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the food, a light lunch and a much-needed nap, she decided that the morning’s accomplishment had given her the courage to take a first step toward tackling the most difficult item on her make-a-life-for-herself list.
    It was time for her to try acting like a mother.
    She found Emmett in the spare bedroom, tightening the bolts on a treadmill that sat in one corner of the room. He was dressed as she was, in jeans and a T-shirt, though he filled his out much better than her. It took her another moment to look away from him and notice the other pieces of gym equipment in evidence—a pyramid of free weights, three sizes of stability balls, a large, rolled-up mat. “What’s all this?” she asked.
    â€œI like to work out,” he answered. “You need to. Nancy and Dean agreed to let me outfit this room as a home gym.”
    â€œI used to pride myself on my good condition,” she remembered, frowning at her reflection in the mirrored closet doors. “Now I’m more stick girl than cover girl.”
    â€œYou’ve missed the new trend in cover girls,” Emmett replied, leaning one arm against the machine. “For your information, stick is in. But the treadmill is ready to go if you want to give it a whirl.”
    She shook her head. “Not now. I came to ask another favor of you.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m here for, Linda.”
    It didn’t sit well with her, his promise to Ryan or not. “I’m going to find some way to pay you back.”
    â€œMaybe I can think of something myself,” he said.
    She stilled. There was a deep note in his voice that made her think… But no, he wasn’t thinking of her in female terms. Why would he, when she was a woman who couldn’t pick out cornflakes without crying first?
    â€œWell, um, until then…” Heat was crawling up her neck and she cursed the silly turn of her thoughts. “I was hoping you could give me a ride to Ricky’s school. I thought I’d pick him up today.”
    â€œSure.” Emmett straightened and then reached down and stripped off his T-shirt.
    Linda stepped back, staring at the broad expanse of male body caught in her gaze. “W-what are you doing?”
    His eyebrows lifted. “Changing my shirt. I got grease on this one.”
    â€œOh. Well.” She couldn’t argue with that, nor could she take her eyes off her second up-close-and-personal view of a half-naked man in one day. Now that she thought of it, itwas her second up-close-and-personal view of a half-naked man in a decade.
    Another flush of heat rushed over her skin, and her breath made a silent whoosh of escape from her lungs. The fact was, she hadn’t been thinking of herself in female terms, but now it seemed as if her freedom from the rehab facility had freed something else—the knowledge that the past ten years hadn’t damaged her hormones.
    Emmett paused beside her on his way out of the room. “Do you feel okay?”
    His skin was golden and smooth, and the route from his muscled shoulder to the bulge of his rock-hard bicep was fascinating. She swallowed. “I, um, I’m fine.”
    He reached out a finger and tapped her nose in a big-brotherly gesture. “Give me two minutes and then we’ll go.”
    She spent the two minutes telling herself it was perfectly normal to have sexual feelings. It was a good thing. Another sign of progress, another optimistic portent that she could be a complete person at some future date, that she could be a whole woman—which would include, most importantly, being a mother.
    Mother.
    Just thinking the word caused her hormones to evaporate and everything else inside of her to freeze up. But she managed to follow Emmett to the car and tried to appear composed as he pulled into a parking spot near the school.
    Linda checked her watch, licked her dry lips. “We’re early.”
    Unrolling the windows with the electronic