The pot was over a hundred dollars.

“You wanna just fold and get this over with?” Luke smiled as he raised the bidding one more time.

Blake didn’t bat an eye. He was sitting on a full house ace/deuce. The only way Luke was going to beat that was with a miracle. Looking up, Blake gazed past his opponent to the bare window behind him. In the daylight they’d be able to see the river out there. Tonight there was nothing but darkness.

And…movement?

Someone was out there.

Blake tipped the corners of his cards again. Glanced over beyond the archway leading to a threadbare living room…and saw a woman slip quietly around the corner from the hall.

He tossed in four one-dollar chips. Noted the jack and king of spades Luke flipped over, tossed in his two aces, still face down, and asked, “What in hell’s she doing here?”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

Dear Reader,

Welcome to River Bluff, Texas! There are all kinds of great folks here for you to meet. From cowboys to single mums to entrepreneurs, secret babies, planned babies and another man’s baby, you’ll get it all in this small Texas town.

The five authors in this series have brought you many, many love stories over the years, but the stories here in River Bluff are a little different. Oh, you’ll still have the great characters you won’t want to leave behind, the gripping stories and the wealth of emotion. But in River Bluff you also get something new.

Think sisterhood – in a male version! This is a group of five guys, most of whom have known each other all their lives, who are bonded together through life’s ups and downs. They get together to play poker every week and they’re friends.

In the months ahead you’ll meet Cole – he’s a bit jaded because of a broken marriage, but he’s feisty and fun to be around. Then there’s Jake. He’s the motorcycle-riding bad boy we all want to meet in a dark alley. And Brady Carrick. Brady’s been everywhere and done most things, from professional football to professional gambling. Now he wants to come home. Luke, one of my favourites, is just back from military service overseas. He has some hard truths coming his way, but I can’t be with him and not love him.

And here, you get to meet Blake. Older than the rest of the Wild Bunch, Blake is the one everyone looks up to. But he has a secret, a burden he must bear, and while he thinks it makes him weak, he’s going to find out just how strong he really is.

My sister writers and I hope you’ll love the town and the people of River Bluff, Texas as much as we do!

Tara Taylor Quinn

The Baby Gamble

TARA TAYLOR QUINN

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Tim. Welcome to my world.

PROLOGUE

July 2005

COW MANURE HAD NEVER smelled so sweet, Blake Smith thought, inhaling deeply. Squinting against the bright July morning sun, he glanced down the thin metal steps to the tarmac, scanning the people waiting at the small airport just outside San Antonio.

There weren’t many of them.

Four years was a long time.

But a three-and-a-half-year-old child should be easy to spot. He looked for a head covered with blond curls.

Or maybe her hair was brown.

Or maybe she was a he.

And yet no matter how many possibilities he considered, no small child appeared.

His uncle, then? Alan wouldn’t miss this. Not on his life…

What did it mean that Blake couldn’t pick out the big frame and ruddy face of the man who’d raised him ever since his parents had been killed in a car accident when he was seven?

Determined to hold on to the sweet anticipation that had sustained him during his eighteen-hour journey from the Middle East back to Texas, Blake renewed his search. Most of all, he sought the face of the woman whose memory had kept him alive these past forty-seven months, two weeks and three days.

The only person he really needed to see right now, after four grueling years of captivity as the hostage of political terrorists.

Annie.

His heart’s rhythm settled—and then immediately sped again as he spotted the beautiful face of his beloved wife. At last. With shaky knees, he hurried to meet her.

Annie had come for him.

CHAPTER ONE

October 2007

THE COWBOY PUSHED HIS HAT down low.

Everyone knew that thirty-four-year-old Luke Chisum, of the renowned Circle C Ranch, shifted his hat every time he had a good hand.

Lifting the corners of his two cards just enough to see the pair of aces, Blake dropped his thirty-three-year-old silver dollar on top of them and threw in two one-dollar chips—the mandatory flop bet. His buddy Cole Lawry, seated to his left, gave him a long look.

Cole studied the ten and queen of spades and two of diamonds faceup on the table, took one more look at Blake and folded.

Brady Carrick, ex-Cowboy football player, didn’t look at anyone. His face impassive as always, he pushed his cards toward the middle of the table. Brady’d had a hard time of it after an injury had caused him to take early retirement, and he’d headed off to Las Vegas, only returning to River Bluff fifteen months before—a year after Blake had made it home.

The younger man had come home blaming himself for the suicide death of a rodeo cowboy in Vegas—something to do with a wager. Having just met him, Blake had stayed out of most of the conversation revolving around the incident, except to say that Brady shouldn’t take the guilt of someone else’s mistakes on his own shoulders.

Verne Chandler, a sometimes player with the Wild Bunch, lived in the decrepit, now closed Wild Card Saloon. The older man had moved in to stay after his sister died, leaving the place to her young son. It was there, in the back apartment, that the five-member Wild Bunch—a group of unmarried guys, most of whom had been friends on and off since high school—held their weekly Texas Hold’em games. Hunched over now in the wheelchair he’d taken to a few months before, Verne wasn’t looking so good. Though he was only in his early sixties, the wrinkles on his face seemed to be the result of about ninety years of hard living.

River Bluff’s male version of the town gossip, Harry Knutson, also tossed in his pair of cards. As did Hap Jones, Luke’s foreman and guest for the evening.

Ron Hayward called Blake’s bet, just as Blake had known he would. Ron was more of an ass than a poker player, a nice enough guy who didn’t know his own weaknesses. Put Ron on a construction site, and he was gifted. Cole, who worked for Ron, could testify to that. But let the owner of Hayward Construction join them at the poker table, and he stood out in a less impressive way. If there was a bet on the table, Ron played—whether he had a worthy hand or not. It made him a waste.

Luke, the dealer of the hand, dropped his army dog tag on top of his cards, added his two dollars to the pot and raised them two. Blake and Ron followed suit. Luke dealt the turn. An ace of spades.

Blake threw in two more chips. And then, when Luke’s raise came back to him, threw in another four.

Ron had spent twenty dollars before he folded.

“It’s just you and me, buddy,” Luke said with a grin, making a show out of dealing the river, the third in the series of deals per hand.

A two of clubs.

Blake tossed in eight bucks. Luke raised him another four. He pushed out another eight. Luke called his eight and raised him four again.

The pot was over a hundred dollars.

Back when Verne’s sister had been alive, this run-down and lifeless place had been pristine. Both out front, where saloon customers came in droves, and back here in the apartment, where Jake Chandler, Verne’s nephew and the absentee member of the Wild Bunch, had grown up far too quickly.

“You wanna just strip off your shorts and get this over with?” Luke smiled as he raised the bidding one more time.

Blake didn’t strip for anyone. Besides, he was sitting on a full house ace-deuce. The only way Luke was going to beat that was with a miracle. A jack and king of spades facedown in front of him.

Luke was no fool. But the chances of Blake sitting on double aces were slim. Glancing up, Blake looked past his opponent to the bare window behind him. In the daylight they’d be able to see the river. Tonight there was nothing but darkness.

And…movement?

Someone was out there.

Luke bounced his dog tag on the table and grinned as it landed on his closest stack of chips. He’d perfected that move eons ago, before most of the guys had left for college. Blake, having come to the Wild Bunch late, invited by his then-brother-in-law, Cole, when he’d married Cole’s sister, Annie, had been hearing about this particular talent for years.

Blake tipped the corners of his cards again. Glanced beyond the archway leading to a threadbare living room, and saw a woman slip quietly around the corner from the hall.

He tossed in four one-dollar chips. Noting the jack and king of spades Luke flipped over, he tossed in his two aces, still facedown, and leaned over to Cole.

“What in hell’s she doing here?” His whisper sounded far too angry for the question it pretended to be. If Cole needed to see his sister, he knew enough not to do so anywhere near Blake. That was their agreement.

