“Now that you mention it.” With a grin, Harper pulled her down on the sofa beside him. “Why don’t we watch the game. I’ll raid the kitchen for junk food.”

“You want me to sit here and watch baseball?”

“I thought you liked baseball.”

“Yeah, but not enough to zone out in front of the TV.”

“Okay.” He heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I’m about to make the ultimate sacrifice for my breed. Pick a DVD. We’ll watch a movie, even if it’s a chick flick.”

She eased back. “Really?”

“But you have to make the popcorn.”

“You mean you’ll sit here and watch a girlie movie without making snide comments?”

“I don’t remember agreeing to the second part.”

“You know, I like action flicks.”

“Now we’re talking.”

“But I’d love to watch something romancey, with a couple of good weep scenes. Thanks!” She pressed her lips noisily to his, then jumped up. “I’m loading the popcorn with butter.” At the door, she stopped and beamed back at him. “I feel better already.”

SHE’D NEVER HAD so many ups and downs in her moods in all of her life. From manic energy to exhaustion, from joy to despair. She ran the gamut, it seemed, every day. And under the swings, the spurts, and the tumbles was an edgy anticipation of what happens next. And when.

When she spiraled down, she struggled to remind herself of what she had. A beautiful child, a wonderful man who loved her, friends, family, a good interesting job. And still, once the spiral began, she couldn’t seem to control the fall.

She worried there was something physically wrong with her. A chemical imbalance, a brain tumor. Maybe she was going as crazy as The Bride.

Feeling harassed and overtired, she swung into Wal-Mart on her morning off to pick up diapers, shampoo, a few other basics. She could only thank God to be able to snatch this little window of alone time. Or alone with Lily time, she corrected, as she strapped her daughter in the shopping cart.

At least nobody felt they were obliged to watch her when she was away from Harper House or work. And watching was what they did. Like hawks.

She understood why, God knew she appreciated the concern and care. But that didn’t stop her from feeling smothered. She could barely start to brush her teeth without whoever was hovering offering to spread the paste on the brush for her.

She wandered down aisles, listlessly picking up what she needed. Then she detoured into cosmetics, thinking a new lipstick might cheer her up. But the shades seemed too dark or too light, too bold or too dull. Nothing suited her.

She looked so pale and wan these days, she decided if she put anything bright on her lips they’d look as though they walked into the room a foot ahead of her.

New perfume maybe. But every tester she sniffed made her feel slightly queasy.

“Just forget it,” she muttered, and glanced back at Lily who was trying to stretch out her arm to reach a spin rack of mascaras and eye pencils.

“Not for a long time yet, young lady. It’s fun being a girl though, you’ll see. All these toys we get to play with.” She chose one of the mascaras herself, tossed it in the cart. “I just can’t seem to gear myself up for it right now. We’ll just go on, get your diapers. And maybe if you’re good, a new board book.”

She turned down another aisle, reluctant to leave. Once she did, she’d need to take Lily to the sitter’s, go to work. Where somebody would be attached to her hip for the rest of the day.

She wanted to do something normal, damn it. More, she wanted to feel like doing something. Anything.

And an absent glance to her right stopped her in her tracks.

Something that was both panic and nausea, with a helping of dull realization spurted into her belly. It continued to rise as she did hasty calculations in her head.

While everything inside her sank, Hayley closed her eyes. She opened them again, looked into Lily’s happy face. And reached for the home pregnancy test.

SHE DROPPED LILY off, kept a smile plastered on her face until she walked out the door to her car. Afraid to do otherwise, she kept her mind blank while she drove home. She wouldn’t think, she wouldn’t project. She would just go home, take the test. Twice. When it came out negative, which of course it would, she’d hide the packages somewhere until she could dispose of them without anyone knowing she’d had a panic attack.

She wasn’t pregnant again. She absolutely couldn’t be pregnant again.

She parked, and made certain the boxes were buried at the bottom of her bag and well hidden. But she’d taken two steps into the house when David appeared like some magic genie.

“Hi, sugar, want a hand with that?”

“No.” She gripped the bag to her chest like a cache of gold. “No,” she repeated more calmly. “I’m just going to take these things up. And I have to pee, if that’s all the same to you.”

“It is. I often have to pee myself.”

Knowing her tone had been nasty, she rubbed a hand over her face. “I’m sorry. I’m in a mood.”

“Something else I often have.” He pulled an open tube of Life Savers from his pocket, thumbed out a cherry circle. “Open up.”

She smiled, obeyed.

“Let’s see if that sweetens your mood,” he said as he popped the candy into her mouth. “Can’t help worrying about you, honey.”

“I know. If I’m not back down in fifteen minutes, you can call out the cavalry. Deal?”

“Deal.”

She hurried up, then dumped the contents of the bag on her bed—for God’s sake, she’d forgotten the diapers. Cursing, she snatched both pregnancy tests and bolted to the bathroom.

For a moment she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to pee. Wouldn’t that just be her luck? She ordered herself to calm down, took several long breaths. Added a prayer.

Moments later, with the sweetness of cherry candy still on her tongue, she was staring at the stick with PREGNANT reading clear as day in its window.

“No.” She gripped the stick, shook it as if it were a thermometer and the action would drop things back down to normal. “No, no, no, no! What is this? What are you?” She looked down at herself, rapped a fist lightly below her navel. “Some kind of sperm magnet?”

Undone, she sat on the toilet lid, buried her face in her hands.

