a father's claim: unknown "People change,"
by
Kim Cates

For Aunt Peg, with love

Prologue.

Annie.  Just the echo of her name shouldn't
hurt so much after nine years.

The barest whisper of her voice shouldn't rake open a hundred old wounds,
make them fresh again, Trace McKenna fought against waves of darkness, pain
~verberating through every fiber of his body.  But he would have endured any
torture to escape the sounds that taunted him, tormented him.

God, Annie, it hurts, he moaned inside.  Make it stop hUrting.

But Annie wasn't there for him.  She never really had Trace gritted his
teeth, dragging one shaking hand across He had to hold on to the truth.  The
ugly, jagged truth that still ripped at the emptiness inside him.

Annie had betrayed him.

Nine years ago she had walked away--from Arizona, from counfiess scholarship
offers, from her parents, and from the seventeen-year-old boy who had gotten
her pregnant.

Trace twisted, a guttural moan tearing from his throat as a white.  hot poker
seemed to shoot up his right leg, his arm slamming into something cold and
cylindrical at his side.  His fingers closed around it, and he identified it
by touch, the way some men would the steering wheel of their sports car or
the breast of their lover.

A hospital bed rail.

Trace cursed.  How the hell had he ended up in a hospital- tal bed again so
soon?  He strained to remember, images flashing through his mind.  A Texas
oil well spouting flames--someone yelling that a tanker of God-knew-what kind
of flammable stuff was about to go.  The world disappearing in a blinding
flash.  Trace remembered the sensation of being hurled through the air, then
darkness.  How many times had he awakened this way before, gingerly feeling
arms, legs, trying to see if they could still move?  Did it matter?  He'd
always ended up the same way--in a hospital.  Alone.

That was the way Trace liked it.  Gran~l, he'd had more than his share of
hospital roommates with adoring wives and children, but Trace had long ago
learned to bloCk them out.  He'd given up his right to children with
cookie-crumb~ ~miles and bandage~ decorated with cartoon char- acl~s.  He'd
refused the comfort of a wife fussing over him, He'd decided to pay that
price long ago.  Penance for the child that would never be.  Bitten' hesS
over the woman who had betrayed him.

Trace mu~red an oath.  Hospitals were the one place the emptiness closed in
on him, where the solitude--not loneliness--of his life was drawn into
irrefutable focus.  He hated the damn places with the smell of antiseptic and
sickness, with the lowered voices and frigid linoleum.

Trace grimaced.  If this hospital was as rotten as the one in Kuwait, he'd
get the hell up and walk out the minute he could open his eyes.  Stupid
doctor telling him one more injury, one more blow to the head, and FireStorm
Enterprises could be looking for a new executive troubleshooter.

Trace grimaced.  As if anyone would give a damn if he'd been vaporized in the
last oil-well fire he'd fought or if his parachute had drifted him right into
the heart of the forest fire that had struck Canada last year.  Hell, his old
man would make a conference call to Trace's sisters, and they'd all dismiss
the whole matter, saying they always knew Trace would end up in a body bag
someday, if he didn't wind up in prison.

They'd forget their hard-case brother in time.

And then Trace could forget, too.  Death would wipe out the sensation of
Annie's butternut-colored hair slipping between his fingers, the feel of her
hands on his skin, her mouth searching for his, driving away the darkness
inside him and giving him light.

He could forget that Annie had given him a glimpse of heaven, then ripped it
away.  Maybe he could even forgive her.

But not as long as her voice reached out to him from the dark places of his
mind, giving him no peace.  Not as long as he clung to the sound of it, like
life-giving water pouring down his parched throat after an eternity of
battling hellish flames.

That voice had whispered to him a thousand times in the darkness.  But this
time was different, somehow.

Soreal.  A sudden sharp burst of static pounded again at Trace's cars,
Annie's words were lost as a nasal voice suddenly began discussing
"hemorrhoids, that painful, private all- meet."  Trace struggled to get his
mental bearings.  What the devil?  A television?

Trace swiped one hand across his gritty eyes and forced them open.

Mustering all his will, he levered himself up on one elbow.

A hospital room swam into focus, pastel walls, art prints that seemed
designed especially to induce nausea, a black television set dangling from a
brace Near the ceiling.  And some jerk in the next bed flicking channels.

"Turn it back, damn it," Trace croaked out.

His roommate leaned to peer around the curtain that separated their beds, and
smiled.

"So you finally woke up.  The nurse said you were hurt in an oil-well
explosion Near Dallas.  You're some kind of hotshot" -- "Turn the goddamn
television back to the station you had it on."

Trace had made Third World warlords back off with that tone of voice.  This
guy looked ready to dive into a bedpan for cover.

He fumbled with the remote.

"It was just some stupid news thing.  One of those bleeding-heart docudramas
about some place near Chicago The television screen filled with jagged lines
for a heartbeat, then suddenly switched into focus.  Trace stared at the
screen, where the picture was divided into a montage of images: a teenager
was frozen midair as he tried to dunk a lay-up; another bent over a computer
while a blond woman gave instruction--although dressed in jcans and a gauzy
peasant blouse, she had obviously been raised on champagne and caviar.

The third picture looked like a wall covered with graffiti, while in the last
one, a girl of about 11 seventeen lay on her back in lush green grass,
dangling a laughing baby above her.

Trace's heart squeezed tight as he searched the girl's fca- tures.

No.  It wasn't Annie.  Annie's hair was tawny gold.

She wasn't a teenager anymore.  She'd be a woman now.  Probably a professor
of music or something at some highbrow college.  The teachers had all been
fighting over her, even in her junior year of high school.  Besides, the
thought was acid bitterness in Trace's gut.  There was no baby.  An- me had
made sure of that.

He sagged back, ready to tell his roommate to put the channel on the blasted
Home Shopping Network if he wanted.  But at that instant, the montage shifted
away to revcal a playroom with a half-dozen baby swings, plastic jungle gyms
and slides.

"You have already met nationally known child-advocate, J.  T.  James, the
force behind Home Place one of the most celebrated shelters for runaways in
the world.  Now we wander into the playroom of Baby Place a home for
expectant mothers.  Here we will talk to Ms. Annalise Brown."

It had been her voice that had pulled him from his sleep!  Trace froze, his
eyes locked on the screen as the camera panned in on a slender figure in a
big rocking chair, a baby nestled in her arms.  The baby's chubby fist was
clenched in her shoulder-length hair, and it was drooling on her blouse.
Trace felt a stab of anger at the sight of her, cradling someone else's child.

What the devil was Annie doing in such a place, anyway?  Volunteering between
concerts?  Indulging in some kind of weird guilt-induced backlash to what had
happened years ago?

As Annie noticed the camera, she smiled with a confidence that surprised
Trace.  That dizzy sensation Trace had felt every time he looked at Annie
shivered to life inside him as she climbed gracefully from the chair and
approached the reporter.  Hell, Annie hadn't even been able to give an oral
presentation in front of a class without throwing up the hour before.  This
Annie looked as blas~ as if she gave nationally televised interviews every
Tuesday.

Annie dropped a kiss on the baby's cafe-aula it-colored cheek, then tucked
the child into one of the motorized The kid gurgled contentedly.

"Ms.  Brown, is this one of Baby Place clients?"

"Please, call me Annie," she said with that heart-melting .   ~mile, then
stroked the baby's soft black curls.

"This is Tasha.  Her mother is at class right now."

"Finishing her GED?"

"Actually, Natalie is training in computer science.  You might have heard of
Addison Computers?  They are helping to finance her education.  They'll be
lucky to get her."  The newsman looked genuinely perplexed.

"Then what is Natalie doing in a shelter?  No offense, Ms.--Annie," he
corrected himself.

"But I would think she'd have other options."

Annie got that look in her eyes Trace remembered far too well--a little
stubborn, a little hot, like her temper was simmering under the surface.  She
wouldn't yell, or let all that anger out.  But by the time she was done,
she'd make that reporter feel like he'd just kicked a puppy.  "We're
Natalie's family now, Mr. Banes.  I'm sure that someday Natalie will be ready
for her own place.  But for now, she has a dozen adopted aunts and cousins
who love her and help her balance building a future career with being a good
mother.  This is home."

"As it is for you, Annie?"

Trace scowled.  This was the last place he'd suspected Annie would be.

She'd always tried to fix anything injured--birds, baby rabbits, Kennedy
High's star pitcher, a hard case whose life was going to bell with far
greater speed than his fastball could get across the plate.  But music was
her life.

Her piano had been so important to her that she had.  A commotion off screen
shook Trace from his thoughts, and he stared as another kid barreled into
view--this one on her own two feet.  Flyaway mahogany pigtails were caught at
the end with clips the shape of baseballs.  A White Sox jersey skimmed inches
above knees that sported two monster-sized bandages.

Trace expected the cameraman to cut to black, or Annie to send the kid.
scurrying with a wave of her hand.  Instead, she opened her arms to the
little girl and scooped her into a hug--no small feat since the kid was about
eight years old.

The girl's back was to the camera as she twined her legs around Annie's slim
waist and held on like a baby chimpanzee.

Even the newsman seemed enchanted with the girl's antics.

"Do you belong to someone here at Baby Place he asked.

"Yep.  I just totally trashed my bike.  We've got this awesome ramp

J.  T.

built in the back.  I came down off the hill an' tried to stand on my seat to
jump it, but"-- " Don't tell me,"

Annie groaned.

"Your right elbow?  It was the only one left without a scab."

"Just broke open the old ones.  Do I need disinfectant on 'em before I go
back out?  Morns are real weird about that stuff, you know."

Moms?  Trace's heart stumbled.

"I know how mothers can be."  The announcer chuckled.

"What's your name, honey?"  Even stunned as he was, nothing prepared Trace
for the instant the child turned toward the camera.  Gray-blue eyes the
unique shade of Trace's own danced in a face that might have been a
miniature, more feminine vernon, of Trace's rugged features.

There was the same stubborn jut in the chin, the same straight, dark brows.
The grin she flashed could have been lifted out of his own third-grade
picture.  He felt like he'd slammed into concrete after a forty-foot drop.

"I'm April Brown," the girl said.

April.

The month Trace had made love to Annie.

The month he'd believed in miracles, for just the briefest moment in time.

Trace stared into the face of his daughter, the depth of Annie's betrayal,
the reality of her lies, cutting deeper than he could ever have dreamed.

Even after everything that had happened, he had never truly hated Annie.

Until now.

i Chapter 1 Sarah was crying again.

Annie hesitated outside the door to the teenager's room.  The knees of her
rumpled jeans were wet from kneeling in a puddle to drive in a loose tent
stake, and one hand was still clutching the wrappers of the new flashlight
batteries she'd just taken to April and the three James kids who were
sleeping in the backyard.

Annie wanted nothing more than to take a hot shower and bury her head under
her own pillow after a day of dealing with hostile parents from Albuquerque,
a girl in her seventh month who had been battered by her boyfriend, and one
young mother struggling with a baby still filtering crack out of his system.

Instead of heading for the stairs that led up to her private apartment, she
raked back the tousled strands of her butterscotch gold hair and rapped
softly on the door.  There was a ragged catch in the sobbing, then a small
voice.

"I'm sorry.  I'll be--be quiet now, I promise."

"You're fine, Sarah.  I was just passing by.  April called me on her
walkie-talkie to tell me they ran out of batteries in the tent.  And you
can't tell ghost stories without a flashlight."

Sarah gave a watery laugh.

"Sarah, I don't want to intrude, but if you want some company, someone to
listen, I'm here."

Annie could hear the shuddery sound of another choked sob.

"I'm so scared!"

At those words, Annie opened the door to see Sarah curled up in one of the
beds.  The girl looked barely older than April in her pink, nubby robe and
tousled curls.  An- me's heart twisted at the sight of Sarah's arms,
clutching the teddy bear J.  T.  James had bought for Sarah's baby, Timmy,
the day he came home from the hospital.

If it hadn't been for the bassinet at the side of the bed, Sarah would have
looked more at home in the tent with the smaller kids, sneaking candy and
holding seances.  I'm so scared, Sarah had choked out.  Annie knew the
sensation far too well.  She crossed to the bed and sat down bcside the girl.

"It's okay to be scared," she whispered.

"You've been through a lot, and there are a whole bunch of decisions to make
about little Timothy" -- "I'm not scared about the baby," Sarah said.

"Timothy's great.  I'm scared that I'll never forget Johnnie.  I love him so
much."

"I know."  Annie cuddled the teenager in her arms.  Sarah's face seemed all
eyes--pain-filled, frightened.

"Johnnie said he would take care of me.  He promised.  But when I told him
about--about the baby, he was so angry.

I know that I should hate him for deserting Timmy and me.  But I keep
thinking about him, all the time.  I keep-keep hoping that he'll try to find
me.  That everything will be all right.  "

Annie stared into the darkness, feeling as if she were holding a mirror image
of herself.  A terrified, rain-soaked, heartsick girl who had stumbled
through HomePlaee's door seven years ago, April a fever-stricken little
bundle in her arms.

"It hurts to keep hoping, doesn't it?"  Annie asked softly.  "You keep
watching the doorway, jump whenever the phone rings.  You keep thinking you
hear his voice."

"Natalie and the other girls say Johnnie's scum, that I'll meet another boy
who will take care of Timmy and me, and I won't even be able to remember
Johnnie's face after a while."

It sounded so reasonable, so logical.  But there was nothing logieml about
love.  Annie stroked back Sarah's hair, listening.

"Annie," the girl said timidly, "do you... do you ever think about April's
father?"

Think about Trace?  Only e~ery time I look into my little girl's face.

Only e~ery time I see the boys at Home Place playing baseball or hear a song
by the Moody Blues.  Only late at night, when I'm alone in bed, listening to
the night all around me .  How many times had girls asked her that same
question?  Why was it always so hard to answer?  Annie sucked in a deep
breath.

"I wish I could tell you that time is a miracle cure that will swipe away the
memory of the boy who fathered your child," she said slowly.

"But sometimes it doesn't work that way in real life.  It gets easier, but
no.  I've never forgotten April's father."

"What was he like?"

Annie winced.  Her memories of Trace were already far too vivid.  To take
them out and show them to someone else.  to put Trace McKenna into words.
was it possible?  He was a comet, blazing out of control, so beautiful she
had wanted to cling to him and fly, ignore the fact that he was burning up
with anger and rage and rebellion, destroying himself.  She just hadn't
realized that her love for him would bring her so close to destroying herself.

"Half the girls at Kennedy High would have traded all theft daddy's charge
cards to date him.  He was tall and lean and his half always looked like it
needed to be cut, and when he smiled..."  Annie fought for words to describe
that da~.  ~.  ingly beautiful grin.

"Everyone said he was trouble in cowboy boots.  But they didn't know him like
I did.  I knew... he never meant to hurt me."

"But he got you pregnant."

"Yes.  He got me pregnant, but it wasn't really his fault.  It just...
happened."

"Did he feed you some line about loving you?"  Sarah asked, swiping at teary
eyes.

Annie looked away.

"No.  He never said he loved me."

"Then why did you--you know, have sex?   Because all the other girls wanted
him?   Bet he was putting the pressure on."

"No.  He was hurting.  I'd been tutoring him in English.  He had to pass the
midterm he'd flunked or he wouldn't be able to play baseball.  A scout from
the Atlanta Braves was coming to see him pitch."

"You mean he played professional baseball?  He must be rolling in money."

"Trace didn't ever get to play ball."

"Oh," Sarah said, crestfallen.

"Flunked the test again, huh?"

"No.  He aced it.  He knew it all.  He'd worked so hard .... " Annie's voice
trailed off, the memory of that last tutoring session rippling through her.
Trace slamming his literature book closed, then banging it down atop scrawled
notes.

I bet I know more about Shakespeare than his mama does, Brown-Eyes.

Miss Twigg is gonna have heart failure when she grades this test!

"But if he passed the test, why didn't he get to play?"

 "Because the teacher found crib notes under Trace's desk."

"They could've been anyone's."

Annie shrugged.

"The rest of the students had taken the test a month ago.  Trace was the only
one repeating it."

"Do you think someone else could have put the notes there?  But then, ~why
would anyone do that?"

"I don't know for sure.  Maybe one of the other players did it out of
jealousy, or in hopes that if Trace was out of the lineup, the scout might
notice someone else.  Maybe one of Trace's enemies planted the notes out of
spite.  However the notes got there, Trace was devastated.  Especially when
his father sided with the school.  I remember Trace demanding that they let
him prove himself--take the test over with one of them watching his every
move.  His father said he'd blown two chances.  He didn't deserve another.  A
month later, the scout called, offered him a private tryout, but by then it
was too late."

"Wow.  Trace must've been real mad."

"He was so broken up inside that I would have done anything to help him.  But
sometimes people have to help themselves, you know?  Sometimes, no matter how
much you want to fix what's broken inside them, you can't do it."

Sometimes they break your heart.

Sarah sighed, quieted.

"When I was little and it' was storming, I got real afraid.  My more would
come in and hold me and tell me stories and everything bad would go away.  I
rni~ that more than anything since she died.  Can you stay with me for a
while?  Until I go to sleep?."

"Of course I'll stay."   Annie stroked Sarah's hair, her eyes going again to
the window.   But it was as if Sarah's questions had stirred up old ghosts,
set them wandering the night.

Annie stared into the darkness, but all she could see was Trace McKenna's
face, anguished, filled with hurt and betrayal.

Blaming her for rejecting him.  No, Annie thought.  She had done what she had
to do, for Trace, for herself, for her child.

She just didn't know how it could still hurt so much after nine long years.

Needles of sunlight were pricking beneath Annie's eyelids when a hand gently
shook her awake.  Every joint in her body felt fused together, every muscle
aching as if she'd just run the Boston Marathon--in a way she had.  An
emotional marathon that was all too frequent.  She opened one eye to see the
familiar clutter of her own bedroom.  Her mind filled with hazy memories of
staggering upstairs at four in the morning, to fall, fully dressed, onto the
bed.

She expected to see April looming above her, demanding doughnuts and pop or
something equally insane for breakfast, but it was nineteen-year-old Natalie
leaning over the bed.

Just the sight of the girl--one of Baby Place success stories--lifted Annie's
sagging spirits.  "Sorry to wake you," the girl said, "but there's someone
downstairs demanding to see you."

Annie struggled upright, dragging her hand through the tangled masses of her
hair.

' "Who is it?"

"Don't know.  But there's something about him that made me nervous.

Like he's real mad, or .  I don't know.  "

Annie groaned.

"I thought we'd met our weekly quota of irate parents and pond-scum
boyfriends yesterday."

"Sorry, chief.  I could tell him you're taking a cruise in Tahiti or
something," Natalie offered.

"What can he do?

Yell at me?  My dad did that all the time.  "

Much as Natalie's offer tempted her, Annie shook her head.  I'll take care of
this.  " She forced a smile.

"I eat guys with attitudes for breakfast!"

Natalie laughed.  But Annie's sense of humor was deft- nitely diminished when
she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror behind the dresser.  She
~grimaced.  One look at her and this mysterious visitor would run screaming
the other way.

Her face was pasty, her clothes crumpled beyond imagining.  Huge circles
ringed her eyes like bruises.  She knew she should change, but she couldn't
bear the thought of putting on clean clothes until after her long-overdue
shower.  She grabbed a brush and dragged it through her hair a couple of
times, then made her way down to her office.

The door was open.  The visitor stood at the window peering down at some
abused African violets Annie had been nursing back to health.  Fists were
shoved deep in the pockets of obviously pricey black pants.  Broad shoulders
were encased in a dress shirt the color of cream, the cuffs rolled up
muscular forearms.  He was tall and lean, with a body that would have made a
confirmed spinster's mouth water.  But Annie's gaze locked on the dark hair
tumbling below his collar.  mahogany waves that needed to be cut' Her heart
slammed to her toes and she fought the urge to turn and run, to scoop April
out of the tent, to hide .  From what?  She was being ridiculous.  It wasn't
Trace.  It couldn't be.

He turned around to face her.  Annie couldn't breathe.  Every nerve in her
body sizzled with awareness, and an answering heat fired deep in his
storm-blue eyes.  She stared into features rugged and dangerous as a
sea-swept cliff, her gaze skimming down to a mouth that was sulky and sexy as
any hunk on the big screen.

She'd imagined this meeting a hundred times during the years since she'd left
Arizona, with only a few cherished belongings tucked in her backpack.  She
had listened for the sound of Trace's footsteps, watched for him to come
walking toward her with that animal, athletic grace.  There were times she
would have sold her soul just to see one more of But eVen in her wildest
fantasies, she had never imagined Trace McKenna as he was now.  The features
that had been so dazzling on the boy were now devastating, hardened into
those of a man.  His body had filled out with sinewy strength.  His hips were
impossibly narrow, his legs long and strong, the shoulders she had leaned on
as a sixteen-year-old were broad and thick with sculpted muscle.  The
rebelhous, angry boy was gone.  This Trace MeKenna reeked of power and danger
and success.  Annie thought of April and prayed that the child was still
sleeping in the tent.  She hastily shut the door, as if she could keep Trace
from discovering.  discovering what?

That he had a daughter?  A daughter who threw a fastball better than any boy
on the block?  A daughter who didn't even know his name?

No, Annie thought fiercely.  Just because Trace showed up on her doorstep
didn't mean he knew about April.  But it was obvious Trace McKenna had come
here for a tea23 son.  What was it?  Nothing good, Annie was certain.  She
had to be careful, so careful.

H~ heart was thundering in her ears as she struggled to find her voice,
battled to think of something vaguely coherent to.  say

"Trace."

Just his name, quavering faintly from her lips.  "It's been a long time,
Annie.  I wondered if you'd even remember me."

Remember him?  God, she had tried so hard to forget.  "What are you doing
here?"  she blurted out.  Her nape prickled with a sense of menace, something
so subtle, so guarded, she hoped, prayed, she was imagining it.

His gaze skimmed from her hastily brushed curls, down her crumpled blouse to
the patch of dried mud on her knee.

There was a shuttered quality to his eyes, a frightening restraint in that
slow smile.

"Nice way to greet an old friend, Brown-Eyes."

Brown-Eyes.  Annie shivered with the memory of the first time he had called
her that, teasing her, always teasing.  She had looked up at him so solemnly
and told him her eyes were grin.

Trace paced over to her desk, picking up one of the awards lined across its
front, and Annie was terrified he'd catch sight of the pictures of April she
kept under the sheet of glass that covered her desktop.  But Trace seemed
oblivious, worlds different from the hot-tempered, fiery Trace McKenna she
had known.

Annie clung to that hope, but felt as if she were crossing a raging river on
paper-thin ice, waiting with each step to fall through, plunge into the
torrent.

"I asked what you're doing here," she repeated.  "FireStorm Enterprises just
gave me a hell of a bonus and I'm looking for some tax write-offs.  You know,
toss a little loose change to the downtrodden and stiff Uncle Sam."

Loose change?  Annie had seen enough info on Trace McKenna's
multimillion-dollar company to wonder exactly what he considered "loose
change."

As if he could read her mind, Trace shrugged.

"Guess I figured I might as well throw that loose change toward an old
friend."

Annie swallowed hard.

"That's very generous, Trace, but we're independently funded here.  I can
suggest some other shelters that would be grateful for your help."  She
crossed to the desk, making a great show of scrawling down some notes.  The
pictures of April were buried beneath mounds of paperwork.  Annie silently
thanked the Albuquerque parents who had kept her so late that she'd heem
unable to clear off her desk last night.

"That's one of the great things about being filthy rich, Afthie,"

Trace said with low mockery.

"See, I'm used to doing whatever I want, getting whatever I want."  A sick,
sinking sensation racked Annie's stomach.

"You might as well not bother writing those other places down.  I consider my
bequest nonnegotiable.  It's important to me that the money be used here.
Think of it as my way of making peace with what happened between us in
Halloran's abandoned stable."

Halloran's stable.  Why did the words sound a little ragged on Trace's
tongue?  Why did they conjure images of that long-ago night with such
intensity that Annie could feel the hungry brush of his hands, hear the
gritty desperation that had been in his voice?  I've gotta get away from
here, Annie.  It's killing me, being trapped in this awful town, my father
hating my guts, the teachers.  I've got nothing here, Annie.  nothing.

Nobody; She'd done everything in her power to show him that he was somebody.

She'd opened herself to Trace's loving, tried to take his pain inside her,
heal him in those few hours when she'd lain in his arms.

Annie looked up at the man, so different from that shattered, anguished boy.
She tried to keep the terror from her eyes.

"What happened between us was a long time ago.  It's forgotten."

"Is it?"  Low, rough, his query set Annie's hands trembling.  She knotted
them together in an effort to keep them from betraying her.

"Absolutely."

"I'm amazed.  You were always so damned hard on yourself.  Saint Brown-Eyes,
never allowed to make a mistake.

You really screwed up with me, didn't you?  " A shadow of bitterness twisted
his lips.

"And I don't mean that literally."  He sank into her chair and started
riffling the papers there.

Annie slammed her flattened palms against the scattered sheets to keep him
from brushing them aside.  She wished she could shove him out of the door,
out of her life.  She wished she wasn't so damned scared.

"Blast it, Trace, what do you want?"

Trace's fingers stilled, and he looked up at her.  A thrill of tension
sizzled through Annie.

"Maybe I wanted to make sure you were all right."

"After nine years you were suddenly stricken with a need to make sure I was
all right?"  Annie couldn't keep an edge out of her voice.

"I'm fine.  Feel free to get the blazes out of my office and get back to the
important things in life, like jumping out of airplanes and diving into
fires."  Trace rocked the chair back on its rear legs, his brow arching, just
the way April's did when she was surprised.  "Don't tell me you've kept track
of my adventures?"

Her cheeks burned, and she feared he would know how she'd grasped any
snippet of news about Trace McKenna and FireStorm, that he'd suspect she'd
tried to catch glimpses of his face, sooty and smoke, blackened exhamted and
triumphant, while reporters marveled at the crazy stunts he pulled.  They
called him a hero.  Annie knew he was still trying to destroy himself, only
now he was doing it in a way that got him national news coverage.

"Adventures?"  Annie said archly.

"Don't you mean your stupidity?  It's been splashed across the television and
newspapers often enough.  Feel free to go off and try to kill your selL
You're absolved of any guilt or responsibility on my account."

"Am I?"  His voice was so soft, the rustle of leaves beneath a predator's
feet.

"This place isn't exactly what I pictured when I thought about you these past
years.  Some dump of a shelter, you playing the Madonna to a bunch of kids in
trouble.  I guess your gig at Carnegie Hall fell through, huh?"

Annie stiffened.  The girl who had spun all those dreams, who had worked so
hard over the piano keys, was still hidden away inside her, fragile,
vulnerable.  Trace's words struck that girl and hurt.

"People change."

Tmce's laugh was a little ugly.

"They sure as hell do.  Look at us.

Everyone expected me to be in prison by now, or buried six feet under.  And
you were supposed to be the golden girl destined for greatness.  Who would'a
thought I'd make more money than a hundred people could spend in a lifetime,
and you'd end up here?  "

Annie gritted her teeth against the subtle mockery.  Even in high school,
Trace had been able to leveI people with verbal blows.  He'd had an instinct
for finding the raw places in people's souls, maybe because he had so many of
his own.

There was a time Annie would have been crushed by his attitude.  She was a
lot tougher now.

She met his gaze, defiant.

"Trace, I wouldn't trade what I have now for all your money or all the
concert stages in the world."

Something flickered in his expression.

"Is that so, Brown-Eyes?  And just exactly what is it that you have?"

Annie swallowed convulsively.

"I have work that I love.  I'm making a difference to the girls I help."

"All very spiritually fulfilling, I know.  But aren't you forgetting to
mention one other tiny thing that you have that I don't?"

"What's that?"  Annie asked faintly.

His eyes narrowed to slits, and Annie felt the sensation a felon on a gallows
must know when the trapdoor drops beneath his feet.

"You have my daughter."  Trace's voice was jagged with hate.

"I want her."

Annie groped for the back of a chair, trying to shore up legs that were
suddenly weak.

"Wh--What are you talking about?"

Trace's hands shot out, manacling her arms, his face inches from hers.  There
was a savagery in his eyes, the look of a man on the edge, just begging for
someone to push him over.

"What are you going to do, Annie?  Lie to me again?

You let me believe that you aborted our baby, then you ran away.  You made
certain I didn't know she even existed.  "

"Don't you dare act so blasted superior!  You didn't want me.  You didn't
want any kind of responsibility at all!"

"I want the girl now."

Panic clotted Annie's throat.

"You can't have her!"

 "Is that so?   I wonder what the courts would say to that.

It's simple enough to prove paternity--hell, they wouldn't even have to do
the blood test, just look at her, look at me.  "

"You've seen her?  Oh, God, Trace, how?"

"I watch the news, too, Annie.  I was laid up in the hospital, saw the
program on this place.  April came charging on camera.  What?  You think I
was too stupid to figure it out?"

"Trace, you can't--can't want to disrupt April's life this way.  If you have
any feelings for her at all" -- Trace cursed with such fury Annie staggered
back a step, truly frightened.

"Don't you dare start pontificating at me that way.  You never gave April and
me a chance to have feelings for each other.  But that's going to change.
She's my child, goddamn you!  Does she even know my name?"  Annie swallowed
hard.

"No."

"What did you tell her about her father?"

"I thought it was better if... I didn't want her to think that... that her
father..."

"What?  Deserted her?  That he didn't give a damn about her?"  Those blue
eyes blazed with so much pain Annie had to clutch tight to her own terror,
her fierce protectiveness of her daughter.

Annie sucked in a shuddering breath.

"I told April her father was dead."

Trace's features were bone-white, his body stiff.

"Wasn't that convenient for you."

"Trace, I know you want to see April or you wouldn't have come all this way.
You wouldn't be so upset" -- "Upset?  Lady, that's the understatement of the
century."

"Still, I can't believe that you'd want to do anything to hurt April.

Children are so fragile.  She's happy, Trace.

Loved.  She has people here who arc like family.  " He was stalking her,
moving toward her with measured steps.  " what, Brown-Eyes?  You got some
other man to play daddy to my little girl?  Some bastard who keeps your 29
bed all hot and bothered?  Hell, we didn't even have a bed, did we?  " There
was cruelty in his voice, harsh, deliberate.

Dangerous.  A thousand times she had heard Trace labaled thus.  But he'd
never turned that blade-edged anger on her until now.

"That's enough," she said.

"My private life is none of your business."

"Yeah, I'm nobody to you.  Nobody to my daughter."  Annie couldn't keep
herself from taking a step back.  She 'slammed into a bookcase.  Trace moved
with dizzying speed, flattening his hands on either side of her, imprisoning
her.

He was close--so close she could see the tiny scar at his temple, she could
smell the wind-swept scent of him.  His breath was hot on her face, his mouth
curved with acid mockery.

"Hell," he said with an ugly laugh, "according to you I don't even exist.
Maybe I should do something to prove otherwise."

Annie read his intent in that heartbeat.  Wild panic bolted through her.  She
made a tight sound of protest, but Trace shoved it back into her mouth with
his lips, kissing her in savage possession.  For a moment, she stood as if in
a trance, aware of the fire-hot movement of his lips on hers, the rasp of his
breath, the frenzied pounding of his heart and hers.  It was worlds different
from the kisses she had shared with the boy in the stable.  Worlds different
from kisses she had experienced with what few men she'd managed to date in
the years since then.

Elemental.  Primitive.  Soul-searing.  Trace took things she didn't want to
give him, stripped her down to raw vulnerabilities she'd battled to overcome,
poured acid regret into the empty place that had been in her heart since the
day she'd run away from Arizona and from the unbearable knowledge that Trace
McKenna could never be hers.

For an instant there was a pulsing, yearning sense of reunion, but as his
tongue drove past the moist-silk crease of her lips into her mouth, Annie
remembered the other time Trace had kissed her with this desperate hunger,
the repercussions of which had changed her life forever.  She was chilled
with the certainty that the backlash of this meeting could be even more
perilous.

Mustering all her strength, she flattened her hands against his chest and
shoved, but Trace hadn't taken his fill of her.  His big hands drove through
her hair, holding her mouth for his plundering.

"No!"  Annie choked out, terrified of her own physical response.

"Trace, stop it!"

"Stop what?"  He raked hot kisses across her cheek.  "I'm not here, Annie,
remember?  I don't exist.  Or can you feel me now?  Taste me?"

Tears burned Annie's eyes, and she was torn by the poignant memory of Trace's
other kisses, driven by pain and need instead of fury and hate.

"Let me got" "Not this time, lady.  Made that mistake before-- umph!"  A
guttural cry of pain ripped from Trace.  Annie could feel the impact of
something smacking into his back, hard.

Annie froze in horror as she glimpsed a baseball bouncing crazily across the
floor.  She barely heard Trace's savage curse as he wheeled to face his
attacker, both their gazes locking at the same instant on the small figure
framed in the doorway.

April stood there in her White Sox pajamas, outraged, defiant as she glared
at Trace McKenna with storm-blue eyes.

Chapter 2 The first time Trace had jumped from a plane, some smart aleck had
rigged his parachute so it wouldn't open until he pulled the emergency cord.
As Trace stared into his daughter's face, he felt the same indescribable
rush--bone numbing panic, rib-crushing terror and an exhilaration that
screamed through every nerve ending in his body.

He stared at the child as she dove for the baseball, scooping it up with
small fingers.  Her eyes sparked with a temper that was all too familiar.

"I fire this next one at you, mister, and you'll be looking for your teeth in
the next county!"  she promised.

If the girl had followed through on her threat, Trace couldn't have been more
dazed.  His daughter.  A part of him he hadn't even known existed until a few
weeks ago.  Time seemed to freeze as his eyes roved over soft cheeks framed
by bedraggled pigtails.  Her coltish legs were spangled with scabs--mosquito
bites scratched until had they bled.  There was a bandage on her chin, but it
didn't disA Father' s Claim guise the fact that it was a miniature of his
own--stubborn as hell, like she was daring someone to take a swing at it.
Trace eyed the bandage and wondered if someone had.  If so, he had a feeling
the other kid looked a helluva lot worse.  He'd never seen anything so
beautiful.

He couldn't stop himself from stepping toward her.  He reached out a shaking
hand, intending to touch her cheek, make certain she was real.

The girl smacked his fingers away from her, but she didn't retreat.

"Watch it, mister.  Try touching me or my morn again and you'll pull back a
bloody stump!"  She was afraid of him.

The knowledge hit Trace like a fist in the gut.  He was her father, dam reit
and she was afraid of him.

At that moment, Annie snapped out of whatever trance had held her still.  She
swept by, scooping the child into the protective circle of her arms, as if
she expected Trace to-- to what?

Drag the kid, kicking and screaming, into his car?

Blurt out the truth--that her mother was a damned liar who had kept April
apart from her father all these years?

Trace clamped his mouth shut, his hands knotting into fists.

"I'm not going to hurt you."  The words were meant to soothe.  But they were
toughened by anger, pain and the soul-deep jolt of being in the same room
with the child for the first time.

The kid frowned and said,

"Yeah, right--you won't hurt me, and a lion wouldn't bite down if I stuck my
head in its month."

"It's all right, sweetheart," Annie said, holding the girl tight.

"No it's not.  You're crying.  You never cry.  And he wouldn't let you go."
If the kid had been a queen, Trace would be on his way to the headsman's
block by now.  Hell, 33 he hadn't been in the same room with the child five
minutes, and she already hated his guts.

"I was just surprised to see him," Annie said lamely.  "Mr.  McKenna and I
were friends.  For a little while.  A long time ago."  Trace knew what Annie
was doing.  With each added phrase, she was putting as much distance as
possible between them.  It might even have worked, except that he could still
taste her on his lips.

"April," Trace tried again,

"I didn't mean to" -- To kiss the hell out of your mother?  To let my blasted
temper run amok?  To let you see me this way?  Angry?  Out of control?

"I didn't mean to frighten you," he said at last.

Great move, ace.  The instant April's brows crashed into a thunderous line,
Trace realized he couldn't have found a better way to alienate the kid
further if he'd had a week to think about it.

"I'm not scared of you," April said.

"I just think you're a creep.

Major pond scum.  "

"April!"  Annie said with that maternal warning tone as old as time.

"It's okay," Trace said.

"She's not the first one to come up with that assessment of my character, is
she, Brown Eyes

"My mom's eyes are green!"  April snapped.

For some reason, Trace's throat tightened.

"I know."

"April, Mr. McKenna and I have some things we need to talk about.   Why
don't you run out and find the other kids?"

April eyed Trace as if to say, I've got your name, mister, and it's mud.  She
went and cozied herself up in a chair, tossing the ball up and catching it in
a lazy rhythni.

"I think Iql just stay here.  Talk all you want.  Don't mind me."

"April, we have private things to talk about.  I need you to leave for a
little while."

"But, More, he" -- "Out, April.  Now."

The girl positively reeked of mutiny, but in the end, she stalked out of the
room, shutting the door with sage deftance--enough oomph to make a
satisfactory bang without overstepping the limits and making her mother angry.

Trace stared at the chipped panel of oak April had disappeared behind.

When he had anticipated this reunion in the past few weeks he hadn't expected
any kind of fairy tale--Annie in rags, waiting for him to rescue her.  April,
flinging herself into his arms.  He'd figured there would be a certain
stiffness among the three of them, an aura of discomfort, unease.  But he
hadn't imagined anything like the scenario that had just played out in this
cramped office.

Rejection.  Major-league.

Just like old times, Trace, he jeered inwardly at himself.

Considering the fact that Annie didn't want a damn thing to do with him, she
must be thrilled by April's reaction.  No doubt Annie figured' he'd just cut
his losses, flip the world off and go back on his suicide quest.  But it
wasn't that easy now that he had seen April.  Touched her.  Now that he'd
kissed Annie again, a voice inside him whispered.  No, he swiped away the
thought ruthlessly.  It wasn't like that.  It had been an impulse, a mistake
.  "Trace," Annie's voice broke through his musing.

"You can see how upset she is already.  Surely you understand now that
telling her about you can only hurt her."

He rounded on Annie, his temper a conflagration.

"Why will it hurt her, Annie?  Not because of me.  Because of you, dammit.
Because you were so ticked off at me, you decided to wipe me out of my kid's
life.  She's scared to death of me.  But I haven't done a damn thing to her."
"You're a stranger."

' "Not by my own choice!  You lied to her.  You lied to me.  You set
everything up real cozy, Annie.  Just the way you wanted it.  And you didn't
give a damn about what anyone else might need."

Annie bristled.

"I've given April everything she needs!"  "Yeah.

Except her father.  "

He could see her flinch.  He hoped it hurt her half as much as he was hurting.

"I did what I thought best," she said evenly.  "Best for whom?  For April?
For me, Annie?  Or did you do what was easiest for yourself?"

"That's not fair."

He swore, a dark, biting oath.

"Let's get honest, shall we?  Ugly honest.  Brutally honest.  You didn't tell
me about April because it was easier for you to forget I ever existed.
Because you hated yourself for that night in Halloran's stable when you let
me bury myself inside you."  She was shaking, her slender throat
constricting.  Trace was tempted to put his hand around it, just to scare
her.  Scare her the way she had scared him when he was a kid terrified of
leaving himself open to anyone emotionally.  Scare her the way it had scared
him nine years ago when those hands of hers, so shy, so deceptively gentle,
peeled away every protective layer that had guarded his soul.

Left him vulnerable, raw, exposed in a way he never had been before, only to
fling his fragile sense of trust back in his face and run away.

"You didn't tell April about me because then she'd ask you questions--what I
looked like, talked like, whether or not I could throw a god damned curve
ball .... " "I told her about you when she asked" -- "You didn't tell her
about me, Brown-Eyes.  You told her about a ghost.  Only you couldn't forget
about me, could you?  Because every time you looked into her eyes, it was my
face you saw.  Hell, she's even got my arm, doesn't she?  Can throw a ball
like a blasted bomb" -- "Don't flatter yourself, Trace," Annie said.

"If you think I've been spending the last nine years mooning over you, you're
wrong.  I was a child in that stable--naive, lonely, trying desperately to
make believe I was in love.  I made a mistake.  I forgave myself for it a
long time ago.  I put it behind me."

God, who could ever have guessed that Annie's melting honey voice could be so
cold it would send slivers of ice through Trace's veins?  But it didn't
matter, Trace told himself ruthlessly.  He couldn't let it matter.

"When I found out I was pregnant, I didn't ask anything of you.  Now I'm
asking something.  Leave April alone.  Leave me alone.  I think you owe me
that much."

"Maybe I do."   A muscle in his jaw ticked, his temples throbbing with
barely restrained fury.   He stepped toward her, his eyes narrow.   He could
only pray she didn't have a clue how close he was to going over the edge.

"But no matter what I owe you, I owe April a helluva lot more.  She's my
daughter.  Someday, when she's older, she's going to know the truth.  When
that happens, I'm already going to be a part of her life.  She's going to
know that her father loves her.  That he wanted her."

Trace fought back the tightness in his chest, held on to the lump of
betrayal, the hard core of hate.

"I'll take whatever steps I deem necessary to build a relationship with my
daughter, Annie.  If you try to cross me, I'll make damn sure you never have
the guts to try it again."  Trace turned and stalked to the door.  He faced
Annie one last time.

"I have a place in the Colorado mountains.  I want three weeks there with
April.  Time to get to know her.

Time for her to know me.  You can either let her go with me easy, or we can
make this as ugly as you want.  "

"Trace, you have to listen to reason" -- "No, babe.  You have to listen.
Either call to make arrangements with me by midnight tomorrow or I phone my
lawyer and we can get mean and nasty real fast.  I'm in suite 2732 at the
Beaumarls Hotel."

"Please, Trace, don't do this."  Her voice broke.  He felt it in his gut.

He jammed his hands in his pockets, and for an instant, just an instant, he
was seventeen again, looking into the meadow-green eyes of a girl he had
suddenly discovered could break his heart.

"Don't do this?"  he echoed her words as he opened the door.

"Annie, you haven't given me any other choice."

