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in any way when you and I were together.” Dean had a disconcertingly direct gazewhen he needed to make a point. “Trust is something I take seriously.”
    Captured by his words and his gaze, she wished he hadn’t said that. Without the specter of infidelity, he was once again the strong, attentive stranger who gave more than he took when they made love and who managed to make her feel more comfortable in her own skin than she’d felt in ages.
    They stared at each other, lost for words and unsure of their next actions. Then Dean pulled the EPT box from the pocket of his lab coat. Looking down, he turned it over in his hands, and Rosemary knew that one way or another, they had to have an answer. She asked him where his bathroom was.
    He extended an arm. “This way.”
    He seemed to think she was going to precede him to his restroom, but that was where Rosemary drew the line.
    Holding out her hand, she gestured to the box. “I’ll take that now.”
    Expecting an argument, she was relieved when all he said was, “Right,” and handed the test kit to her.
    She progressed slowly down the indicated hallway, feeling more surreal with each step. The only comfort she could dredge up was the knowledge that if she hadn’t gotten pregnant in ten years of marriage, it was unlikely Dean had gotten the job done in a single night.
    â€œRosie.”
    Nearly jumping when she heard her name, she turned.
    He stood with his hands in his pockets, his brows drawn together, even features awash in concern. “Good luck.”
    For a moment they were comrades, and even though they were bonded by what both now surely viewed as a colossal mistake, Rosemary felt less alone.
    She managed a brief smile. “You, too.”
    Entering the bathroom, she closed the door, sending up a prayer that in just a few minutes all this would be over.
    Â 
    As Rosemary disappeared from the hallway, the ghost of her frightened smile gave Dean a physical ache.
    Immediately after the words good luck had left his lips, he’d realized he wasn’t sure what kind of luck he was hoping for.
    March in eastern Oregon was a cold state of affairs, but Dean began to perspire as if it were August in the Everglades. He wanted to phone someone right now—his sister-in-law, perhaps, or maybe his brother—someone to whom he could confess, I may have a pregnant woman in my apartment, and I think…that would be okay.
    For weeks he had looked for Rosie, returning to Tavern on the Highway on the off chance he would see her there again. He’d realized the night he met her that she didn’t frequent the place, but hoped he might run into one of her friends. He’d grilled every bartender and all the servers about the women, appearing, he was certain, like a stalker, but he hadn’t cared. Looking for her—and, when he wasn’t looking for her, thinking about her—became his primary occupation. And then Amanda had shown up.
    Glancing at his watch, Dean wondered if he ought to offer to time the test for Rosie.
    Yeah, she’s in there hoping you’ll hover.
    With restless fingers, he rubbed his temples. Love had never been easy for him—a congenital defect, apparently, which both he and his younger brother had inherited. Fletcher, however, was married now and, as unlikely as it seemed, he had become a devoted father to the three children from his lovely wife’s first marriage. Claire Dobbs Kingsley had turned Dean’s bad-tempered half brother into the proverbial pussycat. It hadn’t been easy, and it had come about only because Fletcher had been forced to wed.
    Inexplicably, Fletcher was in a marriage of convenience that had turned into a union of souls.
    Consciously exhaling, Dean knew he hadn’t breathed properly since the day he’d read his father’s will and discovered that Victor Kingsley required each of his two sons to marry or lose what they loved most—in