Research Subject - by MMB

Chapter 1: Taking Chances


I was bored. I must have been to even consider filling out the form to become one of a large group of anonymous research subjects. I must have been REALLY bored to have signed up to participate in a project involving the emotional cost of surviving the death of one's twin. Bored nothing - I must have been full-goose crazy! You see, I hadn't talked about Caryn's death with anyone, ever, in all these years. That was part of the reason Jake and I divorced - he kept pushing at me to “open up to him”, and I just wanted to have folks leave me alone about that private grief. Jake wasn't a twin - he wouldn't understand.

Anyway, I showed my acceptance form from the Centre to my supervisor, along with the tentative date for my time of participation, and got permission to take a week of my vacation to travel to Delaware. I needed the vacation anyway - I hadn't taken any time off since my break-up three years ago, and only a week off the year before that when Caryn... Well, leave it to say that I was due, and I was determined. I'd have probably called in sick if I hadn't gotten the permission, but Julia knew I needed the time. Hell, she was probably thrilled I'd finally agreed to take some vacation time for a change, no matter that the fall was slowly beginning to chill down into winter. Besides, the vacation time reimbursement checks I'd been getting weren't helping the lab finances much.

The Centre would provide transportation from New York City to Dover and then back when the study was concluded as well as back and forth from the Centre itself. Also included in the package was housing in one of Dover's better hotels for the three nights while I was to be participating in interviews and questionnaires and other phases of the study. My room was comfortable and well appointed, and there was a Centre van at the front lobby bright and early on Wednesday morning to take me to wherever it was I was to go. I have to admit I enjoyed the ride along the seaside - living in the mid-west, I had never had a chance to do that. And then I caught my first glimpse of the Centre itself, and I WAS impressed.

The van driver let me off at the front of the building, along with two other people also participating in the study. We had quietly observed each other in the van while en route, but none of us seemed very much in the mood to strike up a conversation. As it was, we were met at the front door by a somber-faced man in a dark suit that guided us through the airy foyer and toward the banks of elevators. He stopped at a particular one and pushed the button, and the door opened immediately. I noticed that the floor numbers available to this elevator were limited - from 15 to 18 - but wasn't prepared for the elevator to begin moving DOWN.

Of course! The building I'd seen from the outside, impressive as it was, had been three stories high at best. The rest of the Centre facility was obviously underground. I breathed a sigh of gratitude that I didn't suffer from claustrophobia like Caryn had - she would have gone NUTS in a place like this. Even though the elevator was well-lit, and the corridor that it put us out into wide and open, well-lit and filled with fresh-smelling air, she would have been cowering in a corner somewhere in no time knowing she was seventeen stories underground.

Our guide showed us down a long corridor, then one by one called us by name and opened a door for that individual to enter. I ended up in a little cement room with a table, a trash can, two chairs and mirrored glass at the far end that I presumed was a one-way window. I sat myself down at the table to wait, and soon a young man came in carrying a clipboard and a funny-looking recorder - and a box of tissues.

I don't know why, but the idea that this was someone who didn't know me and didn't know Caryn made it easier to answer the questions about her and our childhood years. These questions seemed to get more in detail and more probing as time went by until each was like a scalpel cutting into my grief - and yet I answered each willingly and fully. Perhaps it was the knowledge that this young man had no investment in who I was or what I felt that made it so that I didn't mind him slowly dissecting me verbally or seeing the emotional wreck I was becoming. Maybe it was that the young man made no notes of anything I said, but simply checked off the questions on his clipboard one at a time as we went through them. I knew he was listening to me, but it was one of the most impartial, uninvolved sorts of listening I'd ever experienced.

I, on the other hand, eventually felt as if I'd had the protective cover that I'd carefully cultivated over the pain that was Caryn ripped away, leaving my every emotion, my every thought, raw and exposed. By the end of the day, my eyes were red from crying and I felt drained and depleted. Why oh why had I agreed to this? Why had I been so foolish to think that this was going to help me pull out of my depression? At the end of the day my young interviewer shook my hand pleasantly with a smile that was meant to be comforting, I'm sure, and then turned to brushing my many drenched and spent tissues from table top into trash can. Meanwhile yet another guide in a dark suit gently took my arm and guided me back to the elevator.

I noticed that none of us riding in the van back to Dover were in very good shape. The others looked as if they'd been put through their own versions of the hell I'd weathered. I wasn't looking at the ocean either - I just laid my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes. I wasn't hungry when the van let me out in front of the hotel, but I choked down a salad just for the sake of argument before calling it a day.

That night I cried for Caryn as if I hadn't cried for her before - I missed her more than I had since the shock had worn off and I realize that the other half of me was gone. She had been the extrovert of us, I the shy and studious introvert - she the president of the student body in college, I the valedictorian at both high school and university. She had become a socialite, a media darling on the arm of her politician husband; and I had retreated to my laboratory and test tubes, contented with a physicist husband with his own lab and experiments and research grants and a precocious daughter.

And then Caryn was dead, hit by a drunk driver as she walked through a supermarket parking lot, and I was alone in a world filled with well-meaning people who wanted to help but didn't know how to reach me. I retreated to my lab, buried myself in my research, and eventually lifted my head long enough to sign the divorce papers before diving right back in.

For the first time, though, those questions and the lack of animosity or any perception of agenda behind them gave me the excuse to take stock of who and what I'd become with half my soul ripped away. It wasn't a pretty sight. As I finally started to drop off in the wee hours of the morning, I made myself a promise to lift my head and look around me again. Caryn was gone, but I was still alive. That had to count for something.

I was still feeling pretty drained the next morning, but I forced myself to eat a slightly more nutritious breakfast before the van arrived for me again. This time, we were only two riding to the Centre - evidently this project processed three subjects per week, each phase taking one day to conclude. No doubt tomorrow I would be alone in the van. I pushed myself to look out the windows and watch the ocean go by again. I was glad that I'd made arrangements to stay in Dover an extra night after the study was concluded - the van drove past a couple of signs pointing to public beaches that looked inviting.

Today I was escorted to a different room on that underground level - a room with a chair and a machine with many wires attached to it. Another young man entered from a doorway next to yet another mirrored window the moment I did, instructing me to seat myself and make myself comfortable. Then he busied himself attaching wires to several places on my body - my wrists, on my upper chest - and then settling a circlet of metal with several wires protruding from it around my forehead. He exited the room briefly after that, then returned with yet another clipboard, recorder, and another box of tissues.

If I had thought yesterday's questions were difficult and painful, today's were even more so. Today the subject of the questions was Caryn's death and every possible detail of the way she died, her funeral, and the events that had followed. That verbal scalpel dug deep, cutting into my reactions to my family, my husband, my daughter, my brother-in-law, my co-workers, my friends, myself. If there was an emotional rock behind which I had hidden a portion of my grief, the questions were designed to discover and turn that rock. I think I had emptied the box of tissues by the day was done and the young man had finished disconnecting me from the machine and shaking my hand.

Again, I was in no mood to look at anything as we drove back to Dover, and no longer questioned why none of the others yesterday had been wanting to do much sharing either. But where I was obviously still quite upset, the other man was pensive. And again I could only convince myself to have a salad before falling into bed.

I woke up Friday morning - half-way through what was SUPPOSED to be a vacation - and barely wanted to climb out of bed. My dreams that night had been nightmares, grief-mares where I relived the shock of Caryn's death and the aftermath over and over again. Emotionally beaten and thoroughly convinced that I'd made a serious error, I choked down a bagel and a cup of tea and went to meet the Centre van driver in the lobby. If there was one thing I was not, it was a quitter. I'd signed up to participate, and by God I'd see the study through to the bitter end.

I think I slept most of the way to the Centre, I know the driver had to shake my shoulder to wake me enough to climb out of the van. Again I had a new dark-suited guide to show me the way to the elevators and the underground laboratory. But today I didn't end up in a featureless cement cubby-hole. Today I was escorted through a rather large room and up to the door of the office that opened onto it. My guide knocked, listened for the voice inside to bid him enter, then showed me in.

What a change! The office had been paneled in warm wood and lined with bookshelves, and there was a comfortable-looking leather couch and a couple of chairs in front of a sturdy-looking wooden desk. And behind the desk was a distinguished-looked gentleman who rose as I came in and extended his hand. He had an unidentifiable but most well-educated accent that caught my attention immediately. "I have just a few questions for you."

He waved me toward one of the chairs in front of his desk and then seated himself. While he shifted the papers in front of him, I had a chance to study him - he was far more interesting to look at than the nondescript young interviewers over the last two days had been. His very bearing was one of character and refinement. His grey hair was unstylishly long, curling over the top of his collar even as it was abandoning the crown of his head. His face was lined and care-worn, yet had a gentle expression that seemed to invite trust and confidence. His hands were long-fingered and moved gracefully and expressively in sorting through the papers he held. When he finally looked up at me, I saw he had a caring expression in his brown eyes, and I relaxed a bit.

"I realize you've probably had a rough last two days," he began in that wonderfully smooth and accented baritone, "and I want you to know how much we appreciate your candor and honesty."

Then he gently began asking me questions - this time about my responses to the last two days' worth of probing. Had my sleep habits changed? Was I feeling more depressed, anxious, out of control? Caryn had very little to do with the questions I fielded from this man - I myself was the subject of the probing today.

The questions were just as in-depth as those I'd fielded already in either of the two previous interviews. They were, however, not so much painful dissections of grief too long hidden away as much as they were careful and cautious examinations of the emotions that the previous days' questions had aroused within me. And this time my interviewer was not only recording my answers but taking occasional notes. He was listening, and listening very closely, to everything I said. No doubt he was even paying attention to my body language. And by the time the day had passed, I had begun listening too - to myself. As the guide in the dark suit came to escort me out of the Centre again, I was almost sorry to bid the man farewell. Maybe I'd been only a research subject, but I had gained from the experience after all.

Interesting that the ocean at twilight, when the van transported me back to Dover, was so very different than the ocean at early morning. The cloud cover on the horizon was dark and mysterious, hinting at the darkness of the night to come. I even paid attention to the rolling countryside as the van finally headed inland again into Dover even as I tossed several of the more pointed questions I'd been asked that day at myself again.

I slept in Saturday morning, slept in for the first time in I don't know how long. I felt drained but at peace when I awoke - and I only realized after finishing my shower and getting dressed that I hadn't automatically sought out the emotional touchstone of that empty place in the back of my mind where I kept Caryn. And I was hungry too. I walked down to the hotel restaurant and had a hearty meal of bacon and eggs and toast, the kind Mom used to make.

The concierge helped me rent a car for my free day, and I bought a road map of the area so I could find my way back to one of those beaches I'd been thinking of visiting. The one I chose, the one farthest from Dover, had a parking lot back amid the rolling and grass-covered hills, and a path that lead to the beach beyond. I found a log not far from the grass and off to the side that looked like an inviting seat. I parked myself there for a long time, listening to the soothing and repetitive sound of the waves washing onto the shore and the occasional mad cry of a seagull floating overhead.

Looking out over the water, studying the way the clouds floated across the horizon and faded into the distance and following the flight path of the occasional seagull, I didn't notice at first that I wasn't alone. It was only when the lone figure walked slowly past me at the water's very edge that I noticed him. He was bundled more warmly against the cool ocean breeze than I was, and was sauntering just out of reach of the waves along the wet sand.

I didn't realize I knew him, or at least recognized him, until he had turned and begun walking back towards me and towards the path to the parking lot. It was the distinguished-looking man with whom I'd spent several hours only the day before. I raised my hand half-heartedly as he passed by my log, and I could see his eyebrows rise in surprise when he recognized me too. He paused for a moment, then came toward me.

"I didn't realize you were from around here," he said in a mildly surprised tone.

"I'm not," I admitted. "I saw the signs for the beach from the van on the way to the Centre, and I decided that I'd check it out before I headed back to New York and my flight home."

He nodded, then turned and looked out at the ocean for a while. I was wondering if I had intruded on his privacy when he looked down at me again. "Is this your first time visiting the ocean?"

"Mmm-hmmm," I nodded, letting the call of a seagull lure my attention away to the vastness of the ocean's beauty. "It's beautiful here."

"I know," he replied. "I come here sometimes when..." He glanced down at me with an unreadable expression. "I should leave you to your ocean visit, though," he said, more to himself than to me, I think. "This is a good place to put yourself back together again after the emotional drubbing of the study questions, and I'm intruding on your space."

"Not at all. I don't mind your company if you don't mind mine." God, I couldn't believe I said that! Neither could he, I think - those eyebrows of his were almost as expressive as his eyes, the way they demonstrated his being taken by surprise.

But then he smiled - a wonderful, full and genuine even-toothed smile of good humor. "You mean there's room on that log for two?"

I giggled - what in the world was I doing? - and slid over so that he'd have room to park himself next to me. He sat for a moment, once more looking out over the ocean with his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his overcoat. Then, "If we're going to share a log, I suppose we should introduce ourselves. I'm Sydney."

"I'm Catherine," I answered, then shook hands with him - and found his hands were warm from the protection they'd received from his overcoat.

I could feel his eyes on me, but it was a soft expression of curiosity. "So... what do you do, Catherine?"

"I'm a research chemist - you know, test tubes, Bunsen burners, periodic table of the elements..." I tucked my hands into my armpits. I really should have worn something warmer on this jaunt. I knew better. I knew I knew better. To hide my chagrin at suddenly being aware that I was freezing my butt off so soon after inviting him to join me, I looked back at him. "So... and you do research on twins?"

And I discovered those warm brown eyes had heavy lids that could fall like curtains at times. He looked away. "For the moment," he commented finally.

Something was going on in him, something that he didn't want to discuss, evidently. Maybe my spur-of-the-moment invitation to join me hadn't been such a good idea after all. Nervous and now self-conscious, I lost my concentration on appearing comfortable and shivered when a slightly stiffer blast of ocean breeze cut straight through my light sweatshirt. I got to my feet rather quickly. "I think I'll head back in now," I said lamely, avoiding looking at him. "I really didn't dress for the ocean, I guess."

Sydney got to his feet too, almost as quickly as I did. "Wait. I'm sorry," I heard him say, and then it was my turn to look at him with surprise. "I didn't mean to shut down the conversation," he continued with a hand reaching out for my elbow. "It's just been a very long week, and I'm tired - and when I get tired, I can become a real bear. You didn't deserve for me to take it out on you..."

"Don't worry about it," I reassured him, but shivered again as another blast cut through the sweatshirt. "The thing is, and I hate to admit it, but I also am really freezing..."

And then I stared as he quickly shed his overcoat and put it around my shoulders. "I thought you looked a little underdressed for a trip to the beach," he said gently. "I, on the other hand, usually end up wearing more than enough." Indeed, he had a heavy cardigan sweater beneath that overcoat, and it looked like a flannel shirt or a light sweatshirt beneath that. He also had a very gentle hold on my nearest elbow. "Come. Sit down and enjoy your ocean in a bit more comfort."

His overcoat warmed me quickly on the outside almost as fast as his cavalier gesture warmed me on the inside, and I pulled the coat closed around me and nodded then sat down next to him on the log again. I took a deep breath of the sea air and found that now I could smell his scent coming softly from the overcoat - a crisp and spicy tang that seemed imminently suited to the man.

"Still... I... didn't mean to pry. I'm sorry." I still felt that I owed him an apology too.

"You weren't prying anymore than I was." He folded his hands in front of him and looked out over the ocean again. "Right now, my assignment explores the psychology of one twin surviving the death of the other. It just hits a little close to home sometimes."

"Because you're a twin too," I whispered as I recognized the same signs in Sydney that I had just been made aware of in myself. I saw him glance in my direction and knew I was right. "And your twin is gone too." He looked down at his big and graceful hands and nodded. "How long now?"

"Four years now." God, but his voice told of his pain so vividly that I had to fight from having tears in my eyes.

"Same as me." I looked over at him, and his eyes were hooded again and looking down at his hands still. "Was it sudden?"

He stirred himself and took a very deep sigh. "No, not in some ways. Jacob was in a coma for many years - but the end came very quickly and suddenly when it did come."

I tried to put myself in his shoes and found I couldn't even begin to fathom the pain of watching Caryn lie unresponsive in a bed day after day for years, only to have her suddenly vanish. That, I think, was worse than having her vibrantly alive one moment and bloody and still on the pavement the next. I found the opening of the overcoat with a hand and touched one big hand hesitantly. "I'm sorry."

His other hand came over to pat mine, and then didn't move away but held mine sandwiched between his almost absently. "That's why I came here today, after a week of talking to others about the way they lost their..." He paused, seeming to collect his thoughts. "This was a place we both enjoyed - we'd pack a picnic lunch and take more than an hour from the Centre every once in a while, or come on a Saturday much like this one. We'd watch the ocean and..."

"Jacob worked with you?" I asked, finding I didn't mind my hand being in his keeping all that much.

He nodded. Then his eyebrows rose again in surprise, and he looked down at me. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this..."

"I do." And I did. "It's hard for anybody to understand what it's like who hasn't been a twin. It can be like talking to a brick wall. But I've been there, been through it too." I saw Sydney's mouth tighten as if he were swallowing hard. "I know how it hurts." He nodded and looked away again, and I could have sworn I saw water swimming in those pretty brown eyes of his.

"You know what?" I asked softly, nudging him with my shoulder to get his attention back. I waited until I could see the eyebrows raised expectantly before I continued. "These past few days have been really hard, making me look at everything six ways from Sunday - but I think talking to you yesterday did more to help me finish dealing with Caryn's death than anything else has." I turned my hand beneath his and clasped the hand above mine. "If you think it would help you, I can repay the favor by listening to you..."

"You don't need to do that..." he challenged immediately, the hand on top of mine now clasping mine as well, and those expressive brown eyes no longer swimming but warm.

"I know," I told him, "but maybe you need me to. And I don't mind... really... I have the whole rest of the day to listen..."

I could see the wheels of his mind turning my offer over slowly and carefully. Then, "Have you had lunch?"

I twisted my head slightly so I could make out the time on his wristwatch. "It's a little late for lunch, don't you think?"

His lips twitched, and then I was gifted with that smile again. "Alright. An early dinner then?"

"You're buying?"

The smile got wider. "Actually, I have a fair-sized pot of stew on my stove simmering as we speak. I was going to have it for my supper. But if you wouldn't mind sharing peasant fare..."

Stew! I hadn't had any of that since my parents' deaths over a decade ago. "Stew sounds good," I said, trying not to sound as starved as I suddenly felt.

"Good. That's settled, then." His voice sounded relieved. "You drove?" I nodded, and he nodded back. "So did I. You can follow me."

Sydney didn't let me give him his overcoat back until I was ready to climb into my rental - "when you'll at least have a heater to keep you from freezing," he told me. He led me past the gate and guard that was the entrance to the Centre and on down the road until we were entering a tiny seaside village called Blue Cove. Then with only a turn or two, he led me to his two-story tract house on what looked like the newer end of town. He pulled into the driveway and then came out to the street to meet me, overcoat in hand.

"Come on in. I'll get a fire going to warm you," he said, putting the overcoat back where it had been earlier. I wasn't unhappy to have the coat back. It was cold.

His house was like him - gracious, refined, and decidedly masculine. Obviously he had been the one to decorate the office I'd met him in at the Centre to match his home, because there was an abundance of warm wood on the walls and well-finished wood in the sturdy furniture. He led me into the living room and let me explore while he began laying the kindling for a fire in his spacious hearth. The bookshelves that lined one entire wall of the room were filled with an eclectic and literate collection of fiction and non-fiction - some looking very old and very valuable, and even a few that looked suspiciously like science textbooks I'd had in my university days.

There was a small collection of photographs that lined his mantle, and I moved closer to the growing fire both to warm myself and to satisfy my curiosity. My eyes lit on the black and white picture on the end - where two young and athletic young men grinned impishly in mirror image into the camera after a tennis match. Sydney had risen next to me and took note of the object of my attention. "We were juniors at Yale when that was taken. Jacob was the better tennis player - I could hardly compete. I tended to be the bookworm."

"Me too. Caryn was the one who had all the friends," I remembered, for the first time without more than a slight ache. Then I turned my eye to the other pictures on his mantel: a much younger picture of himself with a very pretty young lady, and then a much more recent picture of that same lady with a young man next to her that obviously had Sydney's eyes and smile. I touched that one. "Your wife and son?"

"My son," he admitted with a soft expression, "but not my wife. We... never married."

There was muted pain in that statement, so I moved past it so as not to distress him. The next picture was of stunning young brunette woman, and the one next to it was of another very handsome young man with dark hair. I looked up at my host. "Your other children?"

The eyebrows climbed his forehead again in a clear demonstration of surprise, and then an amused twist of the lips settled on his face. "It seems like it sometimes," he responded cryptically, then took pity on my look of complete confusion. "They are very dear friends I've known since they were very young. I sometimes forget that they aren't mine."

The fire was making the room cozy, and I remembered the reason I'd come here. I touched his hand lightly and gestured at his long leather couch. "So... Tell me about Jacob," I invited and walked around the coffee table to sit down and wait for him to join me.

After a brief spate of not knowing precisely how to start the conversation, the time flew. Somewhere along the way, we relocated temporarily to the kitchen table for one of the tastiest and heartiest meals I'd eaten in a very long time and then shared cleanup duties afterwards - all this framed within non-stop talking. The teapot refilled and steeping again, we moved back to the couch in front of the fire, our conversation flexing enough to allow him to feed the flames several times. No longer shy, we sat close, turned toward each other with knees touching as we went from one memory to the next.

Sydney talked and spoke proudly of his brother's accomplishments as a clinical psychologist, talked of the horrors of the Holocaust and being an orphaned survivor and then of making a life in a strange land. Then he talked of automobile accidents and decades spent visiting an unresponsive brother in a hospital bed and then of burying him in a secluded place. Strangely, our talk ended up being as much a sharing experience for me as a cathartic experience for him - every so often I could bring forth a memory of my time with Caryn that echoed the memory he had just related to me of his time with Jacob. We laughed together over the lighthearted, and we cried together as we shared the tragic. I felt as if I had known him forever, and that he'd known me at least as long.

Then I looked over my shoulder at his front picture window and saw that the daylight was now long gone, and that it was dark and raining outside. Even the room we were in was dark except for the warm glow of the flames on the hearth. The thought that my time with this fascinating man with the hypnotic accent and the surprisingly quirky sense of humor was coming to an end was almost painful, and I think it showed. "What is it, Cat?" he asked, now comfortable using my sister's nickname for me. He was the first person I'd actually invited to use that name in years, and it felt right to hear him call me that after everything we'd shared. He said he had known a Catherine years ago - I was sure that she and I were probably nothing alike.

I jerked my head in the direction of his window. "Look. How am I going to find my way back to Dover? This has been a wonderful time, Syd - and I'm really glad I got to know you - but..."

Those expressive brown eyes glanced at the darkness outside the window and then back at me, and the sudden burst of warmth in them was surprising. "Don't go," he said suddenly, putting out at hand and capturing mine. "It's cold and wet out there, and you don't know the roads. I have a perfectly good guest room - and I suppose I could be convinced to be a perfect gentleman."

"Sydney," I said, touched more than he imagined at the offer. "I really should go..." I got to my feet and tried to reclaim my hand.

"Stay," he insisted, following my hand and rising to his feet too. "I want... I need... you to be safe." Was he moving closer? My God, he was - and then there was a warm hand on my cheek. "It isn't a safe night for you to drive unfamiliar roads, Cat. I'd never forgive myself if something were to happen to you. Stay, please..." His voice had become low, a purr.

Having him moving ever closer to me was like becoming wrapped in his warm overcoat all over again. I could smell the spicy tang that was him, and for the first time in years, I felt my heart give a thump before starting to beat faster. I looked up into those warm brown eyes and felt as if I were drowning in dark honey. My logical mind tried to rebel against my feelings - I hadn't come half-way across the continent for a casual fling at this late date in my life - but my logical mind shut down the moment he bent and touched his lips to mine.

My God but his lips were soft and gentle, and his kiss tender and loving in a way I'd never believed possible! My arms twined around his neck of their own accord, and then he was pulling me into his arms and holding me tightly. When his lips finally left mine aching and wanting more, they moved smoothly and surely up my cheek to rest against the side of my head near my ear. "Stay, Cat," he purred imploringly into my ear.

Jake had always been a take-charge man in our marriage, and especially when it came to our intimate moments. He had always been the initiator, bowling me over with his sheer animal magnetism - and I had always been swept along whether I'd wanted to or not. At first it had been exciting - later it had become controlling, especially as I tried to juggle being a successful scientist and a successful mother to our one daughter. Our final, painful months together had been made just that much more agonizing every time Jake would try to take charge and I would just keep withdrawing until I couldn't withdraw any further and then end up being overwhelmed anyway against my will. Our daughter was home from college when we went through our tortured dance that last time - and I know she still hasn't forgiven her father. It hadn't exactly been rape in the end, but it had deadened all desire for the touch of a man, I thought.

Boy, was I wrong!

I felt Sydney's hands smooth up my back and tangle in my hair, felt his lips trace the line of my chin and drop kisses of fire onto my neck. Every nerve in my body was coming alive and vibrating, and every so often he would return to kiss my ear and whisper, "Stay," and set the whole lot singing just that much louder.

Strangely, I knew without a doubt that all it would take from me would be a tiny movement of withdrawal - a word of refusal - and Sydney would let me go without argument. His arms around me weren't bands of restrictive steel, but cherishing and supportive and persuasive - and the difference between the two was staggering. And God help me, I knew that this sudden rush of emotions and physical responses wasn't wise. I was leaving for home in less than twenty- four hours with no idea when or even if I'd ever be back this way again. He was responding to the deep sense of intimacy our long discussion had created between us over the course of a single afternoon and evening. Hell, so was I.

I knew better. I knew I knew better. But it had been SO long.

The next time his smoldering gaze met mine and he murmured, "Stay with me, Cat," I answered with my heart.

I said, "Yes," and put my lips to his briefly.

There it was again, that wide and unassuming smile of pure happiness. He bent and, with a sweep of a hand behind my knees, had me up in his arms and was kissing me with an aching passion, stealing my breath away, stealing my ability to think away. He carried me out of the living room and up the stairs, down a short hallway and then into a bedroom. When he let me go so I could stand on my own feet again, I slid down the length of his body - and both his catch of breath and mine at the sensations told the tale of what would surely happen next.

I awoke much, much later to find myself carefully pillowed on his chest in the darkness, his arms holding me lightly. I was tender, and muscles I hadn't used in ages were softly and pleasantly aching. His lovemaking had been gentle, slow, tender - shattering. I felt as if I had been worshipped from head to toe. I felt as if I'd come home - as if I belonged in these arms, in this bed, with this man.

I knew better. I knew I knew better. But for a little time, I allowed myself to dream.

I watched his face, relaxed in slumber - my sweet and unexpected lover - and I concentrated on memorizing every feature so that I would be able to recall them the next time I felt again as if no one in the world understood me or cared. I carefully straightened some of that unstylishly long hair back behind an ear again and traced the line of his aristocratic nose. He roused at my touch as my fingers traced the outline of his lips, and then kissed them and then me. I melted at his kiss, I couldn't help it. His hand moved on my skin and mine moved on his, and then he deepened the kiss and rolled and pressed me back into the pillow, covering me like a warm and heavy blanket.

His hands were gentle and teasing, nothing like the rough and crude gropings I'd endured from Jake. He stroked and petted and smoothed and kissed and suckled and made me moan with wanting more of him, and then gave me everything I wanted. And when our passion was spent yet again, he settled me back into the hollow of his body with my head pillowed once more on his chest and his arms wrapped around me holding me lightly. And again we slept, sated and content.

When I roused next, it was fully morning. This time, however, I found that he'd awakened first and had lay there quietly, unmoving, watching me sleep. Waking to find myself reflected in those eyes of warm, dark honey was an experience I'll remember to the end of my days. It was one of the most erotic moments I'd ever had. "Good morning, Cat," he'd rumbled in a low register, then kissed my forehead. "Sleep well?"

"Better than I deserved," I answered him, rolling toward him and into him closer, then put a leg over the top of him and sat up. The time of our parting was approaching - I knew it and dreaded it - and I didn't want to face it yet. I don't think Sydney did either, because he was more than happy to rise to the challenge of helping me forget it entirely again for a while. But when the pitch of our lovemaking this time grew toward the frantic and desperate, I felt one of his large hands move to the bottom of my spine, near where our bodies were joined, and bring everything to a complete standstill.

Then with his other arm he drew me down close and cuddled me against him, shushing me and kissing my face and forehead very softly over and over again as I found myself suddenly crying. Eventually he kissed my tears from my eyes and, once I had regained a little of my composure, began stroking me and kissing me deeply again in a way that was designed to arouse quickly and surely. Once I was once again moaning in his arms, that huge hand on my spine moved to the side of my hip, and he began moving slowly and surely inside me again. Afterwards we lay panting and quiet in each other's arms for a long time, just enjoying being together.

Surrendering to the inevitable, however, I finally rose and gathered my scattered clothing from the floor to take a long, hot shower. I thought that perhaps I would have company, but instead found, once I was dried off and dressed, that delicious smells were rising up the stairwell from the kitchen - smells that included coffee. And like the bemused cartoon character, I followed my nose to the source of the temptation.

I stood in the kitchen door for a moment, watching him work over the stove, standing there in a homey flannel robe over trousers that left suspenders drooping and well-worn corduroy slippers. I could smell bacon and eggs behind that fragrant coffee. Unable to stay back, unable to resist the temptation to touch, I finally made my way across the kitchen floor and leaned against his back, winding my arms around to his front. "You're spoiling me," I mumbled into his back.

"I can only hope," he quipped back, a hand falling back briefly to pat my joined hands around his belly and then returning to its work. "Coffee cup's over there by the coffee maker. Help yourself."

I heard the clatter of plates as I poured the dark, steaming brew into my mug and turned to see he had the places already set at the little kitchen table and was putting plates with breakfast down. We sat around the corner of the table from each other, our knees touching - and ate quietly for a while. Then, "What time is your flight from New York?"

"About six this evening," I said in surprise after having to nearly choke back the dismay at the rapidly approaching end to this idyll. "And I need to check out of my hotel in Dover at eleven." Damn, I hadn't wanted to cry again. What was wrong with me? Where were my defenses?

His hand wandered over to mine and grasped it gently. "Let me drive you to New York," he asked softly. "I'll follow you to your hotel and help you check out, then we can take our time getting to the airport."

It was an emotional life-preserver, and a very short-term one at that, but at that point I wasn't choosy. I had found a refuge in his arms, and he'd helped me remember that I was still alive - I didn't want to lose that yet. I nodded, not willing to trust my voice. I felt his hand leave mine and then land, warm and gentle, on my face, thumb brushing aside the tears I couldn't help shedding. "Don't cry, Cat."

He pulled on me until he could lean forward and kiss me, and we both tasted of bacon and eggs and coffee. I looked up into those dark honeyed eyes and swallowed my tears back - for him. I kissed him again gently, and then we went back to quietly sharing our meal.

He took a shower while I cleared the kitchen for him, and we both finished at about the same time. Sydney came down the stairs carrying his cardigan sweater from the day before in his hands despite wearing another heavy sweater himself. "Here," he said, pulling me close and then drawing the sweater over my head and helping me get my arms into it properly, "so you can stay warm for a change."

The sweater smelled of him and was like being in his arms all over again. We embraced for a moment, and then he handed me my purse. He led the way from his house to the narrow highway that went past the Centre and our beach, then let me take the lead. I rubbed my face against his sweater as I drove my rental, and remembered his touch on my face, on my body. Knowing he was directly behind me and yet holding me close kept me from being lonely all that drive.

In the hotel room, he opened my dress bag and started packing the more business-like clothing I'd brought for my time at the Centre while I dug through the drawers and packed the small wheeled suitcase. When I saw him ready to hang my light jacket in the dress bag I stopped him and began pulling at the bottom hem of his sweater. "I'll need that. You'll want this back," I said, wishing I dared keep it.

"No, I don't - at least, not this way," he replied, continuing to hang the jacket in the dress bag and then coming over to me and pulling the sweater's bottom hem back into place. Then he reached into a pocket and drew out a small fold of paper with something heavy and hard inside, and he pressed it into my hand and then closed my fingers around it. "This is my name, my address, my phone number, and," he smiled at me, "my house key. When you decide the time has come to return my sweater, use them - and come back to me, to stay. Promise me."

"This is nuts." I said the words at last. "We don't know each other..."

"We know each other better than most know us," he argued gently, looping his arms around my back loosely. "We understand each other too, which is even more important."

"I have my job... my career..."

"The Centre employs research chemists too. Nothing says you can't continue to do research."

"I could be a thief... a..."

"Right," he snorted with amusement. "A thief who was too honest to try to keep a sweater she liked. And you thought I hadn't noticed..."

"Sydney!" I looked up into his eyes, all my arguments brushed away. "You're crazy!"

"I know," he responded, pulling me even closer. "This is all crazy and it's far less than wise. For what it's worth, I should be shot for having even talked to you yesterday on the beach after your being one of my research subjects - and by rights, I should discard your information immediately and forget I ever met you. I know you well enough now that I'd be able to spot your information from out of all the rest in a heartbeat. I've broken every ethical consideration important to research in the last twelve hours. But I don't care." At last I was in his arms completely again, and his lips were in my hair above my ear. "I don't want to let you go, Cat. "

God help me, but I wanted exactly what he did - to be free to stay with him. But I knew that the cards were stacked against such a thing happening anytime soon. And I was particular in that when I made promises, I was scrupulous about keeping them - what Sydney was asking, I didn't know if I could do in the end.

I leaned in closer, savoring the feel of his arms around me, the sound of his heart beating in his chest beneath my ear. "All I can promise is that someday I'll bring your sweater back myself, Sydney. I just don't know that I can ever promise more than that."

I felt his lips in my hair, and then on my cheek. "I warn you, I can be patient - and insistent. AND I'm more than willing to try to be persuasive too - in case it will help improve my chances," he said in a soft but vehement tone. Then he lowered his lips to mine in a searing kiss that once more stole away my ability to think clearly. God help me but by the time his lips left mine I was aching for more again. He kissed his way back up my chin and purred, "Come back to me, Cat, SOON," into my ear in a tone that I was hard-pressed to refuse. Then he kissed me again.

Somehow we managed to get ourselves calmed down enough to be reasonably presentable as I checked out of my room. And sometime while I was finishing up with that, Sydney waylaid and deflected the Centre transportation that was going to take me to New York. I turned from the front desk and walked over to him as he stood guard over my meager luggage.

The trip to New York flew by, buoyed by the kind of conversation we should have expected to have engaged in long before this point in our relationship - our likes, dislikes, tastes in music and food and art, our interests, hobbies. Our children. We compared our reading rates and chuckled at the idea that we'd found a fellow bookworm. He pulled a CD of Rossini string symphonies to provide a soft background of music we both appreciated to ease the trip along. And I gave him a slip of paper similar to the one he had given me - with my name, my address and my phone number - and then admitted that I'd have given him my house key too, but I didn't have my spare with me.

I was in luck, because he seemed very familiar with the airport and its convoluted arrangement. We found the concourse I needed to be at rather quickly, but then he insisted on parking and walking me into the terminal, standing with me in line at the ticket counter and then again for the security check. The moment I had been dreading was here at long last. "The next time you decide to do a twins' study..." I began.

He pulled me into his arms roughly and held me more tightly than ever before. "You'll be at the top of the list of research subjects I call," he growled in a low and distressed tone. "And the next time you decide to take a vacation..." he began.

"I'll consider Delaware to be my best bet," I responded and then stretched up so that our lips could meet in one last, long, deep, fiery kiss that would have to last us both for a very long time. Then I was going through security, and then separated from him by machinery and walls.

I wore his sweater all the way home, breathing in deeply of his spicy scent and then leaning my head back and reliving in my mind the amazing events of the day before. When I got home, there was a single message on my machine. It was he, his intoxicating accent heavier than usual with his emotions:

"My house is empty, Cat. Come home to me." I spend the next hour weeping and breathing deeply of the scented sweater.

The next day, Julia made a point of remarking how relaxed I seemed, how rested - how actually taking time off agreed with me. And what a nice sweater I'd gotten as a memento.

She'll never know that I spent my first hour in my lab looking at my calendar, wondering when I could get away with asking for another week off.

Wondering what Delaware looked like in winter.

Research Subject - by MMB

Chapter 2: Consequences


God! What was I going to do NOW?

I stared down at the little plastic unit, the blue plus mark staring back at me, bold and convinced - and I could hardly believe my eyes. Pregnant. Me. At my age. I had a grown daughter, for God's sake! What would she think? And Jake, whether I liked it or not, still wanted to hover proprietarily. He'd be livid - and jealous, because I hadn't wanted to let him touch me for months before we separated. And Sydney...

Oh God, what was I going to tell Sydney? HOW was I going to tell Sydney?

No, we hadn't used precautions that night - the thought hadn't even crossed our minds. We were both adults supposedly past our prime - the chance of pregnancy was supposedly far enough behind us by then to hardly even matter. Besides, our night together had been completely unscripted, unplanned, unexpected. Thoroughly unbelievable. And afterwards, he had begged me, pleaded with me with that sonorous and hypnotic accent of his, to come back to him some day. He had given me his sweater and made me promise that I'd bring it back to him myself.

I still had the sweater, and it still smelled of him - I kept it in a plastic bag to preserve that crisp and spicy tang, and never washed it. When I was alone and started to feel abandoned, I knew I had but to dial his number - which I knew by heart now - and I could touch someone who cared for me, not as a mother or provider or employer, but for ME. Or, when it was too late or too early to bother him, I'd bury my nose in his sweater or put it on, and feel his arms around me again for a little while in my mind.

He still asked me to “come home to me”, every time we spoke by phone - he'd warned me that he was both patient and insistent, and had proved beyond a doubt that he'd been telling the truth. I'd even gotten so far as to tentatively schedule a vacation at the end of February - the earliest I could get time off without making people suspicious - but that was over six weeks away. How could I go to him now with this bit of news?

I wouldn't even have thought to check this out if it hadn't been that I'd been having trouble eating in the mornings lately. I had thought myself far enough into menopause that my having missed my period twice in a row hadn't raised any alarms - but now I was having trouble holding anything down, and my breasts were getting tender too. I'd been pregnant twice; I knew the signs - but I bought the little test, figuring I was just eliminating distant possibilities. Distant my ass!

Rene was coming down this weekend to go to the theater with me and then spend a couple of weeks between terms at the university. One of the blessings to come of that draining set of interviews at the Centre - and my all-too-short time with a Centre psychiatrist - had been a renewed sense of closeness with my daughter. She had been so pleased when I called her not long after I'd gotten back from Delaware, asking if she was coming home for Christmas. During her vacation we had spent long hours talking, REALLY talking, for the first time since her father and I had divorced. We talked about everything and anything - but I hadn't told her about Sydney. He was my secret touchstone, my inner amulet.

I didn't know how I was going to keep this from her, as lousy as I was feeling - and in the end, I couldn't. She could see that I was losing weight and not feeling well and being generally more emotional than usual. And there were other things as well. Always a bright child, and a pre-med student at that, she finally put two and two together.

"Who is he, Mom?" she demanded, standing in my kitchen in her favorite silk bathrobe that Sunday morning, hand on her hip while I tried to choke down my morning cup of mint tea.

"He who?" I asked, hoping she'd take the hint and drop it. I knew better. I knew I knew better. But I still hoped.

"Gimme a break. You've been sick as a dog every time you eat since I got here," she announced as if she were a newscaster, "and frankly, you look as if you've had breast enhancements. I'm not stupid, Mom - please don't treat me as if I were." Well, she WAS studying medicine - what did I expect? "You're pregnant. So... who is he?"

"You... don't know him," I admitted finally, feeling my stomach twist at the admission.

"Who. Is. He?" When I refused to answer her, she sat down next to me and put her hand on my arm. "Does he know?"

"I just found out myself a day or so before you got here," I snapped at her a little more sharply than I should have. I knew better, and was instantly contrite. "I'm sorry, poppet. No, he doesn't know."

"Are you going to keep it?" was her next question.

I stared at her in dismay, my hand dropping as almost instinctual protective shield to the life I was carrying. "I..." I hadn't even thought of that. This child was as unexpected as the circumstances surrounding its begetting - but those circumstances had been as loving in their own way as the circumstances that had given me Rene at the time. "Yes," I said finally, coming to a decision. In this child I would always have a little piece of Sydney with me, even though our lives were so far apart in other ways. In forcing me to face the question, Rene had helped me realize that I wanted this child very much.

"Then you should call him and tell him," she told me firmly. "He deserves to know."

"I know, but..." I couldn't continue. He didn't deserve to be tied down to a baby. Not over a one-night stand that was as much my fault as his.

"How did this happen - outside of the obvious?" Rene had her hand on my arm again, and her voice was comforting, supportive. She thought for a moment. "This is something that happened when you went back East, isn't it? Something you didn't tell me about?"

I nodded. "He was the psychiatrist that did the final interview of the study," I began, and found that as I spoke, sharing this with my daughter was a genuine relief. "I stayed an extra day in Dover to visit the ocean. We ended up at the same beach the next midday, completely by accident. I found out he was... struggling with some of what I'd just worked through about your Aunt Caryn, and I offered to listen." Rene's face crinkled in disbelief, and I patted her hand on my arm. "You see, the questions he'd asked me really helped me finally work through things regarding Aunt Caryn's death - I thought it would be nice if I could return the favor."

"You evidently did more than just listen, Mom," Rene said, her lips twitching with the irony of the statement. And, thinking about it, I had to smile too.

"You're right, I did. I'm not ashamed of it, though." I looked her square in the eye. "He is everything that your father never was - and we still care very much for each other. He..." How could I tell her this? "He keeps asking me to come back, when we talk on the phone."

"So... go." She looked at me evenly, taking in my surprise without a flinch. "If what you say is true, then he's at least fond of you - maybe even loves you. God knows you should see your face when you talk about him. I know YOU love HIM, or at least are very fond of him too. That's better than what you had with Dad for a long time. Go. You shouldn't have to go through this alone."

"I can't just leave, Rene! I have projects to finish at the lab..."

"You'll have to leave them in seven or eight months at the latest anyway, Mom, not to mention that the fumes in there sometimes could be very bad for the baby." She leaned forward and patted me on my tummy. "This is my little brother or sister we're talking about here. You have to take care of him or her."

"Julia..."

"Oh, Julia can just go screw herself. She's let you work yourself to a frazzle for years and made a bundle of change off your findings. You know that as well as I do."

"Rene!"

"Mom," and with that, my twenty-five year old daughter stood up and walked over to me and put her arms around me, "you've been so sad and so alone for so long. You deserve a little happiness for a change. Go stay with your Delaware shrink for a while. You'll need someone to take care of you now a little anyway - and he's the one who most deserves the job, as I see it. And if it doesn't work out, you know Julia will have you back in a heartbeat..."

I put my arms around my little girl - not so little anymore, evidently. "I was afraid you'd be angry or disappointed in me."

"I am disappointed," she said gently, "that between Daddy and Aunt Caryn, you pushed me away so far and for so long that you don't know me as well as you used to. But I can't judge you for your time with this man - and I'm certainly not angry about little “peanut” there." She pushed back a bit and gave me a brilliant smile. "I always wanted a brother or sister, remember? Took you long enough to get around to it..." She kissed my forehead. "And at least it isn't Dad's..."

That statement warmed my heart, and then froze it. "Poppet, you're studying medicine - you know how dangerous it is for someone my age to have a baby. Besides, we've been forgetting something."

"What's that?"

"What happened after Andrew."

I knew it the moment she realized what I was talking about, because she hugged me just a little tighter. "Oh Mama, that was just an accident, right? You fell..."

