Tall, stoic, unflappable "Talk to me, Gray. Talk to me so that I don't

think about anything."

She pushed the food away as she turned her face toward his.

"Tell me about your son-" She realized that she had forgotten the boy's

name.H head felt as if it had been entirely emptied of everything."Jake?" he supplied.Why did she want to know about him?"Yes, Jake," she repeated.She wanted to hear about h son.About something wonderfully normal.Witho thinking, she placed her hand on his wrist."Does he loo like you?"He thought for a second.Jake looked like Jake to him."Yes, I sul),)ose in an odd way, he d--."Caitlin f@oiced at him.It was a strange choice Of words."Why odd?"Graham shrugged as he finished his fries- "He's not mine."He had lost her.Was Jake his wife's son then?"I don't understand. I thought you said that Jake was your son."

"He is."

Graham said it with such feeling, it made her wonder what was going on.

"I adopted him. It was Celia's idea, really."

And for that, he knew, he would always be grateful to her, It made for

a very complicated situation.

s your wife?

" Caitlin attempted to mainta " Celia' in a light, conversational

tone.

The word wife stuck to the roof of her mouth like wet bread.

He took a long pull from the bottle of soda.

"Ex-wife." Caitlin didn't attempt to put a name to the glimmer of

buoyant emotion budding within her. ,you're divorced?" no emotion in the THheenreodwdaesd." Two years.

or @of.

Gray had d troubled hirncouldn't tell if collapse of his marriage ha his voice.

She become even more reticent since the days when they had been together, hen, either, she -.

But she hadn't really known him t reminded herself.

If she had, what he had done wouldn't have shattered her the way it had.

She would have anticipated it and been prepared instead of being so completely devastated.

a nlistake from the "Nobody's fault," he added.

,It was beginning.

" He glanced at Caitlin before taking another pull of his drink I'm good at making those kinds of mistakes.

" uestioned, too She let his pregnant comment pass unq on of his words.

tired to try to unravel. the hidden implicate " Why was your marriage

a mistake?" Iready said too Graham was about to say that he had a much. Hewasn't the type to bare his soul, 3nd his friendships were few innumber, though strong. But somehow, the words continued to come.

He shrugged philosophically, looking at the mouth of the b@mile: rather than at her.

Celia because she said she was pregnant an mine.

" The faint outline of a self-deprecatin his mouth." I thought it was the right thing the.

vantage of him and lied?

"And she wasn't adbyanam 11 Pregzlvn like the Graham she'd once known.

Had "Il@, she was. But she lost it."

He a remembered how he.

had felt when the doctor had come out of the emergency room to tell him

that Celia had had physically punched him special had been taken away had the opportunity to hold it. empty bottle, "There were some' himself from the story.

It did t it now- He wasn't responsible she c( u have any more children.

And she was obsessed for v h@ to Celia, He had honestly tried to ma 0 with a.

,a one.

She begged me t go to a private adoption agency.

I disdwn'otrwkabnett twoe,enbutthem"" ithe upshot Of it was that

trailing off.

"I said yes. We itlin thought. She wondered h boy and if that was

part of the is hair. Celia had been like a cot k then, fussing over Jake.

"Fo a " For understand, bJ, up to a point.

cccelia's childhood was pretty Celia It had had her reasons, he

supposed.

He could unrocky-"I sQl suppose that's what drew us together in the first place-' @ll;iwas a full-blooded Navajo, abandoned by both parents and left to be raised by an aunt, who had beaten her.

She'd beeit=n vulnerable and clingy, desperately lookin for urt male someone to love her.

He had been nursing his h g pride and she had fed it.

For a very small while, they had been good for each other.

"She didn't really know what she wanted."

He wasn't sure what had come over him.

He'd talked too much.

Graham gave Caitlin a capsulated version of the rest of the story. "Eventually, Celia decided that she wanted more out of life, that she didn't want to be married. Not to a cop, anyway. She wanted something better. So, she left."

Caitlin couldn't picture walking out on Graham and a child.

Commitments meant a great deal to her.

"Just like that?"

The indignation in her voice surprised him.

"No, there were some arguments first. But she left and I thought that

was that."

The divorce had been fast and uncontested.

Celia had given up custody of Jake almost as if the boy had been hardly

a footnote in her life.

She had wanted her freedom that badly.

Caitlin recalled the conversation she'd overheard in her store.

"And now she's back?"

"Yeah."

His tone was dismissive, abruptly cutting her off.

She wasn't going to let him do it this time.

Determination etched the outline of her mouth.

"Don't tell me it's none of my business, Gray. You just saved my

life."