He'd say good-bye before he left. A squint at his Rolex told Cole he had three more hours until dawn, to seesaw back and forth as he'd been doing for the past two hours about leaving or staying, to remember Phoebe as she'd been tonight, so wary, not only because of Brian, he suspected, and disapproving.

Phoebe, he thought, urging him up the stairs and along the hall, bustling to find fresh linens for his bed, refusing his help to make it. "Afraid I'll try to tumble you in the sheets?" he'd finally asked, irritated by her brisk efficiency while he stood back, watching and feeling like another chair in the corner. She'd even given him a different room from the one he'd always had, the one he'd shared with Brian.

She rechecked the bathroom towels. "Not afraid in the least." After fluffing the bed's light quilt once more, she plumped both pillows. "The possibility's more than remote."

The words had pricked his pride. She'd changed all right, not only on the outside, and not for the better. More comfortable with that, he focused on externals.

In the dim light of the living room earlier he'd barely made out her form or realized that the willowy girl he remembered had turned into a fashion-model thin woman who still, somehow, managed to have the right curve of hips and breasts, before he noted the new distance in her gaze. Still fighting his own response to seeing her again, he almost missed it. The mere sight of Phoebe had always knocked him out. He'd noticed the faint lines around her eyes, the shadows. Brian had put the dark circles there too, he was willing to bet; but it was Cole she disliked tonight.

One of us has to go

He needed sleep first but knew he wouldn't get any. His chest began to tighten and he pressed a hand to it, recalling the first time he'd had the feeling a few weeks ago and thought he was dying, like his father, of a heart attack.

Why feel unwelcome here? He'd never belonged in this house.

Cole stroked his chest, trying to ease the pressure. That first night in the room across the hall, he'd known he was in trouble. Brian had kept him awake for hours, goading him.

"Cole," he said, "asshole. It's no coincidence that it rhymes. That's all you'll ever be around here." Brian's teeth flashed white in the dark. "Asshole," he chanted, and it was then that Cole flew across the room at him for the first time, fists flying.

His uncle had broken up the fight but not before Brian's lip was split and bleeding and he'd vowed revenge, which he took over the next ten years.

He'd been twenty when Brian at twenty-one started dating Phoebe, who was three years younger than Cole.

He'd taken immediately to her quiet good manners, the brief glimpses he caught of whimsy in her prim character, the ready acceptance she gave him. He liked Phoebe's strong sense of family, something Cole had feared he'd never find again and secretly knew -- still -- that he didn't deserve.

He shifted on the bed, trying to find a cool spot. The upstairs room had stayed hot and close, and he stacked his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. Now even the whimsy was missing, and Phoebe didn't seem to like him at all. He turned over on the perspiration-wet sheets.

Though he'd kept his distance for years and Phoebe probably knew little about him since Brenton Point, maybe there were no marks for finishing his master's in psychology, even for getting the doctoral degree that would be his as soon as he completed his overdue dissertation.

In the car he'd piled his notes, his hard copy of the first draft, his references, his computer. He'd never cared for Will Reid's house, but he needed a few quiet months on his own. Yet his primary reason for coming back to Southbury didn't seem good enough now. Like his success.

How ironic, he thought, that he and Phoebe and Brian all lived in the public glare. Formula One, mainly an international sport, rarely made headlines in the U.S., though; and Cole's daily newspaper advice column, increasingly well known, didn't yet appear overseas. He and Brian remained as distant as they'd been from Cole's first night in his uncle's house. Which seemed to suit Phoebe fine, too.

Hell, he didn't need her approval either.

But Cole's heart beat hard and fast. Dammit. The tightness, the sweating…How many times in the past weeks?

Predictably, his mouth went dry. Switching on the bedside lamp, he ran through his own litany of favorite anxiety defusers. He counted the repeats in the Della Robbia wallpaper pattern. Listened for the next bark of a neighborhood dog and tried to guess its breed. Made mental list of the revisions he expected on his new book, touted to be "the best yet," according to his editor, "a landmark in self-help literature." Nothing worked. He was losing it, fast, and he damn well knew why.

On a wave of nausea Cole shot off the bed, swallowing. His heart thumped like a tom-tom. In deference to Phoebe and the fact that the bathroom was across the hall, he'd worn a t-shirt and briefs to bed but now he stripped to his skin and knelt in front of the open window. Gasping, dizzy, in the throes of a full-blown panic attack, he leaned out into the still warm night.

