Porcini!”

A wet branch slapped Isabel in the face as Giulia shot ahead of her through the underbrush. Her sneakers would never be the same after the morning’s excursion through the woods, which were still soggy from yesterday’s rainfall. She hurried toward a fallen tree and crouched next to Giulia in front of a circle of velvety brown porcini, their toadstool tops large enough to shelter a fairy.

“Mmm . . . Tuscan gold.” Giulia pulled out the pocketknife she’d brought with her, cut a mushroom neatly at the base, and laid it in her basket. Plastic sacks were never used by the fungaroli, Isabel had learned, only baskets that allowed spores and bits of root to fall to the ground so next year’s crop would be ensured. “I wish Vittorio could have come with us. He complains when I wake him so early, but he loves the hunt.”

Isabel wished Ren were with them, too. If she hadn’t asked him to go back to the villa yesterday evening after they’d made love, she could have nagged him out of bed this morning and made him come along. Even though they’d been lovers only a little over twenty-four hours, she’d found herself reaching for him last night, then waking up when he wasn’t there. He was like a drug. A dangerous drug. Crack cocaine topped off with heroin. And she was going to need a twelve-step program when their affair ended.

She slipped her fingers beneath the cuff of her sweater and tugged at her gold bangle. Breathe. Stay centered and breathe. How often would she be able to hunt porcini in the woods of Tuscany? Despite the damp, Ren’s absence, and what felt like a permanent crick in her back from crouching down to look for mushrooms, she was enjoying herself. The morning had dawned bright and clear, Steffie was safe, and Isabel had a lover.

“Smell. Is it not indescribable?”

Isabel inhaled the pungent, earthy scent of the funghi and thought about sex. But then everything made her think about sex. She was already looking forward to returning to the farmhouse and seeing Ren again. The people from the town would be gathering at ten o’clock to finish dismantling the wall, and he would be there to help.

She remembered how moody he’d gotten last night just before he’d left. At first she’d thought it was because she was kicking him out, but he’d been fairly good-humored about that. She’d asked him what was wrong, but he’d said only that he was tired. It had seemed like more than that. Maybe he’d been having a leftover reaction from finding Steffie. One thing was certain: Ren was a master dissembler, and if he didn’t want her to know what was going on inside him, she had very little chance of figuring it out.

They set off again, eyes peeled, using the walking sticks Giulia had brought along to push away undergrowth near the tree roots and beside rotting logs. The rain had revitalized the parched landscape, and the air was heady with the scent of rosemary, lavender, and wild sage. Isabel found a velvety cache of porcini under a pile of leaves and added them to the basket.

“You are very good at this.” Giulia spoke in the whisper she’d been using all morning. Porcini were precious, and mushroom hunting was a secretive operation. Their basket even had a lid to conceal their treasure should they happen to pass someone in the woods, not that anyone was going to be fooled. Giulia yawned for the fourth time in as many minutes.

“A little early for you?” Isabel said.

“I had to meet Vittorio in Montepulciano last night and in Pienza the night before that. I didn’t get back until very late.”

“Do you always meet him when he’s out?”

Giulia poked at some weeds she’d just finished looking beneath. “Sometimes. Certain nights.”

Whatever that meant.

As it neared ten o’clock, they returned to the farmhouse, taking turns carrying the full basket. The villagers had begun to appear, and Ren stood in the garden studying the wall. The way he wore his dusty boots, jeans, and faded T-shirt turned them into a fashion statement. When he saw her, his smile took away the last of the morning’s chill, and it grew even wider when he spotted the basket. “Why don’t I put these someplace safe?”

“Oh, no you don’t.”

But she was too late. He’d already snagged the basket from Giulia and headed inside with it.

“Hurry.” She grabbed Giulia’s arm and pulled her into the kitchen, arriving there on his heels. “Give that back right now. You’re not trustworthy.”

“You hurt my feelings.” His con man’s eyes were as innocent as an altar boy’s. “And just when I was getting ready to suggest cooking up a little dinner for the four of us tonight. Nothing elaborate. We could start with some sautéed porcini on top of toasted crostini. Then maybe spaghetti al porcino—a light sauce, very simple. I’ll sauté the mushrooms in olive oil and garlic, add some fresh parsley. We could grill the larger ones and use them on an arugula salad. Of course, if I’m being presumptuous . . .”

