“This was my first holiday season without Randy since I was ten.” She had to speak what truth she could. “I…let a moment of loneliness get the better of me.”

  “So…” Ellen’s smile was sincere, sweet, without a hint of judgment. “Does the father know?”

  She nodded. Tried for an easy smile, which she feared was more tentative than anything. “He’s a good man. I’m ashamed and embarrassed to say that we hardly know each other, but he’s insisted on taking full responsibility.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” Ellen said, tapping Caroline’s hand. “Everyone has moments of crazy loneliness. And if they don’t, they’re just too lucky for words.”

  Caroline smiled as she studied her new friend. “Well, I don’t know about that, but here I am, brand-new to town, and pregnant to boot.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ellen said. “Everyone here is really cool. They aren’t going to care if you’re married or not. I’ll introduce you to my mom and Bonnie at the day care and some of the others. Before you know it, you’ll have more babysitters and—” she chuckled “—life-sitters, too, than you know what to do with.”

  Caroline wasn’t so sure, but didn’t see any point in disillusioning the girl who’d suffered so much. Shelter Valley had come through for her in a big way; her faith in it was well-placed and, Caroline suspected, equally well deserved. From what she could tell, Ellen Moore Hanaran was a gem. Instead, she told the girl that she, too, had grown up in a small town, and spent the next couple of minutes answering Ellen’s questions about life in rural Kentucky. The desert-born girl seemed quite taken with the idea of living with so much green.

  “It sounds wonderful,” Ellen told her. “So what made you leave? Especially now?”

  “I’m going to Montford,” Caroline said, again choosing her words very carefully, to speak the truth—some of the truth—but not to speak out of turn. As painstakingly as she’d thought through this whole plan, there were some things she hadn’t considered well enough. “I got a full scholarship, majoring in English. I’ve always had this desire to write.”

  “No kidding!” Ellen grinned. “I’m impressed. Scholarships to Montford are hard to come by. Especially for people from out of state.” The girl leaned back in her chair, apparently more relaxed, and Caroline was content to sit and listen. “I’m graduating in May with a degree in Social Work,” Ellen said.

  She spent the rest of the time until she was called in telling Caroline about the Montford University undergraduate experience. The courses and classrooms, professors and fellow students. The depth of material, long assignments and difficult tests.

  Her words made Caroline nervous as hell and still…she couldn’t wait.

  JOHN PACED his home office for forty-five minutes, trying to come up with a way to solve a roofline problem on his most recent project—an art museum in Idaho. How the hell long did it take for a first pregnancy appointment, anyway? What exactly was there to do?

  Glancing out at the little patch of green grass in his backyard desert oasis, he thought about having a grapefruit. Or an orange. His oranges were really good this year.

  He really wasn’t hungry for a piece of fruit. John checked his watch impatiently and swore. It wasn’t even three yet.

  His computer signaled a new mail message, calling John. He sat. Deleted the junk e-mail that had just come in, and clicked on his CAD program. He’d get the round, three-story-high solarium and the one-story squared-off oil painting display rooms to complement each other before she called. He just had to focus.

  With rapid clicks, John moved walls and doorways, changed the shapes of windows and arches, added a chimney and turret to a roof that was too flat, and took them all away again. He measured dimensions, told his mind to travel along creative paths and thought about having a son named after him. By the time the phone rang at almost four o’clock, he was peeling his third orange.

  “Strickland,” he said when he picked up after allowing the phone to ring twice so it wouldn’t appear that he’d been sitting on it.

  Dr. Mason introduced herself. Told him that Caroline was with her. Took a moment to make sure that all three parties could hear each other.

  And then she started to talk about John’s baby as though the little guy were already alive and real. There were no questions about how he’d come to be in this situation or what he and Caroline planned to do with the baby. No admonitions or warnings about his upcoming obligations or current duties. Instead, the doctor gave a professionally thorough rundown of everything he and Caroline could expect over the next months, complete with lists of appointments that would be little more than just the usual checkups, which occurred once a month, at least for now.

  They could expect to hear the heartbeat at the first trimester mark. There’d be an ultrasound in the fourth month, during which they might be able to determine the sex of the child. Based on Caroline’s age and good health, she didn’t think there’d be any need for amniocentesis, which was fine by him as he didn’t even know what that was. Apparently, though, she’d need something called a triple-screen blood test. Fine, but as far as he was concerned, the fewer tests required, the better.

  “Do you plan to have the baby naturally?” Dr. Mason’s question fell into an awkward silence.

  “As opposed to what?” John asked, frustrated with his ignorance. Until now, he’d been deliberately ignorant about the nuances of baby-having; he’d always thought he and Meredith would learn the ropes together.

  “There are many options,” Dr. Mason said after a brief pause. John wished he could see Caroline’s expression, wondering if, even now, it would be as unrevealing as usual. “An epidural is probably the most commonly used. It’s an injection in the mother’s spine to numb her lower half for the actual birth….”

  John stood, walked to the window, ignored the grass and citrus trees growing there, staring instead at the icy coolness of the swimming pool.