After a few moments, from across the street, the dog barked again. A golden retriever, he decided, forcing himself to recall everything he knew about the breed before ducking his head back inside, able to breathe again. Why in hell would anyone trust his advice? Or want him to host a television show a la Dr. Ruth?-- a possibility the cable network had recently been pushing and Cole had been resisting.

Because of him and his glib, smooth-talking, pop-culture advice, a twenty-year-old kid lay in a hospital bed, hooked up to tubes and monitors, in a coma that with each passing day threatened to prove irreversible.

His steps jerky, he crossed to the bed. He hadn't come back to Southbury just to finish his dissertation. A piece of paper wouldn't restore his confidence in himself as a therapist, or end his more general dissatisfaction with his life, the growing feeling that he'd missed something somewhere along the way. It wouldn't stop the panic.

Cole dropped into bed and, escaping from reality like a hardcore catatonic, yanked the sheet over his head.
******************************************************************************************
Across the hall, in the room next to Hope's, Phoebe lay sleepless, her ears alert to every sound from Cole's room.

After leaving him there, she'd wondered what her sisters would say. She was still a married woman, the mother of a young child -- and she'd allowed a man, a virtual stranger, to spend the night in her house. Except, it wasn't really hers.

And Cole was hardly a stranger.

Already aware of the dog barking across the street, she listened to the old house settle, the top stair creaking, the snap and ping of wood and plaster contracting -- she assumed -- as the night slowly cooled, the whirr of the refrigerator motor.

She supposed she couldn't blame herself for feeling an instant awareness, as a normal woman might, when he stretched his body over hers on the hard wooden floor. She hadn't let the moment lead anywhere, though, assuming he'd wanted it to.

Like his earlier kiss, the light breeze shivered along Phoebe's skin. Cole's hands had felt warm, as warm as the blue of his eyes made her feel one other night.

"It's okay, Phoebe," he'd whispered then, the car windows open to the ocean's soft shush of surf against the nearby sand. And when comfort had become kisses at her temple, along her cheek, to the tender spot beneath her ear, she hadn't resisted.

She would never know how things had gotten out of hand so fast. How with every kiss she'd inched lower on the seat until she was lying down, watching the stars, and Cole lay over her as he had tonight, his face with that dark intent she would never forget -- even though she'd tried. His fingers had slipped under her cotton sweater to her breasts, his body hard against hers. Taking then, piercing, burning…

Phoebe sprang upright in bed, pressing her lips together to stop the tingling memory. She wasn't like that, like Lily Townsend.

She frowned, determined to be honest with herself. Tonight she'd liked talking to Cole well enough, which seemed like old times. He knew Brian better than anyone -- the real Brian Reid not the public image -- could sense her pain and confusion without words, without condemnation.

But he'd be gone soon. Before he hurt her again.

Before he saw Hope for the first time.
******************************************************************************************
At dawn, sprawled on his back in the center of the hard mattress, Cole jolted awake at a sudden pain. Phoebe, he imagined, dragging him from bed and tossing him into the street. Resisting consciousness, he ground his head deeper into the pillows, cracking one eye. He felt muzzy from too little sleep, judging by the faint, pearly gray light through the windows, and wasn't in any hurry to wake up. A blessedly cool morning breeze touched his face. Then razor-edged talons pierced his chest again.

Phoebe, he remembered, bit her nails.

His eyes shot open. The large tortoiseshell Persian cat he'd glimpsed the night before blinked back at him, kneading his skin above the sheet at his waist, purring.

"Darcy!"

A small voice made Cole glance sharply to his left and the claws dug deeper. He clamped both hands around the cat. Beside the bed stood the child who had spoken, and he nearly stopped breathing, nearly stopped feeling the pain as Darcy's flailing claws raked his skin. He saw a little girl with a perfect oval face, a straight, familiar nose, a long fall of sleek hair almost the color of Phoebe's -- and a pair of the bluest, most somber eyes he had ever seen. No light in them. Like Brian's.

"Mommy, please help!" She reached for the cat, her grip falling short. "A bare-naked man is hurting Darcy."

"Leave her alone."

Though barely above a whisper, Phoebe's voice vibrated with anger. She had skidded around the door frame into his room, brown eyes tarnished as a penny, as if he were some pervert. She sure hadn't meant the cat.

