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  The tiny room didn’t allow the amount of space she needed.

  “I volunteer here some evenings and weekends,” he said. “This room is reserved solely for my purpose. Gives clients a modicum of privacy and ensures that my supplies are where I need them when I need them. And the perk of sole use is probably a sign of gratitude, too.”

  The tenor of his voice...it gave her shivers. The good kind.

  No. Not good.

  Nothing about her intense reaction to Seth Morgan could in any way be considered good. She had to state her business, make a request, arrange for signatures and depart.

  As soon as possible.

  In her world, the literal meaning of those words generally came with every second mattering.

  “I need your signature on a document,” she said, holding her satchel close to her side, as though it contained the biological matter that represented her entire future, rather than just the paperwork that allowed her sole ownership and use of it.

  As though she had to protect it from him.

  Where before she wanted to sit, she was suddenly glad she was standing, meeting him eye to eye rather than having him tower over her. Yet, when her leg came in contact with the hideous orange-colored, faux leather couch, she sank down to it as though it was her only lifeline.

  Seth sat, too, behind his desk. He was frowning. “It’s been ten years. What did we miss?”

  It wasn’t a miss. It had just been a dormant possibility, hanging out into infinity.

  “And why didn’t you just email it to me?” He posed the second question before giving her time to respond to the first. His arms crossed, he sat there with shoulders back, staring her down.

  Defensive posturing. Her brain kicked in where emotions were stifling her usual productivity.

  She was a listener first. And then a talker. One who sought to understand before attempting to be understood. It made her one of the most respected and well-known interrogators in Southern California law enforcement circles.

  “Because it doesn’t have to be signed,” she said, hoping she was reading his body language well enough to get through to him. “This is more of a request, not a requirement.”

  When the arms didn’t drop, she softened her tone more. “I’ve come to ask a favor, Seth.”

  She’d told herself the way to get the job done was to be confident, composed, calm and sure. Not to beg.

  She’d been in the room less than two minutes and he’d reduced her to feeling desperate. Or she’d sunk to it on her own. In that moment, she couldn’t be sure how much of what was going on was on her or him. The fact that she wanted to be on him...on top of him, out of uniform, moving her body over his...

  Oh, God. What if she’d made a horrible mistake, thinking she could handle seeing him?

  There’d been a reason they’d stayed away from each other for a decade. Good reason.

  Apart, they were at the top of their fields. Running exemplary, respectable, successful lives.

  Together...they tore at what made each of them their best self.

  “State your favor.” His tone held no conciliation. Or even a note to signify that they’d known each other once—let alone been deeply, intimately intertwined.

  She was losing him. And couldn’t let her future just slip away.

  Not again.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, trying for a surface smile that she knew was a total fail. And pushed forward through it. Honesty was the only way... “I’m having a moment here. And I apologize. I didn’t expect...it’s just, seeing you again...” She inhaled deeply, released the breath slowly. And then again with more haste. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to do something supremely immature, like hyperventilate. Forcing herself to hold his still, as-yet unrelenting gaze, she said, “Can we just talk for a minute or two? Just...take a breath?”

  Or catch her breath.

  Spreading his hands, he didn’t even seem to consider her request before spitting a reply. “It’s been ten years, Annie. What have we got to talk about?”

  She watched those big, capable hands of his drop to his desk. Not return to their nesting places hidden in crossed arms. An opening she welcomed with her whole being.

  “This room,” she said. “You being here. Tell me about the work you do. Just give us a second to let the energy level subside for a second or two.”

  When he started to talk, telling her about the people who came to him in that dingy room—a lot of homeless teenagers, among others, seeking assistance with misdemeanor crimes they couldn’t afford to defend—and talked about the grant programs he’d found that he could help them maneuver through to better themselves, Annie took her first normal breath. And then another. She listened.

  And then she talked. Telling him about the runaway youth task force she spearheaded, about the meeting they’d held that morning, her professional reason for being in San Diego, and in so doing, found a piece of herself again.

  “Our goal is to help these kids, not wait until we have to arrest them,” she said, her mind spinning as she looked at him sitting so forcefully, intentionally behind that ragged desk. “If you’d be willing, I’d love to put you in touch with Captain Ben Kinder, here in San Diego County, who’s on the task force. Maybe, with the kids you see here...and our efforts...some greater good could be done...”

  His focused nod as he pulled out a notepad and pen to take down Ben’s information gave her the first real hope that Seth Morgan, the man she’d once known and adored, might still linger within bits and pieces of the decorated JAG attorney occupying the room with her.

  Chapter Two

  “I’m surprised that with all of your responsibilities on the base, you have time to spend here at the center,” Annie said. Seth absorbed Annie’s interest like a man dying of thirst would inhale water.

  There’d always been something about her...the way she made him feel like she cared about every single feeling and experience he’d ever had...like she cared about outcomes, not just moments...