Fell nothing. Jake had been angry with me, and pushed at the wrong time - and I'd fallen backwards down the stairs and then lost our second child, the son he had so desperately wanted. That had been the real start of our marriage falling apart, years before anything actually fell apart between us. I had forced myself to hold everything together for the sake of our eight-year-old daughter - even when there was little to hold together anymore.

"The doctors told me not to try to have more children, Rene," I explained, even as I had explained it to her before several times. "Dr. Bishop told me that I might never be able to carry to second trimester, much less term, again - and that even if I could, it would be very hard on me." My hand dropped to my belly. My God! My baby!

"If this is going to be a high-risk pregnancy, then you really need to call him, the father..."

"Sydney."

"Sydney. Right. You need to call him, Mom." At my stubborn expression, her face got hard - probably a mirror image of my own. God, she could be so stubborn! "I mean it. If you don't, I will. I'm not going to be here after a couple of weeks, and I don't want you doing this alone."

"Please," I asked quietly. "Not if I'm just going to lose the baby, Rene."

"It's his baby too, Mom."

I couldn't argue with that, and I didn't even try. And I knew Rene watched me very carefully for the rest of the day to see if I finally did call - but I didn't. I couldn't. I didn't know what to say to him.

I knew better. I knew I knew better. I just hoped Rene would let it go this once.

I went to work on Monday as always, having packed soda crackers and mint tea bags for lunch while Rene fussed at me to go downtown and get pre-natal vitamins and iron supplements. Tuesday I felt a little better, maybe because I'd started taking the pills Rene had recommended, and actually ate three bites of a tuna salad sandwich at work that stayed down almost a whole hour. I should have known something was up Wednesday evening when I got home to find a pot of chicken noodle soup simmering on the stove and a daughter with a cat-catching-the-canary look on her face. But I had spent an entire day with my stomach raising enough hell with me that all I wanted was to go to bed.

Rene wouldn't leave me alone until I'd at least tackled a small bowl of soup, and then she badgered me to just lay down on the couch for a while and watch TV with her instead of going to bed like I wanted. She made the mistake of tucking me in under my mother's crocheted afghan, however, and I was out like a light within minutes.

As it was, I didn't even hear the doorbell ring or the sound of voices speaking softly in the hallway in front of the stairs. I only know that suddenly I could smell the crisp and spicy tang that had haunted my dreams and fantasies for weeks. I opened my eyes just as a large hand touched my cheek, and I stared. "Sydney?" I gaped, then was swept up into his arms.

He held me tightly against him for a long time, while I struggled to wrap my mind around the idea that this wasn't just one of my favorite night-time fantasies. Then he let me go just enough so that he could kiss me gently and smooth back the hair from my face. "Why didn't you tell me, Cat?" he asked softly in that wonderful, warm, accented baritone that held a subtle hint of scolding.

I looked up over his shoulder at Rene, standing there with a soft and satisfied smile on her face. "I hadn't worked up the nerve yet," I admitted, then looked back into his face and found myself trapped within the dark honey gaze I'd grown so fond of so quickly. "I just found out a few days ago myself..."

"You still should have called me right away," he chided me gentle. "I'd have been here that much sooner."

"I can't believe you're here now!" I ran my hands gently over his face, still having a hard time believing that he really WAS here. I looked up at Rene.

She shook her head. "I warned you that if you didn't call him, I would."

"You didn't!" I gaped.

I looked up at Sydney, only to find him nodding slowly. "She was the last person on earth I expected to hear on my answering machine, I promise you - and what she had to tell me when I called back was the last thing I EVER expected to hear." He shot her a look that was obviously impressed. "It took a lot of courage to make that call, young lady - and I'm glad you did."

He may have been pleased, but I was confused. "When? How?" I demanded.

"I dug out your phone bill, Mom. You said you were talking to him - I figured the only number in Delaware that you would have been calling would be his. I left a message and had him call me back while you were at work yesterday."

"But what about your job?" I asked him in amazement. "Your research..."

"This is more important," he told me simply. "YOU are more important, and," he put his hand on my middle for the first time, "our child is more important. I caught the first available flight."

"How long can you stay?" I whispered, afraid of the answer.

"Until I take you back with me to Delaware," he said firmly, and I knew I was going to have a battle on my hands convincing him otherwise. He must have seen the flash of stubbornness in my eyes, because he added, "I told them a week, but left myself an out for it to take longer than that."

Wouldn't you know it, just about then, the chicken noodle soup decided to rebel. "Sorry... Excuse me... I have to..." I began, and then pushed him roughly out of the way so I could throw off the afghan and make a mad dash for the bathroom.

"She isn't holding much of anything down," I heard my traitorous daughter inform him grimly as I darted past, and then heard him murmur something low in reply that I was too busy heaving behind a partially closed door to catch.

I felt him come into the bathroom behind me and then wrap one arm carefully around my middle while the other large hand came up to give my forehead something besides plastic to rest against. I was tired and worn out enough to appreciate the help in such a vulnerable and intimate situation, and when the heaving stopped, I let him pull me back to lean against him limply. I could feel him reaching and stretching, and then I had a cool cloth wiping my face gently. Then, "Here," he said and put a glass in my hand so I could rinse out my mouth.

Then I leaned back against him and relaxed when I felt his arms wrap around me again. "Is there nothing that stays down?" he asked gently.

I shook my head against his chest. "Not for long."

"C'mon," he urged after a while, "this is no place for you to rest." He caught me by the elbows and helped me to my feet, then tucked me securely against him and wrapped his arms front and back to make sure I was well supported and helped me out of the bathroom.

Rene, having obviously planned for this, had his suitcase and clothing bag in hand. "I'll show you to her room," she offered after shooting me a look that told me that not only was she just as glad he was here as I was, but she had no problems with his moving into my bedroom with me. I didn't know at that moment whether I wanted to hug her or shoot her, and I was too miserable to want to take the time to figure it out.

I was glad for his arms around me, because I honestly don't know that I would have made it up the stairs that night. Rene put the luggage down at the foot of my bed and watched him settle me down onto the edge of the bed. "I'll be downstairs watching TV if you need me," she told him, "and there will be a pot of chicken noodle soup on the stove for a while, in case you get hungry."

"Thanks, but I ate on the plane. I think I'll stay here with your mother for now." His tone was warm and gracious, but all of his attention was on me.

"I'll see you in the morning again, then," Rene said, and pulled the bedroom door closed behind her as she left.

I had forgotten how expressive his eyebrows could get, but evidently my daughter had surprised him enough to have them soaring. "You have quite the intelligent and resourceful daughter, Cat," he told me, sitting down at my side, "with a surprising strength of character to take all this in stride so well."

"She has a mind of her own, that's for sure," I grumbled at him, then reached up for his face again. "I still can't believe you're here," I repeated as he caught my hand, deposited a kiss on the palm and then leaned forward to kiss my cheek. "I thought I'd never... I'm sorry," I said finally.

"For what?"

"For all of this. For interrupting your life this way." I let my eyes twinkle a little with the joy of having him near me again. "For not being able to welcome you properly."

His eyes twinkled back at me. "True... It isn't often I'm greeted by having the person I've traveled halfway across the continent to see rushing off to the bathroom to loose her supper." He smiled down at me and smoothed his fingers across my look of chagrin. "I'm just sorry my son or daughter is giving you such a hard time."

"With any luck, I'll be fine in a couple of weeks or so," I told him. "I was both the other times. The moment I hit twelve weeks, everything would clear up and I'd feel fine again."

It took a moment for him to process what I'd said. "I thought you only had the one daughter." His brow wrinkled slightly.

"I lost a son in the sixth month," I told him quietly. "I fell down a flight of stairs and miscarried."

"We'll just have to make sure you don't do anything like that again," he grumbled, his fingertips caressing my cheek softly.

"Sydney, it may not matter." He looked at me sharply at my tone. "I was told never to try for another child - that I probably would only miscarry again." I reached up to him. "That's why I didn't want to tell you right away. If the doctors were right, I may not be able..."

"No! Everything is going to be just fine, you'll see, and we'll have a fine son or daughter to prove them wrong." He leaned his head down until it was laying on my shoulder while his hand stretched and spanned my stomach. "Do you hear that?" he spoke downward to my tummy. "You just stay right where you belong, little one, until it's the proper time for you to come out and join us. I'm your father, and I'm telling you to behave and stay put."

I giggled as I ran my fingers through his unstylishly long grey hair as he lay against me. He had his large hand covering my abdomen as if the thought of the life it held were of utter fascination to him, as if he could feel that life already. These were certainly not the actions I would have expected of a man with a grown son of his own. I was touched and pleased that he was taking this unexpected turn of events with such grace and even humor. But I wasn't prepared for him to sit up again and look into my face with glowing eyes that warmed me at their mere touch. "Do you have any idea how much I love you, Cat? Love you both?"

"Sydney..." My heart gave a hard thump at the sound of the words. "You don't have to say that, just because I'm..."

I didn't get a chance to continue, because he had me by the shoulders almost faster that I thought it possible for him to move. "Listen to me," he insisted, his accent growing more pronounced in his agitation. "I've been trying to tell you this every time we spoke on the phone, but you weren't hearing me. And it has nothing to do with your being pregnant now, so put that thought out of your mind." He pulled me into his arms again and held me to him tightly. "Hear me now. I love you, Cat. I should never have let you leave me in the first place. I was glad Rene called me - it gave me the kind of excuse I needed to come and make my case to you again in person."

I wrapped my arms around him and held him back. "This is crazy, but I love you too," I said very softly, feeling safe and loved and warm and cherished for the first time since our one beautiful night together over two months ago. "I was just afraid I would have been a passing infatuation for you - just a one-night stand - that you were just telling that to make me feel better about falling into bed with you..."

"I'm not that honorable," he informed me quickly. "If I were, you wouldn't be in this predicament. If I had any honor at all, I'd have been the perfect gentleman, and you'd have spent the night in my guest room completely unmolested."

"I'm glad you're not, then," I snuggled deeper into his arms. "Because I don't regret what happened - any of it."

"Neither do I. But now I really do need you to come home with me," he whispered into my ear, in that low register that I found so hard to refuse. He set me back so that he could look into my face again. " Marry me."

"Marry you?" The immensity and sudden nature of his suggestion took me completely by surprise.

"Marry me," he insisted even more firmly.

"Just because I'm pregnant..."

"Because we love each other. Marry me!"

"You're crazy!"

His dark-honey eyes danced. "You've told me that before, for all the good it did you."

I had to say it. "And if I lose the baby?"

"You're not going to lose the baby."

"But what if I do?" This was important - I couldn't let him just brush this aside.

"Then we'll mourn together, because we'll have lost something we both wanted very much." His face was serious, his eyes sad, and I knew that he wasn't just trying to brush the idea aside anymore. "But I told you that this has nothing to do with the baby. I love you and I want to be with you. Marry me. Let me take care of you both. Please!"

I leaned into him, too tired to continue. "Right now, all I want is for you to just hold me," I told him quietly. "I'm tired, and I feel like hell, and I just want you beside me. We can have this out in the morning, I promise. Please?"

"Where's your nightgown? I'll help you get undressed," he said, instantly solicitous, and all challenge evaporated from his voice.

I directed him to my chest of drawers while I started to peel off my blouse and slacks. He had a shift out for me soon, and came back to me as I sat on the edge of the bed folding my clothing wearing nothing but a bra and panties. He sat next to me and waited for me to finish, then put the shift in my hand and leaned back to unsnap my bra so I could remove it. While I was drawing the shift over my head, he was moving my folded clothes to the top of the dresser. I stood long enough to pull the covers back from the pillow and then slipped beneath them.

Then I watched as he carefully shed his jacket and shoes, shirt, socks and then trousers -until all he was wearing were his boxers. He folded his clothing and piled it next to mine on the dresser, then went and turned out the overhead light. I held the covers up so that he could slip into bed from the other side, and then he gathered me into his arms and pillowed my head on his chest the way I remembered so clearly from before. "Go to sleep, Cat," he murmured against my hair. "I love you. I have you now, and I intend for it to stay that way."

"I love you too," I replied softly, turning into him and letting my arm find a comfortable spot stretched across his body. This was paradise, to feel him holding me, his skin soft and warm against mine. His hands soothed against my upper arms, stroked my back slowly and worked out some of the stress-induced knots that had started to form there. This was tenderness of a kind I'd never dreamed would be mine.

In time we slept, and I turned in my sleep. I roused slightly as I felt him moving behind me, wrapping his body down my entire back and curling his legs up behind mine like a warm spoon and still cradling me close in his arms. Only now one arm held my upper body to him while his other hand had sought out and lay outspread and warm over my abdomen, over our child. Even in his sleep, he was still wondering at and celebrating this!

I awoke, as usual, about an hour before my alarm was set to go off. Only this morning, I didn't need to relive my favorite dream of him and our one beautiful night together before rising to go to work. My dream was my reality. I lay quietly in his arms and marveled that he was really here, curled comfortably and warm against my back, really holding me again. I turned very carefully within his embrace, trying not to awaken him, but he roused at my slightest movement. Suddenly I was drowning in his dark honey gaze.

"You're really here," I murmured softly, putting a hand up to his slightly bristly cheek.

"I'm really here," he replied in a very low register, and then kissed me. The kiss started softly and sweetly, but quickly deepened and became charged with all the longing the both of us had held back. His one hand swept up my back to tangle in my hair while the other pulled my lower body into him, where I could feel him wanting me. His hand wandered to my thigh, to the hem of my nightgown, as I arched into him, then pulled back slowly. "We shouldn't be doing this," he muttered as he dropped kisses of fire against my chin and neck. "I don't want to hurt you or the baby."

"I'm pregnant, not broken," I told him with a chuckle. "Please, God, don't stop!" I urged and then kissed him hard as I felt his hand move again, find the hem and begin a slow and erotic path northwards on bare skin. The ache in parts of my body that had been merely sore became pulsing aches of want, and I couldn't help the shudders and moans when he found those places and with gentle and skillful fingers turned the pain into pleasure. He made love to me more slowly and carefully and tenderly than I ever thought possible, holding back from putting his full weight on me or moving too quickly or too abruptly inside me and yet making my memories of his lovemaking before mere shadows of the reality of now. Afterwards, he gathered me close in his arms again so that we could catch our breaths together.

"I want you to call in sick today," he told me eventually, when his breathing had slowed to normal again.

"Sydney..."

"Or, better still, call in and give your notice." I struggled just free enough of his embrace to prop myself up on an elbow, so he could see the look of determination I was giving him. He gave me one of his own right back, obviously ready now to wade right back into the discussion we'd been having the night before. "I mean it, Cat. Your weight loss isn't healthy for you or the baby. Going to work only spends energy that you can't afford right now."

"I'm not sick. My hormones are just going crazy. I'm pregnant, not broken - remember?"

"I know that, but I'd like to see if I can help you hold some food down today - and I can't do that with you perched on a lab stool playing with test tubes."

Something he'd said finally penetrated. "Give notice?" My voice must have given away my suspicion.

He reached up to run a thumb along my chin line. "Or tell your supervisor you're taking an indefinite leave of absence. Whatever." I could see where his mind was going.

"I haven't said yes," I reminded him, laying my head back down on his chest and feeling him gather me close again.

I felt and heard the chuckle well up from deep inside him. "You haven't said no either," he reminded me back. "I'm deliberately interpreting that as encouraging."

He was right. I hadn't said no. I was even less likely to say no now than I was an hour earlier - but I didn't want him to think I could be that easily convinced by a roll in the hay with the man of my dreams. This was MY life we were talking about here too... "I'm still considering my options," I informed him.

"So... are you calling in sick, or going in to work?" he asked, his hands stroking down my arms and back again in movements that had me practically purring.

"You're spoiling me again," I grumbled into his pectorals.

"I'm being persuasive and using every means at my disposal to persuade - and you didn't answer my question," he replied gently and with what I guessed was his best professional air. "So...?"

"OK. Alright. I'm calling in," I relented and pushed out of his arms to sit up. "But just for today. I have a project I need to finish tomorrow that I've been working on for over two years..." I reached for the phone handset on the night stand and dialed the number for the lab. "Julia? It's Cathy. Listen, I've been feeling under the weather the past couple of days, and I thought I'd stay at home and try to get on top of it today."

"Not a prob," my boss assured me. "Jim can take charge of doing the final readouts today. Will you be in tomorrow?"

"To do the final report, yes. But my stomach's not doing so great. lately - I think I'd rather do the typing while Jim handles disposal this time." I smiled. Sydney had sat up behind me and was rubbing my shoulders gently. God but I could get used to having him around, I thought. “Being persuasive” was a masterpiece of understatement - he was now kissing the back of my neck very softly, and those kisses were becoming very distracting.

"I was thinking you'd been looking a little on the droopy side lately. Take as long as you need and feel better soon," Julia chirped at me and then disconnected.

I put the phone set down again and turned to him. "There. Happy?"

"Very." His hands at my shoulders pulled me into leaning back against him. "I didn't realize you could be so stubborn." His hands wrapped around my naked front, one immediately spreading and covering my abdomen and the other coming up and across my chest to caress a cheek.

"That's the biggest problem with us," I told him, closing my eyes and enjoying his caresses immensely. "We've talked about a lot of things, but we still don't KNOW each other that well. Face it, we fell into bed together a little fast that night - both of us a little more vulnerable and needier than we might have been otherwise. We'll be taking a big risk to base an entire life together on one very special twenty-four hour period, no matter how much we both enjoyed our time together - then and this morning."

"I've known people who knew their partners for years before they got together, and still the relationship fell apart in the end," he said softly in my ear, then kissed the top edge of it and made me shiver. "But more importantly, I know I love you - and I do know the difference between love and simple lust. I know I love this baby because we created it together - and I want to be part of our child's life from the very beginning." His hand moved on my abdomen lovingly while his voice grew melancholy. "I missed out sharing every important part of my son's life, Michelle's pregnancy, delivery, his first steps, all those years of raising him. Hell, I didn't even find out about him until he was already grown and going to college." He buried his face in my neck. "I don't want to miss out again. Don't ask me to, because I can't - I won't."

So THAT was why he was acting so much like a first-time father - this WAS his first time going through this! "You didn't tell me this before," I said softly, turning in his arms. Another piece of the puzzle that was Sydney fell into place, and I suddenly knew what my decision had to be - for his sake, as well as my own and our child's. I took a deep breath - feeling like I was stepping off of a precipice - and looked up into his face hesitantly. "Yes."

There it was, for the first time since he'd gotten here - that wide, even-toothed smile of pure happiness and contentedness. "God I love you," he whispered emotionally, and lowered his lips to mine again to steal away my breath and my ability to think clearly.

Eventually I pulled on a very loose-fitting caftan over some stretch tights and a long-sleeved T-shirt while he unpacked into my closet and climbed into informal but warm garb. I brushed out my hair and braided it back while he shaved, sharing the mirror and the intimacy of such mundane personal tasks and finding it a comfortable, easy adjustment to make.

Rene had the coffee made by the time we sauntered down the stairs, and she smiled at us knowingly as she poured a single mug for Sydney and turned the tea kettle on for me. "Good morning. So..." she asked once we had all sat down at the table, "any decisions made?" Sydney and I exchanged glances, and Rene's smile got wider. "Good," was all she said. There are times that girl is too damned smart for her own good.

"You don't mind?" Sydney asked gently, hesitantly. It was a poignant and powerful gesture, his asking my daughter's permission. It showed that he knew he was taking me far away from her and actually cared enough to worry about her reaction. If I had loved him before, I adored him now for his consideration of my daughter's feelings. And even Rene was surprised at being consulted in this as if her opinion mattered. Her father had never done that.

"Mind? Of course not," Rene exclaimed quietly. "Look at her," she nodded in my direction. "She looks happy - or, at least, as happy as she can be while in the middle of morning sickness. I knew I'd done the right thing calling you when I saw you two together last night." My daughter winked at me, which made me chuckle despite the tendency of my stomach to twist with the fragrant smell of coffee. I could tell that she'd decided that she liked him, which relieved me no end. "So when do you take her home with you?"

"I still have to tell Julia," I piped up. "And finish the report I have to write tomorrow."

"She's procrastinating again," Rene stage-whispered at him.

"I know it looks that way, but a two-year-long research project isn't something that a person can walk away from all that easily," he answered with obvious experience. "You finish that report tomorrow," he told me, "and talk to this Julia again."

"I'll have to arrange to put everything here into storage," I said, keeping my nose in the stream of scented steam from the mint tea - it seemed to help against the onslaught of other smells - "until Rene is living somewhere other than in the dorms."

"Rene and I can go out later this morning and find a storage locker large enough for what you need stored," he announced decisively, "while YOU start making lists of what you want to take with you and what you want stored. I want you to lounge on the couch quietly all day. You will do nothing but rest and work at keeping your food down for a change."

Now it was my eyebrows that rose. "You're not asking much of me, are you?"

"You're already doing the really important job, Cat, let Rene and me concentrate on doing the rest of it," he replied, smoothing the back of his fingertips across my cheek without concern for our being watched. Rene, for her part, wisely kept her mouth shut, but I could see her eyes widen in surprise and amusement, and then approval. Her father had never shown me any tenderness openly - and damned little of it privately in later times. Obviously Sydney had managed to make serious headway in the winning of my daughter's full support and affection.

Sydney had Rene make me some dry toast, deliberately ignoring my look of dismay, and had the pieces cut into quarters. Then, while they munched out on buttered toast and jelly, he gave me one quarter of a piece and told me, in no uncertain terms, to chew it thoroughly and slowly and wash it down with a small bit of mint tea. I'd get some more after a while after I'd held that down, he reassured me. I may have grumbled loudly, but I did as he instructed, buoyed along soon enough by the ripple of conversation between these two people that I loved best.

He began to ask her knowledgeable questions about her pre-med program of studies, and soon she was asking him back about his work as a psychiatrist. Somewhere along the line the discussion turned to applications of the scientific method, at which point I could begin to chime in too. We talked long into the morning, the flow of conversation taking off occasionally at oblique tangents and nobody seeming to mind. I could see both of them slowly relaxing toward the other, slowly letting their senses of humor show. Later, when I had the time to think about it, I decided that we had built the foundations of a new family unit in those cozy minutes in my kitchen.

While Rene cleaned up breakfast and then went upstairs to get dressed, I found out in no uncertain terms that I wasn't the only stubborn person in the house besides my daughter anymore. He was serious and very determined that I was to stay on the couch for the day, and would hear no argument from me on the matter whatsoever. He tucked me in firmly beneath mother's afghan, much as he'd found me the night before, and then put a legal pad and pen in my hands for me to start making my lists of what to store and what to ship. Then, while he went upstairs to fetch his heavy coat for the trip to rent storage space, Rene came over to me.

"You didn't choose half-badly this time, Mom," she said softly with her approval obvious in both voice and expression. "This Sydney of yours is a real sweetheart and an absolute charmer. What a change from Dad!"

"He is something, isn't he?" I asked almost proudly.

"And he's so good to you. I wish you'd found him a long time ago." She bent over me as she heard his footfall on the stairs. "At least I won't have to worry about you anymore if you're with him - he knows how to keep you in line..." she told me with another wink and then bussed me on the cheek messily like she used to when she was younger as I began to bluster. She waited patiently while I was fussed over and then kissed thoroughly by the new man of the house, then contentedly followed him out the door as if it were something she'd done all her life.

The following days were a blur. At work, Jim had done such a good job with the final tabulations that typing up the final report on my project was a breeze - giving me a huge sense of accomplishment for seeing the job through to the end. Julia's expression when I told her I was quitting as I handed her the report - not to mention WHY I was quitting - was priceless. Sydney's look of utter contentment when I told him that I'd not only given notice but out-and-out quit was heart-stopping.

After that, I reconciled myself to my assigned job as supervisor as the two of them went through everything and started packing. I was allowed the couch and the job of traffic director most of the time, and got to watch my living room slowly fill with packing boxes. But I was firmly put to bed to rest for a while on those increasingly rare occasions when my stomach simply refused to cooperate with any new adjustments to my diet. I was pampered and cajoled and wheedled and blatantly manipulated during the day, and then at night lay in warm contentment in the arms of the man I was going to marry very soon.

One of the last things to be packed was my clothing to take on the plane with me. Rene was going through my chest of drawers, emptying them into the large suitcase and travel bag, when she ran across the plastic bag with the cardigan sweater neatly folded inside. I was sitting on the bed, suitcase open in front of me and putting lingerie into it piece by piece, when she brought the bag over to me, her eyes filled with curiosity. "Mom?" she asked, from her voice, obviously hoping for a story to go with the sweater.

I just put my hands up for the article. "It's part of a promise to Sydney I have to keep yet," I told her cryptically, tucking it into the suitcase amid silks and laces, "something left over from the first time we met that hasn't been finished yet."

"You aren't going to tell me," she said, disappointed.

"I'll tell you later, the first time you come visit us in Delaware, poppet," I promised. "Right now, it's a private matter between him and me. By then, it will be story material."

"I'm going to miss you," she said with a sniffle, returning to the drawer to haul out the final armload of lingerie. "I'm glad you're going, but I'm going to miss having you closer." She sat down on the bed next to me after she'd put her deposit near the suitcase, where I could reach it. "I won't see you again until little peanut will be just about ready to hatch."

"You don't have to wait that long," I told her, pulling her into my arms. "There's Spring Break..."

"You'll just be getting settled in," she complained.

"Rene..." Sydney's voice sounded from the bedroom door, "I think Spring Break sounds like a good time for you to come home to Delaware to visit with your mother." He came in and stood next to the two of us, and then very hesitantly put a hand down on her shoulder. "I want you to know that you have a place in our home - that it is your home too... now."

I don't ever think I've seen Rene so surprised that she was speechless before - and then suddenly she was on her feet with her arms wrapped tightly around Sydney's neck for the briefest of moments before making a beeline for the bedroom door. "What was that?" he asked, bemused, looking after her.

I just shook my head and went back to my packing. I knew very well what was going on - my daughter was slowly coming to realize she finally had found someone she could look up to as a father figure - but it wasn't my place to comment. I knew better than that. I knew I knew better. And I was determined to let them forge their own relationship properly, without any interference from me.

It was nearly dark and quite cold when we finally got to Blue Cove after the emotional rollercoaster of handing over my precious house keys - keys to my haven of independence from Jake - to the realtor and then bidding my daughter goodbye at the airport. He helped me from the car in the shelter of the garage and popped the trunk, but: "Wait a minute," he stopped me just as I was reaching for the door. He came over to me and lifted me up into his arms. "Traditions matter," he said, kissing me softly, then carried me over the threshold of his... our... house.

That night, while I was slowly unpacking only the most essential stuff into the space he'd made temporarily for me in his chest of drawers, I uncovered the plastic bag Rene had found for me. With a smile I pulled the sweater from its bag and walked over to him as he stood carefully hanging out my dresses and good clothes into his closet and tapped him on the shoulder to get his attention.

When he turned, I held the sweater out to him. "I brought it back, just like I promised."

He smiled - another one of those wide, even-toothed smiles of pure happiness - and took the sweater from my hands. "It's about time," he growled, tossing the sweater on the top of the dresser, and reached for me. He pulled me close into his arms and framed my face between his hands, and I found myself drowning anew in those dark honey eyes of his. "God, I love you," he rumbled at me in that low register that never failed to thrill and then lowered his lips to mine passionately. His hands began to move slowly and surely - finding skin on my arms, and then my throat, and then my chest as the buttons of my blouse seemed to just come open at his touch - pulling me into him and letting me know that we were definitely done unpacking for the time being.

So THIS was Delaware in winter, I thought as I arched into his hands that were now stroking me to distraction, turning soreness into desire.

That was my last coherent thought for the day.

Research Subject - by MMB

Chapter 3: Reactions


I still couldn't believe how my life could change SO fast.

Four months ago I was a published and award-winning research chemist on the final legs of a pharmaceutical research project that had taken me the better part of a year and a half to find solutions. I was independent, divorced, with an ex-husband I loathed who hung around too much and a daughter in med school over a hundred miles away. I had a mortgage, car payments, and no social life to speak of. I was miserable - I was lonely, and I missed my twin sister, killed a few years earlier by a drunk driver, desperately.

Three months ago, I applied to become a participant in a research project concerning surviving the loss of a twin. Two and a half months ago, I met Sydney - first as the final interviewer for that research project and then the next day as a fellow lonely human being and surviving twin. Two and half months ago, courtesy of a cold and rainy night and unfamiliar roads, I allowed myself a dalliance of a single night with that intriguing, gentle, intelligent and vulnerable man - a night the like of which I would dream about nightly for weeks thereafter. Two and half months ago I walked away from Sydney and our one beautiful night together and boarded a plane that took me back to my mortgage, my car payment, my ex-husband and my job.

Then, two weeks ago, I discovered that my night of dalliance had made me pregnant - a surprising and rarely celebrated development for a woman my age. Eleven days ago, my daughter weaseled the story out of me between my bouts of morning sickness. Ten days ago, she went behind my back and summoned Sydney to my side to take his share of responsibility for his unborn child. Far from being upset or distraught at the unexpected turn of events, he caught the next possible plane west. And so nine days ago, he re-entered my life completely determined that I would be apart of his life from then on no matter what, determined that I would return with him to Delaware. I was soon reminded of what I'd learned two and half months earlier - that he was a very hard man to refuse.

A week ago, I finished my project, handed in the report, and quit my job. Three days ago, Sydney and I were standing in front of a Justice of the Peace exchanging wedding vows, my daughter and my ex-boss beside us as witnesses. Yesterday, my house - completely empty - was turned over to a realtor to sell for me, and I got on a plane with my new husband to return to his home in Delaware.

And today I met with my new doctor, who reassured me that just because I had fallen and miscarried so long ago should be no reason to fear miscarrying again. The issue of most concern to him was my age and physical condition, and he'd address that by simply seeing me regularly once a week and making certain recommendations as to the diet he wanted me to follow. He did note my history of miscarriage in my chart for reference as things progressed, however, and then recommended that I continue to take things very easy for the duration, just in case.

Sydney was with me during the visit and then the examination, and his face upon hearing the sound of our baby's heartbeat for the first time was positively beatific. But then, he hadn't really stopped smiling since our trip to the Justice of the Peace, since he put that thin platinum band of small channel-set diamonds on my finger and changed my last name to his. I didn't think I'd stopped smiling either, except for when I experienced the pain of leaving my sweet girl Rene behind to head back to her med school studies as I headed East to a new home, a new family, a new life.

Now here I sat, warm and comfortable in my husband's arms, curled up next to him on his long leather couch in front of a warm fire he'd built for me to chase the Delaware winter chill away. It had been an exciting and tiring day, and the visit to the doctor had lifted my spirits some, even as it tired me coming on the heels of a long trip the day before. The boxes of things that I'd shipped to Delaware wouldn't be arriving for another few days at least, and most of my most personal items had already found new homes in the room I shared with Sydney now.

"When do you go back to work?" I asked, contented as always when he would stretch out his long and graceful fingers across my abdomen, embracing our child even as he tightened his hold about my shoulders.

"By all rights I should go back tomorrow," he replied, dropping all pretense of reading his psychiatric journal and depositing a kiss on my brow. "But I did speak for the possibility of two weeks, and I'm leaning toward taking the rest of that time off after all." I could hear the smile in his voice. "After all, technically I'm still on my honeymoon."

"When are you going to tell them about me and the peanut," I asked, motioning with my nose at the mantel and its collection of photographs. "Your son and your friends, I mean?"

I felt him take a deep breath. "I'll probably call Nicholas, my son, sometime this coming weekend. Jarod is..." He paused, searching evidently for the right words. "...very capable of finding out on his own. More than likely he'll be telling me about it rather than the other way around. I never know when he'll make contact - and it's been a very long time since he has."

"And..."

"Miss Parker?" I could feel him tense slightly. "I should probably call her in the morning - at least explain to her why I've been gone. I didn't have a chance to talk to her before I left." He pulled me closer to him.

I wrapped my arm around his middle. "What's the matter? Do you worry about her reaction?"

"She has a sharp tongue, and a very ... brusque ... personality. She's also never been very diplomatic, and can be very territorial when it comes to those she cares about." He kissed the tip of my ear. "Since her father's death, that territoriality has included me. She never really did learn to share. I don't want her over-stressing you now..."

"I think I can handle myself if I know that I have you behind me backing me up," I reassured him as I laid my head on his chest. "Anybody else?"

"Well," he said, relaxing again, "there's Broots and his daughter Debbie. They'll probably be delighted, and Debbie will most likely insist on being our offical babysitter. I should call them tomorrow too - Miss Parker, Broots and I at one time were on a project together "Three Musketeers"-style."

"Anybody else?"

"Hopefully not," he replied murkily. "Although there are a couple of people I'd just as soon stayed as far away from you and our peanut as possible. Mr. Raines, my direct superior, is not to be trusted - and I doubt he will be pleased at my suddenly having a life outside the Centre. Mr. Lyle is just downright dangerous - if he ever bothers you, I want you to call me. I don't ever want you alone with that man."

"Sydney," I pulled away to look at him. "What kind of place IS the Centre after all? I thought it was a think tank, where all kinds of scientific disciplines came together..."

He nodded. "Ideally, that's what it should be. In practice, however..." He looked down at me with an amazing expression of sadness. "I suppose you might as well hear it from me. There is a very dark side to the Centre, Cat, a very dangerous side to the research that is done there sometimes. For a very long time, I was blind to much of what went on there. I saw... things... no civilized man ever should... I've stood by... while..." He shook himself. "I've promised myself no more." He looked down into my wide and frightened eyes. "I'm frightening you."

"That you are!" I agreed. "You make them sound like feudal lords holding the power of life and death over their serfs. Are you going to be allowed to have a wife? A child?"

"Now, perhaps, I will," he replied, and his tone chilled me. "Do you remember me telling you that my son's mother and I never married?" I nodded. "The reason I never knew my son existed because the morning she found out she was pregnant, Michelle was told to leave the Centre and Delaware - never see me again or tell me about Nicholas - or I would be killed. She believed it and ran, never looking back." I shook my head - the very idea of this was almost beyond belief.

"Many things about my life have changed since those days, thank God - the project I was involved in has pretty much been closed down. So with my complete involvement in a Centre project no longer necessary, keeping such close control over my every move is no longer of such importance either. I'm working on the assumption that I can begin to actually live for a change, love someone without having to ask permission for a change. And I've stepped around them a bit by marrying you before we got back here - and I know about our peanut. They can't steal that from me again."

I stared at him. "Do they... Are they this controlling over other peoples' lives there? Miss Parker, Broots - have they..."

He wrapped his arms around me tightly and pressed his lips to my hair. "You really don't want to know the answer to that one, Cat. Yes, they have - and let's leave it at that. I intend to make arrangements so that somebody I trust will be able to help you those times I can't be here, taking you to your doctor's appointment, for example."

"I can drive too, you know," I complained. "I didn't marry you just to become a prisoner in my own home, Sydney. I'm used to being my own woman, doing what I wanted when I wanted..."

"I know that," he soothed gently. "But until things settle after the news breaks, I'm going to be taking no chances with your safety - and I'm going to have to ask for your indulgence in this for the time being. You and the peanut are my life now. I don't want any convenient accidents taking either of you away from me." He sounded almost fierce in his protectiveness.

I huddled into his arms, suddenly not feeling quite as secure as I had been. I now had a husband with an apparently dangerous job and sinister colleagues among the close friends. "You need to know," he continued in a softer voice, "that if they had found out about you, about our child, I couldn't have protected you from so far away. That's why we have to be here in Blue Cove together. I have resources here to keep you - us - safe." He held me to him tightly. "I love you so much..."

"I love you too..." I answered him. I did. I could no longer imagine my life without him in it - I just had never imagined all the other things that evidently accompanied him into my life.

As it worked out, Broots was the one to call Sydney that next afternoon. We were in what was now a guest room, taking stock of what all would need to be moved where in order for the room to become a nursery, when the phone rang. He patted me on the shoulder and told me to keep thinking while he sped to our room and picked up the receiver there. I could hear his voice easily. "This is Sydney..."

There was a pause, then, "Yes, I'm home, but I'm going to take the rest of my two weeks..." Then another pause, and, after several wordless hums of response, "Well, of course I don't mind, but why don't you and Debbie come over this evening for supper? I have someone I'd like you both to meet - and Debbie can get tutored in Chemistry after we eat." I moved to the door of our bedroom, and Sydney caught sight of me and raised his eyebrows as if in question. I nodded at him - my morning sickness had abated back to only popping up in the morning now, and I'd like the chance to begin learning where things were in the kitchen. He nodded at the voice in his ear. "Good. About six then? Fine. See you then."

"Debbie needs help in Chemistry, hmm?" I asked him as he rejoined me in the hallway.

"How good are you at tutoring the basics?" he asked in return.

I chuckled. "Rene made it to med school, didn't she?"

"Wasn't a whiz at Chemistry, like her mom?" The smile was wide and even-toothed again, just teasing me this time.

"Hated the math, actually." It was the truth. "But as long as we're taking a break from planning, you might as well call Miss Parker too - have her come for dinner as well. Might as well get all the important introductions over all at once."

His eyes widened. "You're a brave soul, Cat," he purred at me, then went back into the bedroom for the phone again.

"Miss Parker? This is..." There was a pause - obviously she had interrupted him. "No, I'm taking the rest of my two weeks, as a matter of fact." He listened with a wry face. "No, I didn't time this just to conflict with..." She interrupted him again, and I could see that now he was simply giving her the chance to vent sufficiently so that she would hear his eventual invitation. His expression was one of fond and indulgent patience - an almost paternal forbearance. I wasn't surprised - he HAD said that he sometimes forgot that she wasn't his, after all... This bodes well for you, peanut, I thought to the baby, and rubbed my hand over my tummy.

"Miss Parker, although I'd love to listen to the latest from your brother, I'm actually calling you to invite you to supper here this evening. There is someone here I'd like you to meet." His eyes widened, and then he smiled at me. Ah! Evidently he'd surprised his friend. "Yes. About six." He listened again. "Good. I'll see you then." He disconnected. "I hope you feel up to this..."

"I'm just hoping you have something in your freezer able to feed five people!" I smiled at him.

He did - a nice rolled roast that got popped immediately into the oven, to be accompanied by potatoes and some steamed carrots, with balled melon for dessert. With guests on their way for supper, plans for a nursery were put on temporary hold for the evening.

Broots turned out to be a very shy and likeable younger man, balding and obviously very intelligent. Debbie was a thoroughly teenaged daughter who reminded me so much of Rene at her age, with her long hair and infectious sparkling humor. The two doted on each other completely - it was a joy to see.

As was the stunned look on Broots' face when Sydney wrapped his arm around my shoulders and presented me as "my new wife, Cathy."

"Whoa! Syd!" Broots was gaping at his friend while he slowly put his hand out to me. "This IS a surprise." He looked back and forth between us for a while. "You've known each other long?"

"Not exactly." I was glad to let him explain while I got a hesitant hug from Debbie. "We met a number of months ago, and then kept in touch."

"Then what possessed you to get married all of a sudden?" Broots shook his head as if realizing that he wasn't getting the whole story.

"The fact that she became pregnant," Sydney said simply.

If I thought the balding father of a teenaged girl could drop his jaw any further, I was quickly convinced otherwise. As he recovered his wits, he tipped his head to one side and began to grin slowly. "You mean, you're..."

"Going to be a father? Yes," Sydney smiled at me as I gave Debbie's shoulders a gentle squeeze and let go.

"You're going to let me babysit, aren't you, Sydney?" Debbie began pleading almost at once.

"I can't think of anybody else I'd like to have the job more," I piped in. I'd have probably added a bit more, but the doorbell rang again right then.

"Sydney," I heard a smooth and sultry female voice say in low tones, and then I watched the absolutely stunningly beautiful brunette from the mantle picture step into the house as she deposited a careful kiss on my husband's cheek. She looked around her, at the Broots' - at me - with mild surprise. "I didn't realize this was a dinner party."

"It isn't, really," Sydney assured her as he closed the door behind her and took her coat. "I just wanted to introduce my best friends to someone very special to me." He took Miss Parker by the elbow and brought her over to face me. "This is my wife, Cathy. Cat, this is Miss Parker."

Obviously this woman had learned to hide her emotions well, because the only sign of her surprise was the stunned look in her eyes and one of those elegantly groomed eyebrows soaring higher than I'd ever seen one fly before. Slowly the hand came out, but the touch was brief, almost too brief. "So this is why you suddenly dropped everything and took two weeks' vacation out of the blue, eh Syd?" The grey eyes were taking my measure with calculating efficiency. "I didn't think you were even seeing anyone seriously." She rounded on Sydney with an almost accusatory tone. "So, the two weeks were for what... a honeymoon?"

"No," Sydney pointedly insisted in keeping his voice light and friendly. "Actually, it took several days just to convince her to marry me. We just got back two evenings ago."

"What was the hurry?" she asked now, her voice almost tauntingly insolent. "Or was this a shotgun wedding? What did you do, Sydney, get her pregnant?" She chuckled as if the very thought of that were an old and unpleasant joke.

"Miss Parker, please," I heard Broots exclaim defensively, and I decided in that moment that I liked that balding little man immensely. But I'd heard enough of Miss Parker for the moment, and didn't want to embarrass Sydney by losing my cool so soon after I met this woman.

"I think I'll go see to the supper," I told him quietly, and I'm sure my face told him everything he needed to know as to why I was beating a hasty retreat.

"I'll go with you," Debbie said in rapid agreement, casting a frankly disapproving look in Miss Parker's direction that was quite the change from the pleased expression of fondness that had come over her face as the woman had come through the door.

But the kitchen wasn't far enough away that I couldn't hear the explosive "What?!" that came not long after I vacated the front hallway.

I saw Debbie cringe, and I put my hand on her shoulder. "I don't think Miss Parker is very pleased about me," I ventured.

"She... takes a long time to warm up to people," the girl tried to put a better spin on the obvious displeasure. "You have to learn to ignore the barbs. Underneath, she can be a really nice..."

Her voice boomed through from the front again. "For Christ's sake, Syd, you're old enough to be a GRANDFATHER! What the Hell did you think you were doing?"

I stiffened angrily. How DARE she rail at my husband for having the temerity to live his own life? Who was SHE to tell him when he was too old to start a family? I felt Debbie's hand creep into mine, and I forced myself to smile down at this delightful young lady and take a deep breath to try to release the burgeoning dislike for the elegant and rude woman Sydney considered "like one of his own."

"You're kidding, right?" I asked tightly, looking down into her face which was growing more distressed by the moment. It wasn't fair - Sydney and I could defend ourselves, if it came to that; but the harsh words were hurting a complete innocent.

Her next statement was once more in that taunting and insolent tone. "Then again, I figured that after Nicholas, you'd forgotten what to do with that part of your anatomy anyway. I don't know whether I should be pleased or shocked to be mistaken."

That was what did it. Old friend of Sydney's or no, she'd just stepped past MY line. I hadn't been that angry since my last major argument with Jake, just before we separated. I squeezed Debbie's hand again for comfort, then stalked firmly and quickly from the kitchen. One look at Sydney, his expression filled with sad frustration, and I was straight up into her face.

"You know, I've known many people in my days on this planet, Miss Parker; but when it comes to rudeness, I've got to admit you take the cake. Your mother evidently never taught you the proper behavior to be expected of you when you're a guest in another's home..." I heard the elder Broots gasp, but was in no mood to ponder what taboo I'd violated. At this point, I really no longer cared. "...so I guess the job of teaching it to you, for good or ill, falls to me. You'd best listen closely, because I will not repeat the lesson. You do NOT ridicule a host in his own home after accepting an invitation to dine. You do NOT make disparaging remarks about your host's manhood or any other personal attribute in public - EVER; and in private only if you are truly on that intimate terms with the person." She may have been taller than I, but I think my attitude and audacity had taken her completely by surprise. "As far as I'm concerned, you owe Sydney a very large apology - and you can deliver that apology on your way out the door. I have no intent of sitting at a table with you now or anytime in the foreseeable future. Good evening, Miss Parker."

