As would any daughter of hers, she realized, grinning up at the father of her children.

  “He tested out just fine,” she added. “Dr. Miller said he’s already grown enough that she’s no longer concerned about him. And now that we know I’m having twins, she’s not the least bit concerned about my placenta, either.”

  All was well.

  Seth was still there.

  Clara Whitaker was in her life and soon to find out that she was going to be a great-grandmother. Randy would be a wonderful grandfather.

  And...

  Her phone rang again. Work, for real this time.

  And less than thirty seconds later, her entire system changed.

  “I have to go,” she said, grabbing up her bag, checking that her gun was on her hip where she knew it to be. “DNA just came back on a serial rapist we’ve been trying to get for months. They brought him in and he’s refusing to talk. If we don’t get a confession before he lawyers up, all those teenagers are going to have to testify...”

  Seth stepped back, his face like stone.

  “Seth?”

  He shook his head. And just by the set of his chin, she knew.

  “Seth.”

  “You’re taking our son and our daughter in to meet with a serial rapist.”

  She wouldn’t be alone. And the suspect would be cuffed.

  Didn’t mean something couldn’t happen. There’d been disruptions. A table being flipped over, once. But none of that mattered.

  Seth had already flipped on her.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  He didn’t say a word. Just walked out the door. Got in his car. And left.

  * * *

  Seth made it all the way back to San Diego before he felt much of anything. He went to work though he wasn’t due in, as it was a weekend. He caught up on email. Looked through the stuff that had been left on his desk in his absence.

  Contacted a couple of clients with updates regarding their cases.

  And listened to a voice mail on his office machine from Hunter Bradley, the sailor whose robbery assault charges he’d had dropped. The young man had followed a hunch, tracked down someone he knew he’d seen in the area the night he’d been accused, and managed to find proof that the other person was guilty of the crime. He’d called the police. The sailor was in custody. And Hunter was calling to thank Seth for believing in him. He was also looking for a recommendation as he applied to the military police program.

  Seth wrote the recommendation immediately. Sent it off. Called Hunter to tell him he’d done so. And to contact him if he ever needed anything else.

  He listened as the younger man sang his praises.

  And he hung up with a tight knot in his gut.

  He’d been there for a virtual stranger.

  And he’d walked out on the love of his life. A second time.

  He’d walked out on his own children.

  Because...

  Emotion built up in him. A sense of helplessness from which he couldn’t seem to escape. An overwhelming sadness.

  And all he knew was to walk away from it. To move on to something else.

  But there was nothing else. Not that mattered. He went home. Unpacked. Changed into sweats, a long-sleeved T-shirt and tennis shoes, and went to the beach. Ran a mile. And then another. Dodging the occasional person who’d opted to spend a December Saturday afternoon by the water.

  He ran. And he was honest with himself. More honest than he’d ever dared to be before. When you had nothing left to lose, it wasn’t as hard to face facts.

  Or maybe facts were his only hope.

  He thought of Annie. Of all she’d been to him. And all the more she’d become in the few short months she’d been back in his life.

  He ran. And went back further.

  When he’d been younger, after his mother’s death, and he’d been put in mandatory counseling, his therapist had taught him to try to focus on what was ahead. To focus on the life he had stretching before him. All the good he could do. And all the good that would come to him, too.

  He’d have a wife. A family of his own. A career. He’d make worthy contributions to society, just as his mother had done. Because he was her son.

  For a time, it had worked.

  For a long time.

  Until Annie had decided to follow in his mother’s footsteps.

  Then his life had derailed.

  And he’d left the house, looking for what life had ahead for him. He’d gone to Dierdre with the dog Coco and realized that the only life ahead he wanted was the one he’d left behind.

  Maybe he and Annie could work something out, he’d thought. Maybe there’d be some other career that could fill her need. He’d known that wasn’t the answer. Maybe he could find a way to live with a police officer wife if there wasn’t anything else that made her happy. He hadn’t seen a way for that to work, either.

  Maybe they could divorce and remain close friends, in each other’s lives. They could live together while she was going to school, so he could help out with the expenses. He hadn’t been making enough to cover two rent payments...

  The solution had been a lifeline to him. Hope to hang on to. A possibility of some kind of future with Annie in it.

  When he’d returned home to find her gone, he’d thought of her being with Brian, and he’d known for sure that he’d blown it, that she was done with him... Then he’d read the note telling him she was filing for divorce that day and would be making arrangements to get the rest of her things.

  He’d walked out then, too. Had looked ahead.

  Had eventually seen that them living together as friends had been an impossible dream, anyway. That they’d have ended up even worse enemies, would have prolonged the misery.

