“Yeah. Job and life back in Seattle. A safer place, one where I’m less likely to get shot.” She was teasing, a light shining in her eyes.

“But . . .” He eyed her. “A long way to come for a ten-minute conversation.”

“Five,” she corrected.

He laughed. “Fine. But let me buy you dinner.”

“Not a good idea.”

“Then a drink?”

“An even worse idea,” she said, but at least she smiled.

“You know,” he said, gauging her reaction, “maybe you and I, we should try again. I messed up the first time.”

“Really messed up,” she reminded him.

“Yeah. So . . . maybe I should give it another go.”

She actually laughed. “Oh, James, no. I think that ship has sailed.” And before he could say another word, she got into her car and started the engine. She didn’t even wave as she drove off, but as he watched her leave, the little Subaru skimming down the rutted lane, he thought that sailing ships often come back to port. If he played his cards right, he could probably find a way to change her mind.

After all, James Cahill liked nothing better than a challenge.

And he was sure as hell that Rebecca Travers knew it.

Things might just be looking up. He walked back to the shop, where he found Bobby standing, arms over his chest, gaze moving from the now-empty lane to James.

“Don’t even think about it,” Bobby warned, adjusting his baseball cap on his head. “After what you’ve been through? No woman is worth it.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” James told him as he walked inside and pulled his hammer from his tool belt, his thoughts on Rebecca’s smile. “Some women are worth just about every damned thing.”

The Otter Creek Women’s Correctional Facility
February

Sophia lay on the examination table in the prison, a skinny female doctor with a graying Afro administering an ultrasound. The gel was cold against her bare skin, the wand moving slowly, the whooshing sound of the baby’s heartbeat audible in this tiny, overheated room.

Sophia closed her eyes, thankful that the baby had survived, and trying to find something good to hang on to.

But how could she?

She thought of James, how she’d loved him, would have done anything for him, given her heart to him—and now? Now all she felt was a deep-seated rage, burning bright, feeding on the dreams she’d once clung to.

He was the reason she was locked inside these thick concrete walls.

He was the reason that she no longer had the sister she’d so recently found.

He was the reason she was so totally and utterly alone.

She had sacrificed everything for him, including Julia, and now she had nothing.

Nothing but the baby . . .