He closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed the back of his neck.Lynncould tell he was trying, too, when he said gruffly, "I brought some of Rose, too."

They stared at each other, neither moving. I'll show you mine if you show me yours,she thought, semihysterically . How absurd. Make the first move.

Lynnbent down and took the envelope from her purse, which sat on the floor by her feet. Slowly she opened it, her fingers stiff and reluctant. She felt as if she were sharing something incredibly private, pulling back a curtain on the small, sunny s.p.a.ce that was her life.

He came back to the table and sat down. As she removed the pile of photos from the envelope, he pulled a matching one from the pocket of his suit jacket. When she pushed the photographs across the span of oak, he did the same with his.

Lynnreached for them, hesitated.

"She looks like you," he said, startling her.

"What?"

"Her hair." His gaze felt like a touch. "Her nose, and her freckles, and her chin. But her eyes are blue."

"Brian's ... Brian's are blue."

Her hands were even more awkward now. Did she want to see the child's face? There might be no going back.

She turned the small pile of four-by-five photographs, peripherally aware that he was doing the same. And then the fist drove into her belly, bringing a small gasp from her, and Adam Landry vanished from her awareness.

She saw only the little girl, grinning at the camera. Ather . My daughter, Lynn thought in astonishment.

He was right: Jenny Rose could have beenLynnat that age, except for the pure crystal blue of her eyes. The little girl's face wasround, solemn in the other picturesLynnthumbed through. She was still plump, not skinny and ever in motion like Sh.e.l.ly. The freckles Lynntouched them, almost startled by the slick feel of photographic paper instead of the crinkling, warm nose she saw. How like hers! Rose's mouth was sweet, pursed as if she wanted to consider deeply before she rendered a judgment.

There she was in another photo, on Santa's lap, not crying, but not entirely happy, either. And younger yet, a swimsuit over her diaper, the photograph taken as she stood knee-deep in a small backyard pool filled by a hose. Why wasn't she smiling more often? Was she truly happy?

Lynnlooked through the pictures over and over again, beginning to resent the meager number, hungering for more. What was she really like, this little girl who had once been part of her? What made her sad? What did she think was funny? Did she suck her thumb? Have nightmares? Wish she had a mommy?

At last, at last, she looked up, aware that tears were raining down her cheeks, that Adam Landry had made a sound. Like a blind man, he was touching one of the photographs she'd given him. His fingers shook as he traced, so delicately, her daughter's face.

She saw him swallow, saw the emotions akin to hers ravage his features.

"Jenny," he whispered.

"Does she look like your wife?"

His hand curled into a fist. "It's ... uncanny."

For the first time,Lynnunderstood. "This must be almost worse for you, with your wife dead."

He looked up, but his eyes didn't focus; he might have been blind, or seeing something else. "Our daughter was all I had left."

She couldn't draw a breath, only sat paralyzed. He saw the wife he'd loved and lost in Sh.e.l.ly's face.He would want her . She could even sympathize with how he must feel. She had to meet Jenny Rose, answer the questions the photographs didn't, hold her, hug her, hear her voice, her laugh,feel her warm breath. She had to be part of her life.

As he would, somehow, have to be part of Sh.e.l.ly's life.

"I want to see her," he said, a demand not a request. "Where do you live?"

Her sympathy evaporated at his a.s.sumption that he could bulldoze her. She wanted suddenly to lie, or refuse to answer, or ... but what was the point? People were easy to find, particularly one who hadn't been trying to hide. A few phone calls and he could be knocking on her door.

"OtterBeach. Over on the coast. I own a bookstore."

"Did you bring her with you?"

"No. She's ... she's home. With a baby-sitter."Lynnlifted her chin. "What about Jenny Rose? Where's she?"

As impa.s.sive as his face was, stillLynnsaw his initial reluctance give way to the same begrudging acceptance. "She goes to a preschool Monday through Friday. While I'm working."

"You don't have ananny, or someone like that?"

"No." He caught on, and a flush traveled across his cheekbones. "Is that what I look like? A man who takes care of his personal life by writing a check?"