“Yes!” Giulia hopped like a child. “Vittorio will be home tonight. I know it is our turn to invite you, but you are a better cook, and I accept for both of us.”

“We’ll see you at eight.” The porcini disappeared into the cupboard.

Satisfied, Giulia slipped back out to the garden to greet some of her friends. Ren glanced at his watch, lifted an imperious eyebrow, and jerked a very arrogant thumb toward the ceiling. “You. Upstairs. Now. And make it fast.”

He wasn’t the only one who knew how to have fun. She yawned. “I don’t think so.”

“Apparently I’m going to have to get rough.”

“I knew this was going to be a good day.”

With a laugh, he dragged her into the living room, pressed her to the wall, and gave her a kiss that made her dizzy. Much too soon, Giulia called out to them from the kitchen, and they were forced to break away.

 

While they worked, the townspeople spoke with heart-wringing emotion and dramatic gestures about how relieved they would be when old Paolo’s secret money stash was found and they no longer had to live in mortal fear. Isabel wondered if an entire town could win an Academy Award.

Tracy waddled down with Marta and Connor. Harry appeared half an hour later with the older children. He looked frazzled and depressed, and Isabel was surprised to see Ren walk over and speak with him.

Steffie stayed at her father’s side except when she scampered away to talk to Ren. He seemed to enjoy her company, a surprise after all the complaining he’d done about having the children around. Maybe the incident yesterday had changed his outlook. He even crouched down to talk with Brittany, despite the fact that she’d taken off her T-shirt.

When Jeremy saw his sisters getting so much attention, he began to misbehave, something his parents seemed too dispirited to notice. Ren complimented him on his muscles, then set him to work carrying stone.

Isabel decided she preferred food service to manual labor, so she helped make sandwiches and keep the water pitchers filled. Marta chided her in Italian, although not unkindly, for slicing the panforte too thinly. One by one, the people who’d caused her trouble managed to find their way to her side to make amends. Giancarlo apologized for the ghost incident, and Bernardo, off duty for the morning, took her to meet his wife, a sad-eyed woman named Fabiola.

Around one o’clock a handsome Italian with thick, curly hair appeared. Giulia brought him to meet Isabel. “This is Vittorio’s brother, Andrea. He is our very excellent local doctor. He closed his office for the afternoon to help in the search.”

“Piacere, signora. I’m happy to meet you.” He tossed away his cigarette. “A bad habit, I know, for a doctor.”

Andrea had a small scar on his cheek and a rogue’s practiced eye. As they chatted, she grew aware of Ren watching from the wall, and she tried to convince herself he was being possessive. Unlikely, but a nice fantasy.

Tracy wandered over. Isabel introduced her to Andrea, and she asked him to recommend a local obstetrician.

“I deliver the babies of Casalleone.”

“How fortunate for their mothers.” Tracy’s reply was flirtatious, but only, Isabel suspected, because Harry was near enough to overhear.

By midafternoon the wall had been taken apart stone by stone, and the festive mood had disappeared. They’d found nothing more exciting than a few dead mice and some shards of broken pottery. Giulia stood alone at the top of the scarred hillside, head down. Bernardo looked as though he were comforting his sad-eyed wife. A woman named Tereza, who seemed to be another of Anna’s relatives, linked arms with her mother. Andrea Chiara went off to speak with one of the younger men, who was smoking and kicking the dirt with his boot.

Just then Vittorio arrived. He took in the mood of the group and immediately headed to Giulia’s side. Isabel watched as he steered her into the shadows of the pergola, where he pulled her close.

Ren joined Isabel by one of the gravel paths. “I feel like I’m at a funeral.”

“There’s something more at stake here than a missing artifact.”

“I sure would like to know what.”

Giulia drew away from Vittorio and approached them, looking teary. “You will excuse us from dinner tonight, yes? I am not feeling so good. This will leave more porcini for you to eat.”

Isabel remembered Giulia’s earlier excitement about the meal. “I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?”

