“Every minute?” another deputy asked.

“Except when he was trying on his new slacks or left the restaurant table for the men’s room. This is bogus,” she said. “This is a soon-to-be ex-wife making a lot of trouble. They’ve been separated for eight years. Dr. Riordan is trying to expedite the divorce so we can get married.”

“Dr. Riordan?” one of the deputies asked.

“That’s right,” he confirmed, looking over his shoulder. “Are you sure she’s really battered?”

“Oh, yeah. All banged up.”

“Is she all right?” Aiden asked. “Was she badly beaten?”

“Treated and released,” the deputy said. Then he sarcastically added, “Is there a beaten that’s not so bad?”

“Slow down, gentlemen, and stop with the innuendo,” Erin said firmly and authoritatively, even though she was both na**d and shaking under her robe. “Obviously my fiancé knows nothing about this. Aiden hasn’t been away from me for more than three minutes in the last three days. He’ll go with you without any argument, but you’re going to uncuff him right now and let him get into some clothes.”

“I have no problem with clothes.” The deputy jerked up on the cuffed wrists, causing Aiden to wince. “You gonna behave?”

“I’ll go with you,” he said in a low growl. “Let’s just take this a little easy, huh?”

Erin went into the bedroom and brought back a shirt, pants and shoes. “I’ll get in touch with Ron and contact the D.A.—this is a bad, bad joke. I’ll have you out in an hour.”

“Maybe not, ma’am,” one of the deputies said. “We won’t have him processed in an hour.”

“You might want to use your head and think before you book him. Is there evidence of any kind? Because the woman’s a nutcase and he didn’t hurt her. He’d never hurt anyone. Be very careful with this. And if you hurt this physician’s hands, the county’s going to be paying for a long, long time.”

“Thanks for the advice,” the meanest of the three deputies said. “We know what we’re doing.”

“You better hope so,” Erin replied. “Because I never forget a face.”

The second the deputies took Aiden away, Erin made a few phone calls, then rushed to the sheriff’s department. A local attorney who turned out to be Jack Sheridan’s sister and well acquainted with the D.A. met them there. Brie Valenzuela interviewed Aiden, Erin, then sat down with the D.A., and it was agreed there wasn’t anything besides the woman’s word on which to charge Aiden, and not only did Aiden have a perfectly good alibi for the time in question, the woman seemed to have dropped out of sight. There was no victim. No victim, no crime. But it was a very long day before Aiden was released without charges being filed.

They were both exhausted by the time they got back to Erin’s cabin. Aiden wasn’t just tired, he was demoralized. There was nothing like being taken away in the back of a police cruiser and thought to be the kind of animal who’d beat a small woman to take the starch out of a man’s spine. He slumped onto Erin’s sofa.

“We’re going to figure this out,” she said to him. “I’m going to fix you a drink. I have scotch or brandy….”

“Pass,” he said, grimacing at the choices.

She looked into the refrigerator. “I have two beers and a tablespoon or so of Merlot. Really good Merlot, but we drank almost all of it,” she said.

“Gimme a beer,” he said.

She got two out and popped off the caps, taking one to him and keeping one for herself. Sitting down beside him, she leaned back as he did and put her feet up on the ottoman. She took a deep drink of her beer and let out a tired sigh.

Aiden’s hand came down on her knee. “Maybe you should go home, babe. I should go stay at Luke’s and you should go home.”

“No way,” she said. “Not unless you come with me. A, you need an alibi and I’m going to make sure you have one every second, and B, I don’t want to be away from you! If you feel you need to go to Luke’s for some reason, I’ll go stay there, too.”

He shook his head. “I want you away from this. I hate that you’re even involved.”

“You’d be in worse shape if I wasn’t.”

“I’ll make sure I always have someone around. Luke or someone.”

“You’ll have me around,” she said. “I’m not going to give you a hard time about feeling real low right now. After the way that deputy treated you, I’m hardly surprised. But as soon as you catch your breath, I want you to come out fighting mad. Aiden, she’s working you. I don’t know why or how, but she’s working you.” She gathered up her hair in a hand on top of her head. “God, how could she beat herself to make it look like you’d done it? Throw herself down the stairs? How?”

“I have no idea. Nor do I know why.”

The phone rang. Erin got up to answer it. Then she said, “Oh, Marcie, honey! I was just going to call you!” She threw an uh-oh look at Aiden. “No, no, of course nothing’s wrong—did you leave messages? Oh, baby, I’m sorry—we barely walked in the door. I haven’t even checked the voice mail. We were out all day—over on the coast. Didn’t I mention we were going to do that? Honey, I’m sorry—but please don’t ever worry. It’s my job to worry about you, not the other way around.” Then Erin laughed softly. “But, sweetheart, I’m not up here all alone anymore. I have Aiden, and we’re almost never apart. Yes, you can relax—I’m in for the night and exhausted from a very full day. I’ll be sure to call you tomorrow. I love you, too. Bye.”

She went back to the couch and slumped beside Aiden.

“You haven’t told her anything,” he said.

She took a drink of her beer. “I told her you were previously married. I told her that on Fourth of July weekend.”

“But none of this madness.” It wasn’t a question.

“She’s hugely pregnant and her baby can’t be born normally. I don’t want her upset. If she goes into labor now, it’s an emergency C-section. I don’t want her to have the slightest worry.”

“It might make sense to tell her the truth, in that case. And tell her we’re on top of it.”

“I did tell her the truth. There’s nothing to worry about and we’re almost never apart. I’ll tell her all about Annalee the whackjob after the baby’s born. And it will absolutely get her all hyper and wigged out, wanting every sordid detail. Marcie’s always been the only one in the room who didn’t close her eyes during the massacre scenes in bad horror films.”

Aiden turned to her and lifted his eyebrows in question.