  “My commission, while requiring much of me, doesn’t take up the time that others allot to home and family.” Shaking his head as he dropped his pen, he gave what he’d intended to be a flippant response to a question that had turned their conversation personal on a dime.

  The second he saw a stricken look cross her features, and then just as rapidly disappear, he shoved his brain into gear. “The truth is, at forty, I’ve realized that I’m not the family man I thought I wanted to be,” he told her. “I’m not good at delivering the goods to the same person, being there for them on a daily basis, being able to tend to the relationship every single day. Some nights, I just need to go home and vegetate quietly.” Which she knew all too well.

  He didn’t put the self-discoveries into words often. Actually never. But if there was one person who deserved to know the results of his years of self-honesty and taking accountability, it was Annie.

  “You know that the failures we suffered weren’t about you.” At the time, he’d sure been willing to blame them on her. The way he’d seen it back then, if she’d only agreed not to pursue her need to be a cop, and find some other dream instead, he’d have given his life to support her on it.

  Assuming that her next pursuits didn’t also put her life in danger on a daily basis. He’d been wrong to ask her to give up her dream. But right or wrong didn’t change the fact that he’d been unable to take on a cop wife.

  “I know.” Her quiet answer came after seconds of silence.

  As she sat there, watching him, he couldn’t decipher a single one of her thoughts. But, God, she was beautiful. The black pants and top, the white cardigan, weren’t particularly flattering. Nor did they outline her still athletic form in any obvious way. And yet...he’d take her to bed in a second if she’d have him...and if they didn’t have a history.

  Seeing her again hadn’t embellished
his memories of how hot she was. Or how quickly she got him from guy in a chair in a room, to a guy who was hard and aching for sex. The fact that she could still have that effect on him, while just sitting there, all lieutenant-like, with that gun at her waist...

  Damn.

  He’d known attending the meeting without a pre-stated agenda, without preparation, without expected goals and outcomes, hadn’t been a good plan.

  So...he had to come up with one. On the spot. Immediately. It wasn’t the first time he’d been required to do so or managed to successfully do so: he’d done it more than once, with national security on the line. He was good at his job. Maybe even great at it.

  Which was why he spent most of his free time volunteering those very same services. Kept him from screwing up in other, less skilled areas of his life.

  And hurting people in the process. Himself included.

  But Annie, most of all. Working in a different command, she’d supported him, even putting her own life plans on hold to re-up for another four years of duty while he went through law school. And when it had been time for her turn to pursue her own goals, his attempt to support her in her endeavor had been a complete fail. Instead, he’d done all he could to get her to change her plans. To be someone he needed her to be, rather than supporting her in living her best life.

  She hadn’t said a word in a few minutes. Just sat there, looking like she cared, but giving no clue what about.

  The meeting needed to move forward.

  So...he sat up. Literally and figuratively.

  He now knew the agenda. She needed a favor.

  And the plan? Grant it, whatever she needed.

  * * *

  “What’s this favor you need to ask?”

  Annie was grateful to Seth for bringing them back from the precipice. For breaking the silence that had fallen between them at his unusual personal disclosure.

  While, on the one hand, she was relieved to hear that he was at peace without having a family, that he’d have no personal use for the embryos she wanted so desperately for herself, she’d been speechless with sadness for him.

  What had happened to the man she’d fallen for so completely back when she’d been a new navy recruit?

  Had she ever really known Seth Morgan? Had it all been fake?

  Needing to know even after all those years, she said, instead, “I want you to sign an agreement giving me full rights to shared biological material.”

  Her focus had to be on the future, not the past.

  He’d said back then, when their marriage had been falling apart and she’d put him on the spot, that while he’d met a woman who was in his thoughts, he’d never been unfaithful to Annie or their marriage. But had that been the truth?

  His frown brought knots to her stomach, and all thoughts of the past fled. They were insignificant mind traps rearing only to distract her from the utmost importance of the matter at hand.

  Dear God, don’t let him have a problem with her request. Those embryos they’d harvested and fertilized years ago were her only hope now.

  And since...

  “It’s not like you have any use for them.” She spoke the noticeably defensive words aloud, all of her often-sought-after interrogation skills, her high level of communication prowess—her ability to understand first, and therefore get her subject to see things clearly—apparently on leave.

  She knew she’d made a mistake even before he started shaking his head. And couldn’t just offer him a drink, or change the subject again, for a breather.

  “Biological matter?” he asked, sounding confused as his frown deepened.

  Encouraged by the lack of anger in his tone, she took heart that all might not be lost. It wasn’t too late to salvage the conversation and guide it to a more positive end.

  But she looked in his eyes...and floundered again, as she swore to herself that she’d seen a glimpse of the Seth Morgan of her dreams. The man she’d lived side by side with for a number of years. She couldn’t have made him up and have had a successful relationship with him for nearly ten years. He couldn’t have faked his attentiveness, his devotion, for that long.