I was done - the emotional strain of rejecting one of Sydney's old and supposedly “dear” friends was becoming difficult to handle. I looked over at Sydney again. "I think I'll go upstairs and lie down for a bit," I told him, rising up on tiptoe to kiss a cheek. "Let me know when she's left, and I'll be glad to come down and serve the supper." I didn't give him a chance to reply, but turned on my heels and did as I had promised, giving a quick wave to Debbie in the dining room as I began up the stairs.

"Sydney, I..." I hear her begin, for once in a more reasonable and actually pleading tone.

"You know Miss Parker," Broots then spoke up with a soft and accusing voice, "sometimes you just don't know when to quit."

"Man!" Debbie chimed in, sounding thoroughly disgusted. "You were really mean." I heard her steps trotting back toward the kitchen.

"Here's your coat back, Miss Parker," I heard Sydney say finally in a very disappointed tone. "Cat's right - I don't think you're staying and eating with us tonight would be a good idea now."

"Syd..."

"Stop. You only get one chance to make a first impression, Parker. You might want to consider the one you made this evening. I'll see you Monday." I heard the door open. "Good night." It closed quietly and firmly.

That's when I fell to pieces. I made it to our bedroom and managed to get the door closed before I started to make any noise that would filter downstairs. I couldn't believe what I had just done - alienated one of my husband's “children.” What kind of wife was I?

I lay down on the bed and pulled the pillow up and around my face as I cried, wishing for the first time that I were back West with my mortgage and car payments and empty life. At least then I wouldn't have done damage to Sydney's relationships with those he'd known and loved for years. I knew better. I knew I knew better than that.

I heard the bedroom door open and close very gently, and then the bed dipped under his weight as he sat down beside me and stroked my hair. "I'm sorry for what happened, Cat. I suppose I should have broken the news to her before now, so she could have gotten used to the idea before..."

What could I say to him? As much as Miss Parker owed him an apology, so did I. "I'm so sorry," I managed finally. "You must hate me now..."

"Hush," he soothed, bending over me and kissing my cheek gently. "You were right to do what you did - it's high time somebody told her off royally when she climbs on her high horse like that. I know where it comes from, so I've never had the heart - and I suppose letting her constantly get away with it has led her to believe that it's OK to say such things to me." His thumb wiped at my tears. "I'm just sorry you had to be the one to do what I could never bring myself to do, and tonight of all times. But dry your tears and come down and join the rest of us now. Your supper smells superb and deserves our full attention."

"How can I face Broots and Debbie now..." I whispered, feeling thoroughly thrashed. "What must they think of me..."

"Actually," he smiled and wiped the next generation of tears from my face, "when I left them to come up here, they were a bit worried. I think they're frightened that Miss Parker's behavior might have put you off on them too - that you'll decide you don't want anything to do with THEM either."

"But I like THEM," I complained. "Broots is a complete gentleman, and Debbie is delightful. They're both very pleasant, kind people. I would never..."

"Then show them that's how you feel. C'mon now. The Ice Queen has been banished from the house for the evening, leaving the delicious food for us mere peons." His smile was deliberately wide and contagious, and I worked hard to return it. He recognized the effort and acknowledged it. "That's my girl," he purred, kissing me on the lips gently. "Let's go down and feed our guests now, shall we?"

As I sat up, he pulled a tissue from the box by the bed and handed it to me so that I could at least blow my nose and wipe the rest of the tears from my face. "I look a mess," I said simply, looking over the end of the bed at the round mirror above the chest of drawers.

"No you don't," he soothed, pulling me into his arms and holding me close for a short while. "As far as I'm concerned, you're the prettiest girl in town."

For some reason, the comment made me chuckle, then chuckle louder. "You're biased, you know," I told him as he rose and held a hand out to help me up.

"Nah," he shook his head and wrapped an arm around my shoulder. "I just have great taste."

Sydney was right - both of our remaining guests had very apprehensive looks on their faces when I came back down the stairs, Debbie in particular. "Are you mad?" she asked in a worried voice.

"Not at you, poppet," I answered her with a smile, and I meant it. I saw Broots' face relax some, and Debbie smiled hesitantly at me. I decided to deliberately banish the spectre of bad company with a slightly stronger approach. "Do you think I could get you to help me get the supper on the table?" Her smile got a little brighter, and she nodded at me.

Sydney moved past me toward the kitchen, and when I followed him to begin serving up the meal, I noticed that the fifth place at the table had simply vanished as if never set out. It took a few minutes for me to coax Debbie into regaining some of her carefree enthusiasm for life, but by the time we were sitting down to eat, everybody's mood had been mostly restored. Conversation flowed smoothly and with real comaraderie, and I found myself thoroughly enjoying getting to know these friends of my husband.

Later, Sydney shooed me from the kitchen so I could sit down with the girl and help her with her studies while he and Broots handled clean-up duties and then adjourned to the living room for a quiet game of chess. Debbie was like Rene - it was the math that was stymieing her - and she was attentive and quick to pick up the short cuts and procedures that I introduced her to that took some of the mystery out of the process.

Once the studying was finished, I saw that something else was on her mind. "What is it, poppet?" I asked quietly, figuring this was girl-talk time.

I was right. After a little prevarication, Debbie presented a situation that was developing between herself and some of her friends that, true to form, reminded me so much of some of the growing pains Rene had gone through. So I began to tell her about my daughter's situation and how it had resolved. After that, time flew - and when Broots came to find his daughter and take her home, he caught us blushing madly at some shared joke and laughing like hyenas.

Later, when all was quiet and locked up for the night, I lay cradled in Sydney's arms and allowed myself to ponder what had happened. "About Miss Parker..." I started.

"Forget her," he advised me, tightening his arms around me. "Broots and I discussed things, and we've decided that the two of us will simply continue the lesson you've started here at work. We've both put up with a great deal from her for a very long time - now, we have a reason to put a stop to it."

"Sydney, she's your..."

"That's just it," he kissed my forehead. "She's not - I told you I just keep forgetting that. Her mother, God rest her, was a good woman - a kind woman who would never have condoned her daughter's behavior tonight. The problem is that her mother died when she was quite young, and her father was a cold and calculating person who did his best to teach her to be exactly the same way - and, unfortunately, he succeeded." I felt him sigh against me. "I did what I could during those few months between Catherine's death and when Miss Parker was sent away to school - it just wasn't enough to counteract..."

"So it was HER mother that was the other Catherine you said you knew," I breathed out in surprise, and felt him nod. "And so my comment about her mother not teaching her manners was essentially hitting her blow the belt?"

"Perhaps, but you were completely innocent of any deliberate intent of doing so - which is far better than how you would have fared had if she'd known where YOU were vulnerable," Sydney reminded me, then shifted slightly against me. "But forget her. I was pleased to see how you and Debbie connected this evening. That's good - that child needs positive female role models in her life who care for her. Especially now, since Miss Parker has taken quite a dive in her estimation."

"Where's HER mother?"

Sydney sighed. "She could be in Atlantic City, Vegas, or Reno for all we know - the fact is the woman hasn't tried to contact her once since the custody hearing."

"Debbie reminds me of Rene at that age."

"I thought she might." He sounded thoroughly contented with the developments on that score.

I lay quietly for a moment, my mind tossing through things I still wasn't sure of. "What about this Jarod? Will he be disappointed or angry that we..."

"Jarod?" Sydney chuckled. "Quite the contrary. Jarod is a firm believer in family life. I doubt you'll have anything to worry about from him - except perhaps him popping in on you when you least expect it, and most likely when I'm NOT around. You can trust him, though - he would never hurt you."

I moved so that I could see his face in the moonlight. "But doesn't he want to see YOU anymore?"

"I honestly don't know," he answered me, and he sounded a little sad. "I haven't talked to him in a very long time."

That last was said with such a soul-wrenching sense of wistfulness that I reached up and stroked his cheek to comfort. In response, Sydney moved so that he could capture my lips with his, and then suddenly all thoughts of surrogate children, friends and other acquaintances evaporated from my mind. My entire being was captivated and enthralled by the sensations that his gentle and sensuous caresses and passionate kisses were evoking within me. His hands quickly found the bottom hem of my nightgown, and soon the garment had been drawn over my head and discarded - as had his pajamas. "God I love you," he growled down to me as he settled his weight on me and took possession of my body with gentle tenderness. And then, together in body and soul, we found new heights of ecstasy to explore.

When at last we were resting quietly in each other's arms again, I held onto him tightly. "I love you so much," I murmured to him softly. I did - I don't think I had ever loved anyone with quite the same, overwhelming devotion. And even as my eyes closed in sleep I found myself wondering at the turn of fate that had given me such a treasure.

We spent our next few days quietly - finalizing plans for transforming that guest room into a nursery and figuring out how and where to accommodate those belongings that were going to be arriving any day now. Friday night I found myself tutoring Debbie in Chemistry again - and this time, she had brought another schoolmate with her, equally flummoxed and confused. It was more challenging to try to get the concepts and techniques across to two adolescent minds that tended to bounce off each other with abandon, but I enjoyed the mental exercise completely.

Our weekend saw the delivery of boxes and those few pieces of heirloom furniture that I just couldn't bear to part with. Sydney and I methodically went through each room of the house, carefully finding new homes for these old friends of mine to nestle into - just as I was being carefully cushioned as I landed and was eased into this new home amid new friends and others.

Sydney also sat down and called Nicholas and gave him the news. He came away from that phone call with a Cheshire-like grin and told me that Nicholas had told him to tell me to expect him to come visit sometime in May, before the baby was born. It seemed he wanted to get to know me while I still could focus on something other than sleeping while the baby was. Knowing that Sydney's son now knew everything had seemed to be perfectly comfortable making room for me in his estimation made me relax - at least not all his children were so hard to get along with.

Sunday night, Sydney and I were invited to the Broots' home for dinner. And while Broots would never be qualified as a gourmet chef, he had a real flare for making a decent spaghetti sauce. We broke out a card deck after the table was cleared and the dishwasher loaded, and once more the hours sped by.

Then it was Monday, and Sydney roused early to get ready for work. While he showered and dressed, I made him the breakfast I'd learned he liked the best: toast and coffee. I earned one of his wide and even smiles when he came down to a steaming mug of coffee and two slices of toast done the way he liked them. "I could get VERY used to this," he quipped, leaning over to drop a kiss on my cheek and then taking his place at the table.

"Enjoy it while you can," I quipped back in a cautionary tone. "Once our peanut arrives, you may be back to shifting for yourself for at least a little while if peanut and I are both finally back asleep after a long and restless night, walking the floor." I looked at him, filling my eyes for the day. "I'm really going to miss you today - talking about getting used to things, I've gotten used to having you around all the time."

"And I'm not sure how late I'll be," he replied, tightening his hold on my hand. "A lot will depend on how much the Tower has piled on my plate while I was away. I've left my cell number and my office number by the phone in the foyer, in case you need to get in touch with me." He lifted my hand to his lips and kissed it gently. "It will be a very long day, and the best part will be coming home, I swear it."

I took a long shower once he had left, relaxing as the warm water flowed through my long hair. Feeling a little at loose ends, I decided to put on one of my husband's warm cashmere sweaters - the one I had taken home with me so long ago, as a matter of fact - and let myself feel warm and safe. I made myself some tea - both Sydney and my doctor had ordered me strictly to stay away from coffee - and settled back down at the kitchen table with the local newspaper.

It ended up being a cold and stormy day, and later in the afternoon I decided the house had chilled down about as much as I wanted it to. I had watched Sydney make a fire the last two evenings, so I knew now where he kept his wood and kindling. I cleaned out the ashes from the previous evening's warmth and had just begun laying the foundations of tonight's when the doorbell rang. I frowned - until I arrived, there normally wouldn't have been anybody home at this hour - and then went over to the door and peered out the little peephole.

A rather handsome younger man with blue-grey eyes dressed in an expensive-looking suit under a dark trench coat stood waiting patiently in the falling snow, occasionally glancing backwards over his shoulder. I very quietly slipped the security chain into place and then opened the door a crack. It was very cold outside indeed. "Yes?" I asked.

I could see that my having answered the door was not a surprise. "Here and I thought they were kidding when they said Sydney had brought home a bride," he said, then gave me a big and obviously forced smile. "Hi! My name is Lyle."

I struggled not to let my face betray my misgivings, for this was the one person Sydney had warned me most strongly against. "Yes? What can I do for you?"

"I'm a co-worker of your husband's," he tried again, his voice just a little less than boisterously happy. "May I come in?"

"May I ask your business?" I asked in return. "My husband is at the Centre, if you're looking for him..."

"No," he replied, and now the expression in those blue-grey eyes was decidedly cold and dangerous. "I just thought that you and I could get acquainted."

"Lyle!" I heard a low female voice snap angrily from the direction of the street, and then I saw Miss Parker stalk haughtily but carefully up the walk. "What the Hell are YOU doing here?"

I could see the look of intense frustration that crossed the man's face, and I felt a sudden wave of gratitude for the unexpected visit from the woman I'd essentially thrown out of the house days earlier. "Parker," Lyle sighed, and his voice didn't bother to hide his frustration. "Must you follow me everywhere I go?"

"Only when you end up going where I was intending to go," she snipped at him, moving up to the door and then with a very subtle movement putting herself between Lyle and the chain that was the only thing keeping me safe from this man. "And I ask again, what the Hell are you doing here?"

"Dad asked me to check up on a rumor going around the Centre today," he said finally, putting a hand to his hips. "Seems the rumor was true. Sydney DOES have a woman..."

"Her name's Cathy. So fine - now you've met her and you know the grapevine has it right. You can go back and tattle to Raines now." She matched him hand at the hip for hand at the hip.

"There's also a whisper about a baby..."

Miss Parker put herself in Lyle's face so fast I could barely follow the movement. "Now THAT is none of your damned business, nor Raines'."

"Parker... You know as well as I that..."

"What I know," she hissed at him, her voice soft and very, VERY lethal, "is that if anything happens to Cathy here, in ANY way, you will not like the consequences. Is that understood?" I stared. Was this woman actually defending me - after that disastrous moment a few days ago when I'd basically thrown her out of the house?

"Is that a threat, Sis?" Lyle asked with a grimace of bravado masquerading as a smile on his face. My God! These two were siblings?

"Just a promise," Miss Parker answered him in a firm voice, her words forming a cloud in the frozen air between them. "Now get lost!"

For a long moment, I wasn't sure if he was going to leave or not. The two of them seemed locked in a battle of the killer glares. Then, with apparent east and nonchalance, Lyle shrugged. "Nice to meet you, Cathy," he breezed around his sister at me, then shot her a frown. "See you back at the barn, Sis."

Miss Parker merely turned, hand still at her hip, and glared after him until he had climbed back into the back seat of an expensive black sedan and the husky man holding the door had climbed back behind the wheel. Then she turned to me. "Are you alright? Did he..."

"I'm fine," I answered, loosening the chain and opening the door, "although a little confused. What did he want with me?"

"Trust me, you DON'T want to know," she told me quickly.

"Yes, I DO," I insisted. "I want to know why Sydney having a wife or baby is such a terrible thing that you chew him out in his own house and now this... this... Lyle person..."

"Look," the tall brunette said, dropping the arrogance from her voice and filling it instead with simple worried concern, "You do NOT want to mix it up with Lyle, whatever you do. He's a very dangerous man, and God knows what he intended."

"Sydney told me to call him if ever he bothered me..."

"Well, at least Freud knew enough to warn you," she nodded, apparently with approval. "Don't forget that."

"Thank you," I suddenly remembered my manners. "You stood up for me, even though I was anything but hospitable to you the last time we met. Would you like to come in out of the cold?" I asked, standing aside and leaving room for her to step past me into the house.

"Thank you, no," she shook her head. "I just came by to apologize to you for my behavior the other night. You were right, I was incredibly rude to both you and Sydney." The grey eyes looked into mine with an almost unbelievably vulnerable expression in them, then fell away as if the contact were too painful to maintain. "Tell Sydney..."

I had the sudden intuition that I was finally meeting the real Miss Parker - the one Sydney kept forgetting wasn't his, and the one that Debbie herself had been expecting the other night with such pleasure. "Wait!" I reached out to her and grabbed a gloved hand before she had a chance to turn away. Those beautiful grey eyes rose up to meet mine again. "Come in, please?" I asked her again. "I think we both got off on the wrong foot the other night and deserve a chance to start over. Don't you?"

I could tell I'd surprised her again today by inviting her in at least as much as I had the other evening by standing up to her. I could also tell that, as much as she really wanted to accept the invitation, she wasn't sure she could. So I just pulled on the hand until she took first one step and then another and finally gave up and came the rest of the way in without any more urging. I closed and, with a memory of Lyle fresh in my mind, locked and chained the front door, took her coat and hung it on the nearby coat rack, then ushered her into the living room.

"I was just starting a fire," I explained as I knelt to finish what I'd started. "Have a seat." She sat down primly at the very end of the leather couch, folded her hands in her lap after removing her gloves and seemed as if preparing herself to be chastened. I decided that while I finished getting the fire lit, I would put her at ease as much as I could. We'd already had enough tension between us to last quite a while. "Have you spoken to Sydney today?" I asked her in a conversational tone.

She shook her head. "He isn't speaking to me," she said softly. "I can't say I blame him. I just never thought he..."

I frowned slightly. Obviously there had been a reason Sydney had treated her with kid gloves all this time, and I think I was seeing it at last. Miss Parker might be a very formidable person capable of intimidating with a mere glance, tending to use bravado and aggression as interactive mechanisms with those of weaker character, but all that was but a façade behind which hid a very insecure and lonely woman. "I'm sure he was just very busy. He is just back from vacation, you know," I offered, only to have her shake her head again.

"No, he was very careful to let me know that I wasn't welcome in the Sim Lab without having to say a word," she explained in that soft voice that had tears swimming in the far background. "I may be obtuse in many ways, but Sydney and I have always understood each other without need for..." She blinked twice and seemed to struggle to keep her voice steady. "Broots isn't speaking to me today either, for that matter," she admitted, glancing up at me guiltily. "I suppose Debbie will never speak to me again. I don't blame them either."

"Well, it isn't just to me that you need to apologize," I admitted with a very even and non-accusing frankness. "You did a pretty good job of stepping in it for the whole group that evening."

"I know." I think that soft admission made me hurt almost as much as it did her, and I realized that apologizing to me was, for her, far easier than speaking to any of the others. She had no real defenses against these people for whom she cared far more than she let on - their turning their backs on her would become a wound that would never heal if this wasn't addressed and settled very soon. I could already sense that she was poised to adopt her brittle façade of arrogant disdain and quietly die behind it a little bit every day. Indeed: "It's getting late; I really should go," she said quickly and rose to her feet nervously. "I just wanted to let you know that I feel very badly about..."

"Sit down," I told her firmly in my best mother-knows-best tone, pointing her back into her chair. "You're in no shape to go anywhere, and I'm not going to let you go out and get into a car accident on these icy roads. My husband would never forgive me if I let something happen to you on such a day."

To my surprise, she followed my instruction, but not without complaint. "But Sydney will be here soon..."

"I know," I replied, touching the lighter to the crumpled newspaper beneath the kindling, then moved the spark screen into place. "The sooner the better. You need to talk to him."

"But he doesn't want to..."

"He will," I reassured her as I rose to join her on the couch. "He loves you, very much, you know." I saw those grey eyes come up again in surprise. "Oh, come now! Surely you knew that."

She shook her head and returned to studying her hands in her lap. "After everything I've said to him all this time? I don't think so." She shook her head again, as if the idea were almost beyond understanding.

"Then I think that perhaps you don't understand my husband as much as you thought you did," I said gently, taking one of those impeccably groomed hands in mine. I could hear the garage door opener begin to grind, and so could she. I felt her pull against my hold on her, those grey eyes openly nervous. "It will be alright," I soothed her as the grinding stopped, then started again, signaling that my husband was home. I felt the hand suddenly turn in mine, and then she was holding onto me - for support, for strength.

Then he was coming through the kitchen, calling "Cat! Cat! Where are you?" with a concerned tone.

"I'm in here," I called back easily, giving Miss Parker's hand a gentle squeeze. "We have a guest, Sydney. Come say hello."

He came to a stop in the archway, and his eyes brushed over Miss Parker with more distance and coldness than I had ever imagined possible from him. "So I see," he said, his voice chilled. "Miss Parker..."

"She came to my defense when I had an unexpected visit from a Mr. Lyle a little while ago," I explained quickly, knowing that would start the thawing process. "I invited her in, and we've been talking for a while now. She has something she wants to tell you."

"Indeed!" His eyebrows climbed his forehead, and his expression, when he turned back to her, was less frosty. "Well, thank you for helping with Lyle," he said, his voice more even but still less than warm. "I hadn't expected him to come at her so quickly." Miss Parker glanced up at him, nodding acceptance of his thanks, and then looked back down at her hands in her lap. I saw him look over at me with questions obvious in his gaze.

I turned my gaze back to her and squeezed her hand again. "Come on," I urged her softly, "talk to him. Now's your chance." Then I looked up at my husband. "And you sit down and listen." His eyebrows climbed just a bit higher, but rather than question me, he simply found a spot in the easy chair closest to the two of us on the couch. I turned back to her and squeezed again. "Miss Parker?"

"I'm sorry, Sydney," she started in a voice so soft that I had to strain to hear her. I saw Sydney bend forward slightly to hear what she had to say too, and his movement made her flinch back toward me. "I was rude, and I abused your hospitality and insulted you and Cathy, whom I'd barely met. I..." I saw her look up at him guiltily, and I saw the last of the frost in his expression melt - but her glance had again been fleeting, and she suddenly pulled her hand from my keeping. "I should go now," she said, rising very quickly, but she paused before beginning her retreat. "I'm really sorry, Sydney. That's all I wanted to say."

"Parker," I heard him say in a soft voice, and then he rose as if to follow her if she decided to flee.

"I'll talk to Sam tomorrow about finding someone to stay with Cathy while you're at work," she continued, rubbing hard under her nose and refusing to look at him again. "If Lyle has stopped by once, you can be sure he'll try again. We'll need to make sure he never catches her alone again." Her grey eyes found mine, and I caught my breath at the defeat in them. "And I'll stay away from the Sim Lab from now on, I promise. You won't have to worry about me anymore. Good bye."

"Parker," Sydney called to her again and reached out to snag a hand as she began to move past him. "Stop. Wait."

"Don't, Sydney," she said in a wounded voice, looking down at where he was restraining her. "Please..."

"You can stay for supper, can't you?"

The expression she wore as she lifted her face to stare at him was completely stunned. He merely looked over at me. "I think there's a package of pork chops in the freezer that will take care of three," he said with eyes that begged for my indulgence, which I was more than happy to give, under the circumstances.

"I'm on it," I rose and moved past the two of them. I patted Miss Parker's arm on my way through, noticing that Sydney had yet to let go of her himself. "Sit down again and make yourself at home, my dear," I invited her with a smile. "Supper will be in about an hour. I think you two have some much-needed talking to do while I'm cooking."

I kept myself completely out of their way while I prepared the meal, although if I stopped and strained to hear, I could make out the sound of low voices - Sydney's accented baritone and her soft alto answering him - sometimes distressed, sometimes insistent, and sometimes almost broken. But at least they were speaking again, I smiled to myself as I puttered my way through preparing vegetables and salad and frying the chops and making gravy. I had a feeling it was the first time those two had talked - REALLY talked - in a very long time.

I was setting plates at the kitchen table when Sydney came in behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. "I don't know how you did it," he purred into my ear and kissed the back of my neck.

"Did what?" I decided obtuseness had its moments of virtue. "Where's Miss Parker?"

"Repairing the damage to her makeup, I think," he replied softly. "Heart to heart talks have a tendency to be hard on the mascara."

"Now I know why you never said anything," I told him, turning my head over my shoulder and kissing him on the nose before moving out of reach. "Did you two get everything out in the open?"

"Everything that was important," he answered, and his voice was warm. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For giving her the chance to show you who she could be without slamming the door in her face," he followed me to the stove and turned me in his arms and held me close, "AND for getting me off the hook. Giving her the silent treatment today was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do." He leaned his cheek into my hair. "I can't tell you how glad I don't have to do it again tomorrow."

"But you got your message across," I reminded him, putting my arms around him too for a moment. "Earth to new daddy: sometimes being a parent ISN'T all lightness and joy."

"No wonder Rene turned out so well," he purred at me. "Peanut has quite the mother."

"Flatterer." I planted a smacker on his cheek for that one. "Go put some glasses out, will you? I have to tend these chops if you want them to stay edible..."

The Miss Parker that joined us for dinner that night was neither the brash harridan from days earlier, nor the wounded woman I had taken in out of the cold. Although a little hesitant at first to let down her guard completely, Sydney and I kept up a steady stream of light conversation between us that eventually drew her in and gave her cause to open up. I could see my husband's pure delight as she slowly moved from cautious monosyllabic comments to finally giving me an unassuming and genuinely warm smile as she responded in kind to some light banter I tossed at her. When he began laughing with her and reached out a hand to hers and squeezed it companionably, I couldn't help but catch my breath at her face as it gained the glow of child just handed its most desired treasure.

She insisted on helping me clean up while Sydney restocked the fire in the fireplace. After he had gone on into the living room, she put a gentle hand on my arm. "Thank you," she said with a very soft voice.

"What for?" I asked, curious what her answer to this question would be.

She thought for a moment. "My mom died when I was very young," she began as she stacked the plates and silver into the sink for rinsing, "and my father was always busy with work. Before I was sent away to school, whenever my father was too busy to be bothered with me, Sydney was always there. He has always been there for me." She glanced at me cautiously, then glanced up as if wary of his hearing this.

"It's OK," I told her with a tone of confidence as I took the rinsed dishes from her and stacked them in the dishwasher. "I can keep this between us."

She seemed relieved. "I've always kinda wished Sydney were my..." It seemed she couldn't finish the thought. I found I wasn't so much surprised at the wish, but rather that she had such trouble voicing it. She cleared her throat for a moment, then continued. "Anyway, when Sydney wouldn't speak to me today after throwing me out before, I thought I'd never be able to find a way to fix..." Her voice was getting uneven again. "You have to understand, Cathy. I always felt I came in second-best with Sydney because of Jarod. I was afraid that now, with you, and then a new baby, he wouldn't ever..."

"You thought he'd forget you - let you slip to the bottom of a longer list?"

"Something like that," she admitted, her face a bit red.

"I take it you know better now," I asked her, once more adopting my mother-knows-best tone of voice as I closed the dishwasher and set the controls.

"Yeah, I guess I do," she nodded slowly, and then the grey eyes came up to meet mine again. "Thanks."

I shook my head at her. "Love doesn't work that way."

"Sometimes it does," she told me in a stark voice that told me her fear was based upon experience. No wonder Sydney's cold shoulder had hurt her so badly.

"Aren't you two done YET?" Sydney spoke from just outside the kitchen door, then stepped through. "Here I've made a beautiful fire in the living room to keep the chill out, and my two favorite girls are still busy talking in the kitchen."

"We were just finishing up," I told him with a smile, moving confidently under one arm and getting my hug as my reward.

It took Miss Parker a little longer to find her way under his other arm - to realize that he was actually waiting for her to come to him too - but the look of contentment on her face when he pulled her close and she leaned into him was beyond priceless. It made my heart full the same way Rene's hugging him tightly as we boarded our plane had - in a my-family-is-complete-now, yours-mine-and-ours sort of way.

I leaned into my husband a little closer and put an arm around the woman he loved like a daughter. And I eventually felt her very hesitantly put her arm out to me to return the hug. My God, I thought, what am I in for when I meet Jarod? And I wondered how long it would be before I found out the answer to that one.

For now, however, I was content.

Research Subject - by MMB

Chapter 4: Movement


Winter in Delaware can drag on almost as long as it does at home - but I've begun to see signs of Spring at long last.

The months of almost enforced quiet were good for me though - at least, that's what my doctor kept telling me. My health had been surprisingly good, almost in direct contradiction to what I had so feared would be my fate should I attempt to have another child, much less attempt it at this late date. My morning sickness, as I had predicted, was a first-trimester obstacle. Almost the day I entered my thirteenth week, everything cleared up and my appetite finally returned. The doctor was thrilled - at last I stopped losing weight and began to gain.

I talked to Rene frequently and commented on how different this pregnancy was from both of my others, and my darling and all-too-smart med-school daughter kept telling me it was because I was finally completely happy. Maybe she was right - but I knew I'd be a lot happier when she took her Spring Break and came home to me. To us. Sydney's impending fatherhood had given him the courage to reach out to my daughter as a father, and I knew that Rene was thrilled to have an honorable man playing that role in her life at last.

I wondered what I had ever done with myself before I met Sydney - he had taken my life and turned it upside down and made it so much better. I loved him with a passion and a completeness I'd never known in my previous marriage. He understood me and I understood him in ways that only people who are twins could, and it drew us closer in a very special way. I think that having had that close twin-bond already opened for us before had given us the opportunity to refocus that connection with each other in an almost psychic way. I don't think I could ever again live without him in my life - I would be completely lost.

At long last, I had acquired real friends - good friends at that, rather than just work acquaintances - for Sydney's friends had made me theirs as well. I saw Debbie Broots often to tutor her in Chemistry, and many of those sessions included at least one if not more of her friends taking the same class. I found that I had a knack for getting some of the more difficult concepts of the math across, and I inevitably enjoyed myself immensely in the company of these delightful young people. Broots and Debbie and Sydney and I had gotten close enough that we had at least one meal each week where Broots and Deb were at our house and another where Sydney and I were at theirs.

Then there was Miss Parker. After an incredibly difficult introduction, I'd been surprised and Sydney outright astounded at the amount of time she chose to spend with us. From what Sydney told me, she had never had very much to do with him socially prior to our marriage - despite the fact that she obviously looked on my husband as a father-figure. That changed quickly once that initial difficulty was settled. We saw her almost as often as we saw Broots - and every once in a while our house seemed to swell as we would host a dinner with both the Broots' and Miss Parker together. However, Miss Parker had made a point of first apologizing to Debbie for her inexcusable behavior - and I think I was the only one to see how important it was to the woman that she be forgiven by the younger female in our little group.

What was more, she occasionally began to take advantage of the afternoons she knew that Deb and her friends weren't coming, and she would arrive with some small offering to go with my afternoon tea - and then we talked. I was sure Sydney suspected, but I knew he'd approve had he known. I didn't think that poor girl had had another woman she'd felt comfortable enough to talk to for a very long time. After a few of these visits I suspected that I'd started to play a surrogate mother role for her just as Sydney had become a surrogate father over the years. I decided I really didn't mind, for as I had suspected, there was a tender and very sentimental soul that had been hiding quite successfully behind that prickly exterior - one that so hesitantly was beginning to feel safe in making itself known from time to time.

I hadn't thought it would happen, but people from back home hadn't completely given up on me either. Julia hadn't been able to find another chemist to take my place, and so I started doing some long-distance consulting work for her on her newest project. Jim and I spoke by phone at least once a week for updates, and I got regular reports on status that gave me ideas on new approaches for them to try. I was grateful for the mental activity, for during these long months, I discovered just how much I had actually enjoyed my job and now missed working. I mentioned to Sydney one day that he'd told me when we first met that the Centre employed research chemists - and then watched his face grow very pale. I had to assure him repeatedly then that I'd never go apply for a job there without talking to him first. Even Miss Parker wasn't too thrilled either when I mentioned it to her at our next private chat. I can't imagine why either of these people would continue to work at that place if they truly hate it so much!

Finally, there was Joe, the sweeper that Miss Parker had staying with me during the day while Sydney was at work, the sweeper who arrived on my doorstep the very morning after we settled our difficulties with Miss Parker. I didn't question her later about why she wanted him here, nor did I ask him much about it either. All I knew was that Sydney's tension about my having to try to defend myself against Mr. Lyle had decreased considerably the moment Joe explained who he was and who had sent him. And with that, Joe became my weekday shadow.

Even Mr. Lyle evidently finally got the hint that I was off-limits - after his abortive attempt to get into my house when Miss Parker ran interference for me, he did try once more. But then he saw Joe, just standing quietly behind me as I held the door half-open, and he suddenly had something else to do - and it had been weeks now since I'd seen hide or hair of him anywhere in the neighborhood. Joe was quiet and unobtrusive, played a fairly mean game of both cribbage and backgammon, and with Sydney's approval firmly insisted on being my chauffeur for whenever I needed to go out. If Sydney couldn't make my doctor's appointment in Dover with me, Joe drove me in and waited in the lobby for me. If I wanted to go shopping, Joe got me to the stores and back without complaint - no matter how many sacks he had to carry in from the car for me afterwards. As the weeks passed, I genuinely came to like Joe - and even Sydney was getting used to having him included in an evening meal sometimes.

I was enjoying my new life - each day held something interesting and different, a far change from the years of the same day-to-day grind of working and sitting at home alone. The happiest day by far, however, was the day that I first felt my baby move. I was preparing dinner the night after my latest doctor's exam, stirring a pot of creamed vegetables, when the tiniest flutter in my lower abdomen caught my attention. I might not have paid it much attention but that, after a moment, I felt it again. I turned off the burner immediately so that my supper wouldn't burn while I stood very, very still and waited until... there it was again!

Sydney walked through the door at that moment and halted at the look on my face. "Are you OK? Is there something wrong with the baby?" His questions were almost frantic.

I put my arms around him and held him. "Nothing's wrong. I just felt our peanut move for the first time, and I wanted to make sure I wasn't dreaming."

He pushed himself away from my embrace, his eyes glowing and his face breaking into that wide and even smile that I loved so much. "Really?" he breathed, looking down my body to my stomach that at the time was only barely beginning to show my condition. He spread his big hand across my full lower abdomen reverently, obviously hoping for a similar experience.

"I don't know that you'd be able to feel it yet, sweetheart," I told him, wishing it could be different. "Our peanut will have to get a little bigger yet before that happens."

If I had expected him to be disappointed, his grabbing me and kissing me deeply and very completely quickly disabused me of my mistake. God, that man's kisses still could make my legs turn to rubber. His arms closed around my waist and lifted me in the air, and I giggled as I put my arms around his neck to steady myself and kissed him again myself. "You're sure?" he demanded.

I nodded with a huge smile on my face. "That's why I was standing so still. I felt it more than once." The reality of my condition had finally been brought home in a way I couldn't rationalize away. I had a new life growing inside me, and it had finally made its presence known. "I love you," I told him with as much emotion as I could.

"God I love you," he replied fervently and kissed me again. It was a good thing that we weren't having company that night, because my dinner sat three-quarters finished on the stove for a while before either of us could muster any interest in food instead of one another.

That was three weeks ago. A week and a half ago, Sydney and I were just snuggling in bed after he'd put in a long and tiring day bringing that study on the effects of one twin surviving another to a conclusion. He had his head on my shoulder as he so enjoyed doing as he would lay his hand across my belly, which was showing my condition more and more as every day went by, and talk to his son or daughter, sharing his hopes and dreams for him or her. Tonight, however, he was just resting and enjoying the closeness we shared. Then, apparently, our peanut decided to wake up and begin raising hell, for all of a sudden I felt a slightly stronger kick than usual - and I felt Sydney grew very still and attentive. His head slipped down onto my breast as he moved closer and began paying closer attention... and then felt it again.

His face as he looked up into mine was beyond happy, and his dark honey eyes were absolutely glowing from within. "I felt it!" he whispered, as if afraid speaking louder would disrupt the moment.

"Our peanut is saying hello to daddy for the first time," I smiled at him. "About time, don't you think?"

I felt another flip-flop and knew he did too. His eyes filled with tears and he lay his head down on the growing bulge, kissing it gently. "Your father loves you very much," he whispered to our child, and I reached down and stroked his hair as he embraced our child as best he could. My heart filled, watching this man enjoy every moment of his child's development. I couldn't help but remember the blasé way Jake had taken my pregnancy with Rene - or his frustration when I had become pregnant again - and thanked my stars or whatever else had directed my fate into the gentle keeping of my Delaware shrink.

"I'm going to spend a little time with your Mom now," he announced to the bulge in my tummy, "so I would like very much if you would behave yourself now for a while." Our peanut truly was listening to him, apparently, for there was another soft push, and then quiet.

"Such obedience, at such a young age," I quipped as he rose and came back up next to me on his pillow with warm, smoldering eyes.

"Such a gift you are giving me," he replied, then kissed me softly and wrapped his arms around my waist. "Have I told you lately how much I love you?"

I sighed as his large hands began to stroke and caress me in a way that he knew all too well would arouse me. "I like it when you show me too," I breathed as he started to help relieve me of my nightgown and began to caress me with much more obvious intent.

He then made tender and shatteringly sweet love to me that had us both calling out to each other in soft voices. And after, I found my comfortable spot on his shoulder after feeling him give my belly a gentle pat and a "Thank you for your patience," aimed at our peanut, who stirred very softly in a way that I knew only I could feel. As I went to sleep, I dreamed of walking down a street with Sydney and a beautiful little dark-haired girl dancing between us. I will never be able to say how I knew, or why I was so certain that I knew, but at that moment I felt like my new daughter had introduced herself to me.

A little less than a week later, Miss Parker decided that the time had come for me to get a more comfortable wardrobe to accommodate my growing girth. With Sydney's complete agreement, she drove us into Dover on a Saturday morning, whereupon we spent a most enjoyable and delightful day shopping and window-shopping. I discovered that my new friend was also both generous and stubborn, for although I chose the garments I thought I would need to get me through the next few months, her idea of what constituted a reasonable wardrobe and mine were very different. By the time we walked out of the Stork's Nest, there was one extra and sizeable bag that I hadn't purchased but still now possessed.

In that extra bag was included a beautiful caftan that she wouldn't hear of me putting back and then bought herself when I did it anyway - along with several other items I'd liked but then set back as either extravagant or superfluous. I didn't have the heart to say no when I saw the delight she was getting from this entire adventure. In many ways, I was starting to think I was in the middle of adopting yet another daughter who was determined to pamper me shamelessly whether I wanted it or not. To be honest, I didn't mind it in the least - I was growing very fond of her too.

At lunch over salads, I mentioned to her about my odd dream. To my surprise, she only nodded sagely. "Sydney is... special... you know," she told me carefully, watching my reaction. "It only stands to reason that his child would be special too."

"Special?" I asked, now curious. "In what way?"

"I don't know if had to do with him being a twin, or just what," she started, "but he has a way of just... knowing things. My mother had it too - and she went to Sydney and asked him to help her develop it, and he did... I guess." She looked sad. "Then, when I couldn't ignore it anymore, I asked him to help me too. He did, but..."

"But..." I urged, putting my hand on hers.

"But as time went on, I learned to shut it down rather than use it," she finished quietly. "So much of what I was... learning... was painful..."

"What does this have to do with MY dream?" I didn't want her to hurt anymore, so tried to move it back to a slightly safer topic.

"Do you ever just... know things?" she asked, her beautiful grey eyes looking into mine with curiosity and caution.

I nodded. "Sometimes..." I admitted, "but it usually had to do with Caryn, my twin sister..."

She shook her head. "Even so, you have it too – that “inner sense.” I can't help but think that any child of two people who have that sense would share it as well." She tossed her head and deliberately smiled widely, throwing off the somber nature of our talk. "That means maybe she'll give you her name in time - I'm sure she's going to get tired of being called “Peanut”..."

That made me chuckle. "I don't think Sydney will ever call her anything else except in very formal settings where “Peanut” would be inappropriate."

"Oh, I'm sure Peanut will stick as a nickname," she hastened to assure me. "But I'll bet you that “Peanut” knows what she wants to be called otherwise." She rose. "I need to duck into the ladies' room for a moment. I'll be right back."

I watched her head to the back end of the fairly full coffee shop, her very presence drawing the attention of almost every male eye in the place, and I smiled. I was looking forward to introducing her to Rene - their fierce independent streaks being something in common that I hoped would help them forge a friendship.

"I never knew Miss Parker to be a person one could just run around and girl-talk with..." a decidedly deep and gentle man's voice spoke from behind me to my right, and then a very tall and good looking dark-haired man moved into my line of vision.

My eyes widened as I recognized the speaker - the features of Sydney's other “son” were unmistakable. I'd seen his photo often enough when I dusted the mantle. "Jarod!" I breathed, and then watched his eyes widen in surprise.

"Do I know you?" he demanded, his gaze rising in an obvious attempt to see whether Miss Parker was returning as yet.

"No, but my husband knows you very well," I replied. I held out my hand. "I'm Catherine, Sydney's wife."

"Sydney's not married," he told me flatly, his eyes sweeping me from head to toe and pausing meaningfully as he saw my belly. He raised incredibly dark and distrusting eyes to mine.

I put my hand protectively over the mound that was our daughter. "Maybe not the last time you talked to him, but he is now - and as you can see, he's going to be a father." I smiled at this young man in what I hoped would be a comforting way. "You've not been in contact with him for a long time. Things have changed for him, a great deal."

"After all this time..." he said, his head half-turned sideways in continuing distrust and disbelief. "But what about Michelle?"

I shook my head. "She decided she preferred her life in Albany," I told him gently. "But I'm expecting Nicholas down for a visit sometime in May, I think."

"But..." I could tell that I had the kind of ready information that told him that I was at the very least familiar with intimate details of Sydney's private life - something that a wife could be expected to have. Then his head rose quickly, and he suddenly turned and walked away. I turned my eyes to where he had looked and saw Miss Parker heading back in my direction.

I sighed. Here was another of my husband's “children” equally unable to wrap his mind around the change that my presence constituted in Sydney's situation. I watched Miss Parker thread her way through the tables toward me and wondered if it would take a similarly difficult resolution to make peace with Jarod as it had with her. Then I pasted on a smile and dismissed the worrisome thought until later. I didn't want to detract at all from the otherwise delightful day I'd spent so far. "Surely you didn't come all the way into Dover just for me," I told her as she took her seat again. "So I figure now it's YOUR turn. Where do we go next?"

