one; she had faded photographs to prove it. Surely there had been a living warmth in the sun, a delicious joy as mother and daughter laughed and splashed together under a sudsy blue sky. But the memory, the reality of it, had been buried far beneath all those other alive, unspeakable agonies.
Her father had managed to shelve the past and get on with his life. After five years of quietly mourning his wife, he began to date. And after Jacquelyn graduated from college and returned to Winter Haven, her father had presented her with the keys and deed to the house. While she stammered in surprise, he announced his forthcoming marriage to Helen, a quiet, serene woman who’d been his steady companion for several months. He would move to Helen’s condo, he told Jacquelyn, and she should keep the house. The neighborhood was settled and safe, the perfect place for a young, single career woman.
How could he walk away to begin a new life and leave her with the old one? Jacquelyn wondered. He had given her a house haunted not by spirits or ghosts, but by memories that had wrapped themselves like an invasive tumor around every piece of furniture, every dish towel, every picture on the wall.
For a fleeting instant Jacquelyn wondered if her father thought the memories would bother her less than they did him, but the place seemed strangely sterile when Jacquelyn returned. During her four years away at college her dad had repainted, sold a lot of the old furniture and installed new carpet throughout the house. The place was tidy, functional and sorely in need of a feminine touch.
And so Jacquelyn thanked her father and moved into the house which had belonged to her parents. During the five years she had lived there, she stenciled and upholstered and wallpapered until the old house now resembled an English cottage. A sloping bed of colorful perennials lined the narrow sidewalk that led to the street, and a white iron fence provided a safe boundary for Bailey. All in all, the place became a haven. Hers.
But even the safest and most pleasant of havens grew dull after a while. Jacquelyn was not so insecure to think that she needed a man, but she knew her life had definitely been fuller since meeting Craig. He did not thrill or challenge her—except to occasionally tax her patience—but she found him a pleasant friend. He understood her ambition; she appreciated his. And if her dad could marry for companionship, why couldn’t she? Love was for teenagers and romance novelists. After working all day with emaciated, weak, disease-damaged bodies, Jacquelyn found the idea of passion strangely wearying.
“So what do you think?” Craig’s direct question brought her thoughts abruptly rushing back. She flushed miserably, knowing she’d have to confess that she hadn’t been listening.
“What do I think?” She made a face. “I think you should tell me—”
A sudden yowling interrupted her. Bailey. Fear knotted inside her as Jacquelyn jerked toward the source of the sound, just in time to see the huge puppy clambering out of a stand of brush. He was shaking his head in abrupt, jerky movements while trying to lunge toward Jacquelyn, but his chain had caught on something. In one desperate effort, the dog threw himself into the air with a pitiful yelp, then fell limply to the ground.
“Craig, help!” Jacquelyn leapt up and ran toward the dog. The animal lay on his side, his chest heaving, the velvety folds of skin around his mouth covered with snow-white foam. Terror twisted around her heart. “We’ve got to do something, Craig! What could be wrong?”
“How am I supposed to know?” Standing beside her, Craig lifted his hands in a helpless gesture. “I’m not a vet, Jacquelyn, I don’t know anything about dogs.”
“Help me. Let me untangle his lead, then we’ll lift him.” Jacquelyn scrambled frantically into the brush, then found the chain wrapped around the base of a shrub. As her fingers trembled, she jerked the tangled lead around again and again, until the chain was finally clear of the obstructing branches. Within another moment she had unsnapped the lead from the stake and darted forward to free it from Bailey’s collar.
“Now, Craig, help me,” she said, tossing the lead onto the ground. She straddled the unconscious animal and bent to slip her arms under the dog’s chest.
Unbelievably, Craig stood with his hands on his hips and calmly shook his head. “You can’t carry him. That dog weighs more than you do.”
Jacquelyn was in no mood for debate. “Help me!” she yelled, her voice ringing with command.
Responding at last, Craig slipped behind her and struggled to lift the dog’s hips. Somehow they half carried, half dragged Bailey to the blanket. Jacquelyn hurriedly tossed the containers of picnic food onto the grass, then wrapped the blanket around the puppy. When the big animal was covered, she knelt and pressed her ear to the dog’s chest. The heartbeat was slow and steady, but the skin felt burning hot. What had happened? Heatstroke? The weather was warm, but Bailey had access to water and shade. Snakebite? Certainly possible. And puncture wounds could be tiny, or hidden in the folds of that precious wrinkled skin….
“He’s going into shock,” she said, forcing a note of calm into her voice. “We’ve got to get him to the car and to the vet.”
“The vet won’t be open on a holiday, Jacquelyn.”
Something in his infinitely reasonable tone infuriated her beyond all common sense. “Craig, I’m not going to sit here and argue with you. Help me lift him! Now!”
Stunned into compliance, he knelt by Jacquelyn’s side.
“Hang on, Bailey. Mama’s going to help you,” she whispered, wrapping the animal in the lightweight blanket. She pulled the fabric over the dog’s head to keep the sun out of his eyes. “If we can just get him to the road—”
“Honey, let me do this,” Craig said, finally rising to the occasion. He did not question or argue now, but gathered the animal in his arms. “On three, we’ll lift together, okay? Just help me get a good grip on him.”
Jacquelyn nodded, tears filling her eyes. In a pinch, Craig always came through.
“One, two, three!”
Together they hoisted the animal. Jacquelyn caught her breath and breathed a prayer as she ran before Craig to the parking lot. “Dear God, please let Bailey be okay!”
Chapter Four
An eagle rode hot updrafts rising from the lake and Jonah Martin put down the medical journal he’d been studying and looked up at the sky. Insects whirred from the trees above him, and the distant sound of food being scraped from a picnic plate dulled the cutting edge of his loneliness. Somewhere overhead a jet whispered through the cloudless sky, reminding him for the briefest of moments that he hadn’t been home…in a long time.
A sudden scream chilled him to the marrow. Out on the lake, a young woman on skis had fallen and was now splashing and screaming for help. For an instant his pulse quickened and his hands tingled in the old adrenaline rush he remembered from his stint in the E.R., then the woman’s scream turned to laughter and Jonah saw that her head and shoulders were safely above water. She wore a buoyant life vest, a skier’s best friend. Her boyfriend fussed loudly as he turned the boat to pick her up.
“Yeah, hurry back,” Jonah murmured as he lowered his eyes again to the reports he had intended to study on his day off. “Don’t keep her waiting, buddy, or you’ll be sorry.”
He reached under his sunglasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, consoling himself with the reminder that he’d learned his lesson. He’d been sorry every single time he’d ever become involved with a woman. Christine,
