“My God…” Summer was shaking so hard she could barely speak. “And you think-My God, Riley, you don’t-you can’t believe you’d ever be like them…that you’d even be capable-”

“I made a vow,” he said, his voice hard as stone, “that I’d never give myself the opportunity to find out. I couldn’t take the chance. Whatever the evil that was in them, it would die with me.”

“Riley Grogan,” she said fiercely, twisting in his arms to take his face between her hands, “you are the strongest, most self-assured man I’ve ever met. So strong I thought you didn’t need anything or anybody-certainly didn’t need me! And strong men do not hurt those who are weaker than they are! They don’t. You couldn’t possibly harm a child. Surely you know that!”

“I do now,” he growled. “Maybe deep down I always did, but I needed-” he grabbed a breath as if it were pure oxygen “-someone to make me believe it I needed-” He broke off and caught her hands, pressed them one at a time to his mouth. It seemed a long time before he drew a shuddering breath and murmured, “You have a healer’s hands, Mrs. Robey. Did you know that? I do need you. I need you to heal me…” And the words flowed through her fingers like balm.

“I’ll be happy to-” her voice was ragged, torn between laughter and tears of exasperation “-if you’ll just please stop calling me Mrs. Robey.”

“I will-I promise.” Then he cleared his throat and continued in an endearingly stiff and formal tone, “I would much prefer, as soon as it can be arranged, to call you Mrs. Grogan.”

There was a bemused pause; then in a voice soft with dawning wonder, Summer said, “All right.”


“David-wake up, wake up,” Helen whispered. “Hurry-you’re gonna miss it! Mommy’s kissin’ Mr. Riley!”


Jake Redfield stood in the early morning fog and watched the uniformed sheriff’s deputy stride toward him. Behind him on the banks of the river, other men, some wearing diving gear, were gathered around the shrouded body of a man.

“Fingerprints will have to confirm it,” the deputy said as he drew near. “But it’s Robey, all right. Everything matches.”

“He have anything on him?” Redfield asked. Like a computer disk, maybe?

The deputy shook his head. “Wallet, several different I.D.s, a little cash, not much. Sorry…”

Redfield turned without a word and walked back to his car.

KATHLEEN CREIGHTON

has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old-timers’ tales and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today, she says she is interested in everything-art, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and history, but people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines her two loves in romance novels.