"Mom." Too overcome to be embarrassed that Brad looked on, Simon threw his arms around his mother and buried his face against her shoulder. "I'll take good care of him. I promise. Thanks, Mom. I love you more than anything, ever."

"I love you more than anything, ever." She answered his fierce hug with one of her own, then managed a watery laugh when both dogs tried to wiggle between them. "I think Moe's going to like having a friend."

"It's just like a big family." Simon lifted the puppy high.

The newcomer expressed his delight by peeing on Simon's knee.

Chapter Sixteen

Zoe rubbed the exfoliating cream over Dana's calf and grinned as her friend let out a long, heartfelt moan.

"I really appreciate the two of you giving up your Sunday afternoon to be my guinea pigs."

This time Dana grunted. Malory sat on a stool in the treatment room and rubbed her fingers over her newly scrubbed and polished skin. "I can't get over how good it feels."

"I wasn't worried about the results—these products are great. But I want to be sure the whole experience works."

"Works for me," said Dana's slurred and muffled voice.

Zoe glanced around, scanning the shelves of products, the glowing candles, the neat stack of mint-green towels on the counter, the clear crystal she'd hung from the ceiling over the padded table.

It was, she thought, exactly right.

"Of course, when we're doing this for real there won't be three people in here talking. You want us to be quiet, Dana?"

"You don't even exist in my little world. That stuff smells as good as it feels."

"It's good we're doing this." Malory sipped some of the lemon water Zoe had chilled in a squat glass pitcher. "If we're going to open on Friday, we want to work out as many kinks as possible, in all three areas."

Swallowing hard, she pressed a hand to her belly. "God, we're going to open on Friday. Even if it is a kind of dry run for the grand opening on December first, it's happening."

"Big day, all around," Zoe said.

"You're going to find the key." Malory touched her shoulder. "I know it."

The connection—Malory's hand on her, hers on Dana—bolstered her. "That's another reason I wanted to do this today. I needed some time with just the three of us."

She glanced up at the crystal again. It certainly seemed she'd become a bit more mysticalminded over the last few months. 'To recharge my energy. My girl power."

"Rah-rah," Dana cheered and made Zoe laugh.

"With what happened yesterday I feel more confident, but this little voice keeps sneaking in asking me why the hell I think I can do this."

"Is it Zoe's voice," Dana asked her, "or Kane's?"

"It's Zoe's, which makes it more irritating. Yesterday, there was this rush of excitement, of energy, when I realized what was going on, that I knew what it was and could control it. But I need to move it from there."

"You went back to a beginning, and an ending." Curious, Malory examined the bottles and tubes neatly lined up on Zoe's shelves. "And with the three of us here today, we're going back to basics. Both Dana and I had periods during our part of this when we felt discouraged and lost."

"Check," Dana confirmed. "And when we went off on tangents that dead-ended. Or seemed to."

"Seemed to." Turning back, Malory nodded. "But without those tangents would we have gotten on the right track? I don't think so. It's something I've thought about a lot," she added, leaning back on the counter. "A quest isn't linear, it isn't straightforward. It circles and it winds and overlaps. But every step, every piece, has its place. Let's take yours."

"Dana has to rinse off."

"Then hold that thought." Wrapped in the bath sheet Zoe provided, Dana headed for the shower.

"You've got some ideas." Zoe walked over to rinse her hands. "I can see it."

"I do, actually. It might be easier for me to see, well, the forest for the trees, because I'm not in it the way you are. And the experience I had in the attic here was similar to what happened to you yesterday. In that I knew what was going on, and controlled it. And part of me, a little part, wanted to stay in that illusion and let the rest go."

Zoe looked back, saw the sympathy, the understanding on Malory's face. The tension in her shoulders dissolved. "I really needed to hear that. So much. I didn't want James, Mal, not really, but part of me remembered how much I had wanted him."

"I know. I know exactly."

She could, Zoe thought. She and Dana were the only ones who really could. "Part of me felt that same way, had that same yearning. And it would've been so easy to drift back there and believe everything would turn out differently."

"But you didn't drift back."

"No." She began changing the cover on the treatment table, adjusting the pad, smoothing the cotton. "Everything but that one little part knew I didn't want it to turn out differently. I didn't really want the boy who couldn't stand by me or his own child. But I had to remember him, really remember him, and what I felt for him. So I could say good-bye."

"Do you want the man who's willing to stand by you, and your child?"

"I do." There was a flutter under her heart as she selected the lotion for Dana. "But I don't seem to trust either of us to make it work. Lie on your back," she said when Dana came back in. "And there's more than that, than not trusting us."

Efficiently, she adjusted the towel that covered Dana from breast to crotch, then warmed the lotion in her hands. "If I take that last step with him, how much danger will that put him in? It's kind of a quandary. If you love someone, you want to protect them. If I'm going to protect him, I can't let myself love him. Not all the way."

"If you love him, you ought to respect him enough to know he'll protect himself."

Zoe stared at Dana. "I do respect him."

"I don't think you do. You keep wondering if and when he's going to let you down, let Simon down. When he's going to walk. You're talking to somebody who's been there. You're thinking you shouldn't give him a hundred percent because you'll need something in reserve when he takes a hike. I'm not saying you don't have a right to that. You've got a lot on the line."

