John told Tory he’d bring Caroline and hung up. If anyone was alert enough to wonder why he suddenly seemed to know Phyllis’s student more personally than any of the rest of them did, they certainly weren’t going to say. At the moment, anything but Calvin’s life was inconsequential.

  “HE’S LOST A LOT OF BLOOD” were the first words Caroline heard as she and John arrived at the clinic at five after six in the morning. She’d changed her clothes, but neither she nor John had taken time to shower. An intern was there speaking with a shocked-looking Phyllis and Matt. Both were still dressed in the clothes they had on the day before. Caroline had a feeling neither one of them had slept.

  “We’ve alerted the blood bank in Phoenix.”

  Having come in in the middle of the conversation, Caroline caught only enough to know that her nephew was being flown out, which meant that he was critical. And without warning tears sprang to her eyes. She’d never met the little guy and she loved him as if he were her own.

  Medical staff were coming in and out of an open door halfway down the hall, obviously where they had Calvin. She still didn’t know the extent of his injuries.

  Glancing back, Caroline saw Phyllis staring straight at her, noticing her tears. She needed to hug her so desperately, but after that one look, Phyllis was gone, surrounded by her family and friends as they ushered her in to see her son. Caroline stood for a moment and then, with a quick but insistent word to John to call her as soon as he knew anything, left the hospital and walked home.

  From there she called Jesse and begged him to pray for his cousin’s recovery.

  “HEY, BUDDY, I didn’t know you were still here.”

  John glanced up as Will Parsons, the lines around his eyes more pronounced than he’d ever seen them, approached the clinic’s deserted waiting room.

  “Yep.” It wasn’t much of an answer but was all John had.

  Shortly after Phyllis and Matt had left for Phoenix, the others had all filed out. John had every intention of following them to the parking lot. He’d just never gotten around to standing up.

  A couple of orderlies were still around, probably cleaning up from the morning’s ordeal before locking up the trauma unit that was open only when needed.

  Will dropped down into the seat next to him, long legs stretched out. John studied his friend, noticing that the silver in Will’s temples was spreading. Most days, when Will was his usual commanding self at school or a star athlete on the golf course, it was hard to remember that he was pushing fifty.

  “Tough morning.” Will peered toward a scrub-covered young man with a mop, backing from the hall into the room that had held little Calvin Sheffield less than an hour before.

  “Yeah.” John’s vocabulary seemed to be on hiatus with the rest of his functional skills.

  “I just got off the phone with the Arizona Republic,” Will said, almost conversationally. “Giving them the scoop. That student of Phyllis’s was absolutely right. Shelly Monroe had him.”

  Though no one had said, mostly because all energy had been focused on saving Calvin’s life, John had suspected as much.

  “A couple of months ago, her twelve-year-old son was killed in a drive-by gang shooting outside their apartment complex,” Will continued. “Out of her mind with grief, she came to Shelter Valley to look for Matt and found him married with a couple of kids. Apparently she’s been shadowing them and somehow determined that Matt owed her a replacement for what she’d lost….”

  John fully understood being out of one’s mind with grief. He couldn’t imagine committing a crime because of it, though. Because he hadn’t suffered enough? Could that be in his future?

  Or had there been something already askew in the young woman’s life that had allowed her to behave so criminally?

  “Looks like she’ll be the one going to prison this time.” Will shrugged. “Or at least a mental hospital if she’s deemed to be insane.”

  John nodded, wondering how someone developed such a sense of entitlement that she could rationalize stealing someone else’s kid. Wondered what horrible things might have happened to her as a child. If anything had happened to her.

  “You need a ride?” Will’s question was as offhand as the quick look he sent John.

  “No.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  John nodded a second time. Rested his elbows on his knees with his hands clasped between them. Will wouldn’t push him for explanations. It wasn’t their way.

  “How do you do it?” he asked.

  Will frowned. “Do what?”

  “You know, the whole love business. If you stick with it long enough, it’s a sure loss. If it doesn’t get you one way, it gets you another.”

  Will didn’t say anything at first. When he finally spoke, he seemed to be agreeing with John. “If you make it through the car accidents and diseases and crimes and divorce, old age’ll do it to you.”

  The tile beneath her feet, laid in twelve-inch squares, was a low-grade ceramic, probably over cement. “Right,” John muttered.

  “So then don’t do it, don’t love anyone, don’t risk anything—what’ve you got?” Will sounded as though he was analyzing which club to use on a long-shot drive.

  “Peace of mind.”

  “I don’t find it particularly peaceful to think of facing the next thirty or forty years coming home to an empty house.”

  “And there’s no guarantee you won’t be doing just that,” John said, unable to find a way past that truth. He’d lived it, dammit. Was still living it. He needed some kind of guarantee. “Look how close you were to losing Becca a few years ago.”

  Will sighed, crossed one leg over the other. “You’re right.”

  They sat in silence, watching the orderly drag his mop bucket down the hall, into another room.

  “So back to my original question,” John said when he started to fear that Will was going to sit there until they’d solved this. Or at least until he was satisfied that John was satisfied. “How do you do it?”