“Can you make a miracle?”

“No, but I can pray for one.”

Giulia gave a wan smile. “Then you must pray very hard.”

“It might be easier if she knew what she was praying for,” Ren said.

Vittorio had remained by the pergola, and Giulia turned her head just enough to give him an imploring look. He shook his head. Isabel saw resentment cloud Giulia’s features and decided it was time to step up the pressure. “We can’t help if you won’t be truthful with us.”

Giulia rubbed one hand with the other. “I do not think you could help anyway.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble?”

Her arms flew. “Do you see a child in my arms? Yes, I am in trouble.”

Vittorio heard her, and he shot forward. “That’s enough, Giulia.”

Ren seemed to read Isabel’s mind, which at that moment was telling her they needed to divide and conquer. As Isabel slipped an arm around Giulia’s shoulders, he stepped into the path to cut Vittorio off. “Why don’t we talk?”

Isabel quickly steered Giulia around the side of the house to her car. “Let’s go for a ride.”

Giulia got into the Panda without protest. Isabel backed out and headed for the road. She waited a few minutes before she said anything.

“I suspect you have a good reason for not telling us the truth.”

Giulia rubbed her eyes wearily. “How do you know I’m not telling the truth?”

“Because your story sounded too much like one of Ren’s movie scripts. Besides, I don’t think stolen money would make you so sad.”

“You are a very smart woman.” She combed her fingers through her hair, hooking it behind her ear. “No one wants to look foolish.”

“And that’s what you’re afraid of? That the truth will make you look foolish? Or is it just that Vittorio has forbidden you to talk?”

“You think I keep silent because Vittorio has told me to?” She gave a tired laugh. “No. It is not because of him.”

“Then why? It’s obvious you need help. Maybe Ren and I could provide a different perspective.”

“Or maybe not.” She crossed her legs. “You’ve been so kind to me.”

“What are friends for?”

“You have been a better friend to me than I have to you.”

As they passed a small farmhouse where a woman worked in the garden, Isabel felt the weight of Giulia’s internal battle.

“It is not my story to tell,” Giulia finally said. “It is the whole town’s, and they will be angry with me.” She grabbed a tissue from a pack Isabel had left on the seat and blew her nose with an angry bleat. “I don’t care. I am going to tell you. And if you think it is foolish . . . well, then, I cannot blame you.”

Isabel waited. Giulia’s breasts rose and fell before she gave a sigh of resignation. “We are looking for the Ombra della Mattina.”

It took a few moments for Isabel to remember the votive statue of the Etruscan boy from the Guarnacci Museum, Ombra della Sera. She eased up on the accelerator to allow a truck to pass. “What does it mean? Ombra della Mattina?”

“Shadow of the Morning.”

“The statue in Volterra is called Shadow of the Evening. That isn’t a coincidence, is it?”

“Ombra della Mattina is its mate. A female statue. Thirty years ago our village priest found it when he was planting rosebushes at the gate of the cemetery.”

Just as Ren had suspected. “And the people of the village don’t want to turn it over to the government.”

“Do not think this is an ordinary case of greedy people trying to hide an artifact. If only it were that simple.”

“But this is a very valuable artifact.”

“Yes, but not only in the way you are thinking.”

“I don’t understand.”

Giulia tugged on her small pearl earring. She looked drawn and exhausted. “Ombra della Mattina has special powers. This is why we do not speak of it to outsiders.”

“What kind of powers?”

“Unless you were born in Casalleone, you cannot understand. Even those of us born here did not believe.” She made one of her small, graceful gestures. “We laughed when our parents told us stories about the statue, but now we are no longer laughing.” She finally turned to look at Isabel. “Three years ago Ombra della Mattina disappeared, and since then not one woman within thirty kilometers of this town has been able to conceive.”

“No one has gotten pregnant in three years?”

“Only those who have been able to conceive away from the town.”

“And you really believe that the disappearance of the statue is responsible?”

“Vittorio and I were educated at the university. Do we believe it rationally? No. But the fact remains . . . The only way any couples have been able to get pregnant is to do so beyond the borders of Casalleone, and this is not always so easy.”

