The hellion

CHAPTER FIVE

But by Sunday afternoon the house had grown too silent, too oppressive. It was spring, and Alabama had embarked upon that time of color and rebirth. Blossoms were exploding everywhere: azaleas in shades of red and pink, dogwoods in white, wisteria in violet, and redbuds like a purple haze limning the countryside. Was there a time of year that tugged at the heartstrings more than this? That drew memories out of hiding and made them even more poignant in recollection than they'd been in reality?

Rachel lay in the backyard while bees buzzed in the blossoming pyracantha bushes bordering the high brick wall. She moved restlessly on the chaise longue, closing her eyes against the sun and the loneliness, but seeing dancing pictures on her closed eyelids. Pictures of Tommy Lee past and Tommy Lee present. She rolled to her stomach, trying to shut them out, but they persisted even as she searched for a distracting sound to take away the memory of his voice, inviting, "Come out to the house… please." But there was nothing so silent as a small-town Sunday afternoon.

When she could tolerate it no longer she flung herself up and marched into the house, driving her fingers through her twenty-five-dollar hairdo, realizing that stubbornness was a poor substitute for company. Don't think about whether it's wise or not-for once, just go with your heart.

She bathed, applied fresh makeup, dabbed scent behind her ears, and dressed in a sporty knit pink and gray striped top with matching skirt, both of which snapped up the front. She slipped her bare feet into white thong sandals, debated about what bathing suit to take, and decided to stop at the store and pick out a new one.

The store was different on Sundays-empty and shadowed. The display lights were off, the silence oddly disquieting, and Rachel had the strange feeling she was being given this pause as a last chance to come to her senses. But today spring controlled her senses. Almost defiantly, she stepped to the bathing suit rack. She flipped past the array of bikinis, which were for the most part too revealing for her taste, but cast a disdainful eye on the one-piecers, which seemed sexless and dull. In the end she chose a modest two-piece design of shimmering gold with a diagonal bar of red slicing from left hip to right breast, interrupted by a band of naked skin. Assessing herself in the full-length mirror, she tugged the waist up securely and checked to make sure it fully covered the scar on her stomach, then turned to view her back. Lord, Callie Mae is right. If I don't gain some weight this thing will fall right off me.

She turned full front to the mirror again, and her dark eyes appeared uncertain. Standing with her fingertips resting on her stomach, she thought she could feel nerves jumping inside.

He said his daughter will be there, so what can happen when you'll be chaperoned by a fourteen-year-old?

The suit had a matching cover-up of luxurious velour that reversed the design and colors, sporting a diagonal bar of gold on red. Its elasticized waist closed with a single gold catch, leaving provocative glimpses of the bathing suit and her bare midriff showing above and below the closure. But, considering her shape, Rachel hardly felt provocative, and decided the outfit would do. She stripped it off, packed it in her straw bag, and dressed in her street clothes again, then locked the store and bounded to her car before she could change her mind.

The drive out to Cedar Creek Lake was beautiful. She took old Belgreen Road, which wound through the hills west of town, curving through pine forest and past areas where orange peaks of overburden from long ago strip-mining created a stunning contrast against the lush greenery surrounding it. The old limestone quarries gave over to glimpses of the TVA transmission towers, which were responsible for changing the area so much. Nestled in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Franklin County rolled and undulated, presenting unexpected vistas: blue-hazed hills and endless rolling forests that abounded with wildlife. Even the hated kudzu vine was beautiful now, carpet-thick in the ditches, blossoming in purple. Beneath the hickories and turkey oaks flashed an occasional cloud of white dogwood. The road straightened, then doglegged, angled uphill and down, but she knew the route as if she'd driven it every day. Somehow she'd never forgotten where his house was, once it was pointed out to her.

His driveway twisted through a stretch of some five acres of untainted wildwood before arching around in a loop that brought her to his front door. She turned off the engine, then peered up at the house, feeling a knot tighten her stomach. Slowly she opened her door and stood for a long time in its lee while staring over the roof of the car at the sheer clifflike stretch of diagonal cedar siding, the irregular roofline, the ebony doors and railed ramp. She removed her sunglasses and studied further. How odd- the place seemed familiar. Yet this was the closest to it she'd ever been. The smell of the woods was rich and fecund. She lifted her gaze to the heavens-cedars and sassafras trees and one venerable magnolia at least 150 years old.

Drawing a deep, shaky breath, Rachel slammed the car door, slipped her glasses on, and made her feet move toward the wooden ramp.