Yes. Oh, yes, that's exactly what he looked like. But she couldn't say so, of course. "What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a stockbroker." "It's just that it's hard to be a single parent. Most of us do everything because we have to. You don't." "You a.s.sume I'm wealthy." She raised her eyebrows. "Aren't you?" "I make a decent living." Ten or twenty times the one she made, ifLynnwas any judge. "Couldn't you afford a nanny?" "I don't want someone else raising my child." He said it in a hard voice. The words sliced like a switchblade between the ribs. She was someone else. He swore. "I wasn't talking about you. "No?" "When you contacted the hospital, what did you have in mind? That we trade kids?" Trade kids?Lynnstared at him in shock. Was that what he had in mind? "You don't love your-" she corrected herself "-mydaughter at all, do you?" Neither his voice nor his expression softened an iota. "I wasn't talking about me. You're the one who started this. I'm asking what you thought you'd get out of it."

She squeezed her fingers on her lap. "What I'd get out of it? You think I'm using this mix-up to gain

something?"

"Why not?" He sounded grim. "You know the hospital is prepared to pay a fortune to shut us up."

"I don't want money." Shaking, she gathered the pictures of the daughter she'd never met and pushed

them heedlessly into her purse, then s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and stood. "I told you what I wanted. That's all I have to say. My attorney will be contacting you about visitation rights." "Stop," he snapped. "Sit down." "Why?" "We have to talk." He shut his eyes again for a moment, then opened them and let out a ragged breath. "Please." Lynnbit her lip,then slowly sat again. "What is there to say?" "I don't know, but these are our kids. Do we want the courts mandating their futures?"

"No."Lynnsagged. "I didn't bring a lawyer today. I hoped..."

"I hoped, too." After a long silence he sighed. "Where do you suggest we go from here?"

"I'd like to meet her. Jenny Rose. And I expect you'd like to meet Sh.e.l.ly." When he nodded,Lynnsaid fiercely, "You can't have her, you know. She's my daughter. I love her. I'm her world." Adam Landry's hard mouth twisted. "It would seem we have something in common. I'd fight to the death for Rose. n.o.body is taking her. So you can put that right out of your mind."

Had she imagined raising both girls? "Then what?" she asked in a low voice.

He shook his head. "Visitation. We can take it slow."

"Have you told Rose about me?"Lynnasked curiously. "About what happened?"

"No. You?"

"No." She made a face. "It's a hard thing to explain to a three-year-old."

"On Rose's nightstand is a picture of her mommy, who she knows is in heaven. How the h.e.l.l do I introduce you?" Bafflement and anger filled his dark eyes, so like Sh.e.l.ly's.

"All we can do is our best." How prissy she sounded,Lynnthought in distaste.

He didn't react to her sugar pill, continuing as if she'd said nothing, "It's going to scare the h.e.l.l out of her if I suddenly announce she isn't my daughter at all. And, oh yeah, here's your real mommy." Lynnhad imagined the same conversation a million times. To a child this age, parents were the only security. They were the anchor that made exploring the world possible.

"Maybe we should meet first," she suggested. "Would it be less scary once they know us?"

"Maybe." He made a rough sound in his throat. "Yeah. All right. We'll all just be buddies at first."

She let his irony pa.s.s, giving a small nod. When he said nothing more,Lynnclutched her purse in her lap.

"Shall I bring Sh.e.l.ly toPortlandone day?"

"Why don't I come there instead? Rosebud would enjoy a day at the beach. It might seem more natural."

Rosebud. She liked that. She liked, too, what the gentle nickname suggested about this man. Perhaps he wasn't as tough as he seemed.

"Fine. Sat.u.r.day?"

They agreed. He wrote down her address and phone number, then gave her a business card with his. It all felt so ... mundane, a mere appointment, not the clock set ticking for an earthshaking event.

He escorted her out of the conference room and, with his hand on her elbow, hustled her past the cl.u.s.ter of lawyers and administrators lying in wait.

Over his shoulder, he told them brusquely, "We'll be in touch once we figure this out."

Lynnimagined the consternation brewing at their abrupt departure. Together.

She and Adam Landry rode down silently in the elevator, Lynn painfully conscious of his physical presence. She caught him glancing at her once or twice, but each time he looked quickly away, frowning at the lighted numbers over the door. Of course, he couldn't help being so imposing at his height, with broad shoulders and the build of a natural athlete. Nor could he help that face, with Slavic cheekbones and bullish jaw and high forehead that together made him handsome enough to displace Mel Gibson in a woman's fantasies.

She was glad that Sh.e.l.ly looked like her mother and not her father. It would have been too bizarre for words to see her daughter in this stranger's face. As though they must have had s.e.x and she just didn't remember it, or else how could she have breast-fed his child, raised her, loved her?

