bought to keep her busy while she “finished up some work.”

“What about telephone calls?” Ashley prompted.

“Her mother tries to call once a week.”

“Tries?”

He sighed. “What do you want me to say, Ash? I knew when I married Danica that she was committed to building her career. I didn’t know that she was committed to her career at the expense of all else, but that’s the way it is.”

“Okay, so maybe she isn’t a candidate for mother of the year,” Ashley allowed, “but Maddie is her daughter and she needs her mother.”

“Danica doesn’t see it that way.”

It was obvious that Ashley didn’t understand. Hell, he wasn’t sure he understood, but he’d long ago accepted that Maddie would never have a close relationship with her mother.

“The truth is,” he heard himself say, “Danica never wanted to have children.”

Ashley stared at him, as if she couldn’t believe what he was saying. He could hardly believe he was telling her. But this was Ashley, and if he wanted a second chance with her—and he’d finally accepted that he did—he had to be honest with her, and he had to trust that she would understand.

“I’ve never admitted this to anyone else—not even my parents—but Madeline wasn’t planned,” he confided to her. “In fact, Danica wasn’t very happy when she realized she was pregnant.”

That was an understatement, but he couldn’t admit to anyone, even so many years later, that Danica hadn’t been happy at all. In fact, she’d been furious. Having apparently managed to put aside the grief of a previous miscarriage, she was too busy building a career to want to have a baby.

Cam had tried to understand. Maybe it wasn’t what either of them had envisioned for a marriage that was barely into its sixth month, he’d admitted, but her pregnancy didn’t change their plans, it merely accelerated them. Or so he’d believed, until he’d realized that, despite claiming to be pregnant when they married, Danica never really wanted to have children.

He’d been stunned by her attitude—and furious when she’d suggested terminating her pregnancy. She wasn’t an unwed teenager, but a married woman and no way in hell was he going to agree to abort their child.

And so was laid the first brick in the wall that built up between them.

“But she fell in love with her baby when she held her in her arms,” Ashley guessed, obviously unable to imagine any other possibility.

Which was exactly what Cam had hoped would happen.

But the truth was, Danica only agreed to have the baby so long as he assumed complete responsibility for their child after the birth. And he’d gone along with her demands, certain that her attitude toward their child would change through the course of her pregnancy. But the distance between them continued to grow along with the baby in her womb.

“She tried to be a good mother,” Cam said in defense of his ex-wife, because he wanted to believe it was true. And because, when he realized some hard truths about her own childhood, he knew she’d handled the situation in the way that she believed was best for their child. “But Madeline was a difficult baby and after working fourteen hours at the office, Danica didn’t have the patience for a demanding infant.”

“She went back to work right after having the baby?”

“Her career meant a lot to her,” he said, all too aware that it didn’t just sound like a lame excuse, it was a lame excuse.

“More than her family?” Ashley demanded incredulously. “And what about your career?”

“I was still finishing my internship.”

“And taking care of the baby,” she guessed.

“There was a retired woman who lived above us who helped out a lot, but I was happy to do as much as I could between shifts at the hospital.”

“That couldn’t have been easy.”

“It wasn’t easy,” he agreed. “But I was happy to do it, to be the one who was there when she cut her first tooth, when she spoke her first word, when she took her first step.” And each one of those precious moments was indelibly imprinted on his memory.

“I know I’ve said it before, but Madeline’s lucky to have a dad like you,” Ashley told him.

“And a teacher like you,” he said.

She finished her latte. “I just thought you should know what was going through her mind.”

“I’m a little surprised,” he admitted. “She’s never mentioned the possibility of me finding a new wife before.”

“It might be a factor of her age,” Ashley suggested. “She’s making friends at school, and they talk about their mothers—it’s not surprising that she might look for someone to fill that role for her.”

“And that she would gravitate toward you.” He reached across the table, touched her hand. “When I came back for the reunion, I was surprised to find that you weren’t already married with the half a dozen kids you always wanted.”

She pulled her hand away. “Life doesn’t always turn out the way we plan.”

A truth of which he was all too aware. And yet, coming back to Pinehurst had helped him to see beyond the boundaries imposed by the choices he’d made to the opportunities that might still be found.

“Do you believe in second chances?” he asked cautiously.

