He sat up with her, wrapping his arm around her waist from behind and settling his chin in the crook of her neck. She tried to shudder from his grip.

"Take it easy, baby," he said.

"It was too much," she said, "too much. . . ." Suddenly she felt swamped with emotion, the pounding of her heart erratic and unchecked. And tears were streaming down her face. Tears? Why in the h.e.l.l was she crying?

"Just relax," he said. "Lie back down."

She thought about how she'd screamed, begged, been totally out of control, and suddenly she felt embarra.s.sed. She refused to look at him. "No. I can't. I acted . . . a little crazy. . . ."

"And I loved it," he murmured. "All of it."

She swept her tears away with the back of her hand and started to get up. He pulled her back down again.

"I'm still a little salty," she said. "I-I need a shower."

"No. I know what you need," he said, wrapping his arm around her again. "What you've needed for a very long time. And I'm going to give it to you until you wonder where your next breath is coming from."

His words made her satisfied body shudder to life all over again, even as she felt as if she had to get out of there right now now.

"You don't understand," she said.

He sighed softly. "Yes, I do." He backed off a little, his voice quiet and measured. "You need s.p.a.ce right now. You need to pull yourself together, to feel as if you're in control again. And most of all," he said, "you need to convince yourself that this didn't mean anything to you, just in case it doesn't mean anything to me. Is that right?"

She turned to him, astonished that he'd just put voice to the feeling she always had when she was with a man. That feeling of putting herself into somebody else's hands. That feeling that somebody else controlled even a moment of her life.

That feeling that if she gave her heart along with her body, the joke would be on her.

"Yes," she said softly.

"Then go."

She expected to see anger on his face, but all she saw was compa.s.sion. For several seconds she just sat there, staring at him until finally he held out his hand. She took it, and he eased her down next to him, pulling her back into his arms again. He held her gently, running his hand along her thigh in deep, calming strokes.

"It's like claustrophobia," she said. "I get this breathless feeling, like I've got to get away."

"Is that how you feel right now?"

Slowly her breathing was returning to normal, her heart rate calming. She felt heavy, relaxed, and as content as she'd ever been in her life, knowing now that the invisible cords that bound her to Dave were more powerful than any physical ones could ever be.

"No," she said on a sigh. "I feel good. So good."

"Then I don't want you running away from me every time we make love. And I won't have you giving me a really nice backrub and putting me to sleep, either."

She smiled a little. "So no more backrubs."

"Well, maybe after you've come three or four times. But by then it'll be a moot point, because you'll be the one who's asleep." He slid his hand along her neck and kissed her hair, her temple, then pulled her close again. Her eyes began to get heavy, and she knew exactly what Dave had meant. Any moment now she was going to be asleep.

Then she heard the phone ring.

She blinked her eyes open. "Sera?"

"Let's hope so." Dave rose from the bed. She started to throw back the covers, but he put his hand on her shoulder. "Just stay here," he told her. "I'll get it."

He went into Sera's bedroom to answer the phone while Lisa waited in bed. He returned a few minutes later.

"That was Sera," he told her. "They're at Hospital San Juan in Monterrey. Adam's having some tests right now, but they made it there just fine."

"Thank G.o.d."

"I told them what we found out here, and she's going to pa.s.s it on to Adam."

"Good. He'll be so happy to hear it."

Dave climbed back into bed, and immediately Lisa curled up next to him with a sigh of relief and contentment rolled into one. His body was so warm next to hers, so inviting, and she was tempted to think that somehow it could be like this forever.

She'd been right all along. She'd never stopped loving him. She loved the man who'd told her that day eleven years ago that there wasn't anything on earth she couldn't do if she wanted it badly enough. She loved the man who'd come to Mexico on a cryptic phone conversation just because she was in trouble. She loved the man who lay with her now, who understood more about her than any man ever had before. But where did they go from here?

I don't want you running away from me every time we make love. make love.

How many more times could there possibly be?

I want you to be exactly who you are.

Fine for now. But what about the long haul? Was he actually thinking about the possibility of there being one? If so, he was closing his eyes to reality. He had a daughter, a family-the kind of staid, settled, conventional life she knew would eventually suffocate her.

But as she closed her eyes and hovered in that nebulous world between sleeping and waking, those impossible images began to play through her mind. And Dave was standing in the midst of it all, opening his arms to her, inviting her to be part of it. And suddenly she wasn't suffocating. She was breathing deeply, drawing it all in-feeling as if she was taking huge, endless, invigorating breaths for the first time in her life.

chapter twenty-two.

Sera followed the nurse across the busy emergency room of Hospital San Jose, through a pair of metal doors, and into the patient area. She'd spent the past hour and a half waiting for Adam to be examined and tests to be run, practically tapping her fingernails right down to the quick on the arm of the chair where she sat.

The nurse swept back a curtain. Sera eased up to Adam's bedside, and the nurse shut the curtain again. The moment Sera's eyes met Adam's, he smiled at her, and her heart melted.

"How are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm fine."

"What did the doctors say?"

"X-rays defined the position of the bullet. They're coming soon to take me for a short surgical procedure to remove it and debride the wound. I might have limited use of my shoulder and arm for a while, but they tell me that with physical therapy eventually I'll be good as new."

"Thank G.o.d. And the CT scan?"

