Emma stared at the images, trying not to cry. She was ugly when she cried. Her nose swelled and her mascara ran like river water. "I don't know. I just know that I've always wondered, if you had to do it all over again, would you still do it? Would you still choose me?"

"Is that what this is all about? You've been trying so hard, the s.e.x, the perfect house, because you thought I didn't want to be here?"

"I've tried so hard because I love you!" she said desperately. "But I took away your choices! I made you stay home instead of going off to college. You had children instead of spending a year in Europe. There's always been a part of me that thought I ruined everything for you because I hated Sydney so much, because I hated that you loved her and not me. I hated it so much I had to go and seduce you. And I ruined all your plans. I've been trying to make it up to you every day since."

"My G.o.d, Emma. You didn't take away my choices. I chose you."

"When you saw Sydney again, didn't you think about what could have been? Didn't you compare her to me? Didn't you think for just a moment what your life would have been like without me?"

"No, I didn't," he said, sounding honestly confused. "I haven't spared her more than a moment's thought in ten years. And barely that since she's been back. But you you keep bringing her up. keep bringing her up. You You think that her being back has changed things. But it hasn't changed anything for me." think that her being back has changed things. But it hasn't changed anything for me."

"Oh," she said, turning her face away to wipe under her eyes, where tears were pooling, threatening to fall.

He hooked a finger under her chin and made her look at him. "I wouldn't change a thing, Emma. I have a great life with you. You are a joy and a wonder to me, every single day. You make me laugh, you make me think, you make me hot. There are times when you confuse the h.e.l.l out of me, but it's a pleasure to wake up to you in the mornings, to come home to you and the boys in the evening. I am the luckiest man in the world. I love you so much, more than I thought it was possible to love another human being."

"Sydney-"

"No!" he said harshly, dropping his hand. "No. Don't start that again. What have I ever done to make you think I regretted my choice? I've spent days trying to figure out how I could have prevented this from happening, but you know what I realized? This isn't between me and you. This is between you and Sydney. I also suspect this might be between you and your mother. I love you. I don't love Sydney. I want a life with you. I don't want a life with Sydney. We're not those people anymore." He closed the yearbook in front of him, closing the book on childhood dreams of football stardom and backpacking through France. "At least I'm not that person anymore."

She put her hands on his leg, high on his leg because that was who she was and she couldn't help herself. "I don't want to be that person, Hunter John. I really don't."

His eyes searched her face. "I think she's here to stay, Emma."

"I think so too."

"I mean in town," he said. "Not in our lives."

"Oh."

He shook his head. "Try, Emma. That's all I'm asking."

CHAPTER 13.

Fred sat at his desk in his office, staring at the mango splitter in front of him.

What did it mean?

James liked mangoes. This could mean that Fred was supposed to call him and...invite him to eat fruit?

Why couldn't this have been clearer?

Why couldn't it have come earlier?

What in the h.e.l.l was he going to do with a mango splitter? How was it supposed to help him get James back? He'd been agonizing over this for days now, waiting for some sort of sign, some sort of instruction.

There was a knock at the door and Sh.e.l.ly, his a.s.sistant manager, poked her head in. "Fred, there's someone out here who wants to speak to you."

"I'll be right out." Fred grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair and put it on.

When he went out, he saw Sh.e.l.ly talking to a man standing by the wine racks. She pointed to Fred, then walked away. The man was Steve Marcus, a culinary instructor from Orion College. They'd had some good talks over the years about food and recipes. It took a moment for Fred to make himself walk. The last thing James had said to him was that he should go out with Steve. This had nothing to do with that, he told himself, but he still found himself hating every step he took. He didn't want to date Steve.

Steve extended his hand. "Fred, good to see you."

Fred shook his hand. "What can I do for you?" That doesn't involve marriage That doesn't involve marriage.

"I wanted to invite you to join a free community cla.s.s I'm teaching, sponsored by the university," Steve said affably. He was a stout, good-natured man. He wore his chunky college ring on his right hand, and Fred had always liked that his nails were neat and shiny. "It's going to be a fun course on making cooking easy with gadgets and shortcuts. You'd be a real a.s.set to the cla.s.s, with your knowledge of food and what's available locally."

This was all too much. It was too soon. Fred felt like someone was trying to wake him up too early in the morning. "I don't know...my schedule..."

"It's tomorrow night. Are you busy?"

"Tomorrow? Well..."

"I'm asking everyone to bring any tricks they've learned and gadgets they use that most people wouldn't know about. No pressure, okay? Tomorrow night at six if you can come." He reached into his back pocket and brought out his wallet. "Here's my card with my number if you have any questions."

Fred took it. It was warm from his body. "I'll think about it."

"Great. See you later."

