GEORGIA MEETS HER

GROOM

ELIZABETH BEVARLY

"I was hoping we could be alone,"

Georgia admitted.

Jack nodded slowly. "Just you and me," he said. "Like old times."

Well, not quite like old times, she thought. There was that small matter of countless
hours of unbridled sex she was hoping for now that had been totally absent from
their relationship before.

"Just like old times," she agreed a little breathlessly. Except that you wouldn't believe
what kind of underwear I have on under this outfit.. .nothing like the white cotton
stuff I used to wear. Which he'd never seen anyway. So how was he going to know
how much trouble she'd gone to today?

He'd know, she assured herself. Oh, yeah. He'd know.

Dear Reader,

THE BLACK WATCH returns! The men you found so intriguing are now joined by
women who are also part of this secret organization created by BJ James. Look for
them in Whispers in the Dark, this month's MAN OF THE MONTH.

Leanne Banks's delightful miniseries HOW TO CATCH A PRINCESS—all about
three childhood friends who kiss a lot of frogs before they each meet their handsome

prince— continues with The You-Can't-Make-Me Bride. And Elizabeth Bevarly's
series THE FAMILY McCORMICK concludes with Georgia Meets Her Groom.
Romance blooms as the McCormick family is finally reunited.

Peggy Moreland's tantalizing miniseries TROUBLE IN TEXAS begins this month
with Marry Me, Cowboy. When the men of Temptation, Texas, decide they want
wives, they find them the newfangled way—they advertise!

A Western from Jackie Merritt is always a treat, so I'm excited about this month's
Wind River Ranch—it's ultrasensuous and totally compelling. And the month is
completed with Wedding Planner Tames Rancher!, an engaging romp by Pamela
Ingrahm. There's nothing better than curling up with a Silhouette Desire book, so
enjoy!

Regards,

Senior Editor

Lucia Marco

Elizabeth Bevarly is an honors graduate of the University of Louisville and achieved
her dream of writing full-time before she even turned thirty! At heart, she is also an
avid voyager who once helped navigate a friend's thirty-five-foot sailboat across the
Bermuda Triangle. "I really love to travel," says this self-avowed beach bum. "To
me, it's the best education a person can give to herself." Her dream is to one day
have her own sailboat, a beautifully renovated older model forty-two footer, and to
enjoy die freedom and tranquillity seafaring can bring. Elizabeth likes to think she has
a lot in common with the characters she creates, people who know love and life go
hand in hand. And she's getting some firsthand experience with motherhood, as welt
—she and her husband welcomed their firstborn, a son, two years ago.

ELIZABETH BEVARLY

GEORGIA MEETS HER

GROOM

Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six

Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Epilogue

For Ana Sofia

The score is now: Girls 3, Boys 1 So who's going to go next?

Prologue

He knew her only by sight, knew that her name was Georgia Lavender and that her
daddy practically owned the whole damned town. Carlisle, Virginia, even if it was a
thriving beach resort in the summer, was barely a smudge on the map the rest of the
year. And just as everybody knew that Georgia was rich, everybody knew she was
smart—the kid who'd been skipped a couple of grades back in elementary school,
and who, just shy of fourteen, was the youngest member of the sophomore class.

Just as everybody knew he was the oldest at almost seventeen, having been held
back twice—once in sixth grade and once in seventh. They also knew it hadn't been
because he was stupid so much as it had been because he was such a troublemaker.

And hell, he wasn't even from Carlisle. This just happened to be the most recent
place the state had dumped him, after he'd been exiled from yet another group home
because of what the social workers had politely called "antisocial behavior."

In spite of being the new kid in town, though, it had taken him no time at all to
acquire a reputation.

Jack McCormick strode across the school parking lot and watched with veiled
interest as Georgia Lavender made her way reluctantly toward her father, who was
leaning against an expensive, late-model car. Her clothes suggested she had a modest
disposition—a tan skirt and white blouse, white knee socks and plain brown shoes.
Jack had heard Susie Morris and some of the other girls laughing about Georgia's
clothes pretty often, but he'd never really paid much attention until now.

She wore glasses, too, their huge frames and thick lenses giving her the appearance
of some kind of small, timid animal whose eyes had outgrown the rest of its body.
Her hair was sort of a medium everything—medium red, medium long, medium curly
—but he noted it was touched with splashes of gold when she was out in the

sunlight this way.

She wasn't much of a looker, Jack reflected. But then, at the moment, neither was he.
Gingerly he brushed a knuckle over his left cheekbone, where he knew the purple
discoloration was still present. His foster father had backhanded him but good
yesterday as soon as he'd gotten a load of Jack's report card. Nothing much new in
that, but Jack wished just once he could escape the house without having to dodge
the old man's fist.

Brushing back an errant length of black hair that had fallen over one eye, he glanced
over at Georgia and her father again. She had slowed down and was warily studying
the man by the car. Inexplicably, Jack slowed his own pace, taking his time as he
unlocked the door of his old, battered Nova and tossed his books into the back seat.
He squared his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck, feeling tense and edgy
for no reason he could name.

"Georgia," the man said in a voice that chilled Jack's blood. With that one word he
had managed a greeting, an insult and a threat. It made no sense, but Jack became
immediately defensive, his fingers curling reflexively into fists.

"Georgia," the man repeated in much the same voice. "Why didn't you show me
your report card last night?"

She came to a halt precisely one foot in front of her father. Jack would never have
done that. He always made it a point to keep out of swinging distance.

When she didn't reply, her father pushed himself away from the car to tower over
her. "Why, Georgia?"

Without looking up, she replied so quietly that Jack had to strain to hear her. "You
weren't home."

"You knew I was working late. Why didn't you leave it on the table the way I
instructed?"

She glanced up once very quickly, then dropped her head in submission again. "I—
I'm sorry, Daddy. I—I forgot."

"You forgot."

She nodded silently.

"Well, I didn't forget. And just for your information, between the mattress and box
springs is a terrible hiding place. It was the first place I looked."

His voice oozed disdain, and Georgia flinched as if he had slapped her.

"You got a B, Georgia. A B!" His voice surged from condemnation to contempt in
one syllable. "In chemistry , for God's sake! How the hell are you going to get into a
university like MIT with grades like that?"

Jack couldn't believe what he was hearing. Her old man was upset because she'd
received a better grade than he could ever have hoped for, in a class he wasn't even
allowed to take because of his lousy academic record. What was the guy— nuts?

"I'm sorry, Daddy, I—"

"You're sorry," her father jeered. "I'll say you're sorry. A sorry excuse for a human
being. If you ever get another grade like this one on your report card, I swear I'll..."

To Jack, the unuttered threat sounded a lot scarier than the graphic warnings he
received from his foster father on a regular basis. He shook his head silently.
Grown-ups were such jerks. He started to get into his car, but when he heard
Georgia's father start up again, he turned around, wondering why the old guy
couldn't drop the subject.

"I've had it with you, Georgia. You'd better straighten up and fly right, because what
do you think will happen to you if you don't get into college? Certainly you won't get
married. Look at you—what man would want you? And I won't have you being a
burden on me for the rest of my life."

As her father berated her, Georgia simply stood still with her head bowed and
listened. Jack, on the other hand, grew angrier and angrier with every word the man
spoke. Before he realized his intention, he was marching over to stand behind her.
Then, without a word, he cupped his hands over her shoulders and gently pushed
her aside, stepping in front of her to shield her.

Where Georgia's father had been looking down to shout at her, he was forced to tilt
his head back to look at Jack. For one tense moment, no one said a word. Finally,
the older man broke the silence.

"Who the hell are you?"

Jack twisted his mouth into a sneer, an expression that always preceded the first
punch he threw in a fight. "Name's Jack McCormick. Who the hell are you?"

Georgia's father was clearly taken aback. "I'm Gregory Lavender, Georgia's father.
Now step aside."

Jack shook his head slowly. "Georgia and I have plans."

Gregory Lavender narrowed his eyes in outrage. "Now, you listen to me—"

"No, you listen to me." Jack cut him off, tilting his head down toward Gregory
Lavender's with the express purpose of getting in the guy's face. "You wanna whale
into somebody, you try whaling into me and see what it gets you. But leave Georgia
alone. She hasn't done anything wrong."

The old man poked a finger against Jack's breastbone—hard. "This is none your
business, boy."

Jack effortlessly shoved the finger away. And although his gaze remained fixed on
Gregory Lavender's, he directed hisnext words to the man's daughter, dismissing the
man himself. "Come on, Georgia, let's go."

He took her hand and tugged gently, urging her toward his car. But she didn't follow
him. When he turned around to look at her, she was staring at him with huge,
disbelieving eyes, her lower lip trembling with utter terror.

"Georgia?" he said softly. "You coming?"

She clasped her books tightly to her chest, her knuckles almost white where they
gripped her binder. With one quick glance at her father, she took a slow step toward
Jack. Then another. Then another.

"Georgia..." her father warned her.

"I won't be late, Daddy," she said in a quivering voice. "I'll be home in plenty of
time for supper, I promise."

"Georgia, we are not fin—"

"Hey, old man, she told you she'd be home in time for supper," Jack interrupted as
he led Georgia away, his steps, unlike hers, never faltering. "What's the problem?"

He was amazed that Georgia's father didn't respond to his taunt, didn't suppress the
small act of rebellion on the spot. He hoped she wouldn't be in for a rough time
when she got home. But for now, he'd helped her win this one battle, and in doing so
had given himself a little boost, too.

From now on, he thought, Gregory Lavender would know that his daughter had a
champion to rally whenever she felt threatened by dragons. And maybe, just maybe,
that would make a difference in her life. And hell, who knew? he thought further.
Maybe it would make a difference in Jack's life, too.

He opened the passenger door of his car and helped her in, then went around to seat
himself behind the wheel. Gunning the engine in the way teenage boys do, he turned
to her and smiled.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi, yourself," she rejoined.

His smile broadened. "I'm Jack McCormick."

"I know," she replied with a shaky smile. "I've always..."

Her voice trailed off and she shrugged anxiously, pushingher glasses up onto the
bridge of her nose with her index finger. Innocently, and not a little awkwardly, she
lifted her hand to cup his jaw, rubbing her thumb gently across his cheekbone where
his skin was still tender beneath the bruise. "I know," she repeated quietly. "I'm

pleased to meet you."

One

Jack McCormick sat behind his big, executive, mahogany desk, staring blindly at his
big, executive mahogany-paneled office. A crisp white sheet of stationery and a torn
envelope marked Confidential sat neglected on the blotter before him, the tidy black
letterhead on both stating, among other things, Roxanne Matheny Investigations, Inc.
He had read the letter four times already. But he could still hardly believe what it
said.

Scarcely thinking about what he was doing, he tugged open the top right-hand
drawer of his desk and extracted a battered baseball that was more innards than out.
He curled his fingers comfortably over the worn leather and rubber, palming the
sphere with affection the way he would a lover's breast. It was the only thing he
owned that had been with him forever. All else had been lost at some point along the
way. Until now.

He gazed at the letter again, his eyes feasting on the message it bore. They'd found
him. Finally. Before he'd even had a chance to look for them.

A soft rap of knuckles on his office door brought Jack out of his deep ruminations,
and he lifted his head toward it. "Come in," he called out.

Adrian Chavez, his highest-ranking associate, nudged the door open and strode
confidently through. But when he observed his employer's expression, he hesitated.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

Jack shook his head slowly and gripped the baseball more firmly, but he didn't
elaborate. "What's the word?" he asked instead.

Adrian extended a hefty accordion folder toward him. "The Lavender acquisition.
As it currently stands, anyway."

Jack clamped his jaw shut rigidly and set the baseball aside, then reached for the
record his associate offered, his attention suddenly focused tighter than it had been
for some time. "And what did Gregory Lavender have to say today?"

Adrian paused, eyeing his boss thoughtfully, then linked his fingers together behind
his back. "Not much that he hasn't already said over the last few months." Clearly
restless, he then brought his arms forward, crossing them negligently over his chest,
as if giving another matter much thought.

"What?" Jack asked, grinning with satisfaction. "Did he have something else to add

this time?"

"Yeah," Adrian told him. "As a matter of fact, he did have something else to say
about you."

"I can only imagine what."

Adrian studied his employer with something akin to admiration. "Gregory Lavender
said he'd see you dead before he turned his company over to you. Especially after
what you did to his daughter."

Jack expelled an errant breath of air that almost—almost— sounded like a chuckle.
"Yeah, I'll just bet he would."

Adrian rocked back on his heels. "So...just what did you do to his daughter?"

Jack glanced up and narrowed his eyes at his associate. "I freed her."

Adrian nodded. "Sounds like fun."

Jack emitted another rough sound. "Actually, it was more like..."

He inhaled a deep breath, and left his thought unfinished. More than twenty years
had passed since he'd seen Gregory Lavender's daughter. But scarcely a day had
passed that he hadn't thought about her. He'd freed her? he asked himself. Hell,
more like she had been the one to free Jack.

Adrian simply continued to gaze at his employer, not pressing the issue of Georgia
Lavender. "So what do we do now?" he asked instead.

This time, when Jack chuckled, it was heartfelt. He'd been waiting a long, long time
for this. What was that old saying about revenge being a dish best served cold? That
was a good way to describe the feeling nestled deep in Jack's belly. Cold. Raw.
Bitter. He was about to make up for much of what had been dumped on him in his
past—and Georgia Lavender's too. He was about to repay a debt to her that had
gone far too long unsettled. Oh, yes. He'd been waiting a long time for this.

He gazed down at the letter on his blotter from Roxanne Matheny, P.I., lifting it to
scan the message there once again. He'd been waiting a long time for that, too.
Everything was coming together, but it was coming too soon. He wasn't sure he
could tackle both at once. Still, a man had to take his opportunities where he found
them and play them for all they were worth. It was the only way Jack knew how to
survive. It was what had saved his life.

Well, that and Georgia Lavender.

It was time, he thought. Time to go back to Carlisle. Time to make good on his debt
to Georgia. Time to make Gregory Lavender pay for what he did to his only child.

Time for Jack to reclaim what was rightfully his.

* * *

The quickly curling waves were huge, thick and slate gray, crashing into sprays of
white foam as they slammed against the beach below Georgia Lavender's house. As
she stood on her deck, her long, fiery hair buffeted wildly by the cold winter wind,
she could barely distinguish the thin line of a horizonsmudged a little darker gray than
the shades of ocean and sky. It had been days since she had seen the sun. And that
was just fine with her.

If she hadn't already painted this scene a dozen times over the past few months, she
would run into the house for her paint tubes, and would return with only black, white
and perhaps a bit of green and blue. Carlisle's coastline in the winter was awash with
grays of every variety, and she had captured them all on canvas at some point. Her
gallery was full of such paintings. But the tourists never seemed to tire of buying
them.

The temperature hovered around forty degrees—probably below thirty with the
windchill—and she felt like taking a walk. Evan wouldn't be home for another couple
of hours, and she was feeling restless for some reason. She went inside to find her
golden retriever, Molly, sound asleep on the couch, but at her quick whistle, the big
dog awoke and leapt down, wagging her tail furiously.

"Wanna go for a walk, girl?" Georgia asked unnecessarily.

Molly barked loudly three times, clearly ready for some exercise.

She tugged a thick, oatmeal-colored sweater on over her jeans, then wove her unruly
russet tresses into a fat braid that fell down between her shoulder blades. Shrugging
into her oversize, flannel-lined denim jacket, she decided not to bother with Molly's
leash, because she knew the beach would be deserted. Living year-round in what
was predominantly a rental community meant that at this time of year, she and Evan
were virtually the only inhabitants for miles.

The solitude didn't bother either one of them, though. They both liked being far from
society's constraints. They had Molly to keep them company, after all, and Molly
never had a mean thing to say about anybody.

As Georgia and the golden retriever clattered down the wooden stairs and wandered
onto the beach, she felt as if she were the only human being left in the world. She
walked for a long time, cutting a path well away from the water, taking a moment
here and there to pick up a fragment of seashell forinspection. But none of the pieces
she found was any different from the ones she had amassed over the past four years,
so she left them for someone else to find.

When they reached the pier at the Carlisle Yacht Club, Georgia turned around to
head back. The chilly air had numbed her fingers and face, and her ears ached where
the wind had whipped about them. A cup of hot chocolate would really hit the spot
right now, she thought as she gazed wistfully at a ramshackle building near the

entrance to the pier.

It was as gray as everything else seemed to be that day, but the sign in front,
proclaiming Rudy's Local—The Place For Fish, looked cheerful despite the dingy
day. Rudy himself was a very colorful fellow, she thought further with a smile, and
she looked forward to whiling away an hour or so with him before heading home.
With a quick whistle, she summoned Molly back to her side, and they made their
way toward the restaurant.

"Rudy! It's Georgia!" she called out as she entered the deserted building. She
plopped down on a stool at the counter, and Molly stretched out on the floor behind
her. It was a familiar place, a familiar position. "Rudy?" she tried again when she
received no answer.

"I'm in back!" a ragged voice finally shouted in reply from somewhere beyond the
kitchen. "Be out in 'bout fifteen minutes, soon as I get this freezer unit fixed. Help
yourself to hot chocolate—I know that's what you're here for. Vander-mint's under
the cash register for spiking it the way you like."

Rudy knew her too well, she thought as she rose to move behind the counter and
follow his instructions. After fixing herself a large mugful of the concoction, Georgia
began to wander restlessly around the room to wait for him, humming under her
breath a slow number from her teenage years, and sipping her hot chocolate
carefully.

Gazing out the window, she watched as a spotless, gunmetal gray Jaguar sedan with
a Washington, D.C., license plate eased to a halt in a parking space in the lot outside.
She wondered what would bring a traveler to a summers-and-weekends community
like Carlisle in the dead of winter and the middle of the week.

