or the next week, Jack and Sally spent eighteen-hour days following the story. They got to the office early--Jack left home long before the sun had risen--and stayed late. Twice, he'd even slept on the couch in his office.

They'd interviewed dozens of people, tracked down countless leads, and tried to bullshit their way past closed doors.

Innuendo, anecdote, gossip--these they had found in abundance. By all accounts, Drew was a sleazy, not-too-bright young man who had an exceedingly high opinion of himself, an almost total disregard for other people's feelings, and an unshakable belief that society's rules didn't apply to him. In other words, he was a real pain in the ass.

He was also Oregon's brightest collegiate athlete, the best state basketball player in two decades. Speculation was high that he could lead the down-on-their-luck Panthers to their first ever NCAA championship season.

It was hardly surprising that no one in Panther athletics would talk to them--not even to issue a no comment. The basketball coach had been unavailable all week. And no one seemed to have seen the incident with the girl except Sally's sister. In short, they had no proof. No one liked Drew Grayland, it was clear, but no one would say anything on the record.

After another fruitless day, Jack and Sally went to a local steakhouse for dinner. They sat in a back booth where it was dimly lit and quiet.

"What now?" Sally asked.

Jack looked up from the notes spread out across the table. He was surprised to find that the place was almost empty. When they'd come in for dinner, every table had been full. "I think it's time for another drink." He raised a hand, flagged down the waitress.

She hurried over, pulled a pencil out from above her ear. "What can I get for you, Mr. Shore?"

Jack smiled tiredly, wishing--for once--that he hadn't been recognized. He felt like getting drunk. "Dewar's on the rocks."

"Margarita rocks, no salt," Sally said.

The waitress returned a few moments later with the drinks.

Jack sipped his, staring down at the notes again. He'd been staring at them for an hour, trying to glean something he'd missed. Someone to whom he hadn't spoken. But there was no one. He couldn't figure out where in the hell to go from here. All he knew for sure was that he'd failed. Again. This time, he'd taken bright-eyed Sally down with him. "Henry will be back from Australia tomorrow. Maybe you should take the story to him."

"We'll nail this story, Jack. You and me."

Her confidence never seemed to waver. Throughout all the dead ends and no comments, she'd kept believing in Jack. He couldn't remember the last time someone had had such faith in him.

He looked at her. Even now, when things were going so badly, her black eyes shone with optimism. And why not? She was twenty-six years old. Life was just beginning for her; it would be years before she learned the tarry taste of disappointment.

At her age, he'd been the same way. After three stellar years at the UW, and that amazing Heisman win, he'd been a first-round draft pick--to a loser team who needed him desperately. Behind an ineffective line, he'd had to run his ass off just to stay alive, but he'd worked hard and played his heart out. Three years later, the Jets picked him up.

That had been the first of his Golden Years.

In the fourth game of his first New York season, the starting quarterback had gotten hurt, and Jack's moment had come. He threw three touchdown passes in that game. By the end of that season, no one remembered the name of the quarterback he'd replaced. Jumpin' Jack Flash had been born. Crowds chanted his name; cameras flashed wherever he went. He led his team to back-to-back Super Bowl wins. It was the stuff of which legends were made. For years, he'd been a superstar. A hero.

Then he'd been hit.

Game over. Career ended.

"Jack?" Sally's voice pulled him back into the smoky bar. For a second there, he'd been gone. "What happened to you?"

He sighed. Here it comes.

"When I was a little girl--"

Oh, good.

"My dad and I used to watch football together. You were his favorite player. He pointed out every move you made, analyzed every pass you threw. I was eleven when he died--cancer--and when I remember those days, I always think of football. Every day after school, I sat beside his hospital bed. On the weekends we watched the games together. I think it was better than talking." She looked at him. It took her a second to smile. "He always said you were the best quarterback to play the game, and now you're in Portland, Oregon, on the lowest rated newscast in town. What happened?"

It was what they all asked, sooner or later. How did you lose it all? He always gave the same answer. "You know I blew out my knee."

She leaned forward, gazed at him earnestly. "There's more to it, isn't there?"

It felt dangerous suddenly, this moment; a slow, conscious skate toward the edge of intimacy. He knew better, of course. Every man his age did, but he'd been lonely for a long, long time, and just now that burden seemed heavier than before. "It started in the hospital."

