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CHAPTER ONE

CAROLYN DUFF had made one major mistake in her life—a whopping cliché of a mistake in a Vegas wedding chapel—which hadn’t, unlike the commercials said, stayed in Vegas.

It had followed her back here—and was working in an office just a few blocks down the street. All six-foot-two of him.

Most days she forgot about Nicholas Gilbert and concentrated on her job. As an assistant city prosecutor she barely had time to notice when the sun went down, because her days tended to pass in a blur of phone calls, legal precedents, Indiana case law and urgent e-mails. Her calendar might have said Friday, her clock already ticking past five, but still Carolyn stayed behind her desk, finishing up yet another flurry of work, even though tomorrow was the start of the Fourth of July weekend and the courts would be closed until Tuesday.

For Carolyn it didn’t matter. An internal time bomb kept ticking away, pushing her to keep going, to pursue one more criminal case, to see the prison bars slam shut once more.

To know she’d done her part again.

And yet it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

Carolyn rubbed at her temples, trying to beat back the start of another headache before it got too intense. Then she set to work, working on a negotiation for a plea bargain with a local defense attorney who thought his client—a petty thief—merited merely a ninety-day jail stint and a small fine. Carolyn, who could see the future handwriting on the wall, one that upped the ante to a felony charge—B&E with a deadly weapon—wanted years behind bars. The presiding judge, however, wanted a fast resolution that would clear his docket of one more hassle. He’d given the two attorneys the weekend to find a middle ground.

Mary Hudson popped her head in the door. Her chestnut pageboy swung around her chin, framing wide brown eyes and a friendly smile. “Everyone’s gone home,” said the paralegal. “Tell me you’re taking the holiday weekend off, too.”

“Eventually.”

Mary sighed. “Carolyn, it’s a holiday. Time to party, not work. Come on, go out for drinks with me. I’m meeting some of the girls from the other attorneys’ offices over at T.J.’s Pub.”

“Sorry, Mary. Too much work to do.”

“You know what you need?” Mary crossed to the coffeepot on the credenza, adding some water from a waiting pitcher, then loading in a couple of scoops of coffee from a decorative canister, intuitively reading Carolyn’s late-afternoon need for another caffeine fix. “A killer sundress and a sexy man—one always attracts the other.”

When it came to fixing Carolyn up, Mary was like a persistent five-year-old wanting candy before dinner—she’d try every tactic known to man and wasn’t above shameless begging. To Mary a woman without a man was akin to a possum without a tail—a creature to be pitied and helped.

“I don’t need a man, Mary.” Though the last time Carolyn had gone on a date…

Okay, so she couldn’t think of the last time she’d gone on a date.

Speaking of dates and men—the image of Nick sprang to mind, and a surge of something thick and hot Carolyn refused to call desire rose in her chest. What was it with that man? He’d been a blip in her life story, and yet he’d always lingered in the back of her mind like he was the one chapter in her life she wished she’d never written but couldn’t forget reading. Well, she certainly didn’t intend to check that book out of the library again. She already knew the ending.

One crazy weekend. One reckless decision. Four days later it was over.

Mary leaned against the mahogany credenza, arms akimbo, waiting for acquiescence. “Okay, so I can’t get you to leave early, but you will be at the fund-raiser for the Care-and-Connect-with-Children program, won’t you? These kids are all so needy, Carolyn. I’ve seen their files. Foster kids, kids living below the poverty level—they run the gamut. And don’t worry about having to get too involved or hands-on. We have a lot of activities planned to keep the kids busy all day, partly to give the foster parents a break, too. It’s pretty overwhelming, taking in strangers.”

And overwhelming for the children, living with strangers, but Carolyn didn’t say that. She kept her past to herself. When she’d left Boston three and a half years ago, she’d also left those memories behind. “I promise, I’ll be at the picnic on Saturday. But I don’t need a new dress. I can wear the one I wore to the office summer party last year. No one remembers what anyone wears at these things, and I can go stag because I am perfectly capable—”

“Of taking care of yourself,” Mary finished on a sigh. “Yeah, I know. So are hermit crabs, but you don’t see them smiling, now, do you?”

“They’re crustaceans, Mary. I don’t think they have smiles.”

“Exactly.” Mary nodded, as if that validated her point.

In the two years Mary had worked in the office, Carolyn had yet to figure out what stratosphere Mary’s mind was working on. Luckily, Mary typed at an ungodly speed and filed with an almost zenlike ability. As for the rest…

Well, Carolyn was twenty-eight and didn’t need anyone to tell her how to live her life. Or to tell her she needed a man to take care of her. Not when there were more important things on her desk, like a thief.

She opened the thick manila folder before her and began reviewing the facts in the case again. If she got distracted for one second, she could miss something. A guilty man, for instance. This time it was Liam Pendant, a career criminal with an unregistered firearm in the glove compartment of his truck. His lawyer wanted her to go easy on him, but Carolyn disagreed. What if Liam had taken his crime a step further? Entered the house instead of just stolen the lawnmower out of the open garage? What if he’d taken the gun along? Used it on the homeowner who had caught him running down the driveway?