With those words, Trace turned and walked away.

The next day, Annie paced the confines of J.  T.  and Al- lison Jmeses'
living room, feeling as if the familiar walls were caving in on her.  It had
been agony fulfilling the myriad obligations of the workday, then making idle
conversation until April fell asleep with the Jameses brood of three.  But
now, with the toy-littered room quiet, empty of mucous, high-pitched voices,
the tension coiling inside Annie seemed to fill the silence with the same
inexorably building pressure as the storm threatening outside.  J.  T.  James
braced his chin on his fists, watching her with wolf-gray eyes, while his
wife, Allison, picked at a loose button on a stuffed elephant named
Ellie-Pants, two-year-old Beth James's favorite toy.

From the moment Annie had straggled into Home Place with fever-stricken,
two-year-old April in her arms, J.  T.  and Allison had been her family, her
staunchest defenders, her most trusted friends.  They had praised her for her
resoureefulness in finding the hundred and one odd jobs that had meant Annie
and April's survival.  They had corn for ted her with the certainty that the
only thing April would remember from those years was her mother's love.  They
had showed her that her life wasn't over.  That this was just a new
beginning.  And Annie had always been certain J.  T.  would walk through fire
to shield her and her child.  She had expected anger on her behalf and on
April's.

She'd longed for a little of that notorious J.  T.  James fury, that instinct
that had always driven Home Place founder to fling himself into the fray for
the kids he cared about.  She hadn't expected this crushing silence, the
watchful light in those gray eyes, the flush on Allison's cheeks.  Annie
jumped as a crack of thunder split the sky, then she raked trembling fingers
through her hair.

"You might as well just say what yOU're thinking, both of you."

J.  T.  turned his chair around and straddled it, leaning his arms across the
back.

"You sure you want to hear it?"

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't.  I value your opinions.  You know that."
She waved her hands in helpless frustration.

"I still can't believe that Trace expects to waltz into April's life after
all these years.  That he expects to--to" -- "Have a chance to know his
daughter?"  J.  T.  finished levelly.

The words stung.  Annie wheeled on him.

"How can you suggest such a thing?  I know you love April!"

"I do.  That's why I'm giving it to you straight.  Lies never work, Annie.
Nobody knows that better than I do.  My mother laid out a whole raft of
sugar-coated lies when I was a kid.

They fell apart.  Lies always do.  I almost drowned in the anger and the
pain.  The betrayal.  "

"I'm only trying to save April from being hurt!"  An- me's chest felt brittle
as glass, as if the next crack of thunder would shatter her.

She felt Allison James's soft hand against her shoulder.  "I know you believe
you're protecting April.  The question is, what are you protecting her from?"

"From Trace!  From a man who--who... He jumps out of airplanes, for God's
sake.  Plunges right into the middle of the worst fires imaginable."

"Is he a physical danger to you or April?"  J.  T.  probed.  "Of course not!
The only person Trace has ever tried to hurt was himself."

"Then I think you need to be real careful, Annie.  Think this through all the
way to the end.  The bitter end.  Because if you aren't careful, bitter is
just what it's going to " J.  T.  " I thought you'd help me.  That you would
find some way to get Trace to leave April and me alone."

"Suppose I do," J.  T.  offered.

"Suppose I get Trace McKenna out of April's life.  Suppose you manage to
close the book on him.  For how long?  Until April is eighteen?  Nineteen?

Until she's married and has kids of her own?

Then, all of a sudden, April finds out that her father is.  alive.

What are you going to tell April ten years from now when Trace McKenna walks
back into her life and she knows that he tried to contact her, wanted a
relationship with her, but you kept them apart?  How is she going to react
when she finds out that you--the person she trusts and loves above anyone in
the world--lied to her?  Told her that her father was dead.  And then, when
he tried to contact April, you sent him away.  "

Annie closed her eyes, not wanting to deal with the images J.  T.  was
invoking.

"The only thing Trace McKenna ever wanted was to get as far away from Arizona
as he could.  Trace didn't want me.  He didn't want the baby."

"He obviously wants a relationship with April now.  I guess you have to
decide whether or not you have the right to bar him from April's life.  Do
you want to be responsible for the fact that she never gets to see her father
in the stands when she's pitching a game?  That she never gets to hold his
hand or listen to him tell about... hell, about anything?

His favorite bike when he was a kid, his dreams?  "

"Trace never had any dreams," Annie said, but even as she spoke the words,
she was remembering that brief window of time when Trace's life had seemed to
be falling together.  He had told her a dozen times he didn't give a damn
about baseball--that the only reason he even went out for the sport was
because the coach, Frank Riley, was MeKenna's DJT, or Designated Jerk Teacher
of the year.  For some reason, Trace had found it hilarious that he was an
ace on the pitcher's mound and old Riley had to play him.  Even though Riley
hated Trace, the coach had told him he was a natural, a kid with an arm like
a rocket launcher, who could fire a fastball at the major league level if he
just applied himself a little.

Of course, Trace hadn't.  He'd told Annie that it was a hell of a lot more
fun frustrating the devil out of the coach.

But something had changed that spring.  Annie had watched with quiet joy as
the notorious rebel of Kennedy High had channeled almost super-human energy
into his pitching, and his schoolwork, pulling his act together in a way that
had elated the idealistic teachers at the high school, while it made the more
cynical ones tiptoe around Trace, as if waiting for a bomb to explode.

And it had, Annie thought, raising her fingers to stinging eyes.  It had
exploded with a vengeance the night April had been conceived.

He had aced that test.  But instead of congratulations he'd been confronted
with suspicion.  Suspicion that had hardened into accusations of cheating
when the batch of 41 crib notes were discovered beneath Trace's desk.  When
confronted with such evidence, even Trace's few teacher allies had worn
pained, sorrowful expressions.  Only Annie had believed he hadn't cheated.
She had rushed off to find him, comfort him, tell him she believed.  She
shoved back the thoughts, ruthless, desperate.  No, she didn't dare think
about Trace that night, didn't dare remember what had happened.  She couldn't
risk the crushing sense of sympathy that had driven her to find him that
night in the tumbledown stable.

The Trace McKenna she had loved was gone.  The man who had kissed her in her
office was a hard-eyed stranger.

A stranger whose very presence was threatening her daughter, threatening
Annie's own hard-won peace.

She turned back to J.  T.  " focusing on her anger.

"You're suggesting that I should just hand my daughter over to a maniac with
a death wish?  Let her love him, knowing that any moment he could jump off a
cliff or be fried in some oil-well fire?  Do you have any idea what you're
asking me to do?"

J.  T.  rubbed his fingertips across his tense forehead.

"I'm asking you to think about this from April's point of view.

You've given her everything in your power, Annie.  She's a terrific, healthy,
well-adjusted little girl.  No one is more tuned into the rights of kids than
you are.  If you trash everything that happened between you and this Trace
MeKenna, all the anger and betrayal, all you have left is a little girl who
has a right to know her father.  "

"Are you saying that if I don't let Trace see April, I'm cheating her
somehow?"

"I'm saying that if you don't let April know her father, she might never
forgive you.  I love the two of you too much to stand back and watch that
happen without saying a Word."

"Allison?"  Annie turned to the slender blond woman, whose eyes were
shimmering with sympathy.

"You're a mother.  Tell me you don't agree with him.  Please."

 "I can't," Allison said softly.

"Hard as this is for you, Annie, I can't help but be glad for April.  April
follows J.T.  around like a puppy sometimes, looking lost.  A little sad.

Much as I love you, I can't help being glad that she's getting this chance to
have a daddy of her own.  "

Annie's eyes burned, her voice quaking as she gave voice to her darkest fear.

"What if Trace tries to take her away from me?  April is all I have."

"He can't take her away from you, Annie," ~J.  T.  said.  "You can only lose
April if you hold on too tight."

The suite of rooms at the Beaumaris Hotel was a study in sophistication and
elegance, but there was nothing cool or restrained about the man who paced in
front of the huge stretch of window that looked out across the storm-tossed
expanse of Lake Michigan.  Every muscle in Trace's body was pulled taut in a
fever of anger and frustration, impatience and anticipation, a relentless
stress that even the scalding, blasting shower he'd taken a half hour before
had failed to ease.

Hair still wet, a towel anchored low around his lean hips, Trace prowled the
room, holding on to the memory of the little girl he had seen so briefly.  In
the single instant his gaze had locked on April's impish face, his life had
been changed forever.

And Annie--Annie had done it again.  She had turned him inside out, left him
stinging and raw and uncertain in ways he couldn't even begin to explain.

He'd done his damnedest to intimidate her, force her hand.  And God knew, the
past nine years he'd had plenty of practice being a card-carrying bastard.
But she was so much different now.  There had been a strength, a self-
assurance, a kind of serenity in her face that hadn't been present in the shy
girl he had made love to.  Just by walking into that cluttered office, Trace
had chipped away at Annie's tranqnillity, leaving her drowning in a thousand
questions, fearful for April's welfare.

He'd left her life in shambles again, just the way he had in high school.
But didn't the philosophers claim that turnabout was fair play?  She had
turned his life upside down, had given him hope for the first time in his
life.  Then she had shattered that hope and left him to scrape up the
shattered pieces of his life.  She hadn't told him about the baby, hadn't
breathed a word during those tense weeks when she must have suspected she was
carrying his child.

And when he had been told, when he'd wanted to fix things, make things right
for her, she'd turned away from him, she hadn't believed in him, trusted him,
the way she'd made him believe she would.  That had been a blow far more
devastating than anything Coach Riley, Miss Twigg or even his father could
have made him suffer.

She'd laid him out but good, with that kick to what little belief in himself
had remained.  God knew, he owed his daughter the last drop of blood in his
heart.  But as for An- me Brown--he didn't owe her a damned thing except
anger, contempt.

Then why did he feel like the worst kind of bastard for bringing the
uncertainty back into her eyes?  For bullying her so shamelessly?  Why had he
charged back into her life and into April's with all the subtlety and
forethought of a shark in a feeding frenzy?

Because he was weak where Annie Brown was concerned.  He always had been.  If
he hadn't been able to hold on to his anger, he might have let Annie push him
back out of April's life.  He might have listened to her just a little .  If
you care for April at all .  you must see you can only hurt her.  Annie's
words echoed in his mind.  ' God, he didn't want to hurt his little girl.  He
just wanted April to know that he loved her.  And he did love her, Trace
realized with a jolt.  lmmeAiate, blinding love that rocketed through every
part of him, leaving a desperate eager hess to get to know her--every mood
that changed her p'ntie face, every hurt that had made her sad, every triumph
that had made her whoop with pleasure.

He wanted to pore over pictures of April as an infant, devour every printed
image of the child, so he could make believe he hadn't lost so many precious,
irretrievable years.  No, not lost, Trace corrected himself with brutal
honesty.

Years that Annie had stolen from him.  And from April.

No matter how deeply Annie still stirred him, no matter how those beautiful
green eyes had pleaded with him, Trace could not, would not, allow her to
sway him from what he knew he had to do.  He wouldn't let April suffer the
way he had, certain her father didn't give a damn about her.  But April
didn't think of her father that way, Trace thought with a grim twist of his
lips.  April believed he was dead.

Hell, if he'd been five yards closer to that explosion when it ignited, he
might well have been.  He'd heard more than one person say it was a miracle
he was still alive--that he had a cat's nine lives, but that even with that
kind of longevity, Trace must have used up his share of luck.  His partner,
Paul Malley, heir to the FireStorm empire, had been half crazed with worry
during the last phone call Trace had taken before he walked out of the
hospital.  Malley.  Trace grimaced at the swift jab of guilt that nudged his
conscience.  The guy had been shaken up, bad, over the accident, as if
cracked ribs, a concussion and some pretty spectacular bruises weren't
everyday fare for Trace.

Malley had called the hospital five times a day to check on Trace's
condition, and sent enough flowers to fill a medium-sized funeral parlor.  A
special delivery of the imported candies Trace loved had followed.  Malley
had gone so far as to threaten to fly in to make sure Trace was following
doctor's orders, even though it was Malley's youngest kid's birthday.  Trace
had skipped out of the hospital before he could follow through.

Trace's mouth curled in a half grin.  When the nurses had come to give him
his ten o'clock hypodermic full of painkiller, all they'd found was his
cast-off hospital gown and a scrawled letter to be faxed to Paul.  Trace
could imagine Malley's reaction when he received it; the guy would not be
amused.

He hadn't told Malley anything--hadn't wanted to give the guy a chance to try
to talk him into staying at the hospital or out of going to Chicago.  But
Trace supposed it was time to put the guy out of his misery.  If--no, when
Trace took off for Colorado with April, he should at least let Malley know
not to expect him at work for the next three weeks.

Shaking the long, damp strands of his hair back over bare shoulders, Trace
scooped up the phone receiver and punched the number.

"Malley residence," a sweet little voice piped up through the phone.

"This is Tina speaking.

Who are you speaking back?  "

Trace had always studiously ignored Malley's daughters.  Ignored all kids in
the years since he'd left Arizona.

Other people's children had only been a reminder of the one chtld he thought
would never laugh or smile or throw a baseball on a perfect summer afternoon.
Because of that shadow child, Trace had been certain he didn't deserve
another chance at a wife, a family.

Now Trace found himself wondering how April had answered the phone at that
age.

"This is Trace McKenna.  Is your father home?"

"He's berry busy and berry crabby right now and doesn't want to have a damned
tea party, even though I put the whole bowl of sugar into the lemonade.  He
doesn't mean to be bad, but he's berry worried and going to wring your neck
when he gets a hold of you.  Are you sure you want to talk to him, Mr.
McKenna?"

"McKenna?"  Trace heard Malley's muffled curse in the background, then a
child's cry of indignation.  Evidently, Malley had snatched the phone away
from Tina because the next thing Trace heard was Paul's voice.

"McKenna?  You crazy bastard!  Where the hell are you!  Are you all right?
I've been going ins0 the figuring you were dead in a ditch somewhere!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I never write.  I never call.  You sound like my mama,"
Trace said wryly.

"To answer your first question, I'm in a hotel room.  But you know how they
all look alike.

Maybe I've got amnesia or something.  "

"You're a damn comedian!  The hospital staff went crazy when you disappeared!
The nurse said you could barely sit up without passing out and that bump to
your head was dangerous, man.

Then I get that blasted letter saying you were taking up that damned plane of
yours--hell, I expected to hear you were splattered all over a cornfield
somewhere!  When you crashed and burned six months ago, the doctor warned
you"-- " Well, the doctor was wrong as usual.  I hit my head again, and I'm
still here.  "

"Maybe, but I've had no way of knowing that the past three days.

Blast it, McKenna, we're partners.  I care about you .  " ' Trace winced
inwardly.  He'd been at FireStorm eight months, just one more firefighter on
the line, when the company's owner, Brock Malley had sent his son Paul out
into the field for a little hands-on experience.  Old Brock's ruling maxim
was that no one could really understand FireStorm without getting their
eyebrows singed off in a blaze a time or two.  When Paul had gotten trapped
behind a wall of flame, Trace had pulled him to safety.  Brock had claimed to
know a born fire-eater when he saw one, pro- rooting Trace with a rapidity
that would've made the other men resentful as hell if Trace hadn't had the
skill and daring to back up the old man's confidence in him.

The approval of Brock Malley had been gratifying--especially to a kid whose
own father had written him off long ago.

But even Brock's gruff affection had been pale in comparison to Paul Malley's
almost hero-worship of him.

Paul's open adoration had always made Trace a little edgy.  Trace had always
attributed it to his own emotional garbage--psycho-babble would have
translated it into a fear of intimacy caused by rejection in his relationship
with his parents, no doubt.  Trace just figured he was a selfish son of a
bitch who didn't want the added baggage of getting tangled up in other
people's lives.

There had been times Malley had been almost wistful in his attempts to get
closer to Trace.  Trace had always shut the guy down with a joke or a
determined ability to change the subject back to business.  All in all,
though, they had made a great team since the old man had died.  Paul dealt
with the business end of FireStorm and Trace made the dangerous plays that
kept his adrenaline rushing at warp speed.

"Yeah."  Trace threw up his old defenses with a laugh.  "You care about me,
all right.  Hell, if I get fried, Paul, you might have to go diving into
forty-foot flames."  Trace could sense the hurt, the edginess in his partner.

"Don't say that," Malley snapped.

"Damn, I don't know why I even try" -- He swore.

"Fine, then.  I don't give a damn about you.  Back to business.  That's the
way you like it.  The insurance adjusters have the usual questions."

"Tell 'em the well exploded.  Accidents happen."

 "McKenna, you are an accident just waiting to happen.

That's the problem.  Damn it, man, I was afraid you'd finally pushed the
limit.  That you were dead!  "

"You know where my will is, Malley.  Check out the prices on cut-rate
funerals."

"I don't think I deserve that," Malley said quietly.  "No."  Trace sighed,
tightening the fold of terry cloth that held the towel in place.

"I suppose you don't.  You want to know the truth, Malley?  At the moment, I
don't give a damn.  About the explosion or FireStorm.  I don't even give a
damn about your ulcer, man."

"So tell me something I don't know."

"How about this one.  I've decided to take the doctor's advice for once in my
life.  I'm taking some time off.  Three weeks to rest and recoup and take
care of some personal business.  I just called to let you know."

"Three weeks?"  Malley echoed, incredulous.  "The mess'll still be there when
I get back.  They always are."  ' Malley chuckled.

"You're right about that.  Okay, just tell me where you are so I can get in
touch with you if I need to."  ' "That's the great thing about being so good.
FireS!  can't get along without me.  I don't have to do a clan thing I don't
want to.  And at the moment, I don't wa~ be disturbed by anything.  I'll
check in with you month."

"You sure you're all right?"

"Would it make you feel better to know that then lady involved."

" A lady?"

"Actually, there are two.  One hates my guts and the o is dangerous as hell:"
"Anybody I know?"

"Just someone I knew back in high school.  A Brown."

Silence fell on the phone, and Malley's voice was a ] unsteady.

"The Annie?  The one you kept calling for ~ you had that nightmare in Saudi
Arabia last year?"  Trace felt his cheeks heat.  He said nothing.

Malley hesitated for a moment.

"She messed yot pretty bad, man.  You sure it's a good idea to tangle witt
woman again?"

"What would you do for Tina, Malley?"  Trace ~ quietly.

Malley's voice dropped low.

"I'd do anything for But what does that have to do with this Annie woman'~ "
I've got a daughter, Malley.  A little girl by Annie.  " " My God.  "

Malley sounded as shaken up as Trace been at the discovery of his daughter.

"Why would surface now?  After all this time?"

"She didn't surface.  I found her by accident.  And hie doesn't want anything
to do with me, and neither 4 April.  I'm the one forcing this.  I'm the one
who wants " Why, man?

Some things are better forgotten.

turned you inside out before.  "

"It won't happen this time," Trace said, regretting like hell that he'd
slipped up after the nightmare and confided even a little bit in Malley.

"This time P.  nnie and I play by my rules."

"You above anyone should know that there are no rules.  Not the way you play.
Let 'em go, man."

"Can't do it."

A knock on the door made Trace turn and scowl.  He checked the digital clock
on the bedside table.  Twelve o'clock?  What the blazes?

"Trace?"  Malley said.

"Trace, what is it?"

"Someone at the door.   I don't remember calling for room service.   I'li be
in touch."

"Trace, no!  Don't hang up!"

Trace grimaced as he placed the receiver back in its cradle and stalked to
the door of his suite.  Instinctively, his fingers gras pearl the knotted
towel to hold it in place.  ~ He opened the door wide enough to glare out
into the dimly lit hallway.

"Whoever you are, you've got the wrong damn room" -- His stomach did a flip
as a slender figure melted out of the shadows.

Her arms were crossed over her chest, her green eyes hostile, wary, holding
the same bravado a kid might have, trying to pretend she wasn't scared of a
hellish storm.

If a bomb had exploded in Trace's face, he couldn't have been more stunned.

"Annie?"  he breathed in disbelief.

"What the devil are you doing here?"

Chapter3 Annie stared into Trace's smoke blue eyes and felt a primal urge to
make a dash for the nearest bank of elevators.

Survival instinct, Annie thought.  She'd felt the same desperate need to flee
the first time seventeen-year-old Trace McKenna had swaggered into the study
hall for a tutoring session.

He'd been a little dangerous, a lot sexy, and totally unattainable with those
sulky rebel's eyes and that mouth that seemed molded to make feminine hearts
melt.

Annie had taken one look at him and wanted to dive under the table.

She'd been too naive to listen to her instincts the last time Trace McKenna
had barged into her world, and he had left her life in chaos, her heart in
tatters.  Left her with his child growing inside her.  But nearly three years
of living on the streets, trying to provide for herself and a baby, had
ingrained in Annie's consciousness exactly how perilous an encounter with
Trace McKenna could be.  Unfortunately, this time, she had no choice but to
confront him.

She clutched her arms tighter around her fibs, trying not to shiver as those
predatory eyes swept over her.

"Annie," he repeated,

"I said what the hell are you doing here?  It's after midnight."

It took all her willpower to keep from shivering as rivulets of rain dripped
from her soaked hair to creep beneath her collar and drizzle down the path of
her spine.  "I know what time it is," Annie said with all the disdain she
could muster.

"As I remember, you're the one who gave me a deadline.  You threatened to
call your lawyer.  You made it perfectly clear that you're rich and powerful
now, and that you do what you want.  I can't imagine you'd be overly
concerned about waking up your lawyer after midnight if the spirit moved you."

Trace's eyes narrowed, and for a heartbeat Annie thought hurt flashed in his
eyes.

"You figured that right.

My lawyer is used to me being an inconsiderate jerk.  " Annie ground her
teeth.

"Do you want to settle this, or was that whole performance in my office just
your twisted idea of revenge?  Now that I've jumped through your hoop are you
going to leave April and me alone?  Disappear to wherever you came from?"

Trace's lips whitened.

"Disappear?  No, Annie.  That's your trick.  Come in, by all means.  Let's
settle this."

He pulled open the door, the panel all but concealing his tall frame.

Annie swallowed hard and stepped into the room.

It was so elegant she almost choked, the opulence 0'f the room in comparison
to her own tiny apartment over Baby Place a ruthless reminder of how
different their circumstances were.

She'd read all about the FireS tom empire Trg.  ce had helped the Malley
family build.  But somehow, this room made his wealth real, and his power.
Enough power to get a~ray with almost anything, Annie thought with a fiutt~
panic, even forcing his way into a little girl's life.  Annie's fingers
trembled.  Despite J.  T.  "s assurances to contrary, was it possible that
Trace could take April a, altogether if he chose?  She had heard of rare
cases wL fiaat had happened, odd loopholes in the law discovered ~I've
lawyers, judges who could be bought and p for.

Annie smoothed back the sodden lengths of her h Steeling herself, she turned
to face her nemesis.

"Let's j get everything out in the open," she began, but the resl the words
snagged in her throat as her gaze locked o broad expanse of naked masculine
chest.  Bronze skin, stippled with a dark mat of hair; a smattering of scars:
faint bruises crisscrossed the well-defined ridges of mu~ that had been
hardened by dangerous physical exertion,: by tame workouts.  curling barbells
at a gym.

He.  looked as if he'd just stepped from the shower.  J me was excruciatingly
aware of every sinew of his bodl his long legs, stretching far beneath the
skimpy shielding his narrow bare feet half buried in thick pew colored
carpet.  His shoulders were broad, wisps of dat dark hair clinging to the
strong cords of his throat.  A: drops of water still pooled in the shadowy
hollows above collarbone.

Trace arched one dark brow, the corner of his mo~ lifting with biting sarcasm.

"I'm about as 'out in the op as I can get, Brown-Eyes.  That is, unless I get
rid of towel."  ' "No!"  Annie cried a little too forcefully, unable to k~
heat from flooding her cheeks.

"It still doesn't take much to get you to turn red after these years," Trace
observed.

"C'mon, Annie, no neex get all flustered."  He brushed a hand over the towel.

"You've seen all of me before."

"The stable was dark."  Her protest sounded ridiculous even to her own ears.

"There was enough moonlight for me to get a hell of an eyeful of you, sweet
thing, even if I didn't have the finesse to undress you all the way before I"
-- "Trace, I'm not going to stand here and" -- "You wouldn't even look at me,
remember?"  His voice was husky, merc'dess.

"But you sure as hell had your hands all over me."

"Stop it!"  Annie snapped, her voice cracking beneath the strain of hearing
Trace reduce that night into such sordid terms.  A night that had been pure
magic for Annie, now transformed into one more notch on McKenna's bedpost,
one more sexual conquest of the notorious school rebel.  The pain that sliced
through her let the next wave of shivers catch her unawares.  Before she
could brace herself, it racked her with such force her teeth chattered.

Trace swore, and Annie could feel the path his gaze swept down her body.  His
hazy blue eyes tracked from the clinging wet mop of her hair to where her
thin white blouse clung to her skin.

She was suddenly, excruciatingly aware that the wetness had made the garment
all but transparent.  The ap- pliqu6cl roses on her bra imprinted a perfect
pattern against the fine fabric.

Trace's gaze lay heavy on her breasts for long SeConds, and Annie was
appalled at the sudden realization that her nipples were aching rosettes
tightened against the chill.  The delicate nubs stirred to an almost painful
heat beneath the weight of Trace's stare.

He swallowed as if his throat was suddenly parched, his face twisting in
disgust--at her or at himself, she had no 55 idea.

"Annie, you little idiot!  What did you do?  Walk the whole way over here in
the rain?  You're soaking wet!"

 "The rain is the least of my worries at the moment."

"At least let me get you something to dry off with."  No!  " she said
vehemently, her gaze flicking, unbidden, to the wisp of white towel slung
scandalously low on his lean hips.

"I mean, don't feel obligated to give me yours.  Your towel, I mean."

"Oh, for God's sake," Trace growled in impatience, his hands going to the
knot of terry cloth.

Annie couldn't stop herself from closing her eyes, fully expecting Trace to
strip away the length of fabric, and then toss it to her while he stood
there, as unabashedly naked as some primal specimen of manhood a thousand
years ago.

It seemed Annie hadn't even managed to catch her breath before rough terry
cloth, still damp and warm from Trace's skin, was toweling her shoulders, her
neck.  She made a choked sound of protest, trying to jerk away from Trace's
hands, but he only followed her movements, the softness of the towel doing
nothing to disguise the inexorable strength of his fingers.

Those fingers rubbed the towel over her shoulders, down her arms.  But when
he brushed the towel over nipples already agonizingly sensitized, Annie
wouldn't have given a damn if they had been standing in the middle of Times
Square and Trace McKenna's whole body was lit up with neon.  Her eyes popped
open as she struggled to find some way to escape him.

She expected to see Trace stripped to his skin.  Amazingly enough, in those
moments her eyes had been closed, he had not only managed to shed the towel,
but had flung the hotel's complimentary robe over his body, knotting the belt
rather precariously at his waist.  Annie should have been more relieved than
she was, but the robe was only marginally better than the towel.  It gaped
open at his chest, the stark white fabric a startling contrast to the dark
tan of his skin.  Trace had gone down on one knee.  The other tanned leg
pierced through the split in the robe, causing the white folds to stream on
either side of the powerful sinews of his left thigh, the shadows barely
concealing the part of him that made him a man.

Alarm streaked through Annie at the knowledge that the most subtle shift of
his muscles could send even that meager bit of cloth sliding away, leaving
him bare.  "Trace, don't," she said, considering the merit of climbing over a
chair to put some distance between them.  "I'm fine.  I just want to settle
this about April and then go home."

"Fine.  Let's settle it.  But you're soaked to the skin.  I might be bastard
enough to want to have a relationship with my daughter, but I'd just as soon
not do so at the price of having April's mother die of pneumonia.  You
could've brought an umbrella or worn a coat."

"I had other things on my mind.  I was trying to think of what I could say to
you, how to make you understand" -- Annie placed her hands against his chest
to shove him away, but the neck of the robe had gaped and her palm collided
with the heated plane of Trace's chest.  The texture of his skin seared
itself into her palm.  If she had just touched a white-hot iron Annie
couldn't have been more shaken.

Apparently her touch startled Trace in a way that her words had been unable
to.  He sprang back.  She saw his face turning dull red, his hands tugging at
the robe, pulling it tightly closed where it flowed over his hips.  But not
before Annie glimpsed a tell-tale bulge beneath it.  Her whole body felt
afire with disgust at herself for being unnerved by mere sexual attraction
when the man was 57 a very real threat to everything Annie had worked so hard
for these past nine years.  When he could very well hurt April .  "Looks like
I'm still all hormones when it comes to you, Brown-Eyes."

Trace broke through her thoughts with his acid sneer.

"You'd think I would've learned the hard way to stay clear of you.  But then,
hell, I was always a slow " You were too smart for your own good," Annie shot
back.

"But this isn't some game you're playing, Trace.

You're forcing your way into an innocent child's life.  I don't want April
hurt.  "

Trace jammed his fists into his robe pockets.

"I don't want her hurt, either.  That's why I'm here, Annie.  I'm sure you
don't believe that, but it's true."

"You've always had great reasons for everything you've done, haven't you,
Trace?  You blew off school because you decided that the teachers were all
jerks.  You threw away your chance to play professional baseball because of
your father."  ' Trace's gaze slashed to hers.

"I didn't throw it away because of my father."

There was something hidden in those words, an undercurrent Annie didn't dare
explore.

Trace swore, waving one strong hand in dismissal.  "What the hell, believe
whatever you want.  It doesn't matter anymore.  The only thing that matters
is April."  He planted his hands on his hips, and Annie wondered how a man
standing in such posh surroundings could look so utterly primitive.

"So, what's it going to be, Annie?"  he demanded.

"Am you going to let me have her?"

"She's not a stray puppy, to be yanked between two squabbling kids.

She's not anyone's property--not mine and certainly not yours.  "

"Do I get time with my daughter?  Or do I have to fight for it?  It doesn't
matter to me either way.  I'm used to fighting for what I want.  But I'd
better warn you.  I've only lost one time."

"We have to do things my way," Annie cautioned.  "Do you mean you're actually
considering meeting my demands?"  Annie almost thought she heard a tremor in
Trace's voice.

"I don't know," she said.

"Yes, I guess I am.  But there would have to be certain conditions."

"Name them," he demanded tautly.

"First, you have to swear you won't tell April that you are her father."

"So you want me to be a liar, too?"

Liar.  It was a hard word.  One with the power to make Annie wince.  She
deflected the brutal honesty of it by saying, "I don't want April to be
traumatized."

"Neither do I.   I'll agree not to be honest with the kid for the time
being.   But there will come a time when all bets are off."

She would worry about that later, Annie tried to tell herself.  She just had
to get through one crisis at a time.

She'd manage to keep Trace silent somehow after Colorado.  Truthfully, it was
her other term that made her the most uneasy.

She sucked in a steadying breath, facing him as if he were her executioner.
In some ways he had been.  The Annie Brown who had played the piano and
dreamed of Juilliard and concert stages had ceased to exist because of him.

"The second condition is that I come with you to Colorado."

A Fath~r'~ Claim An unreadable expression darted into Trace's gray-blue ~.

"What the" -- He started, then stopped.  Whatever ~otions had jolted through
him were wiped away.  They ~ replaced by a nasty smile.

"You sayin' you want to come play house with me, Brown-Eyes?  Let's see, I'll
be the daddy and you can be the mommy.  Just think of the games we can play
in bed once " I don't want anything to do with you, Trace.  But I don't
intend to abandon my daughter in the care of a man who is practically a
stranger.  "

"So you're coming to Colorado to--what?  Make sure I don't feed the kid
ground-up glass instead of sugar on her cereal?"

"That's not fair."

You've had her for eight years, Annie.  I had nothing.  I didn't see her
first smile, hold her hand when she was trying to walk.  Damn it, I deserve a
LITTLE time alone with her!  " " You can have it.  You have my word that I
won't interfere with things between you and April, unless"-- " Unless what?
I do something you consider dangerous?

-- Despicable?  Like not making her wash behind her ears?  " " I can't
believe you could really expect me to just hand April over to you without a
word.  As far as she knows, you're just some creep she beaned with a baseball
because he was scaring her mother.  She doesn't trust you.  She doesn't like
you.  And even though she'd die before she'd admit it to anyone, she's
downright frightened of you.  " " Because you"-- " No, Trace," Annie snapped.

"She's afraid because of you.  You had me pinned against the wall, struggling
when she came into the room.  It terrified her.  She knows that something is
wrong.  If I pack her bags and stick her in a plane with you, how do you
think she'd react?"

"There's nothing you'd like better than to see me fall flat on my face with
April.  If I screw things up badly enough you'd never have to see me again."

It cost Annie more than Trace could ever know, but she told him the truth.

"After you left today, there was nothing I wanted more.  I wanted you to fail
with April so I could keep her safe, protected from you.  But I've had some
time to think about it, and if your meeting is a disaster, the one who comes
out a loser is April.  No matter how I feel about you, she has a right to
know her father.  To decide for herself if she wants you to be a part of her
life."

Trace felt as if she'd blindsided him.  He eyed her warily.  "I suppose you
expect me to say thank you for that."

"No, Trace.  I learned a long time ago not to expect anything from you.

Make whatever plans are necessary.  You can contact me at the shelter.  "
With those words, Annie turned and walked out the door.

Trace watched her, his heart thudding against his ribs in an unsteady rhythm,
his skin suddenly sweating as if he'd run thirty miles.

Oh, God.  He could hardly believe it was true.  He closed his eyes, picturing
April's winsome face, down to the bandage on her chin.  He imagined what it
would be like the first time she slipped her hand into his.  The first time
she smiled at him--hell, the first time she looked at him without appearing
as if she wanted to kick him in the ribs.

However grudgingly, Annie had given him a chance to forge a relationshi15
with April.  He'd made a disaster of so much of his life.  He'd screwed up in
school and on the baseball field.  He'd snarled up his relationship with his
parents, his sisters.  His relationship with Annie.  But this time, Trace
would find a way to make things right.

During that brief, precious time in Colorado, Trace would make certain that
April had the time of her life-everything she'd ever dreamed of, including a
father who loved her.

But what if she doesn't want you any more than your father did?  a voice
whispered inside Trace.  Any more than Annie wanted you?

Trace's muscles tightened, burned at the memory of how she had felt under his
hands--damp and trembling from the rain, her eyes like some woodland
creature's, mysterious, luminous in spite of her fury.  His fists knotted at
the memory of the feel of her wet blouse and the towel sandwiched between his
hands and her breasts, the sensual abrasion as he felt her nipples harden
beneath his palms.  She still had the power to rock him to the very core of
his soul.  And she would be there with April, still beautiful, so damn
tempting.  Still far beyond his reach.

No.  He didn't want to reach Annie anymore, Trace thought fiercely.

And he wouldn't fail April.  He wouldn't 1~ himself.

But as Trace stared out into a night that was haunted with April's blue eyes
and tousled pigtails, her adorable scowl, he felt a chill race down his spine.

For the first time since the day Annie Brown had walked out of his life,
Trace McKenna was afraid.

Annie sat at her desk and stared down at the red-inked schedule she'd been
working on for two days, mapping out arrangements for volunteers and other
shelter employees to take up the slack while she was gone.  It had been a
gargantuan task.  She'd recruited the three people necessary to handle the
mayhem that was Annie's workday, the schedA Father' s Claim ule exposing
with ruthless clarity the fact that she had become a workaholic of the first
order.

She had crammed every corner of her life with commitments, running the
shelter, mothering April, counseling the girls who came to her with problems
ranging from what color nail polish to put on to whether or not they should
put their babies up for adoption.  She had filed paperwork and checked
homework, helped in the snack bar at the softball field and made
presentations to companies, fought for scholarships for Baby Place morns and
spent more nights than she could count trying to soothe heartaches too
grownup for teenagers to handle.

She loved her work.  Adored it.  And as for April.  that little girl was the
most wonderful thing in her [de.  And yet, staring down at the schedule that
closely resembled a NASA flight plan, Annie couldn't help but remember the
conversation she'd had with her father with increasing regularity during the
three years since they had reconciled.

You'll never find a man if you continue on this way, An- nalise, Colonel
Brown's warning echoed in her head.  You need someone to take care of you and
April.  Someone steady, dependable, responsible.  But men like that don't
come strolling through the door of a shelter for pregnant teenagers.  t Maybe
not, Annie thought, her mouth twisting wryly.  But a dangerous, compelling,
reckless man had ripped through this place like a typhoon two days earlier,
leaving disaster in his wake.

She couldn't even imagine what Colonel Brown would say when she told him that
Trace McKenna had swept back into her life.  No, Annie corrected herself
mentally, she could imagine exactly what he would say, which was why she'd
been completely out of character, procrastinating like crazy about placing a
call to Arizona.

A sane person--translated "coward" --would have merely refused to call the
Colonel.  Annie and her father had gone a month without talking on the phone
before.  God knew,/~nnie was having enough trouble balancing her feelings
about Trace's return without throwing her father's sheer loathing of the man
into the mix.  But the Colonel had made one of his rare generous gestures,
buying tickets to the White Sox game during his vacation, planning to take
April there next week as a surprise--a fact Annie had forgotten in the
craziness of Trace's return.

She stared down at the phone a long minute, then forced herself to pick it up
and punch in the number.  Two buzzes, and it was answered in a voice crisp as
a blizzard wind.  "Colonel Brown here."

"Dad?  Hi, this is Annie."

"Annalise!  This is a surprise.  Is April all right?  Nothing's wrong?"

It had always astonished Annie how this man who had been so adamant about his
daughter having an abortion or giving April up for adoption could have
changed so drastically in the five and a half years since Annie had first met
J.  T.  and Allison James.

There had been plenty of rocky times in the beginning, made worse by the fact
that Annie's mother had been dying of cancer.  But by the time Mary Brown was
laid to rest and April was five, Annie and her father had reached a tenuous
truce.  Now they were bound by their love for the little girl whose
appearance had so drastically changed their lives.

Still, Annie couldn't tamp down the knot of unease that lodged heavy in the
pit of her belly.  A sensation all too familiar from childhood, those moments
when she'd known she was about to disappoint or anger her perfectionist
father.

"Dad, as a matter of fact, I've run into a little scheduling problem,"

Annie began.

"I know you wanted to surprise April by flying up and taking her to the game.
And it was a terrific idea.  Really.  But something has come up, and" --
"Something has come up?"  There was a bite in the colonel's voice that had
made chief petty officers hit the deck.

"You've known about these tickets for months!"

"I know.   If there was any way to avoid this snag, I would.   But there
isn't."

"Something's come up?  A scheduling problem?  Snag?  What the devil is it,
girl?  You're talking like you've lost your mind!"

Maybe I did, Annie thought grimly, somewhere between the time when Trace
stormed into my office and when he kissed me.

"Dad, I'm not sure how to say this, so I'm going to blurt it right out.
April can't go to the White Sox game because we're going to Colorado to spend
three weeks with..."  She drew in a steadying breath.

"With who?"

The curse was foul and disbelieving.

"McKenna?  That son of a bitch!

Don't tell me you went looking for that"-- " Of course not.  He found me.
And April.  He saw us on a docudrama on cable TV.  He figured out the truth,
and he came here determined to meet his daughter.  " " You aren't going to
let him see her, are you?  My God, Annalise, he has no right to just charge
back into your lives"-- " He has every right under the law.  And he has the
money and the power to pursue his rights to the bitter end.  He made that
crystal clear.  Either I let him get to know April or he'll go to court to
claim her legally.  "

"I'll kill him with my own hands!  After what he did to you" -- "Dad, that's
enough.  I don't think he wants to hurt April.  He's agreed not to tell her
the truth for now.  He's only asking for three weeks."

"Don't tell me you believe that!  If you give him so much as a toehold in
April's life you're a fool."

"Dad, I don't have any choice.  Of course I'm not thrilled about this.

Of course I'm worried about April, what effect it might have on her when .
if," she corrected herself stridently, " she discovers the truth about who
Trace is.  But I've thought about it a lot, and I've decided that she
deserves a chance to know her father.  "

"She can come to me and I can tell her everything there is to know about him!
How he got you pregnant and didn't give a damn."

"Dad, you know he" -- Annie stopped, too tired to argue anymore.  Her father
hadn't listened before when she'd tried to tell him how shattered Trace had
been at the news she was carrying his child.  Colonel Brown wouldn't listen
time either.  Annie sighed, "whatever Trace felt before, one thing is
certain.  He cares about April now.  I have to go now, Dad.  I'm really sorry
about the Sox game.  Please try to understand.  I have to do this."

Please understand, daddy .  I have to do this.  keep my baby.  Trace's baby .
The words echoed in her mind, whispers from the past.

Colonel Brown hadn't understood then.  It was beyond hope that he could
understand now, no matter how many strides he'd made these past three years.
"Annalise, listen to me!

You can't trust this jerk.  He's proven that once, hasn't he?  "

"I'll call you when we get back."

"Back?  From Colorado?"  Colonel Brown's voice blazed.

It was excruciatingly hard to sacrifice the slight shadings of approval she'd
managed to gain from him.

"I'm not a little girl anymore, Dad.  I make my own decisions."

"The last time you made a decision where McKenna was concerned, you ended up
pregnant and on the street!"   Annie gritted her teeth and pressed her
fingertips to the sudden headache that was beginning to hammer behind her
temples.

"I'll call you when we get back.  And I won't let anything hurt April.  You
know I won't."

"Annalise?   Don't you dare hang up" -- "Goodbye, Dad."   Annie could still
hear him bellowing into the phone as she gently placed the receiver in its
cradle.

She'd barely withdrawn her hand when the telephone began to ring again.  Her
father, no doubt determined to convince her he was right and she was wrong.
Some things never changed.

For a heartbeat, Annie considered picking the phone up, letting him bulldoze
her into telling Trace to go to hell.  God knew, she didn't want to expose
April to any trauma--or traumatize herself, for that matter.  And just the
brief time she'd spent with Trace had made her feel like a twig tossed in
gale-force winds, out of control, helpless against powers too strong to
resist.

