Everything might work out alter all.

She turned up her radio and hummed along with the song.

Okay, sure, she did feel a little bad about double-dealing, but there was some truth to the lies she told Abby. Chase would be a wonderful father for Willy. She couldn't count the times that she'd wished he was really Willy's father.

And she did believe they would be a very happy family. She and Chase had been good together, before she'd gotten stupid and thought she could find something better.

Part of her felt like she got what she deserved for not believing in Chase, for comparing him to other men who had perfect families and expensive educations.

Expensive educations like Abby Stepp's. See, she was doing Chase a favor getting him away from a know-it-all like Abby Stepp. He needed a woman who understood him. A woman who he could really relate to.

She began to hum louder. Yes, she was doing what was best for everyone.

"She's in bed, Chase." Ellie's voice was uneasy.

"It's only eight o'clock. Is she feeling all right?" Chase sounded confused.

"I don't know. I don't think so."

"Should I check on her?"

"She said she was really tired."

"Will you tell her that I'd really like to see her?"

"I will. Chase."

Abby pulled the blankets over her head and buried her face in the pillow. She knew she was being a

coward, but it was still easier than actually having to tell Chase that she didn't want to see him again. Especially since she wanted to see him with every beat of her heart She heard her bedroom door creak open. Reluctantly she pulled the covers off her head and peeked at her sister with one eye.

"I don't know why you're doing this, but I'm not sending Chase away again. You have to talk to him." Elbe's voice was the sternest Abby had ever heard it. Without waiting for a reply, Elbe pulled the door shut with a resounding click.

Abby moaned and hid her face again. Elbe had sent Chase away last night and this morning, too. Abby knew it wasn't fair of her to make her sister deal with her problems. She sat up and looked at the clock. Only quarter past eight. Chase would be up for hours yet. She couldn't use the time as an excuse to put this off.

She just wished she knew what to say. She didn't want to destroy a family, but part of her didn't believe that Chase would ever be with her if he'd intended to reunite with Summer-Ann. Yet, another part of her couldn't live with possibly being a home wrecker, if Summer-Ann was telling the truth. And there was even a tiny part of her that wondered if Willy was really Chase's son.

Ellie was right to show her disapproval. Abby did need to handle this herself even if the outcome wasn't what she wanted. She knew that ultimately she did have to talk to him. She couldn't continue, even just a brief affair, without finding out a few truths.

"Chase? Are you there?"

Chase turned from the baseball game he was only half watching to see Abby standing on the other side of the screen door.

"Yeah," he said, rising from the overstuffed chair. "Come on in."

She stepped into the living room. Everything about her looked... tight. All her hair was yanked back in a ponytail, her lush mouth was thinned to a narrow line, even her skin looked taut.

"Are you okay?" he asked, concerned by her drawn features and confused by her unwillingness to see him over the past two days.

"I'm... all right." She looked anything but okay. Her posture was straighter than he could recall ever seeing it, even when she'd admitted the pain of her childhood outside the Parched Dolphin.

The axe was about to fall. He knew she intended to end their fling.

"Want to sit down?" he offered.

She shook her head, clasping her arms across her stomach as if she was in physical pain.

"What's going on, Abby?"

Her eyes strayed to the flickering television and after a few moments came back to him. "I think maybe we should stop seeing each other."

Chase nodded. Exactly what he'd expected. "Why?"

"I just think that you should give more of your time to Willy."

Now that, he hadn't seen coming. "To Willy?" He shook his head, perplexed. "I don't see what Willy has to do with us."

Abby frowned. "He's your son, and he needs you. I don't want to take time away from him."

Chase stared at her, at first shocked, but then rage rose in his chest until he felt almost strangled by it.

"You think Willy is my son?" he said, his voice stiff, but otherwise deceptively calm.

Abby nodded, although the look in her wide eyes wasn't as certain.

"Have you ever heard the boy call me 'Daddy'?"

Abby shook her head. "I thought-I thought maybe he didn't know."

Chase swallowed the bile that burned the back of his throat. He swallowed again. "You think I'm the

type of guy that would deny my own child?"

"No," she said, her features grew ashen. "I..."

"Leave." The single word was quiet and dangerous.

"Chase." She took a step toward him.

"Leave now."

She stared at him for a moment, and then nodded. "Good-bye, Chase," she whispered.

He couldn't speak. His anger succeeded in choking him.

Chapter 22.

The door banged behind her, and Chase fought the urge to pick the beer bottle up off the coffee table and hurl it across the room. Abby thought he was such a bastard that he wouldn't even claim his own child.

He'd expected her to realize that he was too small town for her. Or that he wasn't her intellectual equal. Or, hell, even that he was just plain boring. But never-not once-had he ever believed she would think he was so dishonorable, such a lowlife.

He cursed and picked up the beer, downing half the contents in one swallow. Then he stared at the bottle, not really seeing the jumble of letters on the label or the glint of the television in the green glass.

He felt like his chest was being squeezed tight, like a boa constrictor was wrapped around his torso, crushing him.

Abby believed that he wouldn't claim his own son.

He sank into the chair. Why did it matter? Hell, half the town thought Willy might be his kid, and that never bothered him. Well, not much anyway.

