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Angel's Peak
Robyn Carr


Four years ago, air force sweethearts Franci Duncan and Sean Riordan reached an impasse. She wanted marriage and a family. He didn’t. But a chance meeting proves that the bitter breakup hasn’t cooled their sizzling chemistry.Sean has settled down in spite of himself—he’s not the cocky young fighter pilot he was when Franci left and he wants them to try again. After all, they have a history…but that’s not all they share.Franci’s secret reason for walking away when Sean refused to commit is now three and a half: a redheaded cherub named Rosie, who shares her daddy’s emerald-green eyes. Sean is stunned—and furious with Franci for the deception.News travels fast in Virgin River and soon the whole town istaking sides. Rebuilding their trust could take a small miracle—and the kind of love that can move mountains.









Praise for New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author

ROBYN CARR


“An intensely satisfying read. By turns humorous and gut-wrenchingly emotional, it won’t soon be forgotten.”

—RT Book Reviews on Paradise Valley

“Carr has hit her stride with this captivating series.”

—Library Journal

“The Virgin River books are so compelling—I connected instantly with the characters and just wanted more and more and more.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

“Robyn Carr creates strong men, fascinating women and a community you’ll want to visit again and again. Who could ask for more?”

—New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods

“A thrilling debut of a series that promises much to come.”

—New York Times bestselling author Clive Cussler

“A warm, wonderful book about women’s friendships, love and family. I adored it!”

—Susan Elizabeth Phillips on The House on Olive Street




Robyn Carr

Angel’s Peak











www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


For Beki Keene, who remembers every detail.

Thank you for your lovely, committed, loyal

friendship. I treasure every e-mail and visit.




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Acknowledgments




One


Once the sun went down in Virgin River there wasn’t a whole lot of entertainment for Sean Riordan, unless he wanted to sit by the fire at his brother Luke’s house. But sitting all quiet and cozy while Luke and his new wife, Shelby, snuggled and said sweet little things to each other was a special kind of torment he could do without. Sometimes they just faked being tired so they could slip off to bed at eight o’clock at night. More often than not Sean just made it easy on them—he’d head over to a larger town on the coast where he could enjoy the sights and do a little window-shopping, maybe meet a woman of his own.

Sean was a U-2 pilot stationed at Beale Air Force Base in Northern California, a few hours south of Virgin River. He had accumulated a ton of vacation and could only carry over ninety days to the next fiscal year, so he had a couple of months to kill. His brother had just gotten married and Sean had been his best man. After the wedding, Sean decided to stay on in Virgin River and use up some of his leave. Given the fact that Luke and Shelby had been together about a year, Sean didn’t feel as if he was interfering with the honeymoon by hanging around. All that loveydovey stuff was not so much about them sealing the deal, as it was about them still being hot to trot, as if they’d just met.

And there was a lot of talk about baby making, something that surprised Sean about Luke. However, Luke’s willingness to step up and try to nail that egg, night after night after night, that did not surprise Sean in the slightest.

During the daytime, Sean always had lots to do. There was plenty of upkeep on the cabins Luke and Sean had bought together as an investment and which Luke now managed and rented full-time. There was hunting and fishing—it was still deer season—and the salmon and trout were fat; the river ran practically outside the front door. Luke and his helper, Art, were catching so many fish that Luke had to buy a shed, run some wiring to it from the house and invest in a big freezer.

There was no denying the appeal of the Virgin River area for a guy with time on his hands. Sean was an outdoorsman at heart and the October colors in the mountains were awesome. It wouldn’t be all that long before the first snowfall, and soon after that he would have to get back to Beale. So, in the meantime, all he wanted to do was find a nice bar with a fireplace to relax next to—one without his brother and sister-in-law cuddling up in front of it.

“Ready for another drink, pal?” the bartender asked him.

“I’m good, thanks. I didn’t come in here to check out the architecture, but the detailed carving in this place is impressive,” Sean replied.

The bartender laughed. “Two things are obvious about you. You’re not from around here and you’re military.”

“Okay, I admit the haircut is a giveaway. But the rest—?”

“This is lumber country and this bar is wall-to-wall oak. When it was built, the wood was probably cheaper than the nails. The craftsmanship? Common around here. So, what brings you to town?”

Sean took a sip of his beer. “Burning off some leave. Visiting my brother. I have a little over six weeks of leave left. I used to hit the bars with my brother, but his running days are over.”

“War injury?” the bartender asked.

“Battle of the sexes. He just got married.”

The bartender whistled. “My condolences.”

Tonight Sean had landed in a large upscale bar and restaurant in Arcata. He occupied a spot at the end of the bar where he could get a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree view of the place. So far it appeared as if all the women were with husbands or dates, but that didn’t diminish his pleasure—Sean wasn’t always looking for a pickup. Sometimes it was nice to simply appreciate the view. Since he was going to be spending some time in this part of the world, he wasn’t opposed to the idea of getting to know a girl, take her out, maybe even get a little up close and personal.

All such thoughts were suddenly stopped and were replaced by, Ah! Looks like I just hit the jackpot.

There was a ripple of female laughter as the door swung open and a group of women, who were obviously having a good time, entered. Even across the large restaurant, he could appreciate their assets. The first one was short, dark, a little on the round side and deliciously so. She appeared lush and soft and brought a smile to Sean’s lips. The second one was tall, thin, athletic looking, with straight, silky, unfussy blond hair. Obviously a gymnast or runner—a fine-looking woman. Next came a medium-sized redhead with a curvaceous figure, twinkling eyes and a bright smile. A feminine smorgasbord, he thought appreciatively. Sean did not discriminate—he was attracted to all kinds of women, not just one type. Next was—

Franci?

Nah, couldn’t be, he told himself. He was just hallucinating again. He thought he’d seen her many times before but it was never her. Besides, Franci wore her hair long and straight and this woman’s mahogany hair was in one of those hyper-short cuts that, on anyone else, might look butch, but on her? Oh, man, it just couldn’t get any sexier. It made her dark eyes look huge. The woman shed her coat and she was thinner than Franci, but not by that much. But her eyebrows were exactly the same as Franci’s—a nice, thin, provocative arch over those big, heavily lashed eyes. It got him missing Franci all over again.

She slid out of her coat and revealed a filmy dress. Maybe not filmy, but certainly silky. It was dark purple and fell loosely from her shoulders and was belted at the waist, then flowed again to her knees. The dress accentuated her perfect breasts, narrow waist, slim hips and long legs. Franci had rarely worn dresses but Sean hadn’t minded—her long legs and tight butt in a pair of fitted slacks used to blow his mind. But this dress was good. Very good.

The four women took a table near the front of the restaurant by the window. They were carrying boxes, shopping bags and party bags—a birthday dinner out? The one who looked like his old girlfriend crossed her legs and revealed a slit in the skirt of that dress that exposed a scrumptious thigh. Whoa. His eyes were glued to that shapely leg. His groin tightened.

Then she laughed. God, it was Franci. If that wasn’t Franci, it was her twin. The way she tilted her head back and let go was a laugh with passion. Franci had always laughed from deep inside her. That was how she cried, too.

Sean was suddenly infused with mixed emotions—remembering the wonderful laughs they’d shared in bed after their typically great sex counterbalanced with how he remembered making her cry, and he was sorry he had ever made Franci cry.

Well, hell, he might have made her cry, but hadn’t she infuriated him until he wanted to punch a hole in the wall? She could be maddening. Why was that again? He’d think of it, given a minute. That had been almost four years ago. What was she doing here in Arcata? After the breakup—which had been ugly—he’d looked for her. But he had let too much time slip by before doing so and she wasn’t where he expected her to be. They’d met in Iraq when he was deployed in the F-16 and she was an air force flight nurse who regularly appeared to take the injured out of the theater. Later, when he’d been transferred to Luke Air Force Base in Phoenix as an instructor in the same jet, she was there, assigned as a nurse in the base hospital. They had dated exclusively for two years when a big shift occurred in their individual lives—her service commitment was up and she was planning to separate from the air force and return to civilian life. He was going to cross-train in the U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft—the spy plane. He didn’t see how either of those events should effect any change. He told her he’d be relocating to Beale AFB in Northern California. He thought she could probably find work there if she was interested.

That had been the beginning of the end. After dating for two years, she, at twenty-six, was ready for a commitment. She wanted marriage and a family, and he didn’t. Well, there was nothing new there—she’d been honest about that since the beginning of their relationship. Franci had always hoped to marry and have children. And that wasn’t something he needed more time to consider—he really didn’t see himself settling into that sweet little domestic trap. Ever. She’d been good about not pushing that too hard, but she’d never backed down, either. For Sean’s part, he was monogamous. He told her he loved her because he did. If he occasionally glanced at and appreciated a pretty girl, it went no further. Even though they each maintained their own home, they spent every night together unless one of them was away from the base. But when it came to marriage and children, she was in, and he, at twenty-eight, was out.

She had said something like, “It’s time to take this relationship to the next level or end it completely.”

You don’t want to be drawing a line in the sand in front of a young fighter pilot. Jet jockeys didn’t take orders from girlfriends. Of course, it was no surprise that they fought and he made her cry with senseless, stupid comments like, “Not in this lifetime, babe. If I were interested in getting married, we’d be married,” and, “Look, I’m just flat-ass not doing the rug-rats thing, all right? Even with you.” Oh, yeah, he was brilliant.

She had said things, also in anger, probably things she didn’t mean. Well, that wasn’t exactly correct, as he recalled now, looking across a crowded room at her as she laughed and talked with her girlfriends. “Sean, if you let me go now I’ll be so gone—you’ll never see me again. I need a committed partner or I’m taking the walk.”

And Sean, being the cocky genius he was, said, “Oh, yeah? Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.” He winced at the memory.

They had gone their separate ways, bitterly. He went to Beale because it looked as if getting a promotion and command position in the U-2 was more likely than in the highly competitive F-16. He was an Air Force Academy graduate; becoming a general was in his sites if he made the right moves. Franci had exited the air force.

Sean assumed, incorrectly, that he’d be able to find her at her mother’s, or at least near her mother’s, in Santa Rosa. A few months later, when his training in the new aircraft was complete and he was ready to talk about their situation, sanely and calmly, she was long gone. So was her mother. And there appeared to be no forwarding address.

So, flash-forward four years. Arcata, California? It really didn’t make sense, but that woman across the room was definitely Franci Duncan. He could tell it was her by the way his heart pounded and he felt hot all over. And by the way he was fighting an erection just looking across the room at her.

She and her friends had all ordered frothy after-dinner drinks, and were joking with the young waitress. They leaned toward one another to whisper, sitting back to laugh—they were gossiping and having fun. One member of the group pulled a silky wrap out of a colorful bag and put it around her shoulders, admiringly. The birthday girl? There weren’t any men around them and he could only pick out one wedding ring in the group, and it wasn’t on Franci’s hand. Not that it meant anything; people didn’t necessarily wear wedding rings all the time these days.

“You still okay on that drink, pal?” the bartender asked to no avail.

As Sean watched the proceedings he missed her so bad he ached with it. Letting her get away was one of the great tactical errors of his adult life. He should have found a way to convince her they’d be fine together without marriage, without a bunch of ankle-biters. But at twenty-eight, pumped up on his fighter-pilot prowess, he’d been overconfident. He had especially not been ready for some woman to be calling the shots. Now, at thirty-two, he realized how stupid he’d been at twenty-eight. In those four years there had been other women, and not one of them had come close to what he’d felt for Franci. For what he’d felt with Franci. And he was willing to bet she hadn’t found anyone as good, either.

He was hoping that. He probably shouldn’t bet on it. Franci was incredible; there had probably been a long line of able-bodied, good-looking, more-than-willing men lined up at her front door—wherever that was.

“You still on my planet, pal?” the bartender asked.

“Huh?”

“Seems like something besides my skill at pouring a drink has your attention.”

“Yeah,” he said, looking back at Franci. “I think maybe I know one of them,” he said, tilting his head toward the table of women.

“How’s your drink?”

“I’m good,” Sean said, his eyes uncontrollably drawn to the woman across the room.

The women had a second order of frothy coffees. There was a lot more laughing, talking, rummaging through the gifts, and they were oblivious to anything else happening in that bar. They certainly weren’t trolling for guys. They never even glanced toward the bar.

If she looked his way, even once, he’d have to think of something clever to say. He’d have to smile, walk confidently across the room to their table, say hello and get friendly. He’d have to make them laugh and like him, because he couldn’t let her get out of here without finding out where she lived. She might be visiting one of those women, which meant that after she left, she’d be totally gone again. He couldn’t let that happen. He needed to see her, talk to her. Touch her. Hold her.

“Why don’t you go over there? Say hello?” the bartender asked.

He looked up at his new friend. “Yeah…well…The last time we talked, I wasn’t her favorite person.”

The bartender laughed. “Hard to imagine,” he said.

Sean had been staring at that table of women for a long time and the bartender was probably watching that, in case he turned out to be some kind of pervert. Sean turned on the charm; he cheered up real fast so he didn’t look so intense. “Hey, I should settle up and get going, even if the scenery in here is incredible.” He put some money on the bar, including a nice tip, and left without finishing his drink. He walked out with his head down, trying not to attract any attention.