She was silent for a minute, and when she finally spoke, it was only to say, “I believe that Maddie’s class will be finishing soon, and I need to get home.”

Cam pushed back his chair to walk her out.

“Thanks—for the update.”

She just nodded.

He watched her go, wondering why she’d refused to answer his question.

Because she didn’t believe in second chances?

Or because she did?

Chapter Seven

The Fall Festival was an old but ever-evolving Pinehurst tradition. What had started as a single-day celebration of the harvest back in 1859, when most of the town’s residents were farmers, had become a four-day mid-October event.

For Ashley and Paige, it was an annual ritual that brought back mostly fond memories of their teenage years. Because she’d been a bookworm rather than a social butterfly, Megan’s memories weren’t quite so fond, but they usually dragged her along to the fair with them anyway. And while Megan had critically assessed the engineering of the midway rides, Ashley and Paige were never deterred by her negative attitude.

They would save up their allowance for weeks in advance of the fair, happily giving up their hard-earned cash for a bird’s-eye view of the grounds from the top of the Ferris wheel, the thrill of a spin around the Zipper or the heart-pounding fear of the haunted house.

Of course, the fair was more than just the rides and caramel apples and cotton candy. It included a livestock exhibition and agricultural displays with the fattest pig, prettiest flowers and biggest pumpkins proudly displayed with their award-winning ribbons. There were also cooking contests, with local chefs putting their pies and cookies and breads to the test of the judges, and offering samples and selling their wares to the public.

As Ashley walked along the well-trodden dirt path munching on a bag of fresh kettle corn, she had to admit that, at almost thirty years of age, she enjoyed the annual festival probably even more now than she had as a teen. She no longer stood in line for the Zipper, but she’d learned to appreciate the arts and crafts displays more, and she always bought a couple of jars of Mrs. Kurchik’s homemade peach jam, winner of the blue ribbon every year for as far back as she could remember.

“You’ve got to see the baby pigs,” Ashley told Paige, steering her cousin toward the barn. Having brought her class on a field trip the previous day, she’d scoped out most of the grounds already.

“It stinks in the barn,” Paige protested.

“It smells like animals,” Ashley allowed, breathing in the scent of damp earth and fresh straw with just an underlying hint of manure.

Paige wrinkled her nose but gamely followed her through the wide doors. “It smells exactly as it did fifteen years ago.”

“Really?” Ashley was surprised by the comment. “We hardly ever came to see the animals when were in high school.”

“I wasn’t in here to see the animals.”

Ashley glanced over her shoulder, saw her cousin smiling.

“Do you remember Marvin Tedeschi?” Paige asked.

She scrambled through her memories to put a face to the name. “Mr. Archer’s history class?”

Paige smiled and nodded. “He got to second base with me, right here in this barn during the Fall Festival when we were in tenth grade.”

“You went to second base with Marvin Tedeschi?” Ashley stared at her. “The quiet kid with shaggy blond hair?”

“That quiet kid had the lips of a poet and the hands of an artist.”

“How did I not know this?”

“You were too busy lusting after Cam Turcotte to notice what was going on with anyone else,” Paige said.

Ashley couldn’t deny that was probably true, so she only asked, “And what happened after second base?”

Her cousin sighed. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Well, he got to second base a couple more times after that, but we never took it any further.” Her lips curved, her eyes glinted. “At least, not until I saw him at the reunion in the spring.”

“You hooked up with him that night?”

“I was feeling a little … nostalgic.”

“And he was feeling a little … Wilder?” Ashley teased.

Paige grinned. “I’d say he was feeling a lot Wilder. And left me feeling very grateful.”

“So that was it? You had great sex, then just went your separate ways?”

“Neither of us wanted anything more than that.”

“I don’t know that I could ever be so casual about intimacy,” Ashley admitted.

“Because you don’t think about sex for the purpose of physical release but as an assessment tool in your search for a potential husband,” her cousin pointed out.

“That’s not true.”

“It wasn’t a criticism,” Paige assured her.

Ashley frowned. “It’s still not true.”

“Have you ever had sex with a guy just because you thought it would be fun?”

Because she hadn’t, she only said, “That doesn’t prove anything.”

“It proves that you’re looking for a mate for life,” Paige insisted. “And there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I’m not looking for a mate at all, not anymore,” Ashley reminded her.

