Kayla stood in the entrance of Shane's study. He was standing behind his desk and looking at her in confusion.

"I don't understand," he said. "What do you want to know?"

Kayla pulled the door closed behind her so they were alone. Then she strode purposefully toward the desk. "Steve won't talk to me about what happened to him, but you know, Shane. And you need to tell me."

"Kayla, I don't know," he said. "You can't possibly believe Steve's talked to me about anything."

That's not good enough, she thought. "He may not be talking to you, but you were there when he was found, so you know what happened to him. Where was he? How did the ISA get him out? Tell me that, at least."

Shane seemed to hesitate, and then pursed his lips. "I can't, Kayla. I can't tell you."

"Why? Because it has to be some huge secret?"

"Yes," Shane said sharply. "It must stay a secret." He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I wish I could tell you, but I can't."

"No. . . ." Kayla paused. "I'm the one who's sorry. I should have known that your ISA secrets would come first. Don't you get it? He's pushing me away and shutting me out. He's running around telling Kimberly everything, but he won't be honest with me." She tried to fight back the tears that were welling in her eyes. "Can't you understand? It's like I'm supposed to be happy that he's back and go on with my life, but, at the same time, there's this wall between us and it feels like it's getting bigger every day."

Shane came around the desk and approached her, but Kayla turned away. She flinched as he put a hand on her shoulder.

"I think I do understand," Shane said quietly. Something about his tone surprised Kayla, so she turned back around.

"How could you possibly understand?"

Shane took a deep breath and stepped away. He walked over to the window and stared outside. After a minute, he said, "When I remembered everything . . . after finding Kim, stopping Cal . . . we tried to act like everything was fine. We were together and that's all that mattered, right? That's all we needed to be happy. Kim wanted to talk about Cal, but I didn't want to deal with it. I never took the time to sort out my feelings about it."

"I don't see how that has anything to do with Steve," Kayla said.

"Please, Kay, hear me out." Shane still was staring outside. "See . . . because I didn't figure out how I felt, I just buried those feelings. I told Kim it didn't matter and everything was going to go back to the way it was." He let out a weak laugh. "We told each other we'd be together forever . . . that nothing would ever tear us apart again."

Kayla was still unclear what this had to do with Steve, but she listened anyway. Shane had once told her how hard it had been to lose Kim, but he had never really explained why he had pushed her away.

"That was a mistake," he said. "All I did was bury the issue and, when Kim got pregnant, all those feelings and all that anger came pouring back out." He turned his head and looked at Kayla. "She'd moved on so quickly. Two months, Kayla. It was two months after she thought I'd died that she was in Cal Winters' bed. Do you know how that made me feel? I mean, was our love so meaningless that she could replace me so fast?"

Kayla could hear the pain in his voice, and she tried to reach out to him. "No, of course not. You don't know what it was like for Kim."

"That's not the point," Shane said. "The point is I never figured out how I felt about Cal before we 'moved on,' so we couldn't deal with it together. And when Kim found out she was pregnant . . . well . . ."

"All those unresolved feelings came flooding back?" Kayla asked, suspecting where he was going.

Shane nodded. "But it also made things worse for Kim. Because we were supposedly so happy and everything about Cal was in the past . . . I think it made it harder on her when she found out about the baby."

"And she was afraid to tell you the truth? Is that what you mean?" Kayla remembered how long Kim had kept Jeannie's paternity a secret. But she still did not see what Shane was getting at.

"Yeah," Shane looked out the window again. "We'd built the perfect house of cards and she didn't want to do anything to upset it. And that only made the collapse worse when it finally happened."

Kayla shook her head. "So it was worse, Shane. But what does this have to do with Steve and me?"

"Don't you see, Kay?" Shane turned back and began walking toward her. "Steve's doing the right thing. He needs to take the time to deal with what happened to him and figure things out."

"But it's not the same thing," Kayla said. "It's not because Steve's keeping secrets. This is about Steve's emotional issues and my trying to help him. You needed to work things out with Kim so your could forgive her. Steve doesn't need to get over feeling betrayed. He just needs to open up to me like he always did - like we fought so hard for him to do."

Shane sighed. "I know it's not exactly the same. But if you push Steve to open up like he always did before, he might feel pressured to just go back to how things were before he 'died,' and that might cause him to bury his memories - like I did about how I felt about Kim and Cal."

For a moment, the room fell silent as Kayla tried to think about what Shane was saying. She appreciated his openness. This was about as open as she had ever seen him about his feelings for Kim, but while what he was saying made sense - for him and Kim - that did not mean it was the same for Steve and her.

"I don't know, Shane," Kayla said, not feeling particularly convinced. What Shane had not explained was why Steve could talk about things with Kim, not her. She debated saying that, but before she could, the phone rang.

"Sorry. . . . That could be Tarrington." Shane crossed the room to the phone on his desk and picked it up. He listened and Kayla saw his eyes widen. "Caroline . . . wait. Slow down and tell me what happened."

Kayla immediately grew worried. There was only one reason Caroline would call Shane. "Did something happen to Andrew?" Kayla asked. She waited as Shane raised a hand and listened intently.

"So everyone's all right?" Shane waited for a response, then said, "I'm with Kayla now. We'll be right over. And call Roman . . . . He's already on his way? Good."

He hung up the phone and looked at Kayla, who knew the news was not good even before Shane explained.

"There was an accident," Shane said. His voice shook. "Caroline didn't say much about it, except Kim, Andrew and Steve were involved."

"Are they okay?" Kayla said, her voice rising.

"Yes," he said quickly. "Caroline said everyone's fine. Everything's okay"

Kayla shook her head. It was not fine. Her breath came in short bursts and she began to shake. How can something like this happen just when I got him back?

She felt Shane's arms wrap around her and, without thinking, she leaned into his embrace. Kayla took a few deep breaths as her panic began to diminish. "I'm sure he's okay," Shane said. "Caroline would have said if anyone was hurt."

Kayla was still trembling though, as Shane began steering her toward the front door. Her mom could say everything was fine, but Kayla felt in her bones that something was wrong. Something was horribly wrong.