“Calm down, calm down. Deep breath,” Colleen whispered. “It’s showtime. He’s a nice guy, you’re a nice woman.”

“Hey, Paulie,” Bryce said as he loped over to Paulie’s car. “Everything okay here? Our window just broke.”

Paulie inhaled audibly, her breath hitching in her throat. “Oh! Wow. Hi. Your eyes are so...so...blue.”

Colleen winced. “Stop that.”

“Stop that,” echoed Paulie.

Bryce stopped and tilted his head.

“Paulie, relax. Just...just say hi to him.”

Another shaking breath. “Hi, Bryce!” she said loudly. “What are you doing here?”

Bryce laughed. “I live here. How about you?”

A squeaky groan came over the wire.

“I threw a pebble, I guess. I think I had a blowout,” Colleen whispered.

“I threw a pebble, I guess,” Paulie parroted. “I think I had a bl*w j*b.” She clapped her hands over her mouth. “Out, out! I didn’t mean bl*w j*b. I never had a bl*w j*b. I meant something else. Out. I had a blowout.”

“Paulie, calm down,” Colleen whispered. “Jesus.”

“Jesus, calm down,” Paulie said, then wiped her forehead with her arm. “Uh...I...I have a flat tire.”

“Bummer,” Bryce said, not freaked out in the least by Paulie sounding as if she were possessed by a demon.

“Can you help me change it, Bryce?” Colleen asked.

“Can you help me change it? Bryce? Please? Please help me.”

Dear Lord. This was going to be a long afternoon.

* * *

THE PUBLIC SAFETY building, half begun and currently stalled, was in a state of chaos. First of all, every one of the three agencies—police, ambulance and fire—felt that theirs was the most important. Lucas had already changed the plans so the police department office was situated between the fire and ambulance departments, because apparently those two fought the way his twin nieces did over who got to sit in the front.

Besides that, the ventilation had to be specialized, and the alarm system was fairly complicated. It was tricky to make such a functional building also be attractive inside and out, and the builder who’d quit hadn’t tried very hard. Lucas had requested the plans, then got to work on the design. He moved the back entrance so it didn’t come right into the fire department kitchen, repositioned Dispatch to the back of the building and reinforced the walls, added some windows on the eastern side so the place didn’t look like a crematorium. The town council was falling over with gratitude.

It was nice to be needed.

Funny, how much he really did love construction work. Never minded it a bit in the summertime during college, though back then, he thought it would be temporary.

When Frank Forbes had first summoned him after learning that Lucas had impregnated his angel, it was fair to say that Lucas expected to be thrown from the fifty-fifth story.

Frank Forbes was furious. Lucas couldn’t blame him. “So you want to marry my daughter, do you?” he asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“And why is that?”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“The right thing.” Frank shook his head. “How do you plan to support them, my daughter and grandchild? You won’t be able to work if you’re in law school.”

“No, sir. I withdrew and got a job with Windy City Construction. I start on Monday. I can join the union after a year.”

Mr. Forbes gave him a long look, his jaw knotty. The silence was leaden.

Then he took a sharp breath. “Quit Windy City. You’ll work for this company, on construction, because Johnny Hall says you’re not bad. You’ll earn what all people at your level earn, and you’ll have a health care plan, same as all my employees. Windy City has an abominable safety record, and their work is shoddy at best.”

Lucas hesitated. “I’d rather make my own way, Mr. Forbes.”

“Yes, well, you should’ve thought of that before you got my daughter pregnant!” he snapped. Then he took another deep breath. “You and Ellen can live in one of my apartment buildings,” he went on. “I don’t want my daughter and grandchild living in a bad neighborhood, and that student apartment of hers isn’t big enough for a baby. You, however, will support your family. You will pay your bills on time, and I will never bail you out financially. You will sign a prenup saying you’ll never get a dime of Ellen’s trust fund. I will pay for Ellen’s law school; you will pay for your family’s living expenses. You will give this marriage a real try. If you hurt, mistreat or cheat on my daughter, I promise you your body will never be found. I love my daughter. She’s the most important thing in the world to me. Do you understand me, young man?”

