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Slamming his beer onto the table with unusual force, Scott turned, pinning her with a stare that he knew wasn’t nice, but one he couldn’t avoid, either. Other than in bed, his passion was always firmly under wraps. He couldn’t seem to keep it there at the moment.

“It was completely my fault,” he said, gritting his teeth so hard they hurt. The pain was tangible, identifiable, welcome. “I was larger than life, speeding like the spoiled, immature punk I was, so certain that I was above it all. Above the law…and death.”

“You didn’t do anything any other kid hasn’t done.”

Other kids might speed. But most other kids didn’t kill their fiancées while doing it.

His first reply was a derisive, humorless laugh. Followed by, “So many times I’d heard people—my friends even—say that I had it all. But in the end, I had nothing.”

Depleted, Scott picked up his beer, slid down on the cushion until his head touched the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling. “No amount of money could help her hang on.” The words were as soft as his previous ones had been harsh. Moving his head, he looked over at Tricia, hurting all over again. “You know?”

She nodded, her gaze never leaving his. What was she thinking? Wondering whether she could trust her son to his driving? Glad she hadn’t been the one in his car, in his care, that Saturday so long ago?

“Money didn’t give me the ability necessary to help her. Nor could it revive her when help finally did arrive.”

He glanced away and then back, eyes open wide, completely focused on her as he finished. “No amount of money could ease the pain of knowing what I’d done, of having to face her family, to bury her, to live without her; and in the months and years that have followed, there hasn’t been enough money in the world to take away the guilt….”

God, she hated feeling helpless. Hugging her arms around her shoulders, Tricia sat beside Scott, studying his hunched silhouette in the dim light, aware that there was nothing she could do. No words that would change the circumstances of his life. Nothing she could offer him to alleviate the self-loathing.

She was a woman who’d once been in control of everything about her life, and the realization left her floundering. Should she get up? Leave him to the mercies of his conscience? Go to bed?

It was his bed.

She could sit quietly. For as long as it took. If he wanted her there, she wanted to be there.

And she wanted to tell him the truth, as he just had with her. It would be such a relief. She valued his opinion. He’d tell her she was being ridiculous, worrying herself sick over Leah. All she had to do was open her mouth. She could do it. And then…

No. She wasn’t going to revisit that ground. She’d been all over it. Too many times. Some things just had to be put to rest or she’d be incapable of going on. Taylor needed a sane parent.

“Not quite the hero anymore, huh?”

He’d turned his head, studying her.

“I don’t believe in fairy tales.”

The CD player changed discs, the clicking loud in the room. Intrusive. Tricia went to check on Taylor. She adjusted the covers at her son’s waist and double-checked the latch on the side of the crib, ensuring that her small son was secure. Running a hand lightly over his fine dark curls, she sucked in a long, shuddering breath. Her integrity depended solely on being the best mother she could be.

Scott didn’t need her, or her protection. Taylor did.

“I will keep you safe,” she whispered. “Whatever it takes.”

Calm as she returned to the living room, clear in her resolve, she settled on the cushion next to Scott. She didn’t think he’d moved at all.

“You are, right now, the same man I’ve loved and cared about for almost two years.” The words came softly, without conscious thought.

That statement was the only honesty she could give him.

He covered one of her hands with his. And started to talk. About the help his family tried to give him. The support from Alicia’s parents. Sitting there with him, listening, Tricia could easily imagine the days he described. Four years of college, trying not to feel, and always feeling too much. She understood completely the despair he described, the sense that life would never again contain moments of pure joy. At the same time there was the undeniable urge to press on, simply because one breathed.

And she understood the social pressures, the parents who just wouldn’t give up their need to make everything at least appear okay, regardless of whether or not things would ever be okay again.

He held her hand during the telling. At some point, as the minutes passed, her fingers stole up his arm, tangling lightly in the hair at the back of his neck, caressing him.

“I graduated from college with a dual degree in fire science and business, went to work for my father and hated the sight of the years stretching endlessly ahead,” he said, as though narrating rehearsed lines.

“I was so tired of fighting it all—my memories, my guilt, my family.”

Her fingers stilled along the back of his neck. “So what did you do?” Had he fallen into the same depths that had almost consumed her? Scott seemed far too strong….

“For one thing, I gave in. They’d been trying for a couple of years to fix me up, and when they introduced me to Diana Grove of the New England banking Groves, I went along with everyone’s not-so-gentle pushing. Diana was sweet, beautiful, had a great sense of humor…”

A paragon of virtues. Tricia would bet she’d been honest in every way, too.

Nothing like herself. A jeans-wearing alterations specialist for a local dry cleaner, who was paid in cash only. There was nothing upper-crust about her. Not her plain brown unstyled hair. Not her drugstore makeup or homemade purse. Certainly not her non-existent bank account—or the made-up social security number on file at the free health clinic where she took Taylor.

And not the facts she hid from the world, either.

“And for the other thing?” He’d said giving in was one thing he’d done. She rubbed the too-tight cords of his neck, taking comfort from the contact, the heat of his smooth skin, even though she knew that in loving him too much lay a danger that could kill her. Or Taylor. She couldn’t let herself need Scott. Couldn’t let a sense of security tempt her to trade away the freedom she’d bought at such a high price.

“What?” he asked, turning his head to look at her. In their closeness she could see the reflections of light in his eyes, the warmth and compassion that was never missing for long, shining from deep inside.

“You said ‘for one thing’ you gave in. I just wondered what the other thing was.”

He took her free hand, held it between both of his, stroking her palm with his thumb. It was so damn hard to keep her resistance up when he did that—when all she wanted to do was concentrate on that simple touch until it was her only reality.

“I made the decision to take control where I could. I was never again going to be in a position where I had to sit, helpless and incompetent, as I watched someone’s life slip away. It wasn’t enough that I had the degree in fire science. I was determined to get paramedic training, as well.”

“What did your family—and Diana—think about that?”

“She was understanding. Encouraged me to do what I needed to do.”

As any well-trained socially prominent wife would do with the man she hoped to marry.

“And your family?”

He shrugged, turning her hand as his thumb moved from her palm to her wrist. “They humored me.”

“Expecting you to get over it.”

“Something like that.”

“You didn’t.”

“Nope.” Sitting back, Scott put an arm around her shoulders, still holding her hand. “Diana didn’t believe me at first when I told her I was going to spend my life using that training.”

“And when she did?”

“She went along with it for a while.”