And since Blake was the only one of the bunch who didn’t live in River Bluff, he didn’t think it was asking too much of his best friend to keep that agreement. Cole had plenty of time to see his sister when Blake was safely thirty miles away in San Antonio.

“She needs to talk to you.”

Blake froze at Cole’s response. Then muttered, “She’s here to see me?”

There was razzing going on among the others. Blake was aware of Luke good-naturedly stacking up his win. A sore winner. Verne was sipping straight from an open bottle of whiskey. Harry had found an avid listener in Ron, who seemed to have a need to know every gritty detail about whatever drama Harry was sharing, courtesy of his hairdresser wife.

Blake thought of the Lincoln Continental he had parked outside. Wondering how best to get there.

“Please just hear her out, Blake.” Cole’s voice was still low, but a note of urgency had crept in. “You know I wouldn’t ask you without a good reason.”

Blake did know that.

And he couldn’t imagine a reason good enough to justify another conversation with the woman he’d once loved more than life.

“I think she’s crazy, man.” Cole’s whisper was clipped. “Going to get herself in a mess of trouble. The only thing I could do was get her to talk to you first.”

“You could have given me some warning,” he muttered, buying himself some time to figure a way out of there.

Raising an eyebrow, Cole challenged, “Are you saying you’d have come if I’d warned you?”

It was Blake’s turn to deal—the cards were on the table.

With one last glance at Cole, however, he stood up. “I’m out.”

ANNIE DIDN’T NEED TO witness the exchange between her brother and her ex-husband to know that she was a fool for being there. The expression on Blake’s face when he’d noticed her had been enough.

“Cole didn’t explain?” she asked, as the man she’d spent two years weeping over came barreling out of the back room.

Blake was not pleased. But he smelled as good as ever. It wasn’t just aftershave—though he was wearing the stuff she’d started buying for him when they were first dating—and it wasn’t the shampoo or soap. Both of which she’d used for years. It was just him.

He looked damn good, too. Even with the frown and his tight, straight lips. Annie hadn’t seen him in almost two years—not since the day she’d met him at the airport.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I thought you stopped at eleven. At least Cole said…” Her words trailed off.

She could not respond to this man—not to his anger, and not to his sex appeal. Most particularly not to that.

“We stop when we’re ready.”

His slacks and polo shirt fit his long, lean body to perfection. This was his casual attire. More often, she’d seen him in suits.

Or nothing.

Her lips were dry. “Do you need to get back, then? Cole said you were hosting tonight.”

His gaze rested on her face for a brief second and then moved away. She felt as if she’d been slapped. “That just means that I bring the food and drinks and pick the game.”

“I thought you always played Texas Hold’em.”

He stared at her openly. Even small talk didn’t seem safe with this man.

“There are lots of ways to play,” he said succinctly. “Limit, no limit, tournament…” His voice trailed off, and she knew her time was up.

“You got a minute to talk?”

His eyes narrowed and he studied Annie as if contemplating the aftermath of a particularly bad car accident. You can’t stand what you’re seeing, but you can’t look away, either.

He didn’t answer her. But neither did he walk away, and she knew Blake Smith well enough to know that leaving was something he would do without a second thought, if he felt so inclined.

Laughter burst through the archway.

“Can we go outside?” she asked. Darkness might make this easier.

Still silent, Blake followed her out. She couldn’t hear his footsteps, but she could feel him behind her—staring holes through her back.

If not for promising her brother she’d talk to Blake, she’d be the one eager to disappear. But she’d made up her mind on how to proceed with her life, and she couldn’t do it without Cole’s support.

He’d made it clear he’d give that support only on the condition that she speak with Blake.

“Ask Blake for his help” was actually what her brother had said. But that was a small detail she didn’t need to concern herself with. She’d say the words, Blake would walk away, and she could move on to the next step of the rest of her life.

With Cole’s support.

“Cole says you’re crazy.”

Blake’s words interrupted Annie’s thoughts. Obliterated her confidence in fact. It seemed as if he’d always had the ability to make her doubt herself. It was something she wasn’t crazy about in him.

Probably the only thing she wasn’t crazy about in him. And it wasn’t even his fault.

The rest of it—his long absences, his inability to be there when she needed him— she understood. She just hadn’t been able to live with it.

Or him.

“My little brother has always had a problem with exaggeration,” she said now.

“So what’s this about?”

Right to the point. That was Blake. No “How you been these past two years?” No “You’re looking good.” She knew better than to even hope to get an “It’s good to see you.”

It wasn’t good.

For either of them.

Seeing him hurt. A lot. Far more than she’d expected, and she’d had a glass of wine and a big hug from her best friend, Becky Howard, to prepare herself before she’d set out on tonight’s mission.

“I’m going to have a baby.”

The startling words got her firmly back on track. She’d identified her goal, and for the first time in her life she felt absolutely, completely sure about the decision she’d made.

“Why do I need to know this?” His words were cold; the tone of his voice spoke volumes.

Blake wasn’t just angry, he was hurting, too. Damn Cole for insisting on this. As big as his heart was, sometimes Annie’s brother just didn’t know when to stop believing in things that could never be.

“The only way Cole would agree to stop trying to talk me out of this was if I asked you to be the father.”

THE COOL AIR WAS SUPPOSED to have cleared his mind. But Blake’s thoughts were fuzzy, and there was a very loud humming in his brain.

“So…you aren’t pregnant?” He could feel a headache coming on.

“Not yet.”

There was no reason for him to be relieved at the news. No need to care.

The cords at the base of his neck loosened just a little, and he tried to think.

“But you plan to be.”

“I’m determined to have a child, yes.”

Blake eyed his ex-wife as well as he could in the darkness. Was Cole right? Had she lost her mind?

Thoughts of the baby she’d lost surfaced. The child that for four long years, Blake had imagined himself raising. Along with the thoughts came the sharp pain that lived in his chest most of the time. While he’d grown somewhat used to the discomfort, its sting was much worse when he thought about Annie suffering from it, too.

“You can’t bring back what’s been taken from you, Annie.”

“I have absolutely no plan to try.” Her words were tough enough. The vigor in her tone gave him a hint of the determination she was holding in check.

Life should never have done this to her. She didn’t deserve it.

He was to blame.

“I don’t want to spend my life alone, Blake. I’m lonely, and I’m missing something important. I want to be a mother, and I believe I can be a good one.”

“Of course you’d be a good mother.” Blake was scrambling to make sense of all of this—to be a good friend to Cole, and to extricate himself as rapidly as possible. “You more or less became Cole’s mother when you were barely thirteen, and he turned out great.”

She blinked and looked up at Blake, as if he’d surprised her. Her curly hair was longer than it had been when they were married, longer than it had been when she’d met his flight in San Antonio two years ago.

Had she expected him to tear her to ribbons? To hate her for choosing to stay with the husband she’d married two years after Blake’s disappearance when he’d been presumed dead, instead of coming back home with him?

“I’ve had the magic.” Her words were soft, but her gaze was steady as she continued to look him in the eye. He felt as if he’d been kicked when he realized she was speaking of him. “I took the risk and trusted that marrying the love of my life would be enough, and then I crashed so hard I was afraid I wouldn’t ever recover.”

This was why he couldn’t be around her. Couldn’t even see her. Did she think he didn’t know all this? That he didn’t torture himself with the same knowledge every time he thought about her? Four years of captivity had been a cakewalk compared to the pain he had suffered daily since his return home.

“And I’ve played it safe, too,” she continued, as if completely unaware of the hell going on inside of him. “After you, I married a man I’d known all my life—one who’d loved me for most of it. I chose security and reliability over passion. And I not only ended up still just as unhappy, but I hurt someone else horribly. I’ll live with that for the rest of my life.”

They had that in common.

“I’m not going for strike three, Blake. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a family of my own.”

She’d clearly given her future a lot of thought. And she made a good point.

Her idea might be crazy, but Annie was not.

“So…will you be the father?” She was good for her word. She’d told Cole she’d pose the question and she had.

“What do you plan to do when I say no?”

“I’ve already started looking around.”