The person who emerged was tall, broad shouldered and very male, with coal black
hair that the wind immediately caught and danced with. He had apparently been on
the road for some time, because while she watched him, he began to stretch, flexing
his arms out to his sides before curling them back in toward his exquisitely formed
body.

He still had his back to her and had not put on his coat, and Georgia could almost
swear she saw the muscles in his back bunch and ripple beneath his dark blue
sweater every time he moved. When he leaned forward, she couldn't help but notice
how well he fit his jeans. He reached back into the car and extracted a leather
bomber jacket, carelessly thrust his arms into the sleeves and turned toward the
restaurant.

It was then that her breath caught in her throat and, almost involuntarily, she moved
closer to the window. It wasn't so much because the man was one of the most
handsome she had ever seen. And it wasn't because his gaze was so utterly fixed on
hers as he approached. It wasn't even because of the way his appearance had
suddenly roused feelings and sensations in her that she knew were best ignored.

It was because he seemed very familiar somehow.

She wasn't sure, but she thought his steps faltered somewhat when he saw her
watching him through the window, but he recovered quickly and kept coming. She
lifted a hand to flatten her palm against the pane, her eyes never straying from the
man as he neared the front door of the restaurant. The wind shoved his hair down
over his forehead, preventing her from seeing his eyes clearly, but he watched her in
return as he drew nearer, his expression puzzled and wary.

She lost sight of him as he entered, but she turned away from the window and spun
around to find him pushing through the second set of doors that would bring him
into the restaurant's main dining room. In the dim light she could scarcely make out
his face, but her heart hummed and skipped as shestudied him. He looked roguish
and gentle at the same time, and definitely very familiar.

The man took a few measured steps forward, bringing his tall frame out of the
shadows, but leaving his face still hidden from the light. When he spoke, his words
sounded as if they were filled with something almost akin to...melancholy?

"Don't you remember me?" he asked softly, his voice sounding thunderous in the
otherwise silent room.

At first, Georgia shook her head slowly in response. Then he took one more step
forward and brought his face into the light, and she saw his eyes—eyes of a dark
blue color she had never quite seen anywhere else, as often as she had searched to
find an adequate comparison. Expressive eyes, compelling eyes. Eyes that had once
looked upon her full of laughter and a languid kind of affection.

Georgia bit her lip. Now Jack's eyes were sad and fatigued and framed by shadows.
In many ways, it seemed to her then, he was indeed a man she didn't remember.

"Jack McCormick," she said on a shallow breath.

As soon as she spoke his name, his eyes cleared of their troubling clouds and his
lips turned up slightly at the corners, hinting at a smile she remembered only too well.
Her stomach clenched into a tight fist when she realized how much she had missed
him all these years.

"So you do remember," he replied quietly, approaching her with slow, uncertain
steps. His voice had deepened over the years, but was still a little rough and
youthful. And, as it always had, the sound of his voice made her smile.

Jack laughed then, low and strong, and for a moment she could detect a trace of the
boy she had known for a little over a year more than two decades before. Something
in him relaxed, the shadows left his eyes and he looked at her with the same puzzling
expression he had always seemed to reserve for her alone. For a long time they only
gazed at each other silently.

Georgia studied the face above her, comparing it with the one she had known so

long ago. Essentially, they were oneand the same, yet there were so many
differences. His tousled curls, the curls she had thought made him look so rebellious
and that she had always had to force herself not to wind around her fingers, were
gone. Now his hair was cut casually short. Lines fanned out at the corners of his
eyes and slashed along the sides of his mouth, and his cheeks were rough from a
half day's growth of beard.

He'd barely been shaving the last time she saw him, she thought—that morning of his
eighteenth birthday, just before he had slipped away from Carlisle without a care,
without a plan, without a backward glance.

Without even telling her goodbye.

Before she realized what she was doing, she set her hot chocolate down on the
nearest table, then lifted her hand to cup his cheek, skimming her thumb along the
ridge of his cheekbone as she had done the first day they'd met. She didn't know
what made her do such a thing. For some reason, it just felt right. Somehow, the
years slipped away, and she felt as if she were thirteen again, seeing Jack up close
for the first time.

Jack McCormick closed his eyes when Georgia Lavender touched him so tenderly.
The gentle motion was nearly his undoing. It was going to be more difficult than he'd
anticipated, he thought, seeing Georgia again after all this time. He wished they could
go back for just one day—one hour, even— just long enough that he could tell her
so many things he wished he'd said to her when he'd had the chance.

He had always regretted not telling her goodbye. It had left him feeling incomplete
somehow, unfinished. All these years, he'd just never quite come to terms with the
way Georgia had always made him feel. Mainly because he'd never quite understood
his feelings for her.

He tilted his head into the soft caress of her fingers, and couldn't help but wonder if
perhaps now it might be too late to try. For over twenty years she had lived a life that
he knew nothing about, and he himself had changed in so many ways. The Georgia
of his memories was just a kid—a troubled kid, at that.

When he left Carlisle she'd been a scrawny, awkward girl of fourteen, almost fifteen,
swallowed by a big pair of glasses, and generally frightened of life. He'd never once
felt a stir of sexual anything where Georgia was concerned. Affection, yes. Perhaps
he'd even loved her in a way. But she'd been his friend. His confidante. His
sanctuary. It had never occurred to him that she might someday become something
more.

He opened his eyes and studied her again. The Georgia who greeted him today,
however, was a different person entirely. Her coppery hair was shot through with
silver now, and her gray eyes were lined with life and laughter. She was round and
soft and beautiful. She was a woman through and through. And something inside
Jack responded to her in a way he never would have imagined— immediately and

irrevocably.

And suddenly he wondered if it had been such a good idea to return to Carlisle after
all.

Gently he wrapped his fingers around hers and pulled her hand away from his cheek,
noting the hurt in her eyes as he did so. But he said nothing. He had planned to come
into the restaurant for a cup of coffee to fortify himself before driving the final mile
to the address he'd located in the phone book, and to prepare himself for what he
would find when he located Georgia Lavender. But he'd been denied that last little
moment of preparation. And he still couldn't quite assimilate the woman of
thirty-seven with the girl of fourteen. So he studied her in silence for a moment more.

Gone was the timid, mousy girl who had slouched through life, averted her eyes
from everyone she encountered, and cowered at the mention of her father's name. In
her place was a beautiful, vivacious woman whose dark gray eyes were alive with a
vibrant spirit. He wondered what—or who—had brought her to such life in the years
that he'd been gone. And something pinched inside him at the knowledge that it
hadn't been he.

According to the listing in the phone book, her last name was still Lavender, but that
didn't necessarily mean she hadn't married. His gaze flicked down to her left hand,
and when henoted no sign of a wedding ring, he relaxed a little. There was a good
chance she was involved with someone, though, he reminded himself. A woman who
looked like she did couldn't possibly be wanting for dates.

Then he reminded himself that all of that was immaterial. He'd come back for
Georgia because she was his friend. Because he'd left her at a time when she needed
him, and he wanted to make up for that. What difference did it make if she was
married, or even involved? Romance had never been on his mind where she was
concerned. He just had a debt to pay to her, and a score to settle with her father, that
was all.

Before he realized what he was doing, he pulled her into his arms and hugged her
fiercely. He tried to tell himself it was an embrace two very good friends would
naturally share after such a lengthy separation. But as he wrapped his arms around
her waist and settled his chin on top of her head, his heart began to beat faster than it
had for more than twenty years.

When he felt her stiffen in his arms, he immediately released her, remembering that
she had never been comfortable with close physical contact. Even where he had
been concerned, he recalled sadly. She had always been the first to pull away
whenever one of them had needed holding.

He let her move within arm's length of him, but no farther. For long moments they
only studied each other wordlessly, lost in thought, memory and speculation.

Jack McCormick, Georgia marveled. What on earth was he doing back in Carlisle?

He was quite possibly the last person she might have expected to see after all this
time. But even two decades had not diminished her memory of him. He was still
breathtakingly handsome, still touched by roughness and softened with gentleness.

Still able to make her heart race by his mere presence in the room.

It was as if something inside her that had been chained down for centuries suddenly
broke free and soared toward the light. All the adolescent longing that had gone
unassuaged, allthe needful yearning left unfulfilled, all the tentative joy she'd never
found elsewhere in her life... All of it rose to the surface in a swift, stormy rush of
emotion, and she felt all over again as if she were fourteen years old and would die
without Jack McCormick in her life.

His hug had been almost too much for her to bear. How many times in their youth
had she been forced to push him away before he somehow discovered just how
desperately in love with him she'd been? His embraces back then had resulted from
his need for comfort after his foster father's overbearing bullying. But hers had gone
beyond a desire for comforting. Hers had been because she simply wanted to be as
close to Jack as two people could be.

What would he say now if she told him how often she had fantasized about making
love with him, even at the tender age of fourteen? What would he do if she
confessed right now that she'd wanted nothing more in her young life than for him to
be the man who made her a woman?

But someone else had performed that service years ago, and Georgia had always
regretted not asking Jack to be the one. He would have been more gentle, more
tender, more loving. The event might even have been special if Jack had been the one
sharing it with her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him.

He didn't answer right away, and Georgia felt a tingle of apprehension shimmy up
her spine.

"I needed to talk to someone."

She chuckled a little nervously. "Don't tell me you're so alone that you have to look
up a friend from twenty years ago when you want to have a conversation."

"It's about my brother and sister."

Georgia sobered immediately. She wondered if she was still the only person he'd
ever confided in about his family, then decided she must be if he'd risked a time
warp back to Carlisle just to have someone to reminisce with about them.

"Is there someplace we can talk?" he asked.

"What's wrong with right here?"

He looked around, and seemed to realize for the first time that the place was empty
except for the two of them. Apparently unmoved by the knowledge, however, he
said, "Maybe your house would be better. I'd rather not talk about them in public."

"But—"

Her objection was cut short, because Rudy chose that moment to appear behind the
counter, and he was clearly suspicious of the scene that greeted him.

"Georgia?" he asked in an aged, anxious voice. "This guy buggin' you?"

She almost laughed out loud. Bugging her? Jack McCormick had been bugging her
since she was thirteen years old, when he had sent her pubescent hormones into a
frenzy.

"No, Rudy," she told the old man softly. "This is Jack McCormick. You might
remember him. He used to live in Carlisle. But only very briefly." Too briefly, she
added to herself.

Rudy scratched his grizzled chin. "McCormick, eh? Yeah, I remember you. Got in a
lot of fights, right?"

A small, irritated sound erupted from the back of Jack's throat. "Yeah, that was me.
I've changed quite a bit since then, though."

"What?" Rudy asked. "Ya don't fight no more?"

Jack glanced down at the floor, and Georgia got the feeling it wasn't so much to
avoid Rudy's gaze as it was to avoid hers. "I didn't say that," he told the other man.
But he didn't elaborate further.

Rudy nodded, but still seemed wary of the no-longer juvenile delinquent. "Where's
Molly?" he asked Georgia.

At the mention of her name, the big yellow dog on the floor lifted her head from her
paws and wagged her tail. She, too, had been eyeing Jack since he'd entered the
restaurant, but seemed to harbor considerably less concern about his character than
Rudy did.

"She's right here," Georgia told the old man, trying to hidea smile. "So don't worry.
Molly will protect me if Jack starts to become his old beastly self."

Rudy nodded slowly, but added, "I'll be here all night if ya need me. Supper crowd
will be comin' in any time now."

Georgia smiled at him. This time of year the "supper crowd" consisted of maybe a
half-dozen people, but she took comfort in Rudy's obvious concern, and his
assurance that the entire community would rush to her rescue should Jack try
anything funny.

"Thanks," she said as she lifted a hand in farewell. "Molly? You coming, girl?"

As the couple turned to leave, the big dog ambled after them. The moment the
restaurant door closed behind them, the wind assailed them with bitter cold. Georgia
braved a glimpse at Jack as they strode toward his car, trying to assimilate the boy
of seventeen and his sloppy jalopy with the man of forty who drove something
sophisticated and expensive. He'd sold his beloved, beat-up Nova just before leaving
town, and although he'd never mentioned it, she knew it was because he'd needed
the money. Now, however, judging by his chosen mode of transportation, money
wasn't much of a problem for him.

Jack McCormick had changed, she realized. A lot. And she wasn't sure whether
change was something she wanted to see in him or not. With a wistful sigh, she
folded herself into the car after Molly and told herself not to think about it.

Two

They drove the mile to her house in silence. Molly sat in the back seat, leaning
forward between them, her heavy panting the only sound interrupting the quiet. Jack
gazed with interest at his surroundings as they made their journey. He'd spent less
than two years in Carlisle as a teenager, and it had been only one of a dozen
locations where the state had placed him. But the small town had always been
stamped indelibly at the front of his brain, never to be forgotten. Because this was
where he had known Georgia Lavender.

Since his parents' deaths when he was seven years old, Jack had been shuttled and
shunted from group home to foster home to correctional home and back again. He'd
been a discipline problem from day one, fighting and backtalking and being generally
bad tempered. That's what happened when a boy was ripped from his home and his
family without warning or concern. But no one had ever bothered to address that
fact. No one had much cared. Not until he had come to Carlisle.

The place had changed a lot, he noted. It had grown outwardand upward, and
looked to be quite prosperous for a small coastal community. Georgia lived in a
subdivision that hadn't existed when Jack had last been here, in an area well away
from town, where the beach and ocean were too treacherous for swimming, but
breathtaking to view, and made less accessible by jagged dunes.

As they drew nearer, he saw that the houses were built up on stilts, unoccupied for
the most part, with signs in the front yards advertising that they were for rent.
Georgia's house, sitting alone at the end of a cul-de-sac, seemed particularly isolated,
a fact that didn't set well with him for some reason.

It, too, was perched on stilts, but where some of the other houses were looming

structures of two and three stories, geometrically designed with sharp corners and
slanted lines, hers was a simple ranch style with a series of stairways that started on
the ground and wound about the house, ending in a square deck placed at the center
of her roof.

As they emerged from his car, he heard her keys jingling, Molly barking at nothing
and the wind whipping wildly about the softly moaning house. And all of a sudden
he felt as if time and the rest of the world had receded into nothing.

"You're awfully isolated out here," he said, speaking his earlier observations aloud as
they trudged up the creaking steps.

"Yes, I am," she agreed as she shoved back a fistful of hair that the wind had tossed
ferociously down on her forehead. "I love it here."

The interior of the house reminded Jack of Georgia's bedroom in the big house in
Carlisle, where he had spent many a night as a teenager—unbeknownst to her father,
of course— when he'd been too afraid to go home. Soft colors, lots of light and
flowers everywhere—in paintings, on wreaths, in the fabric of the furniture, growing
in pastel-colored planters. Everything was scented with the subtle fragrance of spring
blossoms, made all the more poignant because it was the dead of winter and he
knew he should be denied such pleasures at this time of year.

He noted a telescope angled upward in front of the windows that faced the ocean,
and remembered that she had always had an interest in astronomy, something her
father had insisted she turn into a degree in astrophysics or aeronautical engineering.
Jack wondered how things were between her and her old man these days. Although
he'd been keeping track of Gregory Lavender from a business standpoint, he knew
little about the man's personal life. Certainly, from the looks of her, Georgia seemed
to be out from under his thumb, but there was no way of knowing for sure where
father and daughter stood currently.

Wordlessly she closed the door behind them, went to the kitchen to fill Molly's bowl
with fresh water, returned to the living room to shrug out of her coat, and turned to
face Jack fully.

"So what's the real reason you've come back to Carlisle?" she asked bluntly.

He removed his own jacket and tossed it onto the same chair upon which she had
discarded hers. But he remained rooted on the other side of the room opposite her,
not certain exactly how to act. Georgia's question was a simple one, he told himself.
So why did he find it so impossible to answer her?

When he met her gaze, he realized she was studying him intently, much as she had
been since he'd pushed through the doors of the restaurant a half hour earlier. "Have
I changed that much?" he asked quietly, sidestepping her question for the time being.

She nodded. "Yes. Yes, you have."

"So have you."

"It's been more than twenty years, Jack," she said with a shrug. "That's a long time.
People can't help but change."

He nodded. "I know. I just didn't expect..."

"What?"

He shook his head and left his statement unfinished.

"He's dead, you know."

Georgia couldn't imagine what made her blurt out the news that way—the words just
tumbled out without her even having planned to say them. A muscle twitched once in
Jack's jaw,but he offered no other indication that he'd even heard what she said.

"Buck, I mean," she added softly. She hadn't uttered the name of Jack's foster father
for two decades, but it still left a bad taste in her mouth when she did. "He died
about three years ago. Finally drank himself to death. Faye is dead, too. About six
months ago."

"I knew Buck was dead, but I hadn't heard about Faye," Jack said, a complete
absence of any kind of emotion in his voice at the mention of his former foster
parents. "Can't say that I'm sorry to hear it, though."

Georgia nodded. Although his foster mother hadn't beaten him up the way his foster
father had, she'd never done anything to stop the abuse, either. It was easy to
understand why Jack couldn't forgive either of them.

No other words passed between them for several moments, then Georgia
remembered she was playing hostess to someone she hadn't seen in ages. "Would
you like some coffee?" She gestured at the fireplace behind her. "I could switch on
the fire. We could spend the whole afternoon catching up on everything that's
happened since we saw each other last."

"That could take a lot longer than one afternoon," Jack told her with a sad smile.

She shrugged again, a little more anxiously this time. "Then we'll just have to give it
more than one afternoon."

He said nothing in reply to that, and Georgia nibbled her lower lip fretfully. This was
just too weird. Although she had never forgotten Jack McCormick, he was frozen in
her mind as a boy of barely eighteen. A surly, angry boy at that, one who'd had no
money, no prospects and no hope when he'd left Carlisle. The man who stood
before her now was like a stranger. He looked like Jack, kind of, and he spoke like
Jack, in a way, and he moved like Jack, a bit, but he wasn't Jack. Not the Jack she
remembered, anyway.