She came up into a deep entry in which were ensconced two redwood tubs of boxwood badly in need of watering, and glanced up at the only window facing this side, the large hexagon above the doors. A faint memory shivered through her. Don't be silly, she thought. How can you remember something you've never seen? Then she quickly rang the bell before she could lose her courage.

Two minutes passed and nothing happened- except that Rachel became aware of a tiny pain at the back of her head-tension. He's probably out on the lake with his daughter. She rang again and felt a trickle of sweat drizzle down the center of her back while the seconds ticked past and a woodpecker thwacked away someplace in the trees behind her.

Suddenly the door was jerked open and there stood Tommy Lee, looking as if he was recovering from a four-day drunk and wishing he'd died instead. His hair was tousled, his face grizzled by an unkempt beard, shirt dangling limp and wrinkled and unbuttoned. The knees of his jeans were rumpled and his feet were bare. He stood staring at her as if she were a reincarnation.

"Rachel, my God, you came!"

"Yes. You invited me, remember?"

"But I never thought you would." Unconsciously, he closed a single button at the waist of the shirt, which only emphasized its hapless condition.

"The house was driving me crazy, it was so quiet. And the lake sounded good."

He remained in the open doorway as if too surprised to orient himself. She felt the rush of conditioned air cooling the fronts of her legs and wondered how long he intended to stand gaping at her. "Am I intruding?" she asked, tilting her head slightly.

Abruptly he jerked awake. "Oh… no. No!" He stepped back. "Not at all. I was asleep. Come in." He finger-combed his hair while she cautiously entered. When the door closed she found herself in an enormous entry and peered up at a contemporary brass and smoked-glass light fixture hanging before the hexagonal window from a height of eighteen feet. She removed her sunglasses and glanced at what she could see of the rest of the place from here: a lot of wood, windows, and staggered levels. The house was silent as a tomb as Rachel's gaze made a circle and came back to him. Their eyes met. Tommy Lee's hand still rested on the fancy doorknob. He flashed her a self-conscious smile, which she returned with a quavering one of her own, then dropped her eyes to the floor only to encounter the bare feet she recognized from all those carefree days of swimming at City Park. His second toes were longer than the big toes, and his feet were shaded now with dark hair. Quickly she glanced up at the living room, which overhung the entry.

"Come in." He gestured her ahead of him, up six steps into a room that looked worse than its owner, if possible. Dirty glasses, full ashtrays, and clothes littered the furniture. The carpet, though dense, hadn't been touched by a vacuum cleaner in weeks, and the hundreds of dollars' worth of potted plants along the glass wall were drooping, drying up, and dusty. Newspapers were scattered over the vast expanse of sofa, which turned two corners and seemed to sprawl forever, its mother lode of ottomans creating a veritable sea of cushions before a glorious fireplace. Glancing at the array of flotsam, Rachel wondered how Tommy Lee could possibly manage to look so neat in public when his entire wardrobe seemed to be flung around his living room.

She glanced back uncertainly and stopped in her tracks.

"I wasn't expecting company," he explained, and moved around her to scrape an armful of garments off the back of the sofa.

"You told me your daughter was coming for the weekend."

"Yes, she was, but at the last minute her mother decided not to let her." His eyes dropped to the shirts in his hands, then wandered off with a dismal expression to some distant point across the lake. "I was going to come home Friday night and get everything in shape before Beth got here, but when she called to say she wasn't coming it seemed pointless."

Somehow she believed him, that he hadn't invented Beth's visit to lure her here with a false sense of security. His eyes swung back to Rachel and he seemed to make a conscious effort to put away his troubled thoughts. "But even though she's not here, I'd still like you to stay."

In this? she thought. The place smelled like an unaired saloon-stale smoke, used filters and alcoholic dregs, and even if she could find a spot to sit on that davenport, there wasn't a single place to do so without putting her feet up. Furthermore, she didn't want to be next after the woman with the red earrings.

Sensing that she was close to having a change of heart, he hurriedly moved around the room, leaning over the back of the sofa to sweep up newspapers, socks, and neckties. "Just give me a few minutes and I'll run upstairs and grab a quick shower, okay?" He straightened with his arms full and appealed, "Now, don't go away, okay?"

She shook her head and dredged up a faint smile while he gazed at her hopefully, backing away. Then he turned and with a flash of shirttail, bounded up a stairway and out of sight.