“Yes, sir. I imagine I’ll feel the same way about my own kids.”

Because yes. He was going to be a father, and if some kid from the wrong side of the tracks knocked up his baby girl, he imagined he wouldn’t be quite as civilized as Frank Forbes.

Frank looked at him for a long minute.

Then, to Lucas’s extreme surprise, he sighed, all the anger seeping out of him like air from a balloon. He walked around his desk and hugged Lucas. “Welcome to the family. I don’t like how it happened, but I appreciate the fact that you’re owning up to your responsibilities. My daughter is smart, and she says you’re honorable and decent. She loves you, and whether I like it or not, you’re part of the family now.”

You could’ve knocked him over with a feather. Lucas had expected Frank Forbes to try to pay him off or threaten him. Possibly beat the shit out of him, which, Lucas admitted, he deserved.

Instead, Mr. and Mrs. Forbes took him and Ellen out to dinner that night. They asked about his family, expressed their condolence over the loss of his parents, murmured sympathetically when he told them the truth about his father’s criminal activity. In fact, Frank had already run a background check on him and knew full well how both parents died. And again, Lucas would’ve done the same for his daughter.

A daughter (or son) who was growing in Ellen’s belly right now.

Lucas did all the right things. Held her hand, held her chair, asked how she was feeling, went to the obstetrician’s office with her. He cooked for her, which she thought was charming, and listened to her when she talked.

He’d always wanted kids.

He couldn’t think about Colleen. That was forbidden now. He was with Ellen, and they were starting a family. The only thing to do was be a man about it.

Though it had been thrown together at the last minute, the wedding was at a huge downtown hotel with three hundred and fifty guests, five bridesmaids and an eleven-piece band at the reception. Frank made a speech and referred to Lucas as a fine young man who’d put himself through college, who knew the value of a hard day’s work. Hugged him, reminded him to treat Ellen like the princess she was, and seemed to bear him no ill will whatsoever.

Lucas went to work, worked hard, kept his head down and did what he was told. Came home to the beautiful apartment and talked with Ellen, who really was very nice. Put his hand on her belly and kissed her and smiled at her and slept with her, even if it still felt as though he was cheating on Colleen. If Ellen sensed something was off, she didn’t say anything.

And when they’d been married for six weeks, he got the call that Ellen was in the E.R. She wasn’t quite at twelve weeks, and the second he saw her face, he knew the baby was lost. Then he gathered her into his arms and kissed her head as she sobbed.

“It happens more than you might think,” the doctor said. “I’m very sorry.”

He took her home and lay in bed with her, holding her close. “You don’t have to stay married to me,” she whispered. “I know it was only because of the baby.”

He looked at her a long minute. “I’m not leaving you,” he said.

He’d been willing to stand by her when she was pregnant with his child; he damn well wasn’t going to leave her because of a cruel act of nature.

He grew to love her. Not the way he loved Colleen, no. But Ellen was good and calm and smart. He loved her parents, too—Grace was funny and generous and a little bit bawdy when she had a drink in her, and Frank...Frank was remarkably open and optimistic for a man who ran an empire. One newspaper article referred to him as “the Donald Trump of Chicago,” and Frank said, “Kill me now,” and laughed.

No, the Forbes family seemed to embody all the good Midwestern qualities—generosity, kindness, optimism and a very touching sense of innocence. “I’ve found that if you expect the best of a person,” Frank told him once, “you generally get it.”

“What happens when you don’t?” Lucas asked.

“Live and learn. Emphasis on learn.”

Lucas had always been a worker, ever since he collected bottles at the age of six to return for the deposit (that story had made Ellen cry). He worked harder and longer than his coworkers, hoping to show he wasn’t just some schmuck who was being promoted because of who he was. And he was promoted, moving up through the ranks from construction worker to foreman to project manager.