  The intense love she’d once felt for that man couldn’t still be hanging out inside her, could it?

  She’d known the meeting was going to be hard. She’d had no idea it would be so excruciating.

  “The...embryos.” The word crackled in the room like a cluster of exploding firecrackers. It fell with a burning sharpness, a deafening noise, and continued to reverberate with the pain of lost dreams after she’d spoken it.

  They’d both been so certain...so determined...that their dream of having a family together would happen. And maybe...if she’d been implanted before that last tour rather than choosing to wait until after her deployment...

  And in most of the crimes she’d worked on over the years, there’d been that “if”: the one turning point that changed an entire life. The defining moment, if only he or she hadn’t made that one choice that put them in the perp’s life, or vicinity, at the time of the crime...

  It took her a second to realize that Seth’s expression had changed from perplexed to...stony. A look she knew, one he had rarely turned on her during their years together. Seth, when he was angry, was intimidating at the very least. But he didn’t yell. Lash out. Hit.

  He turned to stone. Seemed to have his most acute thinking moments encased in that cement. And to lose all ability to feel, too.

  But...why would...

  “The embryos,” he stated. No question, just...repetition.

  She nodded anyway. “You’re angry.”

  “Hell, yes, I’m angry.”

  She’d been very aware of the possibility that Seth might not want her to bring his children into the world after their divorce, but she hadn’t figured out-and-out anger. At the very least, she’d expected he’d ask questions before reacting. To find out her plans. No one was bigger on knowing everyone’s plans for everything than her ex.

  Maybe he was mad that she hadn’t offered to share the embryos. Would he prefer that she share them with him? If, deep inside, he still thought he might want children of his own someday, with a woman who couldn’t have them for him...he might need them. But there was no telling how many she’d need to conceive even one child...and...

  He could always find another surrogate for his sperm.

  She couldn’t find another man to fertilize her eggs. She was no longer capable of producing a healthy embryo.

  Help him understand. The idea came to her. Maybe out of desperation. Maybe because she was always trying to understand others. Conflict resolution was one of her specialties, one of the many things she’d learned about herself on that last tour with the navy.

  “Some of my eggs are showing signs of age—premature chromosomal abnormality,” she said, pretending she was on the right side of the table in an interrogation room. Trying to hide behind that barrier. “It’s quite common in women in their forties, but shocking to me at my age. I just had them tested out of an abundance of caution. I can’t start out fresh, Seth. Not without significant risk of birth defect.” Whereas his sperm could be good, even when he was an elderly man with great-grandchildren.

  His chair hit the wall behind him as he pushed back from the desk. It didn’t have far to go—maybe a foot. The room was that small. And with him standing, and her still seated, he seemed to tower over the entire space.

  “You’re talking about our embryos,” he bit out, arms folded again as he rested his butt against the corner of the old desk. For a second, she thought about his dress whites. About the very good possibility that the desk would leave dirt marks. When her gaze lifted, his bore into hers.

  “Yes,” she told him, frowning now. He’d seemed perfectly lucid when she’d first come in. Had allowed what was meant to be innocuous conversation, participated generously in it, at
her request.

  “Our embryos.” He quietly practically spat the words. “The ones we created together more than a decade ago.”

  “Yes.” What other embryos were there?

  His gaze darkened, narrowed, as he jutted his chin. Moisture seemed to be gathering at the corners of his eyes. Or maybe with that chin jut he’d tilted his head up and the light was shining on him differently, giving the illusion that he might be experiencing more emotion than usual.

  Her daily work required that she notice such things. Nothing she’d ever done, though, had prepared her for this particular confrontation.

  She engaged his stare, giving him as good as he gave, until he brought his fist down to the desk with more force than was kind. And returned to his seat behind the desk.

  Seth wasn’t a violent man. Even after all that had passed between them, she still believed that much about him was true.

  “You’re telling me that those embryos still exist?” His words were calm, but issued with a coldness she didn’t recognize.

  “I’m here. Asking for your signature to release their ownership to me,” she stated the obvious. “I have an appointment to be implanted on Saturday.”

  “How could you?” The raised volume didn’t cut into her as much as his tone, which continued to be cold.

  “How could I what?” Have herself implanted? Have a baby without him? Or without a husband?

  “Keep them.”

  Raising both hands, then letting them fall, she reminded herself of her inner strength, with an elbow touch to her gun. She was a cop who’d taken down fiends. She could fight Seth for a petri dish of microscopic hope.

  “You act as if I confiscated them and locked them up in a safe in my closet,” she said. “I didn’t keep them anymore than you did, Seth. They’re right where we left them, stored in the same facility. I haven’t done anything but pay the storage bill all these years.” It was like she’d walked into some kind of twilight zone.