“Muriel, it’s Randy. You remember Randy?” Adele asked.

Muriel stepped closer. “You grew a beard!” she said. “I can’t believe it’s you. My God, you two have lasted longer than most marriages!”

“Through no fault of hers,” the driver said. “Ma’am.”

Muriel laughed, covering her mouth. “Well, then, come up on the porch. Let me get you both a drink. Walt and I had dinner, not knowing exactly when you might be here, but saved you some in the warmer. And don’t worry—Walt cooked and he’s gifted. Now, about that drink?”

“Make mine vodka on the rocks with either a couple of olives or a twist of lime, whatever is handy. Make it good and strong—I just saw my grandson.”

“Beer,” Randy said. “Any old beer. Can or bottle, just cold. Nothing fancy.” And then he pulled off his black jacket and tossed it into the car, rolled up his white sleeves, unbuttoned his collar and carted the suitcases off to the guesthouse.

“Sit right here, Adele,” Walt said, placing her beside the table that held a few flickering candles. Then he pulled a couple of chairs near the grouping, but when Randy had delivered the suitcases to the guesthouse and arrived on the porch, he immediately pulled one chair away, to the end of the porch, not too far but isolated nonetheless.

“Antisocial,” Adele muttered by way of explanation.

Muriel brought drinks, handing Adele hers first. “One heavy on the liquor for the lady. Now what’s wrong? I can’t believe Dylan gave you trouble!”

Adele took a sip. “Ah, nicely done,” she said, praising the drink. “Dylan doesn’t make trouble, just his personal brand of contrariness. He’s independent, the ingredient that allowed him to become successful, and I approve of that. He appears to have himself a lovely lady friend, a serious one, and I find myself hoping he won’t mess it up. It’s the first time he’s lingered around a woman’s front door for weeks on end, ignoring all other business. And yet he has nothing to say? He’s still suffering from that old fear of commitment.”

“Your friend Muriel has the same issue,” Walt said.

“Yes, but Muriel’s fear comes from another place—she’s afraid she’s not good at commitment. Dylan is afraid he has inherited an inability to commit.”

“I’m right here,” Muriel reminded them, motioning for Walt to pass her drink from the table.

“Having you show up unannounced must put him at ease,” Randy added from his much darker side of the porch.

“I only want to help,” Adele said. “I only want Dylan to be happy. I could resolve ninety percent of his problems if he’d let me.”

“Let him make himself happy,” Randy said. “He’ll appreciate it more.”

Adele turned her head in her driver’s direction. “Do you wish to join this conversation? Then pull your chair closer!”

“The one thing you insisted he learn,” Randy went on, completely uninhibited by the sharpness of her tone, “that he make his own way, learn to think for himself, not follow the crowd and definitely not expect happiness to come from taking the easy way or handouts from his rich parents or grandparents, whether it comes in the form of money or influence. Well, he learned it. And now you better live with it.”

Adele looked pointedly at Muriel, frowning. “We’ve taken some rather long road trips. Apparently I’ve been flapping my jaw to a person with a dangerous memory.”

Muriel just laughed. “Take it easy, Adele. You’re among friends.”

“Then I hope you won’t mind if we stay among friends for a while. Just a few days. Long enough for me to try to crack that nut I half raised.”

“You stay as long as you like. Weeks if you need to. It’s not fancy, but it’s very comfortable.”

“Groaning like that was rude,” Katie chastised.

“Shhh,” he whispered, kissing her. “Talk later…”

Adele hadn’t overstayed her welcome that first visit. She had Randy take her to her friend’s home where she’d be staying, Dylan made a spaghetti dinner with garlic bread, the boys showered, watched some TV in the loft, then were tucked in. Then Dylan tucked Katie in.

“Don’t go to sleep until we talk,” she insisted.

“I’ll be awake awhile,” he murmured, kissing his way down her neck. “Katie, have you noticed what happened to your boobs?” He held them in the palms of his hands. “They’re magnificent!”

“They’re temporary,” she said. “And sore.”

“Does this hurt?” he asked, gently kissing them.

“No. Thank you for being sweet to them. They’re…” She felt her panties sliding downward and Dylan’s fingers where there had been silk. “Oh, God…” And then his hands were again on her br**sts, tender and soft, and something else was where the silk had been. “Dylan…” she whispered.

“Yeah, baby?” he asked, probing. “You want something?”

“You. I want you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Hmm. Sure. Any day now…”

He laughed and then covered her mouth with his just as he slid into her. He held her still, filling her. He moved a little, carefully, slowly.

“Don’t tease me,” she whispered.

“Easy,” he said. “Let’s go easy. I don’t want to disturb anything…”

“You’re going to disturb me,” she said. “Come on…”

He seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he grabbed her behind the knees, bent her legs to take him deeper, licked a taut nipple before latching on to it for a solid fit, and he pumped his hips. She threaded her fingers into his hair to hold him against her breast, dug her heels into the mattress to push against him, moving with him. She began to moan and cry out his name and his hand came up to gently cover her mouth. The boys were sound asleep and the door was locked, but still… He slipped the other hand down between their bodies and had barely made contact with that erogenous button when she blew apart, shattered, pushing against him for a moment as everything inside her clenched around him in hot spasms.

