“You’ve been asleep for more than three hours,” Matt said, gently moving the bangs from her forehead, leaving his hand there for a few seconds.

  “You don’t have a fever,” he said. Very, very good news. Whatever was killing her probably wasn’t contagious—wasn’t going to kill her loved ones as well.

  “Then it’s a migraine.”

  She’d said a full sentence and tried for another. “I haven’t had one in a long time.”

  The movement of Matt’s head as he nodded made her dizzy, so she closed her eyes. “Probably the stress of Billy’s disappearance the other night, mixed in with school starting,” he said. His fingers felt heavenly as they massaged the back of her neck.

  She’d like to be able to agree with him. And, in truth, she was sure he was correct—at least partially. But not totally. There’d only ever been one source of stress in her life that could bring on a migraine of this magnitude.

  Her ex-husband.

  Since the moment she’d admitted her love for Matt Sheffield, Phyllis had been honest with him. About herself, about everything. After barely surviving her first marriage with psyche intact, she’d vowed never to hide anything from her mate again.

  But that was just what she’d done. She hadn’t told her husband about Brad’s letter.

  “Thank goodness, it hit on Sunday,” Matt was saying. “You have all day to lie here and rest.”

  Phyllis’s eyes flew open. “I promised Bonnie I’d watch her girls this afternoon.” She had to get up. Somehow. Throwing off the covers was an effort that sent pain shooting through her temples to her brain. Tears spilled from her closed eyes when Matt reversed the heroic effort with one swoop of his arm, covering her back up.

  “She called an hour ago. I told her you were sick and offered to call Tory. She and Ben are taking them.”

  Oh. Thank God. And Tory. And Ben. And Matt. And…

  Phyllis opened her eyes, forced herself to hold them open and focus on her husband. If he was going to be so kind to her while she suffered, she owed it to him to tell him the cause of her suffering. She owed it to her conscience to come clean. “I had a letter from Brad.”

  His eyes narrowed, shadowed, and still she forced herself to maintain contact. With halting phrases broken by pauses filled with the deep breathing necessary to retain the meager contents of her stomach, she told Matt about the seemingly worthless investment she’d accepted as part of her share of the assets in her divorce. She explained the judge’s willingness to accept the investment’s potential value as its worth in the dividing of assets. And after a few slow and even breaths, she told him about the investment’s sudden change in value. And Brad’s demand that she sign away her rights to it.

  “What did you tell him?”

  She turned over very carefully, trying to keep her head as still as possible. “I didn’t respond.”

  “Do you think you should?”

  Leave it to Matt to ask, not tell. She wanted to nod. “Unless I give him the money, he’s going to be livid.”

  “Then give it to him.”

  Tears filled her eyes again as she lay there staring up at the man who’d changed her life. He meant what he’d just said.

  “I don’t want to give it to him. He took everything from me,” she said, emotion carrying her through the pain. “That investment was a slap in the face, meant to tell me I was worthless, and instead, it tells me I came out of my experience with Brad worth a quarter of a million dollars.”

  A smile slowly creased Matt’s lips as he continued to stroke her tense muscles. “You’re worth far more than that, hon.”

  She wanted to smile back. And rub her face against that caressing hand, like a cat. But if she moved she was going to be sick. “You know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “So?”

  “So you keep the money and we’ll deal with the bastard’s anger. As long as you can keep yourself okay up here—” he brushed a hand across the top of her head “—there’s not much he can do. He doesn’t have the power to hurt you anymore.”

  He was right. Logically she knew that. And as she lay there, feeling like she was at death’s door, Phyllis’s heart knew it, too. Brad’s opinion, anything he might do or say, could only matter if she let it. Matt’s love for her, his belief in her, had set her free.

  Even feeling this sick, she was the luckiest woman alive.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Sunday, December, 5, 2004

  I never planned to meet the man! I went to Frankfort for the dedication, just to be close to someone who knew my sister. I had no idea it would be so easy to get a ticket to the reception, or that I’d actually walk up to a bar to order a drink or that he’d be there at the same time and take pity on me when I had no idea whether I wanted red wine or white because I had no idea what the difference was.