It was...well, it was good. But it was also hard; he was never far from the knowledge that he owed the Forbes family more than he could ever repay. That with one night, he’d changed the course of Ellen’s life...and his, of course. But mostly hers. She was the one who’d endured twelve weeks of morning sickness, and the one whose body had to let go of their baby.

Ellen didn’t get pregnant again. She went back on the Pill, which was fine; she went to law school, and then got hired by a big firm. She worked long hours, as did he, and seemed to love it. They didn’t talk about kids directly. Ellen didn’t seem to want to pursue it just yet. That was fine. They were young. There was time.

But it would’ve been amazing to have kids, Lucas thought, especially when he saw his nieces. He often thought of the baby who wasn’t...how old his son or daughter would be now, what it would be like to have a little one come running into his arms. To tuck a child in at night, straighten out the covers, to kiss a little head and say, “Daddy loves you.”

Six years into their marriage, Ellen came home from her swanky office, took off her shoes and poured herself a glass of wine. “So, Lucas,” she said, very kindly. “I think it’s time to call it quits, don’t you?”

The sorrow he felt was more because he hadn’t been able to make it work, rather than because his heart was broken. She’d loved him a lot once, and he’d done his best, and it wasn’t quite enough.

The divorce was so amicable, it was almost shameful. He would’ve preferred some fighting or tears to the calm dissolution of their household. He took only a photo of the two of them; they’d taken his four nieces to the beach, and Mercedes had been fooling around with the camera. He and Ellen had been holding hands, and he said something to make her laugh. It was an indication, maybe, that he hadn’t been a bad husband. He hoped he hadn’t been.

It was just that his heart belonged to someone else, and they both knew it. They never spoke of it, but it was true just the same.

They went out to dinner the night before their divorce was final, to Alinea, her favorite restaurant, where the maître d’ knew them both by name. She ordered a martini; he ordered a beer. They talked about work and her parents, about Mercedes getting the lead in her school play. Ellen had assured the girls that she’d still be their aunt, and Frank and Grace had all four girls for a sleepover and said of course they’d still be Grandpa Frank and Nana Grace, because that’s just how they were.

Finally, Ellen took a deep breath. “I hope this won’t upset you,” she said, tilting her head the way she always did when she had something momentous to say. “But I’ve met someone.”

He put down his beer. “Really.” Should probably say more than that. “That’s good.”

She looked at the tablecloth, started to say something, then stopped. Her eyes filled with tears.

“What is it?” he asked, leaning forward and covering her hand with his own. She was still his wife, even if only for a few more hours.

She smiled and shook her head a little, blinked back her tears. “I don’t know if you remember this.” She took a deep breath, once again fully composed. “It was sophomore year, maybe? No, junior, because we had that class with Professor Hayden.” She smiled at someone she knew, then continued. “Anyway, we were eating in the dining hall, and your girlfriend came in. She surprised you, and you stood up so fast the table practically fell over, but you didn’t even notice. And she jumped into your arms and wrapped herself around you and you two were kissing like no one else was around.”

The memory stole his breath...Colleen’s exuberance, her unabashed happiness and affection.

“That’s how this guy makes me feel,” Ellen said quietly.

He picked up her hand and looked at it for a minute. She’d already taken off her wedding ring. His was still on. “Then I’m glad for you, honey,” he said. “I really am.”

Twelve hours later, they were divorced.

Frank took it the hardest. Lucas was the son he never had. Since the divorce, Lucas had stayed on to finish the Cambria skyscraper. But they both knew this was his last project with the company.

He wanted to stay in construction—not to make skyscrapers, but to make homes. He wasn’t an architect, but he’d taken several drafting classes over the years and had a good eye. He wanted to be a general contractor, to work on every stage of the house, from the cellar to the wiring to the walls. He wanted to make people the home they’d live in all their lives. He’d earn about a quarter of what he made as a project manager for Forbes, but he had the connections, the experience, the reputation.