It was colder than usual on the coast this October night. He wandered across the street, where he could keep an eye on the front door. He hoped they quit the bar before he froze to death. It made him sick to think she might get away from him.

He made up his mind and it took him less than fifteen seconds to decide—he really needed to see if he could get things straightened out with Franci. They should be together. He just hoped she would see it that way.

He actually said a prayer. There had to be a patron saint to ignorant, immature playboys, right? Saint Hugh? Saint Don Juan? Whomever…give me a break here and I’ll change my ways. I swear. I won’t be overconfident; I’ll be sensitive. We’ll negotiate and get back to what we had before…And then it happened. The four women came out the front door of the restaurant, one of them toting her presents. They lingered, laughed some more, hugged and then they went their separate ways. Two went left, two went right. At the end of the block, Franci and her friend went in opposite directions, and Sean, feeling as if this was the one chance in his lifetime, hotfooted it after her.

He had just about caught up to her when she was unlocking the door of a small silver sedan. “Franci?” he called out.

She jumped, turned and stared at him, wide-eyed.

“It is you,” he said, taking a few steps nearer to her. “Your hair—wow. Threw me off for a minute.”

She looked almost frightened at first. But then she seemed to compose herself, though she shivered from the cold and pulled her coat tighter around her. “Sean?”

“Yeah,” he said, laughing. “I can’t believe I’m running into you here, of all places.”

“What are you doing here?” she asked, not looking thrilled to see him.

“Remember Luke? Remember, I told you we bought some old cabins together a long time ago? Long before I met you. Well, he got out of the army and came up here to work on ’em.”

“Here?” she asked, aghast. She pulled her coat tighter. “Those cabins are here?”

“Back in the mountains, along the Virgin River,” he said. “I was just burning some leave, visiting him. I came over here for dinner.”

She looked around. “Where’s Luke?” she asked. “Is he with you?”

“No.” He laughed. “Married. Recently married. I try to get out of their hair in the evening because they…” He stopped and laughed silently, shaking his head. Then he looked at her face. “You look great. How long have you been here? In Arcata?”

“I, ah, I don’t actually live in Arcata. I was just meeting some friends for dinner. Everything all right with you? With your family?”

“Everyone is good,” he said. He took another step toward her. “Franci, let me buy you a cup of coffee. Let’s catch up a little.”

“Ah…No, I don’t think so, Sean,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d better get—”

“I looked for you,” he said impulsively. “To say it was a mistake, the way we broke up. We should talk. There might be things we can work out that we were both too stubborn to—”

“Listen, don’t even go there, Sean. It’s all in the past. No hard feelings,” she said. “So good luck and good—”

“Are you married or something?” he asked.

She was startled. “No. But I’m not looking to go back to the discussion that ended us. Maybe you were able to just blow it off, but I—”

“I didn’t blow it off, Franci,” he said. “I looked for you and couldn’t find you anywhere. That’s why I want to talk.”

“Well, I don’t,” she said. She opened her car door. “I think you’ve probably said enough on that subject.”

“Franci, what the fuck?” he asked, confused and a little angry by her immediate rebuff. “God, can’t we have a conversation? We were together for two years! It was good, me and you. We never had anyone else, either one of us, and—”

“And you said it wasn’t going any further.” She stiffened her back. “In fact, that was one of the nicer things you said. I’m glad you’re doing fine—you look just the same, happy as can be. Say hello to your mother and brothers. And really, don’t push this. We decided. We’re over.”

“Come on. I don’t believe you mean that,” he said.

“Believe it,” she shot back. “You made a decision—you didn’t want a commitment to me. And here you are—you don’t have one. Bye. Take care.”

She got in her car and slammed the door. He took two giant steps forward and heard the door locks click into place. She backed out of her parking space quickly and drove away. He memorized the license number, but the most important thing he noticed was that it was a California plate. She might not live in Arcata, but she lived close enough to drive over for dinner.

Now that he’d seen her, he knew what he’d long suspected. He was far from over her.



Franci’s hands trembled so much, she found it hard to drive. She always knew there was a chance she would bump into him someday, though she carefully avoided the most obvious places where that could happen. But she had never, never expected him to want to talk about it, to talk about them!

And when she thought of the months she had prayed for that talk to happen, it caused her vision to blur with gathering tears. Angry tears! She pursed her lips and thought, No! She’d cried enough over him; he wouldn’t get the benefit of one more tear.

Franci left Phoenix after their breakup and went home to Santa Rosa to work as a civilian nurse in a hospital. She had lived with her mother. Almost a year later, she got a good job that fed her addiction to adrenaline—a flight nurse position with a helicopter transport unit. Less demanding work hours, good benefits, more opportunities—but it meant a move. Because she had her bachelor of science in nursing, she was able to teach a couple of courses at Humboldt U in Arcata, perhaps building a future in academia.

Her mom, a family-medicine physician’s assistant, had been ready for a change. Vivian found a position in a family-medicine clinic in Eureka. An excellent position. Vivian’s hours were more demanding—full-time, in fact. So the two of them moved north together, closer to Vivian’s job than Franci’s, and twice a week, Franci drove over the mountains to Redding to pull a twenty-four-hour shift as a flight nurse. Most of her flights were routine patient transport via helicopter—getting a heart or C-section patient out of a small-town hospital to a larger facility where special surgery could be performed. But occasionally she was on board for an emergency—victims of a wildfire, car accidents in isolated parts of the mountain terrain, injuries requiring emergency surgery. She had loved in-flight nursing in the air force and had missed it. This new job fit the bill. She bought a cute little house on the outskirts of Eureka in the kind of quiet, lovely neighborhood she most enjoyed and, until tonight, she thought her life was nearly perfect.

Looked for her, had he? Not very hard. Once six months had passed, she thought she’d come to terms with the fact that they were not meant to be. They wanted different things from life; he wanted to play and have fun till he was a grizzled old man and she wanted to put down roots and grow a family.

What wasn’t fair about it was that she’d been attracted to the very thing that seemed to prevent him from wanting to settle down. He was handsome and daring and reckless, as good at snow and water skiing as he was at snuggling up on the couch to watch a movie. Of course, it was one chick flick to every five action-adventures, but that was okay with Franci—she liked action herself. She thought their relationship could exist within a marriage just as easily as it did outside marriage. Half the couples they had camped and traveled and played with were married with kids. Kids didn’t bother Sean; he seemed to like them. But he was adamant; he didn’t need any official contract to show how he felt and he wasn’t interested in being tied down by the needs of children.



The fifteen-minute drive south to Eureka from Arcata hadn’t been enough to settle Franci’s nerves, so she drove around town another fifteen minutes before heading to her little neighborhood. She wanted to be completely composed when she got home. She should have known she had only been kidding herself about being at peace with her decision to leave him. That myth was disproved the second she saw him. God, he still made her heart race. One look at his face and she felt the blood surge through her veins; she could feel the heat on her cheeks. She couldn’t have a cup of coffee with him. She’d probably lunge across the table at Starbucks and tear his clothes off his body. She would have to be strong. Firm. Get herself bolstered and ready; she was weak. She might hate him, but she still loved him. And he still turned her on. All that meant he could hurt her again.

She finally parked in her little one-and-a-half-car garage, pulled down the door and walked into the house and through the kitchen. She could hear the TV in the living room and there she found her mother, sleeping while sitting up, and her daughter, Rosie, curled up on the couch beside her. The only one who looked up when she walked into the room was Harry, their blond-and-white cocker spaniel.

“Hi, Harry,” she said.

He wagged a couple of times and rolled over on his back, just in case anyone wanted to rub his belly.

“Mom?” she said, giving her mother a little jostle. “Mom? I’m home.”

Vivian stirred and straightened. “Hm, hi. I must have dozed off.” She stretched. “Did you have fun?”

“Sure. Those girls are always fun. I’ll catch you up on the gossip tomorrow after you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”

Vivian stood. “Let me put Rosie—”

“I’ll take her to bed, Mom,” Franci said. “Tucking her in is the best part of the day. How long has she been asleep?”

“She probably stayed awake longer than I did,” Vivian said with a laugh. She gave Franci a pat on one cheek and a kiss on the other. “Day off tomorrow. Call when you’re up. We’ll have coffee or something.”

“Sure. Thanks, Mom.” Franci grabbed Vivian’s coat from the back of the chair and helped her slip it on. “I’ll watch you walk home,” Franci said.

“I’m sure I won’t fall in the street. Or get mugged.”

“I’ll watch you just the same.”

Franci, Vivian and Rosie had lived together in this little two-bedroom house for a couple of years, Franci sharing her bed with Rosie. About a year ago Vivian had purchased a similar house at the end of the block. They’d always planned to have their own residences, both of them being independent, single women, but Rosie’s arrival was the impetus for them to remain close enough so they could join forces to take care of her. When Franci worked those twenty-four-hour shifts, or went out on that rare late-night date, Rosie spent the night at Grandma’s. If it wasn’t going to be a late night or an overnight for Franci, Grandma came to Rosie’s house so Rosie could fall asleep in her own bed. Now that Rosie was in preschool and day care, both her mother and grandmother could easily juggle child care and manage their jobs.

Franci watched her mom walk down the street and up the flower-lined walk that led to her own door. Once Vivian was inside, she flashed her porch light a few times to signal that she was all right, then Franci went in and closed her own front door.

Franci hung up her coat, scooped her redheaded daughter off the couch and carried her to bed. Her arms flopped; she was out cold. Her comforter was turned down and her bedside lamp glowed. Grandma had clearly been optimistic that Rosie would slip right into bed when it was time, rather than fall asleep on the couch, as she preferred. Franci tucked her daughter in, pressed the comforter around her and kissed her forehead. Rosie let out a sleepy snort.

“I saw your daddy tonight,” Franci whispered. “There’s a reason you’re so beautiful.”




Two


Sean hadn’t slept real well after seeing his old flame, so he beat the morning rush in the bathroom before there was so much as a sound from the bridal suite. He was halfway through his Wheaties when Shelby came into the kitchen in her jeans and sweater, ready to head over to Arcata to school. She was studying nursing at Humboldt U.

“Well, well. It’s rare to see you before I get home in the afternoon,” she remarked, going for the coffee. “When you’ve been out prowling till the wee hours, you usually need your beauty sleep.”

Sean grunted.

“I guess that was ‘good morning,’” she said. “And same to you.”

Luke came into the kitchen next. “Well, hey there, sunshine,” he said to his brother. Sean lifted his eyes but not his head. Luke laughed at the grim expression. “Lumpy mattress? Did we put out the scratchy toilet paper?”

“Bed’s fine.”

“You want to grab a couple of the general’s horses and ride along the—”

“I’m going to be tied up. I have some errands,” Sean said.

Shelby lifted a stack of thank-you notes from the table and gave her husband a glare. They’d been married a couple of weeks and he was supposed to be adding his gratitude and signature to the notes she’d all but completed. “Luke…” she began. “Before you think about riding or fishing—”

“I know, I know,” he said, glancing at the notes. “It’ll get done.”

“You really think he’s going to do that girlie shit, Shelby?” Sean asked.

Shelby sat down at the table, confusion knitting her brow. She’d known Sean for about a year; he was the playful brother—the flirt and the comedian. They used to joke that Sean would have fun at a train wreck; his mood was perpetually upbeat. Luke had been the grump, but she’d softened him up. This crankiness from Sean was so unexpected. “Are you all right?” she asked.

“Fine,” he answered shortly.

Luke poured himself a coffee and sat down. “Fender bender? Speeding ticket? Pretty girl reject you? Food poisoning?”

Sean sat back in his chair. “I ran into Franci last night,” he grumbled. “Pure chance.”

Luke merely frowned; he didn’t remember her. Sean had dated prolifically.

“Franci Duncan,” he said in exasperation. “Who I practically lived with a few years ago. Remember? We broke up when she got out of the air force and I got assigned the U-2.”

“Oh, I remember her now,” Luke said. “Haven’t you seen her since then?”

“No,” Sean said impatiently, taking another spoonful of cereal. “I tried to see her, but she was gone. I tried to reach her mother to see where she was, and her mother had moved, which made no sense because she’d been in that house in Santa Rosa for at least ten years. Maybe twenty years, I don’t know.”

“You looked for her?” Luke asked. “This is the first I’ve heard about that.”

“Because I didn’t talk about it. And I didn’t find her,” Sean said. “Obviously.”

“What about her friends?” Shelby asked.

Sean was silent. He grimaced and finally said, “I checked with a couple of them, but they didn’t know anything.”

“That’s crazy,” Shelby said. “Women don’t give up women friends. Especially after they’ve broken up with a guy they’ve been with a while—that’s traumatic, even when it’s for the best. Who was her best friend? Her other best friend? I mean, it was kind of different with me—I was my mother’s caretaker and, while I had good friends, I had very little time for them. But I was always in touch with them when I—”

Luke put a hand over Shelby’s to stop her because Sean looked perfectly miserable.

“Oh,” she said quietly. “Well, who’d you ask?”

