"Honey, you can stay in bed with Wishes for a while if you want, but I'm starting on breakfast, and then I have to finish the Weekly Rampage."

"I thought we did the rampage yesterday."

"Just the counters, floors, waste baskets, and kitty litter. I still have to do laundry, clean out the woodstove, and vacuum our bedrooms."

"I'll fold the socks."

"You always do such a good job of that," Hannah said. Matching and balling up the clean socks more often than not degenerated into a rolling game of sock-tag.

Though probably not today. As Hannah made her first cup of tea of the day-jasmine green tea, an extravagance made possible by regular employment-she admitted her energy level was still dragging. She opened the kitchen door to let out a fat, long-haired orange tomcat who'd been helping himself to leftover milk in the cereal bowl on the counter.

"Shameless varmint," Hannah muttered as she nudged him through the door, except the cat's front end stopped in mid-nudge, resulting in his back end making an undignified slide up Hannah's foot.

"Haven't you seen snow before?" Hannah bent to push the beast through the door. "And you call yourself a retired barn cat." As she straightened to close the door, she saw what had caught the cat's attention. A black sport utility vehicle had pulled into the short driveway in front of her house.

"Interesting." Though the sight of strangers in the driveway never cheered a kid raised in foster care, the State of Maryland probably wasn't providing child welfare workers sport utility vehicles these days.

Dadgummit thought the vehicle was interesting too, for he settled on his furry haunches and wrapped his tail around his paws with feline aplomb. Figures were emerging from the SUV. Trenton Knightley and a child about Grace's size looked around the property as they slammed their doors.

"I know this is where she lives, Daddy, because she said she had a cat whose head was wider than his behind the color of a pumpkin."

The child with the unusual syntax was female, based on her voice. The rest of her was swaddled in a snowsuit, scarf, mittens, and hood. Rosy cheeks were barely discernible.

Oh...dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. That child was Merle.

Grace would never biddably sleep through this, not that Hannah could conceive of misleading Trent or his daughter when they were on her very property. That realization made her anxious, even as she also admitted getting this encounter over with might be a small relief.

Or a large one.

Trent and his daughter came across the yard-no telling where a sidewalk might be under the snow-and Hannah barely had time to glance down at her ratty bathrobe and fuzzy slippers before the child climbed onto the porch.

"Hi! Is Grace here? I'm Merle, and it's time for the unicorns to play in the snow."

Hannah opened the door wider and tried not to stare at a child who had eyes the exact same color as her father's.

"h.e.l.lo, Merle, and welcome. I'm Hannah. If you go upstairs to the big bedroom at the back of the house, you can surprise Grace."

"Yippee!" Merle dashed across the kitchen, her snowsuit susurrating, boots clomping gleefully up the steps.

"h.e.l.lo." Trent followed his daughter into the kitchen. "You have a daughter."

"A common condition, apparently. Can I get you a cup of tea?"

She wouldn't offer explanations or excuses, but it would be rude not to offer a hot drink.

"Tea would be nice."

Hannah filled the kettle at the sink rather than endure Trent's scrutiny.

"I'd heard this place was sold last year, and then Merle told me her new best friend lived here. We were headed to the tower road to go tobogganing, and Merle hasn't ever had a best friend before. She started wheedling..."

His voice trailed off as he glanced around Hannah's kitchen. Cupboard doors didn't quite hang plumb, the linoleum had seen better decades, the fridge was plastered with Grace's unicorn art. Hannah's personal s.p.a.ce, worn and tattered around the edges, but as tidy and cozy as she could make it.

"You have a nice place. Comfy."

"It suits us," Hannah said as a d.a.m.ned blush crept up her neck. "Cream, honey, sugar?"

She opened the door to the refrigerator so she could turn her back on Trent again. Of all the kitchens on all the hillsides in all the valleys of western Maryland...

"Hannah?" He still stood by the door, regarding her curiously.

"Hmm?" She shut the fridge with her hip and met his gaze over a pint of half and half-another blessing of regular employment.

"I'm glad we're neighbors, and I'm glad Merle has a friend."

Hannah got down a clean mug-this one sporting Eeyore-and the box of jasmine green tea bags. "Grace is very pleased to have a friend as well. She's tended to keep too much to herself."

Like her mother.

Trent didn't say that, though Hannah could hear him thinking it. He sat on the bench near the door and started unlacing his boots.

"Merle has been the same way. She's cordial to the kids at Pony Club, but they aren't buddies, not the way she seems to have buddied up with Grace. They share vivid imaginations."

"We don't have a TV," Hannah said, relaxing a little. People with kids sometimes sat in each other's kitchens drinking tea, though that hadn't happened to her in her kitchen.

Ever.

"Grace can occupy herself for hours in her art corner," she went on, "and she's been horse mad since she could skip around the living room and whinny."

"It's genetic, then. Merle has the same affliction."

Trent was down to his stocking feet, and when he rose to cross the kitchen, he seemed to Hannah larger than when he was in his three-piece suits at the office. Instead of tailored wool, he was in jeans and a plaid flannel shirt, with a black silk underlayer peeking through at his throat and cuffs.

The whistling teakettle saved Hannah from touching any of those soft, masculine play clothes. "Where do you and Merle live?"

"About two miles farther south along the mountainside," Trent said, leaning back against the counter in exactly the same posture he leaned back against his desk. "I have a few acres, and we keep some horses. Grace is welcome to come play anytime."