Instead of a simple burglary charge, she could be looking at another senseless tragedy, the result of a bad temper mixed with a gun.

And Carolyn knew all too well where that could lead. How a family could be destroyed in the blink of an eye. No, she decided, reviewing Liam’s extensive rap sheet again, then closing the folder.

There would be no deal.

Mary took a seat on the edge of Carolyn’s desk, depositing a mug of coffee before her. Carolyn thanked her and went on working. Mary laid a palm on the papers, blocking Carolyn’s view. “Hon, an earthworm has more of a life than you do.”

“Mary, aren’t you paid to—”

“Assist, not direct you?” she finished.

Carolyn laughed and stretched in her chair. “I guess I’ve said that often enough.”

“And I’ve ignored you often enough. But after two years together, I consider us friends. And as your friend, I have to say you’re working too hard.” She rose, crossed the room and opened the closed blinds, revealing the brightly lit city outside. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s summer. People are out there enjoying the sun. Not staying inside like vampires.”

For a second, Carolyn paused to turn around and admire the view. The burst of fire the afternoon sun cast over the downtown square, the busy stream of traffic leaving the city as people returned to their families or headed out of Lawford for the tranquility of the lakes that dotted the Indiana landscape.

“It’s a perfect day,” Mary said. “And it’s going to be a perfect weekend for the program for the kids. They’re going to love all the gifts and the—”

“Oh the gifts! Damn!” Carolyn rubbed at her temples. “I haven’t bought a single present yet. I promised to sponsor one of those children and I totally forgot to get to the store. I’m sorry, Mary. These last few cases have been eating up every spare moment.”

“There’s always going to be another case,” Mary said gently. “Will you please get out and enjoy the sunshine, Carolyn? I swear, all this climate-controlled air is frying your brain.”

Carolyn rose and crossed to the window. For a second, she felt the warmth of the day, felt the special magic that seemed to come with summer days wrap around her heart. Her mind spiraled back to her childhood, to those first days out of school, running to greet her father when he got home from work, the endless bike rides they’d take, the times he’d push her on the backyard swing—just one more time, Dad, please, one more time—the games of catch that went long into the twilight hours. Once in a while they’d stay up late, watching for shooting stars or playing catch-and-release with fireflies.

Her throat caught, a lump so thick in the space below her chin, she couldn’t swallow. Oh, Dad. How she missed him, the ache hitting deep and sharp, from time to time.

Every summer with her father had been…incredible. It had been just the two of them, after her mother had been killed in a car accident shortly after Carolyn was born. Because of that, Carolyn and her father had shared a bond. A bond she missed, missed so very much there were days when she swore she could touch the pain.

After her father died when she was nine, she’d lost that feeling of joy, that anticipation of warm days, of long, lazy evenings. She’d started staying indoors, avoiding summer because everything had lost its magic. Trying to forget the very season she had enjoyed so much.

Then Nick had come along a few years ago and reminded her of the fun she used to have. Reminded her that magic still existed.

For a while Carolyn had let loose and done something completely crazy—so crazy that it had led her to a disaster of a marriage. For five minutes she’d let go of the tight hold she’d had over her life, and when she had, the ball of control went rolling over the hill way too fast.

Thankfully, she’d fixed that mistake almost immediately, and everything was on the right path now. She was successful at her job. Sure, it had come at the cost of what other people had—a home, kids, the trappings of tradition—but for a woman like Carolyn, who had about as much experience with the traditional life as a swimsuit model did with dog sledding, it was just as well. Besides, neither she nor Nick had taken the marriage seriously, not really.

And when that face from her past appeared on the TV screen in the diner, blasting Carolyn’s history on national airwaves, she’d made her choice and walked away from Nick for good.

Carolyn pushed away the memories then returned to her desk, swallowed two aspirin with the black coffee, and went back to work. “I’ll leave early—er. I promise, Mary.”

Mary sighed. “Okay. See you tomorrow, then. You will be at the picnic, right? Not chained to this desk?”

Carolyn smiled. “I’ll be there. I promise.”

“I’m holding you to it. And if you don’t show up,” Mary said, with a warning wag of her index finger, “you know I’ll come right down here and drag you out of this office.”

Mary said goodbye, then headed out of the office, already exchanging her pumps for a pair of flip-flops in her purse. Clearly, the paralegal was ready to start her holiday weekend.

Carolyn thought of the last time she’d done something that carefree. That spontaneous. And she couldn’t remember. Somewhere along the road, it had simply become easier to spend weekends, holidays, Friday nights at her desk. Easier to ignore the invitations to dinners that were clearly fix-ups, the dates with men who didn’t interest her, the lonely evenings at home by herself.

