“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.”

“Can we see your whales again tomorrow?”

Smiling, she tucked the covers around his neck and kissed him again. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”

Slouched on the sofa with his long legs stretched out in front of him, Rafe had had his eyes peeled on the doorway since she’d left. When she finally wandered back in, he could see how tired she was. Pale mauve shadows made her eyes look huge, and her face was paler than cream. She needed sleep…but something more than fatigue had been eating at her all afternoon and evening.

He crooked his finger and motioned her next to him. She sank down on the couch’s center cushion like a duchess, all straight spine and a proper distance away, not at all what he had in mind. He figured she was worried about propriety for his mother’s sake.

He was worried about Zoe. He hadn’t been able to make a dent in her long silence on the trip home-not that silence in itself had to be dangerous. No two people could have been any closer than they’d been over the weekend, and in his head he knew he’d gotten through to her. He’d felt her love, and heaven knew he felt oceans of love himself for her. As soon as his mother was gone, they could talk. Zoe was temporarily overtired, but there was no reason to think anything was seriously wrong.

But there was. His pulse ticked an uneasy beat, affirming it. Wrapping his fingers around her shoulders, he gently but persistently tugged until, like an accordion, she finally folded closer. Marge was talking thirteen to the dozen. His mother always talked thirteen to the dozen, and Zoe was starting to smile…but it wasn’t a Zoe smile.

Zoe smiles were spontaneous and mischievous and showed off perfect white teeth. When she really laughed, her eyes overflowed with joy. He tucked her into the curve of his shoulder, but her spine was still rigid, and the curve of her lips was distinctly polite. He told himself again that he could wait until his mother was gone in the morning. And knew, immediately, that he couldn’t manage more than twenty more minutes before hauling her off to some private spot where he could find out what was wrong.

“…I should have brought pictures of when they were younger.” Marge’s knitting needles clicked as she rocked. “I’ve got tons of photographs, Zoe. Everyone’s the same. Brian and Nathan stand there looking like angels, their hair all combed, their shirts tucked in…and then there’s Rafe. He always stood in the left side of the pictures; I don’t know why. If he didn’t have a black eye, he always had a scrape that showed. I swear I could have safety-pinned his shirts and they still wouldn’t have stayed tucked in…”

“Mom, Zoe is bored,” Rafe said quellingly.

“She is not.”

“I am not,” Zoe affirmed.

The two women apparently enjoyed discussing embarrassing moments in his past history. Rafe might have been amused-his mother inevitably embellished the stories, and with such relish-if he hadn’t seen what she was doing. His mom was a pro at sneakily maneuvering in exactly the direction she wanted it to go. That she’d taken to Zoe the instant she met her was obvious. That she was ignoring her son sent him the warning message that she was gearing up to delicately pry, a complication he definitely didn’t need.

“Anyway, you’re having your own experience raising boys, it would seem.” Marge propped her glasses down on her nose to look over them at Zoe. Her steady stream of light conversation only gradually slowed to a gentler, more serious pace. “I think you two have done something perfectly wonderful, taking on those kids. Shouldering all the responsibility and juggling jobs and upsetting your lives-I don’t think many people would have done it. But I have to admit I’m not very clear on your plans from here. Rafe mentioned he’d have to be back in Montana-”

“At the end of next week,” Rafe finished for her, and droned warningly, “and I already told you we haven’t made firm plans about the children yet.”

“Did you, dear?”

“Yes. And I told you why we hadn’t talked yet, which was that we agreed from the beginning to try not to form conclusions or make judgments until we’d spent as much time together with the kids as we could.” Anyone who’d ever met Rafe could tell that the subject was now closed.

Marge chuckled sympathetically, looking directly at Zoe with an onward-and-upward determination that would have impressed a general. “Zoe, when Rafe leaves next week, are you staying here with the children? Or-”

“We haven’t discussed that either, Mom. But we’ll work it out.” For Rafe, the discussion of the subject was now ended.

“Of course you will, of course you will. It’s all so complicated, with your jobs and all. I was just wondering…”

“Mother-”

Matched sets of blue eyes were snapping at each other. All Zoe could think of was that she wasn’t ready-maybe she’d never be ready to face the impending talk with Rafe. But now was no worse than any other time, and she wouldn’t have mother and son bickering when she could prevent it with a few words. “Naturally, you mother is curious about our plans,” she scolded Rafe gently, and then directed a deliberate smile at his mother. “I’m taking the children, Marge.”

