"I wish I could."

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know. That's what I'm saying."

"Now," she goaded. "Right now. If you had your choice of doing anything, anything at all, what would you want? What would give you a boost? What would be exciting enough to pull you out of this funk?"

She knew she was taking a chance. If he said that he wanted to see Nora Eaton, she was sunk.

He thought for a minute, then said, "Go somewhere."

"Me?"

"Us. I want us to go somewhere." Relieved, she asked, "Where?"

He thought again. "Williamsburg, Virginia."

She grinned. "Yes?" r "When we were in New York, we used to talk about going, but you were always so busy and then we had Dougie, and somehow we never found the time."

"Okay." Her grin faded. "Let's do it now."

He looked surprised. "Right now7" She nodded. "Right now."

"What about Dougie?"

"He's not here."

"What about work?" L She didn't have to think about it. She had put in more than enough hours to compensate and now there was Cynthia to cover. Angie had a right to the time. This was a family emergency of sorts.

"They'll be able to function without me for a long weekend," Angie said. "How about you?"

"I'm always ahead a few days. I can swing it." She left his side and went to the phone. But whereas in the past she would have been the one to make the arrangements, now she held out the receiver to him.

He stared at it for a bemused minute. By the time he took it, his eyes held a hint of excitement and his lips a touch of the smile that never failed to curl her stomach.

He looked empoweredand Angie didn't care how much Mara would have denied it, an empow ered man was a sexy man. With that thought and a smile of her own, she went upstairs to pack.

Paige didn't put on scrubs. She wasn't needed in the operating room.

Jill was under general anesthesia and wouldn't know who was there and who wasn't.

Her mother, on the other hand, was alone and frightened in the waiting room.

They sat together quietly, holding their breath each time the door opened, releasing it when the doctor who emerged wasn't Jill's.

Paige thought of the parents she saw in prenatal sessions, the ones getting a head start on pediatric care, who came to her with questions shortly before their babies were to be born. Their excitement was always contagious.

There was no excitement nowjust dread that the baby might be deformed, or too small to live, or ill in some way that demanded prolonged and expensive medical treatment, and fear that Jill, whose insides were already battered, would react adversely to surgery.

When the doctor finally came to see them, it was with a mixed bag of news. "Jill's fine," she said, "but we lost the baby. I'm sorry, Mrs.

Stickley. The pelvic fracture caused other internal injuries. It's a miracle the baby stayed in so long."

Jane was holding a hand to her chest. "But Jill's all right."

"She will be. Once the baby was taken, we did some repair work. If all heals well, she'll be able to have other children."

"When can I see her?"

"If you go back to her room, she'll be along soon."

Paige had no intention of waiting. She sent Jane on, then made her way to the recovery room, where Jill was drifting in and out of sleep. As time passed, she was more out than in. Paige held her hand and waited quietly with her arms propped on the bars of the bed.

After a bit, Jill kept her eyes open long enough to focus on Paige.

Paige smiled. "Welcome back."

"What haDDened?" she whispered hoarsely.

"You're going to be just fine."

"And my baby?"

Paige's smile faded. She shook her head. "It was too little. It couldn't make it."

Jill swallowed and closed her eyes. "What was it?"

One part of Paige didn't want to tell her.

Giving the baby a sex made it more real. But then, it had been real.

To deny that would be to deny Jill the right to grieve as she needed to do.

Softly she repeated what the surgeon had told her. "It was a boy.

Very tiny. There may have been some damage from the accident. It's for the best, Jill."

Jill nodded. She dozed off. Paige remained with her, holding her hand. A few minutes later Jill turned her head and opened her eyes again. She frowned, then remembered.

"A boy. Did he look like Joey?"

Paige smiled sadly. "I don't know. I didn't see him. My guess is he was too little to look like anyone "I kept wondering . . . kept thinking I'd be walking somewhere . . . see a little kid who looked like one of us." She made a face. "My stomach hurts."

"That's your incision. They took the baby by cesarean section. But you're going to be just fine."

"Only no baby.

"Not now. Another time. When it's right."

Jill nodded. Her eyes pooled. She closed them but tears trickled from the corners Paige held her hand more tightiy, letting her cry until the lingering effects of the anesthesia doped her again. When she woke up this time, Paige summoned an orderly and they wheeled her back to her room Jane was waiting there, along with Jill's father who hadn't spoken with Jill since she had announced that she was pregnant.