“For a sperm bank?” Was that how these things were done?

Annie’s head dropped—something that had happened a little too often during their time together. And always when she was suffering from the low self-esteem, the doubts, that had plagued her since her father’s death.

But what did her father’s suicide have to do with this?

“I can’t take that chance,” she said, quietly but firmly. And then she looked up. “I’ll have to know the man,” she said adamantly. “I’ll have to know that he’s emotionally strong.”

Blake could understand. He really could. But… “Annie, you can’t just go up to a man on the street and ask him to give you a baby. In the first place, you have to think of him, too. What role is he going to play? And do you want the father of your child to be someone who’d be willing to father a child and then walk away?”

The problems with her plan were numerous, coming at him from all directions.

“Are you planning to use artificial insemination?” he asked before she could respond to his first set of objections. “Because I don’t think you’re the kind of woman to have casual sex with a man and then walk away. And even if you were, you’d have to hope he either had a very understanding significant other or that he was completely unattached. And that he would remain unattached for the length of time it took to get you pregnant. Because your chances of getting pregnant on one try are pretty slim…

“And what if he does have a wife or partner? What if she decides she wants to have a part in raising his child?”

Annie shaking her head brought him back to reality. This was none of his business.

He didn’t care what she did. He hoped she’d be safe. Happy. And that was all.

“I’ve had a legal contract drawn up that will cover all of those eventualities and more,” she said. “I’m going to do this, Blake.”

He could see that she was. And that scared him.

He turned to go.

“What should I tell Cole, when he asks me what you said?”

“Tell him I’ll think about it.”

It wasn’t the response he’d wanted to give. He just needed some time—and a good night’s sleep—to figure out how to be a friend to Cole and also stay as far away from Annie and her plans as he possibly could.

Maybe, if he was lucky, he’d be able to suggest a safe, healthy and relatively innocuous replacement for himself.

But one thing was certain. He and Annie were not going to make another baby together.

CHAPTER TWO

THURSDAY MORNING, exactly eight hours after she’d watched Blake get into his seven-year-old Lincoln Continental and drive away, Annie wasn’t concentrating well. She’d held on to his uncle’s car after Alan Smith—having heard the news that Blake was presumed dead—had had a fatal heart attack. And then she’d sold the trading company the two men had operated together, but she hadn’t spent a dime of the proceeds—almost as if some part of her had known, even after she’d married Roger, that Blake was still alive.

And if that was true, if she had known, marrying Roger had been the act of a coward. And a weak, disloyal thing to do.

At least she’d had a nest egg—and a car—to give Blake upon his difficult return home two years before.

Now, she wished he’d sell the damn car. Let go of the past. Let go, period.

Blake was the most controlled and logical human being she’d ever met. Just once, she’d like to hear him yell at the top of his lungs.

Positively Alive! Annie looked at the column heading on her computer screen. Her focus had to be on the future and not on a past she couldn’t change. And for the next hour, her future contained the column that was promised to the River’s Run editor and publisher, Mike Bailey, her boss, by ten o’clock.

The readers of River’s Run, the local five-days-a-week newspaper, would be expecting Annie’s weekly tidbit on living positively. She could talk about taking control of your life, about being a doer rather than a victim. She could even tell them about the baby she was going to have.

She could talk about Wade Barstow, the richest man in town, and the generous contributions he’d made to the schools and the city and the local churches. Wade was generous when it came to money. Annie just wasn’t sure his motives were philanthropic.

She could talk about what a gift the beautiful weather was.

Yet what she really felt like doing was crying. Which made no sense at all. Nothing had changed in the past twenty-four hours. She’d been twice divorced then, too. No one close to her was sick or dying.

Annie settled her laptop more firmly on the card table that served as her kitchen table, coffee table and desk, reminding herself of all the reasons she was glad to be alive.

Yet all she could think about was Blake. The things she’d had and lost. The things she’d wanted and never gotten.

Standing abruptly, she shut down her computer, closed the lid and put it in its case. She made a quick trip to her bedroom, past the twin bed and trunk that took up too little space in the room, and into the adjoining bath to fasten her hair back with barrettes and freshen her lipstick. Then she returned to the kitchen, stopping for only a brief moment to survey the bedroom next to hers, with its new carpet and the hand-carved, Tim Lawry-original crib. A changing table and matching rocker in wood, and the wallpaper she’d bought the previous weekend… The nursery was coming along nicely.

As soon as it was done, she’d start on the rest of the house.

For now, however, she was going to the office. And she’d pray that she found some positive inspiration when she got there.

SHE’D TALKED ABOUT the importance of honesty and self-awareness, and Mike thought it was the best column she’d ever written. Annie didn’t know about that—she wrote three columns a week, and also covered most of the small town’s more newsworthy stories—but she felt one hundred percent better than she had earlier that morning.

Strapping the laptop case to the rack on her bicycle outside the River’s Run offices on Main Street, she threw one leg over the bike and started off. Becky Howard, the highschool nurse, only had half an hour for lunch, and Annie was eager to talk to her best friend—to tell her about the previous night’s encounter with Blake.

Everyone in River Bluff knew about Annie’s past—her fairy-tale marriage to Blake Smith, his disappearance and declared death, her second marriage and then Blake’s homecoming. She’d felt as if the eyes of the world had been upon her the morning she’d gone to meet Blake’s plane. People she’d never spoken to in her life had been waiting to see if she’d stay with Roger or return to Blake. And most—with the exception of Roger’s friends and loved ones—couldn’t help being a little saddened by her choice.

Many had told her so, thinking she’d turned her back on true love.

Only Becky had understood. And maybe Blake.

Her mother certainly hadn’t. But then, June Lawry and Annie hadn’t seen eye to eye since Annie had been in junior high.

River Bluff High School was on the outskirts of town, part of a complex that also housed the junior high where Annie had been the day her father had shot himself. Avoiding that part of the school grounds where she’d heard the news, she unlatched her laptop from the bike carrier—theft happened even in River Bluff, if you made the temptation great enough—and left her yellow ten-speed unlocked in the rack with a dozen other bikes.

Becky wasn’t in her office.

Nor was she in the lunchroom. Or the teachers’ lounge.

Fifteen minutes of her friend’s lunch break had already passed and Annie had no idea where to look next.

“Hi, Ms. Kincaid.”

“How you doing, Katie? Tell your mom thanks for the apple jelly. It was great!”

“I will.” The blond senior smiled as she continued on her way down the hall, and then turned. “You wouldn’t happen to know where Shane is, would you?”

“I hope in class,” Annie said, wondering why the girl would be asking about a boy who was three years younger than she was. Wondering, too, why the girls here all thought it was okay to expose themselves in those extremely low cut pants and two-inch shirts.

And when had Katie gotten that butterfly tattooed on her lower back? Her mother must have shed some tears over that.

SHE FOUND BECKY IN HER silver Tahoe—sitting alone in a parking lot filled to capacity with cars, but no people.

One look at the tears on her friend’s face and Annie opened the passenger door without waiting for an invitation.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, sliding in and closing her door with a quick jerk on the inside handle.

“Oh.” Becky gave her an embarrassed glance, sniffled and made a swipe at her face, as if she could erase the evidence of her distress. “Hi. I didn’t know you were here.”

Annie frowned. If someone had hurt her friend…

“I’ve been thinking about you all morning,” Becky said, her attempt at a smile weak at best. “Tell me how it went.”

As far as Annie was concerned, her trials and tribulations were a low priority at the moment.

“What’s wrong, Bec?” Her friend’s auburn curls had pulled loose from the ponytail she always wore when she worked.

Naturally curly hair was only one of the many things Annie and Becky Howard had in common.

“I just sent a student to a hospital in San Antonio for tests.”

Annie’s skin grew cold. “Is it serious?”

“I think he has an ulcer. He’s been vomiting blood.”

