Single fathers have it rough! So holds the philosophy of The Daddy Club.

The club is run by men, for men. The focus: raising children.

A veteran club member will be able to change a diaper in record time, give a bath without drowning the child or himself and make a grilled cheese sandwich a gourmet chef would envy.

It’s not rocket science, though that might be easier. It’s just about being the best dad a man can be.

Meetings held at Ruth Naomi’s Hardware and Muffin Shop alternate Wednesdays, 8:00 p.m.

Please join us!

HAR #813 FOUR REASONS FOR FATHERHOOD by Muriel Jensen

Also available:

HAR #805 FAMILY TO BE by Linda Cajio

HAR #809 A PREGNANCY AND A PROPOSAL by Mindy Neff

Dear Reader,

February is a month made for romance, and here at Harlequin American Romance we invite you to be our Valentine!

Every month, we bring you four reasons to celebrate romance, and beloved author Muriel Jensen has reasons of her own—Four Reasons for Fatherhood, to be precise. Join former workaholic Aaron Bradley as he learns about parenthood—and love—from four feisty youngsters and one determined lady in the finale to our exciting miniseries THE DADDY CLUB.

Some men just have a way with women, and our next two heroes are no exception. In Pamela Bauer’s Corporate Cowboy, when Austin Bennett hits his head and loses his memory, Kacy Judd better watch out—because her formerly arrogant boss is suddenly the most irresistible man in town! And in Married by Midnight by Mollie Molay, Maxwell Taylor has more charm than even he suspects—he goes to a wedding one day, and wakes up married the next!

And if you’re wondering HOW TO MARRY…The World’s Best Dad, look no farther than Valerie Taylor’s heartwarming tale. Julie Miles may not follow her own advice, but she’s got gorgeous Ben Harbison’s attention anyway!

We hope you enjoy every romantic minute of our four wonderful stories.

Warm wishes,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Four Reasons for Fatherhood

Muriel Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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To Jeannette and Manny Braga—our best buddies!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Muriel Jensen and her husband, Ron, live in Astoria, Oregon, in an old four-square Victorian at the mouth of the Columbia River. They share their home with a golden retriever/golden Labrador mix named Amber, and five cats who moved in with them without an invitation. (Muriel insists that a plate of Friskies and a bowl of water are not an invitation!)

They also have three children and their families in their lives—a veritable crowd of the most interesting people and children. They also have irreplaceable friends, wonderful neighbors and “a life they know they don’t deserve but love desperately anyway.”

Books by Muriel Jensen

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

119—LOVERS NEVER LOSE

176—THE MALLORY TOUCH

200—FANTASIES & MEMORIES

219—LOVE AND LAVENDER

244—THE DUCK SHACK AGREEMENT

267—STRINGS

283—SIDE BY SIDE

321—A CAROL CHRISTMAS

339—EVERYTHING

392—THE MIRACLE

414—RACING WITH THE MOON

425—VALENTINE HEARTS AND FLOWERS

464—MIDDLE OF THE RAINBOW

478—ONE AND ONE MAKES THREE

507—THE UNEXPECTED GROOM

522—NIGHT PRINCE

534—MAKE-BELIEVE MOM

549—THE WEDDING GAMBLE

569—THE COURTSHIP OF DUSTY’S DADDY

603—MOMMY ON BOARD

606—MAKE WAY FOR MOMMY

610—MERRY CHRISTMAS, MOMMY!

654—THE COMEBACK MOM

669—THE PRINCE, THE LADY & THE TOWER

688—KIDS & CO.

705—CHRISTMAS IN THE COUNTRY

737—DADDY BY DEFAULT

742—DADDY BY DESIGN

746—DADDY BY DESTINY

756—GIFT-WRAPPED DAD

798—COUNTDOWN TO BABY

813—FOUR REASONS FOR FATHERHOOD

Upcoming topics

Week 1: | Too much Testosterone! Tales from a father of four sons
Week 2: | Peanut Butter Is Your Friend 25 creative school lunches your kid will eat
Week 3: | Fire and Hire AND Punt, Pass and Kick ’Cause you’re a businessman by day but a dad all day
Week 4: | “Dad, did we lose electricity?” How to seduce that special someone…’cause dads need love, too!

Be there…

for information vital to every single father!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

Susan Turner watched the long silver limo pull up in front of the church as she walked down the steps carrying Ringo, the other three boys trailing behind her. The back door on the passenger side opened before the driver could come around to help.

A tall man in a beige raincoat stepped out onto the sidewalk. He frowned apparently at the sight of the small crowd leaving the church.

“Uncle Aaron!” John shouted. They were the first words except for “yes” or “no” the boy had spoken since Susan had sped across Princeton to care for him and his brothers.

The man opened his arms and bent down to scoop up the boy as he flew at him.

“Who’s that?” George asked. He was four.

“I Guess it’s Uncle Aaron,” six-year-old Paul replied sagely. “Come on!”

The two boys ran to the man. He lowered John to his feet to embrace the other two boys.

Susan tried not to be offended by their traitorous behaviour. She’d run to be with them the moment she’d received the news that their mother, Susan’s cousin, and their father had perished in a commuter-plane crash off Catalina Island.

Ringo, the fifteen-month-old in her arms, was grateful to be held, a source of security within the chaos his little life had become. George was warm and sweet, and Paul seemed to observe and analyze everything. But though the boys knew her well, they resisted her efforts to help them with their grief, because John, almost eight, the eldest and therefore the leader, was keeping his distance, unwilling to let anyone try to take his parents’ places.

Susan watched the man, who was down on one knee on the sidewalk drawing the boys into the circle of his arms as they talked. His hair was dark blond and a little rumpled from the blustery late March weather.

Hazel eyes focused on one boy after the other as he spoke earnestly to them. George on his raised knee, Paul leaning against him on one side and John on the other.

So, this was Dave’s brother, Susan thought. She’d never met him, but Becky had told her about her clever in-law with the multi-million-dollar computer-software company. “He’s a great guy, but when he’s working he’s all business, and when he’s playing he’s the quintessential playboy. He visits at Christmas every four or five years and calls occasionally, but he has very little time for domesticity.” Then Becky had smiled; Susan had been visiting shortly after John was born. “That’s why Dave and I would like to name you in our will as John’s guardian should—God forbid—anything happen to us.”

Susan had agreed without even stopping to consider, certain that nothing could happen to the robust young woman of twenty-one and her twenty-four-year-old husband.

But apparently God hadn’t forbidden, and eight years and three more children later, Susan was having to live up to her promise.

She was more than willing. Becky had been her childhood companion, and, after their parents had passed away, her only tie to family.

She couldn’t help, though, feeling resentful of the boys’ business-mogul/playboy uncle, who hadn’t bothered to get in touch until last night, four days after the accident. Who hadn’t even made it to New Jersey on time for his brother and sister-in-law’s memorial service today. And who now had the boys mesmerized like some London Fog-clad Svengali.

Then he got to his feet and bringing the boys with him, met Susan at the bottom of the steps.

He took Ringo from her and hugged him. The toddler allowed it, though he studied him a little warily.

“Hey, pal,” the man said, “I’m your uncle Aaron. I’m glad to see you got the Bradley good looks, too.” He pinched Ringo’s nose between his knuckles and the boy giggled.

Aaron Bradley’s gaze moved to Susan and rested on her a moment before he spoke, as though he thought he might analyze and understand her first.

It surprised her when she saw the slight shift in his eyes from open friendliness to cautious reserve. Had he been able to read her resentment?

He held Ringo in one arm and offered her his free hand. “You must be Susan,” he said closing his hand over hers. It was large and warm. “We spoke last night on the phone. I’m Aaron Bradley, Dave’s brother.”

She smiled politely. “Yes, I know,” she said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you. I’m sorry for yours.” He withdrew his hand and angled his chin toward the church. “I can’t believe I missed the memorial service.”

“Crisis at the office?” she asked. The question had been a little glib, and she saw in his eyes that he’d noted that.

“Fog in San Francisco, actually,” he replied after a moment, his voice quiet and controlled. “My connecting flight got socked in for a couple of hours.”

“Aaron,” a male voice called from behind Susan. “Hi. I’m sorry about Dave.”

Aaron’s grim features brightened into a smile as he extended his hand again. “Micah! How are you?”

