CHAPTER ONE

      “THE CLOSEST SERVICE station that has snacks and drinks is eight miles away in that direction,” Emma Logan said and pointed out the window down the two-lane road to her left. “And it’s twelve miles in the other if you want to drive into Williamston. Can you stand to be so isolated? Seth and I live right across the road, but I’m either helping out down at the veterinary clinic or looking after whatever animals we’ve rescued. And in this condition—” she pointed down at her sizable belly “—I can’t pick you up if you fall.”

      Stephen MacDonald thumped his Malacca cane with the silver wolf’s head against the floor between his knees. “I do not fall, Emma. I limp. I am not an invalid.”

      “Then why hide out here? I’ve known you and your daughters since you all moved into the neighborhood years ago. I know you’re hiding. Takes one to know one. I came out here to hole up and lick my wounds when I lost my job and my fiancé, and look what happened.” She waved her hand at the living room of the farmhouse. From behind the back wall came the thud of nail guns and shouts of men. “It’s already nearly October. With Kicks almost here, we have to finish the nursery and the kitchen and the new bathroom fast before he, she or it arrives.”

      “Kicks?” He gave her the barest flicker of a smile. “I remember my Nina nicknamed our Elaine Salsa when she was carrying her. Anne was quieter. I can’t remember Nina’s name for her.” He turned away quickly, but not before Emma caught the flash of pain in his eyes.

      When Anne had called to make the appointment for her father to view Emma’s rental house, she’d warned her that she might not recognize Stephen.

      “He looks even taller now that he’s lost so much weight—like Abraham Lincoln without the beard. He’s also angry,” Anne had told her. “It’s almost as though he blames Mother for dying on him.”

      “I’m sure he does,” Emma had said. “She protected him from the world. I was terrified of him when I used to come to your house after school, until Nina showed me what a pushover he really is. And then his accident—it’s no wonder he’s bad-tempered. Pain makes everybody angry.”

      “Not like this. I hope he does rent your cottage, Emma. He’s not teaching until spring, and he’s driving us all nuts. Maybe writing his new textbook will pull him back into life.”

      Sitting across from him now in her living room, Emma saw what Anne meant. Stephen was perfectly polite, but he wasn’t quite there.

      “I assume you are calling him, her or it Kicks because it does?” Stephen asked as he nodded toward her midsection.

      “Does it ever. The doctor assures me it is not twins, which is all I cared about. Seth and I decided not to find out, which means the nursery will be your basic buttercup-yellow. Okay, enough about me. Why are you coming up here to hide out? I thought you were still in rehab. And you have a perfectly good house in Memphis. You could lock the door and turn off your phone if you want to write, couldn’t you?”

      “I do not intend to spend a day longer in rehab, Emma, even if our government would pay for it—which they wouldn’t. And I refuse to allow either of my children to become caregivers. If I were where they could get to me, I’d be up to my ears in casseroles and being ‘checked on’ a dozen times a day. I would get nothing done. Anne usually calls ahead when she comes to see me. Elaine always ‘just happens to be in the neighborhood.’ Nina...” His voice caught. He took a deep breath before he was able to continue. “Nina was my guard dog at the gate. No one disturbed me when I was working. Or if I was simply feeling curmudgeonly.

      “The official story is that I am moving to your cabin in the wilderness to work on my new textbook. You know, publish or perish? I already have tenure, but it doesn’t hurt to keep one’s name out there.”

      “Be careful. This place will suck you in. You’ll discover all sorts of interesting ways to take up your time that are not academic.”

      “Fine. I need a quiet place where I am totally alone or surrounded by strangers. I am fed