Amazingly, he told her all of it, how he'd gotten addicted to his pain medications and blown his shot on Monday Night Football.

It came back to him like a handful of broken glass, all sharp edges and reflected light. He knew that if he held it too tightly, his hand would bleed, but he couldn't stop himself.

He'd tried so hard to pretend that losing football didn't matter, but the game had been his life. Without it, his days and nights had unfurled like scenes in a silent black-and-white movie. He'd anesthetized himself with pills and booze. His excesses had become legendary. He went from golden boy to party animal. There were huge chunks of time he couldn't even remember.

But he remembered The Accident. It had been late, or early, depending on your perspective, on a cold and snowy night. He shouldn't have been driving, not after a long night spent drinking at the Village Vanguard. But hindsight was twenty-twenty. What he remembered most was the screeching scream of tires and the smell of burning rubber.

"I didn't hurt anyone," he said softly, but that wasn't the point. "My agent kept it out of the papers, but my career was over anyway. After a stint in rehab, the only job I could get was for a local station in Albuquerque. It's been a long, slow climb back."

He looked at Sally and knew that something had changed between them. For the first time, she was seeing beyond Jackson Shore, Football Legend, to the man he was inside.

He tried to look away. Couldn't.

She touched his arm. "This story is going to make both of our careers."

Her touch was like an electrical spark.

He forced himself to look down at the papers spread out between them. He tried to read. Words drifted up to him, meaningless and unconnected. Then he noticed something. "The campus is closing today for winter break."

"I know."

He had to do something. Anything was better than sitting here, suddenly aching for a woman he couldn't have. "What do you say we go back, drive around? The administrators and staff will be gone. Maybe someone will talk when the wardens aren't around."

"It's worth a shot."

Jack paid the bill; then they left.

Back on campus, they tried all their usual places, looked for all their previous sources. They made themselves impossible to ignore, easy to find.

Nothing.

Finally, they pulled into the parking lot and sat in the car beneath a bright streetlamp. A silvery rain beaded the windshield.

"I guess that's that," he said at last, reaching for the keys. A glance at the dash clock revealed that it was one in the morning. In a few hours, he'd have to show up for work again.

A knock at the window shocked the hell out of both of them.

Jack rolled down the window. There, sidled close to the door, was a uniformed campus police officer, a man they'd tried to interview earlier. Sally immediately reached for a notepad and flipped to a blank sheet.

"You're lookin' for the dirt on Drew Grayland?" the officer whispered.

"Yeah. We heard he got picked up for drunk driving last Saturday night."

"Nothin' new in that. These athletes get away with murder. I'm sick of it. I've got daughters, you know?"

"Can you confirm that Drew was arrested on Saturday night?"

The officer laughed. "Arrested? I doubt it."

"What's your name?"

"Mark Lundberg."

"Can we quote you on the record?"

The officer shook his head. "I got two kids to feed. I can't take on this fight. But I can't stand by and do nothin' anymore. Here." He slipped a manila envelope through the open window.

Jack glanced down at the envelope. There were no markings on it of any kind. When he looked back outside, Lundberg was gone.

Jack opened the envelope and withdrew the papers, scanning them. "Oh, my God..."

"What is it?" Sally asked, her voice spiking up in anticipation.

"Incident reports. Four women have accused Drew of date rape."

"And he's never been arrested?"

He turned to look at her. "Never."

Elizabeth checked her to do list for the final time.

Mail packages

Pick up dry cleaning

Stop mail

Stop milk delivery

Change batteries in smoke detectors

Confirm seats

Everything was done. By this time tomorrow, she'd be at her dad's house, with her daughters and family around her, celebrating an old-fashioned Christmas.

After one last obsessive-compulsive pass through the house, she grabbed her purse and headed for the car.

But as she stepped out onto the porch, light spilled down from the quilted gray sky in flashlight-bright beams. It was what the locals called a "sunbreak." Her yard looked magical in this light, like a long-forgotten corner of some enchanted forest.

She stared at the cement pavers that ran like Gretel's white rocks to the edge of the property. They seemed to invite her to come forward.

Instead, she went to her car.

