-Flowers in the Night-

Chapter One

"Emilie Ferrier?"

"Yes?"

He wiped the rain from his face with the side of his hand and looked around the crowded bar. He'd been in worse places. But not sober.

"I'm here from the garage."

It hadn't been hard to pick her out of the noisy, colorful group of bikers and truck drivers. He'd only had to see her strained face as she sat in the closest corner to the door. She was the one wearing more than a tank top who didn't look like she was having a good time.

"Thank you," she responded, standing up slowly and holding her brown coat closed with both hands. "I'm so glad you could come."

Her smile couldn't have been more genuine and welcoming if she'd been standing at her own front door.

"No problem," he answered quietly, understanding why she was looking at him as if he were in charge of the last lifeboat on the Titanic. "If you're ready -- "

"Oh, yes!" She snatched up her purse and followed him slowly to the door.

He held the pockmarked door for her, noticing that she was limping. The tow truck was parked close to the door, the neon lights from the dirty bar flashing on its broad wet side. The rain was still coming down in cold sheets, pounding the pavement between the open door and the truck.

He waited, watching her in her expensive coat that already looked wet. Wondering when she would demand that he bring the truck to the door for her so she wouldn't have to get wet again.

The words were already forming on his lips to explain that there hadn't been enough room to get any closer when she smiled up at him, ducked her head and started walking towards the truck.

He watched her for a minute longer, surprised by her action. Surprised, too, by the sturdy, ugly shoes on her feet. He'd expected her to be wearing something strappy and high heeled, bitching and whining about the weather and his lack of attention to her comfort.

He knew who she was. Everyone in the town of Ferrier's Mountain knew the Ferrier family. She was a long way from the mountain, just outside of Charlotte. She'd called home for help when her car had broken down on the highway. And her voice had been very clear when he'd asked her name.

He pulled his cap down low and followed her out into the weather, adjusting his strides to her smaller, halting ones, his hands in his pockets.

The wind whipped frigidly through the parking lot and the rain beat down on his companion's bare head. Her hair had been pinned up but by the time they reached the truck, it was falling down, soaked against her head and shoulders.

It was difficult for her to step up into the truck. She clenched the door handle and pushed herself up until her knuckles turned white with the stress.

"Can I help?" he asked finally, wondering curiously what was wrong with her.

The wind blew a strand of dark wet hair across her pale face, her eyes a vivid, unusual shade of green. Suffering was gently etched in the lines around her mouth and eyes.

Maybe that was part of what made her so arresting, he decided, looking down at her as she struggled but refused to acknowledge defeat. She was, without doubt, the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

"Yes," she whispered, taking his arm.

The admission cost her. Pride warred with pain in her eyes for a brief moment. Then she looked away, obviously embarrassed by the need for help.

She was a Ferrier, after all, he determined disdainfully, lifting her bodily into the truck. Imagine having some lowly mechanic with dirty hands touch you. Not a pleasant experience.

He closed the door behind her then ran to his side of the cab, climbing in and turning on the heat.

"Where's your car?" he asked, not looking at her.

"About a mile from here," she replied breathlessly, glancing at her watch. "I'm already late for a very important appointment in Charlotte. I don't suppose you could -- "

"Sure." He nodded, pulling the truck out of the parking lot between the motorcycles and the tractor-trailers. "I can take you where you're going first. We can pick up the car on the way back."

"Thanks."

He didn't reply, keeping his eyes and his mind on the dangerous road as they exited to the highway.

"It was awful, wasn't it?" she continued on with a delicate shudder. "When I saw the lights, I was wet and freezing and I thought I didn't care what it was as long as it had a phone. Once I got in there, I wasn't so sure."

"It wasn't a nice place," he agreed blandly.

She smiled and shivered in her wet clothes. "I'm sorry to get your truck so wet. That's my car over there." She pointed to the dark Mercedes parked along the edge of the highway.

"Did it run out of gas?" he asked mildly, his tone a trifle patronizing.

"Of course not," she replied, looking at him carefully. "Where's Mr. Hanson today?"

"Mr. Hanson died last year right after I bought the shop and the tow truck from him. Retirement didn't agree with him."

"Oh."

He dared a glance at her, seeing her wet, bedraggled coat hunched around her as she sat in the corner close to the door. She looked like she was about fifteen but he knew better. When Hanson had sold him the shop, he'd emphasized the fact that Emilie Ferrier had been letting him take care of her cars since her father had died ten years before. It was a great honor -- and a lucrative account.

"So, you haven't changed the name from Hanson's," she said after a few minutes.

"No," he answered shortly. "Where are we going in Charlotte?"

"The big bank building that looks like the space shuttle," she told him. "I can never remember which bank that is."

He nodded. "I know which one you mean."

He felt her looking at him, studying his profile. He was uncomfortably aware of her and wished she'd sit back and be quiet and look at the scenery.

Despite the limp and the wet hair, she was a very attractive woman. When he'd lifted her into the truck, her waist had been no bigger than his two hands around it even through the heavy coat. She smelled like fresh air and clean rain and something expensive that teased his senses.

"So, you've been working on my cars for a year?"

"That's right," he stated flatly. "I hope everything's been satisfactory?"

"Until today," she allowed. "Not that I think that was your fault. I hit something coming down the road. I think it was a tree branch. From the storm, I suppose. The wheel jerked out of my hands and I couldn't control the car. Once I got to the side, it wouldn't move at all."

"Probably some damage to the axle," he conjectured noncommittally. "Too bad. That's a good car."

"I hope it won't be difficult to repair," she worried.

He looked at her as he stopped for a red light. "I'll have to look at it."

She stared at him openly for a few seconds. Even when he returned that interested gaze, she continued to study his features as if she were memorizing them. Then she looked away.

He felt her eyes on him again, though, as soon as he started down the road.

Was this some game with her? he wondered, keeping his eyes steadfastly glued to the windshield even when they stopped for lights. If so, it was annoying and uncomfortable and she needed to be taught a lesson in good manners. Staring at men, especially male strangers, would be included in that lesson. She was asking for trouble.

Traffic was slow. Bad enough on most days, the rain and slightly icy conditions made driving worse. They reached the bank building and he took a ticket from the parking attendant.

"If you're not gonna be a long time, you can park that rig over there," the attendant told him.

They both looked at the woman beside him.

"I don't know," she answered quietly. "It might be an hour."

"You'll have to park then," the attendant told him. "The ground floor has higher clearances. If you can find a place to park."

"Thanks," he said, pulling the truck into the beginning of the parking labyrinth.

"You could let me off here," she said, indicating a door that was marked leading to the elevators that serviced the building. "I'll try not to take too long."

"Yeah."

"Oh," she began, her hand resting on the door handle. "If you had changed the name of the garage when you bought it, what would you have called it?"

His gaze slid across her features insolently, his hands lingering on the steering wheel. " 'Ferrier Auto Repair'. To match the rest of the town."

She looked down at the seat between them then back up into his face. "Why not your own name?"

"Not as interesting," he replied, leaning his head back against the seat and pulling his cap down over his eyes. "Take your time, Miz Ferrier. I can wait all day."

Emilie stared at him a little longer, wondering to herself if she'd ever encountered such an ill-natured man. Did he hate everyone? Or was it something personal that he didn't like about her?

Not that it mattered, she reminded herself excitedly. She was there and her lawyer was waiting upstairs. Hopefully with good news. The opinion of the man beside her didn't matter.

She opened the door and swung her legs down out of the truck. A sharp pain shot up through her right leg when it made contact with the concrete but she bit her lip and forced herself to march to the red doors that said 'elevator'.

The doors parted. The elevator was empty. She got inside and pushed the button to go up, glancing at the man in the truck to see if he'd watched her labored progress. His black cap was still pulled down over his eyes.

The doors closed and Emilie rested back gratefully against the cold wall. Her leg had been throbbing all day. The mile long walk hadn't helped but it was all a matter of perspective. There were good days and there were bad. If good news waited for her at the end of this particular journey, it would have all been worthwhile.

She got off at the fifteenth floor and was greeted by a paralegal who filled her in on the details of what had happened so far. The woman asked if she'd like coffee and took her coat, trying not to grimace when she saw the water dripping to the floor from it. Emilie declined the hot drink.

Emilie did what she could with her hair and dried her face, staring at herself in the dreadful bathroom fluorescent lights. Her hands trembled slightly as she touched her cheek.

No matter how many times she promised herself that she wouldn't get her hopes up, somehow they always sailed into the conference room, kite-like behind her.

Another woman, this time a legal assistant, waited for her outside the ladies' room. She asked if Emilie would like coffee and when she shook her head, showed her the way to the conference room that Emilie felt sure she could have found blindfolded.

"Ms. Ferrier, sir," she said peeking around the door then opening it widely and allowed Emilie to enter.

"Emilie." Alain gestured to the end of the table. "We're just getting started."

She sat alone at the long table. The highly polished surface reflected her face and the delicate pink of her blouse as though it were a mirror. The blinds had been pulled over the large windows that overlooked the city but she wished they had been left open even if the day was stormy. It made the room seem less confining.

Across from her, the two lawyers argued softly in the quiet room.

Her lawyer, Alain Jackson of Jackson, Parsons and Levitt, sharp, expensive, and well dressed, leaned towards his counterpart, Jonathon Stewart from Stewart and McPhail, as though he could impress his considerable will on the other man.

"Where's the problem, Jon? Your client doesn't want the little girl. My client does. At least let them meet and see what happens."

Mr. Stewart stood up abruptly, adjusting his cheap brown suit and touching a barely white handkerchief to his brow. "I would like to help you. I would like to help your client. And I'm sure Ms. Ferrier would make an excellent mother." He looked her way with an apologetic eye. "But my client is adamant. There has to be two parents for this adoption to take place."

Emilie nodded slowly, acknowledging the man's regret with her eyes.

Alain fixed the shorter man with a shark's gaze. "There'd be more than the usual adoption fee in it for you, Jon. What's the harm in them meeting?"

Mr. Stewart drew himself up to his full height and tried to stare down the other man. "My client will not be moved on this. I am sorry, Ms. Ferrier. And I do wish you well with another adoption. Good day."

Mr. Stewart walked quickly from the room. The door closed softly behind him.

Alain sighed heavily. He adjusted his silk tie, took a quick glance at his own reflection in the mirrorlike surface of the table then turned to his client.

"I'm sorry, too. Emilie. I thought that this was the one for you."

Emilie closed her eyes for a brief instant, then smiled as she forced herself to take a deep breath.

She had been trying to adopt a child for three years. The outcome wasn't unexpected. Still she felt that familiar let down as the excitement washed away from her in the gray tide of reality.

"You did your best, Alain. I appreciate it."

She pushed her chair back across the pale blue carpet and reached for her sodden coat.

"Let me help you with that," Alain offered quickly.

Emilie stood up, slowly, painfully, and accepted his help. He held the long wool coat while she slid her arms into the sleeves then settled it across her slender shoulders.

"Stay in town tonight," he said quietly from the general direction of her right ear. His hands lingered on her arms. "Let me take you out for dinner. There's a great musical at the performing arts center."

"I have to get back," she declined gracefully. "Elspeth isn't herself during the full moon."

Alain, whose father had represented her family before he was born, snorted disdainfully. "Your aunt needs help, Emilie."

She turned slightly and stared at him, green eyes flashing in quick anger. "Help?"

He smiled and moved his hands from her coat. "Help," he explained, swallowing the words he'd been about to say as quickly as bad wine. "Someone who could watch over her so that you could have a life too, Emilie. You want a baby, darlin', but you've never even had a life of your own. Always takin' care of everyone. Maybe you should just live a little."

He searched the perfect oval of Emilie's face for some sign that his words had reached her but there was no emotion that stirred on the surface or in the depths of her strange green eyes.

Ferrier eyes, he recalled. Her father had looked at him with those same eyes.

"I've lived as much as I've wanted to live, Alain," she assured him, picking up her scarf and gloves. "Elspeth isn't a burden for me. I love her. Call me when you hear anything else, please."

"You know I will," he answered easily. "You won't reconsider about spending the night?"

Emilie looked up into his handsome face, knowing that the invitation was for more than a dinner and a show. She'd known Alain Jackson most of her life. She'd seen his teasing, boyish good looks slide into the carefully manicured, tanned and sculpted man before her.

"I have to go home, Alain," she repeated in a gentle voice. "Thank you anyway."

She touched his hand then removed her fingers quickly before he could return the caress.

He didn't fool himself. It was only a gesture of friendship. He'd known Emilie too long to think it was anything more.

Not that he didn't wish it. He had always found Emilie attractive, had always thought there might be fire behind those emerald green eyes.

He watched her walk from the conference room slowly, the limp pronounced in her right leg as it always was on cold rainy days. His father had told him that it was a curse from God on the wealthy, proud Emile Ferrier that his only child had been stricken by polio.

Yet, what Emilie lacked in physical prowess, she made up in beauty. Her skin was like velvet and her face was like an angel.

A cool, distant angel, he considered. At least she had always been so to him. Blessed with the abiding legacy of the Ferrier fortune, she went her own way. She smiled at him but her eyes were far away. He knew she wasn't really looking at him.

Emilie wrapped her scarf around her neck and pulled on her gloves as she rode the elevator down to the parking deck. She wasn't disappointed anymore, she told herself. She'd gone through it too many times.

She was too old. Or too young. Her skin was the wrong color. Or she wasn't the right religion. The child had to be adopted by two parents. Or the child could only be adopted by a man.

Tears welled in her eyes. She looked up at the white elevator ceiling, willing them away, and refusing to let even one slide down her cheek.

She'd known since she was sixteen that the same polio virus that had crippled her had left her sterile. She'd cried the day the doctor had told her that she would never have children. She'd promised herself that she wouldn't cry as long as there was hope that she could adopt. Somewhere in the world was a child that needed her. That was God's plan for her. That was why she had been left barren and crippled but alive on the earth.

But she'd cried so many times since that promise. Every time the adoption that had seemed so promising, went wrong. Late in her bed at night when the long hours until morning seemed interminable.

The elevator doors parted at the parking deck and two men in dark suits stepped aside to let her out of the conveyance. Self consciously, she walked between them, every footstep painfully aware that her uneven stride made her ungainly.

How many boys in school had been attracted by her family name and her pretty face, only to turn away in revulsion when she got up to walk with them?

At least, she recalled, adult men weren't as cruel as their younger counterparts. In school, they had openly teased her, nicknames catching on that made her shun her classmates. As adults, they merely turned away and whispered quietly that it was a pity.

Except for Alain Jackson, of course. She smiled. He had always made his regard for her, and her family's money, well known to her.

But she was getting cynical in her old age.

Alain had been married twice, twice divorced. Each time that he was free, he tried again to establish a relationship with her. He simply didn't feel that she was the only woman in the world.

And if she was waiting for that to happen, she told herself, looking for the bright red tow truck, she might as well consign herself to being alone forever. She'd made that mistake once. She would never be that innocent again.

She found the big tow truck, not parked in a space but between two spaces and part of an exit ramp. Determined not to need his help again, Emilie ground her teeth against the pain from her leg, jerked open the door and climbed up into the cab.

It was more of an effort than she'd thought but she finally half pulled, half pushed herself on the seat. She looked up, breathlessly, into the man's face as he calmly watched her.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready," she assured him, straightening herself against the door. "I'm sorry you had to wait so long."

"No problem," he replied, a smile on his lean face. He'd spent the last hour and a half kicking his own ass for letting Emilie Ferrier see anything but the most polite, easy going, well-mannered garage owner in the world.

What was he thinking? The Ferrier account was important to his business. His personal opinion didn't matter. He didn't know what it was about her that irritated him but he did know he wasn't going to let it bother him again. At least not while she was with him.

The heavy layers of concrete that made up the circular parking deck had sheltered the sound of the heavy sheets of rain that were swamping the city streets. The temperature had fallen again and as he pulled out of the shelter, a car slid sideways into traffic, striking two other cars stopped at the light.

Emilie held her breath and the door handle as her escort did a quick circle around the accident then stopped abruptly at the light, the tires screeching a little on the wet pavement.

He looked at her and smiled then pulled back out into traffic when the light changed.

"You must have been a stunt driver before you owned your garage," she remarked, terrified, as he swerved from one lane to another.

Charlotte was a city of demon drivers. If they could make it to the interstate ramp, she would feel safer driving at seventy miles an hour than she would on the crowded city streets. Especially since her driver seemed intent on coming as close as he could to the other cars around them.

"Just intent on getting you home, ma'am," he intoned, narrowly missing another car that slid off to the side of the road in front of them.

"In one piece, I hope," she added.

"In one piece," he agreed with a quick glance and another smile.

She looked at him as they joined the other traffic on the interstate. He was tall and lean. Not an ounce of surplus body weight hung on his frame. Yet she'd felt the strength of his hands and arms as he'd tossed her effortlessly into the truck.

His face was dark and angular with the shadow of black beard haunting his chin and cheeks. Quick and assessing, his black eyes roamed her face but it wasn't an easy perusal. His mouth didn't seem to find pleasure in the motion when he did smile at her.

"Did you take a friendly pill while I was gone?" she asked, baiting him, not really sure why she'd do such a thing.

The smile faded and she was sure if he'd turned away from the road that his eyes would have become watchful.

"I apologize if I seemed rude before," he began slowly, the words coming haltingly from his throat.

"That's all right. I'm tough enough to take it."

A truck passed them, spraying up slush across the windows, and for an instant, the windshield was covered by the dirty gray water.

Emilie grabbed at her armrest, terrified by the blind feeling of helplessness. When she glanced at her companion as the wipers cleared the window, she saw that he was laughing.

"Not so tough in the clinches, huh?"

She glared at him. "I liked your artificial politeness better."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied shortly, forgetting his earlier pledge to himself. "I wouldn't want to upset your ideas on how you deserve to be treated."

They had reached her car and he pulled the tow truck to a stop in front of it.

"Stay here," he advised. "There's no reason for both of us to get soaked again."

It was a begrudging sort of deferment to Emilie being the one who was paying for the service and it angered her. She pushed open the truck door and slid down to the ground, trudging through the rain and the cold winds whipped by the fast moving traffic to reach his side.

"What the hell are you doing out here?" he yelled above the sound of a passing truck that sprayed water on them both.

"Why do you dislike me so much?" she shouted back. "You don't even know me!"

"You're right," he agreed, setting up the equipment that would tow her car back to his garage. "I don't know you at all. Let's keep it that way. Get back in the damned truck." He bent down close to the road, bringing the hook with him, looking underneath her car at the damage she'd done.

She followed him. "Does it look bad?"

He stared at her, rain dripping from his face. "I can't tell. I'm going to have to take it back and look at it there."

"What about me?" she pressed, coming down almost to the same level with him at the car bumper. "Is it because my family has money? Or is it because I'm crippled?"

He stared at her. He'd been brought up in a family that was plain spoken but even they wouldn't have spoken those words. He'd heard one of the Ferriers was crazy. Was this the crazy one?

"What?"

"You've had something against me from the minute you picked me up today," she explained despite the fact that her teeth were chattering and she was soaked from the top of her head to her feet. "I want to know."

Faced with those astonishing green eyes set in that pale angel's face, her lips turning visibly blue in the cold, he relented. "It's nothing personal," he told her. "I -- uh -- just thought you should have noticed that Ham Hanson was dead and that someone else was looking after your cars. I thought you were just too rich, too busy."

Her face, amazingly, brightened at his words. "I'm sorry. Really. It's just that I've never been very good with cars and I suppose I don't take the time to notice what happens with them."

"That's okay," he assured her. "If you'll get back into the truck, I can finish up out here."

She stuck out her hand. "I'm Emilie Ferrier. I'm sorry I haven't met you before now, Mr. -- "

"Nick." He took her hand, freezing and wet, in his own warmer one. "Nick Garrett."

"Nick," she said with a brilliant smile, wiping a hand that dripped with water across her equally wet hair, trying to keep it out of her face. "I'm glad to meet you."

"Thanks," he responded then glanced at the truck. "If you'll get back in -- "

She looked down at the water that was sluicing across her shoes as it ran to the side of the highway. "I don't think I can get back in there again by myself, Nick," she admitted ruefully. "I'm afraid I've reached my limit for the day. So, if you'd like to finish, I can just ride in my car back to town."

"That's not legal," he answered, finishing his hook up on the Mercedes. "I could lose my license for letting you do that."

She frowned. "Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't know. But I -- "

He was suddenly there beside her, taller than she'd noticed earlier, and darker, rain dripping from his black hair that was drawn back under his hat and rested on his shoulder.

"I'm finished. Let me help you."

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak when she looked into his eyes. Black eyes. Devil's eyes, as her father used to say. Up to no good. Not to be trusted. Gypsy's eyes.

"I'm sorry to be so much trouble," she apologized, starting to walk back around the side of the truck again. Her limp was more pronounced, painfully so as she was hunched over against the icy wind.

Before she went a dozen steps, he lifted her, coat and all, easily into his arms.

She didn't fight him, wondering instead what to do with her arms, ending up clenching her hands against her chest.

"This is better service than anyone deserves," she said, reaching with one hand to open the truck door.

"Even a Ferrier?" he wondered, dark eyes laughing ironically down into hers.

"Even a Ferrier," she pledged solemnly.

Chapter Two

She fell asleep on the long drive home. It was a valiant struggle that Nick watched from the corner of his eye. Her eyelids drooped and she rubbed her hands across her eyes like a child. She yawned and shifted positions but the truck was warm and she was evidently exhausted. It was only a few minutes once they were back on the road before her breathing became regular and her head turned against the seat.

"Thank you," she'd said with a little smile when he'd checked the car again then returned to the driver's side.

He'd studied her face briefly then started the truck's engine and watched for a break in traffic. "No problem."

He'd kept his eyes averted after that brief exchange, willing her silently to go to sleep or break out a pocket Nintendo. Anything except stare at him or talk to him. True, it was over an hour on the road until they reached Ferrier's Mountain, but he preferred the silence.

Emilie Ferrier was trouble. He'd known it when he'd looked down into those awesome green eyes. She was the kind of woman who drew people into her world. He could feel her pulling him closer when he looked into her eyes and something inside of him responded. He didn't want or need to go there. It was way too easy to get lost.

He watched her uneasily as she slept. Her face was a perfect oval, her skin flawless with a faintly pearly sheen. Her dark eyelashes curled against her cheek. Her lips were pink and parted slightly and she whispered unintelligible secrets in her sleep.

She didn't look real and she certainly didn't look like the heiress he'd expected. In those wet clothes and her hair straggled around her face, she looked more like some homeless waif.

Still, when her head slipped lower on the seat, he fought with himself not to touch her. His fingers itched to feel that creamy skin beneath them. Her perfume filled his senses in the warm truck. When her head fell again, it was only reasonable to put his hand under her neck and move her the few inches so that her head was resting against him.

She sighed and murmured something in her sleep but didn't wake up. Her hand came to rest on his thigh.

Nick put his hands back on the wheel and refused to look at her again. The warmth of her body pressed close to his side and the feel of her skin on his hands lingered to haunt him.

He moved her hand away from his leg but she moved it back. The touch burned through the thick layer of denim that separated them.

He switched off the heat and turned on the radio, uncomfortable despite his best intentions to ignore her. The songs on the radio were meaningless as he fought down a powerful wave of sexual attraction. He focused his mind on the road but she moved and sighed and it returned back to her.

She wasn't what he'd expected. A year of hearing stories about the Ferrier family, about Emilie herself, hadn't prepared him for the reality. No one had mentioned that she was beautiful. Or that she was crippled. Or that her touch was like a hot coal.

He finally pulled through the wrought iron gate that led down the long drive to the old mansion. It was a relief to see the lights in the large garage where he usually picked up and returned her cars.

The weather had changed during the drive up the mountain. The sleet had turned to fat, soft snowflakes that plopped wetly against the windshield. The night sky was alive with them in the steady beams of the truck's headlights.

They'd left the worst of the weather when they'd left the interstate. The town's higher elevation frequently made their weather different from the areas around them. It could be raining at the foot of the mountain and dry at the top.

Jacque de Ferrier had known what he was doing when he'd built his town on the side of the mountain, Nick mused, considering the large gold claim that had created the little town. The Frenchman had provided well for his family, the youngest descendent of which nestled against his shoulder.

"We're here, Ms. Ferrier," he began, trying to awaken her.

Her breathing continued rhythmically and her head slid a little further down against his chest.

"Emilie," he encouraged her to wake up, stifling a heavy groan. "We're back. Wake up."

There was still no response. But her head slid a little lower.

Finally, he threaded his fingers through her hair and brought her head back up to his shoulder level. "Emilie," he said, his face very near her own, "if you don't wake up, we're both going to be in a lot of trouble."

Emilie opened her eyes suddenly, blinking them sleepily as she tried to focus on the face that was close to her own. It occurred to her that she'd fallen asleep and that, somehow, she'd moved against Nick's shoulder and her hand --

She moved her hand out of his lap quickly and sat up straight. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I guess I fell asleep. Are we back home?"

"Yeah," he muttered darkly, a large, warm part of him wishing she hadn't moved so quickly, wishing her mouth had been just a half an inch closer --

"Oh, good," she rushed on, trying to gather her scattered wits together before she said something stupid. "I -- uh -- I hope I wasn't snoring or anything -- " "No," he smiled across at her, his eyes very dark in the half-light. "You sleep like an angel."

Emilie was bewildered by the tenderness of his tone and the intimacy of his words. And the combined effect on her breathing.

"Well, I -- well, thank you. I'm sorry this turned out to be an all day problem for you. Please include it on the bill for the repairs to the car."

"Don't worry," he assured her. "I will."

The cab of the truck seemed very small and very warm suddenly when she looked at him. He was turned towards her but she couldn't make out his expression in the darkness. "I appreciate all of your help."

He opened the truck door and climbed out, coming around to her side of the cab. "Let me help you down."

"Oh, that's not necessary," she replied, embarrassed by his offer yet hoping, if he did walk away, that her leg wouldn't collapse under her when she reached the ground.

"My pleasure, ma'am." He didn't move away but held out his hand to her.

She put her hand into his and let him help ease the jarring transition between the high truck cab and the hard ground.

"It's snowing," she remarked unnecessarily, wanting to take the simplistic words back as soon as they were out of her mouth.

"It is," he responded lightly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she answered. "Thanks."

"I'll have the car back in a few days unless there's a problem with parts," he promised her.

"All right. Thanks," she grinned, feeling foolish. "Again."

He started to climb back into the driver's side of the cab, cursing himself for wanting to be close to her that last time.

"Nick?"

He paused, half in and half out of the truck. A fleeting shadow caught his attention running across the white snow in the large open meadow beside the house. Then it was gone and he turned back to Emilie.

"You should call it Nick's," she said, waving to him. "You're right. There's way too many places named Ferrier on this mountain."

"I'll think about it," he promised, then got back in the truck and drove away.

The headlight beams picked out her slender form walking slowly up to the house. He'd been working on her cars for a year and hadn't met her. The chances were it would be another year or more before it happened again.

By then he would have forgotten that her skin was like satin and her hair was like silk. Cliche but apt. He would have forgotten how close he'd come to touching his mouth to hers in that last instant before she'd awakened to look at him with those green eyes.

"But not tonight, old son," he said out loud, turning out of her driveway. He headed his truck for home.

Emilie had seen the shadow cross the snow-covered meadow as well. She sighed as she looked out into the night.

"Elspeth?" she called out, her voice echoing back to her from the darkness. "Are you out there?"

"Go inside, child," her aunt advised, a creepy, disembodied voice floating back from somewhere around her. "I'll be in shortly."

Emilie hobbled inside, glad to reach the warmth and comfort of her own home. Her clothes were still wet close to her skin, though the top layer had dried in the truck. She felt clammy and cold and only wanted a hot bath, a glass of wine and a good night's sleep. She was worried about Elspeth, of course. She was always worried about Elspeth. Sometimes, contrary to what she'd told Alain earlier, she did feel tied to her aunt. Responsible for her even since she was very young.

Sometimes she felt as though she'd never been young. That she'd never had the experience of being carefree. It was as though she'd been born to look after other people. Her reckless, irresponsible parents, then her strange aunt. She told herself that she liked it that way. That no one needed to look after her. She'd been born responsible.

But maybe Alain was right, she considered wearily, as she undressed slowly and started to run her bath water. Maybe she hadn't lived her own life. And maybe taking on the responsibility of a baby was just compounding the fault.

And maybe, she yawned, she was just tired and disappointed. She knew that tomorrow things would look better and she'd be calling Alain about the next adoption attempt.

She looked at herself in the full-length mirror, seeing the brown hair that seemed to have a life of its own, never staying in place despite her best efforts. She saw the green eyes and the dimpled chin she'd inherited from her father. And she saw the slender body that led to the ravaged leg, slightly twisted and a little thinner and shorter than the other.

Her mother had always encouraged her to act as though it didn't exist. She was a Ferrier. She should have been proud, no matter what. Wear short skirts, dance despite any awkwardness or fear of falling. Climb mountains. Water ski.

She looked at her face and found her lips trembling.

She might be a Ferrier but she couldn't pretend that she wasn't a cripple. She had never worn a bathing suit. She had never danced. She wore her skirts to her mid calf or lower or she wore baggy pants. She tried to keep her head up and she tried not to notice when people whispered as she limped past them.

That was as impossible as believing she would ever climb a mountain.

But being a mother was different. She knew that she could be a good mother. Despite the fact that nature had chosen to pass her body to give birth. She knew that she had so much love to give to another tiny human life. If only...

She climbed into the tub and admonished herself to stop feeling sorry for Emilie Ferrier. She lived in a nice, big house. She had plenty of money. She had a wonderful job that she loved. She was a Ferrier.

If that house was empty and lonely sometimes and the money and the name kept her isolated from the rest of the town, well, no one ever said that life was perfect.

"Pouting again?" Elspeth was like a shadow, there beside her before Emilie had seen her.

The old woman sat easily in the chair beside the tub, tsking over the wet clothes on the tiled bathroom floor.

"What is it this time, child?"

Elspeth Ferrier was the last of three siblings. One had died at birth, the other, Emilie's father, ten years before. They were a proud, if not hardy, line.

Emilie soaped a sponge and ran it across her neck and shoulders. It wasn't unusual for Elspeth to visit her in the tub. Or late at night while she was sleeping. Or any place that was unexpected. Her aunt lived for the unexpected.

"It was a little cold for the rites of the full moon, wasn't it?" Emilie asked her aunt.

Elspeth shrugged then took the sponge from her niece and soaped her back and shoulders. "The rites must be maintained. The temperature doesn't matter."

Emilie smiled at her aunt, looking at the snowflakes still trapped in the long white strands of her hair. Her green eyes burned fiercely in a timeless face.

No one knew exactly how old Elspeth was. Her father had told her that she had refused to celebrate birthdays even as a small child.

"You didn't bring a child home with you," Elspeth said bluntly. She sniffed. "You must be going about it the wrong way."

Emilie sighed. "The little girl's guardian wants two parents."

"Easy enough," Elspeth answered practically. "Get married. That lawyer of yours has eyes for you."

"But I'm only part of the Ferrier money to Alain," she explained to her aunt. "I wanted -- "

"Didn't you want more that other time?" Elspeth pressed. "And look what a fiasco that was! The child is what's important here, Emilie! The family must continue, even if it's with blood other than our own!"

Emilie looked down at the rapidly cooling water in the tub. "What about love, Elspeth? Don't I have the right to be in love, being a precious Ferrier or not?"

Elspeth looked into her niece's eyes, so like her own and shook her head. "Only you know the answer to that, ma petite belle. Love is one of the great mysteries. It comes when we least expect it."

Elspeth turned away to leave her niece to her bath, her flowing blue robe spreading out around her like a peacock's tail.

"Have you ever loved someone, Aunt Elspeth?" Emilie asked.

"Once," Elspeth replied quietly, stopping but not looking back at her. "He died fighting in a war that wasn't his own. We were never together but we've never been apart."

Emilie caught her breath at the pain in her aunt's honeyed voice. "I'm sorry, Aunt Elspeth. I love you."

Elspeth sighed. "I know, child. Get out of that water and get into bed. You look as though as though a good breeze would knock you down."

Emilie finished her bath when her aunt had closed the door behind her then she poured herself a large glass of peach brandy that had been bottled while her father had still been alive. She climbed into her oversize canopy bed hung with white lace and turned off the light.

The next day she got up late and dressed hurriedly. She looked for her aunt but there was no sign of her. The mansion had eighteen bedrooms though and she didn't have time to check them all. She was probably asleep somewhere in the house and she would be awake by the time Emilie returned home that afternoon.

That was the way their relationship worked. Elspeth did what she pleased and Emilie knew she was all right because no one called and told her that they'd found her body on the road.

Her own parents hadn't been much different. From the time she could remember, they were always flying here and there. They climbed Mount Everest, her father losing two toes and her mother's nose frostbitten for the rest of her life. They raced cars and horses. They treated their daughter as if she were a doll with the occasional pat on the head and the comment on the way that she was dressed.

They died when Emilie was eighteen and just out of high school, when their latest passion, racing planes, went terribly wrong and they crashed into a mountainside.

Long before that, Emilie had taken over the day to day running of the big house and the extensive grounds. She made sure that her parents had food to eat and replaced her father's socks when they were worn. She bought their plane tickets to Spain and kept them up to date with the family's charities.

They were both beautiful, charming people with swarms of friends. Emilie arranged lavish parties at the mansion, sometimes doing the catering for the hundred or so guests herself.

She looked around the quiet kitchen, the sunlight very bright through the windows, reflecting off the white snow that lay like a blanket on the ground.

The mansion was a different place without their laughter and energy. Even when they were gone and she was planning for their return, it had been exciting. Her world had become very quiet without them.

Not that she had time to speculate, she considered, pulling herself from her reverie with a last gulp of strong coffee.

Not being like her parents, Emilie had chosen a much different life. She'd gone on to college and started teaching school as soon as she'd finished.

Elspeth had been outraged at a Ferrier lowering herself to teach school. Emilie wouldn't be dissuaded. She loved working with the children, even the difficult ones. It gave her a purpose, a reason to get up in the morning.

She started her car, thinking suddenly about Nick and the maintenance he did on her cars to keep them running. She hadn't liked the idea that she had ignored something that was done for her. It was one thing to pay someone and another to appreciate that person.

Emilie had always tried to do both.

Nick, with his flashing dark eyes and not so subtle innuendoes about her thinking that she was better than everyone else, had touched a raw spot.

She pulled out of the huge garage that had been built to hold ten cars, feeling again the emptiness of being alone.

She'd sold the other six cars that her parents had left behind, keeping only two Mercedes' and her father's Lamborghini. It had been their particular favorite and she kept it in storage, knowing she would never drive it but not wanting to part with that memory as well.

Sometimes, she thought, pulling down the long drive, glancing up at the red brick mansion silhouetted against the white hills, she felt that she should sell everything. The house was too big for two women. The stables had been empty for years. There was a cottage for the gardener and a cottage for the housekeeper that hadn't been used since she was a child. The estate covered most of the mountaintop, looking down at the lights from the town and the highway that snaked around it.

She'd kept it all because she had wonderful memories of growing up there and had always thought her children would love to run through the apple orchard and play in the waterfall that rushed down the side of the mountain into the stream that meandered through the grounds.

Elspeth was another obstacle. Emilie knew she could never move the older woman to a condominium. She had been born and raised there and she wanted to die there.

Until then, Emilie sighed, she would have to rattle around in the big old house that her great grandfather had built. But she wouldn't live there alone. If the time came and she still had failed to find a child, she would sell the place, memories and all.

It was Wednesday morning but the week had just begun for the children. Monday and Tuesday had been teacher's workdays so the teachers were ready for the middle of the week but the kids were wild after the long weekend.

Emilie walked down the crowded hallway to her fourth grade room, shivering in the cold. The furnace wasn't working that morning and her breath was frosty on the air. She kept her coat on while she hung up some new papers and drawings that she considered original, and then mentally prepared for the onslaught of class when the first bell rang.

Emilie didn't teach an exceptional class because she wanted to work with children who had a hard time. The principal and the school obliged her by dumping all of the problem children that the other teachers didn't want into her classroom. Most thrived under her guidance. A few she could never sort out.

She'd inherited Adam Markland in the middle of the year from a distraught teacher who 'couldn't do a thing with him'. Unfortunately, it appeared that Emilie would have the same fate. She'd had him for a month and the boy wasn't interested in any of her programs. He was rude and disruptive and well on his way to being a candidate for juvenile hall.

Twenty minutes after class had started, he dragged into the classroom with the principal behind him, beckoning her into the hallway.

"Adam was having some problems with the snow this morning," Mr. Howard explained briefly, his troubled brow furrowed as always. "He seemed intent on making Jonnie Blair eat all of it."

Emilie hid a small smile. Jonnie Blair was one of the biggest bullies in the school. He was a large, aggressive boy who managed to get good grades and suck up to the teachers while scaring the smaller children around him. It was difficult to imagine the much smaller, almost frail looking, Adam Markland making the other boy do anything.

"I've called in his uncle, the boy's legal guardian, for a conference this afternoon. I'd like you to be there."

"Of course," she murmured then went back into her classroom.

Everyone else in the class was busy doing the assignment she'd given out except Adam whose tousled blonde head lifted as she entered the room. He stared at her defiantly.

"We're doing math," she told him. "Page 101."

"I don't have my book," he answered.

"I have one you can use," she continued, also taking out a pencil and some paper before that could be the next problem.

She set everything on his desk and he stared at it without making a move to use any of it.

Emilie hadn't realized that his parents didn't have custody of the boy. She couldn't help but wonder what kind of man the uncle was who was trying to raise Adam. As well as why he had the child. That could have a great deal to do with the boy's attitude.

Adam sat and looked out of the window most of the day. Emilie refrained from doing anything until she talked with the boy's uncle that afternoon. Maybe with a better under- standing, she could find some way to get Adam to include himself in the classroom activities.

The bell rang for dismissal that afternoon and Emilie had Adam wait for the halls to clear before they walked down to the office.

"Were you really trying to make Jonnie eat snow?" she asked when they were alone.

Adam looked at her, his dark eyes fierce on her face. "He wouldn't leave me alone."

Emilie frowned. "I know that he's a bully. But he's so much bigger than you."

Adam grinned, showing a place where two teeth were missing. "I don't care how big he is. He's a puppy."

"Adam, why won't you do the school work? I know you're smart. If you can take on Jonnie, you can do this work."

He lounged back in his chair. "It's not the same."

"It is if you want it to be," she tried to interest him. "If you think about your school work as being a fight to be better, to grow up and have a good job."

"I don't need to go to school to have a job. My uncle owns his own business. I can work for him."

"I don't think he owns a business where you don't have to read or write or use math," she enjoined. "What does he do?"

"Ms. Ferrier." Mr. Howard nodded to her from the doorway. "I brought Adam's uncle down here for the conference." He turned to the man who was standing behind him.

"Mr. Garrett, this is Ms. Emilie Ferrier. She's taken over as Adam's teacher for the second quarter of the year. Ms. Ferrier, this is Nicholas Garrett, Adam's uncle."

They shook hands. Emilie smiled up into his face and started to speak, but Nick's dark face was shuttered. He didn't give any sign that they had ever met.

"Maybe we could all sit down," Emilie managed finally, awkwardly.

She sat at her desk while Mr. Howard and Nick squeezed into children's desks beside Adam.

"Mr. Garrett," Mr. Howard began, "your nephew has been giving some of the other children a hard time as well as refusing to do his class work or participate at all in the school process."

Nick glanced at his nephew. The two looked so distinctively different that Emilie looked between the two of them, wondering further about their relationship.

"Adam told me about the bully that's been giving him a hard time. He said you wouldn't do anything about him."

Mr. Howard looked at Emilie, scowled, then looked away.

"Adam is clever and resourceful." Emilie moved into the silence. "He's only half the size of the other boy, yet he managed -- "

"Ms. Ferrier!" Mr. Howard interrupted. "This wasn't exemplary behavior we're discussing! We can't encourage the boy to take matters into his own hands."

Emilie glanced briefly at the three, then beckoned to Mr. Howard to join her at the door excusing them to Nick.

"I need some time alone with Nick, with Adam's uncle," she amended quietly. "If you could take Adam to your office, we could join you there in a few minutes."

"This is highly irregular," Mr. Howard protested, being left out of the conversation between the two.

"Adam's case may be highly irregular as well. I don't want to discuss the boy's family problems with him sitting there." She leveled him a stern look of warning. "You know my methods work, Mr. Howard."

"All right," he relented under the pressure of the Ferrier eyes. "I'll take the boy to my office."

They turned to face Nick and his nephew and Emilie saw at once the resemblance she'd missed at first. The eyes. Both the older and younger man had the same dark eyes that looked out at the world with defiance and a certain anger.

"If you'll come with me, young Adam." Mr. Howard beckoned to the child.

Adam looked at his uncle and Nick nodded. The boy pouted and stalked past the principal but he went with the man. Nick turned his gaze on Emilie as the door closed behind them.

"This is a surprise," she began, smiling inanely, trying to keep herself from babbling about the weather or some other topic that had nothing to do with Adam or his problems. Nick sat back in the chair, a great deal like Adam, glaring at her from beneath thick, sooty lashes.

"And not a pleasant one," she added, quelling the smile and shuffling some papers on her desk.

She looked at him again, then stood up slowly, walking past her large desk. She sat beside him at one of the children's desks.

"Tell me about Adam," she said, leaning towards him, her green eyes every bit as fierce as the dark gaze she met.

"He's a nine year old boy with problems in school," Nick said with a shrug.

She shook her head. "Tell me about Adam. The real Adam." He opened his mouth to speak and she held up her hand. "I've read his files. I know he has a problem in school. What I want to know is why his file doesn't include that he doesn't live with his parents. Where are his parents?"

Nick dropped his eyes from hers to his hands. "That doesn't have anything to do with his schoolwork. That's why it's not on his 'file'."

Emilie stared at him. "You can't be that stupid!"

His eyes flashed back to hers and he stood up from the children's desk. "What?"

Having gained his attention, however questionable her methods, Emilie stared up at him. "Adam's problems in school reflect directly back to his problems at home."

"That's your way of saying that the teachers don't do a bad job," he argued. "That everything is the parents' fault."

"That's my way of saying that Adam sits and looks out of the window all day. That he can do the work but he won't," she answered back as hotly as he'd replied. "Did you know that he doesn't think he needs to learn math because he can work with you when he gets older so it doesn't matter?"

Nick sat back down, the breath knocked from his hostility. "No."

"It's true. He told me so himself while we were waiting for you today. He said that you had your own business so that what he did in school wasn't important."

"I never told him that," Nick answered with a shake of his dark head. "We've talked about his schoolwork. I've tried to help him with it."

"So then you've noticed as well. It's not that he can't do the work. He's a smart boy. He won't do the work. Or participate in any school activities. Except for making Jonnie Blair eat snow."

Nick nodded but didn't return her smile. He looked above her head for a moment then he stared into her eyes as though looking for something in her soul that would tell him that he could trust her.

Emilie caught her breath and felt very warm for an instant, wishing she could get up and hide behind her big desk full of papers. That was impossible, of course, but --

"Adam's parents were both killed a little over a year ago," Nick told her finally in a voice devoid of emotion. "His mother was my sister, Renee."

Chapter Three

Emilie gasped, her mind reeling with the emotions of her own loss at losing both her parents at once. What could that have been for a boy half her age?

She looked at the pain in Nick's face and stifled her immediate response of apology and remorse. He was expecting that and was ready to deny the right to be comforted for his loss. No wonder Adam was having problems!

She nodded and swallowed hard over the lump that had developed in her throat. "Do you know if he was having any problems in school before that time?"

