No, wait, there was a real bell ringing somewhere.

She pulled away. “Oh my God, what time is it? That’s my mother!”

“You have a mother?” Luke muttered, trying to kiss her again, the evidence of his own blossoming passion poking her belly. “She’ll call back.”

Camry untangled herself from his embrace and hobbled toward her bed. “But if I don’t answer, she’ll call my lab.” She suddenly changed directions when she realized her cell phone wasn’t on her nightstand. “Come on, where in hell are you?” She looked around the room, honed in on the bureau, and snatched up her purse.

“Hi, Mom,” she said as soon as she flipped open her cell phone. “Gee, is it Monday already? I’ve been so involved in my work, I don’t even know what day it is.”

She jumped when Luke took hold of her arm, then let him help her to the bed so she could sit down. “Really?” she said into the phone as she waved him away. “Three feet? It’s early for that much snow, isn’t it? But it’s good for the ski business.”

She frowned at Luke when, instead of leaving, he walked around and sat down on his side of the bed and started eating her orange.

“Um, Mom? Could you hold on a minute? Someone just walked in. Stay on the line—this will only take a minute.”

She found the Mute button and held it down with her thumb, then snatched her orange from him. “Can’t you see I’m having a personal conversation here? Go back to your own bed.”

“But it’s small. And the damn thing’s too short for me.” He picked up the toast on her plate of scrambled eggs and dismissed her with a wave. “Don’t let me stop you. I’m just going to finish my breakfast and have a nap.”

“You are not sleeping in my bed.”

“It’ll be easier for Fiona if we’re both in the same room.”

She arched a brow. “So you wouldn’t mind if your baby sister took care of two virtual strangers sharing the same bed?”

He scowled at her, then stuffed his mouth full of toast.

Camry released the Mute button and held the phone back to her ear. “Can I call you back later, Mom? There’s something going on here that needs my undivided attention. What?” She sighed. “Yeah, I’m afraid I still can’t make it home for the solstice. I know, but better than anyone, you should understand how this work goes. I really don’t dare lose my focus for that long. And I can’t work at home during the holidays because of all the chaos. Okay, I’ll talk to you later. Yes, I love you, too. Bye, Mom. Tell Daddy I love him,” she said in a rush, just before hitting the End button.

“You’re not going home for Christmas?” Luke asked, taking another bite of toast.

Camry stuffed what was left of her orange in her mouth.

“Wait, you said if you didn’t answer, your mom would call your lab. You have a lab?” He made a production of looking at all the doors in the room, then pointed at the closet door. “Is it in there? What kind of lab is it?” He gasped dramatically. “Not a meth lab!” He shook his head. “And you’re worried about what impression our being in the same bed will have on Fiona.”

“Will you get real? Better yet, get out of here.”

“What kind of lab were you talking about, MacKeage?”

She settled back against the headboard with a sigh, and pushed around her eggs with a fork. “I used to be a rocket propulsion physicist.”

“You’re a rocket scientist? For real? Wait, you said used to be. As in you’re not a physicist anymore?” He grinned. “What happened, did you suddenly forget how to count past ten without undressing your feet?”

She glared over at him. “No, I got stuck.”

“Stuck?” He snorted. “Real scientists don’t get stuck, MacKeage. We hit brick walls sometimes, but we either find a way around them or start digging through them. Wait,” he said, snapping his fingers. “Did your brick wall have anything to do with that guy you were having the e-mail argument with?”

“The arrogant bastard sent me an equation that completely contradicted three years of my work,” she growled, throwing the fork across the room, where it hit the wall and clattered to the floor. “And then he had the audacity to suggest we should work on the problem together.”

“So, are you angry because a fellow scientist wants to work with you, or because the equation he sent you was correct?”

“His name is Lucian Renoir. God, even his name sounds arrogant. But I’m the one who’s going to give the world a viable ion propulsion system,” she said, slapping her chest, “whereas he just wants to come here and steal my work.”

“Um, there’s a bit of a flaw in your theory, MacKeage. He can’t steal what doesn’t exist. You walked away, remember?” He suddenly smiled at her. “But if you think this Renoir fellow is five feet three and weighs four hundred pounds, maybe you’re expecting him to croak any minute, and then you’ll start working again?”

Since she’d thrown the fork, Camry used her fingers to eat some of the scrambled eggs. “I can’t start up again if I can’t figure out how to get unstuck.” She glanced at him, then looked back at the tray. “He . . . the equation he sent me was correct. I had to retrace nearly two years of work before I found where I’d shot off on a tangent.” She looked over at him. “But even though I found the problem, I still can’t figure out how to fix it.”

“Maybe Renoir could help you.”

“But if he can make it work, then I should be able to, too.” She actually smiled. “But I doubt he can do it on his own, because he’s really not all that bright.”

“He’s not?”

“He can’t even figure out that my mother is Dr. Grace Sutter.”

“The Dr. Sutter, who used to work for StarShip Spaceline? Hell, I’ve read all her papers. She’s the one who turned me on to space science when I was twelve.”

Cam snorted. “She turned me on to it in her womb.”

“So why aren’t you collaborating with her?”

She looked back down at the tray and frowned. “I’ve tried, but she refuses. She just suddenly walked away from ion propulsion when I was a kid, and started locking herself in her lab to work on something else.” She snorted. “Probably cookie recipes. Having seven daughters seems to have taken the edge off her passion for science.” She looked over at him. “You men don’t have to worry about pregnancies messing you up with nurturing hormones, so you never lose your edge.”

His navy blue eyes studied her for several heartbeats. “Is that what you think happened to your mother?”

“What else could it be? She was really close to perfecting ion propulsion when she met my father and started having babies, and, thirty-five years later, we still don’t have a viable system.”

“But the paper I read was written . . .” He looked away in thought. “I was around twelve then, and I’m thirty-three now.” He looked back at her. “Your mother was still publishing just twenty years ago. And I believe she’s published as recently as six years ago, though not on ion propulsion. She’s still in the game, Camry. At least she didn’t just suddenly walk away to start bartending and babysitting dogs.”

Cam said nothing as she looked down at the tray again.

“What really made you walk away, MacKeage?” His eyes suddenly widened. “Does it have something to do with what Fiona said just a minute ago? Maybe you’re not standing in front of a brick wall, but are smack in the middle of a midlife crisis.” He pointed at the bedroom door. “When you were Fiona’s age, didn’t you want it all, too: a career and a husband and children? But where you had one out of the three, now you have none.” He suddenly smiled. “Or are you really on sabbatical, working on goals two and three?”

“I don’t ever intend to get married and have children.”

“Not ever? That’s a hell of a long time.”

“I don’t see you rushing out to get yourself a wife and children.”

He let out a huge yawn and suddenly scooted down in the bed. “I would probably be married right now if I could keep a girlfriend long enough to propose to her. I just can’t seem to find one who gets turned on by what I do.”