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slow sweeps with a back draft powerful enough to drag dust bunnies from under the bed.
    Janna met his gaze again. “You’re joking, right?”
    “Not exactly. I’d say she’s about to give birth to several dozen little Beulahs. That’s if somebody will take her home and leave her alone so she can build herself a nice mud nest in a quiet place.”
    “It ain’t possible,” Arty protested.
    Clay tipped his head in a warning look toward Lainey who was following their every word with rapt attention. “Positive, are you?”
    “It’s late in the season, but there was that one night when I heard a lot of bellowing…” He scratched his beard thoughtfully, then slapped his battered hat back on his mostly bald head. “I sure hope you’re right.”
    So did Clay. Heaven help him if he was wrong and Arty’s precious alligator died. The old coot would probably wash his hands of Clay and let Janna Kerr do whatever she wanted with her prisoner.
    “I’d get a move on if I were you,” he said to Arty,“unless you want alligator eggs scattered from hel—Hades to breakfast.”
    “Beulah is going to have babies?” Lainey inquired.
    “Lay eggs,” Janna said shortly. “It’s not the same thing.”
    “Is, too,” Lainey said. “I saw it on television.” She turned to Arty. “Can I go with you and watch?”
    “No!” Janna said.
    “No!” Clay said at the same time, and wasn’t at all surprised when the girl’s mother turned a look of astonishment on him. Lifting a shoulder, he said, “I only meant that Beulah might object to an audience. It’s no place for a grown-up, much less a child.”
    “I’m not a child,” Lainey declared, frowning at him.
    Clearly he needed to mend his fences with Lainey if he wanted her as an ally, Clay thought. “No, you’re a girl who’s smart enough to see that a female wild animal—which is what Beulah is in spite of being Arty’s pet—can be dangerous when it comes to taking care of its young. She could hurt you if you get in her way.”
    “Exactly,” Janna agreed. “Like all mothers.”
    Clay, caught by something in her voice, met her eyes then. What he saw there sent a warning tingle down his spine. And he wondered, suddenly, if he could possibly be caught between Janna Kerr and something she wanted for her daughter.

3
    J anna stood at the kitchen window, watching the stately progress of a great blue heron as it stalked along the lakeshore in search of an afternoon snack. Beyond the water bird, the lake’s surface shifted with gentle wind currents, dazzling the eyes with countless sequin gleams. Majestic cypress trees standing knee-deep in the water draped the narrow apron of land in front of the camp with their green shade and broke the view into sections. They were like giant bars, closing her in with her prisoner.
    What had she done?
    The act that had seemed absolutely necessary, almost preordained, the evening before had a crazed, unreal feeling in the light of another day. She didn’t know what she’d been thinking, wasn’t sure she’d thought at all, but only acted on instinct. Three years of constant fear and responsibility, added to long days and nights of caring for her daughter, making sure she took her medication, overseeing her home dialysis and trying to make a living while getting by with little sleep and almost no relief, had finally caught up with her. Something had snapped.
    Janna closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breathagainst the tight band of nerves around her chest. What was she going to do? What? She was getting in deeper and deeper, going ever more wrong. She knew it, but seemed unable to stop. Sometimes, especially in the darkest hours of the night, it seemed that nothing she’d ever done had turned out right, with the exception of refusing to give up her daughter for adoption.
    She’d fallen in love at the wrong time and been too carried away to keep from getting pregnant. She’d failed to tell Lainey’s father she might be going to