He stared at her, surprised that she had been astute enough not to offer those trite words of condolence. "I'm not sure. I don't think so. Adam doesn't like to talk about the time around the accident."

"I can understand that," she murmured, her mind racing to find a way to help the boy deal with the terrible loss in his life. "I can't understand why you wouldn't have thought that this wasn't important to his school work."

Nick got up again and prowled the room restlessly. "I knew he didn't want to talk about it with a bunch of strangers. And he seemed to be doing all right for a while."

"Then?"

"Then his teachers started sending home notes that he wouldn't do his schoolwork, that he was fighting. We talked and he promised to try harder. But the notes kept coming."

"So they moved him to another class."

He turned to look at her. "You're his fourth teacher in three months. This is the second school he's been in during this grade alone."

"But you didn't think that was a hint that he wasn't working through the loss of his parents?" she wondered out loud.

He glared at her. "I knew he didn't want to talk about it."

"That doesn't matter," she corrected. "He has to talk about it. He has to bring out those feelings so that he can accept his parent's death and go on with his life."

"I don't buy into all that therapist crap," he told her bluntly.

"I noticed," she responded, equally as short.

"What?"

She sighed, knowing she had already annoyed him. She might as well be hanged for the whole crime. "You obviously aren't working through the problem any better than Adam is. You're angry and hostile -- "

"You don't know anything about Adam. Or me," he defended angrily. "Don't try to play amateur psychologist with us."

"Look," she replied, feeling herself getting angry and trying hard to quiet that emotion, "the man was impossibly stubborn! I don't want to invade your grief or your private life but Adam is headed down the wrong path, Nick. If he doesn't get some guidance, you're going to be visiting him in juvenile detention and trying to figure out what went wrong."

"I don't think -- "

"He respects your opinion," she continued relentlessly. "Maybe a good place to start would be telling him that he can't work for you unless he graduates from high school." Their eyes clashed wordlessly. Nick was the first to break the contact, wandering to the windows at the side of the empty room.

"Before my sister died last year," he began, not looking at her, "the longest I'd had either one of her children was babysitting a few hours while she and her husband went out to dinner or a movie. Before Renee died, she asked me to take the kids. I promised her that I'd do the best I could."

Emilie felt tears sting the back of her eyes. "How did they die?"

Nick laughed shortly. "It's ironic, really. Renee was leaving Jack and the kids to run away with another man whom she was sure she loved. She was willing to leave it all behind. Jack tried to stop her. They ran off the road and hit a telephone pole. It was lucky that they hadn't taken the kids with them. Jack was killed at the scene. Renee lived for another three days."

Emilie couldn't help herself. In a voice thick with emotion, she said, "I am so sorry." but added, "I lost both of my parents in a plane accident when I was eighteen. I can't even imagine what it must be like for Adam being so young."

Nick turned back to her, appraising her sorrow filled face with a different attitude. The green eyes were bright with unshed tears but knowing that she had suffered a tragedy as well made her sympathy more acceptable.

"How old is the other child?" she asked, clearing her throat and wiping at her eyes.

"She's barely a year old," he answered, feeling again that empathy that pulled him close to Emilie Ferrier. What was one of the Ferrier's doing teaching school? Why hadn't he heard that she'd lost both of her parents in one terrible moment?

"She won't even remember," Emilie discerned, shaking her head ruefully. "It might be a blessing compared with Adam's grief, but it's so sad for your sister."

Nick cleared his own throat and looked at her with tear-bright eyes. "That's another story, I guess. I want to help Adam, Emilie. I just see every day how much he's still hurting and I don't want him to hurt anymore."

"Neither do I," she assured him firmly. "Does he have any hobbies or interests?"

He shrugged, thinking about his nephew's activities. "He loves music. He wanted to join the band but they wouldn't let him because his grades were so low."

Emilie made a quick mental note of that fact. "Okay, so let's not work against each other in this. We both want something good for Adam. If you could keep after him about his homework and make sure that he understands that he has to finish school before he can work for you. Maybe we can even find ways to make him understand the correlation between what you do and what he needs to learn in school."

Nick nodded his dark head in understanding. "I'll do that. Maybe you could help with this band thing. I think it would mean a lot to him."

"I'll see what I can do and get back to you," she answered readily then peeked at him from under her lashes, "and can we agree on one hour a week with the school counselor? She doesn't have to hound him about his parents. Just give him a chance to talk about it when they get to know one another."

He hesitated, frowned, then drew a deep breath. "All right. So long as she understands that I don't want him badgered for information! Do you know her?"

Emilie felt a strange flutter in her chest when he looked at her, obviously deciding that he could trust her judgement. "I do," she rejoined brightly. "She's not the badgering type. I'll explain the situation. She'll listen to whatever he wants to tell her."

"I can handle that. You'll keep me informed on any progress?"

She nodded. "I will. Maybe we can go and save Mr. Howard now. I'm afraid Adam might be too much for him."

Nick was startled. "How?"

Emilie smiled as she walked towards the door, trying not to feel self-conscious and not succeeding. "Well, Adam did tackle Jonnie Blair today. Mr. Howard's not all that much bigger."

He smiled! Emilie caught her breath. He actually looked much different when he smiled. It was like a shadow passing from in front of the sun.

"Adam's father was a karate teacher. He taught him how to take care of himself when he was really young. Jonnie Blair needs to push someone else around."

Emilie was still dazed by the impact of his more lighthearted side. At some time, she realized, the man had actually had a sense of humor. It was amazing!

"I'm sure he will," she said quietly, walking down the hall beside him.

"By the way," he injected, "the parts for your car won't be hard to get. The damage wasn't as bad as I thought. You should have it back by the end of the week."

"Oh, that's wonderful," she enthused, hoping she wasn't gushing. "I appreciate it. And you. Working on my cars," she clarified awkwardly. Why was she so tongue tied with him the minute they stepped away from her professional aspect?

"Thanks," he added, surprised again by the woman beside him. He walked slowly so that she could keep up with him, wondering, wanting to ask what had happened to her. How had she been crippled? Had it happened in the same accident that had taken her parents' lives?

He focused, instead, at the principal's office door ahead of them and refused to ask. He had determined that he didn't want to be any more involved with this woman than he had to be but fate seemed to have other ideas. Far from the year he'd expected between meetings, the feel and scent of her next to him was still very fresh in his mind.

Emilie fell silent when she saw his smile fade and the usual scowl appear on his dark face. She didn't know what cloud had crossed him again but she was sorry to see that younger version of him fade away.

They reached Mr. Howard's office and she had Adam join his uncle in the hall before she explained everything to the principal, not really asking for his consent to her plan. She had been successful with problem children. They both knew that her methods worked. Besides, no one else seemed to have any idea of the answer.

They both joined Nick and Adam as they waited in the hallway and there were handshakes all around. Adam frowned and squirmed restlessly on the chair beside his uncle, feeling a change in the air.

Emilie took Nick's hand, her own disappearing into his warm hold. She looked up into his face, recalling the day before when he'd picked her up and put her into the truck. Her face felt hot and she held his hand a little too long, laughing nervously as she released her grasp and stepped away from him.

Her foot hit a wet patch, probably left behind by a snowy boot on the slick tile floor. It was her weak leg and she would have fallen as it twisted beneath her but Nick reached forward quickly and helped her regain her balance.

"Thanks," she said, embarrassed by her ungainly movement, wishing she were anywhere but here at that moment.

"Are you all right?" he asked, watching her face flame bright red, feeling the trembling in her hand.

"I'm fine," she replied easily, refusing to meet the concern in his eyes. She moved away from him nervously, careful of the wet spot on the floor. "Really. We'll -- uh -- work this out. I'll be in touch."

Nick watched her stalk back down the hall towards her classroom, wondering what it was about her that made him want to run after her and tell her that it was all right.

She was rich. She had a nice house, expensive cars. She was beautiful. She might even be married for all he knew. Just didn't take her husband's name so that she'd stay in her position of power. She was Emilie Ferrier, after all. She certainly didn't need his comfort.

"We'll be in touch," Mr. Howard said, echoing Emilie's words with his sanguine smile.

"Thanks," Nick retorted. Thanks for nothing, he wanted to add but refrained.

In the year since Renee had died, Emilie was the only person who'd thought to ask what she could do for Adam. Everyone else had been more concerned with the rules and the fact that the boy didn't fit in with their plans.

Maybe she was right and he'd been wrong not to have shared the information about his home life. But he hadn't met a teacher or principal before that day that he felt like he could trust with the knowledge.

In other words, he chided himself, she was the only one who'd managed to get past his guard. Somehow, she'd made him feel as though he could say anything to her. He knew that he could trust her with anything.

He didn't want to speculate on the newly found knowledge. It was enough that she might be able to get Adam back on the right track.

And watching her handle the principal, he knew she had the other man on track as well. He didn't tell her what to do. Emilie ran her own show.

He looked after her again. She'd disappeared into the shelter of her classroom. But he could still smell her perfume.

"Let's go, Adam," he said to his nephew, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder. "We've got a few things to talk about."

Emilie slammed a few things around her classroom when she'd closed the door behind her. Did she always have to make a spectacle of herself?

Last year at the teacher's conference, she'd managed to dump a whole vase of yellow gladiolas into the school superintendent's lap when she'd tripped on her way to speak at the podium.

She'd smiled and apologized profusely to the woman, then she'd limped back to her table, embarrassed beyond words.

Being a Ferrier wasn't of any particular importance at that moment, she reminded herself. Just a few moments before she'd almost fallen on the floor at Nick's feet!

She could dance, her mother had protested at Emilie's tears when she'd refused to attend her senior prom. She could do whatever she wanted to do. Stand tall. Hold your shoulders back and your head high. Stare them all down and dare them to talk about the fact that you limp. Show them that they can't laugh at you.

Emilie wound her scarf around her neck and shrugged on her coat, muttering darkly about expectations.

She had no doubt that her mother could have been crippled and almost fallen and managed to turn that to her benefit. She would have been all charming witlessness and helpless delight and Nick would have probably taken her into his arms and --

Whoa!

Back up there, she advised, picking up her briefcase and notebooks. Where had that come from?

Do you want Nick to take you in his arms...and anything?

He was her mechanic. She was his nephew's teacher. What had caused her to think anything else?

A brief, shadowy memory of the day before when she was waking up, her head on Nick's shoulder, teased at her senses. What had he said to her? Hadn't their faces been close enough to --

She shook her head and slammed out of her classroom, trudging down the hallway, not hearing another teacher call out for her to have a good evening and a safe drive home.

There was a message from Alain when she got home. He'd called to say that so far, Jon Stewart hadn't been able to get his client to meet with her. Knowing she would be a single parent made any idea of a meeting a waste of time in the guardian's eyes.

In the meantime, they would be meeting with several other adoptive parents who were more fortunate than Emilie. They had two parents in the family and they were eager to adopt the little girl. No doubt they would find a suitable family quickly. The adoption market was fierce.

"You could marry me, Emilie," Alain joked when he'd finished telling her the bad news. "I'd make a good husband."

"That's not what your other wives thought," she replied honestly then relented, knowing her words were sharpened by keen disappointment. "I'm sorry, Alain. I appreciate your offer. And I might have to take you up on it."

"If there's no other way?" he teased her gently.

Emilie smiled sadly. "You know that you don't love me, Alain! And you know that I don't love you. We've been friends for a long time. It just doesn't go beyond that."

"Emilie, we've never even dated! Spend the day with me Saturday. We can do whatever you like. You might find there's something more to me than the lawyer you've always known but never loved."

Emilie smiled but she thought about his words and shrugged, holding the phone with her shoulder as she unpacked grocery bags on the counter.

"All right. Maybe you're right," she conceded. "Pick me up at eight. We'll have a full day together."

"I'll be there," he murmured sweetly. "Fuel up the Lear Jet, sweetie. You can afford to do something extravagant!"

Emilie hung up the phone, smiling despite herself. Alain was honest, at least. He made no bones about loving her for her money.

"Did you get any carrots?" Elspeth asked, surprising Emilie into dropping a can of soup on the floor.

"I wish you'd learn to make some noise when you walk, Elspeth," she requested, annoyed.

"Still no good news about the child, I take it," Elspeth mocked, grabbing an orange from the counter. "Don't worry! I sense something different about you, Emilie. There's a strange glow about you!"

"That's embarrassment and annoyance, Aunt Elspeth," she countered.

The older woman perched on a stool at the end of the counter, not listening to her reply. "You aren't pregnant, are you?" she asked excitedly at last.

Emilie dropped the head of lettuce on the floor. She came back up after grabbing it with a frown on her beautiful face.

"Pregnant? That's why I'm adopting or trying to adopt, remember, Elspeth? Because I can't have children?"

"Oh," Elspeth shrugged and walked away, forgetting the entire incident. "I won't need dinner tonight, child. I'm meeting in the greenhouse with some of my Sisters."

"Fine," Emilie retorted, feeling more than usually put out by her aunt's indifference to her presence. "I'll just heat up a frozen dinner and eat in my room. There's probably something on television and -- "

She looked around but the kitchen was empty. She'd been left standing there talking to herself again.

She finished putting away the groceries, then did as she had promised, falling asleep before she'd eaten her dinner or graded her papers.

She woke up after midnight when the television station changed to big band music and startled her out of a particularly good dream. She'd had it before and it was so outrageous that it sometimes made her cry.

She was in the solarium and she was wearing a beautiful silver ball gown. She was dancing with a tall, dark man. There was moonlight coming in from the huge skylight as they moved effortlessly, fluidly across the shiny tile floor. And she felt as light and free as any moonbeam, unfettered by the awkwardness of her leg.

She got out of bed and changed out of her rumpled clothes, slipping into a flannel nightgown that had been her mother's. Forgetting her slippers, she went down the long stairway, across the cold floors and stood in the ballroom doorway.

How many times she'd stood in that doorway during a party that her parents were giving and wistfully watched the couples swaying in time to the music. Their clothes were beautiful, like colored birds flitting across the room as they danced or talked, and laughed, drinking champagne from crystal goblets with the de Ferrier crest etched in gold leaf.

The moonlight was there that night but the room was silent and empty except for the ghosts that still danced there across the dusty floor.

The ballroom was too large for anything except parties and neither she nor Elspeth were inclined towards anything that exciting. It seemed sensible to close off the room, as it had been for the past ten years.

Sensible. And sad.

Emilie closed the French doors to the ballroom and left the ghosts to their own devices. It wouldn't have surprised her to see her parents dancing the night away in that room. It had been their favorite place.

And truly, she would have been glad of even their ghostly company.

She walked slowly back up the stairs, feeling the ache in her leg from the cold floor. The pink marble staircase was elegant but no amount of heat could keep it warm against her feet.

Feeling a little like a ghost herself, she wandered back into her own room and shut off the television. The food in the frozen dinner tray on her bedside table was gone but Elspeth had left a white flower the size of a dinner plate in its place. She recognized it as a moonflower that only bloomed in the light of the full moon.

She walked to her bedroom window that overlooked the shadowed grounds. The moon was bright on the snow-covered landscape. In the far distance, protected by a rocky gorge, was the waterfall she'd played in as a child. It would be frozen in the dead of winter, only a trickle of water coming down from the mountaintop.

She saw movement in the greenhouse, the only part of the estate that the two women kept up with and that only because Elspeth loved the warmth and the plants.

It meant that Elspeth's 'Sisters' were probably meeting there again. It was a good place to practice their earth rituals, as they called them. Mainly, they danced around the flowers and hoped for good but impossible things to happen to them and their loved ones.

It was harmless, as far as she could tell. It gave Elspeth something to do besides pine away for the man she'd loved or the family she'd lost.

Emilie sighed as she turned away from their dancing to climb back into her bed. Sometimes she wished that she could join them.

She stayed up after that for a few hours grading her essays and thinking about Adam Markland and his uncle.

Uncle Nick, she speculated, wondering if that was what Adam called him. It was hard to imagine him raising two children alone. Still, if they had no other family, she could understand why his sister's dying wish had been for him to care for them.

Nick was a more complex personality than she'd first considered. She'd thought that he was walking around with a chip on his shoulder because of some rich man-poor man grudge. Understanding his grief had made him more human, easier to empathize with as a man who had suffered a terrible loss and was trying to cope with his new life.

He'd said that he bought the garage a year before, she hypothesized. He might have moved the children from their own home to Ferrier's Mountain as a way of trying to escape.

She corrected two more essays and chewed at her nails. There was something about him that bothered her. She'd thought it was his attitude. Then she'd thought it was the way he treated her.

But it was something more than either of those things. Something about him made her uneasy and uncomfortable. She was normally clumsy and far too aware of her own handicap but she could usually manage to put two words together without giggling or repeating herself.

And there was that distinct impression that he'd been about to kiss her when she was waking up with her head on his shoulder.

Of course, that was ridiculous, she corrected herself as she corrected two more papers. He didn't know her. Obviously didn't particularly like her. Of course, he hadn't been about to kiss her.

Had he?

And what would she have done if he had kissed her? She could hardly complain since she'd fallen asleep and pushed herself up against him, resting her hand in his lap right up next to his --

"Never mind," she said aloud to the empty room, putting the rest of her papers away and turning off the light. She snuggled down into her heavy comforter and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and getting ready to go to sleep.

What would it have been like?

Once the idea popped in her head, her eyes popped open as well. She stared into the darkness, tracing the outline of her lace-covered canopy against the moon-drenched ceiling.

Probably like every other kiss, the practical side of her nature told her reasonably. Lips meeting. A little wet. Probably a little too impatient.

Was he the type of man who would have tried to slip his tongue into her mouth on the first kiss?

She turned over, fluffed her pillow and refused to even consider the question.

The rest of the week went by slowly. There was no real change in Adam's attitude. If anything, he became more withdrawn and less cooperative.

She started him seeing Wendy on Thursday. They couldn't afford a full time counselor on staff at the tiny public school so Wendy traveled through the county, visiting different schools on different days.

Emilie explained the problem to her before she interviewed Adam but Wendy agreed with her prediction that the boy was going to be difficult to help. He was old enough to have understood what had happened to his parents but not old enough to understand the need to grieve.

Their interview was brief. Adam wasn't rude or difficult to get along with during the session. He simply sat in his chair and stared mutinously out the window.

Emilie talked with the school band instructor who refused to even consider making an exception for the troubled boy.

"If he's so troubled," Mr. Foster told her bluntly, "I don't want him. It takes discipline to play a band instrument. He could cause my whole class to lose focus."

Annoyed, Emilie went to Mr. Howard and threatened to go to the superintendent if she had to, although both of them knew she didn't want to after last year's incident with the gladiolas.

Knowing that the school review was getting out in a few months was in Emilie's favor. Raises in salary for principals and teachers were tied to the school's performance. Turning around a child like Adam could mean a feather in both their caps.

"I'll talk to Mr. Foster," he agreed. "But we're only talking a trial here. If the boy doesn't show improvement -- "

Emilie nodded. "I know. Thank you, Mr. Howard."

"By the way," he caught her as she would have walked out the door, "what instrument does the boy play?"

She chased back in her mind to her conversation with Nick that day. "I don't know. But I'll find out and get back with you."

There was a message from Nick on her machine that afternoon, telling her that he was bringing her car back that evening.

She waited, like a child, at the front window to watch for the headlights coming up the drive. It had stopped snowing and the weather had turned bitterly cold. Too cold, even, for Elspeth to be out and running through the yard.

She knew Nick had seen the older woman the night he'd dropped her off at the house and didn't want a repeat performance. Elspeth's jaunts in the rites of the moon were frequently without clothes, as she had been that night. That was one of the reasons Emilie liked to be home during the days of the full moon.

Not that she could do anything to restrain Elspeth, but she could try to be sure that they were alone on the estate.

Elspeth was Elspeth, she sighed. She'd never learned to drive. Never used a telephone. She'd outright refused to allow a microwave oven into their home.

Not that she minded allowing herself to be driven places, Emilie smirked, looking out the dark, cold windowpane. Or that she minded asking Emilie to use the phone for her. Headlight beams lit the end of the driveway and Emilie pulled on her jacket and hurried out into the night. She was careful on the stone walkway between the kitchen door and the garage. She didn't want Nick to have to pick her up off the ground.

He opened the side door to the garage just as she reached the building and the light from the interior shone full on her face like a spotlight.

Dry, her golden brown hair sweeping around her face like a cloud, she was even more stunning than the first time he'd seen her. Her lips were full and reddened, like her cheeks, from the cold. Her green eyes were turned up to him and he felt lightheaded for an instant.

"Hello!" she said, moving out of the path of the door.

"Hi." He looked away from her bright eyes to get his bearings.

"So you brought the car back," she began, "fixed."

Was that a sentence? She wondered, wanting to hit herself in the head. Was something wrong with her?

"Yeah," he agreed. "It's ready to go."

"Thanks," she answered, trying to be brief but coherent. She dug her freezing hands into the pockets of her coat.

"Could I use your phone?"

"Sure." She looked beyond him into the garage. "Oh, do you need a ride back to the shop?"

"Yeah. Randy's waiting to come out and pick me up," he lied.

Randy was probably home watching football with a beer in one hand and the television remote in the other. He was going to be surprised when Nick called him but --

"I could take you home," she offered sweetly.

He'd argued with himself all day. He was taking the car back to Emilie. Usually, Randy drove the tow truck out with him and they came back together. That was how it worked.

But he'd wanted to talk to her. About Adam, he explained rationally to himself when he told Randy good night and that he wouldn't need him to go out to the Ferrier's house.

He'd wanted her to offer him a lift home. That's what it came down to, he considered, looking at her soft skin and delicate cheekbones. Despite all his good sense, he'd wanted to be alone with her for a few minutes.

He could just say 'no, thanks', call Randy, and that would be the end of it. He could, for once, listen to his saner side telling him that he didn't want to be alone again with this woman.

"Thanks," he said, holding the door open for her to enter the garage. "I'm sure Randy will appreciate it."

Chapter Four

They climbed into the still warm Mercedes and Emilie started the car.

"I needed to talk to you about Adam," she said as the engine purred to life. "They're going to give him a trial in the band. But his grades and attitude will have to improve for him to stay."

Nick was impressed. Emilie Ferrier was a woman of her word. "That's great."

"What instrument does he play?"

"Renee played the flute and she was teaching him when she was killed. I think he's missed that part of it more than the music."

Emilie blinked back unexpected tears. She sniffed and bit her lip but the tears refused to be held at bay.

Nick was telling her about working on her car; then he was talking to her about Adam. But his words were meaningless. All she could think about was Adam's empty life. And her own.

Was it so much to ask that people could be happy? she wondered. Was that too naive? Requesting more than the universe could bear?

When she actually hiccuped on a sob, Nick stopped in mid-sentence. To make up for his small lie, he was trying to tell her everything he could think of about Adam's reaction to the psychologist and to his new program at home.

"Are you...is something wrong?" he asked, trying to see her face in the car's dark interior.

"No," she squeaked out, trying to sound normal.

She took a deep breath and clutched the steering wheel until her hands hurt. It wasn't like her to fall apart. She was made of tougher stuff.

When they reached the tiny town, she stopped at the red light. Tears were streaming down her face and her breath was coming in quick gulps.

"I -- I'm sorry," she said, trying to speak over her emotional display. "I'm going to have to pull over for a minute."

She nosed the dark blue car into the parking area beside a convenience store, then opened the door without another word and walked into the ladies' room.

She looked at her red nose and wet eyes with a jaundiced view. Why couldn't she cry prettily like other women? She always had to get all blotchy and her nose looked like it was a beacon.

Her mother had mastered the art, allowing a single silver tear to slip down her cheek without a sound. That was crying!

It wasn't just poor Adam's story that had brought her so low. It was her life. It was her pathetic attempt to tell herself that everything was all right when she was miserably unhappy. She was tired of being responsible and sensible. She was exhausted by being the rock that everyone else could cling to and depend on without fail.

And somehow, the story about Adam's mother teaching him the flute brought all of that to the surface. Wasn't that what they were all trying to tell Adam? That he should grieve and get over it? That he should go on with his life and be sensible and responsible? She sat down on the closed toilet and sniffed until she had sobbed her last sob, then was faced with having to go back out and get in the car and look at Nick.

What was she going to say to him?

Maybe she could admit that the Ferriers were all crazy, as a boy had told her once when she was in school. She knew the rumors and the stories. Especially about Elspeth. Maybe she could use them to her own advantage. How could anything else account for the unexpected display?

Finally, there was nothing else for it. She opened the ladies' room door to find a crowd waiting to use the facility. She waded through them and saw Nick sitting at one of the cheerful yellow tables that lined the wall.

Head down, feeling like a total fool, she marched over to the table, careful of the dirty floor and her sometimes careless feet.

"I'm sorry," she said when she'd reached him. "I -- I don't know what else to say."

"Sit down, Emilie," he encouraged. "I thought we could both use a cup of hot coffee."

"Thanks," she replied with a sniff, telling herself not to start again just because the man was kind. "I feel like an idiot."

"Sugar?" he asked, not commenting, holding up the plastic dispenser.

"No, thanks," she managed to respond, reaching instead for a tiny packet of creamer that she added to her coffee. She stirred the coffee until the thick, dark liquid was almost white.

She couldn't bring herself to look at him. She was supposed to be the person his nephew could depend on to straighten out his life. She wasn't supposed to fall apart because Adam's mother taught him to play the flute!

Nick watched her studiously avoid his gaze and found that he couldn't keep his eyes off of her. He didn't know how she did it but he could feel that pull, like the tide, dragging him relentlessly into her life.

Didn't he have enough problems of his own? he demanded angrily. This woman had everything. She didn't need him. He certainly didn't need her or the sadness he saw in her eyes.

Yet, there he was, sitting across from her under the too bright fluorescent lights, wanting to ask her about her tears. Wanting to hear it all from her.

"I have to go," he said finally, struggling with himself. "I could drive -- "

She smiled warmly but her eyes didn't meet his. "I'm fine. Just a glitch. Really. The coffee was wonderful. We can go."

They put their cups into the trash and left the store without another word.

He sat in the seat on his side of the car, telling himself that she wasn't an injured kitten. She only reminded him of one. She wasn't some stray that he could offer a job to and try to help start a better life like he had Randy.

"I know we can help, Adam," she told him enthusiastically as she drove him to the garage through the slush covered streets. "The music and the counseling. There's going to be a world of difference in him in no time. You'll see."

Nick didn't speak. He didn't need to because she kept talking regardless of whether he answered. The woman was hopeless. And beautiful. And she smelled like the deep woods on a spring morning. She wore sadness like a veil that he wanted to see through, knowing that she was someone else on the other side.

The garage was on a side street. It was quiet, very little traffic even during the day. Emilie pulled up beside the cement block building but didn't turn off the engine.

"The car runs great now," she told him. "Thank you for your help."

"Sure," he acknowledged briefly, wanting to run away from the car as fast as he could and lock the door behind him. "Look, Emilie -- "

She held up her hand. "Please! Let's not talk about it! Sometimes I'm as crazy as the rest of my family."

He looked at her hand. It was bare in the car's pale green interior light. No wedding band. No jewelry of any kind. Without thinking, he reached out and slid his hand across hers until the fingers meshed.

She gasped and her gaze flew up to meet his in the car's closeness.

"You're not crazy, Emilie."

"You don't know me." She sniffed again, shaking her head.

He leaned a little closer to her. "I know that I've never met anyone like you. You keep your word and you care. That doesn't make you crazy."

The small amount of control that Emilie had gathered broke and she sobbed, trying to gulp back the sound in her throat.

"God, Emilie." He sighed, letting go of her hand and pulling her close against him. "You're a damned fountain."

"I know," she mourned, knowing she should pull away from him. Knowing she shouldn't encourage that kind of closeness.

But it felt so wonderful to be held. He was warm and smelled like soap. His heart was beating steadily against her ear. His arms were strong and certain around her.

"Are you always like this?" he wondered out loud.

"No," she maintained rationally. "No. Actually, I'm usually a rock. Everyone depends on me. I can take care of any crisis."

"And you never, ever cry, right?" he queried quietly.

"Never. Ever," she cried.

He held her close, wishing he could feel more for her tragedy and less the effects of her body. The softness of her heart was like nothing to him at that moment compared to the softness of her skin and her hair tickling his chin.

He breathed in and the scent of her raced through him. He shifted his hip to one side and she followed, filling the space that had occurred between them. Her coat had opened and her breasts were pressed against his arm. It was one of the hardest things he'd ever done not to move his hand the few inches it would have taken to hold that softness in his grasp.

Emilie wasn't sure when she started to feel something more than comfort from his touch. But the realization stemmed the flow of tears. Her hands were on his chest. She could feel his heart beating under her fingertips.

"Emilie?"

She raised her head to look at him, the street light outside the car creating a dark mask that hid his eyes. It made him appear dangerous...and intriguing.

"I -- uh -- should go," she said, realizing her position. She was pressed against him from chest to hip, the curves of her body filled by hard muscle.

He smiled. She saw the movement of his lips in the dim light and was fascinated by it. She knew that she was staring at him but she couldn't make herself look away.

His lips moved closer to hers, still not touching. "All better?" he whispered.

She sniffed and nodded, unable to form a coherent thought at that moment. He was so close. All it would take was a breath and their mouths would be touching.

"Good," he insisted. "I don't want you to feel like I've taken advantage of you. But I want to kiss you, Emilie."

His hand slid inside the neck of her coat, warm and caressing. He brought her mouth to his. It was brief, fleeting, and devastating.

A tiny whimper escaped her throat when his lips left hers. He groaned and kissed her again. The pressure of his mouth changed, no longer hesitant or undecided. His mouth slanted across hers while his fingers moved up from her throat to cup her head.

It was like drinking peach brandy. His touch sang through her veins until she could feel it in her toes. She was hot and fluid, answering him with her lips and tongue, drinking him in as though his kiss could quench that sudden fire in her.

Nick kissed her again and again. His tongue played with hers as she hesitantly, gently, slid her tongue the length of his and back. Her touch was soft and careful as if she were afraid that she might hurt him.

He could never get enough of her, he thought brokenly, wishing there were fewer clothes between them. He could get lost in her.

It was that thought that sobered him and made him set her away from him with a firm hand.

""I'm sorry, Emilie," he said flatly. "I can't do this."

"Nick -- " she began in a voice she barely recognized as her own.

"Goodnight, Emilie," he answered, sliding from the car and closing the door behind him.

"Goodnight," she said quietly to his retreating back as he entered the garage.

She sat in the car with her hands on the steering wheel for a few minutes, then forced her body and mind to cooperate. She didn't want to be sitting out there in her car when he came out again. That would be too far past her humiliation.

She drove home slowly. She wasn't sure when exactly she'd become attracted to Nick. Or how she'd crossed that line between being attracted and actually allowing herself to kiss him.

Not just kiss him, she reminded herself, replaying the last few minutes in her mind. She had been consumed by him.

Shivering, she pulled into her drive, then parked the car in the garage. She sat in the quiet and gathering cold for a long time. The darkness surrounded her like a thick blanket.

It had been ten years since she'd felt anything like that for a man. Ten years of assuring herself that it wouldn't happen again. It was frightening to think that it had all been for nothing. It could just as easily have been David in that car tonight.

She got out of the car. The cold took her breath away and made her leg throb painfully as she walked to the house.

When her marriage to David had ended ten years before, she'd promised herself that she wouldn't be so gullible, so deeply affected. It had been an easy vow to keep. Until she'd met Nick.

That's all it took, she realized, feeling physically ill. The right man and she suddenly stopped thinking with her brain and her hormones took over.

She'd made that mistake. She recalled Elspeth's pointed reminder of the night before when they'd spoken of love. She almost didn't recover from it. It couldn't happen again. She wouldn't let it happen again.

"You're white as a sheet, child!" Elspeth opened the door as Emilie put her hand on the knob. "Is something wrong?"

"N -- no," Emilie lied, her stomach twisting as she thought of telling Elspeth that she had come so close to making the same mistake again. "I'm not feeling well, Aunt Elspeth. I'm going to bed now."

The older woman stepped to the side to allow her niece into the house but she shook her flowing white mane when she saw her eyes. Emilie was a terrible liar.

Still, the torment she saw there was too deep to demand an explanation. Time enough for that later.

"Goodnight, Emilie, Mon enfant." Elspeth kissed her forehead and looked deeply into the eyes that matched her own. "Tomorrow, we will go out and eat something festive and drink too much wine, hmm?"

Emilie managed a wan smile and held her cold trembling hands together tightly. "Maybe so, Elspeth. Goodnight."

The next morning was sunny. The sky was blue and clear. Icicles had already started forming on the long length of gabled roof along the front of the house.

Composed, ready to face the world, Emilie drove the short distance to the school. She walked into the principal's office and informed him that Adam played the flute and yes, he had his own instrument.

She picked up her mail and strode confidently back to her classroom, smiling and wishing everyone she passed a good morning.

It was Friday, after all, she reasoned when a few of her fellow teachers looked at her as though she'd lost her mind.

All along the streets leading into and out of Ferrier's Mountain, the city crews were busy putting up holiday decorations. Shiny silver garland entwined with huge green bunches of holly were being gracefully draped from streetlight to streetlight.

Inside the school, several of the maintenance people were doing the same, marking the start of the holiday season.

Christmas was Emilie's favorite time of the year. Nothing terrible could happen during the Christmas season. Everything was going to be all right.

She opened the door to her classroom. Nick stood up from the desk he'd occupied and her heart sank like a stone.

"Hi," he said, looking distinctly uneasy.

"Good morning," she replied, trying to keep her equilibrium after a long night of soul searching that had supposedly led to the morning's calm.

"I -- uh -- brought Adam's flute," he explained, holding out the battered flute case in front of him. "He forgot it when he got on the bus this morning."

"I'll be sure he gets it," she answered, not looking at him.

"Emilie," he started, moving towards her after putting the flute case down on her desk. "I'm sorry about last night."

She smiled. "I'm sorry," she insisted. "I was tired and I didn't mean to break down like that. Sometimes life just gets the better of me."

Nick looked down at the flute case in front of him. "I didn't want you to think I was trying to use the situation. I know I kissed you but -- "

"I know." She rushed into the thought. "And I appreciated your sympathy, Nick. Really. Thanks for not laughing at me."

She smiled and held out her hand to him as a gesture of friendship. To let him know that she didn't have any hard feelings. That he didn't need to explain that it was just a kiss. Only the moment.

He looked at her manicured hand, dumbfounded, wondering how he'd managed to make such a mess of a simple thing. He'd thought about it all night and while he was grateful for what she'd done for Adam, he wanted to see her.

He knew all the compelling reasons why he shouldn't want to get to know her any better but there were too many reasons why he wanted to spend time with her. He'd convinced himself to ignore the warnings from his brain and ask her out to dinner.

He took her hand. It was cool and smooth. He looked into her beautiful face and almost lost his nerve.

"I was wondering if you'd go out with me, Emilie?" He smiled at the silly rhyme. "Dinner? Nothing fancy. I thought maybe we could get to know each other a little better."

Emilie smiled in return and carefully slid her hand from his grasp. "I appreciate the offer, Nick. But I'm Adam's teacher and I don't think that's a good idea. I know last night, I might have led you to believe that, well, there could be something between us but while I appreciate your sympathy -- "

"Just say 'no thanks', Emilie," he said quietly. "It doesn't have to be a major event."

She looked at him, finally, with such striking clarity that he couldn't look away, couldn't speak. There was terrible pain in the depths of her gaze. Pain and loss. It reminded him of looking into Adam's eyes when he'd realized that both of his parents were gone forever.

"I'm sorry," she finished softly.

"So am I," he murmured, wishing he understood and reminding himself that he didn't want to get involved.

"I'll -- uh -- give this to Adam," she said carefully.

"Thanks," he returned. "And thanks for all your help. I believe he has a chance to survive all of this now."

She smiled but didn't look at him. "I hope so."

"I'll see you around then," he finished as the first bell rang.

She shrugged. "It's a small town."

"Yeah. I noticed. Goodbye, Emilie."

"Goodbye, Nick."

A handful of children ran into the room and Emilie reacted instinctively, telling them not to run and to take their seats.

Nick was gone when she looked back.

Had she done the right thing? She wondered, wishing she hadn't looked into his eyes and seen the endless night there, and wanting to lose herself in those dark stars.

She'd done the only thing, she reminded herself. She forced herself to recall her past experience with David. She couldn't, wouldn't, let herself feel that way again about another man.

She turned her gaze towards her class of thirty yawning, restless, nine and ten- year-olds and smiled, putting aside everything else to survive that day.

Adam had his first lesson, though Mr. foster called it an evaluation. The boy was better with the flute than he'd expected, though he never relented enough to come right out and say it. He assigned him a place in the band and that was enough for Emilie.

Adam was still uninterested in his schoolwork that day but Emilie was willing to give that a chance. She could keep Mr. Howard at bay for a while until the boy had an opportunity to respond to her threefold plan. With any luck, he'd be making progress before anyone had to question her methods.

The day dragged on interminably, then was suddenly over and the classroom was empty. Emilie looked around at the deserted desks and took a deep breath in the silence left behind.

She stayed late helping with the decorations and setting up the games for the annual winter festival the next day. Julie Johnson, the second grade teacher, chattered about her husband and her two children and their mortgage payments as they tied lights to strings and wrapped prizes.

"My husband says we may have to quit our jobs teaching," she explained as they worked together putting up posters on the walls. Her husband was a middle school teacher in the county.

"Why?" Emilie wondered. "He loves that school."

"Money." Julie shrugged. "We can barely make it on what the state pays. Both of us have our Masters and it still isn't enough."

"I'm sure it's hard to have enough with two children," Emilie answered.

"That's why I took the second job teaching at the college at night," Julie explained. "It's a college prep class, you know? For people who finished high school but didn't get enough credits or didn't understand the classes. Bill hates me doing it but it makes the car payments."

"I'll bet the kids hate you being gone at night, too," Emilie sympathized.

"I don't know." Julie sighed. "Sometimes I think I'm spinning my wheels. Sometimes I wonder why I had kids!"

Emilie stared at her. "You don't realize how blessed you are! I would give anything -- "

She paused and snapped two more staples into the poster Julie held up on the wall.

Julie looked at her friend. "You'll find a child, Emilie," she assured her. "Then you can suffer like the rest of us!"

She laughed and Emilie lightened up as well. It was going to be Christmas break in a week. Maybe a miracle would happen and she would find a child to share Christmas with that year. Sometimes, adoptions came up quickly. Sometimes, it was a phone call in the middle of the night and the next day, you were a mother.

That was her Christmas wish, she considered, as she finished the stapling of the hundred posters that lined the walls of the school corridors in preparation for the festival. Someone to share Christmas with that year.

Last year, she and Elspeth hadn't even bothered to put up a tree in the foyer, as her parents had always done. They had shared a quiet supper on Christmas Eve, then exchanged their few presents and gone to bed.

This year, she considered looking for the first star she could find when she stepped out into the dark night. Maybe things would be different.

She made her wish on the evening star, as her father had taught her when she was a child. Then she drove home and picked Elspeth up and they went out for dinner and too much wine.

They stopped by the high school to watch the school's production of "The Merchant of Venice". Elspeth raved about the sets and the actors then went backstage after it was over and pressed a thousand dollars into the drama teacher's hand.

The teacher, Mrs. Dilworth, looked stunned when the tall woman dressed in red velvet, her long white hair flowing around her like a cape, told her that it had been magnificent and gave her the money.

True, the plays were a means of getting enough money to buy new set material and costumes and keep the theater alive in the school, but no one had ever --

"My Aunt is a little eccentric." Emilie followed Elspeth's stunning act with a smile and a sane presence. "But she means well. And she does want you to have the money for the kids."

"Thank you," Mrs. Dilworth exclaimed. "What's her favorite play?"

Emilie shrugged. "Probably 'A Midsummer's Night's Dream'."

"We'll do it next semester," the teacher promised. "Maybe she'll want to see it."

Emilie smiled and waved knowing she couldn't promise what Elspeth's mood would be next semester. She might just as easily drop that thousand dollars into a waiter's hand for his tip.

"That was wonderful," Elspeth breathed on the frosty night air as they walked back to the car.

"It was," Emilie agreed. "The drama teacher said they'd do a 'Midsummer's Night's Dream' if you'll come back next semester."

Elspeth looked at her pointedly. "When is the next semester, Emilie, Anjou?"

"Probably February or March."

Elspeth nodded, satisfied. "Then we will return."

They drank the rest of the bottle of wine together when they reached the house, sitting in the dark in her mother's music room. The dim light from the hallway glazed the surface of the grand piano that dominated the room.

"Your mother's presence is in this room," Elspeth told her after they'd sat in the silence for a long time.

Emilie sipped at her wine. "Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and think I hear her playing down here."

"Sometimes, maybe you do," Elspeth agreed.

"Where would Daddy be then, Elspeth?" Emilie wondered, looking up at the mural painted on the ceiling high above them.

"Your father is comfortable in his rest," Elspeth told her. "He doesn't wait, restlessly, as your Mamma does, for the laughter of a child."

"She knew I couldn't have children," Emilie pointed out to her aunt.

"Yes, but she knew you would do the right thing, the necessary thing to ensure the Ferrier line to continue."

Emilie stood, a little uncertainly since they'd shared a considerable amount of wine. She traced her finger along the dustless surface of the piano.

"Sometimes I wish I could leave this house," she whispered fiercely. "Sometimes, it weighs on me like a rock."

"Responsibility is rarely light, petite." Elspeth shrugged, lying back on the heavy sofa. "But it is your heart that is heavy, not this house. When you bring a little one home, it will be lighter."

"Elspeth, do you realize what you're saying?" Emilie rounded on her. "That we should raise a child alone here, in this house full of ghosts and empty rooms? That both of us should live out loveless lives for the sake of the Ferrier name?"

"We must both do what we must do, ma petite belle," Elspeth mused only half sober herself.

"Which is I must raise a child alone while you run wild with your friends in the garden?"

"You are only alone because you choose to be alone!"

"I didn't choose to be alone," Emilie argued. "Any more than I chose to be the last barren child of a dying family!"

"We all make our choices," Elspeth insisted.

"Then I choose to leave this house and I choose not to raise a child alone because I think a child needs a mother and a father! And I choose to be happy for once. And I choose to be in love!"

"Bien!" Elspeth applauded her. "Now you only have to make your life this way!"

Emilie felt suddenly tired and dispirited. "I don't know how to make my life any different than it is. I guess you didn't either. Goodnight, Aunt Elspeth. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Things will work out, Emilie, Anjou," her aunt's thin voice called out to her from the darkness. "Everything will be fine."

Chapter Five

Alain Jackson pulled his black Jaguar into the Ferrier drive promptly at eight am the following morning. The weather was still clear but the temperatures had dropped again, making him hunch down into his heavy wool coat as he walked from the garage to the big house.

It was always a mystery to him why the family hadn't had the walk enclosed, protecting them from the weather. They could certainly afford it. But they were a strange lot.

Elspeth met him at the door, looking at him with keen eyes that unnerved him.

"Good morning," he said cheerfully, looking around the kitchen for Emilie.

"I was wrong," she told him bluntly. "She shouldn't marry you. Even for the sake of a child."

"What?"

"I counseled the girl to marry you if it meant that she could adopt the child but now I see that I was wrong. You might as well go."

She turned and opened the door for him, standing and glaring at him while the cold air blasted into the house.

Alain looked frantically for some avenue of escape from the crazy old woman. Finally, gratefully, Emilie walked into the kitchen.

"Emilie!"

"Shut the door, Elspeth, please! It's freezing in here!"

"He can go," her aunt told her. "He isn't right for you."

"We're spending the day together," Emilie explained, glancing at Alain to see how he was handling her aunt's outrageous behavior.

"There's no reason," Elspeth repeated. "He's wrong." She turned to Alain. "Goodbye!"

