HE WAS GOING TO SLEEP WITH BETHANY TONIGHT. IT HAD BEEN a long time, and he’d been thinking about it all day.

Except…Bethany was not in a great mood. She’d been quiet at the restaurant, and even quieter since they’d returned to his cabin. Sitting next to him on the sofa, she sipped the decaf he’d made her and stared blankly at his aquarium, not saying a word.

He put his arm around her. “I feel like I’m with Emma tonight,” he said, “having to guess what you’re thinking.” He touched her temple lightly with his fingers. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Nothing,” she said.

A loaded response. Whatever was bothering her, he had to deal with it before they went to bed. Sleeping with Bethany when she was annoyed was never a good idea. Whatever was disturbing her would come out immediately after they’d made love, and he’d be up all night trying to make amends.

He tried to think back to when her sullen mood had started, and the answer came to him quickly: she’d been upset from the moment she’d arrived at his cabin, her overnight bag slung over her shoulder, and found him on the phone with Laura.

Emma and her friend, Cory, were pretending their Barbies worked at an aquarium, Laura had told him, and the entire bookshelf had been converted into doll-size offices in the aquarium building.

Then she told him about her disturbing visit to Sarah that afternoon, something unbelievable about Sarah’s husband pretending to be a psychiatric patient and getting himself lobotomized in the process.

That’s when Bethany showed up, loudly announcing her arrival, and Dylan had cringed at her timing. Laura must think he had a constant string of women parading through his house.

“I’m interrupting again,” Laura had said. He hadn’t bothered denying it this time. He told her they could talk again tomorrow and thanked her for calling.

“Who’s that?” Bethany had asked when he got off the phone.

“Laura.” He told her about the Barbies and the aquarium and the bookshelf, while Bethany stared at him as if he’d gone mad.

“I can’t believe you’re talking about Barbie dolls,” she said. Then she kissed him and poured him a glass of wine, but there was a stiffness in her movements that let him know she was not pleased. Was that what was still bugging her now, hours later?

He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “I know something’s bothering you,” he said. “It’s not ‘nothing.’ Tell me what’s going on.”

Bethany leaned forward to set her mug on the coffee table, then turned toward him, escaping his arm in the process. “Do you know how many times you said the name ‘Emma’ tonight?” she asked.

He shrugged. “A few, I guess.”

“Thirty-four,” Bethany said. “And I only started counting at the restaurant.”

“You counted? What was the point in—”

“And how about ‘Laura’?” Bethany didn’t wait for him to answer. “Twenty-three.”

Twenty-three? “Come on, Beth—”

“You say you’re not interested in Emma’s mother, but you sure talked about her enough,” she said.” And guess how many times you said the name ‘Bethany’?”

He knew he was not going to win this game, no matter what he answered. “I don’t know,” he said, giving up.

“Twice, Dylan. Twice.” There was anger in her eyes. “And now you expect me to stay overnight, don’t you?”

“I thought you wanted to,” he said. “You brought your—”

She stood up. “Forget it! I’m not staying.” She marched toward the kitchen where she’d left her overnight bag.

“If it bothered you so much when I talked about Emma, why didn’t you just say so?” he asked, angry now himself as he followed her into the kitchen. “Were you too busy counting? Too busy trying to trip me up somehow?”

Pulling the strap of the bag over her shoulder, she headed for the door. “Good old Bethany,” she said. “She’s always there whenever you need her. You can dump all your problems on her, and she listens with sympathy. And she’ll sleep with you, too! What a pal! Well, I’m sick of being your pal, Dylan.” She let the screen door slam behind her as she left the house.

Dazed, Dylan stared after her. What the hell had just happened? One minute they were sipping coffee and cuddling on the sofa, the next minute she’d blown sky-high. It had been building in her all night, obviously. Building in her while he’d blathered on about Emma.

He called her half an hour later, when he knew she’d be home, but she refused to talk to him.

“Don’t call me, okay?” she said. “Don’t call until you’ve figured out what you want.” There was a pause, and he knew she was crying. “I love you, Dylan,” she said. “I know you don’t feel the same way, and I can’t wait any longer for you. And…I guess I’d better tell you that I’m going to sleep with…someone else. For all I know, you’re never going to get over this fixation.”

Hanging up the phone, he lay back on the sofa. The aquarium was the only light in the room, and he watched one of the fish glide smoothly from one end of the tank to the other. He remembered telling Emma that he watched the fish when he was upset or sad. Well, he was both those things now.

He wanted to see the aquarium building Emma had created in the bookshelf. He wanted to watch her play with it. Had she named her fish? How would he ever know? Those names would stay locked in her head forever. No, not forever. Just until she was ready to start talking again.

Bethany was right: he was consumed with his thoughts about his daughter.

But what was this bit about Laura? he wondered. Had he really said her name twenty-three times?