She made it to Portland in good time. For once, it wasn't raining, and the downtown streets were quiet. She supposed it was a sad reflection of the times. In years past--especially in the dot.com years--these streets had been crowded with holiday shoppers. Last year she'd had to wait almost an hour in the Meier and Frank wrapping area; this year, there'd been no line at all.

At the station, she parked in the visitor's section of the underground lot and went upstairs to the lobby.

"Hi, Eleanor," she said to the nose-ringed receptionist. "Happy holidays."

"Hey, Miz Shore. I don't celebrate Christmas--too commercialized--but thanks anyway. Same to you."

Elizabeth restrained a smile. She had never been that passionate and questioning, even in her youth. While some of her sorority sisters had spent long nights in the B&O Espresso on Capitol Hill, arguing about the political upheaval in Iran, she'd quietly immersed herself in painting.

In retrospect, she wished she'd rebelled a little more. A nose-ring-wearing, tattooed past would probably have done a woman like her a world of good.

She went upstairs and found Jack's office empty. Glancing worriedly at her watch, she hurried down to the studio, checked in, and slipped into the darkened room. There were fewer people in here than usual--probably a skeleton crew because of the holidays.

Jack was behind the big desk on set. In full makeup, with the lights bright on his face, he looked movie-star handsome. As usual. It was unfair, she thought suddenly, that he'd held on to his youth while hers seemed to be sliding south.

"... In this exclusive report," he was saying, "Channel 6 has uncovered a number of sexual misconduct allegations made against Panther center, Drew Grayland. In the past two years, four different women have made rape or sexual misconduct reports against Mr. Grayland. Campus officials did not turn these reports over to the Portland police, according to Police Chief Stephen Landis. Olympic University athletic director, Bill Seagel, had no comment today when apprised of the allegations, except to say that to his knowledge no criminal charges had been filed against Grayland. Coach Rivers confirmed that his star center will start against UCLA next week. This story is one we are continuing to follow; we'll bring you live updates as information becomes available."

Jack smiled at the female anchor beside him. They spoke for a second or two, then Jack took off his microphone and stood up. As he crossed the room, he noticed Elizabeth and grinned broadly. He grabbed her hand and led her back to his office, laughing as he kicked the door shut behind them.

"Can you believe it, Birdie? I did it." He laughed. "This is the story I've been working on for the past week. With any luck, the networks will pick it up." He swept her into his arms and lifted her off her feet.

She laughed along with him. No one did success like her husband. It had always been that way. In the good times, Jack was a rushing torrent of water that swept you away.

He loosened his hold, and she slid back down to the floor.

They stared at each other; their smiles slowly faded. After a long, awkward moment, she said, "Are you ready to go?" She glanced down at her watch. "Our plane leaves in two hours."

Jack frowned. "We leave tomorrow."

Son of a bitch. He'd done it again.

She was proud of her control when she said simply, "No. We leave today. December twenty-second."

"Shit."

"Your bags are in the car, don't worry. I packed everything. All you have to do is drive us to the airport."

The door to his office smacked open. A young woman in a gray knit dress and knee-length boots ran into the room. "You're not going to believe this," she said, rushing forward. She got halfway across the room before she realized that Jack wasn't alone. She stopped, smiled pleasantly at Elizabeth. "I'm sorry to interrupt. But this is big news. I'm Sally."

Elizabeth's smile was cinched tight. She was too angry with her husband to be sociable. "Hello, Sally. I believe we met at the station's Labor Day picnic."

"Oh... yeah."

Clearly, I made an impression.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, Jack, but I knew you'd want to see this." She handed Jack a sheet of paper. "Three more women filed complaints against Grayland."

"Have they arrested him?"

"Not yet. Coach Rivers said--and I quote: 'In this great land of ours, a man is innocent until proven guilty.' "

"In other words, Drew plays until they shut the prison door on him."

"Exactly. But here's the really great news: I just took a call from one of the girls. She'll talk to you. On camera."

"Meet me in the lobby in thirty minutes. We'll come up with a game plan."

"You got it." With a hurried nod to Elizabeth, Sally left the room. The door banged shut behind her.

Elizabeth looked at her husband. "Let me guess. You're not coming with me."

He took her in his arms. "Come on, baby," he murmured against her ear, "you know how much I need this. Like air."

And your needs are always important, aren't they, Jack?

It pissed her off that she couldn't say it aloud. At what age would she finally learn to speak her mind?