A big dark-haired man in a cashmere coat came around Susan to shake hands with Aaron Bradley. “I’m good,” he said. “I was hoping I’d get a chance to see you, but when you weren’t in church, I was afraid something prevented you from coming.”

“I was just telling Susan that my flight was delayed by fog in San Francisco. Susan, I’d like you to meet Micah Steadwell, an old school friend of mine. Micah, this is Susan Turner, Dave’s wife’s cousin.”

Micah took her hand and brought it to his lips to plant a kiss on her knuckles. His courtly behavior was a surprise, but didn’t seem like an act. He was a man, she guessed, with a unique style.

“Hello Ms. Turner,” he said gravely. “I’m so sorry about your cousin.”

“Thank you, Mr. Steadwell,” she replied.

Micah turned to Aaron. “Are you taking the boys home with you?”

Aaron indicated Susan with a jut of his chin. “No, Dave and Becky wanted Susan to have custody.”

Micah nodded. “Of course. Well.” He clapped Aaron on the shoulder. “I own the Knight Club now, near the Princeton Shopping Center. I’d like you and Susan to come as my guests before you go home. I know you don’t feel like partying, but I’d love to treat you to dinner if you have time.”

Aaron shook his head apologetically. “Doesn’t look good. I’ll only be here a couple of days. But I appreciate that you came, Micah.”

“Sure.” Micah shook his hand again and handed him a business card. “We’ll have to stay in better touch. Mom and Ross said to say hello.”

Aaron nodded. “Give them my love.”

“Will do. Bye, Ms. Turner.”

As Micah left Aaron pointed behind him to the limousine, the liveried driver waiting by the rear passenger door. “Susan, let me take you and the boys home.”

She pointed to a man and woman standing off to one side, waiting. “Those are friends of Dave’s and Becky’s who drove us to the church. They’re waiting to—”

He handed Ringo back to her. “You get the boys into the limo and I’ll explain.”

He had covered the few steps to the waiting couple and was already smiling and shaking hands before she could protest. As large drops of rain began to fall, accompanied by a low rumble of thunder, she herded the other three boys toward the limo with her free hand.

The driver, a rotund older man with a cheerful expression, opened the door for them and held Ringo for her while she climbed inside. Then he handed the toddler in.

The boys were immediately pushing buttons opening and closing windows and the privacy panel, turning on the small television, discovering the wine decanter and glasses.

Since she’d arrived in their home, Susan had learned that a mother of four boys should be equipped with eight arms.

She was still trying to reclaim control when Aaron climbed into the limo and sat opposite her. He took the crystal stopper from Paul, replaced it in the decanter, closed the windows, turned off the overhead light, then found cartoons on the television.

The boys were instantly glued to it. Susan scrambled around to buckle seat belts. Aaron glanced at his watch. “Nearly noon,” he said. “Should we go to lunch?”

“Uh…” She had an instant image of the ordeal mealtime had been during the past few days. John ate nothing, Paul ate everything, George made designs with his food, and Ringo preferred to see his food on the floor. And while all this was going on, the boys harrassed each other mercilessly. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Socially, I mean.”

“We’ll go to a fast-food place,” he countered, “where they’re used to dealing with messy kids. And the kids might enjoy the playland thing, get to blow off some steam.”

That was true. “All right.” She glanced at his expensive raincoat. “But you might want to cover yourself in plastic. There’s food over everything when they’re finished eating.”

He shrugged off the warning. “Winston,” he called through the open privacy screen, “Find us a Burger Hut.”

“You got it, Mr. Bradley.”

The boys made a pretext of eating, but once they spotted the maze of wide plastic tubes through which other children chased each other, food was secondary to the desire to join them. Ringo, mercifully, had fallen asleep in Susan’s lap.

“Can we go now, Uncle Aaron?” John pleaded. The other two boys jumped up and down in anticipation.

Aaron deferred to Susan. It was a diplomatic gesture she could appreciate in sentiment, but considering the boys seemed suddenly to revolve in his orbit, it was an empty concession.

But she would have to deal with them when he was gone, so she took control. “Yes, you can, but no punching or kicking or you’ll have to come in. I’ll be able to watch you through the window.”

They nodded in unison, pushing and shoving each other before they even got to the door that led to the covered play area.

AARON STUDIED the young woman across the table from him as she shifted the child from the crook of her arm to lean against her breast. Where her silky black blouse plunged into a V neck, her skin was alabaster in contrast. Her eyes were dark and soft, with shadowy patches under them as though she was very tired. Her cheeks were pink, her lips the color of Chianti, and the whole berries-and-cream look of her was set off by thick dark hair that was caught back in a knot.

She didn’t like him. He’d sensed that the moment he stepped up to her at the church. He smiled privately at the realization that Dave and Becky had probably told her that he didn’t visit often enough, didn’t keep in close enough touch.

“When I expressed concern for the children last night on the phone,” he said without preamble, “you told me that Dave and Becky’s will makes you the children’s guardian.”

She met his eyes directly. “That’s right. I hope that doesn’t offend you.”

He suspected she added that as a concession to good manners.

He shook his head. “Not at all. I wish I was equipped to care for four children, but I’m really not. I travel a lot, I work long hours…” He laughed. “And my housekeeper swears.”

“A man?” she asked.

“No, a woman. Heart of gold, but a strong opinionated lady. Beebee likes to think she runs my life. And the lives of whoever comes in contact with me. Anyway, I know how much my brother loved his family. If he and Becky put the boys in your care, I know you have to be a model of motherhood.”

She made a scornful sound. “Hardly. But I have a house and a steady job and I made a promise to Becky.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a carpenter,” she replied.

He was sure he’d misheard her. “A carpenter. Like on a construction site?”

“Not anymore.” Ringo stirred and she patted his back until he resettled himself, his lips open in an oval like a little fish’s mouth. “Now I have a weekly-TV cable show for women on how to use tools, do small repairs, simplify difficult or heavy jobs. I’m sponsored by Legacy Tools on the Crafters’ Channel.”

He found that fascinating. He wasn’t much of a handyman himself. “Well, good for you. But that must take a lot of time. What’ll you do about the boys? Can you afford to hire help?”

She raised an eyebrow, her expression at once indignant and imperious. She opened her mouth to reply but he cut her off before she could.

“I wasn’t questioning your household management or your ability to care for them. I was just wondering if there was something I could do to help.”

“Thank you,” she said, “but I understand you’re pretty busy with your business and your…your…”

He might have helped her had he known what she was trying to say. Since he didn’t, he simply waited.

“Your…life-style,” she finally finished with a slightly aggressive tilt to her chin.

“My life-style,” he repeated trying to remember when he’d last had time to have one.

“You know,” she said looking a little uncomfortable, though she seemed determined to ignore such a feeling as she went on intrepidly, “Your parties. Your women. Your nude sunbathing with Mariah Havilland.”

He laughed. “Now, I wouldn’t have taken you for a subscriber to the Reporter. And if you were, I still wouldn’t have taken you for the kind of woman who’d stare at a grainy photo of a man’s backside to determine who it belonged to.”

“It was identified,” she said coolly, “in the caption.”

“So you saw the naked backside,” he said, “and then stopped to read the caption? I wonder if Dave and Becky knew you could be titillated by such things. And then I suppose you read the whole story.”

“No, I didn’t read—”

“That’s too bad,” he interrupted, beginning to enjoy this exchange, “because you’d have discovered that in the nature of their deceptive headlines and captions, it wasn’t my backside at all, but that of her personal trainer.” He grinned. “I was flattered, though, to have been mistaken for an athlete.”

She heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I was simply trying to turn down your offer of help because I know that your life isn’t…conducive to…”

He loved watching her struggle for the right words. It took the edge off her duchesslike demeanor and added a fluster that she hated and he found amusing.

“Yes?”

“To a wife,” she said a little loudly.

“But I wasn’t asking you to marry me,” he said seriously. “I was offering to—”

“I know that!” she said in a harsh whisper. She swallowed and said icily, “I mean that you’re too busy to father children.” Her eyes closed and color crept up her throat as she obviously realized how that comment could be taken.

He didn’t even have to say anything to win that one.

But she seemed determined to get it right. “I mean,” she said with great patience, “that your offer to help—however kindly meant—would only complicate your life.”

