The hellion

CHAPTER NINE

It was a golden August evening with scarcely a wisp of breeze stirring. The week seemed to have crawled by with slothlike slowness while Rachel agonized over what to wear, what to say, how to act. Just like that first date with Tommy Lee after he'd kissed her in the break of the boxwoods years ago.

It was strange to feel girlish at her age when she thought she'd given up giddiness years ago. But she actually had butterflies in her stomach, doubts about whether the gold earrings might have been better than the silver, and misgivings about the dress she'd chosen.

But it was too late to change now. The white Cadillac was already pulling up beneath the magnolia, and she drew back from the window, feeling pulses beating through her body in the places they had no business beating, as she watched Tommy Lee slowly get out of the car, then pause to look up at the house a moment before finally slamming the door. He buttoned his suit jacket, glanced down at his stomach, then unbuttoned the jacket and slipped a hand down his carefully knotted tie like a schoolboy at his first recital.

Rachel touched her lips, smiling. Why, he's as nervous as I am! Her smile grew wider. Imagine that, the Hellion of Franklin County getting all unstrung over walking to a woman's door!

She watched him come up the walk, assessing his new honed profile, and the hand dropped from her lips to her skittering heart. The bell rang. Her eyes closed for a moment while she savored the wild anticipation. Then she smoothed her skirt unnecessarily and moved to open the door.

And couldn't think of a single word to say.

They stared at each other with a breathless hush of appreciation, standing as still as the long shadows across the yard, feeling the awesome tug of nostalgia and the even greater one of reality. She had caught him smoothing his tie again, and his hand remained half hidden inside the suit jacket at waist level, unmoving now. At closer range she saw things she'd only glimpsed on the church steps. The puff of skin was gone from above his tight, crisp collar. The jowls had disappeared, leaving the skin about his jaws looking healthy and resilient. His eyes seemed clearer, the pockets of loose flesh gone from beneath them. And his coloring had changed from drinker's pink to runner's bronze.

After what seemed like aeons, he finally dropped his hand to his side and breathed "Hi."

"Hi," she managed, though the word seemed to stick in her throat and came out in a queer falsetto. Her eyes swept him from shoulders to toes and she blurted out, "You look wonderful!" Then she felt herself blush.

With a lift of his chin he laughed, and the sound relieved some of the tension. "Thank you, but I think you stole my line. You look"-his appreciative gaze scanned her, missing nothing-"absolutely perfect. Prettier than when you were sixteen."

"Well…" She flapped her hands stupidly and stepped back. "Come in. I'll get my purse." Rachel Hollis, act your age! You're gawking and blushing like an adolescent in the throes of hormone change!

He watched her walk away-slim hips moving with scarcely a sway, narrow shoulders bare beneath delicate spaghetti straps that emphasized her fragility. Her shoes were very high heeled and backless and made a soft lapping sound against her heels as she went. Her muted blue floral-print dress was elasticized at the waist and just above her breasts, and there appeared to be nothing beneath it except her body. Tommy Lee's bones seemed to turn to jelly as he watched her bare shoulders disappear. She was, plainly and simply, the most desirable woman he'd ever known. How ever would he make it through the evening without touching her?

In no time at all she was back, holding a tiny white purse, a shawl caught in the crook of a wrist. Several feet before him she stopped, glanced up uncertainly, and gave a fluttery half-smile, then dropped her eyes to study the clasp of her purse as she toyed with it. "After being married all these years I'm afraid I'm out of practice in the art of dating. I feel inept and awkward."

He studied her for a moment, then a grin lifted one corner of his lips. "Awkward? You, Rachel?" He chuckled and moved toward the entry. "You haven't been awkward since you lost your baby fat at… let's see, when was it? About thirteen?" He cocked his head as he opened the door. "Fourteen?"

She swept past him with mock imperiousness, scolding, "Thomas Gentry, I never had baby fat!"

He couldn't resist slipping a hand to her waist as they moved toward the car. "Oh, yes, you did. I've got pictures to prove it."

