“Kevin, do you want to show Uncle Sam where your daddy is?” Betty asked, and there was a hopeful note in her voice.

  To everyone’s surprise, Kevin nodded eagerly and climbed off his mother’s hip. Without looking in Marjorie’s direction, the three-year-old held out his hand in order to lead Sam away.

  Sam must have noted the distress in Marjorie’s eyes, because he murmured something about being right back.

  “Take your time,” Betty returned. Once Sam and Kevin were out of sight, she let out a soft sigh and changed the topic as she led the way toward the cabin, which was located on the fertile bank of Hood Canal and was surprisingly modern. She gestured expansively. “You’d think Bernie had constructed the Empire State Building for the amount of time and effort that’s gone into this infamous deck.”

  “Bernie built the deck himself?” Marjorie had to admit she was impressed with the wraparound structure, as she followed her hostess into the kitchen. A series of stairs led down onto the sandy, smooth beach below.

  “Don’t encourage him,” Betty warned with a short laugh. “In his former life Bernie claims to have been a carpenter. He thinks he missed his calling.” Still grinning, she poured them each a tall glass of iced tea and led Marjorie into the living room. A small fire gave the room a cozy feeling.

  Marjorie sat in the overstuffed chair opposite her hostess.

  Betty’s chest rose with a deep breath, and she smiled at Marjorie. “You don’t know how relieved I am to finally meet you.”

  “Me?”

  “Sam’s hardly talked about anything else from the day you went in for surgery.”

  “He told you about me?” Amazed, Marjorie flattened her hand over her heart.

  “In elaborate detail. Does that surprise you?”

  “It shocks me.” And pleased her. And excited her. Then she remembered there could be no future for them.

  “Bernie and I have been waiting years for Sam to finally meet the right woman. We’d almost given up hope. He’s so dedicated to his patients. The one thing that’s suffered most over the last few years has been his personal life.”

  “He is a wonderful doctor.”

  “You won’t get any arguments out of me. I should know—Sam delivered both Kevin and Shelley.”

  “Shelley?” She was going to have to deal with more than one child?

  “Shelley’s sleeping, like all good four-month-olds. You’ll see her later.”

  Marjorie only nodded. She liked Betty and didn’t want to disillusion her with her own lack of anything approaching the maternal instinct.

  “You know, I knew Sam before I even met Bernie,” Betty explained, gazing into her iced tea. Her face took on a solemn look.

  “Are you a nurse?”

  Betty nodded. “I know that sounds old hat, but the path of romance was anything but smooth for Bernie and me. It isn’t like we saw each other from across a crowded room and instantly heard fate calling.”

  “No?”

  Betty crossed her legs and grinned sheepishly. “Well, to be honest, I was dating Sam when I met Bernie. Later Bernie was assigned to the ward where I was working.”

  “So it was being in close proximity that ignited the fires between you?”

  Laughing, Betty shook her head. “Hardly. If there were any fires ignited, they were from the arguments we had. Bernie and I couldn’t agree on anything, and I found him impossible to work with. Once he even went so far as to warn Sam that I was a meddling busybody and he’d do well not to see me again.”

  Marjorie found all this a little difficult to believe. She’d met Bernie and seen for herself the way his gaze softened when he mentioned his wife’s name.

  “I know it sounds unbelievable now, but we had serious problems.” Betty paused and ran the tips of her fingers over the chair’s armrest, caught up in her memories. “It seemed that no matter what I did or how careful I was, I couldn’t please the demanding Dr. Miller. Every time he and I were together, we ended up in a shouting match. There wasn’t a staff member on the entire floor who would come within twenty feet of us when we got going.”

  “What happened to change all that?”

  Betty shrugged, then a lazy smile began to grow until it practically lit up her round face. “Bernie came to my apartment one night after work. I’ll admit he looked terrible, but we’d had another one of our confrontations that day, and I wasn’t in any mood to be friendly.”

