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off a hotel suite as his home when she’d visited hadn’t discouraged that impression. Except he hadn’t wanted her to see the dump he really lived in.
    “No, you never hoped I’d go with you, Nick. You assumed I’d jump right on board, without giving me any say in the matter. Feel free to enlighten your daughter at any time.”
    “You know I’d never do that, cariño  . Besides, it wouldn’t fix anything at this point. The only practical solution is for me to move back to Pennsylvania and spend more time with her.”
    The phone line was silent for several seconds before she asked, “Can you simply transfer back here?”
    “Probably—now that the new store is opening. I’ll talk to Ethan and be there as soon as I can wrap things up here.” And then maybe—just maybe—he could get his family back.
    When Sam became mute again, he frowned. “What’s the matter?”
    “I’m sorry. You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t do cartwheels over the prospect of you coming back and butting into my life.”
    “Hey, you’re the one who claimed our daughter is starved for my affection .”
    “You’re right. Dani needs you.”
    The subtext and I don’t rang in Sam’s voice like a death knell.
    “You used to need me too, querida ,” he whispered, trying to remember when he’d last held her. It had been more than three months before he moved out. If he’d had any idea it would be the last time she would lie in his arms, he never would have let her go.
    He might have given up praying after God took their son from them. But if it would help get his wife back, he’d say a hundred novenas—even a thousand, if necessary.
    By all that was Holy, with the help of Saint Jude and any other saints who handled lost causes, Sammy would need him again very soon. Even if only in her bed.
    ~*~
    Samantha’s hand quivered as she hung up the phone with Nick’s parting words reverberating in her head. “I’ll see you soon, Abejita .”
    If the infuriating, never-put-off-until-tomorrow man ran true to form, his definition of soon meant weeks, rather than months.
    She definitely needed to have her head examined. If she truly wanted to be independent, Nick should’ve been the last person she turned to for help even if her problem was with their daughter. She could’ve asked Justin or Adam for advice.
    Heck, she should’ve called Haley’s dad, Marc Simmons, seeing as he was also a single parent, and his daughter was usually in the middle of Dani’s escapades.
    But, no-ooo. That would’ve been intelligent. Instead, she’d stupidly fallen back into her old pattern of depending on Nick for a solution. She’d practically demanded it, which hadn’t left him many options. Now the big butt-in-ski was coming back.
    Although, it was probably for the best. It would kill her if their daughter ended up pregnant the way she had.
    What really hurt to admit, if only to herself, was she would be overjoyed if Nick was returning because he’d realized he couldn’t live without her. Regrettably, his reasons were all about duty and honor—exactly like when he’d married her.
    Casey Olson, her boss and founder of the preschool where Sam worked, insisted actions spoke louder than words. She believed any man who doted on a woman the way Nick did on Sam must be crazy about her. For years, Samantha had told herself the same thing. They’d been reasonably content aside from her suffering a devastating miscarriage when Dani was seven. Even though Sam had only been in her first trimester, she spilled a river of tears. A long stretch of unexplained secondary infertility followed and produced more tears each month when she found the telltale spot of blood in her underwear announcing she’d failed to conceive yet again.
    She’d been ecstatic when a plus sign finally appeared on the pregnancy test stick, but the discovery of Dani’s leukemia squelched Sam’s joy. In the months that followed her daughter’s diagnosis, while Nick spent every