I got a bright and astonished smile out of her for that one, a smile that told me I'd hit just the right note. We each bent to finish our salads as we discussed the next item on our agenda of 'girl's day out'.

~~~~~~~~

We bought Chinese food to eat in on the way back, and then Miss Parker excused herself early in the evening with the excuse that she had tired me out and wanted to get out of the way in case I wanted to call it quits for the evening. After helping with the quick cleanup, Sydney retired back to his home office to finish up on some paperwork that he'd been putting off regarding an article he was having published. That left me to myself and, not really being as tired as was feared, I wandered out into the backyard to enjoy the crisp Spring evening.

Sydney had dragged some of his lawn furniture out of the storage shed the weekend before so that I could have a place to sit while he and the Broots' had played a raucus game of croquet. This night I took my mug of steaming tea with me out to one of those comfortable wooden lounge chairs and sat down and pulled my sweater close around my shoulders. The next day I had promised Julia I would look over a project proposal and make suggestions on how to write for the grant to fund it, so all I wanted to do after a full day of shopping was relax. I stretched my legs out fully on the lounge and cradled my tea on the bulge that was my peanut.

"I didn't believe you, you know."

Jarod's voice was soft, designed not to startle me too badly - and while my tea sloshed, it didn't spill. I looked over my shoulder to see him stepping out of the tall bushes near the gate in my fence. "I know," I told him as I settled back down. "I couldn't help that. I knew I was telling the truth - you would have to either believe me or come find out for yourself."

He looked down at me for a while, then took a seat at the bottom end of my lounge and stared out into the darkness for a while. I knew he wanted to talk, and I could be patient and wait for him - at least until my tea was gone and I started to get cold. "Are you and Sydney happy?" he asked suddenly.

"I like to think so," I answered. "I love him very much - he's very good to me. AND he's very excited about the baby."

A gentle smile spread across his face, a smile with plenty of wistfulness. "I always thought he'd make a good father."

"I would imagine you'd know that better than anybody."

He was quiet for a bit, and I found myself wondering just what was running through this young man's mind? "How far along are you?" He leaned and looked at me a little more carefully. "Eighteen weeks?"

I was surprised - Sydney hadn't told me he was a doctor. "No, sixteen. I didn't know you were a doctor..."

"I'm not... today..." he commented cryptically. "How's your blood pressure holding?"

"Fine." I sat up a little straighter. "Sydney's inside, you know..."

"I know."

"He'd probably be thrilled to see you - I take it you cut all contact with him quite a while ago. He's missed you."

Jarod shook his dark head in the fading light, returning his gaze to the sky at the back end of the yard. "I don't think so. Besides, he has enough to think about now, with you and the baby coming and giving him a real family - he doesn't need me..."

"Stop it."

The dark eyes beneath those dark brows came up and stared at me in shock. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me." I tucked my foot under me and sat up toward him. "Stop playing the martyr with me. If you don't want anything to do with Sydney because you two have some unresolved conflict between you, then at least be honest about it with yourself and me. But don't you dare try to lay your own unwillingness to talk to him on HIS shoulders, because I know damned well he would be thrilled to see you again."

"You don't know..." he started defensively, but I didn't give him a chance to finish.

"No, I don't know. And, to be honest, I don't care. Honesty is the issue here - and I'd prefer that to the bullshit you're trying to dish me." I glowered at him. "Trust me, I've been around the block a few times, and I DO know the difference." He seemed to shrink a bit, fold in on himself like a little boy whose bluff had been called. "What's going on here, Jarod? Maybe I can help..."

He finally peeked at me. "How much DO you know about me?"

"Not much, I'm afraid," I shook my head at him. "Sydney and Miss Parker and Broots seem to find it very important to protect me from whatever it is that goes on at that place they work at. What I DO know, however, is that the first time I saw your picture on his mantle next to Nicholas', I asked him if you were his other son - and he told me in so many words that sometimes he forgot you weren't his." I reached out to this hurting young man and put my hand on his forearm. "Look, I don't know what's happened between you, but I know that you're hurting because you think... what?... that he doesn't care?"

"He never said... he never let me think..." Jarod was struggling to explain himself to me.

"I think what you need to do is stop worrying about what he DIDN'T do in the past, and discover what he does think NOW, don't you?" I patted his forearm gently. "And you know as well as I do that you aren't going to find out what he thinks now by sitting out here with me. You need to go in there." I pointed over my shoulder at the house. "He's in his office."

He looked up and over my shoulder at the house very longingly. "Go on," I urged him. "I'll be either out here or off to bed, so I won't get in your way."

"You know," he began without having moved yet, "I can imagine that you DO make him very happy. I'm glad he found you, and congratulations on your baby."

I smiled. Evidently I'd finally passed muster with him. "Thank you, Jarod. Stop by on your way out, if I'm still up. And in case I don't see you before you leave, don't be a stranger. You'll always be welcome here, as long as I have anything to say about it."

He stood. "You say your name's Catherine?"

I looked up at him. "My friends call me Cathy. Miss Parker does."

"Well, in case I don't see you before I leave, it was an honor meeting you, Cathy," he said and held out his hand to me, "and I'm sorry I didn't shake your hand in the café."

I shook hands with him and then patted his hand with my other one. "Go on now," I urged again. "Just knock on the door so he isn't startled. You know how he gets when he's doing paperwork..."

Jarod gave me an understanding and twisted little smirk, patted my hand back, and then walked slowly through my back door.

I could have gone to bed right then and there, but I knew better. I knew I knew better. And so I pulled my sweater closer and waited, knowing that I had done all I could to help another of Sydney's “children” find their way home, but needed to be around when the other shoe fell. When my tea was gone, however, I couldn't see sitting out in the cold. I went into the kitchen and set the teakettle on again and found another tea bag for my mug. Then I sat down at the table and waited again.

For a while, I began to wonder whether I could last until the two of them had finished. Another hour had passed, and my third mug of tea was long finished by the time I heard the door to the office open and the sound of voices in the hallway. Jarod's deep tones sounded tired but relieved, and my husband's tired and soothing. "No, the light is still on in the kitchen," I heard Sydney say, and then the steps came closer. "There she is."

I turned. Jarod's eyes were a little red, and his face looked very tired - but I think what made my heart sit up and sing was the fact that my husband had his hand very firmly on the younger man's shoulder and seemed to be guiding him into the kitchen. "Is there enough hot water for a little more tea, Cat?" Sydney asked me quietly.

"There will be soon enough," I rose to my feet and took the teakettle over to the sink for refilling. When I finished, I turned and looked at my husband. He looked tired too, tired and as if he'd been put through something very painful. "Are you alright?" I asked him with an accusing glance at Jarod.

"Don't blame him," Sydney defended the younger man immediately. "This was a talk that we've needed to have for a very long time." I noted that Sydney's hand hadn't moved from Jarod's shoulder, but rather tightened briefly. "He could use a place to land for the night, though. I was wondering if you'd mind if I put him on the couch in my office?"

"I don't mean to intrude." Jarod's voice was rough, and he was having a hard time looking me in the eye.

"Hey." I moved and put my own hand on his arm below my husband's evidently reassuring hand, and he turned those very tired, dark eyes to me. "I told you that you'd be welcome in my house anytime. I meant it. Of course I don't mind you crashing on the office couch. I'll get you a pillow and some blankets."

"Is there anything left of supper?" Sydney asked.

I looked at Jarod again. Yes, perhaps some of that fatigue could be simple hunger. "There's some meat for sandwiches in a plastic bag, and some salad in the crisper drawer."

"You don't have to do that," Jarod looked up at my husband. "Sydney, it's OK..."

"Yes I do," I heard Sydney say to him in a very soft voice that I had only heard him use before with me or with Miss Parker. "Please let me help you." He looked up at me, and I almost caught my breath at the longing in his dark honeyed eyes, the plea for reinforcement.

"Jarod, let us help you," I added my voice to Sydney's. "You're family, after all." I saw Sydney nod, even though Jarod glanced at me as if I'd shocked him again. "You're tired, and you look like you've been run ragged. You're safe here."

The dark eyes flitted between Sydney's face and mine, and then Jarod nodded. "OK."

I patted Sydney's arm. "I'll just go put some linens on the office couch and be right back," I told him, and Sydney bent to kiss my cheek before I left.

"You love her." Jarod's voice followed me into the hallway.

"Yes, very much." I smiled at the love in my husband's tired voice.

"She's very beautiful." I smiled even wider as I turned to start up the stairs. Jarod could be as much of a charmer as his “father,” it seemed. Then: "She suits you."

"I don't know what ever I did without her." With that, I decided to stop listening and hurried the rest of the way up the steps to set together the linens.

~~~~~~~~

We fed Jarod, and he ate as if he felt guilty that he was hungry and taking our food. I made a whole pot of tea this time, and Sydney and I sat with him at the table after he'd finished eating, watching the tea warm him physically while we did our level best to warm him emotionally. All pretense of independence had slipped from his posture, as if finally too heavy for him to carry anymore. He was like a puppy who'd been whipped one too many times, and I could see that Sydney was worried about him. I worried too.

We escorted him up the stairs and put him to bed, and then retired ourselves - and that was when Sydney fell apart. In all the time I'd known him, my husband had been the strength I had leaned on. That night, the tables were turned. He lay against my shoulder and sobbed, and finally began to speak - as if holding everything in were beyond him anymore.

At long last, he told me about Jarod - of how they had met, how he had believed what the Centre told him about the boy, how he had struggled not to show the boy he cared for all those years in order to protect them both from being separated despite loving as if he were his own, how he hadn't been able to protect him well enough against those determined to perpetrate horrific evils on that intelligent and trapped young man. He told me of how the Centre had manipulated his life to keep his focus finely fixed on his work with Jarod - how Jacob had been removed because of his plotting with Miss Parker's mother, how Michelle had been convinced to leave when she became pregnant with Nicholas, how yet another associate had been removed when even that relationship began to hold potential for something more. He told me of how he and Broots and Miss Parker had been assigned to recapture Jarod when he escaped so many years ago, of how he'd quietly helped Jarod remain free as a subtle way of atoning for all those years he'd stood by and allowed Jarod's virtual imprisonment, of how Jarod had slowly uncovered all the evidence of what had been done to them all over the years, and finally of how dangerous it could be for us to give Jarod refuge that night.

He spoke for a very long time, often while struggling to suppress sobbing, and I could hear the recrimination in his voice, the sadness, the horror and guilt at what he'd been a part of, at his blindness and then weakness to prevent or put an end to any of it. He had told me when I first came to Delaware to stay that he'd been part of something he wasn't proud of - something monstrous - now I knew exactly what he meant. And I held him as he cried, knowing beyond a doubt that the man I'd fallen in love with was no longer capable of such things. I also no longer questioned why Broots and Miss Parker and he were so determined to keep me safe from Lyle and the machinations of the Centre. I held him close and let him know with soothing words and caresses that I still loved him dearly despite the nightmare he'd dumped into my ear until he finally fell asleep in my arms, spent but I hoped purged of all need to keep secrets from me any longer.

Of course, the time came when I had to rise to take care of bathroom needs. Our peanut was learning that bladders were fun things to play with, especially in the middle of the night. As I came out of the bathroom, I thought I could hear voices out in the house. I stuck my head out the door and discovered that what I though had been voices was but one voice and coming from the office. I slipped down the hallway as quietly as I could and knocked softly at the door, then peeked my head in when I received no reply.

Jarod's bed on the couch was in complete disarray - he was thrashing about in the throes of what must have been a horrific nightmare. I came into the room and sat down next to him on the couch and captured his swinging hands in mine and called to him until finally, with a jerk, he pulled himself free and awoke. His eyes were wide and frightened, and I could see it was taking a little while for him to recognize me in my gown and robe. Finally, though, he seemed to relax a bit - perhaps finally waking enough to know where he was.

"I'm sorry I disturbed your rest," he whispered, his face twisted in chagrin and obviously struggling against tears.

"You didn't," I assured him, letting go of his hands. "I heard noises in here and got nosy. Are you OK? That looked like quite a nightmare..." My heart went out to him. "What's wrong?"

I think he would have tried to reassure me to get rid of me, to pretend to be strong and put on a stiff upper lip, but I reached out and stroked his hair with my hand the way I used to when Rene would have her nightmares - and suddenly I had Jarod falling apart in front of me. I opened my arms to my husband's “son” and suddenly had his head pillowed on my shoulder - the same shoulder that had been drenched with Sydney's tears only hours earlier. "I'm sorry," he choked at me, his arms looping around me loosely.

"Hush," I soothed and held him tightly. "There's nothing to be sorry for." He trembled and struggled against his emotions for a long time while I just held onto him. Like Miss Parker, he was hungry - desperate - for the kind of demonstration of simple affection that they both had been denied for one reason or another. I could only hope that when he had talked with Sydney that they had worked out whatever it was between them that had caused the both of them so much pain, because Jarod's tears were silent and agonized ones. I didn't ask for, and he didn't offer, an explanation. It was enough that he was allowing me to offer him comfort and accepting it.

Finally he sat up and wiped at his eyes with the palms of his hands, peeking at me with a sheepish look on his face. "You must think..."

"What I DO think is that you've probably needed that for a very long time," I hastened to interrupt him, and then went with my gut feeling and kissed him gently on the cheek. "We all need to lean from time to time, Jarod. It's not a crime."

"I think..." he started, then paused and thought. "I hope..." He had the face of a lost and heartbroken little boy. "Do you think my mom would be... like that too - not be disappointed...?"

"I'm sure she is, sweetheart," I soothed him, patting his cheek and wiping away one or two errant tears. I let him settle with a sigh on my shoulder again and held him close. "You'll find her, Jarod, and you'll see."

~~~~~~~~

From what Sydney had told me, I fully expected the house to be empty except for the two of us when I got up in the morning - but I was pleasantly surprised to find Jarod in my kitchen, calmly cooking breakfast for the three of us. I was astonished and more than a little touched to be the recipient of a very shy kiss on the cheek and fleeting hug before being shown the pot of tea he'd already made for me. Then Sydney shuffled into the kitchen carrying the Sunday paper, sniffing the scent-filled appreciatively, and stopped cold at the sight of me sipping my tea at the table while Jarod fussed at the stove.

The surprise in his voice was palpable. "Jarod! You're..."

"Good morning, Sydney," he replied with an easy smile and then a bear hug for my husband that took Sydney past surprise and into shock. "Get some coffee and sit down - this is almost ready."

This morning was a respite for all of us, a rare and precious moment of togetherness and peace with this remarkable and resilient young man. I smiled and held out a hand to my husband as he joined me at the table, and together we chatted quietly and amicably with Jarod as he served us breakfast. The feeling of family cohesiveness grew steadily through that gentle and unpressured morning, and I found myself wishing that such moments could happen more often - for Jarod's sake as much as for Sydney's.

I knew better. I knew I knew better. And so I watched and listened and participated in the morning, mindful that I would have to keep this memory more carefully than most of my others.

Spring was indeed coming to Delaware. Slowly and so very carefully, Sydney was having a family bloom around him after a long winter of loneliness - and I was finding myself blooming right along with them.

I smiled and held my hand over the bulge that was our somersaulting unborn daughter. It was about time - for all of us.

Research Subject - by MMB

Chapter 5: Coming Together


Spring had finally found Delaware, and everything was blooming - even me. I had been transplanted into new and very fertile soil, and I was happy in ways I could barely begin to appreciate yet. After years of loneliness, I had a husband whom I loved dearly and who doted on me, I had friends and my husband's unofficial family around me, and I carried a child that was eagerly awaited by the two of us.

I was nicely halfway through my pregnancy now and was clearly showing, but I still wasn't feeling so big and ungainly that I imagined myself a beached whale. Not yet, anyway... It was refreshing to have a husband who so obviously found every stage of this process both fascinating and exciting - and yet never forgot to reassure me that he still found me attractive as my size increased. My first husband, Jake, while initially excited about having a child and hopeful that it would be a son, had found my increasing girth a complete turn-off - leaving me to weather the emotional rollercoaster of pregnancy alone feeling unloved and undesirable. Sydney, on the other hand, was exactly the opposite - he was very attentive and loving in every way possible so that I never doubted that I was very much loved and still desirable in his eyes. He had no qualms whatsoever about our physical relationship and the adjustments my progressing pregnancy required we make when it came to making love. I couldn't help but constantly compare the two men and know that I had come out best in the end.

What was more, I had no doubt that my husband was going to be a very loving and involved father to his child - because he was already lavishing plenty of attention on the unborn bulge in my tummy. At night, before settling down to sleep, he would so often lay his head on my chest and stroke the growing lump that was our peanut with his huge and gentle hand, talking to her quietly of his love for the both of us and his plans for our future. I could tell our peanut had become accustomed to this regular nighttime congress with her father as well, for she would cease her otherwise active ricocheting into lungs and bladders and then press gently and repeatedly back into Sydney's hand on my tummy as he spoke to her. I would run my fingers through his longish silver hair and smile from my place on my pillow at the two of them, thinking how the words “doting father” didn't even begin to describe the situation that was developing here.

How different this was from Jake's treatment of Rene both before and after she was born. Beforehand, he couldn't have cared less about her while she was inside me - she was an impediment to his pleasure, which he then blatantly sought elsewhere. And after she was born, she simply wasn't the son he'd wanted - so he ignored her except on those occasions when it was politically correct for him to act like a “Daddy.” Rene knew the difference almost immediately and never did feel any sort of close bond with her father. I was disappointed in him and did my best to make sure my baby knew she was loved by at least one of her parents. Just knowing that our peanut wouldn't have to suffer that same deprivation was a source of great relief and happiness.

I'm sure my contentedness with my marriage and new life was helping me along with my pregnancy as well. My doctor was continually pleased at how healthy I was managing to remain and that I was gaining weight very slowly and steadily rather than ballooning like some of his younger patients. He continued to urge me to stay off my feet as much as possible, and between his urgings and Sydney's outright pamperings, I had little choice but to comply.

That beautiful rainbow-colored caftan that Miss Parker had insisted on buying for me weeks ago had now become my favorite piece of clothing, something that my husband's unofficial “daughter” hadn't failed to notice. She would tease me a little about not having wanted to buy it in the first place every time she came over to visit and found me wearing it. I had begun to cherish that quiet time in the afternoon when she tended to choose to visit, not so much for my sake but for hers in getting a much-needed chance to shed the brittle shell of her public façade. Now that the time was approaching for Rene's scheduled visit, I was hoping that my daughter and my husband's “daughter” would get along well. I had come to love the vulnerable and affection-starved girl almost as much as my own girl, even though there was a full ten years difference in their ages. My fondest wish - besides having a healthy baby in August - now was that both women would begin to feel a part of this rather unorthodox family, and accept each other on somewhat sisterly terms.

Even Jarod, oddly enough, had maintained a regular routine of contact with us as well after that first, surprising, visit. It never failed that when Sydney would be required to spend a long weekend away from home at the Centre for whatever reason, Jarod would make an appearance on the evening of his return. At practically the very moment Joe - the sweeper Miss Parker had assigned to keep me company in Sydney's absence - would take off, leaving Sydney and me alone at last, a knock would come at the glass arcadia door to the backyard. After about the third repetition of this pattern, I started to plan for his inevitable visit - the dinner I made that night for my husband would be quite a bit larger than what just the two of us would eat. I now had a pillow and set of bedclothes carefully stored in the office closet for his use - bed clothing that always was folded and put away for me long before Joe could become suspicious about any overnight guests he hadn't known about.

The first couple of times that he appeared in our home on the nights of Sydney's return, he and Sydney retreated to the office and talked until very late while I'd stayed behind reading in the living room. I knew they were obviously tying up loose ends and putting so many of both his and my husband's demons to rest. Both men were always exhausted emotionally by the end of their talk, so I knew the demons must have been fierce ones and was glad that such pain was finally being put to rest. The last few times he'd shown up, however, we all ended up sitting around the kitchen table and talking for hours. He told us tales of his latest “pretend” while Sydney talked of his latest research project and I related some of the latest chemical puzzles that Julia had shipped my way. Jarod's grasp of chemistry was astounding - and he could see ways through those puzzles that would have taken me weeks to figure out. Both Jarod and I could find new and interesting facets to the psychological research Sydney was doing, and we would discuss the best way to investigate this tendency or that within the scope of the ongoing project. Sydney could offer insights into the psychological dynamics that had played a role in Jarod's pretends, with my chiming in from time to time with a woman's perspective - and slowly we seemed to be helping him understand the why's behind the mechanics of human interaction.

As I had come to be quite fond and more than a little protective of this unofficial “son” of ours, I openly questioned both him and my husband one night about whether the time might come when he and Miss Parker could be brought into the family fold together. Neither Sydney nor Jarod looked very optimistic about the prospect, and both of them let me know that IF such a thing were to happen, there could be no predicting her reaction. Evidently Jarod had dropped away from the Centre's ability to track him quite a while back, and Miss Parker was one of the people with whom he'd severed contact completely. I very quietly decided, right then and there, that I would start working on Miss Parker. I would begin very carefully probing her dedication to this now-stymied and suspended “hunt” for Jarod - seeing whether she could be convinced to consider our home as neutral ground where the hunt could be suspended for a time.

The Saturday dawned that would see my Rene come home to me, and Sydney finally laughed out loud as I fairly bounced off of walls in my excitement and anticipation. Our peanut joined in the joy, jumping strongly and often until I finally sat down in the passenger seat of Sydney's comfortable town car and HAD to practice patience. Sydney and I talked non-stop all the way to Dover, running through our plans for our two weeks' time with Rene - everything we wanted to do and places we wanted to take her. I think he was starting to get as excited by her pending arrival as I was. He hadn't seen her since the two of us had left her behind when we came here and she headed off to school again. But the two of them had spoken often by telephone in the months since then and formed a bond that I knew would only strengthen further as they got to know each other better.

The airport wasn't that big, and I clung to Sydney's arm as we made our way to the gate and waited for the passengers of the commuter jet to disembark. And then I saw her, dark glasses in place against the early afternoon sun - and then she was through the gate and I could put my arms around my beautiful daughter. "It's so good to see you!" I bubbled and leaned up to kiss her cheek just beneath her glasses, but I wasn't ready to feel her flinch the moment I touched her face. I pushed back a bit - now I could see the red that extended from beneath the sunglasses. "My God, Rene! What happened?" I demanded, reaching up and slowly removing the sunglasses to reveal a rather vivid shiner on the left side of her face.

"I ran into my father yesterday," was all she would say before hugging me tightly and then pushing away so that she could get a hug from Sydney, who was waiting patiently for his turn. "It's nothing, really..."

"Your father did this to you?" Sydney didn't sound much more willing to drop the subject than I wanted to be. As a matter of fact, he sounded downright protective and offended. He didn't release her much faster than I had either, and he had turned her face with very careful and gentle fingers at her chin to get a better look at the bruising with dark honey eyes filled with brooding.

Rene just shook her head. "Not here and not now, please? Let's just be happy that I'm here with you both, OK?" She then looked me up and down, a smile making its way across her face again. "From the looks of things, Mom, Delaware must agree with you."

"Oh yeah," I agreed, then looked at my husband. "It more than agrees with me." I took her hand then and let myself feel the happiness of having my girl back with me again. "We have a hide-a-bed for you in the office - I'm afraid the guest room is in the process of being re-done as a nursery..."

"Do I get to help with finishing touches?" Rene looked across me at Sydney, who merely shrugged at her.

Evidently he too had decided to enjoy the moment. "Did you honestly think you were going to get OUT of helping?" he smiled back at her. "I still have the crib to put together - and the number of parts is downright daunting!"

"Well, let me get settled in, and then let me at it!" she laughed, and I breathed a sigh of relief that I had Rene here with me, safe and relatively sound, again. I hadn't realized how incomplete I had been with her so far away from me, even though I was more than content with my life here as it was.

Sydney wrapped his arm around my shoulder while she stepped forward to the baggage carousel to await and then claim her bags. "Her father hits women?" he asked me very quietly.

"If he gets angry enough, yes," I admitted, not wanting to think of what must have passed between Jake and Rene to have resulted in that bruise. Their relationship had been rocky since long before the divorce - but this was a decided turn for the worse yet.

I could almost feel the distress growing in him. "Did he ever hit you?" he asked even more quietly.

"Yes." It was a tiny word, but oh how it hurt to admit. Thank God he didn't seem to make the connection between the baby I'd lost so long ago and this new and evidently disturbing knowledge about my ex-husband's temper.

His arm tightened around me then as he pulled me into a more encompassing embrace. "I have a real problem with men who take out their anger on their women with their fists," he growled, obviously watching Rene protectively.

I sighed and loved him even more yet for wanting to help me protect my daughter. Still... "My love, let it go. He's back there, and we're here. He can't get to me here," I reminded him as I leaned into him and put my arms around his waist in an answering hug.

"But he CAN get to Rene when she's at school, it seems - and THAT bothers the hell out of me," he insisted unhappily, then let go of me to step forward and take first one and then the other of the bags my daughter had brought with her. From his tone of voice with his next words, however, it seemed he was going to set aside the entire topic for the time being and work at being upbeat. "C'mon, Rene, your chariot awaits," he announced and took off, leading the way through the parking lot.

"Fantastic!" Rene settled the dark glasses back on her face, almost entirely hiding the injury to her face, and then wrapped her arm through mine as we stepped forward to follow him. "I've so missed you, Mom!"

"I've missed you too, Poppet! I've been so looking forward to your visit..."

"Don't let her fool you. She's been so excited earlier that I thought she was going to jump out of her skin this morning," my husband piped up with a mischievous smirk back over his shoulder in my direction.

"Tattletale," I pouted at him and then hugged her arm close to me with my hand over hers. Just then, our peanut decided to put in her two cents and kicked at where Rene's arm lay close to my abdomen. "And you cut that out too in there," I said, giving my bulge a pat. "Just because you're your Papa's pet already..."

Rene's steps hesitated, and her eyes met mine. "That was a strong kick, Mom..."

"She's just telling you hello," I interpreted easily.

"A girl?" My daughter's smile was spreading again. She gazed up at Sydney's back. "You're going to be surrounded by women, you poor man."

He dropped the bags at the trunk of the car and gave her a quintessentially European shrug while digging in his pockets for his car keys. "Ah well," he sighed with a touch of the melodramatic, "It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it - and I think I can handle it OK." He grinned at her and then turned to unlock the doors and pop the trunk with the push of two buttons on the key.

Rene climbed into the back seat behind me and leaned forward. "Have I told you lately how much I approve of your current choice in men?" she laughed gaily. "His sense of humor is delightful!"

I smiled at Sydney as he climbed into the driver's seat next to me. "I agree, Poppet, but I think I qualify as biased now..."

"Biased about what?" he asked, turning the key in the ignition.

"You, my love," I told him and leaned in to deposit a kiss on his cheek then shot a grin into the back seat, which was answered by another chuckle from that quarter.

"Newlyweds," Rene sighed in mock exasperation.

~~~~~~~~

"You're sure I'm not putting you out?" I heard when Rene turned and looked over at Sydney as he deposited her two bags beneath the window to the far side of the couch in the office.

"Not at all," he assured her. "There's nothing that goes on in here that can't be moved elsewhere in the house while you're here. I just hope that this old hide-a-bed is comfortable enough for you." He smiled at her. "But most importantly, I want you to make yourself completely at home here. This is YOUR home now too, you know." I was glad he told her that - I knew she'd already got the idea from their previous time together and telephone conversations since then, but it was always good to hear it said again in so many words.

I saw the shy and pleased smile that lit Rene's face. "Thanks, I appreciate that," she answered. I knew that she was feeling a little more at home now that she'd been given the tour and seen the pieces we'd so carefully packed from my former home in their new places, blending seamlessly into the way Sydney had arranged his house before. "I really like this room," she told him with a contented sigh, looking around her at the mostly full floor-to-ceiling bookcases and the heavy antique oak desk that sat against the far wall. "There's a room in the library at school that I often go to when I want to study that reminds me of this place - it always gave me a sense of..." she waved her hand in search of the proper words, "...security and roots."

"Back in Lyons, in the days before the war," Sydney began with a soft look on his face, "my father had a study very much like this one." He gave me a rather shy look. "I guess when I finally had the means, I just wanted to have a room like this in my own home so I could feel close to him again. I couldn't replace the books that were lost in the war, but I could start my own collection, as he had. My collection has spread to the living room now, but this..." he looked around him, "sometimes I think I can almost hear him here."

"It FEELS like this is a real home, having a room like this," Rene responded, her eyes glowing. "I always wanted a room like this in my house when I was growing up. I know Mom did the best she could, but she couldn't make our house feel like a HOME until after..." Her words died away - obviously just the thought of her father was enough to dampen her mood after whatever had happened.

I went over to her and put my arm around her shoulder and drew her to sit on the couch that would later open up into her bed. "I think maybe you'd better tell us what happened now, so it can be out in the open and then we can forget it for the rest of your vacation," I urged her quietly. I shot a glance at Sydney, who just nodded and sat down next to me and took my hand in his. When Rene looked at me and then him hesitantly, I patted her shoulder. "C'mon, Poppet. He's halfway across the country from us here."

"Would you rather I leave so you can talk to your Mom in private?" Sydney asked gently before she could say a word.

"No," she looked at him with real gratitude for his solicitude. "You've already seen my face - so it's not a secret..." She looked at me. "You know how he always wanted to know where you were, even after..." She looked down at her hands in her lap. "God, I feel really stupid."

"It's OK," I hugged her. "Just tell us."

"He caught me as I was coming home after my last final," she said in chagrin, "and demanded to know where you'd gone. Evidently he'd gone past your house and seen the new people..."

"What about the restraining order?" I asked in shock, and was distressed when she just shrugged. God only knows how many times he'd violated that order, and she'd just quietly put up with it and never told me about it.

"Restraining order?" Sydney was shocked. "He even has a restraining order on him?"

"Two of them, in fact. He's supposed to stay out of both my neighborhood and Rene's, and leave if either of us ever came into the same business he was in - and never call either of us by phone," I explained quickly. "It was the result of the divorce - things got a bit ugly there for a while..."

"What did you tell him?" he asked her, his brow now curled in very real concern.

"Nothing substantive - and that was the problem," Rene admitted. "I told him that Mom had gotten married again..." she explained, then turned to me. "...and that you'd moved to be with your new husband. When he demanded to know where that was, I told him it was none of his damned business - and that was when..."

"He backhanded you again," I finished for her, and she looked down and nodded. I heard Sydney snort in real anger behind me, and I squeezed his hand to let him know I understood completely. "Did you call the police?"

"I told him that if he didn't leave RIGHT THEN, that I'd call the cops and press charges for assault and battery."

"You should have done it anyway," Sydney growled in a low and dangerous voice.

She looked up at him with eyes swimming with tears. "He's my father," she said simply.

With that, Sydney left my side and went to sit down next to Rene and took her hand in his and held it tightly. "I know he is, ma petite," he told her gently, "but that's only a matter of biology. You didn't deserve this abuse - and you will forgive me if I get a little irate at the thought of anybody getting away with abusing a member of MY family."

"Sydney's right, Poppet," I joined my voice to his. "He's gotten away with this - or worse - far too often." I avoided looking at Sydney, because he had looked up very sharply at my words. I didn't want to have to answer his questions - Rene was my main concern right now. "We both got those restraining orders for very good reasons. He has to learn to live with the terms and conditions or suffer the consequences."

"Anyway, that's what happened." Rene obviously preferred we let the subject of both her father and what he'd done dropped entirely. "It's just a bruise, it will heal in not too long. I just want to forget it ever happened and enjoy my time here."

"I'll let this go and never mention it again if you promise me one thing," I told her firmly, hugging her again. "If he EVER comes anywhere near you again..."

"I want you to call us," Sydney broke in with a voice gruff and dangerous. "No matter what the time - you CALL us. You don't have to face this alone anymore, and I do have some resources that could be called upon in emergencies."

Now it was MY turn to look sharply at my husband. It wasn't often that he exposed that very dark and dangerous shadow side to his nature - something that he'd only shown to me once before, while filling in Joe the sweeper about what he wanted to happen in case I was bothered again by Lyle. I could now see that this was the way he got when those he cared for were threatened. I don't think I'd ever considered what it would mean for someone to have my husband as an enemy.

I didn't know, and I really didn't WANT to know, what those resources of his might entail. But the idea that he was willing and ready to bring these unnamed but probably Centre-related forces to bear in Rene's defense made my heart swell with gratitude anyway, despite my real reservations regarding the kind of resources to which he was referring.

"Yes, you call us, like Sydney said," I added to his terms, "but I want you to promise me that you'll call the police, even though you feel terrible about it. Poppet, one of these days, he's really going to hurt you - and I'm too far away to help you from here." I let her see how upset I really was that Jake had gotten violent with her. "Promise me!"

"I promise, Mom," she agreed at last, laying her head on my shoulder and wrapping her arm around my back. "I'm just glad I'm a long ways away from him." I held her close over my heart and noted that she was still clinging to Sydney's hand too. Our eyes met over her head, and I felt vindicated knowing that he was as worried about her safety as I was.

~~~~~~~~

As good as her word, as soon as she'd finished settling into the office, Rene found herself sitting on the floor in the half-finished nursery with a truly amazed look on her face as Sydney upended the cardboard box that held the pieces of the crib. He dumped the three bags of metal and plastic hardware that supposedly held the piece of furniture together out onto the floor and set the ungainly box aside. Against one wall, the four sides of the crib were stacked neatly, and the mattress leaned against the wall next to them. "Where are the instructions?" she asked him, scratching her head and picked up a bag at random and looked at its contents.

"This is all I could find," he said, handing her a piece of paper covered in just about ever other human language on the globe EXCEPT English, French or German - the three languages that stood a reasonably decent chance of being understood by somebody in this house. He'd showed me the so-called “directions” not long after we'd gotten the box home, and we'd had a short discussion on which way to just hold the paper until we'd found a printed number on the diagram to use as reference. "Do you read any of those?" Sydney pointed to the obviously Asian scripts.

Rene sputtered in surprise. "Oh, sure - of course I do," she replied, twisting the paper this way and that, obviously trying to figure out which way was right-side up just as we had. "And if you believe THAT..." she looked up at him with a huge grin, "...there's some swampland in Florida you might just be interested in..."

I leaned against the doorjamb and giggled at the look on his face - he was getting a much clearer picture of my daughter's considerable talent to play the clown. "Do you think we could work just from the diagram?" he got down on his knees and then with a grunt sat down on the floor next to her.

Rene looked from the directions to Sydney and back, her grin dying just a little. "We can try," she told him. "We're intelligent people, you and I - we've both had medical training - you'd think we wouldn't be so overwhelmed by this."

"Right. Your medical training is just starting, and mine is as rusty as the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean," Sydney quipped back. My smile grew. Good. They had begun to be able to banter with each other rather outrageously not long before we had left for Delaware - it looked as if they were getting ready to pick up right where they left off. "That's not very encouraging," he was continuing.

"Oh, c'mon, Sydney! Where's your sense of adventure? What's the worst that could happen? That we'd screw up and have to start over?"

"We DO want to have this done sometime before your vacation ends, you know..."

"I think I'm going to go get supper started," I told them then with a hearty chuckle. I figured I'd better make my escape before any real damage had been done or before I started laughing so hard at their antics I couldn't stop.

"Uh-oh, she's leaving," Rene leaned conspiratorially toward Sydney. "We're gonna be on our own. We're doomed without a supervisor, you know..."

"She trusts us," he told her then looked up at me with a twinkle in his eye and a wide smile. "Poor innocent, she'll learn..."

"Now wait just a minute. You two did just fine packing up my household not that long ago," I reminded them from the doorway, remembering the very efficient and cooperative way that the three of us had gone through my entire house. It had taken them not very long to sort that which was going to be shipped and that which was going to be stored from that which was going to be thrown away. "So I think I have good reason to have faith in your abilities to handle a simple crib now, don't you?"

I walked over and bent down with a grunt of my own to claim a kiss from my husband and then waved at them both to start down the stairs. I could hear the banter already starting up again behind me.

"A simple crib, she says."

"You never know, Rene - I've learned it never pays to underestimate your mother. If she were in any shape to get down here on the floor with us, she might just be able to figure this out without our help."

I chortled softly and made my way to the kitchen. As I worked on the vegetables for the salad and making gravy, I occasionally heard laughter filtering down the stairs - sometimes Rene's, and sometimes Sydney's. I closed my eyes at one point and breathed in the gentle sense of completeness that had permeated the house, then put my hand on our peanut as she moved steadily. This was happiness of a sort I'd only dreamed of for years - a happiness that had now reached out and embraced my daughter too.

When they came downstairs at my call to eat, Rene came into the kitchen shaking her head at Sydney. "You're going to have to do better than that, or my little sister is going to run you into the ground in a few years!"

Sydney shook his finger at her, his smile belying the scolding gesture. "You, young lady, are just entirely too feisty for having traveled half-way across the continent today."

"Ah," I piped up, setting the platter of sliced roast on the table, "but the real question is: were you two successful, or is the crib still in several large and tiny pieces on the floor?"

"Still in several large and tiny pieces on the floor," Rene admitted with a chagrined look.

"...but the large pieces are larger than they were before, and there aren't quite as many tiny ones anymore," Sydney finished for her, and I saw their gazes meet comfortably.

"See?" I asked, sitting down and beginning to pass the platter of meat, "I knew my faith in you two wasn't misplaced..."

When Sydney and Rene looked at each other in astonishment and then burst into full-out laughter, I began to wonder whether they really DID need a supervisor...

Eventually it took all three of us the rest of the evening after supper to decipher the diagram and get the crib assembled, and I don't think I'd ever laughed quite so hard before in my life. I was grateful that I had the rocking chair that Sydney had purchased for me only a few days ago to sit in when my sides started to ache. If either my husband or daughter had felt any lingering shyness or hesitancy around the other, I was sure those hours of light-hearted work had done them in for good.

Rene wouldn't hear of my helping her make up the hide-a-bed for her, and she gave me my goodnight's kiss at the office door. But what made me smile in contentment was the way she then walked right up to and claimed a hug and a kiss goodnight from Sydney too - as if doing so was a normal occurrence. I think she startled him with her easy familiarity, because he suddenly had a very intense look on his face as he held my daughter close and then gently kissed her cheek below her bruises. "Goodnight, ma petite," he told her in that low voice that he used when his emotions were high, "I'm glad you're home with us, safe and sound."

"I am too," I heard her say as she leaned against him in a way she'd never once had a chance - much less wanted - to lean on her father. "Goodnight, Dad." I heard Sydney catch his breath. "You don't mind, do you?" Rene asked very softly, as if suddenly hesitant after all the familiarity of the evening.

"On the contrary, I feel very honored," he told her in a voice that was even more gruff with barely restrained emotions. "Very honored!" I saw him kiss the top of her head very gently and then release her with another "Goodnight, ma petite," so she could go in and close the door for privacy. His dark honey eyes were glowing when he came over to join me at the doorway of our bedroom.

"C'mon, Dad, time to turn in," I told him as he enfolded me in his arms tightly.

"My God!" he sighed, leaning his chin on the top of my head. "I feel like I've just been handed the world."

I smiled against him. "Thank you," I said as I wrapped my arms around him in return.

"For what? Finally getting the crib together? YOU were the brains behind that..."

"No," I chuckled, then sobered. "For being the kind of father to my Rene that she's always deserved."

"I almost feel like I'm stealing her from your ex," he commented, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Trust me, my love, you can't steal something like that," I told him with a squeeze. "Jake never appreciated Rene at all - he wanted a son, and she wasn't a boy - and you saw the results of how he treated her the last time they were together. You, on the other hand, have never treated her with anything BUT the kind of respect and fondness she's needed very badly for a very long time. You didn't steal her, you won her."

His hands came up and pressed themselves warmly against my face and turned my eyes to meet his. "Cat, I don't know what caused you to apply for that damned research project back when," he said in that low voice that always made my knees weak, "but I give thanks for it, because you've given me the one thing I've always wanted - a family of my own. You're giving me our peanut, and now a beautiful daughter that I truly wish WERE mine. You've even given me back the children that weren't really mine to begin with. I don't know how to even begin to..."

"I love you," was the only response I could give him - he that had given me so much.

He pulled me into the bedroom and closed the door with his foot as he lowered his lips to mine and set my pulse racing. "God how I love you," he told me as he dropped kisses of fire down my throat, and I ran my hands across his chest to sweep aside the suspenders and began working the buttons on his shirt. We didn't go to sleep for quite a while after that, but when we did, we both rested well. After all, I could hardly fail to rest well with my husband curled along my back with his huge hands holding our unborn baby and me to him and the memory of his passionate embrace still fresh in my mind.

The next morning dawned bright and warm - which was just as well, for Sydney and I had invited the Broots' and Parker over for dinner so that the bulk of our Delaware family could meet my grown daughter. I was leaving it up to the men to take care of the meat when the time came - Sydney assured me that he and Broots were up to the job. I had almost everything else on hand so that I could work on the rest of the meal throughout the day, and Parker had promised to bring dessert with her.

At about lunchtime, I answered my doorbell to find Broots and Debbie arriving early - but bearing lunch makings with them. Debbie's eyes began to sparkle when she was introduced to Rene. "Looks like the girls are going to outnumber the guys today for a change," she observed coyly.

"The girls are going to outnumber the guys in this house all the time in about four months anyway," Rene responded with a mischievous grin in Sydney's direction.

"Like I told you at the airport, cheri, that's nothing a real man can't handle," my husband quipped back at her immediately, earning himself a chuckle from the girls and a slightly amazed stare from Broots. "You might as well decide to enjoy and join in the ridiculous, Broots my friend," Sydney chuckled himself at his friend's expression. "Now that Rene's here, it gets pretty thick and flies fairly frequently."

"OK," Broots replied, still sounding a little reserved, but I could see from the quiet smile on his lips that it wouldn't be long before he would be participating fully - and it wasn't.

The first surprise of the afternoon came when Parker arrived - with her three-year-old half-brother in tow. I saw her eyes seek out Sydney's as I let her into the house after she explained the toddler in her arms to me. "I hope you don't mind," she said, obviously watching his reaction. "It's just that this is such a family occasion, and he hasn't..."

"We don't mind, do we?" I asked, making my own position clear by putting out my hands to take the little one from her and then turning to my husband with the baby in my arms.

His grey eyebrows had climbed halfway up to where his hairline used to be. "Raines will be furious when he finds out you've taken him from the Centre. There will be serious repercussions for this, Parker," he reminded her softly, making a chill run down my spine. This darling little boy in my arms was a permanent inmate of the Centre?

"It's possible," she admitted gently, "but he deserves some kind of family life too, Syd. Besides, I've... been taking him with me on weekends sometimes lately anyway - this little outing isn't the first time I've taken him out of the Centre, and Raines knows this." She was standing up to my husband, but also was openly pleading for understanding support from him. "If it comes to that, I'll take all the heat, I promise, and keep it away from Cathy and Peanut. But he's just a little boy, Sydney, and he deserves to have a little fun with a real family once in a while..."

I could see Sydney relenting even as she spoke; and when he came close to me and wrapped one of his huge hands around the toddler's head, I knew she'd already won. "What did they name him finally?" he asked.

"They didn't," Parker's voice had a bitter edge to it. "I did." She moved to help the little one take off his sweater. "His name is Jacob Thomas," she announced with pride. I gaped - and I could see that she knew exactly what she'd done, and what it would mean to my husband.

When Sydney's dark honey eyes caught at mine briefly, I could see the same level of emotion in them as he'd had just the evening before. Slowly he put out his hands and took the boy from me. "Jacob?" he repeated with a slowly widening grin, pulling the little tee shirt down back into place from the shift in perch. He turned a warm gaze on her. "Thank you, Parker." His voice was again low with emotion.

Little Jacob must not have been used to being handled by men, for he reached out for Parker with a whimpered, "Sissy..."

"Hush, you're OK..." Parker soothed with a hand on his back. "This is your... Uncle Sydney and Aunt Cathy. Can't you say hello?"

Little Jacob turned very dark and wary eyes to my husband. "Unkoh Sydney?" He looked back at his sister for confirmation. Parker nodded at him with a smile.

"Hello, Jacob," Sydney purred at the little one, bringing the child's attention around again to the man who held him.

"Hello there, Jacob," I stepped up close and put a comforting hand at his back. But I could see that my husband and his deep voice were far more fascinating, so I smiled and held out my arms to hug Parker in welcome instead. "I want you to meet someone," I told her and showed her where Rene and Debbie had retreated to the dining table for animated girl talk. "Parker, this is my daughter Rene. Rene, I'd like you to meet Parker."

Rene stood and walked over to us. "Mom has told me a lot about you," she said and held out her hand. "I'm glad to meet you at last."

"She's told me a lot about you too," Parker took Rene's hand in hers. "I've been looking forward to getting a chance to know you."

"Hey, Miss Parker!" Debbie chirped and then swooped in for a hug from one of her favorite people. "About time you got here."

"Hey yourself," Parker responded with a tight hug. Rene grinned at me, and I could see that her assessment of the new arrival was so far a positive one.

"Rene and I've been talking - sit down and join us," Debbie pleaded, pulling at the woman.

"I'd love to, but I don't want Jacob to feel..." Parker turned and checked on the toddler, who seemed very contented and still fascinated with Sydney for the moment and now had Broots talking to him too.

"He's fine, Parker," I soothed her. "Sydney will take good care of him, you know that."

"Jacob?" Debbie gazed up at her friend in confusion.

"My little brother," Parker told her, then looked at Rene. "I figured since this was a regular family reunion of sorts, I'd bring him. He doesn't get to come to such things often..."

Rene looked over at Sydney and then back at Parker, grinning in mischief. "Besides, Sydney could use all the practice with little kids he can get anyway, don't you agree?"

"I..." I could see Parker beginning to smirk at the idea, and then she chuckled aloud. "You gotta admit she has a point, Cathy," she finally said to me.

"Do any of you see me objecting?" I replied, throwing my hands up in mock surrender.

"No, but I see you're wearing that caftan again." This time it was Parker's turn to grin at me with her grey eyes twinkling in mischief.

"Oh, don't you start..."

"She didn't want to buy it the day I took her shopping for maternity clothes," Parker leaned toward Rene confidentially, "but I could see that she loved it. So I just made sure it came home with her anyway. And now I rarely see her in anything else..."

Rene looked up at me and laughed out loud at the idea of my needing to be talked into buying such a garment, Debbie giggled at this continuation of a favorite family in-joke, Parker smirked at me again, and even I had to smile.

After that point on, the afternoon seemed to just fly by. Parker brought in a collection of toys from her car for little Jacob when he got tired of having Sydney hold him. Broots and Sydney began one of their many chess games at the dining table with Jacob playing with his cars and planes noisily around them or at their feet. We girls settled in either the kitchen or on the patio outside - the arcadia door was opened and only the screen prevented the springtime insect world from invading the kitchen without barring the fresh air and scent of flowers from Sydney's rose garden. One or more of us would be puttering with food preparation for the meal to come while the others sat and chatted.

Ultimately, Rene and Parker ended up outside on the lawn chairs talking quietly while Debbie and I stayed behind in the kitchen. Once Jacob had located his sister outside, he wanted out too - and his cries of sheer delight at having a whole big backyard to run and play in even brought Sydney and Broots from their game to watch for a bit. The fresh air and exercise had an effect on Jacob eventually, though, and when he crashed it was on Parker's lap as she continued in her discussion with Rene. The sight of the three-year-old curled up on Parker's lap with a thumb in his mouth, fast asleep, caused me to summon the men again and point it out to them. I led them to the arcadia door with a finger to my lips so their being made privy to the moment could remain a secret, and then smiled when Sydney put his arm around me and whispered into my ear, "Quite the family we have here, Cat..." I wrapped my arm around his waist and held him back

Later on, Sydney and Broots took a break in their game to move outside and start the grill. Jacob roused on his sister's lap when the sizzle and savory smells from the cooking meat became tantalizing. Broots lifted the boy up and carried him over so that he could observe from a safe distance while his "Unkoh" tended the meat, getting a gentle lecture about the fire being hot and dangerous from both men.

Dinner was almost ready when I heard the doorbell ring. Setting Debbie to finishing with the garlic bread, I wiped my hands on a towel and went to answer it - and gaped. Looking just as if he'd just stepped out of the frame on Sydney's mantle, Nicholas Stamatis smiled at me as he looked me up and down, his eyes eventually landing first on the bulge in my stomach and then back on my face. "You must be my father's Cathy."

"And you must be my husband's Nicholas," I grinned back and pulled him into the house and into a hug. "My God - we weren't expecting you before May."

"I ended up having to come to Dover unexpectedly and thought I'd drop by for a little bit." The young man looked around the house, hearing the sounds of happy voices coming from the back. "I'm not interrupting, am I?" Yes, this was most definitely Sydney's son - he had Sydney's eyes and tone when he was unsure of things.

"You're not interrupting at all - as a matter of fact, you couldn't have picked a better time to come," I assured him and laced my hand into the crook of his elbow. "C'mon. We've got enough food here to feed an army - another place at the table isn't going to hurt us at all." I dragged him through the house and out the arcadia door. "Sydney, just look what showed up on our doorstep..."

"Hi, Dad," Nicholas said softly.

"Nicholas!" Sydney cried and set the meat fork aside to rush forward and throw his arms around his son. "What a wonderful surprise! How..."

"I had to come to Dover to handle a small matter for the university, and I came a day early so I could stop by here and at least visit a bit." Nicholas pounded his father on the back heartily. "I didn't expect to end up crashing a party..."

"Nonsense - you couldn't have picked a better time," Sydney was now positively glowing. "I see you've already met my Cat - Cathy - so let me introduce you to the others." I summoned Debbie from the kitchen so that she too could be introduced, and saw how she turned coy and almost shy at the sight of such a handsome younger man. Sydney then introduced first Rene and then Parker with a look of very paternal pride - and Parker in turn introduced her little brother. Jacob immediately lifted his arms so that this new and tall man could hoist him in the air - which Nicholas did with an easy laugh and a high swing that had the little boy squealing in glee. Finally he shook hands with Broots, who had taken over the meat-tending duties while Sydney performed his introductions.

I looked around the backyard with real contentment. THIS was our family - and quite a case of “yours, mine and ours” it was. There was only one missing face, as far as I was concerned - and I suddenly wished with all my heart that by some twist of fate, Jarod could find his way to our doorstep too that day. Peanut moved inside me, and I knew that she was feeling my contentment and my longing. Suddenly I was so very tired - tired of all the things that were preventing these people I'd come to love so much from being the family I'd come to want more than almost anything in the world.

Parker saw me massage the top of my belly and then turn back to the kitchen, and she followed me. "Are you OK?" she asked with a gentle touch on my shoulder.

"Of course I am, my dear," I turned to her, realizing that if I wanted to speak to her at all, now was the time. We were alone, and there was no pressure. "I... was just wishing..."

"What?" She pulled out a kitchen chair and steered me into it carefully, as if she thought I was suddenly fragile.

"I really do need to talk to you, and I don't know how to begin," I finally admitted with a futile wave of the hand.

"Just say it," she suggested as she sat down with me. "Sometimes being direct really can be the best way."

"Alright," I said, then paused to try to put my thoughts into a coherent statement. "I know I may be stepping where I'm not welcome here - and you're welcome to tell me if I am - but I have to wonder..."

"Cathy," she ground out in mild exasperation, "for God's sake, just spit it out."

I took a deep breath. "You know how Sydney feels about you..."

I knew their relationship over the past months had grown quite close - something Sydney had very quietly rejoiced over. "Yes..." Her brows furled, she wasn't following my train of thought yet.

"And you know how he feels about Jarod?"

The beautiful grey eyes grew just a little wary. "I have a fair idea," she admitted carefully. "He did raise him, after all..."

I nodded. "So the question comes down to whether or not, if the situation ever occurred, you would be willing to..."

"Look away?" she asked quietly.

"Not exactly," I replied. "Jarod is a part of this crazy family too, Parker, as much as you are. Now I know that you and Sydney and Broots used to be working on bringing him back to the Centre, but..."

Parker gave me a sharp look and then sighed. "How much has Syd told you - about Jarod, about what we used to do for the Centre?" she asked suddenly.

"Most all of it now." I made my voice as non-judgmental as I could.

I was certain my answer - and the fact that I seemed unfazed by what she was alluding to - wasn't what she'd been expecting. "Then you know that the hunt for Jarod has been suspended - that we've all been reassigned?"

"Yes," I admitted as I looked down at my hands, and then took a deep breath and looked her straight in the eye. "But that's only because there has been no clue to Jarod's whereabouts, correct?"

"Right." I could see she was starting to catch on, for she drew closer to me and whispered, "My God, Cathy! Have YOU seen or heard from him?"

I continued to look her straight in the eye. "What if I said I had?"

That shocked her into silence. If Sydney hadn't told me what he knew of the history between Jarod and Miss Parker, I don't think I would have caught the very fleeting expression of hurt and...was it jealousy?...that flit behind those calm grey eyes at the news. "Does Syd know?" she asked further, her voice very soft.

What I really needed to ask her would answer her question, and with that I knew the time had come to lay my cards on the table. "What would you do, Miss Parker, if one day you came here to visit and he was here already - or if he came while you were here?" She looked at me in shock, and I pressed on firmly. "Would you pull your gun and haul him back to the Centre... in front of me, or peanut, or Rene?"

"Cathy..."

I looked at her as steadily as I could. "Just answer the question. What would you do?"

"I honestly don't know," she finally admitted, sitting back and looking back at me with eyes that were vulnerable and hurt. "By all rights, my job would be to take him back in - but..." She ran her fingers through her hair in what looked like frustration as she too needed to search for the right way to say things. "The truth is that we were good friends when I was young, and then... things changed... I changed. But no matter how badly I treated him, he didn't give up on me, until the day that he just... stopped... being there. I don't know if Sydney knew, but he used to call me at home late at night..." She looked at me guiltily. "And I didn't always report the calls like I was supposed to. My world was slowly imploding then, and sometimes it was because Jarod would tell me things... He hasn't called me in a very long time." She sighed and looked out the arcadia screen at the group outside. "I miss him sometimes."

I put out my hand to grasp one of hers. "I'm not surprised. If it helps at all, he still speaks fondly of you, and with some regret for your lost friendship."

"But why doesn't he call anymore?" she asked plaintively. "What did I do?"

"I honestly don't know, sweetheart," I soothed. "Maybe, if you could let this house be a sort of neutral territory - where the Centre can't touch any of us, and that damned hunt doesn't exist - you might get a chance to ask him someday."

I saw a faint glimmer of hope flash in her glance before Debbie came through the screen door to go back to her garlic bread with little Jacob trailing along in search of his sister. "Sissy, you OK?" the little boy asked as Parker hauled him up into her lap. His little hands stroked her face gently. "Not sad?"

"No, Jakie. I'm not sad," Parker told him, pulling him close and dropping a sweet kiss onto the top of his head as her grey eyes spoke eloquently to me. I smiled at her and nodded faintly, knowing that this was as close as I was going to get to a definitive answer for now. I knew better, and I knew I knew better. I had done what I could now and would have to be content with leaving it at that until the situation actually arose.

"Aunt Caffy," Jacob continued, now looking at me, "Unkoh Sydney said the meat's ready soon."

I smiled at our little messenger. "And you're a good boy to remember what Uncle Sydney told you. You want to help me set the table?"

"Can I?" he turned in his sister's arms in excitement.

"Go for it," his sister urged him with a wide smile to me. "I'll help Debbie get the rest of the food served up."

I got to my feet and headed for the cupboards. "Here, Jacob. You bring the napkins, while I bring the silver." Together we got the table set, with Jacob learning quickly from the example I gave him and then copying it at each place. Sydney brought the platter with the steaks into the table just as we finished, and the family - OUR family - quickly gathered round.