That other Jack had been such a big part of her life at a time when she'd needed

someone badly. For one full year in her young life Georgia had had someone to care
for, someonewho had cared for her in return. For one full year she'd felt like a
human being, and it had been enough to generate the strength she'd needed to start
pulling away from her father's bullying.

But after one year, just when things were starting to look up—for her, at least—Jack
had disappeared from her life completely, and she'd been left alone again.

Not that she hadn't expected him to leave. From that first afternoon when he'd driven
her away from her father's wrath, Jack had made no secret of the fact that the day he
turned eighteen, when he was no longer answerable to the state of Virginia, he was
hightailing it from Carlisle forever. He'd made clear, too, that he'd never again—not
in a million, trillion years—set one foot in any of the towns where he'd been placed
as a kid.

And Georgia had never doubted that he would stick to that vow as if it were sacred.
However, she'd always thought he might consider taking her with him when he left
Carlisle, even if she wasn't of legal age. Or that he might come back for her when she
turned eighteen, too. At the very least, she had thought he would tell her goodbye
before he left.

But none of those things had happened. Back then, she had told herself she would
be prepared for Jack's departure when it came, and that she would somehow manage
without him once he was gone. And she had. Although it had been painful to lose
him, Jack's determination to survive and thrive in the face of adversity had infected
Georgia enough to keep her going, even after he was gone.

And now he was back, a man full grown, driving a car that cost more than most
houses, self-assured, successful, dynamic. He was no longer surly, but there still
seemed to be an unmistakable anger about something simmering just beneath his
surface. Evidently, these days he had plenty in the way of money and prospects. As
for hope, however...

"I'm not going to be in town for very long," he said in response to her earlier
suggestion that they give it more than one afternoon, scattering her ruminations.

"So why did you come back?" she asked again. "You don't honestly expect me to
believe you're here because I was the only person you could talk to, and I just so
happen to still be in Carlisle."

"Something that surprises me, quite frankly," he remarked, once again avoiding a
response to her real question.

She shrugged. "This is my home, Jack. It's where I grew up. I have a business here,
and people know me. I even have a few friends these days. I like Carlisle," she told
him simply. "In spite of...everything else:"

"And just what's your father up to these days?" he asked.

That was Jack, she remembered as a ripple of tension seared her belly. Always
straight to the point. "I assume he's the same as always. We don't see too much of
each other. Not deliberately, anyway."

"Why not?"

She gazed at him blandly. "You, above all people, should know the answer to that
question."

He shook his head. "I just thought you might have patched things up between the
two of you by now."

She expelled a sound of disgust. "Not likely."

He nodded, as if the information were no surprise at all. The silence stretched
between them until it became an almost palpable thing. Georgia stared at Jack, and
Jack stared at Georgia. Both of them obviously had a lot on their minds. So why
weren't they talking about much of anything?

"Jack," she finally said when she could no longer tolerate the quiet, "for the last time,
what are you doing back in Carlisle?"

She thought she detected a slight hesitation before he told her, "I have some
business here."

Georgia nodded, resignation coiling like a chunk of ice in her midsection. So it
wasn't she who had brought him back to town, after all. "What kind of business?"

"Long story. But obviously having to come to Carlisle reminded me of you. And
then I got the news about my brother and sister, and..." He inhaled a deep breath and
released itslowly. "I wanted to see you, Geo. I've wanted to see you for a long time
now."

Geo. It was the nickname Jack alone had used for her. A term of endearment. A term
of affection. And hearing it again for the first time in more than twenty years made
Georgia want to cry for some reason. She turned hastily, recalling that she had been
about to make coffee, and crossed quickly to the kitchen. Unfortunately, with the
layout of the small house being what it was, the kitchen was pretty much just an
extension of the living room, so she was still well within Jack's view.

"I've been thinking a lot about you for the last few days," he continued. "I've needed
someone to talk to, and you were really the only person I could ever open up to, you
know?"

She nodded, the motion jerky and fast, but kept her back to him as she filled the
coffeemaker with the dark, fragrant powder.

"I...it's—"

He bit off the statement immediately after beginning it, and she detected something in

his voice then that was troubled and wary. Quickly she completed her task and
gathered her thoughts, then returned to the living room to join him while the coffee
brewed. He had moved away from the windows, and now occupied the place where
she had last been standing herself. She gestured toward the sofa, but he declined the
invitation without even acknowledging it. So Georgia dropped down to seat herself
there instead.

"It's what?" she asked.

Instead of answering, Jack moved back to the chair where he had draped his coat,
then withdrew a slender white envelope from the inside pocket. Wordlessly, he
crossed the room again and handed the letter to Georgia, and she eyed him with
puzzlement as she extended her hand for it.

"Just read it," he said softly.

She scanned the Washington, D.C., return address—evidently a private investigation
firm—and looked back at Jack, still confused. When he nodded silently, she
withdrew the letter from inside and read:

Dear Mr. McCormick,

I represent a brother and sister, the former Stephen and Charlotte McCormick,
now named Spencer Melbourne and Lucy Cagney, originally of Richmond,
Virginia, and now living in Washington, D.C., and Arlington, Virginia,
respectively. The matter concerns their search for an older brother, Jack William
McCormick, from whom they have been separated for more than thirty years.
Through my investigative endeavors, I have reason to believe you are that
brother....

"Oh, Jack," Georgia said as she glanced up at him again. "You've found them."

He shook his head, his expression a mixture of joy and terror. "No, they've found
me."

She dropped her gaze back to the letter and read through to the end, marveling at
how much this must mean to him. "Have you contacted them yet?" she asked when
she completed the missive.

He shook his head again.

"Why not?"

"I'm not ready yet."

"But you've been wanting to find them ever since I met you."

"I'm not ready yet," he repeated.

"But, Jack..."

He strode restlessly across the room and collapsed onto the sofa beside her, as if his
legs were no longer sturdy enough to hold him. He tipped his head backward until it
was resting on the sofa's back, stared blindly up at the ceiling and sighed with much
vigor.

"Do you remember how I told you I made a promise to myself the day the social
workers came and took Stevie and Charley away from me?"

Her heart turned over at the memory of the vow a small boy had made. "You swore
you would find them someday," she said. "And that the three of you would be a
family again."

He snapped his head forward, his expression vicious as he stared out at the living
room. "And I promised myself I'd be in a position to take care of them when I did.
That no one would be able to take them from me again. Ever."

For the first time since encountering him again, Georgia saw a clear sign that the boy
of seventeen was still very much alive in Jack McCormick. Part of him was still
scared, still unsure of himself, still untrusting of the world. She smiled sadly,
wondering why she was surprised. In spite of making it on her own all these years, a
big part of Georgia would never be able to leave behind the frightened girl she'd been
before meeting Jack.

"But the twins must be over thirty years old now, Jack—"

"Thirty-five," he interrupted her.

"Surely they've been taking care of themselves for years. No one could take them
away from you now. They're adults. They can come and go as they please."

"They might still be in trouble," he told her. "They might still need someone to look
out for them. Hell, look what happened to me."

"Hey, if that nice little foreign job you drove up in is any indicator, it looks to me like
you're a big success," she said.

He turned to look at her full on, his eyes dark and angry. "Success is a relative
term," he told her softly. "And you have no idea what it's taken to get here. Until I
know for certain, I can't be satisfied that the twins are okay. They could have been
constantly moved from one place to another, like I was. They could have ended up
with people who didn't give a damn about them, like I did. Anything could have
happened to..."

He rose abruptly and began to pace restlessly the length of the small room. Georgia
watched him in silence, giving him a moment to cool down. It was funny, how easily
the two of them had slipped back into their old roles—Jack feeling edgy and anxious
about something, Georgia there to listen and reassure.

"They both have different names now," she began againwhen he seemed to be

calming down somewhat. "Obviously they were adopted. They probably had very
good lives. Just because you were forsaken by the state doesn't mean they—"

"They weren't with their family," he interrupted again, halting his pacing directly in
front of her. "Their rightful family, I mean. They weren't with me. They couldn't
possibly have lived lives as good as they could have had if we'd all stayed together."

Georgia couldn't argue with that. Even though her own experience with family was a
painful one, she felt certain that Jack McCormick would have made a difference in
his twin siblings' lives, however those lives had been lived.

"You should answer this letter," she said. "You should see them. As soon as
possible."

"I will. But not yet. I'm not ready. There's one more thing I have to do. One more
promise I made to myself that I have to keep before I can send for my brother and
sister."

"What promise is that?"

His gaze snapped to hers, his eyes stormy. But he said nothing to enlighten her.

Georgia opened her mouth to say something else, then thought better of the action.
Obviously, Jack had given this matter some thought, and nothing she could say
would change his mind. She folded the letter neatly back into thirds, carefully slid it
into its envelope and handed it to him. He took it from her silently, gazed at it for a
moment, then slid it back into his jacket pocket.

The coffeemaker in the kitchen wheezed its last gasp. Georgia rose and filled two
mugs, then carried them carefully back to the living room. When Jack only stared
blindly at the mug she extended toward him, she set it on the coffee table and sat
down on the sofa beside him again.

As covertly as she could, she stole a glance at his profile, still unable to believe he
was actually there, chatting about the twins as if twenty-three years hadn't passed
since their last conversation. He gazed toward the windows that overlooked the
beach, obviously consumed by thoughts of his family, andshe took advantage of his
preoccupation to consider him more fully.

His black hair was kissed with silver, and he had a small scar high on his cheek that
hadn't been there before. She wondered how he'd come by it, wondered about
everything that had happened to him after he'd left Carlisle. Without even realizing
what she was doing, she glanced down at his left hand to see if he was wearing a
wedding band but saw no indication that he had ever slipped one on.

His hands seemed bigger somehow than they had been before. All of him seemed
bigger somehow. Over the years, whenever her thoughts had strayed to memories of
Jack, she'd recalled a young man of wiry build and awkward movement, a boy who
always seemed to be looking over his shoulder or dancing around as if dodging a

punch. She supposed that was understandable, seeing as how it hadn't been unusual
for him to show up at her bedroom window bloodied and bruised. The Jack of her
youth had been running every bit as scared as she had been.

But this Jack seemed fearless. Solid. Unwavering. His focus was sharp, and he
clearly had a plan of action. She just wished she could tell what it was. Somehow,
she sensed he was hiding something from her. Even though so many years had
passed, and in the scheme of things she really hadn't known him for that long,
Georgia felt as if she could still read Jack intimately. And even beyond all the
outward changes, for some reason something about him wasn't...right.

"So what have you been doing all these years?" she asked, striving for something
innocuous to ease the tension she felt eating him up. "Looks like you found a decent
job," she said with a chuckle. "Finally got that car you always wanted, I see, though
those D.C. plates come as a surprise. I never thought, of you as the urban type."
She tried to sound nonchalant as she added, "What else is there? Are you married
with children?"

When he met her gaze again, his eyes were edged withfatigue and sadness. "I'm kind
of surprised you'd care about what happened to me after I left Carlisle."

She was honestly stumped by his response. "Why wouldn't I care about you?"

He shrugged, sighing heavily. "For some reason I thought you'd be angry with me
when I saw you again."

Again she was puzzled by his assumption. "Why would I be angry with you?"

"Because I... left you.''

The way his voice softened on the last part of his statement made Georgia's heart
hammer a little more fiercely behind her rib cage. "You always promised you would.
It's not like I wasn't prepared."

He nodded, straight white teeth catching his lower lip as he thought about something.
"Yeah, well, that made one of us," he told her cryptically.

She decided not to dwell on his odd assertion and instead continued, ''After you left
town, I consoled myself by telling myself you'd come back for me. Then, after a
while, I knew that would never happen. Once I turned eighteen, I sometimes thought
about coming after you. But I was never sure where to look."

"Anyone could have found me who wanted to," he said. "But no one ever wanted
to, apparently."

"Oh, no, you don't," she objected when she realized what he was trying to say.
"Don't make me out to be the bad guy in this. You're the one who left Carlisle
without even saying goodbye."

His gaze snapped up to meet hers. "Like you said, I never made a secret of my
intentions."

"No, but you never extended me an invitation to come along, either."

He shook his head at her in disbelief. "I didn't think you'd need one. Besides, you
were only fourteen—you weren't legal to come. Your father would have had the law
on us in no time, Geo, I—"

"Jack, stop." She rose abruptly and ran a hand nervouslythrough her hair, wanting to
kick herself for ever getting them started on this. "There's too much we could have
—should have—said and didn't. We were kids. Two totally different people from
who we are now. Let's not even talk about your leaving or my not looking for you.
We both could have done things differently, but we didn't, and there's nothing we
can do to change that, all right?"

She forced a smile. "Let's not allow it to wreck our friendship. You were the best
buddy I ever had. We just found each other again. I don't want anything to spoil
that."

He continued to stare down into his coffee instead of meeting her gaze, but he
mumbled softly, "All right. We'll let it go. For now."

For now, Georgia repeated. She supposed it was inevitable that they'd have to
address the past eventually. But today they were both more than a little dazed at
seeing each other again after the passage of so much time. Jack had a lot on his mind
where his family was concerned. The last thing they should be doing was rehashing
the old days that had brought them so many hard times, and so much unhappiness.
But there was still far too much left unsaid and unsettled, she knew. And somehow,
some way, soon, they were going to have to address that.

The moment stretched taut, until the back door careened open on the winter wind,
and a male voice shouted out, "Georgia! I'm home!"

Georgia and Jack spun abruptly around toward the announcement in time to see a
young boy in his middle teens burst into the kitchen and slam the door
good-naturedly behind himself. He heaved a stack of school books onto the counter
and moved immediately to the refrigerator, yanking open the door to study its
contents for a moment before snatching a soda and popping the top with a quick
pffft. He was relaxed and unconcerned and clearly quite at home in his surroundings.

Until he looked up and saw Jack. And that's when the boy snapped to wary
attention.

Immediately his gaze shifted to Georgia, his expression a silent question mark. She
smiled as she rose from the sofa, then made her way around it and into the kitchen,
pulling the boy into a fierce bear hug. Then she stood beside him with her hand
roped around his waist, and he draped his arm casually over her shoulder.

But he continued to eye Jack with suspicion, a reaction that Georgia had hoped Evan
would be over by now. Still, she supposed he had a reason and a right to be
cautious. And maybe someday he wouldn't be so quick to mistrust.

She gave him another affectionate squeeze, then turned to Jack to make
introductions. "Jack," she said with a proud smile, "I'd like you to meet my son.
Evan."

Three

Her son? Jack echoed to himself, the small word nearly choking off his breath.
Georgia had a son? How the hell had that happened? Well, of course, he could
pretty well figure out how it had happened, but when? And with whom? And why?

Why? That was the question that stuck in his head most profoundly. Not so much
Why does she have a son? but rather Why couldn't she have waited for me? And
then he asked himself further just what the hell he was thinking by asking himself that.
Before the incongruity of all those questions had time to jell in his brain, he shook
them off—both mentally and physically—with one quick, imperceptible gesture.

Then he studied the boy more closely, only to find that Evan was just as intent on
studying him right back. For one long, silent moment, the two men sized each other
up in the way men do when both of them care deeply about the same woman. While
Evan considered Jack, Jack considered Evan. Looking at the boy was like seeing
himself too many years ago to consider. He towered a good four inches over
Georgia, his dark, shoulder-length hair unruly, his casually hooded gaze from
piercing blue eyes hiding anything he might be feeling, his menacing stance
announcing to the world that he was ready for any and all takers.

Evan narrowed his eyes even more angrily at Jack and demanded, "Who the hell are
you?"

"Evan!" Georgia cried as she took a step away to glare at the boy. "That was
completely uncalled for. You apologize to Mr. McCormick right now."

For Jack it was the proverbial deja vu all over again. A quarter century melted away,
and he was standing back in the parking lot of Carlisle High School East, getting to
know Georgia's family for the first time, up close and personal. And he was seeing
all over again, too, just how badly he measured up to the standards of the other man
in her life. Only this time it wasn't Georgia's father who found him so lacking. It was
Georgia's son.

"Name's Jack McCormick," he retorted in much the same way he had to Gregory
Lavender that day two decades ago. He would have tacked on another Who the hell

are you? as well, but seeing as how Georgia had just introduced the boy as her son,
it wasn't exactly necessary.

Nevertheless, he felt compelled to add, "Not that it's any of your business."

This time Georgia pivoted to glare at him. "Jack..." she said softly, her voice edged
with warning.

She turned back to her son. Her son, for God's sake. "Evan," she began again, her
tone stern, "Jack is an old friend of mine who used to live in Carlisle. I will not
tolerate you speaking to him in such a way. Apologize to him."

Evan met Jack's gaze ievelly, but no apology was forthcoming.

"Now," Georgia told the boy.

"Sorry." Evan spat it out without an ounce of contrition.

"Don't worry about it," Jack told him, certain the admonition was completely
unnecessary. Evan didn't seem the type who was likely to lose any sleep over his
transgressions.

Georgia shook her head at both of them, as if trying to figure out what she'd done to
deserve being saddled with two such men in one lifetime. "You want coffee?" she
asked the room at large.

"Yeah," both men chorused as one.

She nodded, and when she went to pick up Jack's mug, he remembered that he
hadn't even touched his coffee yet. "Just top mine off," he told her.

She looked down at the full mug. "Uh, yeah. Sure. Fine."

"I'll take mine back to my room," Evan told her, his gaze still fixed on Jack. "I have
an exam tomorrow, and I have to work tonight. So I need to spend the afternoon
studying."

"Fine," Georgia reiterated, her vocabulary now fully reduced to single-syllable
words.

"On second thought," Jack told her, still watching Evan, "don't bother topping me
off. I need to get going."

From the corner of his eye he saw her whip around to stare at him. "But I thought—
"

"I have a dinner date, and I need to get back to the hotel to shower and change
before I go."

