As she approached the house, two medium-sized dogs-they’d sounded much larger in the dark last night-came romping out to meet her. Not being accustomed to dogs-or animals of any kind-and remembering the ferocious-sounding welcome they’d given her upon her arrival, Devon froze in her tracks. Holding her hands and arms close to her chest and trying to look as stumplike as possible, she ventured in a quavering voice, “Hello, doggy. Nice doggy…?” However, no doubt smelling familiar clothing, they greeted her like a returning prodigal, with wriggling and giddy joy.

“Nice doggy,” Devon confirmed as she pushed past wet, questing noses and clomped on up the snow-dusted steps to the back porch.

Shedding her muddy boots and snow-crusted parka in the service room, as instructed, she went into the kitchen. Her cheeks and fingers were tingling, her nose running; she felt exhilarated for having survived all Mother Nature could throw at her. And something else-a curious sense of…almost of expectation…of the warmth and light and welcome that awaited her there. Odd-when she’d never felt like that coming into her own home, or even her parents’ home when she was a child. Had she?

Such a simple, basic thing. A feeling of home, of welcome and security. Why couldn’t she remember even that?

As it turned out, the kitchen was empty. But it smelled of coffee and bacon and maple syrup, and there were two places set at the oval oak table. More dishes, washed and stacked in a drainer in the sink, suggested Mike and Lucy had already eaten.

Never a big breakfast eater at the best of times, and with a stomach full of knots left over from that confrontation with Eric in the barn, Devon poured herself a cup of coffee which she sipped standing at the counter, frowning at nothing while she digested unaccustomed feelings of disappointment and loneliness.

“Crazy,” she muttered to herself, not even sure what she meant by it. Only silence answered her.

No, not quite silence. She became aware all at once of a sound, one that had been there all along, but one so familiar, so much a part of her customary habitat, it hadn’t registered. The faint and distant clickety-clack of computer keys.

Carrying her coffee, she wandered down a dim hallway toward the front of the house, head cocked and ears pricked like a hunter alert to the snap of a twig or the rustle of leaves. On one side of the house a formal living room stood dark and, Devon suspected, seldom used. Across from it an open doorway spilled warmth and light and busy noises into the hallway murk.

Devon announced herself with a polite “Knock knock” as she stepped into what was obviously these people’s real “living room,” and a welcoming clutter of books and family photographs, afghans and worn but comfortable furniture.

“Come on in.” Mike was peering intently at a computer monitor that was sitting on an old wooden desk placed endwise to a window through which Devon could see snowflakes swirling amongst bare black branches. A moment later the keyboard clatter ceased and he turned from the screen, peeling off a pair of dark-rimmed glasses as he rose with a welcoming smile.

“Oh, please,” she said, holding up a hand, palm outward, “don’t stop. I’m sorry-I’m interrupting you.” But she couldn’t keep curiosity out of her voice, and, she was sure, her face. The desk was piled high with papers and books, and a low table under the window held a sophisticated combination printer-scanner-fax machine. Granted, Devon hadn’t much firsthand knowledge, but it seemed to her a little much for a farmhouse in the middle of Iowa.

“No problem,” Mike cheerfully assured her. “I was just killing time. Deadline’s still a ways off. Did you find breakfast? I think Lucy left it in the oven to keep warm.”

“What? Oh-yes, thanks…” She waved her coffee cup and offered an apologetic smile. “Actually, though, coffee’s all I want right now. I had some toast earlier, so I wasn’t really hungry. Maybe later?”

“That’s fine.” There was a pause, and then, with a cautious smile, he asked, “Eric still shoveling manure in the barn?”

Devon murmured an affirmative and managed to avoid his eyes by taking a sip of coffee, but not before she’d caught the compassionate twinkle in his eyes.

“Where’s Lucy?” she asked as she turned away to begin a casual exploration of the room.

“Take a guess.” He pointed at the ceiling as he joined Devon in front of an old upright piano topped with a collection of framed photographs she was looking at without really seeing. “First thing Lucy did this morning after chores was unearth the bassinet and her rocking chair. She’s taking to this grandmother business in a big way.”

Devon would never be mistaken for a sentimentalist. She gave him a quick glance, and her mouth opened to tell him the truth in her customary blunt and forthright manner. But something-an unexpected constriction-suddenly made it impossible, and instead she swallowed the words with an audible sound she tried to hide in a gulp of coffee.

