This Time For Keeps. Jenna Mills

herself able to breathe for the first time in months.

      But then the days piled onto one another, one after the other. And the nights…

      “He didn’t come back,” she whispered. It was still almost unfathomable to her that the man she’d loved so dearly had turned his back on her so completely. He’d never called, sent only the occasional e-mail.

      E-mail.

      That’s what their marriage had been reduced to.

      “It’s what he does.” She still didn’t understand how she’d been so blind. “What he always does.” The pattern was clear now, time after time after time. He’d left his family the day he turned eighteen. He’d left the country of his birth. He’d left the news bureau, the university. “When the going gets tough…” Russell Montgomery walked.

      But Julia wouldn’t leave the subject alone. “Then why aren’t you divorced?” Her tone made it sound like the answer was obvious.

      “Just a technicality.”

      She lifted a perfectly sculpted brow. “That’s a pretty big technicality.”

      Meg drew the mug to her mouth and took a sip of now-cool coffee. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

      “Then why haven’t you been with anyone else? Two years is a long time.”

      A strangled noise broke from Meg’s throat. “What is this? Let’s Ambush Meg Day?” Simply because Russell’s parents had been calling and she hadn’t called them back yet? She was going to. She had to. She knew that. So long as she was raising their granddaughter she couldn’t pretend they didn’t exist.

      But not yet.

      Done with it all, she snatched the paper from Julia and strode toward the door. “Editorial in ten,” she called over her shoulder. Then, at the door, she turned. “And anyway,” she tossed with a wicked little smile. “Who says I haven’t?”

      THE LATE-AFTERNOON SUN poured down, creating a stark contrast between the field and the impossible blue of the horizon. As far as the eye could see, red and yellow and blue swayed with the warm breeze.

      “We’re nearing peak,” Ray Blunt said. The longtime Pecan Creek photographer slung his camera strap over his shoulder and reached into his pickup for his tripod. “Barring rain, we should be about perfect.”

      It was April in East Texas. Going without rain was about as likely as going without allergies.

      “A little sprinkle won’t hurt anyone,” Meg said. It was the lightning she worried about, hail the size of tennis balls. One round of that and the carefully tended flower fields would be pulverized, destroying one of the big draws of the Wildflower Festival: photographs.

      “Thanks for coming out with me,” Ray said, taking a swig from his water bottle. He and her mother had been friends for as long as Meg could remember. Twisting for the baby, Meg grinned. Lately, she was pretty sure her mother and Ray’s friendship involved some new…benefits.

      “Just want to do one last dry run,” he said. “Your mama thought your little girl would make a perfect guinea pig, if’n you don’t mind me usin’ that expression.”

      Your little girl…

      Briskly Meg unfastened Charlotte from the car seat and shifted her onto her hip. She’d found the perfect frilly white dress.

      “Here she is,” she cooed, and with one three-toothed smile, Charlotte innocently chased Meg’s worries away.

      The three of them made their way from the gravel parking area as another car turned off the narrow highway. Meg pushed Charlotte in her new jogging stroller, navigating the winding trail as they went. Every year the town seeded the big field, making sure that with spring a colorful parade of bluebonnets and Indian paintbrush and poppies stood ready for the festival. Three years before they’d added irrigation to compensate for increasingly dry winters.

      It was a photographer’s paradise. Russell had once said—

      Russell had said a lot of things.

      “Just over yonder,” Ray said, leading them down a small trail toward a monstrous patch of eager bluebonnets, dotted by the occasional red of a poppy. In the center, a small indentation marked the spot.

      “Lighting is almost perfect,” Ray observed while Meg lifted Charlotte from the stroller. They had the field all to themselves, except for the tall man in the distance. Against the Western sky the sun cast him in silhouette, but did nothing to hide the slight limp. “I’ve gotten some of my best shots this time of day. Just put her right…there.”

      Looking away from the stranger, Meg carried Charlotte through the flowers, trying not to crush any as she went. At the clearing, she smoothed Charlotte’s fancy dress and lowered her toward the ground.

      Charlotte started to cry.

      “Oh, baby,” Meg murmured, pulling back to look down at Charlotte’s sweet little face—now red and splotchy. “No, no, no,” she said, trying again.

      But Charlotte wrapped her pudgy little arms around Meg’s neck and clung on for dear life. “Mama-mama…”

      At a loss, Meg glanced back to the photographer who’d once taken similar pictures of her, when she was a child. To this day, they lined the hallway of the small ranch-style house in which she’d grown up. “This might take a while.”

      With a hand to his graying beard, her mother’s friend shrugged. “Not a problem.”

      “Here now,” she said to the baby. “Let Ma—” She broke off, tried again. “We can sit together,” she said, rubbing her hand along Charlotte’s back as she lowered her into the small clearing.

      Honeybees buzzed up—and Charlotte’s wails turned into shrieks.

      “Tell you what,” Ray said. “You take your time and I’m going to go get a picture of them poppies over there. When I come back, I’ll get the two of you.”

      “No—I—” But he was already shuffling down the path. And anyway, Meg knew it was no use. She could tell the photographer she didn’t want to be in any pictures, but he would take them anyway.

      “That’s my girl,” she said, holding Charlotte close to her heart and rocking with the breeze. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

      The baby nestled closer, much as she did during the stillness of the night. Sometimes they’d sit in the rocking chair with lullabies drifting through the room until the first rays of dawn filtered through the blinds. Sometimes Meg would fall asleep holding her. Lately, she’d begun carrying Charlotte back to her bed and snuggling up with her. Sleeping with a baby still worried her a little, but she was pretty sure Char was big enough and strong enough to scoot away if she needed to.

      “See, it’s all okay,” she soothed, as she’d done for the past two months. She’d been there the morning Charlotte was born. She’d made a promise before God the day Charlotte was baptized. She’d held her and loved her, bathed her, dressed her, spoiled her madly.

      But she’d never imagined that one day she would hold a sleeping angel, while Father O’Sullivan read Charlotte’s mother her last rites.

      Meg closed her eyes and held her niece tight. The warmth of the sun felt good, the whisper of the breeze. The softness of the baby in her arms. For so long she’d wanted to share her life with a child.

      But not like this.

      Gradually Charlotte quit squirming, her body relaxing into the heaviness of sleep. Meg smiled, realizing once again that best-laid plans were the stuff of Lori’s fairy tales.

      Opening her eyes, she squinted against the glare of the late-afternoon sun and looked for Ray. She’d need to tell him—

      At the edge of the clearing a lone man stood in the shade of a tall, gnarled post oak. The play