Blair was surprised and delighted when Jack announced, quite out of the blue, that he wanted to go to the prom and would be escorting Destiny Evans. When she thought of her own high school experiences, she remembered the places she hadn't gone and things she hadn't done because she'd been so far outside the school's mainstream. She hadn't wanted that for her children.

Starr, despite spending four years closely surrounded by loving friends, had had to be pushed to attend her prom each and every year. (Usually some variation on I don't want to go if I can't go with Cole was involved.) Each and every year, she came home alight with happiness. (Usually some variation on Cole and I got back together was involved.)

Blair hadn't planned to push Jack. No one would have believed it if she'd told them, but he was more sensitive and less resilient than Starr. He didn't have the protection of a Langston or a Markko or even a Cole in his life. If she had been more aware of that the year before, things might not ever have gone as far as they had gone with Shane and Gigi.

On the night of the prom, she bit her tongue to keep herself from reminding Jack to get Destiny's family to email her the pictures. That was exactly what she had said on the night of the March Mixer, which had ended disastrously for all of them.

Jack seemed just as confident as he had in March. He swept Hope into his arms and told her that, really, he would rather she be his date. He had even, without prompting, come home with two corsages—one for Hope and one for Destiny. Hope beamed and marched importantly around the house showing her flowers to all of her stuffed animals and dolls.

"If my monkey was here I would show my monkey my flowers," Hope chirped.

"Mommy is not bringing you home a monkey," said Blair, not for the first time. She said a silent prayer that she was telling the truth.

"Yes she is. I asked her for it," said Hope with the confidence of a baby who had never been denied much of anything in the way of material goods.

"You have a monkey," Blair said. She picked up a stuffed toy that had started to sink between the couch cushions. "Curious George."

"My other monkey!"

Blair's phone buzzed and she leapt for it, her mind far too full of scenarios. Jack had been in a car accident. Jack had been in a fight. Jack had been locked in a basement full of carbon monoxide. Jack had been arrested.

Instead, she found a series of photographs. Jack pinning the corsage on Destiny's dress. Jack and Destiny sticking their tongues out at the camera. Jack posed with Destiny and Shaun, who was giving Jack a serious side eye. Jack posed with Destiny and her parents, who looked overwhelmed with pride. Jack holding Destiny's hand as they approached his car. Jack opening the car door for Destiny.

He had remembered even though she hadn't asked.

That didn't make her feel any less nervous. She twisted her hands and tried not to let Hope see her panic.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when Todd put his hands on her shoulders. Tears sprang to her eyes. "Todd," she whispered. "What if he's not…"

"He's fine," said Todd. Blair sincerely doubted that Todd believed that, but it was nice to hear anyway.

Todd redirected his attention to Hope. "Peanut, I invited your cousin Langston over for pizza. That okay?"

"Yay!" said Hope.

"Good. Go tell Sam."

Hope scurried off.

"Langston?" Blair asked. "You invited Langston over?"

"I didn't think you'd want to leave Sam and Hope with just anyone. Besides, I like her a lot better now that she's pissing off Dorian."

"Todd, we're not going out. We can't—"

"We can wait for disaster to strike at the prom just as well where we're going. We'll leave our phones on. If we don't get service, we'll come right back home."

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see."

It didn't take long for Blair to realize that they were going to lot where their new house was taking shape. Each time she visited, she was amazed at the speed of the progress. One day, the trees had been cleared and the logs neatly stacked into cords for use in the fireplace next winter. Another day, the basement had been dug and the foundation poured. Then, suddenly, bright yellow slabs of wood shaped the first floor, the second floor, the attic, and the roof. Today the roof was finished along with the brick chimney and the fireplace. Sinks and showers hooked up to nothing were scattered where the bathrooms and kitchens would be, and the walls were scrawled with markered instructions for the electricians.