Finally Isabel understood. “That’s why you’re always traveling to meet Vittorio. You’re trying to have a child.”

Giulia’s hands twisted in her lap. “And why our friends Cristina and Enrico, who want a second child, must leave their daughter with her nonna night after night so they can get away. And why Sauro and Tea Grifasi drive far out into the country to make love in their car, then drive back home afterward. Sauro was fired from his job last month because he kept sleeping through his alarm clock. And this is why Anna is sad all the time. Bernardo and Fabiola can not get pregnant to make her a grandmother.”

“The pharmacist in town is pregnant. I’ve seen her.”

“For six months she lived in Livorno with a sister who always criticizes. Her husband drove back and forth every night. Now they are getting divorced.”

“But what does all this have to do with the farmhouse and old Paolo?”

Giulia rubbed her eyes. “Paolo is the one who stole the statue.”

 

“Apparently Paolo had a reputation for disliking children,” Isabel told Ren that evening as they stood in the kitchen together, gently wiping the dirt from the porcini with damp cloths. “He didn’t like the noise they made, and he complained that having so many children meant they had to spend too much money on schools.”

“My kind of guy. So he decides to cut the town’s birthrate by stealing the statue. And what part of your mind did you lose when you started to believe this story?”

“Giulia was telling the truth.”

“I don’t doubt that. What I’m having trouble comprehending is the fact that you’re taking the supposed powers of this statue seriously.”

“God works in mysterious ways.” Ren was making a mess of the kitchen as usual, and she began clearing space on the counter.

“Spare me.”

“No one has conceived a child in Casalleone since the statue was stolen,” she said.

“And yet I’m not feeling any compulsion to throw away your condoms. Doesn’t this offend your academic sensibilities just a little?”

“Not at all.” She carried a stack of dirty bowls to the sink. “It supports what I know. The mind is very powerful.”

“You’re saying there’s some kind of mass hysteria going on? That women aren’t conceiving because they believe they can’t conceive?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

“I liked the Mafia story better.”

“Only because it had guns.”

He smiled and leaned down to kiss her on the nose, which led to her mouth, which led to her breast, and several minutes passed before they came back up for air. “Cook,” she said weakly. “I’ve been waiting all day for those mushrooms.”

He groaned and grabbed his knife. “You got a lot more out of Giulia than I got out of Vittorio, I’ll give you that. But the statue disappeared three years ago. Why did everyone have to wait until now to dig up this place?”

“The town’s priests kept the statue in the church office. . . .”

“And isn’t it charming the way paganism and Christianity can still coexist?”

“Everyone knew it was there,” she said, rinsing out a bowl, “but the local officials didn’t want a rebellion on their hands by reporting it, so they looked the other way. Paolo had done odd jobs at the church for years, but no one made the connection between him and the statue’s disappearance until he died a few months later. Then people started remembering that he didn’t like children.”

Ren rolled his eyes. “Definitely suspicious.”

“Marta always defended him. She said he didn’t hate children. That he was just imbronciato because of his arthritis. What does ‘imbronciato’ mean?”

“Grouchy.”

“She pointed out that he’d been a good father to his daughter. He’d even flown to the States years ago to see his granddaughter when she was born. So people backed off, and other rumors started to fly. I guess it got fairly ugly.”

“Any guns?”

“Sorry, no.” She wiped up a small section of the counter. “The day before I arrived, Anna sent Giancarlo down here to clean up a rubbish pile that had gotten out of hand. And guess what he found tucked in a hole in the wall when he accidentally knocked out one of the stones?”

“I’m holding my breath.”

“The marble base the statue had always stood on. The same base that disappeared the day the statue was stolen.”

“Well, that does explain the sudden interest in the wall.”

She dried her hands. “Everyone in town went crazy. They made plans to take the wall apart, only to have the fly in the ointment show up.”

“You.”

“Exactly.”

“Things would have been a lot easier if they’d just told us the truth from the beginning,” he said.

“We’re outsiders, and they had no reason to trust either one of us. Especially you.”

“Thanks.”

