That Saturday, Clay’s father called him and asked him to dinner.

The first thing Clay noticed when he pulled up in front of the house where he’d grown up was that his mother’s little four-by-four compact car wasn’t in the driveway where she usually parked it. His Uncle Joe’s truck, however, was.

Clay knew right then that dinner wasn’t the only thing cooking here. He recognized all the ingredients for a “man-to-man” talk.

His uncle and his father were going to pump him for anything he might know about Andie’s predicament. He could feel it coming.

Since there was nothing to do but get it over with, Clay left his own truck and went up the front walk past the snowball bush at the front gate. Right now, in the last third of winter, the bush looked like a dead weed.

There were still patches of melting snow in the yard from the last storm a few weeks before. As Clay picked his way around them, the first flakes of a new storm were beginning to fall.

Inside, there was a cheery fire in the new pellet stove Don had put in two years ago. The walls of the living room were pale blue, instead of the light green they used to be when Clay was growing up.

Not much else had changed, though. The same family pictures decorated the walls and the tall vase with the big fake flower arrangement erupting from it still stood beside the front door. Clay hung his heavy jacket in the coat closet and told his dad he’d love a beer.

They settled in the living room. Don and Joe held down either end of the couch. Clay took the wing chair that had been reupholstered in a pattern of blue flowers to complement the walls.

Apprehensive, Clay refused to speak first. As the two older men tried to figure out how to begin, Clay watched them, very much aware of the closeness between them, of their solidarity as long-time members of the same family.

Their wives were sisters and they were best friends. The four of them—Clay’s mother, his aunt, his father and his uncle—had grown up together right here in Meadow Valley. And when it had come time to settle down, Don had married Della and Joe had married Thelma. Joe and Thelma had had one child, Andie. And when Della and Don had realized they would have no children of their own, they had set out to adopt a baby.

But then they’d come to understand how many older, less “desirable” children needed families. They’d been introduced to Clay. And they’d taken him to their hearts.

Joe glanced at his brother-in-law. Almost imperceptibly, Don nodded.

Joe shifted a little and adjusted his belt more comfortably under the paunch he’d developed over the past few years. He cleared his throat.

Clay ached to get this over with. He almost volunteered, It’s about Andie, right?

But he held the words back. What if it wasn’t about Andie, after all? Then Cautious Clay would have really put his foot in it, but good.

Clay’s father, seeing that his brother-in-law couldn’t think how to begin, suggested, “We might as well get it right out there, Joe.”

Joe looked down at his beefy hand, which was resting on his knee. “I know, I know.”

Don reached out and touched Joe’s shoulder. “Do you want me to…?”

Joe nodded. “Yeah, would you?”

Don squared his shoulders and turned his level gaze on his son. “Clay, Andie says she’s explained to you about her situation.”

Clay looked at his father warily, knowing now that he’d been right all along. It was about Andie. Still, he didn’t want to reveal anything that she hadn’t already disclosed. “What situation?”

“That she’s going to have a baby,” Uncle Joe said in a rush, as if he had to get it out fast, or it wouldn’t come out at all.

Now that it was out, Clay allowed himself to nod. “Yes. She’s told me.”

Clay’s father and his uncle exchanged another glance. Then they both stared at Clay, their expressions expectant.

Clay couldn’t think of a single appropriate thing to say right then, so he said nothing.

After a moment, his father prompted. “So then what else?”

“I don’t know what you mean, Dad.”

“I mean, did she tell you anything else?”

“Like what?”

Joe grunted, then muttered darkly, “Like who the hell the father is.”

Ignoring the image of Jeff that flashed through his mind, Clay took a long drink from his beer, which he then set down very carefully upon a blue crocheted coaster atop the spindly-legged side table next to his chair. “No, she didn’t tell me who the father is.”

“It must be someone she really cares for,” Joe insisted, looking rather piercingly at Clay. “We all know how she is. She’s always been adventurous. But when it comes to men, she’s choosy. She’s just not the type for any one-night stand. She’d have to love the man first.”

Clay had to force himself not to look away, out the picture window, where the snow was now coming down more steadily and the wind was starting to blow the white flakes into flurries.

His mind felt as if it was stuck. Stuck on Jeff.

And all of a sudden, it was starting to seem that there were only two possible ways to get unstuck. He could go to Andie again and demand she tell him who the father of her baby was. That might or might not get him an answer, depending on how stubborn Andie was going to end up being about this.

Or he could fly down to Brentwood for a little heart-to-heart talk with Jeff.

Of course, Jeff’s new wife, Madeline, whom Clay really liked, would be there. Madeline had loved Jeff since the two of them were children. And now that Jeff was finally settling down and starting a life with her, Madeline was the happiest woman in the world.

“Don’t you think so, Clay?” Joe was asking.

“Excuse me. Say that again?”