He had deliberately chosen the word date instead of the word appointment—which
would have been much more accurate—because he specifically wanted to give

Georgia the wrong impression. Although he knew it was childish, he wanted to get
back at her for having a son, even if his retaliation was lame and unfounded. And
evidently his ruse had worked, because when he glanced over at her again, she
looked stricken and hurt.

"Okay," she muttered. "No problem. Maybe we can get together for lunch
tomorrow."

He shook his head. "I'm pretty booked up for the duration of my visit."

"But you said you wanted to—"

"I'm going to be busy." He cut her off.

When he turned to retrieve his jacket, his gaze inevitably fell on Evan, and he realized
immediately that Georgia's son understood exactly what had just passed between the
two adults. Oh, he might not have known the particulars of the situation, but Evan
was obviously smart enough to see it for what it was, and he glared murderously at
Jack as a result.

And, really, Jack couldn't blame him. If someone—some interloper from the past—
had just gone out of his way to hurt the woman he loved, Jack would feel pretty
homicidal, too. Good thing he didn't love Georgia, he told himself. At least, not like
that.

"Where are you staying?" he heard her ask as he jammed his arms into the sleeves of
his jacket.

"At The Bluffs," he told her.

The Bluffs was the local nickname for The Carlisle Inn, a historic cliffside resort
overlooking the Atlantic, a hotel that drew only the wealthiest, most elite vacationers.
It was where Jack had worked as a busboy when he and Georgia were teenagers.

"Oh, great," Evan said. "Then I guess I'll be seeing more than enough of you."

"Evan..." Georgia said, her voice laced with warning.

Jack narrowed his eyes at the boy, but Georgia was the one to enlighten him. "Evan
works at The Bluffs," she said softly. "As a busboy."

Jack nodded, but kept his gaze trained on Georgia's son. "I'll try to stay out of your
way."

"Yeah, you do that."

Georgia took a few steps forward to stand between them, shaking her head once
again at both men. But instead of commenting on the animosity burning up the air
between them, she only instructed Evan to take his coffee back to his room and hit
the books. As he moved to follow her instructions, she turned to Jack.

"We need to get together again before you leave town," she told him. "How long will
you be here?"

"I'm not sure. A week. Maybe two. But like I said, I'll be—"

"You won't be that busy," she interrupted him.

He turned to watch Evan's retreating back, knowing there was little chance the boy
wasn't eavesdropping on every word the two of them uttered. "All right," he said.
"Maybe we can do lunch tomorrow."

"Fine," Georgia told him. "I'll even make it easy on you. I'll meet you at The Bluffs,
all right?"

"I'll be in the lobby at noon."

"I'll see you then."

What had started off barely an hour ago as a warm, wonderful welcoming had
dissolved quickly into an anxious, awful antagonism. Jack knew when it had
happened—the moment Georgia's son had walked into the house. But he didn't
know why. And he didn't know what to do to put things back to rights. Geo was
correct about one thing, though—the two of them needed to get together again
before Jack left Carlisle, and for more than just lunch. What she didn't know was the
real reason why.

"I'll see you tomorrow, then," he told her, not knowing what else to say.

And before Georgia could answer him, he crossed quickly to the door and made his
way back out into the cold.

* * *

Jack had concluded his dinner with Adrian an hour earlier and was poring over the
Lavender file in his hotel suite when a knock sounded at the door. Expecting it to be
room service delivering the industrial-sized pot of coffee he was going to need for
the work he had ahead of him that night, he left the scattered papers where they lay
on the table, tossed his reading glasses down on top of them and rose to answer the
summons.

So The Bluffs hadn't changed the service uniform at all in the twenty-plus years since
Jack had worn one himself, he noted when he pulled the door open and frowned at
the kid standing on the other side. But where he himself had always grudgingly
followed the rules and kept his hair short, Evan— was his last name Lavender, too?
—had simply gathered his long tresses at his nape with a rubber hand. And while
Jack had always given in and worn the requisite—and very dorky— black patent
leather oxfords with the black pants, white jacket and bazillion brass buttons,
Georgia's son wore ratty black hightops,

"Your shoes aren't regulation," he said to the boy by way of a greeting.

Evan thrust his chin up in what Jack supposed was meant to be a threatening
posture. Funny, though, how it just made the kid looked scared somehow. "You
gonna report me?" he challenged.

"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Jack retorted. "It would give you yet another reason
to dislike me."

"Hey, I don't need another reason to dislike you. I've already got plenty."

Jack narrowed his eyes at the boy. But instead of commenting on Evan's contempt,
he said, "I thought we agreed to keep out of each other's way." To punctuate his
assertion, he barred the kid's entrance by bracing both forearms against the
doorjamb on each side.

Evan shook his head. "No, you agreed to stay out of my way."

Jack chuckled without humor. "Guess I just assumed that meant you were going to
steer clear of me, too."

Georgia's son sneered at him. "Guess you guessed wrong, man."

Boy, the kid had an attitude, he thought, deciding not to dwell on the fact that it was
a lot like the one he'd nurtured himself when he was Evan's age. "I thought you
worked as a busboy," he said instead.

Evan shrugged, glancing at the carafe and coffee accoutrements—cup, saucer,
creamer, sugar—he balanced on a tray in one hand. "On slow nights, if they want to
send someone home early, we double up on jobs sometimes. So tonight I'm room
service, too."

"Well, aren't I just the lucky boy, then?" Jack muttered.

"I dunno," Evan said. "Guess we'll have to wait and see about that." Before Jack
could comment, he added, "You want your coffee or not?"

Reluctantly, Jack stepped aside, allowing the boy enough room to pass by. Where
he had half expected Evan to just heave the tray's contents angrily into the room and
leave, he instead followed the hotel procedure, moving swiftly to the table and chairs
on the other side of the room, arranging everything just so. Jack moved to the
dresser for his wallet and extracted a couple of bills for a tip.

"I don't want your money," Evan told him when he noted Jack's intention.

"Oh, so you're one of those philanthropic busboys who's only doing this for the
good of humanity, is that it?" Jack asked sarcastically, feeling irrationally stung that
the boy had rejected his tip.

Evan narrowed his eyes viciously. "No, I just don't want your money, okay?"

Jack tossed his wallet back to the dresser, then turned to face the boy squarely,
settling his hands on his hips in challenge. "Well, I sure as hell get the impression that
you want something from me."

Evan's lips thinned into a tight line. "Yeah, I do. I want you to stay away from
Georgia."

That was the second time Evan had referred to his mother by her first name, Jack
noted. And although the kid came across as surly enough to do something like that
just because it would annoy people, he got the feeling mere was more to it than that
in Evan's case.

"Anything going on between your mother and me goes way back before you were
even born, and is frankly none of your business," he told the boy.

Evan shifted his weight to one foot and settled his hands menacingly on his own
hips, mimicking Jack's posture. Although he couldn't have been more than sixteen,
he was only a few inches shy of Jack's six feet two inches, if much less solidly built
—for the time being, at any rate. Doubtless he would fill out considerably before
reaching full maturity. And with that big chip or. his shoulder, the kid probably
outweighed Jack by a good two tons.

"Look, I know who you are," he said. "Ever since I met Georgia, she's been telling
me how much I remind her of someone she used to know, and—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Jack interrupted, his head spinning as he tried to absorb this
new information. "Ever since you met her? I thought she was your mother?"

Evan shifted his weight to his other foot, then seemed to soften a little as he replied,
"She's not my real mother. She's my foster mother. Not that it's any of your
business," he tacked on meaningfully.

Jack could only stare dumbfounded at the boy. Georgia didn't have a son? Georgia
was a foster mother?

"She calls me her son," Evan went on, evidently mistaking Jack's turmoil for
confusion. "And I let her do it, because she seems to think it's important." He
dropped his gaze to the floor before adding, "But I'm not her son. And she's not my
mother." His gaze was fiery with resentment when he glanced up at Jack again. "But
she is my friend. And I don't want to see her get hurt."

"How old are you?" Jack asked, thinking the kid was way more knowledgeable
about... stuff... than a teenager had a right to be.

"Fifteen," he answered immediately. "I'll turn sixteen this summer."

"How long have you known Georgia?"

"Since I was eleven."

Jack nodded. "Yeah, well, I've known her a lot longer than you have," he said.

"That doesn't mean squat. If you were really her friend, you wouldn't have left town
and let her be alone for so long."

"She told you about that?" Jack asked incredulously. It didn't seem like the kind of
thing Georgia would have taken up with a young boy.

"I figured it out for myself," Evan retorted. "I'm not stupid."

"I never said you were." On the contrary. Jack thought, the kid was way too smart
for a fifteen-year-old.

A fifteen-year-old, he reminded himself. Evan was just a kid, one with all the strange
baggage that came with the simple act of being a teenager. And if he was in foster
care, then there was more to his story than the average fifteen-year-old's, at that.
Now Jack understood his surliness. Now he knew the root of Evan's immediate and
irrational anger. Now he could sympathize with why the kid overreacted to Jack's
sudden reappearance in Georgia's life.

But that didn't mean he had to tolerate any of it.

"Look, Evan, Georgia is my friend, too, and was my friend at a time when no one
else would be. I left Carlisle behind— not her—and I had my reasons for doing it. I
also have my reasons for coming back. And none of them has anything to do with
hurting Georgia. As a matter of fact, what I'm doing back here has to do with helping
her. Helping her and me both."

Evan eyed him warily, straightening to his full height again, seemingly unbothered by
the fact that Jack was still a good deal larger. "I don't trust you."

"Yeah, well, that doesn't surprise me."

Seeing as there wasn't much more to be said after that, Evan turned to leave. He
crossed silently to the door and pulled it open, then took one step over the
threshold.

"Evan," Jack called out, halting his departure.

The boy hesitated a moment before glancing back over his shoulder, but he didn't
turn fully to face Jack. "What?" he asked.

"I'd never do anything to hurt Georgia. Never. You have to believe me on that."

Instead of responding to Jack's promise, Evan told him, "You don't know her. Not
the way I do."

Something painful twisted inside Jack when he recalled the way Georgia had cared
for him when he was a teenager. She'd been just a kid herself then, but she'd
welcomed an angry young man in out of the darkness and cold in much the same

way she was looking after Evan now. Sure, there were differences in the two
relationships. But the source of her feelings for both of them was doubtless the same
well of emotion.

"Oh, don't I?" he asked softly, recognizing the fact that he and Evan had more in
common than the kid could ever know.

Evan shook his head slowly. "No. You don't."

"I won't hurt her," Jack insisted.

Evan turned to gaze upon him fully then, and Jack got the eeriest sensation he'd ever
had. "You better not," the boy said. "Or you'll answer to me."

With a soft click of the lock, Evan was gone, and Jack was left alone to ponder the
fact that even when he'd undergone intensive training in the Navy, even when he'd
been watching his back as an inmate in youth facilities, even when he'd been beaten
up by a couple of his foster parents, he'd never felt more threatened in his life than
he did by a fifteen-year-old kid's vague promise of retribution.

* * *

Georgia was waiting for him in the lobby of The Bluffs when he descended the stairs
at exactly noon the following day. She didn't see him coming at first, so Jack took a
moment to study her as he approached. She was dressed in a pair of baggy brown
trousers and a boxy tweed blazer, a brooch of some kind fixed at the collar of her
white shirt, her hair caught at her nape in a simple gold clip.

He still couldn't quite believe it was her.

The last time he'd seen Georgia, she'd been wearing plaid camp shorts, a red polo
and bright white Keds, her big glasses perpetually slipping down on her nose, thanks
to the perspiration caused by the late-August heat and humidity. They'd met at the
cove tucked beneath The Bluffs—the place they'd come to think of as their "spot"—
because Jack had wanted to see her one last time before he left.

And even though neither one of them had mentioned it that day, they'd both known
he was leaving Carlisle, he told himself now. She must have known it as well as he
had. It was his eighteenth birthday, and he'd told Georgia from the start that he
would leave town on that date. But aside from her single, breathlessly uttered wish
that he have a happy birthday, neither had acknowledged the significance of the day.

Instead, they'd talked about the upcoming school year—in which, of course, Jack
wouldn't even be participating—and the curfew Georgia's father had imposed earlier
that month, and the dragonflies that buzzed the water in search of lunch. It had been
a summer day like scores of others the two of them had shared. Except that this one
happened to be the last they spent together.

No, Jack had never told Georgia goodbye. Not officially. And, yes, he'd always

regretted that. But that August morning two decades ago she had known as well as
he that it would be the last one they spent together.

Until now.

And now... A sigh filled his lungs, and he expelled it slowly. Now he had the ability
to make it up to her for never saying goodbye, and for leaving her to face her father
alone. Now he had a chance to pay her back for all the things she'd done for him
when he was a teenager, and an opportunity to punish her father for treating her the
way he had. Now Jack held both remittance and revenge in one tight fist. And he'd
be damned if he would let go of either before the time was right.

As if she had read the anger in his thoughts, Georgia snapped her head around to
look at him as he stepped off the last stair. Her expression was a mixture of caution
and curiosity, both of which, Jack knew, were well-founded. Soon, he told himself.
He would reveal his pian to Georgia soon. And they could celebrate the retaliation
and conquest together.

"Hi," she said as he neared her.

"Hi, yourself," he replied.

It was the way they had always greeted each other when they were teenagers, and
they both smiled at the natural ease with which they slipped back into the habit.

Jack noted right away that she was wearing lipstick, and the adornment seemed odd
on her for some reason. The Georgia of his youth had never dabbled in such things,
and it reminded him yet again that the girl had grown into a woman. Her slouchy
clothes did little to hide the womanly curves of her body, and something strange and
wonderful stirred inside Jack, a sensation unlike any he'd ever felt before.

For a moment he just stood still and let the feeling wind through his body, smiling in
response to the warmth that filled all the empty pockets inside him. When Georgia
smiled back, the feeling amplified, until a chuckle bubbled up from someplace deep
inside him, catching them both by surprise.

"What?" she asked, laughing a little tentatively herself. "What's so funny?"

He shook his head, his smile growing broader. "It's just so good to see you again,
Geo. I've missed you. A lot."

Her smile fell somewhat, but she rallied it again. "After some of the things you said
yesterday, I kind of wondered if—"

"Forget yesterday," he said. "It's over. I'm sorry for the way I behaved. I've had a
lot on my mind for the past couple of months, and with that letter from my brother
and sister coming on the heels of it..." He shrugged. "I just haven't been myself
lately."

She nodded. "Well, seeing as how I scarcely recognize you, I wouldn't know how to
identify your usual 'myself.'"

His smile faltered, and he met her gaze intently. "I haven't changed as much as you
seem to think," he said softly. "Truly, I haven't."

She nodded again, a little less certainly this time, but she said nothing in response.

He tilted his head toward the dining room. "I made a reservation for us here, if that's
all right."

"Are you kidding?" she asked. "That'll be great. I haven't eaten here since prom
night."

"You actually went to the senior prom?" he asked, trying to mask his surprise, and
wondering at the feeling of...jealousy?...that slowly uncoiled inside him.

She colored a little, the blush a remnant of her youth that he remembered fondly.
"Yeah, well...sorta. You remember my cousin, Daryl? His girlfriend ditched him the
week before the prom, and he grudgingly agreed to take me instead. My aunt Rose
made him."

"Lucky guy," Jack said with a smile.

She arched her brows in resignation. "He didn't seem to think so. He ditched me
once we got there, and went in search of his beloved Stephanie instead."

"Stupid guy," Jack said with a smile.

Georgia smiled back. "Thanks." She hesitated for a moment, as if trying to decide
whether or not to let escape the thought going through her head, then added, "It
would have been nice if you could have been there. I might have actually gotten to
dance once or twice. As it was, I wound up filling punch cups with Mrs. Steadman,
the music teacher."

"Hey, I remember your cousin, Daryl," Jack told her. "You were probably better off
with old Mrs. Steadman."

"Yeah, we both had an equal contempt for disco music."

He laughed, extending an arm to silently indicate she should precede him, then
settled his hand lightly at the small of her back as he followed. The soft touch nearly
made Georgia jump out of her skin, but she managed to stifle the reaction before
Jack could detect and misinterpret it.

Maybe he could claim that he hadn't changed in the past twenty-odd years, she
thought, but she certainly had. Oh, her feelings for Jack might not be much different,
but it had taken her no time at all to discover that her responses to those feelings
were light-years more advanced.

In his expensively tailored, charcoal suit and geometrically patterned silk necktie,
with his pointy-toed Italian loafers and onyx cufflinks, he bore absolutely no
resemblance to the boy of seventeen. Life had lined his face and touched his hair
with silver in such a way as to make the man ten times more handsome and
compelling than the boy had been. He wasn't a kid anymore. And neither was she.
Simply put, Jack was a man a woman like Georgia could easily fall in love with.

And because she was no longer an adolescent girl who was clueless as to the real
workings of what went on between a man and a woman, it occurred to her that she
might be in real trouble here. The last time she'd seen Jack, she'd never even kissed a
boy, much less made love to someone. Although she was still far from being an
authority on sex, these days she did have some working knowledge of what they'd
referred to in high school as The Act. She'd left blushing virginity behind in college,
and she'd been involved in some romantic way with a few men since then.

But she'd never forgotten Jack. And she'd always wondered what it might have been
like between the two of them.

Probably lousy, she told herself now. Even though Jack was already pretty
experienced by the time he was seventeen—at least, that's what everyone at school
had said, and she'd never had the nerve to ask him herself—she would have been
clumsy and awkward, having no idea what she was doing.

And both of them would have been too eager and hormon-ally driven for anything
sexual to have been very satisfying. Kids were always in such a hurry. She and Jack
probably would have ruined their friendship if they'd allowed something sexual into
the mix. Not that Jack had been interested in anything sexual with her anyway, she
reminded herself.

And although her feelings for him had been about as steamy as they could be for a
sexually repressed fourteen-year-old, she'd known quite clearly that she still wanted
something from Jack back then, even if that wanting had been vague and indefinite to
her at the time.