  And he’d found the contribution he could make to society. He’d become the best damned military lawyer the navy could ever hope to have. He’d found a good life. Self-fulfillment.

  But he was forty years old now. And when he looked ahead, all he saw was emptiness.

  His wife and children...they were moving on without him.

  There was no future to save him this time.

  Nothing to ease the hopelessness.

  Except...

  Going back.

  He’d tried that once before, too. Annie hadn’t been there. He’d already blown her trust and she’d had nothing left to stay for.

  And he’d walked away. Let her go.

  He hadn’t even tried to talk to her. To tell her he didn’t want to lose her. To ask her to forgive him. To work with him while they figured out the rest of it.

  Seth’s feet stopped so abruptly sand flew in all directions, stinging his ankles, hitting his face. Spitting grains off his lips, he fell to his butt, wrapping his head in his hands.

  He was alone because he’d learned as a kid to deal with pain by running from it. Rather than dealing with it. He was sure that hadn’t been the therapist’s intention. But it was the lesson he’d taken from those sessions meant to pull him back from the abyss into which he’d sunk when his mom was killed.

  And Annie...she’d learned to walk away, too.

  The truth hit him so hard he sat up straight. Stared out at the ocean as though words would be written there clearly for him to see.

  Yes.

  Chelsea Whitaker Bolin had taught her daughter well. By example more than anything. She’d taught her to love fiercely. Loyally. To give her all.

  And she’d taught her that when those you loved rejected you and your choices, and you knew who you needed to be—you cut them out of your life.

  But it didn’t have to be the end. It might end soon. She could get killed on the job. He could be killed in a car accident, too. There was no way to control that.

  But this end...it was within his control. He’d walked away from the danger she put herself in once. And it hadn’t made him any happier.

  Or any better.

  The night before, in Annie’s arms...he’d been grateful for that one night. And would pretty much give his right arm for one more. Each day of “one more.” For as long as they had them. Because one more night had been enough when it was happening. And would always be enough in the present. The trick wasn’t to look to the future. It was to live in the moment he was in.

  Standing, Seth didn’t care about the sand he carried with him as he strode to his car. Didn’t care about the seats, or the floors in his home. He was in and out of the shower, dressed in jeans and a sweater, with a few things thrown in a bag and out the door in fifteen minutes.

  Annie didn’t stick around long.

  He didn’t have a second to waste.

  * * *

  Annie checked the chicken enchiladas for the third time, pretty sure they’d done all the time they could do. She couldn’t wait any longer. She was going to have to pull them out of the oven. Have her dinner, alone. Freeze the rest. And maybe sleep on the couch.

  She’d been foolish to think he’d be back so soon.

  Or to expect him back at all.

  And it was too late for her to go after Seth. She had to work in the morning. Had pulled the weekend shift before she’d known about needing the amniocentesis, and once she’d known about the test, had figured being at her desk would be better for her than sitting home alone.

  And she didn’t think it prudent, in any event, for a thirty-eight-year old woman who was pregnant with twins and just coming off an amniocentesis to take a road trip alone in the dark on little sleep.

  It wasn’t like Seth was going to pack up and move from his home overnight.

  He had a commission. If nothing else, she could find him in his office—and with her badge and former service, she knew how to ask for permission to get on base.

  Monday was her day off. She could drive down then.

  Or at least think about doing so.

  And think about calling Clara, too, on the private cell number her grandmother had given her. To tell her about the babies. To let her be involved every step of the way, to ease the pain of what she’d missed when her own daughter had been pregnant and giving birth.

  Annie was her mother’s daughter. And her mother hadn’t been perfect.

  Annie saw that, now that she’d met Clara. The woman would have been a wonderful grandmother to Annie as a little girl. And a wonderful mother to the daughter who needed her so desperately, too, after Annie’s father died.

  Sometimes you had to realize that people weren’t perfect. And when you loved them, when they were yours, you had to keep working at it, keep trying. You had to find a way to compromise.

  And to forgive.

  Trust meant that you didn’t walk away when things got tough. It meant knowing that when things got tough, they would get better. Somehow. Someday.

  Seth had hurt her. Horribly. But he’d come back to find her, too. She just hadn’t been there. She’d cut him out of her life as quickly, and completely, as Chelsea had cut off her parents.

  She had to get to him.

  Enchiladas out of the oven, which she turned off, she reached for the foil, intending to throw the pan as it was in the refrigerator, and head out the door. She could be in San Diego in an hour.

  And maybe, if she begged, she could get Seth to drive her home. Could sleep on the way.

  Because there was no way she was getting any sleep until she saw him...

  She burned herself trying to wrap the foil around the dish. Grabbed a pot holder and heard the front bell ring.