But she kept remembering J.  T.  "s face, so solemn, his eyes steady and
brutally honest.  What are you going to tell April ten years from now when
Trace McKenna walks back into her life and she knows that he wanted a
relationship with her, but you kept them apart?  She might hate you .... But
hadn't Annie already kept April and Trace apart?  a voice inside her
whispered.  Hadn't she concocted elaborate lies, hidden the truth, tried to
pretend Trace didn't exist?

To protect April, Annie asserted fiercely.  To keep her from feeling
abandoned by her father.

Or had she done so in order to protect-herself from the rush of emotions
Trace had always inspired in her?  To numb the hurt, the grief, the pain that
was nine years old.  And now she still felt raw, torn wide open again, in the
brief time since she'd looked into Trace McKenna's eyes.  It was a disturbing
thought, one that made Annie squirm inwardly.  The ringing of the phone
pounded against An- me's raw nerves, and she reached down, switching off the
ringer.

If only it was that easy to shut off the sensations that were still
catapulting through her, knocking down all the defenses she'd erected around
her heart.

Trace paced outside the airplane hangar, oblivious to the beauty of a dozen
private planes gleaming in the morning sun, oblivious to everything except
the raw sense of anticipation eating inside him, the triumph that was
tempered by unease.

Any minute now, his daughter was going to walk through the gates, see him,
see the plane.  Hell, even if the kid hated him, she'd have to be excited by
the prospect of flying, wouldn't she?  And Annie--she'd take one look at the
aircraft and know that Trace McKenna hadn't been the sere wed-up failure
everyone had predicted.  That he had fought his way to the top in spite of
everything.  He raked his hands through his hair, angry that her opinion of
him still mattered when he'd prided himself on the fact that he didn'Vgive a
damn what anyone thought of him, of FireStorm, of the size of his bank
account.

He had tried to pretend that he wasn't trying to prove anything to
anyone--least of all the gift who had betrayed him.  And yet, with every risk
he took, it was Annie's face he'd see when he closed his eyes at night.
Every success against incredible odds made him feel as if he'd somehow gained
back a piece of himself that had slipped through his fingers the day Annie
had run away from him.  He had taken those pieces and tried to fill the
gaping hole she'd left inside him.  But it hadn't mattered.  They'd just
slipped into the darkness and made him feel more empty than ever.

"Everything looks good, boss."  The sound of a mechanic's voice made Trace
jump, a guilty heat flooding his cheeks, as if somehow the fresh-faced
twenty-year-old had been able to see past McKenna's daredevil facade into the
weakness that was Annie.

"I tightened up a few bolts," the youth said, wiping grease-stained hands on
a rag.

"And I replaced the fuel line.  It was cracked in a few places."  "Terrific."

"You might want to talk to whoever maintains this bird and tell them to
straighten up.  You could're had a problem."

Trace frowned, the kid's words reminding him that FireStorm's head mechanic
had all but begged Trace to let him give the plane a badly overdue checkup.
How long ago had that been?  Two months?  Three?  Maybe he'd give old Ratso a
go at it when he got back from Colorado.  He glanced down at the name
stenciled on the kid's cove rails

"Thanks for the reminder, Mike, but I'm pretty sure she'll hold together.  My
head mechanic was putting gines together with hairpins and duct tape while
you were still building with Tinkertoys.  He's the best there is."

"Maybe," the kid said, unabashed.

"But maybe he needs glasses, 'cause this bird was cruising for a crash
landing.  Maybe not the next time you took it up, or the 69 next.  But
sometime soon, things were going to get veal in Trace flashed Mike a smile
that was more than a little dangerous.

"When you're at a thousand feet and the engine cuts out, or you're
free-failing into a canyon that's only thirty feet wide--that's the only tune
you're really alive."

The mechanic shuddered.

"No, thanks.  Changing the channel to football when my wife is watching a Mel
Gibson movie is the closest I want to get to a near-death experience."

"You're married?"  Trace couldn't keep the surprise from his voice.

"Yeah.  Got a baby, too."  Mike dug around in his back pocket and withdrew a
billfold.  Before Trace could protest, the kid was shoving a picture under
his nose.  A girl who couldn't be more than eighteen sat a little stiffly in
a cheap wicker chair with an infant cuddled in her arms.  The baby's pink
dress had obviously gone through several owners.  The ruffles were limp and
the color washed out.  But the child's eyes were wide and wondering.  Her
mother's smile was soft and knowing.

A fist squeezed around Trace's heart.

"She's beautiful."

"Yeah.  My friends told me I was crazy for getting mar- tied so young.

You know, chaining myself down and all.

But I love Lisa and Megan, and--hell, hanging out with a bunch of guys at
bars and chasing women and stuff didn't have much appeal in comparison.  " As
if suddenly aware of how much he'd revealed, the kid grew sheepish.

"I suppose a guy like you thinks I'm nuts--I mean, you go tearing all over
the world, private planes, gorgeous chicks, all that adventure."

"No," Trace said sol fly handing back the picture.

"I don't think you're crazy at all."  Trace dug into his own pocket and took
out two one-hundred-dollar bills.  He stuck them in the kid's hand.

Mike's eyes bugged out.  Trace sensed how much the kid needed the money, but
Mike held his hands up in protest.

"Whoa!  This is way too much."

"Take your lady out for dinner and buy that baby..."  Trace hesitated, at a
loss.  He shrugged.

"Buy her whatever babies like."

Mike grinned.

"That's real nice of you, Mr. McKenna.  There's this baby swing Lisa's been
wanting to get to hang in the tree outside our apartment, but you know how it
goes.  Money only goes so far."  Mike shoved the bills into his wallet, then
stuffed the bit of leather back into his pocket.  His gaze tracked to the
gate and he smiled.

"Looks like I better head out.  Your company's coming."  Trace wheeled toward
the gate and his stomach plunged to his toes.  A somewhat battered van with
Home Place lettered across the side was parked outside the fence.  A tall,
dark-haired man in a bomber jacket was bel ping Annie roust a pair of
disreputable-looking suitcases out of the vehicle, while April hung back a
little, her eyes wary, her chin set with McKenna stubbornness.  Trace had
expected worse in the first moment his gaze again locked with his daughter's.

Considering the way Annie left the hotel three days ago, he'd banked on major
hostility from both her and the kid.

But April regarded him with grudging curiosity, while Annie.  Annie had the
same uncertain, almost shy aura about her that had hit him like a fist in the
gut the first time he saw her.

The leather-jacketed guy didn't make a move toward the plane.  He just
squinted in Trace's direction and waved a hand in greeting before he climbed
back into the van.  The 71 en~the roared to life, then wheeled away, leaving
Annie and April standing on the expanse of concrete.  Trace's muscles knotted.

It was as if the woman and child were surrounded by an aura of love and unity
that no one could breach.  Just the two of them.  Trace tried not to be
bitter about the fact that he was not a part of that precious enchantment.
His palms suddenly sweating, Trace strode toward them, trying to concentrate
on April--his child, the only stake he had in this mess.  But no matter how
hard he fought it, his eyes were dragged back to Annie time and again,
watching the way the breeze plastered her dainty white blouse against her
breasts and tangled her calf-length rose skirt against her legs.

It was crazy to watch her--some kind of sadomasochistic torture to glimpse
the lacy bit of slip peeping from beneath the billowing fabric, while her
hair blew in a misty halo around her delicate face, the strands as hazy gold
as a summertime dream.

Trace was close enough to see that she was smiling--that brave, fake smile
she'd worn the first time Trace had stalked into their study hall.  But he'd
always been able to see past it, beyond the smile, to what lay in her
incredible green eyes.  They were wide and wounded, frightened and soft.  He
wanted to cup her pale cheeks with the palms of his hands, whisper into the
silky curls at her temple.

Don't be afraid of me, Annie.  Don't be afraid.  I won't hurt you .  Trace
stiffened, the words echoing those he had said as a pain-fevered
seventeen-year-old, shaking with desperate need in the rnins of an abandoned
stable.  But he had hurt her when he hadn't bothered to protect her from the
consequences of their night's passion.  And she had hurt him when she had
walked away.

"Hello, Trace."  Annie's voice.  Quiet.  Her fingers were white-knuckled on
the handle of her suitcase.

"Hello, Annie."  Trace turned toward the little girl, hating the squeezing
sensation in his chest at the uncertainty in Annie's voice.

"Nice day to fly, huh, April?"  "How would I know?"

There was still an edge in the kid's voice, but it was a little more blunted.

"I've never been in a plane before."

"Is that so?"

"We have to fix the car and stuff, and I need braces even though I think my
teeth are fine, so we don't go on vacations far away.  Sometimes my more
takes me to the water park, though."

Braces.  Trace hazarded a glanc~ at Annie.  At least that was some concrete
benefit she could get out of this mess-he could pay for braces with his
pocket change.  And a new car.  Hell, he didn't want his kid stranded
somewhere in a broken-down car in the middle of Chicago.  or Annie he was
forced to admit.

"My friend Tyler James gets to fly all the time 'cause his grandpa's rich,"
April piped up.

"Tyler's grandpa said he'd give us a car, too, but More says we'll make it on
our own.  Just me and her.  We don't need anybody rise.  You know, like a
boyfriend or step-dad or anything."

It was a none-too-subtle laying of boundaries.  Trace didn't have time to
speak before Annie broke in.

"April, I told you that Mr. McKenna is just an old friend of mine."

"Yeah.  I guess."  APril regarded him a little suspiciously.

"More showed me the monkey you won her at the carnival.  She said you threw
baseballs and knocked junk down to win it."

The carnival.  Trace felt like April had nailed him with a stun gun.

His gaze collided with Annie's; her cheeks were suddenly pink.

He'd forgotten the night Annie had confided that in all her world travels as
an army brat she had never been to a carnival.  Trace had slammed a book of
Shakespeare's tragedies shut and swooped Annie off to sticky cotton candy and
dizzying rides with lights that flashed and tinny music that grated on the
ears.

When he'd stopped at one of the game booths, he hadn't known why it had
seemed so damned important to win her that ugly neon stuffed animal.  He'd
worked harder at winning it than he had his last ten times on the pitcher's
mound.  When he'd tucked the monkey in Annie's arms, she'd smiled at him.  It
had been the first time he'd seen past her shyness and realized how damned
beautiful she was.  He could remember the sensation of slipping her small
hand into his.

He wondered if Annie remembered that night the same way he did.  No, she
must've remembered it even better, considering the fact that she'd kept
Mozart Monkey.  "April was understandably nervous after what happened,"

Annie attempted to explain.

"I wanted to show her... tell her..."

Suddenly, Trace couldn't think of a damned thing to say.  April's impatient
voice yanked him back to the present.

"So, are we going to get in the plane or stand here all day?"  she demanded.

"Bet the pilot's going to be real ticked that we're late."

"I think we're safe on that score.  See" -- Trace couldn't figure out why his
cheeks heated a little "--I fly my own plane."

"You?  You mean, you're a pilot?"  Annie's choked exclamation might have
been comical under other circumstances.

Trace shrugged.

"Got too many complaints about the places I like to fly and the stunts I
wanted to pull, so, what the hell?  Decided it was less trouble to learn to
fly myself."  He let his eyelids slip to half-mast, the corner of his mouth
tipping up in subtle mockery.

"What's the matter, Brown-Eyes?

Scared to go up with me?  "

"My mom is not scared!"  April jumped in.  "Don't be so sure about that,"
Annie corrected her.

"The few times I rode with Trace in a car I spent the trip with my life
flashing before my eyes."

"If my life had been as bland as yours was, that would have been enough to
scare the be-jesus out of me, too.  Anme, did you ever do anything risky,
just for the hell of it?"

 "Once."

There was a sting in that single word.  Trace winced as it struck its mark.

"Oh, yeah.  I almost forgot.  You fell from grace big time with me, didn't
you, Brown-Eyes?"

"Trace, please," Annie said with a tremor in her voice.  Trace's nerves were
buzzing with the need to lain bast someone, anyone, to get rid of the
sizzling waves of tension burning inside him.  But Annie's eyes flicked to
April.

The frown of confusion that puckered the little girl's face made Trace grit
his teeth.

Unless he watched his mouth, everything was going to spill out in the ugliest
possible way--the whole sordid story of how Trace McKenna knocked up Annie
Brown.  Even edgy and angry, Trace could easily imagine just how damaging
such a revelation would be to April.  Besides, the truth was that Annie had
given him a gift-somehow she had eased April's fear of him, softened the 75
child's hostility by sharing a memory that must have been difficult for
Annie.  He owed her a helluva lot for that.  Trace moved to scoop up the
suitcases, but April swept into the breach, a determined look on her face.

"I can carry them.  My morn and I take care of ourselves, remember?"

Again, the drawing of boundaries.

"Terrific," Trace said.

"I can see you're a big help.  Maybe you'd like to help me fly the plane once
we're away from Chicago."

The kid's eyes all but popped out of her head, a visible shiver of
anticipation going through her.

"You're joking, right, Mr. McKenna?"

"No I'm not.  I'll show you what to do, and then you can help."

"Trace" -- Annie started to interrupt.

But April burst in, nearly killing herself with the effort to stifle a
grin--after all, Trace realized, it would never do to surrender points to the
enemy without a fight.

"I guess if it'd make you happy I could try it, Mr. McKenna," April told him.

"But don't blame me if I crash it into a mountain or something."

Trace grinned.

"I won't."

"Trace," Annie interrupted firmly.

"There's no way I'm going to let my daughter fly a plane."

"More!"  April drew the single syllable into two long ones in the age-old
sign of childish displeasure, her eyes flashing.

"You said I was s'posed to try and get along with him 'cause everybody loses
their temper sometimes.  Well I'm trying, but you're already arguing again!"
Annie gave Trace a helpless look, but he only met her eyes levelly.

"You said you wouldn't interfere."

"As long as it wasn't dangerous!"  Annie sputtered.

"It isn't.  I can have the controls back in my hands in a heartbeat.

I'll be right there to help her if she needs it.  "

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"  Annie groaned.

"You can't even get a sane pilot to do the things you want, so you get your
own p'dot's license.  And now you want to put an eight-year-old behind the
controls-- No, wait" -- Annie waved her hands in frustration "--we'll
probably be a lot safer with April as pilot."

"Probably."  Trace grimaced.  It would be a helluva lot safer.  If April was
handling the controls it would give him something to concentrate on besides
the soft, baby-powder scent of Annie in the morning, the velvety cream
shadows that clung in the hollow of her throat.  Far better to crash into a
mountain than feel this gut-deep yearning to drag her against him, see if she
still felt so small and delicate and if she still fit in his arms so
perfectly.

As if she could read his thoughts, Annie's fingers trembled.

"All right, then.  Have it your way."

Trace knew just how much that assent had cost her.  April gave a whoop, then
scooped up the suitcases, hauling them toward the plane.

"Trace?"  Annie's voice was a jolt of pure sensation along nerve endings that
were already raw.

"Are you sure it's safe to let her do this?"

"She'll be fine.  I promise."  He didn't trust himself to look at Annie.  It
would be too easy to reach out to her, squeeze her hand.  The need was
elemental, a physical pain that pulsed mercilessly in places he'd thought
deadened to all emotion.

He wanted to look into those incredible forest-hued eyes and tell Annie that
he wouldn't let anything bad happen to her or to April ever again.

He wanted to forget that Annie hadn't wanted him, that she had run away.

Instead he whispered, his voice low, ragged,

"I know what' it cost you, giving me this chance.  I promise you won't be
sorry."

"You don't owe me anything, Trace.  This is all about April, only April."

Trace tried to shake the feeling that Annie was trying to convince herself.

"Yeah.  It's about April."  Trace murmured as Annie's voice slid beneath his
skin causing awakenings.  But it wasn't the LITTLE girl Trace was speaking
of.  It was April, that long-ago month in spring when, for a moment, just a
moment, Trace had almost dared to believe that Annie Brown's love could save
him.

Chapter 4 Annie huddled in the rear seat of the plane, her eyes gritty and
half blinded from the sun that had streamed into the window at her side.  She
had stared through the plate of glass for hours, the glaring light far less
painful than watching the first real moments April shared with her father.

But in spite of Annie's efforts, she kept catching glimpses of the two of
them together.  And those brief images had branded themselves in her mind
until every time she closed her eyes, she could see Trace's big hands closing
over April's small ones, guiding her, teaching her with that rare, offbeat
patience, that heartbreaking sense of humor that had enchanted a shy bookish
girl so many years ago.  Time and time again since they had left the Midwest,
Annie could hear Trace's murmurs of praise, see his smile flashing with
unbridled delight at his daughter.  His eyes glittered with pleasure and
pride and something so tender and vulnerable that Annie wanted to run from it.

Don't be kind!  Oh, God, Trace, please let me keep t spising you, judging
you.  Let me keep this distance ~ tween us.  It's the only way I can survive!
Annie's chest felt as if it were crushed in iron bands, 1 throat raw as
April banked the aircraft over clouds glea ing like spun sugar, but not
sparkling with half the b] liance of the little girl's laughter.

They were so much alike--the rangy, dark-haired m and the child with braids
the same mahogany hue--that~ seemed impossible they hadn't known each other
rorer It seemed impossible that the little girl hadn't blinked up her father
from her cradle.

But April hadn't had a cradle to sleep in as an infa only an orange crate
Annie had lined with a blanket.

And April didn't know Trace McKenna was her fat he If Annie had her way,
April wouldn't know for ave long time.  Until she could understand grown-up
mistak and lies that were meant to shield instead of slash at t' spirit.
Until April could understand that Annie had had J choice.

Until April could forgive her.

Annie raised trembling fingers to the knot that seem~ lodged in her throat.
Every time Trace smiled at Apr every time he touched her, murmured to her in
that hus!  voice, Annie could see April opening up to him a litl more.  And
it hurt her more than she could acknowled even to herself, because it was one
more undeniable sil that the life Annie had made for her daughter was going
change whether Annie was ready or not.

Her stomach fluttered as the plane dipped, piercing t clouds, a chorus of
hushed whispers and giggles emam ing from the front of the plane.  And then
just that su alertly, the plane was plunging beneath the clouds.  Arm
shrieked at what seemed to be a solid wall of mountain ri ing up three
hundred yards before her, blotting out the plane's windshield.

"April!  Trace, my God I" In the next breath, April tipped the wings at a
dizzying angle, the craggy wall of stone vanishing into a sweep of azure blue.

April whooped with delight.

"That was great, Mr. McKenna!  Just like you said!  Bet I scared you worse
than that time Tyler and I jumped out at you in the basement, Morn!"

The notiion that the mind-numbing, throat-freezing terror had been some kind
of prank Trace had cooked up made Annie furious.  Her heart was still three
miles back where she'd dropped it when she'd been certain that they were all
about to be killed.

"Was that your idea of a joke?"  Annie demanded in such cold accents, April
went still.  The little girl looked back uncertainly.

"Chill out, Morn," Trace said.

"The Ape and I just wanted to see if you were still alive back there.  You've
hardly said a word since we left Illinois."

"I wasn't supposed to interfere, remember?"   Bitterness, anger and fear cut
through the words.   Annie hated herself for the swift burning of tears
against her eyelids.   She would not cry.   Damn it, she would not, no matter
how badly that~ little stunt had shaken her.

Trace angled his face toward her, and for a heartbeat she saw a shadow cross
those dangerously handsome features.

"Annie, I."  -- "Mr.  McKenna?"  April's voice came, a little alarmed.  "Mr.
McKenna, look!  It's not doing what you said it would.  This thing.  It's
blinking real weird."  Trace w~heeled back around, his gaze sweeping the
instrument panel.  Annie's blood ran cold at the expression on 81 his face
the instant his eyes fixed on the high-teeh instrument April's finger was
pointing to.

"No more jokes!  I mean it!  This is not funny!"

"It sure as hell isn't."   Trace growled, slipping his hands in front of
April's.

"You have to let go now."  "But you said" -- April insisted.

"Let go!"

April yanked her hands away as if the metal beneath them had suddenly heated
a thousand degrees.  Hurt streaked across April's face, and something like
fear.  "Trace, what is it?"  Annie's voice sounded like a stranger's, even to
her own ears.

"The landing gear.  It's not responding .... " "Mommy?"  April's voice cut
Annie like a blade slipped beneath her skin.

"Mommy..."  The little girl tried desperately to squirm around, her hand
reaching back to Anme, straining.

Annie couldn't reach her fingers.  oh, God.  Annie started to climb out of
her seat toward the child.

"Sit down and belt in.  Now."  Trace ordered.  Annie started to protest, but
one glare from Trace and she hastened to do his bidding.

"I want you both to listen to me," he said firmly.

"It's going to be okay.  I've done this before."

Brought a plane down without landing gear in the mid- die of a mountain
range?  What was it?  Annie wondered a little hysterically.  Something Trace
and his nut-ball friends did for fun after they skydived with parachutes
picked up at a rummage sale?

"First I'm going to circle around, slow down as much as possible .... " Trace
worked with fierce intensity.  Annie followed his gaze to one of the gauges.
Her stomach plunged.  Fuel.

The indicator was dropping at an alarming "Are we running out of gas?"

"No.  I'm jettisoning the fuel."

"Why?"

"We're better off without it."

To lessen the risk of fire, Annie knew suddenly, her head filling with
hideous newsreel images of passenger jets exploding into flames.

She wanted to retch as the plane began its descent, the cushion of air
between its metal belly and the jagged, tearing rocks below growing narrower.
Annie's eyes locked on a landing strip that seemed impossibly tiny even for
an airplane in perfect working order.  It didn't take much imagination to
figure out what would happen to an aircraft skidding and careering toward the
end of that strip.  Trace grabbed the radio, his voice low, tense.

"Mayday.

Mayday.  Rob, do you read me?  "

A static-laden voice sputtered back.

"Tra--Lin--Spotted you--in view.

Wh"-- " Gonna be coasting in on my belly.  Damn landing gear jammed.  Get
your butt over here.  Pronto.  "

Annie heard garbled words that must be swearing.  What was this Rob supposed
to do to help?  Run out and catch them on a feather pillow?

Trace glanced at the white-faced child beside him.  "Don't worry, April.  I'm
going to set her down real easy.

Just like a paper airplane you glide in for a landing on your teacher's desk.
"

Except paper airplanes weren't firebombs with wings, Annie thought wildly.
They weren't metal shells ready to break apart.

Helpless, Annie watched Trace's jaw clench, his long, strong fingers guiding
the plane downward, slowing its speed.  April had given up trying to speak.
She was watching Trace with wide eyes.  A child's eyes, edged with fear, yet
not truly believing anything bad would happen to her.

Hex mother would somehow magically save her.  Her mother or the man gripping
the aircraft's controls.

"Ape, listen to me," Trace's voice came, bracing.

"I'm gonna show you how the pros do this.  The guy who taught me emergency
landings was a p'dot in Vietnam, a real war hero~ Brought down a 1oadful of
injured men after a bunch of the ba5 guys had shot off his" -- Annie didn't
even hear the rest of the story.  All she could do was watch the narrow bare
strip of land looming before ~, a bank of trees waiting at its end.

All she could do was pray.

"Hold on to your butts, people," Trace ordered.

"We're about to make contact."

The plane hit.  Annie's teeth cracked together with enough force to dislodge
every filling she'd ever had.  Her elbow slammed hard into a metal brace to
her left.  Her stomach rebelled at the crazy tilting, the horrible grinding
sound of bare metal scraping the surface of the airfield.  The wings were
waving with the same frantic energy of a bird trapped in a fox's jaws, while
the end of the landing strip -- raced toward them with deadly speed, in spite
of Trace's effort to slow the plane down.

Trace was swearing, low, maybe a little desperately, as if the plane were a
person he was trying to bully into submission.

Annie could see the corded muscles standing out like iron strips against his
skin, she could feel the almost savage force of his will as he held on,
fighting.

The battle seemed to have lasted forever, but it was over in seconds.  The
plane skidded, listing to the right, then bumped to a stop.

Annie didn't even have time to mutter a prayer of thanksgiving before Trace
was struggling out of his safety harness, battling to turn around in the
cockpit.

"Annie?"

Trace's face was ice-white, beaded with sweat.

"My God, Annie."

Strange, Annie mused through a web of nausea, that he hadn't first called out
to April.  But then, April was obviously fine--squirming from her own harness
like a terrified monkey.

"Mommy?  Mommy, don't die!"

Annie struggled to beat back the dizzying waves of darkness that accompanied
the pain in her arm.

"I'm not ... going to die .... " Annie choked out, her stomach sloshing
around like a barrel hurtling over Niagara Falls, her fingers fumbling with
the safety harness.

"I'm going to ... be ... sick" -- Her skin went clammy, cold sweat sopping
through her blouse, her fingers unable to obey her mind's commands.

She glimpsed Trace forcing the door to the plane open, felt him uusnap her
belts, his strong arms dragging her over the seat, out into a blast of fresh
air.

Oh, God, please don't let me throw up on him, Annie thought numbly, her legs
giving out on her.  She struck the landing strip on her knees, retching,
Trace's arm looped beneath her n'bs to support her.  His other hand caught
back her tumbled hair.

She should have been furious, humiliated.  Instead, she leaned against
Trace's hard-muscled strength for a long moment, grateful that they were all
still alive.  Trace released her long enough to grab a clean bandanna from
his back pocket, then he gently tipped her face up, swabbing away the beads
of sweat as if she were no older than April.

Annie might have been able to yell at him if he hadn't looked so damned
shaken himself.

"You call that ... safe?"

was all she could manage to squeeze out as April all but bowled her over in a
terrified hug.

Trace's smile wavered at one corner as he reached out, tucking a wisp of hair
behind Annie's ear.

"Safety is highly overrated, Brown-Eyes."

She should have been angry, but she'd heard that legendary Trace McKenna
bravado a hundred times before.

From the beginning she'd realized it was just a mask to hide his
vulnerability.  As she looked into Trace's eyes, she was suddenly certain he
had been every bit as terrified as she Was.

"Mommy, I don't like flying!  P-please, can we go home?"  April was shaking
so hard her teeth were chattering.

"I wanna go home!"

It was all Annie could do not to join in her daughter's walling.  She would
have given ten years of her life to be a thousand miles away from this
airstrip with its wreckage of Trace McKenna's plane, away from Trace's hands
and face and rough, whiskey-warm voice that had left her heart devastated to
the same magnitude nine years before.

They hadn't even arrived at his blasted retreat, and he'd almost gotten April
killed.

"April, accidents happen," Trace said, attempting to soothe the little girl.

"We're all right.  That's all that mat" My mommy's not all right!  She
throwed up and she never throws up!  I thought she'd be dead, just like my
daddy.  "

Trace flinched as if April had driven a knife into his chest.  Annie could
feel him withdraw, his touch no longer bracing Annie, soothing her, but
rather chilling into some~ thing detached, impersonal.  No, not impersonal.
Annie thought she could sense the tiny shiver of something like disgust.

But before anyone could fill the jolting silence with words, a spray of
gravel shot up beneath the tires of a Jeep that was roaring toward them on
the narrow road.  A razor-thin man of about thirty all but vaulted out of the
vehicle while it was still moving.

"Is everyone safe?  Anyone else in the plane?"  the man shouted.

"No.  All accounted for," Trace assured him.  But instead of relaxing, the
man raked his fingers through hair already standing on end.  ':McKenna, you
crazy bastard!  I can't believe you got that bird down in one piece.  "

"You know me, Rob.  I'm a blasted miracle worker."

"What the hell happened?   Did you have the thing strung together with
baling wire again?"

Trace winced inwardly, remembering the warning the young mechanic had given
him.  Unfortunately, the fact that Trace's own negligence had endangered
Annie and April wasn't as easy to dismiss as the countless other stunts he
had pulled over the years.

"Just some kind of malfunction," Trace said gruffly attempting to cover his
emotions.

"Something jammed.  It happens."

"Yeah.  But why does it always seem to happen to you?"  Rob looked bone-deep
worried--like someone who had spent a lot of sleepless nights stewing over a
friend who didn't have the common sense God gave an ant.  Trace knew he'd
given the man more than enough headaches during their friendship.

"Rob, I'd like to introduce you to Annie Brown, and this is April, my...
guests."

"Bet you'll never be crazy enough to fly with this nut case again,"

Rob said.

"This guy should come with a warning label from the Surgeon General.
Hazardous to your health."

"Yeah, well, no one knows that better than Annie," Trace said.

"Can you get up, miss?"  Rob started to extend his hand, but Trace blocked
him and scooped Annie up onto her feet himself.  She still felt about as
stable as a leaf in a wind- stom.

April was working hard at stifling her tears.

"You sure nothing's broken?  Maybe I should call the doc?"

"No, I'm fine," Annie said faintly.

"Just ... a little shaken."

"Yeah, and the San Andreas Fault is just a tiny imperfectlon in the earth,"
Trace muttered.  I'll take care of her, Rob.  Take care of the bird for me.
I need to get these two in and settled.  You did take care of the project I
called about, didn't you?  I mean, when I called from Chic ago"-- " Yeah.
Took my daughter with me to give me a read on what a girl this age would
like, and"-- " Okay, okay.  Great.  " Trace cut in.  He slipped an arm around
Annie and started toward.  the edge of the landing strip where his own Land
Cruiser was waiting.  " Trace, let me know if you need anything," Rob called
after them.

"We won't."  The only thing Trace needed at the moment was to get Annie and
April inside, make sure he hadn't hurt them.  God, maybe his father was
right--maybe Trace did destroy everything he touched.

No.  It had all worked out.  He'd brought the plane down safely.  Annie and
April were unhurt.  It was a miracle considering how damned scared he'd been.
Scared in a way he hadn't felt in nine years--a deep fear that had sickened
him instead of exhilarated him.

Without another word, Trace lowered Annie into the passenger side of the
hunter-green vehicle, then loaded April in the back.  He sped down the
access road as if he thought the plane disappearing behind them would explode
any moment.

"Trace," Annie said, fumbling for her seat belt.

"I'd be... real annoyed if we... survived a plane crash only to smack into a
tree.  The plane would have made much more... interesting news copy."

Trace looked at her long and hard, seeming to drive by instinct alone down
the twisted, tree-lined ribbon of road.

"You sure you're okay?"

"I whacked my elbow pretty good, but nothing broke" -- her words ended in a
gasp, punctuated by April's sudden cry.

"Mommy, that cliff is a house!"

Annie gaped at the structure as Trace pulled to a stop.  Had it not been for
the glare of sun Fight on the windows, she could have passed the house
without noticing its existence.  Planes of stone followed the contours of the
abut merit stark, breathtaking, as if the man who built it had wanted to be
one with the rugged beauty all around him.

Or, Annie thought with sudden insight, as if he wanted to disappear
altogether.  cease to exist.

That was absurd.  From the first moment she'd met Trace McKenna he had
thrived on being center stage.  He hadn't minded risking expulsion, or
breaking his neck to get attention.

Likely the man had merely tossed down an obscene amount of money and directed
an architect to build him a house where he could go rock climbing from his
front door.

Annie was so lost in her thoughts she didn't even notice that Trace had
stopped until he wrenched open her door.

She started to climb out on her own, stunned that she was still pretty wobbly
in the knees, but Trace only swore softly, then scooped her up into his
strong arms.  Annie protested, her cheeks heating as she caught a glimpse of
April.  B~ seemed that the ehild's fear at their near-death experie had been
considerably dulled by her first glimpse of T~ McIr~nna's "totally awesome"
house.

In a second, Trace had Annie at a door adorned ~ stained glass insets
portraying an Indian astride a p~ stallion at the edge of this very cliff.
The warrior's a were stretched toward the sun, as if to embrace it.

When Trace shoved the door open with one shoul, Annie realized that he
embraced everything the war symbolized.

The interior of the house in the cliff looked as if it_ been spun on a
Navaho's weaving loom--colors of PA and sky, a hundred different bronzes and
golds and 1 quoises splashed across the huge, sunken great room.

Nubby homespun textures tempted fingers to to~ overstuffed couches and
chairs.  Gnarled wooden tab scarred by the spurs of cowboys a hundred years
ago, ,~ polished to the mellow sheen of old gold.  Nothing hung the walls of
the room.  But if there had been a verita museum display of Rembrandts and
Monets and , Goghs, Annie doubted any visitor would notice them w] confronted
with the picture framed by the giant sweep windows that formed the entire
front of the house.  Sky.  Mountain.  A crashing silver river so far below
looked like a trickle of water from a child's hand.  The v~ beauty reached
into Annie's chest, squeezed her heart tight she couldn't breathe.

But hadn't Trace McKenna done that from the first ti she'd seen him?

And the compelling aura of the boy ~, had known was a thomand times more
potent in this mar this man who was a stranger to her.  This man whose na
she'd cried when she was terrified and alone in a hospital Cincinnati and
labor pains were tearing through her like the claws of some raging beast.

"Can I look around, Mr. McKenna?"  April piped up, trailing in Annie and
Trace's wake-.

"This is your home, too," Trace said, then quickly amended,

"At least for the next three Weeks.  Check the place out.  See if you can
find the bedroom I had set up for you."

The child disappeared down the corridor, and Annie felt more than a little
light-headed as Trace carried her to the spacious couch and set her down on
it.  tie looked so worried Annie forced her lips into a quavery smile.

"This has been quite a day, huh, McKenna?"  "Yeah, well."  He shrugged.

"Let the good times roll."

"The good times, the plane, the Jeep..."  "The plane didn't roll.

Thank God.  " The words were low, a little rough.

Annie wanted him to smile.  Instead, those incredible eyes of his darkened,
fierce, intense.

"You're sure you aren't hurt?  I heard a helluva thump back there."

"Might've been the plane hitting the runway."

"I've heard that sound before.   This was more like an dbow whacking
something metal."

Unbidden, Annie's hand went to her left arm.  She swallowed hard as Trace
took her wrist in his loose-fingered grasp, unfastening the tiny
mother-of-pear button at her cuff, rolling the fabric back, away from her
skin.

It was a simple gesture.  It should've been a relatively impersonal one.  Why
was it that the nerve endings beneath the bruising on Annie's skin were
suddenly charged, not with pain, but with a sensation far different?  Why was
it that she felt as if Trace had stripped away more than her 91 sleeve?
Maybe the first layering of the defenses she'd erected around her heart.

No.  She couldn't afford to weaken where Trace was con- cerued.  It would be
far too easy to be swept up in the wild rushing ma ic that had consumed Annie
before.  She was older now, armed with wisdom gained on the mean streets, and
with the need to keep her wits about her, to protect her child.

But Trace's callused fingers were probing the slight swelling, moving the
joint as if he were a surgeon instead of a professional daredevil.

"It's all right," he affirmed at last, his thumb stroking a slow circle over
the bruise.

"Annie, I'm sorry I scared you sO damned bad."

"I got my revenge once you got me out of the plane.  Dramamine might have
saved me on the double Ferris wheel, but I guess it doesn't cover motion
sickness when the motion in question is an airplane plummeting to the ground
."  ' She saw something flicker in Trace's eyes.  The thick, dark fans of his
lashes drooped to the ridges of his cheekbones.

He hesitated for a long moment.

"Why'd you keep it, Brown-Eyes?"

"Keep what?"

"That stupid monkey from the carnival?"  She'd left herself wide open for
that one.  But then, even if she'd never said a word, the question would have
come sometime.

Knowing Trace, it was inevitable he'd ask when she was the least prepared.

Annie's cheeks burned.  I kept it because it made that magical night seem
real, with the colored lights reflected in your eyes, the lemonade sweet on
my tongue, your fingers threading through mine as if we belonged together .
Annie loo keel away.

"I've always been a pack rat.  Someday, when April was older, I wanted to be
able to give her something that was linked to her father."  The revelation
made Annie's cheeks sting, and she would've walked across hot coals to get
away from the haunting light in Trace's eyes.

"I should go find April," she stammered.

"Make sure she's okay."

She got up, her balance shored by her need to flee.  It seemed this time he
was willing to let her retreat, because he stood, too, and jammed his hands
into the pockets of his "Bet I know where she is."  He started down a wide,
cool corridor that branched off in three directions.

Annie glimpsed a kitchen with adobe walls and hickory cabinets, copper pots
and dried chili pepper wreaths dangling from iron hooks.  The door to the
master bedroom stood open, a massive hewn-oak bed in the center of the room,
covered with an exquisite handwoven spread.  There was something almost shy
about him as he took the fork in the hallway that angled to the right, and
Annie could sense the tremor of anticipation that seemed to throb beneath his
careless aura.

"Trace, What's this all about?"  Annie asked.

His voice was more than a little gruff.

"I, uh, wanted to give April a surprise she'd never forget, so I" -- At that
moment they rounded the bend.  April stood in the center of a room, her face
frozen like that of a bad child actor on the stage of a grade-B horror film.

She was silhouetted against a decor that was all pink and lace and ribbons.
The curtains had more froth on them than a wedding gown, the bed was painted
with ballerina bunnies, a gorgeous canopy stretched above it.  Enough fashion
dolls to populate Macy's lounged around a pint-size penthouse that would have
done Donald Trump proud.

DresS-up clothes were mounded in a life-sized treasure chest, glittering
tiaras and feather boas spilling over the rim.  Most horrifying of all, a
white-painted vanity table stood against the wall, its top littered with a
supply of fake jewelry and Bonnie Buttons makeup for preTeens.  Annie pressed
her hand against her mouth, hard.  It would be too cruel to laugh at the
dazed expression on her daughter's face, and the equally thunderstruck one on
Trace's own.

Annie turned away from them to regain her composure, but her gaze collided
with an open closet door, proudly displaying dresses.  A dozen dresses and
matching shorts sets decked out with sequins and lace were lined up in
military precision.  Patent leather shoes gleamed next to a peg sporting a
matching purse.  If the underpants tucked in the drawer had ice-cream cones
on them, Trace McKenna was a dead man.

Annie's heart wrenched with sympathy and frustration toward the man who stood
behind her.  Sympathy because Trace had been so blasted eager to have his
little girl love him that he'd gone to all this trouble to please her.
Frustration because he hadn't taken the time to find out how to delight
April, treating her, instead, like some sort of cookie cutter child.  Annie
could almost see the page in some kind of cosmic guide book.  Girl, age
eight: lace, ruffles and fashion dolls.

This room would have been a dream come true for most little girls.

For April it was a nightmare.

Trace had said he wanted to give April a day she'd never forget.  He'd
succeeded beyond his wildest imagination.  The almost-plane-crash couldn't
hold a candle to this disaster.  "More?"

April breathed without turning around.

"This time I think I'm the one who's gonna throw up."

Chapter 5 Frustration pulsed through Trace's veins.  He spewed out a string
of oaths, his face burning with embarrassment at his own stupidity.

"Son of a bitch!  Damn it, I" -- Annie rounded on him.

"That's about enough.  I understand that you were trying to do something nice
for April.  It didn't work out the way you planned, but" -- "You think I
can't figure that out for myself, Brown- Eyes?  I've always been real good at
determining exactly when I've screwed up."

"It's not the end of the world, Trace."  She sounded like a schoolmarm trying
to calm a kid on a rampage.

"It's not April's fault that" -- "April's fault?"  If Annie had just booted
him in the head he couldn't have been more stunned.

"Of all the ridiculous-" Trace glanced at the little girl who seemed to have
shrunk, somehow, during his bout of anger.  She stared at him with round
eyes, far more subdued than when they'd been inches away from vaporizing in a
ball of flaming fuselage.

Trace started to swear again, then stopped himself.  Hell, no wonder the kid
looked undone.  Any ground Trace had gained with the child on the airplane
flight was disappearing fast, and he didn't have the slightest idea how to
stop this crash and burn.

He'd wanted the room to be perfect.  His first gift to his little girl.  He'd
wanted to delight her, to dazzle her.  To make her love him the way his
parents never had.  The way Annie never had.

Instead, he'd disappointed her, then scared the daylights out of her.

Trace wanted to go to April, comfort her.  InStead, he jammed his fists into
his pockets, hating the vulnerability the child spawned in him--a rawness he
hadn't felt since the night he'd spilled all his emotions into Annie Brown's
hands.

"Trace," Annie bit out, low, "you could've talked to me about April before
you myou plunged into this."

"Right."  A muscle in his jaw worked and he fought for balance.

"After all, you've known her since she was a baby, haven't you?  While I" --
He ground his teeth, stopping the bitter words.  He didn't want to make
things worse for the poor kid.

"Take another room for now, April," Trace said after a moment.

"I'll get rid of this garbage."

"I-It's okay," April stammered.

"I mean, I..."  Her gaze flitted desperately around the room, lighting on a
stuffed bear almost buried in puffy white kitties.

"The bear'11 be real cool, once I ge( that pink ballet costume off her."

"It's okay, Ape."  Trace forced stiff lips into a crooked smile.

"I

know this isn't exactly your style.  I wouldn't want both you and your room
throwing up the first day you got here.  "

"Trace," Annie began, and he could see the irritation, the frustration and
the grudging sympathy in her face.  It was the sympathy that made him see
red.  He didn't need anyone to feel sorry for him.  Especially Annie.

He waved her to silence with one hand.

"I'm gonna go see if I can salvage your luggage from the plane.  You two
just--hell, I don't know.  Do whatever you want."  He started out of the
house, heard the bedroom door shut, then Annie's light, anger-quickened steps
behind him.  "Blast it, Trace, you just wait a minute.  You made a mistake.
It's not the end of the world."

"That's true enough."   He wheeled on her, fighting to keep his anger
bottled up inside him.

"I can have that stuff swept out and a whole new batch brought in before
tomorrow night."

Something in what he said made ebony sparks quicken in Annie's eyes.

"It's so easy for you, isn't it, Trace?  Just flinging out money for
airplanes and canopy beds and God knows what else!  April doesn't need
things."

Trace reacted like a wolf with a knife in its paw.  "Could'a fooled me.
Somehow, I don't imagine the Christmas tree in that shelter you live in
loaded down with toys.

April said your car's about ready for the junk heap, and you don't have a
clue how you're going to afford braces.  "

Annie went ashen and Trace knew he'd hit her right when she was weakest.