Sean shrugged uncomfortably. “We used to do things all the time with some couples—guys from my squadron and their wives or girls. We went four-wheeling, skiing, boating, camping, hiking…Two of them were married and one couple lived together. I asked the women. They hadn’t heard from her. I asked her former boss, the colonel in her old medical unit at the base hospital. I asked her neighbor.”

“Oh,” Shelby said again.

“Okay, she had a few girlfriends and I met them, but we didn’t get together with them and I couldn’t remember their last names. And it had been a while.”

“Um. A while?” Shelby asked.

“Okay, what happened was this—we had a fight. I got orders and she was going to get out of the air force, all at the same time. And she wanted to know…Thing was, I was transferring. I told her there was nothing stopping her from relocating to be closer to my next assignment and that pissed her off—that I didn’t exactly invite her to join me, that I didn’t make plans with her. I probably said I was sorry for that—I bet I did.”

“And you broke up over that?” Shelby asked.

“Sort of. Not exactly,” Sean admitted.

Luke put his elbow on the kitchen table and lazily leaned his chin into his hand, watching. Amused. And so glad some other Riordan male was taking the heat.

Sean took a breath. “She wanted to get married,” he said. “She said, either we at least get engaged and plan to get married, or I walk. Those were her words.” He made a slash in the air with his finger. “Line in the sand. Ultimatum.”

“Really,” Shelby said with a questionable tone. “After only two years of practically living together?”

“Okay, now you’re just making fun of me,” Sean said in a pout. “I admit, I shouldn’t have let her go. But I was younger. I was cocky then.”

“Oh, were you?” Luke asked.

Sean glowered.

“So, she said she was ready for marriage, you said you weren’t, you split up—is that right?” Shelby asked.

“That’s about it.” He made a face. “We might’ve said a few unnecessary things during the discussion. You know—angry things.”

“I’ll bet,” Luke said.

“And you tried to track her down? Later?” Shelby asked.

“After I transitioned into the new squadron. After training in the new jet. After I thought we both had time to simmer down a little bit. You know.”

Shelby looked at Luke and shook her head dismally. “Does this run in the family?” she asked. She and Luke had had a similar standoff, but she hadn’t let him get away with it and had pushed him hard. But Luke had been ready to be domesticated. All she knew about Sean was that he was considered a playboy by the brothers. This was the first time she’d heard about a steady girl.

“It’s possible,” Luke admitted with a shrug. “Except Aiden. He wants to get married, have a family, but if he didn’t have bad luck with women, he’d have no luck at all. He was married once. To a lunatic.”

“Lord,” Shelby said. “No wonder your mother is fed up with the lot of you. Sean, what happened when you ran into her?”

“She said I looked good and, no, she didn’t want to have coffee or anything else with me. She won’t talk to me. At all. And I even said I was wrong. Sort of.”

“Hm,” Shelby said. “Maybe she’s moved on.”

“Well, then, she has to tell me that. Explain that. Because—” He stopped. He couldn’t think of a reason why she owed him that, but he was sure she did.

“Now what?” Luke asked.

“I’m going to have to find her.”

“Why? You said you were done, she said okay, you caught up a few years later and it’s still done…I don’t see the issue.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Sean said in a very impatient huff. “Because you don’t know Franci.”

“Sure I do. We all knew Franci. Nice girl, Franci. Hottie.” He grinned. “We kind of all thought you’d marry her. But then when you didn’t and went to Beale alone, we all said, ‘There goes another Riordan.’”

“Here’s the thing—I shouldn’t have broken up with her. What I should have done was explain why we should stay together and why we didn’t need any kind of old-fashioned contract to be okay with that. We were young, only twenty-six and twenty-eight. There was lots of time to consider big leaps like marriage. There’s still lots of time, for that matter.” Luke, thirty-eight and barely through a similar crisis, lifted a brow toward his twenty-five-year-old wife. “We should have gone to Beale and worked it out. But I didn’t do that because she made me so frickin’ mad.”

It was silent in the kitchen for a moment. “Well,” Luke finally said with fake cheeriness, “I’d love to stay and chat about your pathetic love life, but I need to grab Art and get over to the hardware store before—”

Shelby was shaking her head dismally. “So you had a little hissy and said, ‘Fine, just go, then.’ Is that it? Kind of like, ‘My way or the highway,’ huh?”

“Aw, come on, Shelby,” Sean said pleadingly. “You know I’m not a guy with a temper! I’m a sweetheart. I’m not a fighter, I’m a lover. And I don’t have any problem seeing myself with one woman. You know? It’s just the whole marriage thing—it was not for me. Marriage scared the hell out of me. A couple of my brothers tried it and it screwed them up bad. And kids?” He shook his head. “Maybe when I’m old and worn out like Luke I’ll change my mind, but at the moment I don’t feel like being tied down like that.”

“Ah,” she said. “I see. So you’d like to have a nice chat with Franci and explain all this to her?”

“Something like that,” he said, making perfect sense to himself. “It’s no crime to have a fight, but we never should’ve given up what we had. We were good together.”

Shelby stood. “Not good enough, I guess. Too bad I have to get to class, Sean. You have such a deep hole to climb out of and I’d love to talk you through it. You know I’ve loved you since the moment I met you, and I’d be happy to help. But school calls…”

Sean stood from the table, as well. “What do you mean, such a climb?”

“Okay, the short version. You let her go because you didn’t feel in charge. You didn’t bother to look for her for such a long time that her trail went cold—and I imagine, to her, it seemed as if you didn’t care. You didn’t even know the names of her best friends. Or her mother’s friends. You paid no attention to the woman, except where it was useful to you. You even socialized with your friends, from your squadron, and then you were surprised that they hadn’t heard from her. And now I think you’re a little hurt that she won’t forget all that and give you another chance to treat her like someone you might get around to later, when it’s convenient. While she, at least at one time a few years ago, wanted to be thought of as someone you couldn’t live without.”

“You don’t understand,” he said.

“But your real problem is, I do,” Shelby said. “You didn’t realize how much she meant to you until she was gone.”

Luke drained his coffee cup. He put it on the table. “When you have time, Sean, you should take a little course from Shelby. She’s seen every chick flick ever filmed. She knows things about this you and I have never thought of.”

Sean swallowed. Looking down he said, “Real quick, from a girl’s point of view, what do I do next?”

“Not what you think,” Shelby replied. “You better not do what you did before. Whatever it was that made you arrogantly think she’d never be able to leave you? Not that. You better do whatever it was you did that worked for her, that made her think she wanted a life with you. If you can even remember that far back. Because, brother, I think maybe you’re too late. And if you’re too late, you’re going to have to accept that and respect her space. If you turn crazy and give her trouble, I’m not on your side anymore.”

When Sean was alone in the house, he began asking himself what it was that had worked on Franci. Once they’d become a couple, he’d had lots of tricks up his sleeve. He was remembering the many areas where they had been compatible. Suddenly, it was hard to remember that, on a few issues, they had rubbed each other the wrong way.

Getting her to go out with him in the first place had been a real challenge. She’d been in the air force a while and knew her way around the jet jockeys, and she had a firm policy against dating fighter pilots. They had a reputation for being arrogant, self-absorbed idiots with short attention spans where women were concerned. Sean and Franci never discussed it, but Sean assumed she must have dated at least a couple to come up with that assessment. Which, as Sean grudgingly recalled, wasn’t far off the mark.

But there had been lots of positive things, too, and right now he was becoming uncomfortable imagining every little thing he had done to make her crazy with desire, to make her purr with satisfaction, because the chemistry they had in the sack was phenomenal. Those times she wasn’t in the mood, he knew what to say to change her mind. There were places he touched that would not only convince her to give it some more thought, but could turn her into a wild woman. And could she ever turn those tricks back on him, making him gasp and groan, driving him right out of his mind. None of those little things had worked on any other woman the way they had on Franci. She had a way of taking him so far beyond pleasure, he went out of his mind. He’d never been to bed with a woman who could please him the way Franci had, and he’d been to bed with far too many women.

What had he been thinking, letting her walk away?

Sean searched his memory for how he’d convinced her to take a chance on him in the first place and his mind was a blur. He’d probably been relentless in his pursuit because he did remember how he had felt when he first saw her. He’d taken one look at her and thought, Oh, Mary, Jesus and Joseph! She just did something to him. He had a lot of experience with attraction, but this was animal attraction. Primal and raw. He’d wanted her immediately. And he still wanted her that bad.

Sean first saw Franci when she passed through Iraq to pick up a planeload of medical evacuees. He’d tried to get her coordinates so he could get in touch when he was stateside again. He’d seen her a few times—she was in and out, arriving on a medical air transport, hanging around until they could gather up all their patients, taking off for the States again. She wouldn’t give him anything—not even a name. Of course, he managed to find out her name pretty easily, but that was all.

Then when he saw her at Luke AFB in the officers’ club, he decided it must be kismet; they were meant to be. But she hadn’t been any easier to convince. He remembered hoping she was as beautiful on the inside as she was sexy on the outside, because anything less would break his heart.

And she was. She was smart, strong, independent, confident, sexy and loving.

Franci was the kind of woman men looked at, but her sexiness was understated, not blatant. Franci was not cheap or flashy; she was classy and cool. She was long legged and dark haired with large, deep, dark eyes and thin, arched, expressive brows. Her mouth was a little pouty—soft and full. He could remember every detail of her body. But he couldn’t remember how he’d caught her. Sean’s typical move was to charm a woman, make her laugh, smolder her with his half-closed eyes, suggest, without being crude, that he could deliver satisfaction. He’d never shown an ounce of humility; he’d always been confident.

But he wasn’t confident anymore. Now he was frustrated, and he didn’t have the first clue about how to fix it. For once in his life, he didn’t know where to start.

He went to the second upstairs bedroom where Luke kept his computer. The desk was covered with so many wedding gifts that it was hard to see the computer. He moved a bunch of things out of the way and got the thing turned on. Franci had no phone or address listing when he’d called information, but after spending a couple of hours on Luke’s computer, doing a real-estate property search, he found Francine Duncan had purchased a house. It wasn’t unusual for women to have unlisted phone numbers, but property-title searches were public record. Still, he didn’t think his best idea was turning up at her house uninvited. But what were the options?

Sean was in the kitchen having a sandwich when Luke and Art came back from the hardware store. Art was such a kick; every time he saw Sean he greeted him as if he hadn’t seen him in months or even years. Art was a thirty-year-old man with highly functional Down syndrome, a kindhearted soul who worked hard to help Luke around the property. And Luke, whom Sean had just barely realized would make a great father, worked hard to be sure Art felt appreciated.

“Sean!” Art said, beaming.

“Hi, Art. Go fishing this morning?” Sean asked.

“No, we had trash to haul to the dump and then we went to the hardware store for stuff. Later I might fish. Did you go fishing?”

“Sort of. I was looking up stuff on the computer.”

Luke got out the bread and sandwich makings. “Any luck finding contact information on Franci?” he asked.

“Got an address, but no phone number,” Sean said. “I did a computer search—and lucky for me, she bought a house.”

“Do you have a new girlfriend, Sean?” Art asked.

For some reason, the question embarrassed Sean. The fact that Art, who didn’t really know him at all and was about as worldly as a ten-year-old, would assume that he always had a girlfriend made Sean uncomfortable. Maybe Franci was right about him; she’d said he’d never settle down with one woman because he was all about the chase but not the commitment. It wasn’t entirely true, as he was discovering. He’d settled down with Franci, just not all the way. “Not really,” Sean answered. “I had a girlfriend a few years ago and we lost touch. I want to see her again, talk to her about that, see if we can…date again.”

“Oh,” Art said. “That’s cool.”

“And the problem is?” Luke asked.

“She took one look at me and fireworks shot out of her ears. I think she hates me. At least, she’s still mad. But it could mean she still cares,” he added hopefully. “If I knew where to run into her again, I could try my persuasive charm on her without crowding her. I might’ve tried something like that the first time around. Like being at the officers’ club every time I thought she’d be there, till she got so sick of me shadowing her, she gave in.”

Luke laughed. “Suave,” he said.

“Think I should throw myself on her mercy? Nah,” he answered for himself. “From what I saw, she doesn’t have a lot of mercy in her right now. Besides, humility really isn’t my strong suit.”

Luke laughed at him. “And, God forbid, we manly Riordans always play our best cards.”

“You know what I mean. What woman wants a man who grovels? Did you grovel? When you and Shelby—?”

“I hate to burst your bubble, pal, but I said I’d do anything that would make her happy. I know—it’s hard for you to imagine your tough big brother caving like that, but when I got down to it, I was doomed without her. She’s the breath in me.” Then he grinned. “But she doesn’t make me grovel anymore. She lets me pretend to be the big man.”

“Swell,” Sean said, a long way from understanding all the rules for this game. The part he did almost understand was she’s the breath in me. “There you go—I’m just plain better at the whole short-term hookup.”

“Well, if that floats your boat, have a good time.”

There was the problem. Short-term hookups just didn’t do it for him anymore. Truthfully, they hadn’t in a long time. In fact, he’d been wondering why he’d been feeling so dissatisfied, so marginally happy rather than jazzed all the time, and the second he saw Franci, he understood why.

