LITMIR.BIZ

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Dawn blurted, “We visited Mommy in jail this morning. She’s scared.”

      Nearby, several heads turned. “Barbara’s in jail?” Melissa regarded Edmond with concern.

      “I’ll fill you in later.” Surely she would have read the articles in the newspaper about the robbery. However, the reports had misstated Barb’s last name as Greeley, although she and Simon had never married.

      Melissa’s nod conveyed her understanding, and she directed her next question to Dawn. “Who are you staying with?”

      “Grandma and Grandpa.”

      “My father and stepmother, not Simon’s,” Edmond clarified. Simon’s parents—an ex-convict father whose whereabouts were unknown and an alcoholic mother with half a dozen children by assorted men—had no contact with Dawn.

      “I’m glad you brought her with you.” Melissa reached across her niece to touch Edmond’s hand. “And that you’re here.”

      So was he. All the same, he couldn’t resist teasing. “Glad I ignored your request?”

      “Oh, Eddie, is it written somewhere that we’re forbidden to get everything we want?” Her wistfulness curled inside him.

      The discovery that she, too, had regrets, or at least doubts, warmed him. “I’m beginning to think so,” he admitted.

      He might have added more, but just then a handsome man in a dark suit joined Rod and the minister at the arch. Dawn stared, entranced. “Is that the groom? He could be a movie star.”

      “That’s Jack,” Melissa confirmed. “He’s an obstetrician. The nurses at the hospital went into mourning when he got engaged to Anya.”

      Jack beamed with happiness. He and Anya hadn’t had an easy relationship, Edmond knew, but overcoming obstacles had apparently bonded them all the more strongly.

      Too bad it hadn’t worked that way with us.

      A muscular fellow knelt by the boom box to change the recording. Tattoos peeked from beneath his shirt collar. “Who’s that?” Edmond asked.

      “One of our housemates, Lucky Mendez, R.N.”

      Dawn studied the man dubiously. “He’s a nurse?”

      “Men can be nurses, too. He assists Dr. Cole Rattigan, the head of the men’s fertility program,” Melissa said, adding, “Also, he just earned a master’s degree in nursing administration.”

      “What’s he plan to do with that?” Edmond asked.

      “Hopefully stay in Safe Harbor, if the men’s fertility program expands, although that’s up in the air.” Melissa cast the fellow a sympathetic glance. “Otherwise he might have to find a position elsewhere.”

      “My daddy had tattoos,” Dawn put in.

      Melissa frowned. “Had, past tense?”

      “He died about six months ago.” Edmond didn’t care to say anything more around his niece.

      Dismay clouded Melissa’s expression. “I’ve missed a lot.”

      “I’ve missed you,” Dawn said, and smiled when her aunt kissed the top of her head.

      The music changed to a march. Conversations among the guests died out.

      From the front hall, the younger flower girl entered. Clutching a bouquet, she strode up the aisle a little too fast for the music.

      “Slow down, for Pete’s sake,” growled a bulldog of a man sitting on the aisle.

      The girl—Amber, Edmond recalled—flinched and slowed. Her sister, following, scowled at the man from outside his range of vision.

      Edmond raised an eyebrow questioningly at Melissa. Leaning close, she murmured, “That’s the girls’ stepfather. Vince Adams.”

      “The billionaire.” A private equity investor, Vincent Adams was famous throughout Southern California for his business success and for his ruthlessness. He was also, Edmond had learned from the hospital administrator, considering donating millions of dollars to expand the men’s fertility program.

      As the girls took places by the arch, a pretty young woman in a dress matching theirs marched up the aisle. “That’s Anya’s sister Sarah,” Melissa murmured. “Anya has a big family. They couldn’t all come, but they’re planning a reception in Colorado after the baby’s born.”

      “How big a family?” Dawn whispered.

      “She’s one of seven kids.”

      “Wow.”

      The music shifted to “Here Comes the Bride.” Anya entered from the hall on the arm of a distinguished older man, no doubt her father. Edmond wasn’t up on the latest fashions in wedding gowns, but this one was suitably white with a lot of lace. It skimmed Anya’s expanded midsection, a reminder that she was only a few months from delivering her own baby.

      “Is everybody pregnant?” Dawn asked, a little too loudly. Nearby, several people chuckled. “I’m sorry.”

      Noting her tense expression, Edmond leaned close. “It’s a fair question,” he whispered.

      “Yes, this house is baby central,” Melissa said softly.

      Dawn relaxed. The poor kid sometimes acted as if she carried the weight of the world, Edmond thought.

      It was her parents’ job to protect her childhood. Too bad they’d failed. Who would protect her now?

      * * *

      TO MELISSA, JOY illuminated the familiar room. How Anya glowed as her father handed her to the groom. Judging by Jack’s grin, it took all his self-control not to hoist Anya in his arms and whisk her off to their secret honeymoon destination, which Melissa had discovered was Santa Catalina Island. Rod had mentioned it to Karen, who’d passed it on to Melissa. Secrets didn’t stay secret long in Casa Wiggins.

      Located a little over twenty miles off the California coast, the island was noted for its old-fashioned charm and for ocean-related activities in its clear waters, including snorkeling and viewing undersea life from glass-bottom boats. Jack had arranged for them to stay at a romantic Victorian bed-and-breakfast with a view of the small-boat harbor in the town of Avalon.

      How wonderful that the baby, whom they planned to name after both their grandmothers, would be born to such a loving pair. She was a lucky little girl.

      A fluttery sensation alerted Melissa that her as-yet-nameless babies were stirring. Whenever she tried to focus on names for them, her mind went blank. Well, what was the rush?

      Beneath the arch, Jack kept peeking at his bride, tuning out the minister. Anya gave him a poke, which restored him to the proper demeanor.

      How comfortable they were with each other, Melissa reflected. Edmond’s and her ceremony had been more formal, although every bit as enchanting. Her father, a psychologist, and her mother, a high-school math teacher, had treated her to the wedding of her dreams. A hotel ballroom in Santa Monica, the coastal city where they’d lived, had provided a fairy-tale setting for soul mates embarking on a life together. Or so she’d believed.

      She’d met Edmond in a coffee shop at UCLA, where she’d been earning her master’s degree in molecular biology and Edmond had been a law student. She’d admired his boldness in taking a seat at the table with her and her friends. He’d been a complete stranger but he’d teasingly claimed they kept running into each other. After she played along, they’d stayed to talk hours after her friends left. From then on, they’d gravitated to each other, a pair of intense high-achievers who shared many of the same political and social views. Their wedding day had been the happiest day of her life.

      During her painful recovery from the divorce, friends had repeatedly advised her to throw her wedding album away, but Melissa couldn’t imagine sacrificing those memories. There was an especially lovely

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