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“I don’t mind. I don’t talk much about those days since the role of a grieving widower definitely isn’t all that appealing. To me or anyone who has to put up with it. But after this afternoon, I’d say you’re entitled to ask anything you want.”

Her fingers tensed in his. She was silent and thoughtful in that way that he suspected would prove advantageous in a courtroom situation. She was a woman who used words carefully. Except, Jack thought with a very primitive male satisfaction, when she’d been bucking beneath him.

Sensing that she was curious, but uncomfortable with the topic, he decided to help her out. “It was bad. It took a very long time, and, though she fought like a trooper, I knew she was in a lot more pain than she ever let on.”

“She was lucky to have you.”

“Not always,” he confessed. “In the beginning, during the initial treatment stage, we were a team. Granted, I hated having to stand on the sidelines while she fought the battle, and there were times when the role reversal was hard to take.”

“But she knew you were in her corner. Supporting her, urging her on, putting your own pain aside to concentrate on reassuring her that everything would be okay. That she’d be okay.”

“I’m not sure she always knew that. Not after we ran out of options.” Because that memory still hurt, he drew in a breath. “Peg accepted things even when I wanted her to keep fighting. There were still a lot of experimental treatments we could have tried. Granted, they hadn’t proven effective in clinical trials, but it was damn well better than the alternative.” At least that’s what he’d argued at the time.

“But she put her foot down, insisting she wanted to be at home, with her family instead of in some Mexican or Swiss clinic. She said she wanted to enjoy her last months with her daughter and die in peace.”

He released Raine’s hand to drag his down his face. “From the first day I met her, she was unrelentingly easygoing, eager to do whatever she thought would make me happy. But then, just when it really mattered, she dug in her heels and refused to budge.”

“That must have been difficult,” Raine said.

Jack hated the pity he thought he heard in her voice. “I was furious that she was willing to give up; I yelled at her that if she loved me she’d keep on fighting.” The guilt still hurt. Jack figured it always would. “What kind of man yells at his dying wife?”

“A human one,” Raine suggested quietly. She caught hold of his hand again. “You’re being too hard on yourself.”

“Perhaps you’re being too easy.”

“No, I’m not.” She lifted their joined hands and touched his knuckles to her lips. “There was a time in my life when I would have given away everything I owned, for even a little bit of that commitment you gave Peg.”

Having figured out that she seldom said anything she didn’t mean, Jack immediately noticed her use of the past tense. “And now?”

Another pause. “And now,” she said slowly, and a little regretfully, he thought, “I’ve learned not to count on anyone except myself.”

“That’s sad.”

“No,” she corrected, lowering their hands and releasing his. “It’s safe.”

“Safe can be a close cousin to boring,” he said mildly. He reached out and put his arm around her shoulder. “And believe me, Harvard, you are anything but boring.”

She smiled at that, as he’d intended. “I believe I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Oh, I’ve got a lot more where that one came from.”

Deciding that self-restraint was definitely overrated, he pulled off the highway again onto an unmarked logging skid road, cut the engine, unfastened their seatbelts, and hauled her onto his lap.

“Did I mention that your hair reminds me of silk?” He fisted his hand in the dark strands.

“I vaguely recall something along those lines.”

He kissed her. Hard. “How about the fact that the color in your cheeks after I kiss you reminds me of strawberries on new snow?”

“Oh, I like that one.” The smile was shining in her eyes again. “But maybe you ought to kiss me again. Just to be sure.”

“Absolutely.” Light, quick nibbles turned longer, deeper. “And your eyes.” Her lids fluttered obediently shut as he dropped a kiss on each one. “Are like antique gold coins.”

“They’re hazel.” She twined her fingers around his neck and arched her back, inviting his lips to continue their sensual quest.

After a few more deep, drugging kisses, he obliged, pleased when her pulse began to thrum wildly in the fragrant hollow of her throat.

As Jack worked his way down her body, fog thickened around the Suburban, sheltering them in a private, sensual world of their own making.