She looked around, reluctant to sit down on anything, though the room was luxurious at its core. She moved around the corners of the U-shaped sofa, studying the dirty glasses, the dried rings where others had been, the dust caught and held in gray overlapping circles, the empty matchbooks and full ashtrays. Coming to one glass that was still sweating, she reached down and touched it. It was still cold. She held it to her nose and sniffed. Gin, diluted by melted ice. She set it down distastefully and dropped her eyes to the sofa. The picture was clear: a depressed alcoholic, lying in an inert sprawl, sipping away his lonely weekend while the cobwebs collected around him, and his mind and body grew dissipated.

It had been a mistake to come here.

She turned her back on the living room and moved toward the end of the fireplace wall where the dining area was announced by caned chairs surrounding a fruitwood table. Empty containers from take-out food lay amid his unopened mail, a half-eaten bag of cheese curls, and an open jar of peanuts. He doesn't eat right, she thought, and the realization saddened her as she gazed at two cold french fries and a blob of dried-up ketchup. A fingernail clipper lay beside them, and the sight of it rent her heart as she pictured him here at the table, clipping his nails in silence, then eating his supper alone.

She turned to glance at the working end of the kitchen, but the cabinets held only dirty glasses and an array of booze bottles, all partly empty. Again she closed her eyes, wishing she had sensibly stayed away.

She sat on one of the cane and chrome chairs and turned her eyes to the lake, to something that was pleasant and clean and told no tales. From overhead came the sound of the shower, then in a few minutes the buzz of an electric razor, and in record time Tommy Lee's footsteps thumped down the stairs.

At first he thought she'd left, for the living room was empty, and as he raced through it his heart seemed to stop. But then he caught sight of her at the kitchen table and his shoulders slumped with relief. How many years had he pictured Rachel here? The sight of her with her tanned legs crossed, a white sandal hanging from her toes, a delicate elbow resting on the table edge, seemed too good to be true.

"I'm sorry I kept you waiting, Rachel."

"I've been enjoying the view."

He looked down his chest. "I dressed for the water. I wasn't sure what you wanted to do."

He wore white swimming trunks and a matching terrycloth cover-up snapped at the waist, revealing a V of skin with far more hair than he'd had on his chest the last time she'd seen it-and some of it glinting silver in the light from the long windows. His hair was neatly combed and, from this angle, as thick as it had been in high school. But as he approached she made out the wiry texture of the gray at his temples and was surprised to find it not altogether unpleasing.

She forced her eyes away. "I brought a bathing suit. It's in the car. But I… I expected Beth to be coming along."

Her reluctance was so obvious that he felt obliged to give her a choice. "Do you want to put it on?"

No, she thought, not anymore. Not since walking in here and realizing your life-style is precisely what it's purported to be, and nothing I want to become involved with.

"I'll run out and get it for you," he offered with boyish eagerness. And seeing how much it meant to him to have her here, she relented.

"No, I'll go."

She felt his eyes follow her as she arose and crossed the living room, moved down the steps and outside. When the door closed behind her, she tipped her head back against it and sucked in a long breath. Tears stung her eyes. Oh, Tommy Lee… Tommy Lee. We can never go back. Her nostrils flared and she opened her eyes to see the tips of the trees blurred as she contemplated the loneliness she had just witnessed. What am I doing? she wondered as she made her way to the car and reached inside for a wide-mouthed straw tote bag. But something made her retrace her steps up the ramp to the shiny black doors.

He had put away the pile of newspapers while she was gone, and she caught him carrying dirty ashtrays and glasses to the kitchen. Their eyes met, then swerved apart.

"You can use the guest bedroom upstairs at the first landing."

Her footsteps were muffled by the deep pile of the indigo carpeting. Against the white walls and natural wood, it was stunning. At the first landing an unexpected window cranny looked out over a steeply canting roof, and a potted fig tree drooped before it. She peered around a doorway into a beautifully decorated bedroom done in eggshell, muted blue, and brown, its double bed covered with a geometric quilted spread whose design continued in a mountain of throw pillows, then up the wall between two long, narrow windows decorated with nothing but a pair of mobiles.

The tiny metal sailfish circled slowly as she stepped inside the room and surveyed a baretopped Danish dresser and chest of drawers with natural waxed wood finish, costly lamps, and a large framed photo of a pair of well-used toe shoes with their ribbons worn and sides misshapen.

Beth's room-she must be a dancer.

For a moment his Beth and their Beth melded into one, and she had the awesome feeling that she was stepping into her own daughter's room, and again that feeling that she'd been here before. But she shook herself and crossed to a far doorway that led into a lovely bathroom with blue fixtures and a shower curtain of the same design as that of the bedspread. Lush blue towels hung from the towel bars, but as she moved closer she saw that their folds bore a line of dust. At the foot of the tub another window looked out over the roof and the shimmering lake beyond. Over the tub hung a dead ivy.

