Now he passed Amelia her drink. She was curled into the corner of the sofa. He took one of the easy chairs and raised his glass in a mock toast. "Cheers." He shot his drink and set the empty glass on the coffee table. He looked across at her, knowing the time had come for the inevitable denouement. "Well, now you know the reason."

She nodded.

"Can't say you weren't forewarned to keep your distance."

He got up and walked over to the windows. From this perspective on the top floor, he could see that there were still a few patrol cars parked in front of the hotel. The media vans had come and gone, following Carl to the hospital's trauma center. His condition was reported as "serious."

The man wanted for decades by the FBI had been nabbed. He was the story now. No doubt national news crews were keeping the airlines into Savannah oversold. Dawson Scott, magazine journalist, would be a footnote in the news coverage, and he hoped he remained so. None of the SWAT officers swarming the hotel room had overheard his declaration. He hadn't told Knutz about his relationship to Carl. Outside the Headlys and Amelia, no one knew. Well, except for Carl himself.

"They'll be pulling off the guards on Saint Nelda's if they haven't already," he said. "You and the boys will be safe."

"Tucker is going to leave several deputies out there to discourage the media. Just until the hubbub dies down. A few days."

"That's good. Kids all right?"

"I talked to both of them on the phone. They're as happy as little clams. The deputy is spoiling them. She told me there was no need to come back tonight, since it would be such a short turnaround."

Knutz had asked that they meet with him at nine o'clock the following morning to "wrap up."

Dawson turned back into the room. He looked at her for a moment, then spread his arms out to his sides. "The secret's out. Any questions?"

She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "How old were you when you found out?"

"Thirty-seven."

She looked at him with stupefaction. "You haven't known until now?"

He returned to the chair and sat down. "To be precise, it was eight, no, nine days ago, that I learned the fate of my brother. I knew all about the standoff in Golden Branch and how I came to be. Carl, Flora, all that.

"My parents-adoptive parents-never hid my origins from me. I grew up knowing how Headly had found me, nearly dead but miraculously still breathing. I spent a couple months in a neonatal ICU, then was released with a clean bill of health.

"The authorities kept my existence a secret from the press, one of those things they hold in abeyance for crime-solving purposes. Headly and the agent in charge that day also kept a lid on it to protect me, my identity.

"I, Flora's newborn, was the only baby found inside the house. But it wasn't my DNA on the baby blanket. For thirty-seven years, that remained a mystery. The DNA had been tested, and it was confirmed that Flora was the mother of whoever it belonged to, but where was the child? Who was the child? What had happened to it? Carl and Flora had never been spotted with a child, not even while under surveillance in Golden Branch. He remained the mystery baby.

"Then," he said after pausing for breath, "nine days ago, Headly sent me a text, told me to get over to his house ASAP. I went. He told me about a murder trial in Savannah. The shocker-the presumed victim's DNA matched that anonymous sample. My brother, who, according to Carl, was eleven months older, had been found. Apparently when Carl and Flora ran for their lives, they took him. Left me."

He picked up his empty glass and swirled it, wishing for a drop in the bottom of it. When one didn't appear, he replaced the glass on the coffee table and looked across at Amelia.

"When you were growing up, did it bother you, knowing that you had been abandoned?"

"There was no reason to be bothered by it. After all, my birth parents were despicable characters. I had got the best deal. Headly knew how badly his childless friends wanted a baby. He engineered the adoption as soon as I was released from the hospital. My parents loved me. I loved them. I couldn't have asked for a more loving, stable home and family life."

"However?"

"However," he said slowly, "as I got older and realized the importance of bloodlines, I determined not to subject anyone else to mine. Especially not a woman who had the misfortune of falling in love with me."

"You made certain that didn't happen. No long-term relationships that could lead to marriage. No children."

He left that alone. He didn't tell her about the vials of semen the doctor had insisted on retrieving and freezing before he would perform the sterilization procedure on a patient so young. At this juncture, it was pointless for her to know they remained in a sperm bank...in case he ever changed his mind.