"What pictures?" His hand sent shivers along her arms and raised the fine hairs of her spine, as did the sight of his car, freshly washed and waxed for the occasion. As he leaned forward to open the car door for her, she caught the scent of sandalwood and spice in his after-shave.

"I've got pictures of us as far back as when we used to go bathing together in a plastic pool. Remind me to show 'em to you sometime."

She knew which pictures he referred to and felt uncharacteristically ruffled and shy at the thought of the snapshots of their two plump, naked baby bodies side by side. But the subject was cut off as he slammed the door and rounded the hood of the car. She watched him pause to light a cigarette before getting in beside her, bringing the sharply pleasant tang of freshly lit tobacco with him.

The interior of the car was immaculate, and the man at its wheel the essence of companionability as they drove out to his place without once exceeding the speed limit. When they approached the spot where he'd flung out his plastic glass the last time she was riding with him, she leaned forward to peer around him at the woods and ditch. Then she gave him an impish grin.

"Mmm… not tossing your glasses out into the weeds anymore?"

He only swung his eyes her way, gave a lazy smile, then carefully tamped out his cigarette, dropped the butt into the ashtray, and closed it. She noted each improvement in manners with an uplift of the heart.

"Do you know, you're the first man who ever gave me a bag of beer cans?"

"And you're the first woman who ever chewed me out and gave me a lecture on demon rum." They smiled at each other, remembering that night.

The car swayed through the curving woodsy drive, and when they pulled to a stop, he ordered, "Wait here," then got out with a bounding movement and appeared at her door to open it. They took the wooden ramp side by side, not touching, then he solicitously opened an ebony door to let Rachel precede him into the house. Music was playing softly, and a delicious aroma wafted through the air. He touched her elbow lightly and gestured toward the stairs leading up to the living room, calling, "Georgine?"

In the next moment Rachel was standing in the spotless room and his new maid was rounding the corner from the kitchen.

"Rachel, this is Georgine, who's been given the task of keeping me from perdition. Georgine, this is Rachel Hollis, a girl I went to school with."

Georgine tipped a small bow. "I know Mrs. Hollis… You run the dress store in town." Then she turned to Tommy Lee, informing him he'd had a call from someone named Bitsy who said she wanted him to call back. Finally, she asked, "Are you ready for your drinks now?"

"Drinks" proved to be a delicious concoction of pineapple juice and coconut cream, served in narrow stemmed glasses with fresh pineapple chunks and cherries on thin skewers. Rachel sipped hers, tasted no alcohol, and raised her eyebrows. "Mmm… delicious." She wondered if his drink was plain or spiked, but didn't ask, only glanced around the living room to find the plants had been trimmed of drying leaves, washed, and sprayed with leaf polish. The tables gleamed and the carpet hadn't one dot of lint or ash on it. Under Georgine's care the lavish room had truly come to life.

"How about taking our drinks out on the deck?" he suggested, and pulled the door open, then followed her out. The sun was hovering an hour's ride above the western rim of the lake, sending a highway of shimmering gold straight at them across the water. Overhead a pair of gulls caught the sun on their wings and squawked their tuneless call. It was warm, peaceful, and private. Rachel rested her glass on the railing, then leaned her hips against it, squinting into the bright reflection. "This place is really beautiful."

She watched him find and light a cigarette. Odd how the simple motions held a new attraction for her as he tilted his jaw, flicked a thumb on the wheel of the lighter, and scowled through the cloud of smoke. He threw his head back, exhaling, turned abruptly, and caught her watching him intently.

Immediately she looked at the lake.

"You like it?"

"Yes, very much. Who could help but like it?"

He turned his back to the view and perched a buttock on the rail, one knee riding wide and the suit jacket gaping open as he swiveled toward her. "I built it for you," he said matter-of-factly.

Her eyes flew to his, and they stared at each other for an endless moment. His new untinted glasses left the expression in his brown eyes open for study, and she saw there a grave sincerity that rocked her senses. Gone were the days when she wanted to turn away from his probing gaze. Now she wanted to immerse herself in it. He looked so different. Younger. Less worry-lined. Head-turningly handsome. She stood riveted before him while he made no move whatever to touch her, yet she felt touched in a wholly wonderful way. She became acutely conscious of his masculine pose, the tailored beige jacket having fallen aside to reveal expertly cut brown trousers stretched between his cocked hips.

