FOURTEEN.

Two weeks later "HERE YOU GO," MONA said, entering Bobby's office with a stack of application forms. "I put the three best prospects on top. One's a college kid just back from a school program in London. He plans to make some money before he has to go back to college in September. The other two are cousins of Hector Cabral's wife. Here legally. I checked their papers. They don't speak English too well, but Hector vouches for them. They said he told them you're a good boss." She grinned. "You want to fire him for lying?"

Hector had been working for DiFranco Landscaping for several years. Bit by bit, he was transporting his entire extended family from Brazil to New England, and Bobby had already hired several Cabral relatives. Over the years, he'd learned a lot about immigration law.

"You ought to move on these soon," Mona continued, placing the stack on his blotter. "You really need some more employees. The price of success, Bob. You've got more contracts than you can staff."

"I'm not complaining." DiFranco Landscaping had landed a lot of jobs this summer. His staff size waxed and waned with the seasons, but this year the firm was in serious demand. He was desperate to add some more personnel, and he would.

He eyed the top application, from the college student. The words made no sense to him; the letters were just squiggly ink shapes. "Something on your mind?" Mona asked.

He shoved back the pile. "I can't concentrate. My daughter's undergoing a medical procedure tomorrow morning."

Mona's eyes widened. "Nothing serious, I hope."

"She'll be fine." Bobby was reasonably convinced of that, even though marrow extraction was a lot more complicated than getting a tooth filled or suturing a cut. Claudia would be given general anesthesia, and then a doctor would insert a needle into her pelvic bone and suck the marrow out. Bobby consoled himself with the understanding that Drew Foster would hire only the best doctors in New York City to treat his son. The doctors would know what they were doing with Claudia.

"If her procedure is tomorrow morning, those applications can wait until tomorrow afternoon," Mona said, tapping the pile with her fingernail and giving Bobby a sympathetic smile before she turned and left his office.

He dug his thumbs into his temples and rubbed, trying to stave off the headache that had been circling his skull all morning. Claudia would be fine, he a.s.sured himself. She wanted to do this. It was her choice.

And he ought to review the applications and find some new hires.

He slid open the top drawer of his desk to get a pencil so he could jot down notes. His gaze snagged on the photo of Joelle he kept there, and he paused.

Despite the washed-out colors of the photo, Joelle glowed in her pretty prom dress, with her loose, loopy curls and her bright smile. She'd been so happy that evening, so excited about attending the prom.

With Drew Foster.

It wasn't just the medical procedure that was eating at Bobby. It was the knowledge that Claudi a was about to meet her real father.

Foster had arranged for a car to pick up Claudia that morning and drive her to the city so the extraction could be done in the same hospital where his son was a patient. They were all going to meet with the doctor later that afternoon, ostensibly to discuss the procedure. She would spend the night as the guest of Foster and his wife and then get to the hospital by seven the following morning.

Bobby couldn't obliterate the pictures in his mind of Claudia meeting Foster, acknowledging their kinship and believing that she'd finally found her real father. No matter that Bobby had been the only dad she'd ever known. There was a bond between her and Foster, and once they were in the same room, it would blossom.

Thinking about their meeting opened the doors to his headache, which rushed into his brain with booms and flashes of red. d.a.m.n. Claudia and Foster. Claudia and her father. Claudia and the guy who'd escorted Joelle to the prom the night that photo was taken, the night she'd worn that beautiful blue gown and worried about whether she had enough cla.s.s to hang off the arm of a boy from the Hill.

Bobby shoved the drawer shut, locked his desk and stormed out of his office. "I can't work," he told Mona, who peered up at him from her desk in the outer office. "I'll review the applications tomorrow. I just can't do it today." Before she could question him, he swept out of the building.

He was halfway home before he paused to figure out what the h.e.l.l he was doing. His mind swam with images of Claudia and Joelle's old boyfriend, Claudia searching the man's face and seeing in it a reflection of herself. Bobby had tried so hard, since the day she'd phoned to tell him and Joelle that she was a match for Foster's son, to be calm and reasonable about the whole thing. He'd tried to focus on his work, to make conversation with Joelle over dinner, to slip into the comfortable routines that had marked his days before Foster had barged in and screwed everything up.

He'd tried to be the husband Joelle wanted him to be.

But just as Foster dreaded the possibility of losing his son, Bobby dreaded the possibility of losing his daughter. And in his case it was his own fault. His and Joelle's. They'd lied, and now they were paying the price. He hated himself-and he hated Joelle, too.

He sped up the driveway to their house, slowing only for the automatic garage door to open. Slamming out of the truck, he took a deep breath to calm himself. It didn't help.

By the time he reached the door to the mudroom, Joelle had opened it and was staring into the garage, frowning. "Bobby? What's wrong?"

He strode past her, his boots thumping against the floor, and halted in the kitchen. Several shopping bags stood on the counter. Apparently she'd just arrived home from the supermarket.

"What happened, Bobby?" she asked, concern planting a flutter in her voice as she joined him in the kitchen.

He must have looked half-mad, because she shrank back when he turned to her. "She's going down there today," he said.