Fred walked back to his office and sat down hard in his chair. Bring any tricks and gadgets most people wouldn't know about Bring any tricks and gadgets most people wouldn't know about.

Like a mango splitter.

He'd waited so long for Evanelle to give him something. This was supposed to make everything right. Fred picked up the phone stubbornly. He would call James. He would make make this the thing that brought them back together, no matter what. this the thing that brought them back together, no matter what.

He dialed James's cell phone number. He began to worry after the tenth ring. Then he started saying to himself, after the twentieth ring I'll know this wasn't meant for him.

Then the thirtieth.

The fortieth.

The fiftieth.

Bay watched the party preparations from under the tree. Everything seemed fine, so she couldn't figure out why she felt so anxious. Maybe because there were tiny vines of thorns starting to sprout along the edge of the garden, so small and so well hidden that even Claire, who knew everything that happened in the garden, couldn't see them yet. Or maybe she had seen and had decided to ignore them. Claire was happy, after all, and being happy made you forget that there were bad things in the world. Bay wasn't quite happy enough to forget. Nothing was perfect yet. Still, Tyler had stopped roaming his yard at midnight and giving off those purple snaps that looked like Pop Rocks. And it had been more than a week since Bay or her mother had smelled Bay's father's cologne, and Sydney smiled more because of it. Sydney had even started to talk more about Henry, bringing him up in nearly every conversation they had. Bay should be pleased about all this. She was even registered for school now, and in two weeks she would start kindergarten. Maybe that's what was bothering her. She knew her mother had lied about Bay's name at registration. It was a bad start.

Or maybe it was just the fact that Bay still couldn't figure out how to make the dream she'd had of this place real. Nothing worked. She couldn't find anything that made sparkles on her face, and her mom wouldn't let her take any more crystal from the house outside to experiment. There was no way to replicate the sound of paper flapping in the wind either. There hadn't even been any wind for days, not until that afternoon when, as soon as Sydney and Claire tried to spread the ivory tablecloth over the table in the garden, out of nowhere the wind suddenly kicked up. The tablecloth snapped out of the sisters' hands and floated across the garden like a child had draped it over his head and was running away with it. They laughed and chased it.

Sydney and Claire were happy. They stirred rose petals into their oatmeal in the mornings, and they stood side by side at the sink as they did the dishes in the evenings, giggling and whispering. Maybe that was all that mattered. Bay shouldn't worry so much.

Big clouds, white and gray like circus elephants, began to lumber across the sky with the wind. Bay, on her back by the tree, watched them pa.s.s.

"Hey, tree," she whispered. "What's going to happen?"

Its leaves shook and an apple fell to the ground beside her. She ignored it.

She guessed she would just have to wait and see.

"Excuse me," a man said from the other side of the gas pumps.

He appeared in front of Emma suddenly, the elephant thunderheads in the sky haloing him as she looked up into his dark eyes.

Emma was standing beside her mother's convertible, pumping gas for her while Ariel sat in the driver's seat and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror. At the sound of his voice, Ariel turned. She smiled immediately and got out of the car.

"h.e.l.lo there," Ariel said, coming to stand beside Emma. They'd been out shopping again that day. Emma and Hunter John were going to Hilton Head for the weekend, just the two of them, then they were taking the boys to Disney World before school started. Ariel had insisted on buying Emma a new bikini, something Hunter John would like, and Emma went along because it was easier. But no matter what Ariel said now, Emma felt good about where she was with her husband. She didn't blame her mother for her bad advice. Seduction always worked for Ariel, after all. But Ariel thought Clark women constantly needed to prove their abilities, even to strangers. Case in point: She saw a man talking to her daughter and had to get out of the car and lean forward so that her cleavage peeked out from her halter top, to prove she still had the touch.

The man was handsome and a little heavy. His smile was megawatt. He was good at whatever he did, that much was clear. He had that confidence. "h.e.l.lo, ladies. I hope I'm not bothering you. I'm looking for someone. Maybe you can help me?"

"We can certainly try," Ariel said.

"Does the name Cindy Watkins sound familiar?"

"Watkins," Ariel repeated, then shook her head. "No, I'm afraid not."

"This is Bascom, North Carolina, isn't it?"

"You've got your toe just over the town limit, but yes. Down the highway. That way."

He reached into the pocket of his very nice tailored jacket and brought out a small stack of photos. He handed Ariel the one on top. "Does this woman look familiar to you?"

Emma flipped the tab on the handle of the nozzle to keep it pumping, then leaned over to look at the photo with her mother. It was a black and white of a woman standing outside what looked like the Alamo. She was holding a sign that said, very clearly, she didn't care at all for North Carolina. Judging by the style of her clothes, it was taken more than thirty years ago.

"No, sorry," Ariel said, and started to hand it back to him before suddenly looking at it again. "Wait. You know, this might be Lorelei Waverley."