“I meant,” he corrected “that I’d like to help you financially, though, of course, I’d be available for whatever else the boys needed.”

“Don’t you live in Seattle?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s 3300 miles away.”

“I have a jet.”

“Of course you do.”

Okay. Now he was getting annoyed with her. “You seem to resent the fact that I’m successful.”

“No, I don’t,” she retorted. “I resent the fact that you think you can solve all my problems with your genius touch or your money!”

SUSAN COULDN’T BELIEVE she’d said that aloud. He was staring at her in confusion.

She looked for the boys in the play area to avoid his eyes. She saw the kids crest the slide, then disappear down it in a laughing rush.

Aaron reached across the table to turn her face toward him when she continued to ignore him.

“Do you not want to take the boys?” he asked with a gentleness that surprised and unsettled her.

Guilt rose out of her chest to strangle her. She had to clear her throat to be able to reply. “I do want them! I do!”

“Because you promised Becky.”

“Because they need me, and because it’s the right thing to do! I’m just…a little…”

“Scared.”

“Yeah.” There was a certain relief in admitting it, even to him. Then she felt the weight of the trusting child in her arms and knew the three wild boys on the slide needed her, too, even though they didn’t understand that. So she pulled herself together. “But that doesn’t mean I won’t do just fine once I get the hang of it and the boys are enrolled in school and settled into a routine.”

She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, as though he’d found a chink in her armor. As though she wasn’t quite what he’d thought her to be and he was now concerned about his nephews.

She was about to assure him that the boys would be fine with her when the door from the play area flung open and John and Paul tumbled in. They rolled along the tile floor, punching and kicking at each other all the while.

“Paul gots a bleedy mouth!” George announced. He was dancing around his brothers like a referee at a wrestling match. “’Cause John kicked him in the face!”

Susan tried to sidle out of the booth with Ringo still asleep against her, but Aaron was already pulling the boys apart, holding them away from each other with a hand to each jacket front.

Aaron pointed John to the booth and held the wriggling screaming Paul to examine his mouth. He dabbed at it with a clean handkerchief.

“Looks like he knocked out a baby tooth,” Aaron said, lifting the boy into his arms. “I’ll take him into the men’s room to wash his mouth.”

Paul clung to his neck, crying pathetically.

“I didn’t do it on purpose!” John shouted after him. “I was coming down the slide after him and he stopped at the bottom and turned around. He got my foot in his face, but I didn’t kick him!” When Aaron and Paul disappeared into the men’s room, John turned to Susan and said imploringly, “I didn’t! It was an accident.”

“Yup,” George confirmed. “An assident.”

Susan dipped the end of a paper napkin in her cup of water and dabbed at a scratch under John’s eye. Her life, she thought, had become an “assident.”

AARON LISTENED to both sides of the dispute when they got home. Paul was finally willing to admit that it might have been an accident, but was most grieved by the missing tooth. “I don’t have a tooth to put under my pillow! That’s a whole dollar I don’t get!”

“That isn’t true.” Susan was suddenly inspired. “Didn’t you know that you can use the tooth of a comb when you lose the real tooth?”

John, Paul and George looked at each other then at Aaron.

“Is that true?” John asked skeptically.

“Absolutely,” Aaron replied. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a small black comb. “And I’ve got a comb right here. Pick out the tooth you like the best and we’ll put it under your pillow.”

Paul took the comb and frowned over it. “Do we have to wait for it to fall out?”

Aaron kept a straight face with difficulty. “No. I’ll snap it off for you.”

He indicated the one at the end, next to the rim. “That one. Then you can still use the comb.”

“Okay.” Aaron snapped off the tooth with the Leatherman tool in his pocket and handed it to Paul. “Got a handkerchief to put it in?”

“No.”

He dug into his pocket again and produced one with a silver monogram. “There you go.”

“All right!” George and John followed Paul upstairs to help with the ritual.

“That was a stroke of genius,” Aaron said to Susan, reaching down to lift Ringo, who’d walked around the table to him.

Susan flexed her stiff arms. “I’ve got a million of those gems tucked away for emergencies. So, you can take care of packing up and selling the house?”

“Sure.” He looked around the modest fifties-era tract home. It was from the togetherness period when rooms ran into one another without doors. The living room, dining room and kitchen were built around a brick fireplace. “You take anything you want. I’ll just close it up for a couple of months until I can come back, look through things and save some stuff for the kids and me. Then I’ll sell it.”

That sounded reasonable. She pointed to the two guitars hanging above the mantel. “Do you think I could have Becky’s guitar? When we were kids she used to con me into singing with her at family picnics, and I can remember swaying with her to the music of that guitar. I know, the kids should have it, but they’ll be with me, anyway.”

“Of course. Take it home with you when you go.” He glanced down at Ringo and smoothed his tiny cowlick. “This little guy’s a cuddler. He walks pretty well, but he certainly seems to prefer lap sitting.”

“I guess even babies get upset when things change, and being held is comforting.”

Aaron nodded. “True. I’ve had moments like that.”

“Yes. So have I.”

Aaron thought he caught a wistful hitch in her voice. He was just beginning to really understand what she was taking on here. “Are you seeing someone?” he asked wondering what this new responsibility might do to a relationship.

“No.” She got up and pushed in her chair. “I meet a lot of men in my line of work, but they’re confused by a woman who can use power tools and carry a four-by-four. And generally, men are uncomfortable with women who confuse them.” She made a rueful face. “At least, I think that’s why I have trouble with relationships. Or it could be I’m just funny-looking or hard to get along with.”

“Well, you’re not funny-looking,” he said.

“Thanks.” She laughed lightly and came around the table to relieve Aaron of Ringo. “I’ve got to get some of the boys’ things packed. I’ll take—”

Ringo began screeching and clutched Aaron’s ears.

Susan stepped back in surprise.

“Whoa! Ouch!” Aaron tried to pry the boy’s fingers off him, but Ringo only screamed louder. “Okay. Let’s change approach,” he shouted at Susan over the protesting screams. “Why don’t I help you pack and bring him along?”

She looked hurt. “I don’t understand. He’s always liked me.”

Aaron rolled his eyes in false modesty. “Oh, I have this irresistible charisma. Sometimes it’s a terrible burden. You’re powerless against it, so don’t try to fight it. If we were going to be in each other’s company long enough, soon you’d be holding on to my ears and screaming, too.”

Her hurt feelings fled as she laughed at that suggestive remark. “A carpenter and computer…” She’d been about to say “nerd,” but Aaron Bradley was as far from a nerd as any man she’d ever met. “Genius?” she finally finished. “I don’t think so.”

He looked surprised. “Why not?”

“We have nothing in common.” She led the way to the stairs and he followed.

“Having things in common is overrated. It pretty much rules out surprises.”

“But surprises can be bad, as well as good.”

“True. But you wouldn’t rule out the good ones to save yourself from the bad ones, would you?”

She thought about that at the top of the stairs while waiting for him. Ringo had wriggled to get down and Aaron was now helping him climb one laborious step at a time.

“If you’re so philosophical about relationships,” she asked, “why aren’t you in one?”

“Takes a lot of time and energy from business,” he said with a frankness she appreciated even as it horrified her. “And I haven’t found anyone who’d make me want to do that.”

“But…” She watched him supporting Ringo’s valiant struggles up the steps and found it paradoxical.

“Do you want your life to be just about business? I mean, I know you have an active social life, but if it’s all just superficial, is there any satisfaction in that? Any fulfillment?”

At the second step from the top he lifted Ringo by his hands and deposited him on the landing. Ringo giggled triumphantly.

“I get those from my work,” he insisted.

She looked up at him in disbelief. “But they’re not the same.

“Fulfillment from success tells you that you’re good at what you do. Personal fulfillment tells you that you have value whatever you do.”

“How do you know that?” he challenged with a grin. “You said you didn’t have a relationship.”

“I’ve observed others. Dave and Becky, for instance.”

He nodded a little grimly. “Yeah, well, Dave and Becky were pretty unique. And I’ll only believe you when you can tell me that from firsthand experience.”

“Susan!” A loud desperate scream came from the direction of John’s and Paul’s room.

Susan ran the short distance to find that someone had opened all the drawers in the highboy dresser, and it was tilting forward, threatening to fall onto the boys, who pushed hard against it.