  She’d removed her gun when she’d come home, but grabbed it before heading toward the living room. She wasn’t expecting anyone.

  She was alone.

  And it was dark.

  Christa had been known to stop by unannounced, but Annie knew her friend was on a date.

  One look through the peephole, and she set the gun on the side table.

  She’d seen the look in his eye, but it was the satchel on his shoulder that had her crying as she pulled open the door and threw herself in her man’s arms.

  “I love you,” she said. “I don’t know how we’re going to work through it all, but I know that I’m going to keep trying, every day. I’m going to take the bad with the good, and I’m never going to stop doing everything I can to make it work...” She was babbling and didn’t care.

  Crying and sniffling and hanging on to him for all she was worth.

  She wasn’t so far gone, though, that she missed the strength with which Seth’s arms wrapped around her. Holding on to her as desperately as she was holding him.

  “I can’t promise I won’t walk away for a moment or two,” he whispered into her ear. “But I can promise that I will always come back.”

  They were simple words. And they were the world.

  Gave her the world.

  “And I can promise that I will always be here when you do,” she said, pulling back to look him straight in the eye. “Though we’ll have to figure out just where ‘here’ is going to be.” His job was an hour away. She could apply to the San Diego Police Department, but she might not get her own squad. She might have to go back out on the street.

  Tension started to build in her again.

  Seth took her hand, led her inside, dropped his bag and pulled her down with him as he sat on the couch.

  “I can commute,” he said. “I like this house. And I like this town. It’s a good place to raise kids. There will be days I work from home, and when I can’t, I’ll make the drive. People in LA drive an hour back and forth to work every day. And... I was thinking about getting out...”

  Shocked, she stared at him.

  “Since when? You’re career navy.”

  “Because the navy was my only family,” he said. “I’ve been way too slow on the uptake, Annie, but a whole lot has become clear to me in a very short period of time. A guy looking at the possibility of losing his woman a second time and losing the chance to share in every moment as his kids grow tends to get smart fast. I love the law. I’d be perfectly happy opening a practice right here in Marie Cove.”

  She couldn’t believe he was sitting there. That she wasn’t dreaming. It was all so surreal. So hard to accept.

  And yet, there he was, filling her with hope and happiness and passion. And sliding her arms around him, she leaned forward and planted her lips against his.

  Fully. Openmouthed. Wet. Her tongue urgent in its need to find his. She kissed him without breath. And with a decade’s worth of longing.

  Her hands knew him. Her limbs knew his. Her body fit into him and she gave herself up to the ecstasy of being in Seth’s arms again.

  He pulled back when she started to undress him.

  “The babies,” he said.

  “That phone call this morning... Dr. Miller cleared me for sex.”

  He didn’t say a word after that. Not with his voice. Instead, he let his body do the talking. And an hour later, she had no doubts left about how fiercely he loved her.

  And no doubts about his sticking around, either.

  They were in the kitchen, him in his sleep shorts, her in her underwear and his shirt, dishing up cold enchiladas, when she said, “Just so you know, when you do walk out...you might not get a chance to come back.”

  He stopped cold, his face ashen, as he looked at her.

  “Because I might come after you first.”

  There was no more cutting off any of her loved ones. Any of her family.

  She was in it for good and bad.

  For happy and sad.

  For easy and hard.

  With him.

  Forever.

  And the way Seth grabbed her up, the tears in his eyes as he kissed her hard, holding her to him, told her better than words that so was he.

  The man was going to be around, no matter what.

  And so was she.

  Because that was what love did.

  * * *

  Don’t miss previous books in The Parent Portal miniseries:

  Having the Soldier’s Baby

  A Baby Affair

  Her Motherhood Wish

  A Mother’s Secrets

  The Child Who Changed Them

  Keep reading for an excerpt from The Last Carolina Sister by Michelle Major.

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  The Last Carolina Sister

  by Michelle Major

  CHAPTER ONE

  WHEN THE POUNDING STARTED, Ryan Sorensen glanced from the television to the front door and then back again, settling deeper into the faded recliner.

  Rain beat against the roof of the cottage situated a few blocks from the beach near the town of Magnolia, North Carolina. The Carolina Hurricanes were up by one goal against Detroit with five minutes left in the second period. He was warm, dry and as comfortable as his injured leg would allow.

  Nothing good would come of answering an insistent knock on a stormy night.

  His jaw tightened as he imagined what his father would think of him ignoring a person potentially in need of help. Ryan had been taught from a young age that he owed the world something, no matter what the world handed him in return. The lesson had led, in a roundabout sort of way, to a bullet in his leg a month earlier and a colleague and friend dying in his arms. It had been one hell of a difficult pill to swallow.