What a beautiful house, she thought, glancing once more around the bedroom and bath. But their stark, unused look contained a message as poignant as that of the abject disorder downstairs.

It was a house that cried out for life.

She tried to put the thought from her mind as she changed into her swimsuit. But when she was slipping it on, she confronted the cesarean-section scar on her stomach, realizing afresh what an irony it was that the birth of her and Tommy Lee's baby had left a permanent mark as a reminder that their child was the only one she'd ever have. She tugged the waistband into place and told herself to stop thinking senseless things about the past. But again, when the halter was tied behind her neck, Rachel studied her reflection in the mirror, then cupped both breasts, pushing them high, dismayed to see that even by doing this she could create no cleavage. It was impossible not to remember that at sixteen she had been fuller-breasted than now, or to imagine that Tommy Lee would not notice.

Her distraught eyes scolded those in the mirror. You foolish middle-aged woman, what are you doing? You shouldn't even be here in the first place, and you're looking for cleavage? She dropped her hands and covered herself with the beach jacket, glanced disparagingly at the glimpse of skin still revealed above and below, sighed, grabbed her towel, slipped on her thongs again, and left the room.

In the hall she paused and glanced at the carpeted stairs that continued up two more levels with windows and potted plants announcing each floor. Steps, handrailings, and white walls rose to the various levels of the house, which had appeared so tall from outside. Tommy Lee's bedroom must be up there. And it must have as stunning a view as that from an aerie.

It struck her then why she'd sensed a feeling of dйjа vu about the house, and her head snapped back as she stared up the steps, trying to calculate where the chimney flue would rise up through the walls if the master bedroom had a fireplace… a deck overlooking the lake. It struck her like lightning. My God, it's our house! The one we planned together when we were starry-eyed teenagers! For a moment she felt dizzy, and her stomach seemed to tilt. No, you must be wrong, Rachel. But a quick mental assessment of the rooms below confirmed it. This was their dream house. It had just taken her some time to recognize it beneath the clutter and loneliness. She returned to the lower level feeling shaken, and though she thought she'd approached soundlessly, Tommy Lee's voice called, "I'm out here, Rachel."

She found him in the kitchen, a black towel slung over his shoulder as he hunkered down before the open refrigerator packing a cooler. When she rounded the corner he lifted his eyes to her, dropped them slowly down her tanned legs, swallowed in a way that made his Adam's apple move, then returned his attention to the refrigerator. "What would you like to drink? I've got beer, rum, vod..."

"Do you have limes?"

He looked up again. "Sure. Gin and tonic with a twist of lime?"

"Just plain tap water with a twist of lime will be fine."

He went on piling cold beer into the red and white cooler, and as she counted the cans, she wondered how many he intended to take. From the crisper he took two limes, dropped them into the cooler, and asked, "Perrier water okay?"

She nodded and several small bottles joined the cans. Then he snapped the cooler shut and stood up.

"Ready?"

She forced a smile and he gestured toward the door, following her to slide the heavy glass panel aside and allow her to step through before him. They crossed a slatted redwood deck, moved down steps to a grassy stretch of lawn and on toward a dock where a black and white speedboat waited beneath a yellow canopy. He tossed his towel on a seat, then presented a palm to help her board. To ignore it would have made more of an issue than to touch him. His fingers clamped hers tightly as she stepped down and the boat rocked. Though the contact was brief, it left a residue of awareness that Rachel tried to put from her mind.

"Sit there." He pointed to the front passenger seat, then busied himself freeing both bow and stern lines before leaping down to join her. She was extremely conscious of his long bare legs and feet, peppered with dark hair, and of the casual way his glance washed over her as he squeezed through the small opening between the seats, his thigh nearly brushing her shoulder, before he settled himself behind the wheel with the cooler close at hand and inserted the key in the ignition.

The touch of a button brought the soft buzz of the motor being lowered, then the inboard growled to life, followed by the swish of water purling against the hull. The lake was as calm as a glass of water, and as the boat got under way it skimmed the surface with scarcely a vibration. He eased the throttle forward and Rachel's hair lifted, then flurried back. Instinctively she raised her nose into the air, sniffing, feeling life flowing back into her veins as she dangled an arm above the water.