And he went with her, coming so hard and long he thought he might’ve lost consciousness for a second or two. When it let up, he let her nipple slide out of his mouth and he rested his head there on her swollen, tender breast, panting.

She laughed softly and began to run her fingers through his hair. “That’s more like it,” she whispered.

He lifted his head. “You’re a very demanding woman.”

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized with a big smile and very sleepy eyes. She was limp as a dishrag. Happy. And not sorry in the least.

He brushed the hair away from her face. “It’s a good thing I didn’t know about this unprotected sex business before now,” he said. “We’ll have to try something that has no latex in the equation after the baby.”

She didn’t open her eyes, but she smiled. “That sounds suspiciously like plans, Dylan. Could you possibly be a little excited?”

“Oh, sure, a little. And a lot terrified.”

“That’s understandable.” She opened her eyes. “You have to tell Adele.”

“I will when I’m ready. I love Adele, but she can’t just show up uninvited and throw her weight around.”

“But you love her,” Katie said. “And she might look like a million bucks, but she’s not that young.”

“She’ll be dancing on my grave,” Dylan said.

“She’s going to have a great-grandchild. My guess is she didn’t think she ever would. Tell her.”

“I’ll tell her when I’m ready,” he said.

Seventeen

Dylan wanted to languish in bed with Katie, but he was up, putting on the coffee she wasn’t drinking these days. His first overnight in her house, she had been the first one up, dressed, making coffee, greeting the day. But that probably had been the night he put the curse of sleepiness and morning sickness on her.

The cabin was very quiet and he didn’t put on his boots. He wanted Katie to sleep as long as possible. When the coffee was brewed, he took a cup outside to the porch. He moved quietly in his stocking feet; there was a little movement in the trees at the edge of the clearing and he spied a fawn, nibbling at the grass under a tree. This was so like home....

He remembered how shell-shocked he’d been when Adele had yanked him out of his mother’s eight-thousand-square-foot house and toted him off to parts unknown. Adele had had a maid help pack two suitcases… Dylan had never traveled with so little. Adele had said to Cherise, “The boy’s in trouble. My son is deceased, you’re filming in Sri Lanka for the next six months, there’s no one but staff to look after him and his best friend is dead…do yourself a favor—don’t argue with me. Give me a chance. I failed his father, maybe I won’t fail him…”

Cherise had replied, “I should call my lawyer…”

And Adele had said, “Have your lawyer call my lawyer. You know I only want Dylan. Whatever you want is undoubtedly easier.”

He remembered like it was yesterday.

Dylan was pulled out of his concrete world where everything was about him and taken to what seemed, at first glance, a jungle. An amazing, beautiful, astonishing wilderness, but still… Nothing in those suitcases worked for him so some grizzled old ranch hand who worked on the property drove him in an old pickup truck to the next big town to buy Wranglers, what he called a proper belt, some boots and most important, underwear that wouldn’t embarrass him in the high school boy’s locker room.

Dylan chuckled silently. In Los Angeles he had to have designer boxers, silk. In Payne he couldn’t drop his drawers unless he wore tightie whities. Really cheap tightie whities.

Ham washed his new clothes a dozen times so they wouldn’t look new. “One pair o’ new ain’t a bad thing,” he had said. “All new’ll prolly get you beat up. Get out in the barn with those boots—work ’em over. And while you’re scuffing ’em up, muck them stalls.”

“Great,” Dylan remembered saying. And he had caressed his face. Get beat up? His primary job was to keep himself ready for the camera. If he was always ready to perform, he could have any other thing he wanted. In. The. World.

He’d been an actor since the age of six, starting with commercials, so he acted like a Montana kid in worn jeans, scuffed boots and really bad underwear. And while he was acting, he blended. While he blended, he started to like where he was—but he kept that to himself for as long as possible.

He had noticed things, however. It had been early spring when Adele snatched him and before he’d been in Montana long his shoulders had grown bulky from pitching hay and mucking stalls in the barn; his face had tanned and his hair was streaked from the sun, his Wranglers were worn in the knees and butt and he’d seen the shy appearance of new babies around his property—fawns, lambs, one foal, a couple of calves, cubs.

And old concrete jungle superstar Dylan Childress began to fall in love with the country, with nature.

The fawn at the edge of the clearing came into full view; the doe behind him was still half-hidden in the trees. And Dylan heard rustling in the kitchen. He put his coffee on the porch floor beside his chair and, moving slowly and quietly, peeked in the cabin. Andy was rooting around in the refrigerator.

“Psst,” Dylan whispered. When Andy looked at him he put a finger to his lips, warning him to be quiet. Then he crooked a finger for Andy to come to him. He very quietly led Andy to the porch. He sat down and brought Andy to stand between his legs and pointed toward the deer. “Look,” he whispered.