~~~~~~~~

After the dinner had been cleaned away, the entire group had headed for the living room, where Sydney had built a nice fire in the fireplace to keep us toasty while we all sat around and talked. Sydney and I ended up at one end of his long leather couch - I had landed there after supper with a tired little boy while the other girls cleaned. I think I will always hold dear the expression on Jacob's face as he felt the baby move in my stomach and suddenly understood there was another whole person there. When Sydney finally sat down next to me after building the fire, Jacob had crawled into his "Unkoh's" lap - which was far more roomy and comfortable than his Aunt's - and promptly fallen fast asleep. Debbie had sprawled on the floor in front of the fire after helping pick up Jacob's toys, with her father in one easy chair and Parker in the other. Nicholas and Rene had eventually found the other end of our couch.

Eventually, however, Broots had packed Debbie home so she could rest before school the next day, and Parker had carefully rescued Sydney from a dead to the world Jacob after giving my husband a very fond peck on the cheek for his patience with the boy. "Feel free to bring him anytime, Parker," Sydney told her when he escorted them to the door, then gave Jacob a gentle kiss and Parker a fond and tight hug before letting her escape completely.

Rene helped me make up a bed on the living room couch for Nicholas, and then spoke quietly to Sydney recommending that he take me to bed before I fell in. I got a very nice hug from Nicholas, of whom I could tell I would quickly grow fond, and then let my husband put his arm around me and help me up the stairs. Rene turned out the lights behind us, then claimed her own hugs and kisses before disappearing back into the office for the night.

"Are you feeling OK?" Sydney asked in concern as I let out a tired sigh and sat down on the edge of the bed. "You didn't wear yourself out too much today, did you? You did an awful lot, Cat..."

I rubbed the tight bulge that was our peanut and sighed as she boisterously tumbled yet again into my bladder. "I'm tired, yes - but happy," I answered him. "I don't think this house has been this full for a very long time."

Sydney chuckled. "We were quite a mob today, weren't we?" I could see that he was still glowing from the comaraderie of the day, and I held out a hand to him.

"We have a rather large family between us now, my love. You've become quite the patriarch." I drew him down next to me and put his hand on the active bulge that was our bounding peanut. "But I think Peanut and I have just about had all the excitement we need for a while."

He spread that big hand of his across my tummy and put his other arm around me and pulled me into a gentle embrace. He was quiet for a very long time, just holding me very close. I knew his heart was full, and he was still absorbing the very real family ties - real and created from whole cloth - that had been coalescing all around us and him that afternoon and evening. Rene had felt no reservation about calling him “Dad” in front of everyone, and Debbie had suddenly picked up on little Jacob's calling him "Uncle" and me "Aunt" - much to Parker's and Broots' amusement. I wondered briefly if he had noticed how Rene and Nicholas had gravitated together as the evening had worn on - and decided to just let things take their own course without comment.

"It all seems like a dream sometimes," he said softly into my hair eventually. "I keep having this nightmare that I wake up and find that all of this was nothing but my imagination playing cruel tricks on me. My idea of Hell, lately, is that everything that makes my life worth living for me now is a fantasy and you nothing more than the memory of a research subject for whom I did the final interview." His arm tightened around me. "I've spent my whole life wishing for something like this - I don't think I could live without you anymore, Cat. I don't think I'd want to."

I felt our peanut push gently into her father's hand, like she did most nights when he held her that way, and I put my head on his chest. "I don't think I could live without you either, my love," I told him gently. "You are my life now, my world."

"God, I love you!" He bent his head so that his lips could capture mine in a sweet and loving kiss that touched me to my soul and then let me go so I could get ready for bed. After helping me get into my nightgown, he climbed into bed next to me and pulled me to him so that my head was pillowed on his chest and he could hold both me and our peanut. His hand at my back moving slowly up and down my spine was soothing, helping tired muscles relax - and the sound of his heart and breathing beneath my ear was incredibly calming to me. I could feel the baby gently pressing against her father's hand. It was an incredibly tender and very private moment for the three of us.

Yes, Spring HAD come to Delaware - and there was the promise of sweet fruit to follow the blossoming. Fragments of family had been drawn together and forged into a whole that was stronger than any of us had expected, with a possibility of that family finally being whole sometime in the future.

I don't think I'd ever been so happy in my life as I was falling asleep safe and secure in my husband's arms that night.

Research Subject - by MMB

Chapter 6: The Turn In The Road


I could remember that many years ago, my grandmother had had a saying that went, "It's a very long road that doesn't have a turn in it somewhere." She had always applied that saying to the way the events of life would seem to go along in one mode for a long time, only suddenly to shift and change mode very quickly. As the end of Spring drew close, I found myself hearing my grandmother's voice in the back of my mind - almost as if she was warning me that my life was going to be going through a change soon.

Not that my life hadn't already taken a drastic turn seven and a half months ago. I'd first come to Delaware to be part of a psychological research project having to do with the effects of one twin surviving the other, only to meet and fall in love with Sydney, the psychiatrist running the study. As a result of finding myself pregnant six weeks later, I was no longer a disillusioned divorcee with a grown daughter in med school and few friends to speak of otherwise. Now I was happily married to a wonderful and caring man with a baby on the way and a warm cocoon of grown children and semi-adopted grown children and dear friends around me. I'd moved from the Midwest to a tiny Delaware beach community, and had gone from being disillusioned to actually allowing myself to dream again.

And such dreams I was having now! So often I would dream of happy and loving times with the little dark-haired daughter that was currently finding the confines of my belly increasingly restrictive. And when I didn't dream of my husband and baby, I would dream of the grown family that had coalesced around Sydney and myself - of Rene, my daughter, and of Nicholas, his son. Added to them were the Broots' - both Broots and his teenaged daughter Debbie - and the other “children” Sydney had helped raise and now we treated as our own, Parker and Jarod. Parker had a three-year-old brother, Jacob, whom she now regularly brought over to our house on weekends and whom we adored.

But my fondest dream - the one genuinely I feared would always remain a dream and never become reality - was that all of our family would one day sit around Sydney's dining table AS a family. Within that dream lay my secret wish that one day we'd be able to overcome the obstacles that had obliged us so far to enjoy our family piecemeal with always one member or another missing for one reason or another. Chief among those obstacles stood the poisonous hunt for Jarod that technically had never entirely been abandoned by the Centre despite Jarod's apparently complete disappearance. Because Miss Parker had been in charge of that hunt and was technically still under orders to bring him back to the Centre at all costs, Jarod had never been free to visit us when there was a chance she might show up.

Of late, however, I had cautiously begun acting as go-between, passing simple messages back and forth between Jarod and Miss Parker on those rare occasions that he did come to visit us in the evenings. Despite the present situation, Jarod and Miss Parker had once been fast friends - and neither was really content with the way things stood between them now. Because I had opened my big mouth and, evidently, opened a window between them that had long been shut and locked, they were hesitantly beginning to communicate again. That, in itself, was a big step, according to Sydney.

Finally, my late mid-life pregnancy had been almost a textbook example of health - at least it had been until my latest appointment, when the doctor noted that my blood pressure had climbed significantly. For a change, I was sent on my way with strict instructions to absolutely stay off my feet and not do any physical activity at all other than walk from one resting spot to the next from now on and to avoid stress whenever possible. He'd also issued a stern warning that if my blood pressure didn't quit rising by the next week's exam, it would mean that I'd end my pregnancy flat on my back in a hospital bed.

I didn't tell him that I had been preparing for another houseguest for most of the morning, and that perhaps my raised blood pressure had been due to my excitement at heading for the airport to pick up Nicholas right after my appointment. The look on my husband's face as we left the examination room told me that he was going to see to it that the doctor's orders were followed to the letter, however, and that he wouldn't be hearing any of my arguments otherwise. His hand at my elbow on our way out to the car was very protective, very solicitous.

Still, I didn't let the doctor's warnings keep me from walking into the airport to meet Nicholas' flight. When he caught sight of us past the security gate, his face broke open into a full and even-toothed grin of good humor that was so much like his father's that my heart gave a big thump in my chest. Then he was with us, embracing Sydney tightly and thumping his father heartily on the back, and then giving me a more careful and measured but no less hearty hug of my own. "Looks like I waited about as long as I could have to have my visit. How far along are you again?" he asked in a gently teasing tone as he eyed my expanded waistline.

"Stop that," I chuckled back at him and put my hands on the top of the hard bulge that was our peanut. "I'll have you know that I've still got six weeks or more. So you won't have to worry about competing for my time as yet."

"There isn't going to be a whole lot competing for your time at all anymore," Sydney told me very firmly, surrounding my shoulders with his sheltering arm. "Nicholas, you and I are going to make sure that Cat doesn't need to lift a finger from now on. Her doctor wants her to have complete rest for the rest of the way through this - and that's what she's going to have."

"Fine with me," the young man nodded agreeably. "Why don't you take her to go sit down over there," he pointed to a set of seats, "while I get my luggage? There's no need for her to get tired out on her feet standing around waiting for me."

Sydney nodded and directed our steps toward the seats. I have to admit that by the time we were seated, I was ready to sit down. "Are you alright?" he asked in concern when evidently my face showed my discomfort.

"Just a little tired," I reassured him with a pat on his hand before it went around my shoulders again. "Remember, my love, I'm just pregnant, not broken."

"You may not be broken, but you're definitely going to be out of commission for the time being for your own good and that of our peanut. I think I'll have to ask Broots if Debbie would like to earn some extra money on weekends doing some light housekeeping for you," he held me just a bit tighter. "And you aren't going to be doing a lot of cooking either..." His eyebrows climbed when he saw my look of dismay. "You forget - I'm not exactly untalented in the kitchen myself. I seem to remember a certain pot of stew that went over very well one cold, winter night..."

I smiled and leaned into him, enjoying the feeling of his arms wrapping themselves around me as much as I ever did. He was right - the stew he had made on what had turned out to be our very first night together had been delicious. And if Nicholas showed half as much skill in the kitchen as his father did, we certainly wouldn't be starving anytime soon. "I just hate to have you come home from work all tired and still have to turn around and cook when I'm home all day," I complained, knowing that he was expecting at least a token discussion. The truth was that I wasn't as unhappy at being required to take it easy as he thought. The past few days and that morning had been very wearing - something Sydney didn't need to know. His work was stressful enough that he didn't need to be worrying about me too.

"I did that for years before I found you and let you spoil me, Cat," he reminded me gently, then rose and helped draw me back to my feet as Nicholas began to approach with suitcases in hand. "And I happen to know that there are some very fine places to eat in Blue Cove that do deliver." Then he held out a hand for one of the suitcases while keeping the other wrapped around me. "Let's get you home," he told his son.

Nicholas moved to my other side and settled my other elbow into the palm of his free hand. "That sounds like a plan, Dad." We walked along slowly, both men letting me set the pace. "By the way, Mom sends her greetings."

"How is she?" I wasn't surprised that Sydney would ask this - better than anyone else, I knew how much Michelle had meant to him years ago, and that he still felt some fondness for her. I knew I owned his heart completely and carried his child now, so I didn't begrudge the little bit of fondness this interest indicated.

"She's doing fine - working up at the State Hospital now." I could see Nicholas watching my reaction, so I kept my face very neutral. After all, I couldn't deny that Sydney had had a life before I'd come along that included his mother in a big way - and I didn't want Sydney's son to feel uncomfortable speaking of someone so important to his life in front of me.

"Is she still seeing that lawyer... what was his name... Pat?" Sydney pointed across the parking lot in the direction we had left our car.

"Pete - and yes, she is. As a matter of fact," I saw Nicholas glance at his father assessingly now, "I think it's getting serious between them."

"Does that bother you?" I asked the younger man curiously.

"Not really," he replied. "I'd like to think that Mom wouldn't pull herself into a hole after Da... George died."

"He was your Dad too," Sydney reminded his son in a tone that made it clear that this wasn't an issue for him. "You called him “Dad” all your life - you don't have to trip over it just because I'm around."

"I know," Nicholas actually blushed slightly. "It's just..."

"You do whatever feels right, Nicholas," I told him as we approached the car and I heard the automatic locks being opened and the trunk popped. "Maybe you should consider yourself lucky that you've had two Dads."

I could see in a fleetingly startled glance at me that he'd be thinking about what I said for a while. "Anyway," he continued, handing over his other suitcase to be stowed, "for a while, I was kinda hoping that she and Dad would try again, but Mom just never really did anything to encourage anything between them. I think she was still plenty leery about the Centre and his still working there - and still is leery, for that matter."

"I don't blame her," Sydney remarked tightly, handing me into my place in the passenger seat. "There are times I wonder myself why I'm still working there - especially now."

"Let's talk about something else," Nicholas decided as he settled into the seat behind me. "How's Rene doing in her school, Cathy?"

I smiled, as I always did when talking about my daughter the almost-doctor. "She's doing well, thanks, and almost half-way through her pre-med. courses. She's talking about coming home for a while in August to help me out with the baby when she gets here."

"Really?" he asked, sounding definitely interested. My smile got wider. I remembered that when Rene had been with us a month or so ago, and Nicholas had dropped by unexpectedly for an overnight visit, the two of them had struck up an immediate liking for the other. I glanced at Sydney as he settled himself behind the wheel and found him glancing back at me. Obviously our thoughts had run immediately in the same direction because his smile was as pleased and amused as I figured mine was.

"Really," I replied. "I suppose if you wanted to stop by sometime while she's here..."

Nicholas was a sweet young man, and I should have been ashamed at myself for having made him blush the way I did. I knew better. I knew I knew better. But at seven and a half months pregnant, my options for exercising my mischief were limited.

"I just might do that," he warned with a chuckle when he saw that the both of us were smiling.

I settled back into my seat with a happy sigh, and I could see the contentment on my husband's face as he drove us back to Blue Cove. This was the first time his son had actually come to Delaware to stay with him for any uninterrupted length of time since the two had found each other, with another visit possibly in the offing already. For Sydney, this would be a precious opportunity to finally connect with and get to know his son better. For me, it would be a time to stand back and watch my beloved husband work to become a father to another of his children, knowing that our peanut couldn't help but benefit from the experience.

~~~~~~~~

I think I surprised my husband when I didn't argue with him at all when he informed me that I needed to take a rest on the couch before dinner - and that he and Nicholas would be taking over my kitchen for the time being. I walked into the living room and moved the pillows on the couch around so that I'd be comfortable while he escorted his son up to the office/spare bedroom. I was just settling down when he came back down the stairs and over to me immediately, sitting down next to me. "You look pale, Cat. Are you alright?"

"Don't fuss so, Sydney," I soothed, catching a hand between my own. "I'm fine - just more tired than I thought I'd be."

He bent forward and kissed my lips very softly. "Then you sleep. I know exactly what you were intending to prepare for supper, and I think I have the job covered."

"I'm sorry I'm not more help to you tonight," I caressed his soft cheek.

"Hush," he told me gently in that voice that could turn my knees to water sometimes. "The time has come for us to do for you for a change. Don't apologize. You just take good care of yourself and our peanut - that's all I want you to do from now on." He smoothed my hair back with one of those huge and gentle hands of his. "Close your eyes now."

How could I refuse him when his stroking my hair was like a natural sedative? He stayed next to me for a while, I'm sure, because I don't remember him getting up and leaving me to sleep while he fixed the supper I'd managed to get half-prepared before leaving for Dover much earlier. I must have been more tired than I had given myself credit for, because I didn't rouse again until Nicholas was gently shaking my shoulder and telling me that supper was served. He came around the end of the couch and offered a hand to help me get myself in an upright position and then pull myself to my feet.

"I hope my visit isn't going to tire you out too much," he worried into my ear as his hand found my elbow again.

"Nonsense," I reassured him, "I just did a little more than I should have this morning. I'll be back to my own feisty self in the morning - you'll see."

"Yeah? Well you'll be a very quiet feisty, if you please," he smiled down at me with Sydney's wide smile. "Dad has made me responsible for “making you behave,” as he put it, when he's not here."

"Did he now?" I smiled back. I'd have to have a word with my husband - he knew I'd have very little defense against a personable and gentle young man that looked so much like he had when he was younger, and he was taking advantage of that knowledge.

"There you are," Sydney beamed at me as I came into the kitchen and sniffed the air appreciatively. "Hungry, I hope."

"Our peanut's the glutton," I told him as I patted the tight and huge bulge in my middle that was our child and then slipped into my place at the table. "But this does smell very good. It's nice to have a man cook a nice meal for me for a change." I gave him a mischievous grin. "I could get very used to this."

And with that auspicious beginning, the men sat down to join me at a very tasty and filling meal during which the conversation was light and amicable. Sydney got Nicholas talking about his current teaching job at a small community college in upstate New York. I kept my mouth shut and listened as the two men discussed teaching techniques and approaches to take with problem students. I did ask a couple of questions when the discussion moved in a direction I wasn't familiar with, so that I could at least understand what they were talking about.

Sydney and I had discussed psychiatry and his current projects at the Centre often and in depth and occasionally chemistry the same way. But it wasn't until I listened to him talk teaching with his son that I could appreciate just how dedicated he must have been as a mentor to Jarod years ago. I could tell that he was striving to give Nicholas the benefit of his experience in working with Jarod - processes that had worked and those that had bombed spectacularly, as well as his assessment of why one had worked and the others hadn't. Nicholas had evidently been working at the college long enough to be able to respond with experiences and assessments of his own.

I have to admit that over that dinner table I heard teaching techniques discussed in the kind of detail that few people outside the profession ever did. I was also listening very closely at times when I would begin to hear methods and approaches to teaching that might benefit Debbie and her friends when they would come to me for Chemistry tutoring.

All too soon, as far as I was concerned, I knew that I'd used up all the energy I had gained back during my nap. "Now you two don't worry about me," I told them as Sydney immediately rose as if to escort me up the stairs. "I've been navigating this house just fine by myself for months now. You stay and talk with Nicholas - I'll just say my goodnight's now."

"Goodnight, Cathy," Nicholas rose as I did and then bent to deposit a very sweet kiss on my cheek. "Sleep well."

"You too," I returned the gesture and smiled up at my husband's very handsome son. "Sydney," I stretched up to kiss him on the lips and was rewarded by a warm and protective hug.

"I'll be up in a while, then," he told me. "You sure you're OK?"

"Yes!" I exclaimed and kissed him again. "I didn't have you pegged as such a worrier, my love."

"Only when it comes to you and our daughter," he replied as he put a gentle hand on the taut bulge and then looked at me with eyebrows raised as he could feel his child tumbling madly. "Has she been this active all day?"

I nodded. "I think she's just about worn me out."

His hand smoothed over my swollen belly and caressed his daughter and, as it never seemed to fail, the baby ceased her random acrobatics and calmed right down to push into her father's hand. I saw Nicholas watch the two of us with eyebrows raised in interest, and then he stepped closer. "Do... Do you think I could...?" he asked shyly.

"Of course you can. She's your half-sister, after all," I told him, taking his hand in mine and guiding it to where Sydney's hand had been before. The little imp evidently had decided she liked her big brother almost as much as her father, because although she twitched mischievously into my bladder once just to let me know that she wasn't done with me yet, she pushed a few times gently into Nicholas' hand too. Nicholas' eyes widened, and his smile at the sensation reminded me so much of the expression his father had worn the first time he'd felt his child move.

"I..." he began, obviously moved, then looked at me with glowing dark honeyed eyes that were so much like his father's that the resemblance was uncanny. "Thank you. That means a lot to me."

"It means a lot to the both of us that you're here," I told him with as much feeling as I could. "The house always feels happier when more of the family is home." It was true. While Sydney and I were very contented when it was just the two and a half of us, having any part of the rest of the family around us was a treat that neither of us could resist.

Nicholas smiled and actually blushed a little bit as he moved aside to let me through. "Goodnight, again."

"Goodnight," I waved to the both of them and made my way slowly down the hallway to the stairs. I was so tired that I didn't even bother to listen to them resume their discussion. It was enough for me to do to put one foot in front of the other and drag myself up those stairs to our bedroom.

~~~~~~~~

I was so soundly asleep that I barely heard the telephone ring late that night. Sydney let go of me and rolled away from my back to turn on the night lamp and answer it. Rolling to my back and squinting against the abrupt explosion of light in such a dark room, I heard him mumble his habitual, "This is Sydney..." obviously still half-asleep. But then I heard him draw in a sharp breath and struggle to wake up quickly as he propped himself up on an elbow and demanded in a concerned tone, "Who is this?" He paused, listening for a moment, then drew in his breath sharply again. "Rene? Calm down, cheri, I can't understand you..."

Rene? I rolled up onto my elbow against his back behind him. "Sydney?" I asked, now worried. I reached across his shoulder for the phone, but he shook his head at my gesture.

"Rene? What? Who is this?" he paused. "This is Dr. Sydney Greene... What?" He listened again. "No, I'm her step-father. What's happened?" His voice was brisk, professional - deeply worried. He listened again for a long time, then pushed himself up and rolled his feet off the edge of the bed as he continued to listen and nod. "I understand. I can be there in about five hours," he was saying suddenly. "Let me get my arrangements in order, and I'll be on my way."

"Sydney!" Something must be very wrong for him to be leaving to go to Rene's side in the middle of the night. "What's happened?" I reached for the phone again. "Rene..."

"Thank you, doctor. I'll see you in a few hours." He hung up the phone and then turned to me. "Sweetheart, Rene's been hurt. She was calling from the hospital."

I think my heart stopped for a moment. "My baby!"

I struggled to sit up too, but he twisted on the bed and put his arms around my front and pushed me back into my pillows. "No! You need to stay here, Cat. I'll go - and I'll bring her back with me."

"What's happened to her?" I demanded, propping myself up on my elbows again the moment he turned to stand up.

He turned to me, and those dark honey eyes were the most awful mixture of rage and worry that I'd ever seen from him. "From the sounds of it, someone tried to use her as a punching bag."

I fell back into my pillows, shocked, and I think my heart skipped another beat or two. "Oh my God! Jake!"

Sydney was moving quickly and efficiently, throwing on clothing and then reaching for the telephone again. He dialed, then waited. "No, Parker, it's Sydney and it's an emergency. I need you to order the Centre jet for me - I need to get to Rochester, Minnesota right away. It's Rene - she's been attacked and is in the hospital." He listened, then nodded. "Three sweepers ought to do it. I'll call Joe myself and get him over here now - and Nicholas is here, so..." He nodded again. "Thanks, Parker. We both owe you."

He pushed the button so that he could get the dial tone again and dialed another number. "Joe? Sydney. Look, I'm sorry to awaken you at this horrible hour, but we've had a bit of emergency here. I need you to come over right away and be with Cathy - I have to leave immediately to meet the jet at the airstrip." He listened, then nodded again. "Good. I think I can hold off until you get here. Thanks!"

"Sydney!" I'd never seen him behave quite like this before - very take-charge and dynamically moving aside all obstacles. He was always so soft-spoken, gentle - I had forgotten somehow that he could also be a powerful man, and one perfectly capable of steamrollering any person who unwisely got in the way.

He walked around the end of the bed, slipping his suspenders over his shoulders, then sat down next to me and took my hands in his. "Listen to me now, Cat. I'm going to Rochester to get Rene and bring her home to us," he told me gently. "She's hurt and she's going to need some taking care of for a while. While I'm gone, I want you to do your best not to worry - she's at a hospital right now, and they're treating her injuries and will keep her safe for us until I get there. Miss Parker is going with me - and we're meeting enough sweepers from the St. Paul office to handle any situations we encounter." His voice tightened into barely restrained fury on the last sentence.

Sweepers? One look into his face told me exactly what sweepers were and why they would be present. "Don't go after him..." I began, worried now not only for Rene's health, but Sydney's well being. "Don't hurt him," I clung to his hands tightly. "He isn't worth it. Just leave him be and bring my baby home."

"Cat, I intend to make sure he leaves her alone from now on - one way or another." He was determined, inflexible. "I will not stand aside while a member of my family gets hurt time after time. I'm calling the police if Rene hasn't already - and one way or the other, that man will NOT be hitting his daughter ever again."

"Just don't jeopardize yourself in the process!" I cried, then pulled his hand to my stomach. "I need you; Rene needs you - and our peanut needs you too. And we all need you HERE. So don't give anybody any excuse to..."

His face softened as his hand spread across my belly and caressed his unborn daughter lovingly, and then he bent over me and kissed me ever so gently on the lips to still my stammering. "I'll be careful," he promised, "and I'll be back before you know it with Rene." His huge hand cradled the side of my head. "I have to go wake Nicholas and tell him what's going on now - and you'll need to do the introductions with Joe in the morning - so you just lay back and rest as best you can. I'll call you from Rochester General the moment I know anything, I promise." He kissed me again. "Promise me you'll stay quiet and not do anything, for God's sake!"

I reached up to him, framing his face with my hands. "I'll try, but with you gone and Rene hurt, it's going to be hard until I heard from you."

"I know, Cat." He kissed the insides of my hands and then pushed away from me and rose. "I love you so much. Take care of yourself until I get back." He grabbed his wallet and keys from the nightstand and shoved them into pockets as he headed for the door.

"I love you too," I said to his retreating back. He had to be kidding - there was no way in the world I was going to remain complacently in bed while he prepared to go charging off to my daughter's rescue. I slipped my feet over the edge of the bed and into my slippers, and went to the closet to grab my bathrobe.

By the time I got to the door and had it open, he was on his way out of the office/guest room - and he gave me a disgruntled look. "You aren't going to be able to relax, are you?" he asked, understanding suddenly dawning.

"Would you?" I returned, tying my bathrobe sash where it now fit at the top of my stomach.

"No, I suppose not," he admitted, bending to give me another quick kiss on the cheek, then turned and went down the stairs two at a time when the doorbell rang. I stood at the head of the stairs and watched him let a rather ragged and unshaven Joe into the house. His instructions were brief and to the point: under no circumstances was Lyle to get into the house while he and Miss Parker were gone - and to use force, if necessary, to make sure. Joe nodded somberly, his eyes flitting up the stairs to meet mine, and then nodded again.

I felt Nicholas come up behind me and put a gentle hand on my shoulder. Sydney cast one last look up the stairs and nodded. "Take care of her for me, Nicholas. She means the world to me."

"I will, Dad, don't worry," Nicholas reassured him. "Have a safe trip."

With a last, fond look, Sydney moved past Joe and out the front door. Joe stared up at Nicholas with a slight frown on his face. "This is Nicholas Stamatis," I told my friendly bodyguard, "Sydney's son. Nicholas, this is Joe." The two men acknowledged each other stiffly.

"I think I'll find a soft spot on the couch for the rest of the evening, Cathy," Joe told me with a barely stifled yawn.

"We all need to get our rest," Nicholas agreed and took my arm. "You too, Cathy. Dad wants you to take it easy."

"I'm not going to be able to sleep now," I argued in frustration.

"Maybe not," he pulled at me, "but you could do whatever fussing you intend to in the comfort of your bed, couldn't you?"

"You need your rest, Cathy," Joe added his voice to Nicholas' unexpectedly. "If I know Dr. Sydney at all, he'll have our guts for garters if you wear yourself to a frazzle while he's gone and then something happens to that baby."

"Joe's right," Nicholas fussed at me, actually putting an arm around me and steering me back in the direction of my bedroom. "There isn't much you can do tonight anyway. Dad will call when he gets to Rochester, but that's not going to be for a while now. Until he does, why don't you just lie down and take care of my little sister."

I couldn't glare at my husband's son - the pleading in his eyes was far too much like it would be in his father's. I knew better than to even try - and I knew I knew better. So I sighed defeat. "OK, OK. I give in."

And the smile of triumph that spread across that young man's features was no less his father's either. He let go of me the moment I was past the threshold of my bedroom. "Goodnight, Cathy. Sleep well - if you can."

"You too," I told him before closing the door. I genuinely toyed with the idea of lying down again, but I was now far too awake and alert. I went to Sydney's side of the bed, put out the lamp, then settled myself in the easy chair by the window to stare out into the darkness instead. All I could do was wonder what in the world must have happened to have Jake actually batter Rene badly enough that she'd ended up in a hospital. I must have dozed eventually after one of several bouts of tears of anger and anguish for my oldest daughter. In my dream, the dark-haired daughter I had yet to meet held my hand and did all she could to comfort me, whispering to me that everything would be all right.

I so wanted to believe her...

~~~~~~~~

Our next surprise was the knock on the door bright and early - around eight-thirty in the morning. I didn't recognize the man, so only cracked the door a little when I felt the comforting strength of Joe behind me. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Miss Parker sent me," he announced with no fanfare. "My name's Sam."

"Let him in," Joe said quietly over my shoulder. "Sam's Miss Parker's personal sweeper. She must have felt we needed an extra helping of security this morning."

I unhitched the security chain and opened the door wide to let a perfectly enormous dark-haired man slip gracefully past me into the house. "Joe," he greeted my bodyguard with the familiarity of long acquaintance. Then his sparkling eyes looked me up and down, his brows rising a bit in what I think was surprise when the gaze landed on my stomach. "So you're the mystery wife that Sydney refuses to even discuss at work," he commented in a soft but approving voice.

My lips twitched; my husband must be really determined to keep me and his home life completely separated from the Centre. "Guess so," I replied.

Nicholas descended the stairs toward the sound of our voices, frowning a bit. "What's going on?" he asked in a tone that told me clearly that he'd assumed the “man of the house” position in his father's absence and took his responsibility very seriously.

"Hello, Nicholas," Sam greeted my husband's son with a nod and a smile. "I remember you from a few years back - when you were taken hostage."

Nicholas nodded after thinking for a moment. "I remember your face," he confirmed. "Didn't get a name at the time..."

"Sam," the huge man supplied easily. "Miss Parker sent me along to help keep the home fires secure today. She said she didn't trust that Lyle wouldn't decide to take advantage of both her and Sydney's absence and try to get at Cathy again."

"Maybe you know," I began as I made my way back into the living room and my comfortable spot on the couch with three men trailing behind curiously, "just what it is that Lyle wants with me so badly?"

Sam and Joe exchanged knowing glances, and the newcomer shifted on his feet slightly in discomfort. "Lyle... isn't the kind of person that can be easily understood. He has his own agendas sometimes - and they AREN'T the kinds of things that I'd imagine Sydney would want you mixed up in at all. Even Nicholas here found out the hard way that Lyle isn't exactly the best person to be around."

I looked at my husband's son. "What?"

Nicholas came around the end of the couch and sat down at my feet after I made room for him. "When I was working in the Appalachians, a militia stormed my school and took me and a few other teachers hostage. Lyle found out about it, supposedly “rescued” us and then killed most of the militia. Then he used me as bait for a trap for Jarod, because he'd intercepted a message from my father to Jarod about the kidnapping." He saw my brows furrow. "Of course, Jarod got away - after rescuing me and then scaring the crap out of Lyle."

I gave a dry barking chuckle. "That sounds like Jarod."

"You know Jarod?" Sam asked immediately, his tone concerned.

I shrugged quickly, knowing this to be something that needed a quick and logical explanation to prevent questions later. "Sydney's told me so much about him since we were married, I feel like I know him myself." That much was true, of course. Sam just didn't have to know that I knew Jarod quite well myself. Even Joe didn't know that yet, and I trusted Joe about as far as I could trust any Centre employee not part of my family.

I caught myself thinking those thoughts and cringed inside. In a very small way, by having had to successfully learn to lie by omission, I'd let the Centre begin to exert a subtle influence on even me. That didn't make me happy at all. I was even less happy thinking that this would be the moral example that I'd be setting for my new daughter. This would be something Sydney and I would have to discuss, because I couldn't see myself teaching a child that it was permissible to do such a thing with any regularity.

"So you don't know why Lyle would want me?" I changed the subject back to where it had been.

"It could be a way of trying to get a hook into Sydney - to get him to do something that he so far has been able to avoid doing. He's good at being able to do that unless he feels threatened," Sam suggested with a shrug. "Then again, from what Miss Parker has let slip, it could just be a continuation of the way they've always been keeping Sydney from having anything in his life to care about other than the Centre." He cast a quick glance down at Nicholas. "After all, that's why he didn't know about you for all that time."

"Tell me something?" I looked up at both of the sweepers, who then nodded. "Why do each of YOU still work there, if you both know that such things go on?"

The glance that passed between Sam and Joe was priceless. I don't know that either of them had ever analyzed their careers before that closely. Sam answered first. "I work for Miss Parker - it's just that the Centre issues my paychecks. If it came down to a choice between..." He glanced around the room, and I got the vaguest impression he was worried that he'd be overheard. "If I had to choose the Centre or Miss Parker, I'm Miss Parker's man."

I looked over at Joe - a man who had become like a friend over the months that he'd been at my side during daylight hours. "What about you?" I asked him.

"I don't know anymore," he answered with surprising honesty. "When I first started there, I was just doing bodyguard work - like now. That's how we all start. But I'd hear stories of the kinds of things that others were doing - people like Raines' sweeper Willy - and I'd ask myself if I'd be willing to do some of that if I got orders to. Then I got lucky and got assigned as part of the security staff for the Sim Lab, and that's where I met your husband." He looked down at his hands. "I like Dr. Sydney - he never asked me to do anything questionable, or treated me like a dumb muscleman like so many of the others do. That's why, when he asked me if I'd be willing to come here instead of to the Sim Lab..." He looked me straight in the eye. "I work for your husband, Cathy - and I feel honored that he actually trust me with YOUR safety. As for the Centre, they just give me my paycheck - like Sam. If I had to choose, I'm Dr. Sydney's man."

Oddly enough, I felt even safer now than I had before, knowing that these men were more loyal to my family than they were to their mutual employer. I didn't know that I would ever understand the thinking that would allow all of these people to continue to work for a corporation all of them seemed to detest so much, but I was at least able to feel comfortable under their protection. I reached for my mug of tea that I'd brought with me when Nicholas had insisted that I find a spot on the couch to relax. "Nicholas, maybe Joe and Sam could do with some coffee. Do you mind?"

The young man patted my feet and got to his. "I'm on it," he replied and waved to both men to follow him into the kitchen - Joe for a refill and Sam for a first cup. At least I knew the coffee was palatable, it was the ONLY thing Nicholas had allowed me to make before pointing me into a chair at the table and taking over breakfast.

The telephone began ringing, making me nearly jump out of my skin, and I scrabbled for the cordless handset I'd brought with me to the living room. "Hello?" I answered breathlessly.

"Cat? You didn't run..." Sydney's warm voice answered me immediately.

"No, my love, the phone just startled me. What news of Rene?"

"She's being discharged and getting dressed while we speak. We need to make a side-trip to the police station to file a formal complaint, but then we'll be on the way home again. With luck, we'll be home long before suppertime." I could hear the restrained emotion in his voice - worry for Rene and me, and anger at Jake.

"Where's Jake?" I demanded.

"We don't know yet," he answered tersely. "Miss Parker and her team are currently working on that. I'll wait until I hear from her before actually filing the complaint and demanding an arrest warrant."

"What about Rene? What did he..." I was unable to continue. I looked up and saw that Nicholas had rejoined me and was listening to my end of the conversation closely.

Sydney's sigh spoke volumes. "Two broken ribs, bruises on her arms and face, another black eye and a mild concussion from being slammed into a wall." He was furious, I could tell. "How she managed to drive herself here is beyond me. She's pretty battered and bruised, Cat." Yes, he was furious, but he was also hurting for my daughter who had become a part of his life too. "How are you?"

"Sam is here," I told him gently. "Miss Parker evidently wanted to make sure that things stayed secure on this end while you were gone."

"She told me she'd called him when I met her at the jet," Sydney said, sounding suddenly somewhat distracted. "I have to go, sweetheart - time for me to get the car around for Rene's release. I just wanted to tell you..."

"I love you too, Sydney. Thank you for taking care of Rene for me." I was almost in tears. I felt Nicholas move next to me and put a gentle hand on my shoulder to comfort me.

"I love you too, Cat. We'll be home as soon as we can." He paused as if he wanted to say more, then added. "I love you. Talk to you later."

"Good bye," I said as I heard the line go dead in my ear. I looked over at Nicholas, patiently waiting with an anguished look of his own. "Broken ribs, bruises, a black eye and a concussion..." I told him with fingers to my lips, my whole body beginning to shake.

"Geez," he whispered, shocked, and then moved to sit on the edge of the couch next to me when I couldn't hold back the tears anymore. I cried into his shoulder for my daughter who'd had her father beat her so badly that she'd landed in the hospital. I cried for myself, for having been so foolish as to have actually loved Jake once. The only good thing that man had ever done for me was to give me Rene. I cried because I was in no shape to be there and face the bastard and take my own revenge for all the pain and misery he'd ever done to me and to her. And I cried because, as much as Nicholas was doing his best to comfort me, the arms that I wanted around me were Sydney's, not his son's.