Tommy Lee turned to watch her as her eyes closed and she nosed the wind. Lord a'mighty, had there ever been a woman as perfect? She'd been a knockout in high school, but age had only refined her fragile beauty. She had weathered the years so much more gracefully than he had. And she'd achieved a reputation of highest regard in both her personal life and her business, while he had become merely dйclassй. It seemed quite unbelievable that she was here with him at last, for in spite of all his dreams, he'd never really believed it would happen.

Rachel hung her head back, felt the cool droplets spray her fingertips, heard the snick of a lighter, then caught the faint drift of cigarette smoke. Even with her eyes closed, she knew he was studying her.

The boat suddenly thrust forward with a jerk that lifted its nose above the water and snapped Rachel's head farther back. Her eyes flew open and she shot a look at Tommy Lee.

He had a cigarette clamped between china-white teeth while his broad teasing smile shone devilishly. Left hand on the wheel, right on the throttle, he studied her with a challenge in his glinting eyes. "Let's cool off." The words were distorted around the filter as he spoke, but they gave him a rakish appeal much as he'd had in those days when they'd roared off, carefree, in his '57 Chevy.

A tiny smirk appeared at the corners of Rachel's mouth. "You always did like speed."

"Always!" he shouted above the wind, while she herself became exhilarated by it as the boat gained momentum then leveled off with the fluttering wind pressing against her ears, lifting and swirling her hair.

It was wonderful! Releasing! She turned to him and shouted to be heard above the motor and the thump of the hull bouncing on the water. "I can remember my daddy saying to you, `Now, drive carefully, and don't speed.` Then we'd get one block away from the houses and fly like the wind."

He laughed, throwing his head back while taking the cigarette out of his mouth as an ash flew backward. "I still love it!" he shouted.

"So I've heard!"

His eyes returned to hers and they measured each other silently. Then he shouted, "Do you want me to slow down?"

By now the minute ripples on the surface of the water had become nothing more than a blur as the rumbling inboard propelled them forward like a dynamo. She pushed the whipping hair back from her temple with the palm of one hand and yelled, "No, it feels wonderful. I think it's exactly what I needed."

But he couldn't hear her and leaned across the aisle, lowering his ear.

She leaned close enough to smell fresh after-shave. "I said, it feels wonderful! I think it's exactly what I needed!"

He straightened, smiled wider, and warned, "Hang on!" Then he anchored the cigarette between his teeth, dropped his hand to the throttle, and pushed it full forward. Their hair whipped like flags; their jackets billowed like sails. Their bodies jiggled as they rocketed toward a vanishing point on the far horizon, wrapped in the ebullient sensation of near-flight.

Tommy Lee cramped the wheel and suddenly Rachel was high above him, the water spuming wide from the hull, churning out a rabid wake behind them. She laughed and he tossed an appreciative glance her way, then spun the wheel in the opposite direction. She made an owl face at him and pressed a hand to her stomach while rolling her eyes. His answering laugh sounded faintly above the roar of the wind in her ears and the thrumming cylinders. Then they were snaking right and left, right and left, lifting and falling until Rachel felt giddy. Again she laughed, feeling gay and unfettered for the first time in months, letting the reckless ride take her deliciously off kilter. But finally she reached out and squeezed Tommy Lee's forearm, shaking her head, pressing a hand to her stomach once more. He straightened the wheel but left the speed where it was until Rachel finally reached out and covered his hand on the throttle with her own, drawing back both until the boat quieted and slowed and drifted in the abrupt lift of its own backwash.

In the sudden quiet their combined laughter drifted above the lake. As if directed by a baton, they stilled simultaneously and found themselves gazing at each other. At that moment Rachel realized her hand still rested on his, the pads of her fingers contouring his knuckles, and she withdrew it as casually as possible, but not before his eyes fell to the sight of their joined hands on the throttle, then came back to her face.

"It's nice to hear you laugh again," he said.

"It's been a long time since I have. It feels good."

She thought for a moment he was going to touch her; the look in his eyes said he was thinking about it. But then, abruptly, he twisted around to fetch himself a beer from the cooler.

"Want one?" He popped the top and tossed it over his shoulder into the water.

"No, thank you." She bit back the reprimand about littering the lake with pop-tops and told herself it was none of her business. She was only spending one afternoon with him. "Just lime water."

He wedged the can between his legs, tight against his swim trunks, while twisting to reach for the cooler again. Realizing her gaze had followed the can of beer, she turned sharply to study the water beyond her side of the boat until a cold touch on her arm announced the lime water.