Staring at Becky’s bent head, Annie tried to read her friend’s mind. Certainly a sixteen-or seventeen-year-old with an ulcer had a serious problem. It would be indicative of some pretty severe emotional struggles, if nothing else. But it was still treatable.

She’d watched Becky work a car accident one time on the side of the road; they’d passed just after the crash occurred, and had stopped to see if they could help. One young man had died, but Becky had saved the life of another.

And she’d never shed a tear.

“So what’s really wrong?”

Becky looked up, and her eyes filled with fresh tears.

“I just saw Luke coming out of the grocery store. I wanted yogurt for lunch.”

Damn. “They don’t have yogurt in the cafeteria?”

“Not strawberry banana.”

“Did he say something?” Annie asked gently. Becky was the most loving person she’d ever known. Luke’s leaving town to join the army sixteen years before, walking out on Becky and their love affair so abruptly, without a backward glance, had nearly destroyed her friend. And just as abruptly, a month ago, he’d returned to town.

“No…” Becky’s voice trailed off. “I didn’t give him a chance.”

“Do you think he saw you?”

“He looked straight at me.” Becky’s lips trembled. “I can’t believe this, Annie,” she said with a deep shudder. “I got over Luke Chisum years ago. I want nothing to do with him. And still, seeing him out of the blue like that, I turn to mush.”

Annie wanted to believe that a girl could get over her first love. Even if he had been the knight-in-shining-armor kind.

“It’s just that, seeing him up close…”

Remembering her first sight of Blake, two years before, when he’d stepped off that plane, Annie felt her own throat tighten. “Aw, hon.” She hated seeing her friend hurt. “I’m sorry.”

Becky sniffled and blew her nose.

“It gets easier,” Annie murmured, though she wasn’t as certain of that this morning as she might have been the day before.

Becky nodded. “It has to, doesn’t it?”

Annie sure as hell hoped so.

“He’s got this tiny scar by his left eye….”

“From the helicopter crash?”

“I don’t know, but probably. It’s still a little pink, so it has to be fresh.” She paused, glanced out the windshield and then looked back at Annie, her eyes filled with tenderness —and pain. “I just can’t stop thinking about him over there in Iraq, about all the things we hear about that place. About the crash. What if he’d been taken hostage?”

Grabbing her friend’s hand, Annie gave it a squeeze. “Don’t let those demons get you, Bec,” she said. “You’ll drive yourself crazy.”

And Annie, more than most, knew the truth of this. “Cole says he’s fine,” she continued. “Still the same old joking-around Luke.”

“All that joking covers a lot.”

Annie didn’t doubt it. Luke Chisum had been home only a month and already he was taking his father to therapy, doing everything he could to make his mother’s life easier, doing his share at the family ranch—in spite of an older brother who treated him with open hostility every chance he got.

“Still, other than some color blindness due to damage to the optic nerve, he seems to have completely recovered.”

Becky tried to smile. And failed. “Do you know how long he was at Walter Reed?”

The amount of time he’d spent in the veterans’ hospital would give a medical professional like Becky a fairly good idea of the extent of Luke’s injuries.

“I don’t.” Annie hesitated, thought and then continued, “I know that he got a medical discharge, though. With his vision the way it is, he wouldn’t meet army regulations.”

“I wondered,” Becky said, and looked at Annie again. “He’s back for good, isn’t he?”

“Cole thinks so.”

“Think he’ll let me just go on not speaking to him for the rest of our lives?” Becky’s attempt at a smile was a bit more successful that time.

Annie tilted her head, trying to assess her friend. “You want him to?”

“Depends on the day.”

Annie understood that completely.

“SO TELL ME ABOUT LAST night.” Becky was calm once more, her capable, reliable self as she turned the tables on Annie.

Glancing at her watch, Annie asked, “Don’t you have to get back?”

“I’m working at the clinic this afternoon. I have another hour before I have to be there.”

“Did you get that yogurt you were after?”

Becky grimaced and shook her head. “I was on my way in when I saw Luke. So I turned around and came back here.”

Annie had figured as much. “Why don’t we load the bike up and go to my place? I’ll make us some tuna salad and we can talk.”

SHE ADDED PICKLES and onion to the tuna, put a plate of thin wheat crackers on the table, and they nibbled as Annie relayed, almost word for word, the scene between her and Blake the night before.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” she asked her friend as her story came to its end.

“Not at all.” Becky didn’t hesitate. “The world has changed so much in the past five years,” she said. “Not only has it become common for women to assume challenging roles in the workplace, we’re learning that we have all kinds of personal strengths we didn’t realize we had. Society, as a whole, is also more focused on getting the most out of life. Going after what we want. And you’re a product of that.”

“I live in a tiny town in Texas, in the middle of nowhere,” Annie reminded her.

“With the Internet, no place is in the middle of nowhere anymore.”

Annie knew she’d needed to talk to Becky. Her friend had always had a way of making sense of the world, most particularly when Annie couldn’t seem to do so herself.

“I wrote in my column this morning about being honest,” she said, thinking aloud. “And the one thought I kept coming back to was how badly I want this baby. I mean, I get a little scared sometimes, when I think of raising a child all alone, but mostly I just feel peaceful about the idea. I’m so sure this is the right step for me.”

“Not that it matters,” Becky said, laying a hand on top of Annie’s, “but I think so, too.”

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ve never said so.”

“I didn’t want to encourage you, in case you weren’t sure.”

“So what makes you say so now?”

“It meant so much to you that you were willing to risk the pain of seeing Blake again—even knowing that he’d say no.”

Annie was tempted to say nothing. But this was Becky.

“He didn’t actually say no yet.” It meant nothing. “I think he has to at least give the appearance of considering the idea, because of his friendship with Cole.”

Damn Cole for putting her—and Blake—in this position. As much as she adored her younger brother, there were times when his stubborn refusal to accept that she and Blake were over grated on her nerves.

Becky was staring at her. “Blake didn’t say no?”

“Not yet. But he will.”

“What did he say?” The interest in Becky’s eyes scared Annie. As if there was something there…

“That he’d think about it. Like I said, he has to, because he’s still Cole’s friend.” She wanted to make that point abundantly clear.

“Did he say when he’d let you know?”

“No. He’ll probably just give Cole a call. I’m half expecting to hear from my interfering brother any minute now.”

“What if he doesn’t say no?”

Annie’s heart nearly stopped, and then her breathing followed suit. Both started again raggedly. “He’s going to say no.” That’s all there was to it. “I’ve got my first interview with a prospective donor next week in Houston.”

“Who with?” Becky’s surprise seemed to distract her—which was a good thing as far as Annie was concerned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I just set it up this morning,” she replied. “He’s a communications professor, a friend of someone I worked with at the station in San Antonio when I was married to Blake. He’s widowed, fifty-seven, has two grown kids and a woman friend who is in complete support of the ‘project,’ as he called it.”

“He called your baby a project?”

Annie hadn’t been thrilled with that, either.

“HEY, DO YOU KNOW WHY Katie Hollister would be looking for Shane?” Annie asked as she and Becky tidied up after the lunch they’d barely touched.

“They hardly know each other,” Becky said, shaking her head. “She’s a senior, and Shane just started high school.”

“That’s what I thought.” The Hollisters lived across the street from the three-bedroom ranch home Annie and Roger had bought when they got married.

Annie repeated the conversation she’d had with her young neighbor at school earlier that day.

“She’s seen Shane over here often enough with me,” Becky said. The women frequently had Sunday dinner together.

Becky, who was the daughter of River Bluff’s sheriff, had been raised by her father’s exceedingly strict mother, and she was sometimes as eager as Annie to escape family get-togethers.

“Guess that’s why she’d assume you’d know,” Becky was saying now, but she was frowning, and she seemed to be thinking about far more than that.

“Could also be that we live in the same town we grew up in and everyone knows we’re best friends,” Annie teased, wiping crumbs off the counter. “So what’s up? Why would a popular girl like Katie be looking for a guy three years younger than she is?”

“I have no idea, but I intend to find out.”

