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Life with Bob had been steady and sensible and safe—all the things she’d imagined—and he had been very sweet to Benjamin. But he had not been Jacob. Her decision, however she rationalized it, had deprived Jacob of his son. And she’d borne the guilt alone.
    Reaching into her desk again, Rachel pulled out her diary. Flipping back through the pages, she found the one she’d made on Benjy’s first birthday.
 
 I wish you were here, Jacob, to see your son. His smile is so like yours. Though he’s only a toddler, he even walks like you, with that cocky arrogant stride that is all Donovan. Oh, Jacob! What have I done?
 
    She turned the pages, skipping to the entries she’d made on each of Benjy’s birthdays. They were all addressed to Jacob, and each one brought him up to date on news of his son. It was the only catharsis Rachel had had, for she certainly couldn’t have called him on the phone and told him those things. She’d kept her remorse firmly hidden, allowing herself only one day each year to mourn and to confess what she had done—and then only to her diary.
    It was too late now. The past couldn’t be changed. Taking a deep breath, Rachel locked the letter and the diary back into her desk and started downstairs to give the performance of her life.
     o0o
    They were sitting together at the glass-topped table on the sun porch. Jacob and his son. The two of them looked so much alike, Rachel had to steady herself against the door frame before going into the room. What if Jacob noticed? She had to get him out of her house as quickly as possible.
    She sat down at the table and gave them all a false smile. “I’m starving. Let’s eat.”
    Jacob leaned back in his chair in that elaborately relaxed way of his that fooled most people. It didn’t fool her, though. She knew from experience that Jacob was most dangerous when he appeared to be nonchalant.
    “What’s the matter, Rachel?”
    Her back stiffened. “What do you mean?”
    “You always bustle when something’s bothering you.”
    “I’m not bustling. I’m sitting in this chair.”
    Jacob chuckled. “You came into the room as if it were a men-only club and you were leading a parade of suffragettes. You can’t fool me.”
    “Can you fly a suffer jet?” Benjy piped up.
    Propping herself on her elbows, Rachel leaned toward Jacob and gloated. “Well, smarty. Can you fly a suffragette? We both want to know.”
    “Not without her permission.”
    “Chicken.”
    Rachel then turned to her son, who had been avidly following the exchange.
    “A suffragette is a name for a special kind of woman who fights for her rights. Later, we’ll look it up together in the dictionary, and I’ll tell you all about it.”
    Benjy wrinkled his nose and quickly turned his interest to the hot biscuits Vashti was bringing through the door.
    Vashti settled onto the chair beside Jacob, her dress billowing and spreading as her enormous hips pressed against the seat cushion.
    “So,” she said. Her smile left no doubt that she considered Jacob Donovan to be right up there next to Santa Claus and the president of the United States. “What took you so long to come to see us?”
    “I’ve been busy fighting fires.”
    “I know. Over the years we kept up with what you were doing.”
    He gave Rachel a triumphant smile. “You did?”
    “Vashti did,” Rachel lied. She wasn’t about to give him any encouragement by telling him that she’d known every time he went to fight a fire—and every time he came home safe.
    “Ha!” Vashti’s snort said it all. Splitting open three biscuits, she reached for the butter. “Some people I know can’t seem to remember things very clearly. Why, there was that time when you were off out yonder in Oklahoma, and we heard over the news that a man had been killed in an oil field fire. I thought she would faint dead away before the announcer ever got around to giving the man’s name.”
    “Did she?”
    Rachel ignored the gleam in his eye.