Beneath her palms she felt his tense muscles and quivering nerves, and made small, soothing circles with her thumbs on his cheeks. "I want to tell you something that I've never told you before," she said in an equally soothing voice, studying his deep, dark eyes. "Your mother and father were against sending me away. My mother told me before she died. She was never happy with the estrangement between the two couples, but there was little she could do, given my father's stubbornness. He's very strong-willed, and he talked your parents and my mother into agreeing with him about giving the baby up for adoption. I spent years blaming all of them equally, but it was really my father who forced the issue. If I can forgive him, can't you forgive your parents, too?"

She could see his defenses weakening and rushed on. "I'll help you. I'll go with you if you want. You and I together have a chance to show them how to forgive. Maybe… just maybe, if we take the first step, they'll follow suit." She smiled at the idea. "Imagine it-we could set off a whole chain reaction."

But Tommy Lee remained unconvinced. "You're so idealistic. What if they throw me out?"

Behind his words she sensed a vulnerability that touched her heart. "They won't. You know they won't. All it'll take is for one of you to make the first move."

"And you really think if we can patch things up with them they'll suddenly soften toward Everett?"

"It's worth a chance, isn't it?"

"And what about this newest fracas? Are you forgetting you just threw your daddy out of your house? I'd say that leaves you and him with some patching up of your own to do."

She dropped her hands from his face, but captured the two ends of the towel that hung around his neck. "We've fought before. But in the end we always seem to realize that we're the only family left. You leave him up to me for the time being. When he sees me happily married to you, he's bound to soften." She smiled up at him. "There's something you have to realize about my daddy. Underneath all that bluster he has a grudging respect for anybody who'll stand up to him." She tugged on the towel and drew him down for a short kiss. "So what do you say?"

"You drive a hard bargain, Rachel."

Suddenly she saw through the idealist's eyes he accused her of having and slipped her hands beneath the towel, locking her fingers behind his neck while meeting his brown eyes intensely. "I want it to be the way it used to be."

"It'll never be the way it used to be."

"It could be better." She squeezed his neck for emphasis. "It could be… you know it could. You, me, your parents, my father… and Beth. What about her? You're cheating her out of her own grandparents by carrying this grudge."

"I know." He sighed wearily and drew her into his arms, resting his chin on top of her head. "I know."

"Grandparents can be a wonderful influence on young people, and vice versa. And besides"-she kissed his Adam's apple-"I thought I was the woman you'd do anything in the world for."

Somewhere in the house, bacon was burning and the buttons of a shirt sang out against the metal tumbler of a dryer. Tommy Lee folded Rachel against his heart and buried his face in the flower-scented skin of her neck, realizing that if things went right he had within his grasp the chance of gaining back everything he'd once had taken from him.

Rachel was very wise, knowing even better than he how badly his old wounds needed to be cauterized. "You'll really do it, Rachel? You'll marry me?" he asked hoarsely.

"Don't you think it's time?" came her trembling reply.

He drew back to look into her dark eyes, and his own traversed her face, cataloging it feature by feature while his thumbs brushed the crests of her cheekbones. Her lips were slightly parted, her hair in disarray, and the expression in her eyes was one he'd dreamed of seeing there during the endless years when nothing and no one else could quite fill the empty spot in his heart.

"Oh, Rachel… my Rachel." He dropped his forehead against hers, letting his eyes sink shut, capturing the essence of the moment to carry within him as a talisman during the days ahead. "How I love you."

She swallowed back the tears in her throat. "I love you, too… so much."

Then their mouths were joined and emotions billowed. They clung together in an ardent kiss, pressing their bodies close, hands wandering impatiently now that the decision was made.

Abruptly Tommy Lee drew back, holding her head with both hands. "When?" Without giving her time to answer, he rushed on, "Right away, as soon as we can get a license and find somebody to do it. I want us to have a honeymoon, so you'll have to make arrangements at the store, and afterward… which house do you want to live at? I'd live here if you asked me to, but… oh, Rachel, say you'll move into my house on the lake. God, it'll be like a dream..."

