Eric beamed. “I’m the man of the house while Daddy’s gone.”

“Your mom is so lucky.”

She eased the sleeping baby into the crib. Kim stayed asleep. Jesse wound the mobile above the crib and motioned for Eric to join her as she backed out of the room.

They returned to the family room. Nicole stared at her.

“She’s sleeping?”

“Yes. Why don’t I take Molly while you go grab a shower?”

Nicole hesitated, as if she was going to argue, then she handed over the infant and hurried down the hall.

Jesse gazed at the sleepy baby in her arms. “Do you have one of those chairs that rocks the baby?” she asked Eric.

He nodded and pointed to the far corner.

Jesse dug it out from behind a pile of towels and set it in front of the sofa. Molly fussed when she was put in, but quieted as the chair began to crank back and forth.

The piles of laundry needed attention first, Jesse thought. “Where are the washer and dryer?” she asked Eric.

He showed her the utility room off the kitchen. She loaded in towels, added soap and started the machine. She took baby clothes out of the dryer and quickly folded them, giving him socks to match up.

“Excellent job,” she told him, as she cleaned off the kitchen table, wiped it down, then stacked the clean clothes in piles. “Are you thirsty?”

“Uh-huh. I can have juice.”

There were boxes in the fridge. She got him settled with his drink, then loaded the dishwasher with as much as she could fit in before filling the sink and washing the big pots and pans by hand. She just started drying them when Nicole walked into the kitchen.

“Where’s Molly?” she asked.

Jesse pointed to the slumbering baby in the rocking chair. “There’s a load of towels going in the washer. The dishwasher is full, but I didn’t know if it would pull too much hot water from your shower, so I waited.”

Nicole sank into a chair at the table. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I don’t mind.” She knew what it was like to be overwhelmed, to think she was never going to get enough rest to feel human again.

The doorbell rang. Nicole winced, but Eric went running. “It’s Billy and his mom,” he yelled. Molly started to cry.

“I’ll take the baby,” Jesse said.

“Thanks. Eric’s spending the afternoon at his friend’s house. I’ll be right back.”

While Jesse soothed Molly back to sleep, Nicole saw off her son, then returned to the kitchen, looking exhausted. They stood staring at each other for an awkward second.

“So, you’re back in Seattle?” Nicole asked as she sank into a chair at the table.

“For now.” Jesse remembered the pictures she’d brought and went to get them. When she returned, she handed them to her sister. “Gabe’s been asking about his father. I’ve put off their meeting as long as I could, but I’m running out of excuses. So we’re here, at least for a few weeks.”

She hesitated because Nicole hadn’t looked at the pictures. “I went to see Matt this morning. He wasn’t expecting me.” There was an understatement. “I’d told him I was pregnant when I left, but he didn’t believe he was the father. Given the circumstances, I guess I can’t blame him.”

Now came the hard part, Jesse thought. She’d practiced what she wanted to say dozens of times, but suddenly couldn’t think of any of her carefully prepared phrases.

“I didn’t sleep with Drew,” she said, jumping in and hoping her sister would listen. “I never slept with him, tried to sleep with him or thought of him as anything but your husband. He and I were friends. We would talk and that was it. I was in love with Matt.”

Nicole stood and crossed to the dishwasher, where she pushed a couple of buttons to start the cycle. “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“We have to eventually.”

“Why?” Nicole turned to face her, then sighed. “Okay. Maybe. But not today.”

Jesse wanted to push. She’d felt awful about Nicole’s hurt and anger for five years and she didn’t want to wait any longer. But the mature choice would be to let her sister get used to the idea of her being back first.

“I’ll leave the pictures,” Jesse said quietly. “You can look at them later. There’s a lot of Matt in Gabe. Especially in his eyes. It made it hard to forget.”

Not hard. Impossible.

Nicole nodded. “I will.” She crossed her arms across her chest. “I thought I’d hear from you when you turned twenty-five.”

Meaning she thought Jesse would show up to get her half of the bakery. Their father had left the business to both of them, with Jesse’s half held in trust until she was twenty-five. Once she’d graduated from high school, Jesse had bugged Nicole to buy her out soon and give her the money. Nicole had refused. It had been just one more thing for them to fight about.

“I don’t want to be given anything,” Jesse told her. “I want to earn my way in.”

Nicole raised her eyebrows. “Meaning what? You want a job? I thought you hated working at the bakery.”

A job? Jesse hadn’t thought that far, but she could sure use the money. “A job would be great. But I have something else to offer. A brownie recipe. I’ve been working on it on and off for a couple of years. It’s finally ready. It’s better than anything out there.”

Nicole didn’t look convinced.

Jesse fought disappointment and the voice that whispered her sister would never see her as anything but a screwup. The truth was, Jesse might know how much she’d changed, but Nicole had to be convinced. That was fine. Jesse wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

“I’ll bake a couple of batches,” Jesse told her. “We can set up time for a tasting.”

“All right. But if they’re that good, why didn’t you just start a business on your own?”

A genuine question or a slam? Jesse wondered. Five years ago, she’d taken the famous Keyes chocolate cake recipe, made the cakes out of a rented kitchen and sold them online. Nicole had been furious and pressed charges, throwing her baby sister in jail.

“They’re that good,” Jesse said calmly. “I could have gone out on my own, but I wanted to bring them to the bakery. I told you-I’m interested in earning my way back in.”

Nicole stared at her, obviously not convinced. Jesse took that as a hint to leave.

“I’ll call you,” she said as she headed for the door. “So we can set up a time that works for you.”

“How can I get in touch with you?” Nicole asked.

The question gave Jesse hope. Maybe her sister hadn’t given up on her completely. “I left my cell number on the pictures.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Jesse reached the front door.