But now... Georgia drew in an unsteady breath when Jack's fingers spread open over
her back and edged up to her shoulder blade. It was a light, meaningless gesture, one
that had been performed by any number of men in her life on dozens of occasions.
A simple touch, in no way suggestive. So why did it create such a sudden, dizzying,
needful demand inside her?

With a quick admonishment to her overactive libido, she shook the feeling off. Now,
she assured herself, something sexual would probably still mess things up. Jack was
in town for only a couple of weeks at the most, and he'd come back to Carlisle only
because he had business here. She'd never been anything more to him than a good,
good friend. There was little chance that would change just because they were older.

They remained silent as the maitre d' led them to a table beside the long row of
windows that overlooked the ocean. Georgia studied the stout green waves as they

swelled and lathered and crashed against the rocks on the other side of the cove.
The skies were bulging with fat, ashen clouds again, promising rain and snow and
more before the afternoon was over.

Vaguely, she heard Jack order coffee for them both, then ask that they be given
some time to look over the menu. When the maitre d' withdrew, Georgia forced
herself to return her attention to the man who'd been just a boy when he'd done so
much to change her life.

"So tell me," she began, "what happened after you left town?"

He smiled at her. "Cutting right to the chase, are we?"

She shrugged and hoped she didn't sound too resentful when she pointed out, "Hey,
you were the one who said you don't have much time."

Something in his eyes softened at the accusation. "I didn't mean it, Geo," he told her
quietly. "I'll always have time for you."

She bit her lip to hold inside the anguish that threatened to overtake any words she
might utter. It was a nice sentiment, but of course what he said wasn't true. If it were
true, she thought, he would have come back for her. Or he would have contacted
her. He would have let her know where he was so that she could join him. Clearly,
Jack hadn't had time in his life for her. He'd been too busy making a life for himself.

But that was all in the past, she reminded herself. And it had nothing to do with the
here and now. So she beat back the feelings of regret and focused on Jack instead.

"Where did you go?" she asked again. "I used to lie in bed at night wondering where
you were, making up scenarios and stories to go along with them."

"No doubt much more interesting than what was really happening to me," he said
dryly.

"Oh, I don't know. Sometimes I just pictured you sitting in a bus station in
Nebraska, waiting for the next Greyhound bound for Walla Walla. And sometimes I
had you flipping burgers in some greasy dive called Mom's in Las Vegas! And
sometimes I saw you sitting in a ten-by-twelve hotel room, watching drag races on a
TV with a lousy reception, unwinding with a warm Schlitz."

He laughed. "Sometimes you weren't too far from the truth."

"So?" she encouraged. "What really happened?"

He met her gaze levelly. "I joined the Navy."

Her mouth dropped open in surprise. Jack McCormick, Mr.
Don't-Tell-Me-What-To-Do, joining the military?

"Yeah, I know," he said with another laugh, reading her thoughts from her

expression. "Kind of unexpected, huh?"

"Just a little."

"Actually, the reason I joined up was because I just didn't see any other job
opportunities for someone like me. But four years of military life wound up being
exactly what I needed. Basic training and living in a structured environment like that
taught me self-discipline. Surviving it gave me some self-respect. I had to get my
GED to go in. Then when they sprang me, I went to college on the GI Bill."

Georgia nodded. She should have realized he'd find some way to make his mark on
the world. Jack may not have been much for social interaction when he was a
teenager, but he'd been smart and focused and charismatic.

A waiter appeared at the table with a brief greeting and a carafe of coffee, and
Georgia and Jack only watched each other in silence as the young man arranged their
cups and filled them with the steaming, fragrant brew. Jack muttered something
about needing more time to decide, and at Georgia's nod, the waiter moved away
from the table. The entire episode lasted scarcely a minute. But for some reason,
time seemed to have stretched into an aeon.

"What did you study in college?" she finally asked, breaking the odd spell.

Again Jack met her gaze, as if he knew what he was about to reveal was going to
surprise her. "I've got an M.B.A."

"Business?" she asked incredulously. "You studied business?"

"Hey, don't sound so surprised. I really liked it. And I'm good at it, too."

"Yeah, I can see that. But I had you pegged for something else entirely."

"Like what?"

Georgia thought for a moment. "Um...well...I don't know... maybe... uh... um..."

"So then why should business come as such a surprise?" he asked, leaning back in
his chair, crossing his arms over his chest, still obviously very amused by her
reaction.

"You're right." She finally relented. "It shouldn't come as a surprise at all. I always
told you that you could do whatever you wanted, and now I see that you have. I
should feel vindicated, not surprised."

"Yeah, you should feel vindicated," he told her. "Because you're the one who's
responsible for it."

"Oh, no, I'm not," she said with a shake of her head. "You're the one who's
responsible."

Now he leaned forward again, arms still crossed, bracing both elbows on the table.
His expression was dead serious as he told her, "You were the only person in my life
who ever made me feel like I was more than some jerk kid with an attitude, and
bound for a hell of a lot more than a road crew out of juvie."

It was impossible for her to look away, so insistent was his gaze, so caught was she
by his intensity.

"The only one, Geo. Whatever I am now, it's because of you. And that's part of why
I've come back to Carlisle. Because I need to return the favor."

Four

Georgia blinked at him once, clearly confused by his announcement. "Favor? What
are you talking about?"

Jack cursed inwardly. He hadn't meant to blurt it out like that. His acquisition of
Gregory Lavender's company was by no means complete, and "forceful takeover"
was a mild term for what he had planned for the old man's livelihood. In spite of his
assurances to Georgia that he probably wouldn't be in town for more than a couple
of weeks, seizing Lavender Industries could prove to be more time-consuming than
he'd originally planned, because the old man was fighting so hard to hold on to it.

Then, of course, there was the additional matter of Jack's hope—no, make that his
need—to be certain Gregory Lavender suffered as much as was humanly possible.
Jack was going to strip the old man of everything he owned, and he was going to
enjoy doing it immensely. Georgia's father would pay for the vicious way he had
treated his daughter. Jack would make certain of that. Then it would be his pleasure
to hand Gregory Lavender's head to Geo on a silver platter, so that both of them
could relish the victory.

But not until the deal was set in stone. For now, Jack was content in the knowledge
that the wheels were in motion and Gregory Lavender was panicking. For now, he
could sit back and wait, and enjoy some idle time with an old friend. For now, he
could reacquaint himself with what had been the best time of his life. In spite of
hardship. In spite of anger. In spite of Gregory Lavender.

"It's a surprise," he said lamely, in an effort to dispel her curiosity.

She smiled. "What's a surprise?"

He shook his head in silence, trying to smile back. But he wasn't sure if he'd
succeeded with the gesture until Georgia seemed content to let it go.

"Okay, fine," she said. "Just be sure to clue me in at some point before you leave

town, okay?"

The reminder that he was back in Carlisle only temporarily didn't set well with Jack,
so he pushed the thought away. "So what have you been doing for the last twenty
years?" he asked, effectively blocking any further references to his business.

Her expression told him she was hip to his effort to change the subject, but she
didn't press the issue. She shrugged. "After high school, my father enrolled me at
MIT, where I was accepted, and the two of us went up there the summer after
graduation to get me settled in for the fall semester before I started classes."

"So you really did get a science degree from MIT," Jack said, the realization making
him feel disappointed for some reason.

He recalled that what Georgia had really wanted to do was attend Carlisle's
community college, because it had claimed a very good art program, and art had
always been her real love. But of course, Gregory Lavender would never have
tolerated having his daughter major in art. That would have made Georgia happy,
after all, and God knew the old man couldn't allow that.

"I didn't say I graduated from MIT," she said, interrupting his musings. "I said I
was accepted, and that my father took me up there to get me settled in."

Jack lifted one shoulder and let it fall, puzzled by her distinction. "I don't follow
you."

Her expression turned wistful, almost sad, as she continued, "And after he got me
settled in, I stood at my dorm-room window and waved goodbye to him as he drove
away."

Her gaze drifted toward the windows beside their table, and she watched the Atlantic
roil and snarl. "Then," she said softly, "as soon as he was out of sight, I repacked
my suitcases, went to the registrar's office and withdrew from my classes."

"You did what?" he asked.

"After that," she continued as if he hadn't spoken, "I went to the bursar's office and
got a refund for my fall semester's tuition. Then I caught a bus to a small art school
in Boston I had enrolled in without my father's knowledge."

She turned to meet his gaze again, rolling her shoulders slowly, defensively. "That's
where I graduated four years later. With a degree in art therapy."

Jack watched the play of emotion across her face, seeing melancholy mingling with
triumph, and happiness warring with loss. What Georgia had done that day had been
the real turning point in her life, he reflected. It had been what had actually freed her.
And here he'd always thought he would be the biggest influence she ever had. He'd
thought he would be the one to turn things around for her. He should have known
she'd be stronger than to wait around for him.

"What's really funny," she continued with obviously feigned good humor, "is that
one semester's tuition for MIT covered my expenses in Boston for almost two
years. Of course. I supplemented it by working as a waitress and sharing a place
with three other students, but still..."

Her voice wandered off, as if she were remembering for the first time what it had
been like to be well and truly free of her father's tyranny. Exhilarating, he supposed.
Liberating. And terrifying, too.

"That was the last time my father and I really spoke," she added more softly.
"Except of course for that, uh, conversation we had when I telephoned him to tell
him what I'd done and where I was."

"What happened?" Jack asked, although he could pretty much predict what the old
man's reaction had been.

Her gaze fell to the silverware that she had been arranging and rearranging as she
spoke. "Nothing much. He just cursed me like I was the most vicious demon to
escape from hell, told me that I was no daughter of his, and that he never wanted to
see me again. But, hey, other than that..."

Jack nodded. Gregory Lavender had always known the right things to say to make
his daughter feel like pond scum. Yeah, taking Lavender Industries was going to be
sheer joy for Jack now. Not that the prospect hadn't already brought him more than
his share of delight. But knowing that nothing had changed where Gregory Lavender
was concerned made him that much more determined to take what mattered most to
the old man. His business. Lavender had always nurtured and loved his company,
even as he'd shunted his only child aside.

Hell, especially as he'd shunted his daughter aside.

"Now I work part-time at St. Mary's Hospital," Georgia began again, her voice
noticeably lighter as she talked about the present instead of the past. "With troubled
and abused children. I work with other therapists to help draw the kids out and talk
about their experiences using the creative process as a tool. It's very rewarding. If
not always the happiest of jobs."

Jack was surprised by her choice of occupation, even if it was only part-time. He
had never pegged Georgia for the bleeding-heart type. Oh, certainly, she'd been kind
and caring and selfless where he was concerned, but she'd been a troubled, abused
kid herself. It didn't seem like the kind of thing a person would want to relive over
and over again as an adult through her occupation.

"And I own a small gallery in Carlisle's historic district," she added. "It does very
well with the tourists in the summer. Well enough that I'm able to close it during the
off-season and focus on the kids at the hospital and my painting instead. All in all,
it's an arrangement that's worked out very well. It gives me a lot of time to spend
with Evan."

Jack nodded, but she still hadn't told him the whole story. "And just where exactly
does Evan fit into the mix?"

Her expression changed again at the mention of her foster son—to unadulterated joy.
"I met Evan through the program at the hospital. He was a runaway, very
uncooperative. It took some time, but we got his story out of him. And to make a
long story short," she hurried on, obviously either unwilling to dwell on Evan's
experiences, or else because she considered those experiences to be none of Jack's
business, "I took him on as my foster son."

"Why?"

The one-word question sounded blunt and unfeeling, even to Jack. But once uttered,
it was impossible for him to take it back. Not that he wanted to. He was honestly
curious as to why Georgia would undertake the care and feeding of a troubled
adolescent boy who was in no way her responsibility.

"Why?" she echoed. "Jack..." She gazed at him incredulously. "What a stupid
question. You, above all people, should know the answer to that one."

Before he could comment, the waiter reappeared, and Georgia snapped open her
menu to give it a quick perusal. Then, as quickly as she'd picked it up, she slammed
it shut, replaced it on the table and ordered the day's special.

"I'll have the same," Jack said coolly without looking at his own menu. His attention
was too focused on Georgia for him to be able to concentrate on anything as
insignificant as lunch.

As if he sensed the tension burning up the air between the couple, the waiter quickly
jotted down their orders and departed, leaving them in utter and very awkward
silence.

"What did I say?" Jack asked when she made no overture to continue the
conversation.

"Nothing," she mumbled, still not looking at him. "I guess I can't expect you to
remember what it was like. You've obviously been far removed from it for a long
time. I, on the other hand, watch Evan and kids like him battle it every day and have
never forgotten what it's like."

He sat back in his chair and stared at her, honestly mystified by her charge. "What
are you talking about, Geo?"

When she finally looked up at him, her gaze was fierce, her eyes lit with the glitter of
combat. "I'm talking about what it's like to be going up against the entire world, and
to have no one on your side to help you out," she said, her words clipped and chilly.
"I'm talking about having no rights, no chances and no one who cares. I'm talking
about kids, Jack. Kids like us. Like we used to be."

This time Jack was the one who attacked. "I remember what that was like," he
snapped. "Better than you could ever know. You think you had it rough when we
were kids, Geo?" He spat out a chuckle completely devoid of humor. "You were a
novice in the abuse department. Trust me. You have no idea what it was really like
out there."

Her mouth flattened into a tight line, but she said nothing.

"Maybe your daddy said some mean things to you," Jack went on relentlessly, "and
maybe he turned his back on you. But you still had a warm, dry place to retreat to at
night, and nobody ever lifted a fist to you. You never lost your family, you never lost
your home, and you never had to depend on total strangers for your most basic
needs."

This time Georgia was the one to laugh, a sound more brittle than any Jack had ever
heard. "Gee, one might argue I never had a family or home to lose," she said quietly.
"But I'm not going to sit here and argue with you over which one of us suffered the
most as kids. All in all, neither one of us saw the real belly of the beast, the way a lot
of these kids have. And at least I'm not running scared from it these days. I meet it
head-on working with these kids, on a regular basis."

"Oh, and I'm running scared?" he asked, his voice deceptively low.

"You're running," she countered. "That's all that matters."

"That's what you think," he retorted.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

Jack clamped his jaws shut tight, unwilling to say another word about what he had in
the works. Georgia would find out soon enough, he reassured himself, when her
father's company became his. And then she'd see just how impossible it had been
for him to leave his past behind him. Then she'd see which one of them was running.

But not now. Not yet. The timing wasn't right. "You're wrong, Geo," he said simply,
forcing himself to soften his tone. "You're wrong."

Her posture—her whole body—seemed to ease some at his reassurance, but she still
didn't seem quite convinced. The waiter arrived with their lunch, and they ate in
stilted, almost uninterrupted silence, both of them using more energy to simply move
their food about on their plates than to have a meaningful conversation.

They hurried through dessert, and when they finally finished, left the restaurant and
headed out to the hotel lobby. Georgia was growing more and more frustrated with
each passing minute. Jack was back in her life, and all they seemed able to do was
bicker over the stupidest things. They had been the closest of friends when they
were kids. Why, as adults, couldn't they recapture that intimacy?

When they reached the foot of the stairs that led up to Jack's room, when she feared

he would tell her goodbye and go about his business without another word, Georgia
spun quickly around and caught him by his lower arms. He seemed startled by her
gesture at first, but he quickly recovered. He gazed down at her with a look that was
almost...longing, she thought whimsically. It was much like the looks he had given
her when they were teenagers. And slowly she felt the tension between them starting
to ease somewhat.

"I'm sorry," she told him. "I apologize for what I said during lunch. Let me make it
up to you."

He smiled a bit tentatively. "Okay. What did you have in mind?"

When she realized she was still gripping his arms, she hastily dropped her hands
back to her sides. Touching Jack Mc-Cormick after all this time was just too strange,
too troubling, she thought. It wasn't the way it had been when they were teenagers. It
was much more...more...

She shook off the odd assessment before it could even fully jell in her brain. "Let me
cook dinner for you tonight," she said quickly. "It's the least I can do. We can try to
have this conversation over again."

"Geo, you don't have to do that for me."

"I want to," she said, hoping she sounded breezy and nonchalant, and feeling
anything but. She bit her lip anxiously. "Unless you have a date for dinner."

He seemed honestly puzzled by her concern, then smiled a curious smile. "No, I
don't have plans for dinner," he told her. "I'd love to come to your place."

"Sixish?" she asked. "Evan will be at work."

Georgia told herself that she hadn't specifically chosen the time so that she and Jack
would be alone. She told herself she chose that time because she didn't want a repeat
of the tension-filled episode that had transpired the last time Jack and Evan had met.
Why force the issue? If there were some possibility that the two men would need to
adjust to each other, then she'd force the issue. As it was, Jack would be leaving
Carlisle soon. Why make more trouble than was necessary?

"I'll be there at six," he said, thankfully with no further commentary on Evan's
presence or absence.

Georgia was about to nod when Jack did the strangest thing. He bent his head and
kissed her lightly on the cheek. Quickly, chastely, as if he were saying goodbye to an
elderly aunt. When he straightened again, the expression on his face indicated that he
was as surprised and unsettled by the gesture as she. And when he began to tip his
head forward again, this time seeming to aim for her mouth, Georgia pretended not
to notice and hastily stepped away.

"Six o'clock, then," she said, her voice sounding a little breathless. "See you then."

* * *

Jack sat behind the wheel of his Jaguar sedan, staring sullenly at the big house on the
hill and blowing on his bare hands to warm them. When he'd returned to his suite
after lunch with Georgia, the message light on his telephone had been blinking rather
ominously. Expecting it to be news from Adrian, Jack had been rather unprepared to
hear that someone else had actually been asking after him that afternoon.

Gregory Lavender.