“Then you should try sex just for fun,” her cousin advised.

She shook her head. “I think I’ll keep my expectations low, at least that way I won’t be disappointed.”

Paige stopped in mid-stride and turned to face her. “I can’t believe it.”

“What?”

“CBB wasn’t even good in bed.”

Ashley felt her cheeks flame as she reached out to rub the cow’s head. The big, dark eyes closed and the animal seemed to sigh with pleasure. “Sex was … fine.”

Paige lifted her brows. “Fine?”

“Look, if it’s okay with you, I’d really rather not discuss this now.” There wasn’t anything she couldn’t talk to her cousin about, but if they were going to perform a postmortem on her sex life, she wanted it to be in the privacy of her own home with a glass of wine in her hand, not in a public venue where anyone could overhear their conversation. Not that there were many other people in the barn, but still.

Unfortunately, Paige wouldn’t be deterred. “I need to understand this.”

“What’s to understand?”

“You were going to marry him.”

“And?” she prompted.

“And I can’t fathom why you would want to marry a guy who didn’t rock your world,” her cousin told her.

“Maybe my world isn’t capable of being rocked,” Ashley said, aware that she sounded more than a little defensive.

“Are you saying … never?”

She looked away. “Never with Trevor.”

“Sounds like a really bad slogan,” Paige said. “Maybe you should suggest he put it on his business cards, as a warning to other unsuspecting women.”

Ashley felt her lips curve, grateful that her cousin could make her see the light side of such a humiliating admission. “I’m happy just to move on,” she said, doing so towards the pigpen.

“But—oh.” Whatever else Paige was about to say was forgotten when she caught sight of the seven piglets, their round pink butts wiggling as they scrambled for position while nursing at their mother’s belly. “Oh, they are so cute.”

“My kids went crazy, oohing and aahing when they saw them yesterday,” Ashley told her.

“Kind of like I just did?”

“Just like that,” she agreed.

“Seven babies,” Paige mused. “Can you imagine?”

Ashley would happily settle for one baby of her own. At least one at a time. But she pushed the pang of longing aside, as she’d been doing for months now, since the end of her engagement to Trevor and the realization that her dreams of motherhood were slipping further and further away from her.

“Mama Pig doesn’t seem to be fazed,” she said instead.

“That’s because seven is actually a fairly small litter for a pig,” a male voice informed her from over their shoulders.

A familiar voice that had Ashley’s heart pounding too hard and too fast before she even turned around and confirmed the identity of the speaker. And when she saw Cam, her heart started to pound even harder and faster. He had his daughter with him, and obviously the little girl’s infatuation with the piglets she’d seen on her field trip had compelled her to bring her father back to the barn.

“Someone’s been doing his homework,” Paige noted. “Trying to impress the teacher?”

Cam just grinned.

“Mother pigs can have between eight and twelve babies,” Madeline said. Apparently she’d done the homework along with her father and wasn’t going to be outdone by him. Then the little girl smiled at Ashley. “I had so much fun visiting the pigs yesterday that I brung Daddy back to see them.”

“Brought,” both Ashley and Cam corrected automatically.

“Sorry,” Ashley said. “The teacher instincts don’t clock out after hours.”

“No need to apologize,” Cam assured her.

From over her shoulder, Ashley registered the sound of a throat clearing. She sighed and turned.

“This is my cousin, Paige,” she said to Maddie. “I brought her to see the pigs, too.” Then, to Paige, “You know Cam, of course. And this is his daughter, Madeline.”

Paige offered her hand to the girl. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Madeline.”

Madeline took Paige’s hand and shook it awkwardly. “Okay.”

“She’s six,” Cam said, as an explanation of his daughter’s response.

“She’s adorable,” Paige said, and he smiled like the proud father that he was, while Ashley tried to ignore the ache she felt whenever she looked at his little girl and the much stronger sizzle of attraction she experienced whenever he was near.

“There’s cows, too, Daddy,” Maddie said, tugging on his hand.

“Cows?” Paige interjected, as if they hadn’t already come from that direction. “Can you show me where?”

Madeline looked to her father for permission. He nodded and released her hand, and she immediately headed off for the bovine stalls, Paige trailing in her wake.

“Not very subtle, is she?” Ashley mused.