She shot both hands out to help just as a toy dump truck on the top slid off and hit her in the head.

She struggled to maintain her balance while seeing stars.

“Got it.” Aaron pushed the top two drawers closed and held them while giving the dresser a solid shove that righted it again. John pushed the other drawers closed.

“Wow!” the boy said excitedly. “I didn’t know that would happen.”

“Hey!” Paul held up the truck. The scoop had snapped off. “Susan’s head broke your truck!”

“What did the truck do to you?” Aaron pulled her hand away from the top of her head and a trickle of blood fell onto her forehead and the skin in the V of her blouse.

“She’s bleedy!” George, reported the obvious.

All six of them crowded into the small bathroom while Aaron wet a washcloth and dabbed at the wound. “You have a cut about an inch long,” he said. “But it’s not very deep. I think all it needs is a little antiseptic.”

The boys crowded around Susan, who sat on the edge of the bathtub. She felt like a subject in an operating theater.

“Can you take your hair down?” Aaron asked, turning to the medicine cabinet. “Your hair’s pulled tight and covering part of the cut.”

Susan removed the pins that held her hair up and handed them to Paul, who put them on the counter.

Then Aaron was hovering over her again. He reapplied the washcloth, then put it aside and ran his fingers through the back of her hair, probably to move the strands that covered the cut.

But it had the most surprising effect on her.

It felt wonderful. As though it were happening in an elongated moment, she felt the palm of his hand brush the nape of her neck and the back of her scalp, then his finger burrowing into her hair and threading through it to the ends.

She felt the contact in every root. Sensation rippled over her scalp.

“Does that hurt?” Aaron asked.

“Just…a little,” she said breathlessly.

“Sorry. Here comes the antiseptic. Guys, turn around so you don’t inhale the spray.”

The boys dutifully turned around and Susan covered Ringo’s face with her hand.

“Hold your breath,” Aaron directed, shielding her eyes with his free hand.

He sprayed, the spot stung for moment, and then it was over.

But she retained the memory of his hand in her hair.

Chapter Two

Aaron helped John and Paul pack their clothes and toys, while Susan worked in the younger boys’ room. George was helping Susan, and Ringo was down for a nap.

Though Aaron handled denim and fleece, chambray, woolens, cotton and corduroy, he could still feel the silk of Susan’s hair on the back of his hand.

This is not good, he told himself.

He didn’t know why he’d done it, except that he’d wanted to touch her hair since the first moment he’d seen her in front of the church. The bump to the head had provided him with a good excuse.

He usually allowed himself to have what he wanted because, generally, he didn’t want much. He worked hard, gave himself wholeheartedly to his projects and had discovered early on that giving his employees whatever it took to make them comfortable and happy in their work was ultimately best for all of them.

He’d been terrified all the way over here that he’d hate Becky’s cousin and wouldn’t be willing to leave the boys in her care, despite the will.

But the situation was perfect for him. She was everything the mother of four boys should be. And he thought the fact that she could admit she was a little bit afraid of the future made her seem that much more sane and capable.

All he had to do was see to it that she had everything she and the boys needed materially, and she would do the rest.

This…tug toward her, this fascination with the children he was experiencing were just complex manifestations of grief and guilt.

They didn’t really need him, and he had a new product line coming out in four months. He had a lot of sleepless nights and working weekends ahead of him.

He reasoned with himself all afternoon and had himself convinced by dinnertime.

When he went downstairs with the just-awakened Ringo, he was surprised to find Susan in the kitchen making mashed potatoes. The boys watched television in the living room. Crumbled hamburger meat fried in a pan and smelled wonderful. A can of corn waited on the counter.

“You cook, too?” he asked in surprise.

“Nothing gourmet,” she replied “but yes, a little. Though seldom for myself. Why?”

“I thought maybe a woman who was into power tools wasn’t interested in cooking.”

She smiled at him over her shoulder. “Cooking is just construction with food.” She dipped a spoon into the mashed potatoes and offered it to him. “Enough salt?”

He tasted. “Perfect.”

“It’s just shepherd’s pie, but the boys like it. I made it the night I got here.”

“I opened an account for you at a Princeton bank,” he said abruptly, stepping out of the way as she took an oblong pan from a bottom cabinet.

She put the pan on the counter and turned off the heat under the burners. “What? Why?”

He’d suspected he’d be in for objections. “It gave me something to do in San Francisco while I was waiting for the fog to lift. I took care of it on-line.”

She began layering corn, hamburger and mashed potatoes into the pan. She paused in her work to look up at him as though wondering what had brought this on. Her brown eyes scanned his face.

“I’m able to support the children,” she said calmly. “There’s no reason for you to feel obli—”

“Of course there is,” he interrupted a little more loudly than he’d intended. “They’re my nephews. I want to know that you can keep them in new shoes while they’re growing, that there’ll be enough money for sport or music lessons or whatever they might want to pursue.” He sighed and lowered his voice. “I want to know that you won’t be worn to a nub trying to keep it all together.”

She laughed lightly as she opened the oven door. “I don’t think money can guarantee that, Aaron. But thank you.” She put the casserole in the oven and closed the door.

“Susan,” he said firmly, “I’m doing it.”

“It isn’t necessary.”

“It is to me.”

She set the temperature and the timer, then turned to smile at him. “All right. You do what you have to do.” Then she moved past him to pull place mats out of a drawer.

Frustrated, Aaron abandoned the argument and asked her when she intended to go home.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “At least, I hope so, I’m having a little trouble lining up a truck. But I have a show to film from a room I’m working on at home. You’re welcome to come along if you want to spend a few more days with the boys.”

He nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate that. I can get a hotel. What time is dinner?”

“Half an hour,” she said.

“All right. If you’ll excuse me I have a little business to take care of.”

“Of course.”

He went to his suitcase for his laptop, found a quiet spot and e-mailed the office.

SUSAN SAW INSTANTLY the advantage of having a man at the dinner table. The usual harassment the boys engaged in despite her efforts to guide a civil conversation was quickly squashed by Aaron’s frown of disapproval.

“You always hog the butter!” Paul shouted across the table at John.

“Well you eat like a hog!” John countered, oinking loudly for full effect as he shoved the butter tub at his brother.

Inspired by the oinking, George contributed excitedly, “I can talk like a donkey!” and proudly brayed at high volume.

“Guys,” Susan said quietly, “let’s not do that tonight, all right? Your uncle’s here and I’d like to think that when he goes home, he’ll remember you as having good manners.”

Silence fell at the table. John put down his fork.

“You’re going home?” he asked grimly.

Aaron nodded. “I have to go back to Seattle.”

“Why?” Paul wanted to know.

“Because that’s where my business is,” he replied, looking a little shaken by their obvious distress. “And my home. And my dog.”

George, seated at his right hand, said earnestly, “Susan would let you come live with her. She’s taking all of us to live with her. I bet you could even bring the dog.” He turned to Susan. “Couldn’t he?”

“He can’t bring his business,” Susan explained, “which is why he has to go home. He has a lot of people who work for him and a lot of people who buy things from his company. They need him there to do his work.”

“He could call and tell them where he is,” Paul suggested. “If you can’t go home, you should always call.”

“Right. But this isn’t like just being late for dinner. Thank you, Paul.” Aaron accepted the butter from him. “This is important work. A lot of people depend on me being there to do my job.”

“But I thought you were the boss,” John said. “Doesn’t that mean you can tell other people to do the work and they have to do it or they get fired?”

“A good boss does a lot of the work himself,” Aaron replied. “Or even when other people do it, he sticks around in case there’s a problem and to make sure everything’s getting done in the right way.”

“I know!” Paul shouted, waving both arms in the air. “We can all go with you!”

“But Susan has a job here,” Aaron persisted. Susan could tell he was finding their arguments exhausting.

John sighed. “It’s too bad we couldn’t move New Jersey closer to Seattle.”

Aaron patted his shoulder. “You can all come and visit me at Christmas,” he said. “How would that be?”

“How long till Christmas?” George asked.

“Nine months, give or take a few weeks.”

“That’s how long it takes to have baby,” Paul chimed in. Then added seriously, “Only you can’t do that ’cause you’re a guy.”

“Well, I’m pretty happy about that,” Aaron said with a grinning glance at Susan.