Georgia's father had finally summoned Jack formally to his home. Immediately. He
wanted to see the man who was after his company. Wanted to talk to him. Wanted
to see if maybe the two of them could reach some kind of mutual agreement. The
meeting was coming earlier than Jack had anticipated, but he welcomed the
confrontation nonetheless. It was way past time for things to be settled.

When he decided he'd stalled long enough, he shoved open the car door, only to be
immediately assaulted by the bitter winter wind. And as he slowly unfolded himself
from the car, memory after memory assailed him.

It seemed like only yesterday that he was sneaking around in the backyard of that
very house, scratching at Georgia's window until she opened it to let him in. If
Gregory Lavender had known back then how many nights Jack had spent sleeping
on his daughter's bedroom floor, he would have had a heart attack.

Nothing had ever happened, of course. Georgia had simply been offering Jack a
refuge from his foster father whenever Buck had come home after one too many.
But Gregory Lavender wouldn't have seen it that way. The old man would naturally
have assumed the worst of his daughter and had Jack thrown in the slammer for
statutory right quick.

Nowadays it was hard to imagine a time when Jack had been powerless against
grown-ups and cuffed about by his foster father. He was forty years old, had gained
an inch in height and twenty pounds in solid weight since his eighteenth birthday, and
had filled himself out very nicely. He was more than secure financially, had built his
own business from the ground up. And he'd added to it sizably in recent years,
collecting a few more businesses along the way, both by favor and by force.
Lavender Industries would be a plum acquisition. And not just because of its
ultimate corporate value.

As Jack strode across the wide porch and rapped quickly with the big brass
knocker, it occurred to him that of all the times he'd been inside this house, not once
had he entered it through the front door. And when the big oak door creaked inward,
he had to catch his breath at the figure who greeted him from the other side.

"McCormick," Gregory Lavender said simply.

He looked like hell, Jack thought. The hair that had been bright, vibrant silver when

he and Georgia were teenagers had dulled to a lifeless gray, hanging limply over his
forehead. His skin was ashen and thin, stretched over his face like a rubber mask. He
seemed shorter now, his entire body stooped and pinched, and his weight had
diminished significantly.

With a quick calculation, Jack realized Georgia's father must be well into his
seventies by now. But just as Georgia had been stuck in his mind as a
fourteen-year-old girl, Gregory Lavender had remained the strong, menacing man of
middle age. Only now did it occur to Jack that with the passage of two decades the
old man would be just that—an old man. And it took all the effort he could muster to
rouse and nurture and feed the anger and outrage he'd carried inside himself for more
than twenty years.

"Didja miss me, old man?" Jack asked, trying to hide his surprise at Lavender's
weakened state.

"No, not particularly," the other man acknowledged. "But I guess I have no choice
but to see you now."

Clearly reluctant to allow Jack into his home, Gregory Lavender opened the door
anyway and stood aside for him to enter. The house smelled different than the way
Jack remembered-—stale and close and heavy. Of course, except for the occasional
midnight jaunt to the kitchen for something to eat, or to the bathroom where Geo
could patch him up, Jack had only ever been in her bedroom. And her bedroom had
invariably been scented with potpourri and flowers from the garden and the perfume
he had always found it so surprising that she wore. This part of the house was
obviously Gregory's domain, and, like Gregory, it had deteriorated considerably
over the years.

"Surprised to find out it was me going after Lavender Industries?" Jack asked as he
followed the other man into the living room.

"Surprised isn't quite the word that comes to mind," Gregory retorted. "I figured by
now you'd be marking time in solitary confinement at Lorton or Quantico. Or maybe
even dead, most likely by your own hand." He paused a telling moment before
adding, "At the very best, I had you pegged as a drunkard with a pack of sniveling
brats who despised you as much as you always seemed to despise the people caring
for you."

It was with no small amount of effort that Jack bit back all the things he wanted to
shout in response. Instead, he only gritted his teeth and stated levelly, "Guess you
figured wrong, old man."

Gregory Lavender sneered and turned his back on him, then made his way into the
living room. Jack supposed he was meant to follow, so he remained standing where
he was in the doorway. A few weak rays of winter sunlight filtered through the sheer
curtains that hung like hospital gauze over the windows. The furnishings were boxy
and nondescript, everything covered with a thin layer of dust. No one would have

guessed that the man who lived here had once been one of the town's wealthiest
citizens.

Miserly old bastard, Jack thought. Didn't spend any more money on creature
comforts than he had spent affection on his only child. The only thing Georgia's
father had ever loved was his damned business.

As if he'd heard the thought, Gregory Lavender spun around abruptly and stated, "I
want my company back."

"Then you should have taken better care of it," Jack retorted.

The old man stiffened at the admonishment, but when he opened his mouth to
speak, Jack cut him off.

"Just like you should have taken better care of your daughter."

Gregory Lavender smiled then, a vicious little smirk that seemed to empower him
somehow. "So that's what this is all about," he said. "Georgia."

Why bother to deny it? Jack thought. "Yeah, that's what it's all about," he verified
for the old man.

"I should have realized that when you first came sniffing around Lavender
Industries."

"Yeah, you probably should have."

Gregory eyed him silently for a moment, then asked, "Have you seen her yet?"

Jack nodded. "A couple of times."

He waited for the old man to ask about her, expected some curiosity on his part as
to the well-being of his only child. But Gregory Lavender only met Jack's gaze
levelly and said nothing more.

"I hear you two don't get along nearly as well as you used to," Jack said, not even
bothering to hide the sarcasm in his voice.

"We always did just fine until you entered the picture," the other man fired back.

Jack couldn't prevent the expulsion of an incredulous chuckle. "Yeah, you did fine.
You had someone to shove around and belittle to your heart's content, all to make
you feel better about your own miserable hide. I never could understand why you
treated her the way you did—"

"She was treated better than any girl in town," Gregory snapped. "She could have
had anything she wanted. Anything. But she made bad choices from day one."

Jack could only shake his head in bemusement. Just as he'd said, he had never
understood why Gregory Lavender had mistreated Georgia. She'd been a good kid.

Kind. Smart. Loving. There had been nothing—nothing—about her to warrant such
a reaction from him. Yet time and time again, Jack had witnessed for himself the
man's abuse.

"I used to be here sometimes," he said softly. "In the mornings, when she first woke
up."

Gregory stiffened, but said nothing more.

"I spent the night on her bedroom floor more nights than not, and I heard the way
you used to talk to her. The minute she got out of bed in the morning, you were on
her back about something." He shook his head, dumbfounded. "She never did
anything to you. But you were relentless when it came to hurting her."

He emitted another one of those humorless chuckles, then added, "She always told
me you had your reasons. That you only wanted what was best for her. She actually
used to defend you—can you imagine? But me, I could never figure it out. And I
could never forgive you for it."

Georgia's father straightened to his full height, and for a brief, single moment he was
almost the Gregory Lavender that Jack remembered. Then, just as quickly, he caved
in again and returned to the ragged, tired old man who seemed like such a stranger.

"I want my company back," he repeated, with a bit less fortitude this time.

Jack shook his head. "Well, you can't have it. It's mine now. Or almost mine. By the
end of the week you won't even be a figurehead."

"My house..." Gregory began, his voice brittle and weak. "My house is in the
company name."

Jack thrust his chin up and stared the other man down. "Then I guess you better
start packing."

The heat of hatred and contempt shone in the old man's eyes then, seeming to fuel
his energy and make him stronger. He smiled, but there was no goodwill in the
gesture. "You don't have Lavender Industries yet," he said. "I may be an old man,
but I can still go a few rounds with the likes of you...boy."

"Give it your best shot," Jack muttered.

Gregory's smile turned sinister at that. "Oh, I will. Don't worry. And don't forget,
boy. I have the secret weapon. I always have."

Something tight and cold twisted in Jack's belly. He wouldn't dare, he thought. Not
after all this time. But somehow, the reassurance was in no way reassuring. And for
some reason Jack was suddenly in a hurry to go to Georgia's house for dinner.

Five

It was already dark by the time Jack arrived at Georgia's house. She was watching
for him at the window that overlooked her driveway, one hand dangling idly at her
side, scratching Molly absently behind one ear. Normally, the activity soothed them
both. And although the big yellow dog sighed and nuzzled closer, Georgia knew it
was going to take more than an affectionate golden retriever to put her at ease.

When a pair of headlights bounced down the access road toward her place, she
knew it had to be Jack. Who else would be out on a night like this? she thought as
she listened to the whip of the winter wind slam her house yet again.

The silver-gray Jag rolled to a halt in her driveway at the center of a pool of light
spilling from a spotlight overhead, and she watched as Jack emerged, clutching
something under his arm. He dived for the stairs that wound around the house, and
by the sounds shaking the building, he appeared to be taking them two at a time.
Molly joined her happily when Georgia went to the front door to meet him, pulling it
open wide just as he appeared on the other side.

When she saw his attire of blue jeans and charcoal tweed sweater peeking out from
beneath his bomber jacket, she was glad she had dressed casually, too, in a pair of
gray thermal knit leggings and an oversize tunic of the same fabric. But when she
realized that his added accessory was a bottle of red wine, she held up the glass she
had been enjoying for the past ten minutes, and they both laughed aloud.

"Guess we can really tie one on tonight," he said as he ducked inside and handed her
his bottle. He dropped to his haunches to scratch Molly behind both ears, and the
big dog was instantly and irrevocably in love.

Georgia closed the door behind him the moment he was safely over the threshold.
"Hopefully, that won't be necessary," she told him. She examined the label briefly,
and although she didn't know a lot about wine, she knew enough to guess that he'd
spent roughly five times more on his selection than she had on hers.

The look he gave her in response to her idle comment seemed worried for some
reason, but Georgia shook off the odd sensation. No telling what kind of business he
had in Carlisle. From the looks of his current life-style, he played for high stakes.
She supposed it was only natural that he'd be worried about something all the time.
If she had that kind of money, she guessed she would spend much of her life being
worried, too.

"I have a roast in the oven," she said, groping for some bland subject matter to set
them off on suitably safe ground. "It should be done in about half an hour."

He patted Molly one final time, then stood as she watched him with adoring brown
eyes. When he took the wine from Georgia's grasp, his hand brushed hers as she

turned it loose. A vague, vacillating sensation fluttered to life in her midsection, and
with the force of a falling satellite it hit her that she felt nervous. And awkward.
Around Jack.

How strange.

Jack McCormick had made her feel many things in her life, but awkward had never
been one of them. Why, suddenly, should she feel that way? she wondered. She
tried to tell herself it was the passage of time, and the uncertainty of seeing someone
special again after so many years. But deep down, Georgia knew that wasn't it at all.
Deep down, she knew full well the real reason for her sudden uneasiness around him.

It was that kiss.

Not the one he'd given her on the cheek as they'd stood in the lobby of The Bluffs
that afternoon, the one that had been so spontaneous, so unexpected, so chaste. The
other one. The one that hadn't happened—not quite. The one that had almost
happened.

Or had it?

Georgia had spent much of the afternoon trying to figure out the answer to that
question. Had Jack really been leaning toward her with the intent to kiss her? Or had
that just been wishful thinking on her part? Had she just imagined the whole thing?
For the life of her, she had no idea.

To look at him now, smiling and carefree and seemingly no more anxious about the
evening ahead than he would be about selecting a pair of socks for the day, Georgia
had to wonder if maybe she had indeed misconstrued the entire event. Maybe what
he'd intended hadn't been a kiss at all. Maybe he'd just wanted to brush an errant
crumb from her shoulder or shoo away a fly. She told herself to stop hoping for
something that wasn't going to happen, and get on with it.

"So..." she began, trying to quell the tremble she heard in her voice before he could
detect it. "Can I take your jacket?"

He smiled at her, and she felt her anxiety begin to melt, felt the tension in her lungs
begin to ease. Little by little she started to breathe more easily again. This was Jack,
she reminded herself. The best friend she'd ever had. That, at least, would never
change.

He went to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of wine while she hung his jacket in
the hall closet. When she returned to the living room, he was standing at the
windows staring out at the ocean, where the moonlight bisected the water with a
faint, wavering trail of silver. A few stars braved a glimmer here and there, but the
rest of the world remained shrouded in darkness.

He seemed pensive and distant, and she wondered what he was thinking about. Even
Molly, who had curled up in front of the fire, seemed to be worried about his

stillness.

"How's business?" she asked.

The question seemed to startle him, because he spun quickly around to gaze at her.

"What business?" he asked.

She lifted her shoulders and let them drop again. "Whatever business it is that brings
you back to Carlisle. Which reminds me," she continued without giving him a chance
to answer. "Just what kind of business does bring you back to Carlisle? There's not
that much business here, other than the tourist business. And even that's in its
dormancy right now."

For a long moment he only stared at her, twirling his wineglass slowly by the stem,
the ruby liquid splashing up the sides of the glass almost to the rim before spinning
downward again. "There's business here," he said finally. "You just have to know
where to look for it."

She nodded as she thought about that. "Just what kind of business are you in,
anyway?" she asked him. "You never did say."

He seemed to consider his answer for a moment, then told her, "I own and operate a
company that specializes in buying other companies."

She arched her eyebrows in question. "What for?"

He crossed the room to the sofa and took a seat, then stretched his arm along the
back in silent invitation for her to join him there. That vague, inexplicable uneasiness
washed over Georgia again when she saw him sitting there so casually, so at home,
but she brushed off the feeling and forced herself to sit down beside him.

"I...acquire...companies that are failing or on the verge of bankruptcy," he told her,
"then I invest in them heavily—both my time and my income—to bring them back
into the black. Once they're up and running again and making money, I sell them for
considerably more than I paid for them."

"Sounds both profitable and philanthropic," she said.

"Well, profitable, anyway," he remarked before sipping his wine.

"So what business have you come to acquire in Carlisle?" she asked.

He froze. That was the only way Georgia could think to describe his reaction to her
question. The glass from which he'd been sipping remained fastened to his mouth,
and the wine inside stilled to a silent pool. His eyes were closed, his jaw clenched
tight. The only movement she detected was a slight tightening of his fingers on the
stem of the glass.

Then as quickly as he'd halted, he moved again, and she decided she must have

imagined the weird time warp. He swallowed his wine, lowered his glass and turned
to gaze upon her fully.

"I have a couple of prospects here, actually," he told her. But he didn't identify what
those prospects were.

And he didn't want her to ask.

Somehow Georgia got that message with no trouble at all. So she clamped her lips
tight, turned her attention to her wineglass as if it held the secrets of the universe,
tucked her legs up onto the sofa beside her and didn't say another word.

Jack noted her withdrawal and frowned. Well, what the hell was he supposed to tell
her? he asked himself. Good to see you again, Geo. You 're looking well. Oh, and
by the way, I've come back to seize your father's company against his will because
I hate the son of a bitch for the way he treated you.

He sighed wearily and lifted his free hand to rub his eyes. Somehow, despite
everything, he thought Georgia would be surprised by his revelation. And for some
reason he got the feeling that she might not approve of what he was planning to do.
Not at first, anyway. But ultimately, eventually she and he were on the same side
here. Ultimately, eventually he was certain she wanted revenge against her father as
much as he did. Ultimately, eventually she would not only understand why he'd done
it, she would join Jack in toasting his success and her father's downfall.

Ultimately. Eventually. But not yet. The time just wasn't right. He would know when
it was.

"I'm sorry, Geo," he said softly, staring down at his own wine now. "I'd just rather
talk about something else besides work, that's all."

"Like what?" she asked, still not looking at him.

Like the fact that I almost kissed you this afternoon.

The realization of that startled him still. How could he have done that? he asked
himself again. Although he fully understood the impetus for giving Georgia a brief,
harmless little peck on the cheek—it really was good to see her again—Jack could
no more understand his desire to kiss her a second time, on the mouth, passionately,
than he could understand genetic engineering.

Geo was his friend, not his lover. So why, suddenly, were his feelings for her in no
way platonic? Why, suddenly, did he want to put down his wine and pull her into his
arms?

"Jack?"

The sound of his name tumbling from her lips, so soft, so tentative, did nothing to
alleviate his confusion. "What?" he responded absently.

"Like what?" she repeated.

He turned to look at her, studying her face for a long time before he responded. Her
face was the same face he had gazed upon on scores of occasions when he was a
kid. Her hair was longer now, but not so very different. Certainly there were signs of
age—tiny furrows around her eyes and mouth, silver in her hair, a roundness and
fullness to her body where before she had been all limbs and straight lines.
Essentially, however, inwardly, she was the same person he had always known and
cared for as a friend.

Really, when he got right down to it, not that much about Georgia had changed. So
why did Jack feel so differently about her now?

He sighed heavily. "I don't know," he replied honestly to both her question and his
own. "But work is the last thing on my mind right now."

She smiled tentatively. "What's first?"

"You."

The confession leapt out of his mouth before he was able to stop it. And once it was
uttered, he immediately wished he could take it back. Especially when he noted the
way that one little word made Georgia's entire posture change. Her eyes widened, as
if spurred by the dilation of her pupils, her lips parted fractionally and her whole
body went rigid.

"What?" she asked.

"You...and y-your...your father," he stammered. It was the first thing that came to
mind. "I—I was wondering about how things are going with you and your father."

She gazed at him in silence for a moment, then seemed to relax somewhat. But she
didn't quite return to her previous casualness. "I told you. Not well."

"Think you could elaborate some?"

She turned again to her wine, staring down into its depths, though Jack could easily
tell she was seeing something else entirely.

"It's like I said. We haven't spoken since I went away to college."

"Not once?"

"Not once."

"Haven't you seen him at all? I mean, Carlisle's not that big. You have to have run
into him on at least a couple of occasions."

"More than a couple," she verified. "A lot of his friends still invite me to social
events, even knowing the two of us are on the outs."

"And?"

Finally she glanced back up at Jack, her expression one of bewilderment. "And?"

"And what happens when the two of you show up in the same place at the same
time?" He forced a smile. "Does the earth tremble? Do the skies open up? Does the
fickle finger of fate drop either one of you to the ground?"

