They ordered room service for lunch, and then Bill went out fishing with the boys. And they caught three and brought them back to the hotel kitchen to have them cleaned and cooked. It was the perfect arrangement.

“I love this kind of camping,” Adrian announced as the trays came up eventually, supposedly with their fish, in delicate lemon butter sauces. Bill and the boys were convinced that they really were their fish, even though Adrian suspected that they weren't. They watched old movies on TV after that, and they all went to bed early. And all through the night, Adrian would wake up, thinking she heard sounds in her room, and it was always Bill, peering down at her, making sure she was all right and asking her if she needed anything. And she thanked him for it the next morning over breakfast.

“You don't have to worry about me. I'm fine.”

“I just want to be sure. You just got out of the hospital yesterday.” He was like a mother hen, but she thought it was terrific and she loved it.

“I feel great.” But he noticed that when she wandered around the room, she still didn't have her old zip, and she didn't seem anxious to go out. In the end, it took four days for her to seem like herself again, and by then the vacation was almost over. But they had a lovely time, going for walks around the lake. They stayed away from the river, and the rapids, and the boys never repeated their request to go rafting.

They visited the state park at Sugar Pine Point instead, and were fascinated by it. And they went for a drive to Squaw Valley and took the ski lift to the top and then back again. And it was beautiful, and by the last night, Adrian and the boys were fast friends. It was as though they had always known her. They had called their mother long since, and told her all about Tommy's accident, and Adrian's heroics. And she had insisted on speaking to her and thanking Adrian herself. She sounded nice on the phone and she had cried copiously, just thinking of what might have happened.

“She sounds like a sweet person,” Adrian said to Bill later. “And she sounds like she still likes you.”

“I think she still does. I like her, too, even though we irritate the hell out of each other sometimes, when we don't agree about the boys. And her husband is kind of an uptight pain in the ass. He thinks that California is uncivilized, and devoid of culture, and he thinks pretty much the same thing about me because of the show. But I don't think Leslie lets him say much about it. At least that's what the boys say. But apparently the other two children are very, very proper. They're both girls and they're four and five and he has them playing concert piano and violin. I figure that can wait a few years.” He grinned. “What do you think?”

“I agree with you.” She smiled. “But Leslie sounds nice anyway.”

“I think she was looking for someone completely different from me … or from what I was then …she wanted someone who spent a lot of time at home, who was very controlled, and not so compulsive, and maybe not so exuberant. And I think she got it.”

“That's too bad,” Adrian said without thinking, and then laughed. “I just meant that your way sounds better.”

“Thank you.” And with that, he leaned over where he was sitting and kissed her. And out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tommy giggle from across the room.And then he turned to Adrian again. For the past few days, his mind had been full of questions. “What happens when we go back, Adrian? To us, I mean?”

“I don't know.” She looked him in the eye. She wanted to know, too, and she wasn't sure yet. “What do you want to happen?” She thought she knew, but she needed to take her clues from him, and then she needed to think about what she was going to do about Steven, if he ever turned up again. It wasn't fair to launch herself into a relationship with anyone, knowing full well that if he returned, she would go back to him. But she felt that she had an obligation to him, and the baby. But on the other hand, she couldn't sit around waiting for him for the rest of her life either. For the moment, he wouldn't even talk to her, and he was showing every possible sign of having deserted her permanently, and if that was the case, she had to go on living.

“What do I want to happen?” Bill thought about it for a minute. And then he smiled. “I want a happy ending, preceded by a happy beginning. I think we're off to a good start, don't you?” She nodded. “And I want time with you, to go places and be together and do things, when we're not working. And I want to get to know you. I think I already do, but I want to know more. I want you to know me. I want us to be …well,” he said, groping for the words as he looked at her, “something very special.” And then he smiled. “And in January, I want,” he almost gulped as he said the words, “to share the baby with you. It's a miracle, Adrian …and I'd like to share that with you, if I'm lucky enough, and you still need me.”

“You're not the one who would be lucky,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I would be. Why do you want to do all this for me?” she asked, still a little bit afraid, still puzzled. After all Steven had done to abandon her, it was so hard to believe she had found someone who wanted to stand by her.