“What good would it do for them to find the statue if we spread the word that it was here?” she said. “It’s one thing for local politicians to turn a blind eye to a priceless Etruscan artifact sitting around in a church office, but officials in the rest of the country weren’t going to be quite that cavalier. Everyone was afraid the statue would end up locked away in a glass case in Volterra right next to Ombra della Sera.”

“Which is where it should be.” He whacked a clove of garlic with the flat of his knife.

“I did some snooping while you were working out, and look what I found.” She retrieved the yellowed envelope she’d discovered in the living room bookcase and spread the contents on the kitchen table. There were several dozen photographs of Paolo’s granddaughter, all carefully identified on the back.

Ren wiped his hands and came over to look. She pointed toward a color photograph showing an older man holding a baby on the front porch of a small white house. “This is the oldest photo. That’s Paolo. It must have been taken when he went to Boston not long after his granddaughter was born. Her name is Josie, short for Josephina.”

Some of the photographs showed Josie at camp, others on vacation with her parents at the Grand Canyon. In some she was alone. Isabel picked up the final two. “This is Josie on her wedding day six years ago.” She had curly dark hair and a wide smile. “And this one with her husband was taken not long before Paolo died.” She flipped it over to show him the date on the back.

“It doesn’t seem like the collection of a child hater,” Ren admitted. “So maybe Paolo didn’t take the statue.”

“He was the one who built the wall, and he was also the one responsible for the rubbish pile.”

“Not exactly hard evidence. But if the statue’s not in the wall, I wonder where it is?”

“Not in the house,” she said. “Anna and Marta have searched it from top to bottom. There’s talk of plowing up the garden, but Marta says she’d have noticed if Paolo hid it there, and she won’t allow it. There are lots of places near the wall or the olive grove, maybe even the vineyard, where he could have dug a hole and hidden it. I suggested to Giulia they bring in some metal detectors.”

“Gadgets. I’m starting to like this.”

“Good.” She whipped off the tea towel she’d wrapped at her waist. “Now, that’s enough talk. Turn off the stove and get naked.”

He yelped and dropped his knife. “You nearly made me slice off my finger.”

“As long as it’s just your finger.” She grinned and began unbuttoning her blouse. “Who says I can’t be spontaneous?”

“Not me. Okay, I’ve got my breath back.” He watched the buttons open. “What time is it?”

“Almost eight.”

“Damn. Company’s coming any minute.” He reached for her, but she frowned and dodged.

“I thought Giulia and Vittorio canceled on us.”

“I invited Harry.”

“You don’t like Harry.” She took another step back and began fastening up her buttons.

He sighed. “What gave you that idea? He’s a great guy. Would you mind leaving a few of those open? And Tracy’s coming, too.”

“I’m surprised she accepted. She wouldn’t even look at him today.”

“I didn’t exactly tell her I’d invited him.”

“And isn’t this going to be a pleasant evening?”

“It couldn’t be helped,” he said. “Things bottomed out between them this morning, and Tracy’s been dodging him ever since. He’s pretty upset.”

“He told you all this?”

“Hey, guys share. We have feelings, too.”

She lifted an eyebrow.

“Okay, maybe he’s a little desperate and I’m the only one around he can talk to. The guy’s a total screw-up when it comes to women, and if I don’t help him out, they’re going to be here forever.”

“Yet this total screw-up managed to stay married for eleven years and father five children, while you—”

“While I have an idea I think you’ll like. An idea, by the way, that has nothing to do with the Battling Briggses, other than the fact that we have to get rid of them to pull it off.”

“What kind of idea?” She leaned down to pick up some mushroom stems he’d dropped on the floor.

“A little sexual costume drama. But we need the villa to do it justice, which means that the whole family and their baby-sitters have to go.”

“A costume drama?” She let the stems fall back to the floor.

“A sexual costume drama. I’m thinking nighttime. Candlelight. A thunderstorm if we’re lucky.” He picked up her glass and rolled the stem in his fingers. “It seems the unscrupulous Prince Lorenzo has caught sight of a feisty peasant woman in the village, a woman no longer in the first blush of youth—”

“Hey!”

“Which makes her all the more appealing to him.”

“Darn right.”