“If it’s a romantic thing, I doubt your son is going to open up to his mother about it,” Annie observed.

“Of course it isn’t romantic.” Becky’s voice became more adamant with every word. “He’s barely fifteen years old,” she added, as if that explained it all. “Girls like Katie Hollister go for football captains and college guys, not younger boys.”

Unless the boy in question had great muscles and a gorgeous face like Shane Howard’s? Annie sure hoped not. The last thing Becky needed right now was problems with her son. And the last thing Shane needed was to be led off track by hormones and a slightly wild older woman. He was a good kid, with decent grades and a plan for his future.

ANNIE FOLLOWED BECKY back out to the car to retrieve her bike.

“You call me the second you hear from Blake,” her friend demanded, closing the back of the Tahoe.

“I’m not going to hear from him.”

Becky’s expression was firm as she stood there, shoulders back. “You might, Annie. You need to be prepared for that.”

No, she didn’t. But she’d be fine, either way.

“Have you thought about what you’ll do if he says yes?”

“He’s not going to say yes.”

Becky’s keys dangled from her fingers as she put her hands on her hips. “I hope you’re right.”

Annie knew what Becky was trying to do here. She wanted Annie’s eyes wide open so she wouldn’t be blindsided—and get hurt. “Remember last New Year’s Eve?” she asked.

Shane had been at a party hosted by the town council for all the local teens. They’d been locked in at the high school. And Becky and Annie had spent the night in Annie’s newly empty house, grilling steaks, drinking wine and thinking positively about the life ahead of them.

“Yeah,” Becky said slowly.

“We said we were going to keep our thoughts on the things we want. And that we weren’t going to worry about things that haven’t happened—most particularly, when they probably won’t happen.”

“We were talking about getting cancer or being hurt or…”

“Blake saying yes to fathering my child.”

“Oh, honey, bless your heart,” Becky said, as she saw the tears in her eyes.

“He did that once, you know.” Annie’s voice was little more than a whisper.

And then he’d left the country on business, even though Annie had begged him not to go, and she’d miscarried, and he hadn’t come back….

CHAPTER THREE

“THANKS FOR SEEING ME, Mr. Smith. I brought a copy of my résumé for you.” The twentysomething, smartly dressed young man seemed to have enough energy for the two of them Friday morning. A damn good thing, as Blake had slept little in the two nights since his ex-wife’s invasion of his life.

“I’m sorry if Marta gave you the impression I’m hiring,” he said now, taking the linen-covered portfolio he’d just been handed. “I’m a one-man show in here and my secretary’s got all of the administrative duties covered.”

“She did relay that information,” Colin Warner said, his slightly spiky hair bringing an inward grin to Blake’s rather bleak state of mind. He tried to picture any of the Wild Bunch showing up at the poker table with similar hair—or any kind of styling, for that matter. “I’d still like to speak with you, if I may.”

Better that, Blake told himself, than think about friendships and impossible requests from determined women.

“Marta said you have a proposition for me.”

“I do—an investment.”

Eyes narrowed, Blake shifted in his chair. “Go on.”

“Just not your usual sort.”

“How do you know my usual sort?” If he had one, he didn’t know about it.

“Everyone has his or her own unique signature, a personal collection of habitual actions, with which he leaves an individual mark on the space he occupies.”

In theory, Blake agreed.

“You, for example, tend to buy based on three things—global use, word of mouth and thorough financial analysis. You’ve been in business for two years, you’ve dealt mainly in real estate and insurance, though there’s the half interest in Cowboy Bob’s….”

A steak franchise that one of his uncle’s former clients had brought his way.

“Land, peace of mind and food—things everyone needs. You buy only when you’re approached, and you’ve made a profit on every single transaction to date.”

Did this kid know Blake was set to clear close to a quarter of a million this year, too?

Did he know what kind of toilet paper Blake used?

Because he prided himself on giving everyone a shot—and was in need of a diversion —Blake continued to listen.

“What I have to offer you fits only one of those three models.”

“What do you have to sell?” Blake asked, wishing he’d taken a moment to look over Warner’s résumé. The kid was entertaining, if nothing else.

“Me.”

“You.” He’d just said he wasn’t hiring. The income he’d earned this past year could just as easily be cut in half if he made a bad choice. But Blake could take that risk when he had only himself to consider.

And Marta. While most of Smith Investment’s profit went back into the business, Blake could afford one decent salary.

One. Not two.

“I’ve got a bachelor of business administration in finance from Texas A & M, with a specialization in investment analysis and valuation.”

Blake wasn’t surprised.

“In two years you’ve more than doubled your initial investment, Mr. Smith,” the younger man said, leaning forward, almost as if his eagerness might launch him across Blake’s desk. “You’re ripe for growth. Yet you wait for people to come to you with opportunities.”

Blake didn’t like the way that sounded. He chose to do business as he did for two reasons, he reminded himself. First, because he was still, after four years locked up in a hole, rediscovering his financial legs. A lot had happened with the Internet, and with the economy, in the time he’d been gone. And second, with his and his uncle’s old business contacts, there were enough opportunities to keep him busy.

“I have no money to invest, but I have the skills and interest required to seek out potential buys—to do all the tedious research needed to put you in the driver’s seat on any deal you choose to pursue,” Colin continued, apparently undeterred by Blake’s silence.

Which kind of impressed Blake. Or maybe he was just grateful to the kid for interrupting his life. A life that had suited him fine until he’d gone to play Texas Hold’em the other night.

“I can’t afford another salary yet.” He figured Colin already knew that—it wasn’t hard to figure out if he’d followed Blake’s investments and knew the profit margin on them. “I started with a chunk of money I inherited, and I’ve done well enough, but I’ve not been at this long enough to be certain that my good luck will continue.”

“Your decisions rest on more than luck, Mr. Smith. That much is obvious.” Colin’s sincerity was beginning to verge on hero worship.

And Blake, in his current state, wasn’t entirely immune to that.

“Luck only works a percentage of the time,” Colin added. “What I’m proposing is this. You take me on as part of the company, providing the usual benefits, which you can get at a decent cost because you own part of a growing insurance company. And I’ll work strictly on a commission basis. Any deal I find for us that you close, I get five percent of the profit.”

Intent now, Blake studied the young man. “How do you live, in the meantime?”

“I’ve got about a year’s worth of living expenses saved. If I don’t do something for us in a year’s time, I’m not as good at this as I think I am, and I need to move on.”

“Do you smoke?”

“No.”

“Have any preexisting conditions I need to be aware of?”

“No.”

It was just going to cost him the insurance premium on a healthy, fit, low-risk male.

“You’d also have to be willing to handle any day-to-day follow-up and phone calls for me, if I need to be out of the office for any reason.”

Blake hadn’t had a vacation since his return home. And certainly not in the four years before that.

“Does this mean you’re investing in me, sir?”

“You a Cowboys fan?”

“Isn’t everyone?”

“Ever heard of Brady Carrick?”

“The wide receiver who busted his knee, had to retire and ended up losing a fortune in Vegas?”

“That’s the one. He’s recently moved back to the area and is looking for a horse.”

“You know him?”

“He’s a friend.”

“And you want me to find him a horse?”

“Brady’s family owns the Cross Fox Ranch in River Bluff. You may have heard of it.”

“Can’t hardly be from around here and not hear of them, can you? At least not if you watch the news. They train serious moneymaking, winning-circle horses. I saw a shoot of the Cross Fox once when I was doing a livestock research analysis for class. They’ve got this thirty-six-stall stable that looked more elegant than the place I was living.” The young man’s enthusiasm just didn’t quit. “They ship to racetracks all over the South and Southwest. You want me to find that kind of horse for Brady Carrick?”

“If you think you can.”

“So this means I’m hired?”

Blake smiled for the first time that morning. “I guess it does.” It might be good to have a permanent diversion around the place, someone to discuss sports with, and to share the obligation of listening to Marta go on about bridge or food or shopping.

“Thanks, Mr. Smith. You won’t be sorry.”

