"Ian's a professor, not a student."

"Ian?" Dad stopped, suddenly on alert. "That's my middle name. Richard Ian Butler. RIB. Not great initials." He laughed nervously.

Maddie kept her smile plastered to her face. "What a coincidence."

I exchanged a look with her. Dad was getting dangerously close to the truth, acting like a dog on a scent. Maddie didn't have to say anything. In that moment, we both realized her mom had named Ian after my dad. If we'd needed more circ.u.mstantial evidence, there it was. I didn't know why I hadn't made the connection before. In my defense, why would I think about Dad's middle name?

Dad's gaze bounced between us. "You two are awfully serious tonight."

Maddie gave him a shaky smile. "Introducing you to my brother is a big step. Of course I'm nervous!"

Dad flashed her a big smile that showed off that characteristic single dimple of ours. The one Ian shared with us. Dad had a soft spot for Maddie. She could have twisted him around her little finger if she'd wanted to.

"I won't eat him. I promise." Dad winked, amused by Maddie's nerves. Like she was being adorably sweet and innocent.

"I'll hold you to that," she said.

We reached the front door. Dad turned to Maddie for guidance, as in, Should we knock? Or can we walk right in?

She knocked twice, as we'd agreed she would earlier, and opened the door.

Ian called out to us from the kitchen at the back of the house, "Come in. I'll be right there."

Dad froze. Ian's voice was eerily similar to ours. I knew it, but I hadn't thought of that when we'd been strategizing. Our plan was to get Dad in the house before he got a look at Ian and was tipped off. But Ian's voice from the kitchen could have been mine. Or Dad's. And Dad had picked up on that.

Maddie took Dad's arm and pulled him into the house. I closed the door behind us just as Ian came around the corner from out of sight.

As Ian walked toward us and came into plain view, Dad paled. He saw the resemblance right away. He'd have to have been blind not to. It was unmistakable.

Ian had a broad smile on his face. I admired his confidence as he came toward us. s.h.i.t, he even walked like Dad, had the same gait.

"Maddie!" Ian hugged his sister.

Dad stood mute, studying Ian as if he'd seen a ghost.

Ian slapped me on the back. "Seth." He turned to Dad and extended his hand. "Ian Foster. Dr. Ian Richard Foster. I believe I'm your son."

Dad stood statue straight and still while the rest of us held our collective breath. He was oddly calm. Like he was in shock. "You're Laura's son?"

"I am." Ian's voice was steady. "And yours."

Dad ignored Ian's outstretched hand. "How old are you?"

Ian rattled off his birthday and dropped the hand he'd offered.

"d.a.m.n. That fits." Dad ran one hand through his hair and looked over his shoulder like he wanted to escape. He glanced at me with question, and accusation, shining in his eyes.

"We met less than two weeks ago. When we saw each other, we suspected. We've only known for sure less than a week." Emulating my older brother, I kept my voice steady. I refused to throw Maddie under the bus by calling her out for putting it together earlier.

I swallowed hard. "Ian and I took a DNA test. We're brothers, Dad. Half-brothers."

Maddie grabbed my hand and squeezed it. "We wanted to tell you in person. Together. It's awkward for all of us-"

Dad didn't seem to hear us. "I married the wrong girl." He muttered to himself, sounding stunned, "Laura was pregnant and let me marry Colleen?"

He studied Ian again. "I didn't know. She never told me." He sounded both hurt and shocked. But he didn't deny it. Didn't even look like he doubted at all. "Why wouldn't she tell me?" And then again, like he was talking to himself, "That's why she married Bruce." He took a deep breath and stared at Ian again, mesmerized. "You don't look like her."

"No." Ian shifted on his feet, but he hadn't lost his confidence.

Dad looked at me and then back to Ian. "Kind of hard to deny it. You look more like me than even Seth does. And everyone says he's my clone."

He muttered again. Something about what a jerk he'd been and how much he'd screwed up. It wasn't particularly flattering to Mom. But then, I'd never really known her anyway. And I'd always known my parents had problems, even before I was born and she left.

Dad looked at me again. "How do you feel about this?"