~~~~~~~~

About three o'clock, I roused from yet another nap to the sound of car doors slamming. Behind me, I heard Joe rise from his easy chair and go to the front window, probably to peek out and see whom it was. "Stay put!" he ordered me brusquely. "It's Lyle!"

"Shit!" I heard Sam explode quietly from the other easy chair. "Nicholas - do you know where your father keeps his gun?"

"Yes," the young man said and was heading up the stairs two at a time as the doorbell began to ring.

"You don't move!" Joe ordered me again and put himself between the front door and me.

"Go away, Lyle," Sam said through the wood loudly enough that the man outside could hear him. "You've been told you aren't welcome here - nothing's changed."

I reached out a shaking hand for the telephone handset and dialed 911. I had two husky bodyguards, but I wasn't taking any chances at all. I was in no shape to fight back.

"Sam? Is that you?" I heard Lyle ask in his apparently customary oily tone. "C'mon. All I want to do is talk to her for a bit."

"She doesn't want to talk to you," Sam told the man curtly. "You're trespassing."

"911. State the nature of your emergency," sounded in my ear.

"A man is trying to break into my house. He's been stalking me for months," I told the operator quickly and as quietly as I could. "My name is Cathy Green, I'm at 125 Washington Ave. PLEASE hurry!"

"Just stay on the phone Ms. Green. I'm dispatching a patrol car to you right now."

I heard a crash from the kitchen - the sound of glass shattering - and Joe waved at me to lie flat so that I couldn't be seen on the couch as he took up a protective position against the wall where he could surprise anybody trying to come at me. "Somebody just broke in through my patio door," I told the operator, my voice a little higher in fright.

"Drop your gun, Sam," I heard an unfamiliar voice demand in a lazy and arrogant tone, "and then unlock the front door."

"Willy," I heard Sam say caustically, after which I heard something drop to the floor that was heavy - Sam's gun? "Still terrorizing those who can't fight back, I see."

"Shut up and unlock that door," the unpleasant voice demanded again, moving closer, until I could almost imagine him at the front door himself.

"I don't think so," Joe said softly, and I heard a soft metallic snicking sound that made me catch my breath. I'd never heard a gun actually made ready to fire before - and I knew it would be a sound I'd never forget for as long as I lived. "Your piece," Joe demanded in the most deadly tone I'd ever heard from the man.

In the distance I could hear the wail of a siren. The police were on their way at last.

"Come on, Willy, get this damned door open!" Lyle demanded angrily. "We need to get the woman and get the hell outta here before the cops get here."

I heard the front door open. "I don't think you'll be going anywhere," Sam stated in a cold tone. "I'll take your gun."

At last I felt safe enough to raise my head and look over the back of the couch. The man Sam called Willy was a tall and handsome black man who was now on his knees with his hands laced behind his skull with Joe's gun pressed against the side of his head. Sam had dragged Lyle into the house, leaving the front door wide open, and shoved the angry Parker man to his knees too.

Within minutes, my home was chaos manifest. Two squad cars wailed to a halt in front of the house, the officers approaching the house with their revolvers drawn. I was afraid that they were going to arrest Sam and Joe too until both Nicholas and I made clear that they had been hired as bodyguards for me. Lyle tried to laugh things off and schmooze his way out of trouble until I rose to my feet and pointed at him. "I think he was trying to kidnap me this time."

"Not a great idea, buddy," the officer said as he snapped handcuffs on Lyle and hauled him roughly to his feet. "I take it you'll be in to file a complaint?" he asked me over his shoulder.

"Absolutely," I said, nodding my head vigorously, then clutching at my middle as my entire belly tightened painfully and I started to feel my heart pounding in my ears.

"Cathy?" Nicholas saw my movement and came over to me immediately.

"I've GOT to lie down," I told him, grabbing onto his hand for support, "now!"

"Ma'am? Do you need to go to the hospital?" another officer asked in concern.

I shook my head at him. What I needed was for Lyle and his henchman to be taken out of my home - and for my husband to get home with my daughter. Nicholas put his arm around me and helped me lie down again. Joe muttered something about getting me some water and headed toward the kitchen. Sam crooked his finger at a third officer to follow him back into the kitchen - probably to show him where the arcadia door had been shattered. Nicholas remained at my side, smoothing my hair back and talking softly and gently to me. I closed my eyes and took several very deep breaths and tried to focus on slowing my racing heartbeat down and smoothed my hands over my belly in an effort to let my cartwheeling unborn child know that she needed to ease up a bit on her internal pummeling. Her mom needed a break!

The police were hauling Lyle and Willy out the front door when I heard the one thing I'd been dying to hear all day. "What the hell is going on here?" Sydney bellowed from outside the house, and another set of car doors began to slam.

Nicholas caught me back when I would have flown off the couch. "Don't even think it," he warned me with a worried look. "Let him come to you." He raised his head. "Dad! We're in here."

"Let me sit up!" I demanded and pushed Nicholas back. I twisted myself around so that I could be looking into the hallway when Sydney carefully escorted Rene through the front door. Both Nicholas and I caught our breaths when we saw her face - the damage to her eye had almost swollen the organ shut, and the shiner wasn't the only visible bruise. "Rene!" I whispered and held my hand out to her.

"Mom!" Nicholas moved quickly out of the way so that my baby girl could be brought to me and seated next to me so that I could hold her in my arms. I didn't dare hold her too tightly as I could feel the bindings on her ribs through her blouse.

"You're safe now, poppet," I murmured over and over into her hair as she clung to me and just sobbed. I looked over her shoulder at Sydney, only to see a unified team of Nicholas, Sam and Joe had diverted his attention. They were taking turns filling him in on the excitement that he'd only just missed. By the time they were finished with their disjointed narrative, Miss Parker had come through the front door chortling with perverse satisfaction.

"Who called 911 about a stalker and someone breaking into the house?" she asked those of us who had been here. "Talk about putting a serious kink in the Centre's tail..."

"I did," I answered over my daughter's shoulder. "I was afraid..."

"Did he touch you?" she said when she saw how pale and drawn I was - I'm fairly sure I must have looked at least half as bad as I felt.

"He never even got close to her, Miss Parker," Sam said with a note of pride. "Joe and I, we handled it."

Rene raised tear-filled eyes to meet mine, and I think we both were not at all pleased by the condition of the faces we each saw. But she spoke first. "Mom? What's wrong?"

Sydney heard her and immediately left the others to come over and sit on the coffee table next to me. "Cat?" he asked gently.

"Too much stress today - especially in the last few minutes or so," I answered him briefly, feeling my entire belly tighten up again as it had earlier. I closed my eyes and smoothed my hands across my belly as if that would help the muscles relax, and they finally did.

"I'm calling the doctor," he said and began to rise.

I caught at his hands and dragged him back down. "Not yet. Let me... let me calm down by myself first - and maybe it will go away by itself now that things are more or less back to normal." I felt his fingers lace with mine, and Rene leaned forward into his shoulder so that she didn't lean on me anymore. "Talk to me. Tell me what happened after we spoke on the phone."

"Miss Parker found your ex-husband - drunk and fast asleep behind the wheel of his car in the parking lot of the university, not far from where he attacked Rene." Sydney sounded thoroughly disgusted. "Parker called me, I told the police where he was and proceeded to help Rene file an assault and battery complaint against him. Rene gave her deposition, I told them how to get in touch with us later, and we headed for the airstrip as fast as we could once the police were on their way to arrest him. Miss Parker and her team hung around only long enough to know that the police found him and took him into custody." I watched him wrap a very careful arm around Rene and hold her to him. "She'll have to go back and testify against him at his trial eventually, but..."

"I'm so sorry, Mom," Rene sniffed as her tears began again. "I know you didn't need this right now..."

"Oh, for God's sake," I brushed aside her self-flagellation. "You didn't set out to have your father beat you, poppet..."

"That's what I kept telling her," Sydney said, his hand smoothing up and down Rene's back slowly. "And I made sure the police got called this time," he added as Rene leaned harder into his shoulder. "It seems someone hadn't called them yet."

"Poppet!"

"I didn't get a chance before Dad got there," Rene complained with a sniffle. "I was too hurt to do it right away, and then I wasn't thinking straight..."

Sydney's eyes met mine, and I could see the indulgent disbelief in his gaze. "It's OK, poppet - the important thing is that they did get called eventually this time," I told her, reaching up and letting my hand join Sydney's on her back. "I'm just glad that you're safe and home now with us."

"Say, Dad, I changed the sheets on the bed in the office so that Rene could have some privacy," Nicholas added, sitting down behind Rene. "I figure I can take the couch..."

"Come on, fellas. I think they'd like to have some privacy and quiet time now," I heard Miss Parker say softly to the two sweepers standing in the hallway.

"Parker - thanks for your help," I sat up a little straighter and peeked at her over the top of the couch. "Joe, Sam..." I saw the big men each nod at me.

Miss Parker came over and patted my shoulder. "As long as you're feeling better, I'll take off, that is. If you need to head to the hospital in Dover, however, I'm driving."

I shook my head. "No, I'm better now - no more cramping," I told her. "I'll be fine. But thanks."

"Syd, you CALL me if you need a quick ride to the hospital," she shook her finger at my husband. "Anytime of the day or night, understand? I'm a better driver than you are, and I can get her there faster and safer."

"I promise." Sydney patted Rene gently on the back. "I'm sorry to move you, but I need to let these people go home, cheri."

She sat up so that he could get to his feet and walk Miss Parker and the sweepers to the door. She then looked at Nicholas, a very tired expression on her damaged face. "I hope you don't mind, but if you say that bed is ready, I really would like to lie down for a while. Do you think..."

"Sure. I'll take her up, Cathy," Nicholas rose and put out a supportive hand to Rene, then wrapped an arm around her waist to give her even more support as they walked slowly toward the stairs.

"Thanks again, Miss Parker," Rene called over Sydney's shoulder, then ran her hand down his arm. "I'm going to call it a day, Dad. I hope you don't mind..."

"Here..." Sydney handed Nicholas a prescription bottle from his jacket pocket. "It's about time she took another one of these anyway."

"I'll see you later, Rene," Miss Parker called, and then Sydney shut the door and watched Nicholas escort Rene slowly up the stairs before returning to my side.

"Now," he began, sitting down next to me and taking both my hands in his. "I thought I told you I wanted you to take it easy and just take care of our peanut - not worry yourself into early labor."

"I was doing just fine," I complained, "until Lyle and Willy got here." Now that it was all over - really all over - I was glad to be lying down, for I could feel the beginnings of the shakes all over again. "God, I'm so glad you're here now. I was so scared."

"Calling the police was a stroke of genius," my husband said softly as he gathered me close to him and held me tightly. "Lyle will have a hard time talking his way out of this one."

"I'll need to go down and make a statement..." I reminded him, my arms wound around his neck and hanging on with all my remaining energy. "I told them I would. But I just need..."

"I'll call and make arrangements for you to go down, file the complaint and make a statement..." he told me, "...LATER, after you get a good rest from all the upset and excitement. You're not going anywhere for the time being."

"Just hold me," I told him and then nestled down into his loving embrace and felt his unborn daughter press into her father against where his stomach touched mine. I didn't want to cry, but soon the tears were rolling down my cheeks and into the fabric of his shirt. Everyone I loved was safe - and the relief was almost more than I could bear. "God, Sydney..."

"Shhhhh..." he hushed at me, his huge and gentle hands smoothing down my back now in comforting strokes. "It will all be OK."

I closed my eyes and saw a flash from one of my last dreams from the night before - of my little unborn, dark-haired daughter whispering to me, "It will be all right."

It had been a little touch and go there for a while. But maybe she knew something after all. I had my husband's arms around me again, my grown daughter safely resting upstairs in the safe keeping of Sydney's son for now. And whatever those cramps had been, they had evidently ceased the moment the chaos of the day had begun to abate.

But I now considered myself warned. My long road without a turn in it had just taken a couple of dramatic twists. God only knew where it was headed next.

Research Subject - by MMB

Chapter 7: Neutral Territory


I should have been happy.

I was lying in bed, warm and safe and cradled within my husband's arms like I was almost every night now. But instead of sleeping, I was looking out into the darkness and wondering about our future and the future of our family. Life had dealt us all a few nasty twists and turns in the last twenty-four hours, and I wasn't so sure that it was finished toying with us even yet. Still, everyone I cared for was safe and sound at the moment - Sydney next to me, Rene in the office/guest room, Nicholas downstairs on the couch, Miss Parker and Joe in their homes and Jarod wherever it was that he was doing his good deeds at the moment. I should have been content.

I knew better. I knew I knew better. Stewing did nobody any good whatsoever. I couldn't help it, though - my mind wouldn't stay still, but rather was shifting randomly from memory to worry and back again.

I had spent the latter part of the afternoon in the police station, filing a complaint and having my statement taken regarding Lyle's attempted kidnapping, and then our evening meal just hours ago had been a very subdued affair. Nicholas had taken Sydney's car back into town to bring in Chinese food from a local restaurant so that nobody had to worry about cooking after such a full day. Rene had finally roused and come downstairs just long enough to take three bites of chow mein and nibble on an eggroll before shaking her head and announcing that she was going back to bed. Her independent streak had raised its head at last when she refused either Sydney's or Nicholas' offer to help her get back up the stairs. Nobody had been particularly energetic - I followed her up the stairs not too long afterwards, and I think even Nicholas and Sydney decided to call it a night after finishing cleanup duties after the meal.

I wasn't sure whether it was the pain medication she was on or what, but Rene's mood had slipped badly from its normal brightness. I would have to talk to her in the morning. I knew that the past twenty-four hours had been hard on her, both physically and emotionally. Her relationship with her real father had never been good, and since my marriage to Sydney it had only gotten worse. He had backhanded her and given her a black eye just a few weeks ago when she wouldn't tell him where I was, but Rene hadn't exercised her right to declare him in violation of the restraining order and have him arrested for battery then. She had defended her lack of action to Sydney and myself back then when we told her she should have turned him in, reminding us that he WAS her father.

This time, however, Sydney had been there and convinced her to file charges when Jake had battered her badly enough to land her in the hospital. She was probably questioning her continued loyalty to her father in view of his total disregard for her and her welfare and now open physical and emotional abuse. Conflicting with that, I imagined, were her burgeoning feelings toward Sydney. I knew he had become a father figure she respected and trusted since he consistently treated her as a father should treat a daughter: lovingly - and now, protectively. But to go from there to loving him as if he were her father...

There was yet another side to her distress that I could see would be bothering her: she had been forced to suspend her studies for that semester by her injuries. Two broken ribs, one eye swollen shut and a mild concussion weren't the kind of injuries that one could just shrug off and go back to school with. She had needed to come home where we could take care of her while she healed. But the time needed for that would mean that she'd be at least a term behind where she wanted to be on her path to becoming a pediatrician - and there was a scholarship at stake. I had been too tired myself to discuss this with Sydney before we all had fallen into bed earlier. I hoped that he would have some advice for me - or maybe even talk to her.

Then there was the fact that what should have been an enjoyable visit for Nicholas had turned into something very different. Once more he'd been put in a position of running up against the dark side of his father's work - although this time not as a victim. His concern for Rene since we'd received our late-night phone call for help had been palpable. After the excitement of Lyle's abortive visit and Sydney's return with Rene was over, and while both Rene and I were napping, I know that Sydney had spent some time late that afternoon talking things over with his son. I could see during dinner how he ached to be able to comfort and support Rene the way his father was comforting and supporting me, and I know Sydney saw it too. I'm sure Rene's understandable rejection of help from anybody had stung Nicholas more than she had intended. I regretted not having tried to talk to him myself right away, explaining a little bit of the situation from a woman's point of view so that he COULD help when the time came. I'd have to remedy that situation in the morning too, first thing - and maybe talk to Rene about it as well.

Then had come the call from the Centre just as we were preparing to retire - Mr. Raines was calling Sydney to raise Hell with him for my having dragged the local authorities in on Lyle's abortive attempt to snatch me. I could tell from the look in his eye that Sydney was furious almost immediately at the presumption of the man, but somehow he managed to keep his voice calm. He explained that Lyle's previous attempts to get me at had scared me badly enough that I'd felt the need to call the police - and that none of this would have happened if Lyle had just left me alone to begin with as requested.

He then reminded Mr. Raines pointedly that I had no connection to the Centre and never would - and then told him in no uncertain terms that our daughter and I were to remain unconnected and completely off-limits to Centre manipulation. I could tell from the way Sydney responded to further comments that Mr. Raines was most likely NOT happy about the situation or the ultimatum. His parting comment to the Chairman of the Centre was a suggestion that Lyle and Willy get themselves a good lawyer because stalking and attempted kidnapping were serious offenses, and that even close Centre affiliation wouldn't be able to protect them from the consequences of an unwise obsession this time. And no, I would NOT be withdrawing my formal complaint against either of them.

Finally, I was tired and very concerned about the condition of my pregnancy. The doctor had been right to warn me against allowing myself to become too stressed this late in my pregnancy. When the world had seemed as if ready to fall in on me, I had experienced two very strong cramps within minutes of each other - cramps that Sydney refused to be convinced were anything other than the first sign of early labor. He had barely allowed me to stir from my place on the couch for the rest of the day and then watched over my every movement otherwise like a protective bear. His embrace when we finally had settled into bed together to sleep had been tighter, his hand over his unborn daughter more determined to help keep her in place as long as necessary. Even now, in his sleep, he was holding me tighter than usual. He was worried. So was I. I still had six weeks to go, if all went well.

Our peanut had finally quieted down in the wee hours of the morning, but not until I felt as if I'd been bruised over every internal inch of my torso. She had barely even calmed down to commune with her father, something that had surprised a man who had grown used to being able to influence his unborn child with a simple touch. Later, while I had lain on my side with our peanut ricocheting around her tight and confining womb like a perpetual motion machine, Sydney had climbed in behind me and massaged my back gently. His huge hands were warm and gentle and his touch delightfully soothing at the end of such a topsy-turvy day. I didn't tell him, but with those two hard cramps, I felt as if something had given way inside. I couldn't describe the feeling, but I was nervous, apprehensive. As much as I didn't want to, I decided in those hours of darkness that I needed to call my doctor after all the next morning - just in case.

For the time being, however, I was restless; and my poor pummeled bladder could no longer handle much pressure. I slipped carefully from beneath Sydney's encircling arm and headed into the bathroom. When I was finished, however, lying back down was the last thing I wanted. I was awake - far too awake to try to sleep any longer and unwilling to allow my insomnia to deprive my husband of his needed rest. I walked around to Sydney's side of the bed and sank into the easy chair near the window, as I had the previous night, and stared out into the darkness of the early morning. I rested my hand on my stomach as peanut gave a single sleepy bump of complaint, after which I leaned back against the cushioned wing of the chair to let my mind do its relentless spinning with the rest of my body resting in comfort.

Several long minutes passed peacefully, and then I heard Sydney stir in bed, then stir again as he roused. "Cat?" he called sleepily. "Where are you? Are you all right?"

"I'm over here, my love," I answered his softly. "I'm fine."

He raised up on an elbow in the dim moonlight and followed the sound of my voice to the chair. "What's the matter?" he asked, sleepiness quickly dissolving into concern.

"Nothing. I just couldn't sleep and didn't want to disturb you with my fidgeting."

He sat up a bit straighter on an extended arm. "Is it the baby?"

"No, she's pretty quiet for a change." I sighed. "My mind is just going a million miles a second and I couldn't sleep. Honest. Lie down and go back to sleep."

The man could be just as stubborn as I was. Instead of rolling over and going back to sleep, he pushed his blankets aside and rolled his feet off the edge of the bed to sit up completely. "Do you want me to get you something - some tea, maybe?"

"Sydney, no," I told him with a shake of the head. "I'm fine. Just thinking too much."

He stretched out a bit and captured my right hand in his. "This isn't like you, Cat. Talk to me."

I shifted so that I could use my other hand to pat his. "It's probably just pre-natal jitters." I could see in the dim light that he didn't seem to understand or believe me. I sighed. "So much happened yesterday, my mind is going crazy." He was listening carefully, and his attitude invited me to speak my fears. "Rene is feeling torn because she turned in her father..."

"We talked about that a little bit on the plane, before the pain meds put her to sleep," Sydney told me gently. "She doesn't know how to feel about him anymore - she's deeply hurt that he would abuse her this way and afraid for you if he should ever figure out where you are and come for you. She knows he needs help and that both of you deserve to be protected from his temper, but she hated being the one to bring him up short."

"...and she's going to be putting herself a whole term behind in her pre-med. course work..."

"I've been meaning to talk to you about that anyway." He laced his fingers with mine on the arm of the chair. "I'd like to see her do her pre-med. work closer to home - especially now that we know that she isn't safe anywhere near her father. I can speak to a friend of mine who is on the faculty at Johns Hopkins, and see what it would take for her to transfer." He tightened his fingers around mine. "After all, what use is having strings if I can't pull them every once in a while to help my own family, eh?"

"You know how independent she is," I replied, tightening my fingers too. "She may not want to transfer."

"I don't know," Sydney answered slowly. "I think after this latest fracas, she might listen to reason. Besides, Johns Hopkins has a very good reputation and is not bad to put down on a résumé as where she trained. And heaven knows I'd prefer that she live closer to us anyway. She could come home more often... see us..."

I smiled at what I was hearing in his voice. "Why Sydney Green, you old softie..."

"Come here, you," he said in a low and vibrant voice, then pulled on my hand until I finally relented and rose from my chair and came to sit next to him on the bed. "Now tell me, how was I supposed to not become very attached to the daughter of the most beautiful woman in the world?" He wrapped one arm around my back and pulled me close. "I love you, Cat - and I love your daughter too as if she were my own. Maybe it's selfish of me, but I want my children a bit closer than halfway across the continent."

I leaned into him, wrapping my arm around his stomach as best I could with our peanut very much in the way. "I know you do, my love. And I love you too, more than you'll ever know. You can talk to her - see what she has to say. Maybe if you told her what you just told me... how you feel..."

He was quiet for a while, then: "So tell me, other than Rene, what else was your mind tripping over?"

"Nicholas," I answered.

I could tell that one surprised him. "How so?"

"He came here for a nice, quiet vacation - and look what he's walked into. It isn't fair."

Sydney bent close and kissed my cheek and began trailing kisses to my ear. "Nicholas is a big boy, Cat. He knows that life can get interesting sometimes. He'll be OK - especially now that Rene's here with us too. Or had you forgotten the red cheeks from in the car yesterday at the mere suggestion he come visit while she's here?"

I closed my eyes as his warm breath tickled my neck deliciously. "No, I hadn't forgotten. I was actually thinking that I needed to have a little talk with Rene about..."

"I wouldn't do that - I'd let them work it out between them," Sydney murmured against my neck, his kisses becoming very distracting. "If this is anything more than a passing fancy, and if Nicholas is anything like me, he won't be willing to just sit back and let Rene push him away for long. And if Rene is anything like her mother, she'll eventually discover that persistence can be very persuasive."

"Oh, you think so, do you?" I purred at him contentedly.

"I KNOW so," he countered, nuzzling my ear and beginning to kiss me down the line of my chin. "I've done extensive research into this area, you know..."

I didn't get the chance to counter that outrageous claim because that was when his lips covered mine and stole my ability to think clearly. After a passionate kiss that soon had my heart pounding in my ears for a new and completely acceptable reason as far as I was concerned, he sheltered me gently against him and murmured into my ear, "Come back to bed again, Cat. You need your rest, and I miss you when you're not beside me."

I had to admit that his method of dealing with my jangled nerves had relaxed me more than I thought it would, and just giving voice to some of my fears had stilled my careening thoughts. "OK," I agreed and rose to go around the end of the bed to my side and slip back between the sheets. He was already there to greet me and pulled me into his arms again so that my head was on his shoulder. I fell asleep to his gentle and soothing strokes down my back.

~~~~~~~~

I awoke later than usual the next morning to find myself alone in bed. Sydney had obviously taken great care not to rouse me as he rose, and had shut the bedroom door after himself so that the sound of voices downstairs wouldn't do the job either. He must have figured that I would be needing the extra rest after such a full day yesterday and my insomnia last night. I pulled on my bathrobe and slipped my feet into my slippers and, after a quick trip to the bathroom before our peanut could awaken and attack the bladder while full, waddled down the stairs and back towards the kitchen.

Rene lifted her face to me and smiled, and I felt my stomach twist as I saw once more the bruising and damage that Jake had wreaked on her face. I did my best not to let my dismay spread to my face, but smiled at her. "Good morning, Mom," she said as brightly as she could.

"There you are," Sydney beamed at me. He rose immediately to help me get settled into a chair. "I have your morning tea steeping - do you want some?"

"Thank you," I told him and then turned to Nicholas. "Was the couch comfortable enough for you last night?"

"Fine," he answered with a smile of his own and a quick glance in Rene's direction. "I'll be fine there."

"How are you feeling today, poppet?" I asked after I watched her nibble at the piece of toast that had been on her plate.

"Still a little groggy," she admitted. "I think the pain pills are really knocking me on my a..."

"That's what they're supposed to do, cheri," Sydney interrupted knowingly. "You'll need to stay fairly quiet and let those ribs heal for a while. The pills will make it so that lying down or sitting in an easy chair won't be quite so uncomfortable."

"I know," she said. "I just hate feeling like I'm walking through a fog all the time. I can't enjoy the company much that way."

"You won't be on such high doses forever," he reassured her. "The pain pills are just to keep you comfortable. Once you start to heal, you won't need them as often."

"Yeah, but by then, Nicholas will be gone." I think the words slipped out before she could snatch them back, because she suddenly blushed furiously beneath the bruising.

"But I don't live THAT far away," Nicholas told her with a quietly pleased smile. "I can come back, you know. I was already toying with the idea of coming back for another visit after the baby is born. You'll still be here..."

Ah-HAH! So that was what Sydney was meaning when he was talking about persistence being so persuasive! Rene blushed again and immediately quit complaining about the medication she was on. I felt Sydney tap my knee under the table - I'm sure he was making sure I made the connection. I let my gaze touch his and celebrate silently that our children were finding each other just fine without our help.

"Can I put some toast on for you, Cathy?" Nicholas began rustling the bread wrapper at me.

"Thanks, Nicholas, I'd like that." I patted his upper arm fondly and then looked over to see Rene gazing at him with a touch of warmth in the back of the one eye that was open. I hoped that she could see that this young man was very much his father's son - and that she couldn't do much better than that.

Breakfast conversation from there on tended to lighter subjects - it was a lazy Sunday morning after all, and Sydney didn't have to be at work at all. None of us had anything pressing on us to get done, except maybe for finding Rene some clothing to wear from my non-maternity wardrobe. Eight months ago, we had been approximately the same size - something that would work to our advantage right now.

I talked her into following me up the stairs and into my room once breakfast started to break up and Nicholas and Sydney began cleanup duties. I'm not exactly sure who helped whom up that long flight of stairs, and we both were pooped enough to feel like sitting - her in the easy chair, me on the edge of the bed - once we'd arrived.

"Mom?"

"What?"

Rene looked down and studied her hands for a moment. "Is it wrong of me to hate Da... my father?"

"You mean Jake?" She nodded. "I don't know that actually hating him will do either of you any good in the long run," I began, "but I can't exactly say that I blame you. I'm very angry at him too, you know..."

"I wish..." She paused and looked up at me, her one clear eye tragic. "I wish Dad were my real father."

"I think he does too," I told her. "He loves you very much, you know."

"I love him too, I think," she admitted shyly. "He's been so good to you, and now, with this..." She swallowed hard. "I think the only time I've ever wanted to argue with him was when he took me into the police station and had me file that complaint."

"I figured something like that would have happened. Considering how you feel about your father, though, why did doing that bother you then?"

Rene shrugged. "It just felt like I was betraying my own, you know?"

"Certainly you were doing no worse than he's already done to you, poppet," I told her firmly. "Rene, look at yourself in the mirror across the room. Does someone that is willing to do that to you really deserve any loyalty from you at all?"

"I know. But still..."

"Besides, have you noticed something? You've stopped calling him “Daddy” completely. You call Sydney “Dad” all the time now, and whenever you have to talk about Jake, you call him “your father”." I smiled at her. "Listen to yourself, Rene. You've already unconsciously started distancing yourself from him. To be honest, I can't say I disagree..."

"When I called home the other night," she leaned back into the cushioned wing of the chair, "I was so scared and hurt, I forgot completely and called Sydney “Daddy.” I was so glad just to hear his voice, and I just knew that he'd take care of me..."

So THAT was why Sydney sounded so confused at first when he answered the phone that night. He wasn't used to having someone call him “Daddy” yet. "So go with it, poppet. If you want Sydney to be Daddy to you, then let it be that way. He won't mind, I promise you."

She closed her one functioning eye and breathed deeply for a while, then: "All I know is that I don't ever want to see my real father, not ever again." A tear snuck out from beneath the swollen and sealed eyelid and landed on the bruised cheek beneath. "Why does that make me feel so bad inside?"

"Because, despite all the hard words between you all these years, you always wanted Jake to love you the way you loved him - and giving up on that dream isn't easy." I wished I could help her. I'd already gone through the pain and grief of having my love for that man die. "I think you need to talk to Sydney one of these days - and I mean REALLY talk to him - let him in on some of what you told me. I think the discussion might surprise you both."

I wasn't going to step in the way of the development of my daughter's relationship with my husband. It was their relationship, and absolutely none of my business. I knew better, and I knew I knew better - and I was going to stick with what I knew for once. The best I could or would do was to nudge them together until they finally had the conversation they needed to have. They could take things from there, I was sure.

After letting Rene soak up what I'd told her, I leaned forward and pushed myself to my feet again. "And now, what do you say we go fishing through my pre-peanut wardrobe for something for you to wear. The clothing you're in needs to be washed to get the blood out."

"Thanks, Mom," she said after taking a deep breath to get her emotions back under control. "For listening, and for everything else."

"You're welcome, poppet."

She thought for a minute. "I'll talk to Dad later."

"Good. The sooner the better."

~~~~~~~~

As was the practice lately, Sunday afternoons were family times when our house filled to capacity. About two o'clock, I heard Sydney let Miss Parker and little Jacob in for their now-regular Sunday visit. I called to him to leave the door open so that one of us could just yell when the Broots' got here and tell them they could let themselves in. Just to be contrary, I was wearing a different caftan - after all, I couldn't let Miss Parker pick on me EVERY weekend - and was perfectly contented to be spending most of my time with my feet up on the couch.

I watched my husband take little Jacob from Miss Parker and swing the boy up into his arms and then onto a shoulder for a piggyback ride with a wide smile. It wouldn't be all that long and he'd be doing that for our little girl. Miss Parker put down the basket of toys she never failed to bring with her to keep her little brother occupied and came to sit on the other end of the couch after I shifted my feet. "How are you doing?" she asked with a look of concern.

"I don't have a whole lot of zip today," I admitted to her, knowing that Sydney was listening carefully with one ear. "Yesterday was hard on me."

"Any more cramps?"

I shook my head. "Once things calmed down, they went away. Thank God!"

"How's Rene?"

Now I smiled. "She's taking it easy too - she and Nicholas found a spot in the shade in the back yard to move the lawn chairs and have been out there for a while."

The arched eyebrows rose in interest, and she twisted to shoot Sydney a questioning glance as well. "Do tell?" she commented with a growing grin. "Is there something going on here, Syd?"

"If there is, it isn't any of our business," my husband shot back, hoisting Jacob up so that he was clinging to the top of Sydney's head, his feet dangling down both sides of his neck.

"Unkoh Sydney!" Jacob screamed in pure pleasure as Sydney straightened completely and made Jacob's vista all that more dramatic for towering over everything and everyone.

I rubbed the hard bulge in my middle that was our peanut as she decided finally to rouse and begin her daily morning regimen of stretching and whirling. Miss Parker saw the movement. "How about her?" She put out a hand and hesitated - as if she'd needed permission to feel the baby move.

"Well, after a long morning's nap, I think she's ready to resume her normal level of activity," I told her, taking her hand and putting it over where the current target for precision kicking seemed to be located.

"Did you call the doctor about that cramping?" she asked, her concern still quite obvious and unresolved.

"I did a while ago. I'm waiting on a call-back, as a matter of fact." I was glad that he hadn't been immediately available - I'd like to think my doctor had some time to himself every once in a while." I giggled as I saw Sydney put his hands up and swoop Jacob down from his perch like an airplane. "I'm hoping to get an appointment with him tomorrow."

"Listen," she began with a very serious expression on her face. "I told Syd yesterday, and now I'm telling you: if you need to get to the hospital, I want you to call me. I don't care what time of day or night it is, you call, understand?" She looked back up at my husband. "If anything were to happen to you or to this baby, I think it would just about kill him. I've never seen him this happy - and I'm damned sure going to make sure he stays this way."

"I promise," I swore, and then: "But I think that half of what has him so contented is that he has you and Jacob and Nicholas in his life - and Jarod too, sometimes." I let my eyes rest on the face of my husband as he was still swooping Jacob about the room, the little boy's arms outstretched like an airplane and both of them making noises like an engine. "He needs this family."

The knock I'd been expecting came at that moment, and I called out to the Broots' to just come in and make themselves at home. "Unkoh Broots!" I heard Jacob cry happily.

"Hi, Jakie," the computer technician eyed Sydney's actions with an indulgent look. "I see your Uncle Sydney's giving you your ride today."

"Your turn," Sydney swooped Jacob right up and over to Broots, who laid claim to the little boy without a whimper of complaint and had him back up on a shoulder almost immediately. "I need to check on Cat."

"Yeah, I heard about the excitement here from Manny - you know, the guy in Receiving who only has three fingers?"

"Broots," Miss Parker raised an eyebrow in warning.

"Daddy," even Debbie complained. "No shop talk on Sundays at Sydney's, remember?"

"Wait a minute - I think we can make an exception for a little while today, can't we?" I asked, defending the poor man. "Yesterday WAS quite a bit out of the ordinary..."

"So what did you hear?" Sydney asked, coming over and sitting down on the coffee table next to me so he could take my hand and carry it with his to lie on the lump that was our peanut.

"Scuttlebutt has it that Mr. Raines is letting Lyle and Willy spend the weekend in jail for being stupid enough to get caught," Broots repeated with a glance about the room to make sure nobody was eavesdropping.

"Maybe that will convince somebody to leave me alone!" I exclaimed. "Damn it, I never HAVE understood what it was that they wanted with me!"

"Calm down, Cat," Sydney warned me and patted my tummy gently. "Don't get yourself all worked up again. I don't want you to go into early labor - and no more false alarms like yesterdays either."

"How ARE you doing, Cathy?" Debbie asked shyly. "Are you sick?"

"I'm OK," I grumbled, settling back into my pillow before Sydney could issue me another warning. He was right - I really didn't need to be making myself upset again. "I had a few cramps yesterday, but they've stopped," I told Miss Parker specifically again, "although Mr. Worry-wart here insists they were early labor pains."

Either way, you don't need to have either right now," she agreed with my husband, whereupon I saw his silvered head nod vigorously while he smiled triumphantly. I turned and held his hand back tightly, so he knew that my grousing wasn't personal.

"I thought Nicholas was here," Broots asked Sydney, obviously more than willing to change the subject. "I was hoping to be able to say hi."

"He is - he's out in the back with Rene."

Another set of eyebrows went straight up into the air. "Oh, really?"

"Broots..." I said warningly. "Rene's not in such great shape either - I think Nicholas is keeping her company to keep her quiet right now."

"What happened?" Debbie wanted to know. She and Rene had gotten along very well when Rene was here about a month ago.

"Her father hit her again - only worse this time. Sydney brought her home to get better."

"I think I'll go out and say hello," Broots said with a small frown. "Come on, Jakie - let's go find Nicholas and Rene, shall we?"

"Yeah!" the little boy cheered from his position of honor.

"Me too." Debbie trotted along after her father.

I patted Sydney's hand. "Quiet time's over - time for those two to join the rest of the mob, I guess," I told him, nodding in the direction of the kitchen and our grown children.

"They'll have plenty of quiet time tomorrow," Sydney laid his huge hands across the breadth of my stomach and shook his head as he felt his daughter doing her somersaults. "At least THEY'LL get some quiet time. Yesterday doesn't seem to have slowed her down at all."

"She's always like this when she just wakes up," I reminded him. "You're just not usually around for the morning show. You're here more for the evening performances."

Miss Parker snickered when Sydney pulled a wry face at me. "Yeah, Dad," she said teasingly. "That's what you get for slaving away all day and missing all the fun..."

The telephone chose that prized moment to start ringing. Sydney rose. "I know when I'm being picked on," he said archly, which caused both Miss Parker and me to start chortling madly, then moved off toward the handset near the stairs to answer the call. He was back almost immediately with the cordless handset and handed it to me. "It's your doctor."

"Hello there," the doctor boomed at me. "What's going on?"

I watched Sydney and Miss Parker pull together in concern as I described what I had gone through the previous day and my feeling that something had let go. "But I've been very quiet ever since, and I'm not having any cramps or anything now..."

"I'm going to want you in for an ultrasound tomorrow morning," he told me in no uncertain terms. "And we'll check that blood pressure of yours too, just to make sure you're not overstressing yourself without telling me. I want you in my office nine o'clock sharp - I'll make a note to myself to let my nurse know to let you through right away."

"OK," I said and smiled encouragement to the two who had been listening to my side of the conversation. "I'll see you tomorrow then." I pushed the button to disconnect the call and handed the handset back to Sydney. "I'm to be into the office at nine tomorrow morning for an ultrasound."

"I'll drive you in," Sydney announced firmly. He looked at Miss Parker. "I was just going to be doing paperwork anyway..."

She shook her head. "Don't worry about it, Syd. If anybody comes looking for you, I'll run interference for you."

"Uh, Sydney..." Broots' voice sounded strange as it broke in on our moment. Finally he appeared around the corner of the archway. "Could you come out back for a moment please?"

"Is something wrong with Jacob?" Miss Parker began to rise to her feet.

"No, no, he's fine - Rene and Debbie have him. It's just..." The hazel eyes sought out my husband again. "Please?"

Sydney looked at me and shrugged and rose to follow his friend through the kitchen. Both of us women watched him leave.

"I wonder what that's about?" Miss Parker mused aloud once he'd passed out of sight.

I shrugged. "Oh, you know them - maybe Nicholas posed a puzzle..."

I swear, I think that eyebrow of hers has a mind of its own. "I seriously doubt that there's a puzzle out there that our Broots couldn't noodle out by himself. He's never called for Sydney before..." She started to rise again.

"Leave them be," I told her, reaching out to her. "It's probably some guy “thing” that Nicholas wants to share..."

"With Rene out there?" She sounded thoroughly unconvinced. "Cathy..."

"You never know - maybe he just wanted Sydney to confirm something that Rene said. After all, Sydney was in Rochester with her not all that long ago..."

"I know," she informed me. "I was there, remember?"

At that moment, Sydney appeared in the archway between the livingroom and foyer with a slightly stunned look on his face that quickly faded to a quiet determination. He walked into the livingroom and took a seat on the coffee table again - only this time close to Miss Parker. "Sydney?" I asked, "What is it?"

"Parker," he began carefully, "I know that Cathy talked to you a while ago - and that she asked you a question." His face was serious, but had a hopeful expression to it. "I need to ask you that question again - and I need a definitive answer from you this time."

"Syd..." Miss Parker had slowly gone pale.

"What would you do if..."

"He's here?" The question was whispered, and then she moved past it realizing that the issue wouldn't have arisen again if that weren't the case. "Does he know I'm here too?"

"Yes on both accounts," Sydney answered gently, reaching for her hands. "He heard what happened here yesterday and came to make sure Cathy was OK. But he'll leave if you feel you can't..."

She looked over her shoulder at the archway and the hallway that led to the kitchen beyond and eventually to the backyard. The expression I saw hover briefly over those delicate features took my breath away. It was the most poignant mixture of hope, anguish and frustration. It reminded me painfully of an expression I used to wear during those long weeks after I had first met Sydney and before he came back for me, summoned by Rene's call - when I was missing him so badly that it hurt. It told me all I really needed to know about where her heart was. "Parker," I added my own voice to my husband's. "Please..."

Miss Parker brought her face around to look at both of us, and there was a hesitancy about her that was new. "You told me," she directed her words at me, "that you were hoping I could be convinced to consider this house neutral territory - a place where the Centre didn't intrude." I nodded, remembering our conversation in the kitchen. "I think I can live with that," she said finally, after a long and silent moment when I knew she was looking at all the facts and circumstances. "Tell him I agree to a truce - and I won't say anything to anyone about his coming here."

