been wi his mother. How love had quickly dried up and turned in

something empty. Something ugly. How even with an u derstanding, his

own marriage had fallen apart. Caitlin h never lived through that kind

of experience. And he could let her do that for him.

Graham shook his head.

"I can't ask you to marry me, Caitlin," he repeated.

Caitlin pushed past the pain his words created.

There was a small boy to think of.

line she was certain needed Grayham's love.

Perhaps even as much as she did.

"All right. Can you ask me to be Jake's mother?"

Fro the corner of her eye she saw Graham turn his head to lo at her.

She kept her eyes straight ahead, afraid that's might lose her nerve if

she looked at him.

"The other w be a technicality, like a form you have to sign."

She seemed determined, despite everything he said.

are you doing this?

If he had to ask, maybe he really didn't know her at a "Because you

love him and I don't want to see you hurt.

I 0 don't want to see Jake hurt.

I don't know Celia, but she doesn't sound like my idea for a candidate for mother of the year.

" When he said nothing, she looked at him." I've heard you on the

phone with Jake, seen the look in your eyes when you mention him.

You've finally found someone to love, someone who loves you back, and I want you to have that.

She took a breath, steeling herself.

"Maybe what we had is gone."

In her heart she refused to believe it.

But he did, and for now, she let it stand.

"But what you and Jake have is alive and thriving. A boy needs his

father. He needs someone who's willing to do anything for him. that's love."

"But your life-" She wasn't going to let him talk her out of it.

"I'm not making that big a sacrifice. I'm still going on with my life.

Besides," she said, a cryptic smile curving her mouth, " there's an added bonus.

"Which is?"

She shifted in her seat to face him.

" I get to tell my mother about it."

Caitlin's smile broadened.

"After the fact."

Graham laughed softly under his breath.

"I never thought you could be spiteful."

1. She was serious as she answered him. "Neither did Caitlin studied Graham's profile for a long moment. She didn't know whether she had convinced him or not. He should be the one convincing her, she thought, frustrated.

This was his son.

Why were favors so hard for him to accept?

Why was his pride always such an obstacle?

"So, what do you think? For Jake?"

There was no way he could refuse the offer, not if it meant keeping his

son.

Jake had gone through enough when Celia had left them.

He had been convinced that it was his fault his mother had walked

out.

It had taken a great deal of assurance from Graham to make him believe otherwise.

And now Jake's world could be torn apart again.

With the possibility of more upheavals in the future, should Celia

change her mind.

When Celia changed her mind, Graham am ended.

Graham pulled up in front of Caitlin's house.

He realized that she was holding her hand out to him, waiting t seal a

bargain.

The hand was like a lifeline to a drownin man.

He had no choice, though he wished he did.

For her sake. For Jake."

He nodded.

"You've got a deal."

He slid his hand into hers.

"Hell of a way to propose to a woman, he muttered, shaking his head.

She lifted a shoulder and let it drop, feigning nonch lance.

"Yeah, well, You did a little better the first tim around."

"I was naive," he countered Her smile was sad, though she fought against it.

"There' something to be said for that."

But for now, there were oth things to concentrate on.

She was going to get married.

To a man who was marrying her only because he had too. Caitlin hadn't pictured it this way.

When she had thought of her wedding, she had never pictured it like

this.

Standing in front of a sleepy-eyed, scrawny-looking justice of the peace, his thin face pockmarked with white stubble like tiny white shoots pushing their way out of a cracked, creased earth.

His wife, a bigboned, pleasant-faced woman, hovered in attendance, acting as a witness.

And Graham.