is a slight dark line called the linea negra, which pregnant women present. On women who have not had a child, it would be much lighter—a linea alba, or white line. And I’m sure you’ll note that the areolas around your nipples are darker than they used to be.”
Her heart thudding, she stared gap-mouthed at him. This man didn’t know what was normal for her—not before today, at least. Yet she was riveted, trying to take in each word.
“Tara, whatever you share with me will stay privileged from everyone, unless you choose to release the information. Since so much of your private life has been made public lately, I can understand your reluctance to trust me. But as we embark on our professional relationship, this is something very important you should consider sharing with your physician.”
Tara actually couldn’t talk. She sputtered, half-furious, half-stunned. She blinked back tears. He—he had to be wrong. Even if by some fluke she’d gotten pregnant while on birth control pills, there was no way she’d had a pregnancy or a baby, not in a full-blown coma! She was getting out of here right now. She’d pick up Claire, go home and hide out with her and Beamer, where things were normal, safe and sane.
2
“Uncle Nick!” Claire exploded, and pointed out the truck window. “It’s Uncle Nick! He’s here!”
The child screeched in excitement as Tara pulled the truck into the driveway. She watched as Nick, grinning and waving a bit sheepishly at the raucous greeting, hurried down the steps of the front deck to greet them.
Nicolas MacMahon was taller than Tara remembered from their one meeting. He was big shouldered and bronze skinned; his close-cropped blond hair and white beard stubble glistened in the September sun. He was the only man she’d ever seen who did not seem to shrink in this vast mountain setting. Though still in pale-colored combat fatigues, he didn’t blend in with the background but seemed the center of the scene.
Claire was out of the car like a shot to hurl herself into his outstretched arms. He lifted and swung her around while she squealed in delight. After losing his sister and his mother while he’d been away, Tara thought, this must be the moment he knew he was home.
Holding Claire in one arm as if she were a toddler, he met Tara partway around her truck. His ice-blue eyes glinted from under straight, pale brows and his teeth shone white in his tanned face as he smiled. Despite her height of five feet eight inches, he stood more than half a head taller. The late-day sun threw shadows in the clefts of his cheeks and a wayward dimple to the left of his mouth. His prominent nose was a bit crooked but it suited his look, a blend of ruddy and just plain rugged. He didn’t really resemble either his sister or his mother; from photos Tara had seen, he had clearly inherited his father’s form and face.
He finally put Claire down. A moment of awkward silence stretched out between him and Tara, as if they’d been caught by a slo-mo camera. Something loud but unspoken arced between them before he threw his free arm around her shoulders and hugged her hard against his rock-hard side, then let her go.
“Welcome home, Nick,” she said, shoving her hair from her face in the sudden breeze as she took a step back and looked up into his happy face. “Welcome home!”
She meant it and was happy for him and her precious little Claire. Family at last, for both of them. But another loss loomed for her, unless she could convince him to at least stay in the area. The house was his, Claire was his, even Tara’s best wishes were his, but in a way he was her enemy.
Ashamed of that thought—or blushing from the closeness of the man himself—Tara turned away. She hurried to the house and unlocked the door while Claire chattered to Nick about her two best friends at school, about how she and “Aunt Tara” were going to go to the Denver Zoo and to a concert at Red Rocks and would he go, too. Thank heavens the seven-year-old had no hang-ups about her uncle, whom she hadn’t seen for over two years except for e-mailed photos and one face-to-face online interview. The child was so happy she flaunted the gap-toothed grin she’d been shy about ever since she’d begun to lose her baby teeth. Her brown eyes danced in her narrow, freckled face while, in her excitement, she stood on first one sneakered foot and then the other.
Tara stood frozen for a moment, gazing at them, her mind racing. She had to try to convince Nick not to take Claire away—at least, not far away. In that split second of mingled frustration and fear, she sensed what her clients must feel in that moment they realized their husbands or exes or boyfriends had taken their beloved kids and disappeared.
With a sniff, she turned away to open the front door. Instead of his usual single bark and gentle greeting, Beamer tore past her in a blur of movement and strength. Nick saw him coming and put Claire behind him while the golden Lab nearly leaped into his arms. Another moment to remember, Tara told herself, then realized she felt left out—almost jealous. Today of all days, when she’d needed her closeness to Claire and some peace and quiet to deal with her own problems, this!
Nick hugged Beamer and knelt to bury his face in the dog’s hair. The three of them looked like a matched set, all golden haired, perhaps with golden futures. Tara leaned in the doorway with tears in her eyes, then realized she was resting both hands protectively on her belly.
What Dr. Holbrook had told her today hit hard again. He was mistaken, of course. If the birth of her own child were a fact, the only possibility was that it had occurred while she was comatose. But that was impossible. Insane. Yet, just to ease her mind, she was going to use her online skills to check it out, phone Jen in L.A., too, and perhaps even get a second opinion beyond Jen’s. But even comatose women didn’t have babies they never knew about, especially not while they were on birth control, for heaven’s sake. The man was wrong, and she’d told him so.
Now, she just had to prove it to herself.
However strange things seemed without his mother here, the old house seemed to welcome Nick. He’d held the door for Tara, and his words—After you—echoed in his head. Yeah, he could really see himself going after a woman like this. Yet she seemed more than wary, as if she had an invisible fence around her that she—or he—dare not cross. Hell, he couldn’t blame her, since she probably figured he could take Claire away from her. Maybe she was scarred from her sudden divorce, too, even if that was a while ago.
After his excited niece dragged him from room to room, as if he’d never seen the place he’d grown up in, he sat at the kitchen table with a Coors beer, taco chips and Claire while Tara fixed a salad and spaghetti. He filled them in on his flights home, then told them how he’d left the ten dogs he’d helped train with their new partners in the mountains of Afghanistan and how they wanted him to train even more here in the States. Beamer, tight to his leg under the table, seemed to listen to each word, too.
“Aunt Tara showed me where you were on the map and I can spell Afghanistan, too,” Claire piped up. “And I think that’s where afghans like that one on the sofa Grandma knitted first came from. Beamer missed you. Aunt Tara, too. We all did, ’specially after Mommy went to heaven and Daddy went to prison.”
That incredible last sentence, delivered in the child’s light voice, reminded Nick of some sappy Western music lyrics. Hard to believe it was all true and had happened to his family. Tears filled his eyes. Crying in his beer already. Man, he must be exhausted as well as jetlagged. Everything was getting to him today. His eyes met Tara’s green gaze again over the steam from the boiling pasta. What was this woman really like? Was she that lovely inside, too? She had tried to save Alex at the risk of her own life and had taken such good care of Claire. In the coma Clay’s attack had caused, she’d lost almost a year of her life and had lost her husband, the life she’d known. He knew she ran a P.I. firm that searched for lost kids. She must have a heart of gold.
He could tell she forced a smile before she looked away from him. She was tall but shapely. Any moron who’d been living with men and looking only at the occasional woman swathed in black burkas for the past two years would appreciate that. Her grace and femininity made him weak in the knees, yet she seemed to have an edge to her. Her sunny looks often crashed to frowns or near tears. Damn, they had a lot to say to each other. He could only