Emilie buttoned her coat then took Alain by the arm, leading him to the door. "We're going out. Don't forget to close the door."

"He's not right," Elspeth yelled after her as they walked to the garage.

"Sorry," Emilie apologized. "She doesn't really mean it. Tomorrow she might love you."

Alain smiled. "As long as you don't mind what she says, I can handle it. She's been this way as long as I can remember."

Emilie shrugged and glanced back to see Elspeth close the door behind them. It slammed shut loudly in the cold morning air.

"So!" Alain brightened without Elspeth glowering at him. "Where are we going?"

"To a winter carnival," Emilie replied with a smile. "You're going to have a great time."

Alain's mind scanned his sources to recall where the world's best winter carnivals were held. It was too early for Rio. Too late for St. Moritz. Where were they going?

"It's a secret," she told him. "You'll like it. Trust me. It'll be a great place to get to know one another better."

Alain sat inside Emilie's booth in the school gymnasium, half-awake, as she recited yet another fortune that she read from a little girl's palm.

They had been there for two hours and the line had grown outside the darkened fortuneteller's booth.

It was really just a few blankets thrown across a support made of old stage props borrowed from the kindergarten. Emilie had added her own touches: a crystal ball and a lava light along with her garish purple costume.

"So, what do you think?" Emilie asked as she spun in front of him after she'd added a green scarf to her head.

"This is what you do for a living?" he wondered aloud.

She nodded, looking critically at him. "It means a lot to me, Alain. I work with children because I love to, not because I have to."

He certainly knew that! She didn't have to work at all. Yet she chose to work with dirty little children. On a day when they could have been anywhere in the world, she was sitting under some blankets making toothless children laugh at her fortunes!

It would change, he assured himself. Once he found her a child to adopt, she would abandon these other children. She was only teaching school to be near children because she didn't have any of her own, although, with three from his previous marriages, Alain wasn't sure why she would want to adopt a child. Overall, pets were better. More easily cared for and more easily disposed of, if they became a problem.

But they were important to women, especially, it seemed, this woman, and so they were important to him as well.

The little girl laughed once more, then left the booth. Two more little girls, holding hands and looking around with big, frightened eyes, followed her.

"Is that you, Miss Ferrier?" One little girl asked with just a touch of fear in her voice.

"Shh," Emilie persuaded her. "Don't tell anyone else."

They giggled and took their seats on the bench across from her. She took their hands and told them that their parents were getting ready to decide what they were going to do for extra chores over the Christmas holiday.

"Oh no!" They both groaned.

"What about my boyfriend?" One of them giggled. She was at least eight and had pretty little dimples in both of her cheeks.

"Your boyfriend?" Emily glanced at her, then peered into her crystal ball mysteriously. "I see your boyfriend. He's waiting for you outside. He wants to borrow your new CD over the holiday."

"No way!" the girl exclaimed. "He's not borrowing Titan for the whole two weeks! I just got it yesterday! How did you know, Ms. Ferrier?"

"I see all! I know all!"

Both girls giggled and thanked her then walked out of the tent.

Emilie smiled at Alain who smiled back at her.

"See? Didn't I promise you a good time?"

"This wasn't exactly what I had in mind," he answered carefully. "Are we going to be here all day?"

Emilie glanced at her watch. "Well, until three anyway. That's when the fair is over."

"All right," he agreed, standing. "I'll be back."

"Where are you going?" she wondered aloud.

"You'll see," he promised with a sly smile. "It's a surprise."

He kissed her lightly on her heavily rouged cheek. Emilie raised her eyebrows in surprise.

"We are supposed to be getting to know each other better today," he reminded her with a sweet smile. His gaze fell on her lips but Emilie panicked, drawing back as he neared her mouth.

"You know, I don't require a lot but there does need to be some physical intimacy for a relationship to work," Alain warned her with a deeply indrawn breath. "

"I know," she admitted quietly, searching his face. "I guess I'm just nervous."

"I know you had a bad experience with David." Alain tried to alleviate some of her fears. "You haven't really been with anyone since then, have you?"

"No," she replied, moving quickly over her experience with Nick. "Not really."

"You'll be fine," he assured her quickly. His face moved close to hers again and this time his kiss fell at the corner of her mouth.

Emilie smiled and repeated his words inwardly. What was wrong with her? Alain was everything most women were looking for in a husband. He understood her need for children. He knew her background. She knew that he would never be less than polite and well meaning. What more did she want?

A shy little second grader entered the tent holding his mother's hand.

"We'd like to have our fortunes told," the mother said, looking at the boy.

Emilie was relieved to think about something else for a while. "I'll be glad to tell your fortunes. Sit down, please."

The boy was laughing when he left the fortuneteller's tent a few minutes later. His mother thanked Emilie.

"You're Emilie Ferrier, aren't you?" she asked with a polite but interested gaze.

"Yes, I am," Emilie replied, ready for anything that followed.

"I went to school with your mother, Anne. I'm on the school board." She held out her well-manicured hand. "Del Mason. I've heard about your work here. You do a good job."

"Thank you." Emilie took the woman's hand and smiled at her from beneath the make up and the green turban.

Del raised her eyebrows. "You're a surprising person. I don't know what your mother would have thought about all of this."

Emilie laughed. "She would've thought it was simply another quirk in the Ferrier line."

"I'm sure you're right," Del said politely. "Well, it was nice to finally meet you. I guess I should go look for Trevor. Keep up the good work."

"Thanks," Emilie added again, watching the woman leave the tent. She sat back down on her fortuneteller's stool, glad that she hadn't been called on to defend the Ferrier honor. She wasn't feeling particularly loyal at that moment in time.

A simple question about her heritage could also lead to a twenty-minute sermon on things she should do with her family's money. Or a thorough re-hashing of past Ferrier sins. Once a woman at a department store had actually accused Emilie's great- grandfather of raping her great-grandmother and wanted to know what Emilie wanted to do about it.

"Miss Ferrier?" Another voice interrupted her thoughts.

It was Adam Markland, his blonde hair standing up in spikes on his head, dark eyes curious.

"Madame de Ferrier," Emilie replied elegantly, switching on the little light under the crystal ball on the table. "Come and sit down. I will tell your fortune."

"de Ferrier?" Adam asked, frowning. "Is that like the guy who started the town?"

"Adam!" she answered brightly. "Are you telling me that you learned something about local history?"

He smiled, showing that gap in his newly forming smile again. "I liked the band rehearsal yesterday," he said without giving anything away about what he'd learned. "That's great! Ask me a question about your future!"

He sat down on the bench opposite her and thought for a moment, then asked, "Will Uncle Nick be able to find me?"

At that moment, Emilie heard Nick outside the tent asking if Adam was inside.

"I think that's going to happen," Emilie prophesied and the boy smiled.

"Adam?"

"He's in here," Emilie called, turning from the boy to watch his uncle duck his head and enter the tent.

Nick's eyes raked the tent, locating his nephew and sighing heavily. "I thought we were going to stay together."

"We were." Adam scooted around a little on the bench. "I wanted to come in here while you were talking to that lady."

"Okay," Nick relented, taking his place on the bench beside Adam. He adjusted a little girl on his lap, her pretty dark curls spilling across her shoulder.

She looked at Emily, her thumb in her mouth. Her dark eyes fastened on her with unwavering deliberation.

"She's going to tell my future," Adam explained to his uncle.

Emilie was making faces at the little girl then put out a finger for her to look at the huge sparkling costume ring. The little girl looked at the ring, then at Emilie, then smiled.

Nick looked at the fortuneteller who was busy playing with the baby and recognized her. He would have liked to have growled at Adam for dragging him in there with Emilie after his disastrous attempt at asking her out but he couldn't fault his nephew. He didn't want to explain to the boy that he was attracted to his teacher but that she didn't feel the same about him.

"Hello again," he managed softly.

"We meet in strange places," she murmured with a quick smile for him, then her attention return to the baby. "How old is she?"

"A little over a year," he returned. "Her name is Amber."

"She's my sister," Adam told his teacher in disparaging tones. "She cries a lot."

"I'm sure she does," Emilie agreed, smiling as Amber grabbed for her finger. "But she's happy right now."

Adam sneered. "That's just because she didn't poop her pants and Uncle Nick's holding her."

Emilie laughed and looked back at Adam's disgusted face as he squirmed around on the bench beside his uncle.

"All right. Let's take a look at your fortune." She looked into the crystal ball, making mysterious motions across the glass with her heavily ringed hands.

Nick watched her animated face, wondering if she could look bad. Even with the heavy, garish make up, she was still incredibly beautiful. The dark make up and especially the heavy eyeliner emphasized rather than detracted from her good looks.

Amber laughed and Emilie glanced up at her, making a funny face at her that set the little girl off even more. She crossed her eyes and wrinkled her nose. She twisted her lips in a strange caricature of their usual smooth lines.

Nick wondered if it could be possible that Emilie didn't realize that she was so incredibly attractive. She certainly didn't act as if she were aware of anything to do with herself at all.

Money, brains, and beauty, he mused. Not to mention a fortune and a big house. She had a soft heart and a sweet body with lips that kissed like an angel. It was hard for him to believe that she hadn't been snatched up by some man. If he were in a different position --

"I see something good coming to you," she began, glancing up at Nick who mouthed the word 'bicycle' at her. "Wait! I see something. Can it be something with wheels? Something that can take you places?"

Adam made a face, straining to peer into the crystal ball that was glowing softly on the dark table. "I don't see anything."

"You have to have the sight," Emile told him briefly. "I see something here that looks like -- "

"A Corvette?" Adam prompted.

Emilie frowned at him. "A bicycle. Not a Corvette."

Nick laughed. "What would you do with a Corvette anyway?"

"Let you drive it, Uncle Nick," he said in his slightly falsetto voice.

Nick rumpled the boy's light hair. "Thanks, buddy. If I had one, I'd let you help me drive it."

"Cool!"

"But this is a bicycle." Emilie brought him back to reality. "I see a bicycle in your future."

"I asked for one for Christmas," Adam told her with a shy, sweet smile. "Amber wants a dolly."

"Do you want a dolly?" Emilie turned to the little girl and asked her.

Amber laughed up at her then hid her eyes against her uncle's shoulder.

"She's shy," Adam explained to his teacher. "Is there a dolly in her fortune?"

Emilie looked into the crystal and smiled. She noticed the little girl looking back at her. "I think there is. Yes! I see one here for sure."

"You're going to get a doll, Amber," Adam told her, shaking her arm a little.

Amber grinned, showing her pretty little white teeth and opened her eyes wide but didn't say anything. Not even a cooing sound came from her little pink lips.

"Could I hold her?" Emilie asked tentatively, prepared for Nick to reject her request.

Used to the question from women he passed in the mall and grocery shopping, Nick held the little girl out to her.

Emilie took her into her arms as though she were the most precious creature in the world. Amber looked up into her face and smiled, then reached for the huge brooch on the front of Emilie's turban.

"No, Amber," Nick cautioned.

The pretty face crumpled and Emilie thought fast, substituting a spool of twine from her pocket into the little girl's questing hands.

The bright gold color attracted Amber's gaze at once and she took the spool greedily, clutching it tightly in her little hands.

"You're good with her," Nick told her gently. "You must have some of your own."

She glanced across the table at him. "No, I'm afraid not. I was married once. That was a long time ago. But I can't have children. Physically, I mean."

She smiled and played with the little girl to cover her embarrassment. It was a difficult thing for her to speak of, even to people she knew well. She was surprised to find herself blurting it out to Nick who was a virtual stranger in her life.

"I'm sorry," he replied, catching the wistful note in her voice when she told him. "I think you would have made someone a good mother."

She smiled and quick tears rimmed her eyes. She hid her face against the baby in her arms, inhaling the sweet smell of the little girl in her lap.

Nick closed his eyes for an instant and counted to ten. If he was any clumsier with this woman, he wouldn't be able to have a conversation with her at all. He'd never had a problem talking to women before but he seemed doomed to look like a fool with her from the beginning.

He opened his eyes as she looked up and they both smiled then started speaking at once.

"Sorry," she apologized.

"No, go ahead," he encouraged.

Adam whistled through the hole between his teeth, bored with the adult conversation. "Can we go now, Uncle Nick?"

"In a minute," his uncle told him.

"I was going to say that you really have your hands full," she remarked. "Caring for both of the children must be difficult."

Nick rolled his eyes. "Difficult doesn't really begin to handle it!"

Adam shuffled restlessly. Emilie knew from his movements that he was getting ready to cause some trouble. She'd taught his age group long enough to know that they weren't good at sitting and listening to adults talk.

"I was about ready to have a break," Emilie told him. "Have you had a slushee yet? I've heard they're pretty good."

"I haven't had one." Adam glanced at his uncle from under his long dark lashes. "Uncle Nick said they were too messy."

Emilie frowned. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to -- "

"No, that's okay," he interrupted quickly.

"I could come with you and help with the baby," she volunteered, trying not to sound as though it meant a lot to her.

"How could I refuse that generous offer?" he asked. He was aware of a wistful catch to her voice, though he couldn't have said exactly what made him feel as though he understood her.

They emerged from the tent and walked through the crowded halls towards the refreshment area in the cafeteria.

"Maybe you should help Adam," Nick considered, looking at her dress. "The baby's a little messy."

"That's okay," she said, hugging the little girl closer and tickling her ribs. "I think we can manage."

Nick went for the slushees while Adam waited with Emilie and the baby. He returned with four slushees, three cherry and one grape. He sat beside Adam after giving out the three cherry slushees to the others, then found Emilie and Adam staring at him as he tasted his drink.

"What?"

Adam looked at his teacher. "We were trying to decide if Amber liked grape or cherry. There's only one way to know for sure."

Emilie nodded in agreement. "Could I borrow your slushee for a minute?" she asked Nick.

He looked between her and his nephew, liking the brightness of Adam's eyes. "Okay. What's up?"

"We're trying to find out if Amber likes grape or cherry slushees better," Adam explained to his uncle as though he were even younger than Amber.

"Here." Emilie handed him the two cherry slushees that she'd held. "Okay, Adam, you have to help me here. We have to watch her face."

"Okay," he said seriously, watching his sister's face with the intensity of a scientist looking for a distant comet.

Emilie held the slushee cup to Amber's mouth and the little girl put out her pink tongue, licking the flavored syrup from the top. She smiled, then put out her tongue again.

"That's the grape." Emilie gave the slushee back to Nick and took the cherry ones.

"This is where we tell the difference," she confided to Adam.

"Yeah!"

Emilie held the cup to Amber's mouth and the girl licked some of the red syrup, then opened her mouth wide and tried to swallow all of it at once. A large portion of it fell into Emilie's lap and Adam laughed.

"I think she likes the cherry best, Miss Ferrier," he told his teacher.

Nick grabbed for some napkins and tried to get most of the cherry slushee out of Emilie's lap with them. The red liquid had already saturated her skirt and was dripping to the floor. He rubbed hard, trying to get what he could, not thinking about what he was doing until he looked up and saw Emilie's face, as red as the cherry slushee, beneath her green turban.

"Sorry," he apologized with a grin, handing her another bunch of napkins. "I guess I'm used to cleaning up the kids."

"That's all right," she assured him with a smile. His hand had slipped from her thigh to the warm juncture between her legs with casual ease, pushing the cold liquid along her skin and into her panties.

Amber was laughing, then began pulling at her dress.

"She's got to go, Uncle Nick," Adam interpreted the little girl's gestures.

"Oh, God." Nick glanced around the corridor. "I'm working on getting her trained," he explained.

"Let me take her," Emilie volunteered. "I'm going to need to go anyway unless I want to walk around like this the rest of the day."

Nick and Adam escorted the two to the girl's bathroom then waited outside.

"What's wrong, Uncle Nick?" Adam asked, seeing his uncle slumped against the wall, shaking his head.

"I knew I should have held Amber," he recounted.

"Miss Ferrier didn't mind Amber spilling on her," Adam told him confidently. "She's pretty cool, huh?"

"For a teacher." Nick shrugged, noncommittally.

"Yeah," Adam agreed. "For a teacher."

"She's pretty, too." Nick allowed with a sigh.

"Yeah," Adam agreed. "For a teacher. Sammy says she has a lot of money and lives in a castle."

"Just a big house," Nick corrected.

"Bet she has a Corvette," Adam said, picking up a piece of wall decoration from the floor.

"No, she doesn't," Nick told him. "Put that down, Adam. People have walked on it."

Adam glanced at his uncle, seeing his gaze wasn't on him and stuffed it into his pocket.

Emilie wiped up the cherry slushee from her skirt with wet napkins, knowing she was going to be sticky the rest of the day.

Amber watched her with solemn eyes after they'd finished in the bathroom stall. She kicked her feet, sitting on the counter, then grabbed at the brooch on Emilie's turban again.

Emilie pulled back then gave a little cry as the girl fell forward from the edge of the counter, losing her balance. She managed to insert her body between Amber and the hard tile floor but it frightened the girl anyway and she gave a loud howl.

Nick and Adam came running through the door to find Amber lying on top of Emilie, the turban on the floor beside them, Emilie's hair spilling out across her face.

"What happened?" Nick asked.

"She started to fall," Emilie told him breathlessly. "I...I moved under her. Is she hurt?"

"No, she's just scared," Nick assured her, picking up the little girl who'd already quieted and was watching them both with luminous dark eyes. "Are you hurt?"

Emilie pushed her hair out of her face and looked at the three pairs of dark eyes staring at her. "No, I'm fine. We were both just scared, I guess."

Nick stood Amber up next to Adam and put her hand into the boy's. Then he reached his hand down to Emilie to help her up off the floor.

"Maybe I wouldn't be such a great mother," she whispered dejectedly, still terrified that she'd almost hurt the little girl. "I let her fall."

Nick took her cold, sticky hands in his warm ones and pulled her to her feet. "That happens all the time. She's always falling. It's part of being a kid, I guess."

"I guess." Emilie sighed.

Nick looked at her and saw the first signs of tears in her eyes. "Weren't you the one who never cried?" he wondered aloud, his head bent close to hers so that the children couldn't hear his words.

She looked up at him and sniffed. "I seem to be changing," she answered with a voice that sounded suspiciously close to tears.

"Maybe its being around me," he defended her. "Women of all ages seem to enjoy crying around me."

"Especially her age, I suppose." Emilie smiled and sniffed, gulping back the sudden threat of tears. What was wrong with her anyway?

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

"Especially," Nick answered with a nod. "You seem to have the same problem she has cleaning up, too."

They both looked down at her dirty, sticky hands that were still in his and she started to pull them away.

"Just a minute, young lady," he coerced, bringing her hands to the sink quickly. "I think you'd better get cleaned up before you leave."

"Nick -- "

Adam laughed and Amber followed suit. "Uncle Nick's cleaning her hands, Amber."

Nick held her hands under the warm water for a moment then added a little soap and rubbed them together. He looked at her and smiled. "You're a good girl, Emilie."

"Thanks!" She laughed, starting to pull herself back from the tears that had threatened. "I was really scared that she was going to be hurt. If I had let her get hurt -- "

"You didn't," he reasoned with her in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. "She's fine and so are you."

Emilie shrugged. "Except for red cherry slushee all over me."

"That's to be expected," he replied, rinsing her hands then drying them on a towel. "See? Good as new."

Emilie stared up into his dark eyes, seeing a kindness and patience there that she hadn't noticed before. Was that why his sister had left the children in his custody? Because she knew he was capable of taking care of them?

"Can we go now?" Adam asked impatiently. "I want to go to the ball bath before we leave."

"Sure, "Nick agreed, tearing his gaze from Emilie's face with an effort. He reached down and picked up her turban, handing it to her. "I think you still need this."

"Yes, thank you." She blinked her eyes and brought herself out of the trance she seemed to have fallen in at the sink.

A gray haired cafeteria worker ducked into the girl's bathroom. "Sorry!" she said quickly, seeing the crowd, then ducked back out again.

Emilie frowned. "We should leave before there's new crazy Ferrier stories floating around. I try to avoid those."

"Is that how those happen?" Nick asked. He picked Amber up and walked out of the bathroom.

"I'm afraid so." Emilie sighed. "Someone sees something that looks a little strange and the next thing I know, the Ferrier's are all crazy."

"Must be rough," Nick tried to sympathize. He thought that the big house and the financial security could cover a lot of that for him.

Emilie put the turban back on her head. "I know. My aunt calls it crying with a loaf of bread under your arm."

Nick laughed down at her. "That's one way of putting it. I've never heard that before."

"Aunt Elspeth has a lot of those ways."

"She sounds interesting," Nick replied as they maneuvered towards the ball bath.

Amber was blowing kisses at Emilie, her shining eyes crinkling into a sweet smile.

"I think she forgives me," Emilie told him.

"I don't think she was that upset," Nick whispered.

"Emilie?" Alain called her name from the side of the hall. "I've been looking for you everywhere."

"Sorry, Alain. I've been helping this little girl."

She introduced the two men and Adam pulled at his uncle's hand.

"I have to go," Nick told her. He glanced at the well-dressed lawyer. "The ball bath won't wait all day."

"I understand." Emilie smiled. "Thanks for the slushee."

"What there was of it that wasn't on you," Nick retorted with a return smile into her bright eyes.

"I have lunch waiting," Alain told her impatiently.

"See you later," Nick promised quickly, staring again at the other man. "Have a good lunch."

Alain watched the man leave with his two children in tow. "Where did you meet him? Did you think you could circumvent the process?"

"What?"

Alain nodded at Nick's back disappearing into the crowd. "That's the little girl you were trying to adopt last week. The one whose guardian won't adopt out to less than a married couple? Don't tell me you didn't know?"

Chapter Six

Emilie reluctantly switched her gaze from watching the trio to her companion.

"What are you saying, Alain?"

He ushered her into the blanket-covered tent and sat down at the table that held a bottle of wine, two glasses and two covered dishes.

"I shouldn't be telling you this and really, I didn't know who he was. But I saw your friend there with both of his kids as I was leaving Jon Stewart's office last week. Jon told me they were waiting outside. How did you know?"

"I didn't," she said thoughtfully. "I knew he had the two children but I never dreamed...are they both up for adoption?"

"Not that it would matter," Alain told her bluntly, "because you still aren't married. But as far as I know, only the little girl is being adopted."

Emilie stared over his head. "But you wouldn't know if they were both up for adoption."

"That's true," Alain allowed. "I didn't think about you being interested in adopting a boy that age."

"Not that it would do me any good, because I'm not married," she repeated his words.

"Exactly," Alain agreed without noticing her tone. "The man is adamant about there being two parents. No exceptions. Jon said that he pointed out that you could offer the girl a comfortable life and his client informed him that he didn't care if you were the queen of England."

Emilie studied her ringed hands that were resting in her lap. "I didn't know," she told Alain again.

He shrugged. "It doesn't really matter. That case is closed. Unless you want to fly to Reno tonight and get married. That would put you back in the running."

Emilie smiled sadly. "If I liked you a little less, I might be able to do that for the sake of having a child but I can't, Alain. It wouldn't work between us. Kissing you is like kissing Aunt Elspeth. If I had a brother, it would be you."

Alain sat back on the narrow bench and nodded. "I know what you mean. I feel the same about you, Emilie. But I think we could make it work out, if you wanted to. We wouldn't necessarily have to live together, you know."

She laughed. "Thank you. I appreciate the offer but it wouldn't work. We'll have to keep looking for another child whose guardian isn't so picky."

Alain poured them each a small amount of white wine into the two glasses and smiled. "All right. Let's eat this delicious feast so you can get back to work and I can go home and sulk."

"At least you'll be able to take lunch off as a business deduction," she offered.

He stared at her with steady gray eyes. "That's true. Although I think I would've liked it better if you weren't so damned sensible."

They ate the elegant meal he'd brought; French cut vegetables sautéed in wine and garlic, warm, buttered bread and pastry shells stuffed with raspberries.

"Alain -- " Emilie began, her brain humming with possibilities.

"Don't ask!" he warned. "I'm pretty sure it was a breach of ethics for me to tell you about all of this. I can't take it any further."

"All right," she backed off quickly. Too quickly.

"What are you thinking, Emilie? That because he knows you, he won't feel the same about needing both parents for the adoption? If that's it, you're probably wrong. People don't make demands like that for no reason."

"Probably is very different from definitely," she answered lightly, her green eyes flashing.

"Don't tell me any more." He stopped any further conversation on the subject. "As your attorney, I'm not part of this and as your friend, I'm advising you against getting your hopes up."

Emilie frowned at him. "I won't involve you any more on this. But don't tell me not to hope, Alain. I'm not made that way."

He knew that was true and changed the subject. Maybe he should have argued with her about it further but he knew what she'd been through and wasn't able to drag her into the reality of the situation. She'd have to find out the hard way.

He left quickly after lunch and a hasty kiss on the cheek. The tent was crowded immediately with the beginning of the long line of children waiting to see the fortuneteller. Emilie made up something different for each person, making them all laugh. But her mind was on Nick and Amber and Adam.

Without the lawyers, without the fear of the unknown person who might adopt his niece, Emilie might be able to reason with Nick. Face to face. A good argument from a person he knew could be a whole different story.

But what if he had Adam up for adoption as well?

It was a terrible thing to break up a family that way. She wondered why he'd decided not to care for the children himself. Particularly after his story about his sister asking him to take care of the children for her.

Had the responsibility become too much for him? Was it easier to give them to strangers than to have to put himself out for them?

He hadn't struck her as being the type of man who would give up so easily. When they'd spoken about the children, he'd had such passion in his voice. Such fire in his eyes. Maybe he thought it was for the best. But how could he stand to let them go away?

The problem, she began to realize as the afternoon was coming to a close, was how she could talk to him about the situation. He'd hired a lawyer to protect himself from dealing with potential adoptive parents. To tell him that she knew Amber was up for adoption would be admitting that Alain had found out who he was and told her. That could cost Alain his license.

On the other hand, if she couldn't find a way to broach the subject, he would adopt out that sweet little girl before she had a chance to persuade him that she would be a wonderful mother.

Considering what he had seen so far of her as a mother, making a mess of the slushee and almost letting Amber fall on the floor, Emilie knew she had better think fast. She had certainly botched the opportunity to let him see her in a qualified, capable light.

But how could she possibly get Nick to tell her that Amber was up for adoption without implicating Alain?

The answer was easier than she would have imagined.

Bright and early Monday morning, when Adam came into class, he showed her a picture of himself and Amber and their parents.

Emilie looked at the picture carefully, grateful that he was opening up a little. "You look a lot like your father," she remarked. His mother had been dark and solemn looking like Nick.

He made a face. "This might be the last picture we have of me and Amber."

"Why's that?" Emilie wondered, not expecting his honest reply.

"Because Uncle Nick is looking for someone to adopt Amber. He might've already found someone."

"Really?" she asked, heart pounding, not wanting to pump the boy for information but wanting desperately to know if it was too late.

Adam shrugged his thin shoulders. "He says we have to do it for my mom."

He smiled at her and she handed him back his picture. He took his seat, stuffing the flute case under his chair. Emilie started class, the new information burning in her brain.

How she was going to use that information was another question. She did know that Amber hadn't been adopted out as yet but that it could only be a matter of time. And she knew that it had something to do with the children's mother.

What could she do?

The question buzzed in her head all day, squeezing at her heart when she thought about losing Amber because she wasn't married.

If she could just talk to Nick about it. Find some way of convincing him that it would work for her as a single parent. She certainly had a lot to offer. She could even give up her teaching job to be with the little girl without having a financial crisis. Surely that should weigh heavily in her favor.

Yet, Alain had said that Nick had told his lawyer that he didn't care if she were the queen of England. He obviously didn't feel that money was important to the matter. If she could discover what did matter, why the two-parent concept was so important to him, she might be able to dissuade him.

She was gathering her papers to grade that night and thinking about her next move, when she looked down and saw Adam's flute case still on the floor under his seat. She picked up the battered black case and a light came on in her brain.

She could return the case. Make small talk about Adam's progress. Then mention casually that Adam had told her that Amber was up for adoption. It would give her the opportunity to plead her case and possibly learn what her real obstacle was in the matter.

She stuffed the papers into her briefcase and loaded the flute case on top of everything else. Then walked down to the office to have them look up Nick's address.

It was after five when she finally left the school. That time between day and night, that fleeting twilight, was Emilie's favorite time of the day. Night was falling gently over the mountain. Lights were twinkling along the highway and halfway up the mountainside. The towering black shadow of Ferrier's mountain met the darkening sky where the evening star danced in the purple dusk.

She looked at the star and closed her eyes, making a silent, desperate wish. Then she got in her car and drove into town.

She reached the address the school had given her and her heart sank. There was a big, white moving van parked in the narrow drive. Three men in overalls were moving furniture and boxes from the house to the truck.

"Oh no," she pleaded with fate. "Don't let this happen!"

She left her car in the street, bringing the flute case with her. Her leg had been painful that day and she moved stiffly up the drive, hoping that Nick wasn't watching. Sometimes if she walked a little, the stiffness worked itself out. She didn't want to lose Amber because he thought she was physically incapable of taking care of a toddler.

The house was ablaze with light. Boxes, some half-packed, were everywhere. The rooms were pulled apart, furniture pushed in every corner so it was impossible for her to tell what the house had looked like before the moving process had begun.

It was clean, though, she noticed. No dust balls or half eaten candy bars as she might have expected from a house where there was a man living as a single parent with two small children.

"Emilie?" Nick called her name seeing her walk past him from the kitchen to the living room.

She turned and he was immediately aware of her. It was a physical sensation that brought with it a narrowness of vision to include only her face and a tingling that started in his toes and worked its way to his brain.

"Nick!" She saw him standing halfway down the stairs she'd walked past. He looked frustrated and impatient. His dark hair was disarrayed and the sound of the baby crying filtered down from the second floor.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, pushing a diaper into the pocket of his black jeans.

"I -- uh came to bring Adam's flute case. He forgot it at school and I thought he might need to have it," she replied with more practice than confidence. "I -- uh -- didn't mean to intrude."

"Thanks," he managed. "Sorry. I didn't mean to give you the third degree. It's just that -- "The baby's cry came louder and stronger from upstairs. "Hang on a sec! Can you come up?"

Her leg was still a little stiff. Emilie nodded then waited for him to go up, following slowly afterwards, hoping he wouldn't notice that she didn't sprint up the way he did.

Almost everything was gone from the second floor. Only the baby's crib and a few boxes remained filled with toys and stuffed animals and an unhappy little girl.

"She needs to have her diaper changed," Nick explained unnecessarily when Emilie walked into the nursery.

Emilie smiled and looked at the colorful borders on the walls and the smiling stars and moon on the ceiling. All of the other furniture might have been gone but it was clearly a little child's room. She looked out of the window at the winding street below and tried to calm down. Everything was going well so far.

Amber kept howling even when her diaper had been changed. Nick picked her up and balanced her on his shoulder, looking around the room.

"Can I get something for you?" she asked, seeing his desperate gaze.

"There's a blue case here somewhere," he replied. He began searching through what was left in the room. "It has her bottle and her turtle."

"Her turtle?" she asked with a small smile.

Nick grimaced. "She won't go to sleep without it."

Emilie spotted the blue case under a pink blanket. The furry turtle was beside it. "Is this it?" she asked, holding the prize up.

"Can you get the bottle out?" he asked, taking the turtle while Amber cried. "Look, Amber, look. It's Tommy. See?"

She stopped crying for an instant, then was about to start again when the bottle was passed to her uncle. He sat down on one of the boxes and rested the girl in his lap, holding the bottle in her mouth while she smiled contentedly and held the little turtle.

"Sorry about all of this," he apologized again. "We're moving out for a few weeks and it's a mess. I didn't mean to snap at you downstairs."

"That's okay," she replied, sitting on the other box, watching the little girl as she drained her bottle. "You had an emergency! Are you -- uh -- leaving town?"

"No," he responded. "This is an older house and they found asbestos in the insulation. I didn't like the idea of the kids being here with it so I'm having it cleaned out and new insulation put in. So everything has to go into storage and we have to stay at a motel for a while until it's finished."

Emilie's pulse beat faster as she realized that this was her opportunity. She wouldn't have to admit that she knew his secret. It would give her the time she needed to show him exactly what it would be like for Amber to live with her.

"This may be awkward," she began, trying to sound natural and not as excited as she felt by the prospect. "And you don't have to commit to anything yet. You can think about it. But you could move into my house until yours is finished."

He looked up at her with narrowed eyes, calculating what it was that made her offer. "That's nice," he answered. "But no, thanks."

"It wouldn't be an inconvenience," she rushed to assure him. "I mean, the house is huge. You wouldn't even know I was there. I wouldn't even have to see you. I mean, well, you've seen the house."

"Why?" he asked. "You don't owe me anything. You sure don't know me that well. Why would Emilie Ferrier want to have town riffraff move into her house for a few weeks?"

She looked down at her hands and he was immediately sorry. No matter what they said in town about the Ferrier's, he had a hard time believing it applied to this woman. He'd never met anyone less self assured or more vulnerable to insult, no matter how minor. She was too sensitive, too willing to put herself out because of what other people might think of her.

"I'm sorry," he repented, smiling at her when she looked up at him again. "It's been a hard day. I'm not sure exactly where Adam is. The baby has been miserable teething and Joe Patterson wanted his Dodge truck back yesterday."

"That's all right." She smiled back at him. "But the offer still stands. It'll be hard for Adam to practice his flute in a motel without getting you thrown out. And if Amber is teething, she'll be crying a lot, disturbing other people. And--"

"I'm not going to do anything disturbing," he promised. "They might let me stay."

"True," she admitted readily. "I didn't mean to list your problems for you. I was just pointing out that it might be better -- easier, to stay with me."

"Emilie, do you go around saving everyone?"

She looked up at him, not realizing the loneliness and unhappiness he saw in her eyes. "I don't know if you realize it or not," she told him. "But Christmas is coming in the next two weeks. A motel won't be a very good place to spend a holiday."

He searched her face, wondering why she would be lonely or unhappy. Then decided that he shouldn't even be asking that question. He'd worked himself up to asking her out and had been soundly rejected. Wasn't that enough for him?

He'd told himself afterwards, that she had been the smart one. She knew nothing could ever work out between them, no matter the attraction he felt for her.

Still, looking into her eyes as she stared back at him as openly as any child, he couldn't help wondering if she felt some attraction for him.

"No," he decided as that familiar curl of desire shivered through him. "I don't think that's a good idea, Emilie. I appreciate your offer but --"

"That's okay," she told him, standing slowly, obviously in pain though no grimace crossed her smooth features. "Just say 'no thanks,' Nick," she parroted his words back to him. "It doesn't have to be a major event."

He frowned, recalling the words and wondering if they'd sounded as bitter coming from his own lips. "It's just not a good idea, Emilie."

"What's not a good idea?" Adam asked from the doorway where he'd been standing, watching the two adults.

"Nothing, Adam," Nick snapped. "Where have you been all afternoon?"

"I've been at Mikey's. He got a new train for Christmas."

"It's not Christmas yet, Adam," Nick reminded him.

"I know." Adam shrugged and grinned at him. "His parents let him open a present early."

Emilie smiled at him then glanced at his uncle. "I was offering to let you stay at my house over Christmas."

Adam pondered the concept while Nick looked smug. Emilie might think she'd put him in a difficult position by telling Adam but the boy wouldn't want to stay with her at all. Adam kept to himself and wanted Nick and Amber to do the same.

"Uncle Nick said you don't have a Corvette," Adam stated finally.

"That's true," Emilie admitted ruefully.

Adam grinned at her. "That's okay. I'd like to come and stay with you anyway."

"What?" Nick demanded.

"I would, Uncle Nick," Adam said, surprised by his uncle's tone of voice. "Amber likes Miss Ferrier, too."

Nick stood up, transferring the sleeping child in his arms to rest her head on his shoulder, putting her bottle down on the floor. "We're not going to stay with Miss Ferrier anyway, Adam."

"Why not?" the boy whined. "I want to stay with her!"

Nick glanced darkly at Emilie who smiled and shrugged. He hadn't known Adam as well as he'd thought. Of course, hadn't he learned in the past year that if there was an opportunity, the children would do whatever surprised him the most!?

"I have to go," Emilie said, edging her way towards the door. "The offer's open, if you change your mind."

"I won't," Nick assured her, trying to put the baby down in the crib only to have her wake up and start to cry.

"I want to stay with Miss Ferrier," Adam told him loudly.

"Quiet, Adam," Nick reminded him, trying to settle Amber back down.

"Uncle Nick!"

Emilie walked slowly, thoughtfully, down the brightly-lit hallway. She hadn't known for sure that Adam would be in her corner. It was obvious that Nick had been certain that he wouldn't want to stay with her. They'd both been surprised!

Not a pleasant one for Nick either, she decided, listening to Adam's pleading and the baby's wailing as she left the house. Would he give in to the boy's demands? Emilie didn't think Nick was the kind of man who gave into anything very easily.

She'd been surprised as well by his refusal. Hadn't he asked her out to dinner? Even though the invitation had been a hasty one on her part, she would have thought the idea of staying with her would have been welcome. Maybe he'd changed his mind about wanting to get to know her better. Maybe she'd been wrong about going out with him. If she'd known then that Amber's adoption had been involved...

She shook her head as she drove down the streets, smiling at the multicolored Christmas lights that glowed softly on the trees and building fronts.

What was she saying? That she'd be willing to date Nick for the right to adopt his niece? Would she be willing to climb into bed with him as well, if it was required?

Surely not, she told herself. She wasn't going to prostitute herself to be able to adopt the baby!

Of course, she reminded herself, she had been attracted to Nick before she'd known about the baby. And, she reminded herself, she'd decided against pursuing that course. She'd been burned once. She was more than twice shy for the experience.

So, she sighed, that avenue was closed to her. She would have to do as Alain suggested and look for another child to adopt. Nick's stringent requirements, whatever the reasons, didn't work with what she was willing to do to have a family.

She climbed wearily into bed and fell asleep, wondering if Elspeth was home.

The rest of the week was chaotic at school. There were end of term tests for the upper grades, including Emilie's, as well as Christmas pageants and plays.

Emilie went to the Christmas band concert at Adam's invitation. Though the boy had only been with the band a scant two weeks, he was able to participate in the concert. Mr. Foster was beaming at his 'prodigy', suddenly making a fuss over the boy's talent and ability to pick up quickly on what the band was already doing.

Thrilled to see Adam in the spotlight, Emilie sat in the back row of the auditorium, watching Nick and Amber in the front row. He sat with the baby, pointing out her brother in the flute section of the band on stage. He'd walked past Emilie without looking at her as he came into the auditorium.

She'd put her hand up to hail him; then changed her mind. It's better to end it, she decided, not wanting to push the offer where it was obviously not wanted.

Adam, handsome in his dark suit and white shirt, a bright red Christmas tie around his thin neck, played his little heart out for his section. When Mr. Foster introduced him specially as his newest and brightest pupil, he took a small bow and the audience applauded.

Emilie felt her eyes brim with tears on the boy's behalf. He seemed to be on the road to recovery finally. She was so happy for him.

Would Nick adopt him out if he wasn't in trouble all the time? Or would he decide to keep the boy? Or had his sister merely wanted the little girl adopted out?

Emilie sighed, afraid she would never know the answers to those questions. She'd been glad to see Amber's smiling baby face as she sat in Nick's lap. It meant that she hadn't been adopted yet.

Although, Emilie reminded herself sternly, it had nothing to do with her anymore.

Nick sat in his seat with Amber when the concert was over after the band's stirring rendition of 'Frosty the Snowman'. People had crowded up to the stage from the audience. He didn't feel like wading through them with the baby who'd fallen asleep in his lap during the concert.

He was watching the parents and relatives of the other band members laughing and talking with their children. Then he saw her.

She was holding the program that had been handed out at the door and she was talking to Adam. She was wearing a bright green dress that clung to her slender form, emphasizing her rounded breasts and curved hips. Her hair was down for once, flowing across her shoulders. There was a sprig of holly near her ear.

He'd seen her when he'd walked into the auditorium. He had a seventh sense where she was concerned. It was like he could feel her near him. He'd purposely walked by her at the back of the seating, telling himself that Amber needed to sit near the front to see Adam better.

Of course, Amber had fallen asleep within the first five minutes. Then he'd been tortured, wanting to look back at her and knowing that if he did, she'd see him looking and know that he was looking at her.

But she was like a living jewel on the stage, laughing at something Adam had said to her. Bending down and hugging him tightly. Touching his hair where it wouldn't ever lay flat. Nick took pleasure just in looking at her, wondering what Adam had said that had brought that light to her eyes and that curve to her red lips.

He knew he was obsessing about the woman and bitterly regretted it. If he could have moved from Ferrier's Mountain to get away from her, he would have. He wasn't interested in the kind of relationship a woman like Emilie wanted.

Not that she was interested in him, he reminded himself bluntly, pinching himself mentally. He hadn't slept at all the night after he'd kissed her. Wanting her. Then when he'd worked up to asking her out, she'd rejected him. What else was there to say?

The crowd was thinning and Adam was looking his way. He stood up and started towards the stage.

Their eyes clashed and he saw Emilie's smile fade. She said something else to Adam and he nodded and smiled at her. Then she began to walk away.

She walked slowly, as if she were in pain but she didn't look back. He wondered again what was wrong with her. He'd wanted to ask since he'd met her but he was wary of the story getting around. The mountain was as much a mother lode of gossip as it had once been of gold. And Emilie was their favorite tidbit. Yet he hadn't heard the story he'd wanted to hear about her handicap.

He had heard about her marriage. What people would say of it anyway. She had married a bad 'un, as Sam Clark had told it. Divorced quietly just a few weeks after. Emilie had gone away for a time after that and no one had seen her. Broken hearted, they speculated. Her husband had left with a cocktail waitress from down the mountain.

Nick could only speculate at what that had cost a woman like Emilie.

And he did speculate on it, he reproached himself. Ad nauseam! It was as though he couldn't think about anything else besides Emilie Ferrier since he'd met her.

"Uncle Nick!" Adam held his flute aloft, hailing him. "What did you think? Did Amber like it?"

"We both loved it!" Nick told him. "Amber liked it so much, she fell asleep."

Adam frowned. "That didn't mean she liked it."

"No," Nick agreed. "But she was laughing and clapping her hands before she went to sleep."

"Really?" Adam looked at his sister's sleeping face. "It was easy! Mr. Foster is a great teacher."

Mr. Foster came up and shook Nick's hand. He laughed and patted Adam's head, telling them both what a pleasure it was to have Adam and how much he looked forward to seeing him after the Christmas break.

Emilie paused when she'd reached the shadows at the back of the auditorium. She looked back at Nick in his dark suit and deep blue shirt standing beside Adam who was waving his flute triumphantly. The baby was asleep on Nick's shoulder. Her dark curls blended with her uncle's dark hair.

Nick was tall and straight standing beside Mr. Foster's rather stooped appearance. His thick, dark hair held the light from the stage. His deep voice was audible as he spoke with the teacher.

She recalled suddenly what he'd smelled like and felt like that night in the car. His hands had been strong and his touch had soothed and excited her.

His gentleness with the baby and his patience with Adam made her feel that tug of attraction even deeper within her heart but she was terrified.

You're too smart to be taken in by another good looking man, she reminded herself, still staring up at the stage. Even if he seems to be a good hearted man as well.

Nick felt that familiar prickling of sensation and turned to find her eyes burning on him. Her lips parted as their gazes locked and held. Suddenly, whatever the teacher and Adam were saying made no sense whatever to him.

The tension between them seemed to fill the auditorium as the music from the band concert had earlier that evening.

Emilie shivered with the longing that filled her. It swamped her senses and kept her rooted to the spot in the aisle, not able to look away.

Nick drew a ragged breath while heat suffused his body, making a jumble of all his good thoughts and intentions. Was it possible to feel -- to desire -- someone from across a crowded auditorium?

