"Molly?"

Through the haze of her tears, she saw Kevin peering through the car window. When she didn't move, he rapped on the glass. "Molly, what's wrong?"

She tried to respond but couldn't.

He jiggled the handle. "Unlock the door."

She began to reach for it, but another cramp hit. She whimpered and wrapped her arms around her thighs to hold them together.

He rapped again, harder this time. "Hit the lock! Just hit it!"

Somehow she managed to do as he asked.

A wave of bitterly cold air struck her as he jerked open the door, and his breath made a frosty cloud in the air. "What's wrong?"

Fear clogged her throat. All she could do was bite her lip and squeeze her thighs more tightly.

"Is it the baby?"

She managed a jerky nod.

"Do you think you're having a miscarriage?"

"No!" She fought the pain and tried to speak more calmly. "No, it's not a miscarriage. Just-just some cramps."

She could see that he didn't believe her, and she hated him for it.

"Let's get you to a hospital."

He ran to the other side of the car, opened the door, and reached through to shift her into the passenger seat, but she couldn't let him do that. If she moved… "No! Don't… don't move me!"

"I have to. I won't hurt you. I promise."

He didn't understand. It wasn't she who'd be hurt. "No…"

But he didn't listen. She gripped her thighs tighter as he reached beneath her and awkwardly shifted her into the other seat. The effort left her gasping.

He raced back to his car and returned moments later with his cell phone and a wool stadium blanket that he tossed over her. Before he slid behind the wheel, he threw a jacket on the seat. Covering up her blood.

As he pulled back onto the highway, she willed her arms to keep their strength as she clamped her legs together. He was talking to someone on the phone… locating a hospital. The tires on her tiny Bug squealed as they hurtled down the highway and around a bend. Reckless, daredevil driving. Please, God…

She had no idea how long it took to reach the hospital. She knew only that he was opening the door next to her and getting ready to pick her up again.

She tried to blink away her tears as she gazed up at him. "Please… I know you hate me, but…" She gasped against another cramp. "My legs… I have to keep my legs together."

He studied her for a moment, then slowly nodded.

She felt as though she weighed nothing as he slipped his arms beneath the skirt of her wedding dress and lifted her so effortlessly. He pressed her thighs tightly against his body and carried her through the door.

Someone came forward with a wheelchair, and he hurried toward it.

"No…" She tried to grip his arm, but she was too weak. "My legs… If you set me down…"

"Right here, sir," the attendant called out.

"Just show me where to take her," Kevin said.

"I'm sorry, sir, but-"

"Get moving!"

She rested her cheek against his chest and for a moment felt as if she and her baby were safe. The moment evaporated as he carried her into a curtained cubicle and carefully set her on the table.

"We'll take care of her while you go to registration, sir," the nurse said.

He squeezed Molly's hand. For the first time since he'd come back from Australia, he looked concerned instead of hostile. "I'll be right back."

As she gazed into the flickering fluorescent light above her, she wondered how he'd fill out the paperwork. He didn't know her birthday or her middle name. He knew nothing about her.

The nurse was young, with a soft, sweet face. But when she tried to help Molly off with her bloody panties, Molly refused. She'd have to ease open her legs to do that.

The nurse stroked her arm. "I'll be very careful."

But in the end it didn't do any good. By the time the emergency room doctor arrived to examine her, Molly had already lost her baby.

Kevin refused to let them dismiss her until the next day, and because he was a celebrity, he got his wish. Through the window of the private room she saw a parking lot and a line of barren trees. She shut her eyes against the voices.

One of the doctors was talking to Kevin, using the deferential tone people adopted when they spoke with someone famous. "Your wife is young and healthy, Mr. Tucker. She'll need to be checked by her own physician, but I don't see any reason why the two of you won't be able to have another child."

Molly saw a reason.

Someone took her hand. She didn't know if it was a nurse, the doctor, or Kevin. She didn't care. She pulled her hand away.

"How are you feeling?" Kevin whispered.

She pretended to be asleep.

He stayed in her room for a long time. When he finally left, she rolled over and reached for the telephone.

Her head was fuzzy from the pills they'd given her, and she had to dial twice before she finally got through. When Phoebe answered, Molly started to cry. "Come get me. Please…"

Dan and Phoebe appeared in her room sometime after midnight. Molly thought Kevin had left, but he must have been sleeping in the lounge because she heard him talking to Dan.

