Once in Every Life

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the kitchen window, made it look like a square of captured sunlight in the middle of a cold, darkening night.

The kitchen curtains were open, as if the inhabitants were no longer soldiers under siege, but, quite simply, a farm family waiting for someone to come in from the fields. The house he'd built so many years ago looked like something it had never been: a home.

He shoved the swing out of his way and turned away from the house. Staring out at Haro Strait glittering far below, Jack tried not to think about the window that looked so inviting.

It's an illusion, Jackson, just a damn illusion.

But he couldn't quite make himself believe it this time. Somehow the changes seemed more substantial, more tangible.

More dangerous . . .

He thought about the doctor's words, wondering if maybe?just maybe?the changes he saw in his wife were real. Lasting.

Maybe she really is changing. Maybe . . .

"Damn." He shoved a cold hand through his hair and sighed loudly.

Damn it, he couldn't let himself believe in her. He'd done that once, long before, and it had cost him?and the kids?nothing but pain.

But what if it's real this time?

It was that question more than any other that fueled Jack's fear and turned his stomach into a writhing coil of anxiety. He'd spent a long time building emotional armor strong enough to keep his one-sided love contained. If the walls came down, even for a second, he didn't think he'd ever get them back up.

And then what would happen to him?

You know damn well what would happen. It would be like before.

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He shivered at the thought and flipped his collar up. Before.

Then it had taken him years to find his way back to sanity?if, in fact, he ever had. Years of wandering, alone and hungry and friendless; years of praying to find his way. Years spent huddled in the blackest void a man could imagine.

He had to remember what kind of woman she was, how easily she used people and how well she pretended. Nothing about her was real except her hatred of him. Think about the night Caleb was conceived. All she'd had to do that night was smile and touch Jack's cheek, and he'd run to her bed like a callow schoolboy. And given her another innocent weapon to wield in the war of their marriage.

The "change" had lasted less than an hour, and then she'd been back, hating him with a vengeance. Day by day he'd watched her swell with child, and every hour of every day he'd had to fight the need and shame in his own soul. Every day she'd taunted him with the manner of the baby's conception, laughed at how weak and easily led Jack was.

"All I have to do is smile, and you come running. You 're pathetic."

Jack winced at the memory. It was true, God help him. He'd always wanted to be loved by her.

Every day he'd seen her stomach grow, seen her secret, deadly smile when she looked at him. Every night he'd lain in his lonely bed, dreading the moment of the child's birth. Knowing he'd condemned an innocent soul to a life so cold and lonely, it amounted to purgatory. No wonder he'd wakened that morning in the barn, alone, with no memory of where he'd been or what he'd done. The strain of her pregnancy had nearly killed him. He wouldn't let her manipulate him again. He would

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not. There was no way he'd let himself believe in her this time.

Remember, he told himself. Remember.

Jack crossed the shadowy yard. With the wooden steps of a man walking to the gallows, he climbed the porch steps and eased the kitchen door open. He was completely unprepared for the scene that greeted him.

Lissa and Katie and Savannah were sitting stock-still at the kitchen table. None of them turned to look at him.

It didn't surprise him, considering they had spoons hanging from their noses.

"Jack!" Lissa turned suddenly. Her spoon flew off her nose and clattered on the floor.