  “It’s simple,” Will told him, sitting forward to meet him eye-to-eye. “I have no choice. Love is there.”

  It wasn’t the guarantee John needed.

  A WEEK TO THE DAY after Calvin had disappeared, Phyllis Langford was back in class. Dressed in a bright yellow suit with her makeup impeccable and her auburn hair newly styled, you’d never have known that she’d just spent a week living in hell.

  Her son had been released from the hospital a couple of days before, she told the roomful of students who’d been offering support to her and her family. As it turned out, there were no internal injuries and as soon as the doctors had stitched him up and placed a cast on his left arm, he’d begun to rally immediately.

  The lecture was short that day, and Caroline heard very little of it, wondering instead if Phyllis would talk to her afterward, or in any way acknowledge that they’d progressed beyond student and teacher. In some ways she hoped not. She had her hands full trying to figure out what to do about John.

  Or rather, her growing obsession with the man’s phone calls. And his tangible reluctance to commit himself to anything beyond a surface reality.

  Then, just as class was being dismissed and she’d have her answer as far as her sister was concerned, Caroline’s cell phone vibrated from the pocket of her new drawstring black cotton capri pants. A quick glance told her Jesse was calling, and Caroline hurried from the room.

  “Jesse? What is it? Is something wrong?” She could hardly breathe as she erupted out into the blinding sunshine of an eighty-five-degree day.

  “Nah. You worry too much, Ma.” Probably.

  “I’m just calling to let you know I’ve thought it all through.”

  He’d told her he needed time. “Okay.”

  “And I’ve made my decision,” he went on as though she hadn’t spoken.

  Dear God, could she hope this was just a dramatic offer of forgiveness to her for being his mother and getting “knocked up?” “What decision?”

  “If you’re going to insist on having this baby without marrying her father, I’m quitting school and coming out there….”

  “No!” After a curious glance from a passing student, she lowered her voice, moving slowly away from the Psychology building where she’d been standing. “No, you’re not, Jess. You’re going to stay there, get fabulous grades and graduate from Harvard.”

  “In some ways, I wasn’t like Dad at all, Ma, but in this I am his son. It’s my duty to take care of you and I don’t really care what you say. There’s nothing you can do to stop me. It’s what I have to do.”

  God in heaven, please help. “Listen, Jess—”

  “I’m not going to listen, Ma. I’ve made up my mind. I’ve got to get to class now…”

  “Jess!” she called urgently, afraid her son had already hung up.

  “Yeah?”

  “I won’t try to change your mind, I promise.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Just promise me that you’ll wait until this summer to make any final decisions.” She scrambled for words, for coherent thoughts, to buy her some time. “Sara’s not going to be here until August anyway.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  How could the sky be so blue, the sun so bright, when her world was threatening to crash down around her knees?

  “Will you at least call me before you do anything?”

  “Yes.”

  “You promise?”

  “Yes.”

  It was the best she was going to get. Caroline hung up, entertaining a desperate notion—get John to pretend to marry her, just long enough to convince her son she didn’t need him. For her children, she was ready to do anything.

  “CAROLINE!”

  The voice shot through Caroline’s ears to her heart as she closed her phone and turned.

  “I was hoping to catch you in class, but you’d already left,” Phyllis said, hurrying toward her. “Got a minute?”

  It was what she’d been hoping for. And dreading. A sign that she and Phyllis had progressed beyond the student/teacher level.

  “Sure.”

  Carrying her satchel over one shoulder, Phyllis indicated a deserted and shady cement-mounted swing off in the distance. She didn’t say anything more as she led the way through the grass, her heels traversing the hard desert ground without mishap.

  John, where are you? Caroline had never been so unsure of herself. Birthing a breach calf in the middle of the night during a record-breaking winter storm she could handle. Making it through a conversation with her sister just might be too much.

  Phyllis sat on one side of the bench, so she took the other, careful not to make it rock in case her sister didn’t want to rock. Personally, Caroline loved rocking. She’d spent many, many difficult hours, her most difficult hours, rocking on that old swing back home.

  She didn’t know what to do with her bag, so she held it on her lap, and then felt self-conscious about its obviously homemade origins. At least her white three-quarter-sleeved blouse and pants and sandals were store-bought. And new.

  “I just wanted to thank you,” Phyllis said, her expression warm as she faced Caroline. “I’ll never forget everything you did for us last week. From joining the search to figuring out that Shelly had to be the kidnapper…”

  Tongue-tied, Caroline watched her sister, who didn’t seem to have any problem with doing all the talking.

  “And then…that work you did on Brad. Do you have any idea how much wasted effort you saved? He would’ve been our prime suspect and if we’d been looking for him, it would’ve given Shelly time to get out of town….”

  Caroline just smiled. Sort of. It was her best rendition at the moment.

  Pausing, Phyllis blinked away the sheen of moisture in her eyes. “I knew for sure you were an angel sent from heaven when you spoke up about that girl. How on earth you noticed her in that picture, and then again, here, and put that together with a ten-year-old photo…”

  Caroline had no answer for that. Except the truth.

