But not before he’d landed back in time for long enough to get his emotions going. He swallowed. Turned a page. And another.

  Annie could very well be having twins. Their twins. Multiple births had been a possibility they’d been counseled over when they’d decided to go straight for embryonic implantation over months and possibly years of continuing to try to get pregnant.

  The trust was to be set up with her offspring as sole and equal heirs. That made his job simpler.

  “Because this trust is being designed to serve you anytime in the future, even if you live to be a hundred, the assets will all go to who you name on the trust with you, but because of the possibility of your heir being underage when the trust is settled, you’ll need to name a trustee. I’d recommend that whomever you name as guardian also be the trustee, so the child isn’t caught between possible warring factions, but that’s just a recommendation. You can choose to set this up however you’d like. The guardianship can be done simply by you writing a letter that we’ll file with the trust...”

  “I haven’t spoken to Christa yet, regarding the guardianship...”

  Her married friend whose husband would then step in as father of the child. Or children. The ones created from Seth’s embryonic component.

  “But...in any case... I’d like to name you as trustee,” she said, and he glanced up fully that time. Meeting her gaze head-on. “It can stay purely legal,” she said quickly, her expression lined with...doubt.

  Because she doubted him? Was afraid to put more on him than she should?

  There was no doubt in him as to her voice—her tone had been authoritative. Just her silent plea to him had held a lack of confidence.

  And there’d been no hesitation in her response, either. She’d already chosen him as trustee before she’d come to the meeting. The idea came to him with a certainty he didn’t question. A certainty that buoyed him.

  “I mean it to be purely legal,” she amended. “It’s just...in legal matters... I trust you implicitly, Seth. I’d feel better knowing that if something happened to me, you’d be in charge of protecting my baby’s future.”

  Not in charge of the baby. Just of the future. The money. The provisions. The college fund. Her home as an asset.

  In those areas she trusted him implicitly. Not in the others. Not anymore. He’d had that trust and had destroyed it.

  His throat tightened with an ambush of emotions he couldn’t sort out. Or express. Jumbled bits of despair, of guilt, of regret.

  Was still needing to be right where he was, doing what he was doing.

  He blinked.

  And, in answer to her request, he nodded.

  Chapter Ten

  “I’m going into work for a couple of hours but...we could meet someplace later for dinner, if you’d like...”

  Standing at the door of Seth’s makeshift office for the day, saying goodbye until the following morning, Annie heard the words come out of her mouth and knew they were wrong.

  No matter how badly she might need to make things right with him, she and Seth could not go out for dinner together.

  Because there was no way to make things right.

  They could move past what had happened years ago. And that was all.

  They hadn’t moved far enough past to allow a casual dinner, though, just the two of them. What would they talk about? How could they possibly have real conversation between them without getting themselves into trouble?

  He knew how she thought. She knew him, as well...

  “I’ve already got plans,” he told her, almost too quickly. As though, after the awkward silence following her question, his words had been tripping over themselves to be said.

  She nodded. Relieved.

  Disappointed.

  And beginning to suspect that she hadn’t just failed to consider and understand all of the ramifications for Seth in her decision to use their embryos. She’d had a wrong read on herself, as well, thinking that she could see him, carry his child, and not fall back into some of the old feeling between them.

  The great love with which they’d created those embryos.

  Or what she’d thought had been a great love. Her continuation of her parents’ kind of love.

  He had plans. That was good. Better for everyone.

  With a woman? Had he brought someone with him for the weekend? Was she out at the pool right then, on the beach, or up in his room, waiting for him?

  It would probably be best if he did have someone with him. Not many women would turn down a chance to be with the decorated and oh-so-sexy navy lieutenant commander for the weekend.

  The thought brought her an instant flash of Seth naked, his tight buttocks moving up and down on top of her, blowing everything out of her mind except the ecstasy he always brought her. Even in the end.

  They’d never lost how good they were in bed.

  She had to leave. They were both just standing there.

  Him probably ready for her to be gone. And her wondering if they’d still be so incredible together.

  She’d had some lovers since him. None had come close.

  But Seth had married again. He’d had to have found great sex to do that.

  “I...wasn’t going to ask, and definitely not before tomorrow, when we finalize things here, but...maybe it’s best I give you the night to consider...” He didn’t sound like himself...unsure like that.

  “What?” Anything had to be better than the road her mind had gone down.

  “I’d...like to be present for the second ultrasound, if you could be okay with that. Not as the father,” he added hastily. “Just...it seems that if there’s going to be a second child to consider, I’d like to be present for the news, to process information as it comes, rather than you telling me by text and then us trying to hash things out over the phone.”

  She could ask Christa to go to the appointment with her so she wouldn’t be alone. She wouldn’t. But she could. And they didn’t have to hash anything out.

  He’d asked her to keep him apprised of pertinent information, as per his Parent Portal contract. Period.

