While she agreed that exercise was good for expectant mothers, Stella wasn't willing to have Hayley
work all day and then walk close to half a mile home at this stage of her pregnancy. Hayley groused,
but every evening Stella herded her to the car and drove her home. "I like walking."

"And after we get home and you have something to eat, you can take a nice walk around the gardens.
But you're not walking all that way, and through the woods alone, on my watch, kid."

"Are you going to be pestering me like this for the next four weeks?"

"I absolutely am."

"You know Mrs. Tyler? The lady who bought all those annuals we helped her with?"

"Mmm-hmm."

"She said how she thought we were sisters because you give me grief like she does her baby sister.
At the time, I thought that was nice. Now, it's irritating."

"That's a shame."

"I'm taking care of myself."

"Yes, and so am I."

Hayley sighed. "If it's not you giving me the hairy eye, it's Roz. Next thing, people'll start thinking she's my mama."

Stella glanced down to see Hayley slip her feet out of her shoes. "Feet hurt?"

"They're all right."

"I've got this wonderful foot gel. Why don't you use it when we get home, and put your feet up for a
few minutes?"

"I can't hardly reach them anymore. I feel..."

"Fat and clumsy and sluggish," Stella finished.

"And stupid and bitchy." She pushed back her damp bangs, thought about whacking them off. Thought about whacking all her hair off. "And hot and nasty."

When Stella reached over, bumped up the air-conditioning, Hayley's eyes began to sting with remorse
and misery. "You're being so sweet to me—everyone is— and I don't even appreciate it. And Ijust feel like I've been pregnant my whole life and I'm going to stay pregnant forever."

"I can promise you won't."

"And I... Stella, when they showed that video at birthing class and we watched that woman go through
it? I don't see how I can do that. I just don't think I can."

"I'll be there with you. You'll be just fine, Hayley. I'm not going to tell you it won't be hard, but it's
going to be exciting, too. Thrilling."

She turned into the drive. And there were her boys, racing around the yard with the dog and Harper in what seemed to be a very informal game of Wiffle ball.

"And so worth it," she told her. "The minute you hold your baby in your arms, you'll know."

"I just can't imagine being a mama. Before, I could, but now that it's getting closer, I just can't."

"Of course you can't. Nobody can really imagine a miracle. You're allowed to be nervous. You're supposed to be."

"Then I'm doing a good job."

When she parked, the boys ran over. "Mom, Mom! We're playing Wiffle Olympics, and I hit the ball a million times."

"A million?" She widened her eyes at Luke as she climbed out. "That must be a record."

"Come on and play, Mom." Gavin grabbed her hand as Parker leaped up to paw at her legs. "Please!"

"All right, but I don't think I can hit the ball a million times."

Harper skirted the car to get to Hayley's side. His hair curled damply from under his ball cap, and his
shirt showed stains from grass and dirt. "Need some help?"

She couldn't get her feet back in her shoes. They felt hot and swollen and no longer hers. Cranky tears flooded her throat. "I'm pregnant," she snapped, "not handicapped."

She left her shoes on the mat as she struggled out. Before she could stop herself, she slapped at Harper's offered hand. "Just leave me be, will you?"

"Sorry." He stuffed his hands in his pockets.

"I can't breathe with everybody hovering around me night and day." She marched toward the house, trying hard not to waddle.

"She's just tired, Harper." Whether it was hovering or not, Stella watched Hayley until she'd gotten
inside. "Tired and out of sorts. It's just being pregnant."

"Maybe she shouldn't be working right now."

"If I suggested that, she'd explode. Working keeps her mind busy. We're all keeping an eye on her to make sure she doesn't overdo, which is part of the problem. She feels a little surrounded, I imagine."

"Mom!"

She held up a hand to her impatient boys. "She'd have snapped at anybody who offered her a hand just then. It wasn't personal."

"Sure. Well, I've got to go clean up." He turned back to the boys, who were already squabbling over
the plastic bat. "Later. And next time I'm taking you both down."

* * *

The afternoon was sultry, a sly hint of the summer that waited just around the corner. Even with the air-conditioning, Stella sweltered in her little office. As a surrender to the weather, she wore a tank top and thin cotton pants. She'd given up on her hair and had bundled it as best she could on top of her head.

She'd just finished outlining the next week's work schedule and was about to update one of her spreadsheets when someone knocked on her door.

"Come in." Automatically, she reached for the thermos of iced coffee she'd begun to make every morning. And her heart gave a little jolt when Logan stepped in. "Hi. I thought you were on the
Fields job today."

"Got rained out."

"Oh?" She swiveled around to her tiny window, saw the sheets of rain. "I didn't realize."

"All those numbers and columns can be pretty absorbing."

'To some of us."

"It's a good day to play hookey. Why don't you come out and play in the rain, Red?"

"Can't." She spread her arms to encompass her desk. "Work."

He sat on the corner of it. "Been a busy spring so far. I don't figure Roz would blink if you took a
couple hours off on a rainy afternoon."

"Probably not. But I would."

"Figured that, too." He picked up an oddly shaped and obviously child-made pencil holder, examined it. "Gavin or Luke?"

"Gavin, age seven."

"You avoiding me, Stella?"

"No. A little," she admitted. "But not entirely. We've been swamped, here and at home. Hayley's only
got three weeks to go, and I like to stick close."

"Do you think you could manage a couple of hours away, say, Friday night? Take in a movie?"

"Well, Friday nights I usually try to take the kids out."

"Good. The new Disney flick's playing. I can pick y'all up at six. We'll go for pizza first."

"Oh, I..." She sat back, frowned at him. "That was sneaky."

"Whatever works."

"Logan, have you ever been to the movies with a couple of kids on a Friday night?"

"Nope." He pushed off the desk and grinned. "Should be an experience."

He came around the desk and, cupping his hands under her elbows, lifted her straight out of the chair
with a careless strength that had her mouth watering. "I've started to miss you."

He touched his mouth to hers, heating up the contact as he let her slide down his body until her feet hit the floor. Her arms lifted to link around his neck, banding there for a moment until her brain engaged again.

"It looks like I've started to miss you, too," she said as she stepped back. "I've been thinking."

"I just bet you have. You keep on doing that." He tugged at a loose lock of her hair. "See you Friday."

She sat down again when he walked out. "But I have trouble remembering what I'm thinking."

* * *

He was right. It was an experience. One he handled, in Stella's opinion, better than she'd expected. He didn't appear to have a problem with boy-speak. In fact, during the pizza interlude she got the feeling
she was odd man out. Normally she could hold her own in intense discussions of comic books and baseball, but this one headed to another level.

At one point she wasn't entirely sure the X-Men's Wolverine hadn't signed on to play third base for the Atlanta Braves.

"I can eat fifty pieces of pizza," Luke announced as the pie was divvied up. "And after, five gallons of popcorn."

"Then you'll puke!"

She started to remind Gavin that puke wasn't proper meal conversation, but Logan just plopped a slice
on his own plate. "Be smarter to puke after the pizza to make room for the popcorn."

The wisdom and hilarity of this sent the boys off into delighted gagging noises.

"Hey!" Luke's face went mutinous. "Gavin has more pepperoni on his piece. I have two and he has three!"

As Gavin snorted and set his face into the look, Logan nodded. "You know, you're right. Doesn't seem fair. Let's just fix that." He plucked a round of pepperoni off Gavin's piece and popped it into his own mouth. "Now you're even."

More hilarity ensued. The boys ate like stevedores, made an unholy mess, and were so overstimulated
by the time they got to the theater, she expected them to start a riot.

"You've got to remember to be quiet during the movie," she warned. "Other people are here to see it."

"I'll try," Logan said solemnly. "But sometimes I just can't help talking."

The boys giggled all the way to the concession counter.

She knew some men who put on a show for a woman's children—to get to the woman. And, she thought as they settled into seats with tubs of popcorn, she knew some who sincerely tried to charm the kids because they were an interesting novelty.

Still, he seemed to be easy with them, and you had to give a man in his thirties points for at least appearing to enjoy a movie with talking monkeys.

Halfway through, as she'd expected, Luke began to squirm in his seat. Two cups of pop, she calculated, one small bladder. He wouldn't want to go, wouldn't want to miss anything. So there'd be a short, whispered argument.

She leaned toward him, prepared for it. And Logan beat her to it. She didn't hear what he said in Luke's ear, but Luke giggled, and the two of them rose.

"Be right back," he murmured to Stella and walked out with his hand over Luke's.

Okay, that was it, she decided as her eyes misted. The man was taking her little boy to pee.

She was a goner.

* * *

Two very happy boys piled into the back of Logan's car. As soon as they were strapped in, they were bouncing and chattering about their favorite parts of the movie.

"Hey, guys." Logan slipped behind the wheel, then draped his arm over the seat to look in the back.
"You might want to brace yourselves, 'cause I'm gonna kiss your mama."

"How come?" Luke wanted to know.

"Because, as you might have observed yourselves, she's pretty, and she tastes good."

He leaned over, amusement in his eyes. When Stella would have offered him a cheek, he turned her
face with one hand and gave her a soft, quick kiss on the mouth.

"You're not pretty." Luke snorted through his nose. "How come she kissed you?"

"Son, that's because I'm one fine-looking hunk of man." He winked into the rearview mirror, noted that Gavin was watching him with quiet speculation, then started the engine.

* * *

Luke was nodding off when they got to the house, his head bobbing as he struggled to stay awake.

"Let me cart him up."

"I can get him." Stella leaned in to unbuckle his seat belt. "I'm used to it. And I don't know if you
should go upstairs again."

"She'll have to get used to me." He nudged Stella aside and hoisted Luke into his arms. "Come on,
pizza king, let's go for a ride."

"I'm not tired."

"'Course not."

Yawning, he laid his head on Logan's shoulder. "You smell different from Mom. And you got harder skin."

"How about that?"

Roz wandered into the foyer as they came in. "Well, it looks like everyone had a good time. Logan, why don't you come down for a drink once you settle those boys down. I'd like to talk to the both of you."

"Sure. We'll be right down."

"I can take them," Stella began, but he was already carrying Luke up the stairs.

"I'll just get us some wine. 'Night, cutie," Roz said to Gavin, and smiled at Stella's back as she followed Logan.

He was already untying Luke's Nikes. "Logan, I'll do that. You go on down with Roz."

He continued to remove the shoes, wondering if the nerves he heard in her voice had to do with the
ghost or with him. But it was the boy standing beside her, unusually silent, who had his attention.

"Go ahead and settle him in, then. Gavin and I want to have a little conversation. Don't we, kid?"

Gavin jerked a shoulder. "Maybe. I guess."

"He needs to get ready for bed."

"Won't take long. Why don't you step into my office?" he said to Gavin, and when he gestured toward the bathroom, he saw the boy's lip twitch.

"Logan," Stella began.

"Man talk. Excuse us." And he closed the door in her face.

Figuring it would be easier on them both if they were more eye-to-eye, Logan sat on the edge of the tub. He wasn't sure, but he had to figure the boy was about as nervous as he was himself.

"Did me kissing your mama bother you?"

"I don't know. Maybe. I saw this other guy kiss her once, when I was little. She went out to dinner with him or something, and we had a babysitter, and I woke up and saw him do it. But I didn't like him so much because he smiled all the time." He demonstrated, spreading his lips and showing his teeth.

"I don't like him either."

"Do you kiss all the girls because they're pretty?" Gavin blurted out.

"Well, now, I've kissed my share of girls. But your mama's special."

"How come?"

The boy wanted straight answers, Logan decided. So he'd do his best to give them. "Because she makes my heart feel funny, in a good kind of way, I guess. Girls make us feel funny in lots of ways, but when they make your heart feel funny, they're special."

Gavin looked toward the closed door and back again. "My dad kissed her. I remember."

"It's good you do." He had an urge, one that surprised him, to stroke a hand over Gavin's hair. But he didn't think it was the right time, for either of them.

There was more than one ghost in this house, he knew.

"I expect he loved her a lot, and she loved him. She told me how she did."

"He can't come back. I thought maybe he would, even though she said he couldn't. I thought when
the lady started coming, he could come, too. But he hasn't."

Could there be anything harder for a child to face, he wondered, than losing a parent? Here he was,
a grown man, and he couldn't imagine the grief of losing one of his.

"Doesn't mean he isn't watching over you. I believe stuff like that. When people who love us have to go away, they still look out for us. Your dad's always going to look out for you."

"Then he'd see you kiss Mom, because he'd watch over her, too."

"I expect so." Logan nodded. "I like to think he doesn't mind, because he'd know I want her to be happy. Maybe when we get to know each other some better, you won't mind too much either."

"Do you make Mom's heart feel funny?"

"I sure hope so, because I'd hate to feel like this all by myself. I don't know if I'm saying this right. I never had to say it before, or think about it. But if we decide to be happy together, all of us, your dad's still your dad, Gavin. Always. I want you to understand I know that, and respect that. Man-to-man."

"Okay." He smiled slowly when Logan offered a hand. When he shook it, the smile became a grin. "Anyway, I like you better than the other guy."

"Good to know."

Luke was tucked in and sleeping when they came back in. Logan merely lifted his eyebrows at Stella's questioning look, then stepped back as she readied Gavin for bed.

Deliberately he took her hand as they stepped into the hall. "Ask him if you want to know," he said
before she could speak. "It's his business."

"I just don't want him upset"

"He seem upset to you when you tucked him in?"

"No." She sighed. "No."

At the top of the stairs, the cold blew through them. Protectively, Logan's arm came around her waist, pulling her firmly to his side. It passed by, with a little lash, like a flicked whip.

Seconds later, they heard the soft singing.

"She's angry with us," Stella whispered when he turned, prepared to stride back. "But not with them.
She won't hurt them. Let's leave her be. I've got a baby monitor downstairs, so I can hear them if they need me."

"How do you sleep up here?"

"Well, strangely enough. First it was because I didn't believe it. Now it's knowing that in some strange way, she loves them. The night they stayed at my parents' she came into my room and cried. It broke
my heart."

"Ghost talk?" Roz asked. "That's just what I had in mind." She offered them wine she'd already poured. Then pursed her lips when Stella switched on the monitor. "Strange to hear that again. It's been years since I have."

"I gotta admit," Logan said with his eyes on the monitor, "creeps me out some. More than some, to tell the truth."

"You get used to it. More or less. Where's Hayley?" she asked Roz.