She said, "This explains everything."

"Right. Which is why we don't need to talk about it anymore. The situation won't improve with discussion. There's nothing to be worked out. It just is, and it won't ever change. I was sired by Carl Wingert, criminal of renown. Jeremy, my brother, was your husband."

"Hunter and Grant are your nephews."

"Yeah." Mention of them caused him to smile spontaneously, in spite of himself. "And they're great. God, there were times when-" Realizing what he was about to say, he broke off.

She tilted her head inquisitively. "When what?"

"Nothing."

"When what?"

He chewed his bottom lip, but then decided, The hell with it. "When I wanted to hug them and hold on. They were the first blood relatives I'd ever met."

Her chest rose with a sudden swell of emotion. "You can hug them any time you want."

"Not gonna happen."

"Why?"

"Those boys are going to have enough to deal with just living down their heritage. Having me in their lives would only make the issue muddier."

Besides, he added to himself, he couldn't be around them without being around Amelia, and he couldn't be around her without wanting her, and wanting her without having her was already killing him.

"I'm your sister-in-law."

"I'm fully aware of that," he said tightly. "I was aware of it when you walked into the courtroom and things went haywire."

"What things?"

"Things. Everything. I was sitting there wishing for a drink, a pill, cursing Headly for sending me down here, telling myself that I didn't care about the fate of a brother I'd never known. Wishing my ass was anywhere else except growing numb on that hard bench in the courtroom.

"Then the doors at the back of it were opened, you walked past me, and all of a sudden I'm being sucked in. By you. Jeremy. Lust. Despair."

"What do you feel toward him now?"

"Hell, I don't know. I hate him for what he became, what he did, but..." He turned his hands palms up and extended them toward her. "I was holding his head, looking into his eyes when he died, Amelia. My brother. First time I set eyes on him, and he dies." He gave a bitter laugh over the cruel irony of it.

"Did you tell him?"

He shook his head. "But there was a moment, no an instant, of recognition. Connection. Something. Or maybe I just imagined it because I wanted to see it. Doesn't matter now, though, does it?"

"Not to Jeremy. I think it matters greatly to you."

"I was right not to tell him. He was better off not knowing that the stranger moving in on his family was his brother."

"Dawson," she said softly, "when you and I met, I hadn't been Jeremy's wife for a long time. I'd believed him dead for more than a year. Does it bother you that much to know that he and I...That-"

"That he had you first? Yeah. It bothers me some. But not in the way you're thinking."

"What am I thinking?"

"That it's a sexual competition, that I'm afraid you're making comparisons. It's not that."

"Then what is it?"

"It's that I wanted you in the first place."

"When I should have been off-limits."

"Something like that."

"I think we can forgive ourselves for our mutual attraction."

"You can forgive yourself because you didn't know about the relationship. I did." He'd said they weren't going to discuss this, but they were. He made an impatient gesture. "Jeremy was a minor obstacle compared with the other one."

"Your bloodline."

"Which is poison."

"Hmm." She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I suppose I'll have to throw the boys back, too."

"What?"

"Well, they're your blood relatives, remember? Doesn't that make them just as toxic as you? If I reject you because of that taint, then it only follows-"

"Stop being ridiculous."

"You took the words right out of my mouth."

She stood up, rounded the coffee table, and came to kneel in front of his chair. He tried to stand up, but she angrily pushed him back into the seat. "I'm going to have my say. Then you can do what you want, but I'm not going to let you sail out of my life and forever regret that I didn't say this and wonder what would have happened if I had."

She placed her hands on his chest as though to impress upon him her earnestness. "For months during and after my marriage, I couldn't even fathom myself being in another relationship. Ever. I couldn't imagine a man's-any man's-touch being something I would invite. I couldn't see myself ever feeling anything like desire again.