Todd pulled a blanket and a picnic basket from the trunk of the car. They shared their first meal in their new home in front of the fireplace. When the leftover food was set aside, they lay on the blanket, kissing and laughing at some of the messages the workmen had left for each other. One note so lovingly encouraged the electrician not to fry his fat ass while completing a particularly tricky bit of wiring that Blair was tempted to request that that part of the inner wall be left exposed when the insulating, plastering, and painting were done.

"No," Todd growled with a kiss to her neck. "This is our home. It's for you and for me and for our children. No memories of anyone else. Not Dorian, not Walker, not-"

"Tea?" asked Blair. She remembered the first home she and Todd had bought together. Todd had eradicated any trace of her from the penthouse and made it over for Tea. Truthfully, that had been the first thing that had come into her mind when Todd had begun to push for them to build their own house. They had done this before, and they had lost it. She felt their daughter twirl contentedly inside her. Widom, she reminded herself. Pregnancy with wisdom. A life where she would focus on what was before her- Todd and their love- instead of fear of repeating the mistakes they were supposed to have learned from.

Dorian was wrong about a lot of things, but she wasn't wrong about everything.

"Definitely not Tea," said Todd.

They kissed again, longer and deeper.

"I wish this were last month," Todd said as Blair rained kisses along his jawline.

"Why?"

"We could have done more than kiss."

Blair's heart sped up at the suggestion. "You would make love to me right here?"

"There's no one else around."

Blair ran her fingers over Todd's ear and watched with satisfaction as his Adam's apple spasmed in his throat. "We could mark our territory. It would be ours forever. No matter who was in this room, our love would be built right into it." She let her hand creep lower to tease at Todd's belt.

"You know we can't."

She grinned. "We're not quite to the magic date yet."

His eyes widened. "We're not?"

She shook her head. "No. This would have to be the last time until after she's born, but..."

"Then we'll make it count." He got to his feet and helped her to hers.

Blair was confident in her own body, how it could feel, and what it could do for others. She had long since gotten over any sex-related fears and insecurities that she might have had. Whatever you could do with a man, she'd done... unless it was something she really didn't want to do, and in that case she refused to feel guilty or shamed or inferior.

There was an exception.

She had never had sex while she was this pregnant.

Todd had been long gone by the time she'd hit her third trimester with Starr. Todd certainly hadn't been interested in making love to her while she was heavy with Brendan, the evidence of what he'd considered her betrayal. Her pregnancy with Jack should have been different, but she'd lied to Todd and told him that he wasn't the father. (It had seemed like a good idea at the time.)

She wasn't even sure how this was supposed to work. She actually had to think about what the options might be... from behind, obviously, but side by side or on all fours or standing up...

But damned if she wasn't going to have one more orgasm for the road before her little girl tore her body apart. Pregnancy hormones had left her swollen and wet and perpetually in the mood.

Todd took her hand and led her through the unfinished wall to a soon-to-be bathroom where a sink stood waiting to be hooked up to yet-to-be-installed plumbing. Without speaking, he bent her over the sink, bracing her hands on the edge. She wasn't sure what she was doing, and Todd was guiding her through, step by step. It was sexy as hell.

Her pulse raced. It was a shame that the mirror that would hang over the sink had not yet arrived. She would have loved to have watched Todd claiming her from behind, both baby and father inside her body at once.

Or perhaps it was even better that he was unseen, and, so far, unheard. There was nothing but his smell and his touch. A force simultaneously known and mysterious was arranging her against the sink, kissing her neck, teasing her nipples, and hoisting her skirt to slide off her panties.

The untamed woods and the night stars were quiet around them. There was nothing in the world but the feel of Todd, sliding into her, hot and ready as she was. They were closer than close, completely together, the way she always wanted them to be.

Then the baby turned inside of her.

It was something she felt many times each day; the child was healthy and active, and this somersault was nothing out of the ordinary.

As her body screamed with frustration, Blair realized that she was not the only one who had felt the baby move.

She had never seen a man lose an erection so fast in her life.

"No!" said Todd firmly. "No."

He backed away from her, frantically tucking himself inside his pants and zipping up his fly. He tore through the house, his footsteps echoing and receding, before Blair could rearrange her skirt. (She didn't quite know what had happened to her panties.)

