“And ice cream,” Meredith said, smiling at the child’s obvious excitement. “We might even have balloons and a clown. Would you like that?”

“Oh, yes!”

“When are we having the party?” Meredith asked.

“Next Saturday,” Sarah said.

“Well, I’ll see what I can do.” She took off her reading glasses and Sarah picked them up and tried to look through them, making a face when everything was blurry.

Mrs. Jackson fixed the birthday cake with a favorite cartoon character of Sarah’s on the top and Meredith arranged for a local clown to come to the party to entertain the children. She invited Dani and some of Dani’s friends, anticipating bedlam. Maybe if they ate in the kitchen, it would be less messy.

“Why should they eat in the kitchen?” Blake asked icily when Meredith got up her nerve the day of the party to approach him about it. “They’re children, not animals. They can eat in the dining room.”

Meredith curtsied and smiled. “Yes, my lord,” she said. “Anything you say, sir.”

“That isn’t funny,” he said. He stalked out of the room and Meredith stuck out her tongue at him.

“Reverting to childhood?” Mrs. Jackson asked with a gleam in her eye as she opened the hutch to get out plates and glasses, since the party was less than two hours away.

“I guess so. He infuriates me!” She sighed. “He says we have to have it in here. Doesn’t he know that cake and ice cream are terrible on carpet?”

“Not yet,” Amie said with her tongue in her cheek. “But he will.”

Meredith smiled conspiratorially at her. “Yes, he certainly will.”

They had the party in the dining room. There were seven four-year-olds. In the middle of the cake and ice cream, they had a food fight. By the time Meredith and Elissa, who’d volunteered to help out, got them stopped, the room looked like a child’s attempt at camouflage. There was ice cream on the carpet, the hutch, the tablecloth, and even tiny splatters on Blake’s elegant crystal chandelier. Waterford crystal, too, Meredith mused as she studied the chocolate spots there. The chairs were smeared with vanilla cake and white frosting, and underfoot there was enough cake to feed several hungry mice.

“Isn’t this fun, Merry?” Sarah Jane exclaimed with a chocolate ring around her mouth and frosting in her hair.

“Yes, darling,” Meredith agreed wholeheartedly. “It’s fun, indeed. I can hardly wait until your daddy gets here.”

Just as she said that, Sarah Jane’s daddy walked in the door and stopped as if he’d been hit in the knee with a bat. His lower lip fell a fraction of an inch and he stared at the table and children as if he’d never seen either before.

He lifted a finger and turned to Meredith to say something.

“Isn’t it just such fun?” Meredith asked brightly. “We had a food fight. And then we had chocolate warfare. I’m afraid your chandelier became a casualty, but, then, you’ll have such fun hosing it down….”

Blake’s face was getting redder by the instant. He glared at Meredith and went straight through to the kitchen.

Seconds later, Meredith could hear his deep, slow voice giving Amie hell on the half-shell, and then the back door slammed hard enough to shake the room.

Elissa’s twinkling blue eyes met Meredith’s gray ones. “My, my, and he insisted on the dining room? Where do you think he’s gone?”

“To get a hose, I expect,” Meredith commented, and then broke into laughter.

“I wouldn’t laugh too loud,” Elissa cautioned as she helped mop Dani’s face.

The clown arrived just after the children were tidied, and he kept them occupied in the living room with Elissa while Meredith and Amie began the monumental task of cleaning the dining room.

Meredith was on the floor with a wet sponge and carpet cleaner when Blake came in, followed by two rugged looking men wearing uniforms. Without a word, he tugged Meredith up by the arm, took the sponge from her hand, tossed it to one of the men and guided her into the living room.

He left her there without a word. Belatedly she realized that he’d gone to get some cleaning men to take care of the mess. Oddly, it made her want to cry. His thoughtfulness had surprised her. Or maybe it was his conscience. Either way, she thought, it had been kind of him to do that for Amie and her.

Seconds later, Amie was pulled into the living room. She stared at Meredith and shrugged. Then she smiled and sat down to enjoy the clown with the children.

It was, Sarah Jane said after the guests had gone, the best party in the whole world.

“I made five new friends, Merry,” she told Meredith gaily. “And they liked me!”

“Most everyone likes you, darling,” Meredith said, kneeling to hug her. Her white-and-pink dress was liberally stained with chocolate and candy, but that’s what parties were for, Meredith told herself. “Especially me,” she added with a big kiss.

Sarah Jane hugged her tight. “I love you, Merry.” She sighed. “I just wish…”

“Wish what, pet?”

“I wish my daddy loved you,” she said, and her big green eyes looked sadly at Meredith.

Meredith hadn’t realized until then how perceptive Sarah was. Her face lost its glow. She forced a smile. “It’s hard to explain about grown-ups, Sarah,” she said finally. “Your daddy and I have disagreed about some things, that’s all.”

“Why not tell her the truth?” Blake demanded coldly from the doorway. “Why not tell her that your writing comes before she does, and before I do, and that you just don’t care enough to stay home?”

“That’s not true!” Meredith got to her feet, her eyes flashing. “You won’t even listen to my side of it, Blake!”

“Why bother?” He laughed mockingly. “Your side isn’t worth hearing.”

“And yours is?”

Neither of them noticed Sarah Jane’s soft gasp, or the sudden paleness of her little face. Neither of them saw the tears gather in her green eyes and start to flow down her cheeks. Neither of them knew the traumatic effect the argument was having on her, bringing back memories of fights between her mother and stepfather and the violence that had highlighted most of her young life.

She sobbed silently and suddenly turned and slipped from the room, hurrying up the staircase.

“Your pride is going to destroy our marriage,” Meredith raged at Blake. “You just can’t stand the idea of letting me work, or giving me any freedom at all. You want me to stay home and look after Sarah and have babies—”

“Writers don’t have babies,” he said curtly. “It’s too demeaning and limiting.”

She felt her face go pale. “I never said that, Blake,” she said. “I haven’t done anything to prevent a baby.” She lowered her eyes to the carpet and hoped the glitter of her tears wouldn’t show. “I just can’t…can’t seem to get pregnant.”

His breath sighed out roughly. He hadn’t meant to say such a cruel thing. It was cruel, too, judging by the look on her face. She seemed to really want a child, and that warmed him.

He moved forward a little, his hand going out to touch her hair. “I didn’t mean that,” he said awkwardly.

She looked up. There were tears in her eyes. “Blake,” she whispered achingly, and lifted her arms.

He cursed his own vulnerability even as he reached for her, lifting her hard against him, holding her close. “Don’t cry, little one,” he said against her ear as she sobbed out the frustration and loneliness and fear of the past few weeks against his broad shoulder.

“There’s something…something wrong with me,” she wailed.

“No, there isn’t.” He nuzzled his cheek against hers. “Unless you count a husband with an overdose of pride. You’re right. It was just feeling second best, that’s all. You can’t stay home all the time.”

“I promised I’d go on tour,” she said huskily. “I didn’t want to. But then, when I kept not getting pregnant, I hated having so much time to sit and worry about it.” Her arms tightened around his neck. “I wanted to give you a son….”