I felt everyone's gaze on me now. It seemed as if everything rested with me, that this entire weird family's future hung on what I would say.

Still holding Maddie's hand, I moved next to Ian and put my arm around his shoulder. "He's my brother. I'm happy to have him."

Tears welled in Dad's eyes. Then he did the most startling thing. He threw himself at us and wrapped his arms around both of us, Ian and me.

"My boys. My sons!" he said over and over again.

I dropped my arm from Ian's shoulder, stepped away, and let Dad pull just Ian into a hug. I'd never seen Dad so emotional.

"I've missed everything," he said as he finally pulled away from Ian and wiped a tear from his eyes.

"Not everything," Ian said. "Not anything from here on out."

Maddie wiped a tear away, too. And sniffed. I squeezed her hand.

"Hey," I said to her. "It's all right now."

"I know. These are tears of happiness."

Dad looked at Maddie. "Does Laura know?"

Laura I hadn't been to this university town in almost three years. It was familiar, and yet had changed since I'd spent a school year here an eon ago. And lost my innocence and my freedom. When I'd been young and foolish enough to fall for a frat boy who used me until he and his longtime girlfriend got back together. The town and I had both grown since then.

Even though housing developments had sprung up in what had been wheat fields back in the day, and Ian's development was one of them, it wasn't hard to follow the directions on my built-in GPS to his house.

An unfamiliar car was parked out front. I frowned. Ian had company. I hoped I wasn't interrupting anything. Oh, well. Too late now!

I slid out of the car and grabbed my purse, stiff from the three-hundred-mile drive. When I got to the door, it was half open. Which was strange.

From inside, I heard Ian say, "Does Laura know?"

Since when did he call me Laura not Mom? Was that how he talked about me when I wasn't around? Or was he referring to another Laura? There weren't many his age. Maybe someone in the chemistry department.

I pushed the door open. Ian stood in the hall with Maddie and two men who had their backs to me, one a young man, one more my age, judging from his build and the streaks of gray in his hair.

"Does Laura know what?" I said, delighted with myself at startling them.

Then things moved in slow motion. Frame by frame, like stop motion in a movie. The two men turned; the younger one faced me first and caught my eye.

Suddenly, I was nineteen years old and staring into Rick's devastating eyes again. He was Rick, so much like Rick. Not quite as much as Ian at the age, but almost.

Two seconds in town and I'd run into another trigger.

The young man squinted and frowned, looking at me almost as if he knew me. That was when I saw he was holding Maddie's hand. I went cold. It was like an echo in time, a reverberation of Rick and me. The horror, the absolute horror sank in. My daughter was dating Rick's son. She had no clue. She had no clue who he was. Or why it was such a bad idea to date him. And they were in Ian's house- Getting Ian's blessing? Introducing him to the family? There wasn't a good scenario.

I couldn't breathe.

As the new horror hit, the older man turned fully around. "Laura?"

He was older. Grayer. More filled out, fuller of face. There were crow's feet around his eyes. But still slender and handsome. I would have known him anywhere. Even if he'd been totally gray and fifty pounds heavier.

Rick. I couldn't speak. Couldn't say his name to save my life.

Maddie looked from me to Rick's son, love shining in her eyes, looking at him the way I used to look at Rick. She loved him, loved him with a kind of love that could break her and leave her an empty sh.e.l.l, like me. I was too late. Way too late.

My knees wanted to buckle. I would have dropped my purse if it hadn't been slung over my shoulder.

"Mom?" Ian took a step toward me, his face etched with concern.

I couldn't miss the other look on his face. I knew exactly what it meant. They knew. They all knew. Somehow they'd unearthed the secret I'd kept for over thirty years. Ian had met his real father.

"No. No. No!" I covered my face with my hands. My knees gave way.

As I crumpled to the floor, Rick caught my arm. "Laura!"

His eyes and voice were kind. Amazed. Shocked. Filled with both wonder and betrayal.

I gasped, my lungs too thick with shock to hold air. The room, the whole house, seemed suddenly stifling. The joy of my surprise evaporated. I couldn't breathe. I needed air.

I pulled free of Rick's grasp and dashed outside.