Emilie turned away and the link was broken abruptly. She felt weak and weightless. As though she'd been fighting to swim a strong riptide that was threatening to swallow her.

Nick focused back on what Mr. Foster was saying about Adam and felt his body begin to calm down. A glance from her and his blood was racing. He was glad that he hadn't taken her up on her offer. He shifted the baby more comfortably in his arms and willed his body to ignore the excitement it felt whenever Emilie was around.

He didn't want to be involved with her, he repeated to himself. He didn't feel anything unusual when she walked into a room. Or when she looked at him. No one could be so attracted to another person that they could be aroused just seeing her.

He told himself those things in a rational, unemotional statement. But his heart whispered that he lied.

Chapter Seven

Emilie was sitting at her desk writing checks and answering letters. It was well past midnight and the wind howled around the eaves of the big house.

She hadn't been able to sleep. She didn't know if it was the wind that was coming down from the mountain or that she was too busy thinking about Nick, Adam and Amber.

She knew she was obsessing over them but she couldn't stop herself. For better or worse, she felt linked to them. When the children were gone and Nick was a person she wrote a check to every month, maybe then she would be able to sleep at night without seeing their faces.

Sighing, she picked up the invoice from the garage for his work on her car. In bold letters at the top was the new name, Nick's Service and Towing.

So, he'd taken her advice and put the business in his own name. She looked at the amount of the invoice and wrote a check to cover it.

Aunt Elspeth had consumed a little too much elderberry wine and fallen asleep in front of the fireplace in the sitting room that evening. When Emilie had returned home from the concert, she'd covered her with a blanket and turned off the light.

The frail old lady hadn't moved. Emilie studied her face in the firelight, wondering if she would look like her when she grew older. Wondering if there would be anyone to share her life, even as haphazardly as the two of them, when she was Elspeth's age.

It was a daunting prospect, growing old alone and unloved. She pulled her robe closer around her and went up the stairs to her room.

While trying to decide what, if anything, she wanted to do about Christmas that year, Emilie heard a banging sound from the front of the house. Thinking it was simply a few shingles that had blown loose in the gusty wind, she returned to the letter she had been writing to a children's charity that she supported in Wilmington.

The banging came again and this time she realized that it was too steady, too rhythmic, to be shingles or shutters blowing in the breeze.

She got up from her desk and went downstairs, meeting Elspeth at the bottom of the stairs.

"Someone's at the door," Elspeth remarked casually, walking past Emilie towards the second floor.

"Where are you going?" Emilie wondered.

"To bed," Elspeth replied. "Where else?"

"I thought you might like to stay downstairs until I answer the door," Emilie answered. "You know, to find out if I'm raped and murdered when I answer the door for some stranger in the middle of the night?"

Elspeth yawned and kept going up the stairs. "It's not some stranger, mon petite. Are you answering your prayers or not?"

Emilie shook her head. Sometimes, she wondered if Aunt Elspeth really was crazy or simply eccentric as her parents had claimed with great dignity. Sometimes, it was difficult to tell the difference.

She walked to the door and opened it wide, wishing that they had some type of intercom or even a small peek hole in the heavy wooden door. She could at least see who was on the step but this way

"Miss Ferrier?"

She looked down into Adam's upturned face, then looked up into Nick's and heard Amber catch her breath to start crying again.

"Is that offer still open?" Nick asked hesitantly. His dark eyes were intent on her face in the dimness of the hall light.

Amber had her breath by that time and she let out with a lusty wail that rivaled the strong wind moaning through the night around them.

"Come in!" Emilie ushered them quickly out of the frigid night, closing the door behind them. She looked up the stairs into Elspeth's beaming face.

"I'll get something for the baby," her aunt said as Nick tried to quiet the screaming child.

"Wow! This place is huge!" Adam enthused, looking around the front entrance hall with wide eyes and hands that touched the six-foot tall statues of snarling lions that guarded the door.

"Don't touch those, Adam," Nick cautioned wearily while Amber continued to sob and cry.

"Come this way," Emilie said, leading them towards the warmth and comfort of the sitting room that Elspeth had just vacated.

Nick glanced around at the heavy, wine colored velvet drapes pulled closed against the night. Solid velvet chairs fronted the huge hearth where some coals still burned.

The ceilings were easily twenty feet high. The room had to be nearly the size of his whole house. Books lined the walls in sturdy shelves while sculptures and paintings waited in the shadows.

He'd heard the stories about the house that Jacque de Ferrier had built for his family but the reality was much more impressive.

What the hell was he doing there?

Emilie threw some light kindling on the embers in the fireplace while Nick told Adam to sit down on one of the big chairs. He sat Amber next to her brother, wedged between the wide arms where they both looked at him with big eyes that gleamed in the light from the fire.

"Let me get that," Nick offered when he saw Emilie start to lift a big log.

He picked up the wood and added it to the small fire, then shuffled the wood around until the flames were reaching higher in the hearth.

Emilie had already picked up the baby and put her into her lap, talking gibberish to her and smoothing back her dark curls. Adam got up from the chair and climbed beside her, asking her questions about the house and the statues in the hall.

"Here!" Elspeth entered the room and walked up to the baby. "Give her some of this."

Nick looked between Emilie and the older woman whose white hair flowed down past her hips. "What is that?"

Elspeth turned to look at him as though noticing him for the first time. "It's for the teething. It'll help her rest and ease her pain."

Nick glanced at Emilie as she took the small cup from the other woman. "Okay. But what is it?"

Elspeth glared at him. "You're going to have to learn to trust, Anjou," she remarked, touching a gnarled hand to his face. "You are very handsome, but cynical, I think. That will not do here."

Emilie sniffed the concoction in the cup and smiled at Nick to reassure him. "It's just a little chamomile. It won't hurt her and it will help settle her down."

Elspeth grinned and slapped Nick's cheek lightly. "There! You understand now! But you have no faith!"

"Elspeth," Emilie warned quietly.

"Bah!" Her aunt waved a hand at them both. "I'm going to bed. Good night!"

When the older woman had left the room, Emilie looked at Nick. "I won't let her drink the tea if you don't want her to. My Aunt can be a little overwhelming when she knows that she's right. Which is most of the time."

Nick sat down on the edge of one of the big chairs, refusing to allow himself the comfort of sitting back in the plush depths. "If it'll help," he allowed with a shrug. "And if she'll drink it."

Emilie put the cup to Amber's lips and she drank the concoction without any hesitation. She settled back against Emilie and smiled at her uncle in the firelight.

"I know she seems...odd," Emilie tried to explain. "But Aunt Elspeth is an herbalist. She spent most of her life studying plants and medicines. She's helped a lot of people in town."

"Amber seems to be one of them," Nick remarked, watching the little girl relax.

"What happened?" Emilie wondered.

"We got thrown out of the motel!" Adam piped in.

Nick raked his hands through his hair in frustration. "Amber wouldn't stop crying. The people in the room next to us complained. I was going to take her to the emergency room to see what they could do for her but there was a big accident on the Interstate and they wouldn't have been able to see her for hours."

"So, you got thrown out of the motel," Emilie simplified back down to Adam's explanation.

"Yeah, I guess we did."

"And we didn't have any place else to go," Adam continued. "So we came here."

He bounced a little on the thick chair beneath him then grinned up at Emilie.

"I didn't know what else to do," Nick admitted slowly.

"I know that must be true or I'm sure you wouldn't be here," Emilie replied.

"Emilie, I -- "

"Never mind," she said with a wave of her hand, very much like her aunt. "Let's go into the kitchen and have some hot chocolate, shall we?"

"Yes!" Adam agreed readily. "Can I ride the lions?"

"After hot chocolate," Emilie told him, picking up the baby and starting towards the kitchen. She glanced at Nick's dark face. "If your uncle says it's okay."

By the time Adam had explored the kitchen and drank his hot chocolate, though, he was visibly drooping. His little head was nodding and his eyes were barely open.

Amber had finally fallen asleep on Nick's shoulder as Emilie made the hot chocolate. The relief he felt at the little girl resting made Aunt Elspeth seem more like a saint and less like a witch.

"Whatever that stuff is," Nick acknowledged quietly. "I want a prescription."

"I'm sure she'll be pleased to hear it," Emilie lied, knowing her aunt would probably ignore any attempt he made to thank her. "She loves to convert the unbelievers!"

"So I've heard," Nick admitted

A screen came down over Emilie's bright eyes. "I'm sure," she answered briefly. "I have rooms ready for the children upstairs." They both looked at Adam, who'd fallen asleep with his head on his knees. "I could bring Amber if you could bring Adam."

Nick looked at her when he handed her the baby. "I'm sorry, Emilie, I didn't mean -- "

"Never mind," she whispered, pressing the baby's head against her chest. "Follow me."

They went slowly up the long stairs with their precious burdens. Emilie was glad that she'd aired out the two rooms the day before on the off chance that he might accept her offer. She laid Amber down in the beautiful crib with the brass fittings and the lacy comforter. When she was sure that she was still asleep, she took Nick to the adjoining room where he laid Adam down in the big bed.

"Your room is through here," she told him quietly.

"We have to talk, Emilie," Nick stopped her.

"All right," she answered, politely. "We'll go back down to the sitting room."

"We could stay up here," he offered. "It wouldn't matter and you wouldn't have to walk back down the stairs. I know your leg -- "

Emilie's head came up on the scant sound of pity in his voice. She stared hard at him in the dim stillness. The wind threw itself against the hundred-year-old house around them.

They said in town that old Jacque de Ferrier had made a deal with the devil to find the gold that established the family there on the mountain.

Looking into the angry green eyes of Jacque's great-granddaughter, it was easy to understand where they'd got the idea. Surely the devil had made her so beautiful and put that emerald fire in her eyes.

She didn't say a word to him, though. Just turned around and walked back down the long stairway, her hand following the wide wooden rail that led to the floor.

Maybe it was because she was Adam's teacher, Nick mused, having no choice but to follow her. Maybe that was why he couldn't seem to find the right words when he talked to her. Maybe that was why he constantly found himself apologizing to her.

Whatever it was, it was awkward and irritating. When he was with her, he felt as though he hovered somewhere between being a jerk and an idiot. He couldn't believe he'd asked her out on a date! What a fiasco that would have been! He was glad that she had turned him down.

She walked woodenly towards the kitchen where the light still burned. Fury, embarrassment, and fear made her back as straight as a rail and kept her gaze locked in front of her.

How dare he suggest that she couldn't get up and down her own stairs as often as she wanted or needed? Was she limping unduly? Did she seem weak or unable to be a mother?

Had fate put them back in her life, given her another chance, only to laugh in her face?

Nick sat down in the chair he'd vacated at the wooden table. He thought she was going to do the same but instead, she picked up a few of the hot chocolate cups and walked with them to the sink.

"Emilie," he began then saw her movement. "Can I help?"

"I can do this by myself," she retorted angrily. "I'm not a cripple!"

"I didn't suggest that you were," he tried to explain. "I meant -- "

"I know what you meant," she replied coldly, picking up the rest of the cups and the hot chocolate pot. "Do you think you're the first one to look at me and see that I limp across a room?"

Nick rubbed his hand over his face. It had been a long, hard day. He was exhausted and close to being out of patience for the rest of the year. He would have liked to have taken the kids and walked out of that house but the truth was they'd either have to spend the night in the car or in the hospital emergency room.

If it had only been him, he would have done that but with Amber and Adam --

"Look, I didn't mean to sound like you couldn't walk up and down the stairs -- "

"Thank you!" she spat back at him, slamming the hot chocolate pan into the sink and running water into it.

"But you don't have to be so touchy about it!" he finished.

"Touchy?" she demanded hotly, stalking back to where he sat at the table. "Are you saying that I'm overly sensitive about being a cripple?"

He frowned, looking up at her. "You're not a cripple, Emilie!"

She started to speak then turned around and stormed back across the room. Furiously, she started washing the cups and spoons.

"Emilie?"

She ignored him, scrubbing vigorously at the pot.

"Emilie!" he said again, getting up and walking over to the sink behind her. "Will you...will you please sit down a minute and talk to me?"

"I think we've said enough for one night," she decided, not wanting to face him.

"We haven't said anything," he reminded her. "We need to talk about this!"

"There's nothing else to say," she replied quietly.

"So, you want me to get the kids and leave?"

She turned around then, surprised to find him close to her. "I didn't say that!"

He shrugged. "If we can't sort through this mess before I've been here an hour, how will you put up with us for two weeks?"

"I'm sorry," she said, looking down at her wet hands. "I don't like people to imply that I can't do things."

"I'm sorry, too," he apologized. "I wouldn't like people to imply that about me either. Can we start again?"

She smiled warmly. "Please." She held out her hand to him.

He looked down into her face, scrubbed clean of the make up she'd been wearing earlier that evening. She was wearing a plain white robe with a little lacy collar that framed her face. Her hair was held back in a single braid.

She reminded him of a painting he'd seen once by John Waterhouse. La Belle Dame Sans Merci. A woman, obviously a fairy, in a wooded glen, extraordinarily beautiful, her hair wrapped loosely around the neck of a dark knight who seemed enthralled.

Emilie had a fey quality about her that made her seem unreal, yet tantalizing. Even though she was out of reach. At least out of his reach.

He took her warm hand in his and squeezed a little, careful of the frail strength that lay in that clasp. "Thanks, Emilie."

They sat at the table across from one another. She watched his face while he explained what had happened and about how long the job would take to finish their house.

Emilie felt foolish that she had allowed his words to bother her. Certainly people had said much worse to her. The difference was that she cared what this man thought about her.

It was only because he could decide to let her adopt Amber, she told herself. She had to show him that she was strong and self-reliant. Without a man in her life.

Although she could admit to herself that she loved his voice. She leaned on her hand and listened to him talk about asbestos and the children, looking at his dark eyes and tracing the dark shadow that had grown along his jaw line since she'd seen him at the school.

Recalling those few strange moments before she'd left the auditorium, she pulled herself upright and clasped her hands tightly before her on the table.

Had it only been her? she wondered. Had he noticed that compelling tension between them? Or had it simply been her imagination?

Nick felt her withdrawal. It was like a splash of cold water, reminding him that he had to watch his step with her. It would be too easy to let those dark feelings he had for her surface and ruin everything for the children.

"I don't know if you celebrate Christmas," he said finally. "If not, the kids and I can make ourselves scarce over the holiday. I imagine you have people here anyway." He glanced around the huge, darkened kitchen. "Family or someone."

She shook her head. "There's only Aunt Elspeth and me left. The Ferriers weren't prolific."

"Well, we'll try not to get in your way. I really appreciate your help, Emilie. You don't know me and I wasn't exactly nice about you suggesting it in the first place."

"Well," she began, drawing in breath as though she were trying to breathe underwater. "We do celebrate Christmas and you won't be in the way. It's been years since we had overnight visitors in the house. It was built for that...and a big family."

She felt his eyes on her face as she finished speaking and ran her hand nervously through her hair. When he looked at her like that, she couldn't think. Her breathing became difficult.

It was nerves, she told herself. It all rested on this man. Whatever he thought of her made the difference between Amber going to some strange, if deserving, couple, or staying with her.

Nick shook himself and looked at the polished table top instead of her face. He was tired, he rationalized. It would be better tomorrow.

"Well, I've kept you up long enough," he said. "I'm sorry that we got here so late and woke you up."

"I wasn't asleep," she answered. "I was -- uh -- writing a letter and paying bills. I -- uh -- guess this means I don't have to mail your check to you."

Oh, that was wonderful, she chastised herself. Couldn't she hold even one conversation with this man without sounding like a moron?

He grinned. "And I won't have to go so far to fix your car."

"I liked your -- the garage's," she corrected, "new name."

"I took your suggestion and didn't call it Ferrier's," he quipped. "You're right. After looking around, there are more than enough businesses on this mountain named after your family."

Emilie stood slowly, trying hard not to put her weight on her bad leg. If it gave out on her in front of him after her tirade earlier, she would be humiliated. She had to be full of energy. Show him that she was up to the challenge he certainly knew came with taking care of a child.

Nick watched her covertly, knowing already that she wouldn't like the idea that he was looking at her as she tried to move away from the table. He frowned and thrust his hands into the pockets of his jeans to remind himself that she wouldn't welcome even his offer of help.

He didn't know if he'd ever met someone as stubborn as Emilie. Or someone as eager to prove that she could do it all. No matter what the personal cost. Or someone as provocative.

Emilie walked slowly, carefully, aware of not being alone as she managed to reach the doorway. "I'll take you up to your room."

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and followed her. He saw the accident an instant before it happened but there was no time to warn her.

Emilie's foot came down on a piece of loose carpet at the bottom of the stairs. Her bad leg bent forward, giving out under her and she fell hard towards the floor.

Nick reached for her, his hands coming around her hips and swinging her back hard against his chest.

She heard a dull thud when she hit him but he managed not to lose his balance. Only she could be awkward enough for that, she considered bitterly as she rested against him.

"Are you all right?" he asked quietly from above her head.

"I'm fine," she hastened to assure him. She could feel his heart beating quickly against her back. His breath had stirred the tendrils of hair at her ear and his hands still held her tightly at her hips. Her feet barely touched the floor.

"Are you all right?" she wondered aloud when he didn't reply or move to release her.

Nick closed his eyes on the swift and powerful surge of energy that washed through him. Holding her next to him was like holding an ungrounded electric wire.

"Yeah," he said finally. "I'm fine."

Emilie struggled to get her feet back under her but it didn't matter. Her leg was useless. If he let her go, she would fall on the floor. There was no graceful way to simply sit down on the carpet and tell him that she'd decided to stay there for a while.

"If you could help me sit on the stair," she had to admit to her own weakness, despising herself for it. "I don't think I can make it up right now. But in a few minutes -- "

Nick shifted her in his grasp, lifting her high against him as though she weighed nothing more than Amber. "Or I can just take you upstairs."

"That's not necessary," she responded breathily, recalling the other time on the highway when he'd done the same thing. Normally, she would have yelled or done something to make anyone that daring set her back down. With Nick, she seemed to lose her breath and couldn't find the words to dissuade him.

"I don't mind," he said, his face very close to hers. She was like holding a flower. Without the bulk of the wool coat between them, there was nothing to her. She looked more substantial standing in her classroom telling him that he had sheltered his nephew when he'd needed to talk about his problems.

"I need to get that rug fixed," she whispered, one hand creeping up to his shoulder despite herself. The movement brought her closer to him. She tried to look away from his dark eyes, disconcerted, but couldn't make her eyes focus or do anything besides stare at him.

"Emilie." He sighed. Her gentle touch on his shoulder. The soft fullness of her breast against his chest. It was like being in a dream where nothing was real and yet everything was in sharp focus. He touched his cheek against hers, inhaling her fragrance. His eyes closed against the onslaught of his senses.

Emilie's eyes fluttered shut as well. His lips whispered against her forehead. He nuzzled her ear. Her breath came lightly from between parted lips that burned to feel his against them. Her other hand slid to his neck.

"I think you should be in bed," he imparted, regrettably, looking at her mouth and imagining that sweetness but holding himself back.

"I think so," she agreed weakly, wishing she had the courage to whisper that he should be there with her. Wondering what his response would be to that invitation.

"Up we go." He dragged himself and her back to reality. Taking the steps carefully, he walked up with her in his arms.

Aunt Elspeth sighed on the landing, unseen, and disappeared into the shadows.

"I'm sorry," Emilie repeated. "I seem to fall down or start crying when I'm around you."

"Or get angry," he rejoined. "I wouldn't have thought you had a temper."

"Normally," she told him. "I don't -- "

" -- like you don't cry?"

"Like that," she admitted ruefully. "I'm not prone to emotional outbursts."

"Except around me?" he queried, walking to the door she pointed to when they reached the landing. A shadow crossed his peripheral vision but when he looked, no one was there.

Emilie looked up into his strong face, feeling like a child again in his arms. "What is it?"

"I thought I saw someone," he replied. "I'll check in on the kids in a minute."

"It was probably Aunt Elspeth," she countered. "She wanders the house at night and sleeps during the day for the most part."

"She's -- "

" -- strange?" she volunteered.

He caught her eye as he opened her door and walked into her bedroom. "I wouldn't have said that."

"You would be too polite," she said, looking around her room, glad that it wasn't a mess. The light was still on at her writing desk, casting the drapery swathed bed into a soft haze.

"I'm never polite," he reminded her. "Haven't you noticed? It's one of my failings."

She shrugged as he set her down on the big bed. "I hadn't noticed."

"Really?" he wondered. "I thought the first time we met that you might decide to have someone else take care of your cars because I was -- uh -- rude."

"Were you?" She smiled up at him, hating to lose the warmth of his body against hers as he moved away from her. "I guess I've had a memory lapse."

"Thanks for letting us stay here, Emilie," he said again. "Goodnight."

"Your room -- "

"Must be close to the kids?" he guessed.

She nodded. "Thank you for your help."

He shrugged. "It was nothing."

It was nothing, he told himself as he closed the door to her room behind him. If you classified nothing as holding something you wanted but knew you couldn't have so close that you could touch her and yet didn't dare. If you called torture nothing, it was nothing.

"Your room's this way." Aunt Elspeth suddenly appeared beside him. She nodded towards the dark part of the hall and waited for him to walk away from Emilie's door.

"Thanks," he responded, unsure what to say to her. "Amber's resting a lot easier."

Elspeth tossed her head. "So she should be."

"I appreciate your help with her."

"Here's your room," she answered flatly, not acknowledging his words as she opened the first door down from the children's rooms. "There's thirty-two rooms in this house. Don't lose your way."

"I'll -- uh -- be careful," he committed.

"See you do. She needs you but she'll never admit it, you know. Ferrier pride."

He nodded, trying to understand the old woman's rambling. "Thanks. I'll keep that in mind."

She left him at the door. "Good. Rest easy then."

"I will," he replied but when he looked, he was alone. The wind whispered down the empty hallway and snow began to pelt the windows. He opened the door to his bedroom and walked inside.

Chapter Eight

Nick knew he wouldn't sleep. It was a strange old house with all the usual strange old house noises. But when his head hit the pillow, he was asleep. When he opened his eyes again, there was bright sunshine streaming through the huge double windows that fronted his bed.

For just an instant, he stood at those windows, looking at the craggy face of the mountain that rose up from behind the house. Snow had softened that rugged landscape but the slope of the mountain was still visible, dark brown against the white powder that had fallen during the night. Snow devils whirled across the expanse that was open from the gardens at the base of the house to the huge old trees at the foot of the mountain peak.

Then he realized that Amber must have slept through the night as well, despite the fact that it was a strange house and a new bed.

Where had that elaborate crib come from? he wondered with a shake of his head. Had that been Emilie's royal crib? It was certainly fit for a princess and heir to the family fortune.

He padded barefoot on the plush, wool carpet through the adjoining bathroom into Amber's room. Sunlight touched the brass fittings on the crib, turning them to gold. Then Nick realized that the crib was empty.

He panicked, as he told himself not to panic. He searched behind the heavy draperies at the bay window but the little girl wasn't hiding there. She had learned how to climb out of her small crib at home. He didn't think she'd be able to escape the bigger crib Emilie had laid her in last night.

He checked in the bathroom with the rose colored marble, the huge shower and adjoining tub big enough for two or three people. She wasn't there.

Going back into the bedroom, he looked through the empty closet and the heavy wooden toy chest. The only thing he could find was her turtle. He couldn't believe that she'd left the room without her turtle. She went everywhere with that toy. She wouldn't sleep, wouldn't eat, without Tommy.

The panic he told himself he shouldn't feel, grabbed hold of his throat and threatened to wrestle him to the floor.

He ran out into the hallway. The dark wood panels looked much different in the sunlight that filtered in from the windows downstairs. Glancing at the banister, his heart in his throat, he wondered if the rails were spaced close enough together that she couldn't slip through them.

He peered over the rail and relaxed when he didn't see her little body on the rose colored marble tiles in the huge foyer.

Where was she?

He would've turned back and gone into Adam's room, thinking she might have found her way to where her brother slept but at that moment the front door opened and Adam burst into the hall.

"That was so cool, Miss Ferrier!" he enthused. He was dressed in his jacket and jeans and he was covered in snow.

"I think you should call me Emilie," the woman said who followed him into the house. She was carrying Amber. Nick relaxed against the sturdy rail and watched the trio surreptitiously.

They were all covered in so much snow they resembled snowmen. They were rosy cheeked and bright eyed as they sat down in the foyer to remove all their layers of wet clothes.

"Will I still have to call you Miss Ferrier at school?" Adam wondered aloud, taking off his boots.

Emilie sighed. "I'm afraid so but you won't be at school for the next two weeks so you won't have to worry about it. Here you can call me Emilie and I'll call you Jake."

"Jake!" Adam laughed. "That's not my name!"

Emilie helped Amber out of the last of her outer clothes, the little girl standing as complacent and unmoving as a statue to accommodate her.

How she managed that was anyone's guess, Nick considered. Amber usually squirmed and fussed the whole time.

"That's true," Emilie replied. "But if I have a different name when I'm not at school, I think you should have a different name, too."

Adam thought about her words carefully. "So, at school you'll call me Adam and at home, you'll call me Jake?"

"Yep," Emilie told him, taking off her own boots and jacket.

"What about Amber?" he wondered. "Doesn't she need two names, too?"

Emilie fluffed the little girl's flattened curls and Amber laughed up at her. "No, she's not in school yet. When she goes to school, we can come up with another name for her."

"So then she can call you Emilie at home and Miss Ferrier at school!"

"That's right! How about some hot chocolate to warm up? My hands are freezing!"

Adam laughed. "No wonder! You made a cool snow dog!"

She rumpled his damp hair. "Your snowman needed a dog so he wouldn't be out there all alone."

Adam laughed and Amber giggled with him.

Nick cleared his throat. The three down below him looked up at once.

"Hi, Uncle Nick!" Adam yelled. "You won't believe -- "

"Where have you been?" Nick asked, hating to feel like a warden, but he had been worried.

Adam looked at him as though he had suddenly become brainless. "We were outside."

"You could have told me that you were taking Amber out," he said to Adam. And Emilie. "I was worried when I got up and she wasn't sleeping in her crib."

Emilie and Adam exchanged glances. "Uncle Nick," Adam said in his high pitched voice. "Amber never sleeps late."

"I'm sorry," Emilie apologized at once. "She woke up and you were still sleeping and -- "

"What time is it?" Nick queried then glanced at his watch. It was nearly noon!

The trio of wrong doers on the ground level stared up at him, waiting for absolution or punishment.

"Well," he began, knowing he wouldn't be able to keep a straight face for long against the onslaught of those combined expressions. "I'm starving. How about breakfast?"

Adam grimaced. "We had breakfast hours ago!"

"But I could make you breakfast," Emilie supplied.

"Emilie says we can go out back and cut a Christmas tree!" Adam told him excitedly.

"Emilie?" Nick frowned.

Adam grinned. "She said I could call her Emilie when I'm not in school. She's going to call me Jake."

Nick shook his head. "I need to get my shoes."

"Breakfast?" Emilie asked as he turned back towards his room.

"I don't expect you to wait on us, Emilie," he said carefully. "We can take care of ourselves."

"Of course you can," she retaliated, but by the time he'd put on his shoes and found the kitchen again, she was halfway through muffins, into waffles and warming the griddle for eggs.

"How do you like your eggs?" she asked cheerfully.

Amber was in a highchair at the table eating a sandwich and drinking milk from a cup with two handles and a spill proof top. Adam was slurping hot chocolate and eating a muffin and a sandwich at the same time.

Nick sat down at the table, amazed and frightened. How did she do it all? He rubbed his hand against his jaw and realized that he was unshaven and his hair was probably standing up on his head. Somewhere he'd lost control of the situation.

"Coffee's fine," he said in a shaky voice. "And I can get it, Emilie. I'm not totally useless."

"I don't mind," she answered, putting a big cup in front of him and filling it with coffee.

Nick drank his coffee, enticed repeatedly to try a muffin. He ended up eating muffins and two waffles as well as some juice and a sandwich.

He looked up at Emilie cleaning Amber's hands as she talked to her, and frowned. This couldn't go on. He wouldn't be able to walk out of the house after two weeks of eating that way and the kids wouldn't want to leave what was quickly becoming a strange sort of Disney world for them.

"Can I go look at some stuff?" Adam asked when he was done eating.

"May I," Emilie corrected automatically.

Adam made a face at her. Emilie made a face back.

"May I go and look at some stuff?"

"Sure, Jake," she replied without thinking.

"Wait just a minute," Nick intervened. "You can't walk around a house this size until you know your way around."

"Emilie took us around this morning while you were sleeping, Uncle Nick," Adam informed him. "She put up a little, tiny map at each door so that I couldn't get lost."

Nick looked at the gesture Adam was making showing him how small the map was at each door. He drew in a deep breath.

"Then I guess you can go look around," he compromised, taking Amber out of her chair. "And you can take Amber with you to explore for a few minutes while I talk to Miss -- uh -- Emilie."

"Do I have to?" Adam whined.

"Yes," Nick told him. "Unless you want to stay here with her."

"Okay," the boy relented, wanting to explore the old house more than he hated to take his sister along.

When they were gone, Emilie sat down at the table with a cup of coffee, waiting for whatever Nick was going to say. She could tell he was upset but she wasn't sure why. She'd done the best she could. What had she done wrong?

"Emilie," he began finally, "this can't work."

"What?" she asked, not understanding. She'd cooked and taken care of the children and --

"You can't do everything for us while we're here! I didn't ask to stay with you so that you could have three people to take care of. I know you have a life of your own. I'm sure you have other things to do."

She frowned and looked away from him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take over."

"You didn't take over," he said, hating the look on her face. From that bright-eyed radiance to that little girl disappointment was more than he could handle. "I'm just used to being in charge, I guess," he finished lamely.

"I know I should have told you about taking the kids out."

"Next time, you could leave a note," he compromised.

"And I didn't mean to make decisions for you."

"I trust your judgement. You've taken care of more kids than I will in my lifetime."

She looked up at him and bit her lip. "You're not just saying that? Because I don't mean to undermine your authority or anything. I know you're like their father."

"I'm just used to them asking me everything." He smiled at her. "It'll be nice to have someone else help for the evenings and weekends."

"That was something I wanted to talk to you about," Emilie ventured, not sure if that was the right time to tackle the subject. "I was wondering if I could keep Adam and Amber here while you're working instead of them going to the daycare."

"I'm sure you have better things to do than baby-sit," he responded. "The kids are fine with daycare. They're used to it."

"I know," she answered. "But it is Christmas break and there's so much to do." She smiled across the table at him sweetly. "I really would like to do it with them, if you don't mind."

Nick wasn't sure. He hadn't planned on their lives changing for what would be their last Christmas together. Part of their routine was going to the daycare while he was working.

He looked up at Emilie's hopeful face and weakened.

Of course, usually the routine was that Adam went to school and only attended after-school care.

"I suppose -- "

"Thank you!" she enthused, standing up quickly and racing around the table to hug him before he understood what was happening.

He watched her leave the kitchen, calling out for Adam and Amber. He'd been mistaken, he realized, pouring himself another cup of coffee.

He'd been worried about Emilie, thinking she was going to have to take care of them for two weeks. It seemed that he might have three children for the holidays. One of them large and inventive and possessing a driver's license and a fortune.

Emilie was a mystery to him. Every time he thought he had unraveled her secret, he looked up and she was hiding in another one. And he couldn't fail to notice how easily and quickly her bad leg moved that morning. Or the light in her eyes and the excited smile on her lips.

Christmas was already shaping up to be much different than he'd planned. Not that his plans had been cast in stone but he'd imagined a quiet, intimate holiday for himself and the children. The last holiday they would likely spend together.

Already the couple he'd met was working out the details with his lawyer. He had insisted that he wouldn't give Amber up until after Christmas. That had been a disappointment for the couple but they were thrilled to have the little girl after the first of the year.

It was strange, but when he'd promised Renee that he'd do the best he could by the kids, including making certain that they had both a mother and a father, it had seemed so easy.

But making a home for them, taking care of them, and sharing their lives had made him devastated at the idea of parting with them. Adam knew about Amber's adoption but he didn't know about his own. At some point in the future, the three of them would be separated forever.

It was a thought Nick preferred not to dwell on often. He'd given Renee his word on her deathbed. That had to mean something.

But this was their Christmas and he'd promised himself that he wouldn't be depressed. He could hear Adam's laughter mingling with Emilie's. He finished his coffee and went out into the hall to laugh with them.

After lunch, they were going out shopping to get a few Christmas decorations and take Amber to see Santa at the mall. Nick had a call come in for a towing job and he assured Emilie that he didn't mind if she went ahead without him.

When he returned early in the evening, there were three pick up trucks parked close to the house. All three were late models and all three were loaded down with packages that were being taken into the house by their drivers.

"Hey," one of them greeted him as he walked into the house. "Mighty fine lady."

He nodded and smiled, curious, but feeling as though nothing Emilie could do would shock him. He walked through the kitchen, looking for the three co-conspirators, seeing box after box of ornaments, garland, tinsel and lights. Someone had already placed white beards and red caps on the two fierce lions in the foyer.

"What is she thinking?" Aunt Elspeth fussed, passing him as he came out of the library. "All this fuss over a holiday! All this expense!"

He heard Adam giggling and Emilie whispering in the library behind her. "The lions look good."

Elspeth glared at him. "You're as insane as she is! I won't be part of it! All that cooking and putting things up. And the mess!"

Nick smiled then worked his way past her, searching for Emilie and Adam in the fire lit library. He found them, twenty boxes around them, on the dark Persian rug. They plugged in a Santa figure they took out of a box. The figure put a pipe into his mouth and pulled it out with a puff of smoke and a merry ho ho ho.

"What is all this?" he asked, seeing so many boxes. He was beginning to think that maybe Aunt Elspeth was right.

"Wait, Uncle Nick! You haven't even seen all of the cool stuff we got! Emilie bought every moving thing in the whole store!"

"Except the evil elf," Emilie reminded him quietly.

"Oh, yeah." Adam was chastised. "She didn't buy the elf because she thought he looked evil."

"He did look evil," Emilie told him solemnly. "Amber cried when she saw him."

"She did," Adam testified. "But we got everything else!"

Nick tried to find the words to tell Emilie that she was doing too much. They took another figure, a red-nosed reindeer from another box and plugged him in. He tried to find the words but he couldn't. A big smile appeared on his face and he sat down beside Amber who was touching the reindeer's red nose.

"Reindeer?" Nick asked the child. "You like the reindeer?"

She clapped her hands and dimpled up at him prettily but she didn't say anything.

"She doesn't talk, does she?" Emilie questioned, taking Mrs. Santa out of her box.

"She hasn't talked since my Mom and Dad were killed,' Adam told her plainly. "She used to make noises. She could say 'mama' and 'dada'. But she stopped."

Nick looked at Emilie over the children's heads and though their exchange was silent, they both agreed not to discuss it further until they were alone.

"I'm getting hungry," Emilie told them. "How about you?"

"I'm starving," Nick agreed. "Since we don't seem to be able to go out right now, how about ordering pizza in?"

"Can you do that?" Emilie asked, glancing at her three guests.

"You've never had pizza delivery?" Adam wondered then glanced at his uncle. "I'll call it in, Uncle Nick."

"Okay," Nick said. "Better get an extra one though. We don't want to share any of ours with her."

"That's true!" Adam laughed. "She's probably a big pizza hog, too. Like Amber."

The pizza delivery driver found the house well lit and full of activity. It wasn't hard to find Emilie Ferrier's estate. Everyone knew where it was. Just that no one could remember ever delivering a pizza there in the six years that the store had been open.

Adam paid him. That was always his job, he explained to Emilie. They sat in the foyer and ate their pizza while they set up most of the moving figures in various spots around the house.

"I think we should put the Christmas tree in here," Emilie said with Amber on her lap and pizza stains on her face. "My parents used to have a huge tree in here every year. Aunt Elspeth and I haven't bothered with more than a tiny one since then but I think this year we should have a really big one."

Adam looked up at the high ceiling. "All the way up there?"

"All the way up there."

They all looked up at the ceiling, some forty feet above them.

"There's a picture up there," Adam noticed.

"It's a Greek myth," Emilie explained.

"What's that?" Adam asked, shrugging.

"They're a bunch of stories that were told a long time ago," she explained. "I'll tell you one tonight before you go to sleep, if you like."

"Sure," Adam answered. "Uncle Nick makes up stories for us at night."

Emilie looked at Nick. "I didn't mean -- "

"That's okay," he told her. "My stories will keep."

"Uncle Nick writes them down sometimes," Adam explained artlessly. "You should read one sometime."

"I'd like to," she responded, looking at Nick but it was easy to tell from the shuttered look on his dark face that he didn't agree with his nephew. "But right now, I think we should see if most of the stuff is in the house."

The trucks were unloaded, only a few boxes left that their drivers were bringing into the house.

"Merry Christmas," Emilie told each driver and tipped him heavily. "Thank you for your help."

In turn they thanked her and smiled at her generosity. When they were gone and the doors were closed against the dark night, Nick frowned at her.

"That was a lot of money to tip those drivers," he remarked casually. "They're going to be calling you and asking what else they can deliver."

Emilie blinked innocently at him. "They were nice enough to bring everything here for me. They deserve to get something extra."

"But that was a lot of money to let everyone know that you keep here," Nick pursued the subject. "That could make you a target for a break-in."

"This house makes me a target for a break-in," she reminded him. "But so far, the name, and most people being afraid that we're crazy, has protected us."

"It wouldn't hurt to be careful," he murmured. "You and your aunt are pretty vulnerable out here all alone."

Emilie's chin raised a fraction higher. "We can take care of ourselves."

Nick didn't say anything more. Together, they took the children up for their baths and bed. Emilie told them the story of Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the golden fleece.

Nick was both amazed and unhappy that bedtime went so smoothly with Emilie's help. He wasn't sure if it was the extra hands or that feeling that everything she did went smoothly. It was as though she had a magic touch. With the baby and all of the other people she met.

He didn't really understand why, but it annoyed the hell out of him.

They were only there for the two weeks, he reminded himself. Bedtime would be a great deal easier after Christmas when Amber was gone. What did it matter if Emilie made it more simple and pleasant getting the kids into bed? Life wasn't going to be the same after it was over anyway.

He hugged Amber and kissed her little face. She smiled at him even though she was half-asleep. She hugged her turtle and put her thumb into her mouth.

"Goodnight, Adam," Nick said, kissing the boy as well, hugging him close, marveling that no matter how many times he combed his hair, it still looked like a bird's-nest.

"Goodnight, Uncle Nick," Adam replied, sleepy as well. "Uncle Nick?"

Nick paused as he switched off the bedroom light. "Hmm?"

"Can we keep her? Emilie, I mean. We could live here with her. She likes us. Then we wouldn't have to adopt Amber to those other people. Amber likes Emilie, too."

"I know, Adam," Nick replied in a slightly strangled voice as he fought back his emotions. "It's just not that easy. I wish it was."

"I don't understand," Adam complained.

"I know you don't," Nick consoled. "I don't know how to explain right now. But it's not that simple. People like other people but they don't always live with them. Life is more complicated than that when you're an adult."

Adam nodded sagely. "You mean like how Mommy liked us but she was leaving us when she got killed?"

Nick went back in and sat down on the bed next to the boy. He had wondered for a year if Adam had understood what was happening that day. "Your mom would have come back for you."

Adam searched his uncle's face in the dim light from the hallway. "I know she would have," he agreed. "I wish she and Daddy wouldn't have died, Uncle Nick."

"I know." Nick hugged him. "I know. So do I."

"Does Amber have to be adopted?"

Nick looked down into his intent young face. "I promised your Mom you'd both have good homes."

"Can't she have a good home with us, Uncle Nick?"

"Amber needs a Mom and Dad," Nick tried to explain. "I can't give her that."

"Yes, you can!" Adam insisted. "You can marry Emilie and we can live here with her."

Nick sighed heavily. "Go to sleep, Adam. Everything's going to work out. You'll see."

Emilie waited for him in the hall, deciding that she wouldn't pretend that she hadn't heard their conversation.

"So, you're adopting Amber out?" she queried innocently.

Nick glanced at her sharply. "Yeah. She'll be in her new home after Christmas."

"That soon," Emilie remarked casually, her heart beating quickly. Every moment she spent in Amber's company further convinced her that she was the right one to take the little girl. Two weeks, she reminded herself. She still had two weeks to change his mind.

They walked down the stairs together in silence. Emilie formulating what she should say and do next to impress Nick with her worthiness and Nick buried in memories about his sister and regrets about her children.

"I could show you around the house," she decided finally. With the children in bed, the best she could do was to try to get to know Nick. To better understand why he was adopting Amber out in the first place. She knew now that it had something to do with his sister.

"Hmm?" He barely caught what she was saying, lost in his own thoughts. "Oh, that would be great. Your Aunt warned me last night that I might get lost in here."

Emilie smiled up at him. "I was raised with stories of people getting lost in this house. There's a tale about one of the young de Ferrier's losing a bride the night they were married. Supposedly, she wandered off and was never seen again."

"That was careless of him," he commented wryly.

"Or maybe convenient," Emilie added. "The Ferriers weren't all nice people."

"I suppose to found a dynasty and make your fortune doesn't necessarily call for being nice."

"That's true. They almost hanged Jacque de Ferrier a few times."

"For what?" Nick questioned politely.

Emilie looked back at him with wide eyes. "Stealing other men's wives. Jacque had a penchant for new, young blood."

Nick laughed. "And he didn't care if she belonged to someone else?"

Exactly." Emilie nodded. "He was a law unto himself here."

They walked through the kitchen to the butler's pantry then on to the formal huge dining room with a tear drop chandelier that Emilie turned on for effect. The room was dusty, clearly unused, but had seating for at least a hundred at the oval table.

"The last time we ate in here was the week before my parents died," she told him with a sigh, recalling the event. "There was a house party here that weekend with over fifty people."

Graceful cobwebs shrouded the elegant chandelier and festooned the ceiling. The whole room had the aura of a haunted house. Nick shuddered despite himself.

"You and your aunt stopped entertaining?"

"My parents were the party people of the family," Emilie explained as they walked through the room to the door on the opposite wall. "I think they were truly the last of the Ferrier family. Aunt Elspeth and I rattle around in the house like a couple of little mice, afraid to make too much noise or turn on too many lights."

"Sad to be rich and live in a mansion and not know what to do with it," he quipped sarcastically. "What happened to your parents?"

Emilie switched off the light and closed the door behind them as they entered a smaller sitting room. "They died indulging their latest hobby. They'd built their own plane and were racing it when they crashed into the side of a mountain."

"Here?" he wondered, imaging the plane hitting the mountainside behind the house.

"No," she answered with a small smile. "In Switzerland. They found the wreckage of the plane but never recovered their bodies."

"I'm sorry," he responded heavily. He was sorry, too, that he'd made light of her position. Emilie Ferrier was more a tragic figure than one of rich caricature.

She faced him with eyes bright with unshed tears. "Don't be. They died as they'd always wanted to die. Together." She walked on ahead of him. "This is the bride's parlor. I think Aunt Elspeth uses it sometimes." She went on with a glance at the lamps on the tables. "No cobwebs."

The little room was white, accented with lemon yellow and green. It faced a small courtyard that opened into the formal garden at the rear of the house...

"How do you keep up with all of this?" he asked, surprised to find that there was no staff at the big house.

"We don't," she replied, grinning. "That's why the dining room looks that way. We only keep up with the parts we live in. Well," she amended quickly. "I only keep up with the parts I live in. Aunt Elspeth spends time in every room but she doesn't like to clean. She was raised when there were servants who cooked and cleaned."

"And you weren't?" he wondered, watching her.