Maybe not about the acquisition of Colin Warner. But Blake had a feeling he was going to regret, for the rest of his life, the next deal he was planning to close.

“HELLO?” Annie had turned from her laptop but had made herself wait three rings while she cursed herself into steadiness.

“Annie?”

Deflated, she plopped back into the beanbag chair that doubled as couch and all other seating possibilities in her living room. “Hi, Mom.”

“I read your column yesterday and really liked it,” June Lawry said. “You make good points about honesty and self-awareness.”

In spite of all the years in which their ability to communicate had been limited, Annie smiled in response to her mother’s praise.

“I’m glad you liked it.”

And did you perhaps gain from it?

A few years ago, she wouldn’t have had the audacity to hope that her mother might someday be strong enough to take control of her own life.

But today Annie saw the world differently.

“I like all of your columns, honey,” her mother said softly, leaving the sentence hanging at the end, as though she could have added more.

Annie let the moment pass, as well. The fewer expectations she had, where her mother was concerned, the fewer disappointments—and the fewer reasons to be upset or feel hurt.

June Lawry was a kind woman with a good heart, and she did her best with what she had. It wasn’t her fault that her best had often left Annie’s needs unfulfilled.

“Even the agricultural analyses?” Annie teased her now.

“I read them.”

“You never told me that.”

“You never asked.”

Her mother’s reply took her right back to those expectations again. Were there other things she’d missed, where June was concerned, simply because she’d failed to look?

A flashback to her fourteenth birthday, home alone caring for a sick twelve-year-old brother while her mother attended a Bible study and social at church, quickly confused Annie’s thought process.

“The community church’s annual holiday bazaar and toy drive is coming up at the end of next month,” her mother was saying, and Annie only half listened, picking up her laptop from the floor beside her. Mention of the church that had taken so much of her mother’s focus at a time when Annie—and Cole—had really needed a mom, still put her on edge, even after all these years.

“I have a job that you’d be perfect for, honey, and I was hoping you’d…” June’s voice trailed off.

“Sure, Mom.” Annie took up the slack—out of habit, and because she couldn’t not. Just as she hadn’t been able to turn her back on the responsibilities that should have been her mother’s all those years ago. After Tim Lawry’s suicide, the entire family had fallen apart. Unable to handle her personal devastation alone, June Lawry had turned to the church. Which had brought a semblance of peace—but also dependence—to her broken and fearful heart.

In many ways, Annie had, at thirteen, become both mother and father. Despite her own grieving and fearful heart.

But that was long ago. And she’d moved on—they all had.

“What do you need me to do?” she asked now, scrolling through a growing list of potential sperm donors, assembled from responses to the letters she’d sent out.

“I was wondering if you could write a series of human interest articles. We’d have to figure what they’d be about, but the general idea is to raise interest in the bazaar.” June’s voice gained strength as she continued to outline her idea, and Annie wondered again if there were things she was missing about her mother—changes, perhaps growth she’d been too blind to notice because of her old assumptions.

The idea made her hopeful—and uncomfortable, as well.

BLAKE FOUND HE HAD several things to take care of after Colin Warner’s departure on Friday. They just kept popping up, demanding his attention. An e-mail in-box to clean out. A list of to-do items for Marta.

There were stocks to check. A callback to make. And some figures to analyze for Monday’s meeting with the potential seller of an apartment complex he was interested in buying and renovating into luxury condominiums. Developers had been making a mint on the practice for years in California.

He’d had Marta collect contractor bids, most of which had come in within the budget he’d projected.

“It’s five o’clock, Blake. Mind if I take off? Bob and I have a dinner engagement tonight.”

Glancing up at the sharply dressed mother of three teenaged girls, Blake thanked her for her day’s work, wished her a good weekend and helped himself to a weak glass of Scotch and water.

Enough to take the edge off, but not enough to tempt him to spend the rest of the evening in a state of forgetfulness—as he’d done a time or two after he’d first opened shop again, two years before.

And then there was no further excuse for procrastinating. The workday was done.

Grabbing his cell phone, Blake hit the last number on his speed dial. For the first time ever.

He switched ears when he heard her answer. But didn’t consider hanging up.

“I’d like to stop by, if that’s okay,” he said shortly.

His request was met with silence. But then she replied, “Stop by River Bluff, thirty miles outside San Antonio—on your way where?”

“Are you going to be home tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have plans?”

There was another pause. “I was going to cut wallpaper.” And then, as if she was worried he’d feel sorry for her, alone on a Friday night, she added, “Becky’s at the game. Shane’s playing.” And high-school football was a constant in River Bluff, whether you had a kid in school or not.

“May I come over?” If anyone had told him three, four, even five years ago that he’d be asking that question of Annie, he’d have known they were crazy.

These days he wondered if he was.

“I guess.”

“Give me an hour.”

Blake rang off before she could ask him questions he wasn’t prepared to answer over the phone. Or worse, before she could change her mind. He had to get this done. He couldn’t take another day like today.

SHE TRIED TO EAT DINNER but the food stuck in her throat, so she put it outside for the stray cat, instead. The darn thing didn’t seem to realize that cats were supposed to be finicky eaters. Scrambled eggs were just fine with her.

But entering a house wasn’t. As many times as Annie had tried over the past year to coax the bedraggled thing inside, it continued to refuse her invitations.

She heard Blake’s car door and reached for the cat, wishing for something warm to hold. But it darted across the yard and into the Friday evening darkness.

Annie went back inside, locking the kitchen door behind her. Grabbing the glass of wine she’d poured, she slipped on her sandals, pulled down her T-shirt over the low-cut waistband of her jeans, and went to open the front door, flipping on the porch light.

She needed to be on the offensive, but she could handle this. Blake felt honor bound to explain, in person, why he couldn’t father her child. She understood.

He was a respectful kind of guy. And this entire strange episode between them was mostly about his relationship with Cole. It had nothing to do with her.

“Hi,” she said through the screen door, fumbling with the lock. If he talked fast, he could be done and gone before she even got it open.

Other than muttering hello, he didn’t talk at all. Finally, Annie pushed on the latch, catching her breath as she opened her home to the outside night air—and him.

Blake at any time was hard to ignore. But in a suit he was breathtaking.

And maybe a little intimidating, too. If she’d been susceptible to him emotionally, in any way. Now, however, she was only inclined to get rid of him.

When he turned, waiting for her to lead the way, she headed toward the kitchen. It was the one place where she had more than a single seat to offer.

He took the folding chair she pointed him to. “Your tastes have changed.” His voice was more teasing than judgmental—not that Blake had ever been one to point fingers at anyone.

“I wanted the house more than I wanted the furniture,” she said, pouring him a glass of the merlot he used to like, and bringing it and her own glass to the table. She didn’t plan for them to be there long enough to finish their drinks, but the wine provided them with something socially acceptable to do while they decided not to have a baby together.

It might take a moment or two for her to figure out how to handle Cole’s reaction in a way that would be gentle yet firm.

“Roger wanted the furniture worse than he wanted the house,” she continued, handing Blake a napkin to put under his glass. “I got the dishes. He got the tools.”

She sat.

Blake’s gaze settled on her as if he could see inside her just as well as he used to. She wished he wouldn’t do that.

“It sounds like it was an amicable parting,” he said.

She nodded tentatively. On paper it had been. But privately, in those conversations when they acknowledged that they had to part, there’d been nothing but disappointment. And pain. And guilt. His pain and her guilt. And in the end, her pain, too.

In marrying Roger, who’d been her friend for years, she’d hurt someone she loved. Horribly.

“I heard he left town,” Blake said, and Annie stared at him. He was a little too close to her thoughts.

“He has an uncle in Ohio with a farm equipment company. Roger’s running the place for him now.”

“Does he like it there?”

How would Annie know? She wasn’t in the habit of talking to her exes—as Blake was well aware.

“According to his sister, when I ran into her at the post office about six months ago.”

“She’s still in town?”