She, too, smiled, and he could see that it was as forced as his own had been. "No.
Actually, nothing happens. He pretty much stays on one side of the room and I stay
on the other. It's all very civil. Very tidy. Very...very predictable."

Part of Jack had no trouble believing that. Gregory Lavender was without question a
man of grudges. But how could anyone turn his back on Georgia? "You actually
haven't spoken in almost twenty years?" he asked, unable to mask his disbelief.

She shrugged. "I'd like to. He's aged so much. He's been sick off and on for a few
years now, but of course he won't confide in me and tell me what's wrong.
Sometimes I wonder if..." Her voice trailed off as she seemed to be ruminating about
something she'd rather not consider. Then she hurried on. "For the first few years
when I came home, on those few occasions that I did see him, I tried to approach
him, to apologize."

Something inside Jack grew hard and cold. "Why should you be the one to
apologize?"

"I was the one who behaved deceptively," she said in a matter-of-fact manner that
set his teem on edge. "I was the one who wasn't up-front about the whole thing."

"But..."

She didn't give him a chance to defend her. Instead, she rushed on. "But Daddy
would have none of it. He wouldn't even look at me. He just ignored me—pretended
I wasn't there. It was...awkward. Even his friends were surprised."

Jack wasn't. But he didn't say that.

"At any rate," she went on, "it didn't take long for me to realize how hopeless the
situation was." She gazed toward the windows, and her expression grew dreamy. "I
don't know. Maybe if I'd married somewhere along the way, maybe if I'd had
children of my own—given him grandchildren—maybe it would have given him an
excuse to come around. As it is now..."

Jack didn't want to think about Georgia marrying and having children. He told
himself it was only because that was a lousy reason for providing her father with an
opportunity to make amends for something that never should have happened in the
first place. Nevertheless, he had trouble ignoring the bite of jealousy that knifed
through him at the thought of her joining herself to another man for the rest of her
life.

"Why didn't you ever marry?" he asked, thinking the question a logical one to follow
her statement.

Georgia, however, seemed surprised by it. She looked utterly mystified when she
turned to look at him again. For a moment she didn't say anything, as if she'd never
really considered the question before. Finally she told him, "I don't know. I guess I
just never met anyone I wanted to marry."

Jack nodded, but said nothing more.

"How about you?" she asked. "How come you never married?"

He felt decidedly uncomfortable at having the tables so easily turned, but there was
little he could do about that. He'd started them up on this line of conversation, after
all. But he didn't answer her right away, and when he didn't, her expression changed
to one he could only describe as panicked.

"Or are you married?" she asked quickly. "Now that I think about it, you never told
me for sure,"

Boy, she really did think he had changed, he thought, if she considered him capable
of making time with her while he was married to another woman. Then again, he
wondered, was he really trying to make time with Georgia?

Instead of answering his own question, he asked her, "Do you honestly believe that
I'd be sitting here with you right now if I were a married man?"

She seemed genuinely stumped by the answer. "I...I don't know, Jack."

"No, I'm not married," he told her quickly, though why he felt it so urgent to settle
the matter, he couldn't have said. "I never have been."

She seemed relieved when she asked, "Why not?"

He shrugged. "Like you said. I guess I just never met the right person. Plus, I
normally work about fifteen hours a day, six or seven days a week. My life-style isn't
exactly conducive to much of a social life."

She nodded but said nothing more.

"So..." Jack began again. "Any chance you and your father might eventually patch
things up?"

"Why?"

That one-word query, in spite of its brevity, was a really good question, Jack
thought. Why the hell should he care? "I just..." he began lamely. "I don't know. I
guess I've had family on my mind a lot lately."

Georgia nodded, and finally, finally, seemed to relax. "Your own, you mean."

He expelled a single, humorless chuckle. "Mine. Yours. The world's at large. I can't
seem to think of anything else since getting that letter."

She smiled again, and this time there was a warmth and tenderness in it that had been
absent before. "It must be strange after all these years to hear from your brother and
sister out of the blue."

"Strange doesn't even come close to describing how I feel. They're thirty-five years
old now, Geo. Adult human beings with lives and jobs and families of their own.
They were only one and a half years old the last time I saw them. They were still in
diapers, with pudgy little legs, falling down every three or four steps they took...."

He lifted a hand to rub furiously at both eyes, then continued, "They've been living in
the D.C. area all this time. As an adult, I could have passed them on the street a
dozen times and never known they were my flesh and blood. Can you possibly
understand how that makes me feel?''

"No," she said honestly. "I can't. But, Jack, all that's in the past. You can't do
anything to change what's happened— to you or to them. You can oniy work on the
here and now and make sure the future brings the three of you as close as possible."

He shook his head. "That's so easy for you to say. You don't know how frustrating
it's been, how empty I've felt, not knowing where they were or what might have
happened to them. Not being there for them when they needed me."

"Then contact them," she said simply. "AH you have to do is pick up the phone and
call that private investigator, and the three of you could be celebrating your reunion
tomorrow."

He shook his head again, more vehemently this time. "No. Not yet. It isn't time yet."

"When will it be time?"

He hesitated for only a moment before telling her, "I'll know when it is."

Georgia dismissed a quick, frustrated sigh. "You know what I think?" she asked.

He met her gaze again. "What?"

"I think you're scared."

In one swift move Jack jumped up from the sofa and set his wineglass on the coffee
table. Then he crossed hastily to the other side of the room and spun around to glare
at her. "You're out of your mind. Why would I be scared of my own family?"

"Hey, how should I know? They were only one and a half years old the last time you
saw them."

Her attempt at levity didn't go far. Jack's response was a bitter smile. "And now
they're thirty-five. They're strangers to me."

She shook her head. "No, Jack. They're your brother and sister."

He turned his back to her, gazing out at the blackness beyond the wall-to-wall
windows. The wind swelled outside the house, gusting enough to make the entire
building tremble. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and his shoulders
slumped, as if in defeat.

"What if they don't approve of me?" he asked finally, his voice so soft Georgia had
to strain to hear it over the howl of the wind. "What if they don't like what I've
become? What if they wind up resenting me for...?" He tipped his head back to gaze
blindly up at the ceiling. "For never finding them?"

She discarded her own wine and was off the sofa like a shot, covering the short
distance between them in scarcely a second. Without even thinking about what she
was doing, she settled herself beside him, then roped an arm around his waist and
pulled him close. As casually as he had when they were teenagers, Jack curled his
arm around her neck and brought her closer still.

Georgia buried her face in the soft cables of his sweater, inhaling deeply the clean,
masculine scent of him. It was as close as she'd been to him in so long. Too long.
And she wanted to savor every second.

"How could they resent you?" she asked, the words mumbled into his chest right
above his heart. "And how could they not approve of you? How could they not like
what you've become?"

His only response was to pull her even more snugly against him, and for the first
time in her life Georgia allowed him to draw her closer without trying to push him
away. She heard the steady thump-thump-thump of his heart beneath her ear and
smiled as she cuddled closer. She didn't think about why she should or shouldn't do
such a thing. It just felt right to be standing here—this way—with Jack. Finally.

"There's so much about me that you don't know, Geo," she heard him murmur as he
rubbed his cheek lightly over the crown of her head. "So many things I never told
you."

"Maybe I don't know you," she conceded. "But maybe I do. One thing is certain,
Jack—I know what's important."

He hesitated a moment, then asked, "What's that?"

"That you're a good guy. Nothing else matters but that. And if you were my
brother..."

She let her voice trail off without completing the statement. What did she know?
Georgia demanded of herself. She had no brothers, no sisters, no family at all. She
was the last one who should be evaluating Jack's situation.

''If I were your brother?'' he encouraged her.

She sighed and shrugged fitfully. "It doesn't matter. You're not my brother."

And a good thing, too, she thought further. Because the thoughts and reactions
going through her head and her heart at the moment were anything but fraternal.

"No, I want to know," he said.

"It's not important," she said quickly. "What's important is that you have a family
out there that's looking for you. They want to see you. They need to find you. You
should contact them right away."

He remained silent, his cheek still pressed to her hair, his heartbeat still steady and
strong. Georgia thought if the world came to an end right there, with her standing in
his arms feeling wanted and needed, she could happily go to her doom without a
single regret. But the world didn't end, and Jack didn't continue to hold her.

Instead he turned to look out at the ocean again, keeping one arm looped loosely
around her shoulders. The moment was gone, and all Georgia could do was bury it
in an empty chasm deep inside herself, knowing she could pull it out again later and
relive it over and over, something she knew she would do for years to come.

"I—I need to check on dinner," she said quickly as she disengaged herself and
moved away, scarcely able to tolerate now the closeness that she had so craved. "It
should be just about done."

Six

In spite of Molly's volleying back and forth between them for handouts, they
managed to maintain a relatively lively conversation as they ate. But the dialogue
seemed meaningless to Georgia somehow, lacking in the warmth and comfort that
one would expect from recently reunited friends. There was something between them
that hadn't been there before, and for the life of her, she had no idea what to do
about it. How could she, when she didn't even know what exactly was wrong?

After they'd finished loading the dishwasher and had scraped a few choice bits of
beef into Molly's dish, Jack went after the cork on the second bottle of wine. At the
echo of the crisp, clean pop, Georgia began to think that maybe his earlier
suggestion of tying one on was beginning to have some merit. By the time they
retired to the living room the second time, however, feeling full and sated and
mellow, the tension that had been there between them earlier seemed to have begun
to dissolve.

In its place, a vague facsimile of the camaraderie they had shared on their initial
encounter at Rudy's—had that been only the day before? she wondered—slowly
began to emerge again, and she started to think that maybe, eventually, everything

between them would work out.

One way or another.

Molly returned to her post on the small flowered rug before the fireplace and
immediately lost interest in the couple. Flames danced merrily in the fireplace, but
because it was a result of gas, the fire lacked the crackle and sparkle of wood fires,
not to mention the sharp, tangy scent of outdoors.

It was cozy, though, and the hiss of the gas logs was almost as soothing somehow,
and Georgia felt as if it were the most normal, natural thing in the world to scoot
herself close to Jack on the sofa. For a few silent moments they watched the blue
and orange and yellow flames shimmy and scatter, then his soft voice rumbled up to
shake off the quiet.

"You build a nice fire, Geo," he said simply.

She chuckled, feeling truly good for the first time that night. "Yeah, I was the first
one in my Girl Scout troop to earn my merit badge in flicking on switches."

He laughed, too, a dark, sensuous thunder that erupted from deep in his chest,
raising goose bumps on her arms, wanning her inside and out. "I'd almost forgotten
about you being a Girl Scout," he said. "But now that I think about it, I remember
you filched a half-dozen boxes of Tagalong cookies for me during the cookie drive,
didn't you?"

She'd paid for them herself, of course, she recalled. But she'd never told him that.
She hadn't wanted him to feel indebted to her. And somehow, she'd enjoyed having
him think she could do something so terribly diabolical as steal a few boxes of
cookies from a Girl Scout troop.

"It was the least I could do," she said. "You needed fattening up so badly."

His expression when he turned to look at her told her he felt slighted by the comment
"Hey, I was solid rock back then," he defended himself.

"You were as skinny as a broomstick," she countered with a laugh. A solid-rock
broomstick, she qualified to herself, but still a broomstick.

He muttered an indignant sound and patted his full belly. "I'd rather not think about
what I am nowadays."

Georgia decided she'd rather not think about it, either. Unfortunately, she discovered
that suddenly she could think about little else. His palm was spread open over what
looked to her to be, if not solid rock, then heat-sealed iron. He had rilled out over the
years, to be sure. But where most men would be spread soft, Jack seemed to have
just completely and permanently flexed every muscle in his body.

She must have made some sound in response to her thoughts, because he threw her

an odd expression. "What?" he asked. "Are you agreeing with me?"

She forced into her voice a lightness she didn't feel when she replied, "Well, don't
sound so angry. You're the one who said it."

"Yeah, but you're not supposed to agree with me."

She arched her eyebrows in surprise. "I'm not?"

"Of course not," he assured her, sounding wounded. "You're supposed to argue
with me. You're supposed to say, 'Oh, Jack, you're not fat. You look great.' And
then you're supposed to pat my flat, solid-rock stomach and tell me how much
better I look than most men my age."

"I don't know that many men your age," she told him, stifling the laugh that
threatened when she saw his expression turn sour.

"What?" he asked, his indignation multiplying. "So in addition to telling me I'm fat,
you're insinuating that I'm old?"

Now she couldn't help but laugh, he seemed so genuinely abashed. "Of course I'm
not insinuating that you're old."

"Oh, just fat, then, huh?"

"Not fat, either. Ja-ack..."

She laughed harder at his frown. A lesser man might have been pouting, she thought.
On Jack, the expression just looked... cute. She reached over and splayed her hand
open over his torso, finding it to be as hard—and she wondered if as hot—as a
cast-iron skillet. With no small amount of difficulty, she gave him a quick pat

"Oh, Jack," she said, the words coming out soft and shaky. She told herself it was a
result of her giggles and not the thrill of emotion that shot through her at performing
such an intimate gesture. "You're not fat. Why, you're in much better shape than
most men your age."

"How would you know?" he countered, his own voice sounding not light and joking,
but a bit ragged and rough. "You don't know many men my age."

He hesitated for a moment, his gaze dropping to her mouth. Then he flattened his
hand over the one she still had splayed open on his belly, and something hot and
fluid jerked to life inside her.

"And why," he began again, his voice a veritable purr, "does the realization of that
fact make me feel so damned good inside?"

She tried to pull her hand free from beneath his, but he tightened his grip, linking his
fingers with hers, holding her hand in place. When she met his gaze, his eyes were
dark and turbulent, as if he were thinking about something he had no business

thinking about. Her heart skidded and skipped and stammered, then began to
thunder against her breastbone with seemingly enough force to shatter it.

And then, before she knew what was happening, Jack folded his other arm around
her neck and pulled her toward him, dipping his head to hers to cover her mouth
with his. A big part of Georgia was completely surprised by the kiss. But a small and
very powerful part of her wondered what on earth had taken him so long to get
around to it

And then she could scarcely think at all, so caught up did she become in the warm,
wonderful sensations that began to wind through her with the idle distraction of an
indolent stream. Jack caught her nape gently in the palm of his hand, urging her head
backward to facilitate the kiss, but he simpiy brushed his lips lightly over hers, once,
twice, three times, before pulling back again.

Briefly his gaze met hers, and she saw that he was as confused and confounded by
this new development as she was. Then, as if he didn't want to think about it any
more than she did, he lowered his head to her jaw and trailed a line of breathy,
openmouthed kisses to her ear.

A misty sigh escaped her as she closed her eyes and turned her head to the side, and
she bit her lip against the moan that swelled up inside her when Jack skimmed his
lips lightly over her neck. Then he moved his mouth to hers again, rubbing his lips
against hers. He tangled his hand in the hair at her temple, and pulled her closer so
that he could taste her more deeply still.

Georgia melted into him, alternately clutching the front of his sweater in two fists and
then smoothing the soft knit flat over his chest. Beneath her fingertips she felt the
ripe, rigid hardness of his torso, the heat of his flesh fairly screaming through his
sweater. He tasted of wine and winter, of the past and promises. And for the first
time, she knew the answer to the question that had plagued her for more than twenty
years.

It would be magnificent between her and Jack.

"Jack," she murmured against his neck, not certain what she wanted to tell him, but
feeling a need to slow the progress of their sudden attraction. "I...I don't...I can't..."

He pulled back again to meet her gaze, and she immediately forgot why it was so
essential that she suppress what was clearly something that had been simmering for a
long time.

"What?" Jack asked, his voice low and mellow and utterly lacking in concern.

She gave up on whatever she had intended to say, and instead asked, "What are you
doing?"

"You can't tell?"

She smiled. "I think it's kissing, right?"

He nodded. "That was what I was striving for, yes."

"It's been a while for me," she confessed, finally understanding the reason for her
hesitation. It wasn't so much because this was Jack. It was that she wanted him to
know that there hadn't been many others before him. Wanted to make sure he
realized what he was asking from her. Needed to be absolutely certain that he
understood how very important this was.

Her admission seemed to make him happy, because his smile softened somewhat,
and he pinned her gaze with his. "I'm glad," he said then, verifying her suspicion.
"It's been a while for me, too, Geo." Then, his tone of voice as matter-of-fact as it
would be were he reading off numbers from the New York Stock Exchange, he
added, "Does this mean we're going to do what I think we're going to do?"

Nothing like getting right to the matter at hand, Georgia thought. "I don't know," she
answered honestly. "Are we?"

His expression told her he was no more certain of the answer than she was. "I don't
know. Why don't we find out?"

"I guess that would be the best thing to do."

This time Georgia was the one to instigate the kiss. She cupped Jack's rough jaw in
her palm, marveling at all the differences in their bodies that somehow complemented
each other so well. Then she threaded her fingers through the silky hair at his temple
and leaned forward. His mouth under hers was surprisingly soft, responding to the
pressure of hers with a lazy, languid manipulation that was at once passive and
demanding.

Jack McCormick was a good kisser. No question about that.

She wasn't sure after that if she pulled him down on top of her, or if he pushed
himself forward, but she felt herself falling backward on the sofa and Jack coming to
rest atop her. It happened so quickly, one of her legs remained bent, with her foot
resting on the floor. But the other stretched comfortably out alongside his, and he
took advantage of her position to insinuate himself between her thighs. He pressed
himself hard against her, and she felt the heated, heavy length of him swell to life
against her belly.

Georgia sucked in a breath at how quickly and completely he became aroused, and
he moved his tongue inside her mouth to fill the empty space her action left there.
Slowly, thoroughly, he devoured her, as if he were unable to slake a thirst gone
beyond his control. Something came undone inside her, and she opened to him, her
mouth warring with his over who could more completely possess whom. Curling her
fingers over his shoulders, she grazed his upper arms, squeezing the dense muscles
she encountered, marveling that her fingers couldn't even half encircle him.

