Adam heard laughter. Maybe he was dreaming, but the sound brought him a kind of gentle peace. The laughter floated through his subconscious mind, reminding him of lazy days spent fishing with his father and brothers out on the bayou, of time spent riding the big boat out on Lake Pontchartrain, good times. Happy times. Laughter.

      He woke with a start, wondering where he was. He was hot and sweaty, his brow wet, his pulse pounding. Lifting his head, he slowly glanced around the darkened room, his gaze taking in the shiny mahogany armoire, the old-fashioned washstand with the white bowl and pitcher, the four-poster bed with the soft, fresh sheets and the rose-quilted cover. Sanctuary.

      He was at the Sanctuary House Inn in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Hundred of miles away from New Orleans. A million miles away from his past. Had he come far enough?

      Adam got up and took a long shower, enjoying the soft spray as he reminded himself to check the pressure later. The old claw-foot bathtub was respectable, even if it was ancient, but the shower could use a few tweaks. Maybe he’d install one of those fancy newfangled showerheads. That would certainly be a plus for guests.

      He got dressed, his mind already at work as he made a mental note of all the things he’d noticed around this place that needed to be fixed. Shutters that needed to be repaired and repainted. Porch steps that needed to be straightened and steadied. Rugs cleaned, trees trimmed.

      He was already out in the hallway across from the dark paneled library when it hit him that somehow in the space of about six hours and several sweet dreams, he’d made a commitment to a place he didn’t even know. And to a woman he surely didn’t even begin to understand. Not a good idea. Not good at all. What if things became all tangled, like the ivy vine growing down on the sign post? He might just have to tell Stella that he’d changed his mind, that he couldn’t stay after all.

      But then, Adam came down the steps leading to the back gardens and stopped, his heart slamming against his chest, his breath halting in his lungs as he watched the scene playing out before him.

      Mr. Clark sat in an old rusty wrought iron lawn chair, gently rocking it back and forth, while Stella and Kyle laughed and moved around in the un-mowed wildflower clusters at the back end of the long, wide yard. They were playing ring-around-the-rosy. The afternoon sun surged around them like a halo, all bright and white and piercing. Kyle looked up, giggling, as his mother held his hands, skipping in a circle with him, her long, bright hair falling down toward the floral skirt of her dress. Stella threw her head back, laughing, teasing, while Kyle squealed with delight as they swirled faster and faster in the red clovers and tiny wild onion flowers, daffodils and black-eyed Susans frolicking in the wind right in step with them.

      Adam held on to the porch rail, his eyes tightening against the too-bright swell of emotions filling his insides. Once long ago, he’d dreamed of just such a picture in his own life. But his job had eaten away at any intimacy, any type of happiness he might have found. He’d loved and left a lot of women, or more likely, they’d loved him and he’d left them. The job had always taken what little soul he had to give. And in the end, the job had taken all of him, all of his strength, all of his energy, all of his dreams. Adam had been too involved in real life to have any dreams in his own life.

      But standing here now, watching the sweetness of a simple spring afternoon, hearing the drone of bumblebees on the rosebushes and the fussing and chirping of mockingbirds up in the big old live oak just beyond the house, and seeing this woman and her child playing with joy and abandon in the flower-filled yard of an old house that seemed to sigh in its contentment, Adam thought again about his dreams. And his torments. And he wished he could play with them, wished he could laugh out loud again.

      But he couldn’t move. So he just stood there, watching, observing, with all of his cop instincts on full-throttle warning, while his heart sent out a warning of its own. Turn away, it told him inside each erratic beat. Don’t dream. It hurts too much. But he couldn’t turn away. He just couldn’t. The image of Stella and Kyle laughing and playing would stay with him for a very long time to come, like a faded picture held just out of his reach, a sweet reminder of all that was good and great in life. A reminder of all that he would never have.

      Then Stella stopped skipping and fell down into the wildflowers, giggling as Kyle fell with her. She lifted her head, taking a breath, and saw Adam standing there. Her eyes held his, a soft surprised smile on her pink lips.

      And she called out to him. “Adam, come and join us.”

      Adam Callahan closed his eyes, images of death and crime, of drugs and killers and abuse and anger, moving through his tired, jaded brain to remind him that he’d dropped out of life. He’d once been a good cop. But then, he’d done something to change all of that. It didn’t matter that he was only trying to save a family member, it was still wrong. So wrong that Adam hadn’t used good judgment. Now he was paying for that with this self-imposed exile.

      “Adam?”

      Stella’s soft, melodious call seemed to push away all the dark-edged ugliness he’d seen in his head. Adam opened his eyes, smiled at her, then slowly starting walking through the overgrown garden toward the source of all that laughter and sunshine.

      Chapter Three

      The next day, Adam stood on a ladder on the side of the house, working on putting a decrepit shutter back in place. His goal for today was to get all the shutters cleaned, repaired and lined up straight, so he could decide how to paint the old house. He’d have to take them all down to really clean and paint them, but for now just setting them straight would have to do. He’d do some scraping and cleaning, and some sandblasting before he could actually worry about a new paint job. That and the fact