“You need to go?” Jimmy Joe asked quietly. She gave him a startled look and quickly shook her head. “Well, then,” he said, “she and the kids need a place to stay? Maybe what she ought to do is come on over here. We’ve got plenty of room.”

Mirabella was still shaking her head. “I asked her, but she says no, the kids have day camp, and of course she’s got her job. She says they’re fine and not to worry…”

“But you’re goin’ to, anyway, aren’t you?” He went up behind her and put his arms around her and pulled her back against him, resting his chin on her silky red hair as he drew a long breath, just inhaling the sweet Mirabella smell of her.

She seemed to want to go along with it for a moment, but then shook her head and muttered in kind of a thick, husky voice, “I knew something was wrong. You know, I’ve been dreaming about her. Evie, too. I just wish I’d hear from her. Dammit, why doesn’t she ever call?”

It came to Jimmy Joe suddenly that his beloved was dangerously close to crying. And because that didn’t happen often, and because like most men he tended to panic whenever he thought it might, he tried to hold it off with some snuggling and sweet talk.

“You missing your sisters, is that it?” he murmured against her ear, gently rocking her. “Feelin’ a little broody?” His hand skimmed downward over her breast, on down to her belly. It was when he did that, and the woman he adored suddenly froze up on him-just went rigid as a post-that somewhere way in the back of his mind a light came on.

“Marybell?” he said in a wondering tone as his fingers fanned slowly over her barely rounded stomach. “You’re not….are you?”

So it was that when Jimmy Joe’s beloved abruptly burst into tears on that particular occasion, it wasn’t consternation he felt but a tremendous wave of joy.

Chapter 7

Riley’s home was his castle. There had been a time, just after he’d bought the place, when he’d gotten an almost baronial satisfaction out of driving up to his front gates, punching in his security code, delivering the password and watching the gates-the drawbridge-swing back to admit him to his castle keep. There’d been a purely visceral kickback then-call it pride, call it power-from all he’d achieved against so many odds. Power to insulate himself from the world’s dangers, pride in the zone of beauty he’d built around himself as a buffer against its ugliness. It had been a long time, though, since he’d felt that kick or, with the exception of April when the azaleas were in bloom, paid much attention to the beauty.

He was bemused, therefore, to discern a quickening of his heartbeat as he stopped the Mercedes beside the security box that evening, after a long-and curiously entertaining-afternoon spent in a suburban Charleston Wal-Mart. He wasn’t quite sure what was responsible for the phenomenon-apprehension, perhaps, but a touch of excitement, too, and even anticipation. He felt much like an explorer setting foot on an uncharted island possibly inhabited by headhunters.

But the most bemusing aspect of it was that he didn’t really mind-not the way he normally would have such an anomaly-such a huge glitch in his carefully orchestrated life. He didn’t care to ask himself why that was so, or what it was exactly that was responsible for his unanticipated lightness of heart. Or why, as he proceeded along the brick-paved drive shaded by old magnolias and live oaks festooned with Spanish moss, he was whistling under his breath, not Mozart or Bach but some popular ditty he didn’t know the name of that he’d heard over the loudspeaker at Wal-Mart.

What he did mind was being barked at by someone else’s dog when he attempted to enter his own house.

“I live here, you canine dimwit,” he growled, only to be answered in much the same tone, albeit nonverbally.

Choosing prudence over dominion, Riley halted and glared over his armload of shopping bags at the minuscule sentry standing stiff-legged and resolute in the kitchen doorway, bared white fangs and raised hackles steadfastly denying him entry. “Hey,” he growled back, “I’ve got shoes bigger than you. So back off.” About then the absurdity of the situation struck him, though he didn’t let the amusement he felt creep into his voice. “What do you think you are, a damned rottweiler?”

“I’m afraid she probably does,” Summer said with a sigh, coming from the kitchen to scoop the Chihuahua into her arms. “Yes…yes…what a good girl you are…my brave champion…” She paused to wipe her face. “I really believe dogs lack a sense of size. Oh, my goodness.” She broke off to stare openmouthed at the packages in Riley’s arms. “What is all that?”

For the first time, possibly because the kitchen light was behind her and as a consequence that distracting mouth of hers was hidden in shadow, it occurred to Riley that she had a very nice speaking voice-a California voice, devoid of any accent, but rather low-pitched and with a musical quality he found pleasant. The kind of voice that was probably calming to small children and animals-a useful asset for a vet.