"And what's most on the line for Zoe? Personally," Malory qualified. "The single thing you won't risk?"

"Simon."

"Exactly."

"I know Bradley won't hurt him." Zoe massaged the lotion in, working her way down Dana's body. "But the more Simon looks to him for the sort of things a boy looks for from a father, the more of a jolt it'll be if things don't work out. He's had to deal with not having a father. Ever. Not like a divorce or even death, but never having one. However much I've smoothed it for him, however much he knows I love him, and I'm there for him, he's always known there was someone who didn't, who refused to be there. I don't want him to ever feel unwanted again."

"And to keep that from happening, you'd sacrifice. You'd fight," Malory added. "Whatever it took, whatever it cost you, you'd fight. Because of all the choices you've made, Simon is the most important. He's your key."

"Simon?" Zoe repeated as Dana sat up. "Oh, sorry, over on your stomach. My mind's churning."

"Mal's clicked on something." Dana rolled over, but propped her head on her fist. "We're the keys, the three of us. That's been emphasized over and over. But of the three of us, Zoe's the one who has—you could say—re-created herself in a child. Simon's part of Zoe. Zoe's the key, ergo, Simon's the key."

"Kane can't touch him." Fear wanted to leap up and choke her. "Rowena said she'd protected him."

"Count on it." Dana looked over her shoulder. "If he could do anything about Simon, he'd have tried by now."

"I think it might be more than Rowena that protects him," Malory added. "I think whatever can be done from the other side is being done. Someone's children were already harmed. They won't let it happen again. Between all that, and us, nothing touches Simon."

"If I believed otherwise, I'd walk away from this in a heartbeat." Zoe paused as she caught Malory's nod. "Which Kane has to know, so he would have done anything he could to threaten my son. He hasn't, because he can't. Okay." She let out a long breath. "Okay, let's work from there. If Simon's the key, or part of it the way he's part of me, doesn't that take me back to choices I've made regarding him? Having him was a choice, keeping him was a choice—the best ones I ever made. But I've been back there. And though I think going back mattered, I don't have the key."

"You made other choices," Dana pointed out. "Went in other directions."

"Been over some of those, too. It's been a kind of journey, I guess," she continued as she finished slicking the lotion on Dana. "Remembering, seeing it again, thinking about it all. It's been good for me, all in all, because it validated my choices and let me see that the mistakes I made weren't all that big. You want to roll over? I'll get you your robe."

"You came here to the Valley," Dana began. "You got a job, you bought a house. What else?"

Malory held up a hand while Zoe helped Dana into her robe. "I'm not going to say all of that's not important, and maybe going through some of the details is one of the answers. But we could look at this from a different angle. What if some of the answers have to do with Simon's choices?"

"He's a kid," Dana pointed out, rubbing a hand on her forearm to admire Zoe's work. "His biggest choice is which video game to play."

"No." Thoughtfully, Zoe shook her head. "No, children have a lot of choices. Right or wrong. Some of those choices stick with them, and push them in a certain direction. What friends they make. Maybe they read a book about a fighter pilot and they decide they want to fly. Right now, in a hundred different ways, Simon's deciding what kind of a man he'll be."

"Then maybe you need to take a closer look at some of those decisions," Malory suggested.

A decision Simon was particularly pleased with at the moment was his choice of Homer as a name for the pup. It combined some of his favorite things into one—baseball, a cartoon character, and a dog. Outside in the crisp fall air, watching Moe chase a tennis ball and Homer chase Moe, Simon figured life didn't get any cooler.

Plus, the guys were coming over pretty soon to watch the game while his mom and her friends did girl stuff. He could eat potato chips till he puked.

He snatched up the ball Moe dropped at his feet, then did a lot of dancing and fake throwing to make the dogs totally nutso before he hurled it toward the trees.

When he went to school the next day, he'd tell all his pals about Homer. Maybe, if it wasn't too goofy, he could get Brad to take a picture so he could show everybody.

He looked back toward the river while the dogs rolled around together. He really liked it here. He liked his house, too, and the yard and all. And living next to the Hansons. But, boy, he really liked it here, with the woods to explore and the river right there.

If they were going to stay longer, it would be so cool to have his friends over. Man, they would freak over the game room. And they could build a fort in the woods, and maybe go tubing on the river in the summer. If his mom didn't wig out over the idea.

Maybe he still could, even after they went back home. He could ask Brad, and then Brad would help him work on Mom. That was cool, too, having another guy so they could double-team her.

It was sort of like having a father. Not that he cared about that, but it was probably like it. Sort of.

Anyway, it was going to be totally awesome to have Thanksgiving here, with everybody piling into the house, and the guys all arguing about the game, and eating pumpkin pie until they busted their guts.

His mom made really good pumpkin pie, and she always gave him little pieces of the dough to make dough people with.

He wondered if Brad would think that was lame.

He looked over, then ran toward the house as Brad came out. "Hey! You want to throw the ball some? Moe's teaching Homer how to fetch."

"Sure." He snugged the knit cap he'd brought out over Simon's head. "Getting cold."

"Maybe it'll snow. Maybe it'll snow six feet and there won't be any school."

"We can always dream." He picked up the ball and winged it in a way Simon desperately admired.