“I’m taking my time. I can only do an hour or so of packing each day before my back starts howling. Tuck’s not much help, bless his lazy soul, not even when I pay him. Slow as molasses. Drops things, he does. And Summer’s not going to rent out this old place after all. Because of the baby…” She said that last with reverence as she lifted her sharp gaze to his.

When she didn’t avert those piercing eyes that saw too much, his heart sped up to a tortured pace.

“She’s feeling quite sentimental about the old place. Said she’s going to keep it for herself and the baby, so the baby will grow up loving it as much as past generations have before her. That’s nice, don’t you think?”

Her? Funny how Zach always thought of their kid as a boy. A little boy with golden hair and bright blue eyes. But it could be girl, couldn’t it? A beautiful little girl who looked like Summer, who’d break his heart because he loved her so.

Viola noted his empty plate. Usually, she hopped up to refill such a plate. But not today.

“I’m afraid there aren’t any more cookies. You see, Summer ate practically all of them the other day…stuffed herself on them, the poor dear. Not a good thing really, in her condition. She has to get into all those costumes, too, you know. But she was so down before she left. Kept eating one after another, couldn’t stop herself. Until I took the plate away and froze the remaining cookies for future guests. And here you are.”

“Why did you ask me to come over here today, Viola? I have a plane to catch, meetings in Houston…”

“You poor dear, with your big, important life. You know, you don’t look any better than she does. I can see that, despite your tough exterior, this is just as hard on you as it is on her.”

Zach froze. “Did she put you up to this?”

“Who?” Viola’s eyes were suspiciously guileless. “Put me up to what?”

Those innocent eyes, so compelling in her wrinkled face, seemed to search his soul in the exact way that Summer’s sometimes did. But unlike Summer, Viola’s deep compassion for him was genuine.

“Zach, is this really what you want? You two are going to have a child. Summer’s brokenhearted, and I think you love her, too. I think you always have and always will.”

He felt the ice that encased his heart melting beneath the brightness of her sweet, determined gaze, but his face remained a mask.

“Zach, you have the baby to think of. When parents don’t live together, it’s the child who suffers most. The family’s broken. That’s what happened to Summer when her father walked out on Anna. Look at poor Tuck, how he’s still struggling. A baby needs to be part of a close, loving family.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t all have the ideal family,” he muttered. “I was on my own after my mother left my father, and then my father remarried a younger woman, who threw me out after he died.”

“So, then you know how it feels. Do you want your baby to suffer the way you did, when you could so easily prevent it?”

Easily?

Again, he asked himself why he’d come here. It was hard enough to let Summer go without this fragile old lady, whom he liked, trying to pry his innermost secrets from him. Summer was wrong for him. Period.

He’d believed in the dream, but it had all been a lie. Summer was the ultimate liar. And even if it weren’t for that calamity, even if she were the lovely illusion he’d believed in, he couldn’t live with the press pouncing on them every time one of them had so much as a conversation with another attractive person. He didn’t want his marriage to be a feast for public consumption. He wanted a real marriage-a private, personal bonding of two souls-not some mirage of perfect love that would heighten Summer’s popularity.

“I don’t need this,” he growled as he stood up.

“Sit back down,” Viola commanded in her bossy way.

Strange that, in his hopeless mood, he found her firm manner oddly comforting.

Slowly, he sank back into the chair, Summer’s favorite chair, which happened to be his favorite, too.

“I may be a pushy old lady, who doesn’t know half as much as she should, but I know you two belong together.”

“Not anymore. Too many things have happened. The past…our first baby…all the lies. I don’t want everything we do to be magnified by the media.”

“Summer is a wonderful girl, and you know it! Thurman was a real stinker. Hasn’t he cost us all enough? As for the press-why do you care so much about what other people think?”

“It’s not that simple.”

“I say it is. I say maybe you’re too proud, too arrogant. And maybe, despite your bluster, you’re something of a coward.”

He scowled at her.

