stumbled toward the toilet, flipped down the seat and sat. The prospect of washing up felt like a monumental undertaking. She stared at the shower curtain map, wishing she were somewhere else, somewhere far away. Was coming here a mistake?
“Come on, Olivia. You’ve got to get out of those clothes.”
“I know.”
“Just relax. Talk to me.” He knelt on the tile floor in front of her and untied the laces on her sneakers. “Tell me what you’re doing in Denver. You live up in the mountains, right?”
“In Dillon.” She had a private practice as a midwife and also worked at the hospitals in Summit County, but she came to Denver twice a month to assist at a clinic for the homeless. That was where she’d met Alex.
“What are you doing in town?” he repeated as he pulled off her right shoe and sock. “You can tell me anything. Where did the blood come from? Was there an accident?”
“Car accident. Then the helicopter came.” She remembered the roar of the rotors, shouts from the crew, the endless scream. “It was loud.”
“Yeah, choppers are like that.” He took off her other shoe and sock. “You went to the hospital.”
She nodded. “E.R.”
“And then what?”
A mental door slammed shut. “I can’t. I don’t want to talk about it.”
His large hand rested on her knee, and he gazed into her eyes. “You might find this hard to believe, but I know where you’re coming from.”
Anger whipped through her. “How can you possibly know?”
“I can see that you’ve been through something bad, really bad.” He stood and hovered over her. “Do you need help with that sweatshirt?”
She growled, “I can undress myself.”
“There’s nothing wrong with asking for help, you know.”
“A nice little chat,” she said bitterly. It would take more than that to heal her.
“It’s a place to start. After you take your shower and get cleaned up, I’ll make you something warm to drink.”
“If I’d wanted tea and sensitivity, I would have come looking for your brother.”
“Fair enough,” Troy said. “What do you want from me?”
She surged to her feet. Reaching up, she held his face with both hands and kissed him. His mouth was hard as stone, but that didn’t stop her. Her tongue traced the line of his lips and she kissed him again.
Though he held back, she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her body against him. “Make love to me, Troy.”
He tried to push her away, but she clung tighter.
He tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t listen.
Desperation consumed her. She needed to feel life pulsing inside her. She needed the heat of passion to melt the icy fingers that held her heart in a frozen grip.
Another kiss. Another frantic caress. She could feel him beginning to respond. “Please,” she begged. “Please.”
His arms embraced her. His mouth found hers, and he breathed new life into her lungs.
Tonight, they would make love.
After that, she never expected to see him again.
Chapter One
Eight and a half months later...
Today was a first for Olivia. Triplets, she’d delivered triplets! She rubbed her hand over the swell of her own hugely pregnant belly, glad that there was only one bun in this oven. Three were way too many to handle as a single mom. Her one baby—a boy—was the perfect number, just perfect. Nearly every aspect of her pregnancy was perfect.
After a last peek at the three healthy baby girls in the hospital nursery, she headed down the corridor toward the front exit of St. Agnes Hospital in Summit County. Tired but happy, she stepped outside and inhaled a breath of fresh mountain air.
The last glow of sunset was fading from the August skies, leaving a faint gold outline along the hogback ridge opposite the hospital complex. The summer night was quiet and warm enough that she didn’t really need the cardigan she’d thrown on over her purple scrubs. She set her backpack on the pavement beside a stone bench, stretched her arms over her head and yawned.
It had been a twelve-hour labor with many anxious moments. At one point, Olivia had considered calling for a C-section, but the mom had insisted that she’d get a second wind. And she’d been correct. When the time had come to push, the babies had arrived without complications, other than the juggling act required to handle three newborns at the same time.
Before crossing the parking lot to her SUV, Olivia sat on the bench to check the phone messages that had accumulated on her cell. The first had come at sixteen minutes past four o’clock.
“Hey, pretty lady.” It was Troy. “I’m in Denver, and I want to get together. Call me back.”
Eight and a half months ago, she’d needed him desperately. Now...not so much. She patted her belly and deleted his message.
Erasing the man himself wasn’t so easy. The next phone message at precisely five o’clock was also from him. “Don’t think you’ll get rid of me by not calling back. If necessary, I’ll use military intelligence resources to triangulate your phone signal, pinpoint your exact location and find you.”
“Like a stalker,” she muttered as she pressed Delete.
His third message came only fifteen minutes after the second. And it was brief. “Marry me, Olivia.”
“No way,” she said to the phone. What did it take to get through to this man? This had to be the twentieth time that he’d proposed.
When she was four months pregnant, he’d been back in Denver, and she’d told him the news. He had the right to know that he’d fathered a child and that it was her intention to keep the baby and raise it on her own. At age thirty, her biological clock had been clanging like a fire siren. She wanted this baby with all her heart, and she’d made it crystal clear to Troy that she would not require child support and would allow him all the visitation rights he wanted.
His response had been to drop to one knee and propose. She should have known he’d take responsibility. The man was a career marine, and he was all about honor and duty.
Short-sighted was what she called that attitude. Her grandma always said, “Marry in haste and regret it at leisure.” Olivia had thanked Troy for being considerate, but she’d told him no, absolutely not, no.
Her refusal didn’t stop him from proposing again. And again. And again. Every time she saw him or heard from him, he popped the question. He’d sent a dozen roses on her birthday—a date she hadn’t told him but he’d