"There was a small staff when I was growing up. A cook and a gardener and a house-keeper." She smiled self-consciously. "And a chauffeur and a butler and -- "

He laughed. "I get the idea. Why not now? Loss of personal fortune?"

"Hardly," she replied without a trace of arrogance in her tone. "I'm not good at handling staff. My mother gave up on me when she saw me cleaning my own bathroom once. It's just easier to do it myself most of the time."

They'd walked through the bride's parlor and into another hallway, past two more sitting rooms.

Nick listened to her tell him about the servant's quarters in the back of the house but he was really trying to understand this woman.

She had more money than he would see in three lifetimes. Yet she washed her dishes by hand. There were a Bentley and a Mercedes sitting in her garage, but there was no microwave oven in her kitchen. She lived in a thirty-six-room mansion and taught a class for misfits at a public school.

If eccentric had a name in the dictionary, he felt certain it would be Emilie Ferrier.

Yet, she had a childlike wonder at everything around her that made him want to see through her eyes. An innocence he'd almost mistaken for arrogance that he found immensely appealing. Sadness hung over her the way the cobwebs had festooned the dining room, heavy and thick, but there was no mistaking the defiant emerald glint in her eyes or the laugh lines at the corners of her mouth.

An enigma and a paradox at once, he thought, following her through the dark, musty smelling rooms. A puzzle he wanted to piece together though he warned himself that he would probably have to walk through fire to do it.

Get out fast, a small voice buzzed in his inner ear. Once you're burned, it's too late.

"And this was Jacque's favorite room," she told him, opening another door into another small parlor.

Nick took one look at the flagrantly sexual statues and paintings that filled the room and closed his eyes. The little voice in his ear hissed, "Too late!"

Chapter Nine

Nick followed her into the small room. The walls were a vivid shade of red with ornate gilded molding along the ceiling and floor. The furniture, two ruby red love seats with gilt arms and legs, were old, but not old enough to have been used in Jacque Ferrier's time.

"Someone else must like this room," he pursued the thought. He stroked his finger across the shiny flat surface of marble table and brought it away clean. "Someone more recent than your great-grandfather."

Emilie shrugged uneasily, too aware of the orgiastic art on the walls around them. Every painting was exquisitely done, each depicting a sensual pose between a man and a woman. "This is the only room Aunt Elspeth is interested in cleaning."

Nick looked at the statues that stood around him. Each piece was a couple enjoying their intricate pairing, their bodies twined around one another, faces mirroring ecstasy. "I can see why."

"I told you Jacque was very liberal when it came to his ideas on intimacy. This was the room that he used for entertaining."

The only piece of furniture in the room that looked old was a strangely shaped wooden chair. "What's this?" he asked, sitting down in one side of the double-backed seat.

"It was a contraption of Jacque's," she explained, wishing she hadn't brought Nick to that room. "I guess he wasn't always successful at getting his ideas across to his friend's wives. He called it his lovers' arm chair."

"How does it work?" Nick wondered, looking at the legs and the sides of the chair.

Emilie sighed then took a seat next to Nick on the other half of the chair. "There's a lever that releases a spring." She reached to the side of the chair and pulled the wooden lever. The powerful spring lurched the two halves of the chair together, locking in place.

"Tell me that's not the lever that releases it as well," Nick pleaded when she lifted her hand and the wooden lever came up with it.

"I'm afraid so," she answered, scooting a little uncomfortably in her side of the chair.

They were sitting facing one another, Nick's knee wedged between Emilie's legs while her knee was in the same precarious position with his. Her dark skirt had ridden up with the pressure of his legs so that it hung around her thighs, the rough cotton of his jeans tickling the outside of her leg.

Uncomfortably aware of her bare leg in his crotch and the effect it was having on his body, Nick looked at the spring that held the two seats together.

"I think we can get out of this," he pronounced, glancing at the red stain on her cheeks. "I can see the spring device."

"Really?" she asked, trying to see the spring as well. She pushed her knee more intimately between Nick's legs.

"You'll have to trust me," he said quickly on a sharp intake of breath. "It's there."

Emilie saw his predicament as well as her own. That steady pressure between her legs combined with his nearness was playing havoc with her senses. She was all but sitting on his knee, held in place by the chair. She swallowed hard as she realized the heat his body was generating against her leg. Her knee felt the sure sign that he was aware of her as well.

"I think the chair must work using our weight against us," Nick explained, hearing the tension in his voice. She was so close that he could hear her breathing and see the quick rise and fall of her breasts beneath the silk blouse.

She looked up at him quickly. Her gaze had been focused where her knee was wedged. She ran her tongue across her lips.

"What should we do?" she asked huskily.

"You're the lightest," he schemed. "You put your hands on my legs and push up and I'll lift you. Maybe if we redistribute the weight, the chair might release itself."

"A-all right," she agreed, not having a better plan. She put her hands carefully on his thighs.

Nick put his hands around her waist, his touch gliding across the rose colored silk. "Ready?" he asked, looking into her eyes.

She nodded, feeling a little lightheaded and wondering if there was a problem with circulation in the room. "Ready."

He lifted her quickly, pulling her towards him and out of her half of the chair. Emilie pushed hard, straining upwards and the chair snapped out from under her, going back to its original position.

In the meantime, she had been left riding Nick's leg between her own, resting against his broad chest, her arms caught between them.

"It worked," she reported in a muffled tone. She tried to get her feet under her and couldn't, floundering against him and gasping for air like a fish out of water.

"It did," he agreed, his hands loosely resting where they had been pushed; against her rounded backside. "Jacque was a crafty devil, wasn't he?"

"He was," she acknowledged. "Now you know why they almost hanged him."

"I don't think I'd like to find my wife with him like this," he responded. He pushed a loose strand of hair from her face then taking pity on her predicament, he drew her closer with one arm while bringing her legs up with the other.

It wasn't less embarrassing but it was more comfortable, Emilie had to admit. She was cradled in his arms, her legs across his lap, her skirt still hiked above her knees.

She reached out to balance herself and ended up with her arm around his neck, pillowing the softness of her breasts against the hard muscle of his chest.

"This chair has earned its museum quality status," she told him breathlessly. "And as soon as I can take it away to one, that's where it's going."

His hand slid up her back to lodge in her silken tresses. The knot that had held it in place on her head came loose, allowing it to cascade down across his hand and her shoulders.

She tried to laugh but the sound had a strangled quality. "My hair is so fine..."

"It's like touching strands of silk," he murmured.

"It's pretty ordinary," she mocked him.

His fingers slid through her hair, his hand coming to rest on the back of her head. "Emilie -- "

She looked at him. In the dark recesses of his eyes she saw his gaze lock on her mouth hungrily and her pulses raced.

He kissed her lightly at the corners of her soft mouth. It was a question and an invitation that he waited for her to answer.

She stared at him as she had that first day they'd met. Her lips parted gently on a sigh but she didn't know how to tell him, couldn't find the words to explain.

He brought her closer to him slowly, searching her eyes and the lines of her face.

"You -- you don't have to do this," she told him the instant before their lips met.

"Too late," he repeated the words that had entered his own brain.

He kissed her deeply, his tongue demanding entrance to her mouth and finding the honey that resided within her. There was no soothing, questing gentleness as there had been the night in the car. His mouth slanted across hers and he drank her in as if she were a well and he was a parched man.

Emilie brought her free hand around his neck to join the other in the thick hair at the base of his head. She opened to him, moaning when his hand slid up her thigh, losing herself in the heat that was building between them.

It was madness, of course, she reasoned. She should thank him for the embrace then walk out of the room and finish the house tour. There couldn't be anything between them. Not after David. Not after --

He held her away from him, his hand on the back of her head supporting her weight so that she felt like a doll in his grasp.

He looked at her, at the dazed green eyes and kiss reddened lips then touched his lips to her throat. "You are so beautiful" he muttered against her warm white skin.

"I'm not beautiful," she argued softly in a voice she barely recognized as her own.

"What do you see when you look in the mirror?" he wondered aloud, not believing that she saw something other than a beautiful woman.

"I see myself," she replied with a gasp as he bit her neck a little then licked it with his tongue.

"Emilie," he said in a resolute tone, gathering her closer and standing up with her in his arms. "You must be blind."

She composed herself, telling herself that it was better for them to stop. Waiting for him to put her down on her feet, waiting for the excitement that had begun to build to fade.

Instead, he crossed the room and sat down with her on top of him on one of the red velvet love seats, He laid her head back against one of the arms then nuzzled her throat while he opened the first two buttons on her shirt.

He kissed her again and again. She lost track of where his hands were or how many times his lips parted hers, savoring her then moving on to another spot. One of his hands slid up her thigh beneath her skirt to trace the outline of her panties, molding and shaping her with his fingers, searching for and finding that secret place where the fire burned between her thighs.

She was lost, drugged. Her eyelids were too heavy to open, her body too languorous to move. When she felt the cool air on her warm skin, she moaned and reached for him and he was there, covering her in soft kisses.

Nick looked at the pink and white skin covered only by midnight-blue lace and his pulses ignited. Sweet pink buds peeked through the eyelets of the lace and he laved them with his tongue, putting his mouth on her breast when her back arched, inviting him for more.

"God, Emilie," he whispered, burning. "You're like cream and satin on my tongue."

They both groaned when his hand found that moist heat that opened for him where she rested lightly on his lap.

He wanted her. The rightness of it, the questions inevitably involving relationship were forgotten. They were lost in the heat and the desire to have her beneath him, straining towards that unity that was the only way to quench that fire.

"So, here you are!"

Emilie sat up, reaching for her skirt and her blouse at once, looking at her aunt with passion glazed eyes that refused to focus.

"Easy," Nick advised, helping her pull her skirt up then button her blouse. "We aren't kids, Emilie."

"I know," she whispered, putting a hand to her hair.

Elspeth looked on in unashamed delight. She refused to turn her head or blush or even say excuse me and politely back out of the room. She grinned at Nick as he scowled at her.

"What is it?" Emilie wondered wildly. "Is it the children?"

"No, the petites are fine," Elspeth answered critically.

"Then?" Nick asked impatiently, disappointment keening through his passion filled senses.

"There's a man at the front door," she explained. "Says he's here for you. His name is Randy."

"He works for me," Nick explained briefly. "Which way to the door?" He looked between the two women, one smiling knowingly and the other trying frantically to make herself presentable.

"This way." Emilie glared at Elspeth then walked around her. "I'll show you."

They walked quickly and silently down the long, twisting corridors to reach the front foyer. Nick didn't think he could find that path again.

Emilie glanced back to find that they had lost her aunt somewhere along the way. She looked up at Nick before she opened the front door.

"I -- uh -- "

"It's okay," Nick assured her calmly. Much more calmly than he felt. His insides were churning and he wasn't sure but he thought his hands might be shaking. Emilie's face was red, her green eyes still soft with the emotions he'd raised in her. He looked at her hands, clenched before her. Were they shaking?

"Don't worry about the children," she managed to find a safe neutral ground. "I'll take care of them."

He wanted to say something else but there wasn't time and he didn't know what it would be anyway. "Thanks. I'll be back as soon as I can.

The cold air slapped him in the face, restoring his sense of order and understanding. If Elspeth hadn't come along, he didn't know if he could have stopped. Emilie was a beautiful, passionate woman. He had nothing to offer her in return for the gift that she had seemed willing to give him.

It wouldn't happen again, he determined as he climbed into the tow truck beside Randy.

"Wreck out on the Interstate," Randy mumbled through a mouthful of tobacco. "Tried to call."

"That's okay," Nick replied, looking at the lights from the big house. The wreck may not have been good luck for the people involved but it had been for him. It had stopped him from making a terrible mistake.

Emilie waited until she saw the lights of the truck fade down the dark road. Then she sighed and closed her eyes, resting her head against the door.

"What are you thinking, Anjou?" Aunt Elspeth asked, pinching her ear. "What were you doing in there, hmm? Trying to bribe him for the children?"

"No!" Emilie denied hotly. "I was...we were...we got caught in the lover's arm chair and one thing led to another. It wasn't planned."

"Of course not!" Elspeth agreed in a sarcastic tone. "You love him and want to marry him. Like you did David, eh?"

"No!" Emilie denied as easily. "We just got carried away, Aunt Elspeth. It won't happen again."

"Good thing, petite. Both of you could get hurt and that would hurt the children. If you don't love him, don't let him crawl into your pants!"

"I won't," Emilie told the woman. "I'm going to bed. Alone."

"Sorry that I stopped him from being there with you, petite?" Elspeth called out as she walked away.

"No. That would have been a mistake," Emilie said quickly. "That won't happen."

There was silence following her words. She looked around but her aunt was gone. She switched all but one of the downstairs lights off and went wearily up the stairs to her room.

She undressed slowly, thoughtfully, taking off her skirt and blouse that was buttoned in the wrong holes. She put them in the hamper, then looked at herself in the mirror as she let down her hair.

What had he said to her? He'd said that she was beautiful. Like cream and satin on his tongue. She 'd watched his dark eyes coming closer to hers, felt that warmth in his hands and she had succumbed.

And for a few minutes, she had forgotten that she was a cripple and that she was alone. She had forgotten everything but that she was beautiful to him and that she wanted him. And that he wanted her.

She let her hair down again and pulled on her nightgown, pulling a brush through her tangles and climbing into bed.

She watched the long black arms of the trees reach around the house and sighed with the wind that blew down from the mountain.

She'd forgotten why she'd invited Nick there. Would that affect her chances to prove that she could be a good single parent? She wasn't sure. Would a good single mother have been in that room, letting a man she hardly knew undress her? What if the children had been there instead of Aunt Elspeth?

Would Nick think of those things when he understood what she wanted from him?

She didn't know and worse, at that moment in the parlor, she hadn't cared. She would have been damned happy to be in his arms. Just as she had been with David.

She'd sworn it wouldn't happen again. She'd never let the thought of marriage cross her mind because she knew that she wasn't able to hold back her emotions. That was what had driven David away.

Ten years before, fresh from her first year of college, Emilie had met David Carriker. It had been a dream from the beginning. He'd been polite, eager to please her and on their third date, he'd declared that he loved her.

Her parents had been dead for only a year and she was still trying to cope with their sudden death. Aunt Elspeth had warned her that it was happening too quickly but all Emilie knew was that someone wonderful loved her and she wanted to be with him forever.

She had seen him wince when he'd seen her leg and so she was careful to hide any ugliness or hurt from him. She showered him with expensive gifts and said yes when he'd asked her to marry him.

They were married in a simple ceremony. David said he preferred it that way and since Emilie's family was gone, she smiled and agreed. She gave herself to him with enthusiasm and all the love in her heart. They were only married two weeks before he told her that she was smothering him and that he had to get out. Emilie found him packing one evening. When he wasn't looking, she saw her best diamond bracelet in his bag.

She'd grown up considerably that moment. She realized that she gave too much and that she would never allow herself to be hurt that way again. Their lovemaking had been stilted at best. What should have been a joyous union was a farce. Months later, she found out that he had known who she was and had done what he'd needed to do to get enough money for college and his other necessities. He'd written to her and asked for money. She'd written him a check for a large sum, telling him in turn that if he ever wrote to her again, that she would have him put in jail.

It was probably an idle threat but he'd never written again. Aunt Elspeth had cursed him and told Emilie not to give him anything more. Emilie saw it as the opportunity to rid herself of him forever. She went back to school in the fall, more wary of any man smiling at her and cold inside where she had once been warm.

What was there about Nick that had changed her, made her let her guard down? she wondered, staring up at the ceiling. From the moment she'd met him, she'd felt that pull. Worse, when he touched her, she realized that she was in trouble. Tonight had confirmed that fear. She had forgotten everything including her well-conceived scheme to adopt Amber.

The answer had to be in steeling herself against him. She couldn't let herself get into situations where they were alone or let him touch her. She admitted it. She was weak where he was concerned. She didn't know why she had been made that way. It was some cruel trick that she had been made less than perfect. Yet wanting desperately to be loved and to love in return.

A small sound, like a patient sigh, caught her attention and she glanced around to see Adam standing next to her bed, looking at her.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Amber had a bad dream," he told her. "I couldn't find Uncle Nick."

Emilie got up quickly and took his hand. It curled trustingly in hers and he rubbed his eyes. "Let's go see what we can do for her."

They walked into Amber's room. The little girl was standing in the big crib. She cried and held out her arms to Emilie when she saw her. Emilie's heart knew no defense against that plea. She gathered her up quickly against her.

"Did you have a bad dream, Anjou," she asked, adopting her mother and aunt's term of endearment without thinking. She kissed the girl's warm forehead and took Adam's hand again as she started walking towards the bathroom.

"She woke me up when I heard her cry," Adam complained.

"I'm sorry I didn't hear her," Emilie apologized. "It's too bad she can't tell us what she dreamed. We could help her sort through it."

"How would we do that?" Adam asked, sitting on the edge of the marble tub while Emilie sat Amber down on the gilded make up chair in front of the vanity.

Amber whined a little at the loss of Emilie's nearness but Emilie shushed her and wet a cloth, smoothing back the dark curls with the cool water.

"We would talk to her about her dream." Emilie went on to explain. "She would tell us what she dreamed and we would try to think about why she'd dreamed something that scared her. My parents used to tell me that when you understand your dreams, they aren't as scary and they were always right."

She gave the girl a drink of water then filled the cup again for Adam. Amber was still reluctant to be away from Emilie's arms. Being needed was a powerful part of why Emilie wanted a child, without really realizing or setting a name to it. She knew she would do anything for that feeling.

"I guess you'll just have to come back to bed with me," she told the little girl when she picked her up again. Amber smiled and snuggled against her trustingly. "Luckily, I have a big bed."

Adam slid his hand into hers again. "Is it big enough for me too?" he asked, looking up at her.

"I think so," she told him, clasping his hand again in her own. It reminded her of how small he really was, that little hand tucked inside of her own. Not even half the size of her own. Yet he had been through so much.

She put them both in her bed and pulled the comforter up to their chins. They looked at her like baby owls, all wide eyes and trusting faces as she paused before she climbed back into bed herself.

Amber moved against her at once, pushing her head against Emilie's arm while her thumb went into her mouth.

"How would you sort through a scary dream?" Adam asked quietly, "If you could tell someone about the dream?"

"Well, you'd tell someone what you dreamed and why it scared you," Emilie said softly, listening to Adam's high-pitched voice and Amber's gentle breathing beside her in the stillness.

"I had a bad dream, too," he confided. "Maybe you could help me sort through it."

Emilie heard the faint plea for understanding in his young voice and realized that it was easier in the dark to admit that you were afraid. When you couldn't see anyone, when you could only hear the sound of their voice.

"Maybe," she confided, careful not to push him for his secrets. "What did you dream?"

"I dreamed that I was lost and it was getting dark. There was a big snowstorm and everything was white and I couldn't tell which way to go. There was a river and it looked frozen but when I started to cross it, I saw my Mom and she was shaking her head so I stepped back. There was a big dead tree and some rocks that looked like monsters. And I knew if I stayed out after dark, the rocks would turn into monsters but I couldn't get home."

Emilie closed her eyes on the terror she heard in his voice. She wanted to pick him up in her arms but she knew he wouldn't appreciate that. "Well, let's think about that," she said, drawing a rasping breath. "Maybe the rocks are really things that you're afraid of. Things you're afraid are going to get you."

"Yeah," he replied thoughtfully. "And maybe my mom is there to help me."

"Maybe," Emilie replied. "Maybe she's trying to show you another way to go instead of doing something dangerous that might hurt you."

"Yeah," he said again. "Uncle Nick told me that she'd always be there to help me."

"I'm sure she will be," Emilie said calmly, though her heart was breaking for him. There should have been a contract made between children and their mothers that the child had to grow up before the mother died. Every child deserved to have their mother.

"Did you have bad dreams when you were a kid?" he asked finally,

"All the time," she answered. "Sometimes I still have bad dreams.

"Who do you talk to when you have them?"

"Sometimes to Aunt Elspeth, when I can find her," Emilie told him.

"If you have a bad dream and you can't find her, you can tell me," Adam promised her.

"Thank you, Adam," she responded, touched by his sincerity. "And you can always tell me, okay?"

There was no answer and she knew from the sound of his steady breathing that he was asleep. She closed her own eyes wearily. It had been a long day.

She hadn't considered Adam in the equation, narrowing her vision on adopting Amber. If Nick wasn't going to adopt Adam out to someone else, she would be seeing him every day at school. Seeing his face and knowing that she took his sister from him.

The idea made her angry at Nick for callously deciding to end what little family the children had remaining to them. What could possibly be motivating him to tear them apart? They seemed to have managed well so far together. It was a riddle. She determined to find the answer.

On the other hand, if Nick was going to adopt Adam out as well as Amber, the boy might be traumatized even more. He would be taken away, not only from his sister but from his uncle as well. His parents had left him and his uncle was giving him away.

There was only one answer for it, Emilie decided, as sleep overtook her. If Nick was going to keep Adam, she would have to personally make sure that the two children saw each other on a regular basis. And if Nick was going to find a family for Adam, then she would take the boy as well as his sister.

She wasn't really prepared for two children. She wasn't sure exactly how that would affect her plans but she didn't care. If Adam was up for adoption, she was going to adopt him as well.

If, she yawned, she could convince Nick to give her either of the children. There couldn't be any more lapses. No more erotic fantasies between them. She had to keep her mind on the children and their future.

She drifted off to sleep with that thought but the dreams that consumed her were less easy to dictate. She was naked and Nick was kissing her. There was no Aunt Elspeth to break in and end their sweet interlude.

Nick waved to Randy as he dropped him off at the side door to the house.

"Hell of a house!" Randy exclaimed, looking up at the big, dark house in the truck's headlights.

"Yeah," Nick agreed noncommittally.

"Emilie Ferrier, huh?" Randy continued. "She a little kinky?"

Nick leveled a quelling stare at him. "She's just letting me and the kids stay here until my house is cleaned out," he explained, the tone of his voice telling the other man that he didn't want to have to explain it again.

"Sure," Randy grinned. "Sure. Night, Nick."

"See you tomorrow, Randy," Nick said, closing the truck door.

What had he expected? he asked himself as he walked up to the house and opened the door, marveling that they never locked anything.

Maybe the ghosts protected them, he mused, because the two women in charge of the estate and the family fortune were too trusting, too open. They were bound to get burned at some time. It was amazing that it hadn't happened already.

Emilie was as generous and open a person as he had ever met. She had a loving and passionate heart that, obviously, even a failed marriage hadn't taught her to protect.

As for the town thinking that they were an item, he dismissed that easily enough. In two weeks when he returned to his own home, the talk would die away and they would go about their lives again as though it had never happened. Everything was curious about Emilie to them. Her every movement was fodder for some gossip or other.

Because there certainly couldn't be anything between them. Nick knew that as well as he knew his own name and history. It made him ashamed that he had lost control with her that night. He knew that she was willing to give of both herself and her resources. He was already taking advantage of her staying there with the children, letting her buy them things as well as a ton of Christmas toys to make them happy.

He wouldn't allow himself to take anything else from her. He had nothing to give, he reminded himself. No emotional commitment. And certainly nothing to offer her physically. She had everything she could possibly want or need. Everything money could buy.

He sighed tiredly as he walked up the stairs to his room. No one had been seriously injured in the wreck. Even though several cars had been involved in the mess. Yet he couldn't help but feel that it was the best thing that could have happened for him. He'd been called away before he could make a fool of himself, and of her.

It wouldn't happen again, he determined, looking at the fierce lions in the foyer with their red hats and white beards. Santa and his reindeer hailed him as he climbed the rose marble stairs.

The house was fraught with ghosts. Loneliness hung like the cobwebs in the dining room. Emilie had aptly described herself and her aunt as little mice hiding in the big house. They weren't enough together to push back the stories and the lost brides and the memories that haunted the high ceilinged rooms.

But he wouldn't add to her air of sadness or be the one to take away that piece of mind that protected her and her home. No matter that she looked like an angel and had lips like flower petals. That she felt like warm satin in his arms and that her eyes had set fire to his soul.

That wasn't the best way to ignore her or his own desires, he corrected, opening the door to Adam's room to check on the boy before he went to bed.

Adam's bed was empty. Nick stifled that impulse to panic as he had with Amber. The boy was there somewhere. He went into Amber's room to see if he'd gone in there to be with her and found that Amber's bed was empty as well.

He wasn't going to panic, he promised himself. They were there somewhere. They'd probably already been through the entire house. He was more likely to get more lost than they were. He started back down the hall and noticed that Emilie's door was left open a crack.

Peeking around the door, promising himself that he would only ask her if she knew where the kids were, he glanced in and saw the three asleep in her bed.

Amber was laying against her shoulder on the right, sucking her thumb on one hand while she grasped Emilie's nightgown with the other. Adam was on the other side, his face pushed into Emilie's arm, his head barely above the lacy comforter.

Nick stood for just a moment, looking at the trio. He wondered how they'd come to be in that inviting position and wished that he could climb in beside them. Then he shook his head, reminding himself again that he didn't belong there.

A slight creak in one corner alerted him to the fact that he wasn't alone studying the occupants of the bed.

"Sad that they all have suffered so," Aunt Elspeth proclaimed in a whisper that reminded him of dry leaves on frozen ground.

"Yes," he agreed softly, gazing at Emilie's face. Her hair was spread around her head like a dark halo.

"It could be made right," Elspeth told him. "It could all be made right."

"How?" he wondered sadly, not even realizing fully that he'd asked the question.

"You know, in your heart," she prompted him. "You all know."

He started to walk around the foot of the bed, to demand that she stop being so cryptic; but the rocking chair was empty. The rockers creaked one last time but the old woman was gone.

The spell broken, Nick left the children where they were and went to his own bed. Alone. He expected to fall asleep at once since he was exhausted but he found himself staring at the ceiling long into the early morning hours.

Chapter Ten

Emilie woke up late the next morning. Two children were still pressed against her. Her right side was slightly damp where Amber's big kid diaper/pull up pants had leaked.

This was the reality of having a small child, she reminded herself, struggling to free herself from their embrace.

"Good morning," Nick greeted her, helping her by taking Amber's limp body from that side of the bed.

"Good morning," Emilie returned, her hand going immediately to her hair. It felt like it was standing up on top of her head. "I guess I slept late."

Amber was awake and clinging to Nick. She was smiling up into his face, then she smiled back at Emilie.

"That's what happens when you get up at night with kids," he told her. "I found that out a long time ago. I bought a much louder, more persistent alarm clock."

Emilie gazed at him, forgetting for a moment her resolve of the night before. He was dressed in a dark flannel shirt and jeans. His hair was still damp from the shower and he was freshly shaved. There was the hint of a dimple in one lean cheek that echoed Amber's twin dimples and she wondered about his sister. Had she had the one dimple or both?

"I suppose it was a big adjustment to make from single to single parent," she said carefully.

"It was," he agreed without hesitation. "They're a big responsibility when you're used to only thinking for yourself. It changes your whole life."

"But you did it," she continued, wanting to make him understand that she would take on that responsibility gladly. "You're not sorry, are you?"

"Not at all." He kissed Amber's pretty curls. "I'm going to change this wet diaper." He eyed her right side. "That's one of the hazards of sleeping with them. It's a pretty funky feeling, huh?"

She nodded, not wanting to move the wet side of her body. "I'll get Adam up and send him in to get dressed."

"Thanks," he said simply. "Thanks for everything, Emilie. The kids are always going to remember this Christmas."

She smiled but didn't trust herself to speak. She waited until he walked out of her room to shake Adam gently and call his name.

"Hi," he said as though he'd been awake the whole time.

"No more nightmares?" she asked, laughing at him.

"No," he replied. "I dreamed about getting a bike for Christmas."

"That's pretty good," she approved.

"What do you want?" he wondered aloud, staring at her.

"What do I want?" she repeated, with a smile crossing her face.

"For Christmas," he reminded her.

Emilie considered all of the things she wanted; Amber, Adam's happiness, a house full of life and laughter, Nick --

She stopped her rambling thoughts there and considered Adam's question in his terms. "I'd like to have someone draw me a picture that I could hang on my wall right there." She pointed to an empty space near her dresser.

"A picture of what?" he asked.

"I don't know," she replied. "Something colorful."

"Maybe flowers or a rainbow," he suggested.

"Adam?" his uncle called from the next room.

"Coming," Adam answered. "I have to go and get dressed. Are we going to look for the Christmas tree today?"

"As soon as we can eat breakfast and get out," she replied with a smile.

She stripped down her bed, shivering in the chill dampness of her nightgown. Funky wasn't an adequate feeling for waking up wet. If she was going to let Amber sleep with her very often, she mused, she was going to have to buy better pull up pants and a plastic sheet to protect her mattress.

Humming, happy despite the damp nightgown, she stripped off her gown and walked into the shower, letting the hot water wash away that funky feeling. She washed her hair and let the hot water sluice across her head. She felt much better by the time she was done.

She got dressed in a warm white sweater and soft jeans, putting on heavy socks and ankle boots. She dried her hair and pulled it back from her face with a careless hand, tucking into a knot at the nape of her neck.

She looked at herself in the mirror and heard Nick's voice ask her again what she saw when she looked in the mirror, hearing him tell her that she was beautiful. She studied the high cheekbones and angular nose, wide lips and feathery eyebrows. It was an ordinary face, she decided. It was just something to say. Even David hadn't paid her that sort of abundant compliment.

Their relationship had been based on the fact that she knew that she was rich. She understood it was the reason they were together. She hadn't wanted him to say that she was graceful or beautiful when she knew those things weren't true. There was a brutal honesty between them that she had found refreshing and brutal. David could see her for what she was and not make any excuses for her. She'd hoped that he had loved her despite everything.

And perhaps he had, at first, she thought, getting up from her vanity table and starting downstairs. Perhaps he simply hadn't been prepared to give her everything that she had demanded from him. Even ten years later, she cringed inside when she thought about the last time she'd seen him.

He'd told her that she was too much of a burden. That she was smothering him. He needed his freedom. He couldn't be tied to her side.

She paused halfway down the steps, a wave of intense loneliness washing over her, threatening to engulf her. It was laughable, really. Wasn't she the one who'd told Nick that she wasn't a crybaby? That she was strong and independent and others came to her for help?

"Emilie?" he called her name from the bottom of the stairs. "Are you all right?"

She looked down at him, giving him a dazzling smile. "Fine! I was just trying to decide what smelled so good!"

Nick felt his face pull into a stupid grin despite his best intentions to stay aloof from her. All it took was a smile to start his blood pumping. "It's just breakfast," he answered happily. "I thought since you cooked yesterday that I'd cook today."

He turned back towards the kitchen, letting her follow him. Amber and Adam were already eating as was Aunt Elspeth. The kitchen was warm and fragrant with the smell of coffee and toast.

"When did you start eating breakfast?" Emilie asked her aunt, surprised to see her at the table.

Elspeth swallowed a mouthful of scrambled egg and stared at her. "Today."

"That's what I thought," Emilie replied, wondering what was wrong with everyone that morning. Nick looked as though he'd had a bad night as he put down her plate of toast and scrambled eggs in front of her.

He was having misgivings about the night before, she realized, thanking him for the coffee as he poured from the pot into her cup. He'd seemed fine earlier, she considered, watching him covertly as he moved around the kitchen with an experienced hand.

In actuality, Nick was extracting his own form of discipline for the reaction his body had when he'd seen her in bed that morning. He was going to be friendly but not personal. He was going to be her brother. They could be friends.

But seeing her in bed, even though the white eyelet nightgown covered much more than it revealed, his mind had wandered to her creamy breasts and the way she'd felt against him. All his hours of promises, his master plan, had been for nothing. She smiled at him. He wanted to smile back. He wanted to put his arms around her. He wanted to seduce her.

He wanted too much. Hadn't he established that already?

Emilie watched him sit down at the table and eat his own breakfast while Adam grinned at her in the ensuing silence and Amber made a mess with her scrambled eggs on her plate.

"Do you -- uh -- work today?" she asked carefully. It was Sunday, after all. Surely it was a legitimate question. No one worked seven days a week, did they?

"Not unless someone has an emergency," he replied briefly.

She and Adam exchanged glances and he mouthed the words 'Christmas tree' at her.

"We were going to go out and get a tree," she continued brightly, feeling as though she were walking on eggshells and not knowing why.

"That's fine," he responded noncommittally

"You could come and help us," she offered, knowing the children would like to have him there. Not that it meant anything to her one way or another. If he wanted to come, she could handle it. If he didn't want to come, she would show him that she could do it alone.

"I have to look over a few things," he told her without looking up.

"Well, we can handle it, can't we, Adam?"

"Sure," he agreed quickly, thinking about the adventure of cutting down his own tree.

Finally, Nick leveled his dark gaze at her, his mouth was grim. "You don't have to go to any extra trouble for us, Emilie. All this stuff you got and now a tree!"

"We have a tree every year," she answered smartly. "It's no trouble."

"Elspeth told me that you always have a little tree on a table," he accused. "A little fake tree."

Elspeth looked at her niece then shrugged and left the table.

Emilie poked at the eggs on her plate, looking for the right words.

"Don't you like eggs?" he asked, noticing her movement.

"Oh, I love eggs," she said calmly. "And these eggs are wonderful. I love them."

"Emilie -- "

"And about the Christmas tree? Elspeth is right but she didn't realize that the little artificial tree was ruined last year. Flooding in the storage building."

"Flooding?" He nodded, sipping his coffee. "In the storage building?"

"Yes!" She looked up at him, challenging him to call her a liar.

"Why not get another one then?" he asked, wondering at the same time if there was anyone who was a worse liar than her.

"Because I want to have a big, real tree this year, if that's all right with you," she spat back at him, standing up from the table. "I can do that, you know."

"You can," he agreed. "This is your house."

"Thank you!"

Three pairs of eyes followed her away from the table. Amber looked away from her. She decided to put her mouth on the plate for the last of the eggs instead of using her fork.

"Amber!" Nick scolded.

"I think she's mad at you, Uncle Nick," Adam told him, laughing.

"Amber?" he asked, cleaning up the girl's egg spattered face.

"Nope. Emilie."

"It's just as well," Nick muttered, setting Amber down from her highchair.

"Don't you like her?" the boy questioned, not believing there could be anyone who didn't like Emilie.

"I like her a little too well," Nick admitted darkly.

"Don't you want to like her?" Adam prodded his uncle.

"It's hard to explain, Adam," Nick told him, uneasily. "Why don't you take your sister and go play in the foyer until Emilie is ready to go for the tree. I'm going to clean up this mess."

"Okay." Adam took Amber's hand and led the toddler away from the table.

Elspeth cleared her throat as she poured herself another cup of herbal tea.

Nick turned and glared at her.

"Good for the throat," she told him earnestly. "I have a little cough. Nothing serious."

"It doesn't matter, you know," he said, picking up the children's plates. "I know who I am and I know nothing is going to happen between us. You don't have to worry, Elspeth."

"Worry?" She laughed. "I never worry, Anjou. I leave that to younger people with more time than me. I watch and wait to see what happens next."

"Nothing's going to happen, Elspeth," he repeated bluntly. "What you saw last night was a mistake. It won't happen again."

"Who can say what will or won't happen?" she demanded. "Things have a way of happening when we least expect it."

Nick searched her lined and wrinkled face, seeing a great deal of Emilie's beauty in the old woman's countinence. In her time, she'd probably been as lovely as her niece.

"Why didn't you ever marry, Elspeth? Why no little Ferrier from you?"

"I lost my love," she replied simply. "Be careful you don't do the same, Anjou. It is a long and lonely road ahead of you."

He turned back from the kitchen sink to face her but she was gone like a puff of wind. "I wish she'd stop doing that," he said, shaking his head.

From somewhere very near him, he heard her laughter but she was no where to be seen.

Emilie came back downstairs in her jacket, gloves, and ski boots and dressed the children warmly to go outside. She glanced defiantly towards the kitchen from time to time but Nick didn't come out into the foyer.

She didn't know what his problem was that morning or why his mood had changed so quickly but he had annoyed her. She could have a forty-foot tree if she wanted to that Christmas! And she could buy up a whole store! Why was the man so obstinate? So hard to impress with her good works?

"Ready?" Adam asked her.

She realized that she had been staring angrily towards the kitchen and looked down at him and Amber. "I'm ready. Let's go find a tree."

They walked past the snowmen they had made and cleaned off the light dusting of new snow that covered them. Emilie's dog was looking a little melted so they did a few repairs. It didn't look much better. Amber laughed at it, falling down in a big pile of fluffy snow.

"We'll have to walk to the back to find the Christmas trees," Emilie told them, picking Amber up out of the snow.

They walked around the side of the house, talking about the snow and the trees. Emilie told them about the maze that they passed and promised to bring them out into it another day.

"Could you really get lost in it forever?" Adam asked, looking at the slightly overgrown hedges.

"Not forever," Emilie admitted. "It's a small maze but it's fun to get to the middle."

Adam whooped and ran in the snow in front of them, making snow angels and laughing as birds flew away in front of him. The sun was shining warmly on their heads. The sky was a brilliant sapphire blue above them. It was a perfect day to walk through snowy fields and look for a Christmas tree.

Nick watched them trek through the gardens to the overgrown, less traveled part of the estate. The fir trees rose thick and dark green against the white snow. He tossed down the thick stack of invoices on the desk in front of him.

It was no use. He couldn't concentrate on anything else. It had nothing to do with Emilie, he told himself. It was being in a strange house. And worrying about the adoption. It was thinking about new tires for the tow truck. And wondering if he did find someone to adopt Adam if his new parents would understand about him playing the flute.

He looked out the window at Emilie and the children. She was carrying Amber. Adam was walking alongside them. They hadn't taken anything to cut down a Christmas tree. Emilie probably didn't have anything to cut down a Christmas tree, he realized. That would be too practical. She probably had a plan to ask it to fall down and walk back to the house for her.

And what was she doing walking through that heavy snow? he worried. What were the chances she was going to get out there and not be able to get back? Did she always have to try to push everything to be better and perfect?

His hand was on the phone dialing a friend's number before he realized what he was doing. It took him five minutes to borrow Matt Easley's chainsaw and in less than ten he had put on his jacket and boots and was out the door.

"This is very interesting," Elspeth purred, looking out the same window after Nick was gone. She glanced at the papers he'd left out on the big desk and sat down in the high backed chair to have a peek.

Emilie was winded after she carried Amber through the thick snow. She hadn't realized, until they reached the wild area outside the high brick fence, how deep and heavy the snow was on the ground. Before she'd reached the towering tree line of the imposing firs that bordered the property, her leg was bothering her and she was out of breath.

She ignored her discomfort and plunged on towards their destination. Adam was still jumping the snowdrifts and rolling down the small hills. Amber was bouncing in her arms but when she set her down, the little girl couldn't stay upright in the snow.

"Let's rest a minute," Emilie said breathlessly, sitting down hard on the snow. They were at the edge of the forest. She could see that the snow was thinner under the trees. Walking through them would be easier and she'd have a chance to rest. She didn't want to admit, even to herself, that she couldn't handle going out and getting a Christmas tree.

"When I was a little girl, we used to have parties when we went out and got the tree," she told Amber and Adam who sat down beside her on the frozen crystal mound. "We came out with sleds and cut the tree. When we took it back, we had music and everyone dressed up and there were candles everywhere. Then we put up the tree and everyone clapped and whistled."

"Can we have a party, Emilie?" Adam asked, making a snowball with his hands in mittens. "We could do all those things."

Emilie considered it. "I think that's a good idea. Although your uncle might not agree."

"Sometimes he's a little grumpy," Adam explained. "I think he's sad. You know my Mom was his sister and he misses her too sometimes."

Emilie touched his cheek. His dark eyes held so much innocence and so much wisdom. "I think you're right. And I think we could talk to him and he'd like to have a party."

"Amber?" Adam asked his sister, leaning closer to her. "Would you like to have a party?"

The little girl clapped her hands and smiled then pushed her face into Emilie's side and tried to suck her thumb through her mitten.

"She's tired right now," Adam reported. "But later, she 'd like it."

"Great," Emilie answered, squinting across the snow covered hills that separated them from the house again. "Well, we'd better find a tree. I brought some red ribbon to mark it. Then we can call Mr. Ferguson and he'll come and cut it down for us."

"I want to help cut it," Adam yelled. He raced off through the snow into the forest.

Emilie stood up, groaning a little as her leg refused to move for a minute. Not now, she prayed, closing her eyes and massaging the limb. Don't strand me out here now and make me look like a total idiot.

The leg flexed after a while and she looked down at Amber who was regarding her with a serious expression on her face.

"Ready?" She asked her.

Amber held up her arms to her and laughed. Emilie picked her up, wrapping her arms around her. They trudged through the rest of the deep snow to follow Adam into the forest.

"Adam," she called out. "Don't get too far ahead! If you get lost, we can't have a party!"

"I won't!" he said, startling her as he popped out from behind a tree. He giggled when she made a stifled screeching sound. Amber laughed out loud.

Emilie put Amber on her feet and drew a deep breath of the cold, clear air. "Okay. Let's look for the best tree."

They walked through the forest. The shadows were cold and deep. The sun was forced to peek through the heavy branches of the trees. Icicles hung like tinsel from the boughs, sparkling in the sun where it hit them. It was quiet in the heart of the small forest. The trees baffled the cry of birds and even the ever-present wind that howled around the mountain peak. From there, not even that dark face was visible. It was like stepping into another world.

"Which one?" Adam asked in a shivery whisper. Emilie could tell that he felt the strangeness as well. "They're all so big."

"They are," Emilie agreed in hushed tones. "We have to pick one that's big but not too big. It has to be able to fit in the house."

The scent of the trees was overpowering; a smell that no chemist had truly been able to master and put in a bottle. It was clean and strong and tantalized their senses. It was the scent of Christmas and more.

They walked into a small clearing where the trees seemed to have grown back from the center areas and Adam breathed out, "Wow!"

It was the tree, of course. The perfect tree. Not too tall, not too short. The bottom was round and the top was pointy. In between, the branches made a perfect angled wall to the ground.

"Can we have this one?" Adam asked quietly.

"I think so," Emilie replied, reaching out to tie the red ribbon around the tree branch. "In the spring, we'll have to come back and plant another tree so that we replace this one."

"Why?" Adam asked, watching her.

"Because otherwise, all the trees would be gone. Down through the years, we always planted a tree when we took one at Christmas. That's why there are still so many of them out here. We have to replace what we take from the earth and life can go on."

"Cool," he whispered, looking up at the big tree. "How long does it take to grow another tree?"

"About twenty years. We have to plant somewhere else on the property, though. Otherwise, the trees will choke each other out. The trees in the front of the house were the ones we planted when I was a little girl like Amber."

"Can I come back in the spring and help?" Adam asked hopefully.

"May I?" she corrected. "Of course! Not only may you come back, you have to! You owe it to the land after you help me take this tree." She smiled down at him, hating the wistful sound of his little voice.

Amber was shivering. Her teeth were starting to chatter. She pressed against Emilie for warmth and that reminded her that they had a long walk home before them.

"We'd better go home and call Mr. Ferguson. He might be able to come out today and cut the tree. If not, we might have to wait until tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Adam grumbled, kicking at the snow.

"Maybe," Emilie replied stoically, picking Amber up in her arms. "We'll have to see. If he can't come until tomorrow, we'll just have to get everything ready for the tree before we bring it up."

They walked back out of the shade and into the blinding whiteness of the snow. Emilie felt the pull on her leg at once when she left the protected area under the tree. She stumbled a few times as she started to climb up the ridge after Adam. She held tightly to Amber and ground her teeth in frustration at her own weakness.

She might have forgotten about her leg the night before when she'd been in Nick's arms, she determined, but the reality of snow and uneven ground brought it back to her forcefully.

A loud persistent buzzing caught their attention. Adam looked around but didn't see anything close to them.

