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During their marriage, Locklear was rarely without a role on a TV series – Spin City, Scrubs, LAX and most recently Boston Legal – which tied her to L.A. Sambora, meanwhile, was regularly gone for long periods while touring, most recently promoting Bon Jovi's latest release, Have a Nice Day. Still, for years their bond – including their devotion to their daughter – kept them on track. "They've always been so unbelievably supportive of each other," says their friend. "He was always attending events with her. And she'd go to concerts and stare at him like it was the first time."
In addition to the stress created from having two divergent careers, there was another reported source of friction between Locklear and Sambora: the prospect of having more kids. Sambora is an "amazing, devoted father," says Lonn Friend, the kind who didn't think twice, for instance, about ditching an event in New Jersey early so he could fly to L.A. to see Ava perform in a school production of Peter Rabbit. Irrepressibly proud, he loved to take Ava on the road with him, even bring her up onstage. And he has long been talking about trying for kid No. 2. For a time, Locklear, a loving mom, says Friend – "and one of the kindest people I've ever met" – was mulling over the idea.
In 2000 her best friend, Lisa Ashley, told PEOPLE "She talks about it, but that's as far as it has gone. She goes back and forth." But time took the parents in different directions. When, in her Feb. 2 interview, ABC News Radio reporter Ricciuti asked Sambora if there were any more kids on the way, he said, "I wish, I wish." But Locklear, he added, was not game: "It just gets to a point where women go, 'I don't want to go through that again.' For us it's easy. We just point and shoot. So I'm done."