They cruised the lake, too aware of each other, yet maintaining a cautious distance at all times. She counted the cigarettes he smoked, the butts he threw into the lake, the beers he downed. When he'd begun his third, she moved restlessly and suggested, "Why don't we swim?" thinking that if he was swimming he couldn't be drinking.

"Anything you say," he complied. "Anyplace in particular?"

"You know the lake better than I do."

"All right. Hang on." His latest cigarette butt went the way of the others, and again the boat shot forward at hair-pulling speed until a few minutes later Tommy Lee throttled down and killed the engine completely.

Rachel glanced around quizzically. "Here?" she asked. They were in an inlet with trees all around, but it was a long swim to shore in any given direction, and there wasn't a soul in sight.

"You want to go somewhere else?"

"I thought we'd go to one of the beaches."

"With all those people? You really want to?"

She turned to find his shaded lenses facing her, but couldn't make out his eyes behind them. "No… no, this is fine."

"Okay, I'll drop anchor." At the touch of his finger, an electric buzz accompanied the soft shrrr of the anchor line paying out. Silence followed, vast upon the sunny stretch of the blue water with its canopy of matching sky. The sun beat down and shimmered while Tommy Lee downed the last of his beer, fished a Styrofoam floatboard from beneath the foredeck, tossed it over the side, leaned down again, and came up with a lightweight ladder.

"You first." He waved Rachel aft, and she slipped between their two seats toward the stern of the boat, then turned to find him bending to hang the ladder on the side. Straightening, he was already yanking at the single snap at his waist, and a minute later the terry-cloth jacket lay on the seat and Rachel found herself confronted with the entire stretch of his bare chest, mesmerized by the dense Y of pewter gray while it struck her again how much more masculine a man is at forty than at sixteen.

Guiltily she turned her back while releasing the hook at her waist and removing her cover-up. She found it difficult to confront the changes wrought upon them by the years, not only her thinness but his heaviness.

"Last one in buys two bucks' worth of gas," he said quietly.

She looked back over her shoulder, then turned to find him with a nostalgic look on his face. Years ago, when they'd crowded into somebody's car with a gang of kids and driven out to City Park to swim, that had always been the challenge. Nobody had money then, and how happy they'd all been. Now they both had all the money they needed…

She searched for something to say, anything that would lift the heavy weight of remembrance and bear her back to the present. But the past created a tremendous gravity between them, and she sensed him deliberately training his eyes above her shoulders. She knew what control it took to keep them there, because it was equally hard for her to keep her eyes above his waist.

Attempting to sever the skein of sexuality that seemed suddenly to bind them, she quipped, "If I were you I'd take my glasses off before I issued any challenges." Then with a deft movement she was over the side, diving neatly into the deep, cool sanctuary of Cedar Creek Lake. She heard the muffled surge of his body following, then opened her eyes to bubbles and blueness, kicking toward the surface while Tommy Lee was still on his way down. Emerging, she skinned her hands down her face, then saw his head pop up six feet away.

He swung around, tossing his head sharply, sending droplets flying in a glistening arc from his hair.

"Waugh! That's a shock!" he bellowed.

"But much better," she added. "Now I can see your eyes at last."

"I didn't know you wanted to or I'd have taken my glasses off an hour ago."

"They're very attractive, but it's hard to tell what a person's thinking when you can't see his eyes. Can you see without them?"

"Enough to know where I'm going. Come on."

He struck off at an energetic crawl while she followed at the carefully paced stroke of a well-tuned swimmer. In no time at all she met him coming back, puffing. She chuckled and continued on a leisurely turn around the boat, passing him once, twice, then three times while he floated on the miniature surfboard. His arms were crossed upon it, feet drifting idly as she came around for the fourth time and joined him.

"You're back." He smiled.

Rachel dipped below the surface, emerged nose first, her hair seal-slick, and crossed her arms on the opposite end of the four-foot board.

"Yes, I'm back." She propped her chin on her crossed wrists. "You didn't last very long."

"I'm all out of shape."

"You shouldn't be. Not with the lake right here. You should be swimming every day."

"It looks like you do."

"Just about."

"It shows. Rachel, you look great."

The water washed over the surfboard and she swished it lazily with one hand, her chin still propped on the other. "I told you, I'm too thin."

"Not to suit me." His eyes without glasses were extremely sparkly, almost beautiful with a wealth of deep brown lashes shot with droplets of glittering water. With his chin on a fist, he reached out his free hand to swish the water along the surface of the board, missing her fingers by a mere inch. "Do you remember when I used to see if my hands could span your waist?"