"April had no right to tell you that."

"She wasn't telling me anything I hadn't figured out for myself the first
time I walked in your door.  That shelter isn't exactly the Ritz, you know?
In fact, I bet you get some pretty ugly characters zinging in and out.  Not
exactly the ~1 Father's Claim kind of surroundings that would get the PTA
stamp of.

pr oval if you know what I mean.  "

"April has always had everything she's needed?  " Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I can
tell her childhood has i~ Disneyland.  But that's all gonna change now that
I'm in life.  "

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"You're the genius.  You figure it out.  Now, if you'll cuse me, I've got
something to take care of."

"Don't you mean you're running away from this m~ the way you always have when
things didn't work out actly the way you wanted?"

Nothing she could're said would have triggered Tra~ fury more completely.
His face contorted into a snarl.  "

I remember, you were the one who ran.  That is, after ) let me believe that
you'd gotten rid of my baby.  "

She flinched.  Sadistic jerk that he was, he was glad.  "Why'd you do that,
Annie?"  he demanded with vel menace.

"Why'd you have your daddy tell me that yo~ destroyed our child?  Thrown my
baby away?"

Those incredible green eyes grew rounder, what li' color remained in her
cheeks washing away.

"I never t my father that I was going to have an abortion," An faltered.

"They wanted me to.  My parents, and yours, t But I couldn't... My God,
Trace, I had no idea" -- No one that pale and shaken could be telling a lie.
Tr felt like the biggest bastard on the planet.  And the bigg fool for
displaying such a raw place in his soul.  He foul back the only way he knew
how--hard and fast and na.  ~ "what the hell did it matter what anyone told
me Trace scoffed.

"You sure as hell didn't want anything to with me.  You made that crystal
clear the last time I s you.  I'm sure you didn't want anyone to suspect that
Tr; McKenna had knocked you up.  No father at all would be better for your
baby than a worthless screw-up like me."

Something flickered in ,annie eyes, as if he'd just ripped his fingernails
across some half-healed wound inside her.

She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door to April's room, raw terror,
pleading in her eyes.

Trace felt sick at the possibility April might have heard.  He charged past
Annie and flung open the bedroom door.

Relief shot through him.  April was curled on the window seat, industriously
undressing the bear as promised, oblivious to the rancor seething between the
adults outside her door.

April looked up at him with wary eyes exactly the shade of Trace's own.

Trace tried to force words past the lump that had suddenly knotted his throat.

"I just wanted to tell you that you were right," he said, managing to squeeze
the words out.  "The dress did look stupid on that bear."

He could feel April's eyes on him as he stalked from the room.  He shoved
past Annie, then stormed to the Land Cruiser and put it in gear.  It wasn't
until he had driven deep into the shelter of the trees that he allowed
himself to slump against the seat in defeat.

He felt more beat up inside than he had when he'd awakened in the hospital
three weeks ago.  He felt about as helpless as when the explosion had sent
him flying through the air.

But far worse, he felt exposed, somehow, defenseless against the reproach in
Annie's and April's eyes.  That made him feel unnerved, edgy, as if he had
suddenly been slung back into the past, into the body of the
seventeen-year-old kid who had known little but disapproval and scorn, felt
little but anger that hid away the reality of a yawning emptiness inside him,
an unquenchable need to have someone, anyone, reach out to him, believe what?
That he could do something right?  That he wasn't a walking disaster?

Damn!  Trace slammed his fist against the steering wheel.  He shouldn't still
hurt so much, feel so crazy, as if all his insecurities had suddenly been
laid bare.  He had buried them deep years ago, when he'd walked away from
Arizona, and the memories of Annie that had haunted him there.

He'd wanted to stride back into Annie's life--confident, self-assured.  A man
who had survived the crucible of his past and emerged a success.

Instead, he felt more like a fumbling kid than ever.  The constant screw-up.
Worthless.

That single word, flitting through his consciousness, galvanized Trace,
filling his mind with the bitterest of memories.  Colonel Brown's hands
knotted in Trace's shirt as he slammed Trace against the support post of the
porch, the military man's eyes simmering with hate, with fury, with barely
restrained violence that would have terrified Trace, if Trace had had
anything left to lose.

You spineless piece of garbage!  You think my daughter would have anything to
do with someone like you?  You may have gotten her in the back seat of your
car, Mr. Doctor's son, but she knows what a worthless mess you are now!  She
got rid of your baby.  Threw it away like so much trash--the same way she's
throwing you away .  A furious groan parted Trace's lips as he shoved the
memory away.  The words that had been just one more echoing of his father's
angry denouncements, his teachers' jeering putdowns.

Has anyone ever told you that you're wonderful?  An- me's shy question
rippled through Trace's memory, the lights of the carnival glowing on her
skin, her eyes shim100 roe ring with pleasure as he laid the stuffed monkey
in her arias.

No, Brown-Eyes, Trace could hear his own voice, the unsteadiness in it that
had made his cheeks heat with embarrassment.

No one ever has.  When he'd stormed away from Arizona, after that scene with
Annie's father, he'd been in so much anguish he'd come close to flinging
himself in front of one of the cars zooming past him on the freeway.
Instead, he'd promised himself that he'd show them all that they were wrong
about Trace McKenna.  All of them .  his father, Colonel Brown.  Annie.  And
he had proved himself through his spectacular success.

He'd signed on with FireStorm a week later.  Within three years he was their
number one man.  Nothing, no one, was going to take that triumph away from
him now.  So he'd messed up with the room for April.  Big deal.  He could
still make it right.

A few phone calls, and presto chango.  Trace McKenna snapped his fingers and
whatever he wanted was done.  His bank account was better at granting his
wishes than any genie who'd ever been trapped in a damned bottle.  ~ It could
buy him anything.  Houses built into cliffs, airplanes, friends.  Hell, Trace
sneered inwardly, remembering his hasty departure from the hospital and his
flash-fast arrival on Annie's doorstep.  His money had even gotten him his
daughter back, hadn't it?  After all, if he'd been some poor bastard
roughneck, working on an oil well, he would've had to wait God knew how long
until he had the money, the ability to go after April.

Yeah, Trace thought grimly.  He was one lucky son of a bitch.

Then why did he feel so damned empty inside?

Three hours later, Trace parked the Cruiser back under a stand of lodge pole
pines outside the cliff house.  The rear of the vehicle held the
suitcases--somewhat worse for the wear.  He'd worked hard to excavate them
from the wreckage, actually grateful for the chance to battle against the
twisted metal--physical exertion having always been his safety vane when his
emotions had been getting the better of him.

But as he stared at the windows of the house, now lit mellow gold against the
encroaching twilight, Trace still couldn't rid himself of the bitter taste of
failure.  The gnawing, familiar sense of defeat that wouldn't let him go.

A sensation somehow worse because Annie had witnessed it.  And Trace knew
that he'd never forget the mixtur~ of pity and disgust that had swirled in
her forest-hued eyes.  That was, by far, the most grating thing that had
happened in this day filled with disaster.  Annie had seen him fail big time.

Worse still, he'd gotten so angry he'd thrown aside his defenses and let her
see just how deep his scars ran.  Then, to top it off, he'd hit her own weak
spots with all the finesse of a pit bull, left her hurting.  He'd wanted to
pay her back just a little for the pain her desertion had caused him.  But
somewh~re,_in his anger and embarrassment, he'd forgotten that Annie had
given him a gift beyond price--a chance to get to know April.  To be part of
her life.

She had trusted him that much, at least.  Okay, so he'd pressured her.

But she'd still decided to give him a chance.

After the way he'd acted in the hallway of the cliff house, Trace wouldn't
have blamed her if she'd changed her mind.

Sucking in a deep breath, he grabbed the hags, then made his way to the door,
shoving it open with his shoulder.  He wasn't sure what he expected--Annie,
on the phon~ making arrangements to take April back to Chicago.  April
tearful and angry and hating him.  Or both of them withdrawn and full of
censure over his behavior hours before.  Quietly, Trace eased the suitcases
to the floor, listening, looking as he made his way down the corridor.  He
found them in the antacid-pink bedroom.  April sat cross-legged in the middle
of that ruffiy bed, looking as out of place as a catcher's mitt on a trayful
of cream puffs.  She was dressed in one of Trace's own T-shirts.  The thing
was gigantic on the kid, the dive-shop emblem faded.  April's dark hair
cascaded down her back, while Annie sat behind her, drawing a brush through
the glorious mahogany ripples.

April's eyes were half closed, and he could see her s'~oh with pleasure,
while Annie.  Annie's face was wistful, maybe a little bit sad, as if images
of the woman April would one day become were tangled in the brown-and-gold
strands.  As if Annie knew that each stroke of the brush brought her one more
heartbeat closer to having to let go.

But at least Annie had had April for a while.  At least she had memories of
her toddling steps.  It was as if they were surrounded in some mystical
circle--mother, child.  A bond that had been glorified in paintings since the
first artist had attempted to capture the Madonna on canvas.  It was a circle
Trace knew that he could never breach, never be a part of.  No matter how
many sets of braces he paid for, or how many rooms he designed for the little
girl sitting on the bed.

Maybe he was wrong to risk upsetting that delicate balance between Annie and
April, a voice whispered inside him.

The thought burned around the edges of his heart, until he couldn't watch
them for another minute.  He turned and walked away, alone.

Annie glanced up, catching just a glimpse of Trace's features cast in shadow.
She stroked a hand down April's silky hair.

"Time for bed, munch king

"Yeah.  But if I have any nightmares about killer pink bunnies trying to
skewer me with carrot swords, I'm comin' in to sleep in your bed,"
Aprilinsisted.

Annie tucked the little girl in, then shut out the lights.  She hovered there
long minutes, her hand still on the light switch, her teeth catching
nervously at her lower lip as she peered down the corridor where Trace had
disappeared.

It would probably be best for all concerned if she just found herself a bed
and went to sleep, left things alone until morning, when they'd both had time
to cool their tempers.

If she'd seen even a hint of anger in Trace McKenna's eyes, she probably
would have done just that.  But the light had snagged on his mouth for just a
moment, revealing something vulnerable, something lonely that had reached
into Annie's chest and tugged, hard.

Why 'd you have your daddy tell me you threw away my baby?

How many times in the past three hours had Tracc's words echoed in Annie's
mind, painting horrifyingly vivid pictures of the scene that must have
transpired between her father and Trace so long ago.  No one knew better than
Annie that Colonel Brown could wield verbal weapons with far more skill than
he'd ever brought to firing an M16.  He'd leveled Annie emotionally more
times than she could count.  And he'd loved her.  In spite of it all, deep
down, Annie had known her father loved her.

The rigid, military-disciplined Colonel Brown had hated wild, irrepressible
Trace McKenna from the first time he'd laid eyes on him.

She had wanted Trace to believe that everything was over--wanted to erase
all sense of responsibility from his mind.  The letter she had left for him
had been firm, and yet she had tried to ease Trace's guilt as gently as
possible, to shield him with ambiguities.  She hadn't written that she was
getting an abortion, although that was what her parents had wanted her to do.
She had left it so that Trace could believe that if he chose to, so that he
could forget.

But there would have been no gentleness in her father's words.  No
Understanding for the boy who had seemed so tough, but had been so vulnerable
underneath it, all Annie reeled at the image of her father glorying in
hurting Trace, the bastard who had hurt his little girl.  She reeled at the
knowledge that Trace had spoken to her father at all.

God knew, Colonel Brown had never bothered to tell her.  Not even years after
April's birth, when Annie and her parents had reconciled.

If Annie had had any idea what her father was going to do, she would have
summoned up the courage to stay and face Trace herself.  But Trace had always
made her so weak, so vulnerable, she'd been terrified that if she saw him one
more time, he'd manage to talk her into something she knew they'd both regret
for the rest of their lives.

Still, if her father had told Annie Trace had come after her, things might
have been different.

How?  Annie demanded of herself sharply.  She and Trace could've settled down
in one of those cozy little cottages in the suburbs with a white picket fence
and a golden retriever?  Trace could've gotten a job swinging a sledgehammer
for minimum wage and worked himself old long before his time, while she
watched him grow harder and more bitter, restless and unhappy, until he hated
her, resented the baby.

No.  If Colonel Brown had posted an ad in the New York Ttmes that Trace had
come looking for Annie, it wouldn't have changed anything.  Trace would still
have been hellbent on his own destruction.  Annie still would have had to
find a way to struggle through the pain of loving him.  It was an exercise in
futility to wonder what might have been, weave fairy-tale endings and
happily-ever-afters.  And yet, as Annie made her way quietly through Trace
MeKenna's empty, quiet house, she couldn't help but realize just how deeply
her father's lie must have cut Trace.  How those harsh words must have
wounded his spirit.  She had seen the boy's pain in the man's eyes three
hours ago when he'd been taut with fury, his I-couldn't-give-a-damn aura
stripped away.

Slowly, Annie walked through the dimly lit house, searching for some sign of
Trace.  She found him outside, beyond a sliding glass door that led out onto
an outcropping of rock that formed a patio.  Rugged furniture hewn of logs
blended beautifully in with the woodlands that cupped the house in its palm,
while the sunset bled over the rim of the horizon in trickles of glowing
crimson.

Trace stood at the edge of the outcropping, silhouetted against the vivid
hues.  His long, jeans-clad legs were braced apart, as if he were carrying
some grindingly heavy weight on those broad shoulders.  His hands were shoved
in the back pockets of his jeans.  His head was flung back, as if he was
staring into the sky, his long, dark hair rippling in the breeze.  He was
every bit as beautiful a male specimen as the Indian worked in stained glass.
And, Annie thought suddenly, he was just as solitary, standing there.
Oddly, Trace McKenna had always seemed alone, even when he was in the middle
of a crowd of laughing friends and adoring females.  Even as a girl, Annie
had understood that feeling.  She had known it so often herself.  In truth,
it was what had first drawn her to the rebellious boy who had changed the
course of her life.

Even now, so many years later, it made her increclibly sad to realize that
while she was finally safe in a circle of love woven by trusted friends and
her heautiful daughter, Trace McKenna was still as solitary as he had been
from the first moment she had seen him.

' Her fingers trembled a little as she reached for the door's gleaming
handle.  It slid open with barely a whisper, worlds away from the doors in
Baby Place--creaking hinges caked with decades' worth of paint.

"Trace?"  She said his name softly, and he stilled.  She could feel the waves
of wariness rippling from every muscle in his body.

He cleared his throat.

"Your suitcases weren't in too bad shape, all things considered.  I left them
in the hall."

"Thanks.  Was there a lot of damage to the plane?"  One shoulder shrugged.

"What the hell.  If we can't patch it up, I'll buy myself a new one."  He was
mocking himself, Annie realized suddenly.  Mocking everything that he was.

Just as he always had.

"Trace, stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Pretending not to care.  I'm sorry.  Sorry about the plane.  Sorry about the
room.  I'm just... sorry."

She heard his breath hiss between his teeth as if she'd struck him with a
whip.  He turned and the glowing hues of the sunset touched the planes of his
face.  Annie had seen just that lost expression on his features before, the
night she'd found him in the loft of Halloran's stable.  That alone should're
been enough to send her racing in the opposite direction.

But Trace's voice came, soft.

"Why should you be sorry, Brown-Eyes?

I've been a first-class bastard from the too107 ment I stormed back into your
life.  The big man, wanting to impress April.  And you.  " Annie could
imagine what that rough-edged confession had cost him.

"Oh well.  Guess you've figured out one thing, anyway."

"What's that?"

"That you did the right thing when you" -- He hesitated, dragging his hand
through his hair.

"What was it your dad said?  Threw me away?"

Oh, God.  The words twisted in Annie's chest like a knife.  She couldn't
afford to feel this way.  Not toward Trace.  He had stormed into her life and
threatened to take her child.  His mere presence in April's life could
shatter the foundation of trust Annie had built with her daughter.  And yet,
she suddenly felt as if she were the one hurting him.

Annie balled her hands into fists, resisting the temptation to run her
fingers down the hard, beard-stubbled line of Trace's jaw.

She didn't dare reach out to him.  She had tried to comfort him once before,
and it had led her deeper and deeper into something she hadn't understood
until it was too late to turn away.

Still, how could she stand here, leaving those pain-filled words dangling
between them?  If she did, wasn't she making what he said true somehow?
Confirming her father's cruel words?

"I didn't throw you away, Trace.  I only wanted to let you get 'on with your
future.  We were kids.  We made a mistake.

You had so many dreams.  I didn't want you to pay for what happened between
us for the rest of your life.  "

"But it was okay for you to pay, huh, Annie?  What about your dreams?

You know.  The big stage.  The concert grand.  You worked so hard.  Were so
damned good on the piano.

Sometimes, when I'd listen, my chest would get all tight, like.  like there
was something inside me trying to get free.  You gave that all up.  "

"Sometimes fate chooses paths for us that are different than the ones we'd
have picked for ourselves.  In my case, the fates were fight.  I was meant to
be scared and alone when I gave birth to April.  I was meant to wander into
J.  T.  James's shelter.  Because of that, I've been able to do far more good
than I ever would have on any concert stage."

"You could've given me a chance," Trace growled.  "A chance to what?

You didn't love me, Trace.  "

He waited for a heartbeat.

"What if I did?"

A pained laugh squeezed from Annie's chest.

"I was sixteen, you were seventeen.  We were infatuated with each other.  But
love?  The forever kind?  No."  Silence.  Long.  Pulsing.  Annie glanced once
at Trace McKenna's storm-cloud eyes, then turned away.

"Come on, McKenna.  Look at you.  Mr. Rich Powerful Adventurer.

You don't exactly fit the mold of a guy who's been nursing a broken heart for
nine years.  "

For a moment, Annie was almost afraid of what he'd say.  His eyes darkened,
the mysteries in the gray-blue depths deepening.  Then the corner of his
mouth softened into that smile Annie had seen so rarely, even on the boy he
had been.

"If I'd known how good you'd look, I might have worked harder at acting
miserable.  You're even more beautiful than I remember you, Annie."

Hot blood flooded Annie's cheeks.  She prayed the deepening twilight would
hide it.

"As I remember, you always did lay the flattery on pretty thick, Romeo.
Funny, all those times I heard you spouting it to your hundred-and-one
girlfriends, you never mentioned anything about my looks at all."

Was it a trick of the sunset, or did those high masculine cheekbones darken.

"Maybe you were so pretty I couldn't think of any way to PUt it into words."

Annie chuckled.

"That's an incredible comeback.  No wonder you had so many women hanging
around your locker.  You really are good, McKenna."

"And you really are pretty."

"Marcie Kane, the girl who was your steady when we first met--now she was
beautiful.  And that cheerleader you dated for a while--what was hex name?
Buffy?  Muffy?"

 "Tiffany Jo."

"That's fight.  Tiffany.  If I remember correctly, she was responsible for
feeding the fantasies of the male half of Kennedy High."

"Who was responsible for the female half?"

 "I'm not going to touch that with a ten-foot pole."

Trace's grin spread wider, a wicked dimple darting into his left chcek.

"I knew I impressed you, but I think you're exaggerating a lit fie."

Annie couldn't help herself.  She slugged him on the arm.  She'd done that
more than once in that incredible, brief period when their relationship had
shiftcA from wary tolerance to uneasy friendship, and then, most precious of
all, trust.

She didn't want to smile at him, but he was being so .  almost, well, sweet.
Reminding her too sharply of the Trace who had made her laugh and haunted her
dream~ for so many years.

Always before when she'd dealt him one of her playful slugs he had retaliated
by dragging her into a bear hug and tickling her.  Annie felt a shiver of
memory work through her.  There hadn't been much touching in Colonel Brown's
family--no clambering up on parents' laps or snuggling on the couch before
bedtime.

The first time Trace had given Annie a quick hug, she hadn't had a clue how
to react.  When he'd touched her again and again--brushing back a stray
tendril of her hair, holding her hand, looping his arm around her
shoulder-he'd released in her a hunger she hadn't even known existed inside
her.  Like someone who had been starved, she'd sought out his touch,
delighted in the tastes of physical affection Trace had offered.

Affection.  Friendship.  Not the hot kind of passion-laced touches Annie had
glimpsed Trace lavishing on his girlfriends behind the meager shield of his
open locker door.  She had known all along that her relationship with Trace
was different.  She had tried to convince herself that she liked it that way.
But it had been during one of those first playful wrestling matches that
she'd become aware of another hunger inside herself, sparked by the hard,
lean planes of Trace's body, so different from her own.  The silky texture of
his hair, the strength in his hands.  Annie shook herself inwardly, forcing
herself back to the present--to rugged cliffs and a man who was almost a
stranger.  To reality and impossibilities she should have let go of a long
time ago.

She looked away, not wanting Trace to see that while he hadn't broken his
heart over her, she had come terrifyingly close to breaking her heart over
him.  Suddenly, Annie couldn't fight the need to beat a hasty retreat any
longer.

"April will he up at the crack of dawn," Annie said in an attempt to excuse
herself, wanting nothing more than to escape the strange spell that seemed
carried on the Colorado mountain air.

"We'd better go to bed."

Bed.  The word wobbled in her throat, just enough that Trace couldn't miss
it.  Terrific, Annie, she thought grimly.

Cyreat way to keep him from knowing what you're remembering.

She forced a laugh.

"You can race in and think about Tiffany Jo."

"I think she's wearing staples in her navel and very little else anymore."
Trace said, but there was no teasing in his voice.

"Wasn't she voted the student most likely to achieve the title of Miss
October?"  Annie asked.

She jumped as she felt the warm, callused crook of Trace's finger beneath her
chin.  Awareness sizzled through her, hot, undeniable.  Oh, God, why did he
still have the power to make her react that way?

She wanted to pull away from him.  Inslead, she swallowed hard, unable to
squeeze words through a throat that was suddenly dry.

She could smell the wind-scent of Trace, the wild, woodsy tang that didn't
come from any cologne bottle.  He was so close, the tendrils of his hair were
tossed by the wind until they brushed against her left cheek.

"Back in Arizona ... you looked like an angel to me."  His thumb whispered
over the curve of her bottom lip.

"You still do."

Annie's knees went weak as water at those words, her heart stinging
unbearably.

"Trace, don't" -- He laid his fingertips on her lips to silence her, and she
felt like she was melting.

"Don't worry, Brown-Eyes.  It was all a long time ago.  I'm gonna keep my
distance.  We both know it's better that way.  I just never told you what I
saw when I looked at you way back then.  I wanted you to know."

Trace turned and walked into his house, toward the bed where he would sleep
alone.  Annie sank into one of the rough-hewn chairs, dazed at his words and
her reaction to I'm gonna keep my distance.  we both know it's better that
way .  Was it possible that Trace was feeling the same mind- numbing
attraction?  That he could sense the danger in it?

No, she was being ridiculous.  She'd picked up enough clues about the life
Trace McKenna led from news 'clips to fill in the rest.  There were probably
still flocks of women trailing after him.  The only difference was that
instead of inhabiting one Arizona high school, his adoring throng was spread
out over four continents.

No matter how hard it was, Annie would have to hold on tighter than ever to
her original plan in coming here.  She'd have to stay as far away from Trace
as possible.  He could destroy everything she'd built for herself, for April.

No, this new throbbing sense of urgency wasn't because of April.  It wasn't
even because of the disdain she had first felt for the man Trace McKenna had
become.

She'd have to block Trace out of her thoughts, because he could still make
her knees wobble, her head spin, make that legendary Annie-Brown common sense
fly out the window like a paper airplane.  Their lives were totally different.

Absolutely irreconcilable.  She'd be a fool to forget that, even for a
heartbeat.

She had to stay focused.  Get a grip on reality.

Reality was Trace walking into the glorious master bedroom she had glimpsed
hours earlier.  Trace, standing in a hot shower, the water pounding on those
beautifully sculpted muscles, the steam rising from his skin.

Reality was that huge bed that she had glimpsed hours before, with its
homespun coverlet and ice-white sheets and Trace sleeping there alone, with
just one thin wall separating them.

Annie was mortified to feel her breasts tingle, her lip tremble where Trace
had touched it.  And she wondered if she could close her eyes at all tonight
without picturing him in that bed of his, his bronzed skin s'tlhouetted
against stark white sheets, his long-limbed body restless.

It was crazy.  Insane.  And yet, she knew instinctively that even if she
leapt from Trace's rugged cliff, she would still be prey to that fierce
attraction they had known before either of them was truly ready.  It would
tug her back as inexorably as any mythical siren's song.

When Annie had left Chicago, she'd been terrified that Trace might be an
emotional danger to April.  She'd tried to leash that fear by concentrating
on the true caring that had been in Trace's eyes when he'd dealt with their
daughter.

She'd tried to be brutally honest with herself, acknowledging the fact that
it was her own relationship with April that could be on shaky ground when the
child learned the truth.

But ~qually terrifying was another fear that reared up inside Annie.

Trace still had the power to take Annie all apart inside.  If she wasn't
careful, Trace McKenna would leave her every bit as broken as she had been
the night she hitchhiked away from Arizona so many years before.

Chapter 6 Annie stood in the sunny kitchen, whipping up a batch of French
toast, April's favorite breakfast.  Not that the child would notice if her
mother put gold-plated snails on her plate, Annie thought with a grimace.

For the past three days, the little girl had been delighting in a dizzy whirl
of activity that was far more fascinating than any egg-soaked bread could
ever be.  While Annie.  Annie was doing exactly what she had sworn she was
going to do.

Stay out of Trace McKenna's way.

It should have been easy enough.  There was a batch of mysteries Annie had
packed in her suitcase so she could catch up on her reading.  There were
countless woodland trails leading away from the cliff house, offering
postcard lovely vistas to enjoy.  There were letters to write and social work
journals to go through.  Barring that, she could have just slept away the
time, napping on the patio to catch up 115 on the sleep she had lost during
the turbulent days after Trace had reentered her life.

Even April had done her part.  After a rocky beginning, the little girl had
decided that Trace McKenna was a kindred spirit.  The pair had tripped off
exploring an old mine and gone riding on horses that belonged to the man who
had come racing to the airstrip three days ago.  Rob Car- rolton, caretaker
of the cliff house, had loaned April his youngest daughter's motley black
pony for as long as she stayed with Trace.  Cocoa was probably the ugliest
pony Annie had ever seen.  And the most lovable.  April adored her beyond
measure.

Annie should have been delighted to play The Invisible Woman.  God knew,
she'd wanted things to go smoothly.

She had hoped--down beyond the selfish, frightened part of her--that April
could build some kind of a relationship with her father.  And yet, there was
something about watching the two of them trundle merrily off together that
left Annie feeling wistful.  Lonely.

A couple of times, Trace had invited her to come along on their adventures,
but April had always leapt in, dismissing the invitations breezily before
Annie could reply.  My morn's scared of horses.  she hates stornping around
the woods and getting eaten up by bugs an' stuff.  She's real allergic to
poison ivy.

Translation in April-ese: I want to keep you all to myself.

Annie gave the eggs she was beating an extra energetic whip, then slapped a
slice of bread into the bowl.  She couldn't help but grimace.  True, she had
legion shortcomings as an outdoors woman.  But she didn't exactly relish the
thought of Trace McKenna being made aware of every one.

Unfortunately, the strange sensation in her chest had an even deeper source.
For eight years, she had had April all 116' .  d Father's Claim to herself.
The two of them against the world.  It made Anme hurt inside to see just how
easily Trace had managed to enter April's life, gain her trust.

It made Annie ache to realize that this was only the beginning.

Someday, this child who had been her whole life would walk away from her
altogether--a young woman with her own life to lead.  Annie could close her
eyes now and imagine April striding away with the same eagerness she had when
marching off with Trace, she could picture April smiling and flinging her a
careless wave of her hand.  Annie stabbed the bread with a fork and set it to
s'~xle in the cast-iron skillet.  Annie had always wanted April to be strong
and independent.  She'd cherished the gifts stubborn streak, remembering far
too many times the girl, An- hie, had been bulldozed by her father, other
kids who had believed it their sacred duty to torment the shy army brat who
had just invaded their school.  Annie had been completely blindsided by the
niggling resentment that welled up around the edges of her heart when April
dis~played that independence by accepting Trace.

The truth was, Annie had expected April to be warily tolerant of him.

She'd expected the little girl to demand Annie accompany them, or at least
occasionally squeeze in time for a cuddle in one of the big chairs.  She had
hoped that April could put this whole ordeal into perspective-- demonstrate
that no matter what treats Trace dangled in front of the child, he couldn't
woo her loyalties away from Annie.

But with each day that passed, April was more and more fascinated by the man
who had brought her to this totally awesome house.  This man who climbed
cliffs and brought planes in for crash landings.  Who rode horses and wasn't
afraid of snakes and bats and poison ivy.

It was ridiculous.  getting upset because April was distracted during a
vacation.  Annie should just let her daughter enjoy herself to the fullest
and ignore these pangs of something distressingly like jealousy.  She should
just stand back and let Trace McKenna play Daddy Wonderful until he got
restless and bored and wanted to go hang-gliding off the Grand Canyon or
something.  For all Trace's righteous indignation, it was inevitable that
he'd tire of--what had he called it?  Playing house?  And then, Annie and
April could go back to their well-ordered existence in the cozy apartment
above Baby Place

Trace might check in on April occasionally--a stray birthday card or present.
But he wouldn't be a tangible part of their lives.  April would go back to
scooping up her baseball mitt and running out to play catch with Tyler and J.
T.  instead of trailing after Trace like an adoring puppy.  The thought
should have brought comfort.  lust cad Anme felt a stab of unease.  She
flipped the French toast, remere bering Allison James's gentle voice that
night at Home Place warning that April craved a father of her own.  Annie had
never suspected how much her daughter had longed for that kind of
relationship until now.  That knowledge shouldn't have had such an impact.
It shouldn't have made Annie feel like she had failed April somehow.  But it
did.

She chewed at her lower lip, wondering how April would react if things
happened the way she suspected they would, Trace gradually losing interest in
his daughter the way he had his countless girlfriends, playing baseball.
everything.

There was the racket of running feet in the hallway and April came bounding
through the kitchen door.  She'd kept the shirt Annie had taken from Trace's
drawer that first night.  It reached well beyond her knees, but April adored
the reggae-spouting crawfish lounging on its faded cotton front.

Annie wondered if, months from now, April would still be wearing that shirt,
waiting for a phone call from Saudi Arabia, a souvenir from the Australian
outback.  Waiting for Trace to walk through the door.

She tried to drive back the image that squeezed her heart.  "Good morning,
munch king Hungry?"  Annie put on her brightest smile.

"Yeah.  I found all this cool wilderness food when Trace let me rummage
through his backpack.  He said I could have freeze-dried oatmeal for
breakfast this morning."  Annie's smile turned brittle.

"I thought you hated oatmeal."

"I do.

"Cept Trace said it's real good for you, and besides, this isn't some wimpy
oatmeal your mom makes you eat.  It's the stuff astronauts take on space
launches, and-- Oh."

April's gaze collided with the food her mother was just sliding onto a blue
stoneware plate.

"French toast.  Bet you made that for me, huh?"

"Bet I did."

"I don't want to hurt your feelings or anything.  I can eat it if you want me
to."

Annie was fighting to keep from snapping at the little girl when Trace came
striding in.  His hair was damp from his morning shower, a fresh
turquoise-blue shirt printed with geometric Indian designs clung softly to
his broad shoulders.

Jeans that had once been charcoal-colored sheathed his legs, the seams worn
white, the edges frayed.  His feet were bare and his first smile of the
morning was so latenfiy sexy Annie felt a swift stab of desire sizzle along
the already ragged edges of her nerves.

She was jarringly certain that April wouldn't be the only one in danger of
waiting for Trace McKenna to bree~ into Nothing could've made her more
unsettled.  Trace tipped back his head, sniffing the air.

"Somethin' smells great in here."  ' "French toast," April supplied.

"I have to eat it instead of freeze-dried oatmeal, 'cause my more made it for
me 'cause it's my favorite back home."

"You make it sound like a form of torture," Annie let slip.

She saw Trace watching her through eyes that saw far too much, and she
wondered if he knew that she was stinging, hurting inside.

"Torture me, Brown-Eyes.  Puh-leeze!"  Trace sauntered over and took the fork
from Annie's hand.  He scooped a piece of the fried toast into his fingers.
He muttered muffled curses, hastily juggling it from hand to hand, blowing on
it until it was cool enough to take a bite of.  When he did, Annie noted a
peculiar expression on his face--like a kid about to take bitter medicine.

Annie suddenly remembered arriving at the McKenna household one morning to go
over some English notes with Trace.  He'd gone into a dramatic death scene,
pretending he was poisoned when his sister, Patricia, had tried to pawn off
some French toast on him.

He'd had Annie laughing so hard she was crying by the time he was done
expounding on how much he loathed the stuff.  Annie's mouth firmed as he
braced himself to take another bite.

He made a sound of consummate satisfaction deep in his throat.

"This is the best French toast I've ever tasted.  Terrific.

You don't know what you're missing; Ape.  "

Damn him to blazes, why did he have to be nice now?  Annie took a warped
satisfaction in piling up the whole panful on his plate.

"You can have it all," she said sweetly.  "I know exactly how much you like
it."

"Great!"  April said, with a skip of delight.

"I'm gonna go outside and eat my breakfast with Cocoa."

"Want some marshmallows?"  Trace asked.  ' April groaned and raced outside.

Annie's fingers clenched on the fork.  Two weeks ago, April's inner radar
would have been locked on the fact that her mother was upset.  The child
would've been standing on her head, indulging in all sorts of antics in an
effort to make Annie laugh.  It seemed at the moment, her daughter couldn't
see past the end of her nose--that was, unless she was looking at that
blasted borrowed pony.  Trace cleared his throat, the sound jarring Annie
from her thoughts.

"Well, just me and you and all this delicious toast, huh, Brown-Eyes?"  he
enthused, taking a scat at the table.  She could tell how much effort it took
to muster all that enthusiasm.  He scooped up a fork and started in manfully.

Terrific, Annie thought.  She had a daughter who loved French toast but was
eating frceze-dried oatmeal with a borrowed pony.  She had a man who was
looking green around the gills as he shoveled down mouthfuls of food that he
hated because of some warped sense of chivalry.  And she was feeling like the
only kid in the class not invited to a birthday party.

"Oh, for God's sake!"  Annie snapped, yanking the plate from under Trace's
nose with a force that bumped the hand holding his fork into his upper lip.

"Yeow!"  Trace yelped, rubbing his mouth.

"What'd you do that for?"

"I don't need charity."

"Charity?"

"Yes.  Trace McKenna saying this is the best French Toast he's ever eaten is
a little like Socrates saying he's real thirsty for a hemlock cocktail."

Trace's cheeks reddened.  Busted, Annie thought wryly.  He fiddled with the
tines of his fork.

"I just ... well, you worked so hard cooking and all, that I... hell, when
April wouldn't eat it" -- "April has been turning up her nose at the four
food groups for eight years.  I'm used to rejection when it comes to peas,
carrots and broccoli.  French toast is a new angle, but VII get over it."

Trace watched her intently for a long moment.

"You sure about that?"

There was an undercurrent to his voice, something that made Annie stiffen.
She had a feeling that he was able to see the sudden crushing sense of hurt
and loneliness,"a million confficting emotions that had stormed into her life
along with this tall, compelling, relentlessly sexy man she was trying her
best to ignore.  " Annie, I know you aren't used to sharing April," he said
in an infuriatingly reasonable tone.

"This must be a real change for you.  I wouldn't mind if you came with us
sometimes."

"The agreement was that you wanted time alone with her."

"I wanted a chance to bond with the kid.  I figured with you around, April
wouldn't have any room for me."

Trace's voice softened.

"But she does have room for me, Annie."

Annie felt those words pour like acid into an open wound.

"Great,"

she said between clenched teeth.

"We'll just set you up in a tent out in back of the shelter, stick the pony
in the tree house and import a bunch of poison ivy, and you and April can go
on having a whale of a time.  That is, if you can squeeze a few hours in
between Trinidad and Tibet."

"I'm going to be part of her life, Annie."  His eyes met hers levelly.

"I've agreed to letting you spend time with April.  You can drop by and see
her whenever you happen to be flying past Chicago on your way to Outer
Mongolia.  April loves palling around with you."

"She doesn't need a pal, Annie.  She needs a father."  The words twisted in
Annie's chest.

"I'd think that after the time you've spent with her, you'd have stopped
being selfish, Trace.  Think of how badly it would upset her to f'md out- ' "
That she has a father who loves her?  Funny, I don't think that would bother
her at all.  " The words packed a dizzying punch, despite the fact that he
said them quietly, gently.

"I won't have her confused.  Blast it, Trace, I'm trying to accommodate you
here.  To... I don't know, give you a chance to-- But I don't..."

"You don't want things to change.  I know.  But it's too late, Annie.

Everything has already changed and there's no way to turn back now.  For you.
For me.  For April.  I've been thinking about this a lot the past three
days.  To begin with, I want to take care of her financially.  " " April and
I do just fine"-- " Take that blasted stiff-necked Brown pride and stuff it,
Annie.  I can make things easier for both of you.  Why shouldn't I do what
Ican for you when it's so damned easy for me?  Why shouldn't you take what
I'm offering?  Security?

Freeing yourself from worrying about braces and car repairs and how you're
going to afford to send April to college someday.  "

"Ask April.  She's got it all figured out.  She's going to Arizona State on a
baseball scholarship.  She's convinced by the time she's old enough the
gender barrier will be broken in the major leagues and she can be the first
woman pitcher for the White Sox.  Unlike you, she'd work herself to death for
the chance."

Trace dragged his fingers through the damp strands of his hair, his mouth
tightening.

"This isn't about me, Annie.

Not about any of the million and one mistakes I've made.  Was not even about
you.  It's about April.  About raising the quality of her life.  "

There had been too many Christmases that Annie had stood like a child
herself, her nose pressed against the store window as she stared longingly at
the gifts she wanted to buy her daughter.  The expensive aluminum bat April
had been drooling over for months.  The White Sox team jacket in black satin.

There had been too many times Annie had resolutely chosen a less expensive
toy or jacket or piece of sporting equipment.  April had never complained.
But Annie had chafed inside every time, wishing that things could be
different.

The thought of this man breezing into April's life, carelessly slinging out
largesse made Annie's stomach chum.

"In case you haven't noticed, April is a healthy, happy, well-adjusted
eight-year-old.  There's nothing wrong with her life.  At least there wasn't
until you 'came charging into it a week ago."

"It's wrong for me to care about her?  You think that's going to hurt her
somehow?  Dammit, I" -- "Guys!  Hey, guys!"  April's voice carried along the
hallway, the screen door banging as she came charging back into the house.
The two adults froze, and Annie sensed that Trace was battling as hard as
she was to keep the raw emotions from showing.

"There's someone coming!"  April cried as she burst into the room, her cheeks
flushed, her pigtails flying.

"It's this humongous truck with this great big trailer."

"A semi in the middle of a mountain hideaway?"   Annie asked, confused.
She looked at Trace and unease curled in her middle.

He didn't look astonished in the least.  He looked more like April did when
she was at the stubborn bordering-on-helligerent stage.

"Wonder what a semi would be doing up here, Ape," Trace said, his eyes a
little sulky as they met Annie's.

"Maybe we should go find out."

Before she could say another word, he crossed to loop an arm around April's
shoulders and started for the door.

Annie gritted her teeth, determined not to follow.  But at that instant,
April actually turned to glance back.

"C'mon, Morn!  You love surprises!"

Considering that Annie's last "surprise'~ had been finding Trace standing in
her office, her opinion of surprises had dropped considerably.  Not to
mention the fact that she could use some serious cooling-off time.

"You go ahead.  I'm going to clean up in here," Annie began.

"Please!  Mommy, don't stay mad at me!"

So April had noticed.  It made Annie feel a little bit het- ter.  She managed
a weak smile.

"It's okay, sweetie.  You go ahead and" -- April stretched out one grubby
hand.  The gesture was too precious to ignore, especially in the wake of
Annie's own shaken confidence.

She went to April, took the little girl's hand in her own.  Trace kept his
arm looped firmly around the child.  Annie grimaced, remembering the
bible-school story of King Solomon and the two mothers who had been tugging
each arm of a baby.

Trace had about eight inches and sixty pounds on her, easy, but what Annie
lacked in size she made up for in determination.

The one piece of satisfaction she could draw from the whole scenario was that
Trace looked more edgy than when he'd crash-landed the plane.  His eyes were
restless, the lids narrowed, his long muscles radiating unease.

They walked outside, then followed the path to the rear of the cliff house
where the big rig had pulled to a stop.  One of the men inside it was already
unlatching the door.  The guy shot April a grin.

"I don't know who you are, girlie, but any kid in Colorado would go on a diet
of straight spinach for a month to he in your shoes."

April's brows drew together.

"Me?  How come?"  The man threw open the massive double doors.  The interior
was dim for a heartbeat before lights in the trailer's ceding flickered on.

Annie's knees almost buckled.  A little fortress was lashed to a set of bunk
beds with electric-blue nylon rope.  A life sized stuffed gorilla sat in
round-bellied splendor, its fuzzy arms clutching a bundle of street-hockey
sticks, roller blades on its feet.

A mountain bike so elaborate Annie couldn't begin to guess the cost was
parked beside a basketball hoop already mounted on a pole, the nylon rope
weaving around everything like the ribbons on a Christmas present.

Boxes with clothing-store labels were piled in a miniature mountain in a red
plastic bin-beside some ungodly looking contraption that looked like a cross
between a four- wheeled bike and a turtle.

Annie heard April's ecstatic shrieks through a haze of disbelief.

Heard Trace's sheepish claim,

"I wanted to make A hot ball of fury, of helplessness, rose in her throat.
" Damn you, Trace!  I don't care if you're the richest man on earth!  You
can't buy my daughter!  "

"I don't have to buy her.  She's mine, too" -- "Trace!  Trace!"  April's
voice penetrated through Annie's furious words.  The little girl raced toward
them, flinging her arms around Trace McKenna in an ecstatic hug.