  “What did he say?” Marjorie couldn’t help being curious.

  “He wanted to talk.” Betty paused and grinned. “I told him to take a flying leap into the nearest cow pasture.”

  Marjorie laughed outright. The idea of tiny Betty standing up to a stern-faced Bernie made for a comical picture. “I don’t imagine he was any too pleased with that suggestion.”

  “No. I could sense he was struggling not to tell me where I should fly. But he didn’t. Instead he asked me how serious I was about Sam.”

  Marjorie suspected that Bernie had been attracted to Betty from the first, but he was decent enough not to get involved with his best friend’s girlfriend.

  “Sam was a friend,” Betty continued. “A good one. We’d dated off and on for years, but there was never anything serious between us. Fun stuff. You know—a baseball game, hikes now and again, that sort of thing. Neither one of us ever thought it was a romance for the ages.”

  “But you let Bernie think otherwise.”

  “Why not? He’d been a pill from the first. Besides, what was happening between Sam and me wasn’t any of his business. I told him that, too.”

  “I suppose he left then.”

  “Yeah, how’d you know?”

  “Lucky guess,” Marjorie said, holding in a knowing smile.

  “We didn’t argue after that. Not once. Bernie treated me like every other nurse on the ward, and within a week I was so bored I wanted to cry. Until that moment I didn’t realize how much I looked forward to sparring with him.” She smiled as she remembered. “That was when Sam invited me to have coffee with him in the cafeteria after work one day. When I sat down, the first thing he did was ask about Bernie. I said I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about. Sam looked surprised at that. He claimed Bernie had gotten drunk one night and stormed at him to hurry up and marry me before he—Bernie—did something stupid.”

  “I can imagine Sam’s reaction to that.”

  Betty grinned and continued. “Sam told him he liked me fine, but he couldn’t see the two of us ever getting married.”

  “What did Bernie say to that?”

  Betty rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Apparently he tried to swing on Sam. You have to understand how out of character that is for Bernie to fully appreciate him doing something like that.”

  “I think I can understand,” Marjorie said. Any person who would dedicate his life to the care and well-being of his fellow man would naturally deplore violence. “How did the two of you ever manage to get together?”

  “It was easy once I sorted through my feelings. I figured that since he’d come to me once, I’d have to be the one to approach him. Not right away, mind you. It took some thinking on my part. The most difficult piece was realizing I was in love with Bernie Miller and had been for weeks. The hardest thing I’ve ever done was invite him over for dinner. Funny thing, though, once we stopped arguing, we discovered how much we had in common. Within a month of our first dinner date we were engaged, and you can guess the rest of the story.”

  Marjorie took a sip of her tea. “The two of you are perfect together. It’s obvious talking to either one of you that you and Bernie are in love.”

  “We work on it.” Betty slapped the armrest. “Enough about me. I want to know about you.”

  “There really isn’t much to tell.” A bit uneasy, Marjorie spoke in general terms about her job and her sister. The whole time she was talking, she was aware that there was nothing that made her any different than the other women Sam had dated in the past ten years.

  “He’s crazy about you,” Betty commented. “You know that, don’t you?”

  Marjorie could feel the other woman studying her. Sam might have been crazy for her at one time, but she had ruined that.

  “To be honest, I wondered what made you different. But ten minutes with you and I can understand it. You’re exactly the type of woman Sam needs.”

  Marjorie’s look must have revealed her disbelief.

  “A doctor needs a woman in his life who has a strong and independent nature. So many other people are constantly making demands on his time and his energy that sometimes there’s not much left for anyone else. Above anything else, Sam needs a respite from the demands of work. For men like Sam and Bernie, death is the enemy, and they’ll fight for a life with little or no thought to the physical or emotional cost to themselves.”

  Marjorie nibbled on her lower lip. “I hadn’t thought about it like that.” Betty had far more insight into Sam and Bernie’s needs than she’d considered. All she herself knew was that she loved Sam Bretton and that she would consider herself the most fortunate woman in the world to be his wife.

