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threw the pillow at her.
    “You shouldn’t go alone,” Jo said.
    “It’s not like he’s some psycho stalker or something,” Sam argued.
    “Nope,” Mike muttered again, “just a bastard.”
    “You’re not helping,” Jo told her.
    “And you are?”
    While Jo and Mike argued without her, Sam’s brain raced with too many thoughts to keep track of. She’d been doing so well. She’d put Jeff and everything he represented into a small corner of her mind and only took it out three or four times a year to torture herself. She’d moved on. Built a life that had nothing to do with the girl she’d once been and her long-forgotten dreams. But now she was faced with him in the flesh. Right here in Chandler.
    The past was suddenly way too close.
    And Sam knew there’d be no letting go of it again until all the
t
s were crossed and all the
i
s dotted.
    “I have to tell him.”
    “Are you
insane
?” Mike’s voice hitched high enough to crack glass.
    “That might not be a good idea,” Jo said.
    “Ya think?” Mike choked out a laugh as she jumped off the couch to stalk around the perimeter of the room.
    Sam shook her head. “He has a right to know. And I have to tell him.”
    Jo took a drink of her soda, then bent to set the glass on the table in front of her. “He didn’t want to know nine years ago, remember?”
    “Do you really think I could forget?” Sam jumped up from the couch and stared at her sisters. They’d been there for her through all of it. But they hadn’t actually
lived
any of it. They couldn’t know. Couldn’t possibly understand what it had been like to survive when you thought your heart was breaking.
    She did, though.
    Sam had made it through and now, nine years later, she had to do what she thought was best. Despite what her family thought. Despite the fact that Jeff wouldn’t want to hear it.
    “Yes, I remember,” she said, and heard the soft catch in her own voice but couldn’t do a thing to stop it. “I remember all of it.”
    Mike frowned and grabbed up a throw pillow, hugging it close to her chest. Jo stood up and, after shooting a glare at Mike, faced Sam. “It’s probably not a good idea.”
    “Maybe not.”
    “It won’t change anything.”
    “I know that, too.”
    “And you’re still determined to tell him?”
    Sam inhaled sharply, deeply, then let the air slide from her lungs. “Jo, the man’s got a right to know he has a daughter out there somewhere.”
    “Yeah?” Mike asked, stepping up to stand beside them. “And when you tell him you put your baby up for adoption? Then what?”
    A small ribbon of pain wrapped itself around Sam’s heart and gave a twist. “Then I’ll sign the divorce papers. Again. And we’ll go back to our own lives.”
    And right now, even the looming chore of having to deal with the summer of hell was looking pretty good to Sam. Anything, to get back on an even footing. To get back to the world as she knew it. A world where she and Jeff Hendricks were simply casual strangers who happened to have made a baby while sharing an all-too-brief marriage.
    “Sooner the better, you ask me,” Mike said, glowering at no one in particular.
    “Who asked you?” Jo challenged.
    “You should have,” Mike retorted, “but nobody listens to the youngest.”
    “Ask yourself why,” Sam said.
    “Jealousy, pure and simple.” Mike laughed and held out her right hand.
    “Whatever helps you sleep nights.” Jo slapped her right hand on top of Mike’s, then the two of them waited for Sam to complete the triad.
    When she did and the three of them stood joined together, as they had since they were children, Jo spoke softly. “Your call, Sam. But whatever you decide to do, we’re with you.”

Chapter Three
    The Coast Inn had started out in life as a private home on a huge tract of land. Now, over a hundred years later, the stately Victorian stood on a narrow slice of land on the ocean side of Pacific Coast Highway.
    The constant whir of traffic