She clambered up into his arms, the way she had climbed up into Annie's so
many times before.  Annie's heart shattered as April buried her face against
the dark hair that clung to Trace's neck.

"This is the best present I ever had in my whole life!  You're the nicest,
most radical, coolest man in the whole world!  And I was a real brat at
first."  April drew back, staring into those eyes that were so like her own.
Her brow furrowed adorably.

"How come you're being so nice to me?"

Trace cradled the little girl in his arms, one large hand stroking her hair.
His gaze met Annie's, dark, defiant.  For a second she feared he'd tell April
the truth.  The words he said struck Annie almost as brutally.

"It's because I love you, April," Trace said, kissing his daughter's tumbled
curls.

Chapter 7 Annie sat on a giant boulder and stared into the vast e: panse of
wilderness that rippled out beyond Trace 1% Kenna's cliff.

How was she going to survive this?  Another week and half of watching her
daughter fall under the spell of e pensive gifts and delightful adventures
provided by a m~ who didn't seem to understand the meaning of the wo~ no?
Someone who set no limits--and who had never fi ured out that living with no
limits was every bit as dange ous as being chained down by a raftful of
unreasonab rules.

There was no way Annie could make an eight-yearo~ understand that danger.
And unless she got a handle on 1~ emotions, there would be no way to protect
April fro what was fast developing into an intolerable situation.

Nothing good could come of the increasing animosi Annie felt toward Trace.
Or the stubborn, ruthless dete mination Trace was using to blast into every
corner of tlx way they had been the hundreds of nights Annie had brushed the
day's snarls out of her hair.  But tonight, there was already someone else
smoothing brisfies through the dark lOCks.  The big hands that guided an
airplane with such skill looked decidedly awkward clutching the handle of a
hairbrush.  Annie felt a jab of jealousy pierce through her, her resolve of
moments before faltering.

The fact that Trace had taken over even this piece of her relationship with
April was more wrenching than Annie could ever have guessed it would be.
"Trace?"  April's voice drifted softly into the hallway, and Annie could see
the child staring meditatively into the shiny button, eyes of the stuffed
gorilla.

"What is it, Ape?"

"This has been the best day in my whole life."

 "I'm glad."   He didn't sound glad, Annie thought suddenly.

He sounded the way she felt.  Exhausted.  Battle- weary.

"Know what?"  April continued.

"What?"

"I don't think this was the best day in my moro's life, though."

God.  Annie felt April's deduction whack into her solar plexus like a
sledgehammer.  Trace was silent.  Dead silent.

Was he searching for something to say?  Or was there any point in even
attempting to reply to April's observation.

"Trace, why doesn't my mom like you anymore?"  Trace paled under his tan, his
eyelids drifting to half mast

"What?"

"You're always staring at each other like you're real mad, even if you don't
say anything.  And you don't talk at all unless it's about me.  My morn told
me an' told me how nice you were to her in high school and stuff.  She told
me 133 you were friends.  That was why you were bringing us on vacation and
being so great to us and everything.  I didn't believe her, though.  I
figured you thought my more was cute and wanted to, you know, date her or
something.  I figured I'd get real bored because you'd want to talk about
old-time stuff, but you barely talk at all."

 "Maybe we just don't have anything to say."

"You got a lot to say to me."

"I just want to get to know you."

"Why?"

"Because I think you're really special, Aprfl.  Because" -- Trace swore
softly, then fell silent.

"Trace, my mom didn't like all the presents in the truck, and when she saw my
pony, she almost started crying and stuff."

"Sometimes people do that when they're surprised."  April frowned and
scratched at the freckles the sun had brought out on her snub nose.

"Maybe.  Sometimes rooms are real hard to understand.  They cry in those
mushy TV commercials and get all weird about kids getting tall and stuff, but
they never tell you how they're feeling when they're sad.  They make you
figure it out for yourself."  Annie raised a trembling hand to her lips.

"Trace, do you... do you think my room is sad be- cause ... well, because you
an' me have been ... well, 'cause I haven't been paying much attention to
her?  I get mad sometimes when she's real busy at the shelter."

"Your morn isn't mad at you.  Or sad because of you.  Your mom is mad because
of me."

' "How come?"

' Annie had been on the receiving end of April's interrogations too often to
think the child was going to let up.

Annie wanted to rush in, to scoop the little girl into her A Father' s Claim
arms, but tears were threatening.  The wrenching, heart cracking kind that
would only upset April further.  Annie saw Trace suck in a shuddery breath.

"It's hard to explain what's going on with your mom and me, sweetheart.  We
just don't agree on some things, and then we get stubborn.  I guess we don't
listen to each other very well."  April angled her head around until she was
peering up into Trace's eyes.

"Know what?"  she said with a catch in her voice.

"I don't like it when my mom's sad."

Annie's eyes burned.  Through a haze of tears, she saw Trace's hand still,
the brush poised above the mahogany fall of April's hair.

"I don't like it when she's sad, either," Trace admitted.  The brush suddenly
slipped from his grip, then tumbled to the floor.  Trace turned to scoop it
up from where it had fallen, his eyes suddenly sweeping the doorway where
Anme stood, half hidden in shadows.

Trace's gaze locked with hers a long minute.  But Annie couldn't bear for him
to see her so vulnerable, so full of hurt.  She turned and walked away.
She'd gone into the kitchen and sagged down into a chair when Trace found her.

She'd seen him angry, she'd seen him tense, she'd seen him delighting April.
But she hadn't seen this solemn, earnest expression that shadowed his
handsome features, this hesitancy that whispered in his eyes, clung around
his lips.

"Annie," he said softly.

"We have to talk."

"Do we?"

"Yeah.  But not with April around.  I don't want to risk her hearing anything
she shouldn't."

"We can hardly leave her alone on the mountain."

"I'll call Rob.   I'm sure he and his wife can keep an eye on her for a
little while tomorrow night.   I promised April we could go trail tiding in
the afternoon, take the pony back up the mountain.   But once evening hits,
you and I could steal away.   There's a place we could go."   "Trace, I don't
know" -- "Please.   We can't go on like this.   It's hurting April.   It's
hurting you.   Damn it, I want to get things right this time, Annie.   I've
alxeady got enough on my conscience."   Strange, she'd seen fury and
betrayal, sensed stubbornness and resolve in Trace since he'd charged back
into her life.   But she hadn't sensed the guilt weighing down Trace's
conscience.   Was it possible that he was still battling old demons just as
she was?   Was it possible that those demons were reaching out to hurt, not
only Trace and Annie.   Could they be hurting April, as well?

There was nothing she wanted less than to be alone somewhere with Trace.  But
she had to shield her daughter.

"You're right," Annie said after a moment.

"We can't go on this way."

"I'll try to set it up with Rob for six o'clock tomorrow night.  And I'll
clear it with April."

- "Fine."  Annie climbed out of the chair, wanting to go to her room, try to
store up the emotional reserves to make it through tonight.  But before she
could pass Trace, his hand reached out to stop her, his long fingers reached
up to brush a tendril of hair back from her f~ce.  The tiny lines at the
corners of his eyes deepened with concern.

"You should spend tomorrow in bed, Brown-Eyes.  Rest.  You look tired as
hell."

She was tired.  Tired of fighting against Trace, tired of being alone.

But she could handle this.  She'd get through tonight somehow.  She was
tougher than she once was.  She'd learned the hard way not to lean on anyone
else.  To do what needed to be done, no matter how difficult it was.

Still, Annie couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to lean on
someone else for just a little while.  She wondered what it would be like to
lean forward, press her cheek against the hard wall of Trace's chest.  Feel
the warmth, the strength, seep into her spirit.  Instead, she turned and
walked away.

Just as he had so many years before, Trace was opening up empty places inside
her, showing her a void that left her aching.

The ache wouldn't let her sleep when she lay down on her bed.  The loneliness
clung to the shadows that moved across her bedroom floor, whispered in the
soft night breezes that riffled the curtains framing the open windows.

She staggered out of bed for a few minutes at eight, only to find Trace and
April packing saddlebags with breakfast and lunch to take on their ride.
Trace shot her a glance and assured Annie that everything was set for six
o'clock.  April, however, looked less than pleased.

"I don't see why I can't come, too," she grumbled, slapping another glob of
peanut butter onto the peanut butter-and-banana sandwich she was
constructing.  Trace tugged at April's neatly combed but lopsided braids.
Annie tried to quell a stab of jealousy at the knowledge that he must have
painstakingly worked the plaits in the child's hair earlier.

"You got a pony, kiddo.  The least your room deserves is a night out."

April peered up at him through eyes suddenly sulky.  "Why can't she have a
night out with me around?"

"Because then you'd he getting a pony and a night out and you'd be two
presents ahead of her.  Then I don't know how I'd even things up.  She might
get real jealous and have a temper fit and--whoa, let me tell you, I'm not
about to risk that."  Trace's eyes tracked to Annie's and clung there 137 for
long minutes, a worried crease forming between his brows.

Annie looked hastily away, but what she saw disturbed her even more--April
with a strange, wary expression on her face.  The little girl snatched up the
saddlebags.

"Well, are we go' rag or not?"  she demanded and stalked out the door.  Trace
peered after the child, perplexed.

"We'll be back around three," he said.

"See ya, Brown-Eyes."

Annie stood at the window and watched them saddle up, then ride out--the man,
strikingly handsome astride a gorgeous Appaloosa, the little girl, ecstatic
on the lovely little paint who had been christened Go, after April's favorite
White Sox player.

Watching the two of them disappear sucked away the last of Annie's energy.
She made her way to her bedroom and curled up on a recliner by the window.
But as she picked up the mystery on the small table beside her, trying to
start the book for the fiftieth time since arriving at Trace's hideaway, all
she could see was April's face as she'd stalked from the house.  All she
could do was wonder what the child's expression had meant, even more
disturbing, what would happen when the two grownups who loved April_
confronted each other tonight.

The words on the page circled dizzily before her eyes until she let her
lashes drift down to rest on her cheekbones.

She considered dragging herself to her disheveled bed, but her legs were so
heavy.  She sat in the chair, sunshine streaming over her, until at last she
fell into a fitful sleep.

Annie awoke with the suddenness of someone who has just been doused with ice
water--that bolt-upright kind of wakefulness born of a certainty that she was
late.

The room was pitch black, the shades drawn tight.  And she wasn't in the
chair, she was curled up in her bed, the coverlets tucked beneath her chin.

When had she gotten up and moved?  she wondered vaguely, struggling to catch
a glimpse of the clock at her bedside.  The red digits proclaimed the hour.
Seven o'clock.  There could be no doubt it was 7:00 P.  M.  Oh, God!  She and
Trace were supposed to have left an hour ago.  Was it possible he was waiting
for her?  Had he forgotten?

She leapt from the bed and dragged a brush through her hair, ignoring the
tube of lipstick on the dresser.  She flattened her hands against the soft
rose-colored sweater she'd dragged on that morning, making a cursory attempt
to smooth the wrinkles from it.

Annie glanced in the mirror and quelled a stab of dissatisfaction with her
disheveled appearance.  How she looked was not important.  After all, it
wasn't as if this was a date or anything.

"Trace?"  she called as she hurried down the corridor.  '~Trace, where
are--you.  " The last word escaped from her mouth in a choked gasp as she
slammed to a halt in the doorway of the great room.  Her gaze locked on the
figure silhouetted against the huge stone fireplace.  Annie's mouth went dry,
her hands trembled as Trace turned toward her.

She'd expected him to be rumpled from the trail ride--or at most dressed in a
casual shirt and faded jeans.  But as Trace stood before her the sheer male
beauty of_ him squeezed the breath from her lungs.

Dark blue jeans rose above black cowboy boots decorated with chains of silver
conchos.  A blue western shirt was buttoned up to his throat, where a
hammered-silver bolo gleamed in delicious contrast to the sun-bronzed cords
139 of his neck.  The silver on the tie matched the thin silver band
encircling the black Stetson he held in one hand, his long fingers curling
the hat brim with ill-concealed nervousness.

He looked every bit the cowboy returning to his lady after months on the
range--tough, independent, sexy as all get out.  His hair fell in rich waves,
the sage-brush scent of his cologne teasing Annie's nostrils.

He had obviously taken great care with his appearance.  The knowledge made
Annie brush her fingers uneasily over her limp sweater.

"I thought we were just going out to--to talk, so... maybe I should slip into
something else."

"You look fine."  Trace glanced down at his hat brim.  His voice grew husky.

"More than fine."

Annie felt her cheeks heat.

"I've already dropped April off."

"You should have woken me."

Those gray-blue eyes flickered up for a heartbeat, snagging hers.

"I

meant to, but you were sleeping so peacefully, I just got you into bed and
let you go on sleeping.  " Got you into bed.  Annie squirmed inwardly.  That
was what had happened.  Trace had found her sleeping, had taken care of her.

The image of those strong arms carrying her to the bed made Annie acutely
uncomfortable.  The consideration he'd shown in letting her sleep disarmed
her.  The way he looked made her understand why some women Would drive five
hundred miles to see a rodeo.

Suddenly, Annie was jittery about going anywhere with him.  She gestured to
the quiet room.

"With April gone, we could talk here."

Trace's mouth crooked in a half smile as he settled the Stetson on his head.

"The best treaties are always struck on neutral ground.  Besides, The Golden
Nugget has the best steak in Colorado."

To make a treaty, you had to keep your wits about you, Annie thought, not
spend the whole time distracted by the way the light played in the rich waves
of your enemy's hair.  And if she stared at him across the table for any
length of time, she had a feeling she'd be hungry for something a lot more
dangerous than steak.

But she could hardly tell Trace her real objection to the trip had to do with
being in such close proximity to those long legs of his, or that meltingly
sexy smile.  Or, most dangerous of all, the tentative warmth in eyes so blue
they broke her heart.

Annie sucked in a steadying breath.  Better to go, get this over with as soon
as possible, Annie reasoned.  After all, she was a rational, reasonable,
intelligent adult who had learned her lesson well.  Not once since her
long-ago affair with Trace had she even been tempted to put herself at risk.
There had been no one else--emotionally or physically-since that
passion-filled night in the stable.  The thought should have been comforting.
It should have steadied her, shored up her confidence.

Instead, it stirred fears Annie had kept at bay so long, and opened up
possibilities more terrifying than anything she'd ever known.

Trace walked to the door, flattening one large hand against the wood to open
it for her.  Annie wondered if walking through it would be the biggest
mistake she'd ever make--except for the one she'd made so many years ago when
she had fallen hopelessly in love with a sulky high school rebel named Trace
McKenna.

Chapter 8 The Colorado night stretched out like an Indian blanket, woven in
rich stripes of dusky purple and raven's-wing black, beaded in designs that
might have been stars.  Trace said little the whole way down the mountain,
concentrating almost fiercely on the cur my road.  Annie didn't even bother
to try to fill the silence.

But by the time he wheeled the vehicle into the parking lot of the
combination restaurant-Western bar, Annie would've killed to be able to think
of a little small talk.  She started to reach for the handle to her door, but
~Trace leaned over and grabbed her hand, squeezing it gently.  He got out of
the vehicle and strode around it, then opened her door.

Annie wondered where the boy she'd known had learned to be such a gentleman.
Probably from one of the glamorous women who swarmed around rich, powerful,
heart- stoppingly gorgeous men as inevitably as mosquitos at a twilight
picnic.

The thought sobered her.  She managed to avoid the hand he extended to her
and climbed out herself.

Trace said nothing.

Despite the Friday-night crowd, the perky redheaded hostess had them seated
at a table in record time, her full, crimson-painted lips curved in a
seductive smile as Trace slid into his chair.  Annie bristled instinctively,
and hated the sensation.

"Cheatin' on me already, sugar?"  the woman demanded, giving a playful tug on
his bolo, then turned to Annie.

"Promised to take me into Denver next time he was at the Cliff.  Big night on
the town, you know.  Bought a dress to paint the town red in, and he never
even called."  Trace shot her a distracted smile.

"I may be crazy, Vera, but I'm not that crazy.  Farley'd skin me alive and
hang me out for the buzzards if I got within fifty miles of you."

"Never figured you for a coward, McKenna.

"Course, I suppose I can see why you'd pick a classy lady like this over a
country girl with five kids tied to her apron strings."  The waitress winked
an eye that was weighted down with a yeaifs worth of mascara.

"This guy's not exactly the domestic type, if you know what I mean."

"People change."  There was a roughness in Trace's voice that made Vera stare
at him in astonishment.

Those thickly painted lips curled like a cat's.

"Well, maybe I'll have Farley announce a day of mourning for all the women in
the joint.  If Trace McKenna's got himself hogtied over you, lady, you'd
better watch your back.  The women hereabouts take their dancin' partners
real serious, and nobody dances as down and dirty as this cowboy.

There's about a dozen girls who'll want to scratch your eyes out.  "

"They can have him.  I--we're not seeing each other that way."  ' ,"s Claim
'~oman let out a throaty chuckle.

"If you're ready this cowboy loose, you must not be seeing at all, cut it
out.  You don't understand," Trace pr oat her when she walked in, I I
understand just fine," Vera said.  With that, she red dress over ample hips
and sashayed away.

looked across the blue-checked tablecloth to see face washed in dull red.  He
cleared his throat.

place wasn't such a great idea.  " thought about Vera's teasing and focused
on the that had been buried in her words.  It was vital remember that Trace
was no more domesticated than to charge down the canyons.  He was and wild, a
man who might have fathered her but who would never be content living the
tame most people craved.

had been smart enough to figure that out when been sixteen.  Nine years
later, she'd be a fool to for there was an environment that would keep in her
mind, the Golden Nugget was it.

"This ~perfect," she said.

, sat in silence, perusing the menus, but once the or- taken by a
gum-cracking waitress who ogled ~:~ '~like the latest centerfold of
Hunk-o-Rama maga- braced his elbows on the table, leaned his jaw [ flats and
cleared his throat.

> at those rugged features once, then cast the tablecloth, unable to quell
the sudden sensation in her chest.  how to start this, Brown-Eyes, so I'm
just There's so much I want to knowabout April.  About you.  There's so
damned much to sort out .  " ' " All right.  Start at the beginning.  "

"The b~ginning."  Trace ~hoed.

"Christ, I wish it was that easy.  I wish..."  He kesitated.

"I know you weren't thrilled with the presents I gave April today."

 "No, I wasn't."

"Maybe I went a little overboard.  But you have to understand, you've had
this wonderful kid for eight years, Annie.  This incredible, amazing little
person.  While I've already missed out on so damned much."

"Trace" -- "I'm not trying to make you feel guilty about that, An- me .  I'm
just trying to tell you how it is with me.  Every minute I spend with her, I
just get hungrier to know everything about her.  What her favorite color is,
why she always bites the point off of the bottom of a cone first and sucks
the ice cream through it.  I want to know when she lost her first tooth, and
what she looked like when she was a baby."

"She looked so much like you that it hurt," Annie said softly.

"Lots of dark hair, and those eyes... She had your temper, too.  Truth is, I
think the nurses must've been secretly relieved when they discovered I'd run
away from the hospital."

"Do you have a picture of her?  I know it sounds crazy, but I feel like if I
could just see who she was when she was small, if I could commit it to
memory, I could imagine I was there for her."

Pain gripped Annie's chest.  She looked up into Trace's eyes, eyes that were
intense, almost pleading.

"Trace, there are no pictures of April when she was a baby.  I was bouncing
from odd job to odd job.  I barely had money for food."

It was one of the lasting scars from the time Annie had 145 spent as a street
kid--the fact that she could never look at an image of April's first muzzy
smile, those unfocuscd blue eyes that had enchanted Annie the first moment
the doctor had laid April in her arms.

"It wasn't so bad really," she amended, wanting to spare Trace the brunt of
the guilt she saw in his face.

"April and I got along.  Summer and fall, I hired on at farms, picking
apples, working at produce stands.  April and I could usually stay in a back
room.  Winters were harder, but there were enough good people, kind people
sprinkled among the cold ones to keep me from giving up hope.  You must know
what I mean.

It couldn't have been easy for you either.  "

Trace's laugh was bitter.

"Oh, I'm a survivor Annie.  Always was.  I landed on my feet a month after I
left Arizona.  I was pulling down a decent salary at FireStorm, living with a
couple of other guys in an apartment."

"I'm glad, Trace."

"You shouldn't be.  I spent the whole time be' rag bitter as hell.

Trace McKenna, the betrayed.  The whole time I was feeling sorry for myself
you and my baby were barely getting by.  "

"You had no way of knowing that."

"Annie, anything could have happened to you.  What if you'd gotten hurt or
the baby had gotten sick?"

"She did get sick when she was about two and a half.  Scared me so badly.
That's how I ended up at J.  T.  James's shelter.  They took us in, helped me
build a life for April, and for myself."

"I'm glad they were there for you.  But that doesn't change the fact that you
were alone for so long."  Trace gave a snort of disgust.

"Here I am, asking you for a picture-- as if you had a hundred-page-baby book
tucked in your back pocket."

Savage regret contorted Trace's face, born of painful understanding.

There was such desolation in those storm-cloud eyes that she wanted to soothe
him, comfort him.  Wanted to give him some tangible piece of those lost
years, to show him that she and April had been okay.  Annie groped for her
purse, digging out a picture from the back of her wallet.  "I have a snapshot
J.T.  took of April on her third birth~ay.  It's the earliest picture I
have."  She dug in her billfold, then extracted the photograph.  Trace
reached for it, eagerly.  Annie almost couldn't release it to his hand.
Somehow, it had always seemed like the girl holding April was a stranger--a
wide eyed child with a baby in her arms.  The picture had been taken before
Annie had fought her way free of the pain of leaving Trace behind.  Sorrow
still radiated from Annie's eyes, a fragility wreathing her face in that
picture.  The lost expression made her cringe even now.

She prayed Trace would only have eyes for his daughter.  She saw Trace's gaze
move hungrily over the image of April in a candy-apple-red dress Allison
James had provided for the occasion.  One of April's little fists was digging
into the chocolate cake, a birthday hat perched on her dusky curls.  "Did she
eat the cake, or did she just demolish it?"  Trace asked in an unsteady voice.

"Actually, she threw it at J.T."

"Already working on her fastball."  Trace's laugh was harsh, rougbened by an
undercurrent of loss.  Annie knew the moment his gaze skated from April's
image to hers.  Trace's smile went soft with regret.

"God, Brown-Eyes, look at you.  You were a baby yourself."

"I survived."

"You did a helluva lot more than survive, lady.  You raised one terrific kid.
But what you must've sacrificed" -- His voice trailed off.

"I didn't want to hurt you."

"Once you gave me your baby, Trace, there was no way to keep either one of
us from getting hurt somehow.   The key is to keep that hurt from coloring
the rest of your life."

"You did that, didn't you, Annie Brown?  I mean, look at you, Brown-Eyes.
All grown up.  You're a helluva lot tougher than I remember you.  But you're
also... I don'!  know.  There's something deep inside those eyes of yours.

Something even more beautiful than I remember.  You used to look afraid all
the time, except when you were at the piano.

Now--you aren't afraid anymore.  "

I'm afraid of you, a voi~ inside Annie whispered.  Afraid of what I feel
whenever I look at you.  Afraid I won't be strong enough to save myself this
time.

"Annie?"  Trace reached across the table and covered her hand with his larger
one.  Annie watched her fingers get swallowed up by his, felt the callused
warmth engulf her.  "Remember when you told me how it was when you were a
little girl?  How you never let anyone past your defenses because you always
knew that your father would be dragging you off somewhere new?"

Annie's cheeks heated at the memory of that confession-made to Trace on a hot
spring night with the scent of rain hanging in the air.  He had turned up at
the steps of the library by accident just as she was leaving.  She wouldn't
dare have believed he'd hung around on purpose waiting to walk her home.

"There was no point in getting attached to anyone.  The minute I left a
school, everyone forgot I even existed."

Trace's thumb skimmed over her knuckles with a tenderness that melted into
Annie, hurting her.

"Annie, I never forgot you."

The words sizzled past hose defenses Annie had clung to for survival.

They ripplei into places that were still raw.

"You felt responsible formed.  Guilty."

"God knows that's trte enough.  The night I found out you were pregnant was
l~re hell.  I didn't have a clue, for God's sake.  Just walke~ into our
kitchen and saw your parents, stalking around raging at mine.  You were just
sitting at the table, so danned quiet, your eyes all swollen from crying.  I
couldn't I~lieve what I'd done to you.  I was so damned scared and c0~fused."

"The way my father vets raging, you should're been terrified."

"I didn't give a damn Pout your father, Annie, or mine.  It was you who
terrified ae.  Sitting there, so damn fragile.

You hadn't talked to me ~ince the night in the hayloft.  You wouldn't even
look at m~ during school.  For a month and a half you'd act~i like ldidn't
even exist anymore.  I can understand why.  I mea~, I'd taken advantage of
your friendship.  I hadn't thought about consequences.  I know that when you
came to f~d me at the stable, you came as a friend.  "

I came as a girl who lived you.  loved you so much, I would have walked
throu'h fire to take away your pain.  But Annie couldn't tell him oat now, no
more than she'd been able to that horrendou night in the McKenna family's
kitchen.  It was all a longtime ago.  The girl who had loved Trace McKenna to
the b,ttom of her soul was a stranger to Annie now--a wistful ,~aith who now
existed only in the picture of April's birth cry party.

"Trace, it was all a log time ago."

"I took from you, ~me.  I was hurting so damn bad.  Half drunk.  When I say
you standing in the doorway, the moonlight shining in y~r hair... when you
came to me, touched me..."

Trace', fingers tightened on hers, and Annie could almost feel the pulse of
his adolescent pain knew you didn't love me, Brown-Eyes.  But I needed yo~
bad, needed you to wash away all the ugliness.  " Annie struggled against the
old pain Trace's words ~ reawakening, pain she'd managed to lock away years
..  She didn't want to feel it again.  Didn't want to rememl " Trace, there's
no point in dragging this all out.  I beli everything happens for a reason.
I was meant to com~ Halloran's stable and make love to a boy I was infatu~
with.  That way, I would understand the girls who cam~ the shelter.  And I
was meant to have April.  She is the ~ wonderful thing in my life.  If you're
still feeling gui think about that.  You gave me a gift, Trace.  The m
beautiful gift imaginable.  "

Trace's brows furrowed, his eyes darkened.

"So bea~ ful that you ran away from me?  Did you ever mean to me?  ' " What?
Contact you at FireStorm and say, By the ~ you have a daughter.  Now that
you're rich and fame hand over a child support check?  "

"I mean when you were sixteen.  Can you even imag what it was like for me to
walk into the kitchen, have yl father blast me with the news that you were
carrying child?"

Annie swallowed hard, remembering Trace's face--p as death, his eyes black
with shock.  The hand that had b~ clutching his baseball mitt had started
shaking and h stared at her, as if begging her to tell him it was all a I
dream.

"It was my choice to make love to you, Trace, whate you might believe.  I
cared about you.  You were hurtin[ made the decision" "Oh, and I had nothing
to do with it?"  Bitter self-disgust tainted his voice.

"My hands were all over you.  And I was good, wasn't I?  Mr. High School
Stud."

"You were half out of your mind with pain.  You didn't know what you were
doing."  Annie's voice dropped low.

"I did."

"Oh, I knew what I was doing, all right.  I was taking.  Taking just the way
I always took what I wanted and didn't give a damn.  I wanted to be different
when I was with you.  Dudley Do-Right.  A hero.  But when you found out you
were pregnant, I guess you figured you were better off on your own, that I'd
just make a disastrous situation worse.

Hell"-- Trace rammed his fingers back through his dark hair " --you were
probably right.  What could I have given you, but more heartache?  But damn
it, Annie, you didn't even give me a chance.  "

She'd thought a thousand times what Trace would have sacrificed if she had
stayed behind in Arizona and married him the way he'd kept insisting she do.
It had never occurred to her that Trace might misconstrue the motive behind
her leaving.  That he would believe she didn't think he was good enough,
strong enough, to take care of her.  Never had she considered the damage her
actions must have done to his pride.  And his heart?  The whisper rose
sudden, bittersweet inside Annie.  No.  Even now, Trace spoke of guilt and
regret and pain.

Not love.  Never in their time together had Trace spoken of love.

"I'm sorry I hurt you," Annie said, reaching across the table, touching his
cheek.

"And I know you didn't mean to hurt me.  But the Annie Brown who came to that
abandoned stable is gone, Trace.  So is the boy who raged over the end of the
dream he'd never dared to have.  What happened between us changed everything.
But it's over now, Trace.  It's time to let it go."

"Is it?"

Annie shivered at the whiskey-rough demand.

"We share April, of course," Annie stammered.

Trace sighed, his jaw knotting for a moment.

"Annie, " Two steaks, one on the hoof, the other charred beyond recognition.
"

The waitress's saucy voice made Annie jump.

Trace looked ready to kill the woman, but he gritted his teeth as the
waitress slid the plates onto the table before Annie stared at the prime cut
of beef and knew there was no way she could squeeze so much as a bite down
her throat.

Trace stabbed halfheartedly at his food.  The sudden silence that fell over
the table was crushingly uncomfortable.

The only sound was the records the disk jockey was sending out over the
speakers--country songs that broke your heart.  Lost loves and forgotten
dreams set to music that sank deep into your bones and stayed there.

Annie endured the mixture of music and Trace's moody silence for as long as
she could, then set down her fork.  He looked so distant, so strange.
Unreadable.  "Trace, what are you thinking about?"  she asked at last.

"You'd laugh if I told you."

"No I wouldn't.  I promise."

Trace looked at her from beneath thick lashes, his eyelids at half-mast, his
mouth curved with something almost like shyness.

"I'm thinkin' I don't feel so different from the kid in the stable right now.
I'd like to dance with you, but I figure you'll tell me no.  Rejection can
be hell on the male ego."

Annie fidgeted with her steak knife.

"I don't think that would be such a good idea.  Dancing, I mean."

"I'm not asking you to marry me, Brown-Eyes.  It's just a dance."

"Easy for you to say."  Annie didn't want to smile at him.  He left her no
other choice.

"According to Vera, you're the Cowboy King of the Golden Nugget.  I'm a city
girl who spent every dance she attended 'holding up one of the walls and
watching everyone else.  In fact, I seem to remember you be' rag one of the
'everyone elses' I watched.  You and Robin and Paula and Linda and Sue and
Maureen and" -- "I seem to remember you dancing with the drama club
president--Mr.  Bow-Tie Teacher's Pet."

Annie was struck by the acid tone Trace used, as if that dance had somehow
rankled.

"What'd you ever see in that jerk?"

"I didn't exactly have partners lined up waiting for a turn.  You, for
example, never got within a mile of me at a dance."

"Not true.  I stuck that rose behind your ear at the Sadie Hawkins."

Annie gave a soft laugh.

"I remember.  You dismembered the boutonniere your main-squeeze gave you.
She was thrilled beyond words."

Trace's eyes were soft blue with the memory.

"Well, I might not have had the brains to ask you before, Annie, but I'm
asking you now.  Will you dance with me?"

"We're supposed to be making a treaty here" -- "Absolutely.   After we
dance, we'll smoke the peace pipe."   He pushed back his chair and stood.
He towered over her, tall and lean and compelling.   Annie knew she should
tell him to sit down and finish his steak.   They had to settle all this and
pick up April.   They had to stay focused on the issue at hand.

Instead, she slipped her fingers into his and stood.  She could feel her
cheeks grow warm, her lips parting.

"You're going to regret this, Baryshnikov."

"Yeah, well, I'n add it to my list of regrets where you're concerned."  Annie
could sense something in his voice.

Something that made her heart stumble as he led her onto the floor where
three other couples had already begun two stepping to some upbeat music.

Annie didn't have a clue what she was supposed to do.  "This was a very bad
idea," she said, hazarding a glance up at Trace.

"Just melt into my hands, sugar.  Trust me.  Let me take you" -- He might
have been seducing her toward a far different goal than navigating the dance
floor of a Western club.  His voice was low, a little rough, a lot alluring.

Annie tried to match his expert movements, but in this, as in so much else
where Trace was concerned, she was hopelessly overmatched.

When the song ended, she started to pull away, retreat to the table, but the
first strains of a love song drifted out across the smoky room~ This time,
Trace didn't ask.  He stared down at her with eyes suddenly as fathomless as
the heavens themselves.  His strong arms tugged her dose, one curving in an
unyielding band at the small of her back, his other hand coming up to catch
her fingers as he pulled her body close to the hard masculine plane of his
own.

Fire-hot, rock-hard, Annie felt Trace's body graze hers as they moved--the
tips of her nipples brushed his chest, ~cruciatingly pleasurable sensations
awakening in her tender flesh.

His denim-covered thighs whispered against hers, hinting at that
far-more-primitive dance they had shared once before.

When they'd started dancing, he had told her to melt into his hands.

But she'd never suspected how merely moving to music in a man's arms could
make you melt into his very soul.  She heard Trace groan deep in his chest,
then his arms tightened, closing what little space had been between them.
The sculpted muscles of his chest imprinted against the soft swells of her
breasts, the heavy silver buckle of his belt nudged against her stomach,
while beneath that, she could feel a firm swelling of a totally different
kind.  The most feminine part of her responded so fiercely Annie couldn't
draw away.  Trace pillowed his cheek against her hair, his warm breath
brushing her ear, his lips like warm, moist silk where they touched that
sensitive skin.

"Is it really over between us, Brown-Eyes?"

The question reverberated through every desire-tingling nerve in Annie's
body, peeling away a thousand lies she'd told herself in an effort to explain
her reaction to Trace during the past week.  She swallowed hard, tried to
think of something rational, reasonable, to say, some way to put distance
between them.

"Annie, I tried to forget you in a hundred different places.  I raced all
over the world, trying to keep my adrenaline running so high I wouldn't
notice the emptiness anymore.  There were other women.  No responsibilities,
no ties.

Hell, I was the same old Trace McKenna, just taking.  But after you, I made
damned sure the women were taking from me, too.  That it was understood no
gut-level emotions were expected, no commitments.  "

Annie trembled.

"I don't need to hear this."

"I need to tell you.  What I felt.  Where I've been these past nine years, so
you'll understand why everything changed the minute I saw you again, touched
you.  Kissed you."

"You kissed me out of anger," Annie insisted.

He stopped in a pool of shadows, pulled away from her.  His hands bracketed
her face, forcing her to confront the full impact of that dizzying,
passion-hazed gaze.

"You want to know the truth?  I kissed you because I'm still starving for the
taste of you after all these years.  Because every time I close my eyes, I
can still see the way you looked in the hayloft, moonlight on your skin.  I
can still hear your gasps, your sighs.  That tiny sound you made when I drove
myself inside you."

Annie's whole body felt afire, the memories so vivid, Traee's eyes so
intense.  Heat radiated from every muscle in his body, sparking a wild desire
that made her heart pound.  "You want to know what I'm thinkin' now, Brown
Eyes

"Wh-what?"

"I'm thinkin' I want to kiss you.  I'm still scared you'll say no, but I want
it so bad, I'm willing to risk it."

Buried deep in Annie's consciousness was the will for survival, the instinct
she'd been ruled by for so long.  It told her to pull away from Trace
McKenna, get furious or just plain run.

Fight or flight--she'd read about it in countless psychology texts.  But this
time another instinct rolled over her, softening her lips, parting them,
pressing her breasts fighter against the front of Trace's shirt.

His mouth took hers with so much tenderness tears stung Annie's eyes, those
lips that could be so hard and unyielding, so deliciously wicked, enchanted
her, bewitched her.  Trace McKenna had been devastating as a seventeen
year-old.  It hardly seemed possible he could be more so now, but he was.
The tip of his tongue skated along the crease of her lips, probing gently,
offering, not taking, until Annie's knees were shaking, her hand trembling
where the.

It had been so long, Annie thought m~2zily, so very long since she'd allowed
herself to sink into sweet sensation, taste such soul-shattering pleasure,
feel such relentless need.  Need for Trace.  Always Trace.  Only Trace.

"Hey, McKenna," someone called out.

"Get a room!"  Reality crashed in on Annie, sending heat spilling into her
cheeks as the other patrons applauded.

She expected to hear one of the famous Trace McKenna comebacks.  Some joke
that would have everybody roaring with laughter.  But Trace's jaw only
knotted.

He grabbed her hand and dragged her from the dance floor, pausing only long
enough to toss a wad of bills onto the table where the half-eaten remains of
their dinner still waited.

Without a word, Trace guided her past the staring patrons and Vera's
makeup-laden eyes.  The mountain air struck Annie's cheeks as she tried to
keep up with Trace.  But he didn't head for the Land Cruiser.  He tugged her
into the shadows where the logs forming the walls intersected.  The
gentleness was gone from his face as he whipped her around, pressing her back
against the rough bark.  Annie stared into those searing blue eyes, seduced
by the fierce need that toughened Trace's voice.

"I want you, Annie.  I want you so bad I wake up at night, drenched with
sweat.  I can taste your name on my tongue, know that I've been calling it
over and over."  The image made Annie's head swim, her throat dry.

"Th-that's crazy."

"I was always crazy when it came to you."  He swore.  "Nine years, damn it.
Nine years I've been starving for a taste of you.  I've been trying to forget
you because you hurt me so damn bad."

Those eyes that had haunted Annie's dreams blazed with torment.  A torment
she'd never have believed possible until this moment.

"Trace, it was just a--a reaction to the guilt you were feeling over what
happened in the stable" -- "You wanna know the truth, Annie?  By the time you
climbed up into that hayloft I'd been wanting you for weeks.  It was making
me crazy how bad I wanted you.  Every time you walked into a room or passed
me in the hall, I got hard as steel wanting you.  It was scaring the hell out
of me."

Annie's mouth went dry.

"Then why--why were you " Such a card-carrying jerk?  I'll tell you why.  The
way I was feeling, I knew we'd end up in the back seat of my car.

I didn't want that for you, Brown-Eyes.  You deserved better.  I swear to
God, I didn't want to hurt you.  " His voice broke, a strangled sound rising
in his chest.

"But I destroyed your life, didn't I, Annie?"

"No, Trace."  Annie reached up, stroking his check, his jaw, feeling the old
pain tearing him apart inside.  She'd never suspected she'd left him like
this--tormented, shit"" I wanted so bad to do right by you.  You believed in
me--you were the only one who ever did.  I thought you could see past the
image I worked so hard at.  But you didn't really believe in me any more than
anyone else.  When things got down and dirty, you walked away.  You walked
away and you took my baby with you.  Why'd you do that, Annie?  "

"You were raging at your father, at my father--saying you were going to marry
me and they could go to hell.  I thought that you were just trying to get
back at them, at everyone.  That you were willing to throw your whole life
away to spite them."

"What life was I supposed to be throwing away?  I was a screw-up jerk with
nothing.  I saw it every time I looked into my father's eyes, or the
teachers' or the coach's.  But when I looked into your eyes, I saw something
different, Annie.

Something terrifying.  Wonderful.  You didn't let me hide behind my attitude,
you wouldn't let me lie back and throw everything away.  I hated you for
showing me everything I could be, but had been too damn stubborn to achieve.
And I loved you"-- Annie's breath caught on a gasp of denial.

"Yes, goddamn it.  I loved you, but I couldn't say the words because I was
scared as hell that you'd give me that sweet, solemn look of yours, that
you'd be so damn gentle while you told me that you had your life all planned
out.

You were going to Juilliard and then to Carnegie Hall.  That you were gonna
be somebody someday, and I'd just hold you back.  "

Annie's throat ached, burned.

"Wh-why didn't you tell me?  Oh, Trace."

"Don't you sec?  My greatest fear was that I'd take the single good thing in
my life and destroy it.  And I did.  I never was able to trust the fact that
you believed in me.  I kept waiting for your faith in me to crumble.  And it
did.  I thought you wouldn't want me--that I'd hold you back.  And when I
gave you my baby, you showed me that everything I'd been so damned scared of
was true."

It would have been far wiser to tell Trace that it had all happened a long
time ago.  That it was in the past.  The pain they'd both suffered had
fashioned them into the people they were today--all but strangers to each
other, following different life paths.  It would have been wiser, and far
less painful, to put necessary distance between them.  Put things into
perspective.

Annie tunneled her fingers beneath Trace's hair, curving her pslrn gently
around the cords of his neck.  After all that had happened between them, he
deserved the truth.  "It tore my heart out to leave you," she said softly.

"I

made love with you because I loved you.  And I walked away because you'd been
trapped all your life, by your own self-doubt and your father's disapproval.
I couldn't bear the thought of being one more link in the chains that held
you down.  " ' " The baby"-- " I won't lie, Trace.  When I first found out I
was pregnant, I was terrified.  You know what my father was like.

And then, there was you.  You wouldn't even talk to me after we made love.
The only time yo~ said a word to me was to say you were sorry about what had
happened.  " " I'd hurt you.  I hated myself for that.  What the hell could I
say?  " Trace's mouth twisted in bitterness.

"But I would've stood by you no matter what you decided to do.

though I loved you, wanted you and the baby, I'd have supported any decision
you made.  If you'd wanted to--to end the pregnancy, if you'd wanted to give
the baby up for adoption.  Whatever.  I just wanted to be there to help you
get through it.  I wanted to be strong for you, Annie.  Take care of you.  "

"I wanted to free you from the responsibility.  I wanted to give you room to
fly.  But never once did I think of giw ing up your baby, Trace.  I had a
piece of you to love forever."  She could see devastation in his eyes, all
the wounds laid open to the night.

"Annie."  He whispered her name against her lips.

"How the hell did things get so screwed up between us?"

"We were kids.  Scared kids.  And we created a situation neither of us was
ready to handle.  We made mistakes.  Both of us."

"Is this just one more mistake, Annie?"  Trace asked softly.

"Me, coming back into your life?  Or is this a second chance for us?"

"I don't know."  Panic bubbled in Annie's breast, mixed with a wild kind of
hope.  The kind of blind hope that sent people making leaps of faith.