At last she found her voice. "Yes I know. I recognized it the moment I walked into it."

"Did you?" His voice was gently gruff.

"It was unmistakable."

"And what did you think?"

Again she gazed out over the lake. "That I was married to Owen when you built it."

"So you were." He lifted his glass, watched her over the rim as he took a drink, then dropped the hand to his knee.

"Oh, Tommy Lee, whatever were you thinking, to do a thing like that?" Her eyes were troubled, and the corners of her mouth tipped down as she turned toward him.

He remained silent for a long time, studying the contents of his glass while swirling it distractedly, bumping it against his kneecap. Then he captured her brown eyes with his own and spoke softly. "Remember how we used to dream about it?"

"Yes, I remember. But that was… years ago."

He went on as if she hadn't spoken, glancing lazily over his left shoulder at the lake. "It's right where we always said we'd like to live." She felt his eyes move back to study her profile. "And it has all the windows you said you wanted, and all the natural wood I said I wanted." He drew deeply on the cigarette. " And the master bedroom with enormous walk-in closets made of cedar, and the view of the lake, and the fireplace for winter, and the sliding doors and deck for summer." He pointed above their heads with the tip of the cigarette. "That set of steps leads directly down from the bedroom, right to the lake for midnight swims."

Rachel's heart was thundering and her lips dropped open as she resisted the urge to look up at the deck cantilevered over their heads. My God, he remembered everything. She recalled walking in here the first time, noting his choices, adding them up, and wondering what the bedroom looked like. Why should it come as such a shock to know it, too, was designed from secrets whispered in the dark more than two decades ago?

The sliding door rolled back and Georgine asked, "Would you like your salads out here?" At the far end of the deck stood an umbrella table and four cushioned chairs.

"No, thank you, Georgine, we'll come inside." Tommy Lee eased his leg off the rail. "Rachel?" He swept a hand toward the door, and she let her eyes meet his. But they skittered away again from the impact.

The table was simply but elegantly set with thick slubbed linen placemats and matching blue napkins in ivory rings, a centerpiece of blue and brown, and a pair of ink-blue candles, already lit. When Tommy Lee had solicitously settled Rachel into her chair, he took the one directly opposite, reached for his napkin, and glanced up to find their view of each other blocked by the tall tapers. Without a word, he leaned over to push the centerpiece and candles aside, smiled, and settled back into his chair, saying, "There… that's better."

She busied herself removing her napkin from its ring, but felt tingly in the ensuing silence, and even more unnerved when she looked up to find him relaxedly lounging in his chair, studying her bemusement with a look of total appreciation.

The salad was made of crabmeat, endive, and water chestnuts and was served without wine. Scrambling about in her mind for a subject of conversation, Rachel finally asked, "So… did you and Darrel make ten?"

His head went back as he laughed, and the movement gave him a look of renewed youth that caught at Rachel's heart.

"Yes, we made ten, and tied Darla. Now the fight is on for eleven."

Their eyes met. Rachel felt a rich closeness to him in that moment as they spoke of things linking them to more than this night. But when the subject died, she sensed him in little hurry to pick up the strings of another. He seemed content to sit there in silence, studying her while the fork trembled in her hand.

When she could stand it no longer she finally insisted, "What are you looking at?"

A grin tugged at his cheek. "You. Trying to get my fill."

"Well, you're embarrassing me."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to." But still he didn't look away. "I'm trying to grasp the fact that you're really here at last, sitting at my table across from me. Incredible…"

She didn't know what to say, so she fiddled with the hem of her napkin.

"You know, Rachel, through the years I watched you maturing, and sometimes I'd grow angry with you. I'd want to call you and say, why don't you wither up or get gray or haggard! But instead you just grew more and more beautiful as the years passed."

She braced an elbow on the table, dropped her forehead onto her knuckles, and shook her head. "Keep that up and I'll have to leave."

"Is that a blush I see?" he teased, cocking his head as if to see behind her hand.