“You won’t hear me complain about having some time alone with you,” Cam assured her.

“We’re not exactly alone.”

“Close enough,” he said, and edged nearer to her.

Too close, she thought, as her heart started to pound just a little bit faster. “Cam.”

He ignored the warning in her voice and leaned closer. “You smell much nicer than the pigs.”

She couldn’t help but smile at that. “I should hope so.”

“I like your perfume,” he told her. “It’s similar to what you wore in high school, but sexier.”

“It’s the same perfume I wore in high school,” she admitted.

“Then it must be that you’re even sexier now than you were then.”

She swallowed and shifted away from him. “Why are you doing this, Cam?”

“What is it that you think I’m doing?” he asked her.

“Flirting with me.”

He smiled. “Maybe to see if you’ll flirt back.”

“I won’t,” she said, a reminder to herself as much as a response to him.

“What if I took you for a ride on the Ferris wheel? Would you flirt with me then?”

She shook her head.

“How about a spin on the Zipper?”

“I’d be more likely to throw up on you,” she warned.

“You used to love the Zipper.”

“I used to love a lot of things.”

His eyes locked on hers. “I remember.”

The potent sensuality in his gaze had the nerves in her belly quivering and her knees trembling. She tightened her grip on the railing, holding on to the wood as she desperately tried to hold her hormones in check.

“And I can’t stop thinking about that kiss we shared in your kitchen,” he told her.

“It was just a kiss.”

“A kiss that keeps me awake at night.”

“A kiss that never should have happened,” she said firmly, refusing to admit that the memory of that kiss had the exact same effect on her.

“We were always good together, Ash.”

She swallowed. “Were—past tense.”

“That kiss proves nothing is finished between us.”

“I’m not going to get involved with you again, Cam.”

He stroked the back of her hand, his fingertips tracing lazy circles over the soft skin. She wanted to snatch her hand away, but to do so would be to admit how much his touch affected her, how much he affected her.

“Because you’re still hung up on your ex?” he asked.

“Because I have no interest in repeating the mistakes of the past.”

“I made the mistake,” he said, “when I said goodbye to you.”

She couldn’t stand here and listen to him sounding so sincerely contrite. She couldn’t look into the fathomless depths of his dark-green eyes and not want to believe what he was saying. Because if she let herself believe he was sorry, that he really did want another chance, well, she just might be foolish enough to give him another chance. And that was something she couldn’t let happen. She had an appointment at PARC and plans for her life now, plans that didn’t include Cam Turcotte or any other man.

So she turned away and started walking in the direction Paige and Madeline had gone. She knew he would follow, but she also knew that he wouldn’t continue whatever game he was playing if there was any danger of his daughter overhearing them.

“We have to run,” Paige said, as soon as Ashley caught up with her. “I’ve got a client emergency and need to head back to the office, but I can drop you at home first, unless—” she looked questioningly at Cam.

“That’s fine,” Ashley said, wondering if her cousin had fabricated the client emergency in an attempt to drop her in Cam’s lap.

At the same time, he said, “I can take Ashley home later.”

She shook her head. No way was she going to spend a single moment more than was absolutely necessary with Cam Turcotte. “It’s okay. I’m ready to go now.”

“If Cam doesn’t mind giving you a ride, that would simplify things for me,” Paige said. “Since I’m closer to the office if I leave straight from here.”

Ashley narrowed her gaze, more convinced than ever that there was no emergency. “Well, I don’t want to inconvenience anyone, so I’ll take a cab.”

“It’s not an inconvenience,” Cam insisted.

“Great. Thanks,” Paige said, then kissed Ashley’s cheek, waved to Maddie, who had wandered over to look at the bunnies, and bolted from the barn.

Ashley bit back a sigh of frustration.

Cam smiled, as if he knew as well as she that they’d been played. The difference was, he apparently didn’t mind, but Ashley vowed that she would have a serious talk with her cousin the next time she saw her.

“The bunnies are sleeping,” Maddie announced to her father, her disappointment obvious.

“It must be past their bedtime,” Cam said. “As it’s also past yours.”

“But I’m not tired,” his daughter insisted, though the statement was immediately followed by a wide yawn just as an older couple entered the barn.

Cam’s parents, Ashley realized, and wondered if this night could get any more awkward.