“The peasant woman is known throughout the land for her virtue and good works, so she fights off his advances, despite the fact that he’s the best-looking dude in the region. Hell, in all of Italy.”

“Only Italy? Still, you should always put your money on a virtuous woman. He doesn’t have a chance.”

“Did I mention that Prince Lorenzo is also the smartest dude in the region?”

“Oh, well, that definitely complicates things.”

“So what does he do but threaten to burn the entire village if she won’t submit to him.”

“The cad. Naturally she says she’ll kill herself first.”

“Which he doesn’t believe for a minute, since good Catholic women don’t kill themselves.”

“You do have a point.”

He drew a descriptive arc with his knife. “The scene opens on the night she delivers herself to the prince’s deserted, candlelit villa. The same villa, coincidentally, that sits at the top of this hill.”

“Amazing.”

“She arrives in the dress he sent her that afternoon.”

“I can see it. Simple and white.”

“Bright red and slutty.”

“Which only makes her virtue more apparent.”

“He wastes no time in preliminaries. He drags her upstairs—”

“Scoops her up in his arm and carries her upstairs.”

“Despite the fact that she’s not exactly a featherweight—but luckily he works out. And once he gets her into his bedroom, he makes her take off her clothes slowly . . . while he watches.”

“Naturally he’s naked as he watches, because it’s very hot in the villa.”

“And even hotter in that bedroom. Did I tell you how good-looking he is?”

“I believe you mentioned it.”

“So the time comes when she’s forced to submit to him.”

“I don’t think I’m going to like this part.”

“That’s because you’re a control freak.”

“And, coincidentally, so is she.”

He bowed to the inevitable. “Just as he’s ready to force himself on her, what should she catch sight of out of the corner of her eye but a pair of handcuffs?”

“They had handcuffs in the eighteenth century?”

“Manacles. A pair of manacles lying just within her reach.”

“Convenient.”

“While his lust-glazed eyes are focused elsewhere”—Ren’s own lust-glazed eyes focused on her breasts—“she reaches behind him, grabs the manacles, and snaps them around—”

“I knocked, but nobody answered.”

They pulled apart and saw Harry standing in the doorway looking miserable. “We used to do that thing with the handcuffs,” he said glumly. “It was great.”

“Ah.” Isabel cleared her throat.

“You could have knocked,” Ren grumbled.

“I did.”

Isabel grabbed a fresh bottle of wine. “Why don’t you open this? I’ll get you a glass.”

He’d barely finished pouring when Tracy came in. She bristled with hostility at the sight of her husband. “What’s he doing here?”

Ren pecked her cheek. “Isabel asked him. I told her not to, but she thinks she knows everything.”

In another lifetime Isabel would have defended herself, but she was dealing with insane people, so what was the point?

“This seemed the best way,” Harry said. “I’ve been trying to talk to you all day, but you keep running away.”

“Only because you make me sick.”

He flinched but persevered. “Come outside, Tracy. Just for a few minutes. There are some things I need to say to you, and I have to do it privately.”

Tracy turned her back to him, wrapped an arm around Ren’s waist, and rested her cheek on his arm. “I should never have divorced you. God, you were a great lover. The best.”

Ren glanced over at Harry. “Are you sure you want to stay married to her? Because right now I’ve got to say I think you could do a lot better.”

“I’m sure,” Harry said. “I’m very much in love with her.”

Tracy lifted her head like a small animal sniffing the air, only to decide that what she smelled was unpleasant. “Yeah, right.”

Harry hunched his shoulders and turned to Isabel, the shadows in his eyes making him look like a man with nothing left to lose. “I’d hoped to do this privately, but apparently that’s not going to happen, and since Tracy won’t listen, I’ll tell you, if you don’t mind.”

Tracy seemed to be listening, and Isabel nodded. “By all means.”

“I fell in love with her the moment she dumped her drink in my lap. I thought it was an accident. I’m still not sure whether to believe her that it wasn’t. There were all kinds of good-looking guys at that party tripping over each other to get her attention, but it hadn’t occurred to me even to try, not just because of her physical beauty—and God knows she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen—but because of her . . . because of this glow she had. This energy. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, but at the same time I didn’t want her to know I was watching. Then she dumped her drink, and I couldn’t think of one thing to say.”