"She was feeling tired—and a little blue, a little cross, I think. She's settled in upstairs with a book and a big tall glass of decaffeinated Coke. I've already talked to her about this, so..." She gestured to seats.
On the coffee table was a tray of green grapes, thin crackers, and a half round of Brie.

She sat herself, plucked a grape. "I've decided to do something a little more active about our permanent houseguest."         
                                                                        
"An exorcism?" Logan asked, sending a sideways glance toward the monitor and the soft voice singing
out of it.                                                                                     

"Not quite that active. We want to find out about her history and her connection to this house. Seems
to me we're not making any real progress, mostly because we can't really figure out a direction."

"We haven't been able to spend a lot of time on it," Stella pointed out.

"Another reason for outside help. We're busy, and we're amateurs. So why not go to somebody who knows what to do and has the time to do it right?"

"Concert's over for the night." Logan gestured when the monitor went silent.

"Sometimes she comes back two or three times." Stella offered him a cracker. "Do you know
somebody, Roz? Someone you want to take this on?"

"I don't know yet. But I've made some inquiries, using the idea that I want to do a formal sort of genealogy search on my ancestry. There's a man in Memphis whose name's come up. Mitchell Carnegie. Dr. Mitchell Carnegie," she added. "He taught at the university in Charlotte, moved here a couple of
years ago. I believe he taught at the University of Memphis for a semester or two and may still give the occasional lecture. Primarily, he writes books. Biographies and so on. He's touted as an expert family historian."

"Sounds like he might be our man." Stella spread a little Brie on a cracker for herself. "Having someone who knows what he's doing should be better than us fumbling around."

"That would depend," Logan put in, "on how he feels about ghosts."

"I'm going to make an appointment to see him." Stella lifted her wineglass. "Then I guess we'll find out."

EIGHTEEN

Though he felt like he was taking his life in his hands, Harper followed instructions and tracked Hayley down at the checkout counter. She was perched on a stool, a garden of container pots and flats around her, ringing out the last customers. Her shirt—smock? tunic? he didn't know what the hell you called maternity-type clothes—was a bright, bold red.

Funny, it was the color that brought her to mind for him. Vivid, sexy red. Those spiky bangs made her eyes seem enormous, and there were big silver hoops in her ears that peeked and swung through her
hair when she moved.

With the high counter blocking the target area, you could hardly tell she was pregnant. Except her eyes looked tired, he thought. And her face was a little puffy—maybe weight gain, maybe lack of sleep. Either way, he didn't figure it was the sort of thing he should mention. The fact was, everything and anything that came out of his mouth these days, at least when he was around her, was the wrong thing.

He didn't expect their next encounter to go well either.

But he'd promised to throw himself on the sword for the cause.

He waited until she'd finished with the customers and, girding his loins, he approached the counter.

"Hey."

She looked at him, and he couldn't say her expression was particularly welcoming. "Hey. What're you doing out of your cave?"

"Finished up for the day. Actually my mother just called. She asked if I'd drive you on home when
I finished."

"Well, I'm not finished," she said testily. "There are at least two more customers wandering around,
and Saturday's my night to close out."

It wasn't the tone she'd used to chat up the customers, he noted. He was beginning to think it was the tone she reserved just for him. "Yeah, but she said she needed you at home for something as soon as
you could, and to have Bill and Larry finish up and close out."

"What does she want? Why didn't she call me?"

"I don't know. I'm just the messenger." And he knew what often happened to the messenger. "I told Larry, and he's helping the last couple of stragglers. So he's on it."

She started to lever herself off the stool, and though his hands itched to help her, he imagined she'd chomp them off at the wrists. "I can walk."

"Come on. Jesus." He jammed his hands in his pockets and gave her scowl for scowl. "Why do you
want to put me on the spot like that? If I let you walk, my mama's going to come down on me like five tons of bricks. And after she's done flattening me, she'll ream you. Let's just go."

"Fine." The truth was, she didn't know why she was feeling so mean and spiteful, and tired and achy.
She was terrified something was wrong with her or with the baby, despite all the doctor's assurances to the contrary.

The baby would be born sick or deformed, because she'd... She didn't know what, but it would be her fault.

She snatched her purse and did her best to sail by Harper and out the door.

"I've got another half hour on the clock," she complained and wrenched open the door of his car.
"I don't know what she could want that couldn't wait a half hour."

"I don't know either."

"She hasn't seen that genealogy guy yet."

He got in, started the car. "Nope. She'll get to it when she gets to it."

"You don't seem all that interested, anyway. How come you don't come around when we have our meetings about the Harper Bride?"

"I guess I will, when I can think of something to say about it."

She smelled vivid, too, especially closed up in the car with him like this. Vivid and sexy, and it made
him edgy. The best that could be said about the situation was the drive was short.

Amazed he wasn't sweating bullets, he swung in and zipped in front of the house.

"You drive a snooty little car like this that fast, you're just begging for a ticket."

"It's not a snooty little car. It's a well-built and reliable sports car. And I wasn't driving that fast. What
the hell is it about me that makes you crawl up my ass?"

"I wasn't crawling up your ass; I was making an observation. At least you didn't go for red." She opened the door, managed to get her legs out. "Most guys go for the red, the flashy. The black's probably why you don't have speeding tickets spilling out of your glove compartment."

"I haven't had a speeding ticket in two years."

She snorted.

"Okay, eighteen months, but—"

"Would you stop arguing for five damn seconds and come over here and help me out of this damn car?
I can't get up."

Like a runner off the starting line, he sprinted around the car. He wasn't sure how to manage it,
especially when she was sitting there, red in the face and flashing in the eyes. He started to take her
hands and tug, but he thought he might... jar something.

So he leaned down, hooked his hands under her armpits, and lifted.

Her belly bumped him, and now sweat did slide down his back.

He felt what was in there move—a couple of hard bumps.

It was ... extraordinary.

Then she was brushing him aside. 'Thanks."

Mortifying, she thought. She just hadn't been able to shift her center of gravity, or dig down enough to
get out of a stupid car. Of course, if he hadn't insisted she get in that boy toy in the first place, she wouldn't have been mortified.

She wanted to eat a pint of vanilla fudge ice cream and sit in a cool bath. For the rest of her natural life.

She shoved open the front door, stomped inside.

The shouts of Surprise! had her heart jumping into her throat, and she nearly lost control of her increasingly tricky bladder.

In the parlor pink and blue crepe paper curled in artful swags from the ceiling, and fat white balloons danced in the corners. Boxes wrapped in pretty paper and streaming with bows formed a colorful mountain on a high table. The room was full of women. Stella and Roz, all the girls who worked at the nursery, even some of the regular customers.

"Don't look stricken, girl." Roz strolled over to wrap an arm around Hayley's shoulders. "You don't
think we'd let you have that baby without throwing you a shower, do you?"

"A baby shower." She could feel the smile blooming on her face, even as tears welled up in her eyes.

"You confe on and sit down. You're allowed one glass of David's magical champagne punch before
you go to the straight stuff."

"This is ..." She saw the chair set in the center of the room, festooned with voile and balloons, like a
party throne. "I don't know what to say."

"Then I'm sitting beside you. I'm Jolene, darling, Stella's stepmama." She patted Hayley's hand, then
her belly. "And I never run out of things to say."

"Here you go." Stella stepped over with a glass of punch.

"Thanks. Thank you so much. This is the nicest thing anyone's ever done for me. In my whole life."

"You have a good little cry." Jolene handed her a lace-edged hankie. "Then we're going to have us a
hell of a time."

They did. Ooohing and awwing over impossibly tiny clothes, soft-as-cloud blankets, hand-knit booties, cooing over rattles and toys and stuffed animals. There were foolish games that only women at a baby shower could enjoy, and plenty of punch and cake to sweeten the evening.

The knot that had been at the center of Hayley's heart for days loosened.

"This was the best time I ever had." Hayley sat, giddy and exhausted, and stared at the piles of gifts
Stella had neatly arranged on the table again. "I know it was all about me. I liked that part, but evervone had fun, don't you think?"

"Are you kidding?" From her seat on the floor, Stella continued to meticulously fold discarded wrapping paper into neat, flat squares. "This party rocked."

"Are you going to save all that paper?" Roz asked her.

"She'll want it one day, and I'm just saving what she didn't rip to shreds."

"I couldn't help it. I was so juiced up. I've got to get thank-you cards, and try to remember who gave what."

"I made a list while you were tearing in."

"Of course she did." Roz helped herself to one more glass of punch, then sat and stretched out her legs. "God. I'm whipped."

"Y'all worked so hard. It was all so awesome." Feeling herself tearing up again, Hayley waved both hands. "Everyone was—I guess I forgot people could be so good, so generous. Man, look at all those wonderful things. Oh, that little yellow gown with the teddy bears on it! The matching hat. And the
baby swing. Stella, I just can't thank you enough for the swing."

"I'd have been lost without mine."

"It was so sweet of you, both of you, to do this for me. I just had no idea. I couldn't've been more surprised, or more grateful."

"You can guess who planned it out," Roz said with a nod at Stella. "David started calling her General Rothchild."

"I have to thank him for all the wonderful food. I can't believe I ate two pieces of cake. I feel like I'm ready to explode."

"Don't explode yet, because we're not quite done. We need to go up, so you can have my gift."

"But the party was—"

"A joint effort," Roz finished. "But there's a gift I hope you'll like upstairs."

"I snapped at Harper," Hayley began as they helped her up and started upstairs.

"He's been snapped at before."

"But I wish I hadn't. He was helping you surprise me, and I gave him a terrible time. He said I was always crawling up his ass, and that's just what I was doing."

"You'll tell him you're sorry." Roz turned them toward the west wing, moved passed Stella's room,
and Hayley's. "Here you are, honey."

She opened the door and led Hayley inside.

"Oh, God. Oh, my God." Hayley pressed both hands to her mouth as she stared at the room.

It was painted a soft, quiet yellow, with lace curtains at the windows.

She knew the crib was antique. Nothing was that beautiful, that rich unless it was old and treasured.
The wood gleamed, deep with red highlights. She recognized the layette as one she'd dreamed over
in a magazine and had known she could never afford.

"The furniture's a loan while you're here. I used it for my children, as my mama did for hers, and hers before her, back more than eighty-five years now. But the linens are yours, and the changing table.
Stella added the rug and the lamp. And David and Harper, bless their hearts, painted the room, and
hauled the furniture down from the attic."

As emotions swamped her, Hayley could only shake her head.

"Once we bring your gifts up here, you'll have yourself a lovely nursery." Stella rubbed Hayley's back.

"It's so beautiful. More than I ever dreamed of. I—I've been missing my father so much. The closer
the baby gets, the more I've been missing him. It's this ache inside. And I've been feeling sad and
scared, and mostly just sorry for myself."

She used her hands to rub the tears from her cheeks. "Now today, all this, it just makes me feel... It's not the things. I love them, I love everything. But it's that you'd do this, both of you would do this for us."

"You're not alone, Hayley." Roz laid a hand on Hayley's belly. "Neither one of you."

"I know that. I think, well, I think, we'd have been okay on our own. I'd've worked hard to make sure
of it. But I never expected to have real family again. I never expected to have people care about me
and the baby like this. I've been stupid."

"No," Stella told her. "Just pregnant."

With a half laugh, Hayley blinked back the rest of the tears. "I guess that accounts for a lot of it. I won't be able to use that excuse too much longer. And I'll never, I'll just never be able to thank you, or tell
you, or repay you. Never."

"Oh, I think naming the baby after us will clear the decks," Roz said casually. "Especially if it's a boy. Rosalind Stella might be a little hard for him to handle in school, but it's only right."

"Hey, I was thinking Stella Rosalind."

Roz arched a brow at Stella. 'This is one of those rare cases when it pays to be the oldest."

* * *

That night, Hayley tiptoed into the nursery. Just to touch, to smell, to sit in the rocking chair with her hands stroking her belly.

"I'm sorry I've been so nasty lately. I'm better now. We're going to be all right now. You've got two
fairy godmothers, baby. The best women I've ever known. I may not be able to pay them back for all they've done for us, not in some ways. But I swear, there's nothing either of them could ask that I wouldn't do. I feel safe here. It was stupid of me to forget that. We're a team, you and me. I
shouldn't've been afraid of you. Or for you."

She closed her eyes and rocked. "I want to hold you in my arms so much they hurt. I want to dress you in one of those cute little outfits and hold you, and smell you, and rock you in this chair. Oh, God, I
hope I know what I'm doing."

The air turned cold, raising gooseflesh on her arms. But it wasn't fear that had her opening her eyes; it was pity. She stared at the woman who stood beside the crib.

Her hair was down tonight, golden blond and wildly tangled. She wore a white nightgown, muddy at the hem. And there was a look of—Hayley would have said madness—in her eyes.

"You didn't have anyone to help you, did you?" Her hands trembled a bit, but she kept stroking her
belly, kept her eyes on the figure, kept talking.

"Maybe you didn't have anyone to be there with you when you were afraid like I've been. I guess I might've gone crazy, too, all on my own. And I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to my baby. Or how I'd stand it, if something happened to take me away from him—her. Even if I were dead I couldn't stand it. So I guess I understand, a little."

At her words, Hayley heard a keening sound, a sound that made her think of a soul, or a mind,
shattering.

Then she was alone.

* * *

On Monday, Hayley sat perched on her stool once more. When her back ached, she ignored it. When
she had to call for a relief clerk so she could waddle to the bathroom, again, she made a joke out of it.

Her bladder felt squeezed down to the size of a pea.

On the way back, she detoured outside, not only to stretch her legs and back but to see Stella.

"Is it okay if I take my break now? I want to hunt down Harper and apologize." She'd spent all morning dreading the moment, but she couldn't put it off any longer. "He wasn't anywhere to be found on
Sunday, but he's probably back in his cave now."

"Go ahead. Oh, I just ran into Roz. She called that professor. Dr. Carnegie? She has an appointment to see him later this week. Maybe we'll make some progress in that area."

Then she narrowed her eyes on Hayley's face. "I tell you what, one of us is going with you to your doctor's appointment tomorrow. I don't want you driving anymore."

"I still fit behind the wheel." Barely.

"That may be, but either Roz or I will take you. And I'm thinking it's time you go part-time."

"You might as well put me in the loony bin as take work away from me now. Come on, Stella, a lot of women work right up to the end. Besides, I'm sitting on my butt most all day. Best thing about finding Harper is walking."

"Walk," Stella agreed. "Don't lift. Anything."

"Nag, nag, nag." But she said it with a laugh as she started toward the grafting house.