But leaping into the unknown was Trace's forte.  Annie had always been
cautious, careful, exploring every possible consequence before she acted.
Except for the night she had gone to find Trace .  The thought sobered her as
nothing else could have.  "Trace, no matter what we felt for each other nine
years ago--we're different people now.  With different lives."

"Then you're saying we should just forget the whole thing?   The hell with
us?"

"No.  I'm saying that the last time we had feelings for each other, we raced
in without thinking about the consequences.

Look at the pain it caused--you, me and even April.  We can't afford to make
the same mistake again.  "

"You're not sateen anymore.  You're a woman.  I'm a man."

"That's why we have to sort this all out.  To think it through."

"You got everything set up in little compadments, An- me ?"  Trace d~manded,
suddenly edgy.

"You think you can take what happened beAween us when I kissed you and stick
a label on it?  What the blazes is there to think about?

Whether or not it was too hot to be real?  Was there some other man who made
you feel anything hotter?  "

For a heartbeat, Annie couldn't meet his eyes.  Then she stared straight into
that storm-cloud blue.

"There hasn't been anyone since you."

"You mean you've never been in love with any of the men you've" -- "I mean
that there haven't been any men at all."  Trace stared at her, stunned.

"I don't believe it.  You're beautiful.  So damn smart.  There must've been
men who" -- "It was my choice, Trace."

He took a step back, one of the lights from the parking lot shining on cheeks
suddenly pale, a face incredibly still.

"I busted you up pretty bad inside, didn't I, Brown-Eyes?"  Tears formed in
the corners of Annie's eyes.  Trace cupped one hand on her cheek, feeling the
wetness as they spilled free.

"Give me a chance.  I'm not asking you to love me.  Not right now.  I'm not
even saying I love you.  All I know is that my whole life I've needed
something to give me direction.  Something to give meaning to all the
craziness.  All the pain.

Maybe, if you'll give me a chance to make things up to you, I can find that
something.  "

"Trace, I don't know" -- "Just think about it, Annie.  We have a child
together.  And God knows, every time I touch you, I need you so bad I can
barely breathe.  You have to feel it, too."  His voice dropped low, pulsing
through her nerve endings like warm brandy.

"Tell me you feel it, too."

"I don't want to--can't afford to" -- Suddenly, Annie needed to deny it, even
to herself.

"I've never been a very physical person."

"You made love with a boy who was half crazy with pain.  I wasn't as gentle
as I wanted to be, Annie.  And I was so sure you'd turn away from me that I
didn't take the time to pleasure you.  Next time I have you beneath me, I'll
show you what it's like to be loved by a man.  I'll make it so good for you,
you'll forget that other time."

Forget?  Forget the simmering, slow burn Trace had started inside her?

Forget the soaring sensation of feeling him become a part of her?  Forget the
groping need, reaching for a burning sphere of light, sensation that had
danced just beyond her reach in the moments before Trace had plunged into her
one last time, his incoherent cries shattering on a sob.

Did Trace even remember how he'd clung to her, his face buried against her
bare breasts, his tears running in hot rivulets down her skin?  Could he even
guess what she'd felt, holding him?  Even then, she'd never cherished any
delusions of happily-ever-afters with Trace, she'd known their time together
would be as fleeting as it was precious to her.

But she'd been glad, so glad that he'd been her first.  Something that
nothing--not time nor distance nor one of Trace's countless other
girls--could take away from her.  She'd held on to that in the years that had
come after.

She'd thought it was enough.  But this dangerously handsome, devastatingly
vulnerable man before her was offering something more now.  Something she
hadn't dared to hope for, dared to dream.

"I don't know, Trace.  I can't think straight.  I" -- "There's time, Annie.
Just promise you won't walk away from me again without telling me why."

Why?  If she walked away it would be because she was terrified of the
feelings he stirred in her.  Because she'd already lost him once, and almost
hadn't recovered.  Annie stared into Trace's silver-blue eyes, knowing that
she was a coward.  That she was running from the real truth.  She didn't dare
fall in love with Trace McKenna this time.

Because if she let herself love him, really love him, she'd have to admit
that she'd been wrong to walk away from that rebellious seventeen-year-old
boy so many years ago, depriving him of all the time he could're spent with
his daughter.  Time Annie could never give back to Trace and April.

If that was true, how could Annie ever forgive herself?  "We need to pick
April up," Annie said, grasping on to the most logical excuse to get her away
from this night with its stars, the soft music drifting from the Golden
Nugget.

Away from the solemn light in Trace's eyes.

As if he sensed her need for distance, Trace stepped away from her, jamming
his fists into his pockets.

"You asked me before what I was thinking, and I told you," Trace said.  "Now
I'm asking you."

"I'm thinking I was crazy ever to come here, that this whole thing is
dangerous.  So dangerous.  That if I had any sense at all, I'd race back to
Chicago on the next plane."

"You promised you wouldn't run," Trace bit out, and she could sense the
savage fury, the pain of the boy he had been.

"I didn't promise anything.  I can't."

"Try it, and I'll track you down, Annie," Trace growled, his hands catching
her arms, a primitive light in his eyes.

"I

swear I'll come after you.  "

There was a time such a declaration from Trace would've been the answer to
Annie's most secret prayers.  Promises of dreams come true and fairy-tale
reunions.  Now Trace's words only tightened the coil of uncertainty in her
chest.

"I'm not going to let you walk out of my life again," Trace said fiercely.

"Not you or April.  It's too late for that now."

Annie looked deep into those storm-dark eyes.  There were a thousand methods
of running away, places to go ~ where no one would ever find you, places to
hide your heart.  In her years at the shelter, Annie had learned every one of
them.

The trouble was, Trace was right.

It was too late.  She had run from Trace McKenna once before.

This time, there was no place left to hide.

Chapter 9 Trace paced the night-dark confines of his bedroom, lowslung jeans
clinging to his freshly showered body, shivers from the icy water he'd used
still skating across his bare skin.  Two hours had passed since he'd guided
the Land Cruiser out of the parking lot of the Golden Nugget on the way to
pick up April.

He'd been fighting to regain his emotional balance during the whole ride.
But even two hours' distance and a shower frigid enough to turn a polar bear
blue couldn't cool the sensations let loose the moment he'd kissed Annie
Brown again.

Shattering.  Primal.  They gripped him again every time he closed his eyes.
Raw, blinding need had shot through every fiber of Trace's being, bursting
self-control, igniting fires far more dangerous than the raging infernos
Trace had plunged into so many times before.  Trace knew from harsh
experience that the key to survival in a perilous situation was keeping your
head.  No matter how bad things got, you A Father' s C~airn couldn't give in
to the fear.  But when Trace had tasted those lips he had dreamed about,
agonized over for nine long years, the fear that shot through him was
visceral, devastating.

Terror that he could lose himself again in Annie's arms.  Terror that he
wouldn't be strong enough to hold her, resourceful enough to keep her.

Terror that she would turn and walk away.

"God?  It was half curse, half plea, as Trace stalked to the open window.
What was he doing, putting himself on the line again like this?

He'd wanted to work things out with Annie.  Wanted to find some way for them
to share April.  He'd even toyed with the idea of sex with her--toyed with
it?  Hell, he'd been consumed with the idea from the moment he walked into
the shelter office.  But he'd thought he could keep his head through it all,
that he could maintain enough distance to keep him from being shattered the
way he had been so many years before.

But the truth was, there had never been any distance between Annie and him.
No safety nets.  No anchor ropes.

When it came to Annie Brown, he'd been free-falling from the first moment
he'd met her.  It had been glorious.  Incredible.

But then he'd hit the ground.  In a hundred bone- crushing accidents, Trace
had never felt any impact so crippling.

He must be crazy even to consider throwing himself back to the most glorious,
most agonizing, time in his life.  He must be insane to even consider.  what?

Loving Annie?

A giant fist squeezed his ribs.  He stalked to the open window in an effort
to catch his breath.  The breeze stirred the damp webbing of hair that
spanned his chest--a chest aching for the imprints of Annie's fingers, the
heated press of her palms.

Stars spilled across the heavens like rhinestones snapped from a child's play
necklace.  Moonshine fashioned silvery sliding boards for dreams to skim down
on.

Night and drb, ams of Annie.

Would they ever be separate in his mind?  Would he ever be able to look out
and see darkness instead of black velvet curtains that had sheltered them
from the harsh realities of the world for just a little while?  Would be ever
forget that stunning moment of joy, so blindingly brilliant, when he'd put
his hands on Annie's body and known she wanted him, too?

For years it had infuriated him to feel the tighten' rag in his sex whenever
he thought of that moment.  He'd tried to drown the sensation in gallons of
whiskey, beautiful women, a thousand wild rushes of adrenaline as he pushed
himself to impossible limits.

But now he felt that same crushing desire with a kind of wild hopelessness, a
dizzying plunge that made him wonder if he'd be the one who turned coward
this time.  Trace McKenna, daredevil extraordinaire, adrenaline junhe who
never felt alive unless he was blazing at Mach 10 on the ragged edge, might
finally have rammed into a risk he wasn't brave enough to take.

But there would be plenty of time to gather his courage where Annie was
concerned.  The woman had made it clear she was going to be damned careful
when it came to starting anything physical between them.  Hell, she hadn't
let any man touch her, taste her, since the night he'd taken her virgini~
with all the finesse of a rutting stag.  He'd known he hadn't been any
fantasy lover that night.  But it must've been pure misery to have scared her
off men altogether.

Hell.  He'd thought he'd been acquainted with bell's most searing flames when
he'd lost Annie so long ago.  But that couldn't compare to the agony of
watching her now, not being able to crush her in his arms, kiss her, make
love to her.

She still broke his heart.  The woman who sat, even now, on the side of
April's bed, stroking back her daughter's hair, singing snippets of lullabies
the child was no longer aware of.

Lullabies that Trace sensed were to comfort Anme, soothe Annie, not the
little girl slumbering, oblivious to the emotional turmoil all around her.

Annie was still quivering inside.  Even through the walls that separated
them, the years that made them strangers, Trace could feel her whole being
resonating with reawaked pain and a thousand unanswered questions, terrifying
possibilities that could open the door to something both of them wanted
desperately, but feared soul-deep.

Trace wondered what it would be like to feel free to go to her, kiss the
tender dip of her temple.  To tell her everything was going to be all right.
And to believe it, down deep where his nerves were raw.

She'd come to Halloran's stable so many years ago to offer him comfort.  God
knew, he wanted to do the same for her.  And yet--wasn't Annie right to
counsel caution?  They were both so tense, so uncertain.  And then there was
April.

Theft actions in the next few months would alter the course of her life
forever.  Any change that profound was a precarious one, filled with danger.

Damn.  Trace swore and stalked over to his bed.  He sat down on the edge and
lowered his face into his splayed hands.  It had all seemed so simple when
he'd stormed out of the hospital three weeks ago.  April was his daughter.

Annie had betrayed him.  Betrayed him even more viiely than he'd believed all
these years by stealing his child from him.  He had intended to bulldoze his
way into April's life, give her everything his vast wealth could buy, and all
the love Trace had never known as a child himself.  Love he'd only entrusted
to one person for such a brief, precious time.

Yes, the whole mess was disturbing.  Unsettling.  That first week he'd been
mad as hell, and hadn't been too particular about getting back at Annie Brown
for all those sleepless nights that had left him weak and wanting.

But the ache that had started down deep in his chest tonight was far more
lethal than what he had known before.

He'd been a boy when Annie had walked out of his life last time.  A kid who
had believed he could obliterate the empfiness she'd left inside him by
living life on the edge.  A kid who had been so damned determined to show the
world that he didn't need anyone.  Trace McKenna, Mr. Live for the Moment.

He'd had nine years to learn that it didn't take any guts to fling your life
away when there wasn't anyone waiting for you, wanting you, loving you.

But Annie had loved him once.  Nine years ago when he'd been too much of a
coward to tell her how he felt, too much of a tough son of a bitch to admit
to the tender, soft places she'd touched inside him.  Telling her how he felt
would have been the greatest risk Trace had ever taken.  In the end, it would
have been the only risk that really would have mattered.

The knowledge burned, relentless inside him, churning up self-doubts,
self-loathing, a primal kind of helplessness and a sense of futility that
left him more torn up than he'd ever been before.

He'd told Annie it was too late for them to run.  But wasn't it even more
likely that it was too late to pick up the pieces of the dreams they had
abandoned?  There hadn't seemed to be any common ground between them years
ago.

There was even less now.  April.  Only April.  Unless they could build
something stronger, something new .  "Damn it, Annie, why'd you run away
from me?"  Trace groaned into his hands.

"Why didn't you tell me you loved me?  Why couldn't I tell you I loved you?
Oh, God, things could've been so different."

"Trace?"

The tentative sound of his name on her lips made Trace jump to his feet, his
cheeks burning with the fear she might have heard his anguished words, the
rest of his body heating with another kind of fire as his gaze skimmed down
Annie's body.

She stood, framed in the doorway.  When she'd left April's room, he couldn't
guess.  But the rose sweater and cream-colored slacks had been stripped away.
Her hair was long and loose and honey-gold, flowing over a simple
white-cotton nightgown with a touch of old-fashioned lace edging the high
neckline.  The hem of the gown skimmed her thighs, her legs stretching long
and golden-tan to small bare feet.  Her eyes shone huge and soft.  Wary in
the moonshine.

Trace fought against the pulsing need that started in the core of him.  His
voice sounded like that of a stranger.

"I

thought you were still in with April.  Is them--was there something you
needed?  "

She caught that full, dusky-rose bottom lip of hers with her teeth, and Trace
felt the pulsing inside him turn to thunder.

"I guess what I need... needed to say is... thank you."

"Thank you?"

"For giving April this time.  For trying so hard to make her dreams come
true.  I'm still uncomfortable with a lot of this.  The pony, all the money
you spent on toys.  Everything.  I've prided myself on taking care of her.
Giving her love.  I've told myself that material things didn't matter."

"Take it from someone who's got everything money can buy.  You're right.
This stuff doesn't matter a damn when you've got no one to love."  The words
slipped out before Trace could stop them, leaving him raw, ca'posed,
vulnerable.

Damn, hadn't he ripped himself open enough for one blasted night?

"I know you're right.  If a person had to choose between love and material
things, there would be no contest.  But if you can give April things I
can't... if she can have both... who am I to say no, just out of some stupid,
stubborn pride."

"You have a lot to be proud of, Annie.  She's incredible.  I can't tell you
how much I respect you for the way you've raised her.  I'm the one who should
thank you for all you've done for my daughter."

Tears were forming in Annie's eyes.  Trace could see them, glinting,
sapphire-blue in those sad green eyes.

"Funny, the things you never think about until it's too late," Annie
whispered.

"Tell me about it."  Trace crossed to where she stood, so alone.  Alone the
way she had been when she bore his child.

Alone and scared and trying so hard to be brave.  "Late at night I--I always
sit at the edge of April's bed for a little while.  Watch her sleep.  She's
so busy during the day.

She hardly ever sits still.  "

"I don't know where she gets all that energy.  It's like she can't wait to
explore everything.  Conquer the world."

"She reminds me so much of you, Trace."

Her words touched him, deep.

"She's more together than I'll ever be, Brown-Eyes.  Because of you."

That should've comforted her.  Eased the tension in her delicate frame.
Instead, Annie's hands curled into fists against him, a shuddery sound coming
from her throat.  "Don't say that, Trace.  Don't..."

"Tell you the way I feel?"

"Don't feel that way.  Don't you see?  I was sitting by April's bed, and kept
thinking about the moment you asked me for a picture of April when she was a
baby.  It always made me sad.

I wanted to be able to take out a photo album like other mothers do, look
into those big, wondering eyes of hers, see that crooked little smile, that
one that was like yours just before you did something to make people laugh.
But even though it hurts me not to be able to hold the picture in my hand, it
doesn't really matter.  I have her image in my heart.  "

"I'm glad, Brown-Eyes."

"But don't you see?  You don't.  You'll never be able to see how beautiful
she was.  I took that away from you."

Trace felt his own chest go rigid at her pain.

"Annie, you did what you thought you had to do.  You can't look back.

Neither of us can.  We can't change what happened.  " He cupped her face in
his hands, felt her tears burn his palms: " Don't cry, Brown-Eyes.  I can't
stand it when you cry.  "

"I'm so scared, Trace.  I had everything all figured out.  My whole life.
April's life.  Annie Brown, who had triumphed over her painful past, turned
her mistakes into something worthwhile.

I believed that I had done the right thing by leaving Arizona all those years
ago.  Even just a few weeks ago, I convinced myself I wanted to keep you away
from April because you would traumatize her somehow, or disrupt her life by
bouncing in and out of it whenever it was convenient for you.  "

"I don't blame you for having reservations about me.  You just wanted to
protect April."

"No.  I wanted to protect myself.  The hardest thing I've ever had to admit
is the fact that I'm not scared you'll hurt April.  I'm afraid April will
hate me for lying to her.  And I'm such a coward that I can't risk losing her
love.  Even if it means I'm cheating you out of the joy of telling her she's
your child."

"Oh, God," Trace dragged her against him.

"Annie, I don't want to take her away from you."

He felt her slender body shaking where it pressed against his.  She buried
her face against him, her hair feat bering in silken waves against his skin.
Her breasts were soft, fluid, pillowed against him.

And he knew the same immeasurable need he'd known so long ago--the need to
take care of his sweet, sweet Anhie.  To protect her from anything that could
hurt her-- most of all to protect her from himself.

"I won't let anything hurt you, Brown-Eyes.  I promise."  It was the same vow
he'd made as a boy so long ago.

Would he fail her now, just as he'd failed her then?  He sought out her chin,
cupped it in his hand.  He forced her to lift her face toward him.

"If it ever came to a choice between the two of us being in April's life, I'd
turn and walk away.  And I'd never look back."

"I just want to fix things... find a way to make them fight.  But I can't
think of any way to" -- "Maybe I can."  The idea appeared out of the mists of
Trace's mind, the most secret, hidden places.  It was so fragile, so daring,
he could barely put it into words.  "Marry me, Brown-Eyes."

She pulled back, incredulous.  Trace winced inwardly as a ragged laugh tore
from her throat.

"Trace, you can't be serious."

He braced himself, stunned by how damn serious he suddenly was.

"Is it really such a crazy idea?  If we got married, I could be a part of
April's life.  I could adopt her, Annie.

Be her father--emotionally and legally.  The only father she's ever known.
I'd be satisfied with that tie.  Hell, I'd be grateful for it.  If I had it,
there would be no tv.  ason to demand more.  "

"More?"  Green eyes went misty, uncertain.  "You'd never have to tell her
that I'm the brainless kid who got you pregnant."

Stillness.  It engulfed the room.  Pulsed in it.  Trace was stunned to see
Annie's eyes brim with tears.  He'd always figured he was no matrimonial
prize, but it hurt him somehow, seeing that rejection in her face.

Then she spoke, barely above a whisper.

"You would make that sacrifice for April?"

"I'm not doing it for April.  I'm doing it for you."  "Why?"

"Because I loved you once.  Because I think there's a chance I could love you
again."  This time he laughed, a low, ragged sound.

"Maybe I never stopped."  Wisps of her hair clung to her tear-streaked
cheeks.  Trace brushed the strands away with the tips of his fingers.  Then
slowly he lowered his lips to the salty-wet streaks, tasting Annie's sadness,
pressing kisses against the pulse of her deepest fears, his fiercest regrets.

"Trace felt something unfold inside him as he tracked his lips down to the
corner of her mouth.  He felt the bitterness, the anger, he'd kept closed in
a rock-hard ball in his vitals soften, open and flow into Annie's own most
private anguish.  A mating, not of bodies, but of yesterday's wounds,
tomorrow's promise, today's stark uncertainty.

Nine years ago, when he was emotionally battered, An- hie had come to him and
embraced his agony, taken it into herself.  He'd given her his baby that
night.  Blinded by his own desperation and need, he'd filled her with his
child.

Was it possible that tonight they could be conceiving something almost as
precious?  Something fragile and n~v and miraculous after so many barren
years?

Trace would have joyfully sacrificed ten years of his life just to be able to
settle his mouth over Annie's trembling lips, kiss her long and deep and slow
and hot.  But he didn't want to risk pushing her, trampling on this new trust
that had sprung up between them, this honesty that was as frightening as it
was filled with hope.

He wanted to give Annie a chance to sort through what he'd said, to decide.
he wanted to give her the rest of his life.  His whole future.  A future that
had been barren, empty, until he'd looked up from his hospital bed and seen
Annie Brown on a television screen.

He was reaching down inside himself, seeking the strength to pull away, when
Annie made a soft, wounded sound in her throat, and sought out his lips with
her own.  It was the first time Trace could remember Annie seeking out his
kiss.  The gift would have been too precious to sacrifice even for a man with
three times the noble impulses Trace had.

He threaded his hands through her hair and let her explore his mouth with her
own, let her seek out comfort, surcease, the way he had when he had first
kissed her so many years ago.

"Th-this is crazy," Annie breathed against his mouth.  "I know."

Her tongue stole out, pressed against the corner of his mouth.  Jagged desire
ripped through every fiber of Trace's body.

"We don't even know each other."

"Maybe we know enough."

"Trace, I" -- "Think about it, Annie.  All these years, I couldn't forget
you.  Did you forget me?"

"How could I, with April staring back at me with your eyes, flashing me your
smile" "Is that the only reason you thought about me?  The only way you
remembered me?  As April's father?"

He felt her shudder, as if the admission was tearing something inside her.

"No.  I thought about that night at the fair.  The way you held my hand.  The
way you grabbed my ribs in the Spock house and made me scream.  And then,
when you realized you'd really frightened me, how you dragged me back against
you and made sure nothing else could make me afraid."

"If you were my wife, Annie, I could keep all the ghosts away.  From you and
from April."

"I'm not a scared girl anymore."

"Well I'm scared.  Damn scared.  Scared that tomorrow I'll wake up and you'll
be gone again.  Scared that April will just be a dream.  That I'll still be
left with an empty place in my heart, the memory of a baby that never got a
chance to laugh and smile and love still eating inside me.  You think it's
easy to admit that, Brown-Eyes?  Mr. Living on the Edge scared out of his
mind?"

"We both have our own lives" -- "I don't know about yours, but my life
sucked."  Annie laughed aloud, a thousand voices of reason clamoring inside
her.  A thousand wild dreams beating butterflies wings against her sanity.

"You're insane," she breathed, battling against the smile Trace McKenna had
always won from her so effortlessly.  Her mouth wobbled into a grin.

"Year, Brown-Eyes.  That's me.  Certifiable.  The question is, are you crazy
enough to marry me?"

"I live in Chicago.  You flit all over the world."

"That's the beauty in being the boss, sweetheart.   I can move FireStorm's
base headquarters to the goddamn moon if I want to.

I want to marry you, Brown-Eyes.  The same way I do everything else in my
life--fast.  Real fast.  "

"You can't just--just rush into something like this."

"Got no other choice."   Dangerous, seductive lights played in the
storm-cloud depths of Trace's eyes.   "Why not?"

'"Cause I don't want to make another mi.qtake with you.  I don't want to push
you.  Risk hurting you again.  But every time I touch you I get so damn hot,
what little willpower I have melts.  If we don't settle this--and soon--I'm
gonna lose my grip, Annie.  Do what comes naturally."  The gruff tones of his
voice shivered down Annie's spine.

"What's that?"

"I'm gonna scoop you up in my arms and carry you to my bed.  I'm gonna strip
away that nightgown and kiss every inch of you--pleasure places I never even
knew existed nine years ago."

Annie bit her lip, hard.  But her mouth still tingled from Trace's kiss.  She
couldn't drag air into her lungs.  Shadowy images from the hayloft slipped
across her mind like black satin.

Trace had been pure trouble back then.  The years had hardened him, toughened
him.  But they hadn't tamed him.  There had been only one brief snippet of
time Trace McKenna had let another spirit touch his, Annie realized suddenly.

Once she had had the courage to walk away from him out of love.  This time,
did she have the courage to walk into his arms buoyed by something as
ephemeral as hope?  It was terrifying.

Mesmerizing.  The thought of having Trace McKenna as her lover.  Of stripping
away all the layers of her life--social worker, ftiend, mother,
daughter-leaving only the secret part of her, the woman part, the lover part,
bare to Trace's hands.  Hands so strong, so callused, so potently male, they
awakened something primitive in the darkest recesses of her soul.

Annie couldn't reach the words that were locked so deep inside her.

She did the only thing she could to show Trace what she was feeling, trusted
him with emotions she didn't fully understand.

Her hands were unsteady, her cheeks fire-hot as she grasped the short hem of
her nightgown.  Trace's gasp of surprise broke on a groan of raw need as she
slowly drew the garment over her head and let it slip from her fingers to
pool on the floor.

Chapter 10 rraee, s body went rigid as a bronze statue, the only flicker of
life the desire raging like a brush fire in his eyes.  Annie stood there,
frozen, fragile in this new daring, feeling as if she might shatter under the
intensity of Trace's gaze.

"Annie, are you sure?"  he rasped.

"Don't make me say it, Trace."

He wheeled away from her, and for a heartbeat Annie thought he intended to
walk away.  Be the cautious one, this single time.  But Traee's long-legged
stride only ate up the distance between where he'd stood and the door to the
bedroom.  His hand was unsteady as he grabbed the knob and jammed the door
shut.

He stood, silhouetted against the panel, his body as hard and tough as the
oak the door was hewn from.  Rugged beauty.  Primitive strength.  A dream
ages old.  "I'm almost afraid to touch you," Trace whispered.

"After what happened last time" Annie's cheeks burned.

"You mean you don't keep ... uh, protection handy?"

His mouth ticked up in a ghost of his old wicked smile.  "You probably won't
believe this, but I don't.  Not here, anyway.  Not... until I knew I was
bringin' you here."

 "You must've been pretty sure of yourself."

"No.  But when I touched you in that office of yours, it was like the time we
were in the stable, only ten times stronger.  Spontaneous combustion,
Brown-Eyes.  Over the edge.  I tried to convince myself that it was anger,
that I wanted revenge, pure and simple.  Kissing the hell out of you was a
way to shut you up and drive that damned look off your face.  The one that
said you were totally in control when I was falling apart.  But I guess my
gut didn't believe all those excuses.  So I..."

"Made certain you could take care of me?"

"Yeah, well, I don't buy that line anymore--you know, the one that says if
you only do it once a gift can't get pregnant."

Bitterness edged his voice, along with ruthless self-blame.

Annie shivered as the breeze from the open window flowed over her skin.  Her
cheeks stung, and she was suddenly excruciatingly aware she was standing
there, naked, while Trace McKenna stared at the door.

Reflexively, she grabbed up her nightgown, pressing it against her bare
breasts just as Trace turned.  Those beautiful eyes probed past
embarrassment, into her most closely guarded insecurities.

"Ah, no, sugar," Trace breathed.

"Don't hide from me.  I've been waitin' so long to see you.  Dreamin' of
lookin' at you all over."

Just the sound of those husky-warm tones made An- me's breasts tingle, her
nipples peafl.  She fixed her gaze on the thick carpet, uncertain, unsure.
She hadn't been a beauty when she and Trace had been together last time.  But
now a faint webbing of stretch marks from her pregnancy feathcred across the
gentle swell of her stomach, her breasts had changed from nursing a baby.

It suddenly seemed so unfair that Trace was even more compelling, more
arresting, in his raw masculine beauty than he had been so long ago.  That he
would know all the secrets to this game of lovemaking, while she had only
hazy memories of awkward gropings, half-formed caresses, needs she hadn't
fully understood.

She turned away from him, suddenly afraid.

"It's not fair," she whispered.

"I don't--don't know what to do.

And look at you--you look even better than you did in high school, while I"--
A raw jolt of sensation speared to Annie's center as Trace's callused hand
cupped her naked shoulder, smoothed down the vulnerable curve of her arm.

"You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, Annie Brown.  Except for
that little girl in the other room."  Annie's heart soared at the fierce
honesty in his voice.

"You know why April's even more beautiful to me?"  He asked, turning Annie to
face him.  She drowned in gray-blue eyes.  "" Cause April is a part of you
and a part of me, together forever.  In a way that nothing--not my
stubbornness or your pride or your daddy's hate--can ever break apart.  "

"Oh, Trace."  Annie quavered.

"You wanna know something really crazy?"  He nibbled kisses along her cheek.

"What?"

His fingers tangled in the nightgown she was still clutching.  He tugged it
away from her and dropped it onto the floor.

"I wanna make a dozen babies with you.  I want the whole damned world to
know I can't keep my hands off you."

Hands.  his hands were all over her, sculpting the contours of her breasts,
her belly, her waist, as if he were blind and was learning her by heart.

"I never got to see you carrying April.  Never got to put my face against
your stomach when it was swelling with my baby.  Never got to whisper to
her..."

Trace's fingertip wisped over one of the faint white marks on Annie's
abdomen.  His lashes dipped low, dark shadows of regret on high cheekbones.

Annie reached out to cup his cheek in one hand, threading her fingers into
the silky strands at his temple.

"What would you have said to her?"

"That I was her daddy.  That I'd take care of her.  And that--that her mommy
was the most beautiful thing that ever came into my life .... " The words
ground to a halt.  Annie couldn't bear the raw emotion in Trace's face,
couldn't bear the answering anguish in her own heart as she pictured the
precious image he'd woven.

His words had only torn open the wound, laid it bare to the sun.

Annie reached out to heal it the only way she knew how, She cupped Tmee's
face in her hands, and pressed her trembling lips against the pain-hardened
curve of his mouth.

He groaned, a shudder working through the hard planes of his body.

Annie felt his lips open against hers.  He scooped her into his arms, the
sensation of her skin against Trace's naked chest making Annie feel as if she
were melting.

Melting into the wild, carnal magic carved into every sinew of Trace's body.
He carried her to his bed as if she weighed no more than a wildflower, his
mouth seducing her with long, slow, hot kisses as he rasped earthy words of
praise, silken promises.

The coverlet was downy soft against her bare back as Trace followed her down
onto the mattress.  He eased one jeans-clad leg over her naked thighs,
drawing her hard and fight into the unyielding contours of his body, letting
her know with vivid clarity just how hungry he was to bury himself inside her.

"Feel me, Annie."  He pressed him~ if again at her.

"Feel what you do to me.  How much I want you."

Annie felt his arousal pulse against her in a primitive rhythm that made her
feel achingly empty, as if she'd perish if Trace didn't fill her.  Even the
slow dragging of his tongue down the slope of her breast, the seeking,
melting kisses that circled her nipple, couldn't stop the need she suddenly
had to strip away the single layer of denim that kept her from being skin to
skin with this bone-meltingly sexy man.

"T-Trace, you're not--not playing fair," she managed in throaty accusation.

He opened his mouth over the rosy point of her nipple, sucked it deep into
the heat of his mouth.  Annie almost came off the bed at the sensual jolt it
sent rocketing through her.

"You know me, Brown-Eyes.  Never play by the... rules.  But if you've got any
objections, I'm listenin'."

"You have too many clothes on."   Annie reached for the frayed waistband of
the denims.

She could feel his smile spread against her passion-heated skin; his lips
were damp and firm and warm, his jaw lightly stubbled.  Wicked.  Devilish.
He rolled onto him back, his fingers going to the fastenings of his jeans.
She watched as he worked a metal button through its frayed hole, then another.

Annie's mouth went dry as the fabric spread, tugged apart by his impressive
arousal, revealing a wedge of dark hair.  In Halloran's stable she had been
timid, tentative, phant, following Trace's lead, but afraid to give in to her
own impulses.  Annie had had nine years to imagine what she might have done,
could have tried, if she had just had the courage to risk.

She caught.  her lower lip in her teeth, her hand curving over Trace's where
his fingers were poised at the next metal fastening.  Trace shot her a
piercing glance, searching her face for some sign.  Annie suddenly knew he
was certain she'd changed her mind.  That she was going to start stammering
out excuses, reasons why they should pull back from what they'd begun here.

His whole body was rigid.  A bead of sweat trickled from his temple down the
lean line of his clenched jaw.  He didn't say a word, and Annie knew he
wouldn't.  If she chose to break off their lovemaking, Trace McKenna wouldn't
breathe a word to convince her, no matter how savage his need was pulsing
through him, no matter how much he ached for release.

The knowledge ran soothing fingers through her tangled emotions, making her
suddenly bolder than Annie Brown had ever been in her life.

And she realized she wasn't trying to recapture the magic night she had found
Trace in the stable.  She wasn't trying to find the innocence and wonder of
the wide-eyed girl she had been.

She wasn't trying to fight past wrongs with the boy she had loved, then lost.

She wanted to make love as a woman with this man--the man who had stormed
into her life to claim his daughter, the man who had showered his little girl
with every gift imaginable, but hadn't realized that the most beautiful thing
he could give April was the glow of complete acceptance, fierce,
unconditional love.  Trace's awe when he looked at April had made Annie look
past worries about ~4 Father' s Claim homework assignments and braces and a
hundred otl mundane concerns, so that she could marvel again at child who was
the legacy of one enchanted April.

With slow deliberation, she peeled Traee's fingers b~ from the straining fly
of his jeans and laid that heautifu shaped hand on his thigh.  Her eyes
snagged his for a s and , then she reached for the next metal button.

She'd expected the tingle of embarrassment that stu her cheeks, the bounce
her pulses took to a higher not She hadn't had any clue how hot Trace would
be as knuckles grazed the steely evidence of his maleness.

hadn't suspected how the sound of his hoarse groan pleasure would empower
her, embolden her.

The button slipped from its hole, the vee of de~ spreading wider.

Annie saw Trace's hands knot in the she as she ran the tip of one finger ever
so delicately down' length of him, then stripped his jeans away.  He looked
tough, so pain-ravaged, so beautifully vulnerable, she sl cum bed to
unfathomable impulse and pressed a soft against that fire-hot flesh.

Her honey-gold hair swept in a silken veil across the rit muscles of his
stomach, brushed against the hair-stippl skin of his inner thigh.  A ragged,
animal sound rose in I back of his throat.

"Annie... oh, Annie ... you're ming me crazy."

"You're already crazy," she breathed, smiling into eyes.

"Maybe it's contagious."

"L'&e hell!"

"You're dangerous, Trace McKenna," Annie taun~ feat bering her splayed
fingers up the ridges of his belly the dusting of hair that spanned his broad
chest.  His n pies were pebble-hard, tickling her palms as she rubbed hands
in slow circles.

"You've told me that time and aga Bad to the bone.  But if that's true, why
do you feel so good?"

"I'm not good, Annie.  You know that better than anyone.  I'm a taker who" --
"You're not taking from me now, Trace.  Look at you.  You're giving me the
chance to touch you, to explore ... when I know you're ready--more than ready
to..."

"I don't want to take you the way I did before.   I want to go slow, savor
every kiss, every touch, draw it out until it seems like it'll go on
forever," Trace growled; "But damn it, Annie, you make me feel like I'm gonna
explode."   "That's what you're best at, isn't it?"   She prec~M her lips
against his heartbeat, skimmed her mouth to his nipple.

"I want you to.  Explode, Trace.  Set me on fire the way you did in the
hayloft.  But take me all the way, this time, to the place where you were
burning."

She touched his nipple with her tongue.  The wet, delicate contact shattered
something in Trace.  Annie could feel it snap, feel the raw desire arc
through him with awesome power.

Then he was dragging her up and into his kiss, rolling her beneath him, every
work-toughened sinew of his body branding itself into the softer contours of
Annie's own.  He swallowed her up, fire-hot, straining against her as if by
will alone he could fuse them together for all time.

His mouth was all over her, hot, wet on her throat, his hands hungry as they
caught the aching swells of her breasts.  He reached the straining points
with his mouth and sucked greedily, as if he'd been starving for the taste of
her, dreaming of the texture of her against his tongue.  "I've thought about
this so damned many times, Annie, dreamed of it," he groaned against the
hollow between her breasts as he trekked his way up the trembling slope to
her other nipple.

"Damn it, I want it to be right this time."

She was arching her hips against him, tangling her fin- gem in his hair.  The
feel of his mouth flexing beneath her hand, against her breast, was the most
shatteringly erotic sensation she'd ever experienced.  Until Trace thrust his
'arousal against her thigh, showing her the depth of his She slid her thighs
apart, meaning to cradle him, wanting to draw him inside her.  But Trace only
frustrated her by shifting to the side, the cool air filtering over skin hot
from his passion, damp with his sweat.

Annie started to protest, but it ended on a strangled gasp as those long,
beautiful fingers slid from her belly into the dark gold down at the apex of
her thighs.  She stiffened, wanting, needing, that insistent caress, but
feeling awkward, vulnerable.  Then Trace touched her.  One finger, gentle,
tender, seeking, found the most delicate part of her, opening her as if he
were folding back the petals of a rose.  Annie felt a trembling in the core
of her, a heady anticipation that made her breath catch, freeze in her lungs.
Ever so slowly, Trace stroked upward, catching the nub of her desire with
the tip of one callused finger.  Nothing that had happened in the abandoned
stable had prepared her for the burning intensity of that caress.

"T-Trace..."  She breathed his name, pleading for something she didn't fully
understand, knowing in that instant that there were a hundred dimensions of
her own sexuality Trace McKenna could unlock for her.

His finger dipped into the moist heat of her, swept up again to circle,
seduce, his mouth murmuring words of praise against her hip.

"You feel so good, Annie ... so damn good.

Don't be afraid, angel, I'll take care of you.  "

Kisses linked his sweet, sweet promises, like a golden thread slipped through
the heart of a handful of pearls.

Annie felt herself sliding into Traee's caresses, into the seduction of his
voice, the need she could feel in him.  His mouth dragged long, lingering
kisses down her hip, to the lily-pale skin of her inner thigh, his fingertips
teasing her most tender flesh, making it throb and burn, pulse with an almost
frenetic need.

Trace's long, dark hair brushed the curls that shielded Annie's feminine
secrets, his mouth tracking along the line that drew downward, an arrow
pointing to where she wanted Trace to touch her.  claim her.

He curved one hand beneath her thigh, opening her more completely to his
passion-heavy gaze.  Then ever so slowly, he kissed her.  Slow and wet,
tender and yet full of earthy hunger.

Annie came undone.

She writhed against the coverlet, tiny, desperale sounds rising in her throat
as Trace McKenna brought every fiber of her being into sizzling,
bone-melting, soul-stealing awareness.

The control she'd fought for, hidden behind for so long, tore away from her
on a gasp as Trace's inferno consumed that hidden, closed, fiercely leashed
part of her.

She was teetering on the brink of something magic, something beautiful.  She
wanted Trace with her.  Annie tangled her fingers in the silky waves of his
hair, broken pleas forming on her lips.

"T-Trace--now, please, oh, sweet heaven, I need" -- Trace rose up, loomed
above her, starkly beautiful in his masculinity, awesome in the potent power
of his need.  His eyes were black with desire, his face glistening with
sweat.  But the strongly sculpted planes of his face were still scarred with
regret, with self-blame, with so much pain Annie wanted to erase.

She saw him grope with something in the drawer of his nightstand, his hands
fumbling, awkward as if it were the first time he'd ever performed the ritual
of protecting h self and his lover.

Annie knew with bittersweet certainty he'd done so n~ times than she would
ever want to know.  But the t~ bling in his hands, the low curse in his
throat, made smile, then gently finish for him.

She wanted his eyes to be si~.  ~.  ling bright with passi fierce hunger.

She didn't want to see the self-blame ding through the blu~-gray depths.

"Trace, what's wrong?"

His mouth twisted.

"If I'd just had the brains to do ~ last time" -- "I wouldn't change anything
about that time.  Or- this one," Annie whispered.

"Except ... I want you to sl~ me... take me over the edge with you, Trace Me
Ken Show me how to fly."

"Ah, Annie .... " His voice broke as he positioned h self between the
restless columns of her thighs.  He bra himself with one hand on either side
of her, holding weight off her as his arousal nudged the damp satin k readied
with his -kiss.  He eased himself into her center.  She felt him straining to
bring her all the tenderness I~ been too tortured, too anguished, too
inexperienced, to ~ her that first time.  Knew that he was completely unaw of
what that single night of lovemaking had meant to 1 There was something so
endearing about this life-scar man, treating her as if this was her first
time.  But it was~ She wanted more from him than gentleness.  More than
resses filled with regret, desires leashed by a misgui~ sense of blame.

He was shaking, pushing farther in, withdrawing, pr~ ing deeper, letting her
become accustomed to the thi heavy length of him stretching her.  She wanted
more.

"All of you, Trace," she breathed against his chest.

"I want all of you."

"I don't want to--to hurt you again--ah, Annie!"  She arched her hips up
against him, just as he made another gentle stroke, her movement driving him
deeper, her fingers against his bare buttocks urging him down into the wet
heat of her.

A cry tore from low in his throat, his control snapping.  He drove deep,
full, hard, the length of him touching the mouth of her womb, the potent
strength of him making Annie's head swim, everything that was feminine inside
her rising up like Eve the temptress to embrace him, to revel in him, to mate
with him.

Crazy Trace McKenna--she'd heard him called that a hundred times.  She hadn't
known Trace could produce insanity, with the fervent, worship-filled sips he
took of her neck, her cheeks, her throat.  She reeled at the sheer power of
him thrusting deep, urging her higher, forcing her to let go of any
inhibitions she might have clung to.

Pressure built until Annie was biting her lip not to cry out, drinking in
Trace's fierce passion like some life-giving potion, feeling it carry her
along like a raging river.  White waters of response sprung up wild in her
center, making her sob with yearning.  At that moment, Trace's hand slipped
between their bodies, found the glowing hot ember of her need.  He pressed
it, seduced it, toyed with it, his voice husky, intoxicating, as whiskey as
he breathed,

"Over the edge, Brown-Eyes.  You feel so damn good.  So... God, I can't hold
... on much longer.  Fly with me.  Just let it all go."

She felt the tremors erupt in him with a savagery that stunned her.

He thrust deep, a groan of regret in his throat that told her just how much
he'd wanted to take her with him.  Just how hard he'd fought to hold himself
back.