"I'll make it up to you," he promised. "And I'll be at your dad's before Christmas Eve."

His voice was as soft as silk, seductive. She knew he had no doubt at all that he'd get his way. Her acquiescence on all things was expected, a support beam of their sagging marriage.

They were close enough to kiss, but she couldn't imagine any more distance between them. "Mean it, Jackson," she said.

"I do."

The two words reminded her of all their years together. She wondered if he'd chosen them specifically. "Okay, honey. I'll go on ahead."

He kissed her hard and let her go. She stumbled backward, off-balance.

"I love you, Birdie."

She wanted to answer, but couldn't. He didn't seem to notice anyway. His mind had already followed young Sally out the door.

Later, as she walked through the station's empty parking lot, she wondered--and not for the first time--how often could a woman bend before she broke?

Elizabeth hated to fly alone. It made her feel like a stick of licorice in a bowl of rice. Noticeable and wrong.

She didn't say a single word except "thank you" on either of the flights, just kept her nose buried in a romance novel.

At the rental-car agency in Nashville, she chose a sensible midsized white Ford Taurus and filled out the paperwork. Amazingly, she'd never done this before. She'd always stood silently by while Jack did all the writing. Her job had been to keep the documents in a safe place until they turned the car back in.

When everything was finished, she got into the car and drove south.

Each mile driven calmed her nerves.

She was back in her beloved Tennessee, the only place in the world beside Echo Beach that felt like home.

At the Springdale exit, she hit her turn signal and eased the rental car off the freeway.

First, she noticed the changes. Springdale had definitely grown up in the three years since her last visit. The main part of town had migrated east, as if all those glorious old buildings were carriers of some communicable disease. They stood clustered together, a brick-and-mortar enclave huddled around what had once been the only stoplight in town.

Now a four-lane road ran through Springdale, with long, strip malls on either side. A Wal-Mart sat kitty-corner from a Target; foes locked in a discount dogfight in a blue-collar town. There were golden arches and neon Winn-Dixie signs and even a Blockbuster Video store. Everything was decorated red and green for Christmas. Countless signs advertised holiday sales.

But there, tucked on the corner of First and Main, between a sprawling new Kroger and a Cracker Barrel restaurant, was the tavern her daddy had loved. More than once, Elizabeth had dragged him home from there....

Why, darlin', he'd always say in that roaring voice of his, with laughter just below the surface, it can't be time for supper yet?

A mile out of town, the road thinned down to two lanes again, and she was back in the place where she'd grown up. On either side of the quiet road, empty tobacco fields stretched to the horizon, broken only by occasional groves of bare trees. A few homesteads presided over it all, the houses hidden from view by carefully planted evergreens. The only signs of progress were dozens of manufactured houses and the billboards that looked down on them. Up ahead, there was a four-way stop. On one of the corners was a tall pole; a rusted orange tractor sat atop it on a metal plate. It had been the landmark entrance to Sojourner Road for as long as anyone could recall.

Elizabeth turned onto the long gravel road that bordered her father's land.

To the right, everything belonged to Edward Rhodes. Acres and acres of tilled red earth. Soon, the crops would be planted. By July, the corn would be as tall as a man and go on forever. By October, the leaves would be brownish gold and thin as paper,and when the early winter winds came, the rustling stalks would sound like a hive of bees. That was the cycle of the land, the measure of time. Everything in her daddy's world had been tacked to seasons. Things came and went and lived and died according to sunlight.

At last, she came to the driveway. A huge, scrollwork metal arch curved above the road. Swinging gently in the breeze was the copper sign, long since aged to blue-green, that read: sweetwater.

Elizabeth eased back on the gas. The car slowed as she drove down the driveway. On either side of her, bare, brown tree limbs reached beseechingly toward the winter-gray sky.

She was home.

The Federal style brick house stood proudly on a manicured yard. Clipped evergreen hedges outlined the perimeter, the perfectly shaped line broken here and there by ancient walnut trees. One of those trees still held the tire swing that had been young Elizabeth's favorite place to play on a sunny summer's day. Beneath it, the ghost of a long-unused footpath remained.

Elizabeth parked in front of the carriage house turned garage and shut down the engine. When she stepped outside, she smelled chimney smoke and wet earth and mulch. She pulled her garment bag out of the car and headed up to the front door, where she rang the bell.