She watched his hand brushing near hers. "Mmm… in those days I'd have been ecstatic if they had. But now, when they probably could, it would only point out that I'm shriveling up."

Tommy Lee laughed, his teeth white against his dark-skinned face. "Shriveling up? You're a long way from shriveled up, Rachel. I'd say you're in your prime."

"My prime," she said thoughtfully. "That's a palliative offered to people in their forties who don't want to be. I feel shriveled up, after the last two years."

His hand stilled and his expression turned concerned. "Was it bad, Rachel, going through all that with Owen?"

She shrugged and the motion brought a wave of cool water between her arms and the board. "At the time you don't stop to wonder if it's hard. You just do what you have to do, carry on from day to day. Toward the end, when his pain got worse…" She stopped, mesmerized by the stunning brown eyes studying her across the floatboard. "I didn't come out here to talk about that. I came to forget it."

His cool, wet fingers captured and held hers loosely. "I'm sorry you had to go through that, Rachel. When I heard he had cancer and how bad it got, I wanted to call you a hundred times, just to say I was thinking of you and ask if you needed anything-if I could help you in any way. But I figured your daddy was there with you, and what was there I could do for you anyway?"

Rachel blinked, focusing wide eyes on his. "You did? You really did? It's an odd feeling to think you were following the events of my life all those years."

"But you knew what was going on in mine, too."

"Only what I read in the papers and what people told me. I didn't go driving past your house."

His fingers were warm as he continued holding hers. His thumb moved along her knuckles, then circled her diamond before he went on reflectively. "Funny how people who remember we used to date never missed a chance to tell me what was going on in your life. Sometimes I wanted to tell them to keep their damn mouths shut, keep all their social tidbits to themselves. I didn't want to know how happy and successful you were becoming with Owen. Other times I fed off it. And, naturally, I'd drive past your house and wonder."

Rachel's heart lilted. He was much more honest than she. There were times when she'd experienced some of the same feelings, only she was reluctant to admit it. "Wonder?" she prompted now.

"If he knew about us."

For a moment she didn't answer, thinking of the scar on her stomach that could hardly have been hidden from a husband.

"Did he, Rachel?" Tommy Lee asked softly.

"He knew I'd had the baby, but he didn't know whose it was."

"Wasn't he curious?"

"We made a pact early in our marriage that the issue would never come up again, once we'd talked it out."

"It says a lot about a man that he can live with a question like that unanswered and never let it come between you."

She wasn't about to tell him that it had been between them, always. They might not have talked about it, but there had been hundreds of times when she'd caught Owen studying her across a room, and she'd known instinctively what he was thinking.

Tommy Lee's eyes pierced her across the speckled blue surface dividing them. "If you had been my wife all that time, I'd have gone crazy wondering."

"From the things you told me the night you talked about your wives, I would have said you weren't a jealous man."

His fingers pulled her hand closer to his chin and he said raggedly, "They weren't you, Rachel."

"Don't," she breathed, trying to pull her hand away. But he held it fast.

"Don't? Don't for how long? Until you really are shriveled up? Until your debt to Owen is paid-whatever it might be? Until you decide to take off his rings?" His hand squeezed so hard the rings dug into her skin. "How long do you intend to wear them, Rachel?"

Her heart was racing faster than before. "I don't know. It's… it's too soon."

"Is it? Let's see." Without warning, Tommy Lee gave the float board a push that sent it sideways, and in one swift kick brought himself only inches from Rachel's nose. Her heart hadn't time to crack out a warning before one powerful hand circled her neck and scooped her close. He kissed her once, a hard, impromptu meeting of two water-slicked mouths while the wavelets lapped at their chins, accentuating how warm their lips were. During the brief contact their legs instinctively moved to keep them afloat, and the sleek texture of skin on skin brought shivery sensations.

The kiss ended and somehow they were each hanging onto the float board with one hand. Rachel's surprised lips dropped open as Tommy Lee pulled back, staring into her eyes. Her hair coiled around his fingers like a silken tether while he moved a thumb just behind her ear. Water beaded on his dark, spiky lashes and gleamed on his cheeks. They stared at each other, breathing hard, for several stunned seconds. Then Tommy Lee's hand drifted from her neck down one slick shoulder, and beneath the water his calf slid between her knees, then was gone. "Come on." He smiled. "Let's play." And with a twisting sideways dive, he disappeared beneath the surface.