"What is that?" he asked.

"I don't know," she admitted. "But it's getting closer."

It was an engine noise, droning steadily closer as they got halfway up the ridge. A bright red snowmobile crested the top as they watched and Adam yelled loudly.

"It's Uncle Nick!"

Emilie held Amber tightly as the girl jumped and laughed. They waited where they were for the snowmobile to come to a stop. The noise was very loud in the quiet air between the snowy ridge and the trees.

"Wow! Where'd you get this, Uncle Nick?" Adam asked, rushing towards him.

Nick took off his goggles ad grinned at him. "I borrowed it from a friend. And this." He held up a small chainsaw as he glanced at Emily. "So. Where's the tree?"

She didn't want it to happen. She didn't want to feel her heart stop abruptly then start jumping in her chest like the children were jumping, just happy to see him. But it happened anyway. She schooled her face carefully but inside, she was grinning like an idiot.

His dark hair was windblown and his face had a ruddy tone from the wind as he'd raced down from the house. He smiled and his even white teeth made a perfect foil for his beautiful lips. The dark blue jacket he wore made his shoulders seem enormous. She thought that she could put everything there on those shoulders, in those arms, and all of her problems would be solved.

What was she saying? she wondered, putting Amber down so that she could run and fall trying to reach her uncle and the shiny new toy. No one else could carry her problems for her. No one else could be the answer to making her life happy. She knew that, didn't she? Hadn't she learned that lesson the hard way?

"Are you okay?" Nick asked when he'd climbed off the snowmobile and reached her, picking Amber up on the way.

"I'm fine," she repeated, annoyed that he kept asking her. Did she look like something was wrong with her? Or was it just knowing that she had that bad leg that made him keep asking?

"I'm sorry about before," he apologized, misinterpreting her silence. "I didn't mean to act like the Grinch.."

She stared up at him, wishing he didn't look so good. Wishing that things were different. Wishing that there was something about him that didn't make her want to kiss him and throw her arms around him like Amber was doing at that moment.

"That's okay," she said simply. "You've certainly redeemed yourself. Where did you get this?"

"I borrowed it for the day. A friend of mine races them. He always has four or five ready to go. I help him work on the engines."

"Well," she began, stuffing her cold hands into her coat pockets. "The tree is this way. Adam will be glad. He thought he might have to wait until tomorrow for it."

"Just for the sake of argument," Nick wondered. "How were you going to get the tree down and back?"

She blinked at him. "Tom Ferguson. He lives on the other side of the road. He said he'd come and cut it down for me. Just to come out and mark it. We tied a red ribbon on it."

"Thank you," he said with a shake of his head.

"What did you think?"

"Knowing you, I didn't know, Emilie," he answered honestly. "You've destroyed all my illusions of sanity."

"What?" she demanded, following him carefully down the slope towards the trees. "What do you mean?"

"I'll show you the tree, Uncle Nick," Adam offered, sliding down faster than either of them could walk.

"What illusions of sanity?" Emilie demanded again.

"Look at you, Emilie," Nick murmured, walking beside her through the hushed forest, following Adam. "You're a walking anachronism."

"A walking..." She stopped herself from parroting his words again. "What do you mean?"

"You live in this huge mansion and don't have anyone come in to help you do anything," he began to explain. "You drive a Mercedes with no car phone. You teach at a school you could probably buy from the state. You wash dishes by hand and you don't have a microwave!"

"Aunt Elspeth doesn't like most modern appliances," she defended herself. "And I wouldn't need to buy a school. And since Aunt Elspeth won't use a phone, there's not much point in me calling home with a car phone!"

He stopped abruptly and steadied her with a careful hand when she ran directly into him. "Emilie, there's nothing wrong with being the way you are. You just don't live in the real world."

A flutter of snowflakes fell from a branch above them, feathering down into her face. He brushed it away with a gentle hand. One of his hands stayed on the side of her face. The other lifted her chin to look into her clear, confused gaze.

"You are so beautiful that you take my breath away and so giving that the children all love you. That's why there was a line outside your booth at the school fair. That's what you hear walking down the hall behind them. Miss Ferrier is cool. Miss Ferrier is so sweet. And she is." His gaze left her eyes and fastened on her red lips. "She is so sweet."

His head lowered, blotting out the sun and the trees and the sky. Her eyes drifted closed without conscious thought and she leaned towards him as his cool mouth touched hers.

"Emilie! Nick! Here's the tree," Adam yelled for them. "Amber and I found it!"

Chapter Eleven

It was too brief, too fleeting for Emilie to have time to get flustered or to decide if she should or shouldn't. Nick ran to join the children and she followed, her lips stinging as though they'd been frostbitten.

When he looked into her eyes, when his lips touched hers, she couldn't think, couldn't move. She just wanted him closer, wanted more. And that was what frightened her more than anything else.

Why did her heart always have to be so demanding? Why was a small chaste kiss not enough for her? It was like some vicious craving that kept her from being happy. It was a demon that lived inside of her. She was terrified that, one day, everyone would see.

She had wanted him to touch her that night in Jacque's red room. She had wanted him to tell her that she was beautiful and run his hands through her hair. She had wanted him inside of her, murmuring things that she couldn't understand and would never believe, as crazy with passion as any drunk ever was with alcohol.

She sat down on a stump that was high enough off the ground to be comfortable. Nick went back for the chainsaw and the kids ran, laughing and throwing snow around her. She watched them, envying them their freedom and expressiveness. They could reach out their arms and someone took them up and petted them, soothing their fears and kissing their faces.

She sighed, wondering why it was that Nick affected her that way. She'd been happy living there and slowly becoming a relic. An anachronism. Waiting patiently for a child, smiling at Elspeth's quirks.

What did she want? she asked herself. She could marry Alain. He would give her stability and the base to raise children. Even Nick couldn't object to her adopting Amber with Alain at her side.

True, he didn't excite her. But he also didn't raise that fearful specter of wanting the way Nick did. She couldn't demand more than Alain could offer.

But she knew it wouldn't work. For either of them. So did Alain. Not that it would stop him offering when he was free, she considered with a slight smile.

It would stop her from accepting. She knew herself well enough to know that she craved attention, demanded passion the way others might demand chocolate. She wouldn't be happy with a loveless marriage, even if the other partner understood it.

And she wouldn't ever allow herself to be ruled by a passion so strong that she couldn't breathe in the grip of it. So, she supposed logically, she would continue to live her life alone. She would become old, sweet Miss Ferrier.

But she wasn't ready to give up on the idea of a child to love. That was still possible.

Amber ran back to her when Nick started the chainsaw, hugging her tightly and hiding her face in Emilie's jacket. Emilie set the little girl on her lap and whispered in her ear the things they would do when the tree was in the house. She told her about the wonderful decorations and the party she'd promised Adam. Amber nodded and laughed, her sparkling dark eyes looking into Emilie's with all the promise of tomorrow.

Emilie hugged her tightly, thinking about Nick's sister and how terrible it must have been to lose everything. To have known her life was fading and her daughter and son would be left behind to fend for themselves. There were worse things than being alone, she realized.

But if I'm lucky enough to take care of your little girl, she silently promised Nick's sister, I'll love her twice as much for both of us.

And Adam, she added silently, watching as the tree was ready to fall and Nick shooed Adam way from the site.

"Cool, huh?" Adam asked, coming to stand beside her. "We'll get to have that party tonight after all."

The tree fell, crashing to the ground through branches and icicles. Nick dragged it through the least crowded path to the snowmobile. Adam helped him tie it to the sled.

"Aunt Elspeth has promised hot chocolate when we get back," Nick told them.

"Who?" Emilie wondered, never having known her aunt to do anything quite that ordinary.

Nick shrugged. "That's what she said. I didn't want to question her too closely."

"That was a good idea," Emilie replied, wondering what had come over Elspeth.

First she'd been there for breakfast that morning and then she was willing to make hot chocolate? She had always hoped having a child in the house would make a difference to her aunt, but truthfully hadn't believed it. Aunt Elspeth was strange. Nothing seemed to be able to change that fact.

"I want to go back with you and the tree," Adam said quickly, jumping on the back of the snowmobile.

Nick looked at Emilie. "I think you should stay with Emilie until I get back."

Adam groaned and protested. "Can't Amber stay with her? I'm freezing. I need hot chocolate."

"That's fine," Emilie told him. 'Take Amber, too. She's been shivering for the past ten minutes. I'll be fine."

Nick nodded, taking the little girl from her. "Are you sure about Adam? It'll only take me a few minutes to get back."

"He's probably soaked after all the snow angels he's made," she replied. "I'll be fine. You don't have to come back for me. I'll walk back."

Adam looked a little guilty when she smiled at him. "I'll stay with you Emilie. I'm not that cold."

But she could see that his lips were trembling. His face was beginning to look a little pinched with the cold. "I want you to go back with your uncle so that you can watch the tree until I get back. A tree like this has to be protected."

"Protected?" Adam wondered curiously.

Emilie nodded. "Christmas tree thieves."

Adam nodded in understanding. "Don't worry. Amber and I will keep it safe until you get back. Then can we have the party?"

"What party?" Nick asked.

Adam started to tell him about it and Nick frowned.

"We'll talk about it when I get back, Adam," Emilie said to try to keep the peace. "Remember about the tree."

"I will," the boy promised.

Nick started up the snowmobile and sped off over the ridge, dragging the big tree behind them.

In the quiet he left behind, Emilie sighed. She realized that in two weeks when they were gone for good, it would be that quiet all the time. A lot like being in school when it had emptied out for the day. All she could do was pray that she could bring Nick around to her side about the children.

She considered how she was going to accomplish that as she walked up the shallow ridge. The wind was biting as the temperature began to drop. She pulled her coat a little closer. Her leg was going to be sore when she got back, she realized, after dragging through al that snow. It was going to be a challenge to keep up with Adam's idea of having a party to put up the tree.

She didn't like the underhand way things had turned out with Nick. She would have liked to have faced him openly about adopting the children. Technically, since she knew his plan, she could just bring it up to him without worrying about revealing Alain's part in the whole episode.

Maybe that night after the children were in bed, she would speak with Nick about adopting Amber and Adam herself. She had a plan. She could marshal her forces and propose all of her ideas to him. It would be better for the children to be taken by one person, if he planned to adopt Adam out. They would be nearby if he wanted to see them. She could provide for them without a problem, even if he wanted her to give up her teaching job.

She would hate the last because she loved teaching but she would be willing to give it up for a few years until Amber was in school. Then she could always return.

By the time she reached the top of the crest, she was breathless but her plan was taking form. They would have their party and have a wonderful meal. Then when the children were in bed, she would offer Nick a drink and she would make her proposal.

He would be softened up by then. He'd had some time to realize that she could be a good mother. She wouldn't point out the obvious; that she could give the children anything. Provide for a wonderful college when the time came, set them both up with trust funds that would enable them to pursue anything they wanted when they grew older.

She didn't want to be that obvious beyond her love for the children and the fact that the children seemed to care for her as well.

She sat down on the little stone bench a few feet after she'd reached the top of the ridge, adjusting her leg so that it didn't hurt her. She heard the drone of the snowmobile approaching from the house and stood up quickly. Too quickly. Her tired leg gave out on her, refusing to allow her to begin to walk briskly along through the deep snow.

When Nick pulled up in a wide swath of fresh powder, she smiled at him and pretended to be looking at the beautiful trees and softly mounded drifts. It was just beginning to snow again. Fat, wet flakes were falling on everything. She shivered in the chill wind, disguising it as she rubbed her hands together.

"Ready?" he asked, yelling above the engine.

"I'll be a little longer," she replied airily. "I'm just enjoying the scenery."

Nick turned off the engine and got up off the machine. "Having trouble with your leg?"

She eyed him dubiously as though he'd just asked her if she wanted to jump off a cliff. "My leg is fine. I might have had a problem once or twice around you. That doesn't mean it happens all the time."

"I didn't say it did," he agreed, sitting beside her on the bench. He scanned the white horizon, snowflakes catching on his dark hair and in his eyelashes. "Was it an accident?"

She sighed. She didn't want to have that conversation. But she supposed it was inevitable. All she could do was minimize the damage by making it all sound as much like an inconvenience as anything.

"I had polio as a child," she returned lightly. "My father didn't believe a Ferrier would be weak enough to allow something like not having an immunization bother her. I was a little disappointing, I guess."

Nick didn't look at her while she was speaking. But he heard the pain and anger in her voice, despite the lightness of her tone. "How old were you?" he wondered.

"I was twelve," she said with a tight smile.

He looked at her. His eyes were intent on her face. "Just in time for parties and dancing and dating, huh?"

"Just in time," she agreed with a throaty chuckle. "It was just as well anyway. I was sort of mousy and more interested in my books than in boys or dancing or dating."

"I'm surprised your parents didn't push you to get married and produce an heir to inherit all of this." He swept his hand wide, fighting a lump in his throat and the urge to hold her close. He wanted to soothe away that pain that he heard in her voice and give her all those years that she had lost.

She looked at the ground, not planning to tell him that she couldn't have children. Not yet. "Well, they died when I was eighteen. I suppose they would have if I'd been a little older."

Nick looked up at the gray sky. "It's getting colder. I think we're in for some heavy snow."

She looked up as well. "I think you're right."

"So, can you walk? Or do I carry you?"

She turned her gaze on his face, looking at him carefully in the stark white light around them. She could see compassion in his eyes. Maybe a trace of pity. Mostly there was an acceptance of her and her disability that Emilie, in all her years of living with the problem, hadn't been able to find. Even with David.

It curled inside of her and refused to budge when she tried to tell herself that it didn't matter. She didn't want his compassion. Certainly not his pity. She didn't need his acceptance.

But that warm little fluttery feeling refused to go away. It made her smile when she didn't want to. It made her eyes mist over and her good leg feel as though it couldn't support her either. Slowly, warmth that had nothing to do with being inside or outside, was pervading her.

She stood up very slowly, careful of her bad leg. "I think I would like to go now," she replied.

He stood up beside her and took her arm, encouraging her to lean on him. "I was just waiting for you."

They walked, side by side, to the snowmobile. Nick helped her sit down on the wide seat.

"How does this work?" she asked, looking at the front of the machine.

"Would you like to try it?" he returned, seeing the light in her eyes and the excited parting of her lips. He had learned a lot from Adam and Amber in the year since he'd had them. He knew anticipation and yearning to do something when he saw it.

"Could I?" she wondered.

"I'll show you how," he promised. Five minutes later, Nick climbed on the back of the snowmobile behind Emilie and put his hands lightly on her waist.

Emilie grinned and started the engine then pressed the accelerator and the sled roared across the snow. "This is great!" she enthused, the wind whipping her hair out from under her hat.

She took a turn quickly and Nick had to grab her with both arms to stay on the machine.

"Sorry," she apologized, a secret little voice telling her that she really wasn't all that sorry. His arms were warm around her. She liked the feel of him up against her back.

"That's okay," he said loudly. "As long as you come back for my body wherever you drop me off."

Emilie revved the engine into a tight turn around the maze and Nick held her more tightly. Laughing, she went a little faster.

"Emilie" he remarked close to her ear. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to scare me."

"It's okay to admit you're scared, Nick," she told him pointedly. "It just makes you human."

"Change places with me and we'll see who's human," he responded lightly, nipping at her ear after he spoke.

"Owww!" she complained, letting the snowmobile glide forward with a jump. "You bit me!"

He leaned forward, pushing himself so close against her that his legs were clamped on either side of hers. Then he stretched his arms across hers and put his hands over her hands on the controls. "Want to go real fast?"

Emilie screeched as he pushed the speed up even faster. The snow flew around them, dazzling crystals illuminated by the sun into diamond colors. He turned the snowmobile towards the hill at the back of the house, going down again towards the ridge that crested above the trees.

"Where are you going?" she demanded, exhilarated and scared as she saw the ridge coming up quickly. If they hit the ridge at that speed they would --

"Wherever I'm going, you're going with me," he said into her ear. "Hold on tight!"

The machine hit the ridge and jumped out into the air, flying across the space between the crest and the hill below them. It came down with a thud in the powdery snow and took off again, without hesitating, towards the next hill.

"WOW!" she exclaimed as Adam had done. She'd left her stomach on the top of the ridge but the thrill was awesome. "Could I learn to do that?"

"With practice," he replied, smiling into her rosy face and sparkling eyes. "I think we should head back now."

She was disappointed but nodded. "I agree. Whatever made Aunt Elspeth volunteer cocoa could just as easily die away."

They stayed as they were even though the sled slid down as they went back up the crest. Emilie didn't try to move away from him, letting him work the machine around her. She liked the feeling of strength in his hands and arms. She was warmer, even though the wind was cold as they rounded the maze for the house.

"That was great," she said when they parked the snowmobile near the door.

He got off of the machine from behind her and offered her his hand. "They're a lot of work but they're fun," he agreed. "You can take it out again later, if you like."

"As long as I promise not to jump any hills?" she asked, taking his hand and getting off the sled.

He looked at her closely, wondering what was really behind those big green eyes. Wondering if she was as real and good as she seemed. Wondering if he could trust her. Even as the voice of common sense in his head told him that he couldn't.

"Would you sneak and jump it anyway?" he asked. "If you promised not to?"

She shook her head slowly. She couldn't look away from him. Why was he looking at her as though he wanted to dissect her? "I'd be too scared," she replied slowly. "I'd probably get to the edge of the ridge then back up."

He laughed and the moment passed. "So, what you're saying is that you might sneak if you thought you wouldn't kill yourself?"

"Exactly," she answered pertly. "Cocoa?"

They went into the house to find Aunt Elspeth with the children in the foyer. They were looking at the tree, exclaiming over its size and perfection.

"We have enough ornaments and trappings to cover two trees this size." Elspeth thumped Emilie's buying spree.

"Well, maybe we should go out and get another," Emilie replied with a grin.

"All right!" Adam yelled. "Let's go get another tree!"

"She's just kidding," Nick assured him. "We'll have to make do with this one."

Amber clapped her hands and looked up at the tree with wide eyes.

"Do you have a stand big enough to put it in?" Nick asked Emilie.

Each of the group turned to look at her. She shrugged. "I guess that was something I forgot."

"Let me take care of that then," Nick volunteered. "Now, what's this about a party?"

Adam and Emilie rushed in to explain it at the same time. Amber tripped and fell headfirst into the side of the tree, crying loudly as the wet, sticky branches touched her face.

Aunt Elspeth ran forward to grab the child. Emilie stopped speaking to watch her aunt croon and comfort the little girl. She petted her head and kissed her cheek, her eyes never leaving Amber's face.

Emilie was surprised and pleased. Everything had to fall into place, she determined. For all their sakes.

They agreed on a small party under Nick's thunderous dark scowl. Nick and Adam were going to go out and get the tree holder and Amber, Aunt Elspeth and Emilie would provide the feast.

"Feast?" Nick demanded. "You mean like some cheese crackers and chips, right?"

"Exactly," Emilie agreed somberly.

He eyed her questioningly. "Nothing elaborate. Nothing overwhelming. No truckloads of food or anything. Right?"

"Right," she agreed again. "No truckloads of food."

After Nick and Adam left, Emilie called the caterers. It took some doing but she managed to get them to come on short notice because they thought she might throw some further business their way in the future. Also, because they charged her double what they would anyone else.

Emilie hummed as she called for entertainment, knowing just what she had in mind. Adam would be thrilled! And Nick, she sighed. Well, Nick would be surprised.

She was looking through Amber's clothes for just the right outfit when Adam came home to tell her that Nick had dropped him off with the tree holder but had to go back out for an emergency call.

"He'll be back soon." he assured her. "Where's the food?"

"You'll have to wait 'til it gets here," she told him. "In the meantime, you have to get dressed for the party." Adam groaned. "Remember, 'Jake'? I said, we'll get dressed up and have a party?"

"Okay." The boy trudged into his room with her. "I think my suit's in Uncle Nick's room."

They went through the connecting door and Adam went to the closet, looking for his only suit to show Emilie.

Emilie, in the meantime, saw the thick manuscript on the bed. She glanced through it before she realized that she was in Nick's room without his permission.

"That's okay," Adam told her. "You can look at it. Uncle Nick writes all the time. Someday, he's gonna get a book published. We've talked about it. He just has to find the right publisher and make the book perfect."

Emilie looked at the manuscript again. It was poetry. What appeared to be hundreds of poems. Nick was a poet. Who would have guessed?

Adam was looking in the closet again. Amber was trying to take the laces out of a shoe. Emilie read some of the poems to herself.

The room was quiet. Emilie felt her face get hot. She looked up at the children and seeing them still occupied, looked down and read another.

They seemed very good to her. Of course, she wasn't an authority but she knew some one who was. She might could give him a call later. There might be something she could get for Nick for Christmas after all.

"Here it is," Adam said finally, bringing his blue suit out of the closet.

"What about this?" Emilie asked, setting down the poems carefully and reaching for a bright red Christmas sweater.

"You like that?" he asked her.

"I like this," she replied. "Try it on and let's see how the pictures will look."

"Pictures?" he asked brightly. "Okay!"

They dressed him in the red sweater and blue jeans and Amber in a pretty green party dress. Emilie had them both sit in chairs while she fretted over what she was going to wear finally deciding on a floor length burgundy velvet gown with a round neck that dipped down low on her breasts. It was simple, very elegant and basic. Maybe not the perfect party dress for decorating the tree. She piled her hair up on her head, letting a few curls dangle down on her cheeks. She looked at her jewelry but decide against anything that ostentatious. Nick was going to be upset enough about the party.

"Hurry!" Adam hissed through the crack in the door. "Uncle Nick's getting dressed and somebody's here bringing in food!"

By the time Nick descended the long stairway, the lights were low in the foyer. Twinkling Christmas fairy lights graced the walls like ropes against the patterned wallpaper. There was music swelling sweetly past him. The smell of some spicy food tantalized his nose.

When he reached the ground floor, his mouth dropped open. A long, low table was set against the far wall. There were two servers standing behind it dressed in white. A three-piece string group was playing music from an alcove near the curve of the stairs.

Was this her idea of a joke? He wondered, frowning as he searched for Emilie's face. If she was trying to make him angry, she'd succeeded. If this was her idea of some snacks and a small party, they needed to have a talk. Did she have to go to such extravagances? Was she trying to show them how much money she had?

He saw the children, waiting patiently, angelic looks on their clean faces. He found Aunt Elspeth, dressed resplendently in gold and red, sipping at hot punch, ignoring him. Then he saw Emilie, peeking out from behind the big Christmas tree.

Scathing words had already formed on his lips. Blistering words that were going to flay the skin from her delicate back. But when she stepped forward into the dim light and smiled at him tremulously, whatever he'd been going to say fled his mind.

All he could think about was Emilie. She looked like a queen in her dark velvet. Her eyes were very green and more worried than usual. Her hands fluttered like white ghosts from her side to her mouth; that mouth that promised more riches than she had stored in her bank.

For a long moment, he lost the sense of anyone else being around them. It was as though time were suspended. The world had narrowed down to just the two of them, facing one another. He could see more than just her beauty and the slender line of her body. Her soul shone out and around her like a glow that rivaled the fairy lights on the walls.

Emily felt herself drawn to him as his gaze persisted on her. Nothing else mattered in that moment. He was tall and dark, wearing a creamy cable sweater and black slacks. He could have been wearing anything. They could have been anywhere.

She took a step forward, feeling compelled by the strength and power of his gaze that both excited and filled her. She stretched out her arms without hesitation. She didn't look away from his face. She wasn't aware of anything except that he wanted her. That he needed her.

Nick took her hands and looked down at her. Her lips were slightly parted. He wanted to crush her mouth beneath his and feel her gentle strength in his arms. He wanted to peel that long lovely gown slowly from her body. He wanted to watch her eyes darken with passion and need.

Instead, he closed his hands around her smaller, cooler fingers. He wondered, as he saw their slightness, how they could hold so much magic. So much power.

"I feel like I should have worn my armor," he said smiling at her. "You look like a medieval princess."

She pulled her gaze from his and stared instead at their hands joined in front of her. "A hungry medieval princess," she enjoined huskily. "Waiting for her handsome escort."

"Hungry, my princess?" he queried in a deep whisper that reached her ears only. A wicked, dark brow arched over one eye. He bent his head and kissed her hand. His mouth lingered over the soft scent of roses that caressed it. "I can only tantalize myself with wondering what would appease your appetite."

Emilie felt a flush steal up her face and throat. Her heart beat doubled over their play and her knees were shaking. Like a white-hot arrow, the feeling from his mouth on her hand shot straight through her. Desire, which had only whispered to her before, engulfed her.

"Can we eat now?" Adam questioned, squirming despite his promise to Emilie.

Suspended time became the continuous playing of the trio in the alcove. Amber tripped over to Aunt Elspeth with a chuckle and looked at the food.

"I think we're all hungry. If the two of you are finished?" Elspeth detailed, picking up the toddler.

"If this is your idea of snacks," Nick told Emilie. "From now on, you get the tree stand and I get the food. At least the worst than can happen then is you get a golden, diamond encrusted tree stand, hand made from a jewelers in Saudi Arabia."

"You mean going to get it in my private jet?" she questioned as they moved towards the long table loaded with food.

He cast a jaundiced look at her. "Do you have a private jet?"

She looked back at him. "Yes. But I don't use it very often. If that makes you feel better."

"Great," he muttered, picking up a china plate and putting food on it for Adam.

Emilie made a plate for Amber. Aunt Elspeth sat at the white linen covered table with the child, talking to her and trying to distract her until the food arrived.

Despite the quantity of food and the wonderful aromas emanating from it, Emilie had no appetite. She watched the children eat but pushed food around on her own plate, waiting for the sensation Nick had caused in the pit of her stomach to go away.

"Not hungry after all?" Elspeth asked, nudging her as she filled her plate again.

"No," Emilie replied quietly. "I guess not."

"At least not for food, eh, petite?"

"Can I go back for more?" Adam asked. "I want some more of those brown things and that sauce."

Elspeth chuckled richly. "The child has excellent taste. The truffles are wonderful tonight."

Truffles? Nick looked at the truffles on his own plate and swallowed hard on the piece in his mouth. It wouldn't do to get used to eating that way, he reminded himself. It wouldn't be wise to get used to the taste of something so far beyond his touch.

But the taste and texture of Emilie remained on his lips, despite the excellent wine and the delicious food. All that seemed to matter to him was that he wanted to touch her again. It burned within him until it threatened to consume everything else. He found himself plotting ways he could manage it without causing suspicion.

When Adam and Amber were done eating, Emilie turned to Adam and handed him his battered flute case. "You know Aunt Elspeth didn't hear your Christmas concert at the school. Do you think you could play something with these other musicians?"

Adam's eyes grew wide. "Do you think they'd let me?" he asked confidingly.

"I thinks so," Emile returned. "Tell that man right over there what you want to play and he'll tell you how they'll do it."

They arranged their chairs to face the musicians. Nick managed to sit beside Emilie. Aunt Elspeth and Amber sat beside her on the other side.

Adam spoke with the violin player that Emilie had pointed out to him. Nick watched her hand where it lay on the velvet in her lap.

Adam smiled at Emilie and his uncle, then took up his flute to play 'Silent Night' with the backing of his new friends.

Aunt Elspeth hugged Amber close to her and smiled at the other new member of her family as he played his instrument in lilting perfection.

Nick spread his hand slowly over Emilie's on the dark velvet, entwining his long fingers around hers, hoping that the craving to touch her would be satisfied.

Emilie's hand squeezed his gently. He closed his eyes as the sweet music wafted around them in the pretty foyer.

Desire was like the music surging through him. He realized that it might never be enough. And it terrified him.

Chapter Twelve

They had to decorate the top of the tree from the top of the stairs. It spiraled up until Emilie wondered if it would touch the ceiling. But it finally fell short and there was room for the huge silver star she'd bought. Nick held Amber up to put the star on the top and they all applauded when it was finished.

Adam and Nick put on the multitude of twinkling lights. There were still ten boxes remaining when they pronounced that the tree couldn't hold anymore.

"I told you that you bought too much," Aunt Elspeth told Emilie but it was said with a smile and a misting in the old eyes.

Emilie hugged her. "Then we'll just have to put them up outside on some of the other trees."

"Outside?" Elspeth wondered. "Isn't that a little undignified?"

"Who cares?" Emilie grinned crazily. "Do we want to have dignity or pretty lights?"

"Pretty lights!" Adam said loudly. "Can we put on the ornaments now?"

Emilie nodded. ""Let's get them, 'Jake'."

There were more plastic ornaments than Amber was able to put on the tree. She turned her tired head into Aunt Elspeth's chest and fell promptly asleep. Nick offered to take her upstairs to her bed but Elspeth sat watching them decorate the tree, rocking her gently in her arms.

"I think there's too many ornaments, too," Adam decided. "We did need another tree."

The caterers and the trio were packing up to leave. Emilie thanked them all and gave them each a generous tip and received thanks and many Merry Christmases.

"I think you're right," she agreed with Adam, looking at the huge tree. "We'll have to find someone who needs some ornaments for their tree."

"You mean somebody who's not rich like you?" the boy asked with a grin.

"I mean somebody who needs ornaments," she replied. "I don't care if they're rich or not."

"Nobody's as rich as you, Emilie," Adam hooted. "You must have more money than the bank!"

Emilie frowned. "Let's pick up this mess and get Amber up to bed."

"Can I stay up?" Adam asked.

"What do you think?" Nick asked shortly.

"I think I should get to stay up and look at the tree all night."

"Wrong answer!" Nick replied, picking him up and throwing him across his shoulder. "Tomorrow's another day."

They cleaned up from the ornaments and lights. The caterers had cleaned up everything else. A useful service, Nick decided. Bring in the food, clean up the mess. He wished they'd come and live at his house!

He tucked Amber and Adam into bed. Amber didn't even wake up when he put her in her crib. He kissed her forehead and put her turtle down next to her.

It was strange but he noticed that she'd started dropping it more often on the floor and ignoring it altogether. Maybe she was finally getting over her parents' death. Maybe she was going to be all right.

He'd worried so much in the past year that the two children might never really recover from their loss. But Adam seemed to be doing better since he'd been placed in Emilie's class at school. And Amber seemed to be less scared and nervous since they'd come to stay in her house.

He went in with every intention of telling Adam a story to help the boy wind down a little and go to sleep but Adam was already sleep in his clothes, sprawled out on the bed.

Nick took off Adam's clothes and pushed him sleepily into his pajamas. He pulled the blanket up on him and sat beside him on the bed, looking at him thoughtfully.

Was it all Emilie? He wondered. Or was it just the right time for the children to recover? He would probably never know the answer to that question. Just as he would never know how well Amber recovered. As he had insisted on complete anonymity during the adoption proceedings, so her adoptive parents had insisted on no future contact with them or Amber. They felt as though it would be harder for her to settle in if he was constantly popping in and out of her life. And maybe they were right.

He only knew how difficult it was going to be living without them. Adam and Amber deserved wonderful lives with loving parents. Something Nick knew he could never provide. But it was the hardest thing he'd ever done to give them up. Those little faces so like Renee's. Looking into their eyes was like seeing hers again.

At first it was painful but now, it was like a living memory of Renee, a memorial to her that shone at him every time they looked at him and smiled her smile.

But he'd given his word, he reminded himself. And he couldn't provide them with that stable life two parents could give them. He knew from losing his own father. A child needed two parents. They needed a family around them.

As for Emilie, he had already considered that they were a whim in her life. She was rich. She loved children and obviously liked to help hard luck cases. There wasn't anything more to it.

He would have liked to think there was more, as much as he would have liked to keep Renee's children. But the reality was that both of those dreams were illusions. He needed to keep reminding himself of that until the holidays were over and they were back in their own home and Amber was gone.

They were going to give her a new name, Nick considered sadly as he left Adam's bedroom. The adoptive parents had told his lawyer that they wanted to rename her. He hadn't asked what that new name would be or what their name was for that matter. He didn't want to know.

He went back downstairs to see if Emilie needed any help cleaning up. The lights were off in the foyer but the gorgeous tree lit the darkness softly. He saw no sign of Emilie or Aunt Elspeth in the kitchen. He assumed they must have gone to bed until he saw the light in the library.

He glanced into the room quickly. He'd just assure himself that she didn't need him, then retire to his own room. It wasn't a good idea for them to spend a lot of time together anyway, he determined. All of his good intentions, all of his promises that he wasn't going to get involved with her meant nothing when he looked at her.

When had he become so weak? He pondered curiously.

Emilie was standing in front of the fireplace where a warm fire burned crisply in the huge old hearth. There was only one other small light on in the corner of the room. The firelight played on her hair and skin with a golden hand. Her eyes were staring dreamily into the fire.

He'd lost all of that control when he saw her for the first time, he realized, starting to back out of the room.

"Nick," she said, catching the movement from the corner of her eye. "I'm about to open a bottle of my grandfather's brandy. It's a Christmas tradition. Will you join me?"

She looked at him. He started to tell her that he was going up to bed. That tomorrow was going to be a long day at the garage. But the protest never made it from his brain to his lips.

"That sounds good," he said, wondering if there was something wrong with the master planner in his brain. Maybe he was having some sort of seizure. Or he was about to have a massive meltdown. Nothing else could account for the woman's effect on him.

Emilie smiled but held her hands together nervously in front of her as she walked to the old sideboard and took out a dusty bottle and two glasses.

"Where's Aunt Elspeth?" he asked, taking the glasses from her as she sat beside him on the sofa. "I can't believe that this isn't the sort of tradition she gets into."

"Normally, that would be true," Emilie responded with a smile. "But tonight she meets with her sisterhood. I'm surprised she stayed with us all that time putting up the tree. Usually I don't see her at all during her meeting night."

"What kind of sisterhood?" Nick queried, making conversation. Feeling like a high school student on his first date.

Emilie struggled with the cork on the old bottle. "They're harmless. They dance around and drink herbal tea, and sometimes, they pray to the moon."

Nick took the bottle from her wordlessly as he handed her the glasses. "Amber really likes her."

"Amber likes everyone," she replied, surrendering the bottle to him.

Nick got the cork out of the bottle and sniffed the heady brew inside of it. "Whew! Your grandfather made this?"

Emilie held the big balloon glasses while Nick poured the dark brown liquid. "He was a dedicated part time vintner," she explained. "He wanted Ferrier to be a famous name on bottles around the world but he wasn't willing to put the time or effort into the process."

"It must be nice to be rich." Nick saluted her with his glass then tasted the brandy. It was like honey going across his tongue and down his throat. Then it became fire in his belly. "What a kick!"

Emilie coughed delicately and her eyes watered but she waved away his help. "I'm fine," she spluttered. "Grandfather was good at what he did."

Nick had to agree. "What year was this made?"

Emilie peered at the bottle. "It looks like 1922."

Nick took another sip of his and nodded, feeling a warmth creep up from his toes. "That must have been a very good year."

"Every year was a good year for my grandfather," she said. "He loved life."

She sipped at her own brandy, wishing it would give her the courage to say what was on her mind. She was so afraid that he would simply reject her proposal out of hand.

"More?" she asked him when his glass was empty.

"No, thanks," he replied. "I think that's about all the holiday cheer I can handle at one time."

"Oh." She put down the bottle. "Do you have to go out again tonight?"

"Not unless there's an emergency," he explained, sitting back against the warm velvet of the roomy sofa. He looked at her closely. She'd let down her hair from its usual topknot. It fell gracefully on her shoulders, catching the light from the fire in its depths.

She was nervous about something. It was amazing how well he felt that he knew her already. She looked as though she wanted to say something but couldn't find the words. She drank the rest of her brandy, glanced at him, and smiled. Her breasts rose and fell at the edge of the scooped neckline. Her hands betrayed her agitation, moving her glass and the bottle, then moving them back again.

"Emilie?" He stopped her frantic repositioning. "Is there something you wanted to tell me?"

She smiled again, opened her mouth, and closed it. She licked her lips then looked away.

Was she...it was nearly too incredible for him to consider...was she trying to seduce him?

His body grew taut and hot at the thought. He shifted nervously and glanced away from her, not quite sure what to do with his hands. The firelight. The dress. The brandy. Her evident uneasiness. Yet she invited him into the darkened room. They were alone and she was wondering if he was going to have to go out again that night.

It wouldn't have taken that much, he considered honestly, laughing at his own weakness. But if she wasn't trying to seduce him, what else could it be?

"Nick," she spoke finally, her voice wavering a little. "I -- uh -- was wondering -- "

"Shh." He leaned forward and put a gentle finger on her lips. "You don't have to explain."

He was very close to her. She could see the tiny laugh lines that fanned out from his eyes and the small quirk in the left corner of his lip. He was very dark in the dim light. His back was against the fire. She knew that it illuminated her face.

She could have planned that better, she realized. Strategically, she should have been able to see his face to gauge for reaction when she told him her plans for the children.

His finger was deftly tracing the curved line of her lips. She shivered and his mouth touched hers.

"I want to explain," she managed in a soft rush of breath. She was afraid that another touch from him might make her forget or forsake her purpose.

"I'm listening," he promised, bending his head and kissing her ear.

"It's just that" She bit her lip on a low moan as she felt his mouth on her neck, pushing her back against the heavily padded sofa arm, "I've been looking for -- for someone."

"Someone?" he echoed, using one finger to move aside the neck of her dress until the firelight gleamed on her bare shoulder. He moved his mouth across that white expanse, torching his tongue to its cool sweetness.

"Someone," she said again, almost lost in the sensations he was creating within her. He was distracting her just as she was afraid that he would, but it was a lovely distraction. The need he'd created within her when they had been together in Jacques' sitting room came back with an urgent fierceness.

"Emilie." he kissed the soft perfumed skin that was visible at the edge of her slowly sinking neckline. Tiny kisses made him ache to push lower still, to kiss that hot sweet core of her.

"Nick," she whispered, threading her hands through his thick hair and smiling dreamily into his face.

He looked at her, smiling up at him. Her dress was crumpled softly against her, almost the same color as the sofa they were nearly lying on in the warm room. Her eyes were flawless gems, looking trustingly up into his eyes. They told him secrets that spoke volumes about her.

That she was alone, he knew. That she was lonely. That her heart was open and vulnerable. That she wasn't the kind of woman who could love and lose easily or play the game lightly.

It was that trust in things that finally got to him. Her trust in him that made it all too easy to hurt her and all that much more difficult to leave her alone.

"I'm sorry, Emilie." He sat up straight and offered her his hand to help her up out of the deep corner of the sofa. "I don't know what I was thinking."

Emilie was at a loss for words. She straightened her bodice and moved her hair back from her face. "I appreciate you being honest."

"Honest?" he demanded, standing up and running an impatient hand through his hair. "Honesty seems to be one of my saving graces these days. But I wish I could set it aside and forget it."

"Why?" she asked, watching his agitation. She understood why he'd pulled back from her physically. She was impressed that he didn't consider her a ripe target, sitting in the lap of luxury, openly giving herself to him.

"Let me see," he proceeded, poking the fire with the heavy iron rod. "Honesty compels me to admit to you that even though I would love to sleep with you, Emilie, I have no intention of having a relationship with you. They don't last and my life is too short for that kind of disappointment."

"I see," she said, studying her hands as he paced the floor.

"Honesty also compels me to give up Adam and Amber, the two most precious things in my life because I promised my sister that I wouldn't try to raise them alone. I think they call that damned if you do and damned if you don't."

Emilie watched him walk around the room examining the various trinkets her family had collected down through three generations.

"Why try to raise them alone then?" Emilie asked, confused. "Why not marry someone and keep the children yourself? They love you. They don't want to leave you."

"When I was twelve, my father, who loved me, who used to tell me Greek myths and kiss me goodnight every night, left us. He said he couldn't make it work any more. He was a good man, Emilie. He just didn't know what else to do."

Emilie arched her brows. "A good man? Nick -- "

"You don't understand because you have so much to give," he expressed. "Some of us aren't made that way. My sister was leaving Jack, Amber and Adam. Just like my father did when we were small. She didn't have it to give anymore either, Emilie. Maybe some people are just born selfish. I don't know."

"I don't think you're a selfish person, Nick," Emilie protested. "You took in those two children."

"And I'm going to let them go," he restated his case. "I may not be selfish but I know that relationships don't work for long. At least not in my family." He frowned. "My mother was different. She died when I was twenty but she never stopped loving my father and wishing that he'd come back."

"Maybe you're more like your mother," Emilie supplied hopefully.

"And maybe I'd just be bringing two more children into the world to be left by someone they thought they could trust."

There was silence between them. The wood popped in the hearth and sparks flew up the chimney as the logs settled back in the fire.

"So, you're just going to give them up," Emilie stated softly. "In a way, won't that be the same thing? Someone they trusted and loved just saying sorry, I can't make room for you in my life."

Nick sat down in the chair opposite her. His eyes were hard on her face. "If I thought there was a possibility that it could be different, I would fight anyone who tried to take them away from me. But I know. I know it can't be different. That's why I won't just let anyone adopt them. The couple had to be married and living together for a while. They have to be stable."

"Your parents lived together for twelve years," she pointed out, not sure why she was arguing with him. Yet doing it with all the strength of her heart and soul. "You can't know that whoever you adopt Adam and Amber out to won't separate and the children will still have to have same experience. No one ever knows that, Nick."

"But some people are willing to take that chance." He smiled grimly. "I'm not. I've seen what it can do. No matter what, those kids stand a better chance with someone else than with me. And so do you."

Emilie was glad for the dim lighting. She felt her face burn hot with embarrassment. "Maybe I just wanted to seduce you and have a good time, lonely spinster that I am," she said in what she hoped was a light tone.

He crouched down before her. His finger traced the line of her delicate jaw carefully while his eyes searched her face. "You aren't that kind of person, Emilie. Don't you think that everyone sees who you are? You live your life with an open heart. You go into everything expecting the best and willing to give your all to make it right. That's why you do so well with those kids at school. That's why they love you."

She stared at him, touching her finger to his face as well. "You're saying that I'm so open and good hearted, saintly, if you will, that I have to be alone all of my life?"

"Not alone." He grasped her hands in his and squeezed them gently. "You need someone who can make that same commitment to you. Someone who believes that it can work. Who's willing to try with his whole heart. You need a relationship and a family. Not a quick hop in the sack."

"Which is what you're offering?" she determined.

"It's all I have to offer," he replied sadly. "But it's not what you need." He kissed her gently on her upturned lips. "Goodnight, Emilie."

He left her there without looking back because he knew if he looked at her, smudged mouth and wide eyes, he would have gone back anyway and he would have stayed with her.

Emilie sat back on the warm sofa, thinking that she finally understood Nick's reason for demanding that there be a two-parent family to adopt Amber and Adam. He wasn't a family man. He looked like it; he acted like it; but he wasn't. He didn't really want to be.

She didn't think she could hope to convince him that she alone could replace those two parents, but she knew that he felt that she was stable and certainly worthy of having the children.

She could convince him, that they had another out -- that she could be a good, stable parent. That she could give the children the one thing that worried him.

As for the other She stared into the fire and saw his troubled eyes again. He was wrong in thinking that she wanted to have a relationship with him.

She couldn't deny that she was attracted to him. She seemed to lose all sense of time and purpose when she was in his arms. But it was a physical thing between them. She might want him but she didn't want to marry him.

Desire wasn't something new to her. She'd felt the normal physical urges for girls her age when she was in school. But her handicap held her back. She was afraid that the tall football player would laugh at her. Or that the blonde haired captain of the debate team wouldn't look at her.

With David, it had been different. She'd allowed herself to believe that it could be different because he was honest about her physical limitations. Sometimes he'd even complained about them but she'd thought that was healthy.

When he'd left her, she knew that she would never attempt another relationship. She had no real reason to marry except for children and she believed that it was an obstacle she could overcome with enough time and money.