  “I know Bernie so well that I recognize the signs now. He doesn’t need to say a word,” Betty went on. “There’s a look about him, a tiredness in his eyes and in the way he walks. All of those things tell me the kind of day he’s had. He’ll snap at me every now and again, but I forgive him because I know that he’s probably had to tell someone’s son or daughter that their mother won’t be coming home from the hospital, or he’s had to tell someone that their test results show they have cancer.”

  The thought of having to give someone such bad news tightened a knot of compassion in Marjorie’s stomach.

  “The last thing Bernie needs when he gets home is a list of demands from me. I wouldn’t do that to him, and you wouldn’t do that to Sam. He knows that, just the way I did as soon as we met.”

  A cool sip of her drink helped alleviate the tightness in Marjorie’s throat. “I’m not the right woman for him. I don’t deserve him.”

  Betty settled back in her chair and grinned. “He said almost exactly those same words to Bernie about you.”

  Marjorie blinked back her surprise and lowered her gaze. Her heart was filled with such misery that it was impossible to hold it all inside. She felt as though she would burst into tears in another minute.

  “In fact, Bernie got so sick of hearing about you that he threatened to cancel their poker night if Sam didn’t bring you around and introduce you.”

  “He must have taken him seriously, because we made a trip to the hospital Friday night.”

  “Bernie mentioned that, too. He told me that one look at the two of you together and he knew Sam had finally found the right woman. By the way, what is it about Sundays with you?”

  “Sundays?”

  “Yes. Sam phoned the other day and said the only time he can play poker from now on is Sunday afternoons.”

  Marjorie set the tall glass aside. “I work weekends. Hopefully someday I’ll have Sundays free, but unfortunately, that probably won’t be for some time yet.”

  Slowly Betty shook her head. “Believe me, when a man puts a woman before a long-standing poker game, he’s serious about her.”

  Marjorie dropped her gaze and felt obliged to add, “We aren’t serious. There are…problems.”

  “Wait and see, you’ll settle them,” Betty returned with unshakable confidence. “Sam’s never been more ready for a wife than he is now.”

  Betty looked as if there was more she wanted to say, but before she could speak the sliding glass door opened, and the two men, plus Kevin, walked into the house.

  “Have you shown Marjorie my deck yet?” Bernie asked, beaming proudly.

  Betty tried not to smile and failed. “It was the first thing I mentioned.”

  “I’ve been thinking that since this project went so well, I might try my hand at something a little more complicated.”

  Betty eyed her husband speculatively. “Like what?”

  “An addition to the house,” he said enthusiastically. “I could add on to the master bedroom. You’ve told me more than once that we need more closet space.”

  “Men,” Betty said and groaned under her breath to Marjorie.

  Sam walked over to Marjorie and sat beside her on the cushioned arm of the chair. He slipped his arm around her and cupped her shoulder.

  A warm sensation filled her, and when she glanced up, she discovered Sam studying her. The love that filled her eyes was as unexpected as it was embarrassing.

  His fingers bit into her shoulder as his gaze held hers. “I love you,” he whispered. “We’ll work this out.”

  “But, Sam…”

  He bent down and kissed the top of her head. “Listen, we’ll adopt kids. Older kids. Okay?”

  Biting her bottom lip, Marjorie nodded.

  Sam reached for her hand, lacing their fingers together, as though bonding them. She loved this man more than she ever thought it was possible to care about another human being. Whatever problems they faced in the future could be conquered with Sam at her side. She was sure of it.

  “When are we going to eat?” Kevin demanded, placing his hands on his hips. “I’m hungry.” The little boy still wouldn’t look directly at Marjorie, but that was an improvement from hiding his face in his mother’s shoulder.

  “The barbecue’s already hot,” Bernie told his wife. “I’ll put the steaks on now, if everything else is ready.”

