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rolled through her.
    She heard the sliding door open. Without turning around, not caring who it was, she said, “Go away.” Her voice sounded thick.
    “Are you okay?” It was Nate.
    “Do I look okay?” She turned to face him, knowing she looked like hell and not caring one bit. Her nose was running, her face was wet and her eyes had to be red and swollen. Even her lips felt swollen. She swiped her palms down each cheek.
    “Can I do anything?”
    “No. Just go away. You and Derek go and have your beer and have fun.”
    His mouth turned down, and although his eyes were hidden behind the dark glasses, she sensed his discomfort. “I’m all right,” she assured him, choking on the words. “Don’t worry. Just go.”
    He hovered there a moment, then did as she asked, sliding the door closed behind him. She stood alone on the deck again. She rubbed her bare arms. She wanted to walk down to the water. She loved the ocean. It was vast and mysterious—even scary. Deep. Unfathomable. But beautiful and wild.
    She descended the wooden stairs to the beach, picked her way across the rocks dotting the sand, shivering in the cooling evening air.
    Did she have to decide? Did she have to choose between having Derek and having a child? How much did she want a child?
    She ached for a child. More than one child, but she wouldn’t get greedy. She wanted a family. She wanted to be a mother, more than anything she’d ever wanted in her life. Every nurturing, loving instinct in her ached to hold an infant in her arms, to know what it was like to have a baby feed from her breast, to guide and shape a little life into the best person he or she could be. It was the most important thing you could do.
    She was never going to have a high-powered career. She’d changed jobs nine times in her life until she started this consulting business. She’d never quite found the right thing for her. And yeah, now she was doing well, but she just didn’t care that much. Well, she did care—she worked hard, did her best for her clients. Okay, she was even passionate about the issues she helped companies with. But that couldn’t compare to being a mother.
    Oh, God. She sat down on a large flat rock, her favorite place to sit and stare out to sea. Wispy clouds hugged the horizon where ocean met sky, blurring the line. She bent her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. The wind carried the briny scent of the ocean and the rhythmic whoosh of waves onto sand.
    The tears had slowed, and she wiped one last one away, sniffled.
    How much did she love Derek?
    How bad was it that she even asked herself that question?
    She closed her eyes, tipped her face up to the sky as if looking for divine guidance from above.
    Perhaps the question should be, how much did Derek love her? If he wouldn’t even consider other ways for them to be parents, perhaps it was his love that was lacking.
    Pain stabbed through her, physical, visceral.
    She was never going to be a mother.
     
    It was hard to talk in a place this loud. Nate wished they’d gone somewhere quieter because he was damn well going to find out what was going on with Derek and Krissa.
    He stared hard at his friend across the small table where they sat perched on stools. He could barely see him through the dark glasses, but he’d tried removing them when they walked in. The dim lighting in the bar was still too hard on his eyes to forego them. Clinking glasses and the rumble of conversation and music swirled around them.
    His fingers wrapped around the icy beer glass, slick with condensation.
    “Krissa was pretty upset,” he said, marveling at his understatement. Seeing her like that had pulled at something inside him that had been dormant for a long time. The impulse to stride across the deck and tug her into her arms, tuck her against him and try to comfort her shocked him, unsettled him.
    Derek met his stare and returned it. “You blame me.”
    Nate tipped his head. “Is there someone else to