There were a few moments of silence, then the shuffling of feet and a muffled voice.

Daddy opened the door. He wore a blue-checked flannel shirt and a pair of crumpled khaki pants. His white, flyaway hair was Albert Einstein wild, and his smile was big enough to break a girl's heart.

"Sugar beet," he said in that gravelly voice of his. His molasses-thick drawl stretched the words into taffy, Sugah beeat. "We didn't expect ya'll for another hour or so. Come on, now, don't stand there a-starin'. Give your old man a hug."

She launched forward. His big arms curled around her, made her feel small again, young. He smelled of her childhood, of pipe smoke and expensive aftershave and peppermint gum.

When she drew back, he touched her face. It had always amazed her that a hand so big could be so gentle. "We missed you something awful." He glanced back down the hallway. "Hurry up, Mother, our little girl is home."

There was an immediate response. Elizabeth heard the gatling gun sound of high heels on marble flooring. Then she smelled flowers--gardenias. Her stepmother's "signature" scent.

Anita came running around the corner, wearing cherry red silk evening pants, stiletto black heels, and an absurdly low cut gold spandex top. Her long, platinum blond hair had been coiled and teased until it sat on top of her head like a dunce cap. When she saw Elizabeth, she let out a little screech and barreled forward like Bette Midler on speed. "Why, Birdie, we didn't expect ya'all so soon." She started forward, as if she were going to hug Elizabeth, but at the last minute, she came to a bumpy stop and sidled up to Daddy. "It's good to have y' home, Birdie. It's been too long."

"Yes, it has."

"Well..." Anita's painted smile came and went. One of those awkward pauses fell, the kind that always punctuated Anita and Elizabeth's conversations. "I better check my cider. Daddy, you show our Birdie up to her room."

Elizabeth tried to keep her smile in place. Of all her stepmother's irritating habits (and they were legion), calling her husband "Daddy" was top of the heap.

He grabbed Elizabeth's garment bag and led her upstairs to her old bedroom. It was exactly as it had always been. Pale, lemony walls, honey-oak floors, a big white French Provincial four-poster bed that Daddy had gone all the way to Memphis for, and a white bookcase and desk. Someone--Anita, probably--had lit a candle in here; the room smelled of evergreen. There was still a framed, autographed picture of Davy Jones on the wall by the bureau. It said: To Liz, love always, Davy.

Elizabeth had found it at a garage sale out near Russellville one Saturday afternoon. For three years--between seventh and ninth grades--it had been her prized possession. After a while, she'd practically forgotten that it hadn't been signed for her personally.

"So, where's golden boy?" Daddy asked as he hung up her garment bag.

"He broke a big story and needed another day to wrap it up. He'll be here tomorrow."

"Too bad he couldn't fly down with you." He said it slowly, as if he meant to say more, or maybe less.

She couldn't look at him. "Yes."

Her father knew something was wrong between her and Jack. Of course he knew; he'd always seen through her. But he wouldn't push. If there was one thing a Southern family knew how to keep, it was a secret. "Your mother made us some hot cider," he said at last. "Let's go sit on the porch a spell."

"She's not my mother." The response was automatic. The moment she said it, she wished she hadn't. "I'm sorry," she said, gesturing helplessly with her hands.

There were other things she could say, excuses and explanations she'd tried on like ill-fitting sweaters over the years, but in the end, they amounted to empty words, and she and her father knew it. Elizabeth and Anita had never gotten along. Simple as that. It was years too late to change it... or to pretend otherwise.

Daddy heaved a big-chested sigh of disappointment, then said, "Walk your old man outside. Tell me about your excitin' life in that heathen Yankee rain forest."

As they'd done a thousand times before, they walked arm-in-arm down the wide, curving mahogany staircase, crossed the black-and-white marble-floored entry, and headed for the kitchen, where the cinnamony scent of hot apple cider beckoned.

Elizabeth steeled herself for another round of stiff, awkwardly polite conversation with her stepmother, but to her relief, the kitchen was empty. Two mugs sat on the pale wooden butcher block. A silver sugar bowl was between them.

"She always remembers your sweet tooth," Daddy said.

Elizabeth nodded. "Go on outside; I'll bring our cider out."

As soon as he started for the door, she poured two cups of cider and carried them outside.