"Of course. I know."

"She's going to meet him."

Joelle watched him. "Yes."

"I can't stand it." He roamed around the kitchen, too edgy to stand still. "I've been trying to be a good sport about this, but I..." Emotions tore at him like thorns. "We shouldn't have told her."

"Who? Claudia?"

"We shouldn't have told her about Foster. We should have kept the secret."

"We couldn't, Bobby."

He bore down on her and she shrank back again, pressing against the counter, her eyes wide with alarm. Did she think he would hurt her?

His anger frightened him, too, and he wrestled with it, forcing it down into his gut. He would not become his father. He would not throw things, break things, hit the people in his life.

He spun away from her and moved to the window, hoping the sight of their perfectly landscaped backyard would soothe him. Joelle's garden lay lush and fresh in the late-morning sunlight. He'd done a fine job of weeding and pruning it after she'd run off to Ohio, and she'd done a decent job of keeping it tidy since they'd returned home.

If only raising children were as simple as raising tomatoes and zucchini. If only maintaining a marriage was as simple as digging out a few weeds and adding a little fertilizer.

"We should have kicked Foster out of our house that day."

"If we had sent him away..." Her voice sounded tight, breathy with anxiety. "He would have gone behind our backs to find her. He'd hired a detective, Bobby. He knew about Claudia. He would have found her, with or without our help."

He refused to look at her. "You're sure he'd do that? You know him that well?"

"I'm a mother," she answered, her voice drifting across the room to him. "I know what a parent will do for a child."

"You're a mother. He's a father." What was Bobby? When it came to Claudia, what the h.e.l.l was he?

He closed his eyes, unable to bear the sight of Joelle's thriving garden anymore. But closing his eyes left his mind free to see what he didn't want to see: Claudia and Foster together, shaking hands. Hugging. Claudia calling that son of a b.i.t.c.h Dad.

"I've tried," he said slowly, his voice breaking. "Ever since we got back from Ohio, I've tried to accept this. I've tried to forgive you and me both." He sighed. "I just can't do it."

For a minute neither of them spoke. The hum of the refrigerator's motor spread around them, and the hiss of one of the upstairs air conditioners cooling down the bedrooms. Then Joelle said, "All right. Let's go."

"Go?"

He heard the bell-like rattle of her keys and the clapping of her sandals. .h.i.tting the soles of her bare feet as she headed for the mudroom. "Let's go," she repeated.

He had no idea where they were going. Away from the garden, away from the patio he'd built, away from the house in which he'd raised his sons-and his daughter. Away from this house Claudia had once called home.

Going couldn't possibly be worse than staying. He followed Joelle out.

EVEN WITH THE Pa.s.sENGER SEAT shoved all the way back, Bobby seemed cramped in the Prius. He also looked forbidding, his eyes dark and brooding, his brow low as he stared at the road in front of them. Waves of tension, hot and pulsing, rolled off him.

She should have changed her clothes. She had on a pair of khaki shorts and a cotton shirt with a pastel striped pattern. Her hair was arranged in a ponytail, but as she drove she tugged off the elastic and ran her fingers through the locks to loosen them.

Ponytail or no, she looked like a dowdy middle-aged suburban lady, someone who'd abandoned a pile of groceries on the counter and bolted on an insane mission. To save her husband, to save her daughter, to save her marriage-for all she knew, everything she cared about was beyond saving by now. At least she'd gotten most of the perishables into the refrigerator. She'd saved their groceries.

"Where are we going?" Bobby asked.

"I'm not sure. Do you have your cell phone with you?" At his nod, she said, "Call Gary."

He eyed her dubiously but punched in his son-in-law's number. After listening for a couple of seconds, he said, "Gary? It's Bob. I...uh..." He flashed a quizzical glance at Joelle.

"Ask him Drew Foster's address."

Bobby's frown intensified. He said nothing.

"Go ahead. Ask him. Somewhere in Manhattan. I need the address."

Bobby continued to glare at her. Into the phone, he said, "No, I'm still here. I just..."

"Ask him," Joelle ordered.

Twisting away, he spoke into the phone. "Do you know Drew Foster's address?" He listened for a moment, then said, "Thanks. No, nothing's wrong. I'll talk to you later." He folded the phone shut and grunted, "Nothing's wrong? Add that to the mile-high heap of lies."

"What's the address?" she asked. "Write it down so we don't forget it."

"We're not going to New York."

"Yes, we are."

Skepticism mingling with the tension that radiated from him, he opened the glove compartment, pulled out a pen and a wrinkled napkin with a fast-food logo on it and jotted the address. "I wrote it down. Now, turn the car around and take me home."

"You don't want Claudia to do this. You won't admit it, Bobby, but it's obvious you don't want her to do it. So we're going to New York to get her."

From the corner of her eye she could see his disbelief. "We are not going to New York to get her," he retorted. "This was her decision. She wants to do it. She's a grown-up. If this is what she wants to do-"

"But you don't want her to do it. You don't want her to save that boy's life."

"That boy's life has nothing to do with it," Bobby snapped. "Of course I want the boy to live. d.a.m.n it, Jo..."