It was an excellent argument-stopper. Rafe stiffened in total silence like a poker beside her. And Marge’s lips stopped moving for the first time in half an hour; her knitting needles even stopped clicking. Zoe definitely had the floor.

Her palms dampened, and a huge ball of sadness swelled in her throat. Her voice stayed calm and quietly assured only because she demanded that of herself. “As Rafe said, we haven’t worked out all the details,” she told Marjorie, and admitted frankly, “He’s going to argue with me. You’ve got a wonderful son, Marge. I can’t tell you how warm and loving he’s been with the kids. He’d take on total responsibility for them in a minute, but I’m not about to let him do that.”

“Dammit, Zoe-”

Gently, she raised her voice, her eyes focused only on his mother. “His work is important to him, and occasionally he’s had to travel because of it, which would be almost impossible with two children. And in Montana, I can’t imagine where he’d find day care. So much that he needs and wants in his life would be complicated by children. From the very beginning, I knew it was more logical for me to take them. My job hours are more flexible, and my work is more settled.”

Marge stopped rocking altogether. “Yes, but my dear, I thought you two-I was so sure that-”

“Mom, you’re tired,” Rafe announced.

If mother and son occasionally bickered, it was rather obvious their wavelengths were also finely tuned to each other. “Good heavens, I certainly am.” Marge shoved her yarn back into the knitting bag and stood up. “I’m absolutely exhausted. Can’t imagine what I was thinking of, talking this late. It’s after ten, and I’ve got a flight to catch in the morning. Now, you two just finish this nice pot of tea. Don’t bother about me…”

A good fairy couldn’t have disappeared faster, only Zoe touched her fingers wearily to her temples, not certain she wouldn’t have been happier if the good fairy had stayed. Rafe had lurched to his feet and was standing with his hands on his hips, a glowering frown beamed directly at her. She saw a thousand things in his eyes. Frustration and love. Anxiety and irritation. Mostly she saw a man damn close to exploding, but his voice ladled out the surprise of gentleness. “Zoe, you’re so tired you can’t see straight. I’m going to get you a brandy. Just sit there, would you? Just stay right there.”

She nodded, but the minute he was out of sight she dashed for the bathroom.

Hands trembling, she closed the bathroom door, turned on the light and flicked on the cold-water tap, so that the noise of the water would muffle the harsh low sound that escaped from her throat. Tears made rainbows in her eyes.

Crying was foolish. Her decision to take the children alone was best, and the only one she could make. She felt good about it. Wonderful. Ecstatic, in fact, and pressing a cool washcloth firmly to her eyes, she willed herself not to cry.

She was afraid he was going to argue, that he was going to try to talk her into a foursome. Being Rafe, he’d do that out of a sense of responsibility. She couldn’t let him do that. Over the long weeks, Rafe had given her an incomparable gift. Herself. She was Zoe again, the strong woman she’d forgotten how to believe in since her hysterectomy. She had only one gift to give him of equal measure-a sensitivity to his real feelings, as he’d been sensitive to hers.

In so many ways, he’d tried to tell her he didn’t want the responsibility of children. She hadn’t listened, but the weekend in Oregon had told her what he wanted and needed in his life: a woman who was free to dash off on a whim. The adventure of a one-on-one relationship with no strings attached. Freedom and privacy and spontaneity. He wanted a woman to climb mountains with; she’d always known it.

Rafe wanted her, she knew. And she also knew that he loved her, but in time he was bound to feel resentful if the lifestyle he really wanted wasn’t possible. He’d find another woman, someone to whom he alone mattered, a relationship in which he wasn’t roped down by years of sticky fingers and interrupted dinners and night-walking little ones with colds.

She was really very happy she’d come up with a solution that worked for all of them. Any minute now…any minute now…she was going to feel incredibly happy.

When the doorknob turned, she straightened instantly. Then, bending her head, she wrung out the washcloth. “I was just coming out,” she said brightly.

Rafe came in and quietly closed the door behind him.

“Really. I was just coming back out…”