“I’m sure you did a lot of child-proofing once Lisa began to toddle around the room,” she said deliberately.

He looked up at her, startled. It was probably the first time he’d ever heard his baby’s name out of her mouth. He stared at her for a long moment, then, without saying a word, he turned and left the room.

Well, it looked like that had been a big mistake. But what else could she do? And something had to be done.

She got a red lollipop for Molly. She’d brought over Tina’s store of them and put them in a drawer in the kitchen. She still didn’t really approve of Molly having them, but she was willing to let her for a while. She had so many new things to learn and new rules to follow. She liked the idea of giving her as many things from her life with Tina as she could, at least for the time being.

But she also had to work on this fixation of Grant’s. The next night, she tried a new method.

She and Grant were sitting on the couch, talking quietly just before bed. Suddenly she brought up something she knew he was going to resist.

“I think we should put up a picture of Jan and Lisa.”

He froze, staring at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Grant, they were a huge part of your life. You can’t block that out and pretend it never happened.”

“I don’t.” His voice sounded like gravel on glass. “Believe me. I think of them every hour of every day.”

“Yes, but you think of them in a horrible way. You think of their deaths and how miserable you are without them. You should think about the good times. Maybe if we put up pictures…”

He was shaking his head. “You don’t understand at all.”

She ignored that. “Let’s let the rest of our little family know who they were and that they are still important.”

He was scowling blackly. “They’re only important to me.”

“No. You’re wrong. They are a part of who you are. And that’s important to me.”

He scoffed. “Should we put up a picture of Ralph, too?”

She shook her head. “No. Ralph wasn’t really important to anyone but his mother.” She smiled, thinking of it. “Funny, but I think his mother was always more important to me than he was.”

Which reminded her, a visit to Marge was overdue. It had been two weeks since she’d gone by to see her mother-in-law. It was time to go and tell her about the pregnancy-even though she probably wouldn’t understand.

Grant hadn’t agreed to let her put up the pictures she wanted to display. She would work on it. Eventually she was sure he would give in. After all, it was to his benefit that he do so. But for tonight, she’d at least pushed a hint of a nose under the tent. And now it was time to start anticipating bedtime-her favorite time of day.

The next night, she had a new angle.

“Could we get a better scanner for the computer?” she asked him. “The one we have here is pretty flaky and I’ve seen new models that do a much better job on photos.”

“What are you scanning?”

“I found a cupboard full of pictures of…of Jan and Lisa. I want to copy them so that…”

“What?” He stared as though he thought she’d gone crazy.

“For scrapbook pages. Have you seen the sort of scrapbooking that everyone is doing these days? That’s what I want to do. I want to make a scrapbook filled with the story of your life with your first family. Because the history needs to be preserved and told and not let to drift away.”

He didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t comment, and the next night, she found a new scanner in the entryway.

She fixed up the little office off the kitchen as a scrapbooking room. She had pictures on bulletin boards all around as she tried to work out how she wanted to do her pages and develop a timeline. She started it as a duty but she quickly learned to love doing it. Every evening she tried to go in and spend some time working on her project. On at least two occasions, Grant came to the door and looked in. He didn’t say anything. But the second time he stayed, watching her work for a good ten minutes before he turned away.

The next day, she took one of the best pictures she’d found-a studio photo of Jan and Lisa-and had it framed, then put it up in the hallway. When Grant came home that night it was the first thing he saw.

“What the hell is that?” he demanded.

“I think you can see what it is.” She tried to remain calm but her heart was beating like a drum.

He turned to glare at her. “If I wanted a picture like that up I’d have put it up,” he said.

“This isn’t for you, necessarily,” she said stoutly. “It’s for me. And for the baby that’s coming. You don’t have to walk by this part of the hallway if you can’t stand it. You can walk the other way.”

He gazed down at her with his brow furled. “Callie, what the hell are you trying to do?”

“I think you have to try to normalize your feelings. You can’t let wounds fester forever.”

He slapped the wall with his open hand and barked, “What right do you have to decide how my wounds should heal?”

She drew breath deep into her lungs and faced him bravely. “For myself, none at all. But I do have a right for our baby.”

He stared at her for a long moment, but he shook his head. “No,” he said. “Maybe you can make that argument after the baby comes. But you can’t make it now.” Reaching out, he took down the picture. “Sorry, Callie,” he said coolly. “No can do.”

He walked off with the picture, but she noticed that he was looking at it. So she’d lost this round. But every time he was forced to talk about his first family, or look at pictures of them, she felt it moved him more toward accepting the past. And maybe she was just kidding herself, but she felt she was making progress. At least she hoped so.

CHAPTER TEN

CALLIE was clearing away the dishes from dinner a few nights later. Grant helped her, then dropped down onto the couch to read the paper. Out of the corner of her eye, Callie could see Molly, who was supposed to be in bed, wending her way into the room, hugging the shadows as though she knew she wasn’t really welcome.

Callie turned to get rid of the glasses she was putting away before she could intercept Molly. But the little girl was too fast for her, and by the time she’d turned back, Molly was already at Grant’s knee, tugging on his slacks with one sticky hand and holding out a half-eaten red lollipop with the other.

“Da Da!” she cried.

The look on Grant’s face would have been comical if the whole situation wasn’t so sad.