“Listen, mind if I ask you something?” Luke asked, while he was shuffling lunch meat, cheese and bread. “You were with her a couple of years. Seemed like it was a good couple of years but it ran its course or something. You broke up, and for four years you were okay. You managed. Why can’t you just walk away now?”

Hard to explain, Sean thought. “You ever get this idea in your head about how things should be, then you just stay the course, even if it doesn’t feel exactly right?”

“Me?” Luke asked with a facetious laugh. “Did you think I was just faking being a dumb grunt who almost lost his own woman?”

“I wasn’t ready to get married,” Sean said. “I didn’t like getting pushed up against a wall and we both walked away mad. Six months later I was thinking, I might not be ready to get married, but I’m not ready for this to be over, either. I thought I could compromise if she could. So I called her cell phone. I left a couple of messages and she never called back. A few more months and I thought, all right—if it takes marriage to make her happy, I could probably work with the idea, as long as she gives me plenty of time to adjust. Maybe we could have a long engagement, just to make sure we’re doing the right thing. So I called again and the cell phone was shut off. Her e-mail bounced back—undeliverable. Her mother, who she’s very tight with, had moved. And if you think I was teed off before, the idea she’d just ignore me like that when I’m fucking trying—that really pissed me off.” And ripped my heart out. Just like I’d ripped her heart out by saying no way. What a couple of fools.

“That’s a bad word,” Art said very quietly. Art wasn’t one to judge or harangue, but he also wasn’t one to miss anything.

“Sorry, Art. I’m going to try harder,” Sean said.

Luke said, “Well, you seemed to be doing just fine to me.”

“Most days,” Sean said with a shrug. “I got into the plane, man. I was all caught up in the missions. I was away a lot. I got by. But every time I met a girl, all I did was compare her to Franci.” And saw Franci everywhere I looked, till I thought I was losing my mind.

“Did you keep looking for her?” Luke asked.

“No. I figured it would pass eventually. The second I saw her I realized it wasn’t going to pass. I think, in a way, this is my fault. Well, I thought for a few years it was her fault—that she was bossy and impatient and that no woman was going to tell me how the hog eats the cabbage. Now, I think there’s a good chance I was an idiot.”

“Ya think?” Luke asked. When Sean glowered, he chuckled and said, “Listen, I’m not being a jerk—but I just walked this road, brother. I’m lucky Shelby is smarter than I am, that’s all.” Luke looked at Sean seriously. “The women are in charge, my brother. We don’t have to like it, but it’s the law. I just ask Shelby what I want and she never lets me down.”

“I have to be careful here,” Sean said. “She said she doesn’t want to see me, talk to me. I can’t show up at her house like some stalker—she might call the cops. I’d call her if I had a number, but—”

“Or…you can try to figure out where she’ll be. She’s a nurse, right? Working as a nurse, right? So call all the places she might be working as a nurse. Hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics, you know. Ask to speak to her. They’ll either say they never heard of her, say it’s her day off or put her on the phone.”

Sean was stunned. “Wow,” he said. “That’s brilliant.”

“And amazing, because I’ve never hunted for a woman before,” Luke said. “Okay. Where do women go? Women like Franci? Shopping?”

“We did everything together—camping, quadding, diving, skiing…We traveled anytime we could. Franci alone? Gyms,” Sean said. “Franci likes to work out. She loves to read—she spent a lot of time in bookstores. She loves movies, but she wouldn’t go alone—we used to rent ’em. Back then, between me, work, the gym and a little shopping, I can’t remember what she did with her time.” And Sean thought, there it is again. I wasn’t paying attention because it wasn’t about me. He almost wondered how she had endured him that long, but fought the thought that struggled to surface.

“There’s always a list for groceries on the kitchen counter,” Luke said, nodding in the direction of today’s list. “Shelby usually calls to see what we need when she’s on her way home from school, but knock yourself out. Shop for groceries in her neighborhood.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that.” And drive around places I might bump into her, Sean thought. Just in case.




Three


Sean promised himself he’d just drive around Eureka, but his car was like a heat-seeking missile and he soon found himself in Franci’s neighborhood and then on her street. He had no intention of bothering her, just a fierce need to see how she was living without him. What was the harm in driving by her house?

Franci’s house looked like something that should belong to her. It was cute, small, tidy, at least forty years old and very homey. It seemed the kind of comfy place a woman who wanted a family would choose—a safe, friendly neighborhood, large trees and spacious yards. She had a curving driveway lined with some kind of fluffy green ground cover, flower beds that were just going fallow in the fall weather, and right outside the front door was a scarecrow and some gourds in a horn of plenty. It was pampered. Loved. A family home.

This was nothing like a house Sean would live in—he tended more toward flashy, modern, low-maintenance homes; he had a lot of toys and liked to spend his time at play, not mowing lawns and shoveling snow.

His first panicked thought upon seeing the house was: Oh God! She has a man in her life! A man to settle down with! That’s why it looks so cozy and domesticated!

He didn’t slow down too much as he passed by; he didn’t want to raise any suspicions. Having satisfied his curiosity about where she lived, Sean decided to check out the local recreational facilities.

Finding a gym Franci might like was harder to peg. There were several in the general vicinity. One was the Y, which was small but inexpensive and functional. There was a relatively large fitness center on the edge of town near the freeway. There was a women’s gym, which would be obvious for any woman but Franci; she was ex air force and therefore used to working out with men. Fairly close to her house was a community center that appeared to contain a fitness facility, judging by the people wearing sweats and carrying gym bags who came out of the building.

As he drove past the various gyms, Sean noticed there were a few used bookstores and one big bookstore in the Eureka Mall. God, how he hated malls. But this might be the price of finding his girl, so he checked out the bookstore and the mall. While he was there he bought a couple of pairs of jeans, two shirts and a down vest as the fall weather was getting very brisk in the evening. And he bought a bunch of books he knew he’d never read.

Sean located the grocery stores nearby—there were plenty of those. He had a list of hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and such to call. So he got himself a coffee and used his cell phone to call from his car while he sat in a grocery-store parking lot. But after countless calls there was no Francine Duncan to be found.



Over the next few days Sean developed a new routine. He’d leave Virgin River in the morning, drive to Eureka and make the rounds. He began to think of it as driving his circuit—hitting her neighborhood followed by a trip past the gyms, mall, bookstores and grocery stores. As he’d done on that first day, he’d park somewhere to make his phone calls to clinics and such, checking them off one by one. At least it was turning him into a slightly better houseguest as he would bring home groceries for a change, saving Shelby the trouble.

He was only on his fourth day of hanging out in Eureka when he started wondering if the whole thing was a waste of time. He was beginning to think that even if he did get a number for her she would probably hang up on him, leaving him no option but to go over to her house, anyway. Would she call the cops if he did pay her a call? Was it a crime to knock on her door and ask if they could just talk? He wasn’t going to beg or threaten—just ask! Avon ladies and Jehovah’s Witnesses did it all the time, and Sean was far less annoying!

But that fourth day turned out to be magic. Near the end of the day he hit the grocery store to pick up a few things. As he was choosing a head of romaine, he recognized the hand in the bin next to him. She was squeezing tomatoes. Now didn’t that say something? That he’d recognize her hand! He turned and looked at her. “Don’t make ’em go squirt,” he said.

Franci jumped a mile. She dropped her tomato and clutched her jacket tight at the throat. “God, you scared me! What are you doing here?”

He held up his produce bag. “I have a list of things to get for my sister-in-law. But I’m really glad I ran into you, Franci, because we—”

Before he’d even finished talking she turned away from him, quickly selecting three tomatoes, then she tossed them in a plastic bag and tried to escape. He noticed she was wearing a navy-blue jumpsuit and matching jacket with some kind of unit patches sewn on the arms.

“Hey, are you in the coast guard or something? Why couldn’t I find you after you left the air force?”

She stopped, looked over her shoulder and said, “I have absolutely no idea. I went to my mother’s, where I lived and worked for almost a year before moving here.”

“I left messages on your cell,” he said, tossing the lettuce in his small handheld basket, following her.

She turned toward him. “How many messages? Because I never got any.”

He was shaking his head. “I don’t understand that…”

“How many?” she demanded.

“I don’t know. A few. A couple. I don’t know—but I did,” he said. It was coming back to him now—the way she could poke him and get him all hot under the collar.

She could push him to be honest, and he hated it because he felt exposed. She smiled with mock patience. “Well, Sean, I guess we had a technological malfunction. If you had really wanted to talk to me, you’d have tried leaving more than a couple of messages a few years ago. Now, really, I have to get going. I’m running late.”

He grabbed her upper arm. “I’ve been trying to think of the best way to get in touch with you. I found your address, but no phone number, and I—”

“You know where I live?”

He looked around a little nervously; she made it sound as if he was some ax murderer or something. “Let’s not get loud here,” he suggested. “I needed to find you. I looked you up on the computer. You bought a house.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she said, rubbing her temples. She seemed to gather herself from within. “All right. What do you want?”

Now this was pissing him off all over again. “Gee, was I confusing you? I want us to have a conversation, maybe talk about what happened to us. I wanted to tell you that it didn’t take me long to wish I’d been more…more…cooperative when we had the argument that broke us up.”

“Well, Sean, it did actually take you too long,” she said. “So there—consider your mission accomplished. You told me. Now, can you please go away and leave me alone?”

“No, I can’t,” he said. “So I get it—you’re still mad. We can’t really deal with that without talking.”

“But I said I don’t want to!” she stated, raising her voice again.

“Franci,” he said quietly. “Could we try not to make a big scene here…”

“Look, I told you, I’m in a hurry. You still using the same cell number?” she asked. He nodded. “Great, I’ll call you sometime. Now, excuse me, if you’d please just leave me alone, I’d appreciate it very much.” Polite as that might’ve sounded, it was stated angrily, and people had stopped shopping and began watching them.

She turned away from him and he grabbed her arm again. “Franci, I am not going away. This is important.”

Suddenly there was a very large shadow over both of them, and Sean, who was a little over six feet tall and in excellent shape, was looking up at Paul Bunyan. And Paul was not happy. He was scowling.

“Everything all right, ma’am?” he asked, looking at Franci.

“Fine,” she said. “Old boyfriend. Nothing to worry about.” Then she focused on Sean. “Goodbye. Great seeing you again. Now scram.”

In a moment of temporary insanity, Sean went after her again. “No you don’t. We have to get together for that conversation,” he said. “Since I can’t call you, how about I go over to your house and wait for—”

He felt himself being plucked off his feet. His basket of produce went tumbling away as he was launched into a pile of melons. But Paul Bunyan didn’t let go of him. “She said it’s time for you to hit the road, bud.”

“Listen, pal, you got it all wrong,” Sean said. “I’d never do anything to—”

And suddenly Franci was there. Saving him. “Thank you, but it’s all right. He’s harmless.”

Sean was being held down with his back against the cantaloupe and honeydew melons and he was suddenly incensed. That statement about him being harmless made him growl and snarl dangerously.

“You gonna leave the nice lady alone, bud?” the big man asked.

“You’re gonna get your hands off me this second or you’ll be sorry,” Sean warned, his very masculinity threatened.

“I doubt that, my friend. So, when we understand each other, I’ll let you up.”

“Fine,” Sean angrily shot back. “Let go of me. Now.”

The lumberjack backed away slowly as Sean eased himself off the melons, many of them rolling around on the floor as he did so. A couple of them split open as they fell, spilling their slimy, seedy guts in the aisle. Sean brushed off his jacket where he’d been grabbed, trying to appear both fearless and dignified. And then he took off after Franci, his hand on her shoulder to stop her from walking away again. “Now look,” he said.

He felt the back collar of his shirt and jacket clutched in an iron grip and he whirled on the giant, hitting him square in the jaw with his fist. He suspected he’d broken his hand, but no way was he letting on. He did wince in pain, however, while the very large man merely turned his brick of a face to the side.

“You shouldn’t’a done that, little man,” the guy said. It took him roughly one second to draw back his fist and plaster Sean in the face hard enough to send him reeling into the melons. Then to the floor. Sean saw a lot of stars and was aware of the melons as they began to bounce around the produce section. And there was blood—he wasn’t sure where from since his entire face felt as if it had been through a meat grinder.

“Hey!” Franci shouted. “What’s the matter with you? I told you to leave it alone, he’s harmless!”

“No good deed goes unpunished, I guess,” the big man said. “It looked like you needed help. Maybe you like being grabbed like that in the grocery store, huh, babe?”

Sean muttered something about not being harmless and tried to get to his feet, without success. The big man said, “Just stay down where you are, buster.” But Sean was intent on getting up and he’d just about made it to his feet when the man took two giant steps in his direction. That was all it took for Franci to launch herself on the lumberjack with a cry of outrage. She had her arms around his neck, her legs around his waist and screamed bloody murder while pummeling him on the back.

“I. Told. You. To. Leave. Him. Alone!” she shrieked.

Paul Bunyan whirled around and around, trying to shake her loose, but she was on him like a tick on a hound.

