Two hours later, they were driving off the lot with Lily dozing in her carseat and Hayley beaming behind the wheel.

“ ‘Oh, Mr. Tanner, I just don’t know a thing about cars. You’re so sweet to help me out this way.’ ” Harper shook his head. “When we were sitting in there doing the paperwork I wanted to warn him to lift up his feet. It was sure getting deep.”

“He made a nice sale, got his commission, and I got what I went in for. That’s what counts.” But she let out a hoot of laughter. “I liked when he tried to bring you into it, showed you under the hood and you just scratched your head like you were looking at a cruise missile or something. I think we made him feel good, like he was giving me what I needed for the price I could pay. And that counts, too. Next time I have to buy, I’d go right back to Mr. Tanner.”

“Didn’t hurt for you to tear up a couple times.”

“That was real. I was sad to sell that old heap—and don’t think these car payments aren’t going to sting some.” More, she thought, it had put an ache in her throat when Mr. Tanner had assumed they were a family.

“If you need some help—”

“Don’t go there, Harper.” But she reached over to pat his hand, to show she appreciated the offer. “We’ll be fine, Lily and me.”

“Why don’t I take you out to lunch to celebrate then?”

“That’s a deal. I’m starving.”

They had looked like a family, she thought. A normal young family buying a secondhand car, having lunch in a diner, treating the baby to a cup of ice cream.

But putting them there was rushing it, for all of them. They were a man and a single mother who were romantically involved. Not a unit.

At home, she decided to take advantage of the rest of her day off by curling up with Lily for an afternoon nap.

“We’re all right, aren’t we, baby?” she murmured as Lily played with her mother’s hair, her big eyes heavy, her pretty mouth going slack. “I’m doing right by you? I’m sure trying.”

She snuggled down a little closer. “I’m so tired. Got a million things I ought to be doing, but I’m so tired. I’ll get them all done sooner or later, right?”

She closed her eyes, started to calculate her finances in her head, juggling funds, changing weekly deposits. But her brain wouldn’t focus.

It drifted back to the used-car lot, and Mr. Tanner shaking hands with her before she drove off. How he’d smiled at her and wished her and her charming family well.

Drifted to sitting out on her terrace with Harper, drinking cold wine in the heat-soaked night.

Dancing with him in the shimmering romance of the suite at the Peabody.

Working with him in the grafting house.

Watching him lift Lily onto his shoulders.

It should be easier to be in love, she thought sleepily. It should be simpler. It shouldn’t make you want more when love was everything.

She sighed once, and told herself to enjoy what she had, and let the rest come.

And the pain was like knives in the belly, shocking, sharp, and horrid. Her whole body fought against them, and she screamed at the sensation of being ripped in two.

The heat, the pain. Unbearable. How could something so loved, so desired, punish her this way? She would die from it, surely she would die. And never see her son.

Sweat streamed off her, and the utter weariness was nearly as severe as the pain.

Blood and sweat and agony. All for her child, her son. Her world. No price too dear to pay for giving him life.

And as the pain sliced her, sent her tumbling toward the dark, she heard the thin cry of birth.

Hayley woke drenched in sweat, her body still radiating from the pain. And her own child blissfully asleep in the protective crook of her arm.

She eased free, fumbled for the bedside phone.

“Harper? Can you come?”

“Where are you?”

“In my room. Lily’s sleeping right here. I can’t leave her. We’re all right,” she said quickly. “We’re fine, but something just happened. Please can you come?”

“Two minutes.”

She made a wall of pillows around the baby, but knew even then she couldn’t leave the room. Lily might roll off somehow, or certainly climb over and fall. But she could pace, even on her weakened legs she could pace.

She flung open the doors even as Harper ran up the steps.

“They told her it was stillborn.” She swayed, and her knees nearly folded. “They told her her baby was dead.”

Chapter Sixteen

IN THE PARLOR where the light was soft through gauzy curtains and the air was sweet with roses, Harper stood by the front window with his fists balled in his pockets.

“She was wrecked,” he said with his back to the room. “She just sort of folded up when I got there, and even when she pulled it together, she looked sick.”

“She wasn’t hurt.” Mitch held up a hand when Harper whirled. “I know how you feel. I do. But she wasn’t physically harmed, and that’s important.”

“This time,” he shot back. “It’s out of hand. All of this is f**king out of hand.”

“Only more reason for us to stick together, and stay calm.”

“I’ll be calm when she’s out of the house.”

“Amelia,” Logan asked, “or Hayley?”

“Right now? Both.”

“You know she can stay with us. And if I were in your shoes, I’d want to pack her up and haul her out. But from what I gather, you tried that once and it didn’t work. If you think you’ve got a better shot at it now, I’ll carry her suitcase.”

“She won’t budge. What the hell is wrong with these women?”

“They feel connected.” David spread his hands. “Even when they see Amelia at her worst, they feel attached. Engaged. Right or wrong, Harp, there’s a kind of solidarity.”

“And it’s her home,” Mitch added. “As much as yours now, or mine. She won’t walk out of it and leave this undone. Any more than you, or I, or any or us.” He glanced around the room. “So we finish it.”

Logic, even truth, didn’t settle Harper’s anger, or his worry. “You didn’t see her after it happened.”

“No, but I’ve got the gist from what you told me. She matters to me, too, Harper. To all of us.”