"Todd?" she called.

"Are you in labor?"

She hid her smile even though he couldn't see her. "No."

"Then I don't want to talk to you."

"Too bad. I want to talk to you." She followed the sound of his voice and found him sitting on the edge of what would be the kitchen, his legs dangling in the space where the deck would go.

She sat beside him; he held out his hands to steady her. "I can get down," she told him. "But I'm not sure I can get up, so you can't leave me now."

"You're sure you're not in labor?"

"I think I'd know."

Todd shrugged. "That was normal? The baby?"

"She moves like that all the time. You've felt her move before, Todd."

"Not with my dick, I haven't." Todd shuddered and gripped the edge of the floor. Even in the starlight, Blair could see that his knuckles were white. "I've finally done it. I've turned into Victor Lord."

Blair clapped her hands over mouth in time to keep herself from laughing. Todd was staring off into the darkness and, thankfully, didn't notice. The last thing she wanted to do was make Todd think that she thought his deepest, darkest fear was something to be mocked. She didn't think this was funny at all, really. Her hormones must have been out of control.

She shifted slightly on their rough perch. A jolt of need shot through her. Damn it, she was still turned on. She wondered if she could grind herself against the edge of the floor. She'd take the risk of a splinter.

"I'm pretty sure that Victor Lord didn't take his wife on romantic picnics in the woods."

"No, he was too busy raping his daughter."

"You do know that the baby doesn't know what sex is."

"I don't think Viki did, either, when he started on her."

"You weren't having sex with the baby. You were having sex with me. The baby has a whole separate room," she gestured at her swollen middle, "and you were nowhere near it."

"I could feel her. That means she could feel me."

"That doesn't mean that she understands what she felt. She doesn't even remember it now. Her brain isn't developed enough. You know that." Todd kept staring into the night. "Todd, we went at it like rabbits when I was pregnant with Starr. That does not mean we were having a three-way with Starr."

"Starr wasn't big enough to know what we were doing."

"Neither is Sage." She tried to swallow the words back, then clung to the vain hope that Todd was so consumed with his discomfort that he hadn't noticed what she'd said.

For the first time, he looked at her. "Sage?"

"It's what I've been calling her in my mind. I know we have to change it, but it's stuck, you know. Starr-Jack-Sam-Hope-Sage. Another short name. Another S-name. It just flows."

"So it's stuck and it flows."

Blair gave him a friendly shove. "Leave me alone."

"You and your new-age hippy little girl names. At least it's not as bad as Starr. You aren't going to make her middle name Brush, are you?"

"I was thinking Victoria for the middle name, actually. Sage Victoria Manning."

"You must really want Sage if you're giving Viki the middle name."

She shook her head. "No. Whatever first name we choose, Victoria is the middle name. You wouldn't be where you are or who you are without her. We couldn't be us without her."

"Sage Victoria Manning." Todd turned it over in his mouth. "All right. As long as you spell it right this time. S-A-G-E. No sticking extra letters in there like you did with Starr."

"No. I told you, it can't be. You'll hate it."

"I'm telling you, I don't hate it."

"You will."

"Why?"

Blair sighed. "When I first realized that I was pregnant again, I was so scared. Scared that I was too old to do this safely. I had enough miscarriages when I was the right age for this."

"I remember."

"Dorian... Dorian told me that she was about my age when she had Adriana. She said that when you're older, the nice thing is that you don't have to worry about so many things. You have wisdom on your side. It made me feel better. It's what I wanted for us. When we had Starr, we were kids ourselves. We were going to take over the whole world, the whole universe, the sun and all the stars. Those things that we wanted, that we were never going to get enough of, we have them. What I was wishing for us with our last baby was for us to be smart enough not to mess it up this time. That we could be wise enough to just enjoy it. But Dorian decided to try to ruin our family- again- so I can't very well ask you to give our daughter a name that came out of something she said."

Todd rubbed circles on Blair's stomach. "It's not Sage's fault Auntie Dorian got out her broomstick before she could be born."

