"How'd you grow up like that?"

He'd wondered the same thing himself. "I guess I was just lucky I survived it and came out sane."

She nodded. "Well you were amazing tonight," she said, taking him by surprise.

He laced his fingers behind his head and studied her. "You expected me to let my folks get away with belittling you and being so hard on Sam?"

"Let's say I wasn't sure what to expect, but…you impressed me, Ryan." Her voice dropped an octave when she said his name.

The desire that he'd managed to hold at bay washed over him with desperate force.

"Weren't you afraid?" she asked, pegging his deepest emotions, the ones he'd thought were so well hidden.

Obviously they weren't and he wasn't about to explain it to her from a distance. He patted the empty space next to him and without hesitating, she scooted closer, curling up beside him. Only the glow of the television provided light in the room and they lay together comfortably.

"What could I be afraid of?" he asked lightly.

She reached out and caressed his cheek. "Losing your family the way Faith lost her family."

He shut his eyes, unable to believe this woman understood him so well. "My whole life I lived with this double message that always tested me. In my heart I knew what my parents did to my sister was dead wrong and the only way I could make it right was to search for her. Every birthday of mine that passed marked another year closer to finding Faith."

"You're a good man," she murmured, as her soft fingers stroked his skin, encouraging him to continue.

"But I also knew the consequences for stepping out of those boundaries my parents set for us kids. I could lose my family and everything that was familiar to me if I misbehaved. Toeing the line was second nature."

Zoe leaned her head against his shoulder, her breath soft on his neck. "Yet you became a lawyer and didn't go into the family business."

"Only because J.T. did and because being an attorney would help me if they suddenly decreed it was time I helped run Baldwin's, too." He'd just never faced the possibility that that day might arise.

"You became your own man," Zoe insisted and he laughed at her determination to make him see himself the way she viewed him.

"Still, my sister no longer existed for them and I knew…heck, I know that if I cross them, I may no longer exist, either." Despite himself, he shivered at the prospect.

"Yet you stood up to them tonight, and you did it for Sam."

"And for you."

She narrowed her gaze.

"You doubt me?" he asked. "Or do you just want to make believe what I said isn't true?"

"Why would I do that?"

"I don't know. Every time things get intense between us, you back off in some way."

A smile teased her lips, but it wasn't a happy one, more like an acknowledgment of his words.

"Care to tell me why?" he asked.

"If you want honesty, I'll give you honesty. You're a threat to me, Ryan. An honest-to-goodness threat."

Her admission let him know that her feelings for him ran as deeply as his did for her. The difference was, he refused to run away.

"I'm a threat? Or your own feelings are?"

She breathed in deep and he felt the tremors wracking her body. "A little of both, I suppose."

He narrowed his gaze, not surprised and yet confused at the same time. "You come from an open, loving family. One that isn't afraid of expressing their feelings, good or bad. You can't possibly be afraid of falling in love."

Love? Not yet, but the possibility wasn't completely incomprehensible. Still, he couldn't believe he'd said the word out loud.

Neither could she. Her eyes opened wide, but to her credit, she held on to her composure as she tried to explain. "I'm thirty and I've never fallen in love. Never said the words to a man who wasn't a family member. I've watched my parents live the emotion and saw my sister fall firsthand. I've long since accepted that it isn't going to happen for me. And it definitely can't happen between two people as different as us."

Well, he'd asked. Now he knew. And his stomach cramped as he realized how tightly she held on to her notions.

"Differences aren't always a bad thing," he reminded her.

She shook her head and laughed. "You're determined to make this difficult, aren't you?"

"Not at all." He reached out and stroked her cheek. "You're scared of feelings you never thought you'd have. Join the club, sweetheart. I'm thirty and I've never been in love. Never said the words or even thought I'd fallen hard." And he wouldn't say them outright just yet, either. "It's something we do have in common."

She glanced down at the comforter. "My life is at a crossroads. Surely you see that. I'm still living at home. My business, which doesn't even have a name, is barely up and running and I've already had to put it on hold to come up here."

"To be with Sam. Who needs you. You didn't hesitate to drop everything for her and she's not even your flesh and blood. Compare that to the situation she's got waiting for her here and you're miles ahead of us."

She laughed. "Looks like neither of us gives ourselves enough credit."

"So isn't it great that we've got each other cheering us on? You know you're the first woman I've ever known who's truly an individual. You have drive, direction- "

"Ryan, don't." She shook her head and didn't meet his gaze. "I need to resettle before I can consider myself a part of a couple or even seriously consider a relationship."

He nodded in understanding, telling himself she hadn't completely closed herself off to the notion of them. She needed time to adjust to her feelings, which gave him time to confront her fears and find solutions. He needed to be able to deal with each point on a rational level or he'd never change her mind. A possibility he couldn't begin to contemplate.

She shut her eyes and leaned back, closing him out.

But this time he wasn't unnerved by her need to pull away because he understood now that she was scared. Scared of how an emotion as intense as love could change her life and threaten the freedom she held so dear.

He'd just have to take her fears as a challenge to overcome.


* * *

ZOE STRETCHED OUT on the lounge chair by the pool at Ryan's parents' house. She couldn't say she was comfortable with his mother and grandmother sitting beneath an umbrella on the opposite side of the patio, alternately staring and whispering. She felt like a pariah at a party.

But then she'd turned and looked at Ryan, who lay beside her in swimming trunks, and decided life could be much, much worse. His tanned chest was a magnet for her hungry gaze and she devoured him from behind her sunglasses.