"Normal. It seems I have a brain and it's in fine working order."

Sera breathed a sigh of relief. "Then you really are going to be all right."

"Thanks to you and Gabrio, yes. Where is he?"

"Asleep on a sofa in the waiting room. He's still so tired. I told him I'd get him a hotel room, but he doesn't want to leave. I think he's still a little scared."

"He's got a right to be. He's been through a lot. Did you talk to Dave and Lisa?"

"Yes. And they have some good news."

When Sera related everything that Dave had told her, Adam's face brightened. "So it's possible they can find somebody who'll blow the whistle on Robert?"

"Yes."

"That," Adam said, "really makes my day."

Sera eased closer, taking his hand. "I was so worried about you. I still am."

She studied his face for a long time, trying to see beyond the unconcerned expression he wore. Clearly there was something hiding beneath it. Finally he gave her a sigh of resignation. "You want to know about what happened in the car."

"Only if you want to talk about it."

He looked away, and for a moment she thought he was going to say no. Then he tugged on her hand. "Sit down."

She sat down on the edge of the bed, waiting. "This is hard for me to say, Sera. I don't talk about it. To anyone."

"You can talk about it to me," she said softly. "You know that."

Finally he turned his gaze to meet hers. "I told you my wife died when she was seven months pregnant."

"Yes."

"It happened on a road just like the one we were driving on. A dark, deserted highway in west Texas."

"A car accident?"

"No. Something worse."

His expression became tight and strained. He stared down at the sheets as he spoke, his hand tightening against hers.

"It was about nine o'clock at night. We were driving along when all of the sudden Ellen told me she felt strange. That something was wrong. I told her that she was fine, that she was just uncomfortable from being in the car for a couple of hours. But she kept telling me something didn't feel right. Then all at once, she doubled over. Cried out. By the time I pulled over to the side of the road, she was already bleeding."

Sera's heart quickened. "She was having a miscarriage?"

"Placental abruption. And from the blood that was there . . ." He swallowed hard. "From the blood that was there, I knew it had to be a complete separation of the placenta from the uterine wall. But the mortality rate even with an abruption that severe is usually low." He let out a shaky breath. "Unless you're sixty miles away from the nearest hospital and you can't stop the bleeding."

Sera closed her eyes. "Oh, no."

"Ellen looked down. Saw the blood. She started crying. Screaming in pain. I can still hear her voice, over and over in my head. All I could do was phone ahead to the hospital, drive a hundred miles an hour on that G.o.dforsaken road, and pray. Ellen kept crying and screaming and pleading with me to help her, to do something to save our baby. But for all my training, all my experience, there was nothing I could do. And after a while-" He stopped short, his voice faltering. "She wasn't screaming anymore."

"Oh, Adam. . . ."

"I barely remember coming into town," he said, his voice trembling. "It's like . . . I don't know. Like a nightmare that I just remember bits and pieces of. I drove to the doors of the emergency room, and they came out and took her inside. I sat out in the waiting room. Every minute seemed like an eternity. And then the ER doctor came out." Adam's face contorted, his jaw tightening. "He told me that my wife and child were dead."

Sera's heart twisted with anguish, tears welling up in her eyes. She felt as if she was suffering every terrible moment right along with him.

"Ellen and I had tried for years to have a child. She had some problems that made conceiving difficult and we thought it was never going to happen. Then, when she was forty-one and we'd begun to look into adoption, we found out she was pregnant." He closed his eyes. "I can't tell you how I felt. The only thing missing from my life was the chance to be a father. It was our last chance." He paused. "My last chance."

She shook her head. "No, Adam. It wasn't your last chance."

"Sera-"

"I know you love me. And I want to have a child more than anything. And now that I know you do, too-"

"No. I don't."

"Please, Adam," she said, desperation creeping into her voice. "You can't give up. I know how horrible it must have been for you. I know how much it hurt. But part of the healing is knowing that you haven't lost that kind of life forever. You can have it again."

"No, Sera. I can't."

"But-"

"There's more."

She froze. "What?"

"The night Ellen died," he said. "I fell apart. I just . . . I just lost it."

"Of course you did," she said. "Any man would."

"No. You don't understand. I fell apart completely. Completely. I was-" He looked away, as if he'd do anything not to say the words. "I was inst.i.tutionalized for almost a month."

Sera stared at him in silence as the magnitude of his words sank in. Inst.i.tutionalized? G.o.d, how distraught must he have been?

To think of the grief he must have felt staggered her. The only reality he'd had that night was one where his wife and baby were dead, and he just couldn't face it. To avoid the pain of losing them, he'd lost himself.

"I missed their funeral because I was so sedated that I barely knew who I was," he said. "I think there was a time when my family wondered if I'd ever make it out of that place. I suppose it's a miracle I ever did." He paused, a faraway look in his eyes. "But still, in the dark of night sometimes, driving down a road like the one we drove down tonight, it's as if it's happening all over again. I experience the same pain I felt then, the same horror, the same helpless feeling that I can't do a d.a.m.ned thing to save the woman I love and the baby she's carrying."

"So that's why . . ."

"Yes. That's why you thought you had a lunatic in the car."

"No. Don't say that. I just knew something was hurting you. That's all."

"I just can't shake it, Sera. Maybe I never will."

"But you went back to practicing medicine. Delivering babies."