Sydney's face broke open to one of his brilliant, even-toothed smiles that could warm the coldest room, and he impulsively leaned forward and framed Miss Parker's face between his huge hands and dropped a fervent kiss on her cheek that brought a quick blush to her face. "Thank you, Parker," he exclaimed and got immediately to his feet. "I'll go let him know of your decision."

"You know," I told her when Sydney had disappeared again, "if you're as determined that Sydney remain happy as you say you are, then you couldn't have done anything that would guarantee it more than what you just did."

Her grey eyes flicked up to meet mine. "I suppose," she offered, "but I have to admit in all honesty, I did it as much for myself as for Syd."

"I kinda figured," I told her indulgently. "Your face gave you away," I explained as her expression turned confused. "For a moment there, you reminded me of me about seven months ago."

It took a moment for the meaning of my words to sink in, and I knew the moment they had by the change of expression in those beautiful eyes from chagrin to outright astonishment. But the sound of voices from the back of the house was growing closer - little Jacob's excited chattering answered by a deep voice that I hadn't heard for a while. Neither had Miss Parker. She grew very still and turned, like I did, toward the archway to see who was coming.

Jarod rounded the corner of the archway with an excited little boy in his arms. "Look, Sissy! Somebody new comed!" Jacob crowed. He reached out his little arms for his big sister.

"Hello, Parker," Jarod said in a cautious tone, letting Jacob tip forward out of his hold toward Miss Parker, who was reaching up for her little brother over the back of the couch immediately. "I think someone was looking for you."

"Hello, Jarod." Oh, I ached at the control she was putting into holding her voice to a very neutral tone, for I knew how much it was costing her. Their gazes had snagged and caught, and the intensity of the emotion that sped back and forth between the two of them without words was amazing. "You look well."

"Thanks," he said, his voice filled with a warmth I'd never heard from him before. "So do you." Then he seemed to remember the reason for his visit, and those dark chocolate eyes came over to meet mine. "Cathy - I heard you had a little excitement here yesterday. I thought I'd drop by and make sure... You're OK?"

My brows went up and down again in wry acknowledgement. "Well, enough," I told with him. "I appreciate the concern. This is a pleasant surprise, though, having you here on a Sunday afternoon. Can you stay for a meal?"

His gaze moved back to Miss Parker's. "That depends," he hedged carefully.

"You don't have to leave on my account," she told him, looking down and then fussing with Jacob's hair. "Cathy wants this to be neutral territory - I can't see a reason to disagree." She hesitated. "You're family too," she admitted finally. "You belong."

His face brightened immediately. "I guess I can," he answered me with a dawning smile.

Jacob scowled at his sister for what he'd heard. "He fambly too, Sissy?"

"That's another Uncle for you, Jakie," I replied for her when she seemed taken aback by her little brother's question. "Uncle Jarod - but he's a secret Uncle, so we don't ever talk about him except just here." The grey eyes met mine again, and I could see that she both understood and agreed with what I was doing.

"That's right, Jakie," she said, running a fond hand through his hair. "We don't talk about Uncle Jarod at home around Uncle Bill or Uncle Lyle." I shuddered at the sound of those two names, and I knew Jarod was cringing himself. "Only when you're with me either here or at Sissy's house, OK? We don't want Uncle Jarod to get in trouble, do we?"

"Unkoh Bill get Unkoh Jarod in big trouble?" The little boy wanted to make sure he understood the situation.

"That's right," Miss Parker nodded soberly. "And that's why it's really important that you not say anything to Uncle Bill or Uncle Lyle - or even Doctor Cox. This is a very special secret, and we need you to give us a Big Boy promise never to tell. Do you think you can do that for us?"

She knew her little brother well, for his eyes began to glow when his sister mentioned that what he was doing was a Big Boy thing. "I pwomise," he swore solemnly. "I never tell."

"Good boy!" I told him with a huge smile. "I think our Big Boy needs a Big Boy snack, don't you?"

"I know just the thing," Jarod smirked and pulled his hand from his pocket with one of his ever-present Pez dispensers. "Ever have Pez, Jacob?"

Jacob shook his head in excited anticipation as his big sister shook her head and rolled her eyes in exasperation. She refrained from commenting, though, and I was very proud of her for keeping her sharp tongue sheathed and suffering her little brother the new experience of taking one of the candy pellets from the dispenser between his teeth just like Jarod did. "Good!" the child told his sister with bright eyes. He began squirming. "Want down," he announced firmly. "Want go outside wiff Rene an' Nich'las and Debbie."

"Be good now," Miss Parker told him as she put his feet on the ground and watched him trot out of sight.

"He's charming," Jarod said, moving around the end of the couch and finding one of the easy chairs near the hearth. "It's good to see you taking care of him too."

"He looks forward to Sundays so," Miss Parker told him, moving from the couch to the other easy chair so that I could stretch out my feet more and be comfortable. "We come over here every weekend lately..."

I lay there, not quite listening to their careful conversation - their first in a very long time - and I felt our peanut busily playing inside me. I closed my eyes and let the reality of our family finally being together - all of them under the same roof - soak in. Contented, I drifted off with a feeling of well being that surpassed anything I'd experienced to date.

A dream had come true.

~~~~~~~~

Eventually Sydney came into the livingroom to rouse me for a supper prepared, this time, by Debbie and Miss Parker. My eyes opened to see my beloved's face as free of lines and cares as I'd ever seen - and I knew that the day's events had done him nothing but good. "They're all here, Sydney," I told him softly, putting a hand to that face I loved so much. "They're ALL here!"

"That they are," he agreed in a soft and vibrant voice. His dark honey eyes were warm and contented and full of love. "It's a miracle - I never thought it would happen."

"Neither did I," I admitted, "but I hoped. Where is everybody?" I looked around - the easy chairs by the hearth were empty.

"I got the croquet set out again when the girls kicked us men out of the kitchen to start supper. I think Jarod and Broots are still coaching Jacob in the finer points."

My lips quirked at the way he'd put things. "So “the girls” kicked you men out of the kitchen, did they?" I repeated. "Girls including Rene?"

"All three of them ganged up on us about an hour ago. Rene has spent her time sitting at the table doing salad vegetables - that's all Parker would let her do." He chuckled and leaned forward to confide, "And Nicholas hasn't left her side."

I chuckled too. "Now why doesn't that surprise me?"

He spread his hand across my stomach, and our peanut immediately was pushing back into it. "That's more like it, ma petite," he said gently to his daughter, and then looked into my face carefully. "How are you doing?"

"Feeling better, actually," I said, and I meant it. "She let me sleep rather soundly this afternoon."

"Good," he nodded, and patted his daughter affectionately. "You really needed a nap and for the day to stay completely free of stress. But now, it's time for you to get up and wash up to come to the table. Parker decided to try out a new recipe on us - so we play “guinea pig” tonight."

I sniffed the air appreciatively. "If it tastes as good as it smells, I may have to get the recipe."

"C'mon." He rose and extended both hands down to me so that I could pull myself up to a sitting position and then to my feet.

"God, I feel like a beached whale," I told him as I began my waddling gait. "Maybe I need a backup beeper like on a garbage truck to warn people I'm coming through."

"Stop that," Sydney laughed at me. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and tucked me securely into his embrace. "You happen to be insulting the most beautiful woman I..."

"You, my dear, are prejudiced," I interrupted him by patting his stomach and then chuckled back at him. "Either that or your rose-colored glasses have holograms printed on the insides."

Everyone was already at the table waiting for us as we entered the dining room, and I think I paused just to enjoy the moment. "What a treat to have everyone here," I told the group. "I hope this happens more often," I added, then took the place set for me.

The seating arrangements definitely reflected the changing dynamics of the relationships. Sydney had his usual patriarch's chair at the head of the table, but I was now displaced to his immediate right. Next to me was Debbie, and then her father. Miss Parker had taken my hostess' seat at the other end of the table, with Jacob to her right next to Jarod. Nicholas and Rene sat to Sydney's left.

I don't know that the conversation around our very full dining table had ever had the energy and obvious affection that it had that evening. There seemed to be three conversations going on at any one point, with Parker and Jarod laughing together and looking more relaxed than I'd dared hope and Nicholas and Rene often putting their heads together to chuckle over some private joke. The rest of us seemed to float from one grouping to the next or, as time went by, Broots and Sydney and Debbie and I found our own topic so we could leave the others to their own discussions.

Broots and Debbie were the first to leave - Debbie needed to return to a report that had yet to be written for her next day's English class. Nicholas and Rene declared themselves the cleanup crew for the evening, leaving Sydney, Parker, Jarod, Jacob and myself to entertain ourselves. Jarod and Sydney rounded up a chess board and sat back down at the dining table for a long-awaited rematch from Jarod's last visit. Miss Parker and I moved ourselves and Jacob's sleepy play with his die-cast cars to the living room.

I watched her face as she watched her little brother absently, obviously still listening to the deep voice of her childhood friend in light-hearted and animated conversation with his old mentor. "You care for him a lot, don't you?" I asked finally, bringing her grey eyes up to meet mine.

"I'd forgotten how much," she sighed deeply. "It's been so long since we've just spent some time together without..."

"You looked happy," I told her carefully.

"I know." She looked back down at her little brother, lying on his side playing with his cars with drooping eyes. "I don't know what I'm going to do." She hesitated and then started speaking as if she needed to pour her heart out to someone. "I want..." she began, and I nodded to show I knew exactly what she was talking about, "but I'm afraid of what could happen."

"Find time for a little happiness, Parker," I told her gently. "Don't let the Centre dictate your life from beginning to end."

"You do know what happened the last time I tried to get a life, don't you?" she asked with a trace of bitterness.

I nodded. Sydney had told me the story of her murdered lover, complete with the suspicions that they had shared of the Centre's complicity in the killing. That, after all, had been the working basis of our having a sweeper at the house with me when he was at work - to prevent a similar tragedy. "Yes, but this time, the Centre doesn't need to know what you're up to," I reminded her. "You've already established a routine in coming over here. This is neutral ground, remember?"

"Before we lost touch, Jarod had been trying to pry me loose from the Centre for years. But now, I couldn't leave Jakie behind..."

"I doubt Jarod would let you." Jarod was far too dedicated to the principles of family to let anyone just abandon a child that way. "But that doesn't mean you can't have your happiness here..."

"With Lyle and Raines looking over my shoulder and butting in every chance they got?"

"You can always call 911," I reminded her with an impish chuckle. "Provided you're not breaking any laws, there's no reason they should feel they have the right to control your life outside work."

She sighed and rested her chin in her hand. "If only it were that easy, Cathy."

"It can be," I told her firmly, "but only if you set firm limits with the Centre and then stick to your guns in enforcing those limits."

"Maybe." She fell silent, and I did too. Jacob, for his part, had finally fallen asleep on the soft carpet in the middle of his play. After a while, she rose to her feet and began gathering the scattered toys back into the basket without waking the child. "I suppose I'd better get Jakie home to bed," she said finally, a touch of reluctance in her voice. "Let me go give my farewells to the others, and then I'll get him up."

I nodded and watched over the little boy while listening to her stop first in the kitchen and then, later, at the table. When she returned to collect her brother and his toy collection, she had both a dark-haired companion as well as a silver-haired one. "I'll get Jakie, Parker," Jarod told her, leaning over and pulling the sleeping child off the floor without rousing him with surprising ease. "You get the toys."

"Good night, Parker," I told her, then pushed myself to my feet to walk over to Jarod and give the little boy a goodbye kiss. "See you next week, Jacob."

"Good night, Parker." Sydney gave her another gentle kiss on the cheek. "And thanks for the tasty meal." He looked up at his former protégé. "You're taking off too?"

"I probably should," Jarod nodded, then bent to give me a kiss on the cheek. "You behave yourself and keep quiet. Your baby needs to stay put for a little while longer yet."

"I will, Doctor," I teased him gently, patting him on the forearm. "You take care of yourself too - and come back soon."

"Good night, Sydney - and thanks for the game."

"Don't mention it," my husband smiled. "I mean it - I'd rather it not get around how badly I let you beat me this time..."

Sydney clapped a hand on his shoulder and escorted the two of them to the front door. Standing there in the doorway together, we watched as Jarod followed Miss Parker to her car and very carefully placed Jacob in his car seat. And then I think we both held our breaths as he turned and gave her a very brief hug, one she returned for a moment before pushing away to head to the driver's side of the car. Jarod watched her drive away and, with a jaunty wave at us, headed off into the darkness.

"I think I'll turn off the lights in the front, and then I think I've had it for the day," I told Sydney with another pat to his tummy.

"I'll tell Nicholas to lock up the back," Sydney replied and then headed off toward the back of the house again. He was back just a few moments later, as I was finishing with the lamps near the easy chairs. "Cat, you HAVE to come look for a moment."

"What?" I asked as I followed him back until he let me by him but stopped me in the kitchen doorway. He pointed, and then I leaned back against him and smiled at the scene before me even as his hands swept around our unborn daughter and me from behind.

Nicholas and Rene had returned outside to share one of the lawn chairs in the back yard after their kitchen duty was finished and now sat talking together very quietly. Nicholas had his arm very cautiously around Rene's back to give her support. She was leaning into him a little, I noticed, and he was leaning back just enough.

I tipped my head back and looked up into my husband's moonlit face. "I think things have gone well today on a number of fronts."

"Indeed." He looked down at me with eyes that glittered in the moonlight. A huge and gentle hand came up and held my face. "Have I told you lately how much I love you?"

"As a matter of fact," I started, but didn't get any further. His lips had found mine in the perfect end to a perfect day.

Research Subject - by MMB

Chapter 8: And Now...


Summer was here - the weather was warm, time was moving slower. Our house was a bastion of deliberate and carefully maintained peace and coolness now that was part air conditioning and part attitude. There was an air of anticipation beginning to waft around the corners as the days slid smoothly by. All was ready for our new arrival - at least, we hoped so. The nursery was painted; and between Parker and Rene and Debbie, the baby had enough clothing to last a long time. The car seat was sitting on a counter in the garage, waiting to be fastened securely in place in the back seat of Sydney's car.

I could hardly believe that so many months could have flown past so quickly. And, with any luck, in a little less than four weeks, we would be bringing home our little girl. Sydney's excitement and worry for me as the days of waiting grew shorter was palpable. He hovered and spoiled me horribly, not to mention saw to it that everyone around me did the same. He was more patient with me than I deserved as my temper tended to be shorter because I was feeling encumbered and unattractive - and I loved him all the more for all the little ways he tried to reassure me. At night, his arms were so protective and tender that I fell asleep easily no matter how active the baby was.

I was well aware that he appreciated having Rene in the house with us the past weeks since it meant that he could go to work and know that between Joe the sweeper and my girl, I was well tended. Between the two of them, I wasn't allowed to do much of anything anymore other than waddle like a fat goose from bed to couch to bathroom to kitchen to bed again - and occasionally out onto a lawn chair when the evening breezes were pleasant. My doctor continued to harp on my blood pressure, as it remained more elevated than he would have liked, but as yet he hadn't insisted that I take up residence in the hospital. I told him once that getting stuck in a hospital room WOULD make my blood pressure rise, and then watched him grumble that I was too smart for my own good.

Rene's bruises were finally fading to that sickly yellow that comes just before they vanish completely. It had taken several days of near-constant application of an ice bag before her eye, swollen shut by the blow her father had landed there, began to peek open again. But more than anything, her recovery had been escorted along by the nearly constant attention showered on her by Sydney's son, Nicholas, who had been visiting us on vacation when she arrived. I didn't disapprove at all of what I was seeing happening between those two. After nearly two weeks' time to get to know the young man, I was now convinced that Nicholas was but a younger version of his father, with many of the same traits and tendencies that had made me fall in love with Sydney. I don't think the point was lost on my daughter either.

I was fairly sure that she was sorry to see her constant companion leave when the time came for him to go back home to prepare for the start of classes in mid-August. The two of them took a long walk around the neighborhood the evening before his flight left and came back home with eyes twinkling and the vaguest hint that something had happened between them. After promising me as he kissed my cheek goodbye that he'd be back sometime in September to check out his little sister, Sydney and Rene drove him back into Dover to the airport late in the morning. They got back just about the time the rest of the gang started arriving for our regular Sunday afternoon get-together, and Rene immediately threw herself into activities with Debbie to help keep little Jacob entertained. But there were times there for a while when I would see her grow quiet and thoughtful, and I could guess why.

Miss Parker and Broots had arranged it between them before hand that this particular Sunday's evening fare would be sandwiches and potato salad and chips - with a cake that Debbie had baked that morning for dessert. Because it was such a warm and pleasant day, I had relocated my bower to a chaise lounge in the shade of the back yard and had eventually been joined in the shade by Miss Parker and finally Rene on lawn chairs. As the afternoon progressed, we women found our spot the perfect vantage from which to enjoy the antics of Jacob and Debbie in their swimming suits running through the sprinkler. Sydney and Broots had begun yet another of their chess games at the dining table, but even they emerged after an hour or so to drag another couple of lawn chairs over near us and lend us their perspective while enjoying the balmy day.

The real fun began when Debbie came over and sprinkled some of the water from her hair at her father, accidentally hitting Sydney and Rene. Jacob thought the outcry that erupted from the grown-ups in the lawn chairs was hilarious, and so he brought a handful of water from the sprinkler over and baptized his sister. Broots vanished sometime in the ensuing hilarity and came back out with a loaded squirt gun - which he aimed first at his daughter and then unexpectedly at Sydney, making my husband shout in surprise and shock as a stream of cold water went down the back of his neck. A suddenly mischievous Debbie snuck around Miss Parker's back and wrung a little more of the water from her hair down the back of her neck as well, bringing the tall brunette right up out of her chair with a shriek of surprise that had us all laughing hard. I knew something was up when Parker and Sydney put their heads together and suddenly got up and vanished for a time, leaving the kids back to running through the sprinkler and the rest of us wondering what was going on.

We weren't left wondering for long, however. When Sydney and Parker returned, they came back with a shopping bag filled with enough squirt guns for all of us - myself included. A five-gallon plastic bucket was brought out from the gardening shed, filled with water and placed near me - and declared neutral territory so that anybody filling their squirt gun could be off limits to the others while they “rearmed.” I, on the other hand, was charged with shooting anybody who broke the armistice near the fill bucket. With those few ground rules mutually agreed upon, the war was on.

I didn't think I had ever seen six people have so much fun getting drenched in my life, and my howls of hilarity were accompanied by our peanut bouncing inside me as if to say “me too, Mom, me too!” Rene, Jacob and Debbie seemed perfectly happy taking potshots at each other most of the time and missing three quarters of the time. Miss Parker, however, was sharpshooter accurate with her weapon, aiming at and nailing Broots and my husband more than at anybody else. I almost fell off my lounge chair laughing, however, when the two men finally ganged up on her and chased her around the yard getting her absolutely soaked. Then it was my turn to shriek when, panting from the exertion, Sydney declared that he was too old for such things anymore and came over to me to snuggle - dripping wet and decidedly cold. I defended myself as best I could, but ended up damper than I'd intended in the end while Parker and Rene stood back and chortled at my fate at the hands of my husband.

I was sure, by the time everyone was too tired to run anymore, that our back yard wouldn't need watering again until next Spring. I sent a still-laughing Rene into the house to commandeer our supply of bath towels so that those who hadn't intended to get drenched could at least try to dry off. I sent her back into the house later to fetch my rainbow-colored caftan for Parker eventually, so that the woman could throw her wet clothes in the dryer. When Sydney went upstairs to change, he brought back down a bathrobe and pair of trousers for Broots so that he could do the same, after which Parker hauled Jacob into the downstairs bathroom to change into a second set of clothing she'd brought with her for post-sprinkler time.

We had re-congregated in the back yard on our respective chairs to catch our breaths and wait out the dryer in the warm afternoon sun when the doorbell sounded. Sydney shot me a questioning look and rose to answer the summons. I don't know why he thought I'd know who it was at our door on a Sunday. He knew as well as I did that Jarod would just follow the voices around to the back of the house, and that Nicholas was probably at home in upstate New York, unpacking his suitcase from his vacation. I leaned back into the cushion of the chaise lounge, listening to the light ripple of conversation going on around me.

"Cat?" Sydney had waited until he'd come close to speak to me. He didn't look happy, and the others had grown silent at his expression. "There's a man here who claims to be Lyle's attorney. He wants to talk to you about settling your complaint against Lyle and Willy before the case goes to court."

"Settle?" I narrowed my eyes as I felt myself tighten up suddenly. I really didn't need this right now. "As in pay me money to drop the charges?"

"I assume so." My husband's voice told me clearly what HE thought of the idea.

"Oh, for God's sake!" Miss Parker spat, shaking her head in disbelief.

"Even for Lyle, that's pretty damned presumptuous." Broots' statement was flat and distrustful.

"You can tell him to go fly a kite," I told him, settling back against my cushions.

Sydney shook his head. "I already did. He wants to hear it from you, since you're the one who filed the complaint."

I closed my eyes, and gradually the tightness eased. "Help me up," I said finally, putting my hands out to him. "I'll make him sorry he wouldn't take your word for it."

"You go for it," Miss Parker said approvingly, gathering her little brother close to her protectively. "That son of a..."

"Parker..." Sydney warned paternally, with an eye to the child in her arms as a reason for interrupting.

The grey eyes impacted mine. "You know what I mean. Tell him a few things for me too."

Sydney had my elbow in his palm. "We'll be right back," he told our guests, then led me slowly back into the house and toward the living room.

Had he not been holding my elbow, I wouldn't have felt his hesitation of shock when, instead of just one man in our living room, there were two. "What the hell are YOU doing here?" Sydney demanded of the one who was tethered to an oxygen tank and looked as if on death's door.

"I wanted to make sure," the man intoned in a hoarse stage whisper then drew in more of the oxygenated air into his lungs noisily, "that our concerns were at least communicated properly."

"Who is this?" I asked, turning my face up to my husband's glower.

"This is Mr. William Raines, Chairman of the Centre," Sydney told me in a tight voice, then looked reluctantly back at our guest. "My wife, Catherine."

"Catherine, eh?" the bald man said with a sideways glance at my husband, as if sharing an inside fact. "So nice to meet you at last..." He came at me with a skeletal hand extended. I backed up until Sydney was in front of me like a shield. I could tell the Chairman wasn't pleased with my response.

"What do you want?" I demanded angrily. "Isn't it enough that I have Lyle trying to get into my house one way or the other - now YOU sneak into the house while Sydney is bringing me to speak to a lawyer, which is what I suppose you are..." I turned my disapproval on the slender young man to Mr. Raines' left.

"Yes, ma'am. I just wanted..."

"Let's be reasonable people here," Raines said in a hoarsely oily tone. "Lyle is very important to the day to day operations of the Centre, and Willy is a valued member of our security force. Surely..."

"Surely the both of them had better things to do than to try to snatch me from my own house, then," I interrupted the ghoulish man without another thought. "But NO, they were really quite determined this last time around, and even broke into my house - smashed a glass door in back - to get what they wanted. Why the hell do you think I'd ever consider dropping the charges?"

"We could make it worth your while... Catherine..." he smiled at me with yellow, tobacco-stained teeth.

I pulled myself to my full height and felt that ripple of tightness return just a little more forcefully. I REALLY didn't need to be doing this just now. "There is absolutely nothing that you have to offer me that would be worth the peace of mind I get from knowing Mr. Lyle and Mr. Willy Whatever are cooling their heels behind bars." As the tightness began to ease, my anger surged. "They stole from me something I valued very much, Mr. Raines - my peace of mind at being safe and secure in my own home. I'm not exactly in any condition to be under a lot of stress right now, as you can see." I stepped out from behind Sydney slightly, my hand on top of the bulge of our peanut to emphasis my condition. As I smoothed my hand over my unborn child, the tightness seemed to ease a bit more.

"Mrs. Green... If you'll just listen..." the legal lackey tried again, but I didn't give him a chance.

"No, you listen to me, the both of you," I told them both firmly. "With Mr. Lyle and Mr. Willy in jail, I have my sense of security and peace of mind back, for the most part. I'm not knowingly and deliberately going to hand them over to you simply to make your corporation run more smoothly, Mr. Raines. What the two of them did was a crime against me and a crime against my child, and I've never done anything to either of them." I could feel the tightness beginning to build again, and this time I knew that when it hit, it would be much stronger. I reached for Sydney's arm for support ahead of time. "My husband gave you my answer earlier, and you didn't believe him. You should have - because you're getting the very same answer from me. You're wasting my time and yours. Now, you will leave my house - and leave me and mine ALONE!" I pointed with my free hand at the front door. "Get out! Both of you!"

The young lawyer was quick to scamper for the door, but Mr. Raines' departure was more deliberate. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Catherine," he said in his gasping way. "Perhaps we can speak later, when you're feeling better." He gave my husband a strange look "What IS it about women named Catherine?" he asked as he slowly dragged his oxygen tank behind him to follow the lawyer out the door. I followed them both and slammed the front door shut hard to make my statement final - then doubled over as the tightness finally clamped down painfully. "Oh my God!"

"Cat!" Sydney was beside me in an instant, lifting me in his arms and carrying me to the couch. "What is it?"

"Cramps again," I said between clenched teeth, my eyes shut and my hands desperately smoothing over our peanut to try to ease the hard muscles again. I opened my eyes and looked up at my very worried husband. "I really didn't need those clowns in my house today, you know."

"Take deep breaths," he soothed at me, smoothing my hair back from my face in a gesture that I think was more comforting to him than to me at the moment. "They're gone now. Everything's all right... You're safe... Breathe..."

I did as he said - took a deep breath and then another - and could feel how hard my heart was pounding now that I wasn't focused on the intruders in my home. One of Sydney's hands found mine and interlaced its fingers with mine while the other continued to stroke my hair. My free hand continued to smooth over my tight stomach, and finally the cramping eased so that I could breathe more freely again. I rested a moment and then reached up with my free hand to smooth back his fun-dampened hair. "I'm OK, my love."

Even then, I couldn't completely erase the almost panicked look on his face. He bent forward and kissed me gently on the lips and then on my forehead. "God, Cat..."

"Hush, Sydney. It's alright." I hadn't thought it possible - my strong and capable husband was clinging to me tightly as if terrified I would leave him. "Just give me a few minutes, that's all..." I closed my eyes again and focused my attention on my heartbeat and breathing, willing them both to slow down and regain a more normal rhythm. But at the same time, I held onto his hand tightly, taking strength from him being beside me.

He kissed my forehead again and then chafed my hand between the both of his while I kept my eyes closed and rested. I was starting to think that I'd managed to get on top of the cramping like I had before when I felt the beginnings of another, even more powerful cramp starting to ripple. When it hit, I clenched my teeth again and squeezed his hand so tightly I thought I could feel the bones grinding against each other.

"PARKER!" I heard him bellow frantically as I suddenly remembered all my birthing class training and began breathing quickly and shallowly through my mouth and rubbing my stomach with my fingertips in small, circular motions.

"Sydney, what's the ma..." I heard her answer him as she came closer and then: "Oh, God! You don't mean to tell me..."

Obviously Rene had trailed in behind her. "Mom?" I heard her call, and then another, cooler hand was on my forehead. "Is it labor?"

"I don't know," I admitted as the tightening across my middle eased gradually. I looked up into Sydney's face and then hers. "That makes two - just like last time."

"One more like that one, Cat, and we're on the road," Sydney told me in no uncertain terms and twisted to look at my daughter. "Rene, go get your mother's suitcase from our bedroom. It's in the bottom of the closet - already packed."

"You've got it," she replied and vanished immediately from my view.

Parker also vanished. "Broots!" I could hear her calling toward the back of the house.

"I don't want to ruin the day," I grumbled as Sydney smoothed my hair back once more.

"Stop that," he told me firmly. "You're not ruining anything."

"But Debbie baked that nice cake for dessert..."

I don't think I've ever seen Sydney look quite so exasperated with me as he did in that moment. "Oh, for heaven's sake, it's not as if we wouldn't have the cake one time or another eventually. When it comes to order of priority, you KNOW that our peanut beats out a cake hands down!"

"Sydney, it's too early." I let my fear and dread out finally, looking up into his face seeking some comfort there.

"I know, sweetheart," he murmured to me, bending close and kissing my cheek. "But not as early as it was the last time. Remember, the doctor said that you could go into labor at any time when you saw him last week..."

I felt the now-familiar tightening starting, but this time there was no hard cramping. "I'm OK, I think..." I told him and then repeated myself to Rene as she clomped into the room bearing the duffelbag with my belongings and a homecoming outfit for our new daughter. "No hard cramp this time, I just got a little tight."

"Let's not celebrate yet," Rene spoke knowingly. "Has anybody bothered to time these cramps to see how far apart they are?"

"There haven't been that many of them, poppet," I said as the tightness eased under a gently soothing hand across my stomach. "Only two really strong enough to worry about."

"Mom..." Her tone told me that she was almost as exasperated as Sydney had been. "Sometimes you hardly even feel the first labor pains. You TELL us when you feel the tightness again."

Sydney moved to sit next to my head, then lifted my head and the pillows I'd been lying against carefully so that he could scoot into place in a sitting position and then arrange the pillows so that I had my head now in his lap. "One way or the other, I think you've just about had all the excitement you need for the day," he told me fondly. He clasped my one hand in his again on top of our peanut who had gone very quiet except for a small bump against my backbone to let me know she was there.

"Well, how are things going in here?" Miss Parker asked in a very worried and take-charge voice, coming close to the back of the couch again with the Broots' close on her heels. "Sydney? Are we on our way to Dover or no?"

"Not yet," I answered her with my eyes closed before my husband could get a word out. "The cramps have stopped again. But Rene's having us time the twinges..."

"Aunt Caffee, you OK?" I heard a small voice ask worriedly, and I opened my eyes and turned my head to look at little Jacob, who had come up next to me.

I smiled at him. "I'm fine, Jakie. I just had a little bit of stomach-ache."

"Is it the baby coming?" he asked, having no qualms about putting his little hand on the side of the bulge in my middle. He was still completely fascinated by the idea that I had a real baby in there and loved it when I'd let him feel the baby kick.

"I don't think so, Jakie, but I'm going to stay really quiet just to make sure." I paused and listened to my body and felt it tighten again just a little. "That's another one," I announced quietly. Sydney looked at his watch.

"C'mon Jakie," Debbie called to the little boy. "How about you and me go see about making some sandwiches for everyone for supper? I think we'll move our picnic into the living room, though."

"OK," he answered brightly and took off to claim the hand Debbie was holding out to him.

The tightness eased again, and I smiled up into my husband's face. "I'm sorry, Dad, but I'm afraid you'll have to wait a little longer to meet your daughter." I let some of my relief color my voice.

"I sincerely hope so," he answered and smoothed my hair back again while his face showed a little of his own relief. "Not that I'm not anxious to meet her, but I'd like her to come a whole lot closer to her due date."

I could tell from Broots' release of breath and hand clapped to Sydney's shoulder that our technician friend was starting to feel the release of tension too. "Man, Cathy, you had us going there for a minute."

"Yeah, well talk to this little monster here," I said, patting my stomach. "SHE had me going there too." I was tired, as if I'd waddled a whole mile, but starting to genuinely relax at last. "And I'm starting to think that our peanut has a definite aversion to some of the men of the Centre. First Mr. Lyle, and now this fellow..."

"Sydney, you should take this as an indication of how your new daughter's going to behave later on," Broots smirked and moved into the room to claim one of the easy chairs. "She'll tell you to hurry up and get you all hot and bothered - only to make you sit and wait again."

"Personally, I think she's working on seeing if she can give her father completely grey hair before she's born, so that the crises of childhood won't show up so bad," was Miss Parker's offering.

"Be nice, now, you two," I twisted to look at them. "It isn't easy being a first-time father."

"That's for sure," Broots piped up unexpectedly from his chair. "I remember waiting for Debbie to come - I was never so excited or scared in my life." He glanced back up at Miss Parker. "And Debbie was early too, so that didn't help. She was SO tiny..."

"That's another one," I told Sydney softly as the tightness, now only a minor twinge, came again.

He glanced at his watch again. "That's less than two minutes, Cat," he worried at me and glanced down at where Rene had parked herself at the bottom of the couch with my feet now resting in her lap. "That's close, isn't it?"

"Are they as strong as they were, Mom?" Rene asked, patting my feet to get my attention.

"Not at all," I answered. "I could hardly feel this last one - and only because I'm paying such close attention now..."

"It could be false labor - you know, the muscles kinda warming themselves up for the main event ahead of time," she told me after thinking for a bit. "Still, if they continue and continue to be regular, you may want to let the doctor know."

"I don't know if I'll be awake," I sighed. "I'm starting to feel like my eyelids weigh a ton..."

"Sleep, then," my husband rumbled softly at me. "You don't have to stay awake and entertain us. You've already put on a class act - for us as well as for Raines."

"Raines was actually here?" Miss Parker was livid. "Of all the nerve..."

"Dad's right, Mom," Rene chimed in. "C'mon, folks, let's let the pregnant lady get her beauty rest." She scooted out from beneath my feet and headed off in the direction of the kitchen.

"C'mon, Scooby," Parker called to Broots, who then padded out of the room obediently after her.

"Close your eyes now," Sydney rumbled at me again and then bent to brush his lips against my forehead. "I'll be right here."

"You don't have to stay with me while I nap," I told him with a fond smile. "Go, be with the family."

"Uh-unh," he shook his head firmly. "I'm not letting you out of my sight for the rest of the day."

With my head in his lap, his one hand spread warmly over our unborn daughter while the other rested in my hair, I had little trouble relaxing to the point that I could doze. My dreams were of the little dark-haired daughter I hadn't met yet, and she was waving a finger at me and warning me, "Soon."

~~~~~~~~

This time, it was Sydney who finally slipped out from under my head and called the doctor while I was asleep to report my onset of cramping again as well as the estimated time between whatever sensations I'd felt. I heard from Rene after the meal about the expression on his face as the doctor warned him that I very well might be in the very early stages of labor. She chuckled sympathetically as she tried to describe the look of horror and panic that had spread across his features at the idea, and how both Miss Parker and Broots had talked long and hard to get him to calm down again.

I have to admit that my mood improved after a short nap and we'd all had a chance to eat our meal and then sample the cake that Deb had made for us. The young Broots girl beamed as the praise for her culinary talent came at her like a wave, and I could tell that getting a chance to hear the approval all of us had to offer her had been very important. I tried to catch my husband's eye and make sure that he got the point, but he was still obviously fairly distracted by the news the doctor had given him.

As a result of my fatigue and Sydney's sense of distress, the family didn't remain long after the meal in order that I could get myself upstairs and into bed - and so my husband could try to calm down a bit more. Once it was just the three of us again, Sydney voiced his opinion that I stay on the couch from now on, but I wouldn't hear of it. The couch was comfortable, but it wasn't my own bed - and besides, I was always more comfortable with my husband curled at my back with his arms around me. After such a trying day, I wasn't going to do without my marital security blanket.

The next few days were very quiet ones, with Miss Parker insisting that Sydney only work morning hours so that he could spend more of the day with me. He and Rene took turns sitting with me and keeping me from dying of boredom except during those afternoon hours when Deb and her friends made their appearance for more tutoring in Chemistry. With both Rene and me to work with them, however, the study sessions tended to be short ones. Miss Parker stopped by once with take-out dinner in hand and stayed only long enough afterwards to reinforce her directive to my husband to call her when the time came for me to be taken to the hospital - no matter what time of the day or night that might happen. Even Joe found reasons not to head back to the Centre after Sydney showed up at about lunchtime, saying only that he felt more useful making sure that there wasn't a repeat of the last Centre visit to stress me into having the baby any earlier than necessary. I would be having no more unexpected, unwelcome visitors on his watch, he told me in a very determined tone of voice over a game of backgammon.

It was over a week later when the telephone call came from Rochester, and then I was glad that Sydney had taken to coming home during the afternoon. I had answered the ringing and then called Rene over to hand her the cordless handset when a man who identified himself as an office of the Rochester Police Department asked to speak to her. She took the telephone with a confused look on her face and over the next few minutes went from confused to upset to downright frightened.

Finally she hung up the telephone and handed the cordless back to me, her face pale. "My fa..." She swallowed hard. "He was arraigned, made bail and has now skipped town," she reported to me after I made her sit down next to me. "They haven't got the slightest idea where he's gone, but they know that his lawyer had made inquiries about the man who had come to pick me up from the hospital." She was shaking so hard she could hardly talk straight. "Mom, what if he's coming here..."

"He wouldn't," I reassured her with a confidence that I didn't completely feel. "Even if he did, we have Dad and Joe here - he isn't going to be able to jump us by surprise like he did to you."

"Mom, he could really hurt you," she worried at me. "And you don't need any more stress right now."

"Go get Dad," I told her. "He needs to know what's going on too."

When Rene came back, it was with both Sydney and Joe. "Rene told me," Sydney said as he settled onto the coffee table in front of me while Joe stood deferentially off to the side. "For what it's worth, I don't want him to get anywhere near either of you."

"Did you tell the Rochester police that you were afraid that he might come here?" I asked Rene finally, not remembering anything like that from the side of the conversation that I'd heard.

"I didn't think to," she admitted ruefully. "I think I was so shocked that he'd pull such a stunt that it didn't even occur to me."

"They gave me a card with contact addresses and phone numbers while we were there filing the charges," Sydney said. "We can call them back and let them know our suspicions. We can also call the Blue Cove police and let hem know what we suspect and maybe ask the Rochester people to send information here. But to be a little forewarned might be the ticket for us too." He looked at Rene. "Do you know what kind of car your father drives?"

"A white pickup," she answered, then folded her arms around herself. "OK, I admit I'm scared now," she told us, her eyes first resting on me briefly and then finally on Sydney. "I don't know what to do, Dad..."

"It's not just you that he's after, poppet," I reminded her, feeling decidedly unsettled myself. Sydney and I had talked at length lately about Jake and his attitude toward Rene and me since the divorce. What Jake would say if he saw me now, ready to have another man's child, was something I didn't even want to speculate about. It had always been OK for him to find his pleasures where he pleased - but he'd been very possessive and jealous of my attentions, especially after the divorce and the subsequent restraining orders that were my way of keeping him out of my life once and for all. Now that he had actually resorted to violence against Rene twice, I could see that he might be capable of just about anything.

"Cat, trust me - if we can manage to protect you from Lyle, we can sure as hell protect you from your ex," Sydney told me, catching my hand and holding it tightly for a moment. "And as for you, young lady, the most important thing for you to remember is that you're not alone anymore," he reminded Rene, reaching out to her and pulling her to sit next to him on the coffee table, her shoulder surrounded by his arm. "You have me, and you have Joe. Until he's found, we just won't let you or your mother go anywhere without an escort." She leaned into him, and I saw his arm tighten around her. "He's never going to hurt you again, ma cheri. I promise."

"A white pickup, eh?" Joe moved away from the group to one of the easy chairs, which he then moved off to the side of our front picture window so that he could sit and keep an eye on the street in front of the house.

"I'm sorry to be such a baby," Rene cringed at the tone in her own voice. I knew that she'd never allowed herself to be a needy child because Jake had made it clear when she was very young that he had no time for “babies,” so it was difficult for her now to admit that she was afraid. I was so glad that, this time, she had Sydney to go to for what she needed - and that he was ready to give reassurance and a sense of security to her without reservation.

Sydney wrapped his other arm around her and held her close, leaning his cheek against the top of her head. "After what you just went through a few weeks ago, I don't think you're being a baby at all," he comforted her. "You have a right to be afraid of him, ma petite. He's proven that he can be a dangerous man. But I have you now. You're safe here..."

"I wish..." she started, then blushed and fell silent again. I held my breath - things had been such that these two hadn't had their talk, but it looked as if that was going to change very soon.

"You wish what?" he asked her in that low and gentle voice that was one of the things I loved most about him.

She blushed even more furiously. "That you were my real father," she said in a very soft voice that I had to strain to hear - one obviously meant for Sydney alone.

Sydney looked up at me, and his expression was priceless. Then he looked down as he tightened his hold on her. "I wish you were too," he told her in a voice equally soft and private. "For what it's worth, Rene, I love you as if you were my own - and have for a while now. If you were younger, I would have adopted you long ago." One of his large hands cradled her head against him while the other stayed wrapped around her torso.

"I... love you too, Daddy," Rene said in a trembling voice, her arms finally slipping around him and holding him back. "I still wish you could adopt me, though - I want to belong here."

Sydney shot me another look, this one a bit surprised as well as knowing. "But you already belong here, sweetheart," he whispered into her ear and then kissed the spot. "You always will."

Rene heaved a huge sigh and relaxed into Sydney - and with that sigh sealed the new relationship solidly into place. My heart leapt to see them together like that, my husband and my daughter, finally accepting each other as family. For a while, I felt as if my whole body ached for Rene in finally finding a father she could love with all her heart, and who loved her as much in return.

Then my happiness turned to concern as the tightness that had settled around my middle didn't seem to want to abate, but tightened just a bit more. I lay back into my pillows and tried to relax again, and finally the tightness eased a bit. Our peanut chose that moment to land either a right jab or a practice place-kick in the general vicinity of my bladder, so there was no doubt that I needed to get up and take care of business. I stayed put, though, as long as I could take it in order to give Sydney and Rene their moment uninterrupted. But, at last, I HAD to move.

"I'm sorry," I said softly as my movement broke their embrace and Rene scooted out of the way. "I have to..."

"Mom..." Rene was staring at me and then turned to Sydney. "I think you'd better call the doctor and then Miss Parker, Dad," she told him. "Her water has broken."

I blushed as I suddenly recognized the sensation on my legs - wetness. That hadn't been a hit to bladder after all. Sydney blanched and grabbed for the telephone handset, then dialed with fingers that were shaking.

Rene helped me to the bathroom, then left me sitting there while she went upstairs to bring me some clean clothing to get into for the trip - as well as some towels so that I wouldn't ruin Parker's car's upholstery. I could hear Sydney's voice in the other room as he spoke on the phone, and the tone was tight, high and nervous. Soon he was hovering outside the bathroom door, wondering what he could do while waiting for our ride. I reminded him that my suitcase had made it back upstairs and into the closet again after the last false start. Heavy footsteps on the stairway told me that he had taken them two at a time in his haste to bring down that necessary item for our trip.

Rene returned from upstairs first with the rainbow caftan in her hands and a mischievous smile on her face. "Oh wonderful," I grumbled at her. Miss Parker would NEVER let me live down my attachment to the garment now. Still, it was clean, it was dry, and it was one of the few things in my wardrobe that actually still fit me. While I changed clothes, I sent her back upstairs for my hairbrush, determined that I could at least make myself somewhat presentable now, knowing I'd not stay that way for long. Now it was Rene's turn to grumble good-naturedly before she headed back up the stairs again, meeting Sydney on his way down.

"For God's sake, you're not going to a concert," he worried at me through the open bathroom door as I waited and then took the brush from Rene and ran it through my hair.

"Maybe not," I told him, "but I don't have to frighten Miss Parker into thinking she's invited a witch into her car."

"Speaking of Miss Parker, she's here," Joe announced calmly, taking the suitcase in hand and waiting for Sydney to get me under control and moving for the door.

"Are you coming?" Sydney asked Rene as he moved past her.

"I can pace and worry here as well as I can in the waiting room of the hospital," she answered him and stretched up to kiss a cheek. "Take good care of her, Dad, and give me a call when I have a little sister."

I was glad that he took the time to pause and give her a hug and a kiss in return before coming back to help me out the front door and down the walk to where Parker had pulled her shiny, black Boxster into the driveway. "We'll be waiting for your call, Dr. Sydney," Joe said after depositing my suitcase in the trunk. "Good luck, Cathy."