“They moved to San Antonio this past summer. Her daughter needed a gifted program….”

“What about his parents?”

“His dad died several years ago, and afterward his mom remarried and moved to Dallas.”

And that just about took care of Annie’s second marriage—and nearly four years of her life.

“Do you have any regrets?”

No one had asked her that before—not regarding her breakup with Roger. That was a question she’d heard many times, however, after Blake had returned and she’d chosen to honor her current marriage over her first. Most often she’d heard it from Roger.

“He’s a good man who’d have given his life for me, and I hurt him,” she said simply. “Of course I have regrets.”

“You stayed with him.”

“I was committed, and I did love him. But he knew I wasn’t in love with him.”

She didn’t realize exactly what she’d just revealed—and to whom—until Blake took a slow sip of his wine, peering at her over the top of the glass.

“From the beginning?” His question, as usual, went straight to the point.

“He knew from the beginning, yes.”

Blake didn’t say any more, and in spite of all the things left unsaid between them, neither did she.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE WINE WAS GOOD, but Blake sipped slowly.

It would be so easy to let the libation do his work for him. Too easy. And infinitely more difficult to regain his self-control.

He’d been that route. And had managed to haul himself away from the detour before it destroyed him.

But there were others.

“I’ve given some thought to your request.” In fact, pretty much every nonwork thought he’d had in the past forty-eight hours had concerned Annie’s request.

She looked about twenty as she sat there, silently awaiting his response. Instead of filling out with approaching middle age, she was thinner now, her belly flatter—and more tanned, he saw from the sliver of skin showing between the bottom of her shirt and the low-cut top of her jeans.

His gaze settled there, finding momentary escape. But then that belly was a reminder of other things, too.

“What happened?” His dry throat made speech difficult.

Annie was frowning. “What do you mean? What happened when?”

There was a time when she’d known what he was thinking, sometimes even before he did. Back then they’d talked in code, their own particular language of half-spoken thoughts understood only by the two of them.

“With the baby.”

He could feel her stiffen. Watched her wineglass tremble as she raised it to her lips.

Our baby, he’d wanted to say.

“The doctor just said it was one of those things.”

“One of what things?”

Annie ran her finger around the rim of her glass, not looking at him. “It happens that way sometimes. Could be the egg and sperm didn’t fully fertilize, or that the egg wasn’t properly embedded in the uterus. Maybe there was some genetic abnormality that would have produced catastrophic results. Miscarriages are common—nature’s way of ridding the body of something that wasn’t right.”

He thought about that. Wondered what could possibly have not been right about a baby between him and Annie. A baby that they’d conceived together in love.

“What are the chances of it happening again?”

How could talking with Annie feel so awkward? And at the same time so natural? Right?

“Slim. I’ve had all the tests, just for my own peace of mind, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me—no reason I shouldn’t carry a healthy baby full term.”

Suddenly, he could feel the tremors starting—behind his knees was always the first place they hit. He had to get out of here. Or at the very least, out of a conversation that was triggering such painful memories.

“Were they able to tell…if it was a boy or a girl?”

Stop, man. Go home.

The interior of his uncle’s old Lincoln was beige. With white stitching. After all these years, the smell of the leather still permeated the car. And if he concentrated hard enough he could smell it.

If Blake stood up, he could be driving away in less than a minute.

It took him several seconds to see that Annie was shaking her head, the curls around her temples brushing against her skin. “It was too soon,” she said, her voice hushed.

She still hurt. The loss of their child tore at her, undiminished with time. He’d known that, of course, on some level. He just didn’t want to think about it.

Not unless he couldn’t help it. Like all the other things locked away in that cave inside him, numbing him to much of what went on in the outside world. And in his own world, as well.

“I was expecting to see a three-and-a-half-year-old girl when I got off that plane.”

What in the hell was he doing? He didn’t relive this stuff. This wasn’t why he’d come here.

He had a plan. Strict orders to himself.

One of which was to be out of Annie’s house within ten minutes.

He’d already disobeyed that order.

Annie sat still, not looking at him.

“She had blond hair, like my mother’s,” Blake continued. “And curls like yours.”

He could feel the anticipation, the sweat down the middle of his back. Could hear the sound of the plane’s engines, the landing gear dropping down. And then metal clanking on metal—a cell door closing. Locking him in.

“She took her first step on what I calculated to be October 12.” He heard his voice, but wasn’t completely sure that it wasn’t just in his head. “She said ‘Mama’ on Christmas Eve—the best Christmas present you could have received.”

When he’d imagined all this the first time, he’d been lying naked on a dirty cement floor somewhere in Jordan, shivering with cold. The nudity had been his punishment for refusing to eat until he was granted some kind of contact with the American embassy. By then he’d been imprisoned for eighteen months. Had only known the exact date because one of his guards had taunted him about the Christian holiday.

Blake had grown used to the mental and emotional torture by then. Or at least, he’d become as immune to it as a human being could be, living under such duress for an extended length of time.

They hadn’t beaten him. He had no outward scars. And he was thankful for that.

“I used to picture you breast-feeding her,” he continued. “I had set feeding times, and I’d sit and picture you, the creamy whiteness of your breasts. The softness in your eyes as you looked at our little girl. The gentle smile on your lips. I’d see her little hand, with her tiny fingernails, cupping you, opening and closing against you. I could hear her suckling. For months, I would wake up in the morning, eager to get to feeding time. And look forward to subsequent feedings throughout the day.”

His voice trailed off, but the vision didn’t. He was there. Feeling the cold. The hardness. Seeing the rough gray rock of the makeshift cell that a group of extremist insurgents had held him in—U.S. collateral for whatever they might decide to bargain for, following the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C.

“She was almost three when she was finally potty trained. Though you gave it your best effort for six months prior to that, she refused to be interested before then. But then, almost overnight, she had it.”

And shortly after that his captors had been identified by the Jordanian government. It had taken them another three months to find Blake and the other civilians the group had held hostage.

Blake blinked, his eyes burning, as he relived the first experience of daylight he’d had in nearly four years. He had hardly been able to comprehend the blue skies and sunshine overhead, and the fresh air against his skin had been almost painful.

And so beautiful he’d actually wept as he walked down the path to medical help and a series of debriefing meetings, counseling, hand-holding, more debriefing, exercising, recovering his strength.

And finally, after one brief phone call announcing his arrival, home.

Home.

The hot air surrounding him suddenly cooled, chilling his wet skin. Blake blinked again. Less painfully this time. His eyes came back to his surroundings and focused on the friendly lighting in a kitchen in River Bluff, Texas.

And he saw Annie sitting not two feet away from him, tears streaming down her face.

“I… TELL ME ABOUT IT, Blake. About what happened to you.” Dry-eyed now, Annie tried to reconnect with the man she’d once loved with all her heart. He sipped his wine. Acted as if he hadn’t just given her more of himself in five minutes than he’d given her during their entire marriage.

He shrugged. “There’s not much to tell that you don’t already know. I was among a small group of American and British civilians taken captive by a rogue band of bin Laden supporters who hoped to gain his approval by offering him human bargaining tools.”

She, and a lot of other people, knew the political part. The official explanation for innocent people losing years of their lives to terrorist factions.

“You were in captivity for four years, Blake. What was it like?”

“Not as bad as it could have been,” he said at last. “We were never tortured.”

The words hinted at something that remained unsaid, and Annie shivered.

“Holding someone against their will is torture.” She dared to push him, which was something she wouldn’t have done six years before. She’d begged once. And that had netted her nothing but a husband who was presumed dead, and a miscarriage that had nearly cost her her sanity.

Talk to me, Blake. Her pleas were silent now. For once in your life, give me even a small bit of all that you hold so deeply inside of you.

He stood. “I’m sorry to have kept you so long,” he said, pushing the folding chair back up to the card table. He set down his glass. “I came to talk to you about this…thing you intend to do.”