“Wait,” Nicole called.

Jesse turned.

“Thanks for helping with the twins. I’m usually more together than that.”

“Babies are tough,” Jesse told her, pleased she’d been able to make a difference. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Okay. Bye.”

Jesse walked to her car, smiling and feeling more hopeful than she had when she’d left Matt’s. Nicole would take some convincing, but Jesse felt that she could earn her way back into her sister’s good graces. She would have her family back and, right now, that mattered more than anything.

JESSE PARKED IN FRONT of the YMCA in Bothell. The Y in Spokane had been a big part of her life ever since she’d had Gabe. She’d taken baby CPR classes there, had gone to Mommy and Me classes where she’d met other young mothers. She’d worked out in the gym, knowing her son was safe in the day care center and the babysitting service they provided had saved her butt more times than she could count.

Now she walked in to pick up Gabe and smiled as she saw him playing with two other little boys. As always, he was laughing and in the center of everything.

One of the teenagers there came up to her. “Hi, Jesse. You’re back early.”

“My meetings went quicker than I’d thought. How was Gabe?”

“Great. He’s really outgoing and he does so well with the other kids. Especially the shy ones. He takes the time to draw them out. Bring him back anytime.”

Jesse smiled and nodded. She wanted to take credit for Gabe’s easy personality, but she knew it was just one of those moments of chance when the gene pool did something beyond right.

Her son looked up and saw her. His smile widened and he raced toward her. “Mommy, Mommy, I made new friends.”

She bent down and grabbed him as he launched himself at her. “Did you? That’s great.”

“I had fun and I want to come back.”

“We’ll have to make sure that happens, won’t we?”

He nodded vigorously.

Jesse signed the paperwork and left, Gabe chatting as he walked with her. He gave her a real-time account of his morning, every event more fun and exciting than the one before. More good luck, she thought as she helped him into his car seat. He was a cheerful, happy kid. She wasn’t sure how she would have survived if he’d been any different.

She closed his door, then got in the driver’s seat.

“Now what?” he asked. “Are we going back to the hotel?”

“We can,” she said slowly, thinking about where they were and how far it would be to the hotel.

A thought pushed into her head. She tried to ignore it, but it just got bigger and louder.

Talk about crazy, she told herself. Hadn’t she been through enough for one day? Did she want to keep torturing herself? Even though she knew it was a bad idea, she heard herself say, “I think there’s someone I want you to meet.”

Gabe’s face brightened. “My daddy?”

“Um, not yet. But someone else. Your grandmother.”

Gabe’s eyes widened and he looked as if she’d just offered him a puppy. “I have a grandmother?” he asked, his voice low and filled with wonder.

“Uh-huh. Your daddy’s mother.” Gabe knew the basics about grandparents, mostly that he didn’t have any. Well, except for Paula.

There was only one problem. Matt’s mother had always hated her.

It’s been a long time, she reminded herself. Maybe Paula had changed. If not, it would be a very short visit.

Jesse drove into Woodinville, to the pretty house Matt had bought for his mother years ago, after his first computer game had been licensed for millions.

For the third time that morning, she pulled in front of a house owned by someone who very well might not welcome her back. But this time she didn’t bother with pictures. She had the real thing.

“Hurry!” Gabe instructed, as she unfastened him from the car seat. “Hurry!”

He ran ahead of her, racing up the walk and then reaching up on his toes so he could push the doorbell. Jesse grabbed her purse, slammed the door and jogged after him, but she was too late. The front door opened before she got there.

Paula stood there, looking a little older, but not all that different. Her hair was still dark like her son’s. There were a few more lines around her face and she’d gained a little weight, but otherwise she was as Jesse remembered.

“Hi,” Gabe said with a grin. “You’re my grandma.”

Paula stiffened as she gazed at the boy, then she looked past him to where Jesse stood halfway up the walk.

“Hi,” Jesse said, knowing she would have handled the situation differently than her four-year-old, but it was too late now. “I probably should have called or something. We just got into Seattle yesterday.”

Paula blinked several times. “Jesse?”

“I’m Gabe,” he said. “You’re my grandma.”

Tears filled Paula’s eyes. “You were pregnant?”

Jesse nodded, still not sure what was going to happen. She braced herself for screaming or nasty accusations. Instead, Paula smiled at Gabe as if he were a treasure she’d never expected to find.

“I’ve never had a grandson before. This is very exciting. Would you like to come in?”

Gabe nodded and stepped into the house. Jesse followed more slowly.

The place was as she remembered. She’d only been to it a few times, but each visit had been difficult enough for her to remember forever.

The colors were soothing, the furniture comfortable. The reason the awkward hours were etched into her brain had nothing to do with the house itself and everything to do with Paula.

“This way,” Paula said. “You know, it’s funny. I made cookies this morning. I don’t usually make cookies, but suddenly I got in the mood.” She smiled at Gabe again, looking stunned but pleased. “Do you like chocolate chip?”

He nodded in appreciation. “They’re my favorite.”

“Mine, too, although I really like peanut butter, too.”

“Those are my favorite, too,” Gabe told her, as charming as ever. “You’re pretty. Isn’t my grandma pretty, Mommy?”

Jesse nodded.

Paula looked as if she couldn’t believe this was happening. “Can I hug you?” she asked him.

Gabe smiled and held out his arms. Paula dropped to her knees and held him close. Her eyes closed as her face took on an expression of such longing that Jesse had to look away. Wasn’t this always the way? The two people who were more likely to welcome her had been cautious and unfriendly. The one person who had always hated her seemed thrilled she was back in town. Life was nothing if not perverse.