She propped her chin on the hand and presented him with a tight-lipped grin. "What do you think? I told you, I'm out of practice."

He laughed, sending a flash of white teeth through the growing shadows. "Ah, I love it."

"Could we please change the subject, Mr. Gentry?"

"As you please. Pick one."

She clasped her hands in her lap and said softly, "Beth."

"Which one?" he asked.

She felt herself color again as she answered quietly, "Your Beth. You said she's living with you."

He cleared his throat and sat up straighter in his chair. "Yes, for two weeks now, but she's gone off with some kids to the movies. She met a bunch down at the beach the first week, and already she's saying she wants to register for school here."

"You must be ecstatic."

"I am." His expression sobered slightly. "But it takes some adjusting."

"I imagine it does. What… how…?..." Rachel became discomfited and waved an apologetic palm. "I guess it's none of my business."

"Of course it is." He leaned his elbows on the table edge and met her eyes directly. "Nancy and Beth haven't gotten along well at all for a couple of years now. Nancy is what you might call an overprotective mother, unwilling to let her birdling out of the nest for the first time. They have terrible fights, and the result of the last one was that Beth ran away from home. She was gone for three days, and when we found her it was decided it'd be best if she tried living with me for a while. And so it seems, I've been granted a second chance to be a father."

"You mean she might stay? Indefinitely?"

"If things work out right. If she's happier here. If I can keep her on the straight and narrow."

Her dark eyes lifted to his. "And can you?" she asked in a near whisper.

He studied her with a loving expression in his eyes. "At this moment, Rachel, I feel as if there's nothing in this world I can't do."

The elation caused by his words lasted through the main course, which was beef Stroganoff. He ate his without any rice, and uncomplainingly drank lime water without so much as a grimace. The wine or champagne she'd expected was nowhere in evidence.

He talked some more about Beth, asked Rachel's advice on buying school clothes, which led to a discussion about her own store. She entertained him with humorous tales of the idiosyncrasies of her various customers, then asked him about his development corporation.

They ran out of things to talk about and found themselves staring at each other. Out of the blue Rachel blurted, "I like your new glasses much better than the old ones."

He grinned, but remained as before, bracing his jaw on one hand. "Oh, do you?" And she knew without being told that he'd changed them because of her.

She felt color washing upward and knew a sense of expanding sexual awareness between them. She dropped her eyes to the banana cream pie on her plate, but they wandered from it to his coffee cup and the cigarette crooked in dark tapered fingers that toyed with the cup handle while his unwavering gaze rested on her.

"Aren't you having any dessert?" she asked, letting her eyes skip up to his.

He answered simply, "No, not tonight."

And suddenly she realized how serious he was about his reform, and that he had not undertaken it solely because of Beth coming back to live with him. She, Rachel, had laid down parameters and he was striving to fit himself into them. And it was working. A rush of blood thrummed through her body, bringing again that sensual pounding deep in her vitals. As untamed as their longing for each other had been when they were teenagers, it seemed insipid compared to this mature reaction she was feeling for him. Yet he lounged in his chair with all the indolence of a sated maharaja, studying her closely while she fidgeted with the cloth of her skirt and grew hotter beneath his scrutiny.

Then Georgine took away their dessert plates and said if there wasn't anything more she was going to bed, and the gentle bump of her footsteps sounded up the carpeted stairs before all was still.

"She lives here, too?" Rachel asked, wide-eyed.

Tommy Lee fingered the rim of his coffee cup while studying her through the smoke that lifted between them. "Yes, in one of the guest rooms."

"Oh." So, he could no longer bring his women to that sprawling sofa.

"Weekdays," he added, then snuffed out his cigarette.

"Oh," she said again inanely, and wondered if he would ever try to get her onto that sofa with him. She thanked her lucky stars it couldn't possibly happen tonight with Georgine asleep upstairs and Beth probably due back any minute.

"Would you like to take your coffee into the living room?" he asked, as if reading her mind and deciding to tease her.

Rachel twitched and her eyes grew rounder. "Oh…" She glanced skittishly at a corner of the sofa visible beyond the fireplace. "All right," she added belatedly, but missed the grin on Tommy Lee's face as he watched her peruse the field of ottomans fit for a harem.

