Shelly hadn't mentioned that Dan was coming, an innocent oversight, of course. He placed the wine on the counter and turned. "No suntan? I thought you'd come back bronzed like a California girl."

No, she was, after all, an Iowa farm girl. "I hardly had time for that."

"But you're back." He smiled again as though he had no control over it. "That's a good thing."

With time she might see it that way. She let Rascal down, and he scooted under the table.

Dan uncorked the wine and set it to breathe. "How was your trip?"

Mr. Talkative, wasn't he? "It was fine. The marrow harvest went without a hitch." She glanced at Shelly. "Kelsey called Morgan the night before to thank him." She tried not to visualize Morgan overwhelmed by his daughter's voice and the comfort she'd offered. That had been such a tender and hopeful night. She trapped a sigh and said, "Now we can only pray."

Dan actually nodded.

Brett carried the bowl of goulash to the table. "Pull up a chair and prepare to gustate."

"I don't think that's a verb." Shelly set the bowl of corn beside the goulash.

"Gustation, the act of tasting. If you can taste, you can gustate." Brett untied his apron and tossed it over the counter. "Don't argue with the man, wench."

"I'll wench you." Shelly bumped him with a hip.

"Where are my handcuffs when I need them? Got yours, Dan?" Dan clicked his fingers.

Shelly glared. "You wouldn't dare. Sit down, Jill, before my he-man beats his chest."

Jill laughed. Brett was a man's man but certainly never beat his chest. Since Dan didn't think of it, she pulled out her own chair and sat down, trying not to miss the feel of Morgan's hand across her shoulders. So many things to miss. But she would not think of that now. These were her friends, welcoming her home. She had kept it light on the drive with Shelly, in spite of her friend's contention that exhaustion would gain her the bald truth. She could do the same now.

Shelly took her place beside Brett and looked across at Jill. "Dig in."

Silently Jill offered her thanks as Dan and Brett filled their plates. She took her own servings of comfort food and swallowed her first bite. "Shelly, as always, it's great."

Dan said, "I forgot the caviar. You'll have to wean yourself off it."

"Caviar?"

He shrugged. "Now that you're back with the peons."

So it was a stab at Morgan. "No caviar, I'm afraid. But Morgan's housekeeper is a wonderful Mexican cook. Tamales no American could make."

"Nothing like foreign servants. Where does the guy live?"

"Santa Barbara."

"No hovel, I guess, if he needs servants." Dan made it sound like a weakness in Morgan rather than the blessing it was to Consuela. "No hovel." Jill described the lovely gated property overlooking the Pacific. "I saw dolphins and a whale. So many birds, and the sound of the waves was so peaceful. Oranges right off the tree to squeeze for juice. Very exotic." Dan deserved that for his caviar comment. "And they have a private beach at the base of the cliffs."

"Very posh." Dan sipped his wine.

Jill tried not to picture Morgan with his tumbler of bourbon, drowning the hurt she had caused. "I drove both his retro Thunderbird and his Corvette. Now that's posh."

Dan set the wine down. "A Vette, huh? Don't suppose he has a bike."

"I didn't see one." She met his eyes. How far would he push it?

"No one to pedal it for him?"

Jill iced him with her gaze. "He had difficulty even walking after multiple bone punctures."

Dan's face reddened. "Sorry."

She held his eyes without answering. She might have questioned Morgan's need for all his things, but Dan had no right to disparage him personally. He had no concept of Morgan's sacrifice, his hopes for their daughter, his pain, his emptiness in spite of all the things Dan envied.

"So ... any movement in the Marvin case?" Brett tossed his balled napkin at Dan's head.

Dan turned. "Actually, yes. I'd be surprised if we don't get a confession tomorrow."

Jill took a bite of goulash. Brett might break up the fight, but their police chatter did nothing to still the defensive anger Dan had churned. At the earliest chance, she stood and loaded her plate into the dishwasher. "Thank you so much for dinner, Shell. I better get Rascal home."

"I'll walk you over." Dan stood up.

Inevitable. She nodded with a forced smile and scooped Rascal into her arms.

Outside, he said, "I was a jerk."

Jill didn't argue, just started across the lawn between the patios.

He shook his head. "The green monster's eaten me the whole time you were gone."

"I'm sorry." Rascal trembled in her arms, fearful once again of the great outdoors.

"Don't apologize. That makes it worse."

She looked into his face. "I shouldn't have rubbed it in."