"Take good care of Rene for us," I told him, then let Sydney help me lay out a towel on the back seat and slip onto it.

"Oh, come on, Rene, get in the car - at least you can stay with her on the ride in, and then keep me company on the way back," Miss Parker beckoned to my daughter, who shot the woman a tremendously grateful smile and climbed into the front passenger seat. "Joe, hang around here and watch the place - we'll be back in a couple of hours."

"Yes, ma'am."

Sydney went to the other side of the car and slipped into the back with me so that I could lean on him. "Let's go!" he barked the moment the car door was closed. "I don't want to have to deliver her myself in the back of this car!"

"Yes, sir!" Miss Parker answered briskly, although with no lack of humor, and turned the key in the ignition.

~~~~~~~~

Our daughter made her entrance into the world eighteen hours later. As my ears heard her first tenuous cry steadily grow stronger and more outraged as the nurses cleaned her and diapered her for the first time, it was if I had known that little voice for months now. After hearing her weight and length announced, I looked up into the tired face of my husband, who had been behind my shoulders supporting me at the very end of my labor, with a look of weepy satisfaction and accomplishment. He immediately bent down and gave me a sweet kiss. "Did she ever tell you her name?" he asked me as the nurse brought me a warm blanket.

"Sarah," I told him. "Sarah Elizabeth." It had come to me in a dream only a couple of nights earlier, and I hadn't found the right moment to tell him before now.

"Here, Dad, why don't you carry your little girl down to the nursery while we get your wife all squared away in her room." The head nurse in the delivery room brought Sydney the swaddled bundle and laid that tiny scrap of life in his arms for the first time, and I watched my husband's face melt from an expression of pure terror into a countenance of absolute devotion. If I had ever had any lingering doubts about Sydney's ability to be a father to his child, they were put to rest immediately.

"Hello, Sarah," he whispered to her, entranced, tracing the line of her chin with a finger almost as long as her forearm. "Ma petite cheri." He looked up at me, carefully being shifted to a gurney for my trip to my room. "She's beautiful, Cat!"

I was tired enough that all I could do was smile at him as he returned his attention to his daughter, who - wouldn't you know it - had quieted down the moment she'd been put in her father's arms. Sarah's eyes were open, and she was studying her father's face as intently as he was studying hers. "I'll show you where the nursery is," the nurse told Sydney and with a touch to his elbow got him walking ahead of my gurney out of the delivery room and down the corridor. At the door of the nursery, the neonatal nurse carefully took Sarah from her father with, "We'll have her back to you in just a little while." I could see Sydney's face look just the slightest bit deprived as the gurney wheeled past him.

Very soon I was comfortably ensconced in a hospital bed by a window, and Sydney moved in to sit close to me the moment the nurses quit fussing and left us alone. "What a wonderful gift you've given me," he breathed at me, his dark honey eyes so full of emotion that he had tears standing. "Thank you seems so inadequate."

"I love you," I told him tiredly, my eyes hardly wanting to stay open.

"I love you so much!" I felt him bend over me and kiss me gently. "You rest now," he told me, "while I have some telephone calls to make. Parker and Rene are probably wondering if we've forgotten them, and Broots deserves to hear."

"You need to rest too, my love," I complained, forcing my eyes open again. "You've been up at least as long as I have..."

"I will," he promised me. "But not yet. I'll have Parker or Rene run in to pick me up. Go to sleep now. You've more than earned your rest." He brushed my sweat-dampened hair back gently time after time until I finally dropped off.

I wasn't sure how long I dozed, but it was long enough that when the nurse wheeled the bassinet with Sarah into the room, I was already starting to rouse. "I think somebody's hungry," the nurse told me brightly as she put my daughter in my arms and then adjusted the bed so that I was sitting up better. She helped untie the hospital gown at my neck so I could move it aside and settle Sarah at my breast. The little imp latched on tightly and suckled hard immediately - and then those beautiful eyes opened and peered deeply into mine, and I became lost in the rapport that we suddenly shared.

Sydney slipped quietly back into the room and settled into the chair next to my bed to watch the two of us commune. "How beautiful you are," he commented softly after a very long moment, and I looked up at him and smiled. "Did you rest?"

"Some. Did you talk to Rene?"

"She and Parker and Joe were all at our place - Joe spent the night on the couch so that Rene wasn't alone at all. Then Parker decided not to go to work today but went back to our place and hung around with Rene until there was some word." The idea of Parker actually playing hooky from work made Sydney's lips quirk in amusement. "The two of them are driving in now. I'll go home with them and come back later today with our car when they release you two. And I called both Nicholas and Broots - both of them send their best." He focused his gaze on the nursing baby. "I honestly can't believe that our peanut's really here - that this is MY child, that I actually HAVE a baby girl..."

"Come over here and join us, Dad," I told him with a jerk of the head. "I'm missing having you at my side here, and Sarah could use some more time with her father."

His face glowing with excitement, Sydney shifted to the bed and sat next to his daughter and me. His huge hand very carefully cupped and then stroked the fine silk of Sarah's dark hair tenderly and with wonder. Then that hand came up and cupped my face gently so that he could take my lips with his in one of his deep and loving kisses that never failed to make my heart beat faster. "I'm a lucky man," he told me in his melodious, vibrant baritone, settling my head against his chest and wrapping his other arm about my shoulders. "You made me the luckiest, Cat." I leaned against him and marveled at the moment, sitting here with a wonderful man holding me in his arms and with our beautiful new daughter at my breast. I'd long wondered what a perfect moment in time would be like - I didn't wonder anymore. I had everything in the world I could have ever wanted in that quiet, intensely intimate moment, and I was supremely content.

When Sarah seemed to be done with her first meal, I laid her back against my propped up knees while I let Sydney help me pull my gown back in place, then lifted her gently to my shoulder to burp her. I heard Sydney begin to chuckle. "Hi there," he said cheerfully as the baby's gaze locked with his again over the back of my shoulder, and then he sobered quickly as he offered a finger toward her and felt her miniscule fingers fold around the very end. "Of all the things I've ever wanted in life, to have a wife and family was the most precious - and the one thing I thought I'd never, ever, have was..."

"I never thought I'd have another child, certainly not at my age," I admitted softly, "or that I'd ever have a husband that I loved more than life itself. I had given up ever having that kind of a life." I felt his lips brush my forehead. "Who would ever have guessed that signing up for a psychological research project about surviving the death of a twin would have had such amazing consequences."

I could feel the chuckle well up from deep within him. "It wasn't so much the project, Cat - it was the serendipity that put you at that beach that cold afternoon with me."

"And the storm, don't forget the storm," I began to chuckle too. "We wouldn't have Sarah if it hadn't been for the foul weather and your not wanting me to get lost in the dark in the rain."

"Oh, I think by that time, the storm was only the most convenient excuse I could find at the moment," Sydney kissed the side of my head. "By then, though, I was already falling head over heels in love and would have done just about anything to keep you with me for a while longer. You were the first person since Jacob died who truly understood me - that you were also an incredibly beautiful woman didn't hurt either."

"You're pretty easy on the eyes too, you know," I relaxed more fully against him and his arms slid from my shoulders to wrap around my more normal-sized middle. "And you were the first person I'd been able to really talk to for years. I think that by the time we realized it was late and there was a storm, I was halfway in love with you too. And by morning..."

"By morning I had already decided that I would do everything and anything to win you. Little did I know that I'd already taken care of the problem in one of the few ways you couldn't argue with." Sarah stretched sleepily against my shoulder, and I felt Sydney bend forward and kiss his little girl gently.

"I should have brought a camera," Rene announced from the doorway of my room. "I don't think I've seen either of you look happier."

I carefully slid Sarah down into my arms so that the two newcomers could see her better. "She looks like you, Syd," Miss Parker said in a soft voice, and then chuckled when Sarah yawned again. "And she has your laid-back manner down pat already."

"Amazing what a full tummy can do for a person," I chuckled at her before grasping her hand with my free one. "You take him home and make him rest," I told her, shooting Sydney a firm look. "He's tired and needs to sleep. Heaven knows when he'll next get an uninterrupted rest for the next few weeks."

"I'll take care of him, Mom," Rene bent toward me to deposit a kiss on my cheek and then peered down into the face of her little sister. "God, she's smaller than I thought."

"She was early, remember?" I reminded her softly. "Still, she's not so small - she's almost seven pounds now. If she'd managed to make it two and a half more weeks..."

"She's just right," Sydney pronounced proudly, his huge hand again cupping his daughter's head gently.

"C'mon, Syd," Miss Parker walked up to him and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. "You're starting to droop, if you hadn't noticed. Time to get you home and dump you on the couch for the day."

"Yeah, Dad, let's let Mom and Sarah rest up for a while," Rene added her urging to Parker's. "You look all in."

I looked up into his face and had to agree. Now that the excitement was dying down, he DID look exhausted. "You go on and get yourself a good rest," I told him. "I'll see you when you come back later to pick us up."

He bent and kissed me one more time. "I won't be gone for long," he promised. "Don't go anywhere without me, OK?"

"We'll be right here waiting for you." I waved him on. "Go on, my love. Get some rest."

~~~~~~~~

The whole family - less one - was at the house when Sydney and I got home that evening. Even Joe had stuck around so he could get a glimpse of the new member of the family. For her part, Sarah took in all the new people around her with class, managing to stay awake at least until all the introductions had been accomplished before, with one great yawn, she dropped off in my arms. When I would have carried her upstairs, Broots showed me his gift that he'd dropped by just before we'd arrived - a cradle to sit in the living room so I didn't have to climb stairs all the time to get her to bed or let her rest. I put Sarah in her downstairs bed and then gave our friend a proper hug thank you.

Miss Parker and Rene had taken care of the evening meal plans for a welcome-home dinner ahead of time that included us all, so we were seven adults around our dining table that night. It was an absolute joy for me to actually fit in my spot at the table rather than have to sit back so far I missed my mouth half the time. I found myself watching our two cooks interact, and when I checked to see if Sydney had noticed, I could see that he had indeed. The two women were acting as if they'd known each other all their lives as family - Parker having donned the role of elder sister to Rene's younger sister. The time that they'd spent by themselves together seemed to have drawn them closer - and I couldn't have been happier.

Sarah roused again not long after we'd finished eating, and I was busy changing her and getting ready to feed her again when the doorbell rang. Sydney looked through the little hole in the door and evidently felt confident enough to open it slightly. "Yes? Can I help you?"

"Where is she?" a loud voice boomed that I remembered all too well, unfortunately - and I heard the thud of the door being suddenly forced open and my husband grunt in pain and surprise. "Cathy?" I quickly put Sarah back in her cradle as a wild-eyed Jake came through the archway at me. "So THIS is where you've been hiding!"

Rene came running up and skidded to a halt with a squeak of surprise and horror. "Dad!" she bent to help Sydney regain his feet. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Jake growled at his daughter, and then whirled around when it finally sunk in that she hadn't been talking to HIM. "Who the Hell do you think you're calling “Dad?” I'M your father!" he demanded of her and took a threatening step toward her.

Sydney thrust Rene behind him. "Get out of my house!" he ordered my ex-husband in a gruff and angry voice. "And stay the Hell away from my wife and daughter."

"They're MINE," Jake bellowed belligerently, "and I've come to collect the family you stole from me, you bastard!" He landed a punch on Sydney's chin that rocked my husband back on his heels again and stopped his forward movement to protect anybody.

I don't think I'd ever been so angry in my life. "He didn't steal anything - you lost us long ago, and you just can't admit it to yourself. You just stay the Hell away from me, and stay away from my husband!" I took a step away from my baby and toward Jake, ready to claw the man's eyes out if that was what it was going to take to protect my family.

"Cathy? What's going on in here?" Miss Parker led the cavalry charge from the dining room. She stepped between Jake and me. "Who the Hell is THIS?"

Jake tried to shove her roughly out of the way. "Butt out, lady. This isn't any of your business..."

Then I heard it again - that metallic snicking sound that told me that Joe had arrived, figured out what was going on, and had decided to take definitive action. "OK, Mister. That's about as far as you go." I saw Jake follow the voice and then blanch at the sight of a very lethal-looking gun pointed at him.

Sydney moved carefully around the intruder until he could put his arm around my shoulder. "Are you OK?" I asked in concern.

"A little dazed, but not hurt," he told me with a reassuring squeeze, but I could already tell that he'd wear the mark of Jake's fist for several days to come. That fact made me boil over with anger yet again.

"Call the police, Rene," I told my daughter when I saw that she hadn't moved a muscle. "Rene!"

"She won't do it," Jake sneered triumphantly, although with a nervous glance at a gun barrel that hadn't moved an inch. "She knows better than to call the cops on her father. I'll bet it was this joker that made her call them in Rochester."

Sydney grunted his disgust at the very idea, but the statement was enough to finally bring Rene out of her catatonic state. She walked up to her father very slowly with an increasing look of hatred and anger in her face. "You aren't my father," she told him with a tone that was as icy and rejecting as I'd ever heard from her. "You're just the man that got my mother pregnant." Jake blinked as if he'd just been slapped. "And just so you know, in Rochester Dad only reminded me of what I already knew I needed to do. For what it's worth, I should have done it a long time ago - the first time you violated that restraining order. He won't need to tell me a second time." She then turned on her heel and walked very obviously toward the telephone and dialed 911. "This is Rene Martin, and I'm staying at 125 Washington Avenue - and I'd like to report an intruder."

"You can't have her - not Cathy - she's MINE," Jake mumbled in a manner that told us all very clearly that the man had lost all semblance of sanity. "And if I can't have her, then NOBODY can..."

He pulled his hand from his trousers pocket and aimed the handgun at me. Miss Parker gave out a yell, Rene screamed, and Sydney pushed me out of the way as Jake pulled the trigger even as Joe landed the butt of his gun to the back of his head. Jake collapsed like a sack of potatoes, and I screamed as the bullet slammed into my right shoulder and spun me around as it knocked me down. Over it all I could hear the crying of my tiny daughter at all the loud voices and terrifying noises...

~~~~~~~~

By the time the police in Blue Cove had finished filing all the charges against him, Jake was looking at a very long time locked away - breaking and entering, assault and battery against Sydney and attempted murder against me. But before that, he had regained consciousness and begun to rave wildly and struggle madly against the handcuffs, and the arresting officers on the scene decided that the regional psychiatric facility might be a better venue for his incarceration than the jail. When they half-dragged, half-carried him to the squad car, he was shouting obscenities and calling for either Rene or myself to tell the police to let him go.

Miss Parker, bless her heart, took charge of the scene from the family's perspective. She sent Broots to the linen closet for towels to staunch my bleeding, then had a quick, quiet and very determined talk with a stunned and frantic Sydney, handing him a glass with a more than ample amount of brandy to try to calm him down. Eventually she left Sydney in the care of Broots, Joe and Rene, with instructions for him to tell the police what happened. Then she packed me off to a semi-private corner of the living room with the baby to finish feeding and changing her very quickly in order to calm Sarah's ongoing tantrum, which wasn't helping anybody. Turning down the police offer of an ambulance, she then helped me out to her sports car and drove me back to Dover and an emergency room at a controlled breakneck speed worthy of a racer at the Indianapolis Speedway.

The Blue Cove police must have called the hospital to let them know I was coming, for I was taken immediately in and seen to. My wounds front and back were stitched up and bandaged within a couple of hours, and not long after that I was back on my way home with an ample supply of the minimal pain killers that I could take and still breast feed my baby safely. Miss Parker had the presence of mind to call home while I was being stitched up to give Sydney a report on my condition and reassure him that I was otherwise unharmed. She later told me with a shake of the head that he'd still sounded quite frantic with worry. The police had left while we were gone, and Broots had taken his very shaken daughter home leaving only Joe and Rene to try to calm my husband's fears.

Not that whatever they had tried had worked - Sydney was out the front door and charging down the walk toward the driveway the moment we started pulling in. I was tired and hurting enough that I appreciated his gathering me into his arms the moment I had climbed from the passenger seat, but he clung to me more tightly than I'd expected. "I'm OK, really," I reassured him myself, putting my good arm around his waist and holding him back as I leaned. "My shoulder hurts like hell, but I'll live."

"C'mon, you two, let's get you in the house," Miss Parker put a hand on Sydney's shoulder and propelled him, with me tucked into his embrace, back down the walk. "Where's Joe?"

"Inside, with Rene," Sydney told her absently. He stopped the moment we were inside the front door and stood me away so he could look at me carefully. "You're SURE you're all right?"

Rene came to the top of the stairs carrying a fussy Sarah in her arms, and I could tell that she would have been asking me the same question herself but that he'd asked it first. "Yes," I promised fervently. "I'm really OK, sweetheart. The bullet went straight through and did very little damage. It just hurts like hell every time I try to move the arm." I looked at Sydney and cupped a hand about his chin. "What's the matter with Sarah, Dad?"

"She's just been very fussy since you left," Rene answered for him, carrying my baby down the stairs and laying her carefully into my good arm. "The only one who could get her to calm down was Sydney, and unfortunately his holding her didn't make HIM any calmer..."

I looked up into his eyes, and my heart went out to the torn and agonized man who'd seen his wife shot the very same day she'd given him a child. "She's just so small," he said softly, his hand now willingly traveling to cup his daughter's head, "and I didn't want to hurt her - and I was so worried about you... I didn't know what it was she wanted or needed..."

I looked about at the rest of them as my reservoir of strength and adrenaline began to run dry. "I think I'm going to take Sarah and Sydney upstairs with me for some quiet time," I announced. "It's been a very long day for all of us, and I hope you don't think me a bad hostess, but I really need to spend some time..."

"Go, Mom," Rene urged me with a jerk of the head. "I'll take care of things down here. Dad needs you, and so does Sarah."

"C'mon, Joe," I heard Miss Parker say softly. "I think the excitement is over for the day."

"I sure as hell hope so," our sweeper said vehemently. "I'll see you in the morning, Cathy. Dr. Sydney."

"You call me in the morning," Miss Parker told me firmly. "And keep new Daddy here home with you tomorrow. You may be the one who had the baby, but I think he's the one who has some settling in to do." Her eyes rested upon her old friend with understanding fondness, and she bent toward me. "He still looks pretty rattled, Cathy."

I shot her a knowing look and a nod. "I know. Good night, Parker - and thanks for all your help," I lifted my right hand in its sling and waved at her and then turned and began the walk up the stairs. The heavier fall of tread on the stairs behind me told me I didn't make my ascent alone.

I laid Sarah in the middle of our bed so that she was safe and then let Sydney help me out of my torn and bloodstained caftan and into a more comfortable and convenient nightgown. I really did prize that caftan more than I'd ever imagined I would - its cheery colors had sustained me on many days when my mood had been low, and the gentle teasing about my even having it had drawn me closer to Miss Parker. I folded it carefully and put it aside to wash out and see if repair was possible. I'd be damned if I'd let Jake steal even the smallest bit of happiness from me.

Then, with Sydney and plenty of pillows at my back, I opened my nightgown so that I could give Sarah her late-night meal. Sydney, obviously feeling more in control and secure now that life seemed to be settling down again, shifted so that I was leaning more against him as I sat and peered over my left shoulder at his new daughter as she took her meal. His arms around my waist were tight and possessive and, to me, the most supportive gesture he could make besides being my backrest. I soon found that if I focused my attention on the sensation of my baby at my breast, I could even block out some of the ache in my right shoulder.

It wasn't exactly another perfect moment, but it was damned close to it. And after all we'd just been through, it would do for now.

Research Subject - by MMB

Chapter 9: Epilogue


There was a decided chill to the air that tells me that the days will soon begin to grow much shorter and colder. Outside my kitchen window, the leaves of the stately trees in the back yard had nearly all fallen now, and I no longer left the arcadia door open with only the screen blocking the bugs in order to enjoy the fresh air. I'd traded shorts and sleeveless shirts for trousers I hadn't worn in almost a year and more protective blouses and shirts. On the days when the wind blew harder and I had to go outside, I'd even taken to pulling Sydney's thick cardigan over my head. Somehow, it had managed to get put away in my drawers and not Sydney's when I moved in - a convenient error that now made us both smile in fond remembrance since I had no intention of ever REALLY returning it now.

Sarah's wardrobe over the past weeks had been changing almost constantly. She was a healthy tike with a healthy appetite and a penchant for growing out of her pretty newborn dresses almost before she got a chance to wear them all. Now I tended to make her cozy and warm in her next-size-up sweat suits and socks when I put her in her swing to rock while I worked on getting the huge roast ready to put in the oven later for our Sunday dinner. For his part, Sydney had called the day before and ordered a cord of wood delivered to help us keep warm this winter and had directed the men in stacking the wood against the side of the garage earlier this morning. We'd had the chimney cleaned the week before, and tonight would build our first fire of the year after supper.

This was going to be a special meal, because the entire family - plus a few extras - was scheduled to start arriving any moment and spend the entire day with us. Sydney had left two hours ago for Dover to pick up both Nicholas and Rene at the airport as their flights landed within an hour of each other. I was excited - I hadn't seen Rene since the baby was two weeks old and she'd finally returned to Rochester. We'd discussed it long and hard, but had finally bowed to her decision to at least finish her pre-med. studies before transferring to Johns Hopkins for her internship. Nicholas had managed one other visit after the baby came - landing on the Friday before Rene's plane left on Sunday - and I'm still not sure exactly whom it was that he'd come to see more that time, his new sister or Rene.

There was definitely something interesting brewing between those two - I knew that Nicholas had admitted to his dad on the phone that he'd made at least one flying trip to Minnesota since last we'd seen him. For her part, Rene was being very closed-mouthed about the whole thing, but both Sydney and I were certain that when she moved to Baltimore, the two of them would probably be seeing a whole lot more of each other - and neither of us minded that one bit.

Romance was definitely in the air with our family with more than just Rene and Nicholas. Much to Miss Parker's amusement, Broots had finally connected with one of the women he'd met online - and she'd turned out to be a treasure. Pamela was a sweet, pretty, funny, gentle soul who was intelligent enough to at least understand Broots and his obsession with computers and wise enough to have made a point of making friends with Debbie from the start. This would be the third time she'd been included in family activities at our home.

Then there was Jarod and Parker - a relationship that I think my husband celebrated with almost as much delight as he did our own. Parker admitted to me over tea one afternoon that Jarod had once more begun to call her at night - only now, rather than to prick her conscience or issue taunts, it was to talk about important things. I think he'd even shown up at her home a few times during the early evening before he'd wander over to ours to spend the night. Anyway, on those occasions when they were here together, the energy between them was obvious to anyone who cared to look. Little Jacob had become quite fond of his secret Uncle too, an emotion that was returned without reservation.

Last but not least, Joe was being included in a family gathering for the first time - and was bringing his newest love interest to dinner to meet us as well. I'd considered having him come over on a Saturday afternoon many times before, but then the unthinkable had happened. Joe had walked in on Jarod at our house two weeks ago completely by accident when he stopped back by the house on a Sunday morning to pick up something he'd forgotten a while back. But rather than force Jarod's return to the Centre, Joe had won his membership in the family when he shrugged and told me, very matter-of-factly that "what goes on over here is a different reality than one controlled by the Centre, as far as I'm concerned." When I had extended the invitation to dinner tonight, he'd asked very shyly if he could bring someone - to which Sydney had answered that he was welcome to bring anybody he liked, provided that it wasn't Mr. Raines.

It would be good to see Joe again. I hadn't realized how much I would miss not having him around during the daytime once Lyle and Willy were convicted of all the charges against them and sent to prison and Jake committed to a state institution for the criminally insane. Joe had been a stable and dependable part of my life for months - he'd been company for me during the long daytime hours when Sydney was at work. I wasn't exactly sure where we would be fitting everybody into the house with the addition of Joe and his companion, but that didn't seem to be very important. What was important was that this was a full family affair and everybody was coming - and that everybody meant Joe and his lady too.

Our lives had changed dramatically since Sarah's arrival. An investigation into alleged criminal activity at the Centre had been launched by the Delaware State Attorney General thanks to evidence of some of Lyle's other proclivities and Centre cover-up efforts inexplicably leaking out to the press. Mr. Raines had responded to the investigation of Centre complicity by stonewalling and implementing a policy of non-cooperation, which in turn had only called more public attention to the Centre and its activities and tendency to intimidate and obfuscate. Lately even the federal government was starting to sit up and pay attention when evidence of tax evasion by Mr. Raines, both corporate and personal, began to come to light in the same, inexplicable manner. Broots quietly reported to me one evening that a subpoena had been served for Mr. Raines' testimony at a hearing - and that the Chairman had since made himself scarce and been a no-show at the hearing. The computer tech said that there was a betting pool going on for just how much longer the Centre could keep its doors open to do business before the Triumvirate and its other many creditors began dismantling it or the government closed it down completely.

Thanks to good salaries for years and some financial planning, Sydney, Broots and Miss Parker were all well prepared for the possibility of losing their jobs - and none of them would go long without employment anyway, if it came to that. But I tended to worry about Joe and Sam. Short of the janitorial staff, sweepers tended to be at the lower end of the Centre pay scale, where even the best financial planning wouldn't accomplish much. I also seriously doubted that the kind of security jobs they'd be looking for would be easily forthcoming.

Still, this was a day of celebration, not a time for stewing. Sarah was three months old, and our freedom from the threat of intimidation from either the Centre or my ex-husband was a whole two weeks old. Even better, the two distant members of our family were headed home to celebrate with us. While not an official holiday, this was going to be the Green Extended Family Thanksgiving Day.

Jarod appeared first, tapping on the arcadia door glass for admittance, like always. "It's open," I called back, my hands momentarily full with the second one of two pies just out of the oven that needed to cool on the stove top for a while before they could be stored away.

"God, but it smells good in here already," he bubbled, bending over my shoulder to give me a peck on the cheek and sniffing at the pie in my hand appreciatively. "And it looks like your supervisor is in a good mood this morning," he said, crouching down in front of the swaying seat in which Sarah now enjoyed spending so much of her time. "Hello there, sweet-pea."

"Yes, well, I'm thinking we'll be needing to buy stock in teething analgesics by the time she's a year old to keep her IN that good a mood." I wiped at my brow with the sleeve of my blouse after I toed the oven door closed and deposited the pie next to its twin. I then headed back to the counter and hefted the pan with the marinating roast to slip it into the fridge where it would await baking.

"Nah," the Pretender quickly undid the plastic straps that held Sarah safely in the little seat. He lifted my daughter up into his arms and carried her over to stand next to me. "She knows that this is a special day - she's catching her mood from you and Sydney."

"Your latest Pretend was as a child psychologist, I take it?" I teased him with a big smile and watched his face curl into his playful smirk in response.

"That's beside the point. You're married to a psychiatrist, aren't you?" he reminded me with a pointed tone. "You mean he hasn't kept you informed about all these things?"

"I have news for you," I smirked back, watching Sarah let loose with another bubble of drool onto Jarod's shoulder, "Sydney's very good at analyzing everyone except his own family. He's too close to us to have any perspective. That's why he was so much better at helping you emotionally AFTER you escaped - before that, he was too close to you, even though wild horses couldn't have dragged an admission out of him at the time."

Jarod shot me a sharp and assessing look. "There are times, Cathy, that I think you would have made a damned fine psychiatrist yourself. Your insights are totally wasted in a chemistry lab."

"Nah. I just don't let my closeness blind me to what's going on with the people around me," I told him and held my arms out for my daughter. "Take you and Sarah, for example. YOU forgot to put a towel over your shoulder, my friend. Now you have been drool-slimed. Go get yourself a towel to soak up the worst of it before it soaks into you."

"Cathy?" Miss Parker called from the front door.

"In here," I called back with a smirk, "with the slimed one." I heard little footsteps running through the house toward me. "Jakie!"

"Aunt Cathy! Me see Sarah, please?" the little boy begged after he hugged my pant leg. "Please?" I bent down and then crouched so that I could hold Sarah where Jacob could see her right at eye level.

"'The slimed one?'" I heard Miss Parker repeat from just outside the kitchen doorway, followed by a chuckle when she caught sight of the tall, dark-haired man wiping at his shoulder with a hand-towel. "Oh, by the way, Jarod, we should probably warn you that Sarah's teething with a vengeance," she told him with a wide grin.

"I hadn't noticed," Jarod said, draping the towel properly over his shoulder by this time. "You need to patent her, Cathy. She's a Weapon of Mass Saturation."

"Hi Sarah," Jacob said, giving the baby his finger to hang onto - something that never failed to make him feel grown-up and protective. Sarah bubbled again at her little friend and then stuck her fist in her mouth and tried to gnaw on it.

"Why don't you go get her chew ring from the floor and wash it off in the sink before you give it back to her," I suggested, straightening up again when the little boy trotted off to do as I asked.

"Here, I'll take her back," Jarod put out his hands again, "I'm wearing body armor now." He watched Jakie at the sink after he had Sarah back up on his shoulder. "Bring it into the living room when you're done, Sport. You and I can keep Sarah company while her mom and your sister slave over a hot stove."

Miss Parker groaned and slugged him lightly on the forearm. "Parkers don't “slave” over anything, Franken-boy."

"Here, Sarah, time to slime Auntie," Jarod bent toward Miss Parker with Sarah.

She just kissed the baby on the head as he brought her close and then backed up, shaking her head. "Don't you give Jakie any ideas," she warned her friend. "You two go on and play nice!" She cast me a frustrated look after Jarod led Jacob from the kitchen. "I honestly don't know which one is the less mature - Jarod or Sarah."

I just chuckled at her and turned away, heading for the refrigerator and the vegetables that still needed preparing. "'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,'" I quoted back at her. "I think you two are very cute together, the way you spar..."

She smiled that very quiet smile at me that told me that I'd pegged her right on and immediately dropped the subject. "So... what's next to do?"

"You have your choice..."

"Cathy? Sydney?" Broots called from the front door as he always did, then: "Oh, hi Jarod, Jakie. I see you two have babysitting duties today."

"Uncle Broots!" squealed an ecstatic child's voice. "Up!"

"Hi there," Debbie greeted us with her hands full of a lidded casserole dish, followed by Pamela with twin foil-wrapped loaves of bread. Obviously the females with Broots had figured out where the majority of the action would be taking place today without needing to call for directions. "Do you still have room in your fridge for all this stuff?" Debbie asked.

"How many of us will be here today?" Parker asked as I opened the fridge door and began shifting things around to make room.

"I did the math in my head this morning - we will be twelve at the table, not counting Sarah." I took the casserole and slid it carefully into the open place I'd made for it and then turned to take the bread from Pam.

"Will twelve people even fit at your table, Cathy?" Pam asked, her tone shocked. The redhead had slipped over to the door to the dining room and was looking at a table that, as it sat now, could maybe handle six people. Chairs for two more sat against the wall.

I shook my head. "That thing has two leaves, and it can stretch to fit eight or nine, but not many more. We may have to draw straws for who gets to sit at the card table - but a more important question may end up being do I have twelve CHAIRS?"

The garage door opened at that moment. "Mom!" Rene's call echoed into the already well populated room. I closed the refrigerator quickly and turned to find myself enveloped in my older daughter's arms.

"Rene! You're a sight for sore eyes."

Nicholas came up behind her and put an arm around my back and hugged us both. "Hi Cathy."

I kissed first one cheek and then another. "Where's Sydney?"

"I think Dad's digging in the garage for something," Nicholas said. "I figure I'll take the luggage upstairs to the office and then head back to help him out." He stepped back and then looked over toward the counter. "Hi Parker, Deb. Who's our new friend?"

"Good to see you, Nicholas," Parker smiled at her old friend's son.

"This is Pam," Deb claimed a fond hug for herself. "My Dad's friend."

Finally Rene let me go so that I could take care of the amenities. "Pam Dalley, this is my husband's son Nicholas, and my other daughter, Rene." Each raised his or her hand as their names were cited.

"Nice to meet you," Pam mumbled shyly, watching Rene then walk over calmly and claim a hug from Parker that bespoke a close relationship between her and the intimidating woman who was Broots' boss.

Rene looked and found the empty swing by the arcadia door. "Where's Sarah?"

"In the living room with the guys. She's teething and sliming everybody lately," I warned her.

"Jarod! What did you do with my sister?" Rene yelled and headed toward the front of the house. Nicholas simply shook his head indulgently and bent to retrieve Rene's suitcase from where she'd left it on the floor.

"Broots, Jakie and I are holding her for ransom - whatcha gonna do about it?" was the saucy retort from the other end of the house.

"Aunt Rene! Is Uncle Nicholas here?"

Pam sidled up to me. "I don't think I've ever seen it get this rowdy around here," she commented nervously.

"Well," I started.

"You've had it easy up until now," Parker appended with a smile. "But today the WHOLE gang will be here, and things will be hopping for sure. You'll get used to it after a while, trust me."

"Parker, don't scare the poor girl," I chided Miss Parker with a grin that took the edge from the words.

"Actually, it isn't Pam I'm worried about," she responded, dumping the better part of the bag of potatoes into the sink. "It's Joe's girl - she's not involved in the Centre at all, and doesn't know any of us."

"I'm not Centre-involved either, remember?" Pam reminded her, digging through my utensil drawer for a second peeler. "Trust me, it takes a while for someone new to start to feel comfortable or like they belong here. You all are SO close..."

"You'll get there," Debbie reassured her father's friend protectively.

I was about to head for the fridge again to haul out the vegetables for salad when strong arms snaked around me from the back - and suddenly I had a very tall, very warm somebody nibbling at my neck. "I found the card table," Sydney whispered in my ear in triumph and then chuckled at first my start of surprise which was followed by a sniff of derision.

"You and your card table. I'm still more worried about chairs," I reminded him, leaning back a bit. "There's salad makings in the crisper drawer," I directed Debbie with a waving finger when it became obviously that my husband had no intention of letting me go yet. She grinned at us and opened the appliance door in my stead. "Having a table is all fine and well, unless we don't have chairs in which to sit AT the table, my love..."

"Oh, ye of little faith," he rumbled into my ear, pulling me tighter against him. "I gave Joe some money when I saw him on Friday and told him to pick up four metal folding chairs for me and bring them with him today." The doorbell chose that moment to echo through the house, with Broots' welcoming Joe resounding only a few moments later. "Chairs which are arriving as we speak, in fact."

I squirmed out of his arms and then grabbed a hand. "We can at least be there to greet his lady friend when she comes through our door the first time," I explained as I began pulling at him. I could see the top of Joe's dark head towering over even Jarod. "Joe!"

"Cathy!" My sweeper pushed through the gathering crowd to get to my husband and me dragging a rather confused looking dark-haired girl behind him. Then finally he was standing in front of me and dropping a kiss onto my cheek. "Cathy, Dr. Sydney, I'd like you to meet Carol."

I put out my hand to the overwhelmed looking girl. "Nice to meet you, Carol," I told her and heard my husband rumble his greetings as well. "Don't let the number of people here get to you."

But Joe was excited, more so than I'd seen in a long time. "Have you been listening to the news?" he interrupted my attempt to put our newcomer at ease.

"No..." I glanced up at Sydney, who merely looked back down at me and shook his head. "I've been busy in the kitchen, and Sydney's been to Dover and back for Rene and Nicholas. Why? What's going on?"

"The government has shut down the Centre!"

Those seven words killed all the extra conversation that had been going on in the house. I heard Miss Parker and Debbie come forward from the kitchen and Broots ceased his bouncing with Jacob on his shoulders. But Jarod's response spoke for us all when he rose from his easy chair, Sarah still bubbling happily into his shoulder, and demanded, "What did you say again?"

"I've got to go!" Sydney squeezed my shoulders from behind and then let go to turn an anguished face to Miss Parker. "I've got to get to the Centre. Dear God... Angelo..."

"Oh shit, Syd..." she hissed and immediately handed her potato peeler to Debbie. "Take over for me, kid. I gotta go with Sydney."

"Wait. I'm coming too." Jarod came toward me and handed me Sarah and the protective towel from his shoulder.

"What the..." I stared after the three of them, holding Sarah tightly. Not a one of them was paying me the slightest attention.

"I'm driving," Miss Parker announced in a tone that obviously wasn't allowing any argument from anybody, leading the trio toward the front door and her Boxster beyond.

"Just get us there in one piece," Jarod said tightly, a hand at Sydney's shoulder letting the older man through the door first.

"Mom?" Rene put her hand on my shoulder. "What's going on here?"

"Angelo's still trapped there," Broots explained in a shocked voice. "He's..." He looked to Joe as if the sweeper could help him explain.

"He's one of Dr. Sydney's special patients," Joe stated quietly. "He's lived at the Centre all his life, I think - mostly hides in the ventilation ducts..."

"He's one of Mr. Raines' former patients - one that Raines never did quite destroy." Broots looked back at me. "For the most part, he's harmless. He's an empath. He and Jarod and Miss Parker kinda grew up together."

"What do you mean, a patient that Mr. Raines never did quite destroy?" Pam frowned at him.

"You don't know the Centre and what it's capable of," he replied, moving next to her and slipping an arm around her shoulders. "I hope you never do now."

Carol looked up into the kind face of her escort. "You work there too?" she asked.

"Not anymore," Joe replied with a tone of almost satisfaction in his voice. "None of us work there anymore, as a matter of fact."

"Cat." Though quiet, Sydney's voice carried straight to me from the front door, through which his head was sticking.

I frowned - I'd thought he'd be half-way to the Centre by now, with Parker's lead foot getting them there all the faster - and pushed past Joe and Carol to get to him. "I thought you were on your way..."

"We didn't need to." Sydney's dark honey eyes were filled with concern. "He found us. He was walking down the sidewalk toward the house as we were pulling out of the driveway."

"He was what??" I tried to look past him to outside. "Where is he then?"

Sydney's hands came up to quiet me. "He's exploring the front yard with Jarod and Parker at the moment. It's just..." He paused. "I'm just not entirely sure how he'll react to such a large group of people he doesn't know."

"Sydney..." It was a soft voice, very hesitant and shy-sounding.

My husband turned to look behind him, and in so doing allowed me to see past him out the door to where a man with slightly unkempt red hair and child-like crystal blue eyes was standing at the edge of the porch. He caught sight of me holding Sarah, and his face crinkled into a wide smile of pure delight. He walked forward slowly past Sydney until he could extend a finger, which Sarah immediately grabbed for with a happy gurgle. The strange man gazed up at my husband in something approaching surprise and awe. "Sydney... Daddy?" His blue eyes settled on me, and I felt as if they could see all the way to the bottom of my soul. "Mommy loves Sydney?"

"This is Angelo," Sydney explained to me simply. "Angelo, this is Cathy, my wife - and my daughter Sarah."

"Sorry, Syd," Miss Parker came up behind Angelo with a chagrined look on her face. "He was perfectly happy checking out the daisies until you headed for the front door."

"It's OK," I told her, my eyes still caught in that piercing yet innocent gaze. "You came just in time, Angelo. We were having a family dinner. Everybody else is inside."

Angelo broke his hypnotic gaze and looked over his shoulder at Sydney again. "Safe?"

"Yes, Angelo. You're safe here." Now it was Jarod moving past Parker to put and companionable hand on Angelo's shoulder. "Everyone inside is family here."

"Everyone free now. Even Angelo free now." Angelo's statements were like those of an autistic child, but they made perfect sense to me. But then those beautiful blue eyes filled with fear, and he gazed at his three friends in alarm. "But where Angelo go now?"

I could see that the question had caught Jarod, Parker and Sydney by surprise, but what surprised me more was that they hadn't thought through the situation further than they already had.

When I thought about it later, I couldn't be sure what made me do it. During the time I'd been under his study, I'd felt a sudden urge to protect this odd little child-man - and I suppose I simply acted on that drive. Sydney hadn't told me about this other child of the Centre. But even as I felt very close to Jarod and Parker, I knew that there was no way that I wouldn't quickly feel as fond of this man who obviously needed reassurance at the moment. And if, as Joe said, the government had closed down the Centre for good, Angelo was now homeless.

"Right here," I replied. I looked up into Sydney's wondering eyes. "Right?"

"You're sure?" he asked me carefully. "You don't have to..."

"I know I don't." I extended my free hand to the odd little man. "I don't know where we're going to put you for the time being," I told him when he carefully and deliberately put his hand in mine, "but Angelo doesn't need to go anywhere. Angelo has come home at last."

~~~~~~~~

It was late when I finally slipped between the covers of our bed and waited patiently for Sydney to do the same. I was tired - more tired than I'd been in a very long time - but it was a good feeling. Our celebration had turned into a real family event with the addition of the latest and final Centre refugee. Angelo's uneasiness around so many people that he didn't know eased the moment that he discovered the corner of the living room where Jakie kept his stash of toy cars and trucks. As a matter of fact, he kept Jakie nicely occupied in occasionally boisterous play with those vehicles for most of the rest of the afternoon, much to Sydney's and Parker's relief.

Angelo's presence had also brought home another reality - with the Centre's closing, little Jacob had also lost his home. Miss Parker found herself faced with the prospect of becoming Jakie's full-time caretaker - and shouldered the responsibility with nothing but a confident tip of the chin and a shrug. I saw Jarod's eyes warm almost immediately, and I had a sneaky hunch that he would be hanging even closer to Miss Parker's as time went on. Jacob could use a positive male role model, and I think Jarod was thinking that he wouldn't mind filling that role, considering that having a closer relationship with Miss Parker would be included. I suddenly found myself speculating on how long it would be before we heard wedding bells coming from that quarter.

Jarod and Joe took a quick trip to a Dover home improvement store to pick up the extra chair we'd need to seat everybody at the tables. A bit of creative seating managed ten around the big table, with Angelo, Deb and Jakie holding forth contentedly at the card table. Dinner conversation eventually centered on what each of the former Centre employees intended to do with their time now that their jobs were apparently finished. But the discussion took a decidedly creative turn when Broots had looked around the table and stated with some confidence, "You know, I bet we could put together a pretty lucrative security business with everybody's know-how and talent."

"You're kidding," Jarod had told him around a mouth still half-full of roast.

"Actually," Broots had washed his roast down with ice water, "I'm serious. Just think of the expertise we have on hand just at this table. You and Miss Parker probably know more about designing and implementing security systems and procedures than most in the business for years. Me, I've designed security for corporate computer systems for a living for - how long now? And Joe - heck, both he and Sam would make good trainers for bodyguards and security personnel. Syd here could do the interviews and work up psychological profiles on potential employees..."

Sydney and I looked at each other in astonishment. "You know," my husband had admitted, putting down his fork, "Broots may be onto something."

By the time that the Broots', Joe and Carol, and Jarod and Parker were ready to head off for home, the foundation for a completely new business venture that involved all of them - and Sam, if he wanted in - had been hammered out. Those of us not directly involved had done our best to point out fallacies and weak points in the suggestions and, as time went on, cleared the table around the principles involved. I divided the leftovers between four houses while Pam and Carol rinsed and packed the dishwasher and washed pots and pans that wouldn't fit. Deb was given the night off, and she found herself drawn into the play town that Jakie and Angelo had dreamed up. Rene and Nicholas, true to form, headed for the back yard and some privacy. And when Miss Parker packed up Jakie to leave, I watched Jarod talk to her out by her car - and then climb into the car beside her. I smiled to myself and pulled the blinds.

"Happy?" Sydney asked me, climbing into bed and pulling me into his arms like usual.

"Mmmmm..." I hummed at him, snuggling down against his chest. "I think we have quite an interesting if unorthodox family. Yours, mine, ours - and theirs."

He kissed the top of my head. "I never, in a million years, ever dreamed that my life would be so full as it is right now. You've brought me an embarrassment of riches, Cat. I love you so much..."

As if he hadn't done the same for me a thousand times over. We'd both started with so little, and just look at us now! "I love you too." I replied. And as his lips found mine and as his hands began to explore and reach for the hem of my nightgown, I realized that was all that really mattered anyway.


FIN.