R
aine had suspected that making love with Jack would complicate her life. It was more than just the sex, as wonderful as that was. Their earlier conversation, comparing her upbringing with his, had gotten her thinking about families and loyalty and commitment again.

She hated to admit it, even to herself, but suspected that he may have been right about Lilith. About so much of her unhappiness over the years having been because she’d been hoping for something that her mother had not been able to give. Granted, Lilith had not been a rock of stability, but as Cooper had pointed out, she’d at least admitted her own faults enough to take her daughters back to Coldwater Cove whenever her own life had spiraled out of control.

The problem was, Raine had always only thought of her mother as a flawed parent. Not a woman with dreams and hopes and disappointments of her own. And certainly never as a friend.

Yet with all her faults, despite her flaws, Lilith had displayed an honest willingness to at least attempt to change during the time Raine had been back in Coldwater Cove. Some people might feel that fifty years old was a bit late to be deciding to grow up. But, Raine thought, better late than never.

These thoughts led uncomfortably to another. Over the past years, whenever Ida had complained that her eldest granddaughter didn’t come home often enough, Raine had used work as an excuse. That had been partly true. But she also couldn’t deny that she’d always felt more comfortable at work; it was one place where she felt in control. While family matters, on the other hand, tended to become emotionally sticky. Which was why she tried to ignore them.

Which brought her to the realization that in one small but important way, she was more like her mother than she’d tried to pretend all these years. Lilith had been infamous for thinking of herself first and last. Now Raine was forced to concede that she’d been guilty of exactly the same behavior.

She hadn’t even known the names of the girls whom Ida obviously cared deeply about. It had been so long since she’d spent any time with her sister, she hadn’t known how bad the trouble in Savannah’s marriage had become. Just as her mother hadn’t been there for her while she’d been growing up, Raine now was faced with the possibility that she’d developed her own form of abandonment. Her legal work, while important, was only that. Work. It shouldn’t be her life. Should it?

She was also forced to consider that what she’d viewed all these years as independence, was, in a way, a form of solitude that had cut her off from her family ties, a symbolic cutting of the cord connecting the generations of females.

The father she’d never known may have been the role model for her success, but Lilith was the mile marker she used to measure her own personal travels.

Dammit, she wasn’t used to this. This need to balance her own needs and desires with anyone else’s. She wasn’t any good at it. Especially when compared to Jack, who somehow managed to balance his duties as sheriff with his even more important responsibility to his daughter. Raine tried to picture any attorney she knew—including herself—pausing during an argument in court to keep a toy kitten alive for a little girl who’d already lost too many people she loved, and failed.

“I hope I’m not the cause of that frown.” Jack’s mild voice infiltrated her turmoiled thoughts.

“No. I was just thinking of something.” The afternoon’s peace and sublime pleasure began to fade away as if it had never been. Almost as if she’d imagined it.

“Want to talk about it?”

Raine believed in keeping her life neatly compartmentalized. There was her career. And everything else. The two tracks ran parallel, never crossing. Until three little girls had locked themselves in her grandmother’s house, setting up a confrontation with this man. Accustomed to keeping her private thoughts strictly to herself, she found it difficult to share them now.

Her careless shrug was as fake as her smile. “It’s not that important.”

It was a lie and they both knew it. Jack didn’t immediately answer. Instead he slanted her one of those deep looks that made her once again think that he’d be a whiz at interrogation. She hadn’t had much occasion to handle criminal work, but understood that cops, like attorneys, knew how to use silence to their advantage. Raine had always considered herself pretty good at this tactic. She was beginning to realize Jack just might possibly be even better.

“Your confession rate must have been the highest in the city,” she muttered, switching her irritation at herself to him.

He turned his attention back to the wet, slick road. But that didn’t stop his continued silence from making her even more edgy. Oh yes, any criminal unfortunate enough to end on the wrong side of the interrogation table with this man would undoubtedly soon find himself on a one-way trip up the river.

