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“Out on a fishing boat with a couple of my late father’s friends. It’s an annual event.”

Thomas waited for the next question. And all the questions after that. He could handle them. And then he’d be free to get on with his life.

Even if that meant living in a house that was empty and far too quiet. Going to bed alone. But then he’d never been one to require much sleep.

3

T he little guy went down without a fuss. It wasn’t all that unusual. Taylor was a great kid. He played hard. Ate well. And slept when it was time. He was a tribute to the woman who’d borne him.

The woman who was pouring a diet soda before joining Scott in the living room Wednesday evening. There was only one lamp burning softly on a small table in the corner. As was the case most evenings when he and Tricia were home together, the television remained silent. He’d put a couple of new age jazz CDs in the player, turning the volume down low. And was sitting in the middle of the L-shaped sectional sofa, dressed in one of the pairs of silk lounging slacks from his old life that he’d never quite been able to abandon and a ten-year-old faded blue San Diego Fire Department T-shirt. He rested his arm along the overstuffed cushion.

“You sure you don’t want anything?” Her voice, as she called from the kitchen, sounded normal enough.

“No, thanks.” What he wanted was a beer. But if he started drinking, he wasn’t apt to stop, and hungover wasn’t the way he wanted to begin his four-day-off rotation. Hungover—or worse, drunk—wasn’t the way he wanted Taylor to see him. Ever.

Taylor. Why couldn’t the baby have fussed a bit tonight? Distracted them? Cut into the time Scott generally lived for—time alone with the most fascinating woman he’d ever held in his arms.

“I brought you a beer,” she said, walking around the corner. She didn’t hand him the bottle, setting it on the low square table in front of him, instead. Then she curled up a couple of cushions down from him, balancing her glass of soda on one jean-clad thigh.

Most nights she changed into pajamas right after Taylor went down.

“Thanks.” He picked up the bottle, taking a sip since she’d opened it for him. Couldn’t have it go to waste.

“You looked like you could use a drink.”

Scott nodded.

“So, are you going to tell me the rest of the story?” Her voice was almost drowned out by the soft music.

He’d known the question was coming. Had felt it in her look, her tentative touch, all day. Ever since Blue’s Clues had ended that morning and Taylor had let out a wail protesting against being ignored any longer.

That had been right after he’d told her about driving his Porsche into the side of a mountain. Taylor’s cry had been like divine intervention. Saving him.

“Nothing lasts forever, huh?” he asked now, glancing at the woman who’d found a way into his life despite the dead bolts he’d firmly attached to any doors that might be left.

She shrugged. Sipped. “Some things do.”

“Yeah?” Divine intervention sure didn’t. Taylor wasn’t crying tonight. In fact, the rescue that morning had only bought him part of a day.

Or nothing at all. Because he’d spent the ensuing hours reliving the horrors. In one form or another.

“Sure.”

“Name one.”

“Love.”

Maybe. Finding out wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

“Take Alicia, for instance. Whatever happened between the two of you, wherever she is now, the love you felt for her obviously still exists.”

Obviously. He stared at her, glad the dim light made it impossible to read the message in her eyes. And his. This wasn’t a time for expectations. Or declarations. It wasn’t a time to break the rules.

To care too much.

“So what happened?”

Maybe if she hadn’t spoken with such compassion he could have stood, walked away. Maybe.

He had to be able to walk away from her.

“She died.” Like millions before her. And millions after. Like Kelsey Stuart the day before. Too much like Kelsey Stuart.

He heard Tricia’s glass touch the table. Felt her sit back against the sofa. And then nothing. Heard nothing. Felt nothing.

“I did everything I could.” His voice belonged to a stranger, someone who was sitting a distance away, speaking of things Scott refused to think about. “It wasn’t much.”

Quiet had never been less peaceful. Or a muted room more filled with loud and bitter truth. He watched a drop of perspiration move slowly down the bottle of beer. Thought about picking it up and pouring it into his mouth.

“My ability extended to a phone call on my still-operable car phone. And to waiting for someone to come and do whatever needed to be done.”

“Could you get to her?”

Tricia’s voice slid over him, inside him, chafing the nerves just beneath his skin with her compassion.

“We hit on her side of the Porsche. She was thrown into my lap. I was afraid the car might explode so I moved her just enough to get us clear of the wreck.”

He’d made a mistake, doing that. The car hadn’t exploded. And her neck had been broken. If she’d lived, he’d have paralyzed her by that move.

Someone, at some point, had said better to have been paralyzed than blown up. Might even be something Scott would say to a victim. But it didn’t ease the guilt.

Neither did the beer he gulped.

Tricia didn’t move, didn’t reach out that slender hand to touch him. He was immensely thankful for that, yet he hated being with her and feeling so separate. So alone.

“Leaning up against a rock on the other side of the road, I held her and prayed for someone with medical knowledge to come past. Two cars passed. Stopped. But couldn’t help.”

“Were you hurt?”

Depended on how she defined that. “A few cuts and bruises…” A broken left forearm where Alicia had landed, slamming his wrist against the door. Not that it had hurt. He’d been so numb he hadn’t even known about the injury until hours later.

When everything had hurt. He’d gone crazy with the pain….

Scott got up, went for another beer. When he came back, Tricia was sitting just as he’d left her. Disappointed, relieved, he sat again.

“For forty-five minutes I waited there with her sticky blond hair spread over my arm, her sweet face going purple, and watched as she died in my arms.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”