19~ But at that instant, Annie shattered on a cry of mind les pleasure.  It
caught her in its fist, crushed the air from he lungs, the pain from her
heart, the last drop of control from her head.  She writhed against Trace,
clutched at him, tear slipping down her cheeks, sobs hal ling up under her
ribs bursting there, too painful to keep inside.

The sob shook its way into Trace's body.  She felt it 1odgl in his heart.

He rolled to one side, pulling her with him until she la.  " atop his lean
frame.  Her feminine sheath still clung to him cradled him, as if on some
deep, psychic plane.  She wa afraid that the instant they were parted, he'd
slip away fro~ her again, be far beyond her reach.

She buried her face in the hot lee of Trace's shouldel wishing she could bury
a thousand vulnerabilities there, thousand regrets.  And fear.  Fear of
opening something t4 Trace McKenna far more dangerous than merely her body
"Screwed up again, didn't I, Brown-Eyes?"  Trace's gruf tones reverberated
through her.

"Christ, I didn't want t~ hurt you again, make you cry.  After all I took the
last tim, we were together" -- "You didn't take anything, Trace," she choked
clinging to his trembling shoulders.

"Do you know why came to you that night?  Why I made love with you?"
"Because you were an angel who trusted me, wanted t, comfort me."

"I didn't do it for you, Trace.  I did it for me."  Anni raised her face from
the damp satin of Trace's skin an, stared deep into his eyes.

"I knew I could never keep you never hold you.  I always knew that you'd fly
away froi Arizona and never look back.  It was what you needed t do.  The
only way you could save yourself from all the ugl labels they'd put on you.
You said you used me.  Took fror me.  But I took that night from you.  I
wanted it more that I'd ever wanted anything.  I wanted you to be my first,
Trace McKenna.

You could've had any of the girls, prettier girls, more"-- " There was no one
prettier than you in my eyes.  " " I thought that the only way you'd want me
was when you weren't.  when you were"-- " Drunk enough to be reckless?  Drunk
enough to leave you unprotected?

God, Annie!  "

"Don't you see?  That's what I mean when I say it was my choice.

That's why I couldn't let you pay for what happened.

Yes, I wanted to comfort you after what you'd been through.  Yes, you wanted
to.  " She hesitated, swallowed hard.

"Brown-Eyes, you don't have to rake this all open."

"Yes I do.   You wanted me to understand why you came to find me, Trace.   I
want you to understand why I ran away.   There was a part of me that always
knew that when I opened myself to making love with you, it was for selfish
reasons.

Because I thought it was my only chance to be with you.  Before you came into
me.  I even thought about the fact that we needed some kind of birth control,
but I was certain if I left you to get it, by the time I came back, you
would've realized it was just plain Annie who was there with you.  Shy,
awkward Brown-Eyes.  "

Trace cupped her cheek in his palm.

"There was nothin' plain about you--moonlight in your hair, your face, like
an angel, your eyes so soft.  I couldn't believe you were really mine, even
for that tiny space in time.  That was what hurt so much, letting you go.
Don't make me let you go tonight, Brown-Eyes."

It seemed impossible, it seemed incredible,~ to feel the tension build again
between them.  Need--different flavors, different colors, different
fantasies--took root inside Annie and fed on the simmering heat that rose
again in Trace's eyes.

"Wh-what about April?  When she wakes up in the morning" -- "We'll be up and
dressed by then.  I want to go into town before we tell her we're going to be
a family.  We are going to be a family, aren't we, Annie?"

"I--I want to.  I just ... there are so many things to work out first."

"You think too damn much.  Everything'll be all right, Annie.  Nothing can
come between us now.  As long as you believe in me."

Nothing can come between us.  believe in me .  The words were a fierce vow, a
pica.  Annie knew just how much they had cost him.  She curled close to
Tracc's chest, her thigh over his hips, and tried to revel in the hardening
evidence that he'd not yet gotten his fill of her.  She should have felt
secure, filled with hope and wonder and a sense of rebirth.

But Trace was right.  She did think far too much.  She thought of the little
girl sleeping in the other room, oblivious to the fact that her whole world
was about to shift off its axis.

Everything was going to change.  For the better, Annie promised herself.  For
the better.

April would have a father.  ".

A father.

Annie winced at the image of another place, another man, spine straight as
the barrel of a rifle.  Colonel Brown.

War hero.  With a code of honor as immovable as the Rocky Mountains and a
fierce protectiveness of his only granddaughter.

And his daughter, Annie thought with a sudden pang.  The only time Annie had
seen a crack in her father's rigid facade had been the day he walked into her
room and discovered the home pregnancy test she'd used.  HIS face had held
the expression of a man whose heart had just been ripped from his chest.

Pregnant?  Who did this to you, Annalise?  That lowlife scum, McKenna?

I'll kill him!  I swear to God-It wasn't Trace's fault, Daddy, Annie's
pleading voice echoed in her head.

He forced you!  He had to force you!  I'll have him arrested for rape.

It wasn't rape, Daddy.  I knew what I was doing.  Damn it, girl, do you have
any idea what you've done?

No college is going to give a scholarship to a pregnant girl!  We'll take you
to a clinic, get rid of this--this problem.  And as for Trace McKenna-- He'll
pay for what he did to you!  The scene that followed had been a nigh tin are
that had haunted Annie for nine years.  And even though Annie had managed to
reconcile with her parents for April's sake when her daughter was five,
Colonel Brown's hatred for the boy who had "ruined" his daughter burned with
the same intensity as his hatred of those who had protested against Vietnam
years ago.

For nine years Colonel Brown had nurtured his hate for Trace McKenna,
hardened it over time.

Annie had found it daunting enough to tell her father that Trace wanted to be
a part of April's life.  The mere idea of telling him about the impending
wedding made Annie's stomach twist itself into knots.

Annie's own years as a parent had taught her about the dreams that came from
staring into your child's eyes--seeing a little being so full of promise, a
thousand possibilities.  She had grown to understand that her father had had
to blame someone for Annie's fall from grace, or he would have to blame
himself.

At first, Annie had made great effort to change Colonel Brown's attitude
toward Trace.  Then she'd surrendered, Claim by his indomitable will.  She'd
comforted herself with knowledge that Trace didn't need her father's approval.

That they were so far separated, it didn't matter anymore.  She'd even
comforted herself with the certainty that Trace might feel a wicked amusement
at her father's are .  The same amusement he'd felt at the principal's
loathing, the disgust he felt toward any authority figure.  Nothing can come
between us now, Trace had told her.

He was right.  She was an adult.  She'd made more than a few choices her
father hadn't approved of--starting with bringing April into the world.  And
now, her father positively adored his granddaughter.

Her father would he angry.  Hurt.  No doubt his first in- sfinct would he to
mount a campaign to rival the Tet Offensive in an effort to stop this
wedding.  But in the end he'd have to see that this was best for April,
wouldn't he?

And best for you?  a voice inside Annie queried.  "What's the matter,
Brown-Eyes?"  Trace murmured against her temple.

"You seem like you're a thousand miles away."  ' Not a thousand miles, Annie
thought.  Just nine years away--a dozen mistakes away--facing a hatred that
had grown only more virulent with time.

She pressed closer to the hard strength of Trace's body, unable to keep the
tiniest quaver from her voice.

"Trace, make love to me again."

I need to feel you inside me, a part of me.  I need to know that you're
really here and I'm not going to wake up from another dream about you.  I
need to keep my doubts at bay.  She swallowed hard, stammered,

"I mean if you can ... if you want to .... " She watched a smile spread over
his face, his eyelids slipping to half-mast.

"Oh, I want to, lady.  I'll never get enough of you.  Never."

His mouth dosed over hers, driving back the shadows, spinning her into a
world of dreams-come-true and happy endings.

Annie wanted to stay there forever, away from the harsh reality she'd been
forced to face inside the walls of Baby Place shelter, while she stood among
the fragments of her own most cherished fantasies.

Dreams faded with morning light.

They rarely lasted forever.

Chapter 11 Annie stood at the kitchen window, a cup of coffee growing cold in
her hand, one of Trace's T-shirts hanging down to the middle of her thighs.
He'd awakened her just as sunrise was staining the rim of the cliff magenta,
and Annie had had the odd suspicion that he hadn't slept at all, merely held
her in the darkness, alone with his thoughts.  He had reached for one of his
soft cotton T-shirts, smoothing has hands over her breasts, her waist, as he
draped the faded fabric over her.

"My nightgown" -- Annie had protested weakly.

"It's around here somewhere."

"I want you to wear this until I get back from town," Trace had murmured
against her ear, sending a shower of sparks to places that still thrummed
from his touch.

"I want you to feel it against your skin... feel as if I was still touching
you all over."

The husky words had dripped over Annie with blatant sensuality, making her
nipples ache against the soft fabric.

Trace had drawn her against him, felt the response of those rosy crests
nudging against his chest.

"God, how am I ever going to wait until tonight?"  he had groaned, then with
a kiss, started out the door.

"Annie, not a word to the Ape about our plans.  You promise?"

"As long as you promise there'll be no more ponies, McKenna.  Not even a
hamster.  Nothing that requires housing, feeding or changing bedding."

"What about diapers?  The way we were carryin' on last night, it won't be
long before..."  He'd stopped, looked at her with an endearing uncertainty.

"It's not a requirement to marrying me, you know, Brown-Eyes," he said
suddenly.

"What?"

"Having my baby ... again.  But, God, how I'd love to see you carrying my
child.  Holding it to nurse at your breast.

You'd be so damned pretty.  Beautiful.  " The wistfulness that tinged his
voice whispered things he had left unsaid.

Told her Trace had pictured that time and again, unable to quit picking at
the image like an old wound.  It unnerved Annie, made her ache for him, made
her think of possibilities that hadn't occurred to her since the day she'd
left Arizona behind.

For eight years, Annie had had all she could do to provide for April.

She'd worried over necessities like school clothes and braces.  Prayed for a
scholarship that could clear April's way into college.  When she discovered
that the salary the Jmeses wanted to pay her was three times that of any
other social worker she'd refused their generosity, determined to make her
own way, indisputably earn every penny she and April lived on.

She'd adored the babies at the shelter, cuddled them and cooed to them more
than she'd cared to admit.  She'd looked at the stair-step James children
with an empty ache inside her.  But she'd accepted that April would be her
only child a long time ago.  The images Trace's words had painted were both
beautiful and terrifying.  "Trace, this is moving so fast already, that I" --
"Shh."  Annie savored the memory of how Trace had laid his fingertips on her
lips.

"Guess I'll have to slow down,"

he'd admitted.

"It won't be eaSY.  But then, with us, nothing's ever been easy, has it?"

The corners of her mouth had wobbled into a smile.  He'd kissed the tip of
her nose with ~xquisite tenderness.

"I'll be back as soon as I can.  Start figuring out where you want the
wedding, who you want to be there.  That's one place you're just gonna have
to keep pace with me, sugar.  I intend to have you in my bed every night.
April's one smart kid.  It won't take her long to figure out what's going'
on.  By the time she does, I'd just as soon have my ring on your fin get

Trace's wedding ring.  That whiskey-warm voice repeating vows that would make
her his wife.  The mere thought still made Annie shiver with a mixture of
delicious anticipation and a very real suspicion that she had finally gone
over the edge.

"Last night I was thinking about where we could hold the wedding,"

Trace had said.

"The cliff is beautiful at sunset, like everything good and right is pouring
over it, setting the mountain aglow.  Will you marry me on the mountain,
Annie Brown?"

"Yes.  I'll marry you on the mountain," she'd promised.  I'll do anything you
ask, a voice inside her whispered.

Anything except the only thing that matters .  telling April the truth.

She brushed aside the thought that pricked at her, clinging instead to
memories of the morning, hazy-bright, so beautiful they already seemed
unreal.  But Trace's shirt still caressed her, dung to her, holding the
scent of pine woods and recklessness, sagebrush and leather, showing her in a
way nothing else could have that the night before had not been a dream.

"Morn?"

April's voice made Annie start.  Disoriented, she spun around, cold coffee
splashing her fingers.  Her other hand swept up to brush her disheveled bangs
out of her eyes.  "Make any French toast this morning?"  the child asked in a
voice so bright Annie needed sunglasses to field it.  "Love that French toast
you make, Morn."

Edgy as Annie was, she couldn't help laughing at the reminder of the morning
two days ago when Trace's truckload of presents had arrived.  It was obvious
April was trying her best to make amends.

I don't like it when my mom's sad.  the hushed admission April had confided
to Trace stung Annie's heart.  She crossed to her daughter, caught her in a
hug.  "Actually, I figured the two of us could go out and eat oats with the
pony.  Day before yesterday you ate astronaut food.  I figure horse food is
next."

The wary light in April's eyes vanished and she made a spectacular face.

"Horse food probably tastes better."  She glanced around the room
surreptitiously, her gaze flicking to the window.  Her brow puckered.

"Have you, uh, seen Trace this morning?"

"He went into town for something."

"Oh.  Did you guys work stuff out about the pony or are you still fighting?"

Fighting?  Annie felt her cheeks heat.  They'd been locked together all
night, but the only thing they'd fought for was to deepen the pleasure, draw
out the exquisite sensations.  "No.  We're not fighting.  We..."  Annie
stumbled to a halt.  It was as if April's words had reawakened the tin; Claim
trails of every path Trace had blazed upon her skin with his mouth.

~ turned away swiftly, as if her eyes might reflect every i and kiss that had
transpired in Trace's bedroom.

why don't you like Trace?  " April asked slidi do like him.  I" -- .  like J.
T.  and you never yell at him or stare at him 'that look like Wile E.
Coyote gets right before the anvil on his head.  No matter what, with him,
and when I get close you don't have to agree on everything to Just like you
and Tyler don't agree on eve well when I get mad at Tyler I get him in the of
Death hold an' he tries to tie my braids in and then we end up laughing so
hard we forget the we were fightin' in the first place.  Maybe you tying
Trace's hair in knots.  It's about long you work real hard.  "

I like Trace," April admitted as if it were some " I like him a lot.

He's my second favor world J.  T.  "s still my first, but And Trace doesn't
get all sour- like Grandpa does sometimes.  Is it okay for me to Grandpa?"

It's okay.  " eyes got a gleam that was pure devilment.

"I

will like it that Trace got me a pony.  I to lell 'ira.  Hey!  " she burst
out with a grin.

I could do anything I wanted here~ Do you if I called Grandpa an'"ffl
Father's Claim " No!  " Annie said a little too emphatically.  At April's
look of surprise, Annie forced her voice to gentle.

"I mean it doesn't matter whether or not Trace would mind.  I mind."  Annie's
stomach plummeted.  Colonel Brown's phone number was one of the first April
had memorized.  Annie saw her sudden shift in mood impact April's expression.

The child's face suddenly stilled, those eyes, so like Trace's, seeming to
peel away pretense to see the unease that lay beneath Annie's now-brittle
smile, that stubborn McKenna chin jutting out at an ominous angle.

"If Trace doesn't mind, how come I can't" -- "Because I'm your mother, young
lady."  God, Annie hated it when she used the term "young lady," but a him-
tired warning rattles were going off in her head.  April wasn't above cooking
up mischief.  She was, after all, Trace McKenna's child.  And though she was
the most reasonable little being imaginable when it came to logical
limitations, April had never had any patience for what she called "stupid
rules."

Annie sucked in a steadying breath, thinking about Trace on his mysterious
errand down the mountain, and of the news they would break to April later
that day.  Telling Colonel Brown about the impending wedding was inevitable,
no matter how much Annie would have liked to postpone it.  And God knew, it
wouldn't get any easier if Annie waited an eternity.

Better to get the initial confrontation over with: Let her father blow up and
rant until he got used to the idea.  Then when he had calmed down, April
could call about her pony and about the man who was going to be her daddy.
As long as Annie laid clear ground rules about how her father was to treat
Trace, everything would work out in the end, she assured herself.  After all,
her father loved her, didn't he?  He adored April .  ir Annie turned back to
her daughter.

"April, speaking the pony, have you fed it this morning?  Maybe you sho] go
check on her.  I..."  Annie groped for an acceptable "I have some papers I
need to go through for Baby Ha

Some work I brought along.  "

"You've just been sitting around ever since we got hen April observed, her
brows lowering.

"How come it's important now?"

"April, if you're not going to take responsibility for tl pony" -- "All
right, all right, I'm going," April said with a f mid able scowl.

"Geez!"  She stomped out of the roe Annie watched her cross to the paddock
where the pc stood cropping grass.

Quickly, Annie walked to Trace's master bedroom shut the door.  There was a
phone in almost every room the Cliff House, but being in the room where she
and had made love somehow bolstered Annie's courage, steel her for what she
knew would be a daunting ordeal at be She took the phone off the cradle and
punched her ther's number.  It buzzed once, then a voice crisp as win air
came through the line.

"Colonel Brown's office."  Milla Yates had been 1 father's secretary for
years.  There had been a time An' had almost hoped that the spritely widow
would charm colonel into marrying her, but both Milla and the colo had kept
their relationship strictly professional.  "Hi, Milla.  This is Annie."

"Annie!  Why, what a surprise!"

"I was wondering if I could speak to the colonel?"

"Of course you could.   That is, if the colonel were here Annie's brow
crinkled in puzzlement.

"Did he step of his office?"

"No.  He won't be back on the base for two weeks.  This is his vacation
time.  I was sure you knew--after all, he bought those baseball tickets.
He's been so looking forward to spending time with you and April."

Guilt gouged Annie.

"There was a mix-up.  The plans just didn't work out.  I thought he might're
stayed on the base."

"Actually, he left a day early.  He was in quite a state at the time.

He didn't say anything, of course.  That's not his way.  But when you've
worked for a man as long as I've worked for your father, you can tell when
they've been cut off at the knees by something.  "

"Terrific," Annie muttered.

"Do you have any idea where I can reach him?"

"No.  He might have gone up to that fishing camp he used to frequent with
your mother.  And then, there's that Crawfish Jubilee he's always loved down
in Mississippi."  Willa paused.

"Are you sure he didn't go to Chicago?  He didn't ask me to change any of his
flight plans, and if you'll excuse me for saying so, your daddy might be able
to command a warship, but he couldn't make a plane reservation if it were the
last flight off of an active volcano."

Annie pressed her fingertips to her temple, rubbing the throbbing knot of
nerves that was gathering there.  Was it possible her father would have flown
to Chicago?  Why?  He knew she and April would be gone.

"Willa, if you hear from him could you have him call me?  I'm at Trace
McKenna's Colorado cabin" -- "Did you say... McKenna?"

There was a beat of silence, and Annie could feel efficient Willa riffling
through index cards in her mind, trying to find the name she'd recognized.
Annie could tell the instant the woman found it.

Trace McKenna--failed pitcher, troublemaker, impt nated Annalive Brown in the
month of April.  Milla cleared her throat.

"I'm sure there are plent~ McKennas scattered all over the country.  Bet if I
1ooke~ the phone book right now I could see half a dozen."

"Don't bother, Milla.   The man I'm staying with April's father, if that's
what you're wondering about."   "That one who ... Annie, I'm not one to
interfere in of people's lives, but are you sure this is wise?   I mean, gett
tangled up with that boy again?"

"He's not a boy anymore, Milla."  Annie didn't have energy to pursue the
conversation another moment.

"I h to go now.  If my father checks in with you, please tell I to call."

She rattled off the number on the phone, ti swiftly set the receiver back in
its cradle.  Annie sank down.  on the edge of the bed, wishing with her might
that she could turn back the clock eight hot She could still be curled up
next to Trace's naked body, cheek pressed against the steady drumming of his
he~ Everything had been so clear last night.  Trace's insiste~ that she marry
him had seemed so logical.  He'd told ] that he had loved her long ago.  Had
even offered hope ~ he might fall in love with her again.

Maybe I never stopped.  But what if we're making a terrible mistake?  An
thought, a twist of pain in her heart.  What if he can the love me again?
What if I can't love him?

So much time had passed.  Time filled with pain, 1os~, sense of betrayal.
Was it possible to heal wounds that so deep?  Or would they merely fester,
hidden away, u: they burst free?

Annie paced to the window and flattened the palm of hand against the glass
pane, staring out across the Cc rado mountainside.  Everything had seemed so
simple w] she'd been in Trace's arms.  She want~xt him here now, wanted him
to smile at her that devilish, bewitching smile of his, wanted to hear that
lit fie catch in his throat, that sound of pleasure as his mouth molded
itself to hers.

She wanted him to drive away a thousand doubts and fears that buzzed inside
her like irate bees, stinging and making her burn with the'rr poison.

No] Annie brought herself up short.  She was being ridiculous.  She and Trace
had finally worked things out.

True, Annie hadn't had a chance to speak with her father yet.  Nor did she
have the courage to face April with the fact that she'd lied when she'd told
her stories about the little girl's father.  Trace was undeniably making a
sacrifice in allowing his true relationship to April remain a secret.  But he
would be the little girl's father in every other way.

April would carry Trace's name, be legally his.  How much could that single .
s~ret matter in the face of the future Trace would share with his daughter?
And with Annie?  How deeply could those secrets cut when Annie spent every
night in Trace's bed, trying to heal the wounds she'd left on his spirit?

The sound of Trace's Land Cru'kser rumbling up the road was the most welcome
sound Annie had ever heard.  She shook off the troubling thoughts and raced
out, wanting nothing more than to feel his arms around her, see April's smile
when they told her about the wedding.

For once, Annie was going to believe in dreams.  In miracles.  In second
chances that might blossom into love.

What had Trace said?

Nothing could come between them now.

Trace swung the car door open, his breath snatched away by the sheer pleasure
of watching Annie hurry from the house and rush down the path toward him, her
hair wisping like enchanted skeins of gold over her shoulders.  ] must have
dreamed a scenario like this a hundred t'tm during the weeks after he' d
admitted he'd fallen in love wi her, obsessed on such visions with the
single-mindedness a seventeen-year-old in the throes of emotions he could,.
control and didn't begin to understand.

But this Annie--a woman whose beauty had been hon by compassion and
intelligence, hardship and strengt despair and triumph, was more lovely, more
compelli~ than any sixteen-year-old innocent could ever be.

Trace dug one hand into the pocket of his jacket, feeli the two velvet boxes
he'd tucked there after a marath~ session with Denver's finest jeweler.  His
lips curved intc smile edged with an optimism he hadn't dared to feel fore
this moment.

She was still dressed in his T-shirt, the worn cotton lowing up her slender
frame, her slim legs encased in a of jeans, her shapely feet bare.

For a heartbeat, a knot of raw gratitude, of total aa welled up in Trace's
throat, leveling him with the kno~ edge that never in his twenty-eight years
had he known t sensation of having someone waiting for him this wa anxious
for his return home.

But as Annie drew near subtle differences in her appe~ ance trickled unease
down his spine.

A worry line was carved between her delicately arch, brows.  Her mouth was
smiling, but there was a brih quality to it that hadn't been there when he'd
kissed her t~ morning.

Trace tamped down a wave of panic that fluttered u bidden in his chest when
he noticed the pale cast to cheeks he could rememl~er were blooming and
rosy--t, legacy of a night so shatteringly beautiful, he was st shaken to his
very core by the wonder of it.

Was she already having doubts about marrying him?  The thought stole into
Trace's mind.  Damn, he should've scooped her up like one of the old
frontiersmen, and dragged her in front of a preacher before she'd caught her
breath.

It was ridiculous to be so shaken when she hadn't said a word.  It was absurd
to start reading into her expression some kind of disaster.  But Trace
couldn't seem to shake the tension creeping up around his neck and shoulders,
tightening like a vise in his belly.  As if he were waiting.  waiting for
what?

For Annie to run away?

The thought jolted through Trace with a force that stunned him.  He crushed
it, ruthlessly, furiously.

No, Annie was coming toward him this time, reaching out .  Trace caught her
in his arms and kissed her, deep and hard, as if the mating of their mouths
could banish all the secret doubts inside him.  But despite Annie's soft
whimper of pleasure, she flattened her hands on his chest and pushed against
it to put some space between them.  "April," she breathed, gesturing toward
the paddock.

Trace delved his fingers back through the hair at An- me's nape, lilting her
face up to his.

"We'd better get her blessing, and fast," he growled, his eyes shifting to
where the little girl stood, brushing her pony's coat.

"I've only been gone a few hours and I feel like I'm starving for a taste of
you."

Trace wove his fingers with Annie's.  Then together they walked to the
paddock where April was tending her beloved Go.

The instant April saw Trace, she flung the currycomb into her tack box and
came running.  Five steps from Trace's arms, the little girl's gaze locked on
Trace's and Annie's joined hands.  April slammed to a halt, staring, her
forehead puckering in puzzlement.  A wary look darted into the little girl's
eyes.

"I thought you guys were fighting," she said, a little grudgingly.

"We were, but we're not anymore," Trace cut in, excruciatingly aware that
this tough-talking little girl was far more fragile than she seemed.

"See, your room and I ... well, we were kind of thinking that ... since we
both love you so much, and we ... care about each other ... we might..."
God, he was making a mess of this.  He swore softly, and dug in his pocket,
taking out the rectangular velvet box.

"April, this is for you."

The little girl took the box and nibbled on her lower lip.  "What is it?"

"Open it and see."

Trace held his breath as the little girl untied the gold cord bow, then
lifted the lid of the box.  An exquisite gold necklace was inside, the charm
suspended from the chain was shaped like the mythical horse Pegasus in flight.

"It's real pretty," April gasped, running her fingertip over one wing.

"It's a locket.  See?"  Trace took the delicate necklace in his hand, the
dainty chain pooling in his callused hand.  He flicked a hidden latch, and
the locket opened.  Annie gasped.  April gave a little cry of surprise.
Inside the locket was a picture of Annie, nine years ago, staring out at the
world with such shy sincerity, such gentleness.  On the other half was a
picture of Trace that could're been titled The Quintessential Adolescent
Attitude.

"Oh, Trace!"  Annie breathed, reaching out to touch his picture.  But April
was already looking up at the flesh-and blood Trace, suspicion curling like
smoke across her lea210 "Where'd you get that picture of my more?"  April de-
mande "Out of one of her old yearbooks."

"How come you put your picture and her picture in the locket?"

"Turn Pegasus over and you'll find the answer."  April took the locket in her
hand, turned it over carefully.

Trace watched the sunlight sparkle on the engraved lettering the jeweler had
done that morning.

Now We Are a Family.

"Can you read it, angel?"  Trace asked softly as Annie's hand linked tightly
with his.  He glanced up at her to see tears trickling down her cheeks.

'"Course I can read it!  I just..."  April looked up at Annie.

"Mom?"

Just a single word, uttered in a small voice.

"April, Trace" -- "I asked your mom to marry me," Trace finished for her,
bunkering down on one knee so he was eye~ level with the little girl.

"I haven't had much practice at this dad stuff, but I'd like to try it, if
it's okay with you."

Silence, filled with hopes, dreams, fears.  Annie could see April thinking
hard.

"If my mom married you, I guess I could keep the pony, huh?"

Trace chuckled.

"You can bank on that."

"Stacey's mom got married again, and the man was all sicky-sweet to Stacey
until after the wedding, then he couldn't stand to be in the same room with
her for five minutes."

"April, there's nothing I want more than to be..."  his voice caught.

"Be your father."

"My daddy's dead."

"I know.  But maybe I could take care of you for him since we're both down
here and... he's off somewhere in heaven.  That's what I want to do, April.
Take care of you.  Take care of your mom."

April fiddled with the gold chain.

"I always wanted a daddy like Tyler's dad.  He has this totally awesome
motorcycle, and Tyler gets to ride around the parking lot in front of him
sometimes.  J.T.  took me once, too.  I wished he was my daddy, but he
wasn't."

She seemed to be working so hard, trying to puzzle things out.

"Trace?"  she said, looking up at him with big eyes, a mirror image of his
own.

"What, sweetheart?"

"I like horses lots better than motorcycles."

"I like you lots better than horses," Trace replied.   The little girl gave
him an uncertain smile.   "You take your time and think about this, April.
I know this is a big surprise for you.   You might have lots of questions you
want to ask us.   I want you to ask every one."

"If you get married to my mom, do I still have to go to bed at eight
o'clock?"  April asked soberly.

"And do you like brussels sprouts?

"Cause if you do, my mom'11 make 'em all the time, and they make me feel like
I wanna barf."

Trace laughed, catching the child in his arms.

"Brussels sprouts are definitely disgusting.  As for bedtime, we'll have to
see about that, you little con artist."

 "Will you come live with us at Baby Place

"I'm not sure."  Trace looked at Annie.

"Your more will still work there, and you can go visit anytime you want.  But
we might buy a house somewhere nearby.  Or build one."  April nibbled at her
lip again, her gaze flicking toward the glass-and-stone magnificence of the
house at the edge of the precipice.

"We don't have many cliffs in Chicago, y'know."

"If your mom and I got married, we could come to the mountains whenever we
wanted.  We'd just hop in my plane, and" -- April drew back, her eyes wide.

"I don't think I like planes much after last time."

Trace laughed and cupped his hand on his daughter's velvet-soft cheek.

"What happened with the landing gear was a freak accident, precious.  And
look, we're all safe."

"Yeah, well, just barely.   And you made my room throw up.   I think I'm
gonna ride Go up in the pasture and think about more questions.   Can I wear
Pegasus while I do?   He'll help me think."

With long, gentle fingers, Trace fastened the necklace around the child's
throat.  April's grubby fingers settled the necklace against the front of her
shirt, the locket hanging low enough that she could see it.

"Trace?"  she asked softly.

"What claflin'?"  Her eyes were so serious, Trace braced himself for some
profound question.

"If you were my daddy, would you help me beat Johnny Belmeyer as first string
pitcher?"

Trace grinned, the beautiful sound of Annie's laughter tugging at his heart.

"Ape, I can show you how to throw a knuckle ball that'll singe the number
right off Johnny's jersey."

April's grin was a mile wide.  She flung her arms around Trace's neck and
held on tight.

"I'm a little bit scared," she confessed, "but I'm a whole bunch happy."
"Me, too, Ape.  Me, too."

"You want to go riding with me?"

"Absolutely.   But first your mom and I have some things to talk about.
I'll meet you in our favorite pasture, okay?"   "Okay."

Trace stood as April went dashing toward the padd, where Go was contentedly
munching grass.  He and Ar watched in silence until the little girl and her
pony ,~ trotting off up the trail.

"I've got something in here for you, too, Brown-Eye Trace said as April
disappeared behind the trees.  He tun to face Annie.

The jeweler's box he dug out of his pocket this time, faded, the~ corner of
the velvet box a little worn.  A bri gold ribbon around it only accented its
age.  Trace unfastened the ribbon and opened the box.  Asn gold band was
nestled against the velvet, a modest c mond solitaire winked brightly beside
it.

"I know it's nothing flashy, Brown-Eyes.  If you wm hundred carats to wear on
your fingers, just say the we But this ... well, this is what I bought before
I came to y4 house the night you ran away."

Annie slipped the diamond ring out, saw it was set in petals of a golden rose.

"Trace, it's beautiful."

"It seemed so right for you way back then.  I guess it: does."

"You kept it all these years?"

"Oh, I tried to get rid of the thing a dozen times, somehow I always ended up
tucking it back in my draw He shrugged.

"Read the inscriptions."

Annie tilted the ring until she could see curling script had obviously been
there a long time.  To Brown-Eyes W Love, Trace.  Under that script a single
word was fres] engraved: Believe.

Annie's eyes filled with tears.  They spilled free, triekl down her cheeks.

"Oh, Trace."

"Let me put it on you, Annie."

Annie touched the ring with one trembling finger, silence stretching out
until Trace's nerves burned.

"Anme?"  he squeezed her name through stiff lips.  Those green eyes found
his, the depths troubled as she slipped the ring back into the velvet box
before handing it to him.

"I want to let you put it on me, but when you do, I want it to stay there
forever."

"Why wouldn't it stay there forever now?"

"I don't know, Trace.   It's just that April hasn't had time to really think
this through.   She'll have to deal with a lot more pressing issues than
whether or not I cook brussels sprouts."

"We'll work it out, Annie."

"I know.  I..."  Annie raked her fingers back through her hair.

"I'm being ridiculous.  I know."  She forced a wobbly smile and held out her
hand.

"This is absurd.  Go ahead, Trace.  Put it on."

"You sound like someone telling the firing squad they can fire."

Hurt vibrated through Trace's voice.  Annie felt sick because of it.

She caught his face in her hands, looked up at him, begging for understand'
rag

"Trace, you have to be patient with me.  This has all happened so fast.  I
want a future with you.  I do.

And I want to wear this beautiful ring.  Put it on.

Please.  "

Annie wanted to banish the stormy lights from his eyes, the pain.  She wanted
to sweep up the doubt-filled words she had said, hide them away, so he would
still be looking down at her with such indescribable tenderness.

But there was no way to erase what she had said.  Silent, Trace closed the
velvet box and jammed it into his pocket.

His mouth was set in a taut line, his brows were drawn together.

Annie tried to think of something to say, but before could speak, the sound
of another vehicle rumbling up road intruded.

"Don't tell me you've got another truck coming here Annie tried-to keep her
voice light.

"No."

"Then who..."

At that moment a rental ear came into view.  Trace swc and Annie's hands
knotted as the driver became visi through the car window.

Colonel Brown was glaring through the windshield, eyes flashing with the same
dangerous light that had mina ted them when he was going into combat.

Chapter 12 Trace stiffened as if he'd taken a punch to the gut.  His eyes
narrowed as he glared at the rental car and the man climbing out its door.

The last time he had seen Colonel Marcus Brown, the man had had him by the
throat, shattering him with lies that had left hideous scars in Trace's soul.
But the rage he felt now had little to do with wrongs Marcus Brown had done
to Trace himself.  The hate that pumped through Trace--hot and thick and
dangerous--was because of what Colonel Brown had cost April and Annie.

"How the hell did that old bastard find us?"  Trace rumbled.

"The blasted CIA?"

Annie looked a little sick, a lot pale.

"I had to call him the morning after I came to see you in the hotel.  He'd
gotten tickets to a Sox game as a surprise for April and had planned to visit
us for a few days this week."

"That doesn't explain how he found this place."

"I told him we were going to your place in Colorado.  I'm sure he just
checked around, found where you had land.  Or he might have asked at the
shelter.  I had to give them some idea where I was going in case of
emergency."

"Perfect.  Just goddamn perfect," Trace muttered caustically.

"I'm sure the Colonel was thrilled to hear I was back in your life."

Annie caught his hand and squeezed it, hard.

"Trace, please let the past be over and done with.  He's my father.

April's grandfather.  "

"Yeah, and he's a real prince of a guy, your dad.  The most tyrannical,
arrogant son of a bitch I've ever known."

The words were hard, bitter.  But Trace took one look at Annie's ashen face
and attempted to wrestle the red haze of his fury until it was back under
control.

He sucked in a steadying breath and looped an arm possessively around her
shoulders, the tension in Annie seeming to sizzle its way into his body to
mingle with his own.  "Dad," Annie managed to say as they started toward the
rental car.

"This is a surprise."

Colonel Brown marched toward them, his face drawn.  Dark circles of
sleeplessness ringed the older man's eyes, but his gaze still snapped with
that fierceness that had aided him in countless battles in

"Nam.  Just the sight of the man made Trace's gut clench.

"Colonel Brown.  it's been a long time."  Trace forced his voice to stay
calm, even.  He gritted his teeth and extended his hand for the Colonel to
shake.

The man linked his hands behind his back, his lip curling as if Trace held a
rattlesnake.  Trace's fingers curled into a white-knuckled fist and he let
his arm fall to his side.  "Where is April?"  Marcus Brown demanded.

"I've come to take you and April back to Chicago, Annalise."

"She's not going anywhere" -- Trace began, but Annie squeezed his arm, a
pleading look on her face.

"April's out in the south pasture, riding the pony Trace got her,"

Annie started to explain.

"Pony?"  The colonel sputtered.

"You let that child race off alone" -- "She's perfectly safe, Dad," Annie
interrup~i.

"The pony's gentle as a lamb."

"Not really," Trace put in.

"April's just a helluva rider."

"Trace, let's just all go inside," Annie suggested, her gaze flicking warily
from one man to the other.

"I'll fix some tea and we can talk."

Trace wanted to tear into the old man whose lies had cost him eight precious
years of April's life.  Instead, he looked at Annie, his jaw knotting.

"She's right," he managed to say.

"No sense making this any worse than it has to be."  Trace turned and strode
toward the doorway.

Annie hurried after him, the colonel following as if he were being led in
front of a firing squad.

As Annie ushered them back to the kitchen, the room bright and airy, Trace
was suddenly glad as hell that the Colonel had chosen to force their meeting
here, on Trace's own Turf.

Annie hurried toward the kitchen entrance, with its screen door.

"I

set some sun tea to brew this morning," she began with a nervous catch in her
voice.  Trace caught her by the arm, his voice as gentle as he could make it
under the circumstances.

"Annie, nobody gives a damn about tea right now."

"I suppose not."  She brushed back a strand of honey- gold hair and gave a
laugh that was choked up with nervousness.

She turned toward her father.

"Well then.  I suppose we should just... just get straight to..."  She sucked
in a deep breath, her fingers tight on the steely muscles of Trace's forearm.

"Dad, I have something to tell you.  Trace has asked me to marry him."

What little color had been in the Colonel's face drained away, leaving him
gray as a corpse.

"No."

"It's true, dad."

"You can't--you didn't say yes?"

Hot spots of color appeared on Annie's cheeks.

"Not exactly.  But I'm going to."

"My God."  The colond squeezed the words out faintly.  He sank onto a bench
at the harvest table, looking suddenly weary and old.

"I figure this isn't the greatest news to you, Colonel," Trace said tautly,
"but this time I can take care of both Annie and April, give them anything
they want financially."

"But that's not the greatest gift he's bringing to this marriage,"

Annie said.

"Dad, you should see him with April.  He's wonderful with her.  He's taught
her to ride, let her fly his plane.  She adores Trace."

"She's an eight-year-old child," the colonel said.

"Of course she'd adore someone who charged into her life, buying her ponies.
That's not in question.  What's in question is what is going to happen when
McKenna runs out of presents to entertain her."

"Dad, April's relationship with Trace isn't about the presents' he gives
her," Annie said, trying to intervene.

"It's about--about taking her hiking in the mountains, about teaching her to
read trail sign and playing Monopoly until his eyes fall out.  Reading her
stories and" -- "I intend to be a father to April in every sense of the word,
Colonel Brown," Trace cut in.

"This isn't some impulsive decision that will pall when the newness wears
off.  I want Annie for my wife.  April for my daughter."

"It isn't impulsive?"  the colonel growled, raking his fingers through the
short strands of his salt-and-pepper hair.

"You've barely been back in my daughter's life and you're wanting to marry
her?  What do you know about Annalise, McKenna?  Besides the fact that you
got her pregnant?"

"I know she's the mother of my daughter.  That was something you neglected to
tell me in our little interview on your front porch back in Arizona."

"McKenna, I would've told you she'd been dragged to hell by the devil himself
before I'd have told you where Annie was.  You weren't man enough to be my
daughter's husband when you were seventeen.  And you sure as hell aren't man
enough now!"

"Dad, stop it!"  Annie burst out.

"Trace, please don't let She didn't finish.  She didn't have to.  Don't let
him push you over the edge, her eyes pleaded.  Don't let this erupt into a
confrontation poisoned with hate that should're been buried long ago.

Trace knew what Annie wanted of him, needed of him.  But fury was setting
Trace's lungs afire, zinging into every nerve ending in his body, filling him
until he felt like a mine about to explode.  One trip, one more misstep by
the colonel.  No, Trace resolved.  He wasn't going to give the son of a bitch
the satisfaction.

"Whether I'm man enough to be Annie's husband is her decision.  Not yours."
His voice vibrated with dangerous overtones.

"I drove you out of my daughter's life because I love her," the colonel
roared.

"I wanted what was best for her.

Everything she ever dreamed of was shattered becaUS~ you .  " ' " I would've
worked myself to dust to give her what needed.  What she deserved.  You threw
her out of y, house.  " Trace could see the colonel flinch, but he die relent.

"Where the bloody hell were you when Annie ."

my baby were living on the streets?  "

Trace heard Annie protest through the fire-bright ha~ his fury.  The colonel
reared back as if Trace had slashe whip across his face.  Annie went to him,
stood behind old man.

Traee's mouth filled with bitterness, hate.

"Trace, that's enough.  We won't get anywhere like t!  My father and I
settled our differences a long time ago.

"Well, that's just terrific, but I didn't settle a damn th with him,
Brown-Eyes.  Hell, if I'd had any idea where 2 were when April was tiny, I
would've walked my 1 bloody to get to you.  This son of a bitch knew where '.

were, and he didn't lift a single judgmental finger to t you.  "

"Trace, stop!"  Annie cried out.

"I don't want to--' " I want to," the colonel said, jamre'rag his hands again
the table and rearing up, his face almost purple with ra " You try, just try
to make me feel sorry for you, ~ Kenna.  Make me regret throwing you out of
my dau ter's life.  Look what you did to her!  You lured Annalise with some
damn sob story and got her feeling real sorry you, didn't you?  A decent man
would've turned her av A decent man would've protected her.  But you--you ~
took her, didn't you?  Seduced her and didn't give a ds if she wound up
pregnant with your child.  "

"I loved Annie," Trace said tightly.

"There's noth you could say to me, no name you could call me, th~ didn't call
myself after I found out she was carrying child."

"Yeah, you were a real prize, McKenna.  Flunking out of school, throwing
away a career in baseball most kids would've sold their soul to the devil
for.  But that wasn't enough.

You had to destroy my daughter.  "

The words hammered at Trace, knocking down the shaky sense of self-worth he'd
managed to build inside himself.

The colonel's diatribe echoed every word Trace had said to himself.

"I never meant to hurt her."  Trace grappled to keep his voice from betraying
how deep the colonel's accusations had pierced him.

"I'm trying to make things right for An- me now."