She’d spent a lot of time in their home and had grown to know Rob and Gayle Turcotte well while she and Cam were dating. But when Cam ended their relationship and went away to school, their paths had crossed much less frequently, and Ashley still felt awkward whenever they did. Maybe it was her own fault, because she’d loved them almost as much as she’d loved Cam and she’d mistakenly assumed they would be her family someday, too. Losing them, less than two years after her own father had passed away, had devastated her almost as much as being dumped by Cam.

“Looks like we’re just on time,” Rob said, scooping his granddaughter into his arms and making her giggle.

“I wondered where you two had wandered off to,” Cam said to his parents.

“Your mother got waylaid by Ethel Mayer and conned into buying raffle tickets for a blanket we won’t win and don’t need even if we do,” Rob explained.

“It’s a quilt, not a blanket,” his wife chided. “And a beautiful work of art.” Then she smiled at Ashley. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

“It’s nice to see you again,” Ashley said, and hoped she sounded half as sincere as Cam’s mother.

Maddie, having been set back on her feet by her grandfather, reached for her grandmother’s hand. “Come see the piggies, Grandma.”

Gayle glanced at her watch. “Only for a quick minute, then we have to get you home to bed.”

“But I’m not tired,” Maddie said again.

“But Grandpa is,” Gayle replied in a staged whisper. “And you know how cranky he gets if he stays up past his bedtime.”

Maddie sighed. “Okay. But we have to see the piggies first.”

“We’ll see the piggies first,” her grandmother promised. Then to the others, “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

“Hey,” Cam called, as his daughter started to walk away with her grandparents.

Maddie turned and ran back to him. He squatted down so she could throw her arms around his neck and give him a loud smacking kiss. “Bye, Daddy. Love you.”

“Love you, too, baby,” he said, and something squeezed tight inside Ashley’s heart.

Maddie raced back to her grandparents, turning to wave one last time, then Ashley was alone with Cam again.

Cam watched his daughter until she was out of sight before turning to Ashley. “Looks like it’s just you and me now.”

“Looks like,” she agreed.

It was the first time they’d been alone together since their meeting at the Bean There Café, since she’d told him that his daughter was trying to find him a wife. He’d been thinking about that conversation a lot recently, and thinking that he might not object to getting married again.

Not that he was in any hurry to find himself standing at the altar, but he was no longer adamantly opposed to the possibility. Especially when he considered the potential benefits of making Ashley his bride.

Of course, thinking about marriage—even in the most abstract sense—was a little premature when Ashley was as skittish about being alone with him as the newborn foal was about the strangers hovering around her stall. First, they had to get to know one another all over again, and he would have to thank Paige for giving him this time with her cousin.

“So what do you want to do now?” he asked.

“I think I’ve had enough for tonight,” Ashley said, making her way towards the doors. “So I’ll just call a cab and—”

“I promised Paige I would take you home,” he interrupted to remind her.

“You were conned by my cousin.”

He shrugged. “Either way, there’s no reason for you to take a cab when I’m going in the same direction.”

“Fine,” she relented.

“Are you really that opposed to spending time in my company?”

“I’m not opposed at all,” she said. “I’m just not interested.”

“You sure didn’t kiss me like a woman who was not interested.”

She glared at him over her shoulder; he just grinned.

“In fact, you kissed like a woman who enjoys being kissed, and touched and—”

“I was dizzy from the loss of blood,” she said.

“You didn’t lose that much blood.” But he picked up her hand, turned it to the light.

“What are you doing?”

“It’s called a follow-up exam.”

Ashley was tempted to make some comment about playing doctor, but decided that any kind of sexual innuendo was inherently dangerous around Cam Turcotte. Instead she said, “Dr. Alex already checked it out and said everything’s fine.”

“It looks like it’s healing nicely,” he agreed. Then he dipped his head and feathered light kisses along the side of her palm. “How does it feel now?”

She felt all kinds of things she shouldn’t be feeling, and none of them had anything to do with the fading scar on her hand. “Fine,” she managed.

“No tightness? No pain?”

“No.” Not in my hand.

He smiled, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking, but all he said was, “Good.”

“Eli said you did an exceptional job with the stitches,” she admitted. “That I probably won’t even have much of a scar.”