She was laughing as she stepped aside to let him through the doorway. “No wonder Beatle didn’t recognize you.”

“There’s more,” he said as he deposited his load on the island countertop. “If you want to, you can give me a hand.”

“Oh-yes, sure.”

He paused, then, to watch her set the dog on the floor, noting that she was wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she’d come to see him at his office the day before-tan slacks and a pale green sleeveless shell-but that they looked clean and freshly pressed. As she bent over he noted, too, the slender lines of her back and arms, the way the fabric pulled taut over her buttocks and thighs. Things he didn’t normally allow himself to observe in a client.

She straightened, dusting her hands, forcing him to shift his gaze quickly He cleared his throat and said, “Where are the, uh…?” and held his hand out, palm down, waist high.

“The children? They were upstairs watching television, but I have an idea they must’ve fallen asleep.” Her mobile mouth gave him the briefest of smiles. “Otherwise, I’m sure they’d be here to welcome you. They didn’t get much sleep last night. And they spent a good part of the day in the pool. They were pretty worn-out.”

“Ah.” With a twinge of shame at the relief that news brought, he held up his index finger, adorned now with only a discreet flesh-toned bandage, and arched his eyebrows in question. “And the, uh…?”

The worry-crease sharpened between her brows. “Oh, I hope it’s okay-I put her in the living room. You know, the room that overlooks the pool? I put a sheet down on the floor to protect it-I’m sorry, there will be some mess. With birds it goes with the territory, you know.” Her smile flickered again, on and off, as if it had a faulty connection. “I’m sorry. I know this has got to be a terrible nuisance for you. But it was closest to where we all were for most of the day, and she needs the reassurance of being around people she knows and trusts.”

“Really.” Riley kept his voice neutral as he held the door for her and they went together into the warm, muggy evening. He glanced at her and she nodded.

“There’s been so much upheaval in her life.”

In the waning light he caught the sheen of humidity on her face, the tops of her shoulders and along her collarbones. The air around him seemed to thicken.

“Moving, you mean,” he said, and cleared his throat. “Yeah, I’d think a parrot would be somewhat difficult to travel with.” He glanced at her and frowned. “You mind if I ask why you didn’t just leave her behind in California? Seems to me it would have been easier on everybody.”

She was silent for a moment, watching her feet on the uneven brick paving. Then she leveled a look at him. “There are some things I’ve had to do in the past couple of years where I felt like I had no choice in the matter. My decision to keep the animals wasn’t one. Sure, I could have left them all of them. And yes, things would be a little easier for me now. And for you.”

She looked away, leaving him feeling diminished, somehow. A little ashamed. After a moment her voice came back to him, along with a laugh as soft and forgiving as a breath of the evening air.

“Peggy Sue-my cat?-I got her as a gift for my sixteenth birthday. I named her after an old fifties song-it was the seventies, but there was a big fifties revival at the time: ‘Pretty, pret-ty, pret-ty, Peh-he-gy Sue’-remember it?” Her voice grew husky. “She’s twenty years old now-do you have any idea how old that is for a cat? No wonder she’s ugly and cranky, huh? So, for that should I have put her down, or left her behind to finish her days with strangers?”

Again she paused, this time to kick absently at an uneven brick in the pathway. “And Cleo-parrots are very intelligent, you know? It’s like having a preschool child.” Riley saw her shoulders lift, then a moment later heard the sigh of an exhaled breath. “Her owner brought her to me after her mate had been killed accidentally. She was grieving, and they thought she’d die, too. She wouldn’t accept another mate, but she was beginning to bond with us-the children and me-when… all this happened. If I’d given her away she likely would have died.” She glanced at him, then as quickly looked away. “And poor little Beatle-we got her because one of my clients, a breeder, wanted me to put her to sleep. You know why? Because her ears are damaged and won’t stand up, so she’s no good to show. That little dog would give her life for any one of us…” She broke off suddenly. They’d reached the car. She stood and stared intently at it, her back rigid, arms folded across her waist.

Riley felt an urge to put his hand on the back of her neck and massage it until her shoulders relaxed and her body eased back and melded with his like a hand in a glove. Instead, he reached past her, opened the door and popped the trunk, then said gruffly, “Guess we should take the food in first.”