He seemed as furious as he'd been in the kitchen. But at least he was strapped in by a seat belt, trapped in a moving car. He couldn't act on his anger as long as she kept her foot on the gas pedal.

She had tried to reach him through talk. She'd tried to reach him through food, preparing his favorite meals. She'd tried to reach him physically. Since their return from Ohio, their bed had seen its share of activity-but something had been wrong. There was no hostility when they made love, but there was no rapture, either. There was no life at all. The bed was like a garden without water. Nothing could bloom there.

She'd tried leaving him, and he'd chased after her and brought her home. He'd told her he loved her. But still the demons danced inside him. He was in agony, and in the pauses of their lives, in the quiet moments when conversation died, when s.e.x was over and they retreated to their own sides of the bed, she felt blame flowing from Bobby and spilling all over her.

If the only way she could save her marriage was by s.n.a.t.c.hing Claudia away from Drew Foster, she would do it. She'd tried everything else.

Perhaps she should have thought through this mission a little better. She wasn't sure she was ready to meet Drew's wife-the woman who'd insisted she and Bobby were two corners of a trapezoid when they'd gone out for drinks. Drew's wife would be sleek and chic, and Joelle would be frazzled and ragged. She'd be forced to tell the woman her son would have to find another donor, because until Bobby got his daughter back, he would never forgive Joelle for allowing Drew to cross their threshold. How could Joelle do that? How could she deny a woman the chance to keep her son alive?

"This is nuts," Bobby muttered.

"I don't care if it's nuts. You want Claudia? We'll get her."

"This isn't about Claudia," he said.

Joelle was so startled she almost veered off the road. She straightened the wheel, glanced at him and refocused on her driving. "Of course it's about Claudia."

"It's about you," he argued, spite edging his voice. "It's about you and Foster."

Joelle took a minute to collect herself. All along, Bobby had been anguished about Claudia, about losing her, about losing his place in her heart. He'd never acknowledged that anything else was troubling him. Of course, that was Bobby. He never said anything at all, anything that mattered.

"There is no 'me and Foster,'" she said quietly.

"There was."

"Years ago."

"All right." He sank back in his seat, his hands curled into fists on his knees, and shut his eyes. "Never mind."

He was finally opening up. Never mind wouldn't do. "Talk to me, Bobby. For once in your G.o.dd.a.m.n life, talk to me."

She heard him inhale, then let his breath out on a broken sigh. "I always loved you, Jo. Maybe I didn't say it in words, maybe I didn't express it the way you wanted, but I always loved you. And you loved Drew."

"In high school," she emphasized. "I was young, I didn't even know what love was. It was a schoolgirl crush."

"You wanted to marry him. You planned your future around him." Now that he was talking, really talking, the words sprayed from him like water from a garden hose, soaking and chilling her. "I asked you to marry me because I loved you. You were the only good thing in my life back then, and I saw a way to keep you in my life, and I grabbed it and held on tight. That's why I married you. And you married me because you couldn't have Drew."

"That's not-" she stumbled over the next word "-true." But it was true. If, when she'd phoned Drew to tell him she was pregnant, he had sent her bus fare to travel not to an abortion doctor in Cincinnati but to New Hampshire, to his college campus, so he could marry her, she would have gone. She would have been his wife and had his baby.

And she would never have had the life she'd lived with Bobby. She would never have struggled with him and celebrated each triumph with him, whether that triumph was his tossing away his cane or starting his own business or earning a college degree. She would never have had her two glorious sons. She would never have built her own world with Bobby. She would never have had all those loving nights in their bed, trusting, touching, connecting in the most elemental way.

"Back in Holmdell, you accused me of never saying I love you," he reminded her, sounding oddly drained. "And I've spent this whole d.a.m.n marriage knowing I wasn't your choice, I wasn't the one you loved. You settled for me in desperation. The son of the town drunk. The kid who mowed the gra.s.s at the cemetery. You didn't marry me for love." He sighed again, almost a moan. "You want me to open up, Jo? There. I've done it."

She didn't realize she was crying until the double yellow line striping the road turned into a blur. Somehow she managed to steer onto the shoulder and stop the car. How could he have thought she'd settled for him? Hadn't she loved him enough? Hadn't she given him everything she had-her joy, her sorrow, her patience, her pa.s.sion?

He had lived the past thirty-seven years doubting her love, just as she'd lived the past thirty-seven years doubting his. If only he'd opened up, if only he'd shared his feelings with her. If only she'd known he felt that way.

The last time she and Bobby had kissed in this car, he'd been in the driver's seat and she'd had the wheel jammed into her back. This time, she climbed over the console to the pa.s.senger seat and settled onto his lap. She clung to his shoulders and wept into his shirt until he closed his arms around her. Only then did her sobs subside. "I love you so much, Bobby," she murmured, brushing her mouth against the hollow of his throat with each word she spoke. "The only thing I love about Drew was that his stupid selfishness sent me to you."

"You came to me because you were panicked," Bobby insisted.

"No." She lifted her head and gazed at him. "When I found out I was pregnant, the first person I thought of was you."