“Take it,” Callie urged softly. “Grant, take it!”

Very reluctantly, he did, grasping the sloppy-looking candy between his thumb and forefinger. “Callie, what the hell am I supposed to do with this?” he growled.

She swept the baby up in her arms and squeezed her tightly. “Grant says ‘thank you’, Molly. He loves that lollipop.” Giving her a loud, wet smack on the cheek, she hurried her back to the nanny’s care.

When she got back, he was washing his hands in the sink.

“You do realize she was offering you her most prized possession,” she noted dryly. “I guess I’m going to have to teach her that you can’t buy love.”

“Callie…”

She saw the tortured look in his eyes and regretted her words. “I’m sorry. But she’s just a child and she wants you to like her.”

“I like her,” he said, though his tone was forced. “It’s not her fault that she reminds me so much of…”

“Of Lisa,” Callie said. She was making a point of talking about them now. “I know. And I know you’re trying to be kind to her. You’re really making an effort.”

“But you want me to love her like she was my own,” he said. “And, Callie, that’s just not going to happen.”

Maybe not. Maybe it was hopeless. And maybe there would come a time when she had to decide who needed her more: Molly or Grant. She only hoped it never came to that, because she wasn’t sure which way she would go.

Something woke Grant up the next morning-a movement on the bed beside him. His heart leaped. Had Callie come back to him on her own? He turned and met a pair of dark, laughing eyes, and then a little chubby fist hit him in the cheek and Molly giggled.

“Da Da!”

He jerked back.

“Callie!” he called.

Molly began to bounce on the bed, laughing uproariously.

He turned back to look at her, frowning fiercely. But as he watched, his frown faded. She did look cute. If only he could look at her once and not see Lisa’s reproachful face.

“There you are, you rascal,” Callie said, coming in and standing at the edge of the bed. “Are you torturing Grant again?”

Molly giggled and bounced out of reach.

“I’ll get her out of here,” Callie said, reaching for the moving target.

But Grant was smiling at her. “Why don’t you come join us instead?” he suggested as he pulled her down on top of him.

“Grant!” She laughed as she slid over to his side. “What are you doing?”

“Enjoying you,” he murmured, looking sensual.

“Oh my,” she said. “I didn’t realize it was open house today.”

“I wish I could wake up this way every morning,” he said, touching her cheek with his forefinger.

He barely got the words out when Molly dove between them, chattering happily as though she thought she should be part of the conversation.

His head jerked back in surprise and Callie pushed up on her elbow, preparing to make Molly move.

But Grant had calmed himself. “Let her stay,” he said. “It’s okay.”

Callie had to work hard to keep from choking aloud. A happy bubble was rising in her chest.

“She’s just being a little dickens this morning,” Callie said lovingly. “Nadine tells me that she had to spend half the day yesterday racing around stuffing things back into drawers after Molly emptied them out.”

“So she’s already getting into the drawers,” Grant said. He remembered when Lisa had been at that stage. As he thought of it and pictured Lisa, he steeled himself and waited for the pain to come. But there was nothing. After a moment, he began to wonder why.

They cuddled in the bed for another five minutes and then it was time to get up. But the warm feeling stayed with him all the rest of the day.

Callie was sure they were making progress, but one big hurdle still remained. Gena had said he was racked with guilt. If that was true, surely it would do him good to get it out in the open and talk about it. Did she have the nerve to bring it up?

One night about a week later, he was packing for another business trip. It seemed like a good time. She waited for him to come out of his room, and she told him she wanted to talk about something. He sat down with her on the couch and she launched into it.

He listened to her version of Gena’s theory about his feeling guilty because he didn’t pay as much attention to Lisa when she was alive as he should have and didn’t say a word. Instead he got up and poured himself a drink and went to sit on the balcony, away from her.

She was pretty sure he was furious with her. And why not? Did she really have a right to push him on this?

But an hour later, when he came in, he pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her hair.

“That last day,” he said, his voice a bit hoarse, “it was obvious Lisa was coming down with something in the morning. I had a meeting. Jan had a presentation she was giving at Junior League. Neither one of us paid much attention to Lisa. We thought we were so damn busy with such important things.”

His voice broke and it was a moment before he could go on.

“The nanny tried to call us all day, but my cell phone wasn’t working right and Jan didn’t pick up because she was in a meeting hall until late in the afternoon. When she finally got home, Lisa was burning up and the nanny was hysterical. She tried to call me, but the cell still wasn’t working and my secretary was out for the afternoon. So she packed Lisa into the car and went racing off to the hospital. She ran a red light. And got hit. She lived another twenty-four hours, but Lisa was killed in the original impact.”

“Oh, Grant. Oh, I’m so sorry.”

He pulled away and just shook his head.

“But it wasn’t your fault. How could you…?”

“Don’t patronize me, Callie,” he said harshly. “Of course it was my fault. If I’d been a proper father and husband, the accident would never have happened. Of course it was my fault. And I’ll pay all the days of my life.”

She refused to be cowed by his anger at himself. Following him into his room, she shut the door and made him face her. “You listen to me, Grant Carver,” she said sternly. “You are a wonderful, caring man. You may have been careless in the past, but you’re older now, more mature. You won’t let family needs slide ever again.”