"Hold on." She couldn't resist chuckling at his impetuousness. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

He frowned in puzzlement. "What?"

"Beth. Shouldn't I meet her first? Don't you think we should get her approval, since she's going to be part of the family, too?"

"Oh, Beth." He wrapped Rachel loosely in his arms and rocked her. "Beth is going to love you."

He said it with such thoughtless conviction there seemed no other way it could be.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The expression on his daughter's face when Tommy Lee walked into his house less than an hour later warned him trouble lay ahead.

"Where were you all night?" She stood with both hands stuffed into the tight pockets of her blue jeans, a scowl on her face.

"Oh!" He came up short, searching for a reply. "Did you wait up for me?"

"Hardly. That's what parents usually do. Georgine wanted to leave for home, and when you weren't getting up and weren't getting up she sent me in to wake you, but your bed wasn't even slept in."

Tommy Lee was saved from replying when Georgine came around the corner with her purse in her hand, her lips drawn up tight and a disapproving tilt to her chin.

"We already had breakfast and cleaned up the dishes and called town to say I'd be gettin' there late!"

"I'm sorry, Georgine. If you're ready I'll take you now."

"If I'm ready… hmph." She snorted past him on her way to the door, and Tommy Lee asked himself for the hundredth time why he put up with her insubordination. He truly disliked the woman, but now that Beth was here, he needed her more than ever.

"You wanna ride along, honey?" he invited Beth.

"No," she pouted, crossing her arms stubbornly.

"You sure? We could talk."

"I'm sure."

But he could see the hurt in her eyes. "Back in half an hour and we'll spend the day doing whatever you want to, okay, sugar?"

For a minute the stubborn expression remained on her chin, but at last she nodded.

In the car Georgine sat as if she had spine trouble, her mouth as sour-looking as if she'd just bitten into a kumquat.

"Georgine, I'm sorry I wasn't here to get you into town right away this morning."

"Ain't me you should be sayin' you're sorry to; it's your daughter. Impressionable young girl like that-what she gonna think?"

Tommy Lee imagined she'd think exactly what she was thinking, but he wasn't going to admit it to Georgine. He hadn't given a thought to Beth last night and realized too late the import of his having been out all night, especially given Beth's age. He was not accustomed to having restrictions put on his freedom, but Georgine was right. He certainly hadn't set a good example.

When he got back home he found Beth in the kitchen stirring something at the stove. Her hair fell down the center of her back in a single French braid, and even from behind he could see the first curves of maturity already beginning to sculpt her body. She had a waist now, and gently swelling hips tapering into long legs. She had fought with her mother over a boy after Nancy caught the two of them kissing, which had started the whole fiasco that finally led to Beth's running away and ending up here.

The eternal taboo on sex, he thought ruefully, going back for a moment to when he and Rachel had been the same age Beth was now. He stood for a long minute with his hands in his trouser pockets, studying her, wondering how to handle the delicate situation. He could tell from the way her head was drooped that she was upset with him and maybe a little shy about facing him.

"Still mad at me, huh?" he asked quietly.

She shrugged, but still didn't turn around.

"You don't even want to talk to me?"

Again came the sheepish shrug. He couldn't help smiling-so young, so idealistic. He moved up behind her and cupped a hand around the side of her neck.

"I'm sorry, baby. I've got no excuses."

She stared into the kettle and kept stirring. "After the show I brought the kids back here to meet you, and you weren't even home."

"I said I'm sorry. It won't happen again, and that's a promise."

"Where were you?"

This time it was his turn to withhold an answer. In spite of the fact that he'd planned to tell Beth about Rachel immediately, he was reluctant now, for fear it might cast a shadow over his daughter's impression of the woman he loved.

"You were with a woman, weren't you?"

"Beth, I'm forty-one years old."

At last she turned and lifted accusing eyes to his. "I know who it was. It was that one on the church steps, wasn't it?"