The back porch wasn't really a porch at all; rather, it was a portico-covered square of stone-tiled space. Winter-dead wisteria and jasmine twined the white pillars in veins as thick and gnarled as an old man's arm. Overhead, it hung in sagging, ropy skeins that bowed the massive white beams downward. Now, in the midst of winter, it gave the area a vaguely sinister look, but come spring, when the green shoots exploded along those seemingly dead brown limbs, that same wisteria would turn this back porch into a fragrant bower. Beyond, huddled in darkness, was her mother's garden.

Several black wrought-iron chairs hugged the back of the house. Each one faced the sprawling yard. Elizabeth handed Daddy his cider, then sat down in the chair next to his. The chairs creaked back and forth on runners that had been old ten years ago.

"I'm glad you could make it home this year."

Something about the way he said it bothered her. She looked at him sharply. "Is everything all right? Are you healthy?"

He laughed heartily. "Now, sugar beet, don't try to make me old before my time. I'm fine. Hell, your moth--Anita and I are plannin' to kayak in Costa Rica this spring. There's a place called Cloud Mountain--or some damn thing--that speaks right to m' heart. Next year we're gonna climb up to Machu Picchu. I'm just glad you could make it down here, is all. I miss seein' you and my granddaughters."

"I believe you forgot to mention Jack," she observed dryly.

"Like you keep forgettin' to mention Anita. Hell's bells, honey, I reckon we're too old to be fabricatin' feelings. But as long as you're happy with golden boy, I'm happy with him." He paused, glanced sideways at her. "You are happy, aren't you?"

She laughed, but even to her own ears, it was a brittle sound, like glass hitting a tile floor. "Things are great. The house is finally coming together. You'll have to come see us this year. Maybe for the Fourth of July. That's a beautiful month on the coast."

"I've been hearin' about your beautiful coast for two solid years now, but every danged time you call me it's rainin'. And that includes the summer months."

This time Elizabeth's laugh was real. She leaned back in her chair, stared out at the yard that had once seemed so big. The shadowy stalks in Mama's garden glinted in the moonlight. She could hear the snarling rush of the creek down below, almost a river this time of year. Come summer though, it'd be a lazy ribbon of water where dragonflies came to mate.

She remembered another time in this backyard, back when she'd been a little girl. It had been after her mother's funeral. The moment she'd realized that Mama was really gone. Forever.

She'd been sitting in the grass, a kindergartner catching fireflies in a mason jar, listening to the distant buzz of adult conversation. It had been spring--April--and the night air smelled of the honeysuckle and jasmine her mama loved. When everyone had gone home, her father had finally come to her and squatted down. You want to sleep in my room tonight, sugar beet?

That was what he'd said to her. Nothing about Mama or grief or the endless sadness that was to come. Just one simple sentence that was the end of one life and the beginning of another.

She remembered how wrecked he'd looked, and how it had frightened her. She'd known loss from the moment they'd told her that Mama had gone to Heaven, but it was then, from Daddy, that she'd learned about fear.

As she stared ahead, watching the silvery ghost of a little girl looking at yellow-bright lights in a glass jar, she said, "The moon looked just like this that night."

"What night?"

"Mama's funeral," she said softly, hearing her father's sharply indrawn breath when she mentioned the taboo subject. "I sat out in the backyard all day. I think everyone in the county came out to give me a hug and a kiss."

Daddy planted his big, splayed hands on his pants and pushed to a stand. In the pale blue moonlight, he looked thinner than usual. "I think I'll call it a night." He leaned down, pushed the hair from her eyes in a gesture as familiar as her own reflection, and kissed her forehead. " 'Night, Birdie."

She shouldn't have mentioned Mama. It had always been the surest way to get rid of her father. He was at the screen door by the time she found the courage to say softly, "You never talk about her."

He stopped. The door screeched open. She thought she heard him sigh. "No, I don't."

She knew the end of a conversation when she heard it. The finality in his voice was unmistakable. As usual, she gave in gracefully, knowing how much it hurt him to remember Mama. "Good night, Daddy. Tell Anita I'll see her in the morning."

"Some wounds run deep, Birdie." When he spoke, his voice was as soft as she'd ever heard it. "You'd best remember that."

Then the door banged shut, and she was alone.