Heat suddenly blossomed on her cheeks. Had he had the same thought, she wondered, about her? As though he must know her on a level deeper than he understood? No wonder he didn't want to look at her!

When the elevator doors opened, he gripped her arm again as if she wouldn't know where to go without his guidance. Habit, she gathered, when he was with a woman. "Where are you parked?"

"My car is right out in front."

He urged her forward, his stride so long she had to scuttle along like a tiny hermit crab just to avoid falling and being hauled ungracefully to her feet. Outside the hospital doors,Lynnbalked.

Adam Landry looked so surprised when she pointedly removed her elbow from his bruising grip that she might have been amused under other circ.u.mstances.

"My car is right over there." She gestured. "I don't see a purse s.n.a.t.c.her lurking. I can make it on my own, thank you, Mr. Landry."

"Adam."

"Adam," she acknowledged. "I'll see you Sat.u.r.day."

The lines between his nose and mouth deepened. "We'll be there."

Neither moved for an awkward moment. Then he bent his head in a stiff goodbye and stalked away across the parking lot. With a sense of unreality she watched him go, wondering how she would have viewed him if they'd pa.s.sed in the halls earlier, before she knew who he was.

I would have thought he must be a doctor, she decided. He had that air of money and command, as though he could make life and death decisions before breakfast and a.s.sume it was his right He would be a tough opponent, way out of her league.

Then she didn't dare let him become an opponent,Lynnthought again. Although she disliked the idea acutely, she must accommodate him, coax him, play friends do whatever it took to stay out of court.

Her stomach roiled. It was bad enough that a divorced woman with a child had to spend the next twenty years somehow getting along with her ex-husband. Now she, LynnChanak , had gone one better: she had to get along with a man she hadn't chosen, even if foolishly. A man she'd nevermarried, never made love with a total stranger. All for the sake of the child they shared.

For better or worse, they were tied together until Sh.e.l.ly and Rose were grown. How bizarre did it get? * * * Lynn made the long, winding trip back over the coastal range to the Pacific Ocean and home. Her instinct was to collect Sh.e.l.ly right away, to rea.s.sure herself by her daughter's presence that nothing would ever change, that they were a family.

But there were things she didn't want Sh.e.l.ly to hear, and she should make some phone calls first.

She got Brian's answering machine and started to leave a halting message, feeling like an idiot. Why was she always taken aback when the beep sounded and she had to talk onto a tape? But this time she'd barely begun when he picked up the phone.

"Yeah, I'm here."

"I, um, I told you I'd found her."

"Our daughter."

"Yes." She took a breath. "Today I saw pictures of her. She has your eyes. And my hair."

Strangely, what flitted into her mind at that moment wasn't the photo, but rather the potent way Adam. Landry's gaze had touched her and the grit in his voice when he said, "She looks like you."

"How do you know this is the right kid?" her ex-husband, the true stranger, said with an audible sneer.

Closing her eyes, Lynn said evenly, "We've had DNA testing done. And you'd know,if you saw her."

He grunted. "So what do you want from me?"

"Nothing." How glad she was to be able to say that! "I thought you should know. That's all."

"Uh-huh. Well, you do what you want." His tone changed. "Hey, my call-waiting beeped. Hold on." When he came back on a minute later, Brian said, "You don't have her there, right?"

"The man who has been raising her didn't hand her over to me, if that's what you mean."

Brian being Brian, he stayed focused on all that he cared about. "Well, I'm not paying any more child support. I mean, Sh.e.l.ly's not my responsibility. And I'm not paying this other guy, I can tell you that."

How could she ever have married this man? How had she deceived herself, even for a while, into thinking she loved him?

"You held Sh.e.l.ly and kissed her and changed her diaper. She thinks you're her daddy. After all these years, don't you love her at all?" Lynn asked, trying to understand.

"She's not my kid," he explained, as though she was an idiot not to grasp the concept immediately. "Maybe it's different for a woman. But for a guy ... hey, we want to pa.s.s on our own bloodlines. I mean, sure, Sh.e.l.ly's a sweet kid. But she's got a dad now, right?"

"That's lucky for her, isn't it?" Lynn carefully, gently, hung up the telephone receiver.

However much she feared Adam Landry, he had to be a better father than the man she'd married.

She picked up the phone again and dialed quickly. Her mother answered on the second ring.

"Mom, I saw her picture today."