Blair relaxed into Todd's touch as much as she could. "You're sure you're all right with this?"

"We just won't tell Dorian where the name came from. Our little Sage, our little secret. Nothing for her to brag about."

"Thank you for being so understanding about Dorian. You've never gone at her full-tilt for the things she's done to you, and I don't thank you for it often enough."

"It's the least I can do. You were the one who married into the Lord curse."

"There's no Lord curse."

"But I think there is, and sometimes that's all that matters." He continued to rub her stomach rhythmically. "Sorry about tonight. I just can't. Not with any part of my body. Not until after she's born."

"No problem."

"I know you really wanted to."

"Not if you don't."

"That stuff you said about marking our territory? It was so hot. I do want to. I just can't."

Interesting ideas began to dance around Blair's head. "There are other ways."

"I just don't feel right- Why are you smiling like that?"

"We don't have to touch each other. At least not after you help me up." She raised her arms over her head to invite Todd to help her to her feet.

Blair directed Todd to throw their picnic blanket over a crate that stood in the middle of what was to be their living room. When the blanket covered the crate, Todd couldn't help but note that the crate was roughly the same size and shape of the bed.

"Thank you, Todd," said Blair sweetly after Todd helped her climb atop the crate. She arranged herself on her not-bed; somehow, her skirt wound up above her hips. She had never put her panties back on.

Todd gulped. She was still swollen and damp and aching to be touched. She was his. He needed her.

He couldn't.

"I think I threw your underwear out into the hall. I'll go look for it," he told her.

"Later," said Blair sweetly. "It's so comfortable right here. Stay and enjoy it with me."

"You're six months pregnant and you're on top of a packing crate in the open air in the middle of the night. You're not comfortable," he told her. His throat was painfully dry. She looked comfortable. She looked like a pin-up. She looked like everything he had ever wanted.

"You don't like the fresh air, Todd? Just you and me? Because I like the fresh air." She slid her legs apart to give him the best possible view when her hands drifted down below her waist. At first she flicked her fingers the full length from her curls of pubic hair to her butt. Gradually, she probed deeper until her fingers disappeared between full, red folds...

"Why are you torturing me?" Todd asked roughly. He couldn't take his eyes off of her. He couldn't stop the flood of memories of what it felt like to touch her right there.

He couldn't stop himself from getting harder and harder when not thirty minutes before he had privately sworn off sex forever.

"I'm not torturing you, Todd," Blair purred. "I'm enjoying myself. Why don't you enjoy yourself?" She removed her hand from her body long enough to illustrate her suggestion with a vaguely obscene gesture. "I like to watch you come. You can watch me if I can watch you."

He was already touching himself through his pants. He had not intended to do this.

"That's right," Blair encouraged. "Mark your territory. Show me that this is yours. Show me that I'm yours." She was rubbing herself right on that spot, just inside her opening, just to the left. He knew that that was a magic spot. He knew how to touch it. He knew that in just a moment, she would convulse...

There was a soft whimper. He wasn't sure whether it had come from Blair or from his own throat.

His heart pounded loudly as he watched, and his confined erection made the jump from uncomfortable and embarrassing to downright painful.

He tried to distract himself. He could watch Blair like a reporter gathering information. He had to make sure that she didn't touch herself in ways that he didn't touch her. What if he had been missing something all these years? What if her likes had changed? He had to study her motions carefully so that when they were able to do these things together again in a few months, he would do them properly.

Her finger was flipping rapidly, rapidly, in and out of the petal-red opening. Her eyes were no longer challenging him, they were shut, awaiting the climax that would come if she would just brush her hand lightly across her clit. For whatever reason, she'd been neglecting that. She couldn't have forgotten that it was there. There wasn't much to him beyond his hot achy groin.

She mewled in frustration.

"Blair," he said aloud. He didn't want to scare her when he approached. He brushed his thumb over her; instantly, she convulsed, calling his name to the empty skies around him.

His body jerked, urgent and demanding, in response.