“I said, don’t you think Andie would have to be in love before she would…become intimate with a man?”

Now what the hell was he going to say to that? Clay himself didn’t believe in the kind of love his uncle was talking about. Being in love, as far as Clay was concerned, meant sexual attraction, plain and simple. It was nature’s way of ensuring survival of the species and that was all. In Andie’s case, he supposed, nature had done her job pretty well.

“Clay?” Joe was leaning forward, waiting for Clay to give some kind of answer.

“Yes,” Clay said at last. “You’re right. I’m sure Andie would have to really care for someone first. But honestly, I don’t know who the man is. Andie told me she’s going to have a baby and that she wants to stay on at Barrett and Company. That’s all I know.”

“Did she tell you she wants to raise the baby herself?” Joe’s disapproval was painfully clear.

“Yes, she said that.”

Joe shook his head. “I don’t know how she’ll manage. She’s a good person, Andrea is. She means well. But where does she get her crazy ideas? The past few years, she’s finally settled herself into a good job.” He saluted Don with a quick nod. “Many thanks to you, Don—and you, too, Clay. Her mother and I are finally thinking we can relax—our Andie is all grown up now. And then, out of the blue, she comes to us and tells us she’s going to be a mom—without a husband.”

Clay sat up straighter in his chair, a strange emotion gripping him. It took him a moment to realize what he felt. It was defensiveness. For Andie, of all people.

“She’s turned out to be damn good at her job,” he heard himself saying. “Right, Dad?”

“Definitely,” Don agreed without hesitation.

“I’m lucky to have her,” Clay went on. Then he found himself paraphrasing Andie’s words of the other night. “And since the father refuses to be a husband, then if Andie wants the baby, she has no choice. She has to raise it on her own.”

Joe was sitting forward now. “She told you that? That the father didn’t want her?”

Clay reached for his beer, found it empty and set it back on the coaster. “Uncle Joe, I respect you more than any man in the world, next to Dad, here. But these aren’t questions to ask me. You should be asking Andie.”

For a moment, Joe stared at him, a look so intense that Clay felt the short hairs rise on the back of his neck. Then Joe shot Don a speaking glance and Don took over again.

“Son, we’ve got to ask you…”

“What?”

“Is it you?”

Clay’s mouth dropped open. He stared from one man to the other. “Me? The father, you mean?” He was baffled—and deeply hurt that his family could ever think he would betray their trust this way.

“God, Clay.” Joe looked miserable. “Don’t be insulted. We just felt we had to ask. It always seemed to us that there was…a little bit of an attraction between you and Andie.”

“Attraction?” Clay repeated the word in total disbelief. “Between me and Andie? But we never could stand each other—you all knew that. You were always begging us not to fight, to try and get along with each other.”

“Strong feelings are strong feelings,” Joe said quietly. “Love and hate can be a lot alike.”

Don added, “And since she works for you now, you two are thrown together every day. We couldn’t help thinking that maybe you just got a little carried away.”

“Not that you’re the type to get carried away, Clay,” Joe hastened to amend. “You’ve always been a down-to-earth young man and we all admire that in you.”

“But what we’re trying to say here,” Don chimed in, “is if it did turn out to be you, well, that might not be such a terrible thing at all. You’re not a blood relation to Andie, after all.”

Clay felt the coiled tension inside him relax somewhat as he began to understand that they actually wanted him to be the one. For a moment, he had the most ridiculous urge to tell them they were right, the baby was his. He’d do the right thing and marry Andie immediately.

But the urge passed quickly, leaving him wondering what the hell his problem was. His cousin, the sworn enemy of his teenage years, was pregnant. And here he was, thinking about marrying her.

And did the family really think that the old animosity between Andie and him covered a mutual attraction? The idea was crazy. Totally crazy.

Clay held up his hands, palms out. “Sorry. It really isn’t me.”

Clay’s father and his uncle seemed to sigh in unison. Clay thought they both looked older suddenly.

After a moment, Joe muttered, “Well, then. That’s that, I suppose. But who the hell is it, then?”

Clay’s father said, “I noticed she seemed awfully friendly with your buddy, Jeff, over the holidays.”

Before Clay could think of what to say, Joe argued, “But I can’t believe it could be him. He just got married, after all.”

“That’s right,” Don agreed. “Clay flew down to be his best man.” He looked at Clay for confirmation.

“Yeah.”

“And that was only a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t it?”

“Right,” Clay said, trying to sound normal and unconcerned, though his heart was galloping inside his chest. “Just a couple of weeks ago. On Valentine’s Day.”

In that stuck place in his mind, Clay saw Jeff and Madeline beneath an arbor that was covered in white roses, repeating their vows in clear, firm voices.

