"All right, all right. Why don't you come on with me? Have some of that dinner, too?"

It was tempting, but she looked exhausted. "Rain check. I'm going to grab a little time at home myself with a beer and the ball game. If you're right on this, it's going to break for us, and break quick. Go recharge a little."

The minute he stepped outside, Dave cursed himself for not tapping Phoebe for a ride home. Even with only three blocks to go, he'd be lucky to get home on foot before the storm hit.

Hell, while he was at it, he might as well curse himself for not taking her up on the dinner invitation. He wanted to see how Ava was holding up for himself. Wanted to see…

Lousy timing, again, he reminded himself. She, all of them, were in the middle of a crisis.

She'd been engaged the first time he met her. He'd had absolutely no business falling in love with her. None. But he had. Hadn't done anything about it, he reminded himself as he hunched his shoulders against the wind. Stayed the family friend. Good old Dave.

Talked himself out of believing he was in love with her, after she'd been married a few years, had a baby. Yeah, he'd talked himself out of it, and gotten married himself.

And Ava got divorced.

Lousy timing, right down the line. With a healthy portion of guilt on his part. Because no matter how much he told himself he'd wanted to make his marriage work, no matter now much he told himself he'd tried his best, he knew there'd always been Ava.

Now, just when he was beginning to think, to hope, maybe, just maybe, she and everyone in MacNamara House were in crisis. What choice did he have but to stay the family friend? Good old Dave, who was heading home to his empty house to nuke a HungryMan.

Cue violins.

The wind whipped along, sending tree limbs bending and swaying as he clipped down the sidewalk, annoyed with his own self-pity. If he'd bothered to pay attention, he could have changed out of his suit into his sweats at least. Then he could've jogged the distance home while he was wallowing.

Lightning slashed through the sky before he'd crossed the first block, and thunder rolled threateningly in its wake.

He quickened his pace at the next pitchfork of lightning, and de cided he might make it home after all without getting electrocuted or drenched.

And at least the wind was cooling things off. The entire day had been oppressive with that heavy, waiting heat.

He could see his house now, imagined shedding the suit, popping the top on that cold beer.

He swung onto his little walkway, bounded toward his door. He heard the quick toot-toot, glanced back. He fixed a smile on his face when he spotted the spiffy red sports car zip toward the curb. Maggie Grant, twice divorced, wanting to flirt. She embarrassed him a bit at the best of times, but just now, he wanted to get in, shut down and take an hour for himself.

He sent her a cheery wave and kept going.

She tooted again-beep-beep-beep, more insistently. Dave stuck the key in his lock, turned it as he gave her another wave. "Yoo-hoo! David! I'm so glad to see you. I need the help of a big, strong man."

Ten more seconds, Dave thought. Ten more and he'd have been inside, out of her reach.

"Ah, my phone's ringing, Maggie. Let me-"

"It'll only take a minute or two. I've got all these bags. I don't know what I was thinking. The rain's going to start pelting any second. Would you be a hero and give me a hand getting all this inside?" She popped the trunk, sent him a melting smile. "Please?"

"Sure." Sap, sucker, stoop, he berated himself. "No problem."

"It's going to be a wild one." She shook back her hair. "Kind of night you want to be cozied up with a friend and a nice glass of wine." Now he was going to have to avoid the wine, and the friendship, Dave thought as he stepped back down to the walk. The first fat drops of rain pelted down. The wind slapped, shoved, and he cursed as he heard his unlocked door slam open. For one second he hesitated: finish the damn good deed, dash back and shut the door. Even as he pivoted to do the latter, he spotted the man standing across the street.

Blue ball cap, sunglasses, windbreaker. Then the world exploded.

Phoebe didn't know how to feel when she saw Duncan's car outside her house. One part of her was relieved-now she knew where he was, and that he was safe. The other part was just plain pissed that he'd been so uncooperative that morning.

Then she stepped inside, out of the fury of the storm, and heard her daughter's delighted laughter. It was hard to keep a good mad on when she heard her daughter happy.

Then she walked to the parlor and saw Carly, Carter and Duncan sprawled on the floor playing Monopoly. It looked like Carly was slaughtering both men.

"I can't have landed on you again," Duncan complained. "These dice are loaded. This is b u l l… malarkey."

"You were going to say the's word."

He smiled thinly at Carly. "What's word?"

"Bullsh-"

"Carly Anne MacNamara!"

Carly stifled a giggle, then looked over innocently. "Hi, Mama. I'm beating the pants off Uncle Carter and Duncan."

"So I see. Where's everyone else?"

"The women are in the kitchen, where they belong." Carter sent her a toothy smile. "Get on back there, woman, and make us a snack."

"Oh, what kind of snack would you like?" She walked over, set down her bag. "Just let me"-she rapped her hand at the side of Carter's head-"see if that knocked any sense into you. And nobody's going to be snacking on anything this close to dinner. For which, I assume, you plan to stay," she said to Duncan.

"An invitation has been issued and accepted. Going to smack me upside the head, too?"

The glint in those dusky eyes warned her he still had a bit of a mad on himself. Well, fine. "We'll see how the evening goes. I assume, too, you got all those oh-so-important things done on your schedule today."

"I did. How about you?"

"Inroads."

"Why are you mad at Duncan, Mama?"

"That may involve quite a list. So for now, I'm going to run upstairs and change. Carly, after you're finished trouncing these two, why don't you see if you can help set the table? That means the men will be clearing and seeing to the dishes."

"What part of KP does she get?" Duncan asked Carly.

"I'll be… answering my phone," Phoebe said as it rang in her bag. She pulled it out. "Phoebe MacNamara."

Her color simply vanished, as if a light had been switched off in her face. Duncan was already getting to his feet when she got out the next shaky words.

"What happened? How… " She turned to walk out of the parlor. "How bad is he? No. No. Where? I'm on my way."

She had her game face on, Duncan noted, when she turned back. But there was fear lurking in her eyes. "I have to go."

"But you just got home."

"I know. I'm sorry, baby." She leaned down to give Carly a hard hug. "I'm sorry. Would you run on back and tell Gran not to wait dinner for me? I'll be back soon as I can."

"Did somebody get hurt?"

"Uncle Dave had an accident, so I need to go check on him. Right away."

Tears swam into Carly's wide eyes. "Is he hurt really bad?"

"I hope not, and they got him right to the doctors so they can take good care of him. But I have to go, baby. I'll call as soon as I can. Run tell Gran I'll call soon as I can. Carter," she said as Carly dashed off. "I'll take care of it. Don't worry about us. Car accident?"

"No." She gripped his arms. "Stay inside. Please. Make sure everyone stays inside. I'll call."

"I'll take you."

She didn't argue with Duncan, simply ran to the front door and through. "They took him to Memorial. He rigged Dave's front door. The son of a bitch rigged the front door on Dave's house. That's what they think. They don't know…"

"We'll find out."