The only question now was whether he was going to ruin his pants. They were fully clothed and surrounded by sawdust and scraps of brick, and he was about as turned on as he had ever been in his life.

He fumbled his fly open; his erection sprang free of its own accord. Frantically, he ran his hand up and down its length.

His eyes flicked to Blair. She had pulled herself upright and was watching him intently. "Show me," she said when she saw him looking. "Show me you want me."

"Blair."

Jets of white liquid pulsed onto what would one day be their living room floor and sank into the house's very foundation.

He leaned against a construction support to regain his balance in a dizzying spiral of relief.

She let him rest there for a few minutes before she called for him to come closer. They sat together on the crate and stared into the darkness until the night chill set in.

As soon as Jack and Destiny walked into the dance, he was glad that he'd come. Destiny had been right when she'd said that he needed to show everyone- including himself- that the March Mixer wasn't going to stop him from living his life.

As they danced, he told her as much.

"I usually am right," said Destiny solemnly. "It's just now that you're getting old enough to realize that."

"What are you talking about? I grew up in a family full of women who are usually right. It's just that when they're wrong, it's a complete disaster for everyone."

"Speaking of the women in your family, did you see the picture Dani posted on MyFace of her surfing on her new board?"

For most of the next hour, they chatted about what Dani was doing in Tahiti and what Starr was doing in Paraguay and what Destiny was going to do when she got to Harvard. None of it was about Jack, but that felt good instead of threatening. A year had made a huge difference. He was wanted. He belonged. He knew it.

They had just started to dance again after taking a break to eat and drink and feel sorry for the freshman girl who ripped her dress when Jack felt a tap on his shoulder.

He knew by Destiny's face that it could only be one person.

"May I cut in?" asked Matthew, weirdly old-fashioned and formal in the way Buchanans tended to be.

"You can cut in permanently if you promise to take her home at the end of the night," Jack told him. He knew that this was exactly how Destiny had wanted her evening to go. "That all right, Destiny?" he asked unnecessarily.

"Yeah," said Destiny, wide-eyed. "Thank you."

"Thanks, man," said Matthew.

Jack left.

If anyone snickered, he didn't care.

He arrived home to find Todd sitting in the front room with a book. He looked like he had been waiting for Jack, and that only improved Jack's good mood. Someone was worried about him. Someone cared about him.

Todd glanced at his watch. "Two and a half hours before curfew. Everything okay?"

"Yeah. Good. Better than the last one."

"The last one didn't exactly set the bar very high."

"Matthew showed up," Jack explained, even though he doubted very much that Todd actually cared about the minutiae of teenage romances. "I left so Destiny could have her happy ending."

"Good for you. Anyway, I'm glad you're home early. I wanted to ask for your help with something."

"What?"

"Your mother and I went to check on the new house while you were gone. I think we'll be able to move in by the time the baby comes. The stable looks completely done. Just missing the electricity and the horses."

"I never saw a stable on the plans!" Jack objected. He had seen the blueprints and been encouraged to make suggestions. Some of his ideas had even been adopted, especially relating to the size, shape, and placement of his room. He was going to have a small private staircase to a section of the attic that looked like a watchtower. He would be able to retreat there and see everything. He was amazed that his parents had gone for it.

"That's because it's a baby present for your mother," said Todd in a low voice.

"Oh." Jack smiled. "Of course."

"And I need help finding the right horse to start with."

"Easy," said Jack. "Get the Country Club to sell you Boreas. Not like he really likes anyone besides Mom, anyway."

"Come with me next week to make the deal?"

"Sure."

"Then you can go buy your horse and a pony for Hope and Sam at the end of the summer, when we can pry the baby away from your mother for more than five minutes. Maybe you can go down to Kentucky, just the two of you, for a few days?"

"That sounds great," said Jack, as dazzled as Destiny had been when Matthew had arrived out of nowhere.

"You sure? You look kind of stunned. If you don't want to wait-"

"No. It's fine. I just can't believe how different it is now from this time last year."

Todd didn't say anything. He didn't have to. There was no doubt that he agreed.