Outside the greenhouse she paused. She'd practiced what she wanted to say. She thought it best to think it all through. He'd accept her apology. His mama had raised him right, and from what she'd seen he had a good heart. But she wanted, very much, for him to understand she'd just been in some sort of mood.

She opened the door. She loved the smell in here. Experimentation, possibilities. One day, she hoped either Harper or Roz would teach her something about this end of the growing.

She could see him down at the end, huddled over his work. He had his headphones on and was tapping one foot to whatever beat played in his ears.

God, he was so cute. If she'd met him in the bookstore, before her life had changed, she'd have hit on him, or worked it around so he'd hit on her. All that dark, messed-up hair, the clean line of jaw, the dreamy eyes. And those artistic hands.

She'd bet he had half a dozen girls dangling on a string, and another half dozen waiting in line for a chance.

She started down toward him and was surprised enough to pull up short when his head snapped up, and he swung around to her.

"Christ on a crutch, Harper! I thought I was going to startle you."

"What? What?" His eyes were dazzled as he dragged off his headset. "What?"

"I didn't think you could hear me."

"I—" He hadn't. He'd smelled her. "Do you need something?"

"I guess I do. I need to say I'm sorry for jumping down your throat every time you opened your mouth the last couple of weeks. I've been an awful bitch."

"No. Well, yeah. It's okay."

She laughed and edged closer to try to see what he was doing. It justlooked like he had a bunch of stems tied together. "I guess I had the jumps. What am I going to do, how am I going to do it? Why do I have
to feel so fat and ugly all the time?"

"You're not fat. You could never be ugly."

'That's awful nice of you. But being pregnant doesn't affect my eyesight, and I know what I see in the mirror every damn day."

"Then you know you're beautiful."

Her eyes sparkled when she smiled. "I must've been a pitiful case if you're obliged to flirt with a pregnant woman who's got a bad disposition."

"I'm not—I wouldn't." He wanted to, at the very least. "Anyway, I guess you're feeling better."

"So much better. Mostly I was feeling sorry for myself, and I just hate that poor-me crap. Imagine your mama and Stella throwing me a baby shower. I cried all over myself. Got Stella going, too. But then we had the best time. Who knew a baby shower could rock?" She pressed both hands to her belly and laughed. "You ever met Stella's step-mama?"

"No."

"She's just a hoot and a half. I laughed till I thought I'd shoot the baby right out then and there. And
Mrs. Haggerty—"

"Mrs. Haggerty? Our Mrs. Haggerty was there?"

"Not only, but she won the song title game. You have to write down the most song titles with 'baby' in it. You'll never guess one she wrote down."

"Okay. I give."

"'Baby Got Back.'"

Now he grinned. "Get out. Mrs. Haggerty wrote down a rap song?"

"Then rapped it."

"Now you're lying."

"She did. Or at least a couple lines. I nearly peed my pants. But I'm forgetting why I'm here. There you were, just trying to help with the best surprise I ever had, and I was bitching and whining. Crawling up your ass, just like you said. I'm really sorry."

"It's no big. I have a friend whose wife had a baby a few months ago. I swear you could see fangs growing out of her mouth toward the end. And I think her eyes turned red a couple times."

She laughed again, pressed a hand to her side. "I hope I don't get that bad before ..."

She broke off, a puzzled expression covering her face as she felt a little snap inside. Heard it, she
realized. Like a soft, echoing ping.

Then water pooled down between her legs.

Harper made a sound of his own, like that of a man whose words were strangled off somewhere in his throat. He sprang to his feet, babbling as Hayley stared down at the floor.

"Uh-oh," she said.

"Urn, that's okay, that's all right. Maybe I should... maybe you should ..."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Harper, I didn't just pee on the floor. My water broke."

"What water?" He blinked, then went pale as a corpse. "That water. Oh, God. Oh, Jesus. Oh, shit. Sit. Sit, or... I'll get—"

An ambulance, the marines.

"My mother."

"I think I'd better go with you. We're a little early." She forced a smile so she wouldn't scream. "Just a couple of weeks. I guess the baby's impatient to get out and see what all the fuss is about. Give me a hand, okay? Oh, Jesus, Harper, I'm scared to death."

"It's fine." His arm came around her. "Just lean on me. You hurting anywhere?"

"No. Not yet."

Inside he was still pale, and half sick. But his arm stayed steady around her, and when he turned his
head, his smile was easy. "Hey." Very gently, he touched her belly. "Happy birthday, baby."

"Oh, my God." Her face simply illuminated as they stepped outside. "This is awesome."

* * *

She couldn't actually have the baby, but Stella figured she could do nearly everything else—or delegate it done. Hayley hadn't put a hospital bag together, but Stella had a list. A call to David got that ball rolling even as she drove Hayley to the hospital. She called the doctor to let him know the status of Hayley's labor, left a voice mail on her father's cell phone, and a message on his home answering machine to arrange for her own children, and coached Hayley through her breathing as the first contractions began.

"If I ever get married, or buy a house, or start a war, I hope you'll be in charge of the details."

Stella glanced over as Hayley rubbed her belly. "I'm your girl. Doing okay?"

"Yeah. I'm nervous and excited and ... Oh, wow, I'm having a baby!"

"You're going to have a fabulous baby."

"The books say things can get pretty tricky during transition, so if I yell at you or call you names—"

"Been there. I won't take it personally."

By the time Roz arrived, Hayley was ensconced in a birthing room. The television was on—an old Friends episode. Beneath it on the counter was an arrangement of white roses. Stella's doing, she had
no doubt.

"How's Mama doing?"

"They said I'm moving fast." Flushed and bright-eyed, Hayley reached out a hand for Roz's. "And everything's just fine. The contractions are coming closer together, but they don't hurt all that much."

"She doesn't want the epidural," Stella told her.

"Ah." Roz gave Hayley's hand a pat. "That'll be up to you. You can change your mind if it gets to be
too much."

"Maybe it's silly, and maybe I'll be sorry, but I want to feel it. Wow! I feel that."

Stella moved in, helped her breathe through it. Hayley sighed out the last breath, closed her eyes just
as David strode in.

"This here the party room?" He set down an overnight case, a tote bag, and a vase of yellow daisies before he leaned over the bed to kiss Hayley's cheek. "You're not going to kick me out 'cause I'm
a man, are you?"

"You want to stay?" Delighted color bloomed on Hayley's cheeks. "Really?"

"Are you kidding?" From his pocket he pulled a little digital camera. "I nominate myself official photographer."

"Oh." Biting her lip, Hayley rubbed a hand over her belly. "I don't know as pictures are such a good idea."

"Don't you worry, sugar, I won't take anything that's not G-rated. Give me a big smile."

He took a couple of shots, directed Roz and Stella to stand beside the bed and took a couple more.
"By the way, Stella, Logan's taking the boys back to his place after school."

"What?"

"Your parents are at some golf tournament. They were going to come back, but I told them not to worry, I'd take care of the kids. Then apparently Logan came by the nursery, ran into Harper—he's coming by shortly."

"Logan?" Hayley asked. "He's coming here?"

"No, Harper. Logan's taking kid duty. He said he'd take them over to his place, put them to work, and
not to worry. We're supposed to keep him updated on baby progress."

"I don't know if—" But Stella broke off as another contraction started.

Her job as labor coach kept her busy, but part of her mind niggled on the idea of Logan riding herd on
her boys. What did he mean, 'put them to work'? How would he know what to do if they got into a fight—which, of course, they would at some point. How could he watch them properly if he toolt them
to a job site? They could fall into a ditch, or out of a tree, or cut off an appendage, for God's sake, with some sharp tool.

When the doctor came in to check Hayley's progress, she dashed out to call Logan's cell phone.

"Kitridge."

"It's Stella. My boys—"

"Yeah, they're fine. Got them right here. Hey, Gavin, don't chase your brother with that chain saw." At Stella's horrified squeak, Logan's laughter rolled over the phone. "Just kidding. I've got them digging a hole, and they're happy as pigs in mud and twice as dirty. We got a baby yet?"

"No, they're checking her now. Last check she was at eight centimeters dilated and seventy percent effaced."

"I have no idea what that means, but I'll assume it's a good thing."

"It's very good. She's breezing through it. You'd think she had a baby once a week. Are you sure the
kids are all right?"

"Listen."

She assumed he'd held out the phone as she heard giggles and her boys' voices raised in excited
argument over just what they could bury in the hole. An elephant. A brontosaurus. Fat Mr. Kelso from the grocery store.

"They shouldn't call Mr. Kelso fat."

"We have no time for women here. Call me when we've got a baby."

He hung up, leaving her scowling at the phone. Then she turned and nearly rammed into Harper. Or into the forest of red lilies he balanced in both hands.

"Harper? Are you in there?"

"She okay? What's going on? Am I too late?"

"She's fine. The doctor's just checking on her. And you're in plenty of time."

"Okay. I thought lilies because they're exotic, and she likes red. I think she likes red."

"They're extremely gorgeous. Let me guide you in."

"Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe you should just take them."

"Don't be silly. We've got a regular party going on. She's a sociable girl, and having people with her is taking her mind off the pain. When I left, David had the Red Hot Chili Peppers on a CD player and a bottle of champagne icing down in the bathroom sink.

She steered him in. It was still the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and David turned his camera to the door to snap a picture of Harper peering nervously through a wonder of red lilies.

"Oh! Oh! Those are the most beautiful things I've ever seen!" A little pale, but beaming, Hayley
struggled to sit up in bed.

"They'll make a great focal point, too." Stella helped Harper set them on a table. "You can focus on
them during contractions."

"The doctor says I'm nearly there. I can start pushing soon."

He stepped up to the bedside. "You okay?"

"A little tired. It's a lot of work, but not as bad as I thought." Abruptly, her hand clamped down on his. "Oh-oh. Stella."

* * *

Roz stood at the foot of the bed. She looked at her son's hand holding Hayley's, looked at his face. She felt something inside her tighten, release painfully. Then she sighed and began to rub Hayley's feet as Stella murmured instructions and encouragement.

The pain increased. Stella watched the arc of contractions on the monitor and felt her own belly tighten
in sympathy. The girl was made of iron, she thought. She was pale now, and her skin sheathed in sweat. There were times when Hayley gripped Stella's hand so hard she was surprised her fingers didn't snap. But Hayley stayed focused and rode the contractions out.

An hour passed into another, with the contractions coming fast, coming hard, with Hayley chugging through the breathing like a train. Stella offered ice chips and cool cloths while Roz gave the laboring mother a shoulder massage.

"Harper!" General Rothchild snapped out orders. "Rub her belly."

He goggled at her as if she'd asked him to personally deliver the baby. "Do what?"

"Gently, in circles. It helps. David, the music—"

"No, I like the music." Hayley reached for Stella's hand as she felt the next coming on. "Turn it up, David, in case I start screaming. Oh, oh, fuck! I want to push. I want to push it the hell out, now!"

"Not yet. Not yet. Focus, Hayley, you're doing great. Roz, maybe we need the doctor."

"Already on it," she said on her way out the door.

When it was time to push, and the doctor sat between Hayley's legs, Stella noted that both men went a little green. She gave Hayley one end of a towel, and took the other, to help her bear down while she counted to ten.

"Harper! You get behind her, support her back."

"I..." He was already edging for the door, but his mother blocked him.

"You don't want to be somewhere else when a miracle happens." She gave him a nudge forward.

"You're doing great," Stella told her. "You're amazing." She nodded when the doctor called for Hayley
to push again. "Ready now. Deep breath. Hold it, and push!"

"God almighty." Even with the babble of voices, David's swallow was audible. "I've never seen the like. I've gotta call my mama. Hell, I gotta send her a truckload of flowers."

"Jesus!" Harper sucked in a breath along with Hayley. "There's a head."

Hayley began to laugh, with tears streaming down her face. "Look at all that hair! Oh, God, oh, Lord, can't we get him the rest of the way out?"

"Shoulders next, honey, then that's it. Another good push, okay? Listen! He's already crying. Hayley, that's your baby crying." And Stella was crying herself as with a last desperate push, life rushed into
the room.

"It's a girl," Roz said softly as she wiped the dampness from her own cheeks. "You've got a daughter, Hayley. And she's beautiful."

"A girl. A little girl." Hayley's arms were already reaching. When they laid her on her belly so Roz could cut the cord, she kept laughing even as she stroked the baby from head to foot. "Oh, just look at you. Look at you. No, don't take her."

"They're just going to clean her up. Two seconds." Stella bent down to kiss the top of Hayley's head. "Congratulations, Mom."

"Listen to her." Hayley reached back, gripped Stella's hand, then Harper's. "She even sounds beautiful."

"Six pounds, eight ounces," the nurse announced and carried the wrapped bundle to the bed. "Eighteen inches. And a full ten on the Apgar."

"Hear that?" Hayley cradled the baby in her arms, kissed her forehead, her cheeks, her tiny mouth.
"You aced your first test. She's looking at me! Hi. Hi, I'm your mama. I'm so glad to see you."

"Smile!" David snapped another picture. "What name did you decide on?"

"I picked a new one when I was pushing. She's Lily, because I could see the lilies, and I could smell
them when she was being born. So she's Lily Rose Star. Rose for Rosalind, Star for Stella."

NINETEEN

Exhausted and exhilarated, Stella stepped into the house. Though it was past their bedtime, she expected her boys to come running, but had to make do with an ecstatic Parker. She picked him up, kissed his
nose as he tried to bathe her face.

"Guess what, my furry little pal? We had a baby today. Our first girl."

She shoved at her hair, and immediately got the guilts. Roz had left the hospital before she had, and was probably upstairs dealing with the kids.

She started toward the steps when Logan strolled into the foyer. "Big day."

"The biggest," she agreed. She hadn't considered he'd be there, and was suddenly and acutely aware
that her duties as labor coach had sweated off all of her makeup. In addition, she couldn't imagine she was smelling, her freshest.

"I can't thank you enough for taking on the boys."

"No problem. I got a couple of good holes out of them. You may need to burn their clothes."

"They've got more. Is Roz up with them?"

"No. She's in the kitchen. David's back there whipping something together, and I heard a rumor about champagne."

"More champagne? We practically swam in it at the hospital. I'd better go up and settle down the troops."

"They're out for the count. Have been since just before nine. Digging holes wears a man out."

"Oh. I know you said you'd bring them back when I called to tell you about the baby, but I didn't expect you to put them to bed."