  Dr. Mason was talking about the pros and cons of epidurals, obviously unaware that John was still focused on the long needle going into Caroline’s back.

  “Uh…” he interrupted. “Caroline, you’ve had a baby before. Do you have any preferences?”

  “I’d like to go natural.”

  Then why hadn’t she just said so?

  “Okay, natural it is,” he said.

  “Fine.” Dr. Mason didn’t seem to think it was a bad idea. “We’ll need to schedule classes when it gets closer to the time.”

  Classes. He’d heard of them, of course. But most of what he knew he’d seen on sitcoms. John moved over to the wet bar on the wall opposite the windows. Not to pour a drink; it was too early for that. He just wanted to lean an elbow there and try not to picture himself sitting on the floor next to a prostrate Caroline, the two of them panting….

  The doctor talked about diet. Caroline’s, not his. And exercise. John grabbed a beer out of the minifridge. Popped the top.

  “And obviously, you’re to avoid alcohol and tobacco for the duration…”

  John dropped the can of beer on the bar and proceeded to a leather armchair by his built-in mahogany bookcase. Sitting down, legs stretched in front of him, he leaned his head against the back of the chair.

  “By my calculations, the baby’s due August sixth,” Dr. Mason said, “which means its going to be a hot summer for you, my dear.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Other than answering his question earlier, it was the first time Caroline had spoken.

  “You don’t have air-conditioning in your room,” John said, thinking aloud.

  “There’s a ceiling fan.”

  “I’ll get you a window unit.”

  She didn’t argue. But probably only because of the doctor sitting in the room with her.

  “Since you’re going natural, I’d like to have John start coming to your visits.” John sat up. Smothered a cough. “We’ll make the next appointment for February twenty-first, a Monday, if that works for you both. It’s five weeks away but my receptionist says it’s my first free appointment. That’s your twelfth week and we can be on track for every four weeks after that.”

  “Is it really necessary for John to be there?” Caroline asked as soon as the doctor had finished.

  Silently, he echoed the question. He and Caroline had been through this and she’d talked him out of going.

  “He’ll be much better equipped to help you if he’s familiar with the whole process,” the doctor continued. “Besides, by next month we’ll be listening to the baby’s heartbeat and that’s especially important for the father, as it’s the only tangible contact he has with the child at this stage.”

  He was going to have contact with his child. In one month.

  John began to sweat.

  ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON, after a not-so-good phone call with John—in which he was trying to insist he take her shopping for maternity clothes, in spite of the fact that she still had all the clothes she’d worn with Jesse—Caroline could feel the walls of her room closing in on her. She fled to the streets of Shelter Valley. She didn’t want to waste gas driving when she had nowhere she needed to go, but for a woman used to country air and hills as far as she could see, Mrs. Howard’s quaint boardinghouse was beginning to feel like a lovely little prison.

  She started to feel better, in spite of a nasty dose of the day-before-school jitters, as she walked the quiet streets of her new town. Still not used to all the cacti, rock and flowering bushes in the front yards she was passing, Caroline occupied herself naming as many of the plants as she could, compliments of the Internet and her brief trip to the desert botanical garden with John. He’d been so restless that day, almost as though…

  No, she wasn’t going to think about him.

  She saw a couple of boys in the street, working out with skateboards and a lethal-looking ramp. Thank God, Jesse hadn’t been interested in those things. She’d never have survived.

  Caroline walked at least a mile before she even thought about how far she’d gone. Never had she experienced such wonderful weather in January. Balmy, high sixties, sunshine. She barely needed the cardigan she’d thrown on over her blouse. The air was clear. Invigorating. Full of life.

  She wasn’t ready to turn back. She had an hour or more before dinner. Crossing the street, she turned toward town to take the long way home.

  A young woman approached on Rollerblades, nodding at her as she flew by.

  Caroline was either going to have to ask Mrs. Howard if she could do her own laundry at a lower cost than the older woman charged her boarders or load up the truck and head back to the Laundromat she’d found the week before. Even wearing her jeans twice, she just had one pair left. Unless she wore the two pairs of Jesse’s that she’d saved after his departure. They were only a little too big.

  A beige luxury car turned onto the street. Caroline’s stomach tensed. Then the car passed her—a Lincoln, not a Cadillac like John drove. As her shoulders relaxed, Caroline warned herself to get a grip before she made herself crazy.

  “You didn’t survive the end of one life to let yourself down in the next,” she said out loud, just to be certain she got the message clearly.

  She was going to see her sister the next day. Caroline wasn’t sure she was ready. Or capable of remaining emotionally stable when her Psychology professor—her twin—walked into the room. What if she sat there and started to cry?

  Rounding the corner that led downtown, she slowed her steps, checking to see if she recognized anyone going to and from any of the businesses. And stopped in her tracks. There, on the corner outside the diner, stood an entire group of women she recognized. Becca Parsons was in the middle of the group. And she noticed Ellen’s mother, Martha, and the day-care owner, Bonnie Nielson. Caroline wondered what had happened with Ellen at the doctor’s, and whether or not her mother knew.

  As she moved a little closer, she could see that Randi Parsons Foster was there, too. She and Cassie Montford seemed to be engrossed in their own conversation.

