“One day we’ll have to tell him the truth, Elizabeth. When he’s old enough, he’ll deserve to know about him.”

Steve Morgan. His face remained a vivid memory still, the blue eyes so intense in a hard face, his lean competence and drawling, husky voice…. She shivered. He came to her in dreams on occasion, and it was as frustrating as it was perplexing. Why? Why should she think of him at all? Martin made her happy. He was a good husband, a good provider, a good father to their three children. Emily was nearly two, and the baby less than a year old. Matthew was almost three now, a lively boy who possessed his father’s reckless streak.

Perhaps that was why she thought of Steve Morgan. Each time she looked into her child’s dark-blue eyes fringed with long black lashes, she saw Steve looking back at her—the man she had called Smith, the man she had fallen in love with and yet never really knew. Had never forgotten. Yet it was a bittersweet memory when she thought of him, for she knew that he could never have given her what she needed in life—stability.

No, Steve Morgan was too restless and reckless, too much of an adventurer. Had he ever remarried? Somehow, she thought not. His eyes, when he had told her of his wife’s death, had been too haunted.

And perhaps it was that, more than anything, that had convinced her she should not accept his request to go away with him, the knowledge that his heart did not truly belong to her and never would. Perhaps she could have borne the life he led as long as she could be with him, but never could she have endured knowing she did not have his entire heart.

It was far easier to lose him than to share him….

“Beth!” Martin was laughing, calling out to her. She turned away from her view of the hills and the past, smiling as she went back into the house, to her husband and her children, to the security she craved.

12

The Liberty sliced through the gulf waters easily, its prow cutting cleanly through choppy waves. A squall had blown up and threatened to blow them off course, rocking the vessel violently and keeping most passengers belowdecks.

Ginny lay on her bunk while the ship pitched and rolled from side to side. Despite the thud of feet above, she heard and recognized Steve’s step in the passageway outside their cabin. She sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bunk as the cabin door opened.