"They were tuckered. We had ourselves a manly shower, then they crawled into bed and were out in under five seconds."

"Well. I owe you big."

"Pay up."

He crossed to her, slid his arms around her and kissed her until her already spinning head lifted off her shoulders.

"Tired?" he asked.

"Yeah. But in the best possible way."

He danced his fingers over her hair, and kept his other arm around her. "How's the new kid on the
block and her mama?"

"They're great. Hayley's a wonder. Steady as a rock through seven hours of labor. And the baby might
be a couple weeks early, but she came through like a champ. Only a few ounces shy of Gavin's birth weight, though it took me twice as long to convince him to come out."

"Make you want to have another?"

She went a few shades more pale. "Oh. Well."

"Now I've scared you." Amused, he slung an arm around her shoulder. "Let's go see what's on the
menu with that champagne."

* * *

He hadn't scared her, exactly. But he had made her vaguely uneasy. She was just getting used to having
a relationship, and the man was making subtle hints about babies.

Of course, it could have been just a natural, offhand remark under the circumstances. Or a kind of joke.

Whatever the intent, it got her thinking. Did she want more children? She'd crossed that possibility off
her list when Kevin died and had ruthlessly shut down her biological clock. Certainly she was capable, physically, of having another child. But it took more than physical capability, or should, to bring a child into the world.

She had two healthy, active children. And was solely and wholly responsible for them—emotionally, financially, morally. To consider having another meant considering a permanent relationship with a man. Marriage, a future, sharing not only what she had but building more, and in a different direction.

She'd come to Tennessee to visit her own roots, and to plant her family in the soil of her own origins.
To be near her father, and to allow her children the pleasure of being close to grandparents who wanted to know them.

Her mother had never been particularly interested, hadn't enjoyed seeing herself as a grandmother. It spoiled the youthful image, Stella thought.

If a man like Logan had blipped onto her mother's radar, he'd have been snapped right up.

And if that's why Stella was hesitating, it was a sad state of affairs. Undoubtedly part of it, though, she decided. Otherwise she wouldn't be thinking it.

She hadn't disliked any of her stepfathers. But she hadn't bonded with them either, or they with her.
How old had she been the first time her mother had remarried? Gavin's age, she remembered. Yes,
right around eight.

She'd been plucked out of her school and plunked down in a new one, a new house, new neighborhood, and dazed by it all while her mother had been in the adrenaline rush of having a new husband.

That one had lasted, what? Three years, four? Somewhere between, she decided, with another year
or so of upheaval while her mother dealt with the battle and debris of divorce, another new place, a
new job, a new start.

And another new school for Stella.

After that, her mother had stuck with boyfriends for a long stretch. But that itself had been another kind of upheaval, having to survive her mother's mad dashes into love, her eventual bitter exit from it.

And they were always bitter, Stella remembered.

At least she'd been in college, living on her own, when her mother had married yet again. And maybe
that was part of the reason that marriage had lasted nearly a decade. There hadn't been a child to crowd things. Yet eventually there'd been another acrimonious divorce, with the split nearly coinciding with her own widowhood.

It had been a horrible year, in every possible way, which her mother had ended with yet one more brief, tumultuous marriage.

Strange that even as an adult, Stella found she couldn't quite forgive being so consistently put into second or even third place behind her mother's needs.

She wasn't doing that with her own children, she assured herself. She wasn't being selfish and careless in her relationship with Logan, or shuffling her kids to the back of her heart because she was falling in love with him.

Still, the fact was it was all moving awfully fast. It would make more sense to slow things down a bit
until she had a better picture.

Besides, she was going to be too busy to think about marriage. And she shouldn't forget he hadn't asked her to marry him and have his children, for God's sake. She was blowing an offhand comment way out
of proportion.

Time to get back on track. She rose from her desk and started for the door. It opened before she
reached it.

"I was just going to find you," she said to Roz. "I'm on my way to pick up the new family and take them home."

"I wish I could go with you. I nearly postponed this meeting so I could." She glanced at her watch as if considering it again.

"By the time you get back from your meeting with Dr. Carnegie, they'll be all settled in and ready for some quality time with Aunt Roz."

"I have to admit I want my hands on that baby. So, now, what've you been fretting about?"

"Fretting?" Stella opened a desk drawer to retrieve her purse. "Why do you think I've been fretting
about anything?"

"Your watch is turned around, which means you've been twisting at it. Which means you've been
fretting. Something going on around here I don't know about?"

"No." Annoyed with herself, Stella turned her watch around. "No, it's nothing to do with work. I was thinking about Logan, and I was thinking about my mother."

"What does Logan have to do with your mother?" As she asked, Roz picked up Stella's thermos. After opening it and taking a sniff, she poured a few swallows of iced coffee in the lid.

"Nothing. I don't know. Do you want a mug for that?"

"No, this is fine. Just want a taste."

"I think—I sense—I'm wondering ... and I already sound like an ass." Stella took a lipstick from the cosmetic bag in her purse, and walking to the mirror she'd hung on the wall, she began to freshen her makeup. "Roz, things are getting serious between me and Logan."

"As I've got eyes, I've seen that for myself. Do you want me to say and, or do you want me to mind
my own business?"

"And. I don't know if I'm ready for serious. I don't know that he is, either. It's surprising enough it turned out we like each other, much less ..." She turned back. "I've never felt like this about anyone. Not this churned up and edgy, and, well, fretful."

She replaced the lipstick and zipped the bag shut. "With Kevin, everything was so clear. We were young and in love, and there wasn't a single barrier to get over, not really. It wasn't that we never fought or had problems, but it was all relatively simple for us."

"And the longer you live, the more complicated life gets."

"Yes. I'm afraid of being in love again, and of crossing that line from this is mine to this is ours. That sounds incredibly selfish when I say it out loud."

"Maybe, but I'd say it's pretty normal."

"Maybe. Roz, my mother was—is—a mess. I know, in my head, that a lot of the decisions I've made have been because I knew they were the exact opposite of what she'd have done. That's pathetic."

"I don't know that it is, not if those decisions were right for you."

"They were. They have been. But I don't want to step away from something that might be wonderful
just because I know my mother would leap forward without a second thought."

"Honey, I can look at you and remember what it was like, and the both of us can look at Hayley and wonder how she has the courage and fortitude to raise that baby on her own."

Stella let out a little laugh. "God, isn't that the truth?"

"And since it's turned out the three of us have connected as friends, we can give each other all kinds
of support and advice and shoulders to cry on. But the fact is, each one of us has to get through what
we get through. Me, I expect you'll figure this out soon enough. Figuring out how to make things come out right's what you do."

She set the thermos lid on the desk, gave Stella two light pats on the cheek. "Well, I'm going to scoot home and clean up a bit."

"Thanks, Roz. Really. If Hayley's doing all right once I get them home, I'll leave David in charge. I know we're shorthanded around here today."

"No, you stay home with her and Lily. Harper can handle things here. It's not every day you bring a
new baby home."

* * *

And that was something Roz considered as she hunted for parking near Mitchell Carnegie's downtown apartment. It had been a good many years since there had been an infant in Harper House. Just how would the Harper Bride deal with that?

How would they all deal with it?

How would she herself handle the idea of her firstborn falling for that sweet single mother and her tiny girl? She doubted that Harper knew he was sliding in that direction, and surely Hayley was clueless.
But a mother knew such things; a mother could read them on her son's face.

Something else to think about some other time, she decided, and cursed ripely at the lack of parking.

She had to hoof it nearly three blocks and cursed again because she'd felt obliged to wear heels. Now
her feet were going to hurt, and she'd have to waste more time changing into comfortable clothes once this meeting was done.

She was going to be late, which she deplored, and she was going to arrive hot and sweaty.

She would have loved to have passed the meeting on to Stella. But it wasn't the sort of thing she could ask a manager to do. It dealt with her home, her family. She'd taken this particular aspect of it for
granted for far too long.

She paused at the comer to wait for the light.

"Roz!"

The voice on the single syllable had her hackles rising. Her face was cold as hell frozen over as she
turned and stared at—stared through—the slim, handsome man striding quickly toward her in glossy Ferragamos.

"I thought that was you. Nobody else could look so lovely and cool on a hot afternoon."

He reached out, this man she'd once been foolish enough to marry, and gripped her hand in both of his. "Don't you look gorgeous!"

"You're going to want to let go of my hand, Bryce, or you're going to find yourself facedown and eating sidewalk. The only one who'll be embarrassed by that eventuality is yourself."

His face, with its smooth tan and clear features, hardened. "I'd hoped, after all this time, we could be friends."

"We're not friends, and never will be." Quite deliberately, she took a tissue out of her purse and wiped
the hand he'd touched. "I don't count lying, cheating sons of bitches among my friends."

"A man just can't make a mistake or find forgiveness with a woman like you."

"That's exactly right. I believe that's the first time you've been exactly right in your whole miserable life."

She started across the street, more resigned than surprised when he fell into step beside her. He wore a pale gray suit, Italian in cut. Canali, if she wasn't mistaken. At least that had been his designer of the moment when she'd been footing the bills.

"I don't see why you're still upset, Roz, honey. Unless there are still feelings inside you for me."

"Oh, there are, Bryce, there are. Disgust being paramount. Go away before I call a cop and have you arrested for being a personal annoyance."

"I'd just like another chance to—"

She stopped then. "That will never happen in this lifetime, or a thousand others. Be grateful you're able
to walk the streets in your expensive shoes, Bryce, and that you're wearing a tailored suit instead of a prison jumpsuit."

"There's no cause to talk to me that way. You got what you wanted, Roz. You cut me off without a dime."

"Would that include the fifteen thousand, six hundred and fifty-eight dollars and twenty-two cents you transferred out of my account the week before I kicked your sorry ass out of my house? Oh, I knew about that one, too," she said when his face went carefully blank. "But I let that one go, because I decided I deserved to pay something for my own stupidity. Now you go on, and you stay out of my way, you stay out of my sight, and you stay out of my hearing, or I promise you, you'll regret it."

She clipped down the sidewalk, and even the "Frigid bitch" he hurled at her back didn't break her stride.

But she was shaking. By the time she'd reached the right address her knees and hands were trembling. She hated that she'd allowed him to upset her. Hated that the sight of him brought any reaction at all, even if it was rage.

Because there was shame along with it.

She'd taken him into her heart and her home. She'd let herself be charmed and seduced—and lied to and deceived. He'd stolen more than her money, she knew. He'd stolen her pride. And it was a shock to the system to realize, after all this time, that she didn't quite have it back. Not all of it.

She blessed the cool inside the building and rode the elevator to the third floor.

She was too frazzled and annoyed to fuss with her hair or check her makeup before she knocked. Instead she stood impatiently tapping her foot until the door opened.

He was as good-looking as the picture on the back of his books—several of which she'd read or skimmed through before arranging this meeting. He was, perhaps, a bit more rumpled in rolled-up shirtsleeves and jeans. But what she saw was a very long, very lanky individual with a pair of horn-rims sliding down a straight and narrow nose. Behind the lenses, bottle-green eyes seemed distracted. His hair was plentiful, in a tangle of peat-moss brown around a strong, sharp-boned face that showed a black bruise along the jaw.

The fact that he wasn't wearing any shoes made her feel hot and overdressed.

"Dr. Carnegie?"

"That's right. Ms.... Harper. I'm sorry. I lost track of time. Come in, please. And don't look at anything." There was a quick, disarming smile. "Part of losing track means I didn't remember to pick up out here.
So we'll go straight back to my office, where I can excuse any disorder in the name of the creative process. Can I get you anything?"

His voice was coastal southern, she noted. That easy drawl that turned vowels into warm liquid.
"I'll take something cold, whatever you've got."

Of course, she looked as he scooted her through the living room. There were newspapers and books littering an enormous brown sofa, another pile of them along with a stubby white candle on a coffee
table that looked as if it might have been Georgian. There was a basketball and a pair of high-tops so disreputable she doubted even her sons would lay claim to them in the middle of a gorgeous Turkish
rug, and the biggest television screen she'd ever seen eating up an entire wall.

Though he was moving her quickly along, she caught sight of the kitchen. From the number of dishes
on the counter, she assumed he'd recently had a party.

"I'm in the middle of a book," he explained. "And when I come up for air, domestic chores aren't a priority. My last cleaning team quit. Just like their predecessors."

"I can't imagine why," she said with schooled civility as she stared at his office space.

There wasn't a clean surface to be seen, and the air reeked of cigar smoke. A dieffenbachia sat in a chipped pot on the windowsill, withering. Rising above the chaos of his desk was a flat-screen monitor and an ergonomic keyboard.

He cleaned off the chair, dumping everything unceremoniously on the floor. "Hang on one minute."

As he dashed out, she lifted her brows at the half-eaten sandwich and glass of—maybe it was tea—among the debris on his desk. She was somewhat disappointed when with a crane of her neck she peered around to his monitor. His screen saver was up. But that, she supposed, was interesting enough, as it showed several cartoon figures playing basketball.

"I hope tea's all right," he said as he came back.

"That's fine, thank you." She took the glass and hoped it had been washed sometime in the last decade. "Dr. Carnegie, you're killing that plant."

"What plant?"

"The dieffenbachia in the window."

"Oh? Oh. I didn't know I had a plant." He gave it a baffled look. "Wonder where that came from? It doesn't look very healthy, does it?"

He picked it up, and she saw, with horror, that he intended to dump it in the overflowing wastebasket beside his desk.

"For God's sake, don't just throw it out. Would you bury your cat alive?"

"I don't have a cat."

"Just give it to me." She rose, grabbed the pot out of his hand. "It's dying of thirst and heat, and it's rootbound. This soil's hard as a brick."

She set it beside her chair and sat again. "I'll take care of it," she said, and her legs were an angry slash
as she crossed them. "Dr. Carnegie—"

"Mitch. If you're going to take my plant, you ought to call me Mitch."

"As I explained when I contacted you, I'm interested in contracting for a thorough genealogy of my family, with an interest in gathering information on a specific person."

"Yes." All business, he decided, and sat at his desk. "And I told you I only do personal genealogies if something about the family history interests me. I'm—obviously—caught up in a book right now and wouldn't have much time to devote to a genealogical search and report."

"You didn't name your fee."

"Fifty dollars an hour, plus expenses."

She felt a quick clutch in the belly. "That's lawyer steep."