But he pushed the ottomans back, and they took separate places on the sofa with a decorous space between them, and he was everything he'd promised to be: the perfect gentleman.

And Rachel was the slightest bit disappointed.

They headed back to town before Beth returned home, and all the way Tommy Lee smoked continuously, the only indication that he might be as tense as she. He had kept his promise all evening, never saying or doing anything untoward. By now it was driving her crazy. She turned to study his face, illuminated by the pale dash lights, which reflected from his lenses and lit his knuckles on the wheel. He glanced her way. Her eyes veered out the side window, then closed on the thought that it had been years and years since she had become this aroused by merely looking at a man.

There could be no question that the most sensible way to end the evening would be with a graceful, polite parting. But being sensible was far from her mind, as she was sure it was from Tommy Lee's. There was no denying he was tempting, so tempting that these hours with him had been a study in control.

They were wheeling slowly through the city streets when Rachel drew a deep breath to ask, "Tommy Lee, who is Bitsy?"

It was some time before he answered, "Bitsy is a woman I was seeing."

"Was?" Afraid to look at him, she trained her eyes on the path of the headlights.

"Yes, was. She keeps calling and suggesting that we get together again, but I seem to have lost my taste for other women lately." He drew deeply on his cigarette before going on. "There's no use denying it, Rachel-there've been a lot of them. I suppose that bothers you."

It did. It made her mentally step back a pace when she wanted to move nearer. But beneath her reservation a disturbing tingle of jealousy made her reply defensively, "Should it?"

"Does it?" he shot back.

The moment sizzled with their acute absorption in each other as their eyes met and clashed; then she forced hers toward the windshield again. "Yes, it does. But it's more a disappointment than anything else."

"I didn't know I had the power to disappoint you."

"Well, you do."

"Why?"

"Because." She searched for a way to express it. "Because we were children together, good friends even before we became lovers, and I wanted you to remain that… that hero you'd always been for me. When rumors spread about you and yet another woman, I used to get so… so angry with you, I'd want to rap you on the skull and knock some sense into your head!" He laughed again and immediately she scolded, "Don't you dare laugh. You don't know what you put me through. Somehow I always ended up in a position of having to either defend or blame, and I didn't want to do either."

He grinned her way beguilingly. "And which did you do?"

She turned a snooty nose in the air. "None of your business."

"All right. Fair enough. So, what about Marshall True?"

Her head snapped around. "More-Marshall?" Her face burned at the memory of her last confrontation with Marshall.

"The town has the two of you linked together. Surely you know that."

"I'm not seeing Marshall anymore."

"Oh?" His eyes flashed over her, but she looked straight ahead.

"Marshall made a pass at me that I didn't like at all."

"You don't like it when a man makes a pass at you?" he questioned quietly.

She picked at her purse catch with a thumbnail. "I didn't like it when Marshall made a pass at me."

Just at that moment they reached Rachel's house and he drew up at the curb beneath the deep, shielding branches of the magnolia, eased the car into neutral, and turned on the parking lights, then sat back smoking. "I take that to mean you never had an affair while you were married to Owen."

She was shocked by his words, appalled that he might even think her capable of such a thing. "No, never!"

"Not even at the end?" Again she flushed at the realization that he, too, had guessed the extent to which Owen's illness had incapacitated him.

"No, I could never have handled the guilt."

"And what about now?" he asked.

"Now?" Her eyes flew to his dimly lit profile, the crisp knot of his tie, the crisper outline of his lips, chin, and nose. "Are you one of those widows who would feel disloyal to her husband's memory if she had sex with another man?"

The warning rockets went off in Rachel's body. How many times had she asked herself the same question and come up with no answer? Twenty years with the same man had left her feeling shaky and doubtful about considering another. Yet she knew that when Tommy Lee made his move, she would not turn him away. And there was no doubt he was about to make it. She held her breath, waiting for him to turn off the engine and draw her into his arms, but instead he strung an arm along the back of the seat, half turning to her to say, "Rachel, I can't thank you enough for tonight."