  “I know how private you are, and like to keep your business to yourself, but...twins? That’s not something you hear every day.”

  “My appointment is for a week from Wednesday. At nine in the morning.” Right in the middle of the week. “I’m sure you have to work.” She didn’t offer to make a change.

  Partially because when he’d offered to come be with her for a test that was making her extremely nervous...she’d taken a step off the high wire for a second.

  “I can drive up in the morning and be back by lunchtime,” he said easily. “I don’t want to burden you with my presence or push my way in, in any way. I’m just trying to be responsible to the situation,” he said.

  She thought about that. Was still thinking about it when he added, “Taking things one day at a time.”

  That was what they’d decided to do.

  “Because we’re never going to be anything together,” she said aloud. No matter how much she’d burned to climb his bones, or have him climb hers, just a moment before. “But you do have biological, though not legal, interest in the child.”

  “Or children,” he affirmed with a nod.

  “Then, okay. But... Seth, is it really necessary for us to meet again tomorrow? It’s not like, if I die tomorrow, we’ll have any need of this trust. Take your time to work it up, I can look it over by email, and then when you’re here for the ultrasound, we can arrange to have it signed and notarized.”

  She couldn’t spend the rest of the day and night thinking about seeing him again, right there in town, the next morning. There wasn’t enough work to occupy her sufficiently and make her not yearn for him. What she needed was time.

  Hopefully the next ten days would be enough.

  At least to get her through that morning’s visit.

  And then there might be months before their next interaction. Time to figure out a way to be able to be around him without pain. Or longing.

  Assuming she managed to carry the baby to term, that was. If not, there’d be no more interaction between them.

  The baby was the only reason they were in contact at all.

  When Seth agreed to her plan, she gave him one last thank-you, accompanied by a weird-feeling smile, and bugged out.

  Before she could make a total mess of things by leaning in to kiss lips she’d been dreaming about for ten long, lonely years.

  * * *

  Final trust papers ready for her signature on the seat beside him, Seth arrived at The Parent Portal twenty minutes early on the Wednesday of the ultrasound. He’d been up before dawn, had been to the gym, to the office, and spent most of the drive up on the phone with Captain Kinder, trying to sort out a truancy report discrepancy with one of his kids from the center, and discussing another community center activity that would involve entire families. The basketball tournament, in which Seth and the captain had both played, had been a beginning. But if the idea was to build trust between police and troubled kids, they had to do much more. Seth’s clients trusted him. With him involved, they were more likely to participate.

  And the truancy issue—well, that was the other side of what the youth task force was designed to do. To help set a kid straight rather than throw him in the criminal justice system. This time, Seth believed it was going to work. One case.

  But it was one of those things that you chipped away at on a case-by-case basis.

  One case at a time.

  One day at a time.

  He was about to hear the baby’s heartbeat for real. Not by recording. To see arms and legs, a torso and head.

  He was about to meet his child. Maybe even two of them.

  But wasn’t going to be a father.

  And was no closer to figuring out how the child’s existence affected his life. There wasn’t a plan for a guy giving up his rights to the embryos he’d created, and then coming face-to-face with the done deal. Or ear-to-heartbeat-recording as the case might be.

  And even if there was, emotions, morals, ethics, sense of right and wrong...they didn’t all track the same from one person to another.

  The second he saw Annie’s shiny, dark blue, unmarked four-door sedan pull into the lot, Seth was out of his car. He hadn’t wanted to come in his navy whites, but he had an appointment that afternoon with a sailor who was deploying and leaving in the middle of a rancorous divorce, so he couldn’t be late, and he hadn’t known how long his time in Marie Cove would take.

  “You ready for this?” he asked as soon as Annie was in hearing distance. In light brown pants, a tan shirt with long, puffed sleeves, brown, slightly heeled shoes, and with the shirt hanging over the gun at her waist, she looked every bit the police lieutenant. Until he glanced up and saw the shaded look in the big blue eyes framed by those spiky blond bangs.

  Of course, she wasn’t ready. How could she be?

  He started to hold out his hand to her, knowing she needed to take it, and quickly slid it into the pocket of his pants, instead.

  “It’s good to see you,” she said, falling into step beside him, a foot or more between them.

  He started right in then about his conversation with Kinder, talking to her about his truant client who’d been home caring for a sick grandparent who’d lose custody of her if Social Services knew she was sick. The ailment wasn’t terminal and was, in fact, almost healed. He kept talking about it because he had nothing real to say to her right then.

  And because he was nervous as hell.

  It didn’t happen often.

  Pretty much never, that he could recall. He was a “take charge, deal with it, or make a new plan” type of guy.

  Being at the mercy of Annie’s choice, medical science, and a tiny unborn fetus growing at its own pace, or deciding not to do so, was not coming easily for him. Being at the mercy of anyone’s choices, when they were difficult for him, had turned out to be his nemesis.

  One that he avoided at all costs.

  Until he’d heard that heartbeat.

