He eyed Jennifer as she prepared to leave for a consultation with a catering client. "Brom say what Sara does in her spare time? Stunt driving for movies?"

Jennifer slipped her purse strap onto her arm. Affectionately she patted her brother's cheek. Her fingers touched a tiny bit of stubble Nik had missed shaving this morning.

And that wasn't all he was missing lately, she thought. Life was whizzing by him. "She's probably just in a hurry to see her father.

You grumble too much, Nik. You're getting too stodgy and cranky in your old age."

Old age. The phrase rankled him a little more than it should have, perhaps because he felt it was merited. He resisted it all the more for that. Nik gave Jennifer a black look. He was only thirty-five.

Why did it feel as if he had already lived an entire lifetime?

And why, at the same time, did it feel, with all this responsibility he had to shoulder, with all the work he had to do, with all the family around him, as if life was mysteriously pa.s.sing him by?

"Watch it, Jenny, I'm only five years older than you. If I'm old, what does that make you?"

" " Still young and happy. " Her expression softened slightly as concern edged its way in. She wanted him to have the same things she did. If anyone deserved happiness, he did. " Maybe you should take the time to enjoy life before it's too late. "

Nik frowned. Not that again. He wasn't in the mood to listen to another verse of " " Poor Overworked Nik" being sung in the key of Jennifer. He knew all the words by heart. " I'll see if I can schedule it in by the end of the month," he quipped, turning away.

Maybe Jennifer was right, he mused reluctantly as he opened the door to the kitchen. Maybe he was working too hard. The problem was, he didn't -know how else to approach life anymore except at full throttle.

The little engine that could-did. And would undoubtedly continue to do so until it blew itself up.

Now there was a heartening prospect.

Nik sighed. Now his sisters had him doing it, making him feel that he was overdoing everything. He didn't feel overworked Not exactly. Just a little harried, as if he was missing something by being here all the time. But for more than the past decade, in order to first make a living for them and then keep the restaurant going according to his high standards , this was all he had had time to do. Hard work had begat success, which begat more hard work. It was like being on a merry-go-round that had lost its Stop b.u.t.ton.

He wondered if a vacation was the answer.

A noise in the kitchen caught his attention and thoughts of vacations dissolved like greasy dishwater before an emulsifier.

Nik strode into the large room and crossed directly to the new apprentice chef. He eyed the portion of halibut beneath

Chris's knife critically. The fish looked as if it had been tortured to death.

"Unless you're trying to get a confession out of that halibut , you're going about filleting all wrong. Watch."

With a shake of his head Nik took hold of the long knife and went to work on the next piece of fish.

It had been almost fourteen years since she'd ridden down this path.

Fourteen years bracketed by painful, lonely memories. Yet she remembered the way as if the route was forever painted onto the pages of her mind. The car moved as if it was on automatic pilot. There was no hesitation at corners, no fumbling with written directions, in decisions on whether to turn left or right. Sara never forgot anything.

She set her mouth hard. No, she never forgot anything.

Not the good times, or the bad.

She was almost there already, she realized. The trip from

Sinclair's to her father's house had gone by much too fast to suit her.

She had secretly hoped for a blowout or a traffic snarl to delay her, to give her just a little more stalling time.

"Coward," she muttered under her breath. "What are you afraid of?" Her voice rose over the sound of the music on the radio. "He can't hurt you anymore." She was clutching the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles were literally turning white. She eased her hold, though the tension refused to go. "You're past that, remember? He has his life and you have yours. You're just doing a good deed because you happen to be kinder than he ever was."

If that's all there was, why was her throat constricting like wet leather left out in the sun as she approached her father 's development, for G.o.d's sake?

Annoyance bubbled within her like unattended boiling water on the stove, threatening to overflow. She needed to be strong, to be self-confident now of all times, not suddenly fighting with shadows from her past.

Needing to distract herself, she started flipping to different radio stations, searching for heavy metal music that would fill the car and take up the s.p.a.ce in her brain. Sara desperately wanted to be anesthetized by the time she reached her father's door.

She wasn't.

Sara parked across the street from the familiar address and shut off the engine. Instead of opening the car door and getting out, she remained where she was, waiting for the feeling to return to her suddenly numb legs. She sat for a long while, just staring at the tidy-looking house. Her father lived in a single-story stucco house.

The walls were dove gray, with white paint accenting the wood trim. It appeared to be freshly painted.

It was just the same as when she'd seen it last. Fourteen years and he hadn't changed the color scheme, she thought. At least her father was steadfast about some things.

Bitterness rose in her throat, bringing with it a sickly taste. Sara forced it down. No recriminations, she had promised herself before boarding the plane. Recriminations would only serve to rip open tender skin that covered wounds that had never properly healed. She didn't want to hear his excuses , because they weren't any good.

There were no acceptable excuses as far as she was concerned , no reason in the world for a man to turn his back on the daughter who worshiped him.

Sara closed her eyes and searched for inner strength. She'd come this far; she couldn't fall apart now. "Come on, Sara, remember Drama One.

You can carry this off. At least your conscience will always be clear."

She knew that if she'd turned a deaf ear to her father's plea, justified or not, she would carry the burden of that guilt with her no matter what the outcome of the operation It wasn't in Sara to walk away from a plea for help no matter how much she might want to.

Woodenly Sara emerged from the car and slammed the door behind her. The three suitcases she always traveled with were b.u.t.ted up against each other in the trunk, but for the time being she left them there. It was almost as if, subconsciously , she was denying the fact that she had agreed to stay with her father for the duration of his surgery and recovery period. If her suitcases remained in her car she might still feel as if she was just pa.s.sing through. She wanted to hang on to that feeling a little while longer. It might make the first few hours here that much easier to handle.

She glanced around for traffic on the street and then crossed to number five Avalone.

That was all she was doing, Sara a.s.sured herself. Just pa.s.sing through, the way she had through all those dozens of other places that had floated by in the past six years.

"Just another adventure, Saratoga. No more, no less." She pressed the doorbell.

As she stood there, waiting for a response, it was as if there were two completely different projectors in her mind, vying for the same screening s.p.a.ce. One reel was filled with scenes from her childhood, happy scenes with her parents, with her father, taking trips, going on family outings together All her happy memories.

The other held only a single vivid scene. It was the moment her father had, for the last time, walked out of the house he and her mother had once shared. He had promised

Sara that he'd return the following weekend. He hadn't. Week after week she had waited, hoping, praying. But he had never come.

She felt the ache inside her chest building again. d.a.m.n it, she wasn't that young girl anymore. She wasn't. Sara blinked back the tears that had begun to coat her lashes. She had grown light-years away from the girl who'd cried, who had felt so abandoned.

The door opened.

Sara sucked in her breath as the tall man in the doorway moved forward.

The eyes were the same. A soft brown. But where they had once resembled those of a small boy, twinkling with secrets and mischief, her father's eyes now belonged to a man who had been beaten down by something or someone. Apart from his eyes it was difficult for Sara to recognize Raymond Santangelo. He was thinner now and years older. The years were all there, etched on his face in lines of sorrow. His once-thick brown hair had thinned and his hairline was receding. Though physically tall, he somehow seemed smaller to her than he had fourteen years ago.

This was her father?

Sara wanted to deny it and run, to hold on to her last memories and close the door firmly behind her.

She remained where she was.