“I know you’ll be good for me,” he said. “The question is, will this broken man weigh you down? Because I’m tired of feeling crippled and sore. I want to be good for someone. I want to be good for you.”

“You have been so far,” she said.

“Promise me,” he said, lifting her chin with a bent finger. “Don’t accept me out of pity or because you think you can fix me. I was quiet and a little moody before I lost Brayden. That didn’t bother Sheila. She said she was happy to do all the talking.”

Hannah smiled. “I can’t wait to meet this woman. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“Not that I can think of, thank God. I’m sure that was a big enough load.”

“Good. Then let’s go to bed and hold on to each other. I need some rest. I have to go into town tomorrow and get some referrals from Leigh Shandon. Even though I’ve kept up with Noah’s exercises the past few weeks, it’s important not to ignore his therapy protocol. We have to get back in the program.”

“Good. Even though we’ve been having fun, I haven’t forgotten he needs routine therapy. And listen, if you’d rather have some space tonight, to think over all the stuff I just dumped on you...”

“Don’t push it, Owen. Come to bed. Love me. I could use a little reassurance.”

He grinned at her. “Amazing. I didn’t scare you off.”

* * *

It happened to her again—a missed call from Wyatt. Well, when you were having summer at the lake with your best guys, you didn’t look at your phone much. The only other calls she’d gotten were from Kate, Sharon and a couple of other friends who just wanted to check on her and see how she was doing. There were also a couple of numbers she didn’t recognize, which she chalked up to telemarketers. No messages, no texts. She’d looked at her email about once a week. She didn’t miss it at all.

Wyatt must have lost control of his phone. Another pocket dial. If he wanted to reach her for some reason, he could text or leave a message but he hadn’t. And she found she had no desire to text him, hear from him. She definitely had no desire to see him.

She’d been prepared to marry him and now, because of Owen, she realized she hadn’t had the depth of love and trust a lifetime commitment required. She had let it be enough that she usually felt happy when they were together. Usually.

Then Owen came along. Owen made her feel brand-new. Fresh, happy and utterly safe. She felt as though anything was possible.

With each passing day, it was easier for her to ignore Wyatt’s accidental call and not give him a thought. She was exactly where she wanted to be.

* * *

Hannah took Noah into Timberlake to visit the doctor, giving Owen some time to work. Leigh was very encouraging by echoing what his neurologist had told her before they left Madison—his case was very mild and with the right therapy, possibly medication, possibly Achilles tendon surgery after puberty, he would probably walk without leg braces. He might have a lifelong hitch in his step...or not. But he was so fortunate that was all he was dealing with. A large percentage of those afflicted with CP had seizures, had full-body involvement, had other affected areas of the body from speech to mobility and would never leave a wheelchair. Leigh called Maggie Sullivan, Sully’s daughter, who was a neurosurgeon, to get her recommendations on doctors and therapists, and Maggie also suggested a counselor she knew—someone to help Noah with grief counseling and adaptation to relocating and dealing with a disability. “I’m prone to do too much as opposed to too little. We’ll drop out some of the players as we go along,” Leigh said.

“I agree,” Hannah said. “Let’s cover all the bases. Especially now, when it’s summer and school is out.”

Hannah thought that Romeo was probably the best counselor of all. What luck that was.

For the first few weeks Hannah was on leave, there had been a never-ending stream of emails asking her questions about accounts and business associates, but that had dwindled considerably since. She kept in touch with her boss, though just a bit and only because she wasn’t ready to burn that bridge. She sent pictures of Noah, Romeo and even Owen to her girlfriends back home, corresponded with her lawyer and Erin’s former boss, who had helped Erin with her will.

And when she had a little time alone with her laptop, she looked up Owen. Of course he was very well-known in both photography and book circles and there were a couple of brief references to the fact that he’d had one son who died at the age of seven.

But it was Sheila Abrams whose internet references were too many to read. Her advocacy work was global. Sheila Abrams was stunning and widely respected. She spoke not only at rallies and advocacy gatherings but also graduations and conventions. Hannah watched interviews she did on Oprah and on Ellen—she was so well-spoken, powerful and so brave.

There were pictures of Brayden as well and even a little bit about his killer, who traded information about other victims to take the death sentence off the table, not that it did him any good. He confessed to killing four children, was sentenced to 142 years in prison without parole and was killed in prison before he could file his first appeal. There were two pictures—a mug shot at his arrest in which he looked like pure evil and a picture taken just outside the courtroom in which he looked like a perfectly safe guy from church.

