Chapter 1

Eleven years later

Sol sat cross-legged on the floor while Kael lay draped over her sofa like tinsel on a Christmas tree. Both held a white quart-sized container of their favorite Chinese food. Sol had sweet and sour shrimp with steamed rice, while Kael devoured his Kung Pao chicken—extra spicy. This was their customary Friday night dinner get-together and indepth conversation that was guaranteed to get the old brain cells puffing and panting.

Tonight’s topic: single motherhood.

“I mean, I’m nearly thirty-years-old,” Sol said, pointing at him with a white plastic fork. “I’ve all but given up on finding a husband. My biological clock is in its final hours. I don’t want to waste what fertile years I have left waiting for Prince Charming to come along and sweep me off my feet.” She snorted, placing the fork and empty cardboard container on the coffee table in front of her. “I could be dead and buried before he ever came along. In fact, I seriously doubt that there is a man for me out there in the world.”

“I know what you mean,” Kael said around his last bite of chicken. “I think I’ll stay solo too, but my decision is by choice.”

“I could be a single parent.” Sol leaned back against the couch, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. “A lot of women have done it. Why not me? I’ll just find some guy I know reasonably well, that way I won’t be taking the risk of contracting some god-awful disease, ask him to go to bed with me, and when I get pregnant, cut off the relationship.” She shrugged, looking right at him. “All I want is a baby.”

“I don’t know whether or not to take you seriously.”

Sol frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

A slow shrug lifted Kael’s shoulders. “I don’t know. Women have a strange way about them occasionally, especially at certain times during the month. They either get pissy, weepy, or, in your case, melancholy.”

“You know, you can be a real ass sometimes.” She sniffed, absently twining a finger through one of her curls.

“Okay, okay.” Kael held up a hand, munching on his last sauce-covered peanut. “You’re looking for a surrogate father in order to create a baby. To add the final building block onto your well-structured life.” Sol nodded.

Kael lifted his brows. Okay, he’d go along with her on this. “You’d make a great mother. You seem ready. Fine, I’ll help you choose a father.” Sol smiled then stuck her tongue at him when he said, “Even if I do think this is a crazy-assed idea. How about Joe Rivera over in automotive?” he asked, setting his empty container next to Sol’s on the table. He shifted into a more horizontal position, his head resting on one arm of the couch, his shoeless feet propped up on the other end.

“Have you seen his hands? All that grease?” Sol shuddered. “I wouldn’t let him touch me with a ten-foot wrench!”

Kael let out an amused laugh.

Sol stood, lifting his sock-clad feet so she could sit on the sofa. When she was seated and comfortable, Kael rested his legs on top of Sol’s thighs, looking at her through lowered lashes. “Comfy?” she dryly asked. When he grinned, she rolled her eyes at him, but didn’t attempt to remove the big hairy legs that were sprawled all over her.

Kael stuck a finger in his mouth, deep in thought, then pulled it out and snapped, “I have an idea!”

Sol groaned. “Please, not another one of your lousy ideas.”

“Since when have I ever had a single lousy idea?”

She lifted a brow at him. “Oh, how about the time when you vowed to make us both rich, insisting that homemade silk was the perfect market? So, without warning, you brought over two thousand silkworms in ten different aquariums, looking at me with those sad, brown puppy eyes of yours, begging for my help. As if I knew what to do with two thousand silkworms! A number of weeks later we had a whole herd of white moths, three-hundred cocooned corpses, and not even the tiniest scrap of silk.” Kael grimaced. “That was different.”

“Okay. How about the time you rented a hotdog cart and had one of your blonde bimbos push it along the streets of downtown as she wore a string bikini?”

“Hey,” Kael interrupted, “I made five hundred bucks that day selling those hotdogs.”

“True. You also lost every penny when you had to pay the fine you received for peddling without a license, and whatever-her-name-was was arrested for indecent exposure.” Sol laughed. “I do have to admit though that your gym project has come along quite well. I’m amazed at all of the arrogant muscle-heads who’ve joined in the past two years. Men!”

“Now do you want to hear my idea or not?”

“Let’s hear it, Damien.”

Kael feigned indignation. “How about Lenard over in Electronics?”

Sol wrinkled her pert, freckled nose. “Strike up another lousy idea for Damien Kael Cervantes. He’s too wimpy.”

“Kevin Santos?” As soon as he’d said the man’s name, Kael knew it was a bad idea.