"You and that baby of yours destroyed Annie's life!"

 "April is my life," Annie said in fierce accents.

"And I suppose McKenna is, too?  If he was so blameless when he got you into
bed with him why did you let April believe that her father was dead?  All she
had to do was watch the nightly news to see McKenna flinging himself into
God-knows-what inferno or parading around on the arm of some glitzy woman!"

"I did what I thought was best for April.  I'm marrying Trace, for the same
reason."

"You truly believe that?"  The colonel gave a bitter laugh.

"What are you all going to do?  Settle down in suburbia in a house with a
white picket fence?  He hasn't changed a damn bit in the years since he left
Arizona.  He's still got women in a dozen different countries.  He's still
trying his best to break his goddamn neck!  What d6 you think is going to
happen, Annalise?  You think an adrenaline junkie like Trace McKenna is going
to change from skydiving to mowing the lawn for entertainment?"

 "Don't judge me, Colonel," Trace said.

"YOu don't know a damn thing about me."

"I've known so many men like you in my time with the army, McKenna, that I
could write your goddamn life story and not miss a beat.  Hungry bastards,
every one of them.  Just existing until the next rush."

"Maybe your daughter is the only rush I need anymore.  Maybe April is better
than any adrenaline high."

"Maybe."  The colonel's eyes narrowed, keen intelligence sparking through the
slits of his eyelids.

"Prove it."

Trace heard Annie's protests as if from a distance, but the room seemed to
spin away, until it was only Trace and the man who had all but destroyed his
life nine years ago.  "I don't have to prove a damned thing to you," Trace
bit out.

"I suppose not.  But if you really love Annalise and April, you won't object
to making certain this is what they want.  What you want."

"Annie said she'd marry me.  That's all I need."  "Fine.  Marry her."

Trace blinked, suddenly feeling like the old man had lured him onto black ice
and he was about to fall through.

"What the hell's your game, old man?"

"Marry Annalise, play father to April.  But don't jus!  plunge into it now.
Wait six months, maybe a year, before you take such a drastic step."

"Dad, that's not your decision" -- "You expect me to give you enough time to
talk her ou!  of it?"  Trace scoffed.

"Poison April's mind against me?  ] don't think so.  Annie is going to be my
wife the instant ou: blood tests come through.  I'm not going to lose her."

Trace tried not to feel the weight of the jeweler's box i~ his jacket pocket,
tried not to think of the uncertainty, th~ hesitation that had been on
Annie's face when he'd show~ her the ring.

Colonel Brown flashed Trace that arrogant scowl that had always made Trace
want to rearrange the man's teeth.

"What you really mean, McKenna, is that you're not going to give Annalise a
chance to change her mind."

"You got that right."

"Why, McKenna?  You think she's going to walk away from you again?  You think
once she has some time to know you--really know you, away from all your
rich-boy toys-- that Annalise will refuse to be your wife?"

It was as if the colonel had looked into Trace's darkest fears, had dragged
them into the light.  Trace felt stripped, exposed in a way that made him
feel as if he were teetering on the edge of a cliff, waiting for Annie to
reach out her hand, pull him back onto firm ground.  Or, Trace thought with a
stab of unease, push him from the precipice.

Trace's gaze found Annie, and he hoped, prayed, that she would tell her
father that there was no reason to wait, to prove anything.  She wanted to
marry Trace.

But Annie's cheeks were pale, her eyes uncertain.  Fingers of dread closed
around Trace's throat, squeezing fight.

"Annie," the colonel said, "whatever decision you make now will impact on the
rest of April's life.  Think, Annalise!

What will happen to that little girl if she lets herself love McKenna and
then in a year or two--hell, in a month--he gets hungry to take another dive,
another fall, fight another fire.  what's going to happen to April if McKenna
finally succeeds in breaking his feel neck?  " The colonel's voice dropped
low.

"Annalise, what's going to happen to you?"

Trace swore a dark, vile oath, slamming his fist against the table.

"Stop trying to scare her away from me!  It won't work this time, will it,
Annie?"  He spun to face her, his hands closing tight on her shoulders.  His
voice dropped low, aching.

"Will it?"

d Father's Claim Annie winced--from his grasp or his fierce demand, Trace
couldn't be certain.  She looked small, broken, fragile in a way Trace had
thought she hadn't been s'mee she left Arizona so many years ago.  The
knowledge that the hate between him and her father had done this to her
burned like acid in Traee's gut, mingling with the pain each second of her
s'denee coiled inside him.

Panic pulsed in the hidden core where Trace, the seventeen-year-old, had
hidden away all these years, bruised, battered, betrayed.  With each
heartbeat of s'denee, Traee fought to drag breath into his lungs, fought to
believe.  in what?  Happy endings?  Second chances?  That somehow, some way,
this time Annie would trust him?  Believe in him?

Trace saw tears welling in Annie's eyes, saw her valiant attempt to blink
them back.

He shot a glare at the Colonel.

"Leave us alone for a little while."

The colonel stood, his eyes already holding the light of impending victory.
Traee grasped Annie's arm, drew her toward the window where pine-swept
breezes whispered down off the mountain.

the could barely speak through the knot of uneasiness in his chest.

"Go on, Brown-Eyes.  whatever you have to say, say it."

"My father had no right to say the things he said to hurt you.  But I can't
forget the things he said that were... sensible, Trace."

"Well, being a crazed idiot, I have trouble weeding that out from the
bullshit," Trace said tightly.

"You're the honor student.  You tell me."

"Would it be so terrible to have a-an engagement period?  Six months, where
we could spend time together, think things through."

If she'd plunged a knife into Trace's heart it couldn't have stabbed him
more deeply.  The fact that Colonel Brown had put the weapon in her hand made
the wound all the more bitter.

"I've waited nine years.  Without you.

Without my daughter.  Don't you think that's long enough?  "

"We lost contact during all that tune, Trace.  There are still so many things
you don't know about me.  And that I don't know about you.  What if this is
just some kind of magic, a few weeks where things are perfect?  What will
happen when the magic is gone?"

"You think what happened between us last night is just some sort of fluke
that's go una fade away?  You think that someday, when I touch you, you
aren't going to sigh, Brown- Eyes?  You aren't go una want me?"

Her cheeks were fire-red, her eyes glistening, over- bright.  Tears.

He was making her cry again.  Hell, he wanted to let the sobs come himself.
Let them tear free on the jagged edges Annie's betrayal had left on his soul
the first time.  He couldn't even begin to imagine what destruction she was
leaving this time, as she pulled away from him.  Away from the promises, the
hopes, the magic.  Away from the heaven he had found in her arms, the beauty
that had pierced to the very core of him when he'd stared into his daughter's
eyes.

"Annie?"  The word was ragged.  He couldn't keep the anguish from biting
through it.

"Trace, I" -- The sudden sound of hoofbeats, loud, almost frenzied, shattered
the words.  Trace wheeled, looking at the screen door that was wide open.  He
lunged toward it, just in lime to see April and her pony vanishing into the
woods.  He swore, raced outside, calling April's name, but the little girl
had vanished.

"My God," Annie breathed.

"Tell me she didn't hear" -- Trace caught a glimpse of something lying on the
ground, an object that was golden, glinting in the sun.  He dipped onto one
knee, his fingers scooping up the locket he had given April half an hour
before.

The locket had been flung to the ground, the chain snapped by a child's hands.

Broken like the last of Trace's dreams.

He scooped up the locket, crushed it in his hands until the metal wings bit
into his skin.

"Oh, my God," Annie choked out, her gaze shifting to the path where her
daughter and Go had disappeared.

"She can't have--have heard .... We have to find her, Trace."

"Oh, I'll find her all right.   And if anything happens to that girl" -- He
didn't finish the sentence, just raced over to the paddock where his horses
grazed.

He bridled his big gelding, then threw on a saddle.  "I'm going with you,"
Annie said fiercely.

"Like hell!  You're scared of horses.  You'll only slow me down."

"That's my daughter out there, McKenna!  I don't give a damn if I have to
ride a blasted alligator to find her?"  Annie's voice broke on a sob.

"Please, Trace!"  Trace swore.  In moments he'd roped a gentle palomino mare,
saddled it in record time.  He didn't wait for Annie to mount it, he just
grabbed her around the waist and flung her astride the animal.

Heavy footsteps raced toward them, the colonel's features twisted with alarm.

"What's wrong?  For God's sake" -- "April.  She heard it all, goddamn it to
hell."  Trace's voice tore on rage and grief and helplessness.

"She heard ./1 Father' s Claim every rotten sordid detail of how she was
conceived.  Happy now, old man?"

The colonel plunged into the paddock, struggling to grab another gelding.
Trace's jaw set, hard.  The bastard could go to hell, he wasn't waiting
another second.  He swung open the paddock gate, let Annie out, then guided
his own mount through it.  Fastening the gate again, Trace's fingers
tightened on the reins.  He dug his heels into his gelding's flanks and sent
it thundering down the narrow woodland trail.

It should have been easy to track the little girl.  It should've been easy
for Trace's big gelding to overtake the pony.  But April rode in typical
McKenna breakneck fashion, and the pony had been bred with the swiftness of
its mustang ancestors.  Worse still, the twisted mass of trails tangled
around the mountain like a Gordian knot.

Trace had ridden half a mile before he drew re'm at a fork in the trail.
Annie cantered up, holding on to the horse for dear life, looking pale and
breathless, but more determined than he'd ever seen her.

"Trace, what is it?"  She asked as he dismounted, examining a hoof print in
the muck.

"Where is she?"

He swung back onto his horse, his face grim.

"She's going down Warrior Path."

"Wh-what's that?"

"It's the place I go when I'm looking for my hit of adrenaline, dangerous for
experienced riders.  For a little girl" -- He didn't finish his sentence.  He
didn't have to.  He leaned low over the neck of his gelding, urging it into a
run.

Annie's head swam with images of April thrown, hurt, crying.  Lying at the
bottom of a cliff somewhere, alone, her whole world shattered by the three
people who loved her most, who should have banded together to protect her,
not poison her with hate and blame that was nine years old.

She urged her horse to follow Trace's gelding, terror pulsing through every
fiber of her body.  No, she brought herself up shortly.  Trace would find
her.  Trace would make sure she was safe.

"Please God, let her be all right," Annie whispered like a mantra.

"Let everything be all right."

But as she stared at Trace's quickly disappearing back, Annie had a sickening
feeling that nothing would ever be right again.

Chapter 13 Branches whipped at Annie's face, the rough bark of tree trunks
scraping at her jeans-clad legs as she torn down the narrow path after Trace.
Dust kicked up by his big gelding's hooves filled Annie's nose and mouth,
filtering a fine layer of silt over her sweaty skin.

It was all she could do to cling to the palomino's back, one hand on the
reins, the other clutching the saddle horn as if it were the only thing
keeping her from tumbling into a bottomless pit.  A pit of despair, of
self-blame.  A pit of guilt and pure terror.

April knew the truth.

The words pounded in an agonizing litany in Annie's head.

Her brave, tough, trusting little girl had learned Trace McKenna was her
father in the most brutal way possible, listening while three adults who
loved her, who should've done everything in their power to shield her, raged
at one another, tearing at old wounds, gouging out new ones, fresh ones, to
mingle with the pain of nine years before.

Trace whisked the gelding around a ninety-degree turn in the trail, the edge
nothing but sheer cliff face, dropping onto a deposit of jagged stones below.
Annie clung tight to the mare and forced herself to look over the ledge,
praying she wouldn't see a tiny figure in Trace's dive-shop shirt with uneven
braids lying down below.

Annie sucked in a shuddery breath of gratitude, so distracted by her relief
that for a moment it seemed she'd go toppling over the ledge.  She barely
managed to keep herself astride the mare as it struggled to keep up with
Trace's gelding.

"April!"  Trace's voice echoed back from the mountain, seeming to reverberate
through the trees.

"April, where are you?"

Desperation, grim determination, every line of Trace's body was taut, alert.
Those blue-gray eyes scanned the woods, checked the trail for sign, as he
guided his gelding by instinct alone.

"This is my fault," Annie told herself again and again.  "If April's hurt,
it's because of my cowardice... my cowardice in not telling her the truth
about Trace.  But please, God, don't take my little girl away to punish me
.... " Trace stopped at another fork in the trail.  One fork was blocked by a
fallen sapling.

He climbed out of the saddle, searching for traces of Bo's tiny hoofprints.
What he saw made his face go pale.  He swore, swinging back up into the
saddle.  Annie had never been so scared in her life.

"Trace, what is it?"

Trace jabbed his finger at a weathered sign that he'd had Rob nail to the
sapling to warn away any riders or hikers who strayed onto McKenna land.

Danger.  Trail Washed Out.

Annie pictured the path they'd been riding on, racing like the wind.

There were a dozen places where a washout could caused a deadly aCCident.  If
Trace had dosed this part of the trail--if he considered it too dangerous to
risk riding on, Annie couldn't even begin to imagine how perilous it must be.

"Stay here!"  Trace barked the command, then urged his gelding to sail over
the blockade.

Annie didn't waste time in arguing.  She shut her eyes and kicked her own
mount hard.  The horse cleared the sapling in startled alarm, the jarring
landing nearly rattling the teeth out of Annie's mouth.

They had ridden barely fifty yards when April's pony came bolting toward
them, saddle empty, eyes wild.  A knot of dread shut off most of Annie's
breath.  Trace's jaw tightened until it was white.  He said nothing.  He
didn't have to.

Bo's appearance could mean anything--April, thrown and a little shaken,
making her way toward them on foot, or.  scenarios too horrible to think
about.  "April!"  The desperate edge in Trace's voice fuelled Annie's own
fear.

The fifteen minutes they retraced Bo's path seemed like an eternity--Trace's
voice echoing through the trees, silence the only reply they heard.  Then,
suddenly, the faintest of cries came in answer.

"Help me!  Help!"

April's voice--ragged with terror.

Annie's heart plunged to her toes.

"Trace!  Oh, God, do you hear her?"

"April?"  Trace bellowed.

"Ape, keep talking, sweetheart.  Tell us where you're at!"

"Over here!  T-Trace, I'm scared!"  The cry broke on a wrenching sob.

"It's okay, April!  We're coming!"  Trace let the horse pick its way through
the undergrowth, cursing the slow pace, knowing that if he and the gelding
fell, they'd do April no damn bit of good.  The trail made a sharp left turn.

Then, suddenly, the gelding reared, whinnied in fright, scrambling back from
the edge of a trail that had disappeared into nothing but a ragged mud slide
that had catapulted down the sheer mountainside.

It was a miracle he stayed on his horse.  As Annie caught up, she saw April
thirty yards below the drop-off.  The child was huddled on a narrow ledge
that seemed so fragile it was only a matter of time her ore it crumbled away
beneath her.

Most terrifying of all, the cliff was so sheer it looked as if there were no
footholds, impossible to climb.

"Oh, God," Annie choked out.

"We have to call some- one--a rescue team" -- "April doesn't have that kind
of time," Trace growled, swinging down from his horse.  As if the cliff
itself had heard his words, a clump of rocks and soil broke off the bottom of
the ledge, cascading down a fifty-yard drop.

"Then what" -- "I'm going to go down and get her."

Annie's hands were shaking, her heart beat' rag its way out of her chest.

"But if you put any weight on that ledge you'll both go down."  Both.  Gone
in a heartbeat.  Terror was a living thing in Annie's breast.

Trace worked to unfasten the worn coil of rope that he'd tied to his saddle
the day April had demanded lessons on lariat-throwing.

"It's going to he all right, Brown-Eyes," Trace said.  "Trust me."

Trust .  something she hadn't dared to extend to him an hour before.

Something that might have made all the difference.

Tmce's gaze held hers a long moment, then he knotted the rope firmly to the
gelding's saddle horn

"Anme, you have to help me.  Hold Cochise by his mira.  Don't let him know
that you're afraid of him.  I'm gonna lower myself down to April."

"But what if I can't control the horse?  What if you fall?  The ledge won't
hold with both you and April."

"I'm not gonna fall."  Trace was checking the rope.  His face was grim--so
grim Annie could tell he was worried out of his mind.  She sensed he was
picturing the same horrible scenarios she was.  He was feeling the sensation
of the cliff giving way, him falling, April falling .  "April, honey?"  Trace
called out, the sound of the childish sobs stilling for a moment.

"I'm coming down to get you."

"Wh-what d'you care if I fall?  You hate me!  I wrecked up my m-mommy's life"
-- "That's not true!"  Annie cried, anguish at the child's guilt-filled words
leaving her heart in shreds.

"Don't you believe that for a second, angel.  I love you so much."

 "I'm s-scared... my arm... it's got a funny bump on it.

It's all turned the wrong way.  "

"We'll take care of that, sweetheart," Trace soothed the terrified child.

"You have to hold real still, Ape.  That ledge is none too sturdy, but it
should hold as long as you don't move around.  Pretend you're an Indian
princess, stranded by an evil medicine man.  I'm the warrior who's coming to
save you."

Trace made a slipknot at the end of the rope, fashioning a kind of noose.
Then he grasped the section of rope nearest the gelding in his right hand and
deftly twisted the length beneath his buttocks and caught the rope with his
other hand, down low by his hip, fashioning a makeshift seat.

"Annie, I'm gonna rappel my way down to her.  Slow, real slow.  When I get to
her, I'm gonna have her put the noose under her armpits.  I'll tighten it,
then put my arms around her and signal to you.  When I signal, you have to
make Cochise pull us up."

"But you won't be tied on.  If you slip you could fall to the bottom."

"I'm the crazy man, remember?  Mr. Live on the Edge.  I do this stuff for the
hell of it."  He was trying to ease her terror.  Annie knew it.  But all she
could think of was her baby down there, her arm possibly broken, a tiny ledge
the only thing standing between April and death.  All Annie could think of
was Trace--hurt, betrayed by Annie's own words--willing to risk his life for
the child stranded down below.

Trace, reckless, brave, wild Trace McKenna, rappelling down a cliff face to
reach his terrified daughter.

"Hey, Ape, you ever watch McGyver?"  Trace called down.

"S-sometimes," the child sniffled, "when my stupid homework is all done."

"Great, well, you and I are gonna give him a run for his money this time,
sweetheart.  I'm coming down after you."

"Mommy?  Mommy, don't let him!  It's too far.  He's too heavy.  The ledge'11
break."

"Don't worry, April.  Trace knows what he's doing," Annie called down,
praying that he did.

"I'm not gonna touch the ledge," Trace explained.  "Cochise is gonna hold my
weight.  BUt you have to be real brave, April.  You have to do exactly what I
tell you, even if you're so scared your teeth are chattering out of your
mouth.  You understand, baby?"

"Y-yes."

"Stay real still, April" -- April whimpered, scooting back on the ledge in
her terror.  A screech pierced her lips as a portion of the ledge crumbled,
raining dirt clods and stones down onto the cUff's floor.

"Don't move!"  Trace roared.  April froze.  "Trace, what if you get down
there and I--I can't make the horse..."

"You can, Brown-Eyes.  I know you can.  Grab him by the bit and say back.
Press the bit toward him firmly.  He'll do what you tell him if you don't let
him know you're afraid."

"I'm scared out of my mind," Annie choked out.  "Me, too."  Trace's gaze
caught hers for a moment, filled with a hundred emotions too consuming to
name.  Steeling herself with Trace's confidence in her, Annie grasped
Cochise's reins by the bit.

The animal seemed monstrously huge, terrifyingly powerful.  And Annie could
tell the instant the spirited gelding knew she was the one who had hold of
his reins.  Cochise snorted, danced on his massive hooves.

"Easy, Cochise.  Please.  April, your daddy's coming down to get you,"

Annie said, her heart seeming to slam to a halt in her chest as Trace poised
him~lf at the edge of the cliff.

His feet flattened against the ragged line where grass disappeared into dark
Colorado earth.  His arms bunched, the muscles standing out against his
tanned skin as he leaned back into emptiness.

Cochise stiffened at the tug on his saddle horn as the rope took Trace's
weight.  The horse snorted, sidestepped, dragging Annie with him.  Annie
fought the huge animal, fought her own sick terror.

A thud followed by a guttural sound of pain drifted up the cliff face, the
sound mingling with April's cry of alarm.

Trace.  If Annie didn't control the horse Trace would be beaten against the
rocky surface.  She braced herself against the horse's far-superior strength,
her hands tightening on the reins.

"Whoa, Cochise.  Hold still you brainless, stubborn" -- Those moist brown
eyes stared at her, another whinny coming from between awesomely big teeth.
But the horse stilled, as if listening to the sound of her voice.  "That's
right!

You're a bullheaded, stubborn son of '"Give 'im hell, Brown-Eyes."  Trace's
voice drifted up to her.

"Hey, Ape, did you know she could cuss like that?  Not bad for a morn, eh?"

He was trying to ease April's fears, trying to take every- one's mind off of
the life-and-death struggle they were involred in.  Annie blessed him for it
when she heard April's faint voice.

"Mom yelled at some creepy man who was whacking his little boy once.

She cussed good then, too.  "

The taut length of rope shifted, moving just a little as Trace maneuvered his
weight down the cliff face.  Annie discovered a new meaning of the word hell.
Hell was battling a horse that outweighed you by a ton.

Hell was seeing Trace's rope strain and hearing April's choked sobs of
terror, yet not being able to see either one of them.  Both were obscured by
the ledge of stone and earth, far beyond her reach.  If anything happened.
"Almost there, sweetheart.  Almost there," Trace said, his gaze fixed on
April, balanced so precariously on the ledge, and he tried with everything in
him not to focus on the narrow strip that was the only thing that stood
between his daughter and death.  The portion underneath April looked as if
it had been gouged out with a giant spoon, the place where rocks and earth
had fallen away exposing damp dirt, embedded roots.  Trace gritted his teeth,
knowing in his gut that there wasn't much time.

Gripping the rope, he lowered himself within six feet of the little girl.
April started to scramble to her feet, one hand stretching out to reach him.

"No!"  Trace ordered her.

"Stay where you are.  Sit right there, sweetie.  I'll bring the noose right
over to you."

Pushing off with his booted feet, Trace edged to the right, toward the little
girl, the loop of rope dangling just out of her reach.

"Gotta get me lower, Annie!  Just a... little... there?"  Trace felt the
jarring sensation of the gelding coming to a stop.

"Come on, Ape, you can get it," Trace urged, trying to keep the loop still,
trying to get it into her hands.

"Can't," April choked out.

"It hurts."

"I know, darling'.  But you can do it.  I know you can.  C'mon, baby.

Just reach out and grab the rope.  "

Traee's breath froze in his chest as April strained her fingers toward the
rough noose of hemp.  It bobbled out of her reach, then waved closer.  She
grabbed it with a sob, more dirt falling away beneath her.

She screamed, shrank back against the cliff face, but she held on to the rope.

"That's my girl," Trace said.

"Now, pull the noose down until it's under your arms."

"But my arm hurts," April quavered.

"I'm seared to move it."

"I know it hurts, baby.  But you have to do this.  That's a girl.  I know you
can."

Trace's heart was in his throat as he watched her maneuver herself into the
noose, struggling.  She'd just pulled it beneath her arms when the ledge
crumbled.  He heard An~1 me's desperate cry as she heard the stones and earth
clods tumbling down the cliff, April's shriek of terror doubtlessly feeding
the worst of Annie's fears.  Lightning fast, Trace let go of the rope with
his left hand, catching hold of April as she swung out into nothingness.
Annie cried out, desperate.

"Trace?  April?  My God" -- Barely managing to cling to the rope himself,
Trace gripped April's good hand, lowering her slowly down, putting pressure
on the noose until it was anchored tight around April's chest.

"It's okay, Brown-Eyes.  The fall took up the slack.  We've got one dirty kid
here, hanging at the end of the rope."  ' Trace glanced down to where April
dangled, clutching his fingers in a death grip with her good hand; her other
arm was turned at an angle that made Trace's stomach churn.  "I'm s-scared...
Mommy?"

"I'm right here, angel."  Annie's voice, still ragged with anxiety.

"I d-didn't know I hurt you by getting born, Mommy.  I'm sorry."

"You're the most beautiful thing in my life, April Rose.  You and your daddy.
I love you both so much."

Trace's throat constricted, the words so beautiful, so unexpected.

That single moment, dangling over the edge of a cliff, a rope length away
from death, held out the promise of a future more beautiful than Trace
McKenna had ever dreamed.

"Keep talking, Brown-Eyes," he urged.

"I'm gonna get underneath her."

"No!"  April cried.

"Don't let go!"

"Shh, it's gonna be all right, darling'.  I'm gonna get underneath you, give
you a big hug the whole way up.  Would that make you feel better?"

"I g-g-guess so."

Using the cliff side for balance, Trace moved until he had the little girl
encircled in his arms, his hands clamped on the rope just above the noose.
April was warm, trembling so hard Trace could feel her fear inside him.  The
thought that he might have lost this little girl forever was the most
terrifying thing he'd ever faced.

"Well, guys, the hard part is over," Trace assured them.  "What do you think,
Ape?  Want to hang around for a while, or have you had enough of this
spectacular view?"

 "Think I'm a d-dummy?   I want up."

"Put 'ira in reverse, Mom!"

Trace heard the gelding snort, heard Annie's voice, murmuring words that
would've scandalized the Ladies Aid at St.  Mary's church.  But after a
moment, the rope jerked, swayed, the gelding dragging them up, up toward the
cliff's beckoning edge.

Trace held them away from the rocky surface, bracing his feet, bouncing away,
then landing several feet higher time and again.  He cradled April against
him, his heart still hammering wildly in his chest.  His adrenaline had been
pumping at warp speed.  But this was a far different sensation from his usual
highs.  This was grinding, gritty, sanity engulfing terror, the kind even a
crazy man would never want to experience again.

"Hey, kid," Trace said, fearful April would go into shock, check-out if he
didn't keep talking to her.

"I bet you're gonna get one terrific cast on that arm of yours.  Y'know, you
can get them in all different colors now.  Neon pink, green, purple.  They
even have some with team logos on 'em.  Bet you could get one with the Sox"
-- Trace broke off the sentence, his gaze fixed on the place where the rope
was bent over a rock embedded in the cliff.  a rock that was sharp-edged,
sawing at the straining rope.  Over half of the strands of rope twist had
snapped, exposing the wheat-gold center.  "Annie!  Top speed!  Kick 'ira in
the butt!"  Trace shouted.  He felt the lurch, heard Annie hell owing at the
horse, fighting with it, raw panic in her voice.

April was sobbing again, petrified.

Trace stared in horror as another strand snapped.  His blood turned to ice in
his veins.

The rope'll never hold you both, a voice warned inside him.  There's only one
way April will have a chance .  Trace McKenna hadn't given a damn about
living until he'd found Annie again, looked into April's eyes.

Now, when everything he loved was in reach, he had to let it go.

"I love you, April.  Don't ever forget it."  He choked out the words.

"Tell your mommy I love her, too."

"Trace?"  April keened.  Trace, what"-- His sweat-slickened fingers loosened
on the rope, released it.

The terrified shrieks of April and Annie were the last sound he heard before
he slammed into the ground.

Chapter 14 Pain.  Rasping against bones, screwing steely tentacles into
every muscle, torturing ragged nerves until Trace felt like crying out if
there had been anyone to hear him.  But there wasn't anyone.  There never had
been.  Not for Trace McKenna.

For him there was only darkness.  Relentless.  Filled with the acrid stench
of despair.  It jeered at Trace, withdrawing for mere seconds like the
curtain on some macabre stage to mock him with images as fantastical, as
impossible, as any surrealistic painting every created.

Annie.  as always, just beyond his reach.  But not the sixteen-year-old, shy
waif who had stolen Trace's heart when he'd been too awkward, too careless
not to destroy her.  Rather, it was an Annie who was strong, compassionate.

A woman who didn't need him to shield her from the world.  A woman as tough
in her quiet way, and as fiercely independent as he was.  A woman who held
him, touched him, wrapped him in silken passion that exploded into di243
arnorid-bright flashes of ecstasy, joy such as Trace had never known.

And beyond the miracle that was Annie, the shadow child raced through waving
grass.  The baby that never existed except in the reaches of Trace's mind.
But she wasn't a baby this time.  She was a little girl.

Laughing, braids flying, arms reaching out.  Most breathtakingly wondrous of
all.  reaching out to him.

Trace groaned at the beauty of it, trying to banish the poisonous demons that
hacked at the dream, mercilessly driving blades of reality into what little
reason Trace still clung to.

There was no child.

And Annie was gone.

For years he had felt the yawning hole inside him, the place his love for
Annie had filled.  Time and again, when pain had grown too fierce, night had
grown too bleak, he had dredged memory upon memory from the deepest places
hidden in his soul.  Carnival lights and Ferris-wheel rides, first kisses
that had made him shake and want and need so badly, he couldn't stop himself
from touching, taking.  Why did the place Annie held inside him feel so much
deeper, more ragged than ever before?

Why did Trace keep groping for something.  someone he knew wasn't there.

So many times as he drifted in this half world, he wanted to let go.

Wanted release.  Death, if that was the only escape from the emptiness.

And this time, Trace was certain he only had to stretch out his fingers to
the light, let the brilliant rays lead him away from heartache and guilt.

He should have run to embrace peace.  He should have delighted in it.

Exulted in it.

But to do that, he'd have to let go of the honey-curled angel with wide
green eyes and a smile that was gentle, strong.  a mouth that whispered deep
where his heart could hear it.

I love you.  I believe in you.  Trace, don't leave me .  Annie, it hurts too
much, he pleaded inside.  I can't have you.  Can never have you.  He dashed
an arm that seemed weighted with lead over his burning eyes, and tried to
stifle a moan of pain, hopelessness.

No matter what torment he had to face, he couldn't turn his back on this
vision, this Annie.  He couldn't leave her.

Damn.  He wanted to rage, wanted to swear, wanted to rip his fingers like
talons through the hazy images, drive them away.  He wanted to gather the
images like fireflies a child puts in a jar, to save forever.  But he wasn't
a boy anymore, with a boy's sense of wonder.  Dreams, imprisoned, died like
the bright glowing bugs, and the sense of wonder they inspired.

Dreams.

Annie.

Forever.

Trace groped for something to anchor himself.  Anger.  Bitterness.  The sharp
bite of betrayal.  But those safe emotions were swept away, ripped out of his
hands and replaced by the sensation of falling, plummeting into emptiness
rocking through him time and again.  An emptiness that wanted to suck him
down into places as dark as a lost man's soul.

Something cool, damp, smoothed away the ugliness, something warm, gentle,
untangled the snarls of panic and fear and hopelessness in his mind.

But he didn't want to be held back.  He wanted it to be over.  The pain.  The
loss.  Over.

Trace struck out, his right hand smacking into sot thing cool and tubular and
metal.

A hospital bed rail.  So familiar.

Trace let his hand sag to the mattress and stifled a cho] sob that rose in
his chest--rage at the emptiness, Rag~ the cruel God who tormented him with
those astonish dreams.  The God who would force him to waken, to e front a
life without Annie.  Without his child.  But they seemed so real .  pigtails
and baseballs, stut animals and long dark hair, a hairbrush sliding thro~ it.
Voices.  So soft.  Like angels.

"Trace?  Trace come back to me.  I need you.  April the you."

April.  the month he'd loved her.  Enchantment.  FI~ ers opening, skies
heavenly blue.  and Annie.  The ring.  He'd sold the gold watch his
grandfather t given him.  He'd sold his stereo, hell, anything he could money
for to buy Annie the ring that would make her wife.

A diamond in him pocket.  A ring to say things he couk get past the lump in
his throat.

But she hadn't worn it.  Never put it on.  Hot, wet tears ran from his closed
eyelids, burning p, down his temples, to dampen the pillow.  A tortured sol
broke ragged from his throat.

"Annie... oh, God, Annie .... " Even imprisoned in his private hell, Trace
felt it.  The I touch, like butterflies' wings.  Something small and wE and
gentle closing over his groping fingers, cradling th~ Annie's touch.

God, hadn't he endured enough in these hellish dreax Felt the loss of her
again and again?

He closed his own fingers around that tormentingly beautiful touch, meaning
to shove it away, force it to release him.  But at that instant, his palm
collided with something hard, something encircling one long, slender finger.

Metal warmed by silken skin, a stone--small as hell-- feeling like polished
glass against his palm.

A ring.

The reality drove into Trace with the force of a broadsword, lashing him into
consciousness, making him fight with all that was in him to open his eyes.
It hurt as he peeled them open, lash by lash, his surroundings swinging in
lazy circles.  Circles of honey-gold and green, a pale oval face, drawn with
exhaustion.

"Annie?"  He breathed her name with the awe of a penitent seeing the face of
an angel.  He felt something hot and wet splash his knuckles, felt his hand
dragged up to be blessed with silky-moist lips, lips that were trembling with
joy.

"Trace!  Thank God!"  Her voice, laughing, crying at the same time.  She was
trembling, so beautiful.

"Y-you're real," -he whispered in astonishment, straining to lift his other
hand, ghosting it over her dainty cheekbone, her silky hair.

"I can't believe... you're real.  Dreaming.

Strangest dream.  You were here, with me.  "

"It wasn't a dream.  I haven't left your side for two weeks."

"Weeks?  How... where... the blazes..."

"You're in the hospital in Denver.   It seems you're a pretty steady
customer here, Mr. McKenna.   There's been a whole squadron of nurses coming
to renew your acquaintance.

I don't mind the woman with blue hair and a mustache, but that gorgeous
redhead"-- " Annie.  what happened?  "

"You fell down the cliff.  An emergency team airlifted you out."

The cliff.

Trace felt a jolt of blinding terror rocket through him, the scene at the
cliff crashing into focus.  April--his daughter, dangling above the cliff by
a rope, the strands cut by the stone.  He couldn't remember anything except
her screams.

Anguish welled inside him, and he forced himself to speak.  "April... hurt.
Please, God... tell me..."

"April is fine.  You saved her life, Trace.  But the cost to you ... you
could have been killed.  When I saw the rope was frayed" -- "Did April tell
you... what I said?"

"Yes.  She..."  Annie's cheeks were pink, her eyes misty, lips tt-embling.

"She said that you wanted her to tell me that you... loved me."

"I do, you know.  Never 1oved ... anyone but you.  Couldn't... stop... no
matter how far... I ran... where I tried to... hide."

Trace pushed against the mattress, trying to lever himself to a sitting
position.  Annie helped him, looping an arm around his back, cradling him
against her.  "You risked so much for April and me.  You saved April's life.
And mine."

"Y-yours?"

"I'd cut myself off, wrapped myself in responsibilities, work, obligations.
You made me stop, realize how much I wanted someone to laugh with, to watch
April grow with.  You made me face the fact that I'd never stopped loving you
."  ' He reached a trembling hand to her face, gathering the precious
dampness of her tears.

"Don't cry ... Brown Eyes ."

"I can't help it.  When I think of all the years we lost... April lost.
Nine years, Trace.  I can never give them back to either of you."

In spite of the pain, the dizziness, Trace caught her face between his hands,
cupping it with tender worship.

"You want the truth, Annie?  I wanted..-to think I could... take care of you.
Would have tried with everything... in me.  But you... were fight.  Truth
is, I was... seventeen-year-old kid who wanted to fly... Hardest thing of
all... to admit was that I wasn't ready to be... husband to you, father to
April.  I would've found a way to blow it.

Like I blew pitching.  School.  "

She stroked his hair back from his forehead.

"I didn't want to run away from you.  I wanted to stay.  I loved you so much,
Trace.  But I wouldn't change anything.  Because if I hadn't felt all that
pain, I wouldn't know how miraculous this joy is."

"Mommy?"  The voice at the door was tentative, soft.  "Mommy, you still
talking to" -- "Come in, sweetheart.  Trace, there's someone who wants to see
you."

Trace hadn't believed he could endure one more drop of happiness, had
believed he'd touched the pinnacle few mortals ever reach.  But as he turned
to see the little girl framed in the doorway, his heart burst, washing away
the last remnants of bitterness.

She was real.  His child.  There were no words to describe what he felt in
that single moment.  He said nothing, just devoured her with his eyes like a
starving man.  She was wearing his old dive-shop shirt.  A cast with the Sox
logo adorned her left arm.  She looked so uncertain, standing there.  So shy.
Indescribably beautiful as she scuffed the toe of her worn sneaker against
the hospital tiles.  "April."  Her name.

Whisper-soft.

"You're--you're sitting up," the little girl said.

"We were real scared.  Even Grandpa was when the helicopter came and got you.
The doctor said you would die, but I told him... I told him I just found
you.  That you promised you'd teach me to throw a knuckle ball and that we
could be ... a family."  Her small fingers toyed with the Pegasus that
dangled from a mended chain around her throat.

"But maybe you don't want me anymore since I was bad an" ran away, an' you
almost got.  dead.  " Two huge teams welled in her eyes.

"April... I want you.  Forever."

"For keeps, Tra--I mean, Daddy?"

Daddy.

Trace savored the beautiful weight of that word.  Wrapped it up in dream mist
and tucked it away in his heart.  The first time April had called him by that
name.  Trace smiled, and didn't give a damn that it made a tender spot on one
cheek ache.  He patted the bed beside him.  The little girl ran over,
climbing on the bed like a little monkey.

"I'm going to tell you a story," Trace began, cuddling April close, Annie
pressed against his other side.

"About a very bad boy and a very good girl who lost each other until an angel
in pigtails brought them back together.  The boy and girl met in springtime,
the most beautiful spring you can ever imagine.  The very bad boy walked into
the library.

There, at the table, was a girl so beautiful he couldn't believe his eyes"--
He looked at Annie, her face soft, smiling, tears welling on her lashes.

"He didn't know it, but in that very instant, the bad boy fell in love" --
"So did the very good girl," Annie said, smiling through her tears.

The bleak winter of Trace McKenna's existence was over.  The promise of that
long-ago springtime had blossomed into a love more beautiful than anything
he'd ever known.

Three men born at the stroke of twelve and destined for love beyond their
wildest dreams.

Award-winning author Emilie Richards launches her new mini-series, The Men of
Midnight, in May 1996with Duncan} Lady.

Single father Duncan Sinclair believed in hard facts and cold reality, not
mist and magic.  But Mara MacTavish challenged his masculinity and his
hard-line beliefs.

Her warmth and charm captivated both Duncan and his young daughter.  The Men
of Midnight traces the friendship between Duncan, lain and Andrew.  Don't
miss lain Ross} Woman in June and MacDougall} Darling concluding the trilogy
in July.

"SILHOUETTE

Get ready to be swept away by Silhouette's

SEDUCTION

These passion-filled stories explore bo~h the dangerous desires of men and
the seductive powers of women.  Written by three of our most celebrated
authors, they are sure to capture your hearts.

Diana Palmer One of the world's top romance authors and a mesmerising
storyteller.

Joan Johnston Enthrals us with red-hot passion.

Rebecca Brandewyne New York Times best selling author makes a scintillating
contemporary debut.

Available in May Price 4.  99

SILHOU

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COMING NEXT MONTH

THE MORNING SIDE OF DAWN Justine Davis A brief moment and Cassie Cameron was
hooked.  She'd been unable to forget Dar Cordell, though months had passed.
She was surrounded by handsome, glamorous men every day and yet Dar stood out
even before she discovered his secret.

But someone else had their eye on Cassie.  Would her one moment of passion
with Dar have to last her a lifetime?

LOVING EVANGELINE Linda Howard Heartbreakers There was no doubt that the
woman who called herself Evie Shaw was the key to the conspiracy threatening
Robert Cannon's company--and he meant to take her down personally.  But
during that long hot Southern summer he found himself face-to-face with a
breathtaking passion for a woman who had to be as guilty as sin.  IAIN ROSS'S
WOMAN Emilie Richards The Men of Midnight Before lain Ross quite knew what
was happening, the earthy, irrepressible--and utterly irresistible--Billie
Haxper had turned his tradition-bound world upside down.  But no matter how
he ached for her, the curse upon his house doomed them to be enemies--and
must keep them forever apart.  ANGEL AND THE BAD MAN Dallas Schulze Travis
Morgan was reputed to be bad to the bone, silent and deadly.

Angie was warned, but in a desperate hour Travis came to her rescue.

In a flash he branded her soul.  Something hot and exciting sizzled between
them .  and Angie was powerless to resist it.  For the first time in her
life, temptation was real and it had a name--Travis.

COMING NEXT MONTH FROM

SILHOUETTE

Intrigue Danger, deception and desire DARK STAR $heryl Lynn UNDYING LAUGHTER
Kelse Roberts FATAL CHARM Aim&e Thurlo WHAT CHILD IS THIS?  Rebecca York
Special Edition Satisfying romances packed with emotion JUST MARRIED Debbie
Macomber BABY ON THE DOORSTEP Cathy Gillen Thacker MORGAN'S MARRIAGE Lindsay
I~cKenna CODY'S FIANC~:E Gina Ferris Wilkins NO KIDS OR DOGS ALLOWED Jane
Gentry THE BODYGUARD & MS JONES Susan Mallery 0esire Provocative, sensual
love stories for the woman of today WOLFE WEDDING Joan Hohl MY HOUSE OR
YOURS?  Lass Small LUCAS: THE LONER Cindy Gerard PEACHY'S PROPOSAL Carole
Buck COWBOY'S BRIDE Barbara FlcMahon JUSTIN Diana Palmer "Delicious CDishes
Would you like to win a year's supply of sophisticated and deeply emotional
romances?  Well, you can and they're FREE!  Simply match the dish to it's
country of origin and send your answers to us by 30th November 1996.

The first 5 correct entries picked after the closing date will win a year's
supply of Silhouette Special Editions (six books every month-worth over
[:160).

What could be easier?

LASAGNE GERMANY

KORMA GREECE

SUSHI FRANCE

BACLAVA ENGLAND

PAELLA MEXICO

HAGGIS INDIA

SHEPHERD'S PIE SPAIN

COQ AU VIN SCOTLAND

SAUERKRAUT JAPAN

mA COS ITALY ,~'kase turner ~r details af h,~, to enter