"Are you in love with him?" His face was firm, yet vulnerable.

She owed him the truth. "I always have been."

He nodded. "But you didn't stay." He was fishing.

"I would have."

Dan stood a long minute, his brows pressed together. "I could learn to be second best."

"Please don't do that, Dan. You deserve to be best."

He brought his chin up and nodded, hands clutching his hips. "Good night, Jill." He crossed back to Shelly and Brett's, where she knew he would receive consolation and understanding.

She went inside with Rascal, set him on the floor and watched him run to a place where he could regain his dignity. Then her icy facade melted. She pressed her hands to her face as all the memories and emotions rushed in.

CHAPTER.

27.

Bern Gershwin looked as though he'd put on a pound or two since the last time they'd played. He sweated and huffed but took full advantage of Morgan's relative immobility, smacking the ball hard and low in the echo chamber court. Morgan just managed the return and Bern put it away with a shot low and wide, then pulled off his goggles and toweled his face. Morgan set his racquet down and removed his goggles.

With only a slight gloat, Bern said, "Not too slow on your feet, considering."

"Slow enough to give you advantage."

Bern laughed. "Like I need it."

Morgan wiped the sweat from his head and neck. "I talked to my daughter."

"You did?" Bern hung the towel across his neck and checked the clock. Reflex.

"She initiated it, called me the night before the harvest."

Bern pulled the two edges of his towel taut across his neck. "Then you don't need what I got for you."

Morgan shrugged. "The thing is, I could make contact. E-mail. Phone calls. She has that much with Jill by permission, though for some reason the Bensons won't extend the same to me."

"But the girl called you."

"She called Jill and used the opportunity to thank me."

Bern rubbed his face. "But she didn't have permission."

Morgan shook his head. "And if I pursue it that way, it pits her against her parents' wishes." He'd learned that much from Todd and Stan. He ducked through the half door of the court.

Bern followed him out. "And you've spoken with the parents."

"Not directly. They communicated right at the start through the doctors that it would be handled according to donation protocol. It's part of the agreement in the donor program not to make contact within a year's time." Morgan started down the hall toward the locker room. "But that doesn't apply to relatives." He paused in the doorway. "So am I?"

Bern frowned. "Legally?"

"I know reality. Now walk me through your world."

Bern passed by into the locker room. "First off, you don't have much to go on. Since you weren't married, Jill had sole custody of the child at birth."

No surprise there, though it rankled. "Shouldn't I at least have known?"

Bern tossed his towel on the bench. "Prior to petition for termination of the parent-child relationship, all putative fathers must be notified by publication in a newspaper."

"Wait a minute. What do you mean, all putative fathers?" Morgan spun the combination lock.

"She listed you as unknown."

He digested that. As though there'd been any confusion.

"If the father is unknown or his whereabouts unknown, due process requires notification in a publication most likely to inform all potential fathers."

"I never saw anything." Morgan scowled as he tugged the locker door open.

"Did she know where you were?"

"She knew my plans. Full scholarship to Wharton in Pennsylvania."

"She posted in Des Moines, Kelsey's birthplace."

"Why would I see it there?"

Bern shook his head. "You wouldn't. That's the one scrap from the table. Due process requires her to post notice in the county most likely to reach you. Because the termination order was entered without full due process, you could request a court order for revocation of release of custody."

"What does that mean?" Morgan shoved his racquet into the long narrow space.

"It attacks Jill's custodial release. However, before your eyes start gleaming, let me say you must show good cause to vacate the termination order."

Morgan hung the goggles with the racquet. "What constitutes good cause?"

"Fraud, coercion, misrepresentation ..."

"Coercion? As in her parents forcing her?"

"In the case of a minor they probably had responsibility in her decision. At least both parties could argue that."

Morgan pressed a hand to the fresh ache in his traumatized hips. "Was it fraudulent to claim she didn't know who the father was?"

"Fraud would be claiming rape, statutory in your case. You're lucky it didn't go that way."

Morgan jerked his head to stare at Bern. "Rape?"

"You could possibly make a case for misrepresentation if you could prove she did know it was you and there were no other possibilities." Bern stripped his T-shirt off over his head. Definite extra poundage, but that hadn't immobilized him anywhere near the pain Morgan was feeling just now.

He focused on the point of this exercise. "So if there's misrepresentation, then what?"

"You could request the vacation of the termination order."

"That means I'd have a right to see her?" Morgan stripped off his own sweaty shirt.