THOUGH SHE MIGHT have preferred to crawl into the cabinet under the sink, curl up in the dark, and stay there for the next nine months, she didn’t have much time to indulge in a pity fest. She washed her face, slapping on cold water to eradicate the signs of her bathroom crying jag.

“Yeah, crying’s going to make a difference,” she berated herself. “That’ll do the trick, all right. It’ll change everything so when you look at that stupid test again the damn stick will read: Why no, Hayley, you’re not pregnant. You just needed to sit on the toilet and bawl for ten minutes. Idiot.”

She sniffled back what felt like another flood of tears and faced herself in the mirror. “You played, now you pay. Deal with it.”

A quick makeup session helped. The sunglasses she grabbed out of her purse helped more.

She buried the home pregnancy test boxes in the bottom of her underwear drawer, jumpy as a drug addict hiding his stash.

When she went out, David was already halfway up the stairs.

“I was about to get my bugle.”

She stared at him. “What?”

“To call the cavalry, honey. You were longer than fifteen.”

“Sorry. I got . . . Sorry.”

He started to smile and brush it off, then shook his head. “Nope, not going to pretend I don’t know you’ve been crying. What’s the matter?”

“I can’t.” Even on those two words her voice shook, broke. “I’m going to be late for work.”

“Somehow the world will keep turning. What you’re going to do is sit right down here in my office.” Taking her hand, he tugged until she sat on the steps with him. “And tell Uncle David your troubles.”

“I don’t have troubles. I’m in trouble.” She didn’t mean to tell him, to tell anyone. Not until she had time to think, to deal. To bury her head in the sand for a few days. But he draped an arm around her shoulders to hug her, and the words leaped out of her mouth.

“I’m pregnant.”

“Oh.” His hand stroked up and down her arm. “Well, that’s something my secret horde of super chocolate truffles won’t fix.”

She turned her head, pressed her face to his shoulder. “I’m like some sort of fertility bomb, David. What am I going to do? What the hell am I going to do?”

“What’s right for you. You’re sure now?”

Sniffling, she boosted her butt off the steps, tugged the stick out of her pocket. “What’s that say in there?”

“Mmm. The eagle has landed.” Gently, he caught her chin in his hand, lifted her face. “How are you feeling?”

“Sick, scared. Stupid! So damn stupid. We used protection, David. It’s not like we were a couple of lust-crazed teenagers in the back of a Chevy. I think I have some sort of übereggs or something, and they just spit on barriers and suck the sperm in.”

He laughed, then gave her another squeeze. “Sorry. I know it’s not funny to you. Let’s calm down here and take a look at the big picture. You’re in love with Harper.”

“Of course I am, but—”

“He’s in love with you.”

“Yes, but—Oh, David, we’re just getting started on that. On being in love, on being together. Maybe I let myself imagine how it might be down the road some. But we haven’t made any plans about the long-term. We haven’t talked about it at all.”

“That’s why sooner comes before later, honey. You’ll talk now.”

“How can any man in the world not feel trapped when a woman comes up and tells him she’s pregnant?”

“You manage to get that way all by yourself?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Hayley.” He drew back, tipped her sunglasses down her nose so he could look into her eyes. “That’s exactly the point. With Lily, you did what was right for you, and what you felt in your heart was right for the father, and for the baby. Right or wrong—and personally I think it was right—but either way, I think it was brave. Now you’ve got to be brave again, do what’s right for everybody concerned. You’ve got to tell Harper.”

“I don’t know how. I get sick thinking about it.”

“Then you might love him, but you’re not giving him credit for being the man he is.”

“I am, that’s the trouble.” She stared back down at the stick and the word in that window seemed to scream in her head. “He’ll stand up. How will I know if he did because he loves me, or because he feels responsible?”

David leaned over, kissed her temple. “Because you will.”

IT ALL SOUNDED good. It sounded reasonable, logical, and adult. But it didn’t make it any easier to do what she was about to do.

She wished she could delay it, just ignore it all for a few days. Even pretend it would go away. And that was small and selfish and childish.

When she reached the nursery, she slipped into one of the employee bathrooms to take the second test. She glugged down most of a pint of water, turned the spigot on for good measure. She started to cross her fingers, but told herself not to be a complete ass.

Still, she read the results with eyes squinted half shut.

It didn’t change the outcome.

Well, still pregnant, she thought. There was no crying this time, no cursing fate. She simply tucked the stick back in her pocket, opened the door, and prepared to do what needed to be done next. She had to tell Harper.

Why? Why did he have to know? She could go away now, she thought. Pack up and go. The baby was hers.

He was rich, he was powerful. He would take the child and toss her aside. Take her son. For the glory of the great Harper name he would use her like a vessel, then rip away what grew in her.

He had no right to what was hers. No right to what she carried inside her.

“Hayley.”

“What?” She jolted like a thief, then blinked at Stella.

She was standing among the shade plants, surrounded by hostas green as Ireland. Yards away from the restroom.

How long had she been standing there, thinking thoughts not her own?

“Are you all right?”

“A little turned around.” She drew in a long breath. “I’m sorry I’m late.”

“It’s all right.”

“I’ll make it up. But I need . . . I have to talk to Harper. Before I get started I need to talk to him.”

“In the grafting house. He wanted to know when you got in. Hayley, I wish you’d tell me what’s wrong.”

“I need to talk to Harper first.” Before she lost her nerve, or her mind.

She hurried away, walking quickly between the tables of plants, across the asphalt skirt, past the greenhouses. Business was picking up, she noted, after the high summer slump. Temperatures were easing off, just a little, and made people think about their fall plantings. Stella’s boys were going back to school. Days were getting shorter.