Annie regarded her with shrewd eyes. “That baby of theirs is gonna be a smart little cuss.”

“It seems inevitable.”

“You ask me, it ain’t good for a special child like that to grow up all by itself. Look how bein’ an only child traum’tized Janie Bonner into gettin’ in this predicament in the first place.”

“You have a point.”

“She told me she felt like a freak growin’ up.”

“I can see how she would.”

“A child like that needs brothers and sisters.”

“But the parents would have to be living under the same roof for that to happen.”

“You’re sure ’nough right about that.” Annie leaned back in her rocker and sighed.“Seems me and you don’t have much choice, Amber Lynn. Looks like we’re gonna have to catch ourselves another Bonner.”

Lynn smiled to herself as she walked out on the porch after her mother had gone to bed. Annie enjoyed believing the two of them had single-mindedly laid a trap for Jim. It wasn’t so, but Lynn had given up trying to tell her mother that. Annie believed what she wanted to believe.

It was nearly midnight and chilly enough that she zipped the front of an ancient Wolverine sweatshirt from Cal’s college playing days. She stared up at the stars and thought how much better she could see them from the top of Heartache Mountain than from their house in town.

The sound of an approaching car broke her concentration. All the men in her family were night owls, so it could only be Cal or Ethan. She hoped it was her oldest son come to claim his wife. Then she remembered her promise to Jane that she would keep him away and frowned.

As it turned out, the car that appeared at the top of the lane didn’t belong to either Cal or Ethan, but to her husband. She couldn’t believe it. Not once since the night she’d left had Jim driven up here to see her.

She remembered the bitterness of their parting on Friday and wondered if he’d come to dangle the business card of his divorce lawyer in front of her. She had no idea how anybody got a divorce, beyond making an appointment with a lawyer. Was that how it happened? A person made an appointment with a lawyer, and, before they knew it, their marriage was over?

Jim got out of the car and moved toward her with that long graceful stride that had set her heart to beating for as long as she could remember. She should have expected him. Cal would have talked to him by now, and the prospect of a new grandchild would give him another excuse to browbeat her. She braced herself against one of the freshly painted posts that held up the tin roof of the porch and wished he hadn’t found her so unworthy.

He came to a stop below the bottom step and gazed up at her. For a long time he said nothing-he merely studied her-but when he finally spoke, there was an odd formality in his voice. “I hope I didn’t scare you showing up here so late.”

“It’s all right. As you can see, I’m still awake.”

He dropped his gaze and for a moment she had the curious feeling he wanted to bolt, but that couldn’t be so. Jim never ran from anything.

He looked up at her, and his eyes held that stubborn glint she knew so well. “I’m Jim Bonner.”

She stared at him.

“I’m a doctor in town.”

Had he lost his mind? “Jim, what’s wrong?”

He shifted his weight as if he were nervous, but the only time she had ever seen his confidence shaken was when Jamie and Cherry had died.

He clasped his hands together and then immediately dropped them to his sides.“Well, to be honest, I’ve got a thirty-seven-year marriage that’s on the rocks. I’ve been pretty depressed about it, and instead of taking to the bottle, I thought it might help me if I found a little female companionship.” He drew a deep breath. “I heard in town there was a nice lady living up here with her old battle-ax of a mother, and I thought maybe I’d stop by and see if that lady’d like to go out to dinner with me some time. Or maybe catch a movie.” A flicker of amusement caught at the corner of his mouth. “That is if you don’t have any qualms about dating a married man.”

“You’re asking me out on a date?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m kind of rusty at this sort of thing, so I hope I’m going about it right.”

She pressed her fingers to her lips, and her heart swelled. During lunch on Friday she’d told him she wished they could meet as strangers so they could start all over to see if they liked each other, but he’d been so angry at the time, she hadn’t thought he’d even heard her. After all these years, she had never imagined he could surprise her, but he just had.