Disappointment made her stomach go hollow as she realized he'd been sitting there waiting for his cue, which she had not given. Maybe it was best this way. Her common sense knew a thousand reasons why she should hurry to the house and let him drive away, but her heart knew as many more for wanting him to stay. His company was pleasurable… and he'd changed. So much. But would the changes last? At that moment it ceased to matter, and she groped for a means to keep him with her a while longer.

"But I should be thanking you."

"No… no," he said quietly. But still he sat politely on his side of the seat while her heart hammered crazily.

"Tommy Lee, I…" Did he really intend to say good night without even kissing her?

"You what?"

She didn't know what she was going to say next until the words fell from her mouth. "Why didn't you tell me the earrings were for Beth?"

"You wanted to believe the worst about me."

"I did?"

"Of course. That would have made it much easier for you to deny what you were feeling."

"And what am I feeling?"

"You tell me."

But she really didn't know. There was this powerful attraction, but at the same time she feared his wildness, his reputation, the very real possibility of his backsliding.

So she asked, "Did you get the new glasses because you knew I didn't like the old ones?"

His hand rested very near her shoulder. "Absolutely," he answered in a voice as soft as the fall of a dogwood petal.

Her eyes dropped to his lapel. "And your suit is new, isn't it?"

He, too, glanced down at his chest. "I'm afraid it is. I had to buy it to replace a perfectly good one I ruined in your pool." They laughed quietly, then fell still again, feeling the tension grow.

"And you've been…" She was suddenly afraid to broach the delicate issue.

"I've been what?"

"You've been dieting."

"High time, wouldn't you say?"

She had saved the most delicate issue for last. "And how long has it been since you stopped drinking?"

His hand left the back of the seat and fished for a cigarette. "Six weeks," he answered, leaning forward to push in the dash lighter, leaving his arm extended while waiting for it.

She added it all up, as she'd been adding it up all evening, and her heart melted. She laid her hand on his crisp jacket sleeve. "Oh, Tommy Lee, that's wonderful."

His eyes flashed to the spot where she touched him, then quickly away. "You made me see I was on a fast train to nowhere. I decided it was time to change tracks."

The lighter popped out, and she dropped her hand from his arm while the tip of the cigarette took fire. The idling engine was making her more nervous by the second, and she sensed his impatience to get away if the evening was going to end here with a simple good night.

Suddenly his face took on a hard expression as he studied the glowing coal of his cigarette and asked, "Rachel, why did you come tonight?"

She was so surprised at his change of mood that she didn't know what to answer. She only stared at him, big-eyed.

"You wanted to check me out, find out if I really meant it when I said I could change. But what does it mean to you that I have?"

"Mean…" I-I'm not sure what you..."

"Let me put it this way, then. Just because I've changed, I can't expect that I'll stand a chance with you. That's how it is, right, Rachel?"

"No! No, that's not it!" But it was. In spite of the sexual awareness she felt, she was afraid of people finding out she was spending time with him, afraid of the way he played romantic leapfrog, afraid that they were attracted to each other more by the tug of yesteryear than of today.

"Oh, isn't it? You've already told me you're not a woman who has affairs, and it would be stretching the imagination to believe you wanted anything permanent. So if I kiss you, if I start something, where does that leave me except hurt?"

He studied her intently now, waiting for some response. She felt like a hypocrite, wanting him sexually, yet unable to deny that she wouldn't want the town to find out. He turned to face her, crooking a knee on the seat and draping an elbow between the headrests. She was reminded of his similar pose on the deck railing earlier and pictured his trousers drawn tight, his jacket fallen open. With the hand that held the cigarette, he lifted a strand of her hair and let it fall. "It's all right, Rachel. You don't have to say it."

She closed her eyes and let the sensation of his touch thread down through her limbs and bring goose pimples as the hair dropped from his fingertips time and again. A thought filtered through-something about too much water over the dam-but it felt so good to be touched again, even in so casual a fashion. From above her head the smoke curled, filling her nostrils, while he played with her hair and made her shiver. At last she opened her eyes and found him watching her carefully.

"But still I can't resist you," he said throatily. "You know that."