  And you know, when I went, I didn’t have even a tiny hope that he’d start talking about Shelter Valley, or that he’d be without a dinner companion. I’m still amazed at how easy he was to talk to—how easy it was for me, Caroline Prater, to sit in a fine restaurant and carry on a conversation with a gorgeous man of the world. I just can’t believe it!

  He really loves Shelter Valley, based on how much he talked about the place and his friends there—without me even asking! He didn’t mention Phyllis, so he must not know her well, but he talked about some of Phyllis’s friends. I feel as if I know them. At least a little bit.

  Anyway, that’s not all I can’t believe.

  I’m so shocked I can’t even tell you what I’ve done….

  CAROLINE HAD COME to the clinic prepared to wait. Worn puzzle book in hand, she took a seat in a far corner of the waiting room on the second floor of the Shelter Valley Medical Center—a small strip office complex that consisted of everything from dental and optometry offices to the one specialist in town, the ob-gyn. There were a couple of family practitioners who could double as emergency-room doctors on occasion, a rehabilitation clinic and a weight-loss business. Most other physical needs were handled in Phoenix.

  Because Dr. Mason was working her in in between scheduled patients, Caroline had come early and was content to sit there minding her own business for as long as it took. Other than a bit of nervousness over the appointment itself, it felt good to be out of her room and among people. The waiting area was about half-full, but women seemed to be moving in and out fairly quickly, many with smiles on their faces. Which made the young woman who took the empty seat next to Caroline that much more remarkable.

  Mostly she was remarkable because—unlike all the other women in the room—she was someone Caroline recognized.

  Ellen Moore Hanaran.

  Setting the still-closed puzzle book down in her lap, Caroline clasped her hands so that their shaking wouldn’t be obvious.

  Other than sitting in a pew at the rear of the church, staring at the backs of heads, it was the closest Caroline had ever been to any of the people she “knew” in Shelter Valley. It was the closest she’d been to anyone—besides John—who knew her twin sister.

  Ellen glanced over. Smiled. The expression was genuine yet didn’t quite hide the uneasiness in the young woman’s eyes. Caroline saw something in that brief look.

  The girl introduced herself and continued to smile shyly when Caroline did the same.

  “Is this your first time here?” Caroline asked.

  Ellen glanced down and then back up. She nodded. “I…uh…I’ve been to the clinic before, just not here. My appointment’s actually not for another half hour, I didn’t know how much time it would take to fill out the paperwork,” Ellen was saying.

  The girl seemed so vulnerable, so needy, as though any human comfort, even from a stranger, was preferable to having only her own mind for company. Caroline wanted to ask what Ellen was there for, but didn’t.

  It was none of her business.

  “It’s my first time here, too, though it’s my second pregnancy,” she babbled, hoping she was doing the right thing.

  Horrified when tears filled the girl’s eyes, Caroline couldn’t resist her natural impulse to cover Ellen’s hand with her own. “It’ll be okay,” she said, although she had no idea what was bothering the young woman.

  “I hope so,” Ellen said softly, drying her eyes before any of the three other women still left in the room noticed her tears. All three, with obviously advanced pregnancies, were in seats close to the door leading to examining rooms.

  “Are you afraid of the exam?” Caroline asked, remembering her own first gynecological visit. She’d spent the entire time in the waiting room praying for an avalanche to come and kill her.

  It hadn’t happened. And it hadn’t been long before Caroline was thankful for that. Because those visits had helped her bring a very healthy Jesse into the world.

  “A little,” Ellen said with a nervous chuckle. “Not really, though. I’ve been through all that.”

  Still holding the other girl’s hand—mostly because Ellen hadn’t pulled it away—Caroline gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. “So what’s upsetting you?”

