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over how long it had taken her to shape up and recognize she couldn’t do this alone anymore, she adjusted her clothes as the nurse finished cleaning the ultrasound equipment.
    Yes, she would return to the boarding house and chat to Adam in her small room. He always had a joke or two to cheer her up, and when she could convince him to get serious, his opinions meant a lot to her. Taking the hand the friendly nurse was offering, she climbed off the small, cramped bed and finished rearranging her clothes.
    Heading out into the chilly Montana wind, Josephine pulled her coat tighter around her rather large belly. Keeping her head down, she headed back the short distance to the house. Checking her watch, she knew Adam should be around. The thought of some hot chocolate along with a good long chat with her dear friend spurred her to walk faster in the cold day. She knew a good long talk would help her sort her mind out, but a sinking part of her knew already both what her friend would say and what she would end up doing.
    Return to William.
    It was the right thing to do. Even though she would never feel bad about the last few months she had learned to live alone and the confidence she had built in herself, Josephine knew she should have headed straight back to William as soon as she had seen the positive pregnancy tests.
    All three of them.
    She would talk to Adam, confide the whole story to him. Josephine felt her stomach tighten and turn over as her babies played inside her.
    Returning to William. Josephine felt excited and scared simultaneously.

Chapter Two
     
    “What do you mean you’re not sure? Dammit, Samuel, we’ve been searching for months ! I thought you were this hot-shot private eye?”
    William Rutledge paced the length of the comfortable inner-city office his younger brother, Samuel, used as his base for his private investigations firm. Running an agitated hand through his long, dark brown hair, he resisted the impulse to start pulling the strands out or to open the window and start baying in frustration out into the street below.
    It had been six very, very long months since he had woken up alone that first time. Originally, he had been piqued, depressed over how Josephine could have left him without a note or even a simple, “See you around, it’s been fun.” When he had finally confessed his depression and anger to his new sister-in-law, Sophie, after two weeks of angst and anger, he had realized that there might have been more to Josephine’s leaving than he realized.
    Sophie, his elder brother Artemais’ new wife and mate, had pointed out that Josephine might have been running, or scared, or any number of horrible things he didn’t want to contemplate. Sophie had gently urged him to dig a little into her background and find out what really was happening.
    When he had performed a cursory police check into Josephines from the Seattle area, including her vital stats and the scanty tidbits of information he had gleaned about her over the two weeks they had been seeing each other, he had found some rather disquieting news. There was a warrant for questioning out on one Josephine Lomax, from the outer Seattle area. Even though the surname wasn’t that of his Josephine, the physical description and rough time of leaving the area fit his woman perfectly.
    William hadn’t believed for a moment that his Josie dabbled in drugs, in any sense. But the fact that she had a warrant out on her head made him worried for her. Why was she running? He knew there was a misunderstanding somewhere, but why not explain to the police what was going on? Why run, when it made her look so guilty?
    The questions had been whirling around in his head for all these long, cold months, and the more time that stretched by, the more worried he became. He surreptitiously checked daily in the logs and records of the Seattle branch of police where the warrant originated.
    No one anywhere seemed to have heard from her, so he at least had