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children, so he’d never figured that Estelle’s daughter would be closer to his age.

      Young and beautiful…

      Yeah, okay, so not only her age had thrown him off.

      Ally Rogers was someone any man would have taken a second look at. Which was what he’d been doing from the emergency-room waiting area before he’d even known who she was.

      Not too tall—about five-four—she was well proportioned with curves enough for his gaze to linger where it shouldn’t have when he’d first seen her from a distance.

      She also had gleaming wavy blond hair that was nearly the color of summer sunshine, cascading around a face that could have been made of fine bone china.

      But it was her eyes that had stuck with him most. Bright, rich green, the color of rolling Irish hillsides, sparkling even when she was just coming out of her faint…

      Not that it mattered, he reminded himself, fighting off the image. It didn’t matter how beautiful she was. It didn’t matter that she was younger than he’d expected. Neither of those things could excuse neglecting her mother. Or at least what had seemed to him like neglect.

      It was a personal sore spot with him and he knew it had roots in his own background. Growing up as he had, without a family of his own, shuffled from stranger to stranger in foster care, had bred in him the conviction that families shouldn’t be taken for granted. If a person was lucky enough to have one, they damn well should appreciate it and be willing to do whatever it took to maintain it.

      Jake threw his pen onto his case file and pushed back into his leather chair with a vengeance.

      A tough old bird—that was how he’d always thought of Estelle Rogers. She was a woman who didn’t invite closeness, who didn’t exude the kind of warmth that Bubby did. But he tended to take people the way they were, to look for the good in them, and he liked Estelle.

      Once he’d gotten to know her he’d found that she had a dry sense of humor, an admirable determination and a generous spirit. She was also always ready to lend a hand to anyone at the senior center who needed it, and until recently, she’d played an unbeatable game of cribbage.

      But he felt bad for her—lately because of whatever health issues might be looming, and before because she’d seemed as alone as he was, despite the fact that, unlike him, she did have family. A daughter.

      A daughter who, with the exception of a weekly phone call and a few holiday visits, didn’t bother with her mother.

      At least, not in the three years that Jake had known Estelle.

      Yes, now that he’d met her daughter he was less sure about the relationship between them, but Jake still believed that Estelle was entitled to her daughter’s care, difficult relationship or not. And if Ally Rogers had any decency she’d be more conscientious and make the best of however much longer she might have with her mother, because she was lucky to have a mother at all.

      On the other hand, clinically, he had to concede that there might be more going on with the Rogerses than he’d thought, and recognizing that battled with those personal feelings.

      Some people could be even tougher on their own families than they were on the rest of the world, and maybe Estelle fell into that category. If she did, making the best of the time she and her daughter had left together could be tricky.

      The bottom line at this point, though, was that when Estelle’s health, well-being and future had to be addressed, her daughter was the only one who could address it. Friends didn’t have the same legal authority, if nothing else.

      So for Estelle’s sake, he hoped Ally could handle the situation the right way.

      And maybe for his own sake, too.

      Not that he had anything at stake in this other than wanting what was good for Estelle.

      It was just that now that he’d seen Ally Rogers, he was hoping she had as much character as she did beauty.

      When the doorbell rang at nine o’clock, Ally shot a glance up the stairs of her mother’s house, afraid the bell would wake Estelle. She hurried to open the door before whoever was there could ring again.

      Jake Fox stood on the step.

      Ally considered it a lapse in her own sanity that any part of her was happy to see him. But there was a part that took a little leap of…interest?

      Hiding it completely, she said an almost challenging “Hello.”

      “Hi,” he greeted in return.

      She asked him in, still camouflaging her secret elation by making the invitation sound begrudging.

      But if he noticed, he didn’t react to it as he came inside.

      What he did react to was the sight of her suitcase, waiting beside the staircase.

      “You can’t be leaving?” he said. “I checked with the E.R. I know Estelle’s wrist is only a sprain and she got a relatively clean bill of health otherwise, but that doesn’t mean this is over or under control by any means. The fall is nothing compared to—”

      “My mother is upstairs asleep for the night,” Ally said to cut him off. “We didn’t get out of the emergency room until three this afternoon. I took care of a few things, got us some dinner and since she’s finally down for the count I was about to take my suitcase out to my own place.”

      “Your own place?” he said, sounding calmer but confused.

      “There’s a small sort-of apartment above the garage. It’s where I stay when I’m here.”

      It was criminal how attractive the man was, even with a baffled expression on his face.

      “Come on, I’ll show you,” she offered rather than remain where they were and risk that their voices might rouse Estelle.

      Ally bent over to pick up her suitcase but Jake beat her to it.

      It was an unexpected courtesy.

      “Thanks,” she said, almost wishing he hadn’t done anything nice—it conflicted with the ogreish image of him that she was trying to hang on to.

      She walked ahead of him down the hallway that ran beside the stairs into the dated liberty-green kitchen. Then she went out the back door and to a stairway that hugged the rear of the house and led to the upper portion of the attached garage.

      The stairs creaked as they climbed them to the landing where Ally unlocked a scarred wooden door to let them in.

      The apartment was a single room that was more like a big bedroom than an apartment. It was large enough for only a double bed and dresser, a sofa with a television close in front of it, a few kitchen cupboards and some old appliances lining one wall, and a closet and bathroom tucked into the far end.

      “This is where you stay when you visit your mother?” Jake asked once they were inside, setting her suitcase on the floor.

      “Actually, I haven’t lived or stayed in the house with my mother since I was sixteen. I adopted this as my own space then and lived up here through the rest of high school and all through college. After I left home and started coming back to visit, my mother said that she liked her privacy and was sure I’d want mine, so I might as well use it then, too. Which is what I’ve done.”

      Ally could see that he found that extremely curious, but since he didn’t ask, she didn’t say more on the subject.

      Instead, he said, “Estelle needs to have tabs kept on her. You can’t do that from out here.”

      “As a matter of fact, I can. One of her friends from the center came by after we got home today and while she and Mother were visiting I went out and bought a state-of-the-art intercom system. It works for every room in the house, so I can monitor where she is at all times. It’s also connected to a motion detector that’s on the front and the back doors—a light

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