It was strange, she could see Owen and Sheila together—yin and yang—the quiet and stoic observer and the lion queen. The thing that made Hannah happiest was knowing how much Owen respected the choice Sheila had made. It was perfectly understandable. Some people were born to lead with a strong voice. Owen was born to capture the world and its people in all its beauty and unpleasantness, subtle and bold. Their hurt was probably equal but, as he had said, they took different paths.

* * *

They worked and played through the first couple of weeks in June, seeing the doctors and therapist, making progress. The combination of playing with that rambunctious dog and swimming almost every day was telling on Noah—he was nearly running! The days would start out energetically and end with Noah exhausted, sweaty and smelling gamey. Owen put a rubber mat on the shower floor and installed a grab bar on the wall so Noah could shower. “Like a guy,” Noah said, ecstatic. “Now Hannah doesn’t have to wash me!”

“I will still check behind your ears.”

Of course, the first solo shower he fell and Hannah ran for the bathroom door. Owen grabbed her arm, stopping her. “You okay in there, Noah?” Owen yelled.

“Okay!” he yelled.

“Need help?” Owen asked.

“I got it!” Noah yelled.

“What if he hurt himself? What if he’s bruised?” she asked.

“Ask him if he checked to see if he has a bruise or is sore anywhere,” Owen said. “Hannah, he falls a lot. It’s one of the complications. But he’s getting stronger by the day.”

“I know, but I like to check,” she said.

“Check behind his ears for dirt and check his teeth to see if he’s brushing. And let him be independent.”

She looked up into Owen’s warm and smiling eyes. “He has a loose tooth, you know,” she said.

“Hey, that’s great! What does the tooth fairy pay these days?”

“I have no idea! Call Sheila! Ask her!”

He laughed and pulled her into his arms. “I haven’t exactly told her you stayed.”

“Are you keeping me a secret?” she asked.

“Actually, I can’t wait to tell her. But there’s something we have to talk about. Noah says he doesn’t have a father. That his mother got him at the store.”

“Oh, crap,” she said. “This might be above my pay grade.”

“Hannah, even though it’s hard, you have to tell him the truth. We can talk about it and I’ll help if I can. But he needs to know—”

“That is the truth,” she said. “She got him at the store. Sort of.”

He just looked at her for a long moment, holding his lips in a straight line. Then he slowly shook his head. “Tonight’s fireside chat is going to be so revealing.”

The bathroom door opened. Noah was hanging on to the door handle for balance and assistance, the towel wrapped around him, a big grin on his face.

“Look at you, standing all on your own,” Hannah said.

“I’m just about done doing that, too,” he said.

“I’ve got this,” Hannah said, scooping him up. “You can sit down on the bed to get into your pajamas. I can help if you want me to.”

“I can do this,” he said. “But I’ll take a ride. Romeo and Owen just about wrecked me today!”

“Are you too tired to read for a while?” she asked.

He yawned. “Maybe. But I have a little listening left.”

She snuggled him close and carried him the rest of the way.

When she got to the porch, Owen had lit a couple of fat candles and was comfortable in his favorite chair.

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked.

“I think tonight deserves something a little strong,” she said. “How about a Crown, if you have it.”

“Water?” he asked, lifting an eyebrow.

“Not too much. Mostly ice.”

“Look out, Owen,” he said. “She’s drinking hard tonight.”

Who can blame me, she thought. When he brought back the drinks, she lifted hers in a little toast and said, “Here’s to motherhood—on-the-job training.”

“You’re doing fine, you know.”

“I have to clear up that little misunderstanding about where Noah came from. I know what happened—Erin told me about it. She had a pamphlet about explaining eggs and sperm to young children. I think Sharon or Kate gave it to her. It wasn’t that long ago, a year or so, when he wanted to know where his father was. Erin told him he didn’t technically have one, at least not in the usual way. Usually married ladies make their babies with their husbands but Erin didn’t have a husband and she still wanted to be a mother more than anything. She explained that not all married people are lucky enough to have babies—not all women have the eggs and not all men have the sperm and it takes those two things, every time, in almost all animals on earth. But for human men and women sometimes when someone has more than they need, they donate for people who don’t have enough. So even though she didn’t have a husband, there was a place she could go and get that donated sperm. She told him she went to a sperm bank to find a father for her baby and she must have picked the best one available because he was perfect. She explained it as a little like adoption except this way she got to be pregnant and feel him grow inside her, which was so special. She tried to explain that it was private business and if anyone wanted to know where his father was he should just explain that that’s private family business. Somehow the ‘bank’ turned into a store in his mind and he forgot it was private. And isn’t it a wonder no cabbages were thrown in, as well.”