Mary was right. Carolyn could almost feel her father looking down on her from heaven, tsktsking at all the sunshine she had missed, the sunsets that had passed behind Carolyn’s back as she’d worked.

Well, she did have shopping to do for the picnic tomorrow. What better excuse to leave early? She finished up the last few tasks on her desk, including leaving a voice mail for Liam’s attorney telling him no deal, then shut down her computer. Her gaze caught on the bright blue-and-yellow envelope for the Care-and-Connect-with-Children program. She tugged it out, stuck it in her briefcase, then headed out the door.

As she headed down in the elevator, she opened the envelope and pulled out the photo of the child inside. A paper clip held a four-by-six-inch picture of a five-year-old boy to the corner of a sheet of paper.

Her stomach clenched. Oh, he was a cute little thing—blond and blue-eyed, a little on the skinny side, and in desperate need, the sheet said, of almost everything. School supplies, clothes, sheets. His dream wish list was so simple, it nearly broke Carolyn’s heart: books to read and a single toy truck.

For a split second, she saw the future that could have been in the boy’s eyes. If she had stayed married to Nick—if either of them had made that bond into something real.

Carolyn traced the outline of the child’s face. What if…

But no. There were no what ifs, not where she and Nicholas Gilbert were concerned. Carolyn had made her choices, and made them for very good reasons—and exactly the one that made her happy.

By the time the elevator doors whooshed open, Carolyn was back in work mode. She’d deal with this sponsorship project with her typical take-charge attitude. Clutching the envelope tight, she ran down a mental list of tasks, compartmentalizing the entire process, treating it as simply one more thing to do. Distancing herself, keeping emotions out of the equation.

That, Carolyn knew, was the best way to protect her most valuable asset—the one she’d vowed never to expose again, especially not to another lawyer—

Her heart.

The last place Nick Gilbert expected to be on a Friday night was a toy store.

Yet here he was, standing in the center of a brightly lit aisle filled with pink and lace, trying to decide between a doll that cried and a doll that burped. To him, neither seemed to offer an advantage. Burping might be a cool and very funny option—but only if you were a teenage boy looking to crack up the algebra class. Nevertheless, given the way the little girls swarming around him were grabbing the toys off the shelves, both outbursts were wildly popular.

Cry…or burp?

He may have grown up in a big family, but everything Nick knew about children could fit on the back of an ant, with room left for an entire kindergarten class. Why had he agreed to sponsor a child for the Care-and-Connect-with-Children program? What was he thinking?

He’d been swayed by a picture. By the list of needs on the sheet inside the packet of information about the child. And he’d thought, with his typical can-do attitude, that he could handle this.

Ha. He’d have been better off trying to corral a herd of elephants.

And, truth be told, he’d also thought a trip to a toy store, a few gifts thrown into a cart and an afternoon at the Care-and-Connect picnic might fill the gnawing hole in his chest. It had grown more persistent lately, like a thirst he couldn’t quite quench. A crazy feeling, because he should be content. He had everything he needed. A good career. Great friends, a loving family who lived nearby. An easy lifestyle that demanded nothing.

And yet…

His grip tightened on the dolls’ try-me buttons, which made them let out a simultaneous bur-pcry. Two moms in the aisle turned to look at him, twin amused smiles on their face, coupled with looks of compassion. A man in the baby doll aisle. Apparently he was an object of pity.

“Trial run before I have a real kid,” he joked. “I think I like the burping better. It’s more entertaining.”

The moms shook their heads, then laughed and walked away.

Nick tossed both packages into his cart, then swung it around and headed down the aisle. He spun to the right, intending to get out of the store as quickly as he could. This was so not his forte. But as he rounded the corner, his cart collided with another, jostling the dolls, who complained with another burp-cry.

Nick barely noticed. Because he found himself staring at the one woman he thought he’d managed to forget.

Carolyn Duff.

She had deep-green eyes, so wide and dark, they were as inviting as placid lakes beneath a moonlit sky. A charcoal suit hugged her body, yet gave nothing away. Sensible pumps with kitten heels, not high enough to show off the real curves of her long legs, but enough to remind him of those gorgeous, long limbs. Blond hair, put back in a severe, tight bun, but Nick knew, when she let her hair down, it would be just long enough to tease around her features and whisper along her cheekbones, her jaw.

Everything about Carolyn on the outside was delicate, and yet on the inside she was strong—like a flamingo that could weather a hurricane.

She’d been the one woman who had intrigued him more than any other in law school. Her uppercrust, stiff Bostonian attitude had been a challenge to him—because when they’d met and he’d made her laugh, he’d glimpsed the Carolyn underneath, it had made him want to peel back the layers, get her to loosen up. Tease out the fun side of the severe, break-no-rules studier.

He’d done that, then done the most spontaneous thing in his life. Taken it to the next level and married her—the biggest mistake of his life.

And now that mistake was standing right in front of him.