She was blessed in that she didn't have to depend on anyone helping her financially. She could do what she liked in that direction. Even if she did decide at some point to marry someone like Alain Jackson for the companionship, or to help her adopt a child.

Nick was wrong about that part of her. She wouldn't be touched again by those emotions. Not by a man who would break her heart. She might forget who she was and crave more than he could give her with his gentle hands and loving touch but she would never make that mistake again.

Did that mean that she wanted to have a brief and fiery affair with Nick Garret?

Emilie didn't know. When he'd held her hand in her lap earlier that evening, her fingers had curled around his as though they'd been together for a lifetime. There was warmth between them. Heat when it came down to it. She knew that she wanted his kisses on her lips. She wanted to feel his hands glide over her body. Wanted that all consuming final wave of passion to break over her head. Even if she never saw him again.

Was it somehow cold hearted of her to want that once with him without being emotionally involved? Maybe that made her as odd as her aunt. She certainly hadn't been the one to stop Nick at any juncture when she'd been in his arms. It had been circumstances or Nick himself, with his honest conscience, that had stopped them from realizing that final burst of heat.

Could she plan that as well? she questioned. Could she plan to have Nick make love to her one grand, glorious time? Then adopt those children and go their separate ways?

Emilie had never thought of herself as arrogant. Yet, those thoughts made her feel as self absorbed as her great-grandfather.

She wanted Nick. She knew that he wanted her. She knew also that he was wrong about her needing a relationship. All she really wanted or needed was a grand seduction. Then her life could go back to normal and she could be a good mother to Amber and Adam.

She opened her eyes and stared directly into Aunt Elspeth's fiery green orbs.

"I know what you're thinking," Elspeth whispered. "And it won't work."

Emilie sat up straight while her aunt poured herself a drink of the Christmas brandy. "I suppose you heard everything."

Elspeth nodded. "Including your thoughts. Heavens child, he's right! You might think you could lie with him once then forget him but it wouldn't work that way. You'd be torturing yourself, trying to see him again, talk to him, for the rest of your life!"

"I don't want to marry him, Aunt Elspeth."

"Maybe not." Her aunt shrugged, sipping her brandy. "But then you'd better not sleep with him either, petite. You'll lose your soul to him, mark my words!"

Elspeth took the bottle and left Emilie there with her words ringing in her ears.

Everyone knew the state of her soul so well, Emilie determined angrily. Everyone knew how vulnerable and sweet she was. How she couldn't taste forbidden fruit without being ruined.

They were all wrong. David had changed all of that. He had changed her. Nick was handsome. Nick was sexy. That didn't mean she couldn't have him once and forget him. And she meant to prove it to them both.

Chapter Thirteen

Emilie began to coordinate her assault on Nick's honesty with the well-honed skills of a general planning for battle. She could and would seduce the man, she decided. They would have what they both wanted without any of the strings that Nick was so sure she couldn't handle.

She was tired of being treated like she was a pretty Christmas angel whose dress would be soiled if she came down and touched the real world. She was good but not perfect and she had needs and desires just like everyone else. And if she did have to spend the rest of her life alone, she was going to have one fantastic night to remember.

She had no doubt that it would be wonderful. She could feel the dark warmth in herself. She could see it in Nick's eyes. Together, without his conscience and her angels' wings, they would be magic.

If she could ever get him to slow down!

From the night he'd left her in the library, he'd spent most of his time away from the house. She knew he was doing it on purpose. He'd said that he didn't want to hurt her but obviously didn't trust his own resolve not to make love to her.

That was a point in her favor.

She spent her days baking cookies with the children, decorating the house and taking them ice-skating and for sleigh rides. It was amazing seeing the white winter world through their eyes. Everything was new and exciting. Every snowflake was not only different but also something to be marveled at and touched and cherished.

Aunt Elspeth spent more time with her than she had in years. She put on an apron and baked sugar cookies that looked like candy canes. She taught them all how to pull taffy, a skill Emilie didn't even know that the older woman possessed.

"Why didn't you do these things with me when I was a child?" she asked as they sat in the flour covered kitchen exhausted by a full day with the children.

"Because you had your mama. You didn't ever need me like these two. You had eyes only for your parents. When they were gone, the light went out of you." She put a floury hand under Emilie's chin and looked into her face carefully. "I see it shining again now though, petite. I think these children are good for both of us and the house smiles as well."

With possibly a hundred thousand watts of Christmas lights, it should damn well grin, Emily thought. They had put up all the lights left over from the tree, then gone out and bought some more. Everything was covered with lights and garland. And elegantly wrapped gifts were beginning to appear under the tree.

"What is that big one?" Adam demanded when he'd seen the first box. It was six feet long and three feet wide and wrapped in a whole Santa figure.

"Let's see." Emilie put Amber down so that they could all look at the nametag.

"It says 'Jake'!" the boy shouted.

Amber clapped her hands and laughed, shaking her head.

"There's one here for you, too, Amber," Adam told his sister, looking at the tag on another large package. 'And one for you, too, Emilie."

Emilie looked and there was a package for her wrapped in shiny gold paper. "Who's this from?"

Adam shrugged. "I don't know."

Emilie put the children into bed without Nick being home for the fifth day. Christmas was quickly approaching and Emilie didn't seem to be any closer to her objective.

She knew she couldn't lose sight of her long-term proposition either. She wanted to have Adam and Amber with her more every day that she spent with them. Sleeping with Nick was the frosting on this cake, she reminded herself. But the substance was the children. They had transformed her life as well as Elspeth's. She wouldn't let them go.

Time was running out though. As Christmas approached, so did her deadline. Every day that those parents were getting ready for their new daughter was a day Emilie was wasting. She wanted it settled between Nick and herself before the holiday but like the prospect of their single night together, she needed his participation.

She left the children in bed that night and drove to the garage. Elspeth was sitting in her rocking chair, listening for them. There were no lights on in the building. No sign of Nick or his truck. The tow truck was pulled into the building though, so she knew he wasn't out on a call.

She drove over to his house, but it was dark there as well. There was no sign of him. She sighed. She supposed she could go on cruising the streets. There weren't that many of them. Then when she found him, she could confront him. Make his sit down and listen to her about the children.

She needed to have that settled between them before she seduced him, she decided. She didn't want that lingering between them. She didn't want him to think that she was trying to hold on to him by taking the children. One was firmly separated in her mind from the other.

There weren't many streets in Ferrier's Mountain but she didn't plan to drive them all looking for him. He did live with her, after all. All she had to do was wait for him. He had to come home sometime.

It crossed her mind that he might not have been totally honest with her. He could be with another woman. She gnawed her lip thinking about it. He'd been in town a year. It was unlikely that he'd been alone for the whole year and hadn't developed any kind of attachment for a woman. He was a man. An attractive man, she reminded herself. Those dark good looks probably moved many other women to want to spend a night in his bed.

Not that it mattered to her how many other women were in his life, she told herself ruthlessly. All she wanted to do was have a good time with him one night. Then he could go back to his usual companion.

Still, the idea that he was with another woman bothered her more than she wanted to admit.

Aunt Elspeth was ready for bed when she got back home. Emilie sat down on her bed with a heavy sigh.

"Couldn't find him?"

"What?"

Aunt Elspeth looked at her as though she were a slow child. "You did go out looking for the man, didn't you?"

Emilie sighed again. "Yes, I did."

"And?"

"He wasn't at the garage or out on a job. He wasn't at his house."

Elspeth looked at her niece's tired face. "So, you decided he was probably with another woman."

"I don't care if he was with another woman," Emilie declared strongly. "I was going to talk to him about the children."

"Oh. Of course, of course," Elspeth agreed with a sarcastic tone. "The children are the only thing you think about."

"Go to bed, Aunt Elspeth," Emilie told her. "I'm tired and I'm going to bed."

"Good night then, petite Anjou." Elspeth kissed the top of Emilie's head. "He will come around. You'll see."

Emilie lay back on her bed when her aunt had left her. She stared up at the lacy canopy that was above her, not undressing or getting ready for the night. She could feel the children's presence in the room beside hers, feel their laughter and life permeate the stillness of the old house.

She was going to wait up for Nick that night and tell him her plans. She wasn't going to wait any longer.

About midnight, she heard the downstairs door close and heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She shook herself and tried to gather her scattered wits. She must have fallen asleep while she was waiting for him. Not that it mattered. She was awake and Nick was home. It was time to make him listen to her.

She smoothed down her hair and straightened her jeans and sweater. There was certainly nothing left of her lipstick but if she was going to face him in the dark, that wouldn't matter anyway.

All of the lights were out in the house, except for the Christmas lights that covered the tree and the rail going up the stairs.

Emilie crept from her room and looked for him. The door was open to Amber's room. She pushed it open a little more and followed him in there.

He was kneeling beside Amber's crib, his head resting on the brass rail that circled it. The lace comforter was a halo around his dark hair. He had one hand in the crib, holding the baby's hand. Emilie stood back in the shadows watching him.

"I hope I'm doing the right thing," he whispered. "I don't know anymore. I don't want to give you to these strangers, even if they are stable and they'll probably love you just because you're so good. I love you, too."

Emilie heard the emotion in his voice and took a step back further into the shadows.

"I know I promised your mother that I wouldn't try to raise you alone. I agreed with her then. I never thought I could raise kids -- ever. I don't know if she knew what was best. But I don't know if I know what's best either. What if she was right? What if no matter how much I love you, it's wrong to keep you?"

Emilie pressed her hands to her mouth to keep from making any sound. Her eyes filled with tears. She wanted to go to him and comfort him but knew he wouldn't welcome her presence.

"So, I guess we'll just stick with plan 'A' and you'll never really know about me or your mother. You'll have a good life with those people. You'll grow up to be as beautiful as your mother. And I'll never see you again. But I'll always love you."

Emilie slipped out of Amber's room and back into her own. So much for confronting him. What could she say? 'I know you don' t want to give up the children but I'll take them?'

Instead she ruminated on the stubbornness of the man. He wanted to keep the children but didn't believe he was enough for them. The children probably need him more than they needed her -- or any two parent family. He was their flesh and blood. No one else could ever replace that bond.

Yet, she knew that he was determined not to keep Amber and Adam, even if it broke his heart. She could at least offer an alternative. He could see the children if she had them. That wouldn't be a problem. He could continue being their Uncle Nick.

Armed with that incentive, knowing it was another point in her favor, she got up early the next morning. It was still dark when her alarm went off. She dragged herself out of bed and dressed quickly in a warm flannel shirt and jeans. She ran a comb through her hair then went quickly down the stairs.

Nick was still in the kitchen drinking coffee. He was thinking so hard, staring straight ahead of him, that she had to clear her throat twice before he noticed that she was there.

"Good morning," she said warmly with a showy smile. "I haven't see much of you the last few days."

"Is there a problem with Amber or Adam?" he asked at once, putting down his coffee cup.

"No, not at all," she replied carefully, pouring herself a cup of coffee. "They've been fine. I wanted to talk to you about them. Better than that. It's been wonderful having them here."

"That's good," he said listlessly. "They can go to the daycare if there's a problem."

"They're great kids," she reassured him, taking a seat opposite him at the table.

"The house is almost finished," he told her. "It'll probably be done before Christmas after all."

"That's good," she repeated his words cheerfully. "But you're welcome to stay until after Christmas. Since we put up the tree and everything -- "

"The kids would probably like that," he admitted, really looking at her for the first time. "I've been thinking seriously about what you said the other night. About not giving Amber and Adam up for adoption."

Emilie's heart snagged on her own words. "Oh?"

He nodded. "Maybe my sister was wrong." He looked across the table at her. "And maybe you're right. Maybe I am different."

Emilie sipped her coffee, her heart and mind in turmoil. Her heart wanted to say one thing while her mind wanted to say another. She wanted to have the children with her but she wanted Nick and the children to be happy. She wanted what was best for everyone but she wasn't sure if that was the same thing.

"Well?" he prompted.

"Well?" she wondered, looking at him.

"This is where you're supposed to reinforce your ideas by convincing me that you're right. Because this idea scares me, Emilie. But I think it might be the only way that I can live with myself."

That was enough for Emilie's soft heart to overrule her mind. "Of course you'd be wonderful taking care of the children! They do need you more than anyone else. Two parents or not."

"Thanks," he expressed with a slow smile that warmed more than her heart. "I still have some time to think about it but I'm leaning towards keeping them, daycare and all."

"I think that's great," she enthused. "They need to see you and be around you. You're their link to who they are. I've taught enough children to know that their family is an important part of their future."

"You really believe that?" he questioned closely. "That it would be important for me to keep them? Even though I might not ever marry?"

"I think one good parent, the right parent, has a lot to offer," she concluded. It was part of her speech that she'd prepared for him to make herself a viable candidate to adopt the children. But since that seemed to be out of the question --

"Thanks," he said, standing up quickly then leaning over to touch his lips to her cheek. "You've helped a lot. It's not going to be an easy decision. I've spent the whole time since Renee died thinking about it and preparing to give them up. I haven't liked it but I thought it was the right thing to do. Now I think that there might be other possibilities."

"You know there might be another possibility as well." Her mind coerced her into finally setting about her own case.

"What?"

"There's 'open adoption' where someone you know adopts the children and gives them a good life but you stay a part of their lives. You'd always be their Uncle Nick but without the responsibility."

He thought about her words. "I might consider that if I decide to adopt them out after all. Right now, I'm trying to decide. I appreciate your help, Emilie."

"Sure," she said quietly. "I -- uh -- just wanted to give you something else to think about."

He took her hand suddenly and pulled her gently to her feet. "Something else to think about? You've given me a whole world to consider." His arms closed around her and she was pressed tightly to his chest. Her arms scampered around his neck like eager an eager child's.

"Nick," she cautioned near his ear as he kissed the side of her neck.

"Emilie," he replied, drawing back from her a little then kissing her mouth as though he had never said that they shouldn't be together or that it wouldn't work.

He drew her closer yet and his hands slid across her back, easing the tension that he found there. He held her fragile form as though he could protect her from everything.

His lips didn't hesitate, taking hers, drawing her breath from her and giving back his own. She pressed against him, wanting more, always more. Grumbling when he move away from her and kissed the tip of her nose.

"I have to go," he whispered. "Someone in this house has to do more than decorate and bake cookies all day!"

She smiled a silly little smile that she couldn't keep from her face and waved goodbye to him as he left the house. Her plans were in disarray and her mind was muddled from his kiss but she knew that she'd done the right thing. She might be unhappy in the long run but she couldn't deny him that happiness that she saw on his face. He loved and wanted those children in his life. He needed them as much as she did.

She looked around the quiet kitchen and apologized to her ancestors for not being more single minded and tougher. But she was going to help Nick and she was going to spend that one beautiful night with him. Then if she had to, she was going to let him and the children go and hope that she'd find someone else to fill her life.

Carefully, as though someone might see her and know what she was doing, she crept up to Nick's room. She looked through the old desk until she found not only the poems he'd written but also something more. It appeared to be a novel set in a small town. It was about a man who was torn between his family that he loved and his freedom.

Emilie glanced up at the door and the time then started to read the manuscript.

Time passed quickly. She looked up and was surprised to find that an hour had passed. She looked down again at the pile of smudged papers in her lap and knew what she could do to help Nick. It was a wonderful piece of work but it might take years to be noticed on its own.

A good friend of her father owned a publishing company in Raleigh. She was on the phone with him at his home five minutes later and placing the manuscript and the poems into the hands of a courier ten minutes after that. By the time the children were awake an hour later, their uncle's work was on its way.

Emilie helped the children get dressed and ready to go shopping. An excitement was building in her as they trudged through the snow and listened to carolers on the streets.

The day was clear. The sky was bright blue, the sun shining down warmly on their heads.

"What are we buying for Uncle Nick?" Adam asked when they'd bought an antique fan for Aunt Elspeth.

"What would you like to buy for Uncle Nick, 'Jake'?" she asked as she considered that the best present might be coming from Raleigh.

"Amber and I wanted to buy him a watch," Adam replied slowly. "We've got this much." He counted his money out to her. "Three dollars and twenty five cents."

"Hmm," Emilie considered as they stopped at a street vendor for warm caramel apples. "Let's sit down over here and think about it."

They ate their apples and watched the carolers and the jugglers who were there for the Christmas shopping season. Traffic went by slowly. Emilie was glad that she'd brought a packet of moist paper towels. Caramel apples were messy when there were little hands and teeth.

"So, this isn't enough for a watch, is it?" Adam asked her when they were finished.

"Well, since I was going to get Uncle Nick a present, too, maybe we could go in together on a watch," Emilie suggested.

"How much money do you have?" Adam asked innocently.

Emilie shrugged. "Enough for a watch."

Amber started dancing around on the bench where they were sitting, making faces and pressing her legs together.

"Amber has to go," Adam told her. "She has to go bad!"

They rushed to the closest restaurant. Emilie got Amber into the bathroom as soon as she could. There was no damage done to her pretty red tights or her smiling face. She hugged Emilie and looked at her as though she was even better than the caramel apple.

Emilie closed her eyes and refused to think about what it would be like without Amber and Adam. She pressed the little body close to hers and kissed Amber's cold little face.

"Let's go find Adam," she said to Amber who clapped her hands and laughed.

Emilie walked across the restaurant, holding Amber's hand, looking for Adam who was supposed to be waiting by the bathrooms.

"Emilie!" he called from the front door. "Look who I found!"

Emilie looked up at the tall man who stood beside Adam, holding his hand. He smiled at her, his dark eyes intent on hers. She swallowed hard on a sudden, terrifying realization.

She was in love with Nick Garret. She hadn't asked for it, hadn't wanted it. She'd told herself that she could separate herself from her feelings but she knew then that she had lied.

"Hi there!" He crouched down beside Amber, lifting the girl easily in his arms. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him tightly. "I saw you as I was finishing up a job. I thought maybe we could have lunch," he said to Emilie over Amber's head.

"That -- that would be great," she replied vaguely, still stunned by her realization. She pulled herself together and tried to put it from her. She might love Nick but she wouldn't make a fool of herself over him as she had David.

A waiter led them to a booth. The table had a green and white striped cloth covering it. Adam rushed to tell Nick everything they'd done that morning while Amber blew kisses up into his face.

Emilie pretended to study her menu although she didn't have any idea what the cardboard said and even less inclination to eat.

How could she have fallen in love with him? She wondered lamely. How could she have let herself be hurt like that again?

"Emilie?" Nick tried to get her attention, tapping on the top of her menu with his finger.

She looked across the menu at him with a wide, bewildered gaze.

"Are you all right?" he asked, while the waiter waited impatiently.

"I -- I'm fine." She faltered for an instant before gaining control of herself again. "I just want a salad."

"Was this too much of a change in your plans?" Nick asked her after the waiter had left with their orders. "Did you have something else to do?"

"No." She shook her head and looked away from him to her napkin. "There wasn't anything else. I'm just hungry."

But when her salad came, she couldn't justify that claim. She finally pushed the bowl away from her and sipped her glass of water. She watched Nick patiently feed Amber some ice cream while Adam told him about Aunt Elspeth's present.

"We were about to go shopping for yours," he regaled his uncle.

Nick's gaze flew to Emilie's. "You were?"

Adam nodded. "We have three dollars and twenty five cents. Emilie is going to add her money to ours to get your present. But I can't tell you what it is!"

"It's a surprise," Nick agreed, still looking at Emilie.

"That's right," Adam agreed with a secret wink at Emilie and Amber.

Nick paid for lunch but had to leave them. He touched Emilie's arm and she jumped nervously, feeling his touch as though it was a hot brand on her skin.

"You're not going to add much of Emilie's money to theirs, right?"

Emilie, lost between misery and excitement over finding out that she was in love, shook her head wordlessly.

"Nothing like the tree or the million watts of lights around the house, right?" he continued.

"Right," she managed to find her voice.

"Are you sure you're all right?" he asked again, noticing her pale face and overly bright eyes. "Has it been too much for you taking them shopping?"

"I'm fine," she told him, trying to sound more convinced than she felt. "It's fine. They're fine. Really."

He frowned, wondering if he heard a note of hysteria in her voice. "I could take all of you back to the house."

Emilie picked Amber up and took Adam's hand. "Sorry," she told him briskly, with a million-watt smile. "We have more shopping to do. See you later."

He watched her walk away with the kids, thinking that she might be distracted. No matter how hard he tried to ignore her, she was a mighty distraction herself.

Two hours later, Emilie dropped all of her shopping bags on the kitchen floor and put Amber carefully into her highchair. Then she collapsed into one of the other chairs while Aunt Elspeth chuckled at her.

"Tired?"

"Way beyond," Emilie answered weakly. Adam brought in the rest of the shopping bags. She directed him to put them all with the rest of the pile.

"There was a call for you," Aunt Elspeth told her, picking up Amber and cuddling her.

Emilie was amazed. "You answered the phone?"

Elspeth shrugged. "It was no big thing, petite. Besides she called so many times, it was beginning to irritate me. Ring, ring, ring! It was your friend, Julie Johnson. She needs you to call her back as soon as you get home."

"Thank you," Emilie responded, still stunned by the change her aunt was undergoing. The children had really begun to bring her out into the real world. She hated to lose the children for Elspeth's sake but if Nick decided to keep them, perhaps he would bring them to see them from time to time. And there was always the possibility of finding the right child that she could adopt. The New Year was coming and with it, the promise of something better.

Emilie stood up again, her leg hurting since she'd managed to overdo it again. She was going to have to pace herself or face the consequences. She picked up the phone to call Julie.

Not that it wasn't worth it. She would do it again to watch the children's faces as they walked through the moving toy soldiers and dancing fairies at the mall. Amber couldn't look away from the beautiful Christmas decorations, her big bright eyes glued on them.

Emilie reached Julie and the other woman sounded terrible.

"I have one final class to teach tonight at the community college," Julie croaked through strep throat and sinus infection. "They've worked so hard, Emilie. This finishes most of them to start winter quarter at the college. Can you please take it for me?"

"I don't know anything about college credit classes," Emilie protested. "I wouldn't know what to do."

"You can just use my course book. Besides, this is the last of it. They only need the time. I was supposed to give back final exams and certificates of completion tonight. Please Emilie! I hate to let them down but I'm so sick."

She coughed long and loudly, moaning at the end. Emilie knew Julie wasn't the kind of person to ask if she didn't really need her.

She sighed. "All right. I'm sorry you're sick this close to Christmas. What time is the class?"

They arranged for her to swing by and pick up the course book on her way to the community college. Emilie put down the phone, glanced at her watch, then went to talk to Aunt Elspeth.

Before the children had come there, she might have been reluctant to leave anyone with her aunt but since their arrival, she'd become more coherent. More responsible. As Emilie spoke with her, she was already starting dinner for them, Wearing a Santa hat and a big red apron.

"You like it?" she asked, turning a little so that Emilie could appreciate the color and the effect. "Nick gave it to me. He said it was an early Christmas present."

Emilie smiled sadly. "It's wonderful."

"He is a devil but very handsome, eh petite Anjou?"

Emilie evaded her eyes. "I need to get ready. I shouldn't be back very late. Here's Nick's pager number if you need him. You just pick up the phone, dial this number then - - "

"Put in our number when it beeps." Aunt Elspeth nodded. "Nick already explained to me. In case I needed him, he said."

"Good." Emilie nodded, putting the number down by the phone. "That's good. I'm going to get ready."

"I'll take care of them," Elspeth continued, shaking a spoon at her niece. "But who will take care of you?"

Emilie's head came up. "I think I've been taking care of myself for a long time."

"Too long, petite. You need someone else. I won't be here forever, you know."

Emilie felt tears well in her eyes and hugged her aunt tightly. "Maybe not forever but a little while longer, eh petite Anjou?"

Elspeth hugged her back then shooed her out of the kitchen. Amber was sitting in her highchair, watching Adam pull lettuce apart all over the table as he made salad.

"I'll see you two tomorrow," Emilie told the children, kissing each of them quickly. "Tomorrow is Toy World!"

"Yes!" Adam yelled, putting up his fist to salute that decision.

Amber laughed and clapped her hands, blowing kisses at Emilie who blew them back.

She went up the stairs angrily to change her clothes. It wasn't bad enough that she loved two children that she couldn't adopt, she fumed. No. She had learned to love their uncle as well. A man who didn't want to have a serious relationship with her. Even if she could make herself trust him, he would never believe that it was possible.

"You're a loser," she told herself in the mirror as she brushed her hair impatiently, pinning it to the back of her head. "You may be rich. You may be a Ferrier. But you're a loser in the game of life, Emilie, Anjou."

She made a face at herself then pulled on a warm, plum colored sweater and skirt. She put on light make up and smiled at herself, touching scent lightly to her wrists and the shadowed cleft between her breasts.

The skirt was straight to below her knee but loose and soft against her skin. She pulled on her black boots and a heavy coat. On a whim, she tied the bright green and red Christmas scarf around her neck. She'd found it on her bedside table that morning.

It had been a small present from Nick. Like Aunt Elspeth's apron and Santa hat. There was a note with it that she tucked into her purse.

'You've made it all so easy. Thank you, Emilie. No wonder the children love you. Nick.'

Why was it that children found her so lovable but love seemed so willing and able to pass her by?

Chapter Fourteen

Julie was as sick as she'd told her friend. Her husband gave Emilie the course book and told her that they were hoping she would be better in time for the holiday. Their children stood at the door with their harried father, staring at Emilie with inquisitive eyes.

Slightly beyond, Emilie could see the beginning of the house. Coats, boots, books, and toys seemed to be thrown everywhere. There was the faint scent of burned food coming from the kitchen.

"I hope she's better soon," Emilie said, taking the course book. For her sake as well as yours, she added silently, knowing she would hear about everything that had happened while her friend was sick when they went back from the holiday.

And one way or another, it would all be over, Emilie thought, getting quickly back into her car. Nick would either have decided to give Amber up for adoption or he would have decided to keep her. They would be back in their own house and the big tree would go through a shredder to provide cover for the flower garden for next summer.

That was about as depressing as knowing that she was in love with Nick, she decided, pulling back from that line of thought.

The night was clear. Stars were shining brightly from the sharp black sky but it was bitterly cold. There was no wind. She knew the faculty parking lot at the community college was a long walk from the front door of the school. She was grateful for small favors.

She would rather be at home drinking hot chocolate with Amber and Adam and Elspeth. And Nick. It was easy to picture them all together in the library in front of the fire with steaming mugs. Maybe Nick would be telling them a story --

Hadn't she promised herself that she wouldn't let herself feel that way about Nick?

He had been right, though she couldn't tell him. He had known her better than she'd known herself. She thought that she'd learned it all from her experience with David but she had been susceptible again. Maybe she would always fall for the wrong men. Maybe there was no hope for her.

Nick had said that she had a soft heart. He should have added that she had sawdust for brains, she derided herself. Emilie Ferrier. The only woman in the world able to consistently find men to fall in love with who didn't love her!

She parked in the big parking lot at the college. She looked at the lights that covered the school grounds and the long, low buildings with a jaundiced gaze. She felt as much like teaching a last class in college prep as she felt like falling off the side of a mountain.

But she promised. She sighed, getting out of her car and locking the doors. She pulled her coat a little closer, hefted her course book in her arms, and started walking across the campus.

Several students were already in their seats by the time she found the classroom. She assumed they were eager for it to be over. The building was a little chilly and she was glad she'd dressed warmly. There was a basketball game going on at the far end of the building. Occasionally, she could hear a whistle blow or the crowd yell when a point was scored.

She said hello to the students as she took off her coat. She explained what had happened to their usual teacher. She took her seat at the small desk in front of the class and looked through the course book and the graded exams. It looked as though most of the students had passed the course and would be going on to the next phase. Probably a local college for the winter quarter.

There was no bell for classes to start but Julie's notes said that classes started at seven. So when the clock on the wall said that it was seven, she stood up and started to address the class. One hour, she told herself. How bad could it be?

The class was full. There were only two empty seats. Since she hadn't been there before, she had no way of knowing if those represented students who weren't going to make it for the last class.

"Good evening." She started the class, picking up the exam papers. "My name is Emilie Ferrier and I'll be your instructor for tonight since -- "

The classroom door swung open and the two late arrivals came in with a flurry of apologies for being late. One of them was Nick Garret.

She used the time after their arrival to compose herself. As they were getting settled, taking off jackets and gloves and getting out books, she took a deep breath. She could feel herself grinning like a damned cat when she first saw him. Fortunately, he didn't appear to notice her.

He took off his black jacket and sat down at one of the empty desks. Emilie managed to wrench her gaze from him and cleared her throat nervously.

"As I was saying, my name is Emilie Ferrier and I'm going to finish up this course for you tonight. Your regular instructor is out with the 'flu. I think the best way to start would be to hand out these test papers. So as I call your name, if you'll come up and get it, we'll get this over with. I know this is the reason all of you are here and most of you did well. If there are any questions, we'll discuss the exam after everyone has theirs back."

She felt his questioning gaze on her but didn't dare look up at him. Her face felt hot and red. Her hands were shaking as she started calling out the names on the papers and returning the tests.

"Nick Garret," she called finally, knowing she had to reach his name at some point. She looked up into his face and smiled a little more vaguely than she had at the other students, not letting her eyes catch his.

He'd passed the exam, she noticed gratefully. At least she wouldn't have to break that bad news to him.

There were a few questions, mostly from the students who didn't do as well on the exam. A few were from the students who failed.

"How are these graded?" one man, John something she couldn't remember, asked belligerently. "Because I think these are biased. I think whoever graded these was prejudiced."

Emilie smiled nervously at the man who stared at her mutinously. Her only experience was teaching nine-year-old children. She proceeded to explain to the man the way she would have explained to Adam.

"You can take this up with your teacher next quarter," she finished after explaining the grading process. "Or you can complain to the Dean."

"How could I get so many wrong?" the man whined.

It was a familiar tone and question for her. She looked directly at him and smiled. "Next time, you'd better study harder."

A few students laughed quietly. A few spoke softly, agreeing with the man. Emilie decided to proceed with the rest of the hour that was left of the class.

"Now, if you'll pass your course books up to the front desk at the end of each row. The school has a commendation for each of you that passed the course."

"Miss -- uh -- Ferrier?" A tall man asked as he came in the door and checked a piece of paper for her name. "I'm Efird Sutherlund. I'm the Dean. I'll be giving out the diplomas to your graduates."

She shook hands with the man then gave him the list of names that Julie had put together.

"This is a good record for this class," he said, smiling at her, then at the class in general. "You all did very well."

Emilie agreed, trying not to look at Nick. She had to look at him. He looked as surprised to see her there, as she was to see him.

"If you'll call out these names," the Dean said, handing the list back to her. "I'd like to give out these certificates."

Emilie cleared her throat and read the first name. The man came up, shook the Dean's hand, then took his certificate. She read the second name. The woman came up and took her certificate, shaking the Dean's hand.

She read Nick's name finally. He came up to the front of the class and shook the Dean's hand then took his certificate. But his eyes were on Emilie.

Finally, the thirty students who'd passed were all given their certificates. The Dean smiled and nodded. "This is the beginning of a new life for all of you, no matter what you choose to do from now on. Good luck to you all!"

There was a roar from the basketball game down the hall and Emilie glanced at the clock on the wall. It was seven fifty.

"Well, you've received your certificates. Those of you who passed, I wish you good luck. I don't see any reason for us to have to wade through basketball traffic, so I'm going to dismiss the class and say Merry Christmas to you all."

Most of the students were smiling. They shook her hand as they filed out of the classroom. A few were disgruntled but managed to be civil anyway. Many of them asked about Julie and wished her a speedy recovery.

"Miss Ferrier," Nick acknowledged her softly, standing beside her chair as the classroom emptied.

She felt as though the tingling started in her shoulder that was closest to him and continued down through the rest of her body. Thank heaven she didn't have to try to teach anything important to the class! She would have been lost!

"I'm not happy with any of this," John something she couldn't remember told her harshly as he stalked up to the front of the room. "They haven't heard the last of this."

Emilie felt rather than saw Nick move protectively closer to her. It was probably only a reflex action but it made her feel good.

She stood up slowly, gathering Julie's papers and books. "You may be right," she told the man. "But I've known Julie Johnson a long time. I have to believe she gave you a fair chance."

"What do you know about it?" he demanded angrily.

"She knows it's time to go home and forget about it for tonight, John." Nick stepped in without waiting to listen to anymore.

"Easy for you to say, man. You passed."

"That's true," Nick agreed. "But this lady isn't the one to take it up with. Say goodnight."

John looked between the woman and the tall man behind her, then walked away, muttering beneath his breath.

"Not your average nine year old," she said, having to admit she was nervous as she let out a long breath.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, looking down at her. "Did you know I was taking classes here?"

"No," she denied, shaking her head. "I was just filling in for Julie and you walked in through the door. I had no idea."

"That's a little convenient," he retorted edgily.

She shrugged. "Don't you believe in coincidence?"

"No," he answered, his eyes on the scarf he'd given her, wrapped around her neck.

There was a loud cheer and then the sound of running feet through the hallway outside the door.

"It sounds like we missed our window of opportunity," she said, shaken a little by his intent gaze.

"Come on," he proposed, taking her arm, "I'll buy you a cup of coffee while they clear out."

She grabbed her coat. "That sounds good."

"So, you didn't know?" he asked again after they reached the coffee shop that was on campus. "Your friend didn't tell you and you had to see for yourself?"

Emilie was indignant. "I would've asked you if my friend had mentioned it. But she really is sick. She called this afternoon and I agreed to come in for the last class."

"Okay," he agreed, stirring cream into his coffee. "Then I suppose the secret's out anyway."

"What secret?" she wondered aloud, happy to be sitting there with him.

He shrugged. "I decided against college just out of high school. My mother needed me to work to help support her and Renee. So I never had a chance to go. Until now."

"I think that's great," she enthused. "This is your opportunity."

"Yeah." He shook his head and looked down at his coffee. "This is it."

"You don't sound very excited by the prospect," she remarked casually.

"I was. I am," he corrected. "I don't know. Everything is very confusing right now."

"Maybe things will become clearer," she said lightly, thinking about the manuscript she'd sent to her friend. "Maybe Christmas will bring you a big surprise."

"It already has," he reported, looking at her.

"What?" she asked softly.

"You," he explained, touching her hand with his and smiling. "I didn't believe that fairy godmothers existed before I met you. But that's just the way you are, isn't it? You make things right for kids with bad school records then take in strangers and change their lives around."

Emilie looked at his hand covering hers. His thumb was smoothing absently across the sensitive skin. A slight shiver went through her as she watched him trace a path slowly up her arm, his fingers sliding under the sleeve.

"We should probably go," she said huskily, clearing her throat but not moving her arm.

"We should," he agreed, still touching her silky skin. "It's getting late."

He walked her out to her car, his hand on her arm. She leaned slightly towards him and he gathered her close and kissed her gently. Snow was falling lightly. He laughed, looking down at her with the white flakes in her dark hair.

"You're starting to look like a snowman," he whispered.

"Are you coming home with me?" she asked hopefully.

"I have to take the truck back to the garage," he explained, regret in his voice. "But I shouldn't be late."

She nodded and unlocked the car door. She slid inside then looked back at him. "I'll see you at home."

Nick watched her drive away, wondering, not for the first time, what he'd done accepting her help. His house was finished. They could move back in tomorrow but he knew the kids would be upset about leaving Emilie's house before Christmas.

Worse, he knew he would be upset about leaving Emilie's house before Christmas. He had a terrible feeling that he would be upset leaving Emilie's house after Christmas as well. Would there be a good time to leave Emilie?

Since he'd met her, it was as though his life had stopped falling apart and begun to knit itself back together. Yet he wasn't sure he recognized the pattern it was forming. It wasn't the same life he'd had before Emilie had stepped in and taken them all in hand.

He took the truck back to the garage, contemplating staying there or going back to his own house for the night. He didn't trust himself with Emilie. He wasn't sure that he could do whatever the right thing was anymore. Everything was shrouded in a fog of doubt. Things that had been so clear were hazy. It left a gray area that was easy to find his way through when she was in his arms.

He sat in his truck for what seemed like a long time, wrestling with his conscience and his heart. His conscience told him that it was wrong to take what she offered so freely. His heart whispered that he couldn't pretend not to feel anything for her. She had made him feel again. She had given him the heart that urged him to go to her.

Without waiting for any further doubt to assail him, he started the truck and sped through the snowy night.

Emilie slowly poured the last glass of brandy into a hand blown glass. She'd waited patiently in the kitchen, watching for the lights from his truck for a half an hour.

He was probably out celebrating with his friends or working, she decided, walking through the dark and sleeping house with a carefully soft step. If there were ghosts in the house, she was one of them. A sad wraith of a woman who had dared to love and found that it could never be returned.

She sipped her brandy and walked unseeingly through the twisted corridors of the old mansion. She knew her path in the dark or the light. She'd walked those halls a hundred times.

She found herself in the old ballroom, looking up through the glass ceiling at the stars twinkling madly and the crescent of the new moon. She drank her brandy and spun slowly. The sheet covered chairs and the light from the moon combined to make a kaleidoscope effect in her whirling brain.

She sank down on the cold pink marble floor when she couldn't stand up anymore. Her head was bowed. One silent tear slipped down her cheek.

It was no use, she thought wildly. She would always be a ghost. A crippled ghost, longing for someone she could never have. Dreaming dreams in that dusty room about things she could never have. Things that money or the Ferrier name couldn't buy her. Things she didn't even dare whisper in the secret places of her heart.

"Emilie?"

She looked up and saw him standing there before her. The light grazed his face, hinting at the hollow of his cheeks and the curved line of his mouth.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded mutely and took the hand that he offered to help her to her feet. "I thought you weren't coming back tonight."

He looked at her, hearing the sorrow in her voice. He couldn't see her face clearly in the half-light. "Were you dancing?"

She laughed gently and ran a hand through her hair, loosening the knot on the back of her head. "I don't dance."

He saw the brandy glass in her hand and took it from her unresisting fingers. He swallowed the last of the fiery spirit, then set down the glass on a sheet-covered table.

"Why not?" he asked wonderingly. He kissed each of her hands then slid them around his neck.

"I'm crip -- I can't," she denied, refusing to say the words.

He slipped his arms around her waist. The wool was soft against his hands as he drew her slowly to him. "My mother loved to dance," he told her. "After my father left, I was her partner."

She looked up at him. The moonlight caught on the tear line from her eye to her lips. "I -- I can't," she said, a catch in her voice that nearly ended on a sob.

"Dance with me, Emilie," he invited in a murmur. He nuzzled her hair aside and hummed softly in her ear.

Emilie didn't recognize the tune but she felt fluid in his arms. When he started moving across the floor, she moved with him, instinctively mimicking his slow motion. The floor was cold under her bare feet and her head was fuzzy with brandy. She leaned her face against his shoulder and kissed the side of his neck.

That tiny soft kiss sent a shaft of pure desire through his body. He closed his eyes, refusing to hear that voice that told him that he was treading in dangerous waters. And when her white teeth nipped the skin there and her sweet pink tongue quickly licked that sensitive spot, he gave up thinking all together. He was driven beyond apologies or logic by the feel of her in his arms as they moved and the scent of jasmine in her hair.

The room swelled with the music he hummed into her ear and the night was perfumed with flowers. The moonlight was ashen on their forms, moving perfectly together across the wide floor.

Emilie sighed and kissed the side of his jaw. "I'm not really an angel, you know. I'm not perfect."

"You move like an angel," he told her, kissing her ear, her cheek, and her hair. "Who told you that you couldn't dance?"

"No one had to," she answered gently. "I just always knew -- "

"You were wrong, sweetheart." He spun her in his arms until she laughed out loud and cried out for him to stop. He kissed her open lips and she clung to him, the laughter forgotten in another kind of joy.

He stopped moving suddenly but his arms were still around her. "I'm not always trustworthy either, Emilie," he warned her darkly. "I can't look at you and not want you. I can't stay here tonight and pretend that you aren't in the next room."

She released her hold on his neck and looked into his eyes. She stretched her arms up and slipped out of her soft wool sweater. The moonlight was pale on her white bra and slip, gleaming against her soft skin.

"I trust you," she told him gently. "And I don't want you to pretend I'm not here."

"Emilie," he muttered while the blood thundered through him. He forced his hands not to touch the pearly skin she'd exposed.

"Shh," she murmured, kissing his mouth closed. "There are ghosts in this house. Let's not wake them."

He fused the gentle touch of her lips with his own, burning them both with the fire he held in check. He moved with her again, humming broken snatches of music between his words. Telling her that she was beautiful. That her skin was like silk. Kissing her white throat. His hands deftly removed her slip and his shirt.

The abrasion of his broad fuzzy chest against the softness of her skin made Emilie moan and lay her lips there, caressing the skin, tempting the tiny buds that nestled in the rough hair.

Nick drew in a quick breath at her touch, sliding his hands along the satin bra she wore, holding her slightly off the floor while her lips gently nuzzled his chest.

Emilie trembled in his hold when he returned the caress, his mouth opening on first one round breast then the other. She strained against him, wanting to remove the impediment that her bra created, wanting to feel him on her bare skin.

But he still danced, holding her. His tongue and teeth drove her into a frenzy; whirling slowly; her feet barely grazing the cold floor.

She wrapped her legs around his waist, pressing intimately into him, kissing his eyes and his brandy flavored mouth with wild abandon. Her hair streamed down between them, tickling his neck and face. She laughed when he did and he kissed her, his tongue dipping deeply into her mouth's dark sweetness.

They stopped moving finally, only to find a new rhythm. Emilie arched back across his arm while he shaped her breasts with his facile fingers then took each mound gently into his mouth with butterfly touches of his hot tongue.

"I don't think I want to dance anymore right now," she told him breathlessly.

"Not that kind." He stroked his tongue along her own.

"I know a secret way to my bedroom," she told him.

He lifted her easily and held her against his chest. "Show me."

They left their clothes on the old ballroom floor and slipped into the passage that he'd seen Elspeth use before to disappear from Emilie's room. It was pitch black in the twisting corridor that ran behind the thick mansion walls but Emilie guided him with her voice and her hands until they reached the panel that opened into her bedroom.

He put her down long enough to push the rocking chair in front of the panel to prevent anyone else from using it. Then he lifted her again, taking her to the door. "Lock it," he requested. Then when she looked at him in question, he shrugged. "I've heard the horror stories."

Emilie smiled and locked the door, hearing the lock slide into place. Then she sighed and let him take her to the big bed. The lace fluttered around him and she thought about the future in that movement.

There wouldn't be a future for them. Only that one night. Her one perfect night. She knew the truth. She accepted it. She looked at his bare chest in the dim night light, watched him remove his pants and underwear then return to her.

Part of her wanted to turn away, wanted to be protected from the truth. But she opened her arms to him and smiled, knowing that any small part of life was better than none. She'd come that far. She wanted to feel him against her. Inside of her --

She felt him remove her stockings and struggled up on her elbows, searching his darkly intent face. "Nick -- "

"Emilie," he whispered, taking her right foot into his hands and rubbing the delicate arch. "I want to see all of you. I want to kiss all of you."

Emilie felt the exquisite thrill of his touch on her bad leg but she panicked, trying to pull his hands away. David had left her leg alone. He had never even looked at it. She didn't want-

"You said you trusted me," Nick reminded her, stroking his hand gently along the length of her leg, feeling the withered muscle, the slight bend in her calf and thigh.

Emilie would have protested but he bent his head and touched his mouth to that vulnerable place. She drew in a ragged breath, feeling the friction from his touch create waves of pleasure along her leg, reaching higher as he stroked and kissing from her calf to her thigh.

She moaned helplessly and felt her head move restlessly from side to side but the shock of pleasure at his touch made her all feeling, all emotion. She stopped thinking, stopped questioning, and writhed beneath his passionate onslaught.