Only she knew she'd spent the night in his bed. He'd managed to coax her into forgetting their intense conversation and making love, not once, but twice last night and then again this morning. Each time he'd come inside her, he'd shuddered and whispered her name, soft and low in her ear. He'd made her insides turn to mush, made liquid trickle between her thighs so she could clasp him in moist heat. Zoe crossed her legs and felt that sensitive spot tingle and shoot desire straight to her core.

As a distraction, she tried to focus on the afternoon sun, which beat down hard, but her mind strayed back to their too-serious conversation last night. What he was coming to mean to her, and her to him. And why she needed to back off.

Zoe shivered despite the hot sun. She grabbed for the sunscreen and slathered lotion on her arms and chest. All the while, she felt Ryan watching her, too.

"Hey, Zoe!" Sam yelled.

She glanced up, shielding her eyes with her hand so she could better see the teenager's antics.

"Cannonball!" Sam yelled and jumped, grabbing her knees midair prior to hitting the water, which splashed over all the chairs drenching everything in sight.

Thanks to the heat Ryan generated, Zoe didn't mind the cold shower. His mother, on the other hand, rose from her seat and shook her arms in fury.

"Samantha, there are other people in the vicinity!" Vivian chided.

"Sorry, Mrs. Baldwin." Sam said the words in a singsong voice that failed to sound sincere.

The older woman, clad in a too-formal summer dress, glanced at Ryan. "Does the child have to call me that? I sound like a stranger."

"You are," Zoe muttered beneath her breath.

"What would you like Sam to call you?" Ryan asked.

That question seemed to stump his mother and she grew oddly quiet.

"How 'bout I call you Grandma?" Sam asked, stepping out of the pool.

Zoe chuckled. The kid might not want anything to do with Ryan's family, but she definitely knew how to push all the right buttons to annoy them.

"Why don't you just call her Vivian?" Ryan suggested.

Any replies were interrupted by shrieks from the side of the house.

"Oh, no." Zoe ran, Ryan ahead of her, and the others followed.

They rounded the corner and Zoe nearly barreled into Ryan who'd stopped short. His grandmother stood on a white wrought-iron bench, pointing at the ground and shrieking.

"Mother, what's wrong?" Vivian asked.

"It's…it's…there's a rat in my roses," she screamed loudly. "Call Hilton," she said. Hilton, Zoe now knew, was the butler.

Nobody pointed out that, even in her panicked state, Grandma Edna directed that the butler be called to help when there were perfectly capable family members standing around uselessly. Meanwhile, Grandma Edna still gesticulated wildly with her hands.

"Have him call a terminator," the older woman shouted.

"I think you mean an exterminator."

Zoe turned to see Uncle Russ had joined the fray.

"I'm sure it's not a rat," Vivian said, calming her mother and helping her down from the bench.

Zoe met Ryan's gaze.

"I'm quite sure it isn't," he said, somehow keeping a straight face.

Despite the insanity around them, they shared intimate eye contact, causing her insides to curl with warmth.

"I thought we told you to keep the pig caged in the shade on the other side of the house," Zoe whispered to Sam who stood wrapped in a towel behind her.

"I dunno what happened. Maybe I didn't lock the cage good enough," she said, too innocently.

Zoe cringed and waited for the fallout while Ryan dug around the garden for the pig. Zoe vividly recalled the moment in her own mother's garden when he'd de scribed the prized roses, and decided all hope of keeping the peace, and Ryan on their side, was lost.

He might have found the situation amusing at first, but he couldn't possibly find humor in the repercussions. So much for attempting a pleasant afternoon that would please Sam, Zoe thought.

"There it is!" Grandma Edna yelled and pointed to the ground just as Ima made her escape from the roses and ran across the lawn, Sam in hot pursuit.

Vivian reached into her pocket for a vial that Grandma Edna referred to as her smelling salts, though Zoe didn't see why she needed them when she hadn't passed out.

Ryan rose and brushed off his hands, then bent to check on his grandmother.

"Care to explain that, that thing?" Vivian asked through tightly clenched teeth.

"That's Sam's pet," Ryan explained.

"If it wasn't a rat, then what was it?" Grandma Edna asked as she fanned herself with a magazine Uncle Russ had held in his hand.

"Could I convince you it was a dog, ma'am?" Zoe pasted on her broadest smile.

Nobody laughed, especially after Zoe launched into an explanation of the Vietnamese potbellied pig.

As a group, they trudged back to the pool area. Although Ryan wanted to pack up and leave and Zoe was all too happy to agree, Uncle Russ insisted they stay. He'd just returned from the Boston store. An emergency, he'd said, and he wanted his share of time with both Ryan and Sam.

Zoe couldn't help but feel excluded, but she reminded herself it was an omen of things to come. She'd better get used to it now. She wasn't a member of this family, didn't want to be, and would never fit in, anyway. She was here for Sam and when Sam no longer needed her for the transition, and it was safe back home, they'd have to talk to Social Services, say their goodbyes and…

And would Sam return here? Zoe's insides roiled.

"So I thought that since you're a member of this family, you would want the same piece of jewelry both Vivian and Grandmother Edna have," Uncle Russ was saying to Sam.

Zoe hadn't realized the teen had returned from rescuing Ima, but she had the pig packed safely in her carrier.

Russ held out a small jewelry box with the word Baldwin's inscribed on top and Sam accepted the gift.