He’d come to tell her no, and she didn’t want to hear it—not right then. Not when her feelings were so raw, her heart still breaking at the thought of her proud, loyal, private-to-the-point-of-breaking-her-heart husband locked away all alone in some cell in the Middle East, imagining their nonexistent child at her breast.

“It’s okay.”

His brows raised, he glanced down at her. “You’ve changed your mind?”

“No. I just…”

“In that case, I agree.”

AS SOON AS HE HEARD himself say the words, Blake turned around and walked out of Annie’s kitchen. Out of her house. And her life.

He drove for an hour, but without leaving River Bluff. Past the Cross Fox Ranch, which was the home of the Carricks, a father-andson duo who cared deeply for each other while struggling to see who each had become in the time Brady had been gone. Around town, and then out to see Luke Chisum, another of the gang of poker players who had taken him on as one of their own.

Blake had only met Luke the month before. And he figured he’d probably never know the real man behind the happy-faced guy who sat at the table and joked with men he’d known his whole life. Luke hadn’t had an easy time of it. Still wasn’t, from what little Blake had gathered from things left unsaid at the table. Not only had Luke come home to help his mother care for his father, who’d had a stroke, but there were problems with an older brother, too.

Blake could relate. His homecoming hadn’t been the best, either.

The Lincoln found its way past the old bar outside of town where the Wild Bunch played their weekly poker games. It reminded Blake of his life—once filled with love and promise and friendship, and now run-down, a shambles.

He went by Cole’s place, too. Sat at the end of the drive of the half-built dream house that his recently divorced friend and ex-brother-in-law was slowly finishing on his own. Blake thought about knocking on the door. Thought about it, but didn’t do it.

Instead, with more doubt in his heart than anything else, he somehow found himself back outside the house Annie and her second husband had bought together. Lived in together.

The home she’d gone back to the day she’d picked up Blake from the airport in San Antonio and driven him to the hotel where she’d booked him a room, leaving him with a bank account containing a quarter of a million dollars, keys to his deceased uncle’s car, and a hole where his heart had been.

He climbed the steps more slowly this time around. Knocked. And knocked again.

When she didn’t answer, he tried the door. It had been latched earlier, but hardly anyone in River Bluff locked their doors. Blake wasn’t surprised now whenAnnie’s door swung open.

And he didn’t even think twice when he stepped inside, moving slowly through the rooms, listening for any sound that might tell him where he’d find her.

The house gave away nothing. He took in the nearly empty living room and a bedroom-turned-office, with a desk that matched her kitchen table.

Passed a bathroom and moved on down the hallway to another bedroom, not sure what to expect. And that’s where he found her. Sitting on the floor in the middle of the most exquisite room he’d ever seen.

Annie might not have done a thing with the rest of her living space, but the room she’d created for the baby she hoped to have could easily have been featured in a magazine.

She glanced up. Met his gaze. Didn’t seem all that surprised to see him there, again, uninvited.

“We have to talk.” He’d never been much for pretty words, and this time was no different.

Pulling her knees to her chest, Annie wrapped her arms around them and nodded.

He’d come back to tell her that he’d misspoken earlier. That he couldn’t father her child. For all the obvious reasons. And for one she would have no way of knowing.

Contrary to what her brother, Cole, thought, Blake didn’t fit her criteria. First and foremost, Annie was looking for a man who was emotionally stable. Strong.

And Blake Smith was no such thing.

SHE TRIED TO LOOK AT HIM, to face life head-on. But instead she could only stare at the rainbow mural painted on the wall opposite the hand-carved wooden crib she’d found in a little shop outside of Waco.

“We need to decide how we’re going to go about doing this.”

Blake’s words were so matter-of-fact, so ludicrous, when she considered that they hadn’t seen each other in two years, and before that had been separated for four. And were now, with barely a hello, discussing sharing their sperm and eggs.

She wasn’t going to sleep with him. She couldn’t.

“Have you changed your mind?”

His question made her think.

“Because if you’ve decided you don’t want a baby after all, I’d be—”

“No!” She’d not meant to speak so sharply. “I want the baby.”

More than anything. She was completely sure of that.

“You just don’t want me to be the father.” He’d always been a smart man.

And had managed to miss such key things at the same time.

“I didn’t expect you to say yes.” Which wasn’t quite the same thing. But close enough.

“You have someone else in mind?”

She wanted to lie. Wished she could truthfully say yes. “No.”

“But you want to find someone else.”

Chin high, she stared up at him. “Don’t you want that, too? In all honesty?”

Blake’s hesitation made her heart miss a beat. He’d disappeared on her six years ago. And run out again an hour ago.

“You could end up with a man who fit all the criteria and seemed nice, but was rough when it came right down to it….”

Or what? A man who made such exquisite love that he brought tears to her eyes?

Even though he never told her that he loved her.

“And contracts are only as binding as a judge decides they are. Whatever judge is looking at them at the time the parties are in court. This guy might change his mind sometime down the road and sue for parenting rights. He could get a sympathetic judge, and then—”

“Blake.” She couldn’t sit here and listen to this. “Don’t you think I’ve considered all the pros and cons of such a decision? A hundred times over?”

He knew her. As did everyone else in the tiny town she’d been born and raised in. Annie Kincaid was careful about everything she did.

When he remained silent, staring down at her as if she were a cross between a princess and a toad, she continued. “I don’t want you helping me out of guilt.”

“I’m not the one who remarried. Or chose husband number two over husband number one.”

She deserved that. At least in part. It wasn’t anything she hadn’t already said to herself at least once a day since his return.

“I’m sorry.” He leaned against the doorjamb. “That was unfair and uncalled for.”

“Cole’s crazy, Blake. And this idea of his was out of line. Just forget I ever asked. I’m going to tell my little brother to mind his own business and then I’ll get on with the business of living my own life.”

She had no idea why she was holding her breath. She just needed Blake to go.

“I can’t forget it.”

“Why not?”

“I have no idea.”

She couldn’t get away from the honesty in his reply. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

Little fingers of some long forgotten feeling crept through Annie’s lower parts. Had they just decided to make a baby? Together?

Flushed with heat, she wanted to jump up, move around, away. And instead, she couldn’t do anything but stare at him.

And remember.

Blake’s kiss, his taste had always been enough to unhinge her. His arms had offered her a unique mixture of strength and tenderness, providing a sense of safety, but never a feeling of confinement. And when his long legs were wrapped around hers…

“I want to be very clear up front.”

Annie glanced up, realizing that Blake had been talking to her. He’d shed his suit jacket sometime between his earlier visit and this one. Loosened his tie.

He looked tired.

And lonely?

“Up front?” she asked, swallowing when the words got stuck in her throat.

“I said I have a couple of stipulations.”

So that’s what she’d missed. Annie nodded, listening. Trying to focus.

“First, I’m not going to sign any contract that takes away my right to be a father to my own child.”

Walls rose, and Annie found it hard to continue listening; managed to do so only by assuring herself that as soon as he finished talking she was going to tell him that there was no deal.

“I’ll sign a contract that gives you custody of the child, that makes you the primary parent, but I want to be known to him or her, and to have visitation rights.”

Not as bad as she’d first thought. He was peering over at her, as though waiting for a response. Her nod was jerky at best.

“Second, it must be understood that this agreement in no way initiates any resurrection of a personal relationship between the two of us.”

That one was easy. “I agree completely.”

Head turned slightly, he gave her that assessing look that had always made her nervous.

“I mean it, Annie.”

Like she didn’t? “You’re the one who pointed out that I stayed with husband number two,” she blurted, before she had time to edit her words.

“I’m not a demonstrative guy. Never have been. You need demonstrations of affection. Hand holding and romance and esoteric promises.”

I love you would have been nice.

“I hurt you once. And I’ll live with the regret for the rest of my life. I can’t risk doing that again.”

“Blake…” She stood as she prepared to make her point. “You’re preaching to the converted here. The feelings I had for you died a long time ago. But even if they hadn’t, even if they somehow returned, I would never, ever go back to you.”

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