She resisted the urge to throw herself in his arms and tell him all was forgiven. She didn’t hold herself so cheaply that this small bit of effort on his part, as much as she appreciated it, could erase decades of not being good enough. She wondered how far he was willing to take this.

“We may not be compatible,” she replied, testing the waters.

“Maybe not. I guess we won’t be able to decide unless we give it a try.”

“I don’t know. My mother might not like it.”

“Now you leave your mother to me. I’m real good with old ladies, even mean and crazy ones.”

She nearly laughed. Imagine stubborn, hardheaded Jim Bonner doing something this romantic. She was charmed and touched, but not completely. Something saddened her, and it took a moment to figure out what. She’d spent most of her life feeling like a beggar for Jim’s affection-always agreeable, always the one to make concessions and appease. He’d never had to put himself out for her because she’d never made any demands. She had never put a single roadblock in his way, and now she was getting ready to run back to him just because he’d made one small effort to please her.

She could still remember the feel of his randy teenager’s hands on her. Those first few times they’d had sex, she hadn’t liked it very much, but it had never occurred to her to say no, even though she would rather have been sitting in the back booth at the drugstore sharing a Coke and gossiping about their classmates. Suddenly that made her angry. He’d hurt her when he’d taken her virginity. Not deliberately, but it had hurt nonetheless.

“I’ll think about it,” she said quietly. Then she gathered the sweatshirt tighter around her and went back inside.

A moment later, a spray of gravel hit the house as he peeled away, driving for all the world like an angry eighteen-year-old.

Chapter Twenty

F or two weeks, Cal stayed away from Heartache Mountain. During the first week, he got drunk three times and took a swing at Kevin, who’d refused his demand to get the hell out of Dodge. During the second week, he started to go after her half a dozen times, but his pride wouldn’t let him. He wasn’t the one who’d run away! He wasn’t the one who’d screwed everything up with unreasonable demands.

He also had to face the fact that he wasn’t absolutely sure any of those stubborn women would let him in the house. Apparently the only men welcome there were Ethan, who didn’t count because he was Ethan, and Kevin Tucker, who sure as hell did count. Cal seethed as he thought of Tucker driving up to Heartache Mountain whenever he pleased, getting fed and fussed over, of Tucker, who somehow or another seemed to have moved into Cal’s own house!

The first night Cal had gotten drunk at the Mountaineer, Tucker had swiped his keys, as if Cal weren’t smart enough to have already figured out he wasn’t in any condition to drive. It was the same night Cal had swung at him, but his heart hadn’t been in it, and he’d missed. Next thing he knew, he was slumped in the passenger seat of Tucker’s seventy-thousand-dollar Mitsubishi Spyder while Kevin drove him home, and he hadn’t been able to get rid of the kid since.

He was pretty sure he hadn’t told Kevin he could stay. As a matter of fact, he distinctly remembered ordering him out of his house. But Kevin had stuck around like a damned watchdog, even though he had a perfectly good rental house, not to mention Sally Terryman. The next thing Cal knew, the two of them were watching game films and he was showing Kevin how he always went to his first option instead of being patient, reading the defense, and finding the open man.

At least watching films with Kevin kept his mind off the fact that he missed the Professor so bad his teeth ached, which didn’t mean he was any closer to figuring out what to do about it. He wasn’t ready to be married forever and ever, not when he needed all his energy focused on playing ball, and not when he had no other life’s work waiting for him. But he also wasn’t nearly ready to lose Jane. Why couldn’t she have left things as they were instead of making demands?

Crawling on his hands and knees up Heartache Mountain so he could beg her to come back was unthinkable. He didn’t crawl for anybody. What he needed was a reason to go up there, but he couldn’t think of a single one he wanted to admit out loud.

He still didn’t understand why she’d stayed around instead of flying back to Chicago, but he was glad it had happened, since it was giving her time to come to her senses. She’d said she loved him, and she wouldn’t have said those words if she didn’t mean them. Maybe today was the day she’d be woman enough to admit her mistake and come back to him.