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Cassie wants me to care for Hope without a second thought.” He stood. “Sorry. I didn’t actually plan to tell you all this. Can I pick you up at seven in the morning?”
    “Are we leaving now?”
    “I have to—yes.”
    She came around the table to hug him tight. “You can’t help being a good man. I believe in you.”
    “I’m not sure it’s enough.”
    She patted his cheek, apparently overwhelmed by motherly impulses. “I’d bet it is.”
    “She’s not even planning to stay here. I don’t know what kind of future—”
    “Maybe you’ll have to go with her. She must have a job, and her daughter will have made friends. You can do your work anywhere.”
    “Beth, she runs a shelter in Washington. After what she went through, she counsels other women who’ve also been raped. I hate the thought of her reliving that every day.”
    “She was always going to do social work of some kind. Maybe treating other women helps her heal.”
    “That’s pretty much what she said.” He hugged his sister, grateful for her common sense even if he couldn’t share her faith. “Let’s go, Beth. Is it okay if I pick you up at seven tomorrow?”

CHAPTER FIVE
    “M OMMY .” Hope’s voice, punctuated by a bounce that nearly tossed Cassie out of her bed. “Mommy, time to get up. I’m starwing again.”
    “Okay.” Cassie tried to pry one sleepy eye open. “What are the numbers on the clock?”
    Bounce. “A six.” Bounce. “A three.” Bounce, bounce. Cassie’s brains began to scramble. “And a circle.”
    “A circle?” She pushed herself onto one elbow, searching for the digital display. “Six-thirty. We’d better get moving, punkin’. Mr. Van will be here before we know it.”
    “More food.”
    Cassie caught Hope’s arm. “You’re going to fall down and break your crown.”
    With her sleeper-clad feet pointed as professionally as any ballerina’s, Hope collapsed backward in giggles. Cassie must be funnier than she knew.
    Morning people. She rolled over to tickle Hope. “Are you really hungry? Oatmeal? Grits? Gruel?”
    “What’s gru, Mommy?”
    Cassie sat up, pulling her little girl into her lap. “I don’t actually know. You want some toast as an appetizer while I take a shower?”
    “I watch Dora?”
    “You wouldn’t take advantage of a mom for some TV time, would you?”
    Giggling with a four-year-old’s joy, she nodded. “And choplit milk?”
    “Yup, but only ’cause we’re in a special place, and you’ve never been here before.”
    “When we go home, I have to eat normal and no TV?”
    “Right.”
    But when would they go home? She helped Hope into her robe and steered her down the stairs to the kitchen. They made toast together, smearing it with strawberry jam, and then they took the plate back upstairs.
    Feeling just a smidge guilty, Cassie settled Hope in front of the TV with her toast. Then she sped through a shower, dressed and whipped up an egg-and-cheese omelet. Hope was digging in when a knock came at the front door.
    “I get it.” Still chewing her first bite, Hope bolted, with Cassie hot on her heels. Hope yanked at the doorknob, but Cassie had to work the locks first.
    Seeing Van set her heart pounding, but she didn’t have to like it.
    Then she saw Beth. She stepped into the wood smoke-scented morning and threw her arms around the woman who’d been more sister than sister-in-law. She’d longed for Beth so many times in the past five years.
    “Hi,” she said, acknowledging Van’s anxious glance over his sister’s shoulder. She moved her daughter in front of her and laughed as her little girl immediately offered a hand to shake. “Hope, this is Beth.”
    Smiling with apparently unadulterated happiness, Beth squatted to meet Hope on her own level. “You look so much like your mommy. You know, she was my best friend when I was a little girl.”
    “My best friend is Susie Banner.”
    “Does Susie live in Washington?”
    Hope nodded, and her hair fell around her