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Landon anchored himself at Ashley’s other side and remained quiet except for his occasional cough. He hadn’t been able to get rid of the cough he picked up at Ground Zero.

Reagan took a step backward. “Luke is living with someone. Everything would be a mess for all of us if I told him now.”

Ashley didn’t blink. Instead her voice fell a notch, and she kept her gaze locked on Reagan’s. “And everything will be a mess for your son if you don’t.”

Reagan bit her lip, and for a long while none of them said anything, but clearly Ashley’s words had hit their mark. The tears in Reagan’s eyes told her that much.

“I’ll tell him.” Reagan leaned closer to her son and wiped her cheek on his blanket. “When the time is right I’ll tell him. Until then—” she looked from Ashley to Landon and back again—“please, don’t tell anyone else. I…I need to figure things out myself. Okay?”

Ashley wanted more time to consider Reagan’s plea. Minutes ago, when she’d been holding Thomas Luke, Ashley knew exactly what she’d do when she got back to Bloomington. She’d drive to Luke’s apartment and tell him the truth. He was a father. He needed to get on an airplane, get to New York, and take his rightful place in Reagan’s life.

Whether Reagan wanted that or not.

But now the pain and fear, the guilt and uncertainty in Reagan’s eyes made Ashley hesitate, if only because they reminded her of herself, the way she’d looked and felt when she returned from Paris. Her choices up to that point might have been bad, and she might not have had a clue where she was going from there, but Cole was her son, and she wanted to make the decisions that impacted him.

Ashley closed her eyes. When she opened them, she gave Reagan a single nod. “Okay.” A ribbon of pain tied itself around her heart. How long would Reagan wait? How many days or weeks or months? How many years even before Luke would know about this child if she, his bestest sister, didn’t tell him?

Reagan relaxed her hold on Thomas Luke and gave Ashley a look of gratitude that convinced Ashley she had made the right choice. “Thank you.” She ran her tongue along her lower lip. “I’ll tell him. I will tell him. Just give me a chance to make a plan.”

Ashley took the few steps that separated them and hugged both Reagan and the baby. “I will.” She looked at Luke’s son one last time and uttered her next words without looking at Reagan. “But hurry, please. This might be how God brings Luke back.”

They said their good-byes, and not until she and Landon were down the hallway near the elevator did Ashley’s tears come in earnest. Landon wrapped his arms around her and held her even after the descending car came and left.

“Luke needs to see him.” Her words were muffled, spoken into Landon’s denim shirt.

“God knows that.” He kissed the top of her head and tightened his hold on her.

“God knows it—” Ashley searched Landon’s face—“but does Reagan?”

A
SHLEY AND
L
ANDON
ate dinner at Casey’s Corner in a quiet booth near the back of the café. Then they walked across Central Park, and she took him to the gallery. It was closed, but her paintings were there. The one of Landon on the park bench at Ground Zero hung in the center of a window display, and Ashley’s other two were positioned not far beyond as the central part of another display.

“Ashley—” Landon had her hand in his, and he took a step closer—“it’s unbelievable.”

Her cheeks grew hot, and she rested her head against his arm. The work was one of her best, maybe her very best. Standing next to Landon now, admiring it, she saw it in a new light. “Thanks.”

“Your heart shouts from every stroke.” He did a half turn and searched her face. “I mean it.”

Her heart shouted from every stroke? How crazy had she been to look past this man? Ashley gave his hand a light squeeze and met his eyes again. “No one else sees that.”

“You’re wrong, Ash.” He looked at the painting in the window again. “Your work’s wonderful.” He chuckled. “That’s why it’s here.”

“I don’t mean that.” She leaned against him. “I mean you’re the only one who sees my heart in every stroke.”

She hadn’t seen Landon’s apartment, and he took her there after the gallery. For an hour they talked about the Baxters—Kari and Ryan’s wedding, Erin and Sam moving to Texas, Brooke and Peter’s precious Maddie.

It was almost midnight when Ashley stood and wandered around his living room. He had a framed photo of Jalen and himself, and another of her and Cole. Hanging on the wall was a picture Cole had colored for him back before September 11. The view out his window was of a teeming intersection not far from the lights of Broadway.

“It’s nicer than I pictured.” She turned and caught Landon watching her. He’d slipped an instrumental disc in the CD player, and something familiar and melodic filled the room. With a flick of a switch he softened the lighting so that a subtle glow lit the rim of the room. She raised an eyebrow. “Much nicer.”