He glanced at her again, brow lifted. “That’s what you were thinking about?”

“I was just picturing you in the box.”

“The box?” His lips quirked.

“That’s what it’s called, right?” Feeling challenged, her voice turned as cool as the rain falling outside the truck. “Where you drill a suspect to win a confession?”

“Yeah. The box.” She could hear the repressed laughter in his deep voice. “And if that’s what you were thinking about, Harvard, I sure as hell must not have done a very good job of relaxing you this afternoon.”

Just the mention of their shared lovemaking was all it took to cause a wave of desire that hit as quick and hard as a spring squall. Furious pride warred with an equally furious need inside Raine. Eventually pride won out.

“As I said, it’s not that important.”

He shrugged. “Whatever you say.” His tone remained casual, but Raine wasn’t fooled for a moment. She wasn’t completely off the hook. And they both well knew it.

Jack and Raine had no sooner entered the house when a blood-curdling scream came from somewhere upstairs. A moment later Gwen came clattering down the stairs. She was wearing her
Lucy
maternity outfit, but there was absolutely nothing humorous about her appearance.

“What’s wrong?” Ida, who’d rushed in from the front parlor, caught the trembling teenager by the upper arms. “What happened? Are you in labor?”

“No-o-o! I k-k-killed it!”

“What?” Savannah asked, as she joined them. From the white cotton chef’s apron she was wearing over her jeans and T-shirt, Raine figured her sister had been saving them from another night of takeout or meatloaf.

“The baby.”

“The baby?” Ida ran her hand over the teenager’s swollen belly. “Are you cramping? Bleeding?”

“Not that baby!” Tears were streaming down Gwen’s cheeks. “The N-N-Nano Baby. I was studying for my chemistry final and didn’t hear it beeping and it s-s-starved to death!”

“Oh, darling.” Ever the nurturer, Savannah gathered the tearful girl into her arms. “It’s okay. It’s just a toy.”

“I know it’s just a toy!” The teenager’s words were muffled against Savannah’s shoulders. “But don’t you see?” When she lifted her head, her face was twisted in a very real agony that pulled painfully at Raine’s heart. “It c-c-could have been a real baby.”

“Oh, pooh,” Ida scoffed. “You’re a levelheaded young lady, Gwendolyn. And even if you weren’t, your maternal instincts will kick in once you give birth. You’d never forget to feed your own child.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” a new voice entered the conversation. Raine turned to see her mother standing in the arched doorway of the parlor, Cooper right behind her.

“This doesn’t really have anything to do with you, Lilith,” Ida said, her sharp tone declaring the matter settled.

“Perhaps not. But in a few days Gwen’s going to have to make the most important decision of her life. And I think she deserves to hear more than the Pollyanna side of the story.”

Lilith took a deep breath and briefly closed her eyes in a way that suggested she was garnering strength. Which, Raine figured, she undoubtedly was. Motherhood had never been Lilith’s favorite subject. Especially since it had never been her forte.

“I was only a few years older than you when I had Raine, Gwen, dear,” she said. “I hadn’t intended to get pregnant, and while abortion was illegal in those days, everyone knew someone who could, I was assured, ‘take care of the problem.’ But while I suppose that would have been an easy solution, the practical solution, I was stunned by the depth of my feelings for the child I was carrying.”

She turned to Ida. “Now I know, you’ll say it’s impossible, but I knew, the moment after I’d made love with Raine’s father, that I was pregnant.”

“It
is
impossible,” Ida muttered. “Owen Cantrell may have turned out to be some big-name hotshot attorney, but he doesn’t have supersperm. It would have taken those guys a while to swim upstream. And even longer to penetrate an egg. So you weren’t pregnant.”

“Perhaps not physically. But emotionally, my heart somehow knew that Owen and I had made a baby. Of course there wasn’t any way to tell whether I was carrying a girl or a boy in those days, but I knew I was going to have a daughter. I also knew that I loved her more than life itself.”

“That’s nice,” Gwen sniffled.