Mike wasn’t fooled. “What?” he prompted gently.

Devon shrugged, keeping a shoulder turned to him, avoiding his eyes. “Nothing-I was just…”

“I take it she isn’t.” It was matter-of-fact. And not a question.

She gave him another quick, hard look; then, letting go of a breath, nodded. “He admitted it to me just now-down in the barn.” Oddly, right now she felt no sense of victory.

After several long seconds of silence, Mike murmured on an exhalation of regret, “Well, Lucy will be disappointed.”

Devon felt an alien bump of empathy. Startled, even a little frightened by it, she moved on to the fireplace, where still more photographs crowded the mantelpiece and a fire sputtered and crackled with a merry eccentricity that could only be real wood.

“You don’t seem surprised,” she remarked, holding her hands toward the fire even though they weren’t cold, watching them so she wouldn’t have to look at the gallery of photographs arrayed before her. She couldn’t have said why; normally she liked photographs. Moreover, these were Eric’s family. She wanted to know more about him, didn’t she? And here they all were, his entire family spread out in front of her, all those friendly eyes and wholesome smiles. Nice people…good people.

Mike had come beside her again. “Oh, I was pretty sure Eric wasn’t Emily’s biological father.”

Devon tilted her head and fixed him with a look of honest curiosity. She was a lawyer; she hadn’t missed the precise and, she was sure, deliberate terminology. “May I ask why?”

He smiled, though not with his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know, the way he told us, I guess. Eric’s always been careful with words-what comes of having a writer for a father. What he said was, ‘she’s mine.’ You understand? Not, ‘she’s my daughter,’ or ‘I’m her father.’” The smile made it to his eyes then, just as his mouth tilted into irony. “I know my son.”

Once again she was caught unawares, this time by the poignancy in that particular combination of words and smile. “I’m sorry,” she said abruptly, frowning at her coffee cup. “I know this is awkward-my being here. Like this.”

“Wasn’t much anybody could have done about it.” Mike gave a little shrug. “Couldn’t very well let you freeze to death on our doorstep.”

Devon laughed. “Well, yes, actually, you could have.” Somber again, she looked him straight in the eye-one of her best weapons in the courtroom-and said earnestly, “You have to believe I never meant it to be like this. The storm-”

“What did you mean it to be like?” His interruption surprised her. Suddenly alert, she realized the eyes that gazed back into hers, eyes that before had held only gentleness and compassion, now held a keen and probing light. “Just curious,” he said quietly, studying her, arms folded on his chest. “Seems a little unusual for an attorney to personally take on something like this. Why didn’t you let the authorities handle things?”

Devon made a sound, a soft, unamused laugh, and turned her back on the homey crackle of the fire. “You’re right, it is unusual for the attorney to get personally involved. I chose to, for several reasons. I definitely would have handled it differently if Emily hadn’t been my niece-that’s one. However, since in the normal course of things, Emily winds up in foster care and your son possibly in jail on contempt charges-” Aware that her voice had developed a hard and brittle edge, she abruptly changed both her tone and tactics, schooling her gestures and body language as she would in handling a delicate courtroom situation.

“You have to understand,” she said, one hand upraised, quietly earnest again. “I had no idea what kind of person your son was, what his background was, nothing. Except that my sister Susan evidently trusted him and thought enough of him to leave her baby in his care, even though she knew he wasn’t the biological father.” Her poise slipped and she gave another mirthless laugh. “Of course, my sister was a homeless, screwed-up kid, probably a drug addict, so what does that tell you?”

She told me she’d been abused by her father. Your father.

She gulped cold coffee and just did manage to keep from choking on it. The struggle for control hardened her voice again as she continued, “So, the upshot of it is, I had our firm’s P.I. track him down. Once we had this as his home address, and credit card gasoline receipts started popping up showing him heading east on a direct course to Iowa, it wasn’t hard to figure out where he was going. I thought I’d beat him here, actually. I thought the unexpectedness of my being here, waiting for him, would demonstrate the futility of running, and that I could convince him the best course of action for everybody concerned would be for him to bring Emily back to Los Angeles voluntarily. For Susan’s sake, I didn’t want to see him arrested. And I definitely didn’t want Emily in the hands of social services.”