"An average genealogy doesn't take that long, if you know what you're doing and where to look. In most cases, it can be done in about forty hours, depending on how far back you want to go. If it's more complicated, we could arrange a flat fee—reevaluating after that time is used. But as I said—"

"I don't believe you'll have to go back more than a century."

"Chump change in this field. And if you're only dealing with a hundred years, you could probably do this yourself. I'd be happy to direct you down the avenues. No charge."

"I need an expert, which I'm assured you are. And I'm willing to negotiate terms. Since you took the time out of your busy schedule to speak to me, I'd think you'd hear me out before you nudge me out the door."

All business, he thought again, and prickly with it. "That wasn't my intention—the nudging. Of course
I'll hear you out. If you're not in any great rush for the search and report, I may be able to help you
out in a few weeks."

When she inclined her head, he began to rummage on, through, under the desk. "Just let me ... how the hell did that get there?"

He unearthed a yellow legal pad, then mined out a pen. "That's Rosalind, right? As You Like It?"

A smile whisked over her mouth. "As in Russell. My daddy was a fan."

He wrote her name on the top of the pad. "You said a hundred years back. I'd think a family like yours would have records, journals, documents—and considerable oral family history to cover a century."

"You would, wouldn't you? Actually, I have quite a bit, but certain things have led me to believe some
of the oral history is either incorrect or is missing details. I will, however, be glad to have you go through what I do have. We've already been through a lot of it."

"We?"

"Myself, and other members of my household."

"So, you're looking for information on a specific ancestor."

"I don't know as she was an ancestor, but I am certain she was a member of the household. I'm certain she died there."

"You have her death record?"

"No."

He shoved at his glasses as he scribbled. "Her grave?"

"No. Her ghost."

She smiled serenely when he blinked up at her. "Doesn't a man who digs into family histories believe
in ghosts?"

"I've never come across one."

"If you take on this job, you will. What might your fee be, Dr. Carnegie, to dig up the history and
identity of a family ghost?"

He leaned back in his chair, tapping the pen on his chin. "You're not kidding around."

"I certainly wouldn't kid around to the tune of fifty dollars an hour, plus expenses. I bet you could write
a very interesting book on the Harper family ghost, if I were to sign a release and cooperate."

"I just bet I could," he replied.

"And it seems to me that you might consider finding out what I'm after as a kind of research. Maybe
I should charge you."

His grin flashed again. "I have to finish this book before I actively take on another project. Despite evidence to the contrary, I finish what I start."

"Then you ought to start washing your dishes."

"Told you not to look. First, let me say that in my opinion the odds of you having an actual ghost in residence are about, oh, one in twenty million."

"I'd be happy to put a dollar down at those odds, if you're willing to risk the twenty million."

"Second, if I take this on, I'd require access to all family papers—personal family papers, and your written consent for me to dig into public records regarding your family."

"Of course."

"I'd be willing to waive my fee for, let's say, the first twenty hours. Until we see what we've got."

"Forty hours."

"Thirty."

"Done."

"And I'd want to see your house."

"Perhaps you'd like to come to dinner. Is there any day next week that would suit you?"

"I don't know. Hold on." He swiveled to his computer, danced his ringers over keys. "Tuesday?"

"Seven o'clock, then. We're not formal, but you will need shoes." She picked up the plant, then rose. "Thank you for your time," she said, extended a hand.

"Are you really going to take that thing?"

"I certainly am. And I have no intention of giving it back and letting you take it to death's door again.
Do you need directions to Harper House?"

"I'll find it. Seems to me I drove by it once." He walked her to the door. "You know, sensible women don't usually believe in ghosts. Practical women don't generally agree to pay someone to trace the
history of said ghost. And you strike me as a sensible, practical woman."

"Sensible men don't usually live in pigsties and conduct business meetings barefoot. We'll both have to take our chances. You ought to put some ice on that bruise. It looks painful."

"It is. Vicious little..." He broke off. "Got clipped going up for a rebound. Basketball."

"So I see. I'll expect you Tuesday, then, at seven."

"I'll be there. Good-bye, Ms. Harper."

"Dr. Carnegie."

He kept the door open long enough to satisfy his curiosity. He was right, he noted. The rear view was
just as elegant and sexy as the front side, and both went with that steel-spined southern belle voice.

A class act, top to toe, he decided as he shut the door.

Ghosts. He shook his head and chuckled as he wound his way through the mess back to his office. Wasn't that a kick in the ass.

TWENTY

Logan studied the tiny form bunking in a patch of dappled sunlight. He'd seen babies before, even had
his share of personal contact with them. To him, newborns bore a strange resemblance to fish.
Something about the eyes, he thought. And this one had all that black hair going for her, so she looked like a human sea creature. Sort of exotic and otherworldly.

If Gavin had been around, and Hayley out of hearing distance, he'd have suggested that this particular baby looked something like the offspring of Aquaman and Wonder Woman.

The kid would've gotten it.

Babies always intimidated him. Something about the way they looked right back at you, as if they knew
a hell of a lot more than you did and were going to tolerate you until they got big enough to handle things on their own.

But he figured he had to come up with something better than an encounter between superheros, as the mother was standing beside him, anticipating.

"She looks as if she might've dropped down from Venus, where the grass is sapphire blue and the sky a bowl of gold dust." True enough, Logan decided, and a bit more poetic than the Aquaman theory.

"Aw, listen to you. Go ahead." Hayley gave him a little elbow nudge. "You can pick her up."

"Maybe I'll wait on that until she's more substantial."

With a chuckle, Hayley slipped Lily out of her carrier. "Big guy like you shouldn't be afraid of a tiny baby. Here. Now, make sure you support her head."

"Got long legs for such a little thing." And they kicked a bit in transfer. "She's picture pretty. Got a lot
of you in her."

"I can hardly believe she's mine." Hayley fussed with Lily's cotton hat, then made herself stop touching. "Can I open the present now?"

"Sure. She all right in the sun like this?"

"We're baking the baby," Hayley told him as she tugged at the shiny pink ribbon on the box Logan had
set on the patio table.

"Sorry?"

"She's got a touch of jaundice. The sun's good for her. Stella said Luke had it too, and they took him
out in the sunshine for a little while a few times a day." She went to work on the wrapping paper.
"Seems like she and Roz know everything there is to know about babies. I can ask the silliest question and one of them knows the answer. We're blessed, Lily and I."

Three women, one baby. Logan imagined Lily barely got out a burp before one of them was rushing to pick her up.

"Logan, do you think things happen because they're meant to, or because you make them happen?"

"I guess I think you make them happen because they're meant to."

"I've been thinking. There's a lot of thinking time when you're up two or three times in the middle of the night. I just wanted—needed—to get gone when I left Little Rock, and I headed here because I hoped Roz might give me a job. I could just as well have headed to Alabama. I've got closer kin there—blood kin—than Roz. But I came here, and I think I was meant to. I think Lily was supposed to be born here, and have Roz and Stella in her life."

"We'd all be missing out on something if you'd pointed your car in another direction."

"This feels like family. I've missed that since my daddy died. I want Lily to have family. I think—I know—we'd have been all right on our own. But I don't want things to just be all right for her. All right doesn't cut it anymore."

"Kids change everything."

Her smile bloomed. "They do. I'm not the same person I was a year ago, or even a week ago. I'm a mother." She pulled off the rest of the wrapping and let out a sound Logan thought of as distinctly
female.

"Oh, what a sweet baby-doll! And it's so soft." She took it out of the box to cradle it much as Logan
was cradling Lily.

"Bigger than she is."

"Not for long. Oh, she's so pink and pretty, and look at her little hat!"

"You pull the hat, and it makes music."

"Really?" Delighted, Hayley pulled the peaked pink hat, and "The Cradle Song" tinkled out. "It's perfect." She popped up to give Logan a kiss. "Lily's going to love her. Thank you, Logan."

"I figured a girl can't have too many dolls."

He glanced over as the patio door slammed open. Parker scrambled out a foot ahead of two shouting, racing boys.

They'd been this small once, he realized with a jolt. Small enough to curl in the crook of an arm, as helpless as, well, a fish out of water.

They ran to Logan as Parker sped in circles of delirious freedom.

"We saw your truck," Gavin announced. "Are we going to go work with you?"

"I knocked off for the day." Both faces fell, comically, and the buzz of pleasure it gave him had him adjusting his weekend plans. "But I've got to build me an arbor tomorrow, out in my yard. I could
use a couple of Saturday slaves."

"We can be slaves." Luke tugged on Logan's pant leg. "I know what an arbor is, too. It's a thing stuff grows on."

"There you go, then, I've got a couple of expert slaves. We'll see what your mama says."

"She won't mind. She has to work 'cause Hayley's on turnkey."

"Maternity," Hayley explained.

"Got that."

"Can I see her?" Luke gave another tug.

"Sure." Logan crouched down with the baby in his arms. "She sure is tiny, isn't she?"

"She doesn't do anything yet." Gavin frowned thoughtfully as he tapped a gentle finger on Lily's cheek. "She cries and sleeps."

Luke leaned close to Logan's ear. "Hayley feeds her," he said in a conspirator's whisper, "with milk out
of her booby"

With an admirably straight face, Logan nodded. "I think I heard about that somewhere. It's a little hard
to believe."

"It's true. That's why they have them. Girls. Guys don't get boobies because they can't make milk, no matter how much they drink."

"Huh. That explains that."

"Fat Mr. Kelso's got boobies," Gavin said and sent his brother into a spasm of hilarity.

Stella stepped to the door and saw Logan holding the baby with her boys flanking him. All three of them had grins from ear-to-ear. The sun was shimmering down through the scarlet leaves of a red maple, falling in a shifting pattern of light and shadow on the stone. Lilies had burst into bloom in a carnival of color and exotic shapes. She could smell them, and the early roses, freshly cut grass, and verbena.

She heard birdsong and the giggling whispers of her boys, the delicate music of the wind chime hung
from one of the maple's branches.

Her first clear thought as she froze there, as if she'd walked into an invisible frame of a picture was, Uh-oh.

Maybe she'd said it out loud, as Logan's head turned toward her. When their eyes met, his foolish grin transformed into a smile, easy and warm.

He looked too big crouched there, she thought. Too big, too rough with that tiny child in his arms, too male centered between her precious boys.

And so... dazzling somehow. Tanned and fit and strong.

He belonged in a forest, beating a path over rocky ground. Not here, in this elegant scene with flowers scenting the air and a baby dozing in the crook of his arm.

He straightened and walked toward her. "Your turn."

"Oh." She reached for Lily. "There you are, beautiful baby girl. There you are." She laid her lips on
Lily's brow, and breathed in. "How's she doing today?" she asked Hayley.

"Good as gold. Look here, Stella. Look what Logan bought her."

Yeah, a female thing, Logan mused as Stella made nearly the identical sound Hayley had over the doll. "Isn't that the most precious thing?"

"And watch this." Hayley pulled the hat so the tune played out.

"Mom. Mom." Luke deserted Logan to tug on his mother.

"Just a minute, baby."

They fussed over the doll and Lily while Luke rolled his eyes and danced in place.

"I think Lily and I should go take a nap." Hayley tucked the baby in her carrier, then lifted it and the doll. "Thanks again, Logan. It was awfully sweet of you."

"Glad you like it. You take care now."

"Dolls are lame," Gavin stated, but he was polite enough to wait until Hayley was inside.

"Really?" Stella reached over to flick the bill of his baseball cap over his eyes. "And what are those little people you've got all over your shelves and your desk?"

"Those aren't dolls." Gavin looked as horrified as an eight-year-old boy could manage. "Those are
action figures. Come on, Mom."

"My mistake."

"We want to be Saturday slaves and build an arbor." Luke pulled on her hand and to get her attention. "Okay?"

"Saturday slaves?"

"I'm building an arbor tomorrow," Logan explained. "Could use some help, and I got these two volunteers. I hear they work for cheese sandwiches and Popsicles."

"Oh. Actually, I was planning to take them to work with me tomorrow."

"An arbor, Mom." Luke gazed up pleadingly, as if he'd been given the chance to build the space shuttle and then ride it to Pluto. "I never, ever built one before."

"Well..."

"Why don't we split it up?" Logan suggested. "You take them on in with you in the morning, and I'll swing by and get them around noon."

She felt her stomach knot. It sounded normal. Like parenting. Like family. Dimly, she heard her boys begging and pleading over the buzzing in her ears.

"That'll be fine," she managed. "If you're sure they won't be in your way."

He cocked his head at the strained and formal tone. "They get in it, I just kick them out again. Like now. Why don't you boys go find that dog and see what he's up to, so I can talk to your mama a minute?"

Gavin made a disgusted face. "Let's go, Luke. He's probably going to kiss her."

"Why, I'm transparent as glass to that boy," Logan said. He tipped her chin up with his fingers, laid his lips on hers, and watched her watch him. "Hello, Stella."

"Hello, Logan."

"Are you going to tell me what's going on in that head of yours, or do I have to guess?"

"A lot of things. And nothing much."

"You looked poleaxed when you came outside."

" 'Poleaxed.' Now there's a word you don't hear every day."

"Why don't you and I take a little walk?"

"All right."

"You want to know why I came by this afternoon?"

"To bring Lily a doll." She walked along one of the paths with him. She could hear her boys and the
dog, then the quick thwack of Luke's Wiffle bat. They'd be fine for a while.

"That, and to see if I could sponge a meal off Roz, which was a roundabout way of having a meal with you. I don't figure I'm going to be able to pry you too far away from the baby for a while yet."

She had to smile. "Apparently I'm transparent, too. It's so much fun having a baby in the house. If I manage to steal her away from Hayley for an hour—and win out over Roz—I can play with her like, well, a doll. All those adorable little clothes. Never having had a girl, I didn't realize how addicting all those little dresses can be."

"When I asked you if Lily made you want another, you panicked."

"I didn't panic."

"Clutched, let's say. Why is that?"

"It's not unusual for a woman of my age with two half-grown children to clutch, let's say, at the idea of another baby."

"Uh-huh. You clutched again when I said I wanted to take the kids to my place tomorrow."

"No, it's just that I'd already planned—"

"Don't bullshit me, Red."

"Things are moving so fast and in a direction I hadn't planned to go."

"If you're going to plan every damn thing, maybe I should draw you a frigging map."

"I can draw my own map, and there's no point in being annoyed. You asked." She stopped by a tower
of madly climbing passionflower. "I thought things were supposed to move slow in the south."

"You irritated me the first time I set eyes on you."

"Thanks so much."