“I know this because I’ve been guilty of the same thing at times. When anything bad is written about Summer, my friends all tease me. I don’t like it. I feel put down and ashamed. But they’re jealous, you see, of her success. Not that any of them will admit it. But don’t they just love it when unkind words are written about Summer or an unflattering picture of her is taken? I fall for their bluster every time and blame Summer. Either she sets me straight or I get my bearings back on my own. All the negative stuff is backward praise in a way. People see how wonderful she is and want a part of her. It’s up to me to stay centered and put her first and everybody else last-where they belong.”

“We’ve got an ugly past to live down, as well.”

“When you’ve lived as long as I have, you learn you can live anything down.”

“Look, our lifestyles just aren’t compatible.”

“Then modify them. Maybe it won’t take as much give on your part as you think. When two people who are right for each other come together, the most insurmountable obstacles can be conquered.”

“I’ve gotta go.”

“My, but you’re stubborn. It’s probably one of the reasons you’re so successful. You stick to what you decide to do, and do it. But in this case, you’re wrong. You’re making the biggest mistake of your life.”

“Usually, I go with my gut. This time, though, I made an intelligent decision, based on past and present experience-that’s all.”

“Maybe you should stick with your gut.”

“Not smart. She’s too good of an actress. She throws off my instincts.”

“Has this all been about revenge, then-about you wanting to get even with her for what happened fifteen years ago?”

“Hell, no.”

“Well, too bad, ’cause you’d sure be even with her if it was. You really hurt her this time. I haven’t seen her like this since she failed to carry your first child. It seems so unfair that here she is pregnant again, you both have a glorious second chance, but you’re walking out on her like before. You just about killed her last time.”

“I don’t need this.”

“I say you do. When you were in jail, Thurman found out she was pregnant and sent her away to New Orleans to have your baby. He didn’t want you or anybody else to know about the baby because he was afraid it might sway public opinion in your favor. There were people, even back then, who sided with you and didn’t like the way Thurman was using his pull to rush the due process of law.

“Did you know Summer tried to contact you shortly before she miscarried?”

“You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

Viola ignored his protest. “Summer was inconsolable when she couldn’t find you. Finally, she felt that she had nowhere to go but back to New Orleans, and that’s where she lost the baby. Summer had the saddest little funeral for that child. Not that I could go. I was too busy tending to my dying daughter. When Summer finally came home to stay, she was different, changed.

“Then Anna, her mother, died. Summer blamed Thurman for everything that had happened, for the end of her mother’s remission, for losing you, for the death of the baby. She said she couldn’t live in this town with her memories, so she broke away from all of us and went to New York. That’s where she took bit parts while going to college in her spare time. I sent money. She worked herself to the bone in an effort to forget you. But she never could.”

“I had my own problems back then.”

The ancients and the wise say a man can learn the greatest truths of the universe in an instant. Suddenly, that was true for Zach. No sooner had he said those bitter words than his perspective shifted dramatically. All the pieces of the story he had imagined to be the truth about his love affair with Summer arranged themselves in a new and different order with a new and different meaning.

Had he been hurt and too bitter to consider what Summer had gone through? He had. And he hadn’t known the half of it. When she’d sought him out in Houston, how coldly he’d rejected her.

Just as he was rejecting her now.

All that had ever mattered was their love for each other. If they’d kept their focus on that, no one could have touched them.

The pain he felt was staggering. He’d hurt Summer terribly, more than Thurman ever had. Because he’d been stubbornly focused on his own grievances. And blind to hers.

The image of that single tear trickling down her beautiful face tugged at his heart. Why hadn’t he listened to his instinct and drawn her close and kissed her tears away?

“I’ve said my piece, so you can go now,” Viola said as she laid a gnarled hand on Silas, who purred in her lap.

For a long moment, Zach sat where he was, stunned. Without Summer beside him, he faced nothing but long years of emptiness. He would fill up his days with work, but the nights would be long and lonely. There would be no one to hold him in the darkness. No one to care about his failures or share his successes. He would be forever diminished without her love.

And he was throwing it all away.

“You have a plane to catch, don’t you?”

“Thank you for the cookies and tea,” he muttered mechanically, like someone in a dream.