“She talked me into going with her to see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. She never missed a thing. I was nearly crawling under the seat, hiding my eyes.”

“She’s a ghoul?” Aiden asked.

“She’s too gutsy for her own good, not afraid of anything. She’s braver than I’ve ever been. What the hell, it got her through some wicked stuff. I admire her. But I don’t want her all zooped up on Annalee’s craziness right now. Right now I want her growing my nephew to a healthy size and having a safe delivery.”

He considered this. “Makes perfect sense, the way you say it.”

“Because she’s gutsy and I’m sensible.” She turned toward him. “I love you. I’m in it with you. Trust me. Let me be in it with you.”

He put his hand around the back of her neck, threading his fingers into her hair. “Of course I trust you. I just don’t want you driven totally crazy right along with me.”

“Too late. The woman’s got me so nuts, she better be careful around me.”

Five days after Aiden had been arrested, the phone rang at Erin’s cabin. She answered and Annalee said, “Put Aiden on.”

“Well, good morning, Annalee,” Erin said. “Everything all right?”

“Put Aiden on. Quickly.”

Aiden was sitting at the table with his laptop open, a cup of coffee beside him. When Erin extended the phone toward him, she said, “Guess who’s turned up again?”

He took the phone at once. “This better be good,” he said. He listened for a long time, then he finally said. “Of course, you realize that extortion is against the law.” Again, he listened for a long time. “Would you like the phone number for my attorney so you can make that offer to him?” Again he listened. “Fine. I’ll pass the offer along to my attorney…and, Annalee? You might want to get a really, really good one yourself.” Then he disconnected.

Erin just stood, a frozen look on her face, waiting.

“Here’s her offer. If I give her a hundred-thousand-dollar cash settlement off the books, she’ll sign everything right away. Otherwise she plans to take me to court and sue me for desertion, abuse, battery, mental cruelty, imprisonment…” He laughed suddenly, sardonically. “Imprisonment? God, I couldn’t get away from her fast enough!”

Erin took a step toward him. “Aiden, she can’t prove any of those things!”

“But there was a report. Of course she can’t prove anything—but what she can do, as she so cleverly pointed out to me, is circulate rumors, even using the press. She can make enough of a stink that no practice with one working brain among them would ever give me a chance as a woman’s doctor. When I pointed out that blackmail was against the law, she said she hoped I had some recording device working. Then she said to make a decision within the week or she’d be beat-up again. And the police were probably tired of my lawyer girlfriend lying for me.”

“Aiden! She can’t get away with this!”

“But she can,” he said. “I mean, she’ll never prove anything—but can she make it real tough for me to carry on without a long history of innuendo and gossip that alleges I’m abusive toward women? Ruin my career? I think even if she goes to jail, she could still manage to create a lot of damaging suspicion about my character.” He laughed suddenly. “Doesn’t this all sound familiar? Except the price—the price has gone way up.”

Mel was just hanging out in the reception area, a stack of lab results in one pile and charts in the other. Cameron was at the desk, working on the computer. They were in the process of trying to go paperless, filing all their patient charts on the hard drive. Mel had found them a perfect customized program, but it still required a lot of charting, filing, sifting, sorting and inputting.

“The second we have an extra dime, we’re getting at least a part-time secretary. I spend half my life on paperwork.”

Cameron just grunted his reply. He was drowning in it as much she was.

Business was definitely picking up. They were now up to two appointment days a week, and with more people in the area getting insurance, they were both making a living, if a modest one.

The door opened and Darla Prentiss popped her head in. “Mel, hi! Got a minute for me?”

“Absolutely! How are you?”

“Fantastic.”

Darla waved out the door and Mel heard the engine of a truck as it was turned off, the slamming of a door. Then Phil Prentiss was beside his wife. He pulled his ball cap off his head as he entered. His jeans, plaid shirt and boots were well-worn and a little dirty—he’d been working. Darla was dressed up, however—she wore her best creased pants and starched white blouse. She was clutching a large manila envelope protectively against her chest. “Mel,” Phil said with a smile and nod. “Doc,” he said to Cameron.

Cameron got up to shake the man’s hand. “You two are looking good,” he observed.

“You, too, Doc. Mel—may we talk to you a minute? A special request?” Phil asked.

“Right this way,” Mel said, heading toward their office. “You know I’d do anything for you two.”

Phil laughed; Darla joined him in laughter. “That’s exactly what we’re hoping.”

When Phil and Darla were seated in front of her desk and Mel behind it, she couldn’t help but grin at their youthful, secretive amusement with each other. She folded her hands on top of her desk. “Gonna let me in on the joke?” she asked.

Darla passed the envelope to her. “We’re moving on, Mel. This is our adoption packet. We’re still hoping God blesses us with a child, but I guess it’s not going to be one we make on our own.”

Almost in shock, Mel took the envelope. She was speechless.

“We got talking,” Phil said. “It’s pretty obvious there’s another plan for us. There must be a need for a couple just like us to help out or we wouldn’t find ourselves in this position. Truth is, if we’d had children we probably wouldn’t consider adopting.”

“You’re going to stop trying?” Mel asked cautiously.

Darla nodded. “We’re all done. If there’s money to be spent now, we thought it might be better spent on a lawyer.” She turned and smiled at her husband. “And on setting up a college fund. I imagine there are children out there who need us.” She laughed a little. “There are probably kids looking for a place to grow up with fresh whole milk, garden vegetables and maybe a hayloft to jump out of.”

“But what if you get pregnant again?” Mel asked.

“We’ve decided to go ahead and turn that off,” Phil said, shaking his head. “First off, it isn’t real likely. That doesn’t appear to be a special talent of ours. And second, the kind of pregnancies we have are just too traumatic. We don’t want to complicate a newly formed family life like that.”