  He’d thought they’d have a minute or two in the waiting room, time for Annie to maybe clue him in on what to expect, but the second they walked in the door, a woman who’d been standing at the window behind the receptionist nodded at Annie and appeared almost immediately at the door leading to the exam rooms.

  She introduced him to a woman named Shanice, saying that Seth was her ex-husband and the baby’s biological father. Until that moment, he hadn’t even thought about how his presence would be described. He’d been to The Parent Portal with Annie several times in the past. Had once been as much of a patient/client there as she was.

  Shanice nodded as though both titles were commonplace and continued on down the hall. Seth followed the two of them, shoulders back, the bars on the breast of his uniform displayed with pride. He was the biological father.

  He finally had a role. One that his sperm had handled with aplomb.

  * * *

  Seth wasn’t feeling quite so pumped a few minutes later. He stood awkwardly off to the side while Annie got situated on the padded exam table, pulled up her top and undid the fastener at her waist to push the pants and her panties down to her pubic bone.

  Showing the top of the dark but not black curls that he’d once been so intimately acquainted with. They were still there.

  Of course, they were.

  But looked so...familiar.

  The jolt that went through him, landing in his penis, had him embarrassed and a bit ashamed, too. He was lucky to be there at all. Annie didn’t deserve to have her trust betrayed by him lusting after her in a medical situation.

  But seconds later, as Shanice put some kind of gel on Annie’s slight rise of a belly and started moving the hand-held camera around, he wished he could get back to lusting after her.

  Annie hadn’t said a word to him since they’d walked in the room. He didn’t dare look at her. Leary of what he’d see. And if she was looking at him, afraid of what she’d see. She always had had a way of knowing what he was feeling before he did.

  Something about their relationship he hadn’t liked.

  It was good to remember, lest fantasy and time reframe things to have him thinking that maybe he’d made a mistake. Maybe they had. Maybe they could be something in each other’s lives again.

  “Here’s the torso...” Shanice’s tone drew out and stopped. She’d been using an arrow on the screen to point, but was moving the camera on Annie’s belly, instead. Seeming to Seth to be studying the screen more intently.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get the doctor in here...”

  Seth stepped forward as Annie half rose. “What’s wrong? Is the baby alive?” He’d never heard such panic in her tone. His calm, rational, always-the-one-who-said-it-would-be-okay Annie sounded as though she was ready to bounce off a wall.

  And his own sense of reason took over. He placed a hand on her shoulder and rubbed gently, while also helping her to lie back, as they both looked at Shanice.

  “The baby’s alive and growing,” the woman said, sounding more perplexed than worried. Turning back to Annie, she quickly moved the device in her hand, adjusted a knob, and a sound very familiar to Seth filled the room.

  “The heartbeat song,” he said aloud, when he’d meant to speak to himself. Annie glanced at him just as he glanced down at her, and when their eyes met, he held on. Just for then. That moment in time. In that room.

  They’d get her through it, he promised silently. Whatever it was.

  She didn’t say a word as Shanice took a quick leave. Just kept looking at the now quiet monitor bearing a still photo of the last image Shanice had shown them, with an occasional glance at him.

  “You know your baby is alive,” he said, starting to worry that he’d made another promise he couldn’t keep. He had no idea what the technician had seen that she’d thought needed a doctor’s attention. And no way of knowing if he had anything to offer that could help Annie in any case.

  Gaze toward the screen, she nodded.

  “A healthy heart is paramount. That and the brain. Anything else they can fix,” he told her, wondering if maybe the way he was feeling was how his father felt when he rambled so. He sure as hell hoped not, since Randy Morgan had been rambling nonstop ever since Seth could remember.

  They could fix the heart, too, he amended silently. And sometimes the brain.

  There was a reason he listened more than he spoke.

  He liked to get his thoughts in order before he put them out there. Better all the way around.

  Oh, God. Annie didn’t deserve a setback now.

  And the baby...the embryo they’d created...nothing could happen to it. That was all. They’d been so certain they were making perfect children for a perfect family...

  He barely had time to sense movement from the table by which he stood, before Annie’s fingers found his, curled around them, holding on.

  She didn’t look at him. Didn’t say anything.

  He kept his mouth shut, too.

  But he let his fingers wrap hers into an old but still familiar cocoon, and vowed that, somehow, he’d get her through whatever was to come.

  Chapter Eleven

  The room was small, its light muted, with barely enough room for the chair that sat along the wall. Yet Annie didn’t feel closed in. With Seth there, looking all official in his uniform, as though daring anything or anyone to try to bring danger to them, she felt...safe. Her mind was creating an illusion to help her get through whatever was coming next, but she allowed herself to exist within that fantasy space for the two or three minutes it took for Shanice to return with Dr. Miller.

  Seth stood back as the doctor entered, though Annie noticed he and the doctor nodded at each other. In recognition? They’d only met a couple of times in the past.