It had been an elementary kiss. His tongue hadn't even touched her; yet she was trembling inside and felt hot and threatened and enticingly sexual. Needing to cool off, Rachel, too, did a surface dive, then took several enormous breast strokes underwater, hoping to come up a safe distance from him.

When she nosed into the daylight again he was trying to get to his feet on the surfboard-with little success. From behind, she watched him battle it, wondering how many women he'd kissed in all these years, and if his reputation had women chasing him, or if he did all the chasing. In particular, she wondered about the woman to whom he'd given the red earrings.

"What did you do that for?" she shouted, treading water.

"What'd I do?" The surfboard rocked and bucked him off. Immediately he began trying to master it again, giving it all his attention.

"You kissed me, Gentry, and you know it!"

"You call that a kiss? Hell, that was barely a nibble. I've learned a little more than that since we were teenagers."

"I'll just bet you have. And with how many different women?"

"I lost count years ago."

"And you have no compunction about admitting it, do you?"

"None whatsoever, because you could become my last if you wanted to."

He had one knee on the board, his backside pointing her way as he struggled to make it to his feet. With several deft strokes she swam up behind him, hollered, "Not on your life, you no-account Lothario!" and gaily tipped him over.

Instead of bobbing up, he caught her ankles and hauled her under. She grabbed enough air to survive, but felt as if her lungs would explode as they struggled. His teeth nibbled the arch of one foot and his chin tickled it while she writhed and fought, needing to laugh. Their antics stirred up a froth of bubbles in the silent blue depths until at last she coiled around and pinched his nipple hard. He released her and they shot to the surface like geysers, both of them gasping and laughing, hair slicked down and gleaming.

"Ouch, damn you!" he scolded, rubbing the wounded spot.

"Good enough for you! You nearly drowned me, pulling me under like that."

"I just wanted to find out if you were still ticklish."

"Now you know, so leave me alone," she spouted in mock indignation, striking out for the ladder with him right behind her.

"In all the same old spots?" he teased as she lunged up onto the first rung, streaming water into his face. He caught her around the waist and hauled her back down with an enormous splash. Again they became a tangle of arms and legs and slithery skin as his hands snaked along her ribs and his arms circled her playfully. But in the midst of the skirmish they suddenly fell still, staring at each other with a gripping sense of rediscovery while the only sound was that of water lapping against the boat. One of Tommy Lee's hands held a ladder rung, the other arm circled her waist, and her hands quite naturally had fallen against his chest where the wet hair felt as elusive as mercury. Their eyes remained fixed upon each other, taking in gleaming skin, tangled hair, dripping faces, and rapt expressions. Their drifting thighs brushed. A drop of water slipped down Rachel's cheek and his eyes followed till it fell over her lip and the pink tip of her tongue curled up to sip it away. "Oh, Rachel," he breathed softly, spreading his palm wide and warm on her cool, sleek back, drawing her infinitesimally closer… closer…

But she pressed a palm to his chest and turned aside. "Please," she begged breathlessly, "don't kiss me again, Tommy Lee. Please."

Beneath the water their limbs brushed again, washed by the current they'd stirred up. His thighs were silicon-sleek and distractingly inviting. His gaze covered her face and she knew it beseeched her for more than she'd come here to give. At the small of her back his hand caressed the bare skin, then slid up between her shoulderblades.

"Are you sure you mean that?"

"Be sensible, Tommy Lee."

"I've never been sensible in forty-one years. Why should I start now?"

And though she, too, would have welcomed an excuse to toss sense aside for a brief time with him, she realized she had the power to wound him terribly. "Listen, I came out here today because I was very lonely and I… I needed someone. But I never meant for this to happen. Honestly I didn't, Tommy Lee."

His eyes traveled across her face, as if memorizing each feature. "If you needed me, only to make you laugh for one afternoon, that's a start."

A start of what? she wondered, but realized if she continued seeing him the answer would be understood.

Yet he had made her laugh, for the first time in months. And in the end, he'd made her forget Owen and the cares that had besieged her for so long. And though his kiss had been startling, and not unwelcome, much of the excitement had been generated by nostalgia and by the fact that he was socially off limits to a woman like her.

"I'm starved," he said, with an abrupt swing of mood and a crooked smile. "What do you say to some catfish and hush puppies?"

"You still go wild for catfish and hush puppies?"

He grinned, squeezed her waist once, and answered in one of his favorite catchphrases from long ago, "You betchum, Red Ryder." And once again Rachel was laughing, charmed by the Tommy Lee she'd known so long ago. And, oh, he could be so charming. It was no wonder the ladies like him.