Phoebe stroked her cheek. Fertile Phoebe, who'd given birth to four children without mishap. One of her tears dropped onto Molly's arm. "Oh, Moll… I'm so sorry."

When Phoebe left her bedside to talk to the nurse, Kevin took her place. Why wouldn't he go away? He was a stranger, and no one wanted a stranger around when her life was falling apart. Molly turned her head into the pillow.

"You didn't need to call them," he said quietly. "I would have driven you back."

"I know."

He'd been kind to her, so she made herself look at him. She saw concern in his eyes, as well as fatigue, but she couldn't see even the smallest shadow of grief.

As soon as she got back home, she tore up Daphne Finds a Baby Rabbit and carried it out to the trash.

The next morning the story of her marriage hit the newspapers.

Chapter 6

Melissa the Wood Frog was Daphne's best friend. Most days she liked to dress in pearls and organdy. But every Saturday she added a shawl and pretended she was a movie star. Daphne Gets Lost

"Our Chicago celebrity of the week spotlight turns to wealthy football heiress Molly Somerville. Unlike her flamboyant sister, Chicago Stars owner Phoebe Calebow, Molly Somerville has kept a low profile. But while no one was looking, sly Miss Molly, who dabbles at writing children's books, scooped up Chicago's most eligible bachelor, the delectable Stars quarterback Kevin Tucker. Even close friends were shocked when the couple was married in a very private ceremony at the Calebow home just last week."

The gossip reporter rearranged her plastic expression into a look of deep concern. "But it looks like there's no happy ending for the newlyweds. Sources now report the couple suffered a miscarriage almost immediately after the wedding ceremony, and they've since separated. A spokesman for the Stars would say only that the couple was working through their troubles privately and would make no comments to the media."

Lilly Sherman snapped off the Chicago television station, then took a deep breath. Kevin had married a spoiled Midwestern heiress. Her hands trembled as she closed the French doors that looked out over the garden of her Brentwood home, then picked up the coffee-colored pashmina shawl that lay at the foot of her bed. Somehow she had to steady herself before she reached the restaurant. Although Mallory McCoy was her best friend, this secret was Lilly's own.

She tossed the pashmina over the shoulders of her latest St. John knit, a creamy suit with gold buttons and exquisite braided trim. Then she picked up a brightly wrapped gift bag and set off for one of Beverly Hills' newest restaurants. After she'd been shown to her table, she ordered a blackberry kir. Ignoring the curious gazes of a couple at the next table, she studied the décor.

Subdued lighting glazed the oyster-white walls and illuminated the restaurant's small but fine display of original art. The carpet was aubergine, the linens crisp and white, the silver a sleek Art Deco design. A perfect place to celebrate an unwelcome birthday. Her fiftieth. Not that anyone knew. Even Mallory McCoy thought they were celebrating Lilly's forty-seventh.

Lilly hadn't been given the room's best table, but she'd grown so accustomed to playing the diva that no one would have known it. Two of the top men at ICM occupied the prime spot, and she momentarily contemplated walking over and introducing herself. They would know who she was, of course. Only a rare man didn't remember Ginger Hill from Lace, Inc. But nothing was less welcome in this town than an overweight former sex kitten celebrating a fiftieth birthday.

She reminded herself that she didn't look her age. Her eyes were the same brilliant green the camera had always loved, and although she wore her auburn hair shorter now, Beverly Hills' top colorist made certain it hadn't lost any of its luster. Her face was barely lined, her skin still smooth, thanks to Craig, who wouldn't let her lie in the sun when she was younger.

The twenty-five-year age difference between her husband and herself, along with Craig's good looks and his role as her manager, had invited inevitable comparisons to Ann-Margret and Roger Smith, as well as to Bo and John Derek. And it was true that Craig had been her Svengali. When she'd arrived in L.A. over thirty years ago, she hadn't even possessed a high school diploma, and he'd taught her how to dress, walk, and speak. He'd exposed her to culture and transformed her from an awkward teenager into one of the eighties' hottest sex symbols. Because of Craig, she was well read and culturally literate, with a particular passion for art.