“It’s the truth.” Lilith exchanged a glance with Raine. Her pansy blue eyes swam with moisture. Raine’s own eyes stung. “The thing is, Gwen, darling, that as much as I was looking forward to being a mother, insisting on keeping Raine was selfish. Because I was incapable of taking care of a child. I was flighty, selfish, and there would be times that I’d be out having fun, like young girls will, and would actually forget I had a baby at home.”

She wasn’t surprised. Still, hearing her mother voice those words out loud made Raine flinch. Without a word, Jack reached out and took hold of her hand, linking their fingers together in the same intimate way he had when he’d so wondrously filled her earlier.

“You left Raine alone?” Gwen asked disbelievingly. “When she was a baby?”

“No. Of course she wasn’t alone.” Lilith shook her head. Then combed her fingers through the tousled silver strands. Raine couldn’t help noting how her mother’s hand was shaking. “Fortunately even I was never that irresponsible. And, thanks to Mother, Raine survived. But she might not have. Because, while I dearly loved both you girls to pieces”—she directed her words to Savannah and Raine—“my maternal instincts were, at best, lousy. At worst, nil.”

“You weren’t that bad,” Ida insisted.

“Yes, I was,” Lilith said, her voice low, but just as firm. “As you well remember.”

“Well.”

Raine could recall very few times when her grandmother had been at a loss for words. This was one of them. As the silence hovered, she saw Cooper slip a supportive arm around Lilith’s waist in a move that appeared entirely natural.

“You’re comparing oranges and orangutans,” Ida said finally. “Because you and Gwendolyn are not at all alike. Gwen’s a steady, studious girl and—”

“That’s just the point,” Gwen broke in again. Hectic red flags flew in her paper white cheeks. “I forgot to feed Amy’s Nano Baby because I was studying so hard I didn’t even hear it beeping.”

“That’s alright, kiddo,” Jack assured her. “Amy won’t mind.”

“Maybe not. But I do.” She bit her bottom lip. Tears filled her anguished eyes. “I’ve wanted to be a doctor ever since I was a little kid. I even wanted Doctor Barbie, when all the other girls were going crazy over Malibu Barbie. And maybe I’m being selfish, but how can I do that if I’m trying to take care of a baby while I’m still in high school?”

Not one person in the room could give her a good answer.

“Wanting to care for people isn’t at all selfish,” Raine tried. “But you’re right. You still have another year of high school, then college, then medical school, which is even more difficult than law school. And I know I never could have juggled a baby and school. But some people do.”

“Adults,” Gwen suggested. “So.” She took a deep breath. “I guess I don’t have any choice but to go back to one of those adoption agencies and let one of those rich people adopt my baby.”

“Oh, darling.” Lilith’s eyes filled with empathetic tears again. “I know how unhappy you were with those prospective parents. Surely there’s another solution?”

She looked toward Raine, as if expecting her eldest daughter to pull one out of her legal bag of tricks. Which, of course, was impossible. Raine suspected mothers-to-be had been forced to make such decisions since the beginning of time. She doubted it ever got any easier. Or less painful.

Another silence settled like thick, wet morning fog.

“May I make a suggestion?” Savannah asked hesitantly.

“Okay,” Gwen said, looking more forlorn than Raine had ever seen her. She looked even more depressed than she had that first night, when she’d watched Raine sign Old Fussbudget’s custody forms from the backseat of Jack’s Suburban.

“I have some friends who have been trying to adopt a child for years, since Terri can’t have any herself, but the waiting lists for public agencies are terribly long, and they can’t afford private adoption.

“Not that they’re poor,” she hastened to add. “It’s just that they have all their liquid assets tied up in their business. It’s a winery. And it’s not that far away. In Sequim, as a matter of fact. They make a marvelous, reasonably priced selection of red wines. During the three years I’ve been buying wine from them for the resort, we’ve become friends, and I can certainly vouch that no two people could love a child more than Terri and Bill. Or take better care of one.”