  “I want a hamburger,” Kevin insisted.

  “And you will get one,” his father promised. “Come along, big boy, and you can help your dear ol’ dad and Uncle Sam with the cooking.”

  “I’ll start setting the table out on the deck,” Betty said.

  “Is there anything I can do?” Marjorie volunteered, quickly rising to her feet. “I brought some chips and dip, and some potato salad and sliced pickles.” Sam caught her eye and revealed his surprise. “Deli made,” she whispered, and he grinned back.

  “Why don’t you unpack those while I set the picnic table?” Betty suggested.

  The others left to take care of things, and Marjorie found herself alone in the kitchen. She went over to the wicker basket and lifted the top. The potato salad was nestled between the pickle jar and the dip. As she was drawing it out, she heard a faint cry coming from the back of the house. She paused, then remembered Betty mentioning that the baby was napping. Marjorie went to the cabinet and proceeded to take out a couple bowls and fill them with the potato salad and dip. To her chagrin, the infant’s crying grew louder.

  A quick check outside told her that Kevin had managed to distract his mother from the job of setting the table. The two of them were down on the beach. Betty was bent over, examining something Kevin was pointing to in the sand. The men were across the yard, busy chatting while Bernie stuck T-bone steaks onto the hot grill.

  Before Marjorie could call out to anyone, the baby’s cry split the air.

  Alarmed, she ran into the back bedroom. The infant’s cries died to a soft gurgle once she arrived.

  “Hi.” she said stiffly, standing a good three feet from the crib. “Your mother’s on the beach. Would you like me to do something before she gets here?”

  The baby’s fists flailed in the air.

  “Don’t cry, okay? I’m sure she’ll be back any minute.”

  The infant whimpered softly, and that alone was enough to cause Marjorie to take two steps in retreat. Once four-month-old Shelley realized she was losing her audience, she let go with another loud, earnest cry. She paused then, and inserted her fist into her mouth, sucking on it greedily.

  “Oh, I get it,” Marjorie murmured, retracing her steps. “You’re hungry.” She dropped her gaze to her own full breasts. “Sorry, I can’t help you in that department.” She smiled at her own joke.

  The baby gurgled again, seemingly amused by Marjorie’s attempt at humor.

  “I suppose you’ve got a wet diaper, as well.”

  Shelley made a chuckling sound that cut straight through Marjorie’s heart. “I don’t think I’m going to be much help in that area, either. You see, babies and I don’t get along.”

  Shelley giggled at that. Two arms and legs punched the air as she smiled up at Marjorie, who found she had somehow ended up leaning over the crib.

  Sam came into the house and took a Pepsi from the refrigerator. He looked around for Marjorie, and when he didn’t find her, he opened the front door, thinking she might have forgotten something in the car. She wasn’t there, either. Concerned now, he started for the deck to find Betty.

  A faint noise stopped him. It was almost indiscernible at first, so faint that he didn’t recognize it until he paused and listened intently. It was a baby cooing happily. He turned into the narrow hallway that led to Shelley’s bedroom and found Marjorie at last.

  She was sitting in a rocking chair, cuddling Shelley in her arms as though she never intended to let the baby go. Tear tracks streaked her face, creating a bright sheen on her flushed cheeks. She sniffled loudly and wasn’t able to keep her chin from trembling.

  “Marjorie,” he murmured, falling to his knees in front of her, hardly able to believe his eyes.

  Nine

  “Sam,” Marjorie whimpered softly. “I’m holding a baby.”

  “I see that, Kitten.”

  “She’s so beautiful.” A teardrop rolled down her face and landed ingloriously on Shelley’s cotton jumpsuit. Cooing, the baby reached out to catch the next drop.

  With the gentleness she had come to expect from him, Sam tenderly brushed his hand over her face, wiping away the tears. “I’ve never seen a woman as beautiful as you are right this minute.”