Then the scene got a lot more interesting. “No! No! No! No! No!” screamed a store manager, running up to them, followed closely by another man and a couple of young bag boys. A crowd gathered and the grocery employees peeled Franci off the lumberjack, but she was kicking her heart out the whole time. “The police are coming!” the store manager yelled. “Stop this at once! Stop!”

And Sean absently thought, This really isn’t going how I planned.

Right about then, Sean attempted to stand and reclaim his manhood, only to slip on some slimy melon guts and crash into the floor again. He didn’t exactly pass out, but he was on the nether edges, half listening to the conversation going on above him.

“He threw the first punch,” a voice said.

“You threw him in the melons!” Franci yelled.

“He was grabbing your arm after you told him to go away and leave you alone! Shoot me for trying to lend a hand!”

“But then the little guy did hit the big guy,” someone said. And Sean thought, I am not a little guy. I’m definitely six-one. I bench two-fifty with no problem.

“But the big guy plastered the little guy, knocked him out.”

“I am not little,” Sean mumbled through a swollen jaw, though no one was listening to him.

“I didn’t ask you to protect me!” Franci shouted. “I told you to leave him alone!”

Yeah, Sean thought. Because I’m harmless. Just how I always wanted her to see me. Harmless. And that was Sean Riordan’s last coherent thought.

The next time he was conscious, a paramedic was waving some disgusting-smelling ammonia under his nose and holding an ice pack to his cheek. The ammonia made him gag and the ice pack hurt like hell. And what was worse, they were all in handcuffs. “Damn,” he groaned. “Damn, damn, damn.”



Three hours later, Sean was being held in a windowless room with a locked door down at the Eureka police station. The paramedics had recommended that he go to the hospital to have his head examined, to which Sean replied, “Well, no kidding.”

But while he was in the cell with his buddy the lumberjack, the big man apologized. Sean apologized right back. And what Sean learned was, Dennis Avery was not a lumberjack but a big rig driver who was on his way home, picking up some groceries for the little woman, when he got snared into that whole domestic between Franci and Sean.

So, as Sean was known to do, he told Dennis his life story. Or at least the part that had to do with breaking up with Franci.

“Man,” Dennis said, running a hand over his head. “Are you an idiot or what?”

“Watch it,” Sean warned, though what he was going to do about it remained a mystery.

“Buddy, I’m six-five in my sockies. I been loading crates into a semitrailer for almost twenty years. And you swing at me?” He laughed. “You got this little gal who throws herself on Goliath to defend you, because you pitched her out without thinking about it twice? No wonder she’s pissed.”

“I told you,” Sean said irritably. “She gave me an ultimatum. We get married or she’s gone.”

Dennis stood to his full height. “And you had to think about that?”

Then, mercifully, the police sergeant was at the door. “All righty, boys. You’re out of here. Somebody loves you and you got cited with misdemeanor public disturbance—a pure gift. Be smart and make sure I don’t see your faces again for a very long time. Like ever. In fact, a smart guy would get his groceries elsewhere, if you get my drift.”

Sean didn’t know why he should be so blessed, but he was taking the break without back talk. The last thing he wanted to do was call Luke and ask for bail money. After collecting his wallet, keys, cell phone, et cetera, he put on his jacket and made tracks, wondering how far it was back to the grocery-store parking lot to find his car. Meanwhile, Dennis Avery was calling his wife for a ride. Sean’s head was pounding and his left eye was almost closed as he left the small cop shop, disappearing into the early evening night.

And there, leaning against her car, was Francine. She had a very disgusted look on her face. “Come on, get in,” she said. “I’m taking you home. You can get Luke to bring you back for your car tomorrow, if you don’t die in your sleep.”

“You said that in a way that suggested you hoped I would die in my sleep,” he said.

“Don’t be silly. I’d like you to die much more violently than that. Now get in—I don’t have all night.”

“That’s right,” he said meanly. “You’re in a hurry. How could I forget that?”

Once they were both in the car, she said, “You’ll have to give me directions. I’m not sure where I’m going.”

“Just take me to my car,” he said. “It’s at the grocery store.”

“No, I’m taking you to Luke’s,” she said. “You can’t drive after a possible head injury. You’ve been enough trouble without weighing on my conscience anymore. Where am I going?”

Sean sighed audibly. He really didn’t feel up to fighting with her. “South till you get to Highway 36, then east on 36 for about twenty minutes. I’ll tell you where to turn off—Virgin River is about ten miles off 36, kind of hidden away in the mountains.”

“I’ve been out on 36. Cute, how they call it a highway—it’s only a two-lane,” she said. “It’s harrowing.”

“Yeah, all these mountain roads take some getting used to. This is very nice of you, Francine. Or is it revenge? You’re going to push me out on a sharp turn?”

She ignored him. “Here’s what I’m going to do for you, Sean. I’m going to give you my cell-phone number and you can call me. When I can spare some time—like a half hour—I will meet you for coffee. We can have this conversation you’re set on. Maybe we’ll straighten a couple of things out. After that, you are going to stop hounding me. Got that? Because I’m in no mood for this bullshit. You’ve had plenty of time to make up your mind about me and you were very clear. No commitment. No family. Now, I’ve gotten on with my life, and if you haven’t, it’s time to do so. Understand?”

What Sean understood was he now had thirty more minutes than he’d had before. He’d have to figure out a way to make good use of the time. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Franci,” he said softly. He hoped he said it tenderly.

“And yet it is,” she informed him.



After dropping Sean off at Luke’s house, Franci headed back down 36, the darkest highway she’d ever driven. She had plenty of time to think and admit that she had received his voice mails—all two of them. The first one came while she was in labor, six months after they’d parted ways, and he had said, “Hey, Fran! How you doing, babe? Give me a call. We should stay in touch, huh?” The second one came when she was at home at her mother’s with a ten-day-old baby, alternately nursing, walking the floor, sleeping and crying. That one was no better than the first. “So, Franci—you gonna call me back? Come on, babe—no reason we can’t talk, is there? I wanna tell you all about the U-2. Gimme a call.” That might explain her blind rage when the big guy in the grocery store casually referred to her as babe.

Back then Franci realized she was listening to those two calls over and over, alternately planning his death and praying he would come for her. She knew she was in trouble. After several weeks there hadn’t been any more contact from him so, to save herself, she had the cell shut off and got herself a new number. She changed her e-mail address. Then she started looking for a new job and a path out of Santa Rosa.

She had always known, from the time she’d said goodbye to Sean four years ago, that she would have to deal with him eventually. She wasn’t sure exactly when or how, but she’d thought she would have a little more time.

Her daughter, Rosie, three and a half and as precocious as an only child can be, had just recently asked, “Where is our daddy?” Funny she would say our daddy, but then the whole concept was new to her as she had just noticed that they didn’t have one. Preschool had its share of separated families, but almost all the other kids seemed to know where both their parents were. Most were being picked up alternately by their moms and their dads.

And Rosie hadn’t asked who is our daddy, but where.

“He’s flying a very fast, very high jet in the air force,” Franci answered. “It goes all over the world and he’s busy doing a very important job.”

Rosie had said, “Oh.” She probably didn’t understand much beyond the important fact that Franci knew where Rosie’s daddy was. But what Franci knew was that in a few months, maybe a year, maybe two, as her world became larger, Rosie would ask things like, “What’s his name?” “Why doesn’t he come to see us?” And eventually, “Why aren’t you married?” These would be increasingly difficult questions to answer. And those questions formed the primary reason Franci had not wanted to face this—she couldn’t imagine how she would tell Rosie that her daddy just didn’t want anything to do with her because he absolutely, positively did not want to be a father.

Franci didn’t tell her mom about Rosie’s question because her mother had asked her so many times how she intended to handle her situation. From the beginning Vivian had disapproved of this approach. “Fine, don’t marry him,” she had said. “Don’t have expectations of him. Don’t be disappointed in his behavior. But he deserves to know he has a child.”

Under any other circumstances, Franci would agree. “Mom, he was adamant! He did not want children. He didn’t want marriage, either.”

“All that has a way of changing when there’s a child actually on the way,” Vivian had said.

“Exactly,” Franci argued. “That’s why I want to handle this on my own, at least for now. Because I’m only interested in marrying and having a child with a man who loves me as much as I love him, who wants our child as much as I do. Don’t you get that?”

“Of course I get it. But, like it or not, when you accidentally get pregnant, you have a responsibility to tell the other parent and let the cards fall where they may. Deal with his response however you must, but you have to at least tell him.”

“I will. Eventually,” Franci had said. The problem wasn’t that she found the concept of informing him so unreasonable. It had just been that when she found out she was pregnant, and then when Rosie was a new baby, she wasn’t emotionally strong enough to have Sean in her life. She’d thought that, in time—time that so quickly stretched into four years—she would be ready to confront the reality without it completely disrupting her very existence. She knew what it could mean—Sean rejecting Rosie altogether, and that would hurt too much to contemplate. Or, best-case scenario, an arrangement of his visits and, too soon, of Rosie going to spend time with him. Ultimately it could be Rosie spending time with Sean’s new family, because eventually he would find the woman he could commit to. Being separated from Rosie was going to be so hard, and seeing Sean regularly? Seeing Sean happy with another woman would be sheer torture.

When she’d seen him in Arcata, she should have made a date for coffee; she shouldn’t have shut him down like that. But she just wasn’t ready to face it yet.

To her own embarrassment, she had fantasized a reconciliation. But Franci was, above all, practical and logical. And if there was going to be a reconciliation, it would have come long before now. As well, it was a horrible prospect to imagine that Sean would decide that, since they had a child, he would do the right thing and be with the child’s mother. Franci didn’t feel like being a consolation prize now any more than she had when she was two months pregnant.

When she ran into him again at the grocery store, her anger with him had erupted out of surprise. If she’d known she was going to see him, she would have been better prepared. Sane. Reasonable. But she hadn’t been ready for him a second time.

Ever since Rosie was born, Franci had assumed that eventually she would have to go to Sean, explain as best she could why she chose to have the baby alone. For her it was such a simple decision, though not an easy one. If he didn’t love her enough to make a commitment before he learned about a child, she didn’t want him just because there was a child. And yet, knowing herself and how powerful her feelings were for him, she feared saying no would have been impossible. And living in a marriage that wasn’t real and genuine would ultimately be too painful…for all of them.

Right now, the most important thing was Rosie—more important than Franci and Sean. Franci would have to take it slow, keep Sean from going off the deep end, make sure Rosie had a safe and normal life. They’d start with a couple of talks, she and Sean. She’d get him used to the idea that she’d moved on, that she’d accepted his decision to move on.

And then, when the groundwork was laid, Rosie would meet her dad.



Later that evening when Sean walked into his brother’s house, Luke, Shelby and Art were just dishing up takeout from Jack’s Bar. This was, of course, because Sean had failed to bring home the groceries. In he walked with a bruised cheek, black eye and swollen nose, which the paramedic said was probably not broken. None of it enhanced his killer good looks. Not to mention his hand, which he kept in his jacket pocket because he’d have so much trouble gripping a fork.

Everyone turned when he came through the door and they went completely still, staring at him with wide eyes and open mouths. Finally Art said, “Hey, Sean. Didn’t that girl want to date with you?”

“Can we not talk about this, please?” Sean asked.

So the not talking about it hung over the dinner table like a shroud. While Shelby and Art did up the dishes, Sean took a beer out of the refrigerator, put on his jacket and stepped out onto the porch. About two minutes later Luke joined him, holding his own beer. There were five boys in the Riordan family. Luke was six years older than Sean and, when they weren’t fighting, they were close.

Sean explained running into Franci in the grocery. After getting the story, Luke asked, “So, if I have this right, a great big hulk, who had about six inches and a hundred pounds on you, decided to protect Franci from you, and you attacked him?”

“That’s about it,” Sean said.

“And why would you jump someone who was obviously bigger and stronger than you? You can usually talk your way out of anything.”

“Because, Luke,” Sean said. “He was trying to keep me away from her.”

Luke thought about this for a second and then said, “Oh, boy. There’s trouble, right there. What is it with this woman? Huh?”

“I don’t know,” Sean said miserably. “I thought I could just forget about her, but there’s something about her. Maybe I was more into her than I realized.”

“And why, just out of curiosity, didn’t you know you felt this way about her four years ago?”

“How the hell do I know?” After some silence, Sean finally said, “I thought I had it all under control.”




Four


A couple of days after the fight in the grocery store, Franci kept her word and made a coffee date with Sean. She needed to get this situation handled. When Sean showed up at the coffee shop, his face looked bad and his expression still worse. His cheek was bruised, his nose slightly misshapen, one eye blackened and closed more than the other—which unfortunately didn’t mar his otherwise good looks quite enough. And he was scowling. His right hand was wrapped in an Ace bandage, which Franci consoled herself was better than a cast, but still not good. He walked up to the small round table she occupied and frowned down at her, his eyes glittering through mere slits. She recognized that look. She hadn’t seen it often from the perpetually playful Sean, but she had seen it. He’s had enough, she thought. He was done fooling around. Time to ratchet these emotions down to a manageable level if she hoped for him to actually listen to her when she found the right moment to own up to everything. She needed him reasonable. Understanding. Sympathetic to her concerns.