“He said, ‘My fault.’ “ Tracy’s voice caught on a little hitch. “I dump the drink, and the idiot says, ‘My fault.’ I should have known right then.”

He still paid no attention to her, focusing on Isabel instead. “I couldn’t think. It felt like my brain had gotten a shot of novocaine. She was wearing this silver dress that dipped low in the front, and she had her hair up, except it wouldn’t stay up and these curls had fallen down her neck. I’d never seen anything like it. Anything like her.” He gazed into his glass. “But as beautiful as she was that night . . .” His voice grew thick. “As beautiful as she was then . . .” He swallowed. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.” He set his glass on the counter and disappeared through the garden door.

Tracy’s eyes were bleak, but she shrugged as if it didn’t matter. “See what I have to put up with? The minute I think he’s finally ready to talk, he shuts down. I might as well be married to a computer.”

“Stop acting like an ass,” Ren said. “No guy wants to spill his guts in front of an ex-husband. He’s been trying to talk to you all day.”

“Big deal. I’ve been trying to talk to him for years.”

Isabel glanced toward the garden. “He doesn’t seem like a man who’s too comfortable with his feelings.”

“I’ve got a news flash for both of you,” Ren said. “No man is comfortable with his feelings. Get over it.”

“You are,” Tracy said. “You talk about how you feel, but Harry has terminal emotional constipation.”

“I’m an actor, so most of what comes out of my mouth is bullshit. Harry loves you. Even a fool can see that.”

“Then I’m a fool, because I’m not buying it.”

“You’re not fighting fair,” Isabel said. “I know it’s because you’re hurt, but that doesn’t make it right. Give him a chance to say what’s on his mind without an audience.” Isabel pointed at the door. “And listen with your brain when you talk to him, because your heart’s too bruised right now to be reliable.”

“There’s no point! Don’t you understand? Don’t you think I’ve tried?”

“Try again.” Isabel gave her a firm push toward the door.

Tracy looked mulish, but she went outside.

“I already want to kill them both,” Ren said, “and we haven’t even had the appetizers.”

 

Harry stood by the pergola, hands shoved in his pockets, the frames of his glasses picking up the last rays of sun. Tracy felt that familiar dizziness that had first plagued her twelve years ago, right before she’d dumped her drink in his clueless lap.

“Isabel made me come out here.” Tracy heard the hostility in her voice, but she’d begged him once today, and she wasn’t going to do it again.

He pulled his hand from his pocket and braced it on the side of the pergola, not looking at her. “What you said this morning . . . Were you just throwing up another one of your smoke screens? About being fat and having stretch marks, when you know damned well you get more beautiful every day? And saying I don’t love you when I’ve told you a thousand times how I feel?”

Words uttered by rote. “I love you, Tracy.” No emotion behind them. Never, “I love you because . . .” Just, “I love you, Tracy. Don’t forget to buy more toothpaste when you go to the store.”

“There’s telling and there’s believing. Two different animals.”

He slowly turned to her. “It’s never been my love in question, not from the beginning. It’s always been yours.”

“Mine? I picked you! If it had been up to you, the two of us would never have happened. I found you, I stalked you, and I reeled you in.”

“I wasn’t that big a prize!”

Harry never yelled, and just the surprise of it silenced her.

He pushed himself away from the pergola. “You wanted kids. And I had ‘Daddy’ written all over me. Don’t you get it? For you, it wasn’t about us. It was all about your need to have kids. About me being the father you wanted for them. Someplace in my subconscious I always knew that’s what you were after, but I kept fooling myself. And it was easy to do when there were only Jeremy and Steffie. Even when Brittany came along, I could pretend it was still about us, that you wanted me for me. I might have been able to keep on pretending, but then you got pregnant with Connor, and you walked around with this cat-that-ate-the-canary smile on your face. Everything was about being pregnant and the kids. I tried to swallow it, to keep on pretending I was the great love of your life and not just your best source of sperm, but it got harder. Every morning I’d look at you and want you to love me the way I loved you, but I’d done my job, and you didn’t even see me. And you’re right. I did start shutting down. So I could keep going. But when you got pregnant this time and you were so happy, I couldn’t even go through the motions. I wanted to, but I couldn’t.” His voice broke. “I just . . . couldn’t.”