“Kevin Santos, huh?” Sol’s lips curved in a seductive smile. He didn’t miss that wicked spark in her eyes either. “You mean hunk-of-the-month, Playgirl-centerfold, hurtme-bad, Kevin Santos?”

Kael frowned. “I don’t like the way you just said that.”

“Now what are you talking about?”

“In all the years I’ve known you, not once have I seen your libido kick in. It definitely won’t be Kevin Santos.”

“Oh, stop acting like a jealous brother.”

Kael was wide-eyed as he pointed to his chest. “Jealous? Me?” He went silent before saying, “Oh, hell, maybe I am just a tad jealous, but I have to watch out for you. That man has an ego ten times bigger than his two-hundred-plus pound body and twice as many women lining up to worship him.”

“So?”

“Not Kevin.” Kael was getting edgy.

“Why not?” Sol absently trailed a short-trimmed nail over the scar in his right knee.

The surgery had been ages ago, yet he still walked with a limp whenever he was overly tired or the weather got too cold. Living in foggy San Francisco played havoc with him quite often. “It would be a night I’m sure I would never forget.” She indulged in a moment of fantasy centered on her and hunky Kevin, sweaty and tangled amongst her bed sheets. Focusing back on Kael, she pulled one of his leg hairs, making him yelp.

He knew she did it on purpose, just to bug him.

“Hey!” He reached down to rub his leg. “Better watch it, Celestine.”

Sol ignored his warning and went on, saying, “I wouldn’t have to worry about getting emotionally involved with him since he only loves himself.” She grinned, displaying the same set of dimples JM had possessed. “Besides, I’ll be getting a beautiful baby out of it.” She sighed.

“Not Kevin.” Kael swung his feet to the floor, missing Sol’s nose by a fraction of an inch, and sat upright.

Sol frowned. “And why not, may I ask?”

Leaning forward with his forearms on his knees, fingers steepled under his beardshadowed chin, Kael thought hard and fast. “He’s … uh… he’s gay.” He snapped his fingers, jerking his head in her direction. “That’s it, he’s gay!”

Sol’s mouth dropped open. “Kevin Santos? Gay? But he’s so hunky!”

Kael got up to get himself another lite beer, mumbling, “Yeah, well, people can shock you these days.” He felt like scum telling Sol that lie, but he couldn’t bear the thought of Kevin manhandling that little body of hers as if she was nothing more than a piece of meat. Another one of his adoring groupies. Sol needed to be treated gently, worshipped tenderly, even if it was for only one night.

He opened the fridge, extracting a clear, long-necked bottle, twisting off the cap and swallowing long and deep as he studied the woman in the living room who was clearing the table of their dinner debris.

She was wearing a blue, faded football jersey. SOLEIL and the number sixteen were on the front and back in big white numbers and letters, though they were now pale and cracked. He had given her that jersey for her sixteenth birthday, and was surprised that she still wore it after all these years. Each time he saw it on her he figured it would head for the garbage rather than another washing. But she was a sentimental one and continued to hold onto it.

When Sol was younger she had inherited the title of The Pretty Soul; a nickname given to her by Kael himself. He was always complaining about how she got in the way, was always a pest following him and JM around when they were all kids. A royal pain in the ass. A Pretty Soul.

As the years passed, The Soul name stuck, but Kael no longer found her to be a pest. On the contrary, she was his very best friend. His companion. His solace. She was also a freckle-nosed, curly-headed pip-squeak who got on his nerves from time to time.

Brushing past him as he lounged in the kitchen doorway, Sol dumped the empty cartons into the orange plastic garbage can that sat next to the fridge; closing the door he’d left open, retrieving the cap off the floor that he had tossed in the general area of the trash, yet missed. “You really are quite a slob.”

She went to stand next to Kael, absently taking the empty beer bottle he handed her, discarding it in the trash can. She walked back over to him, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip. “That only leaves old Mr. Dower over in Linens. I’m not that desperate!” A sigh seeped from her lungs as she went back into the living room, plopping down on the leaf-print couch. “Everyone else is married, spoken for, or otherwise unsuitable. I really want a baby, Kael.” She cast him a woeful glance. “Isn’t there anybody who’d be willing to sleep with me a couple of times so I could get my baby?”

Pushing himself away from the doorframe, Kael went to sit next to Sol, their bare thighs touching. “How about me?” he suggested, surprising them both.