"That should've given me a clue," he continued. "You were an itch between my shoulder blades. The
one in that spot you can't reach and scratch away no matter how you contort yourself. I'd've been happy to move slow. Generally, I don't see the point in rushing through something. But you know, Stella, you can't schedule how you're going to fall in love. And I fell in love with you."

"Logan."

"I can see that put the fear of God in you. I figure there's one of two reasons for that. One, you don't have feelings for me, and you're afraid you'll hurt me. Or you've got plenty of feelings for me, and they scare you."

He snapped off a passionflower with its white petals and long blue filaments, stuck it in the spiraling
curls of her hair. A carelessly romantic gesture at odds with the frustration in his voice. "I'm going with number two, not only because it suits me better, but because I know what happens to both of us when
I kiss you."

"That's attraction. It's chemistry."

"I know the frigging difference." He took her shoulders, held her still. "So do you. Because we've both been here before. We've both been in love before, so we know the difference."

"That may be right, that may be true. And it's part of why this is too much, too fast." She curled her hands on his forearms, felt solid strength, solid will. "I knew Kevin a full year before things got serious, and another year before we started talking about the future."

"I had about the same amount of time with Rae. And here we are, Stella. You through tragedy, me through circumstance. We both know there aren't any guarantees, no matter how long or how well
you plan it out beforehand."

"No, there aren't. But it's not just me now. I have more than myself to consider."

"You come as a package deal." He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, then stepped away. "I'm
not dim, Stella. And I'm not above making friends with your boys to get you. But the fact is, I like them.
I enjoy having them around."

"I know that." She gave his arms a squeeze, then eased back. "I know that," she repeated. "I can tell when someone's faking. It's not you. It's me."

"That's the goddamnedest thing to say."

"You're right, but it's also true. I know what it's like to be a child and have my mother swing from man
to man. That's not what we're doing here," she said, lifting her hands palms out as fresh fury erupted on his face. "I know that, too. But the fact is, my life centers on those boys now. It has to."

"And you don't think mine can? If you don't think I can be a father to them because they didn't come
out of me, then it is you."

"I think it takes time to—"

"You know how you get a strong, healthy plant like this to increase, to fill out strong?" He jerked a thumb toward the passionflower vine. "You can layer it, and you end up with new fruit and flower. By hybridizing it, it gets stronger, maybe you get yourself a new variety out of it."

"Yes. But it takes time."

"You have to start. I don't love those boys the way you do. But I can see how I could, if you gave me
the chance. So I want the chance. I want to marry you."

"Oh, God. I can't—we don't—" She had to press the heel of her hand on her heart and gulp in air. But she couldn't seem to suck it all the way into her lungs. "Marriage. Logan. I can't get my breath."

"Good. That means you'll shut up for five minutes. I love you, and I want you and those boys in my life. If anybody had suggested to me, a few months ago, that I'd want to take on some fussy redhead and a couple of noisy kids, I'd've laughed my ass off. But there you go. I'd say we could live together for a while until you get used to it, but I know you wouldn't. So I don't see why we don't just do it and start living our lives."

"Just do it," she managed. "Like you just go out and buy a new truck?"

"A new truck's got a better warranty than marriage."

"All this romance is making me giddy."

"I could go buy a ring, get down on one knee. I figured that's how I'd deal with this, but I'm into it now. You love me, Stella."

"I'm beginning to wonder why."

"You've always wondered why. It wouldn't bother me if you keep right on wondering. We could make a good life together, you and me. For ourselves." He jerked his head in the direction of the smack of plastic bat on plastic ball. "For the boys. I can't be their daddy, but I could be a good father. I'd never hurt them, or you. Irritate, annoy, but I'd never hurt any of you."

"I know that. I couldn't love you if you weren't a good man. And you are, a very good man. But marriage. I don't know if it's the answer for any of us."

"I'm going to talk you into it sooner or later." He stepped back to her now, twined her hair around his finger in a lightning change of mood. "If it's sooner, you'd be able to decide how you want all those bare rooms done up in that big house. I'm thinking of picking one and getting started on it next rainy day."

She narrowed her eyes. "Low blow."

"Whatever works. Belong to me, Stella." He rubbed his lips over hers. "Let's be a family."

"Logan." Her heart was yearning toward him even as her body eased away. "Let's take a step back a minute. A family's part of it. I saw you with Lily."

"And?"

"I'm heading toward my middle thirties, Logan. I have an eight- and a six-year-old. I have a demanding job. A career, and I'm going to keep it. I don't know if I want to have more children. You've never had
a baby of your own, and you deserve to."

"I've thought about this. Making a baby with you, well, that would be a fine thing if we both decide we want it. But it seems to me that right now I'm getting the bonus round. You, and two entertaining boys that are already house-broken. I don't have to know everything that's going to happen, Stella. I don't
want to know every damn detail. I just have to know I love you, and I want them."

"Logan." Time for rational thinking, she decided. "We're going to have to sit down and talk this out.
We haven't even met each other's family yet."

"We can take care of that easy enough, at least with yours. We can have them over for dinner. Pick a day."

"You don't have any furniture." She heard her voice pitch, and deliberately leveled herself again.

"That's not important."

"Not to me."

"The point is we're skipping over a lot of the most basic steps." And at the moment, all of them were jumbled and muzzy in her mind.

Marriage, changing things for her boys once more, the possibility of another child. How could she keep up?

"Here you are talking about taking on two children. You don't know what it's like to live in the same house as a couple of young boys."

"Red, I was a young boy. I tell you what, you go ahead and make me a list of all those basic steps.
We'll take them, in order, if that's what you need to do. But I want you to tell me, here and now,
do you love me?"

"You've already told me I do."

He set his hands on her waist, drew her in, drew her up in the way that made her heart stutter.
"Tell me."

Did he know, could he know, how huge it was for her to say the words? Words she'd said to no man
but the one she'd lost. Here he was, those eyes on hers, waiting for the simple acknowledgment of what he already knew.

"I love you. I do, but—"

"That'll do for now." He closed his mouth over hers and rode out the storm of emotion raging inside him. Then he stepped back. "You make that list, Red. And start thinking what color you want on those living room walls. Tell the boys I'll see them tomorrow."

"But... weren't you going to stay for dinner?"

"I've got some things to do," he said as he strode away. "And so do you." He glanced over his shoulder. "You need to worry about me."

* * *

One of the things he had to do was work off the frustration. When he'd asked Rae to marry him, it was no surprise for either of them and her acceptance had been instant and enthusiastic.

Of course, look where that had gotten them.

But it was hard on a man's ego when the woman he loved and wanted to spend his life with countered every one of his moves with a block of stubborn, hardheaded sense.

He put in an hour on his cross-trainer, sweating, guzzling water, and cursing the day he'd had the misfortune to fall in love with a stiff-necked redhead.

Of course, if she wasn't stiff-necked, stubborn, and sensible, he probably wouldn't have fallen in love with her. That still made the whole mess her fault.

He'd been happy before she'd come along. The house hadn't seemed empty before she'd been in it.
Her and those noisy kids. Since when had he voluntarily arranged to spend a precious Saturday off,
a solitary Saturday at his own house with a couple of kids running around getting into trouble?

Hell. He was going to have to go out and pick up some Popsicles.

He was a doomed man, he decided as he stepped into the shower. Hadn't he already picked the spot
in the backyard for a swing set? Hadn't he already started a rough sketch for a tree house?

He'd started thinking like a father.

Maybe he'd liked the sensation of holding that baby in his arms, but having one wasn't a deal breaker. How was either one of them supposed to know how they'd feel about that a year from now?

Things happen, he thought, remembering Hayley's words, because they're meant to happen.

Because, he corrected as he yanked on fresh jeans, you damn well made them happen.

He was going to start making things happen.

In fifteen minutes, after a quick check of the phone book, he was in his car and heading into Memphis. His hair was still wet.

* * *

Will had barely started on his after-dinner decaf and the stingy sliver of lemon meringue pie Jolene allowed him when he heard the knock on the door.

"Now who the devil could that be?"

"I don't know, honey. Maybe you should go find out."

"If they want a damn piece of pie, then I want a bigger one."

"If it's the Bowers boy about cutting the grass, tell him I've got a couple of cans of Coke cold in here."

But when Will opened the door, it wasn't the gangly Bowers boy, but a broad-shouldered man wearing
an irritated scowl. Instinctively, Will edged into the opening of the door to block it. "Something I can
do for you?"

"Yeah. I'm Logan Kitridge, and I've just asked your daughter to marry me."

"Who is it, honey?" Fussing with her hair, Jolene walked up to the door. "Why it's Logan Kitridge,
isn't it? We met you a time or two over at Roz's. Been some time back, though. I know your mama
a little. Come on in."

"He says he asked Stella to marry him."

"Is that so!" Her face brightened like the sun, with her eyes wide and avid with curiosity. "Why, that's
just marvelous. You come on back and have some pie."

"He didn't say if she'd said yes," Will pointed out.

"Since when does Stella say anything as simple as yes?" Logan demanded, and had Will grinning.

"That's my girl."

They sat down, ate pie, drank coffee, and circled around the subject at hand with small talk about his mother, Stella, the new baby.

Finally, Will leaned back. "So, am I supposed to ask you how you intend to support my daughter and grandsons?"

"You tell me. Last time I did this, the girl's father'd had a couple of years to grill me. Didn't figure I'd have to go through this part of it again at my age."

"Of course you don't." Jolene gave her husband a little slap on the arm. "He's just teasing. Stella can support herself and those boys just fine. And you wouldn't be here looking so irritated if you didn't
love her. I guess one question, if you don't mind me asking, is how you feel about being stepfather
to her boys."

"About the same way, I expect, you feel being their step-grandmother. And if I'm lucky, they'll feel
about me the way they do about you. I know they love spending time with you, and I hear their Nana
Jo bakes cookies as good as David's. That's some compliment."

"They're precious to us," Will said. "They're precious to Stella. They were precious to Kevin. He was
a good man."

"Maybe it'd be easier for me if he hadn't been. If he'd been a son of a bitch and she'd divorced him instead of him being a good man who died too young. I don't know, because that's not the case. I'm glad for her that she had a good man and a good marriage, glad for the boys that they had a good father who loved them. I can live with his ghost, if that's what you're wondering. Fact is, I can be grateful to him."

"Well, I think that's just smart." Jolene patted Logan's hand with approval. "And I think it shows good character, too. Don't you, Will?"

On a noncommittal sound, Will pulled on his bottom lip. "You marry my girl, am I going to get landscaping and such at the family rate?"

Logan's grin spread slowly. "We can make that part of the package."

"I've been toying with redoing the patio."

"First I've heard of it," Jolene muttered.

"I saw them putting on one of those herringbone patterns out of bricks on one of the home shows.
I liked the look of it. You know how to handle that sort of thing?"

"Done a few like it. I can take a look at what you've got now if you want."

"That'd be just fine." Will pushed back from the table.

TWENTY-ONE

Stella chewed at it, stewed over it, and worried about it. She was prepared to launch into another discussion regarding the pros and cons of marriage when Logan came to pick up the boys at noon.

She knew he was angry with her. Hurt, too, she imagined. But oddly enough, she knew he'd be by—somewhere in the vicinity of noon—to get the kids. He'd told them he would come, so he
would come.

A definite plus on his side of the board, she decided. She could, and did, trust him with her children.

They would argue, she knew. They were both too worked up to have a calm, reasonable discussion over such an emotional issue. But she didn't mind an argument. A good argument usually brought all the facts and feelings out. She needed both if she was going to figure out the best thing to do for all involved.

But when he hunted them down where she had the kids storing discarded wagons—at a quarter a wagon—he was perfectly pleasant. In fact, he was almost sunny.

"Ready for some man work?" he asked.

With shouts of assent, they deserted wagon detail for more interesting activities. Luke proudly showed him the plastic hammer he'd hooked in a loop of his shorts.

"That'll come in handy. I like a man who carries his own tools. I'll drop them off at the house later."

"About what time do you think—"

"Depends on how long they can stand up to the work." He pinched Gavin's biceps. "Ought to be able
to get a good day's sweat out of this one."

"Feel mine! Feel mine!" Luke flexed his arm.

After he'd obliged, given an impressed whistle, he nodded to Stella. "See you."

And that was that.

So she chewed at it, stewed over it, and worried about it for the rest of the day. Which, not being a
fool, she deduced was exactly what he'd wanted.

* * *

The house was abnormally quiet when she got home from work. She wasn't sure she liked it. She showered off the day, played with the baby, drank a glass of wine, and paced until the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hi there, is this Stella?"

"Yes, who—"

'This is Trudy Kitridge. Logan's mama? Logan said I should give you a call, that you'd be home from work about this time of day."

"I... oh." Oh, God, oh, God. Logan's mother!

"Logan told me and his daddy he asked you to marry him. Could've knocked me over with a feather."

"Yes, me, too. Mrs. Kitridge, we haven't decided... or I haven't decided ... anything."

"Woman's entitled to some time to make up her mind, isn't she? I'd better warn you, honey, when that boy sets his mind on something, he's like a damn bulldog. He said you wanted to meet his family before you said yes or no. I think that's a sweet thing. Of course, with us living out here now, it's not so easy, is it? But we'll be coming back sometime during the holidays. Probably see Logan for Thanksgiving, then our girl for Christmas. Got grandchildren in Charlotte, you know, so we want to be there for Christmas."

"Of course." She had no idea, no idea whatsoever what to say. How could she with no time to prepare?

"Then again, Logan tells me you've got two little boys. Said they're both just pistols. So maybe we'll
have ourselves a couple of grandchildren back in Tennessee, too."

"Oh." Nothing could have touched her heart more truly. "That's a lovely thing to say. You haven't even met them yet, or me, and—"

"Logan has, and I raised my son to know his own mind. He loves you and those boys, then we will, too. You're working for Rosalind Harper, I hear."

"Yes. Mrs. Kitridge—"

"Now, you just call me Trudy. How you getting along down there?"

Stella found herself having a twenty-minute conversation with Logan's mother that left her baffled, amused, touched, and exhausted.

When it was done, she sat limply on the sofa, like, she thought, the dazed victim of an ambush.

Then she heard Logan's truck rumble up.

She had to force herself not to dash to the door. He'd be expecting that. Instead she settled herself in the front parlor with a gardening magazine and the dog snoozing at her feet as if she didn't have a care in the world.

Maybe she'd mention, oh so casually, that she'd had a conversation with his mother. Maybe she
wouldn't, and let him stew over it.