"After some distance from it, when the wounds were no longer fresh and even my sons couldn't fill a particular loneliness, I began to realize how unrealistic it was to think that I'd live the rest of my life alone. I'm not programmed for a lifetime of abstinence. I'm not talking only about sex but about emotional intimacy. I began to want that again. Need it.

"Gradually, I accepted the probability that one day a man would enter my life and rekindle me, that he and I would share what I'd wanted with Jeremy but hadn't had. I anticipated his arrival, but was in no particular hurry. I wasn't going to seek him. I was content to wait and let him find me.

"I didn't know what he would do professionally, or what his interests would be, the nature of his personality. I didn't know what he would look like...until I saw you." She touched his lips, following their shape with the tip of her index finger. "I was afraid of you and absolutely furious at you, but all the while I was railing at you for spying on me, I was thinking, 'This is him. He's here. And he's way more than I dared hope for.'" She gave a self-conscious little shrug. "That's it. That's my say."

He took a strand of her hair between his fingers and rubbed it thoughtfully, for a moment too emotional to speak. Then he said, "No one's ever talked to me that candidly. About anything, but certainly nothing that personal. And I think you're incredible."

"It sounds like there's a but."

"No but. An and." He pulled her to her feet as he stood up. "You're incredible and, this time, all clothes come off."

In the bedroom, he flung back the bedcovering, then turned to her and quickly unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it off. He fumbled behind her back for her bra strap while she hastily undid his shirt buttons. Skin to skin they hugged. Just that. They held each other and savored the closeness, the various sensations, the arousing contrasts of their bodies.

Finally he murmured, "I hope you don't mind chest hair."

"Mind?" She rubbed her face in it.

He hadn't realized biceps could be an erogenous zone until she took a love bite out of his. Reaching behind her, he undid the fastening of her skirt. It dropped to the floor. She unbuttoned his jeans and slid them down along with his underwear past his hips, her hands firm against his ass.

He nudged her middle with his erection and smiled. "I know you're a lady, but feel free to notice."

She did considerably more than notice. He stopped her from taking more than the head, but the attention she lavished on it was almost more than he could endure. After several minutes, swearing and praying at the same time, he brought her up to standing and plunged his tongue into her mouth that had treated him to such hot, wet bliss.

They got onto the bed. Lying face-to-face, he lowered his head to her breasts. "Remarkable."

"What?"

He used his tongue to illustrate their sensitivity. "That first day on the beach-"

She groaned. "I knew you noticed."

"I knew you knew I'd noticed, but I couldn't help myself. Each time the breeze kicked up, I went a little crazy with wanting to see them like this." His lips tugged on her nipple.

"I was trying to be modest."

"I was praying for a gale wind and fantasizing this." He continued the love play until it was unclear whether he was doing it to tantalize her or himself. It was working on both. Easing her onto her back, he kissed his way down her center, then angled himself away in order to take a look. "Beautiful terrain." His hand skimmed past her navel.

"Thank you."

Finding a faint white stretch mark on the outside of her hip, he followed it with his fingertip. "Which one gave you this?"

"Grant."

"And this one?" he asked, finding another in the hollow where belly met thigh.

"Grant."

He grinned. "Why am I not surprised?" Next he traced the slender white scar that was barely discernible under the soft hair. "Which one?"

"Both. Hunter had to be Cesarean, and after one..."

Her words dwindled to a soft moan when he dipped his head to nuzzle lower and his tongue began gently exploring the furrow. She responded exactly as he'd hoped. Parting her thighs, she clutched his hair, arched up against his mouth, responded to the guidance of his hands as they repositioned her, and gasped his name as the spot, the tempo of his stroking tongue, and the pressure he applied coalesced into a melting orgasm.

He levered himself above her and watched her face as she slowly came down from it. She opened her eyes and gave him a drowsy smile, which he covered with a soft kiss. "Can I make a confession?"

She nodded.

"I've fantasized doing that to you."

"I can't be less than honest." Lifting her head, she whispered directly into his ear, "I fantasized you doing it, too."