“You’ve always had pretty hands. I wanted to make sure they stayed that way.” He lowered her hand but, instead of releasing it, linked their fingers together and led her toward the midway.

“The parking lot is the other way.”

“I know. The Ferris wheel is this way.”

“Aren’t you anxious to get home to Maddie?”

“She’s spending the night at my parents’ house,” he told her.

“Oh.”

“Ferris wheel?” he prompted again.

She glanced up at the towering wheel, felt a quick jolt of excitement low in her belly, though she wasn’t sure if it was anticipation of the ride or just the excitement of being with Cam. She decided not to question but to go with her instincts.

“The Ferris wheel sounds like fun,” she agreed.

He must have purchased tickets earlier, because he pulled two out of his pocket and handed them to the attendant, and they joined the queue. There were only a few people ahead of them—most of the younger crowd preferred rides that offered more thrill—and it only took a few minutes before they were ushered into their car.

As she slid across the seat to make room for Cam, she thought it seemed smaller than she remembered. Or maybe it was that Cam seemed bigger. Or maybe it was just that her entire body was sizzling with awareness. Whatever the reason, Ashley found herself thinking that she should have nixed his suggestion. But the attendant had already secured the door and the wheel had shifted to load the next car.

They were only about halfway to the top, slowly making their way round as the cars continued to load, but Ashley felt her tummy drop as she looked down at the crowds below. “I never used to be afraid of heights.”

“Are you now?”

“I’m not sure,” she admitted, but thought it probably wasn’t the height so much as the possibility of falling and found herself wondering about maintenance schedules and metal fatigue and other things she’d never considered before. “Do you think this is the same Ferris wheel we used to ride as kids?”

“It might be,” he teased. “Why—are you worried that the old wheel should be retired?”

“Maybe.”

He chuckled and slid his arm across the back of the seat. “Do you remember how we used to ride it over and over again?”

She nodded.

“The first time I ever kissed you was at the very top.”

She remembered that, too, and how she’d thought the drop in her belly was the car moving, until she realized it hadn’t moved at all. That was the day she’d fallen in love with him.

“I think the local high school boys still lure their girlfriends onto the ride to steal kisses,” she told him.

“I’m sure it’s not a strategy exclusive to high school kids,” he said, curling his arm around her shoulders.

She eyed him warily. “Don’t get any ideas.”

“Too late,” he said, just before his lips touched hers.

Chapter Eight

She couldn’t pull back—there was nowhere to go. She could have pushed him away—but she didn’t want to.

His fingers sifted through her hair, cupping the back of her head, changing the angle of the kiss.

Her eyes drifted shut, her lips parted.

His tongue touched hers, lightly, teasingly.

Her stomach dropped, and this time she knew it had nothing to do with the ride and everything to do with the man.

When she was fifteen, she’d thought Cam Turcotte was a great kisser. Of course, her experience at the time had been extremely limited and Cam’s technique had definitely been superior to that of any of the other three boys she’d kissed.

They’d both moved on since then, and though Ashley secretly hoped to find something to criticize so she could stop wanting him so damn much, she couldn’t deny that his mastery was confirmed. Somehow he just knew how to do everything right. When to advance, when to tease, when to push, when to withdraw.

His lips were soft but firm, his taste both familiar and different, and altogether too tempting. It would be so easy to sink back into his arms, to pretend that the past twelve years had never happened. But no—she wouldn’t let herself fall into that trap again. She wouldn’t let herself forget anything of their past or delude herself into thinking they could have a future. She was just going to enjoy the moment for what it was.

When he finally drew back, they were both out of breath.

“This is crazy,” she told him.

“I know,” he agreed, and covered her mouth again.

She met him halfway this time, as eager and desperate as he. Maybe it was crazy, but it was safe. As long as she stayed on the Ferris wheel, there was no danger of this leading anywhere she wasn’t ready to go.

Okay, so maybe she was more ready than she wanted to admit, but she still had no intention of succumbing to the desire that raged through her system. Then his hands slid beneath the hem of her top, his wide palms skimmed up her sides, over her ribs. His thumbs brushed over the aching peaks of her breasts through the satin fabric of her bra. She moaned, and he nibbled on her bottom lip while his thumbs moved back and forth over her nipples, the rhythmic motion shooting tingles through her whole body.

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