And all right, it had been sensitive and sweet for him to arrange the phone call, but for God's sake, couldn't he have given her some warning so she wouldn't have spent the first five minutes babbling
like an idiot?

The kids came in with all the elegance of an army battalion on a forced march.

"We built a whole arbor." Grimy with sweat and dirt, Gavin rushed to scoop up Parker. "And we
planted the stuff to grow on it."

"Carol Jessmint."

Carolina Jessamine, Stella interpreted from Luke's garbled pronunciation. Nice choice.

"And I got a splinter." Luke held out a dirty hand to show off the Band-Aid on his index finger. "A big one. We thought we might have to hack it out with a knife. But we didn't."

"Whew, that was close. We'll go put some antiseptic on it."

"Logan did already. And I didn't cry. And we had submarines, except he says they're poor boys down here, but I don't see why they're poor because they have lots of stuff in them. And we had Popsicles."

"And we got to ride in the wheelbarrow," Gavin took over the play-by-play. "And I used a real hammer."

"Wow. You had a busy day. Isn't Logan coming in?"

"No, he said he had other stuff. And look." Gavin dug in his pocket and pulled out a wrinkled five-dollar bill. "We each got one, because he said we worked so good we get to be cheap labor instead of slaves."

She couldn't help it, she had to laugh. "That's quite a promotion. Congratulations. I guess we'd better go clean up."

"Then we can eat like a bunch of barnyard pigs." Luke put his hand in hers. "That's what Logan said when it was time for lunch."

"Maybe we'll save the pig-eating for when you're on the job."

They were full of Logan and their day through bath-time, through dinner. And then were too tuckered
out from it all to take advantage of the extra hour she generally allowed them on Saturday nights.

They were sound asleep by nine, and for the first time in her memory, Stella felt she had nothing to do. She tried to read, she tried to work, but couldn't settle into either.

She was thrilled when she heard Lily fussing.

When she stepped into the hall, she saw Hayley heading down, trying to comfort a squalling Lily.
"She's hungry. I thought I'd curl up in the sitting room, maybe watch some TV while I feed her."

"Mind company?"

"Twist my arm. It was lonely around here today with David off at the lake for the weekend, and you and Roz at work, the boys away." She sat, opened her shirt and settled Lily on her breast. "There. That's better, isn't it? I put her in mat baby sling I got at the shower, and we took a nice walk."

"It's good for both of you. What did you want to watch?"

"Nothing, really. I just wanted the voices."

"How about one more?" Roz slipped in, walked over to Lily to smile. "I wanted to take a peek at her. Look at her go!"

"Nothing wrong with her appetite," Hayley confirmed. "She smiled at me today. I know they say it's just gas, but—"

"What do they know?" Roz sprawled in a chair. "They inside that baby's head?"

"Logan asked me to marry him."

She didn't know why she blurted it out—hadn't known it was pushing from her brain to her tongue.

"Holy cow!" Hayley exploded, then immediately soothed Lily and lowered her voice. "When? How? Where? This is just awesome. This is the biggest of the big news. Tell us everything."

"There's not a lot of every anything. He asked me yesterday."

"After I went inside to put the baby down? I just knew something was up."

"I don't think he meant to. I think it just sort of happened, then he was irritated when I tried to point
out the very rational reasons we shouldn't rush into anything."

"What are they?" Hayley wondered.

"You've only known each other since January," Roz began, watching Stella. "You have two children. You've each been married before and bring a certain amount of baggage from those marriages."

"Yes." Stella let out a long sigh. "Exactly."

"When you know you know, don't you?" Hayley argued. "Whether it's five months or five years. And he's great with your kids. They're nuts about him. Being married before ought to make both of you understand the pitfalls or whatever. I don't get it. You love him, don't you?"

"Yes. And yes to the rest, to a point, but... it's different when you're young and unencumbered. You can take more chances. Well, if you're not me you can take more chances. And what if he wants children and I don't? I have to think about that. I have to know if I'm going to be able to consider having another child at this stage, or if the children I do have would be happy and secure with him in the long term. Kevin and I had a game plan."

"And your game was called," Roz said. "It isn't an easy thing to walk into another marriage. I waited a long time to do it, then it was the wrong decision. But I think, if I could have fallen, just tumbled into
love with a man at your age, one who made me happy, who cheerfully spent his Saturday with my children, and who excited me in bed, I'd have walked into it, and gladly."

"But you just said, before, you gave the exact reasons why it's too soon."

"No, I gave the reasons you'd give—and ones I understand, Stella. But there's something else you and
I understand, or should. And that is that love is precious, and too often stolen away. You've got a chance to grab hold of it again. And I say lucky you."

* * *

She dreamed again of the garden, and the blue dahlia. It was ladened with buds, fat and ripe and ready
to burst into bloom. At the top, a single stunning flower swayed electric in the quiet breeze. Her garden, though no longer tidy and ordered, spread out from its feet in waves and flows and charming bumps of color and shape.

Then Logan was beside her, and his hands were warm and rough as he drew her close. His mouth was strong and exciting as it feasted on hers. In the distance she could hear her children's laughter, and the cheerful bark of the dog.

She lay on the green grass at the garden's edge, her senses full of the color and scent, full of the man.

There was such heat, such pleasure as they loved in the sunlight. She felt the shape of his face with her hands. Not fairy-tale handsome, not perfect, but beloved. Her skin shivered as their bodies moved, flesh against flesh, hard against soft, curve against angle.

How could they fit, how could they make such a glorious whole, when there were so many differences?

But her body merged with his, joined, and thrived.

She lay in the sunlight with him, on the green grass at the edge of her garden, and hearing the thunder
of her own heartbeat, knew bliss.

The buds on the dahlia burst open. There were so many of them. Too many. Other plants were being shaded, crowded. The garden was a jumble now, anyone could see it. The blue dahlia was too
aggressive and prolific.

It's fine where it is. It's just a different plan.

But before she could answer Logan, there was another voice, cold and hard in her mind.

His plan. Not yours. His wants. Not yours. Cut it down, before it spreads.

No, it wasn't her plan. Of course it wasn't. This garden was meant to be a charming spot, a quiet spot.

There was a spade in her hand, and she began to dig.

That's right. Dig it out, dig it up.

The air was cold now, cold as winter, so that Stella shuddered as she plunged the spade into the ground.

Logan was gone, and she was alone in the garden with the Harper Bride, who stood in her white gown and tangled hair, nodding. And her eyes were mad.

"I don't want to be alone. I don't want to give it up."

Dig! Hurry. Do you want the pain, the poison? Do you want it to infect your children? Hurry! It will
spoil everything, kill everything, if you let it stay.

She'd get it out. It was best to get it out. She'd just plant it somewhere else, she thought, somewhere better.

But as she lifted it out, taking care with the roots, the flowers went black, and the blue dahlia withered and went to dust in her hands.

* * *

Keeping busy was the best way not to brood. And keeping busy was no problem for Stella with the
school year winding down, the perennial sale at the nursery about to begin, and her best saleswoman
on maternity leave.

She didn't have time to pick apart strange, disturbing dreams or worry about a man who proposed one minute, then vanished the next. She had a business to run, a family to tend, a ghost to identify.

She sold the last three bay laurels, then put her mind and her back into reordering the shrub area.

"Shouldn't you be pushing papers instead of camellias?"

She straightened, knowing very well she'd worked up a sweat, that there was soil on her pants, and
that her hair was frizzing out of the ball cap she'd stuck on. And faced Logan.

"I manage, and part of managing is making sure our stock is properly displayed. What do you want?"

"Got a new job worked up." He waved the paperwork, and the breeze from it made her want to moan
out loud. "I'm in for supplies."

"Fine. You can put the paperwork on my desk."

"This is as far as I'm going." He shoved it into her hand. "Crew's loading up some of it now. I'm going
to take that Japanese red maple, and five of the hardy pink oleanders."

He dragged the flatbed over and started to load.

"Fine," she repeated, under her breath. Annoyed, she glanced at the bid, blinked, then reread the client information.

"This is my father."

"Uh-huh."

"What are you doing planting oleander for my father?"

"My job. Putting in a new patio, too. Your stepmama's already talking about getting new furniture for
out there. And a fountain. Seems to me a woman can't see a flat surface without wanting to buy something to put on it. They were still talking about it when I left the other night."

"You—what were you doing there?"

"Having pie. Gotta get on. We need to get started on this if I'm going to make it home and clean up
before this dinner with the professor guy tonight. See you later, Red."

"Hold it. You just hold it. You had your mother call me, right out of the blue."

"How's it out of the blue when you said you wanted us to meet each other's families? Mine's a couple thousand miles away right now, so the phone call seemed the best way."

"I'd just like you to explain..." Now she waved the papers. "All this."

"I know. You're a demon for explanations." He stopped long enough to grab her hair, crush his mouth
to hers. "If that doesn't make it clear enough, I'm doing something wrong. Later."

* * *

"Then he just walked away, leaving me standing there like an idiot." Still stewing hours later, Stella changed Lily's diaper while Hayley finished dressing for dinner.

"You said you thought you should meet each other's families and stuff," Hayley pointed out. "So now
you talked to his mama, and he talked to your daddy."

"I know what I said, but he just went tramping over there. And he had her call me without letting me know first. He just goes off, at the drop of a hat." She picked up Lily, cuddled her. "He gets me
stirred up."

"I kinda miss getting stirred up that way." She turned sideways in the mirror, sighed a little over the post-birth pudge she was carrying. "I guess I thought, even though the books said different, that everything would just spring back where it was after Lily came out."

"Nothing much springs after having a baby. But you're young and active. You'll get your body back."

"I hope." She reached for her favorite silver hoops while Stella nuzzled Lily. "Stella, I'm going to tell
you something, because you're my best friend and I love you."

"Oh, sweetie."

"Well, it's true. Last week, when Logan came by to bring Lily her doll, and you and the boys came outside? Before I went in and he popped the big Q? You know what the four of you looked like?"

"No."

"A family. And I think whatever your head's running around with, in your heart you know that. And
that that's the way it's going to be."

"You're awfully young to be such a know-it-all."

"It's not the years, it's the miles." Hayley tossed a cloth over her shoulder. "Come here, baby girl.
Mama's going to show you off to the dinner guests before you go to sleep. You ready?" she asked Stella.

"I guess we'll find out."

They started toward the stairs, with Stella gathering her boys on the way, and met Roz on the landing.

"Well, don't we all look fine."

"We had to wear new shirts," Luke complained.

"And you look so handsome in them. I wonder if I can be greedy and steal both these well-dressed young men as my escorts." She held out both her hands for theirs. "It's going to storm," she said with a glance out the window. "And look here, I believe that must be our Dr. Carnegie, and right on time. What in the world is that man driving? It looks like a nasty red box on wheels."

"I think it's a Volvo." Hayley moved in to spy over Roz's shoulder. "A really old Volvo. They're like one of the safest cars, and so dopey-looking, they're cool. Oh, my, look at that!" Her eyebrows lifted when Mitch got out of the car. "Serious hottie alert."

"Good God, Hayley, he's old enough to be your daddy."

Hayley just smiled at Roz. "Hot's hot. And he's hot."

"Maybe he needs a drink of water," Luke suggested.

"And we'll get one for Hayley, too." Amused, Roz walked down to greet her first guest.

He brought a good white wine as a hostess gift, which she approved of, but he opted for mineral water when she offered him a drink. She supposed a man who drove a car manufactured about the same time he'd been born needed to keep his wits about him. He made appropriate noises over the baby, shook hands soberly with the boys.

She gave him points for tact when he settled into small talk rather than asking more about the reason
she wanted to hire him.

By the time Logan arrived, they were comfortable enough.

"I don't think we'll wait for Harper." Roz got to her feet. "My son is chronically late, and often missing
in action."

"I've got one of my own," Mitch said. "I know how it goes."

"Oh, I didn't realize you had children."

"Just the one. Josh is twenty. He goes to college here. You really do have a beautiful home, Ms. Harper."

"Roz, and thank you. It's one of my great loves. And here," she added as Harper dashed in from the kitchen, "is another."

"Late. Sorry. Almost forgot. Hey, Logan, Stella. Hi, guys." He kissed his mother, then looked at Hayley. "Hi. Where's Lily?"

"Sleeping."

"Dr. Carnegie, my tardy son, Harper."

"Sorry. I hope I didn't hold you up."

"Not at all," Mitch said as they shook hands. "Happy to meet you."

"Why don't we sit down? It looks like David's outdone himself."

An arrangement of summer flowers in a long, low bowl centered the table. Candles burned, slim white tapers in gleaming silver, on the sideboard. David had used her white-on-white china with pale yellow
and green linens for casual elegance. A cool and artful lobster salad was already arranged on each plate. David sailed in with wine.

"Who can I interest in this very nice Pinot Grigio?"

The doctor, Roz noted, stuck with mineral water.

"You know," Harper began as they enjoyed the main course of stuffed pork, "you look awfully familiar." He narrowed his eyes on Mitch's face. "I've been trying to figure it out. You didn't teach at the U of M while I was there, did you?"

"I might have, but I don't recall you being in any of my classes."

"No. I don't think that's it anyway. Maybe I went to one of your lectures or something. Wait. Wait. I've got it. Josh Carnegie. Power forward for the Memphis Tigers."

"My son."

"Strong resemblance. Man, he's a killer. I was at the game last spring, against South Carolina, when he scored thirty-eight points. He's got moves."

Mitch smiled, rubbed a thumb over the fading bruise on his jaw. "Tell me."

Conversation turned to basketball, boisterously, and gave Logan the opportunity to lean toward Stella. "Your daddy says he's looking forward to seeing you and the boys on Sunday. I'll drive you in, as
I've got an invitation to Sunday dinner, too."

"Is that so?"

"He likes me." He picked up her free hand, brushed his lips over his fingers. "We're bonding over oleanders."

She didn't try to stop the smile. "You hit him where it counts."

"You, the kids, his garden. Yeah, I'd say I got it covered. You write that list for me yet, Red?"

"Apparently you're doing fine crossing things off without consulting me."

His grin flashed, "Jolene thinks we should go traditional and have a June wedding."

When Stella's mouth dropped open, he turned away to talk to her kids about the latest issues of Marvel Comics.

Over dessert, a rustling, then a long, shrill cry sounded from the baby monitor standing on the buffet. Hayley popped up as if she were on springs. "That's my cue. I'll be back down after she's fed and
settled again."

