expected him to do? Kill the kid?
That’s when it occurred to him that at some point during his time with Steffie, he’d mercifully stopped thinking about Kaspar Street.
Isabel’s attitude didn’t keep him from aching to sink into her again, even though it had only been a few hours since he’d done just that. And even though he wasn’t crazy about those terms she’d laid out in the car this morning. Not that he wanted too many emotional entanglements-God knew he didn’t-but did she have to be so cold-blooded about it? Then there was the matter of Kaspar Street. She hadn’t liked the fact that he was in the business of killing young women. What would she do when she found out about the kids?
He finally managed to get her away by reminding her that he was soaked to the skin, cold as hell, and hungry. That kicked in her female instincts, just as he’d hoped, and within an hour he had her in bed.
“Are you mad?” Steffie whispered.
Harry had a lump in his throat the size of Rhode Island. Since he couldn’t talk, he brushed the hair back from her forehead and shook his head. She lay curled in bed with her oldest teddy cuddled to her cheek. She was clean from her bath and wearing her favorite blue cotton nighty. He remembered her as a toddler, waddling toward him, arms out. She looked so small under the covers and so very precious.
“We’re not mad,” Tracy said quietly from the other side of the bed. “But we’re still upset.”
“Ren told me if you locked me in a dungeon, he’d sneak me some candy bars.”
“What a wild and crazy guy.” Tracy smoothed the sheet. Her makeup had vanished hours ago, and she had dark circles under her eyes, but she was still the most beautiful woman Harry had ever seen.
“I’m sorry I scared you so much.”
Tracy looked stern. “So you’ve said. But you’re still spending tomorrow morning by yourself in this bedroom.”
Tracy was made of stronger stuff than Harry was, because he wanted to forget all about discipline. But then Steffie hadn’t run away on account of her. It was him. He felt defeated and disoriented. But he also felt resentful. How had he managed to become the bad guy?
“All morning?” Steffie looked so little and miserable he could barely keep himself from overriding Tracy and promising to take her for ice cream instead.
“All morning,” Tracy said firmly.
Steffie thought it over, and then her lip started to quiver. “I know I shouldn’t have run away just because I got so sad when I heard you and Daddy fighting.”
Harry’s stomach twisted, and Tracy’s forehead crumpled. “Until ten-thirty,” she said quickly.
Steffie’s lip stopped quivering, and she sighed one of those grown-up sighs that usually made him laugh. “I guess it could be a lot worse.”
Tracy tugged on a lock of her daughter’s hair. “You bet it could. The only reason we’re not locking you in that dungeon Ren mentioned is because of your allergies.”
“Plus the spiders.”
“Yeah, that, too.” Tracy’s voice got thready, and Harry knew they were thinking the same thing. Having her parents together was so important to Steffie that she’d been willing to face her worst fear. His daughter had more courage than he did.
Tracy leaned down to kiss her, clutching the headboard to support her weight. She stayed there for a long time, eyes closed, her cheek pressed to Steffie’s. “I love you so much, punkin. Promise you won’t ever do anything like this again.”
“I promise.”
Harry finally managed to find his voice. “And promise that the next time you get upset about something, you’ll tell us what’s bothering you.”
“Even if it hurts your feelings, right?”
“Even then.”
She tucked her bear under her chin. “Are you… still going away tomorrow?”
He didn’t know what to say, so he simply shook his head.
Tracy went to check on Connor and Brittany, who were sharing a room, at least until they woke up and crawled in with their father. Jeremy was still downstairs playing a computer game. Harry and Tracy hadn’t been alone since their disastrous argument that afternoon, and he didn’t want to be alone with her now, not while he felt so raw, but parents couldn’t always do what they wanted.
She shut the door and stepped back into the hallway. Then she pressed the small of her back against the wall, something she did late in her pregnancies to ease the strain. With her other pregnancies he’d massaged her there, but not with this one.
The weight of his guilt grew heavier.
She cupped her hand over her belly. The brazen, overly confident rich girl who’d led him on such a merry chase a dozen years ago had disappeared, and an achingly beautiful woman with haunted eyes had taken her place. “What are we going to do?” she whispered.
“We can’t talk anymore.”
“We can talk.”
“No, we just start hurling insults.”
Not the way he remembered it. She was the one with the sharp tongue and atomic temper. All he tried to do was dodge. “No insults from me.” He slipped his glasses back on.
“Of course not.”
She said it without any bite, but the knot inside him tightened. “I think what happened this afternoon pushed us past the insult stage, don’t you?”
Despite his good intentions, he sounded accusatory, and he braced himself for her retaliation, but she simply shut her eyes and rested her head against the wall. “Yes, I think so, too.”
He wanted to wrap her in his arms and beg her to let this go, but she’d made up her mind about him, and nothing he’d said so far had been able to change it. If he couldn’t make her understand, they had no chance at all. “Today proved what I’ve been saying all along. We have to buckle down. I think we both know that now. It’s time for us to buckle down and do what we have to.”
“And what’s that?”
She seemed genuinely perplexed. How could she be so obtuse? He tried to hide his agitation. “We can start behaving like adults.”
“You always behave like an adult. I’m the one who seems to have trouble.”
It was true-exactly what he’d been trying to tell her-but the expression of defeat on her face tore him apart. Why couldn’t she just adapt to things so they could move forward? He searched for the right words, but too many feelings lay in his way. Tracy believed in digging through those feelings whenever the whim struck, but not Harry. He’d never seen the benefit, only the downside.
She closed her eyes for a moment. Spoke softly. “Tell me something I can do to make you happy.”
“Be realistic! Marriages change. We’ve changed. We get older, and life catches up with us. It can’t always be like it was in the beginning, so don’t expect that. Be satisfied with what we have.”
“Is that what it comes down to? Just settling?”
All the emotional jumble inside him had come together in his stomach. “We have to be realistic. Marriage can’t be moonlight and roses forever. I wouldn’t call that settling.”
“I would.” Her hair flew. She thrust herself away from the wall. “I’d call it settling, and I’m not doing it. I’m not phoning in this marriage. I’m going to fight for it, even if I’m the only one with the guts to do that.”
She’d raised her voice, but they couldn’t have another argument, not with Steffie so close. “We can’t talk here.” He took her arm, pulled her away, steered her down the hall. “You don’t make sense. You’ve never once-never once in our entire marriage-made sense to me.”
“That’s because you have a computer for a brain,” she railed at him as they rounded the corner into the next wing. “I’m not afraid to fight. And I’ll do it until we’re both bleeding if I have to.”
“You’re just trying to create another one of your dramas.” He was appalled at how angry he sounded, but he
