At least Jeremy had a hotel room to sleep in, she thought. That meant they weren't living in a car like so many of the region's homeless population were.

Suddenly not feeling much like an indulgent six-or seven-course gourmet dinner with her friends, Spring pressed a b.u.t.ton on her dash panel and told the car phone system to "Call Cecelia."

She'd cancel on the Magnolia Supper Club tonight and just go home. A bowl of soup, some tea and a good book would suit her just fine.

As she drove out of the parking lot, she glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Mr. Camden emerge from the clinic holding Jeremy in one arm, the Common Ground Free Clinic tote in the other.

Seeing that made her feel a little better.

Shelby had somehow gotten him to take the bag of supplies, samples, coupons and information that every new client received.

The car's remote phone system connected. "This is Cecelia Jeffries," a husky voice said.

"Hey there, Cecelia. It's Spring."

"Oh, for goodness' sakes," her friend said. "You're calling from that car phone again. I didn't recognize the number and thought one of my students had somehow gotten my personal cell. What's up, girl?"

Spring smiled, her friend's voice lifting her spirits. "I'm going to have to cancel on the supper club tonight."

"Cancel? It's already canceled. Didn't you get the messages?"

"Messages? No, I've been at the clinic. We had a late walk-in."

"There was a break-in at the store. Gerald is falling apart."

"Is he okay?" Spring asked, alarmed. Gerald Murphy did not do well with deviations from the norm. "I can head over there right now." Spring turned toward Main Street instead of the street that would lead to her house across town.

"He's fine," Cecelia said. "You know how he is. Richard has been dealing with the police."

Spring made the left onto Main Street and the downtown district where Step Back in Time Antiques was located.

"I see the police squad car in front of the store," she reported.

"Come over when you leave there," Cecelia said. "I'm making a quick chicken potpie, so at least you'll have a hot meal since you probably just had a protein bar for lunch."

Spring chuckled. "You know me too well."

"Girl, forget saving calories. Life was meant to enjoy-and that means enjoying good food."

"Everything in moderation," Spring said.

Cecelia snorted at that.

After promising that she would stop by after checking on Gerald and Richard, Spring disconnected the call and pulled into a spot on the street behind the Cedar Springs Police Department cruiser.

As she got out of the car and headed toward the door of the shop, a train display in the window of Step Back in Time Antiques caught her eye. She wondered if Jeremy Camden liked trains. She realized that if Mr. Camden was living with his young son in one of the city's low cost extended-stay hotels populated by some of the homeless, the last thing that would be on his mind would be splurging on an antique train set, no matter how fetching.

She couldn't help the sadness she felt knowing that Jeremy wouldn't-couldn't-have something as simple as a train set.

Chapter Three.

The only thing on David Camden's mind was picking up that prescription, getting Jeremy settled in bed and then figuring out a way to show Dr. Spring Darling that he wasn't the sort who took an unneeded handout. She had to have overheard that fiasco at the front desk.

After that, he would figure out how he was going to make the meetings in the morning with first the public safety officials and then the mayor and planning officials. That his priorities were turned topsy-turvy didn't at all surprise him the way it should have. His son and securing the deal with the City of Cedar Springs should have been his only two concerns. Yet here he was disturbed and wondering about the impression he'd made on a woman he'd just met.

He'd seen her as a woman, someone he could be interested in and that hadn't happened in a long time.

"Focus, Camden," he coached himself.

He had work to do and none of it involved a tall blue-eyed blonde.

David forced his attention to his current dilemma.

He couldn't take Jeremy with him to the meetings, and he couldn't afford to blow this deal. The opportunity for his company, Carolina Land a.s.sociates, was too great, and, in a way, Jeremy's future depended on his sealing the contract.

He also wondered if Dr. Spring Darling was the Darling he'd read about in the online edition of the Cedar Springs Gazette-the Darling so vocally opposed to and leading the effort to squelch the very notion of development in the city. But before he could investigate any of that, he needed to make sure Jeremy was all right. A glance over his shoulder and to the backseat of the sport utility vehicle confirmed that his little slugger was still knocked out.

He'd fallen asleep almost as soon as David got him buckled into the child safety seat.

After a quick dash into his hotel room to retrieve the wallet he'd left on the dresser next to the television's remote control, he got a quart of orange juice and the medicine. David insisted on paying cash for the prescription-despite the pharmacist's a.s.surance that it was free. The last thing he wanted to do was take away a resource from someone who actually needed it.

He roused Jeremy long enough to get him undressed, to the bathroom and back into the big bed. When they'd first checked in, the boy had loved the idea that he would get to sleep in a big bed like Daddy's. Jeremy had jumped on both double beds and giggled as he hopped from one to the other. But David knew he'd soon want to climb back into his own bed at home, the one decked out like a Formula One race car.

David stared down at his sleeping son as a concept that would enhance his presentation to city officials began unfolding in his mind.

Jeremy's bedroom furniture and the children's waiting room at the clinic had given him an idea. He picked up his sketchbook and settled on the sofa to make a few preliminary sketches. Liking where it was going, David fired up his computer and worked on a design for a green s.p.a.ce that would meld nicely with a concept he had for a play on the old-style garden apartments that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s. He wrote nouveau retro in the margin on the sketchpad page, then created a computer file with the same name as the design ideas tumbled over each other.

Buzzing disturbed his train of thought.

David looked around, trying to determine the source of the noise. The television was on mute; a guy surrounded by fruits and vegetables and a perky blonde a.s.sistant hawked what, had the sound been up, he would have heard was the best juicer ever created on planet Earth.

Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz.

The radio on the nightstand between the beds glowed 11:20 p.m. He'd been working for a couple of hours and hadn't realized it.

Bzzz.

No sound came from the radio.

Jeremy had flung the light blanket off and was turned practically upside down on his bed, the sheets in a twist.

Then it dawned on him. The phone. He'd had it on vibrate and it was...where? He cast his gaze around the hotel room, wondering how he could lose something in a s.p.a.ce the size of a studio apartment. Then he remembered. The counter in the bathroom. He'd put the phone down when they'd come in and gone straight to the toilet.

He padded his way over and decided to take the call there so Jeremy wouldn't be disturbed. He grabbed the phone before it fell to the floor after buzzing its way to the edge of the sink counter.

"Camden here."

"That's no way to answer the telephone. I've told you that at least a hundred times, dear."

David breathed a sigh that was both relief and exasperation. Charlotte Camden, his missing-in-action mother, had decided to check in. He'd left a couple of messages for her earlier in the day and hadn't heard a peep from her.

"Mom, where are you?"

"I'm at Becky's. She sends her love."

David rolled his eyes. The only thing his aunt Becky would send would be an order form for cookies or magazines or overpriced gift wraps and bows from one of the thousand civic group fund-raisers she always seemed to be in charge of. There were only so many peanuts and church cookbooks and happy cat calendars that a person could buy or tolerate.

"We had a lovely girls' day out," his mother said. "We went to a new spa here in Greensboro and had facials, and then we ate lunch at a cute little bistro..."

David leaned against the sink, rubbed his temple and sighed.

Here he was thinking she was having some sort of existential or menopausal crisis, and instead she was just hanging out with her sister.

"...and he asked me out to dinner. Imagine that!"

His eyes popped open, and he stood up. "What was that, Mom? Who? Dinner?"

A schoolgirl-sounding trill came through the mobile phone.

"He's in charge of the school district's transportation department. We're going to dinner and a movie. Isn't that nice?"

David shuddered and tried not to sigh again.

The thought of his mother dating gave him the heebie-jeebies. He knew it was unreasonable to expect that she would be alone the rest of her life. Charlotte Camden was not yet sixty years old and had already been a widow for almost a decade.

She didn't know that David thoroughly vetted the gentlemen friends she expressed interest in. And he'd confronted more than one who was after something other than the companionship of a lady of a certain age.

He knew he was overprotective when it came to his mother. Charlotte wasn't what might be called rich, but a trust left for her by his father in addition to a hefty insurance settlement after he'd died ensured that she would have no financial worries, and enough wealth to attract the sort looking for a gravy train.

"Yeah, lovely," he said of her dinner-date news.

What sounded like a moan from the other room drew his attention. He pulled the bathroom door open a bit and listened.

"Daddy."

"I'm right here, buddy," he said, making his way to the beds.

"Is that Jeremy?" Charlotte asked. "What in the world is he doing up at this hour? David, you spoil him."

"He's sick, Mom. Can you hold on for a sec?"

He put the phone on his bed and sat on Jeremy's.

The boy crawled into his lap and moaned. His forehead was burning up.

David's heart started racing.

"Oh, boy."

"David! David!" The tinny voice floated from the phone.

He leaned over and s.n.a.t.c.hed it up, cradling the phone in the crook of his neck. "Mom, I've got to go. I need to find a doctor."

"Find a doctor? What do you mean find a doctor? Call Dr. Johnson."

"Dr. Johnson is in Charlotte, mom. We're in Cedar Springs."

David eased Jeremy from his lap and back onto the bed, then dashed to the bathroom for a cool washcloth. He returned just a moment later with both the washcloth to press to his son's head and a gla.s.s of water.

"Cedar Springs? What in the...? Oh no! Oh, David, I'm so sorry. Was that this week? I thought you were going there next week."

Retching sounds were coming from Jeremy.

"Mom, I need to go."

He disengaged the phone and dashed for the wastebasket near the desk. He got back to Jeremy a second too late.

The boy started to cry. David didn't know if the tears were because his stomach hurt or because he'd just soiled his favorite Winnie the Pooh pajamas.

"It's gonna be okay, buddy."

David prayed that it would be as he comforted his son.

It was eleven thirty at night. He had two options. He could call 9-1-1 or he could call the doctor from the clinic. She'd written a number on the back of the business card she'd given Jeremy.

He put the wastebasket on the floor at the edge of the bed and cradled his son in one arm. With the other, he dug into his pocket and pulled out Dr. Spring Darling's business card.

Spring had just closed the book she'd been reading, turned off the bedside lamp, fluffed her pillows and settled in bed when her mobile phone chirped.

"Gerald, I am not giving you a prescription for Valium," she muttered as she rolled over and reached for the telephone on the bedside table.

The burglars at Step Back in Time Antiques weren't after whatever they could grab. They'd come with a shopping list. Small but extremely valuable pieces were the only things missing from the antiques shop. If it hadn't been for a broken vase that Richard's wife had come across, they may not have even discovered the break-in for a day or two. She'd gotten the story from Gerald, the high-strung co-owner of the shop, while Richard, the more level-headed business partner, talked to police, then called their insurance company.

After checking on her friends, she'd driven to Cecelia's, where she'd stayed entirely too long for someone who had early morning rounds at the hospital. Gerald had already phoned twice asking for something to calm his nerves.

She didn't even glance at the caller ID on the phone. "Gerald, for the last time, I am not giving you a script for Valium. Drink some chamomile tea and go to bed."

"Uh, h.e.l.lo?"

Spring sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.