“I want to do 'all this' because I love you,” he said simply. “And I want you to know that this is a real departure for me. I haven't been seriously involved with anyone in years. Probably not since the demise of my marriage. And I also swore to myself that I'd never have any more kids again … I don't want to fall in love with your child …and then lose it, if you leave me. But I'm willing to take that chance, if you're honest with me. And if that honesty is that you're reserving yourself for the possibility that Steven could come back when you have this kid, I've decided that I'm willing to take that chance for now. That's as straightforward as I know. I'm telling you that I'm willing to take the risk, and be there for you. Just don't forget to tell me what's going on, like you forgot to mention the pregnancy.”

“I didn't forget,” she explained, and he grinned.

“Yeah, I know. You just didn't mention it. A minor oversight. And how were you going to explain that one in a few months, after you'd eaten me out of house and home?” He loved teasing her, as she threw a napkin at him.

“I do not eat that much!”

“Yes, you do, but you should. The baby needs it.”

But she grew serious then. “You're not scared to take the risk? What if he comes back? I owe him a life with his child, and I owe it to the baby.”

“I disagree with you. I don't think you owe him anything, after the way he treated you, but if you do, I have to respect that. I just don't happen to think he'll come back. Anyone who'd go to the lengths of renouncing his parental rights, in a state where you can practically commit mass murder and still keep them, isn't planning to come back and be a daddy. But I could be wrong. I told you. I'm willing to take the risk. Because I love you.” And as he said it, she got up from where she sat, and went to kiss him. She had been feeling better for the past two days, and there had been mounting passion in their occasional stolen kisses. She wondered what else was waiting for them once they got back to L.A., but as long as the boys were there, it was not an issue.

They spent their last night there quietly, chatting on the terrace and looking up at the stars and holding hands, and suddenly he laughed and he looked at her, feeling ridiculously happy. “Do you realize how crazy this is?” He grinned. “I'm in love with a woman who is four months pregnant. Do you have any idea how funny this is going to be when you can no longer see your feet? Talk about modern romance!” She started to laugh, too, and they just sat there and laughed about the absurdity of their situation. “I mean you could almost do this in the movies …guy meets girl in supermarket, falls madly in love with her, and they keep meeting. Girl is married, but husband walks out on her when he discovers that she is pregnant—with his baby. Guy from supermarket reappears, and they fall madly in love. Girl then staggers around with big belly, doing Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers type dances with our hero. They get married. They have baby. And live happily ever after. Cute, isn't it? Maybe I should do it for the show. But it's much too simple. To do it for daytime TV, you would have to kill Steven, and the baby would really have to be someone else's, and then it would turn out that I was already married to your sister, or maybe I could turn out to be your father. That's a nice touch. I'll have to try to work that in somewhere.” She was laughing at him then. And he was right. It was a ridiculous situation. But he had reminded himself of a more serious question. “When does your divorce become final, by the way? Before or after the baby?”

“Around the same time, I think. I'm not sure of the exact date.”

“It might be nice if we could give Junior a name, other than Thompson,” her maiden name, and she was touched by the way he said it. He was offering to marry her, if only to legitimize the baby, and she leaned over and kissed him for what he had just said.

“Bill, you don't have to do that.”

“I know I don't. But I might want to by then. And so might you … if I play my cards right and get very lucky.” He winked, and she lay back and looked at the stars again. She wished she had all the answers. But he was willing to leave an open door for her, and she couldn't ask for more than that. In fact, it was much more than she had ever dared to hope for. She had envisioned herself alone and desperately lonely until the baby was born. It had never dawned on her that all of this would happen before she had the baby.

They left the lake the next day, and took their time driving down to L.A. They stopped in San Francisco again for one night, and then drove down Highway 5, and reached Los Angeles just in time for dinner. She made grilled cheese sandwiches at Bill's place while he got the boys ready for bed. And they ate dinner in their pajamas while Adrian told them silly stories about the newsroom, about the time a pig from a publicity stunt got loose and went berserk running all over the station, and the time there had been a food fight in the commissary that got so out of control, it took two weeks to scrape all the food off the ceiling. Adam particularly loved that story, and Bill grinned at her as she told it. They were all a little sorry to be home. And she particularly, as she had to go back to work the following morning. Bill was planning to take another two weeks off, so he could hang around with the boys, but she couldn't do that.