Home In Carolina. Sherryl Woods

and corn silk hair. She was quieter than most of the others, less aggressive. She’d actually been able to hold up her end of a conversation. Ironically, he’d seen a vulnerability in her that had reminded him of Annie.

      The next time he’d been in Cincinnati, Ty had seen Dee-Dee again, spent three nights with her. On his third trip to town, she’d told him she was pregnant.

      The news had hit him like one of his own fastballs in the gut, left him slack-jawed and sputtering. He realized he didn’t even know her last name.

      Nor could he be sure the baby was his. He wanted proof, insisted on it, which set off their first huge fight. Dee-Dee, whose last name turned out to be Mitchell, was insulted he would even ask. He was appalled that she thought he was so stupid he wouldn’t.

      Struggling with years of conditioning to take responsibility for his own actions, Ty had turned to a buddy on the team for advice.

      “You in love with her?” Jimmy Falco had asked.

      “No,” Ty admitted. “I barely know her.”

      “Then you wait. You get a paternity test. If the kid turns out to be yours, you go from there.”

      Dee-Dee had been furious when he’d told her the plan. She’d threatened to go to the tabloids if he didn’t marry her immediately. Despite all the potential for very public ugliness, Ty held firm. That was when he should have gone to Annie and confessed everything, but he’d waited. And, of course, the news had leaked out.

      By the time Trevor was born, any faint feelings he might have had for Dee-Dee were dead and buried. The positive paternity test didn’t change that. In court, he acknowledged being the boy’s father, relinquished custody to Dee-Dee with visitation rights for himself, arranged to pay child support, and even agreed to a generous lumpsum payment to get Dee-Dee her own place, a two-bedroom condo in a very nice building.

      Two months later, he’d opened the door to his hotel room on a road trip to Denver to find Trevor in a basket on the doorstep, and Dee-Dee nowhere in sight. In an instant, he took on the role of single dad.

      Because of the prior arrangement and Dee-Dee’s disappearance, it had taken a year of wrangling in court to change their custody agreement so that he had sole custody. He’d struggled to balance parenthood with a physically demanding career that took him away from home too often. Finding a nanny he’d trusted had been a nightmare, but eventually he’d found Cassandra, an older woman who’d raised four children of her own and doted on Trevor as if he were one of her own grandchildren. To Ty’s amusement, she treated him as a son who’d gone astray and needed firm moral guidance. Cassandra had been a godsend for both of them.

      In the meantime, the whole thing had played out in the tabloids. He imagined that Dee-Dee had gotten a pretty penny for the inside scoop, to say nothing of what she must have gotten for tipping off a photographer before she left the baby outside his hotel room.

      And it had all hit the fan before he’d been able to work up the nerve to tell Annie about any of it. He’d been the worst kind of coward.

      What Annie thought of him—what he thought of himself—didn’t matter, though, not as long as she didn’t fall back into her old anorexic eating pattern. He didn’t think he could handle that. Hurting her was bad enough. He’d never be able to live with destroying all the progress she’d made, the normal, healthy life she was leading.

      Then, again, maybe he was exaggerating the pain he’d caused her. Maybe she’d made peace with what had happened, considered herself lucky to be rid of him. She could have moved on by now. It was certainly what he deserved, but the thought depressed him just the same.

      Because Annie Sullivan had slipped into his heart about a million years ago, and she was still there…despite everything he’d done to show her otherwise.

      Chapter Two

      Helen Decatur-Whitney left the courtroom feeling triumphant. She barely resisted an urge to pump her fist in the air on the courthouse steps. Such gloating, she thought, might have been a bit unseemly.

      Still, she couldn’t help savoring today’s victory. Her client had gotten everything she deserved from her weasel of an ex-husband. Helen had enjoyed the man’s shell-shocked expression as the judge had handed down his ruling.

      A few years ago such a verdict wouldn’t have been worthy of note, because just about all her clients won, no matter how bitterly contested the divorce. Lately, though, ever since her marriage to Erik and the birth of her daughter, Sarah Beth, Helen had taken fewer and fewer cases. Her standing as the barracuda attorney of choice in the entire state of South Carolina was no longer assured, so today’s triumph was especially sweet. She was back!

      As she had for years, she wanted to celebrate with her best friends, the Sweet Magnolias, with one of their margarita nights. This victory had been a long time in coming. For quite a while, Helen had feared she’d lost her edge to the complacency of marriage and motherhood. After today, she almost believed she could have it all.

      First she punched in Dana Sue’s number on her cell phone. “My place, tonight at eight,” she announced. “We’re celebrating my courtroom comeback.”

      “Eight o’clock on a Friday night?” Dana Sue asked incredulously. “Haven’t you heard? I run a very successful restaurant. We’re packed at that hour.”

      “And my husband, your outstanding sous-chef, is perfectly capable of handling the last couple of hours on his own and closing up,” Helen reminded her. “When was the last time we all cut loose?”

      “It’s been a while,” Dana Sue conceded. She paused, then asked, “Have you spoken to Maddie?”

      There was a cautious note in Dana Sue’s voice Helen couldn’t quite read. “Not yet, why?”

      “She might be avoiding me.”

      Helen drew a blank. “Why? Did you two have words about something?” Over the years, there had been spats among the three of them, but they’d been healed almost before they’d begun.

      “Ty and Annie,” Dana Sue said succinctly. “It all hit the wall today. Annie found out that Ty’s home. Erik saw her right after she found out, and he says she’s livid because none of us warned her. I called the spa earlier, and Elliott told me she called and took the day off. Now I can’t find her.”

      Helen muttered an expletive she rarely used. “Ty and Annie’s issues have nothing to do with you and Maddie,” she said. Then amended, “Well, of course they do, because they’re your kids, but didn’t you resolve years ago to let them work out their own problems?”

      “It’s harder to stick to that now that they so obviously have big-time issues,” Dana Sue said. “Ty came back here with a little boy, for goodness’ sake! How’s that for rubbing it in my daughter’s face that he cheated on her?”

      “It stinks,” Helen agreed. “And if you want to torture Ty, I’ll help, but please, please don’t let it come between you and Maddie. You two are my best friends in the world. I don’t want to have to start tiptoeing around or seeing you separately because the two of you aren’t speaking.”

      “Look, I know this isn’t Maddie’s fault,” Dana Sue acknowledged, then added with real heat in her voice, “but how are we supposed to pretend that her son didn’t rip out my daughter’s heart? Am I supposed to ignore that?”

      “Don’t you think Maddie’s as upset about that as you are?” Helen suggested. “She loves Annie, too.” She thought about it for a minute, then said, “How about this? We’ll just declare the topic off limits. Or else I’ll negotiate a truce. I’m very good at negotiating things, in case you’ve forgotten.”

      Dana Sue laughed at last, cutting through the tension. “As if you’d let us forget.”

      Helen seized on the tiny opening. “Come on, sweetie, don’t say no. I want you there. It won’t be a celebration without you.”