And then for some completely mysterious reason, Paul’s mention of a baby and Susan’s soft brown eyes watching him connected in his brain in a way that made him temporarily breathless, speechless, mindless.

A part of him was thinking that his mind was working like a teenager’s, snatching double entendres out of the air. Another was thinking speculatively, Hmm…

“Your uncle has to go home,” Susan said gently but firmly, “and we have to let him.”

“Why?” John asked simply. “I mean, if we want him to stay with us?”

She obviously didn’t know what to say and looked to him for help.

Aaron was just a little offended by her eagerness to get him out of their lives and let her flounder. It was perverse, he knew, since he kept telling himself he had to get away, but it was the principle of the thing.

“What kind of dog do you have?” Paul asked.

“A Siberian husky.” Aaron reached for his coffee cup and saw that it was empty.

Susan noticed and got up to get the carafe from the warmer.

“Those are the ones with the mask,” John said. “Jared Butler down the street has one.”

George’s eyes widened. “There’s a dog that wears a mask?”

John and Paul groaned while Aaron explained about the Husky’s markings.

Dinner and the conversation about Aaron going with them ended when Ringo, bored with being ignored, threw his plastic bowl from the high chair into the middle of the table. It overturned two glasses of milk and landed with a splat in the mashed potatoes on top of the remaining shepherd’s pie.

All hands were required to clean up.

Susan maintained a militarylike schedule to get the boys in and out of the shower, then scrubbed Ringo in the bathtub. Aaron helped her get everyone to bed.

Ringo and George were asleep before the covers were pulled over them.

“So…where are they exactly?” Paul asked. “My parents, I mean. I know they’re with God, but where is that?”

“In heaven,” John answered. “It’s in the sky.”

“Like…in a plane?”

“No. In the clouds.”

Paul, ever practical, propped up on an elbow, frowning. “But they’d fall out.”

John stared morosely at the ceiling. “They have wings.”

Aaron was tempted to correct the misconception, but wasn’t sure what could replace it. Who knew? And the thought that Dave and Becky had wings and lived in the clouds was somehow comforting.

“Nobody really knows where heaven is,” Susan said simply, quietly, “because nobody can come back to tell us, and if they see that we need anything, they tell God about it.”

“Like if we wanted to move New Jersey closer to Seattle?”

She sat on the edge of Paul’s bed and smoothed his hair. “Like if you wanted to have sweet dreams, and think about happy things like all the fun stuff we’re going to do together.”

John folded his arms pugnaciously atop the covers. “What if we asked them to come back?”

Susan tucked Paul in, then went to John’s bed. “That’s something they can’t do, John. But they’re with us in spirit.”

“That’s not good enough,” he said unequivocally. “I want them back.”

“I know,” she replied gently. “So do I. But you can’t have that.”

“Then I want Uncle Aaron to stay.”

She patted his arm. “We all have to get on with our lives, John. Your uncle has to get on with his, and we have to get on with ours.”

John turned onto his side. “Well, it sucks.”

She leaned down to kiss his cheek. When she stood to leave the room, she looked tired and grim.

Aaron felt even worse than that. He kissed Paul, then John. “I know it doesn’t seem like it now,” he said, “but pretty soon you won’t feel so bad and life will be fun again. I promise.”

The boys gave him the look children give adults when they know they’re being scammed.

“Yeah,” John replied. “Good night, Uncle Aaron.”

SUSAN SHOOK CEREAL into bowls, added milk, sliced bananas, and told herself bracingly that the day couldn’t be too awful. All they had to move was two rooms of furniture—the boys’ bedrooms. Paulette Norris, her producer and Chris Charbon, her neighbor, were coming to help her. How awful could that be?

She didn’t want to think about it. Keeping four little boys out of trouble while heavy furniture was being moved struck terror into her heart. She’d have to leave Paulette or Chris with the boys while she helped the other move. Or maybe their uncle would stay with them. She wasn’t sure just when he intended to return to Seattle. He’d missed the funeral and seen the boys. There was nothing else left for him to do here.

He’d folded the blanket he’d used last night on the sofa and stacked it neatly with the pillow in a corner. He’d apparently left already on some errand he hadn’t shared with her, because he didn’t seem to be in the house. His bag, though, was at the foot of the stairs where he’d left it.

“I don’t want to move,” John said as Susan spooned instant cocoa into a lineup of cups.

She smiled sympathetically at him over her shoulder. “I know you don’t. But most of my television show takes place in the room I’m fixing at my house and it would make things a lot easier for me if I didn’t have to travel across town. I think you’ll like it once you get there.”

“Do you have ponies?” Paul asked.

She shook her head. “No ponies.”

“Dogs?”

“Nope.”

Paul sighed dramatically. “I don’t want to go either.”

George looked woeful. “Are we gonna go today?”

She poured hot water into the cups and stirred. “Yes,” she said. “My friend is going to stay with you while I move all your stuff over, then we’re going to have a pizza party at my house, then you can fix things up in your room however you like.”

George’s lip began to quiver. “But I don’t want to go today. Can’t we go tomorrow?”

She took the handle of two cups in each hand and carried them to the table, wondering what she could do to lighten the mood. Only Ringo happily stuffed cereal into his mouth, unaware that his brothers’ world had crumbled—and that they weren’t too happy with the woman who was trying to reassemble the pieces.

“We have to go today,” she explained gently “because I have a show to do the day after tomorrow and I have a lot to get ready.”

John poked desultorily at his cereal. Paul picked up spoonfuls of milk, then tipped the spoon and dribbled it back into the bowl again.

George began to cry.

A firm rap sounded on the door, followed by Aaron’s arrival in the room. He was wearing jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt that seemed to change the color of his eyes. He was followed by two other men, one of them pushing a furniture dolly.

One of the men Susan recognized as Micah Steadwell, whom Aaron had introduced to her in front of the church.

“Hey guys!” Aaron said to the boys. He smiled at Susan. “I got some help and a truck. We should have the job done in no time. You remember Micah,” he said to Susan.

“Of course.” She returned Micah’s smile. “Good morning.”

Micah drew a tall good-looking man forward. “This is my brother, Ross. Ross, this is Susan Turner, Aaron’s friend.”

The man offered his hand to Susan. He had dark hair and laughter in his eyes. “I’m pleased to meet you. You’re somewhat of a legend at Hardware and Muffins.”

She blinked. “I’m…where?”

“Hardware and Muffins. My parents’ hardware store—my mother runs it alone now. She was inspired one day to put a coffee bar in the back and all of a sudden it’s become the place to be in Princeton.”

“No kidding.” Susan smiled, hoping she didn’t look as confused as she felt. Coffee and books, sure. But coffee and hardware?

He seemed to understand what she was thinking. “Once you meet my mother, you’ll understand,” he said clearly convinced that was true. “She’s unique.”

Micah smiled. “That’s the nice word for it.”

Ross went on. “She has classes for women on working with tools called Hardware for Women. She stocks Legacy, you know. She’s wanted to invite you to come and speak to her group for months, but she was sure you’d be too busy.” He glanced beyond her to the boys, who were watching the adults with a little less despair than they’d shown earlier. “That’s pretty much a certainty now, isn’t it?”

Susan shrugged. She loved talking to women about what she knew best. The critics claimed that her show was so successful because she demonstrated carpentry and fix-it projects for women without talking down to them, while encouraging them to take on bigger and more complicated jobs. She made it seem as though she was having one-on-one dialogue with each woman in her audience.

“Maybe when I get better organized…”

Ross smiled broadly. “Great! Because there’s an inherent bonus in talking to Mom’s group.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s a Daddy Club meeting going on across the shop at the same time.”

“A what?”

“The Daddy Club,” he explained, “is a group I formed for single fathers needing help dealing with their children. We have men who are changing diapers and staying up all night with teething babies, and others who are going through the minefield of raising teenagers and staying up all night waiting for them to come home. But you’d have free child care while you’re talking to the ladies, because we’ve just turned part of the stockroom into a playroom full of toys and games, and we dads alternate supervising.”

Susan tried to take it all in. A self-help group of single fathers holding meetings in a hardware-and-muffins store where women were learning to work with tools.

Micah smiled at her perplexity. “It works, believe it or not. You’ll have to come and see.”