“Are you all right?” she asked him.

“I’ll live. Can I get you anything?”

She lifted her cardboard coffee cup. “I’m fine, thanks.” And then she took a deep breath while he went for his own coffee. When he sat down across from her, she asked, “How bad is it?”

“I have a headache,” he said irritably. “It’s probably just a minor skull fracture with brain damage.”

She struggled not to smile. “Did you have that xrayed?” she asked, indicating his hand with her eyes.

“Sprain. It’s bruised and sore, that’s all. You’ll probably be very disappointed to know I’m going to completely recover.”

“Hm. Good. Well…I think we should both concentrate on not letting things get out of control.”

“You first,” he said. He took a sip of his coffee and jerked his chin up, pinched his eyes closed and moaned deep in his throat. When eyes opened both were watering; he’d burned his mouth. Oh, Sean was having a rough couple of days. Franci’s hand covered her mouth so there wouldn’t be even the hint of a smile.

And she immediately thought, Crap. She didn’t want to find him cute and funny! She wanted to be repulsed by him! Furious and bitter! Completely unaffected, except maybe with some hatred. She remembered what had hooked her in the first place—he was so good-looking and he made her laugh. Then later, when they were alone, he could make her beg. He could be darling and fun; he could be passionate and powerful. And she did not want to remember that!

She gave him a moment. He was probably blaming her for his burned mouth, too. “So, Franci,” he finally said. “What’s up with the uniform you were wearing?”

“I work for an emergency medical airlift unit, assigned to their helicopter transport.” His eyebrows lifted. “I’m a flight nurse.”

“I guess that’s why I couldn’t find you at any clinics or hospitals,” he said, blowing on his coffee.

“You were looking for me at clinics and hospitals?” she asked. “Since when?”

“Since I ran into you in Arcata and you said you’d prefer to never speak to me again.”

“I didn’t exactly say that, did I?”

“Close enough. I found your address right away because you bought a house, but decided I’d better take it slow, since you’re obviously still pissed off. I thought it might irritate you if I showed up at your front door. Back when I knew you, you had a gun—you were a military officer flying into a war zone. I was willing to brave that. That’s how much I wanted to see you.”

She sat back in her chair. “I no longer have the gun. But when did you decide you wanted to see me again?” she asked. “We bump into each other after years and everything changes for you?”

“Here’s how it went,” he said without even thinking about it. “We both walked away mad back then. I distracted myself by going to a new aircraft, a new training program, a new base and squadron, but after a few months of that, I couldn’t leave it alone anymore—we ended badly and I couldn’t believe it was what either one of us really wanted. So I called you. You didn’t call back, so I tried again—the cell phone was shut off. Your e-mail bounced back—undeliverable. After another few months of licking my wounds I called your mother’s house to see if she’d put us in touch with each other and she was gone. Phone disconnected. House sold. Moved away. None of your best girlfriends were around at Luke AFB anymore and I couldn’t remember their last names, so I had no one to ask.”

“You couldn’t remember their names?” she asked.

He grimaced. “Last names. Shoot me. I didn’t know there’d be a test. So, you didn’t respond and had disappeared. I thought maybe you got married or something. I quit looking. But it never felt right—the way we broke up. It shouldn’t have happened like that.”

“Oh?” she asked, sipping her coffee.

“We were both too stubborn. Angry. I wanted to find you and tell you that we should talk about our situation some more. Sanely.”

“Have you changed your mind about commitment? About family?” she asked.

“I was committed before,” he said, his voice low and gravelly, definitely annoyed. “I didn’t need some document to prove that. That’s why we should talk.”

She sat back in her chair. “I can’t see what there is to talk about,” she said, exasperated. “That’s why we went our separate ways. I want the document. I want a family—you don’t.”

“I wanted another chance,” he ground out. “I wasn’t happy with you forcing the idea of getting married before I felt ready, before I felt it was my idea, too. But I was a lot less happy once you were gone.”

“Then why didn’t you say that in your messages?” she asked.

He tilted his head, gave her a hint of a smile and lifted the eyebrow over the good eye. “The messages you never got?” he asked.

Oh, he was good. Great choice for a spy-plane pilot. He was quick and cagey. “Okay, I got them. They were so generic, there was nothing to respond to. Not, ‘I’m sorry and I want to try again,’ or ‘I can’t live without you,’ but just, ‘Shouldn’t we keep in touch? Babe?’”

He leaned toward her. “Well, what do you want from someone who’s talking into ether, not knowing what kind of mood you’re in? Or wondering who else might listen to your messages? Like maybe a brand-new boyfriend or husband! I wanted to talk to you, not make life tough for you! You were pretty specific when you laid down the guidelines—it was marriage or you were out. For all I knew—” He stopped. He took a breath. “For all I knew you found someone who liked that idea. And settled down.”

It was very tempting to just blurt everything out right then, right there, but Franci held her tongue. She did have to lower her eyes over her coffee cup to keep him from seeing the tears there. It all rushed back—how bad the breakup had felt, and remembering that he couldn’t bear the idea of being stuck with her for life. Then came the fear that he’d like another chance, but they would probably only go back to the way they were. Or, he was ready for more now and would never forgive her for what she’d done. Franci’s mind was churning.

“I’d given you a lot of opportunities, Sean. A lot of time. You didn’t budge—you’d gotten as serious as you were going to get. I didn’t want to find myself in a relationship as tenuous as that for a long time, for as long as it took you to say you’d had enough and didn’t want me around anymore.” She swallowed. “I didn’t want to give my best years to a man who couldn’t make a decision.”

He leaned toward her and his look was earnest, though battered. “What did I ever do or say to make you think I was just playing around? Weren’t we a couple? A serious couple? Didn’t we practically live together? You thought I’d just do that for a few years and then dump you? You didn’t trust me any more than that?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Why would I? We spent nights together, Sean—we kept our own places and you never suggested living together! You liked things loose and uncomplicated. You thought your buddies who got married ‘bit the dust.’ You thought the ones who had kids were trapped. I wanted something solid, and back then I wanted it to be you, but if it wasn’t going to be you, I had to have the courage to move on. Right? Isn’t that reasonable?”

Rather than answering the question, he said, “Maybe I’m not that guy anymore.”

“Oh?” she asked with a cynical tone. “And what guy are you?”

“Things changed, Franci. Starting with not having you in my life. I thought I’d just keep having fun, but fun wasn’t fun without you. I thought the Riordan men didn’t settle down, until I watched the last one I ever expected bite the dust…”

“There it is again—he bit the dust.”

“If you’d seen him fight it, you’d have been impressed. Bottom line, I was trying like hell to make it work without you because I thought I had no choice. And when I saw you at that restaurant in Arcata, I knew I wasn’t going another day without trying to see if…I just want to see if we can work this out. If we can’t, if you’re in a different place, I’m not a fool—I don’t want a woman who doesn’t want me. But…”

“Just like I didn’t want a man who didn’t want me,” she reminded him, lifting her chin proudly. Then, as an afterthought, she added, “Enough. Didn’t want me enough.”

“Touché. You can have that one. I made a mistake. But so did you. I was an idiot. You were in a big goddamn hurry.”

Well, he was right about that, she thought. She had been on the nest. She leaned toward him and shook her head. “I had no possible way of knowing if you would ever change. I couldn’t wait around for that. My biological clock was ticking.” Boy, had it been ticking!

Again, rather than responding, he asked, “Are you with someone now?”

She froze. In fact, she was. It had been a long time coming, too. But Sean’s reappearance had caused her to barely give the guy a thought. It occurred to her to tell Sean she had a guy, just to back him off a bit. The temptation was equally strong to tell him there was no one, which might encourage him all the more. In the end, she said, “I’ve been dating…trying to be social rather than a recluse. You? Are you with someone now?”

He shook his head. “Let’s try again,” he said in a soft, pleading voice. As if it had all been a minor misunderstanding.

“Not so fast,” Franci said. “I don’t know if I want to try again. We have issues. Unless you’ve changed a lot, we don’t want the same things out of a relationship, out of life. It’s too late for couples’ counseling. I’m willing to think about us being friends, but we have to take even something like that very slowly. The world didn’t just stand still after we parted ways, Sean. I went on living.”

“Of course you did, Franci,” he said, reaching for her hand. He held it on the tabletop. “We both tried to get on with things, and both ended up back here.”

“I’m sure we’re not talking about the same things,” she said. “I’m sure your dating was a lot different than mine,” she said, meaning he’d slept with a lot of women. He’d been a real playboy when she met him and she had been a little surprised when he became exclusively hers. Sean going back to his old ways of making the rounds was more what she had expected of him.

“I dated,” he admitted. “Not anything very…Nothing worked out.”

She lifted her chin. “And I became very independent. I hadn’t heard from you in years. I didn’t see this coming.”

“It’s coming,” he said, in a low voice laced with meaning. “Let me take you out to dinner tonight.”

“No,” she said. “I’m busy.”

“Tomorrow night, then.”

“I’m going out—I have plans. I’ll have coffee with you on Sunday afternoon, if you’re free. I’ll talk with you, Sean. Maybe we can put some of our conflict to rest and work out friendlier terms.”

“I want to spend time with you—”

“You better let me think about that. There have been too many changes in my life to step back into a relationship like I had with you.”

“Are you thinner?” he asked, changing the subject. “You seem thinner.”

“I took up running after…Once I moved up here, I started running. I finished two marathons.”

“No kidding?” he said, impressed. He grinned, then winced and touched his cheek. “Well, you look fantastic. I guess running is your thing. It works for you. And the hair—if you’d have said you wanted it cut to the scalp, I would have had a fit, but it’s…it’s hot, that’s what it is.”

She hated that she felt warm all over when he said that. “I’m completely different in a lot more ways than looks,” she said as a warning. “I have baggage that I’ve accumulated in the past few years. I have commitments. For example, my mother and I moved up here together. She was widowed, I was single—it made sense.”

“Sure. How is Viv?” he asked.

“Great. Working in a family practice as a physician’s assistant. She’s glad she made the change—she likes the area and has friends here. And I have two jobs, Sean. I pull a couple of twenty-four-hour shifts with the airlift unit in Redding every week and I teach a couple of courses at Humboldt University—nursing courses. It’s a great schedule for me—gives me the time off I need so I can balance work life and home life. It works for me. I’m committed to both.”

“You’re teaching nursing?” he asked, surprised.

She nodded. “I’ve been doing that for the past year or so. Turns out I like it.”

“My new sister-in-law, Shelby—she’s a student there, in nursing. Cutest thing you’ll ever see. Best thing that ever happened to Luke. Any chance you know her?”

“What year is she in?” Franci asked.

“First year. She got married in her first semester because Paddy and Colin were done with their deployments—she waited for all the Riordans to be available. She’s way younger than Luke and is just starting college.”

Franci tilted her head and smiled, thinking how sweet it was that cranky, womanizing old Luke ended up with a sweet young girl who was determined to get an education. “I’m pretty sure I haven’t met Luke’s wife. Most of the freshmen are stuck in liberal-arts courses the first year. I teach one medical-surgical course and one that boils down to charting ER patients. I’m just one of many instructors. Mostly, I teach juniors and seniors. I share an office on campus with another nursing instructor and I only teach a couple of days a week. Except for meetings, of which there are too many.”

“You never did go for the meetings,” he said with a smile. “I’ll have to tell Shelby to introduce herself. You’ll love her. You’ll—”

“One thing at a time, all right?” Franci asked patiently. “How’s your mom?”

“She’s great. Greater since Luke got married and they’re on the baby trail. She might finally get a grandchild out of one of us, after all.”

Franci flushed. Oh, God, so many people were going to be pissed when they found out about Rosie. She had no idea how she’d have done it differently, however. Well, there was that one way—she could have told Sean about the baby. Good Catholic boy that he was, he’d have married her right off or his mother would have killed him. As she recalled, Maureen Riordan had powerful influence over her sons. “Good for her,” was all she could say. “Sean, this is going to take time. Things have probably changed too much.”

“Not as much as they’ve stayed the same,” he said.

“There’s only one way I can even think about this, and that’s if we get to know each other all over again,” she said. “We can’t go back four years and try to untangle that mess—we have to accept ourselves as the people we are today, and go from here. You said you’re not that guy anymore. And you know what, Sean? I’m not that woman anymore—the one who cried every day after we split up. I’m a lot stronger. We’re both different.”

“Maybe so,” he agreed. “Maybe better,” he suggested. “But, Franci, like it or not, we have history.”

She felt her heart take a fearful jump. “Yeah. You have no idea.”



As it happened, there had been a man in Franci’s life for the past few months. Meeting Dr. T. J. Brookner had been one of the great perks to that little part-time teaching job she’d taken at the college. He was a terrific guy—a marine biologist and professor of oceanography. The forty-year-old was a divorced father of two preteen girls. Franci was one of the few certified divers in the nursing department and was the instructor with the most “open time” in her schedule, so she had been recruited to teach a short first-aid course to freshman dive students. Since she loved diving she jumped at the chance, which is how she met T.J. They ended up going on a couple of dive dates, which led to a few phone calls, which led to a few getting-to-know-you dinners, and what she found was an entertaining man who enjoyed many of the same things she did.