“Jalen’s parents bought it for him. They knew I was coming to work with him. They’d just paid to have it fixed up before…” He gave a boyish shrug of his shoulders. Sorrow played with his expression. “They charge me barely anything to stay here.”

She angled her head. Her heart was still full from the day’s wild ride of emotions. “You miss him.”

“Yes.” He slipped his thumbs into his pants pockets and moved toward her, his eyes locked on something just outside the window. When they were shoulder to shoulder, he coughed twice and cleared his throat. “Every time a call comes in I think what it would’ve been like, you know?” He turned slightly and his eyes found hers. “If he’d lived…if September eleventh hadn’t happened.”

She nodded. “I think about that, too.”

He looked out the window again, and his arm brushed against her shoulder. “Five minutes before that first plane hit, he had his life all figured out.” His eyes met hers again. “Makes you wonder.”

“When you came home those few days last December…” Ashley looked over her shoulder at the city below before she continued. “You said you thought you’d feel him with you on every call, at every fire.” She paused and found his eyes once more. “Is it like that?”

“Sometimes.” His eyes narrowed. “I’m doing the job he loved. I can feel him looking over my shoulder from his place in heaven, asking God to keep me safe.”

Ashley leaned against the windowsill so she could see Landon’s face, see all of him, taking a mental picture to last her until next time. Whenever that would be. “Is that why you don’t call?” Her tone was soft, curious. “Because you’re living Jalen’s life for him?”

Landon’s shoulders drooped a few inches. For a while he said nothing, only looked at her, searching her eyes the same way she searched his. Looking for answers that maybe didn’t quite exist. “I don’t know.” He took a step closer, never losing the hold he had on her eyes. “I ask myself that all the time.”

Ashley was quiet.

Finally, she understood. He hadn’t called because he hadn’t let go of Jalen, hadn’t made the decision to let go of his dream of fighting fires alongside Jalen in New York City. And since he’d committed to the department, pining over Ashley would be senseless.

At last the pieces fit together; the picture was clear.

Landon came to her and slipped his arms beneath her elbows, around her waist. “I’m sorry.” He drew her to him, but held his face at a distance so he could read her eyes. “I just want the year to be over.”

She didn’t have to study his features to memorize the look of him. His image had long since been painted on the canvas of her heart. Still she raised her hand, and with gentle, childlike strokes she brushed her fingers along his brow and down the side of his face. “You’re beautiful, Landon.” She felt a sad smile play at the corners of her lips. “You want life to be good and right and fair. And when it isn’t, you remain unchanged.” A barely audible laugh came from her. “It’s amazing.”

“No.” He pressed his face the slightest bit against her hand, as though any contact had to be enjoyed in their brief time together. “Winning your heart, Ashley.
That—”
he tapped her once on the tip of her nose—“was amazing.”

She giggled, and colors splashed across the moment. How wonderful, having a reason to laugh when the moment wanted so badly to be sad. “I was a brat.”

“You were.”

“I think Irvel changed me.”

“God changed you.” Landon cocked his head. His eyes sparkled the way they always had when he and Ashley were together, even back when their time together was limited to whenever they might run into each other.

“Yes. God did it.” She brought her other hand up and framed his face with her fingertips. “But he used Irvel.”

The moment changed, and her senses were suddenly on high alert. She was here, a thousand miles from home, alone with Landon in his dimly lit Manhattan apartment with smooth, seductive music playing from the CD player, filling her senses with possibilities.

He eased his hands up her lower back and they came together. The kiss left them breathless, and Ashley saw a passion in his eyes deeper than anything she’d ever known. Before they could kiss again, he took a small step backward and cupped her chin with his hands. “I have…haven’t I, Ash?”

What was he talking about? She bit her lip and gave a few quick shakes of her head. She wanted one thing—to be close to him again, kissing him, forgetting the time and the place and the danger of the moment. Passion colored her tone. “You have what?”

“Won your heart?” Landon’s voice held a barely detectable question mark.

Ashley came to him again. After months of silence, her answer demanded voice. “Yes, Landon.” She’d feared just such a moment since Paris, yet here she was. And nothing in all the world could’ve felt more right. She gave him a simple kiss. “My heart’s all yours.”

Once more their lips met. For a long while they let themselves be carried on a wave that surged above the shore of common sense. But then he took her hands in his. His fingers trembled and his breathing was ragged, but she saw determination in his gaze. “I…I can’t do this.”

His words landed them safely on the beach. “It’s late.” She sucked in a steadying breath. “I need to go anyway.”