All was still. Their eyes clung and questioned while intensity spun between them. He's right, she thought sadly, you could hurt him so badly.

"We have so much working against us," she said, in a soft, pained voice.

"Do we?"

She was hazily aware of his arm rising over her head, and of the way he reached toward the ashtray to tamp out the cigarette while studying her over his shoulder. Then he turned to her again, and one strong hand closed about the back of her neck.

"Come here, Rachel," came his thick-throated appeal.

He drew her halfway across the seat, meeting her there with the kiss she'd been afraid would happen, afraid wouldn't. His lips were open, soft, and suckling, covering hers in a first exploratory hello-again that made her heart carom. The tip of his tongue drew persuasive lines along the seam of her lips, and she could no more have kept them closed against him than she could have stilled the wild thrum of her heart. Their tongues met-a sleek, hesitant greeting filled with uncertainty.

When they drew apart, their eyes shone like flinders of glass as they studied each other in the faint greenish-white light. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Now tell me," he ordered softly. "What do we have working against us?"

It was difficult for Rachel to reason, with her pulses racing this way. She forced herself to ease back to her own side of the seat, but the moment she did he took up the sensual fingering of her hair again. She shivered, came to her senses, and shrugged away. "Don't do that, Tommy Lee," she demanded sensibly, forcing herself to evaluate the situation rationally. He was justified in asking her exactly why she was here and what she wanted from him.

"Sorry," he said letting go of her hair. "A minute ago I thought you were enjoying it."

"A minute ago I was, but I shouldn't have been."

"What are you afraid of, Rachel?"

"The same things you are. You… me… the past… the future."

"Broad answers. Could you narrow them down?"

She sighed and looked away from him in the hope that she would be able to think more clearly. "Oh, Tommy Lee, you're so… so practiced!" She made an irritated gesture with her hands.

"Practiced!"

"Yes, practiced. I have the distinct feeling you've done it all, said it all a thousand times before. Do you blame me for being put off by the thought of all those others?"

"All right," he snapped, "so I'm not a fumbling schoolboy anymore. Is that what you want?"

"I don't know," she said miserably, propping her forehead on her knuckles. "I'm so mixed up."

"I told you before, Rachel. Those other women were only substitutes."

"And when you say things like that it only makes me wonder if you give this standard line to every one of us."

He tensed; then the lines of his face hardened, and he removed his arm from the back of the seat. "I don't have a standard line," he stated angrily.

"You wanted me to tell you what we had working against us, so there it is-part of it-and I'm not sure I can ever get past it."

He studied her profile for a full minute, then went on with stern reproof in every word. "Let me tell you something, Rachel. When you first came home from college, you wore your hair down to your shoulderblades, and you had a saucy little red shiny-looking coat that barely reached past your butt, and the day you were married it was sixty-seven degrees and raining. You honeymooned in Greece, came back, and lived in a rented house at fourteen hundred Oak Street, and your phone number was 555-6891. You went to work for the Chamber of Commerce during the time when your hair was screwed up in Afro ringlets, and you wore a more sedate gray cloth coat that fall -that was when you had the maroon Chevy Nova, the one that kid sideswiped that time when you hit your head on the windshield and had to have stitches in your scalp-let's see…" With seemingly clinical detachment he clasped her head in both hands and explored her hairline with his thumbs. "I forget which side it's on, but I know it's right here someplace…"

She chuckled and pulled away. "Oh, Tommy Lee, you're impossible."

"Do you want me to tell you about the cinnamon-colored suede suit that really knocked my socks off when I first saw you walking by in it? Or the grand opening of your store, held on September fif..."

She cut him off with four fingers on his lips. "No, you don't have to tell me any more," she answered meekly.

He kissed her fingertips, then pressed them to his lapel before declaring in a soft, sincere tone, "I don't have a line where you're concerned, Rachel."

"I'm sorry I said that. I really am."

"But I don't know what you want from me. What is it, Rachel?" His hand gripped hers harder. His eyes, so close now, held a vulnerability he made no effort to hide.

"I don't know," she said. "Sometimes the thought of you scares me. You're so… so…"

"When I kissed you, you weren't scared."