  And then, as if in slow motion, she had a mental rerun of the past several minutes. Saw herself touching a perfect stranger. Prying into an unknown person’s business. As if she were a hick in Grainville with nothing better to do than pass the time gossiping about anyone who was doing anything worth gossiping about.

  Snatching her hand away, Caroline sat back, her skin burning. “I’m sorry,” she said, as professionally as she could manage for a woman who’d never even had a real job, let alone been any kind of professional. “I don’t know what came over me, minding your business like that.”

  “It’s okay,” Ellen said, giving her a smile as she grabbed Caroline’s hand. “I was just thanking God for sending me an angel when I needed one. Don’t desert me now.”

  If Caroline hadn’t spent the past thirty years learning how to hide herself from the world, she would’ve burst into tears of her own at that moment. Instead, she took a deep breath, carefully stored away the memory, and said, “Then I guess, if I’m to do my job well, maybe I should know why you need an angel.”

  It was Ellen’s tighter grasp of her hand, more than the shaky sigh, that spoke to Caroline. “I…have a symptom…. I might have something….” the young woman confessed. “I haven’t told anyone.”

  Caroline’s thoughts slowed and her heart opened wide. “Something serious?”

  Surely this was just a young woman’s ignorance of the relatively normal vagaries of the female cycle. After everything Ellen had been through, any more than that would be just plain cruel.

  Her troubled gaze couldn’t seem to settle anywhere. “I don’t know,” she said, the fear in her voice a tangible thing.

  She shouldn’t be sitting here alone.

  “Don’t you think you should tell your family?” Her mother would be able to reassure her about whatever she suspected was wrong. She’d have the experience to set Ellen’s fears at rest. Or, if things really were bad, the love and support the girl would need.

  “I’ve had kind of a rough year…and Aaron, that’s my husband, he’s been so great and patient and…”

  Ellen looked at Caroline, and Caroline had a feeling that it was their combined strength, meeting in that glance, that kept the girl sitting upright in her chair.

  She turned her back fully to the room, facing Caroline and the wall behind her. “I…had an experience…and I’m afraid I might have caught something,” she whispered, her cheeks flushed.

  Guided by the same instinct that had seen her through the raising of a highly intelligent son in a backwoods town, Caroline said, “You’re talking about what happened to you last January.”

  “How’d you know?” Ellen asked. And then, dropping Caroline’s hand, she turned away. “I guess you saw the news. I’m going to have to testify in Phoenix sometime later this month or next.”

  “I know.”

  “They’re still doing jury selection. We all went for the first day, but I’m not going back again until I have to take the stand. It’s just too hard.”

  “And serves no real purpose, anyway,” Caroline agreed. Being there that first day, with all her support, was probably a good thing for the girl—took away her fear of having to face the courtroom full of people, of having to face the man who’d violated her so horribly.

  But beyond that, she deserved to start a new life. One filled with love and hope and security.

  Two of the other women had been called in. The remaining woman was talking on a cell phone. A television talk show droned in the distance.

  “Am I never going to escape the stigma of that night?” Ellen’s question came softly beside her.

  “Of course you are,” Caroline hurriedly assured Ellen, sitting back to give her space. “Someday when there’s more time, I’ll tell you a few things I’ve learned about life, but for now, I promise you that you’ll move on, have a new and different life.”

  Ellen stared at her. “Did something bad happen to you, too? Were you raped?” She glanced down at Caroline’s bare left ring finger. Then at her belly. As if to ask whether the baby she was there to bring into the world was the result of an attack.

  “No, it’s nothing like that,” Caroline immediately assured Ellen. Eventually these people were going to know that John Strickland was the father of her baby, and she could never have anyone thinking that he’d acted in any way except honorably. This was just as much Caroline’s doing as his—more so, if the truth be known. Although she hadn’t knowingly set out to have dinner with John—and certainly not to sleep with him—she had set out to meet him, when he hadn’t even known she existed. “It’s a long story, too long for here and now, but I promise I’ll tell you about it someday.”

  “Okay,” Ellen nodded, still watching her.

