“Mac.” Elaine still had her hand on his wrist, and now she massaged it tenderly, her eyes so warm, so filled with love and sympathy. Would he have forgiven her? Yes—my God, I couldn’t live without her.

“Mac, Ashley and David should have the chance to know their father, and their brother and sister.”

He leaned forward, sinking his head into her shoulder, and he wanted to stay there forever. He thought of Ashley, bright eyed and a wise ass, and David, dark eyed and physical, both of them brave, sturdy, kind. He could thank Bartholomew Wakefield for that. András Balaton. God, how could he expect them to want to know him?

“I just don’t know if they’ll want that chance, Elaine.”

Jeremy Carruthers had worked furiously to catch up. He brought home work at night and weekends, earning both kudos and consternation from his father. Now, as he stood at his window looking out across the mist-enshrouded city, he could see Ashley’s smile, hear her laugh, feel her soft skin under his hands. He wanted her so much.

And then he saw her face, gaunt and stricken as she had waited for word from the doctors about her uncle and her brother. She couldn’t talk to him or look at him, he who had accused her uncle, believed in his own colleague and nearly destroyed her faith in herself. Don’t be an ass! You both knew where your loyalties lay, and you fell in love, anyway. Had they? Or had it been just a passing fling, two people who’d needed to be reminded of their humanity, their ability to love and be loved.

Susie’s shrieks came to him, again and again. “You’ll do anything to make her want you. You’re going to be the one obsessed. And she’s going to tell you to take a hike.”

“Enjoy your revenge, sweet Susie,” he said to the mist.

Ashley, of course, hadn’t been that vicious. She had simply said, “I just need some time...distance.”

How could he blame her? How could he ask her to give anything? Even now, weeks later, he felt his chest constrict as he choked back the emotion, the passion, the love. How he wanted to see her.

If only she had said, “I want to be with you, Jeremy. I want to sort all this out with you, not away from you.”

But she hadn’t.

Now, with every day that passed, he wondered if they were drawing further, and irrevocably, apart.

On a blustery Friday afternoon the week before Christmas, Ashley and David brought a Christmas tree in from the woods. His cast finally off, David still walked with a slight limp, but that would go away in time. Otherwise, he was healthy and overflowing with energy. In her bright red parka, Ashley was the same—on the outside. On the inside, she wasn’t sure about anything. Least of all herself. And yet in so many ways she knew herself better now than she ever had.

She had stayed in Maine, at an inn, eschewing J. Land Crockett’s offer to stay with him on Badger Rock, and waited until both David and Barky were released from the hospital. Neither had enjoyed being cooped up and eating institutional food, and both had made their stays as short as possible. David had suffered primarily from hypothermia and an infection in his leg; Barky had been badly bruised and had a concussion from having been pistol-whipped and kicked.