She liked the fact that he was ten years older than she; he seemed settled and he was definitely sure of himself. He had a stable career and was happy with where he was in life. She respected his parameters for a relationship: if they were intimate, they had to be exclusive, and while he was open to the idea of a long-term relationship, it had to be understood up front—he wasn’t having more children. After his second daughter was born, he’d had a vasectomy and he steered clear of women with ticking clocks and the expectations that went along with it. As far as what he was looking for, Franci knew he wanted to meet a fun, attractive, intelligent and mature woman to spend time with.

Franci had no trouble signing on to that deal. It was nice to have someone to dive with, to go on long runs with, even to have sex with. Up to that point, Franci hadn’t done any serious dating—just the occasional evening out with a work colleague, or one of the guys from her running club. For the first time in a long time, she’d been feeling content—she had her little girl, her mom, a job she loved and a guy. What a relief it was to feel settled and on track!

Since Franci hadn’t been associated with the college for long, the gossip about T.J. didn’t reach her right away. She’d already been going out with T.J. for a couple of months when she learned he was known as Professor Hottie by the coeds. She was completely amused by the nickname and teased him about it, but learned fast that he didn’t think it was so funny. He said the girls flirted with him shamelessly and it was the sort of thing that could lead to irresponsible talk—something that could cause a lot of trouble for a man. T.J. allowed that this kind of talk might have even contributed to his bitter divorce from a jealous wife years ago.

“Good grief, I hope your ex-wife didn’t cave into jealousy just because freshman girls have crushes on handsome professors! We all did. I had mine and I bet you even had yours,” she added with a laugh.

“Trust me—I never had an older woman professor who looked like you!” T.J. informed her enthusiastically.

“Aw. That’s sweet. You should just be flattered by the attention. Professor Hottie.”

“I am, as long as no harm is done,” he admitted.

In all seriousness, he came by the nickname honestly enough; T.J. was divinely handsome and had a very sexy smile. Franci had no trouble admitting that his smile was the first thing to catch her attention. She immediately dismissed the giggles and rumors as predictable and didn’t give them a second thought.

But then, just as Franci thought her life had begun to resemble something close to normal, who should show up but Sean? Now that she thought about it, Sean’s timing had always sucked, and she had a little three-year-old redhead to prove it.

Now, out of the blue, Franci was conscious of a little problem: When she thought of T.J., she wondered what they’d find to do next weekend—movie or dinner out or maybe a dive? But when she thought of Sean, all she wanted to do was take her clothes off.



When Franci told Sean she couldn’t meet him on Saturday she didn’t explain fully—she had a date that night with T.J. But after Sean threw her world into a spin, she really wasn’t in the mood for a date with anyone. And there was no way the date with T.J. could culminate in the usual way. She was much too distracted for that and considered canceling altogether. She complained to her mother of a headache.

“Take something,” Vivian said. “Rosie and I have a big slumber party planned at my house. Go out. Try having fun. Either stay out very late or have a slumber party of your own.” Then she had winked.

“Oh, Mother,” Franci said with humor.

“Take a couple of aspirin and enjoy yourself!”

Franci hadn’t mentioned Sean’s sudden reappearance in her life because she knew Vivian would work it like a hangnail. She’d start all that business about Franci’s responsibility to level with him; she’d want to force the paternity thing. Franci was struggling enough by herself without Vivian nagging about it. So, more to keep her mother out of her business than to spend a nice evening out, she kept her date.

T.J. came for her at six and, when she opened the door to him, she was immediately reminded why she’d agreed to that first date—damn, but he was a good-looking man. It wasn’t hard to understand why there was always a long list of females waiting to go on dive trips, or on research missions, with him. It hadn’t been that long since Franci had been a college coed. She’d had a crush of her own on her biology professor. It hadn’t gone anywhere beyond a few delicious fantasies, but if he’d been game, she would’ve crossed the line in a second.

“I’m taking you to a fantastic new restaurant up near the campus,” T.J. told her, once they were in the car. “They specialize in salmon for obvious reasons—it’s our local catch. They have a salmon fettuccini that will knock you out.”

“You know I don’t like salmon,” she reminded him.

“You’re the only diver and fisherman I know who won’t eat salmon,” he said. “Will you try it? We’re bound to find a salmon dish you love eventually.”

“Will you order something I like so we can trade if it doesn’t work out that way?” she countered.

He sighed. “Don’t I always order the best for both of us?”

“No.” She laughed. “You order two meals you like. There’s no point in even showing me a menu.”

“Do you get enough to eat?” he asked, a little irritation in his voice slipping through.

“Oh, always. You’re never stingy about it—and I love the appetizers and salads you pick. By the time we get to your main courses, I’m usually full, anyway.”

“That sounds slightly ungrateful, if you ask me,” he grumbled.

“Absolutely not!” And she laughed. “You order enough for four people and I’m always happy to let the doggie bag go home with you so you can enjoy it all over again! Really, T.J., you should review restaurants! Now let’s stop arguing over the menu before we even get to the restaurant. Tell me about the trip to Cabo.”

T.J. was more than happy to do that. As they made the quick drive north to Arcata, he talked about his recent diving trip to Cabo San Lucas. He’d gone with a group of instructors and students. It wasn’t clear from his conversation whether they’d gotten all their research done, but they’d had some great dives and had eaten at some fantastic Mexican restaurants. Altogether they had taken only sixteen students, twelve of them were women, he said.

And suddenly Franci asked, “Aren’t you ever tempted to sleep with them? The female students who worship you?”

He gave her a surprised look, which was followed by a huff of laughter and a shake of his head. “Franci? What the hell? I thought we went over that.” He grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Are you serious?”

“Curious,” she said. “I’m sorry, was that offensive?”

“Depends on the reason for your question. Did you hear something? Some gossip about me?”

“Nothing like that,” she said with a laugh. “But it must be difficult sometimes,” she said. “To be a single man thrown into so many situations with young women—like trips out of the country and on boats where you spend days at sea or anchored offshore. Probably surrounded by beautiful, nubile, irresistible young women who are sure you just walk on water and wouldn’t even have to think twice about—” She stopped before she really became offensive.

He frowned and gave her hand another squeeze. “It might be, if I were interested in any of them. I’m much more comfortable with women I can have a conversation with. I’m not interested in being with a college freshman or sophomore who’d be more than willing to help me lose my tenure.” He glanced at her. “Just in case you’re thinking of dipping into that well, it’s how you get fired. Messing with the student body—so to speak.”

“Oh, please,” she said with a laugh. “Not in a million years. But men are different.”

“Not that different. This is so strange, coming from you. You’ve never even brought it up before…”

“Sure I have,” she said. “It’s apparently well-known around the campus that the girls are hot for you. And you are a bachelor…”

“Be careful you don’t start to sound like Glynnis, the ex. She was obsessed by my female students, especially after she’d had children and didn’t feel as comfortable in a bikini.” He grinned at her. “For a woman who’s had a child, you sure didn’t lose your bikini body!”

“Well, that’s exactly what brought it to mind,” Franci said. “That you’re out of the country with a dozen beautiful, barely dressed eighteen-year-old women who think you’re nothing less than a god, and…” She cleared her throat. “I would imagine it has its distracting moments…”

He chuckled. “You’ve never once asked me a serious question about how I handle that situation. Just so you know, I have to go to a lot of trouble to keep things on the up-and-up. I have an assistant or associate professor on hand at all times. I can’t visit with female students in my office behind closed doors. If the door is closed for a meeting, a teaching assistant is right outside. On trips, everyone is assigned a buddy or two—I only travel in groups. Seriously, the first time I touch one of them, she’ll be the one to scream foul and get me fired.”

“But aren’t you tempted?”

“I’m actually made of flesh and bone, Franci—of course I’ve been tempted. Not in the past several months, however,” he added with a smile. “Now what brought this on? You aren’t jealous, are you? Are you worried about being completely safe with me? Because not only are we careful, I told you I’ve been screened and I—”

She laughed uncomfortably. “Not at all, T.J. It just occurred to me. You’re back from a week in Cabo, had a great, fun time away from all the prying eyes, and I wondered.”

“I’m aware there’s gossip from time to time and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do but ignore it. Believe me, if there was any truth to the rumors about my behavior with the young women on campus, someone would have caught me with my pants down by now.” He laughed again. “You give me credibility. Having a steady woman with your looks and brains has slowed a lot of that idle bullshit down to nothing.”

“My pleasure,” she said.

“Paranoia about all my potential affairs kept my ex-wife up nights, but it’s pretty new coming from you. I’m only human. But I’m smart enough to know better.”

“Bronson married his student—she was nineteen to his forty,” she pointed out, speaking of another one of the professors.

“Yeah, well, that doesn’t show so well on him. I’d rather not be that kind of legend.” He grinned at her. “Besides, that’s not what I’m after. If you came with us on a dive trip, the only kind of talk you’d hear would be about the two professors rocking the boat.”

“That could be fun, T.J.,” she said. “One of these days you’ll throw out an invitation for me to go with you on a specific trip and I’ll shock you by saying yes.”

“It’s a deal!” he returned enthusiastically. “The next good one, you’re coming with me. With us,” he amended. “Me and the students.”

“Where are you going next?”

“I’m putting together a trip to Kino Bay, Mexico—a nice little shrimp town. I’m saving you for a more exotic trip, so be patient. But before Kino Bay can be accomplished, there’s a coral study to finish—that’s about five days offshore…”

Having effectively kept the subject on him, Franci was able to listen more than she talked. They got to the restaurant, were seated right away and he ordered wine for them. He was the expert at that, as well, she thought, but she didn’t mind. It seemed only moments before the salads arrived and T.J. was still second-guessing whether they’d made the right choice for their appetizers. She hoped he wouldn’t change his mind—she didn’t care if he ordered for her, but she hated it when he caused a lot of trouble for the waitstaff. Plus, she was looking forward to the crab-stuffed mushrooms; that and the salad might be all she enjoyed of this dinner. She really didn’t like salmon, and to night T.J. had insisted upon it. But dinner out, for T.J., was a constant negotiation, a complicated ordering process. She got a kick out of it, but he took it way too seriously.

As they ate, she listened to more details of his work, his plans for doing a coastal coral study with one of his classes that would take an intense five days off campus, and then in winter there would be a couple of dive trips out of the country to warmer climes. And—

“Francine?” he said, drawing her attention. “Ms. Duncan?”

“Huh?” she said, looking up. “I’m sorry, was I somewhere else for a moment?”

“I was just saying, I think I’d really like you with long hair,” he said dreamily, gazing at her.

“Well, ordering for me is one thing, T.J., but I’m going to be in charge of my own hair. This cut is so easy!”

“You won’t even consider growing it out? Even if I said I think I’d love it?”

She was gazing off again. “Huh?” she said, when she realized he’d been talking to her again. “I’m sorry.”

He put down his fork. “You’ve been a little weird all evening. Different.”

“Really? Sorry.” She sighed. “Well, I was this close to calling you to cancel. I have a nagging headache. I know I’m probably not the best company.”

“You’re not only distracted, you’ve brought up a couple of things you’ve never even mentioned before. Like the girls—the students. This isn’t a symptom of a headache.”

She looked into his beautiful brown eyes for a second. He had a slight smile and it made her laugh. T.J. was too intuitive for her mood to slip by him. “I do have a headache. His name is Sean Riordan.”

“Oh?” T.J. asked. “Dare I hope he sells insurance?”

She shook her head. “He’s an air force pilot. I knew him when I was an air force nurse. I ran into him the other night while I was out with some girlfriends.”

“Ah,” T.J. said, sitting back. “And can’t get him off your mind?”

“You can say that again,” she said, putting down her fork. Not only did she feel like getting this whole thing off her chest, she felt she owed T.J. an explanation. After all, they were a couple…“I haven’t told anyone this, T.J. Not my mom, not girlfriends, certainly not Rosie…”

“Should I be honored?” he asked, lifting his wineglass to his lips, taking a sip. “Or should I panic?”

“He is Rosie’s father,” she said, staring him straight in the eye. But then she glanced away.

He put down his wineglass. “You don’t say.”

She looked back. “I always knew the day would come when I’d have to face this, but I thought I’d get to choose when and where. Just by chance he saw me a couple of weeks ago, chased me down and asked to buy me a cup of coffee. He said our breakup was a big mistake that happened to a couple of stubborn people, and that we should talk about things.”

“Well, direct, isn’t he? Obviously you didn’t agree.”

“I told him to get lost, but that was just my anger talking. I have no right to keep him away from Rosie. I’m going to have to tell him about her, T.J. And I don’t look forward to it.”

“Uh-oh. This doesn’t sound good. When you said Rosie’s father didn’t know her, I always assumed it had been his choice to take off, ignore his responsibilities.”

“Not exactly,” she said, shaking her head. “It wasn’t like that. But it wasn’t a mistake, like he says. The mistake was us getting together in the first place. He always said he’d never get married or have a family. I always said that’s what I ultimately wanted for my life.”

“Well, hell—why were you with him, then?”