Susan was beginning to believe that she would.

But for now, she had to deal with Aaron Bradley and his propensity for taking over.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “It’s very nice of you to bully your friends into helping,” she said politely, “but I’ve got it covered. My friends are coming to help.”

As she spoke, Paulette and Chris arrived, stepping into the living room and studying with interest the collection of men.

Paulette wore black tights, a baggy black sweater and hiking boots with black socks. Her luxuriant blond hair had been pulled into a ponytail on one side of her head, giving her a frivolous look very much at odds with her television savvy.

Chris wore green velour sweats that highlighted rather than concealed her diminutive proportions. Bleached blond hair was cut short around a wide-eyed gamine face.

All three men turned and stared.

Susan made introductions, noting with a hint of disappointment that now that she had four little boys following her everywhere, men would never look at her the way these men studied her friends. Then she admitted to herself with bleak candor that they’d never looked at her that way before.

Aaron turned to Susan his eyes alight with amusement. “This is your idea of a moving crew?” he asked.

“They’re my friends,” she replied, a little annoyed with the question. “And they’re busy. I went for loyalty, not muscle.”

“I beg your pardon,” Chris interrupted, walking up to Aaron, her eyes filled with amusement, also, but mingled with pride. “I run a fitness center.”

Aaron gave Chris a smile that caused the smallest flutter in Susan’s chest. She chided herself for her absurdity. The smile hadn’t even been directed at her.

“But furniture has to be carried, not run on,” he said pointing toward the stairs. “Why don’t you direct, and we’ll be the muscle?” He looked over her head at Paulette. “Or did you want to direct, too?”

Paulette laughed. “No, no. Chris can direct. I’m just here to look pretty.”

Micah smiled at her. “You’re doing a wonderful job.”

Paulette tucked her arm in his as they followed Chris and Ross up the stairs.

Aaron crossed to the table and looked down into his nephews’ still-troubled little faces. “I bet you’re thinking that moving’s going to be really awful,” he said.

Paul and George nodded. Ringo continued to pick cereal out of his bowl and eat it with great concentration.

“We don’t want to go,” John said. “Everything’s…different.”

Aaron picked George up, sat in his chair, then perched the boy on his knee. “But everything’s different whether you stay here, or go to Susan’s. And Susan’s got more room than you have here, and a much bigger yard.”

“She doesn’t have a pony,” George reported.

“Or a dog,” Paul added.

Aaron’s expression said that he agreed those were severe failings. “But don’t you think it’d be cool to have a big swing set with a slide and monkey bars and stuff like that?”

Paul and George looked interested.

“I’m going to order one this afternoon,” Aaron said with an apologetic glance at Susan. “And a sandbox for Ringo.”

Susan presumed the apology was for not having asked her first. Usually his presumptions annoyed her, but she understood that he was desperate to cheer the boys up, just as she was.

“I can build a shelter over it,” she contributed, “so that you can even use it when it rains.”

“We have to go to a different school,” John complained.

Susan nodded. “Yes, you do.” She wanted to add that he’d make friends in no time, but she knew he didn’t want to hear platitudes.

“I hate that,” he said.

Aaron nodded. “That’s tough. But we’ll put up a hoop at Susan’s—” again that apologetic look “—and get a basketball so you can practice for the team. Maybe a baseball and a glove, too. For spring practice.”

Susan remembered the price of the new palladian windows she’d put in the back of her house, which looked onto the woods, then dismissed it at the sight of the thin smile on John’s face. It was fragile, but it was there.

“There’s probably not even a park around,” John said.

Aha! Finally! A chance to one-up him. “I have three acres,” Susan said. “If there’s no park and you get a team together, you can play at our place.”

She saw the light go on in his eyes.

“Okay,” he said simply, then concentrated on his cereal.

“I want a ball and glove, too!” Paul demanded.

“Me, too!” George said.

Aaron nodded. “Balls and gloves for everybody,” he promised.

“All right!” Paul exclaimed. “Then we’ll have a team!”

Chapter Three

They were moved in by lunchtime, and after the promised pizza for the boys and the moving crew, Aaron took John, Paul and George with him to shop for playground equipment. Ross and Micah went along in an advisory capacity, and Paulette and Chris stayed to help Susan remake beds, replace drawers and redistribute toys.

“What do you know about Micah Steadwell?” Paulette asked.

Susan stood on top of a stool, putting away the box of groceries she’d brought from Becky’s kitchen. Paulette handed things up to her, and Chris sat on a rug on the hardwood floor playing ball with Ringo.

“Not much,” Susan replied. “Just that he owns a nightclub, and that he and Aaron were good friends all through high school.”

“You don’t know if he was with the rock band the Knights?”

Susan frowned down a her. Ten years ago the Knights had been one of those music groups whose sound and lyrics struck an empathetic chord with young people. Their reputation for hard living, however, made parents mistrust them.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Aaron didn’t say anything about that.”

“I think I recognize his face.” Paulette handed up a cardboard tub of hot-chocolate mix. “But they all had wild makeup so it’s hard to tell. And he seems so…I don’t know, mature, I guess.”

“Ten years can make a big difference in someone’s life,” Chris offered. In her distraction, Ringo’s large colorful ball hit her in the face. She pretended to glower at the little boy, who laughed with delight. “Especially in your twenties. How old is he now?”

“I’d guess middle thirties.” Paulette handed up a box of crackers. “He did tell me he’s single and that he’s pretty busy with the club. I’d take that as a warning that he doesn’t have time to date but he flirted with me all morning. I don’t know what to make of him.”

“Maybe you’ll just have to see what develops.” Chris reached out to catch Ringo’s throw. “I’m not usually one for subtlety but if he has a wild past, that’s not a very safe bet today.”

Paulette nodded, clearly lost in thought.

“But you,” Chris said to Susan, “have no doubt what you have on your hands.”

“Four little boys leave little to wonder about.”

“I’m not talking about the boys.” Chris lifted Ringo into her arms and carried him to the counter, where Paulette and Susan worked. “I’m talking about that most dangerous and appealing of God’s creatures, the macho male who is too good at heart for you to be upset by his take-charge tactics.”

Susan rapped a knuckle lightly on Paulette’s head. She came out of her thoughts with a start to hand up a cake mix.

“He does annoy me,” Susan corrected, putting the box away, “and I don’t find that quality at all appealing.”

“He got the moving done in half the time it would have taken us.”

Susan held on to the shelf and made a face at her. “And whose fault is that Ms. Size Three, Hear Me Roar? If you guys had a little more meat on you—” she swatted playfully at Paulette’s ponytail “—and a little more serious approach to manual labor, I’d have had a more impressive-looking moving crew. They wouldn’t have been able to laugh at us.”

“They stopped laughing,” Paulette pointed out, “when Chris carried the campaign dresser in all by herself.”

Chris rocked from side to side with Ringo, shrugging away any glory for the feat. “The drawers were out. It was a cinch. But I think it’s rotten that you two stuck me with the one married man among the three.”

Paulette made a scornful sound. “You can wrestle them to the ground. You don’t have to charm them like we do. You deserve a handicap.”

“How long is Aaron staying?” Chris asked Susan.

Paulette handed up cereal.

Susan stepped off the stool to the counter to reach the highest shelf. “I’m not sure,” she said, holding on to the door as she put the cereal away. “Maybe tonight.”

“I thought he was staying to put the playground equipment together.”

“I can do that.”

“But the boys seem to really like him. He might want to hang around awhile just to…you know, be here.”

Susan sighed. “That’s true but that isn’t going to help me much when he leaves and does his usual three-year disappearing act.”

Susan held her hand down for the next box, and when nothing was forthcoming, she looked down wondering if she’d have to nudge Paulette again. But Paulette wasn’t there. And neither was Chris.

She turned carefully on her perch to see Aaron standing behind her, hands on his hips as he looked up at her, his stormy eyes telling her he’d heard everything she’d said. Behind him the boys played excitedly at the table with what looked like new Matchbox cars, Ringo in possession of a big plastic truck. Paulette and Chris stood together on the other side of the room, looking concerned.

Susan wasn’t sure what made her lose her balance—the embarrassment of having been overheard speaking her mind, guilt over having condemned a man who’d offered nothing but kindness since he’d arrived, or the simple physics of a body occupying too narrow a space.