  Only Tory and Phyllis appeared to be missing. Were they someplace together? They seemed to be together a lot.

  Whether the group was coming or going, she had no idea; she was only aware of the crushing need she felt to join them. And of the fact that she had no right to do so. She was a stranger in town. One who had very little in common with any of these professional women. Her talents lay in milking cows and making ends meet on a rural Kentucky farm.

  And yet these women seemed to bring each other everything Caroline had ever longed for. From what she’d read about the “Shelter Valley Heroines”—a name given them by the city’s mayor, Becca Parsons, when they’d banded together after Ellen’s rape the year before—they gave each other support and a sense of belonging. She wondered what they would do if she walked up and said hello.

  In Grainville, she’d have felt no compunction about introducing herself.

  Of course, in Grainville, if there’d been a group of women standing by the diner, she would’ve been one of them.

  Caroline couldn’t hear what Becca Parsons was saying, but all the other women laughed. Caroline turned around. She’d never spoken to a politician in her life. Besides, Becca was married to the president of Montford University, where Caroline felt like the oldest freshman known to man. Yeah, these women were definitely out of her league.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  JAMES MONTFORD STOOD at the floor-to-ceiling windows in his living room Tuesday night, looking down the mountain on which his house sat to view the city before him. Shelter Valley was the only home he’d ever known. Founded by his father, the late Sam Montford, and his mother, Lizzie, the town bore little resemblance to the wide-open and almost savagely undeveloped space he’d played in as a boy. Still, while some of the changes would have his father turning in his grave, many of them had been good.

  Glancing down to the spot he knew more by memory than sight these days, James pinpointed a white dot—the statue of his father that had been erected during a special Fourth of July ceremony four summers ago. James’s father, Sam Montford, Sr., from a well-to-do Boston family, had fled civilization after the unsolved murder of his infant son and black wife. He’d seen that murder as public protest to his interracial marriage. He’d got on a wagon train west, living with various Indian tribes over the next few years. It was while living with Hopis in Arizona that Sam met James’s mother, Lizzie, a Christian missionary come to save the “heathens” at the request of the United States government. Sam, who’d suffered so greatly, was drawn to the peace that was as much a part of Lizzie as the heart beating inside her.

  James’s eyes grew moist as he remembered his father repeating those words to him so often during his youth. After his parents were married, his father was ready once again to start a family. He wondered if he should return to Boston with the new wife of whom his family would approve, yet every time he thought of going back to that small-minded society, he’d feel as though he was suffocating.

  It was a feeling James could relate to more and more these days. Chest heavy with the effort it was taking him to draw breath, he forced himself to stand at the window. He needed the strength this view—these memories—gave him more than he needed to fall into the seat only a few feet behind him.

  Carol knew he tired too easily these days, knew the doctor had warned him that his heart was giving out; but she didn’t know that he’d started having these spells during which he found it harder and harder to breathe. No one knew. James didn’t want them to. He’d been born naturally, grown up naturally and was going to die just as naturally.

  Muff, his faithful and obese old cocker spaniel, appeared, plopping down to lean against his ankle. Instead of bending, he moved his foot slightly to rub her side. And continued to stare out at the town that was his heritage.

  How’s life treating you where you are now, Pop? he asked silently. James wished his father could answer him, to calm his fears just as the old man had so many times when he was a boy.

  As far as he’d been able to tell, nothing had scared Sam Montford. When he’d faced the dilemma of where to settle with his new wife, where to raise his family, Sam had gone out into the Arizona desert with a couple of his Hopi friends and came back with a new lease on life. He’d discovered a small abandoned settlement—probably a camp left behind by settlers heading west—and had suddenly known what he was going to do. His share of Montford money was going to be put to good use. And the town before James was a result of that long-ago decision.

  James glanced over to the complex of lights and shadows that was Montford University. His father had dreamed of a school of high repute that could rival Harvard, but James didn’t think even his father had dared hope for the speed with which the university had gained national prestige. Every year, in growing numbers, the nation’s smartest and best came to Shelter Valley to attend Montford.

  Just as it took more energy, of which he had less, for James to move these days, just as bones that had once been agile and cooperative were now threatening to quit on him daily, just as his mind crawled in random directions instead of leaping from challenge to challenge, Shelter Valley suffered from having grown older. Land that had been open and free and plentiful was being desecrated in the name of development. An environment that had been unquestionably safe was now tainted by the possibility of evil lurking in its midst. And where once a walk downtown had meant meeting friends, that same journey was often done in the company of strangers.

  James stumbled backward a couple of steps to fall into the chair, situated there expressly to provide its occupant with a comfortable resting place while enjoying the view. He figured he’d lived a good life. A blessed life. His son, Sam, at one time irrevocably lost to him, had been back for more than three years and was firmly ensconced in Shelter Valley—and in this home. Cassie, Sam’s high school girlfriend, was once again living with him as his wife and there wasn’t a soul on earth more precious to him than Brian, his little rascal of a grandson, and Mariah, the adopted daughter Sam had brought home with him. Except perhaps Carol.