Lacey Robinson raised her 19 year old daughter, Jessica, on her own after her husband told her he didn't love her anymore and walked out on their young marriage before she even knew she was pregnant - and she never saw him again. At a ceremony where she is to present a check of donations collected for research on a particular debilitating medical illness, however, she sees him in a crowd and her world changes. At first she hopes it was somene other than Lewis Marsh, but when she goes to meet with the primary researcher to discuss winding down the charity collection and Lewis is there again. Traumatized, and realizing perhaps she never got over her love for Lewis (a brilliant conclusion on her part considering she hasn't had sex in over 20 years), Lacey flees.
But Lewis has a confession to make and shows up at her house - he is a carrier of this horrible disease - he hadn't realized that she was pregnant, and he had a vascetomy as soon as he learned he was a carrier; now Jessica might be a carrier as well. Lacey pushes Lewis away, telling Jessica herself, but Jessica is interested in her father and seeks him out. Lewis comes over to see how Lacey is handling him knowing Jessica, and they fall into bed - Lewis implies he hasn't had sex in over 20 years either...Lacey tells him it's just sex, but when Jessica finds them there in the morning they agree to pretend to be getting back together (ie, engaged) to smooth this over. Will they truly reconcile? Will Jessica be a carrier? And just why did Lewis leave Lacey?
This is an interesting book - it's engaging and well written, but I have some trouble buying in to the whole "I never slept with anyone else" thing. Lacey refers several times to her body wanting Lewis because he was its only lover - and the personifaction of her body kinda creeps me out, although I appreciate that this may have been to show her denial over still loving Lewis. Also, the emotioanl aspects of the secret baby (now an adult woman) were somewhat underdone, and I question a bit the family planning decisions made at the end of the book. But all in all it's not a bad read, although I would recommend someone new to Penny Jordan to pick a different book to be their first.