Nick felt her surrender, felt the tiny tremors of feeling race across her skin. Her love sounds made him hot and desperate to seek another place but he took his time, forcing himself to move slowly with this woman. He stroked his hand from her ankle to her thigh on her good leg, noticing the difference between the two limbs but losing that objectivity when his hand brushed her silk panties.

Emilie welcomed him when he moved over her, divesting her of her remaining under-garments. He slid the offending bra from her with a quick, gentle movement.

"You are so beautiful," he breathed, looking at her in the dim light.

Emilie kept her eyes tightly closed and refused to look at him.

"Emilie?"

"Hmm?"

"Look at me," he urged, kissing her breasts then feathering his lips down to her naval, his tongue tracing its indentation. He took her hands and put them on his chest. "Touch me, Emilie."

She opened her eyes wide, staring up at him. She marveled at the strength and power of his dark body over hers. She ran her hand carefully from his shoulder to his thigh then down to the juncture between his legs. She closed her hand around his throbbing manhood.

"Ahhh, yes, Emilie," he whispered, hardly aware of the sound. "Touch me. Kiss me."

His hands shaped her breasts for his questing mouth that followed. She shivered and caught her lip between her teeth as his mouth brushed kisses across her body. Her hips lifted and begged for his attention.

She kissed him, touching him with her soft hands, urging him to heights he didn't know existed. She made him forget everything but her movement. She moaned sweetly in his arms.

Emilie felt his hands slide from her ankles to her thighs. She gasped at the sensation. She strained against him, her body searching mindlessly for release.

His finger slipped inside of the hot, wet cleft between her legs as his mouth claimed hers, his tongue imitating the motions of his questing hand.

It was enough to send Emilie over the crest into mind blurring waves of pleasure that she rode holding him tightly and calling his name.

Nick entered her with one long, slow thrust of his manhood. His hands urged her legs around him, penetrating her deeply. He trembled, wanting to wait, wanting to stave off his release for her but it was impossible. He lost himself in the welcoming heat of her body and the frenzied strength of their mating.

Emilie felt that spiral start again, faster and faster, until she was drowning in it, joining him as he found his release in her body. Her voice mated with his as they reached the ecstasy they both sought.

Afterwards, neither of them moved, lying spent and damp with their legs and arms entwined. Their breathing slowly returned to something more than a rasping race and their hearts began to beat at a normal rate.

Nick, mindful of his weight resting on her, moved away slowly. He smiled slightly when he heard her catch her breath as their bodies were no longer joined.

Emilie groaned and reached for him, hardly mindful of her actions. Only knowing his warmth was gone, leaving her feeling empty and alone.

He picked her pillows up from the floor and made a bunch of them at the head of the bed, then sat against them, dragging her up with him until she was laying on him.

"Where have you been all my life, Emilie Ferrier?" he asked softly with a smile on his face that he couldn't make go away.

His answer was a mutter and a sigh as she clung to his arm and nuzzled his furry chest with her nose. "I love you," she whispered sleepily, caught between dreaming and sleeping.

He drew a deep breath even as he pulled the comforter up closer around them against the chill night. "Emilie," he repeated her name on a sigh.

Hadn't he known? Hadn't he told himself from the beginning that she couldn't handle simply having an affair? Hadn't he known from the moment that he'd laid eyes on her that she was trouble? All pouting lips and gorgeous green eyes.

The terrible part was that he was still smiling. Maybe grinning. She loved him. And what had seemed impossible suddenly became probable. In fact, it had suddenly become feasible. Because he was suddenly aware that he loved her, too. He realized clearly that it was love that was making him take a new look at his life. Emilie had already made him question his decision to give up the children for adoption. Wasn't it possible that he might be able to reconsider other relationships as well?

You aren't your father or your sister, she'd told him. Maybe she was right.

Chapter Fifteen

Emilie woke up, startled by a sound she couldn't name at first. She looked at the bed beside her. It was empty but rumpled, the pillows tossed around, the comforter disarrayed.

She smoothed her hair back from her face, yawning and trying to decide if it had all been a dream. Had she really spent the night with Nick? Or had that been fantasy?

She heard the sound again and climbed out of bed, surprised to find that she was stark naked. She glanced at herself in the full-length mirror. Had Nick really kissed her crippled leg and told her that she was beautiful? Had they really danced in the ballroom, ending up in her bed with him?

She put her hand to her mouth. Her lips were a little chapped and red looking. And there were other parts of her anatomy that hadn't been used in recent times. She didn't want to think how long. But she felt a little tight and sore.

She heard the sound again and realized that it was coming from her bathroom. Could it be Aunt Elspeth? She wondered, advancing towards the doorway.

She looked in and found the mirrors covered with steam; the room was thick with it. The shower was opaque but she could make out a shape behind the cloudy glass. Surely Aunt Elspeth wouldn't --

Then she heard the sound again and realized that it was baritone. Someone was singing. Nick was singing in her shower. Not a whole song but snatches of something every now and then. She smiled and started to walk back out, going for a robe before she acknowledged his presence.

"Where are you going?" he asked, scooping her up with warm, wet, soapy hands.

"Nick!" she squealed, feeling a lot like a fish except that he was the one that was wet and dripping all over her.

"You need a shower," he told her. "A good hot shower to ease those tender places." He ran a wet hand slowly across her thigh and dribbled water on her navel.

"What about the children?" she asked as he was stepping into the spacious shower cubicle.

"Aunt Elspeth is feeding them breakfast." He closed the door and smiled down at her. "She came in and told us earlier. I guess you didn't hear her. You won't get away from me that easily."

True to his word, he soaped down every inch of her from head to toe, shampooing her hair with deft fingers and scrubbing her back.

Emilie, uncomfortable in the light, shied away from him but he put out a hand to stop her.

"What's wrong?"

She made a face while he soaped and sponged her left leg, trying to get away before his zealousness brought him to her right leg. "N-nothing. I -- uh -- just have to go."

He knelt down on the tile floor before her and looked up tenderly into her face. "It's this, isn't it?" he demanded, rubbing his hand down her thinner leg.

"Please -- "

He bent his head and kissed her knee. "You are so beautiful. I can't believe that this would embarrass you."

She stared at him; the dark hair was slicked back from his face. His cheeks were freshly shaved.

"You've healed so much inside of me, Emilie," he murmured. "Let me heal this for you."

Tears welled in her eyes and spilled over across her trembling lips as he soaped and sponged her right leg. He kissed it when he'd finished, then went on to kiss the rest of her, finally reaching her lips and throat. She entwined her arms around his neck, clinging to him as though she would never let him go. Just wanting to hold him and love him forever in return for his kindness and compassion. In return for all the things that he had become to her.

She wanted to tell him that she loved him. The words almost spilled from her wet lips but her heart was still fearful. He hadn't mentioned love and she'd promised herself that she could love him for that night and let him go. No strings attached.

He opened his mouth on her wet breasts and she arched into his embrace, letting him hold her, feeling secure in his clasp. She sighed and rubbed herself against the lower half of his body, reveling in the size and feel of him. She wanted him inside of her again, feeling the building tension that would spiral into that raw pleasure he'd given her last night.

There was a knock at the bedroom door and Nick smiled at her. "You see why we have to lock the bedroom door?"

"Emilie, Anjou," Elspeth called through the door. "I know you two are busy but Alain is downstairs with some news for you. Should I tell him to go away?"

"Alain?" Nick asked, one dark brow rising as he looked at her.

"My lawyer," she explained hurriedly, hating to leave him but knowing that Alain could have an adoption for her. If Nick decided to keep Adam and Amber, she would still be available. "I have to see him," she told him, then shrugged saucily. "It'll only take a few minutes."

He kissed her hard then let her go. "Don't take too long, Anjou."

Emilie smiled and kissed his wet chin. "Non, Mon brave homme."

She tossed on a white sweatshirt and sweat pants, drying her hair quickly on a towel then braiding it back from her face with quick, impatient hands.

Alain was waiting in the library. He was holding the bible that Jacque Ferrier had first brought with him to the United States, thumbing through the yellowed pages.

"Good morning," she hailed him, walking briskly into the room. "Coffee?"

"I'm afraid Elspeth would throw it at me," he stated vehemently. "I didn't think she was going to let me in the house today."

"She's moody," Emilie said with a shrug. "Has something come up?"

He studied her briefly. "As a courtesy and only as a courtesy, Jon Stewart called me last night to say that the guardian of the girl you were trying to adopt has changed his mind. He doesn't know if he might be open to a single parent but he does know that he's changed his mind about adopting the girl out to the respective couple that were expecting her after the holidays."

Emilie's mind raced. "So the situation has changed?"

Alain laughed. "I think that might be an understatement since you have the girl here. Why is she here with you, Emilie? You could have told me that you arranged something outside of the system."

"I haven't," she denied. "I invited them to stay with me while their home is being repaired."

"Clever girl," he praised. "Have you sweet talked him around to your point of view or merely offered him a lot of money?"

"Alain!"

"Emilie -- " He looked at her again, noticing the color in her face and the brightness of her eyes. "How far were you willing to go to adopt that little girl?"

"That's an interesting question," Nick agreed, advancing into the room. His dark eyes flashed between Emilie and Alain. "I know who you are now. You're the rich bitch's lawyer who thought she could buy Amber from me. Right?"

"Nick." Emilie stepped between them, trying to smile and make it all right.

"And that makes you the rich bitch, I suppose?" He turned to her, his face angry and cold.

"If you'll let me explain -- "

"Explain?" he demanded hotly. "Please. Explain to me how I could have been so gullible. Me! The man who'd seen it all and knew that nothing was ever as good as it seemed. Explain how I was blind enough to believe you last night when you said that you loved me. And stupid enough to think that I might love you, too."

"Please, Nick." She tried to make him understand. "I wanted to tell you. It was just never the right time. I wanted to show you that I could be a good single mother. That I could give the children a good life."

"Children?" he questioned closely. "You mean you were eyeing them both? Well, then. No wonder you were willing to sacrifice so much to get me on your side. Making me believe that I had a chance with you. That you were different. Hell! That I was different! I am the biggest fool in the world."

"Nick," she pleaded, grabbing his arm as he started to walk out of the room. "Listen to me. It started out that I wanted to adopt a little girl and I happened to find out that it was Amber. I admit that I invited you here to convince you that I would be the right person. I should have told you. But nothing I've said or done with you was to adopt Amber or Adam. I -- I do love you. You have to believe me."

He took her hand away from his arm with cold fury written in his face. "I don't believe you. Was there anything you wouldn't say or do to convince me? Anything you wouldn't have bought or any trick you wouldn't have used?"

"It wasn't like that," she cried.

"Goodbye Emilie. My father always told me that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. I just forgot."

Alain was pouring himself a hefty glass of scotch. "I'm sorry, Emilie. I didn't know -- "

"How could you?" she asked, throwing herself down on the chair. What could she do? He wouldn't listen to her, didn't believe anything she said. Why hadn't she talked to him earlier? Why had she waited?

She could hear the children crying as Nick gathered the two of them to leave the house. Adam was demanding an explanation and Amber was crying and whimpering.

Elspeth came steaming into the library. "What is going on?" she asked. "Why are the children leaving? What has he done?" She pointed at Alain.

"It wasn't him," Emilie started to explain then brushed by her and went to where Nick was putting on Amber's boots.

"Emilie -- " Adam began plaintively.

"Shh, Anjou," she soothed, taking his hand and looking at his uncle. "You have to hear me out. I haven't done anything wrong besides wanting to love your niece and nephew. And you. You can't leave and throw everything away because of this."

"You can't buy me," he told her flatly. "I'm not for sale. Not for a big Christmas tree. Not for pretty presents." He glanced at her contemptuously. "Or a pretty face."

"Nick!" she said, feeling as though he had slapped her.

"Like I told your lawyer." He glanced to the doorway where Alain stood watching. "I wouldn't adopt out Amber to the queen of England just because she has a lot of money. The same goes for you. I want Amber to have more than just a lot of toys and a nanny. She needs two parents -- not one rich one -- and a home."

"We could give her that home," Emilie said, trying to make him look at her. "We do have something special between us! We could give the children a good home and two parents, Nick. Just give us a chance!"

"Us?" he questioned dully. "When did I ever fit in to the plan except as the obstacle to be overcome? Spare me, Emilie! I admit that I was impressed but I told you to begin with not to expect a relationship. They never work out. People will lie to you, take advantage of you then leave you flat. We both know that, don't we?"

Emilie didn't know what else to say to him. Her heart was breaking but her brain refused to coordinate any kind of effort to save her. She watched him pick Amber up in his arms and take Adam's hand.

"I'll send for our stuff. Thanks for everything."

"Say something!" Elspeth pleaded, throwing herself at Emilie as the door closed on the little family. "Don't let them walk out! Say something to bring them back!"

"I don't know what to say!" Emilie told her. "He won't hear me no matter what I say to him!"

Elspeth stared at her then sat down heavily in the chair near the front door. The sound of the truck starting and leaving the driveway was loud in the dead quiet of the old house.

"Emilie." Alain went to her. "If it would help, I could talk to him. I could tell him that I was wrong."

"How would you explain that to him since you thought that I would sleep with him to adopt Amber?" she demanded hotly.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "I didn't mean to -- "

"Never mind," she replied, sighing heavily as she sat down next to Elspeth who was weeping quietly. "You'd better go. There's nothing you can do."

He got his coat and hat. He started to say something else to the two women hugging each other, but he thought better of it and left quietly.

"The petite Anjou," Elspeth mourned. "They are both gone."

"I know." Emilie cried with her, holding her tightly. "I know."

Christmas Eve dawned white and silent. The sky was as white as the snow covered ground above the face of the mountain. The cold had touched the snowdrifts with a layer of ice that sparkled in the fitful sunlight.

Emilie rose late, feeling haggard and drawn. She'd slept very little the night before and wasn't looking forward to a day of Aunt Elspeth crying through the house like some pitiful wraith.

She looked out at the winter landscape. The dark mountain rose sharply against the sky. It looked like a picture postcard.

Had other Ferrier women stood at that window and wondered how they were going to survive? Had they wondered how there could be such beauty and such emptiness?

Emilie thought that David had hurt her. But it was nothing compared to the wound that Nick had inflicted on her soul. She realized that she had never loved David the way she did Nick. She had never trusted him that way. Somehow, in her optimism and wide- eyed wonder at finding Nick, she'd left herself wide open to the worst pain in her life. How could he believe those things about her? How could he think that she could be guilty of what he accused her?

Why wouldn't he? In all fairness, it looked as though Alain was right. Even he, who'd known her forever, thought she might be desperate enough to do anything to adopt Amber.

That either man could think that of her made her angry. Alain should have known better. Nick should have had a little faith. He didn't even listen to her explanation. If he had --

He would've thought the same thing, she realized, thinking about her explanation. Yes, she was guilty of knowing that he was Amber's guardian and using that information to further her own cause. True, she had invited them to her home to show him that she would be a good mother. Yes, she had hoped to use whatever means necessary to convince him of that fact. But she would have never gone that far. She had fallen in love with Nick. As convenient as that sounded.

She could only imagine Nick's mind. Relationships didn't work. Nothing was ever true. It was a huge black mark against her.

After talking further with Alain, he admitted that he might have come on a bit strong with Jon Stewart. He might have made a point about how much money Emilie had and what a fool Nick would be to turn down her offer. He'd even hinted that she would be willing to give him money, which wasn't technically legal. Or that she would use her name to do whatever he needed.

That had been a mistake, of course, she considered, pacing the wide width of her room. But Alain had meant it in good faith. He knew how much Emilie wanted a child and he was trying desperately hard to get one for her.

She couldn't fault him for that, she realized. However much she would like to lay it on someone else's head. She should have told Nick from the start that she wanted to adopt Amber. She should have been straightforward about wanting to show him that she could be a good single mother.

But she had been so afraid that he would turn her down flat. In the end, her own desperation had been her undoing. That, and her stupid blunder in falling in love with Nick.

What had she been thinking? She threw herself down on the bed. He'd been honest with her from the beginning. He'd told her that there couldn't be a relationship between them. He'd told her about his plans for the children and his reasons.

She, in turn, had been guilty of the sin of omission. She hadn't lied exactly. But maybe there was still a way to turn things around. If she could make him listen. Make him understand. If she could get him to see that she was wrong but not guilty of what he'd charged her.

The phone rang and she picked it up, hoping it would be Nick. It was Tyler Lantree, the publisher of Lantree Press, the man to whom she'd sent Nick's work.

After the pleasantries were over, Tyler wasted no time in telling her that he was interested in acquiring Nick's book. "It needs some polish but it's good work. The poems are another story. I like them but there's not much of a market for them. I do have a friend that I'd like to send them to and see what she thinks."

Emilie was ecstatic. Here was her opportunity to make amends with Nick. "That's wonderful, Tyler. I can't wait to tell him."

"I'm just leaving for our place in Kentucky for the holidays so have him give me a call after the first and we'll go over the details, Emilie. I hope you're planning a good holiday?"

"I think it might be after all," she said, without explanation. "Thanks for calling, Tyler. Have a great holiday. Give Irene my best."

"I'll do that. Take care, Emilie. My best to your aunt as well."

Emilie hung up the phone, startled to find Elspeth standing beside her in the quiet room. "Who was that?"

"Tyler Lantree. He wants to publish Nick's book. I can't wait to tell him. This might be just the thing to bring them all home."

Elspeth shook her head and sat down in the rocking chair. "You still don't understand! You already hurt his pride once. You're about to hit him again! He thinks you tried to buy him and the children. This won't help."

But Emilie refused to be dissuaded. She hummed happily and dressed up in a bright red sweater and black wool slacks, careful of her hair and make up. She looked at herself in the mirror and told herself that Aunt Elspeth was wrong. This news could repair all the damage between them. He wouldn't doubt that she really cared.

She drove to his house in a cloud of bright pink anticipation and dreams. She smiled widely when he opened the door at her quick knock.

"Nick! I have something wonderful to tell you!"

"Emilie, go away." He put her off. He was making soup for Amber and Adam and the house was still a wreck.

"Wait," she stalled him. "Let me tell you and see if this doesn't make all the difference. I found a publisher for your book."

He stopped in his tracks. "What?"

She grinned. "I found a publisher for your book, Nick. A friend of my fathers. Tyler Lantree. He loves it. He isn't sure about the poems but he's sending them to someone -- "

"Emilie," he demanded. "What have you done?"

Her smile faded slightly. "I've found a publisher for your work. I thought you'd be happy."

He shook his dark head and laughed but it wasn't a happy sound. "What else have you done? Did you rig the test at the college? Was there anything you missed in this quest of yours?"

Emilie was bewildered. She glanced at Adam and Amber who watched them. "I did it for you. I wanted it to be a surprise for Christmas."

"It's been a surprise," he agreed unpleasantly.

"I don't understand." She shook her head. "What did I do wrong? You have a talent. Tyler wouldn't have wanted the book if you didn't, regardless of our friendship. Was there some difference between that and finding Adam a spot on the band?"

"You can't go around fixing people's lives, Emilie," he argued. "And you might as well give up now. I'm keeping Adam and Amber. No one's adopting them."

She swallowed hard and looked at the children. "I think that's wonderful. I told you that, remember? Would I have said that if I only wanted to adopt them myself?"

Nick's eyes looked a fraction lighter for a moment then he looked away from her. "It doesn't matter anymore. It's over. The kids and I can manage on our own. Renee will have to understand. And you'll have to find someone else."

Emilie's eyes welled with tears. "Does it have to be over for us, too? Is that all there is?"

His mouth hardened. "That's all there ever was, Emilie. You knew that. I just wish you'd been as honest with me about the whole thing with Amber. Maybe -- "

"Maybe?" she wondered.

He glanced at her, hating to see her face tear stained and unhappy. Hadn't he always known it would be that way when it was over? How could he ever trust her again? She'd lied to him, tried to buy his love and the children's lives.

"It wouldn't have worked," he said at last. "No matter what. I'm sorry."

"So am I," she said softly. "I'll see you around then. Merry Christmas."

"Emilie," he stopped her before she could go back out the door. "I'd like my manuscript back. It wasn't ready. I wasn't going to try to do anything with it yet."

"Tyler said it needed some polish," she told him. "He could help you."

"No, thanks," he rejected her offer. "I'll do it myself."

She nodded. "I'll get it back. But I had nothing to do with your college prep class. Believe it or not. I don't run everyone and everything around here. You listen to too much gossip, Nick. See you."

Nick closed the door and turned resolutely away from it.

"Emilie was crying," Adam stated pointedly.

"She was," Nick agreed with his nephew.

"Why are you fighting? Why can't we stay with her anymore?"

"Because it was time to come home," Nick told him plainly. "Eat your lunch."

Had he been wrong? he wondered, watching her back out of the driveway, careless of the Mercedes' bumper as she turned sharply over the curb. It was all too crazy. His feelings were too confused about what had happened to them. He needed some time to think.

He wanted to believe Emilie when she told him that it was all a misunderstanding. But his heart had suffered when he'd heard her lawyer friend ask her what she 'd be willing to do to have Amber.

He'd only begun to believe in her, to believe in himself. His confidence was shaky. It was like a bad melodrama. He couldn't believe that she'd found out who Amber's guardian was and invited them to her house to show him she could be a good mother.

Still, wasn't it like her? He thought it over as he was getting Adam and Amber ready to go out. And wasn't it like her to find a publisher for his book? Even though he might not want to publish it. She was always trying to perform miracles. Trying to find some way to help.

At least that was the Emilie he thought he knew. Was she really like that or was it all for his benefit? When did she know about Amber being his niece?

Not that it mattered to him, he told himself ruthlessly. It was over between them. As he knew it would be. There were no permanent relationships. No one was ever true or in Emilie's case, truthful.

He drove Adam and Amber to the daycare as the snow started falling. He had two jobs lined up for that morning, then he was going to pick them up. It was Christmas Eve, after all. He had to make the holiday what he could for them. Despite Emilie's duplicity. Despite the fact that he loved her and his heart was breaking.

"We aren't going back to Emilie's house again, are we?" Adam asked before Nick left.

Nick hugged him. "No, we're not. And you might as well get used to calling her Miss Ferrier again."

Adam shrugged away from him. "You just don't want to be there with her."

Nick shook his head. "She didn't want us there forever, Adam."

"That's not what she said."

"I have to go," Nick said, his voice rough with emotion. "I'll be back by noon. Look out for your sister."

Adam watched his uncle leave in the big truck. He kissed Amber's cheek and whispered to her that he knew what had to be done to make it right. Then he slipped out the side door and started walking away from the daycare.

Chapter Sixteen

By ten that morning, blizzard warnings were all over the radio and television. The snow was falling hard and fast, covering tracks in the street as quickly as cars passed. People were advised to leave work early and take in some bottled water and batteries for their flashlights in case of power failure.

Nick finished his first job and decided against the second. The roads were slippery and the snow was piling up quickly on the already snow covered ground. It looked as though it could get bad. He would have his hands full after the weather cleared with cars that didn't make it home.

He decided to stop for some food before the stores got crowded. The daycare was only a few blocks from his house so he knew they could make it home, even if they had to walk. The week away from the house had left his cupboard bare. If they were going to have any Christmas at all, he had to stop.

The stores were already crowded. Bread was scarce and batteries were gone. Fortunately, he didn't have that problem. All he needed were the basics. And a few bags of Christmas cookies. And some fudge. And some stuff for punch.

They would put up their own Christmas tree when they got home. It wouldn't be the same as being with Emilie but he supposed they might as well get used to it. He hadn't brought their presents from the house. He had been waiting until Christmas. It was just as well.

He just wanted to get through the holiday. Then he just wanted to forget Emilie Ferrier. It wouldn't be easy without moving but he was determined that she wouldn't drive him out of town. Ferrier's Mountain was a good place to raise the kids. Good schools. Good people. He owned his business and it did pretty well. He would be able to give Amber and Adam what they needed and some of what they wanted.

And if his heart broke a little more the first few times he saw her again on the street or in school, he would get over her. And if sometimes he just wanted to die knowing that she was so close and he couldn't be with her, he would remember that he had Amber and Adam.

He pulled into the daycare center parking lot just before noon. By the look of the traffic, everyone had the same idea. Kids were running and sliding in the heavy snowfall. Parents he recognized but didn't really know nodded to him as they passed.

It was as dark as evening with the heavy clouds and the thick snow. Christmas lights twinkled in the darkness, reminding him of Emilie's house and the thousands of lights she'd bought for the holiday.

He shook his head. Everything reminded him of Emilie.

"Hi, Mr. Garret," the toddler lady said. "I thought you'd be by early."

"Hi, Wanda," he returned. "It's pretty bad out there already."

"Nice for Christmas." She smiled at him. "I'll have Amber ready to go in a jiffy."

"Is Adam in back?"

She shrugged. "I haven't seen him. He's probably with Mrs. North."

But Mrs. North had only seen him that morning when Nick dropped Amber off.

"I thought he went with you," she told him. "I saw him with you this morning but I just assumed that he left with you. When I turned around, both of you were gone."

They looked frantically through the whole building. Mrs. North called the workers who'd gone home that morning. No one had seen Adam since Nick dropped him off at 8am.

Mrs. North looked at Nick as she dialed the phone again. "I don't know what happened, Mr. Garret. But we'd better not take chances. I'm calling the police."

The police cruiser had a hard time making it to the daycare. Already, the highway patrol was calling for people to stay off the roads. The weather was too bad to send out snowplows so the snow was piling up on the streets. Visibility was down to a few feet.

When the police arrived, they calmed Mrs. North who was at the point of ripping out her hair.

"I don't know where he could be," she told them. "We're a reputable daycare. We don't lose our children!"

"No one thinks anything different, Donna," the chief assured her. He looked at Nick. "Do you have any idea where your son could have gone?"

"My nephew," Nick corrected tautly. "I don't know. I guess he could have gone anywhere."

"Was he upset?" the chief wondered. "Had you argued about Christmas presents or something?"

"No," Nick denied then thought again. "I think I know where he might be headed."

He picked up the phone and called Emilie. Adam was probably trying to get to her house and talk to her. Why hadn't he thought about it sooner?

The phone rang but there was no answer. He slammed down the receiver. "He's trying to get to Emilie Ferrier's house."

"Miss Ferrier? Why?" the chief asked in surprise.

"She's his teacher," Nick supplied in a rush, grabbing Amber and heading for the door. "He wanted to spend Christmas with her."

Nick missed the long looks exchanged between Donna North and the chief who lived on the Mountain and didn't know that Emilie Ferrier had been seen with both Nick Garret and his children.

"We'll meet you out there," the chief coordinated. "If we have to, we'll bring in snowmobiles for a search."

Nick had a hard time making it to the Ferrier mansion even though he was in a heavy truck with chains on the tires. He could barely make out the road and the windshield wipers were having a hard time clearing the window enough to see. Fortunately, there were no other cars on the road.

He thought that he could leave Amber with Elspeth and make his way back from the house towards the road. Adam had probably been gone four hours and he knew the general direction of Emilie's house. He could be anywhere, lost in the snow and the worsening conditions.

Elspeth ran out into the snow to meet him as he climbed out of his truck. "I knew you would return."

"Adam's lost," he blurted out. "He left the daycare this morning. I think he wants to get here."

Elspeth took Amber from him and they ran into the house. Emilie was coming down the stairs when they walked into the foyer.

"What's wrong?' she asked, looking at Nick's strained face.

"Adam's trying to get here to talk to you," he told her. "Did he call?"

"No," Emilie replied quietly. "But I noticed that the phone line was down a little while ago. Probably the storm."

"He's walking here from the daycare," he explained.

She drew in a frightened breath. "How far is that?"

"About five miles. He knows how to get here but it's really bad outside. I don't know if he can make it. He's been gone over four hours already."

Emilie nodded. "I'll change and help you look for him."

"No," he answered forcefully. "The storm is really bad, Emilie. The police are on their way to help. They have snowmobiles. They'll help me look."

"What can I do?" she asked.

"Stay here," he replied. "He might make it here. Aunt Elspeth is going to take care of Amber."

Emilie watched him walk back out the door without another word. Snow pelted the foyer, leaving a heavy trail behind him. There was the loud sound of a snowmobile starting up in the driveway. The two women looked at one another.

"I'll make some coffee," Emilie told her aunt. "We might need it."

Elspeth disappeared with a sleepy Amber before the police arrived. The chief apologized for bothering Emilie then set up a command post in her kitchen. Emilie passed around coffee to the officers as they drew on a map that was laid on her table. Snowmobiles continued to arrive and officers departed as they set out to try to find Adam.

The weather had taken another turn for the worse. They had closed the road into Ferrier's Mountain. The wind had picked up off the mountain and was whipping the huge deposits of snow into house high drifts. Visibility was so bad that the chief was worried about his men finding their way back. If the storm didn't lessen, they would have to call off the search. No one wanted to lose anyone else, even though they knew Adam might not be found until it was too late.

Emilie looked at her watch. It had been two hours since Nick had taken the snowmobile and left to look for Adam. She could hear the ice crystals pelting the side of the house that faced the mountain.

It was in a terrible snowstorm that Jacque Ferrier finally met his fate. He had gone out to look for a lost horse that he prized. They found him two days later in the river. He had frozen to death, lost and alone in the storm.

Something snapped into place in Emilie's brain. The river.

Adam had told her about the dream that he had about being at the edge of a river in a snowstorm. Hadn't the rocks sounded like the river that ran through her property? His mother had told him not to try to cross the water. She shuddered. Was it possible that he had foreseen this somehow?

Emilie tried to get a snowmobile from the police but there were none available. The chief was debating calling his men back. The weather was only getting worse. He didn't want to risk that it might get worse yet. There was already three feet of snow on the ground.

"I can't let you join the search, Miss Ferrier," he told her. "It's too dangerous. I don't even know if my men should be out there."

Emilie went up to her room and started to layer on clothes.

"You're going to look for him?" Elspeth startled her.

She nodded and continued dressing. "I think I know where he might be." She told her aunt about Adam's dream.

"But you can't go alone!" Elspeth was horrified. "You could be lost, Anjou. Wait for one of the men to return."

"No one knows this property better than me. Except maybe you." She smiled at her aunt. Elspeth smiled and nodded her head. "I've gone out in blizzards before. I know what to do."

Emilie pulled her heavy, full snow suit on top of her other clothes. She zipped up the front of the bright pink suit and picked up her snow goggles. "I'm going to take the cross country skis. They'll get me out there faster."

"But you don't ski, petite," Elspeth reminded her.

"True," Emilie admitted. "But they'll keep me on top of the snow."

Elspeth hugged her before she left the room. "Come back, Emilie, Anjou. You are all I have in this life. Your parents will not thank me if I let you go to your death."

Emilie hugged her tightly. "Take care of Amber. I'll be back."

She started towards the kitchen, then heard the chief clearly tell his officers that he was calling off the search. Conditions were too bad to continue. They would have to wait and look again after the storm broke.

Quietly, she veered away from the kitchen and let herself out a side door. She picked up a pair of her mother's skis from the storage shed in the back of the house. She put two long spools of cord into her pocket and found a pair of poles. Thank goodness for Aunt Elspeth keeping everything!

Emilie fitted the skis to her feet and pushed the locks in place. She tied one end of the long, nylon cord to her waist then tied the other end to the iron hitching post at the back of the house. The cord was a bright green against the stark white of the snow. She wasn't sure how long each spool was but she hoped it was enough to get her down to the river. If she could find Adam, she could follow the cord back. No matter how bad the storm was, the cord would be in her hand.

The goggles protected her from the whiteout effect of the sky and the land. Markers were clear to her even through the heavy white blanket. She'd grown up running wild on this property. She could find her way around it blindfolded.

It was a long shot, she knew, that Adam would have made it around the house and grounds to the river. Yet with the blinding snow, it was possible. She'd heard stories of people getting turned around in their own front yards and not being able to find their way back.

That her only clue was his dream might not make sense to anyone else but she felt certain that it meant something. She was positive that she would find Adam at the river. She only hoped he recalled his mother's warning not to try and cross it. Though it was cold and there was plenty of snow, the ice would only be a thin layer across the water. It wouldn't hold up under his weight.

That he would try something so desperate made her eyes sting with tears. He probably thought that he could make it all better for her and Nick. He probably wanted there to be the happy ending that his parents had been denied. He was so young! And he had been through so much in the last year.

Emilie felt the pull on her leg and in her back as she moved across the snow. The wind was a powerful enemy, blowing against her from the mountain. She had to bend down to try to streamline her body into it. Head down, she pushed forward as quickly as she could, praying that Adam would be on the side of the river.

When she reached the tree line, she had to start the new spool of green cord. She looked back and saw some of the cord. Most of it was buried in the snow. She tried pulling on it experimentally and it was sturdy. She couldn't see the house from the trees. The air was white with snow. Her lungs burned from the exercise in the frigid air.

She tied the new cord to the old and started out again. She couldn't be far from the river. She couldn't hear it through the baffling blanket of snow but she knew it was on the other side of the trees.

She took off the skis and leaned them against a tree that had held her first tree house. They would be easy to find on her return trip. The fir branches were too thick in the forest to allow much snow. The trees were heavy with it. Doubtless, there would be some damage. In the meantime, it made her movements easier and faster.

The skis had taken their toll on her leg and her strength. She was limping heavily through the quiet forest but she was moving quickly. She could be exhausted later, she promised herself. She could stay off of her leg for weeks. She just wanted Adam to be safe.

Ice crystals had formed around her nose and mouth. She had to take off her goggles when they steamed up and she couldn't keep them clean. She followed the path through the woods to the river with relentless determination.

She didn't look up from the places her feet had tramped down through the years. All of the times she'd walked that path came back to her when she wasn't any older than Adam to the day her parents died. The forest had been her solace through the terrible and the good things in her life. The trees had been her friends when she was alone.

The forest opened on the other side directly on the rocky banks of the river. Her family called it the river of gold because Jacque had made his first gold discovery there. Everyone still believed that the mountain was full of the precious yellow mineral but there wouldn't be any mining there as long as Emilie was alive.

Her eyes scoured the river. Even with the heavy snow and the cold, there were still places where the deep current refused to allow it to freeze. Water ran sluggishly past the rocks and the snow. In some spots, it was just a trickle but in others, it was ten feet deep to the bottom.

There was no sign of Adam's red and blue jacket. Even though the trees couldn't protect her from the snow in the river's clearing, she knew she would have seen those colors. She pushed through the heavy snow that had accumulated on the riverbank. Her body strained to get through waist high drifts to the spot that Adam had described in his dream.

She stood at the place that his memory of the dream had evoked in her. Two large boulders, one small. She called them the river family when she was a child. There was no sign of his jacket. She cupped her hands to her mouth and called to him. There was no answer.

She was exhausted. She felt every strain and pull that the weather had placed on her. She winced when she put her weight on her leg. All for nothing. Adam wasn't there.

All she could do was go back to the house and hope that someone else had found him. Maybe if she was lucky, no one would notice that she had gone chasing after her intuition.

But she had to sit down for a few minutes. Even with the wind pelting her with snow, she had to rest or she wouldn't make it back. She chose a rock that was sheltered by the forest and sat down clumsily on the hard surface.

Trying to catch her breath, she still scanned the river.

She thought about her mother. Beautiful, graceful, charming and witty. Her mother had told her that her handicap was in her mind. That she could do anything that she wanted to do. Emilie didn't believe her. She didn't understand how she could say that when there were so many things that were impossible for her.

Yet, she danced with Nick in the big ballroom. She helped children like Adam to go on with their lives, despite their handicaps. She lived a good life. She had loved and she had known passion. She knew she could be a good mother.

Sometimes, she was tired. Sometimes, her leg hurt her until she wanted to cry. Sometimes, she was worried about the future. But she knew her mother was right. She could do anything she wanted to do.

"I love you, Mom," she said aloud, the wind whipping the words from her mouth and carrying them to the mountain. "I miss you."

She heard a sound that made her nerves tingle. She thought for a minute that her mother was answering. Then she saw the tiniest bit of red in the heavy snow.

"Adam!" she yelled. "Adam, it's Emilie!"

"Emilie," he replied in a hoarse croak. "I was looking for you."

She dug him out of the snow. He was all but covered in it. He was wedged between two rocks where he had gone for shelter. They had probably saved his life.

"We're going to have to walk back, at least into the forest," she told him practically. "And you have to walk, Adam. I can't carry you."

He nodded. "I can walk."

He was freezing. His lips had a bluish quality to them and his little face was pinched and white. There was nothing Emilie could do for him but get him moving and get him home where they could care for him.

"We're going to talk too, since we're out here," she said, hugging him to her side. "What made you leave the daycare?"

He walked stiffly alongside her. "I wanted to talk to you. I want you and Uncle Nick to be together."

He stumbled and almost pulled them both to the ground. Emilie righted them and kept talking.

"Sometimes, things don't work out, 'Jake'."

"Why?" he demanded.

Emilie pulled him along with her, one foot after another. "Because that's the way life is."

"I want to sit down now, Emilie," he complained, his knees giving out on him. "I'm tired."

"Later," she responded sharply. She pulled him up by the jacket. "We have to move, Adam. We can't sit down yet."

He walked another few steps then stumbled to the ground. "I can't," he mumbled.

"You have to," she insisted. "You have to walk, Adam. We have to get home."

Pulling and pushing him, Emilie got them through the fir trees. They reached the spot where she left her skis. They were already almost covered in snow. She looked out from the comparative shelter of the tree line. The snow was coming down in sheets, blowing back and forth across the open space between the trees and the house. It was impossible to see where they would be going.

Even worse, she didn't see how she could manage to keep him going when she was on the skis. She didn't see how she would make it back to the house if she had to wade through the snow. She couldn't carry him. He couldn't walk. The cord leading them back to the house wouldn't do them any good if they couldn't move.

She looked at him. He was lying on the ground, half-conscious. She knew she was going to have to leave him there and go for help. He would be out of the worst of the snow, unless he got up and started walking again. She could only pray that her leg didn't give out before she could reach the house.

She could do it, she decided, thinking about her mother's words. She found Adam. She wouldn't lose him again.

Emilie started to put on her skis when she heard a low drone coming towards them. She strained to see. The air was a white wall of snow. Hope leaped in her! It sounded like a snowmobile.

The bright red snowmobile crested the ridge and she screamed for him to hear her. She knew he couldn't see her. She ran out into the snow and waved her arms, yelling like a banshee. She prayed that he wouldn't turn around before he saw her.

He turned off the engine and she knew that he had heard her.

"Down here!" she yelled, running until she fell in waist high snow. "We're down here!"

"Emilie?" he returned. He heard her, then he saw the bright pink of her snowsuit that Elspeth had been sure to describe to him. "Emilie!"

He started the engine and took the machine down the hill. He left it running and jumped off to haul her out of the snowdrift. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking at her snow covered face and body.

"I'm fine," she told him with a frozen smile. "I thought you'd never get here."

He didn't say another word. He kissed her hard then shook her. "Don't ever do that to me again! I thought you were lost out here! I thought I might never see you again."

There was no time for her to remark on his change of heart. "Adam," she tried to speak and lost her breath.

"We couldn't find him. They called off the search until the storm passes. I'm going out again as soon as I get you back to the house."

"No." She shook her head and cleared her throat. "I found him. He's in the forest."

"What?"

"We walked back from the river but he couldn't go on any further. He's in the trees."

They climbed on the snowmobile and Nick gunned it towards the tree line that he could barely make out at the bottom of the hill. Adam was curled up next to a tree. He was shivering and barely coherent but he was alive.

"You'll have to drive," Nick told Emilie as he picked Adam up in his arms. "I can hold him. Just take it slow."

Emilie took her time getting back up the hill. Nick held Adam, talking to him, telling him that they were taking him home. He told him that the bike he wanted was waiting for him and that they could be at Emilie's house for Christmas, if that's what he wanted.

They got to the top of the hill and Emilie faced the raging white wind. She was blinded by the total lack of definition. Everything was white. There was nothing to tell her where to find the house.

She took the twine from her pocket and carefully rolled it until it was taut. A thin green line pulled out of the stark white around them.

"What is that?" he asked, looking over her shoulder.

"The way we're going to escape the Minotaur," she told him. She pulled the cord and put the snowmobile in gear.

It took almost an hour to reach the house. The storm had abated enough for Emilie to call out her doctor to take a look at Adam. It was almost 8pm before he emerged from Adam's bedroom. He was all wrapped in warm blankets. Elspeth was feeding him warm soup, fussing over him and singing songs to him in French.

"He's fine," Sam Reynolds pronounced when he had seen him. "Keep him in bed for the night. Tomorrow he should be right as rain."

Emilie took a deep breath and thanked him profusely. She was still wearing some of the clothes she had layered on when she went out into the storm to find him.

Nick came out of the bedroom after the doctor. "What about her?"

They both looked at Emilie.

"I'm fine," she assured them. "Just tired."

"She can barely walk," Nick told him.

"I'm fine,' she repeated.

Dr. Reynolds looked at her with a critical eye. "You know if you overdo it, you could end up using a cane all the time."

Emilie nodded. "I know."

He smiled. "Of course, what can I say to a heroine? Your parents would have been proud of you, Emilie."

"Thank you, Sam. And thank you for coming. I hated to take you away from your Christmas."

He kissed her cheek. "Merry Christmas, Emilie. Happy New Year. Call me if you need me."

Nick saw him out the door. Emilie hobbled down the stairs after them. There wasn't a part of her body that didn't hurt. Her leg was a constant throbbing pain. She went into the library and poured herself a large glass of brandy. Then she sank slowly into a chair and closed her eyes.

"I love you." A voice whispered close to her ear.

She didn't open her eyes. She was afraid that she was dreaming and that she would wake up.

"I'm sorry."

She didn't move, didn't speak.

"I was a fool not to believe you. I was convinced that you couldn't be the person I wanted you to be. I was waiting to prove to myself that I couldn't really be in love."

Emilie could hardly breathe. "And now?"

He touched her cheek with his hand then gently kissed her lips. "I love you. I want to marry you. I don't care if your family is rich and crazy. I just want to be with you."

Emilie opened her eyes. He was kneeling on the rug at her feet. His eyes were intent on her face.

"I was wrong not to tell you the truth," she said carefully. "I wanted you to see what a good mother I could be. I wanted to impress you with my capability."

He kissed her fingers, one by one. "I think you'll be a wonderful mother. And I am impressed."

"By my capability?" she encouraged, feeling the tug of his kisses inside of her.

"By your capability," he agreed, smiling at her. He lowered his head and kissed her again. His mouth lingered on her lips. "You have wonderful capability."

Emilie laughed and put her arms around his neck. "I love you. But I have abominable taste in men."

"Thank you," he answered calmly. "I'll try to remember that for the future."

His lips were on her throat, sliding down to her shoulder, finding her ear. He took the clip from her hair, then buried his face in the fragrant tresses.

Emilie was sliding slowly down on the big velvet sofa. Nick was creeping up beside her, wrapping her in his arms.

"I can't have children," she blurted out, wanting him to know the worst.

He looked at her as he took the brandy from her hand and set it on the table. "We have children, Emilie. And we can have more. We can fill up this big old house with their laughter."

She pulled his face to hers and kissed him lovingly. "I love you, Nick."

"And we can clean away the cobwebs in that ballroom and dance every night after dinner," he promised, pulling her against him as he snuggled them into the sofa.

"Mon Anjou," she crooned into his ear as she kissed him.

"My sweet love," he answered, closing his eyes and letting desire bathe him in a warm, golden glow.

Aunt Elspeth closed the library door on the couple entwined on the sofa.

"Bien, Anjou! Now we have it all, eh petites?"

The Ferrier ghosts danced in the dusty ballroom and they smiled through the night.

To learn about other books Awe-Struck publishes, go to the Awe-Struck E-Books website at http://www.awe-struck.net/

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