"She'd like that." Hannah poured the boiling water into his mug. "She doesn't know a great deal about horses, though she loves them. I could afford a few lessons this past summer, and she thinks she knows a lot more than she does. You never said if you want sugar or honey, and I was about to make pancakes-I'm babbling."

"Hannah?"

She set the kettle down but didn't turn. Trent was right behind her, and yes, he was taller when she was shod in old slippers, though he still bore the same sandalwood and spice scent.

"It's OK," he said, slipping his arms around her waist and resting his cheek against her hair. "I'm protective of Merle too."

That's what Hannah had been feeling-that anxious, panicky, what-do-I-do, what-do-I-say feeling had been protectiveness.

"I am protective. Very, very, and the girls shouldn't catch us cuddling like this."

"Why not?" He didn't move, didn't step back, and the solid warmth of his embrace was absurdly precious here in Hannah's own kitchen.

"I haven't said anything to Grace about you. She's never seen me being affectionate with anybody but her. It won't make sense to her."

Trent wore thick wool socks. They'd be the definition of cozy, if Hannah were to borrow them.

"Then it's about time Grace learned she isn't the only one who thinks her mother is special." Trent kissed Hannah's cheek then stepped back. When Hannah turned, he was squirting honey into his tea as casually as if they'd been meeting in each other's kitchens for years. "Merle has to learn the same thing. She's protective of me too, you see, and while that's touching and charming and sweet, it isn't her job."

"Because you don't need protecting?"

"Not in the sense she thinks I do. What about you? Do you need protecting?"

He set the honey down and took a sip of his tea, sparing Hannah the need to answer.

She did not need protecting. She refused to consider whether she might crave a little of it anyhow.

"By G.o.d, that's good," Trent said. "We'll have to get some for the office. You said something about pancakes?"

Why did she suspect his "we" included not only his two brothers, but also Hannah?

"Pancakes, right. I'd best get dressed first, if you don't mind a few minutes of solitude?"

"I will enjoy my tea." He gestured with his mug, looking absolutely relaxed and at home in Hannah's kitchen. From upstairs, the sound of two little girls whooping with laughter came wafting down.

Hannah said nothing-how long had she waited to hear her daughter laughing like that with a friend?-but repaired to the bathroom off the kitchen and shuddered at the half-dressed, tired, smiling buffoon she saw in the mirror.

Chapter 11.

"Mom has been sick," Grace informed her bear, though he was a stuffed bear, so he wouldn't ever answer. "Even if she's willing to go outside, I can't let her catch cold. We might have time to make a snow bear."

A snow unicorn would be really cool, though it might take all afternoon so that would have to wait until Mom felt better.

"Hi, Grace!"

"Merle! What are you doing here?" First snow, then pancakes, and now Merle? A magic day, surely. The day Grace had started riding lessons had been magic too.

"We're going tobogganing up at the fire tower. I begged Dad to bring you with us."

Grace flipped the covers back, and Merle toed off her boots and climbed on the bed. "That's an old bear. Bet you've always had him."

"As long as I can remember, though his fur isn't loved off yet. Did your dad say yes?"

Merle's gloves and scarf came off next, a matched set decorated with white horses. "He's talking to your mom. She's pretty. He'll get her to say yes. Is this your bed?"

"Nope. C'mon. I'll show you my bedroom. Is your dad nice?"

Grace hopped out of bed and headed for the door as Merle gathered up her winter stuff and scrambled after her.

"Dad's nice, but he gets cranky sometimes when he has a big trial. I make him take me for ice cream then. You forgot your bear."

Grace pulled the covers up over Wishes and left him propped against Mom's pillow.

"Mom's been sick. She can use a bear for a while. She's nice too. I think she can use a grown-up to visit with."

Merle tucked the blanket right up to Wishes's chin. "Grown-ups get lonely, and they don't have recess or lunch to play with friends. I'm not sure I want to be a grown-up, if all we do is work and do ch.o.r.es."

"Me either, but, Merle, can I ask you a question?" Merle opened the door, and the scent and heat of the woodstove came wafting into Mom's room.

"Ask me anything. I have questions for you too."

"I've never been tobogganing. What's it like?"

"C'mon," Merle said, whirling down the hallway, "I'll draw you a picture! Tobogganing with Dad is the best fun ever!"

Hannah was in her jeans and favorite sweater, teeth brushed and face washed, when somebody rapped on the door.

"You decent?"

"I am." She'd yet to subdue her hair, though. Decent and presentable were two different things.

"Here." Trent opened the door and held her mug out to her. "I zapped it in the microwave."

"Thanks." Hannah took the hot tea, but she had to open the door to do it.

"I could do that for you, you know." He filled up the doorway with good-looking guy who did great things for his jeans.

"Drink my tea?"

"Brush your hair. I'm the dad to a seven-year-old girl. I won the intergalactic fast-braiding division at the last Dad Games." Trent plucked the brush from Hannah's hand and took her by the wrist. "You sit and sip your tea. Prepare to be impressed."

Hannah wanted to argue. She should argue. She was going to argue. Very soon.

She sat at the kitchen table and took a sip of her tea.

"One braid or two?"

"One," she said as he drew the brush through her hair. Three pa.s.ses of the brush and her eyes grew heavy.

"You have such beautiful hair, and you don't wiggle the whole time."