He also relived that moment when he’d gotten off the plane and Jeff had been there to meet him. Jeff had looked at him so strangely, he’d thought, a look both skeptical and anxious. But then Clay had reached out and grabbed Jeff in a bear hug. When they stepped away from each other and Jeff met Clay’s eyes again, that strange look was gone.

“No, I’m sure it wasn’t your friend,” Joe said. “But I just don’t know who else it could—”

“Listen, guys,” Clay interrupted, thinking he couldn’t take another moment of this. “I’ve told you everything I know. And, like I said before, it’s Andie you should be talking to. I just plain don’t like this, discussing her behind her back.”

His uncle and his father regarded him solemnly.

At last his father conceded, “All right, Clay. If that’s how you feel.”

Clay stayed for dinner, though it was a rather strained affair. His mother kept looking at him hopefully. But he knew she wouldn’t ask him any uncomfortable questions. She would be tactful and wait until she had her husband alone to find out what had transpired between the men. He made it easy on her and left early so she could quiz his father in private.

The storm that had started with a few moist snowflakes drifting quietly down had steadily worsened. By the time Clay left his parents’ house, the winds were up and the snow was coming down thick and heavy. The roads were a mess, so it took him nearly an hour to travel the fifteen miles to his two-story house on ten acres out at the end of twisting Wildriver Road.

Once there, he mixed himself a whiskey and soda and went out on the top deck outside his bedroom to watch the black storm clouds rise and roll in the night sky. His house was at a lower elevation than his parents’ place in town, so he was pelted with freezing rain rather than snow. Within two minutes, he was drenched to the skin.

But he didn’t give a damn. Clay loved storms. He was a very orderly, controlled man, as a rule. But even as a young child he’d always stepped out to feel the rain on his face when he could, to watch thunderheads gather and lightning fork across the sky.

He loved the wildness of a storm. It soothed something inside him.

His biological mother had loved storms. Somewhere, way back in the farthest reaches of his early memories, he could still see her, wearing a cheap red coat, arms outstretched, head tipped up to the sky. She was spinning in circles, laughing, in the middle of a lawn in front of a building where they had a small apartment. The rain poured down on her face and the wind whipped at her flimsy coat.

She didn’t care. She laughed and laughed. “Isn’t it fabulous, Clay, baby? Can’t you feel it, just moving all through you? Oh, I do love a storm. A storm is just grand!”

Clay lifted his whiskey and soda and saluted the black, heavy sky. Then he took a bracing drink, leaving his head tipped up when he was finished, so the icy rain could sting his cheeks. He watched as a claw of lightning ripped the center out of the night. Thunder roared and seemed to roll off down the hills toward the distant valleys.

Maybe that was the one thing Rita Cox had left to him, he thought as he at last lowered his head. Her legacy to him had been the peace he could find in the untamed heart of a big storm.

She certainly hadn’t left him much else. She bore him out of wedlock. The line for father on his birth certificate was taken up with one word: unknown. If Rita knew whose name should have gone there, she’d never told him.

She’d been a woman who could barely take care of herself, was often ill, moving from job to job. She hadn’t been equipped to take care of a little boy. Yet she would never give him up. So sometimes he lived with her and sometimes, when times were bad, he lived in foster care or at a home for dependent children. When he was nine, she’d died of a ruptured appendix.

Her death, he understood later, was his big chance. He was free, then, to be adopted. To find the Barretts. To have a real family at last.

He wondered, standing there, soaked and shivering, holding an empty drink, if he was finally zeroing in on the truth about this whole mess with Andie. If he was finally seeing what bothered him so damn much when he thought about Andie and the baby she insisted she was going to raise alone.

His own memories were the problem. His memories of a mother who wouldn’t give him up and yet couldn’t take care of him, either.

Clay knew in the logical part of his brain that Andie and Rita were not the same at all. Andie was strong and healthy. She had a steady job that she could and would hold on to. She had a devoted family who, once they accepted that she was determined to raise her child alone, would give her all the love and support in the world.

And yet one aspect of the situation would be exactly the same as it had been for Rita. On Andie’s baby’s birth certificate, the father’s name would be unknown.

Clay lifted his head to the streaming sky again. The rain beat on his face. He waited to feel set free, lifted outside himself.

The release didn’t come. Somehow, tonight, the storm was bringing him no peace at all.

He tossed his ice cubes over the railing and went back inside to mix himself another stiff one.

The next morning, the sun came out. The world was bathed in that cold, thin brightness that often follows a winter storm.

Clay rose early and showered away the fuzziness from one too many whiskey and sodas. Sometime deep in the night, he had come to accept what he had to do.

He called an airline that scheduled a lot of flights between Sacramento and L.A. Luck was with him. He gave his credit card number and paid for a seat on an 11:00 a.m. flight.

He threw a few things in an overnight bag and headed for the Sacramento airport. He would arrive in L.A. at a little after noon. And not too long after that, he would be knocking on Jeff Kirkland’s door.