Whatever the reason, she was suddenly flailing and trying to turn the fall into a leap, because Aaron seemed to be making no move to catch her.

His hands left his hips just as she’d braced herself to break both legs, and he caught her against him, one arm under her bottom, the other at her back.

She half expected him to fall backward but he caught her firmly. They stood for one protracted moment, his steely arm under her backside, his hand clutching her thigh, his breath warm against the soft skin exposed by the V neck of her sweater.

Then he let her slide down his body until her toes touched the floor. She felt every muscle he possessed from neck to knee.

She didn’t want to look into his eyes, but she didn’t want to be cowardly, either. She’d said what she felt and, right or wrong, she had to stand by it.

She raised her eyes to his and saw not the anger she’d expected but a sadness she couldn’t entirely understand. Somehow it made her feel even worse.

“Tomorrow,” he said in an even tone of voice, “we’ll get you a taller step stool.”

Paulette and Chris excused themselves, and as Susan walked them to the door, Ross, Micah and Aaron carried the jungle-gym boxes into the backyard.

Paulette hugged her. “You’re sure you’re going to be okay for Friday’s show?”

Susan nodded. “Sure. I don’t know what I’ll do with the boys yet. I’m not putting John and Paul in school until Monday.”

Paulette smiled. “Maybe we can work them into the show.”

Susan looked doubtful. “I don’t think so. Too many power tools. Too much potential for on-air disaster.”

“But we film. We can work it out.”

Chris gave Susan a hug. “Just tell him you didn’t mean it and you’re sorry.”

“I did mean it,” Susan said defensively. “I just didn’t mean for him to hear it.”

Chris studied her with a furrowed brow. “It isn’t like you to be so judgmental. Your father was a flake. That’s a different thing from someone who’s spending every waking moment trying to build a business.”

Cut to the quick because Chris was right, Susan followed her to her van and said tightly, “Family should always come first.”

“He’s here, isn’t he?”

With that, Chris and Paulette climbed into the green van and drove away. Susan went back into the kitchen to find George and Ringo playing happily with their trucks, but John and Paul were not at the table.

Susan went to the French doors and saw the boys helping the men pull the long wooden pieces of playground equipment out of the boxes. Off to the side on an even stretch of grass between the garage and the large shed she used as a shop, Aaron was spreading sand presumably to give the boys a soft spot to land in case of a fall.

Even as she defended herself in her mind, she admired the fact that he’d thought of everything.

She opened the doors. “Do you need tools?” she asked no one in particular.

Aaron didn’t even look up at her.

Micah pointed to a long metal box. “I keep a toolbox in my truck,” he said.

She nodded. “Hot coffee?”

Micah and Ross replied in the affirmative.

A short while later she carried out three mugs and placed them on the edge of a nearby planter. Aaron offered a perfunctory thank-you while concentrating on attaching the seat of a swing to the chains.

The set was up by dusk, and Susan put on the outside lights in the back so that Aaron could supervise a test of the equipment.

She made a chicken-noodle casserole from a recipe she’d found in Becky’s box, put together a salad and baked a tube of refrigerator biscuits.

Micah and Ross left when it appeared that the equipment was sound. So that Aaron didn’t have to leave the boys, Susan walked the men to Micah’s truck and thanked them for their help.

Ross left her a business card for Hardware and Muffins, and Micah told her that she was welcome as his guest at the Knight Club if she ever needed an evening away from the boys.

She waved as they drove away.

The boys had to be dragged in to eat half an hour later, their cheeks pink, their eyes bright. This was a very different group, she thought, from the boys who’d sat around the table at breakfast, despondent about having to leave their home.

She knew she had Aaron to thank for that.

“You don’t have to go tonight do you?” John asked as they ate ice cream for dessert.

Surely Aaron would look at her now. He hadn’t met her eyes since she’d turned around on the countertop to find him standing there.

Before he answered John, he would have to know if she would offer to let him stay.

“You said,” John reminded him, “you were gonna buy Aunt Susan another step stool tomorrow. So you’re not going home yet, right? That means you have to sleep someplace. And this is our house now, too, so we can invite you to stay here.” John looked to Susan for confirmation. “Right?”

Aaron did meet her eyes then, but the small yet friendly connection they’d made yesterday was gone. It was like looking into the eyes of a stranger—one who didn’t particularly like her on first impression.

She had to look away. “That’s right,” she told John. “The sofa in the family room opens up.”

“See?” John said eagerly.

Aaron nodded. “Then I accept your invitation,” he said.

Susan began clearing the table, and the boys helped, falling into a routine she’d apparently already established at his brother’s house.

Wanting to help without actually being in contact with her, he wet a couple of paper towels and washed Ringo’s face and hands, then cleared the front pocket of his coveralls of noodles. He freed him from the high chair and washed it off while the toddler ran his colorful truck over Aaron’s feet.

The table cleared and the dishwasher doing its work, Susan took the boys into the family room and handed John the remote.

“You can be in charge of it,” she said “but you have to try to be fair about what you watch, okay? Everybody should have a say in it.”

“Uncle Aaron got us some videos.” John held up a paper bag.

“Harriet the Spy and The King of Egypt.” He studied the remote. “So I press TV/VCR then Play, right?”

“Right.” Susan glanced back at Aaron. Fortunately Ringo was busy trying to redecorate his face, so he didn’t have to meet her gaze. He hadn’t decided why he didn’t want to. Either he was angry with her because he knew he should have made more time to spend with Dave and his family and he’d been plagued by the guilt of it since he’d learned Dave and Becky had died. Or he just didn’t like what looking at her did to him. Her large brown eyes seemed to demand, as well as condemn, though he didn’t think she was even aware of that.

It was as if he had something she needed, and it was in her eyes every time they shared a glance.

But he had a business to run that was becoming more and more of a rebellious child every day. It was growing bigger and smarter and seemed to require more careful and attentive management.

He couldn’t play with the guys in Research and Development anymore. He had to keep his eyes on the money, the numbers, with the competitors looking for takeover and the government looking for mistakes.

And Starscape represented his whole reason for being, the light he’d seen at the end of the interminable tunnel of his childhood, the success for which he’d worked so hard, the proof that his stepmother had been wrong and he was worth something, after all.

He couldn’t care for a family and keep his business, too. It had to be one or the other.

“It’s time for his bath.”

He came out of his thoughts to find Susan studying him with puzzlement, her hands on the child he held in his arms. “Unless,” she said, as though trying to figure out why he held on to Ringo for dear life, “you’d like to give him a bath yourself. But I warn you—you’ll need a wet suit and a snorkel.”

She smiled.

He didn’t want to respond to it, but it took every fiber of his self-control to stop himself.

“You do it,” he said, letting her take Ringo. “I’ll supervise the film festival.”

Hurt flickered in her eyes, then was gone with a tilt of her chin. “Okay. There’s more coffee in the pot. I’ll be at least a half hour.”

“Take your time.”

They were halfway into the film when she returned with sweet-smelling Ringo in footed blue pajamas. She held him out to his brothers, who hugged him good-night, then to Aaron.

Ringo clung to Aaron’s neck as though he had no intention of ever letting go. Aaron finally carried him upstairs and helped Susan tuck him in. She turned on a music box on the dresser and handed him the scruffy bear he often toted around by the foot during the day.

In a moment Ringo was rubbing his eyes sleepily and yawning. He didn’t seem to notice when they crept out of the room.

Susan stopped Aaron halfway to the stairs. She looked both defensive and apologetic. “I’m sorry about that remark,” she said. “You’ve done a lot for the boys since you’ve been here and they…we all appreciate that.”

He turned to her, hands in his pockets, expression remote. “Really. You made it sound as though all my being here has done is intensify your problems because eventually I have to go.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice rising a little in agitation. “It’s just that helping them through the loss of their parents has been hard, but your being here has helped a lot. John barely spoke until you arrived. But you have to go home and…they lose again. I feel inadequate to the task of making them understand.”

“Maybe I should just take them with me.” He’d entertained that thought before he’d seen her in action with the boys. Now he wondered if that was what she wanted from him, if that was the need he saw in her eyes. She was young and alone and had her own demanding career.

She gave him an impatient look. “How could you possibly care for four little children?”