“When do you leave?” He still had hold of her hands, and he worked his thumbs across her knuckles.

“Seven-fifteen.”

“I work at six.”

She wanted to ask him if this was it, if they wouldn’t see each other again for another six months. But instead she breathed a silent prayer, a thanks to God for giving Landon the sense to take a step backwards. Whatever the future held, they would do it God’s way and believe—in the process—that he would one day give them all they’d ever dreamed of.

“Remember last time we said good-bye?” Landon was trembling less now, in control again.

“We agreed to make no promises.” Her heart held its breath. Something about this time with Landon felt miles deeper, more certain. But she wouldn’t ask for a commitment, even now. “Right?”

“Right.” His voice was quiet. The passion remained, even if it was no longer calling the shots. “Let’s do something different this time.”

“Different?”

“I don’t ever want to lose you, Ash. I never want—” his eyes darted around the room, as though he was searching for the right words—“I never want you to wonder about my feelings for you, never want you to imagine me walking with some girl and a baby and wonder if I’ve found someone else.”

She smiled and let her fingers play lightly against his palms. “I was stupid, that’s all.”

“No.” He shook his head and something serious flashed in his eyes. “I was wrong to leave you like that last time. Especially when all I want is to go home with you and start life the way I want it to be.”

“So…?”

“So, I promise you, Ashley, here and now.” He brought her hands to his lips and kissed first one, then the other. “I’m coming home for you. I’ll finish work here in New York, and then I’m coming home. And if a day goes by between now and then when I don’t call you, you’ll never have to wonder again.”

“Landon…” Something old and fading in her wanted to object, to make him aware that he owed her nothing, that she wasn’t worthy of his love let alone his commitment. But a louder voice echoed in her soul, assuring her that this was part of God’s plan, part of the future he had for her.

Maybe even the biggest part.

She closed her eyes for two seconds and opened them. Then she did it again.

“Okay, now you’re acting like Irvel.” Laughter danced in his words, and he raised his eyebrows at her. “What are you doing?”

“Convincing myself—” she laughed as she opened her eyes—“that I’m not dreaming.”

The call came as she was on her way to the airport the next morning. She barely had time to snag her phone from her purse before it stopped ringing.

“Hello?”

Static rang across the line, and a voice tried to rise above it. “Ashley…tell you…”

“Excuse me?” The traffic outside her cab made it impossible to hear. “I think we have a bad connection.” She pressed the phone against her ear and ducked her head closer to her knees. “Could you repeat that, please?”

The static grew worse. “…to tell you…from Paris—”

Then the call went dead.

Her mind raced over the few details. Someone from Paris? With something to tell her? A cold chill ran down Ashley’s spine. She closed her phone and returned it to her purse. The caller had used part of her name. Otherwise she would’ve suspected it was a wrong number. But why Paris? She’d left nothing of herself back in Paris. No artwork, no friendships, no promises to return. And today—reveling in the glow of last night with Landon—she needed no reminders of that time in her life.

The call haunted her all the way to La Guardia, but with every few blocks she worked on her memory of it. Maybe the voice hadn’t said Ashley, but something else.
Actually,
maybe. Yes, that had to be it.
Actually, I can’t hear you
… or
Actually this is the wrong number
… or
I have the wrong number, actually.

Actually
was a common word, wasn’t it? Or maybe it was
as we
. Maybe the caller said,
As we all know, this is a wrong number.

Ashley wore the thought for a while, but it didn’t quite fit. Someone from Paris—of all places—had accidentally dialed her cell phone number? Was that even possible?

She was still uncomfortable when she boarded the plane. Instead of pleasant convincing thoughts about wrong numbers and words that sounded like her name, she began going over a dozen reasons why someone from Paris would call her. The impossible existed, of course. Someone at the gallery where she’d worked had remembered her art and wanted to display it. Or maybe they needed an American to run the desks again.

But her memories of Paris were hardly laced with compliments for her artwork or of happy moments behind the gallery desk helping English-speaking customers.

They were completely taken up with the dark days of Jean-Claude Pierre.

And any phone call from Paris was enough to turn her stomach. The possibilities balanced like an avalanche positioned directly over her chest, so that even thinking about them made it almost impossible to breathe. She never wanted to think about Paris again, not as long as she lived. Not when her entire being wanted only to think of Landon Blake.

And the fact that—after a lifetime of feeling unloved and unwanted and unable to love back—she was finally standing on the brink of happily-ever-after.