"I didn't touch her," Cole said.

"Hope, take Darcy downstairs." Phoebe plucked the cat from his chest, somehow managing not to make contact with his bare skin, and thrust her into the child's arms. "You shouldn't have let her out of the kitchen before I got up. You should have come to get me. Feed her, please, then put her outside."

Cole raised up on an elbow. "Don't you think you should introduce us first?"

"No."

In the doorway, Hope clutched the cat to her narrow chest like a riot shield, her gaze fixed on Cole. "Can I pour the orange juice?"

"Yes, please."

"For that man, too?"

"He won't be staying for breakfast. Now do as I said before Darcy gets sick."

"Uh-oh."

Cole tried to hang on to his own anger, as Phoebe's child had held on to the cat, waiting until he heard her light footsteps on the stairs. He tugged the sheet higher. "I damn well am having breakfast. What's going on here?"

"Keep your voice down."

"Answer me, Phoebe."

"My daughter is getting ready for school. She starts kindergarten next week." Phoebe headed for the stairs. "And you are getting ready to leave."

"Not before you explain a few things." Cole started to leap from bed, then thought better of it. Hope had been right; he was naked. "She came in on me -- she and the cat." Gingerly, he touched the scratches on his chest. They were oozing blood. "I sure didn't invite either of them but I didn't hurt them. What the hell do you think I am, some weirdo?"

Phoebe gave him an arch look over her shoulder. "You scare her. Hope doesn't like men right now."

"She seems to like them a whole lot better than you do."

"Not if you'd touched her, she wouldn't." She turned to face him. "Or touched me."

Against his better judgement his professional instincts slipped into gear. "Why doesn't she like men?"

"She…had a bad experience." Phoebe's gaze shifted and Cole felt the bottom of his stomach drop out. He didn't need this. Dammit, it was the last thing he needed.

"What do you mean 'bad experience'? You mean someone molested her?"

Phoebe shuddered visibly. "No. Cole, I told you last night that I didn't want you to stay. I don't want to 'renegotiate' this morning. Hope and I have enough problems."

"Without adding me?"

The fact that her rejection stung, and how much, surprised him. So did his own reaction. He'd meant to leave at dawn and not look back. He watched Phoebe prowl the room, seemingly unaware of her gauzy green nightgown, flowing around her bare legs like sea foam.

So this was the other source of her wariness. Hope. He'd seen the piece in Us magazine years ago soon after Brian won his first Italian Grand Prix. Vigorous and smoothly handsome, he made a perfect media subject, and Phoebe, young and pretty, looked the adoring wife, the blissfully happy new mother. The baby in her arms had been mostly hidden from the camera by a blanket but of course, through Will, he knew they'd had a daughter.

"How old is she now?" he asked.

"Five." Phoebe paused, her eyes still dark and defiant as if daring him to say, even to think , the wrong thing. "She was born in April. April eleventh."

He'd been with her at Brenton Point in June. He counted mentally on his fingers and didn't like himself for accepting Phoebe's challenge. Ten months. His dissappointment surprised him even more. "She's a beautiful child," he said, "but Phoebe, something's really wrong here."

Her face turned ashen. "Oh, why did you have to come back?" She moaned the words and Cole was out of bed before he remembered why he should stay there.

"Now I'm glad I did."

"What in God's name do you know about children?"

"Not very much," he said, "firsthand," and then, "Enough."

In fact, he'd done his master's thesis on the battered child but wasn't about to tell Phoebe that. Whatever she knew about his professional life, she didn't know everything, didn't know the worst part. But she must have seen in his eyes the flash of self-doubt that he lived with now as if he were a Siamese twin.

"I'm sorry, Cole. I didn't mean to sound sharp or bitter."

"Yeah," he said. "All right, I forgive you. Your sisters forgive you."

In the awkward silence that followed, Phoebe glanced down, making them both aware of his nakedness. Cole felt his face heat but he'd be damned if he'd dive back under the covers.

Phoebe's pale cheeks bloomed with color. "You might like to shower and shave before you dress." She placed too much emphasis on the last word. She'd worn her hair pulled back from her face to sleep and even the tips of her ears turned red. "Then I imagine you'll want to eat before you g--"

His temper got the best of him. "Don't tell me again that I'm leaving, Phoebe. That's my choice."

She managed a too-sweet smile before she turned and left the room. "At least until after breakfast."