  “And in the meantime, don’t worry so much. I don’t know what’s making you think you might’ve caught something from that jerk, but I do know that often what seems like a problem…down there…really isn’t anything at all. And even if there is something, it can be taken care of.”

  Ellen nodded but didn’t look convinced.

  Caroline didn’t take time to think, she just let her natural frankness come forth. “You said your husband doesn’t know, right?” she asked.

  “Right.” Ellen’s eyes were facing the tile beneath their feet.

  “Have you and he been physically active?”

  Ellen blushed again. “Yeah.”

  “Then chances are, you didn’t catch anything last January,” she said. “I can’t promise, of course, but those things are passed back and forth and if you haven’t passed him anything—and if he hasn’t passed you anything…” She had to say it.

  “Oh, no!” Ellen stared up at her. “He’s never…been with anyone else.”

  “At this stage, it’s probably unlikely that you have an STD,” Caroline said matter-of-factly.

  “But…” Ellen’s innocence was heartbreaking as she stared up at Caroline. Caroline couldn’t help feeling how difficult this was for the young woman, driven as she was to conduct such an intimate conversation with a complete stranger. And made a silent promise to hold sacrosanct the faith Ellen had placed in her. “If…if Aaron had something, would he be able to tell?” she finally asked.

  “Almost always,” Caroline told the girl. “It’s easier for guys to tell.”

  The girl continued to stare at her, and Caroline hoped she hadn’t mistakenly brought that relief to her eyes. “I’m not a doctor,” she added. “I could be completely off….”

  Ellen’s smile was tremulous. “I know,” she said. “I don’t think I’m really afraid of something being seriously wrong. I feel I could handle that, you know? I’m just terrified that I was marked by…you know…”

  “You felt dirty,” Caroline guessed.

  “Yeah.”

  “And ashamed?”

  “Yeah.”

  She took the young woman’s hand. “Well, my friend, you’re neither. No matter what the doctor finds.”

  Ellen glanced up, tears in her eyes. “You’re being so kind.”

  Caroline shrugged. “I’m just sitting here.”

  “No, you aren’t.” Ellen grinned, looking younger. “Why would you do this for a perfect stranger?”

  “I’ve been in need of a friend a couple of times in my life,” she said. “Times when I thought I couldn’t go on without one.”

  Ellen nodded silently.

  “I recognized that same look in you.”

  “Oh.”

  “And being new to town, I don’t know many people yet. It’s nice to have a real conversation with someone besides myself.”

  The third woman was called, and then it was just the two of them in the waiting room. They sat quietly for a couple of minutes and Caroline contemplated opening her puzzle book.

  Or finding some way to bring the conversation around to her twin. But it seemed a little…underhanded and creepy, now that she was here, to be trying to get information about someone without her knowledge. Reading public information on the Internet hadn’t seemed nearly as invasive in Kentucky as it did to her now.

  “So, you said you just moved here,” Ellen interrupted Caroline’s ongoing mental battle. “Is your husband with you?”

  Caroline froze. Somehow the protective bubble that usually surrounded her had slipped away in Ellen’s presence. She’d known there’d be questions in a town this size. Being new to Shelter Valley would garner attention in and of itself. But being pregnant and single…

  “My husband was killed in a tractor accident last summer.”

  Ellen’s brows drew together, her eyes dark with sympathy. “I’m so sorry. This has got to be awf—” She broke off, her face blank. “Oh.”

  Obviously there was no way Caroline could be newly pregnant by a husband who’d been dead for more than six months.

  Neither could she talk about John to the people who’d become his family. Presenting his child to this town was up to him.

  Sitting there, next to the girl she’d befriended, with absolutely no idea of what to say, Caroline felt incredibly stupid. Instead of worrying about her wardrobe and fantasizing about meeting a sister who didn’t even know she existed, she should’ve been planning how she was going to present her child to the world. Away from Grainville and all the people who’d known her all her life, she’d begun to feel almost anonymous, and she’d let the feeling lull her into an awkward moment, completely unprepared.