Tracy tried to take it in, but so many conflicting emotions were barreling through her that she couldn’t begin to sort them out. Relief. Anger at him for being so obtuse. And joy. Oh, yes, joy, because it wasn’t completely hopeless after all. She didn’t know where to begin, so she decided to start small. “What about the toothpaste?”

He stared at her as if she’d grown a second pregnancy from her forehead. “Toothpaste?”

“The way I don’t always remember to buy toothpaste. And the way it drives you crazy when I lose my keys. You told me if I screwed up the checking account one more time, you were going to take away my checkbook. And do you remember that dent in the fender of your car that you thought happened when you took Jeremy to Little League? I put it there. Connor threw up in my car, and I didn’t have time to clean it up, so I took yours instead, and I was yelling at Brittany in the parking lot at Target and drove my shopping cart into it. What about that, Harry?”

He blinked. “If you’d keep an organized shopping list, you wouldn’t forget to buy toothpaste.”

In typical Harry fashion, he didn’t get it. “I’ll never keep an organized shopping list or stop losing keys or get much better at any of those other things that drive you wild.”

“I know that. I also know there are a thousand men who’d line up for the chance to buy you toothpaste and let you run a shopping cart into their car.”

Maybe he did get it.

Isabel had told her to think with her brain instead of her heart, but that was hard to do when it came to Harry Briggs. “I did know you’d be a great father, and that might have been part of the reason I fell in love with you. But I’d have kept on loving you even if you hadn’t been able to make a single baby. I found all my missing parts with you. I don’t keep wanting to have more babies because you’re not enough for me. I keep wanting them because my love for you gets so big it needs more places to go.”

Hope flickered in his eyes, but he still looked sad. She realized that his insecurities ran even deeper than her own. She’d always regarded him as the most intelligent person she knew, so it was difficult to adjust to the idea that she might be the smarter partner. “It’s true, Harry. Every word.”

“A little hard to believe.” He seemed to be drinking in her face, even though he knew every pore. “Just look at us. I’m the kind of guy you could pass on the street a dozen times and never notice. But you . . . Men walk into mailboxes when they see you.”

“I never knew a man so hung up on appearance.” She forgot all about thinking with her head and smacked his jaw to get his attention. “I love the way you look. I could stare at you for hours. I used to be married to the most gorgeous man in the galaxy, and we made each other miserable. And you’re right—I could have had any man in the room at that party, but I wasn’t attracted to a single one of them. And when I dumped that drink in your lap, I definitely wasn’t thinking of you as anybody’s father.”

She sensed his spirits begin to lighten, but she wasn’t nearly done. “Someday I’m going to be old, and if you’d seen my grandmother, you’d know there’s a good chance I’ll be ugly as sin by the time I’m eighty. Are you going to stop loving me then? Is appearance all it comes down to with you? Because if it is, we’re in just as much trouble as I thought.”

“Of course it isn’t. I didn’t . . . I never . . .”

“Talk about throwing up smoke screens. I’ve always believed that you were so clear-thinking, but even on a bad day I’m thinking more clearly than you. God, Harry, next to me you’re an emotional basket case.”

That made him smile, and he looked so goofy that she realized she was finally getting through. She wanted to kiss away his fears, but she still had too many fears of her own to deal with, and their troubles were too big to be kissed away. She didn’t want to have to spend the rest of their marriage reassuring him. She also didn’t like how important her looks were to him. The face he loved so much was already showing signs of wear and tear. How was he going to feel when it went south with the rest of her body?

“After all these years of marriage, you’d think we’d understand each other better,” he said.

“I can’t keep living like this. We need to get whatever is broken between us permanently fixed.”

“I don’t know how we’re going to do that.”

“With a good marriage counselor, that’s how. And the sooner we get one, the better.” She stood on tiptoe, kissed him hard, and turned to the farmhouse. “Isabel! Could you come out here?”