"When you kissed me you caught me with my guard down."

His eyes dropped to her lips. He smoothed the back of her hand, and even through his stiff lapel she could feel the strong, fast thud of his heart. "You're afraid I'll use you and move on, is that it?"

"That's part of it."

"And the other part?"

She looked into his eyes with a sad realization that there were no guarantees in this world. "That I'll use you and move on," she admitted, then continued softly. "There are still feelings between us, I won't deny it. But why? Simply because we were denied the right to each other once a long time ago? And if and when we've explored those feelings, what then? Please understand, Tommy Lee, I don't want to hurt you, but it's becoming clearer all the time how easily that could happen."

"Suppose I'm willing to take the risk?"

The longer she sat with her hand over his clamoring heart, the more willing she herself was becoming. She withdrew her hand and searched for more reasons to stop this folly.

"There's something else." Her lips dropped open and the tip of her tongue came out to wet them. "People say things about widows… unkind things." She swallowed and felt herself beginning to blush, recalling Marshall's readiness to become her lover, and his reasons for believing she needed one. And though she'd be the first to admit he'd been right, Rachel was chagrined when she faced the fact. Finally she blurted out, "I don't want to be thought of as a… a sex-starved widow. But I- I-was She stammered to a halt, feeling tears sting her eyes, hating this confusion, which was so foreign to her.

"You what? Say it. Don't be afraid," he prompted.

I suddenly find you more than I bargained for. I want to feel your arms around me, your mouth on mine, your hands on my body. I want to feel alive again, desired, loved. But I'm so afraid to let it happen with you.

"I'm afraid to," she said shakily.

He reached out to touch her cheek, reading in her eyes the unmistakable tug of carnality against which she fought. "Poor Rachel, so mixed up, wanting one thing, telling herself she wants another."

He studied her thoroughly, puzzling out this new, uncertain Rachel. Then he smiled, leaned close, and grazed her jaw with his lips. "So, what'll it be?" he murmured teasingly. "Wanna neck a little bit and see how it feels?"

She laughed unexpectedly, feeling the tension ease. And he kissed her neck with a fleeting touch that could scarcely be felt. But his scent was in her nostrils, smoky, mixed with the remnants of his shaving lotion and the starchy smell of new fabric from his suit. Her eyelids drifted closed, and his nearness sent the blood roaring to her ears.

"Mmm…" she murmured softly while he worked his way toward her earlobe and worried it gently with his teeth.

"Nice?" he murmured in return.

"Mmm…" It was more than nice. It was heady, enticing. "Tommy Lee," she whispered, "why did you leave the car running?"

He drew back to study her eyes, his arms forming an open harbor for her to sail into if she chose, one resting on the wheel, the other on the seat but not touching her. "If you want it off, turn it off yourself."

And so here it was-the choice. If she shut the car off there would be no turning back. If she didn't she had the feeling she'd regret it forever.

Her hand trembled as it reached toward the keys that dangled from the ignition on a silver chain. They chinked softly; then the car fell silent. Neither of them moved for a long, tense moment. At last, with his eyes rapt upon her, he reached through the steering wheel and shifted the car into park, felt for the light switch and brought darkness descending about their heads. His hand rose slowly to his temple, and with a twist of his head the glasses came off and he laid them on the dash. In slow motion, his hand closed about her neck, urging her near until she tilted toward him. For the space of several thundering heartbeats they hovered with their lips an inch apart.

"I don't want an affair," she claimed in a shaken whisper, but she needed very much to be kissed and caressed again.

"I know." His lips brushed hers in a kiss as tentative as the first one shared years ago in the break of a boxwood hedge. Her right hand came up to rest shyly against his chest, while his shifted to her hair, his long fingers threading through it.

They backed apart slightly, gauging each other's reactions and the dangers of carrying this to its limits. Those dangers were many and very, very real. But the great force of sexuality pressed down upon them, lying in their vitals with a heavy anguish of longing while their heartbeats scudded like thunder before a summer storm.

"Tommy Lee… we're crazy," she whispered.

"No," came his whispered reply. "We deserve this. We paid for it long ago."