“I don’t know. Because I couldn’t resist him? Sounds like the pining of a teenager, doesn’t it? I wasn’t a teenager. And I had a wonderful time with him—it was just the whole marriage and children thing he couldn’t do.” She shook her head. “I knew either one of us would have to change our minds or we’d part ways. My date of separation from the air force was coming up, Sean had accepted a change of assignment and we’d been together almost two years. And guess what? I got pregnant. And being a nurse, I knew immediately. So I made him talk about what was next for us. Where were we going, as a couple. He said things like, ‘You’re getting out of the air force. You can go anywhere you want. You can move to where I’ll be, or not.’ It went downhill from there. I said I wanted to be married, have children, and he said, ‘Me? Not in this lifetime.’”

T.J. swallowed. He looked down for a moment. He picked up his fork and poked at his food but didn’t eat, a clear indication he was unhappy. When he finally did look up, he said, “And you didn’t tell him.” It wasn’t a question.

She shook her head. “The parting standoff was I needed to take the relationship to a committed level and he wasn’t interested. I said that if it was possible he’d never be ready, I should move on, and he said if I needed guarantees right then, I’d better start planning my move.”

“Well, the man clearly knows what he doesn’t want,” T.J. said with an unmistakable sneer.

“We were both angry,” she said with a shrug. “I told him if he wasn’t serious about a commitment with me, I was going to take the walk. He told me not to let the door hit me in the ass. We both said unforgivable things. I could have told him about the baby, T.J. I could have shouted it at his back as he was leaving. He probably would have done the responsible thing.” Her eyes glistened and she swallowed hard. “And I would never have known if…” Her voice trailed off. She inhaled deeply, straightened proudly. “I didn’t want it that way.”

“Good God, Francine,” he said. “You lied to him.”

“I always intended to tell him,” she said. “Really, I thought I’d tell him when I found out she was a girl, then I couldn’t. I thought I’d tell him before she was born, but I was still so angry, so lonely. I planned to tell him right afterward, but he left me a couple of messages—a couple of those arrogant, cheerful, we-should-keep-in-touch-babe messages, and I couldn’t do it then, either. Next thing I knew, four years had passed.”

He shook his head and frowned at her. “You should have told me this before—you owed me that much if we were going to be involved. And you should have told him.”

“You know what, T.J.? I owe a lot of people a lot of stuff, but at the top of the list is Rosie. I owe her my absolute protection. Not just physical but emotional and psychological protection. I know Sean’s going to be angry—his mother’s going to be very angry and, trust me, she’s a force of nature. But, in the end, you know how much I meant to Sean? He let me go at the mere idea of a child!”

“Listen, there are men who don’t want children. But we still need to know the truth,” T.J. said.

“When Rosie was a new baby, just a couple of months old, I realized that I cried every single day. On and off for hours. I cried through the second half of my pregnancy and every day after she was born. And I made a decision—I couldn’t do that to her. If the only way Rosie could be raised by a happy, positive mother was to forget Sean Riordan, then that’s what I would have to do. Yeah, Sean might’ve been willing to do the right thing, but it wasn’t what he wanted. Rosie and I—we deserve to be loved and wanted. We deserve to never doubt it.”

They sat quietly for a moment before T.J. replied. “This explains a lot. You’ve always kept a part of yourself back. Tell me, Franci, just where did you think we were headed? You and me? Because your ex and I have a few things in common…”

“You and I aren’t headed for any kind of standoff, T.J. We seem to agree on everything. Everything except salmon,” she added with a smile. “I thought it was only fair to tell you why I’m a little distracted.”

“How’s that headache?” he asked.

“Actually, not a lot better.”

“I think I caught it,” he said. “I was very optimistic about where Rosie’s sleepover at Grandma’s was going to leave us.”

“I should have canceled,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t invite you in tonight, T.J. I’m just not in the right frame of mind.”

He laughed a bit loudly. He leaned toward her. “Believe me, Franci—tempting as you are, I’m not getting in the middle of this situation. You work this out with the man, draw your single-parent lines in the sand, refine the details and, when you’re all set there, we’ll pick up where we left off. There is one more thing you might tell this guy, if you’re going to be completely honest.”

“Hm?” she asked, frowning.

“Tell him you’re not over him.”

She let a burst of laughter fly. “After all he’s put me through?”

T.J. wasn’t smiling. “Tell him you’ve had exactly one man in your life since you took that walk. One guy, in that intimate way.”

Shock was etched into her features for a moment. Then she attempted a recovery. “You don’t know that.”

“Yeah, I know it. You were damned hard to warm up. I couldn’t figure out what was holding us up. I had myself almost convinced it was Rosie, so young and all. But there was always a part of me that wondered what the hell was missing because I knew there was more passion in you. If you’ve made up your mind that he’s not going to screw up your life anymore, tell him and get this behind you,” he said. “Then when we’re together, maybe we can turn up the heat a little bit. Because I like what we have together, you and me, but I don’t want to be some platonic bed buddy.”

“Excuse me?” she said, pure shock keeping her from laughing out loud. “Platonic bed buddy?”

“I want more than a Friday-night girl who, when she’s with me, isn’t really with me. I knew something was missing when we crawled into bed.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, we’ve had a very nice—”

When she got to very nice, he did smile. She didn’t go any further. Really, what man was looking for very nice sex? For that matter, what woman? And now the truth was out—he blamed her. And she realized with a guilty flush that he might be right. T.J. barely stirred a spark in her, much less a flame. She felt as if she’d cheated him.

Franci looked down at her half-eaten dinner. She couldn’t meet his eyes with what she was thinking—Sean had barely to caress her skin with his breath and she was on fire. He knew where to touch, how to tease, what to do, and nothing brought him greater satisfaction than to torture her with orgasm after orgasm. It had been like that with them since the first touch, the first night. They had never grown tired of each other—never bored, never disinterested. And absolutely never just very nice. Their sexual relationship had never been anything less than magnificent.

She was conscious of T.J. lifting his hand toward the waiter, asking for the check, instructing him to box up their leftovers. She almost smiled—there wouldn’t be any coffee and dessert tonight.

With his hand on her elbow, T.J. escorted her toward his car rather quickly. As they walked down the sidewalk, Franci looked up to see a familiar figure walking toward them. His hands were plunged into his pockets and his head was down. Just as they were about to pass, he lifted his eyes briefly. Franci said nothing, gave no reaction, but managed to keep walking. She listened for his footfalls behind them, but there was no sound. She knew then that Sean had stopped dead in his tracks and was probably staring after them.

Afraid to turn around Franci sighed deeply. Ah, well. Now they knew about each other. And yet they didn’t know anything at all.

The drive back to her house was twenty minutes of uncomfortable silence. T.J. sulked and Franci realized she might have risked losing the best shot at a stable relationship she’d had in years. But maybe not—according to what he’d implied, she’d risked it the first time she’d crawled into bed with him and had proven to be a barely adequate lover. What she hadn’t quite admitted until tonight was that it wasn’t all it could be for her, either.

Finally, T.J. pulled into Franci’s driveway. When he walked Franci the short distance to her door, he said, “Remember our agreement, Francine. We’re exclusive. I have a feeling you’re forgetting that.”

“I remember our agreement…”

“I want you to give me your word that you’re going to take care of this matter. Get this guy together with his kid, if that’s what he wants. And then tell him you’re involved with someone.”

“I’m planning to take care of this situation the best I can,” she said. “I guess it’s best if you just give me a little time to work out the details.”

“Don’t take too long. I’m not that patient.”

“Thank you for the dinner, T.J. Sorry it ended on such a negative note.”

“Let me know when you get this worked out with Rosie’s father. And try to be smart, Francine. You may have run into him here, but he’s not hanging around. Not for you, not for Rosie. Get rid of him. When that’s done, let me know. Don’t make me wait too long. When he’s gone, we’ll have a second chance.” Then he leaned toward her, gave her a platonic kiss on the cheek. “You’ll be fine. Just do it.”

And after looking deeply into her eyes for a long moment, he got into his car and backed away.




Five


Tonight was the third time the completely impossible happened—Sean ran into Franci on a random street in a small town. At loose ends, he’d decided to go back to that bar where he’d seen her the first time, just on the off chance he’d meet her again, even though he knew the odds were slim. Before he even got inside the bar, he saw her walking down the sidewalk, a man guiding her along with a hand on her elbow. And he carried a take-out sack; they’d already had their dinner.

He considered this sighting some kind of miracle. It was meant to be.

He watched them walk down the sidewalk and turn the corner. He stood there like an idiot for a few moments and then, knowing it was wrong on every level, he headed back to his own car to follow them.

He had no way of knowing what was next on the agenda for Franci’s evening, but if that had been him walking her away from a restaurant, the night would just be getting started. He had an overpowering urge to know if Franci had moved on, if she had found love in her life…if it was time for him to disappear for good.

By the time he reached his vehicle he was too late to spot the make and model of the man’s car. He couldn’t follow them now, which was probably a blessing. But because he was unsuccessful in talking himself out of it, he drove to Eureka—to Franci’s street. When he got there he parked across the street, a couple of houses down, and killed the lights. He sat there for a moment. Well, this was just what he deserved—the joke was on him. Her house was dark but for the front door light, and there was no car in the driveway, nor on the street in front of her house. If there was more to Franci’s evening, it wasn’t happening here.

Just then a car slowly pulled up the street and into her driveway. Sean watched as the man got out of the car and went around to her side to open her car door. He guided her up to the door and Sean thought, If they go inside, I have to find it in me to drive away. Like she said, neither one of us stopped living. She deserves the same option to move on that I took for myself.

He told himself that, but it didn’t feel right.

Then he watched as the man spoke to her, then gave her a brotherly kiss on the cheek and left. Sean’s mouth hung open as Franci stood in the glow of her front door light, watching her date leave. And finally Sean’s head fell forward onto the steering wheel.

Now he really had to make himself drive away! He shouldn’t be here in the first place, and he definitely didn’t have the right to push himself on her now! This could ruin any efforts he made at reconciling and he damn sure wasn’t going to—

Tap-tap-tap at the window completely interrupted his attempt at sanity. He looked up and there was Franci, smacking his car window with a key. He brought down the window.

“Now you’re following me?” she asked, outraged.

“Not exactly,” he said. “I’m sorry. You know I’d never scare you on purpose.”

“You don’t scare me, Sean! I think you’re an idiot!” she said, turning to walk back across the street to her house. She stopped in the middle of the road and, over her shoulder, she said, “You are a truly clumsy spy! I saw you in Arcata! I saw your car when we turned onto my block! I know your car, you dope, from when we met for coffee!”

Sean jumped out and went after her. When he was right behind her, he asked, “Is that why you sent your date away?”

“No!” she said. She kept walking. “I said good-night, just as I’d planned! And what were you going to do if I’d invited him inside? Pound on the door? TP the yard?” She got to her door, stuck her key in the lock and turned it.

“I was going to leave,” he said in his quiet voice. “It wasn’t going to be easy, either. But I knew it was wrong to come here, to watch your house, to spy on you. It was bad and wrong and I’m sorry—and I couldn’t help it. I’ve never been like this before.”

She turned and faced him. “Like what? Nuts?”

He nodded. Then he grinned that Sean grin that melted her, even though he had a black eye and a weird-looking nose.

“I know good doctors,” she said. “We can get you medicated for that.”

His hand came up to cradle her jaw, his fingers reaching into her short hair. “Before we do that, let’s just talk about it.”

“What do you want from me, Sean?”

He moved still closer, leaning down, his mouth just barely above hers. “I want you, Franci. I shouldn’t have let you get away.”

Tears gathered in her eyes. There was a time she’d have given anything to hear that! Oh, who was she kidding—she still wanted to hear that! And tonight was one of those very vulnerable nights! She had just been informed by Professor Hottie that she wasn’t very exciting in the sack. She had tried to be with someone who was right for her, and it obviously hadn’t been working all that well. “What if it’s too late?” she asked in a whisper.

“Don’t we have to know?” he asked. “Don’t we both have to know?”

“Most of the time I think I’d be happier not knowing…”

But instead of speaking, he lowered his lips to hers. He slipped an arm around her waist, pulling her against him, and kissed her. And there it was—the feelings that rose up in her instantly! With a defeated moan, she melted to him and opened her lips under his.

Franci had what can only be described as a flashback, an out-of-body experience, while Sean’s lips hovered close to hers. As he held her there, their mouths slightly open, breathing each other’s warm breath, images from another time and place filled her mind. It usually came to her in the form of dreams that left her moody for half a day. She felt herself wrapped in his old red sweater, the one she kept at her apartment for cold nights, the thing steaming with his scent, his musk. She heard their laughter as she chased him down a ski slope and he made away; laughter as they played in the lake, splashing each other; in bed after satisfying lovemaking, still wrapped around each other. Scenes popped into her mind—standing in his kitchen, fluffing up a big salad while he turned steak or fish on the grill; washing their cars in his driveway; working together to put fresh sheets on the bed; sitting by a fire in the vast Arizona desert, talking softly under a million stars in an endless black sky. She imagined herself in his arms, just like now.




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