But Abby, oh Abby. He thought she understood him, at least understood that he'd worked hard to become a better man than his upbringing had slated him to be. That despite his other flaws, he would never be the callous, hateful man his father was.

Abby's distrust in him hurt far worse than anything that his father had ever said or done to him. He didn't want to speculate on why that was so. But her disbelief in him was much harder to bear than his own father's condemnation.

Because you were falling in love with her, you stupid fool. Be cause despite all the obstacles and all the rational warning he'd given himself, he had begun to believe he had a chance to win Abby's heart. Like some lowly, but gallant knight in one of Elbe's romance novels, that against all odds, won the hand of the fair princess.

He'd been deluding himself. Something he never did. He prided himself on being realistic, and reasonable and astute, all the things he hadn't been in his youth.

But maybe he wasn't any of those things. Maybe he'd been deluding himself about the type of man he'd become.

Abby obviously thought he was still an unfeeling, self-centered reprobate.

He dropped his head against the back of his chair. He had gotten the sense from Abby before that she didn't believe that people really changed. And maybe she was right, but not in the way she thought. It seemed more likely to Chase that people wanted to change, but their past wouldn't let them.

Nausea still churned in Abby's stomach as she walked into her office the next day. She'd spent the entire night pacing her house, wondering how she could convince Chase to speak to her again. So she could beg his forgiveness. But she didn't think he'd agree to speak with her ever again, and she couldn't blame him.

She'd been so wrong. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew that none of Summer-Ann's story could be true. And when she saw the anger and hurt in Chase's eyes, she knew she'd done irreparable damage.

She had taken Chase's trust and pride and shoved it back in his face.

Her stomach lurched again, and she collapsed onto her office chair. Propping her elbows on her desk, she dropped her head in her hands and closed her eyes.

He'd told her about his own father, his own childhood. And she knew, if he were a father, he would never, never be anything but doting and supportive and active in every part of the child's life.

She was such a fool to believe a word of Summer-Ann's lies. A stupid, gullible fool. Exactly like she had been in high school.

"Abby, are you all right?"

Leslie's concerned voice startled her. She raised her head and gaped at the woman.

Leslie's eyes widened, and she immediately came to Abby's side. "Lord, girl, you look terrible. What's wrong?"

Abby touched a hand to her face, then dropped it to her lap and attempted a smile. The gesture seemed to stretch her face and made her feel like she was grimacing. "I'm fine."

"If you're fine, then I'm about to win the Nobel Peace Prize. What's going on?"

Before she knew it, Abby was telling Leslie the whole story, unable to keep her pain and shame inside a moment longer. And in the vain hope that Leslie would have an answer to this awful dilemma.

Leslie sat there a moment after the whole tale was told, contemplating it. Then with the true practicality of a Mainer, even a transplanted one, she stated, "Well, I don't know if you will ever get Chase to forgive you. But I sure as hell would give that Summer-Ann a piece of my mind."

"Damn it, Jed, do think you could actually get the mantelpiece level before you start pounding away at it!" Chase shouted at his workman.

Jed stopped hammering and gave him a bewildered look. "It was level."

"I thinkwas is the key word," Chase stated angrily, placing the level up to show him. The yellow bubble in the level's cylinder floated slightly above the red center mark. Both Jed and Chase's other workman, Dave, leaned in to study the tool.

"It's pretty close," Dave said.

"Not close enough," Chase sneered. "What, do you think I run some half-assed construction company where we don't care if the mantelpiece is crooked and the floors are slanted and the roof leaks?" He tossed the level back into his toolbox and slammed down the lid. "Shit, I could get better help from a couple of baboons."

Chase remained crouched by his toolbox, his hands hanging between his knees, his head down. After few seconds, he rose and sighed. "Listen, I'm sorry. I'm not myself today."

The two workmen remained still, only their eyes moving to exchange confused glances.

"Keep doing what you're doing. It's fine, Jed. I'm going to get out of your hair and head back to the office. I've got some things I need to get done there."

Jed nodded, but still looked unsure.

Chase started to apologize again, but instead nodded, left the old Victorian and climbed into Helen.

For once, Helen took pity on him and started on the first attempt. He shifted the truck into drive and

headed toward his office. In truth, he didn't really have anything he needed to get done there, but he knew he wasn't going to be any help on the worksite today.

He was agitated. He was angry. And he had an ache in his chest that infuriated him, because during the wee hours of last night, he decided that Abby Stepp wasn't worth the hurt he was feeling. But somehow he couldn't shake the feeling. But he would. He would.

Abby wasn't one to leave work early for any reason, but Leslie had convinced her to, insisting that Abby wouldn't get any work done anyway.

"Plus," she'd said, "you need to strike while the iron's hot. If you wait to confront Summer-Ann until later, you'll cool down. And this woman needs to be told what for."

So Abby found herself in her car charging, albeit about five miles under the speed limit, to tell Summer-Ann exactly what she thought about her lies.

She was irritated with herself that she didn't feel more confident about the impending confrontation. She felt like the old Abby Stepp who could still be intimidated by beauty and popularity.