  “And as if that wasn’t enough, the next day…”

  Phyllis glanced off, the hands in her lap clenched so tightly her knuckles showed white. “I don’t remember much about last Friday morning, but what I do remember is you being there, a virtual stranger, crying over my son’s life.” She turned back to Caroline. “All week long, I’ve been seeing that look on your face….”

  “It was nothing.” Caroline finally found her voice long enough to defuse the situation before it exploded all over her. “Just a tough moment after a virtually sleepless night.”

  “In a very short time, you’ve proven to be a very good friend to me.” Phyllis reached over, took Caroline’s hand in her own, squeezed. And didn’t let go.

  With a chest expanding and contracting of its own accord, breath that designed its own rhythm, Caroline stared at those clasped hands. And noticed the opal ring on her sister’s finger.

  She couldn’t do it anymore. Not any of it. She couldn’t pretend. Couldn’t hide. Couldn’t hold on.

  Tears filled her eyes—years’ worth of tears. A lifetime of them. They were not small or graceful tears. They were big drops of water that fell from her eyes to the back of her sister’s hand.

  “What…?” Still holding Caroline’s hand, Phyllis leaned forward, peering up at Caroline’s bent head.

  “What did I say?” she asked. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Caroline. I’d never do that.”

  “I…know.” Her voice was as thick and wet and overflowing as the tears, making it almost impossible for her to speak.

  “I don’t think either of us is the type to allow an outside friendship to interfere with our teacher-student relationship,” Phyllis said, as though she thought that might be what was causing Caroline concern. “I had Tory in class a couple of years ago and it worked out just fine. I taught Ben, too.”

  “I’m…not worried…about that.” Caroline sniffed. And then again, inelegantly.

  A tissue appeared and she took it. One-handedly blew her nose.

  “So what’s wrong?”

  Lifting her head, she studied Phyllis’s features and knew what she had to do.

  With tears still falling, albeit more slowly, she said, “I’m going to tell you something. When I’m done, you might want me to quietly disappear. If that’s the case, I will do so without a backward glance and you’ll never hear from me again.”

  “There’s nothing you could say that would make me want you to disappear.” Phyllis’s smile was full and generous, her eyes soft with an affection Caroline had dreamed of for months.

  “You don’t know that,” Caroline said with a shuddering breath, wondering if there was some way to make this easier. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  Shaking her head, Phyllis gave her hand another squeeze. “I might not know the circumstances of your life,” she said, “but I’m not the least bit worried about what you might have to—”

  With a raised hand, Caroline silently asked Phyllis to stop. She couldn’t listen to any more. Every word was going to be a nail in her heart if Phyllis needed her to go. And she had to be strong enough to keep her word and do as her sister asked if that should happen.

  Phyllis’s gaze was steadfast. The time had come. And Caroline couldn’t find a single word.

  Not knowing what else to do, she reached inside her blouse, found the chain nestled there and pulled. The hard, cool touch of the gold was familiar, a comfort. Holding out her palm, Caroline opened it, exposing the sapphire.

  Phyllis frowned, watching her. She glanced at the ring and then at Caroline, her brows creased in confusion.

  “This ring is supposed to tell me something about you that I’m not going to like?”

  “No, not by itself.” Life wasn’t that easy. “My mother gave it to me.” It was the truth. Twice. Grace had given it to her, having received it from Maureen Houseman.

  “My mother gave me a ring, too,” Phyllis said, holding out her right hand. “I wear it all the time.”

  Caroline nodded. And waited—simply because she had no idea what to do next. What to say.

  “So, what are you telling me?” Phyllis finally asked. Her voice wasn’t accusatory. Just confused.

  “Your mother was Maureen Houseman.”

  The jerk of Phyllis’s hand was slight but felt like an earthquake to Caroline. “How’d you know that?”

  “I’m…um…related to her.”

  “You’re related to my mother?” Ring hand suspended, Phyllis stared at her. “To me?”

  Caroline nodded.

  “How?”

  In the end, it was simple. “We’re sisters.”

  Phyllis didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Didn’t smile. Nor did she jump up and run away.

  “Older or younger?”

  “You’re older.”

  She shook her head. “No way. Even if I’d only been a year old, I’d have remembered my mother having a baby.”

  “You weren’t a year old.”

  Phyllis stared, her heart in her eyes as a strange sort of recognition seemed to dawn—at least subconsciously. “How old was I?” Her voice was hoarse.

  “Two minutes.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “I’M SORRY.” Phyllis wiped her tears, and her nose, with the back of her hand, staring at Caroline as though she’d never stop. And she hadn’t. Not since she’d first heard the news. That had been over an hour ago.

  “Don’t be sorry,” she whispered, touching her sister’s hair, smoothing it away from her forehead. They’d said so much. And had so much more to say.

  “But I am,” Phyllis said, her brow creased with pain. “I feel so incredibly guilty. I got to know Mom and Dad. To be raised in a privileged upbringing, go to whatever college I chose….”

  “And I have a mother who loves me as much as any mother ever loved her child,” Caroline told her. “Even if she didn’t particularly understand me.”

  “But…”