"Speaking of cues." Stella rose as well. "Time for bed, guys. School night," she added even before the protests could be voiced.

"Going to bed before it's dark is a gyp," Gavin complained.

"I know. Life is full of them. What comes next?"

Gavin heaved a sigh. "Thanks for dinner, it was really good, and now we have to go to bed because of stupid school."

"Close enough," Stella decided.

"'Night. I liked the finger potatoes 'specially," Luke said to David.

"Want a hand?" Logan called out.

"No." But she stopped at the doorway, turned back and just looked at him a moment. "But thanks."

She herded them up, beginning the nightly ritual as thunder rumbled in. And Parker scooted under Luke's bed to hide from it. Rain splatted, fat juicy drops, against the windows as she tucked them in.

"Parker's a scaredy-cat." Luke snuggled his head in the pillow. "Can he sleep up here tonight?"

"All right, just for tonight, so he isn't afraid." She lured him out from under the bed, and stroking him as he trembled, laid him in with Luke. "Is that better now?"

"Uh-huh. Mom?" He broke off, petting the dog, and exchanging a long look with his brother.

"What? What are you two cooking up?"

"You ask her," Luke hissed.

"Nuh-uh.You."

"You."

"Ask me what? If you've spent all your allowances and work money on comics, I—"

"Are you going to marry Logan?" Gavin blurted out.

"Am I—where did you get an idea like that?"

"We heard Roz and Hayley talking about how he asked you to." Luke yawned, blinked sleepily at her. "So are you?"

She sat on the side of Gavin's bed. "I've been thinking about it. But I wouldn't decide something that important without talking to both of you. It's a lot to think about, for all of us, a lot to discuss."

"He's nice, and he plays with us, so it's okay if you do."

Stella let out a laugh at Luke's rundown. All right, she thought, maybe not such a lot to discuss from certain points of view.

"Marriage is a very big deal. It's a really big promise."

"Would we go live in his house?" Luke wondered.

"Yes, I suppose we would if..."

"We like it there. And I like when he holds me upside down. And he got the splinter out of my finger,
and it hardly hurt at all. He even kissed it after, just like he's supposed to."

"Did he?" she murmured.

"He'd be our stepdad." Gavin drew lazy circles with his finger on top of his sheet. "Like we have Nana
Jo for a stepgrandmother. She loves us."

"She certainly does."

"So we decided it'd be okay to have a stepdad, if it's Logan."

"I can see you've given this a lot of thought," Stella managed. "And I'm going to think about it, too. Maybe we'll talk about it more tomorrow." She kissed Gavin's cheek.

"Logan said Dad's always watching out for us."

Tears burned the back of her eyes. "Yes. Oh, yes, he is, baby."

She hugged him, hard, then turned to hug Luke. "Good night. I'll be right downstairs."

But she walked through to her room first to catch her breath, compose herself. Treasures, she thought. She had the most precious treasures. She pressed her fingers to her eyes and thought of Kevin. A
treasure she'd lost.

Logan said Dad's always watching out for us.

A man who would know that, would accept that and say those words to a young boy was another kind
of treasure.

He'd changed the pattern on her. He'd planted a bold blue dahlia in the middle of her quiet garden. And she wasn't digging it out.

"I'm going to marry him," she heard herself say, and laughed at the thrill of it.

Through the next boom of thunder, she heard the singing. Instinctively, she stepped into the bath, to
look into her sons' room. She was there, ghostly in billowing white, her hair a tangle of dull gold. She stood between the beds, her voice calm and sweet, her eyes insane as she stared through the flash of lightning at Stella.

Fear trickled down Stella's back. She stepped forward, and was shoved back by a blast of cold.

"No." She raced forward again, and hit a solid wall. "No!" She battered at it. "You won't keep me from my babies." She flung herself against the frigid shield, screaming for her children who slept on, undisturbed.

"You bitch! Don't you touch them."

She ran out of the room, ignoring Hayley, who raced down toward her, ignoring the clatter of feet on the stairs. She knew only one thing. She had to get to her children, she had to get through the barrier and get to her boys.

At a full run she hit the open doorway, and was knocked back against the far wall.

"What the hell's going on?" Logan grabbed her, pushing her aside as he rushed the room himself.

"She won't let me in." Desperate, Stella beat her fists against the cold until her hands were raw and numb. "She's got my babies. Help me."

Logan rammed his shoulder against the opening. "It's like fucking steel." Rammed it again as Harper and David hit it with him.

Behind them, Mitch stared into the room, at the figure in white, who glowed now with a wild light.
"Name of God."

"There has to be another way. The other door." Roz grabbed Mitch's arm and pulled him down the hall.

"This ever happen before?"

"No. Dear God. Hayley, keep the baby away."

Frantic, her hands throbbing from pounding, Stella ran. Another way, she thought. Force wouldn't work. She could beat against that invisible ice, rage and threaten, but it wouldn't crack.

Oh, please, God, her babies.

Reason. She would try reason and begging and promises. She dashed out into the rain, yanked open the terrace doors. And though she knew better, hurled herself at the opening.

"You can't have them!" she shouted over the storm. "They're mine. Those are my children. My life."
She went down on her knees, ill with fear. She could see her boys sleeping still, and the hard, white light pulsing from the woman between them.

She thought of the dream. She thought of what she and her boys had talked about shortly before the singing. "It's not your business what I do." She struggled to keep her voice firm. "Those are my children, and I'll do what's best for them. You're not their mother."

The light seemed to waver, and when the figure turned, there was as much sorrow as madness in her eyes. "They're not yours. They need me. They need their mother. Flesh and blood."

She held up her hands, scraped and bruised from the beating. "You want me to bleed for them? I will. I am." On her knees, she pressed her palms to the cold while the rain sluiced over her.

"They belong to me, and there's nothing I won't do to keep them safe, to keep them happy. I'm sorry
for what happened to you. Whatever it was, whoever you lost, I'm sorry. But you can't have what's mine. You can't take my children from me. You can't take me from my children."

Stella pushed her hand out, and it slid through as if slipping through ice water. Without hesitation, she shoved into the room.

She could see beyond her, Logan still fighting to get through, Stella pressed against the other doorway. She couldn't hear them, but she could see the anguish on Logan's face, and that his hands were bleeding.

"He loves them. He might not have known until tonight, but he loves them. He'll protect them. He'll be
a father to them, one they deserve. This is my choice, our choice. Don't ever try to keep me from my children again."

There were tears now as the figure flowed across the room toward the terrace doors. Stella laid a trembling hand on Gavin's head, on Luke's. Safe, she thought as her knees began to shake. Safe and warm.

"I'll help you," she stated firmly, meeting the grieving eyes again. "We all will. If you want our help,
give us something. Your name, at least. Tell me your name."

The Bride began to fade, but she lifted a hand to the glass of the door. There, written in rain that dripped like tears, was a single word.

Amelia

When Logan burst through the door behind her, Stella spun toward him, laid a hand quickly on his lips. "Ssh. You'll wake them."

Then she buried her face against his chest and wept.

EPILOGUE

"Amelia." Stella shivered, despite the dry clothes and the brandy Roz had insisted on. "Her name. I saw
it written on the glass of the door just before she vanished. She wasn't going to hurt them. She was furious with me, was protecting them from me. She's not altogether sane."

"You're all right?" Logan stayed crouched in front of her. "You're sure?"

She nodded, but she drank more brandy. "It's going to take a little while to come down from it, but yes, I'm okay."

"I've never been so scared." Hayley looked toward the stairs. "Are you sure all the kids are safe?"

"She would never hurt them." Stella laid a reassuring hand on Hayley's. "Something broke her heart,
and her mind, I think. But children are her only joy."

"You'll excuse me if I find this absolutely fascinating, and completely crazy." Mitch paced back and forth across the floor. "If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes—" He shook his head. "I'm going to need all the data you can put together, once I'm able to get started on this."

He stopped pacing, stared at Roz. "I can't rationalize it. I saw it, but I can't rationalize it. An ... I'll call it an entity, for lack of better. An entity was in that room. The room was sealed off." Absently he rubbed his shoulder where he'd rammed against the solid air. "And she was inside it."

"It was more of a show than we expected to give you on your first visit," Roz said, and poured him another cup of coffee.

"You're very cool about it," he replied.

"Of all of us here, I've lived with her the longest."

"How?" Mitch asked.

"Because this is my house." She looked tired, and pale, but there was a battle light in her eyes. "Her
being here doesn't change that. This is my house." She took a little breath and a sip of brandy herself. "Though I'll admit that what happened tonight shook me, shook all of us. I've never seen anything like what happened upstairs."

"I have to finish the project I'm working on, then I'm going to want to know everything you have seen." Mitch's eyes scanned the room. "All of you."

"All right, we'll see about arranging that."

"Stella ought to lie down," Logan said.

"No, I'm fine, really." She glanced toward the monitor, listened to the quiet hum. "I feel like what happened tonight changed something. In her, in me. The dreams, the blue dahlia."

"Blue dahlia?" Mitch interrupted, but Stella shook her head.

"I'll explain when I feel a little steadier. But I don't think I'll be having them anymore. I think she'll let it alone, let it grow there because I got through to her. And I believe, absolutely, it was because I got through mother to mother."

"My children grew up in this house. She never tried to block me from them."

"You hadn't decided to get married when your sons were still children," Stella announced, and watched Logan's eyes narrow.

"Haven't you missed some steps?" he asked.

She managed a weary smile. "Not any important ones, apparently. As for the Bride, maybe her husband left her, or she was pregnant by a lover who deserted her, or... I don't know. I can't think very clearly."

"None of us can, and whether or not you think you're fine, you're still pale." Roz got to her feet.
"I'm going to take you upstairs and put you to bed."

She shook her head when Logan started to protest. "You're all welcome to stay as long as you like. Harper?"

"Right." Understanding his cue, and his duty, he got to his feet. "Can I get anyone another drink?"

Because she was still unsteady, Stella let Roz take her upstairs. "I guess I am tired, but you don't have
to come up."

"After a trauma like that, you deserve a little pampering. I imagine Logan would like the job, but tonight I think a woman's the better option. Go on, get undressed now," Roz told her as she turned down the bed.

As the shock eased and made room for fatigue, Stella did what she was told, then slipped through the bathroom to take a last look at her children for the night. "I was so afraid. So afraid I wouldn't get to
my boys."

"You were stronger than she was. You've always been stronger."

"Nothing's ever ripped at me like that. Not even..." Stella moved back to her room, slipped into bed.
"The night Kevin died, there was nothing I could do. I couldn't get to him, bring him back, stop what
had already happened, no matter how much I wanted to."

"And tonight you could do something, and did. Women, women like us at any rate, we do what has to
be done. I want you to rest now. I'll check on you and the boys myself before I go to bed. Do you
want me to leave the light on?"

"No, I'll be fine. Thanks."

"We're right downstairs."

In the quiet dark, Stella sighed. She lay still, listening, waiting. But she heard nothing but the sound of
her own breathing.

For tonight—at least for tonight—it was over.

When she closed her eyes, she drifted to sleep.

Dreamlessly.

She expected Logan to come by the nursery the next day. But he didn't. She was certain he would come by the house before dinner. But he didn't.

Nor did he call.

She decided that after the night before he'd needed a break. From her, from the house, from any sort
of drama. How could she blame him?

He'd pounded his hands, his big, hard hands, bloody from trying to get to her boys, then to her. She
knew all she needed to know about him now, about the man she'd grown to love and respect.

Knew enough to trust him with everything that was hers. Loved him enough to wait until he came to her.

And when her children were in bed, and the moon began to rise, his truck rumbled up the drive to
Harper House.

This time she didn't hesitate, but dashed to the door to meet him.

"I'm glad you're here." She threw her arms around him first, held tight when his wrapped around her.
"So glad. We really need to talk."

"Come on out first. I got something in the truck for you."

"Can't it wait?" She eased back. "If we could just sit down and get some things aired out. I'm not sure
I made any sense last night."

"You made plenty of sense." To settle it, he gripped her hand, pulled her outside. "Seeing as after you scared ten years off my life, you said you were going to marry me. Didn't have the opportunity to
follow through on that then, the way things were. I've got something to give you before you start
talking me to death."

"Maybe you don't want to hear that I love you."

"I can take time for that." Grabbing her, he lifted her off her feet and circled them both to the truck.
"You going to organize my life, Red?"

"I'm going to try. Are you going to disorganize mine?"

"No question about it." He lowered her until her lips met his.

"Hell of a storm last night—in every possible sense," she said as she rested her cheek against his.
"It's over now."

"This one is. There'll be others." He took her hands, kissed them, then just looked down at her in the dusky light of the moon.

"I love you, Stella. I'm going to make you happy even when I irritate the living hell out of you. And the boys ... Last night, when I saw her in there with them, when I couldn't get to them—"

"I know." Now she lifted his hands to kiss his raw, swollen knuckles. "One day, when they're older, they'll fully appreciate how lucky they are to have had two such good men for fathers. I know how
lucky I am to love and be loved by two such good men."

"I figured that out when I started falling for you."

"When was that?"

"On the way to Graceland."

"You don't waste time."

"That's when you told me about the dream you'd had."

Her heart fluttered. "The garden. The blue dahlia."

"Then later, when you said you'd had another, told me about it, it just got me thinking. So ..." He
reached into the cab of the truck, took out a small pot with a grafted plant. "I asked Harper if he'd
work on this."

"A dahlia," she whispered. "A blue dahlia."

"He's pretty sure it'll bloom blue when it matures. Kid's got a knack."

Tears burned into her eyes and smeared her voice. "I was going to dig it up, Logan. She kept pushing
me to, and it seemed she was right. It wasn't what I'd put there, wasn't what I'd planned, no matter
how beautiful it was. And when I did, when I dug it up, it died. It was so stupid of me."

"We'll dig this one in instead. We can plant this, you and me, and the four of us can plant a garden
around it. That suit you?"

She lifted her hands, cupped his face. "It suits me."

'That's good, because Harper worked like a mad scientist on it, shooting for a deep, true blue. I guess we'll wait and see what we get when it blooms."

"You're right." She looked up at him. "We'll see what we get."

"He gave me the go-ahead to name it. So it'll be Stella's Dream."

Now her heart swirled into her eyes. "I was wrong about you, Logan. You're perfect after all."

She cradled the pot in her arm as if it were a child, precious and new. Then taking his hand, she linked fingers so they could walk in the moon-drenched garden together.

In the house, in the air perfumed with flowers, another walked. And wept.