Emma looked more closely at the photo. Yes, it did look like her.

"But this was taken a long time ago," Ariel said. "She's dead now."

"Do you have any idea why this woman," he handed her another photo, a more recent photo, "would have photographs of this Lorelei Waverley?"

Emma could hardly believe what she was looking at. It was a photograph of Sydney standing next to the man. She was wearing a very tight and tiny evening dress, and his arm was looped around her possessively. This was a photo from her time away. She didn't look happy. She didn't look like she was doing wild and adventurous things. She looked for all the world like she didn't want to be where she was.

Ariel frowned. "That's Sydney Waverley," she said flatly, then handed the photos back to him, as if they weren't fit to touch now.

"Sydney?" the man repeated.

"Lorelei was her mother. Lorelei was a ne'er-do-well. Between you and me and the fence post, Sydney's just like her."

"Sydney," he said, as if trying out the name. "She's from here, then?" he said, as if trying out the name. "She's from here, then?"

"She grew up here and surprised us all by coming back. She tried to take my daughter's husband."

Emma looked at her mother. "Mama, she did not."

"This person is Sydney Waverley?" He held up the photo of her. "Are you sure? Does she have a child, a little girl?" person is Sydney Waverley?" He held up the photo of her. "Are you sure? Does she have a child, a little girl?"

"Yes. Bay," Ariel said.

"Mama," Emma said with warning. That was something you simply didn't tell strangers. Emma said with warning. That was something you simply didn't tell strangers.

The man immediately backed off, sensing that Emma was growing uncomfortable. Oh, he was good. "Thank you for your help. Have a wonderful day, ladies." He walked to an expensive SUV and got in. The sky grew darker as he drove away, like he was somehow causing it.

Emma frowned, feeling funny. She took the nozzle from the car and put it back on the pump. There was no love lost between Emma and Sydney, that was for sure. But something was wrong.

"I'll pay for the gas, Mama," Emma said, hoping to get to her purse in the car, where her cell phone was.

But Ariel had her credit card already out. "Don't be silly. I'm paying."

"No, really. I'll get it."

"Here," Ariel said, putting the card in Emma's hand and getting back in the convertible. "Stop arguing and go pay the clerk."

Emma walked into the convenience store and handed the clerk the card. She couldn't stop thinking about that man. While waiting for the approval on the card, she put her hands in the pockets of her windbreaker and felt something. She brought out two quarters. She'd been wearing this jacket when Evanelle came up to her that day and gave her the money.

"Excuse me," she said to the clerk. "Do you have a pay phone?"

The wind kept up all afternoon. Sydney and Claire had to tie the ends of the tablecloth to the legs of the table, and they couldn't use candles because the wind blew out the flames. In lieu of candles, Claire brought out sheer bags in amber and raspberry and pale green, and she put the battery-powered lanterns from the storeroom in them, which made them look like gifts of light set around the table and tree. The tree didn't like them and kept knocking over the ones nearest it when no one was looking, so Bay was in charge of keeping the tree in line.

Birds and flying bugs were never a problem in the garden-the honeysuckle swallowed them-so a garden dinner was a fine idea, really. Sydney wondered why no one in their family had ever done it before, then thought of the tree and realized why. It tried so hard to be a part of the family when no one wanted it to be.

She thought back to the night before, when she couldn't sleep and went to check on Bay. Claire was over at Tyler's, and it was quite possibly the first time Sydney had ever spent a night alone in the house, responsible for everything.

She found Bay sleeping peacefully. Sydney bent to kiss her, and when she straightened, she noticed two small pink apples resting in the folds of the quilt Bay had pushed to the bottom of her bed in her sleep. Sydney picked them up and went to the open window. There was a trail of three apples on the floor leading to it. She picked those up as well.

She looked out the window and saw some movement down in the garden. The apple tree was stretching its branches as far as they would extend toward the table Tyler had helped them move into the garden that day. The tree had actually gotten a branch wrapped around one of the table legs and was trying to pull it nearer.

"Psst," she whispered into the night. "Stop that!"

The table stopped moving and the tree's branches bounced back into place. It stilled immediately, as if to say, I wasn't doing anything I wasn't doing anything.

Evanelle was the first to arrive that evening at what Sydney was affectionately calling Claire's Celebration of Her Deflowering.

Claire made her promise not to call it that in front of other people.

"Hi, Evanelle. Where is Fred?" Sydney asked when Evanelle walked into the kitchen.

"He couldn't come. He has a date." Evanelle set her tote bag on the table. "Mad as a fire ant about it too."

Claire looked up from checking the tenderness of the corn on the cob boiling on the stove. "Fred's dating someone?"

"Sort of. A culinary instructor at Orion asked Fred to join a cla.s.s he was teaching. Fred thinks the cla.s.s tonight is a date."