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anymore. He’d hurt her, too. “I was here on a call, saw you . . . thought I’d ask how things were going.”
    “How things are with me or with Leigh?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “She’s out at the stables more than she’s home. But when she’s there, she’s packing—boxes all over the house, job applications spread out on the breakfast bar. We’ve only been here a couple of months and already Leigh wants to leave so badly she can taste it.” Caroline watched his eyes for a moment, then took aim again. “You’d better come rescue that precious lemon tree of yours. She’s killing it.”
    The lemon tree. Our honeymoon in Capri. He resisted the urge to look toward where Leigh sat on the bench, imagining how she’d react when he told her that the Child Crisis investigator standing in her ER was the woman he’d taken to bed in a grief-induced blur of confusion, anger, and pain after Toby was killed. It wasn’t going to be easy. But leaving Leigh to discover Sam’s identity on her own wasn’t an option. He glanced at Caroline as she spoke again.
    “You were going to use the lemons for that Greek soup,” she said, her expression softening. “That one you always made . . . You know, with the eggs and rice.”
    “Avgolemono,” he said, memories hitting him full in the heart. The kitchen in their old Victorian fixer, always in stages of remodel. Black granite counters, stainless steel, Leigh standing barefoot on the hardwood floor watching him as he cooked, teasing him about being a macho SFPD cop with a whisk in his holster. He’d offer her a sip of the creamy soup from a wooden spoon. She’d murmur with passionate approval, then move into his arms, lifting her face for a kiss. Her lips would taste of lemons, and . . .
    He was surprised to see sudden tears in his sister-in-law’s eyes.
    “I believed in you two,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “For the first time, I’d started to think that it was all possible. Love, marriage, family . . .”
    Oh, Lord, please . . .
    “Caroline.” He reached for her arm, seeing the pain behind her anger. “Listen to me. I wanted that too. I still do.”
    She yanked her arm away and stared at him. “I thought you did, Nick. I tried to believe it. But how can that ever happen with her around?” She looked over her shoulder toward the ER. “She was there when I drew that baby’s blood. I read her name badge: Samantha Gordon.” Caroline glanced toward Leigh. “This isn’t going to work. She’s leaving us both.”
    +++
    “Finn has pneumonia?” Kristi tightened her arms around her daughter, asleep in her arms with oxygen prongs in her nostrils. “How did that happen? He hasn’t had a cold, not even the sniffles.”
    Leigh glanced at Riley, grateful as always for her presence. “He’d been vomiting during the night,” she explained as gently as she could, but she saw the immediate guilt in the young mother’s eyes. When he was left all alone. “And the X-rays reveal that he breathed some of that in, causing what we call aspiration pneumonia. Normally a baby of his age would be able to protect his airway—spit the vomit out—but the gas fumes made him too drowsy to do that.”
    Kristi closed her eyes for a moment. “Will I be giving him medicines at home, then? antibiotics? I’ve done that before when he had an ear infection. It’s not a problem. He’s really good about taking them.” She blinked at Leigh, the look in her tired eyes not nearly as hopeful as her words.
    “No. We’ll need to keep Finn at Golden Gate Mercy. He’ll get the antibiotics intravenously, and he’ll stay on oxygen. I’ve consulted with a specialist, a pediatric intensive care physician who is very qualified. He’ll be overseeing things.” She exhaled slowly. “Unfortunately, apart from the pneumonia, the blood tests show that the carbon monoxide exposure was enough to pose problems. Borderline in terms of numbers, but still