That made him defensive. “The same way you will. I’m sure I’d be awkward at first, but they respond to me and that’s a start.”

“They’d never see you.”

“I’d hire a nanny.”

Her eyes darkened and pinned him in place. “You might remember that I was given custody. It’s what your brother and Becky wanted.”

“I understand that,” he replied patiently, “but the job’s too big for one—”

“Who said the job was too big?” she demanded. “Did I say that? No, I didn’t. I just said that I felt inadequate, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do my damnedest to see that they’re loved and cared—”

He raised a warm gentle hand to cover her mouth. “You’re shouting,” he said quietly, the suggestion of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth. “I wasn’t questioning your determination or your willingness to do the job. I was just wondering whether any one person should have to do it alone.”

She caught his wrist and pushed away his hand, but his index finger slid over her lips in the process. The sensation seemed to ripple all over her body.

“The reality is that I am alone.” She spoke firmly so that he would have no doubt about her conviction to see this through. “I’m sure once we’re all settled into a routine, once they’ve made friends at school and gotten acquainted in the neighborhood…”

It was as she spoke, her color high, her eyes bright with maternal fervor, that he saw the need in her eyes take on a complexity he hadn’t noticed before.

She needed him—out of the picture.

So that was it. As difficult as the task of mothering the boys would be, she wanted to do it alone. Of course. It was so much easier to move forward when you didn’t have to consider anyone else’s input.

“Tomorrow we’ll get whatever you need for yourself and the boys,” he said, “then I’ll get out of your way.”

She frowned. “I didn’t say you were in the way.”

“You didn’t have to. So I presume it’ll be all right with you if I just show up every three years or so?”

He knew that was nasty, but he was feeling nasty. She’d completely misunderstood what he was trying to do here and he just couldn’t figure her at all. So even though they had four little boys in common, it didn’t look as though they were going to find a way to come together on anything.

She sagged visibly. “I said I was sorry about that. I’m defensive about people who come and go in other people’s lives, because my father did that. He built bridges in Africa and Central America. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of love that’s only intermittent.”

“Maybe the love was constant,” he suggested after a moment. “It was just that the nature of his work only allowed you to see him intermittently.”

She shook her head. “All the child knows is that he’s never there. And after you’ve waited months and months and he finally arrives, you suddenly realize that he’s going to be gone again before you know it. I don’t think children should have to live like that.”

“I had no children when I embarked on this life. And it’s not like I go thousands of miles away. I just go to work.”

She nodded. “But the result is the same. Your family never saw you and they missed you.”

She was right. Guilt rattled inside him.

“Why don’t you relax for the rest of the evening?” he said, moving toward the stairs. “I’ll get them going on their showers after the movie.”

She opened her mouth to protest that he’d been working hard all day, but he cut her off with a wry, “It’s your last chance. I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon. Go on. You must have something to do to get ready for your show on Friday.”

It was for the best, she knew. Her real life with the boys would include only the five of them, so the sooner they adjusted to that reality the better off they would all be. It was only right.

She just couldn’t decide why it felt so wrong.

SUSAN HEARD THE WIND pick up around two in the morning. It whispered in the trees behind the house but within minutes had grown to a roar. Branches scraped against the house and the windows; she heard the trash can at the side of the house fall over, the chimes on the patio tinkled as though trying to play some up-tempo jazz piece.

And then she heard the first rumble of thunder. It was in the distance, low as the crackling of paper.

Oh, no. She hated electrical storms. She had no childhood trauma to trace it back to, no logical explanation for the serious fear that built in her when thunder rattled overhead and made the house shake.

It wasn’t hereditary because her mother had always slept through them, surprised to hear in the morning that there’d been a storm.

She remembered sitting in the middle of her bed as a child, knees pulled up to her chin, eyes closed against the flashes of light as she rocked herself and waited for the storm to end.

The second clap of thunder came, considerably closer and therefore louder.

“This is ridiculous,” she told herself firmly as she swung her legs to the floor. She was a mother now. She couldn’t cower in the middle of her bed. She had to check on the boys, bring in the chime before it woke the whole neighborhood, put the trash can in the garage.

A peek into the rooms showed the boys still sound asleep. She adjusted blankets, tucked in feet, then left both doors slightly ajar as she ran downstairs to haul in the chimes.

As she did so, a brilliant flash of lightning lit the sky and she hurried back inside, the bamboo tubes riotously noisy in her hands. She closed the doors and put the chime on the dining-room table.

But she wasn’t fast enough to cover her ears before the clap of thunder struck, louder, closer, reverberating long enough to laugh at her attempts at courage.

But she made herself function. The trash can. She had to bring in the trash can.

She opened the kitchen door into the garage and reached to the side for the light switch—and collided with a solid object trying to occupy the same space.

Shock was followed instantly by terror. She screamed as a hand reached out to catch her arm, the sound bloodcurdling even to her own ears.

“Susan, it’s me!” Aaron said, flipping on the light. He was still holding her arm, looking as though she’d alarmed him as much as he’d alarmed her.

She stared at him, unable to speak.

“I heard the trash can rolling around,” he explained, “and I thought I’d better bring it in before you had to chase it into the next county. I’m sorry I frightened you. I didn’t realize you were up.”

“It’s all right,” she whispered, her heartbeat choking her. “I…didn’t know you were awake.”

Light filled the dark house like sunshine, then was snuffed in an instant as thunder crashed and rolled, the noise deafening and interminable.

Susan wasn’t sure whether to cover her ears to block the sound or her mouth to hold back the scream. She decided to cover her ears and bite her lips.

Aaron flipped off the garage light, stepped into the kitchen and pulled the door closed.

“Are you afraid of—?” Lightning flashed and thunder struck again, sounding as though a truckload of cymbals had overturned on the roof.

All pretense of courage gone. Susan wrapped her arms around Aaron’s chest and held on. It helped considerably when he enfolded her, providing a haven against the next barrage of sound, and the one after that.

SEPARATING HER FROM HIM, Aaron speculated with a smile in the darkness, would probably require surgery. She was holding him so tightly, it felt as though she would join him in his skin if she could, as though their bodies may already have fused in a few places.

“I don’t like…thunder,” she said against him in a quiet moment, her fingers still clutching the back of the T-shirt he’d pulled on with his jeans.

He ran a hand gently between her shoulder blades. “And I thought this was just a very bold seduction,” he teased.

She raised her head long enough to give him a scolding look, then lightning flashed and she buried her face against him again as the harsh sound followed.

He noticed she was trembling and felt sure it was due as much to her mid-thigh-length nightshirt as it was to her fear of the storm.

He swung her up into his arms and carried her to the sofa bed in the family room. He sat down with her and pulled the blanket over her.

“You’re probably thinking,” she said in a frail voice, “that it’s ridiculous for a grown woman to be afraid of thunder.”

“No,” he said. “I was just wondering if you’re warm enough.”

She sighed and let her head fall against his shoulder. “I’m fine. You’re very warm.”

“Mmm.” Actually he was getting a little hot. Hotter than was really safe under the circumstances.

“I can’t believe this hasn’t awakened the boys,” she said. “They were sleeping soundly when I checked, but it wasn’t this bad then.”

“I’m sure they’ll come looking for us if they wake up.”

“Are you comfortable?” she asked.

That was a tricky question. His body was comfortable. The blanket covered him, too, warding off the nighttime coolness of the house. But the softness of her in his lap, the loop of her arms around his neck, the silken skin of her cheek against his throat was making him decidedly uncomfortable.

She wasn’t his type; he’d concluded that already. And she considered him a failure at familial relationships.

But his traitorous body seemed unaware of that. It was reacting to a scenario going on in his brain that involved stretching out on the soft sofa and making the best of a promising situation.

Then she lifted her head off his shoulder and looked into his eyes at the same instant that lightning lit the room. He saw that complicated need in her worried gaze.

And he realized he’d been wrong earlier when he’d thought that she needed him out of the way.

It wasn’t that at all. It was that she’d wanted him out of the way for some reason he didn’t entirely understand, but she really needed him to stay. He felt it in the arms around his neck, in the trusting inclination of her body against his.

Suddenly he had a clearer understanding of her. He seemed to be feeling the very same things, only in reverse.

Whatever this was between them, he didn’t need it. But he realized now in the quiet darkness that he wanted it.

He really wanted it.

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