Maddie called after me, "Mom! Wait! We can explain."

I heard her footsteps, followed by Rick's voice. Or maybe it was Ian's. Or Rick's boy. They all sounded enough the same that they blended together in my shocked mind.

"Let her go," Rick/Ian/the boy said. "Give her s.p.a.ce."

I glanced over my shoulder in time to see Rick's boy grab her arm and pull her into his chest, stopping her from pursuit. I didn't miss the way she cuddled into him for comfort.

Too late. Too late. Way, way too late.

But who would have guessed this would happen? What were the odds? I should have stopped Maddie from going to school here. I'd had a bad feeling from the beginning. Always trust your instincts. Wasn't that what the fear experts said? Instinct is pretty good at warning you about danger.

But who even knew Rick had a son? Let alone one Maddie's age? It was...bizarre.

I reached into my purse for the keys I'd dropped in minutes, or maybe it was lives, earlier. I felt suddenly both ancient and young at the same time. Then I realized I didn't need them. I'd let myself be thrown back in time. I had keyless entry and keyless ignition on my new car.

"I'll talk to her," one of the men said.

I'd almost reached the car, was just about to push the b.u.t.ton on the door to let myself in, when he caught my arm and swung me around to face him. Rick. Just as powerful and magnetic as he'd ever been. Even more confident than the young man I remembered. More self-a.s.sured.

He towered over me. "They ambushed me, too. I just found out." He was breathing hard. The look in his eyes begged me to understand. "Minutes before you walked in. I'd just arrived with Maddie and Seth. That's why were we still in the hall. I'm as shocked as you are."

His voice became hard. "Maybe not as shocked. At least you knew I had another son. Why didn't you tell me?"

I'd rehea.r.s.ed for this moment for nearly thirty-five years. I should have had my speech down pat. But all my brilliant words evaporated as I stared into eyes shining with hurt.

"You didn't give me a chance." I hadn't meant to, but I spat the words out. The venom of that wound was still strong, even after all these years. "I didn't realize I was pregnant until after you broke up with me. You married her so fast. I didn't even realize I was pregnant until you were an old married man of a month or more."

My voice caught. I glanced at the house. The three kids stood at the front window, peering through it at us.

"You chose her. d.a.m.n it, Rick! What was I supposed to do? Waltz in and announce you were going to be a daddy twice in one year? Break up your new marriage?" I was breathing hard. Tears stung my eyes and my cheek was wet. I was so upset I hadn't realized I was crying. "You chose her." Though I knew her name almost as well as my own, I couldn't make myself say it.

His grip on my arm tightened. "I didn't choose her. She came to me first. I chose the child. Colleen wouldn't abort and said she'd never give it up. She wasn't fit to raise a child. I couldn't leave my baby to her. I chose the child, Laura. Not her." He ran one hand through his short hair. It was too short to even stand up on end much or look ruffled.

What had happened to the gorgeous, long hair I'd loved? I supposed it belonged on the younger man.

"If I'd known...if I'd had a choice..." He was having as much trouble forming a thought as I was.

I stared at him, studying the hurt on his face and the way he was struggling with himself.

He let out a Herculean sigh. "I don't know, Laura. I can't say. I only know I loved you, not her."

I had to know. "How is she? Are you still married to her?"

"I'm single and she's dead." His voice was flat and expressionless. "And so is my oldest boy, the one I married her to protect. I did my best, but he was killed on his bicycle while she was in charge." He choked up.

A lump swelled in my throat. Despite myself, I ached for him.

"He would have been the same age as Ian. Ian is like a gift to me now. A shock. But a second chance."

"This is a mess, is what it is." I hurled the words at him, just realizing he'd said he'd arrived with Maddie and Seth. He'd known about them. I felt sick again.

"That boy in there, he's your son?" I was trembling full out.

Rick was still holding my arm. He nodded. "Seth."

"You knew about them, Maddie and Seth? And you didn't stop them?" I hissed the words at him. Fresh, angry, hurt tears rose in my eyes.

He sighed again. "I thought you knew, or at least suspected, too."

"Why would I?" I dared him to give me a logical answer.