As he deepened the kiss even further, he settled himself more fully on top of her, but
his weight, instead of hampering, only heightened her desire. He felt so full, so hot,
so alive.... The heaviness of him pressing into her from shoulder to ankle made her
want to take him deeper still. Inside her. Into all of her. Into all the dark and lonely
places that had lain empty for two decades or more.

She urged her hands down the expanse of his broad back, circling his waist,
suddenly fearful that he might try to pull away. In response, he dropped one hand to
her rib cage, thumbing each lean ridge through her tunic. The friction of the fabric on
her flesh ignited a fever that threatened to overcome her, and all she could think was
that she wanted more. So much more. Almost as if it had a mind of its own, she felt
her hand cover his and push it higher...higher...and higher still, until she could cup it
over her breast.

For a moment his entire body went still, as if the urge to pull away from her after
such an intimacy was instinctive. But Georgia held his hand firm and fast, pressing
his fingers more insistently against her agitated flesh. Jack pulled back enough to
gaze down into her eyes, giving her a chance to reconsider just what she'd done.
And when she met his gaze levelly, a silent indication that she knew full well what she
had done— what she wanted to keep doing—he curved his hand more tightly, more
possessively over her.

She expelled a little gasp of shock and delight as her eyes fluttered closed. Jack
nudged her already tumid nipple with a lazy stroke of his thumb, and Georgia cried
out loud at the keen pleasure that shot through her.

It had been so long, she thought So long since she had allowed any man to come
this close. Or had she ever let anyone this close? She couldn't quite remember
now....

Her vague thoughts evaporated completely when Jack dropped his head to drag
damp kisses along her neck. One hand continued to palm and stroke her breast, and
the other pulled aside the neck of her tunic so that he could run the tip of his tongue
along her collarbone. Then she felt his fingers dip to the hem of her shirt and duck
below it, pushing the fabric upward as he inched along her bare flesh. He kept
moving, slowly and deliberately, until he cradled her breast in the L-shaped embrace
of his thumb and forefinger. With one deft movement he loosed the front closure of
her brassiere, and she held her breath as she waited for a more intimate touch.

His fingertips hummed leisurely along the lower curve of her breast for a moment,
back and forth and back again. Then she felt the fabric of her shirt move higher still,
exposing her bare, sensitive flesh for his plunder. He brushed his lips lightly across
her nipple, then sucked the hard peak deep into his mouth, laving it with the flat of
his tongue before circling it with the tip. Again and again he ministered to her in such
a way, until Georgia could only moan and sigh and whisper his name, before losing
herself to sensation.

Jack felt lost, too, in the sweet, soft seduction of Georgia Lavender. She tasted so
good, so ripe, so lush. Everywhere he touched her, his fingers and mouth
encountered vulnerability and warmth. Her damp breath fanned his neck and her
diligent fingers razed his scalp, until it felt as if their two bodies were fusing into one.
He buried his head between her breasts, kneading one with an eager hand as he
devoured the other with an even hungrier mouth.

Beneath his ear, her heart raged wildly out of control. Her chest rose and fell rapidly
with each ragged breath, and her fingers tightened convulsively in his hair. She
seemed to be silently begging him to stay where he was forever and never stop the
delicious things he was doing to her. Which would have suited Jack just fine. Except
that he couldn't wait to see what kind of delicious things she would do to him in
return later. His lips curled into a smile against the soft skin of her breast, and he
chuckled softly.

"What's so funny?" he heard her murmur breathlessly.

"Nothing," he whispered over her heart. "I'm just having a good time, that's all."

This time Georgia managed a small laugh, too. "So am I, Jack. Oh, wow, so am I."

It was with no small amount of effort that he forced himself to pause in his
ministrations and move away, especially when he heard her quietly utter an almost
incoherent sound of protest. But she let him go when she felt him brushing his mouth
along her torso, kissing each rib as he went. He didn't pause again until he
encountered the waistband of her leggings, and without hesitation he curled his
fingers into the elastic and tugged it down.

Georgia began to protest when she realized what he was doing, but Jack slipped his
tongue into her navel, quickly, deftly, salaciously, and she seemed to forget what she
had been about to say. Before she could remember, he nudged up her hips to skim
the leggings down over her thighs. Her panties came next, until both garments were
pooled around her knees, holding her captive to his onslaught.

Jack tucked his fingers between her legs and found her wet and warm and wanting.
For a moment he assaulted her with nimble fingers, tracing lazy circles and quick
lines, rotating, burrowing, rubbing, until his thumb came to rest on the hard, hot core
of her. With that single motion, Georgia cried out loud, her hips bucking beneath his
chest, her breath exploding in a ragged rush of air. He smiled at how completely he
held her captive, and at the wildness of her response.

He was lowering his head to taste her in intimacy when the house began to shake
with the irregular thump of a young boy's boots quickly scaling the stairs.

"Oh, God, it's Evan," Georgia managed to get out as she scrambled off the sofa and
jerked her clothing back into place.

Her face felt hot—oh, who was she kidding? Her entire body was on fire!—and her

heart rammed against her rib cage as if trying to batter out an escape route. Her
blood hissed through her veins like steam through a pressure cooker, and all she
could think was that she had been so close, so close, to experiencing the kind of
unleashed joy most women only dream about, and how could she possibly finagle
another opportunity in, say...the next five or six seconds...now that Evan was home?

Her gaze settled on Jack at the same time that she heard the jingling of Evan's keys
outside, and she wondered if she looked anywhere near as close to ecstasy as he
did. She probably looked ten times worse. At least she had been on the receiving
end of that ecstasy, while Jack, although she was certain he'd been enjoying what he
was doing—he had told her he was having a good time, after all—hadn't even gotten
his turn. The frustration factor could doubtless make a person more prone to
ugliness, she thought.

In any case, they were both in trouble if Evan got even a remotely good look at either
of them. Then the front door was flying open, and she realized it was too late.
Maybe for a lot of things.

"Georgia! I'm ho—"

Evan bit off the announcement before completing it, affirming Georgia's fear that he
would immediately realize how egregiously he'd interrupted something. And
unfortunately, she realized further, he knew exactly what that something had been.
He frowned first at Jack, then at Georgia, then at Jack, then at Georgia.

"Maybe I should just go back outside and try coming in again," he said, the words
as brittle and cold as the wind whipping in from behind him.

"That won't be necessary," Georgia told him. She ran her hands through her hair as
casually as she could, and although the urge to tug down her tunic again was fierce,
she forced herself not to. "Please close the door," she instructed her son evenly.

Evan eyed her levelly for a moment, and although she hadn't seen that particular
expression on his face for some time now, she knew what the look meant. It meant
he was about to press his luck. And he did. In spades.

"Maybe I oughtta leave the door open," he said. "Looks like you two could use
some cooling off."

Georgia crossed her arms tightly over her breasts, both in exasperation with her son
and in the hopes that it might do something to mask just how turned on she still was
by what had happened. Or hadn't happened. Or had almost happened.

"Don't you ever speak to me that way again," she told Evan in the
don't-mess-with-me voice she had once had to use so frequently with him. "Do you
understand me?"

He hung his head for a moment, and she could tell he almost regretted the way he
had behaved—to her, anyway. With Jack, however, he clearly had no qualms about

being defiant. He turned his attention to the older man, but before he could fire off a
threat or challenge or whatever else he had planned on detonating, she stepped
between the two of them.

"Close the door," she repeated more forcefully.

With clear and contemptuous reluctance, Evan flattened his palm on the front door
and shoved it hard, slamming it behind himself with a harsh shudder. The house
shook for a moment, the tremble scurrying throughout Georgia's entire body, then
stilled. For one long moment no one said a word. Then Evan, who never had been
able to leave well enough alone, erupted again.

"Did I interrupt something?" he asked sarcastically. "'Cause if I did, I don't give a—
"

"Yeah," Georgia interceded, "you did interrupt something. But Jack and I can pick
up where we left off some other time."

Evan opened his mouth to talk back, but she quickly and easily cut him off.

"I've never coddled you, Evan," she said, her voice still to-the-point, but softened
with the genuine love she felt for the boy. "And I'm not going to insult you by
starting now. Yes, Jack and I were..." She glanced over her shoulder quickly, but
couldn't quite bring herself to look at him. "Involved in something," she finally
finished, swinging her attention back to her son. "But I can't imagine what on earth
that would have to do with you."

The boy's lips thinned for a minute, and his gaze skittered back to Jack. He was
jealous, Georgia thought. It had taken more than four years, but she and Evan had
managed to create a half-normal life together, and he had gradually started to put his
past behind him. But he still had a long road ahead, and she was still pretty much the
only person he trusted. Although he did well at school now, and had even managed
to make a few friends, he didn't react well to adults. Most adults, anyway, she
amended. He'd always done all right with her. Which was why he was reluctant to
share her with anyone, she supposed.

"We'll talk about this later," she said, hoping the finality in her tone would be enough
to stymie any further acts of rebellion.

She hated to dismiss him this way, but at the moment she honestly didn't know what
else to do. It was an awkward situation, one she had never anticipated when she'd
taken Evan in. She hadn't had a love life back then. She hadn't had a love life since
then. And although she wasn't quite able to convince herself that she even had a love
life now, she realized she was going to have to make some amendments to the way
she behaved around and treated her son.

He glared at her for a moment, then seemed to back down. Whatever else he was—
troubled youth, attitude case, hurt young man—Evan was smart, and he was

reasonable. That was probably what had kept him alive and relatively safe during the
year he'd spent on the streets before coming to Carlisle. And it was probably what
would ensure that he eventually became a happy, functioning adult.

But before Georgia could confront Evan, she had to confront Jack. She was still
bothered by the suddenness and intensity of what had happened between them, and
she was worried about where it would lead. Not until she had some assurances of
her own could she offer any to her son.

"Did you eat dinner at The Bluffs?" she asked him.

"Yeah," he answered sullenly. "But I'm kinda hungry again."

"I could fix you a roast beef sandwich."

'"S okay," he said. "I'll get it myself."

Evan turned his back on both of them and strode heavy-footed into the kitchen,
where he jerked open the refrigerator door and extracted a veritable mountain of
sandwich fixings. In silence Jack watched the boy's movements, noting the
uneasiness with which they came. It was like looking into a twenty-five-year-old
mirror and seeing himself again. And all Jack could do was hope like hell that Evan
appreciated what he had in Georgia.

She and her son chitchatted mindlessly as the boy made his dinner and poured
himself a huge glass of milk, and Jack waited to see if they would leave him an
opening to jump into the conversation. When they didn't, he wasn't sure whether to
feel insulted that they were so thoroughly ignoring him, or relieved that he'd been
summarily dismissed.

In the long run, he supposed he was thankful not to have been singled out, because
he had no idea what he was supposed to say—to Evan or to Georgia. He'd never
been caught in the act of seducing a woman by the arrival of a teenager, and he was
certain that things between him and Geo now would be even more strained as a
result.

And just what the hell were things between him and Geo now, anyway? he
wondered. Just what had happened back there on the sofa before Evan's arrival had
ended it? Jack was at a complete loss. One minute, they'd been making jokes and
reminiscing about the past, and the next, he'd been trying to consume her whole.

He'd never pounced on a woman like that in his entire life. He'd never lost control of
his actions and emotions the way he had within seconds of kissing Georgia. He
couldn't understand what had happened,, how he had gone so far so fast He'd had
no intention of instigating something like that. The thought of something like that
happening between them had never entered his mind.

Until he'd kissed Georgia. And then, suddenly, everything had changed.

Evan topped what looked like a triple-decker sandwich with a slice of rye, and
scattered some potato chips on the paper plate beside it. Then he turned to look at
the two adults one more time. "I'll be in my room," he said shortly. And evidently,
that was enough. Because he strode down the hall without another backward glance.

When his bedroom door closed behind him—much less violently than the front door
had a few moments earlier—Georgia spun around to look at Jack and expelled a
long, lusty sigh.

"I am so sorry," she said. "I completely forgot that he would be getting home at
eight-thirty. When I invited you to dinner, I was thinking maybe the three of us could
spend some time together over coffee when Evan got home. Then..." Her words
trailed off before she concluded, "I just had no idea you and I would wind up—"

She halted abruptly, and a red stain seeped up her throat and into her face. For a
brief moment Jack wondered if her breasts were flushed, too, then he brutally chased
the speculation away.

"I...Geo... I'm sorry. That was inexcusable."

"What was?" She seemed honestly mystified by his apology-

"What happened tonight," he clarified, equally confused by her bewilderment. "I
apologize for it. I had no right to—"

"You're apologizing for that?" she asked, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"Of course I am. I've never...you're not...I don't..."

The more words that tumbled out of his mouth, the worse he made the situation
sound, Jack thought. So he clamped his lips shut tight and tried to still the spinning
of his thoughts long enough to get hold of one or two. Unfortunately, they continued
to race well beyond his grasp.

"You're sorry you kissed me?" she asked quietly. "You're sorry for the way
you...you touched me?"

And then he understood. In a few quick, easy strides he had crossed to her, and he
lifted his hand, fingers curled, to stroke her warm cheek with the backs of his
knuckles. Her eyes widened in response, her blush deepened, and when he raked the
pad of his thumb lightly across her lower lip, she drew in a shivery breath.

"Oh, no, Geo," he said softly. "I'm not sorry for that. Not for any of that. I'm not
sorry it happened—I'm sorry it happened the way it did. The first time for us...it
should be more...unhurried. It should be special."

"Then you think there's going to be a first time?" she asked, her voice coming out
weak and shaky.

Why deny it? Jack thought. "Yeah. I do. And probably a second and a third time,

too." He smiled. "And if we're really lucky, maybe there will eventually be a four
million five thousand and eighty-seventh time, too."

She smiled back at that. "And I bet it will be just as special as the first."

''Which brings us to..."

She eyed him questioningly. "Yes?"

He glanced down the hall toward Evan's room, where the boom boom boom of a
hard rock song from the seventies, one that Jack actually recognized, effectively
overruled anything he might say to Georgia.

"The first time," he said frankly. "What are your plans for tomorrow?''

She emitted a quick, nervous sound. "I...uh...I have to work at the hospital in the
morning, but I'll be free by noon."

He nodded. "Good. Meet me in The Bluffs lobby at 12:30."

"For lunch?" she asked, her voice squeaking a bit on the final word.

"Among other things," he told her.

And he thought it was probably best to ieave it at that. At least, for now.

Seven

She was scheduling sex.

That was the only thought winding through Georgia's mind as she lay in bed that
night. Two days ago she hadn't even been able to claim a sex life. Now, less than
forty-eight hours later, she had an appointed time of day to meet a man at his hotel
so she could have sex with him.

From the day she'd met him, she had somehow known Jack McCormick would be
responsible for changing her life. But this was just a little more than she'd anticipated.

Of course, they'd be having lunch, too, she tried to comfort herself. But the
reassurance only made her feel foolish. Lunch. Right. Like she was supposed to
convince her libido that that was all there was to it, when all her libido was doing was
revving up for tomorrow afternoon. Sure. No problem. Piece of cake.

She rolled restlessly over onto her side and stared at the glowing red numerals on her
clock. One-thirty, and she was still wide awake. This from a woman who normally
fell into a profound and dreamless sleep within fifteen minutes of pulling the blanket
up to her chin. Usually Georgia was in bed by eleven, exhausted to the point of

distraction. Tonight, however, she'd had to sit up and read until after midnight to try
to calm herself down enough to even think about sleeping. Yet here she lay, still wide
awake, questioning her moral equilibrium.

Across the hall, the bass line of queasy guitar music still played in Evan's room, but
much less loudly than it had before Georgia had turned in. She knew the music
would go on for another hour at least, and she'd have to beg and plead and promise
him tacos for dinner to get him out of bed in the morning. Her son was a night owl,
plain and simple. Just as Jack McCormick had been when he was a teenager.

The two of them were so much alike, it was almost scary. Maybe that was part of
the reason for the clear and quick animosity that had risen between them. Funny,
twenty years ago it had been her father challenging Jack's intentions. Now it was her
son. She couldn't help but wonder if things would turn out differently this time, or if
history really was destined to repeat itself in some form or another.

Would Jack wind up leaving Carlisle as he had so many years ago? Just as before,
he made no secret that his presence here was only temporary. And when he left this
time, would he do so without saying goodbye? Without a single regret? Without
asking Georgia if she wanted to go along?

She honestly didn't know. He had a thriving business and life in Washington, which
in the scheme of things wasn't so very far away. But her life was here. It always had
been, and it always would be. With or without her father's presence in her life,
Carlisle was Georgia's home. It was where she intended to grow old, Where she
wanted to be buried when all was said and done.

And it was Evan's home now, too. Even though he'd grown up first in Richmond,
and then on the streets, he was as satisfied with his life in Carlisle as Georgia was.
She wasn't willing to sacrifice what the two of them had worked so hard to build
together, just because Jack had come back and things were different between them.
How could she know if things would work out between her and Jack? And what
would she do if they didn't?

She rolled more restlessly to her other side and stared at the moon beyond the
salt-mottled glass of her bedroom window. What would she do if they didn't?

* * *

At one-thirty in the morning Jack was seated at the desk in his hotel suite, adding a
column of numbers in a ledger and listening to static from the telephone nestled
between his shoulder and ear. It wasn't the middle of the night in Singapore, and he
had some business there. Unfortunately, at the moment, he was on hold, and had
been for some time. Feeling oddly impatient, and unwilling to wait any longer, he
slammed the receiver down into its cradle, and glared at the numbers that refused to
tally the same way twice.

He was distracted, which wasn't like him at all. Distracted from the business at hand.

Distracted by thoughts of Georgia. And how the two of them were going to react to
each other the following day.

Make that today, he corrected himself immediately. He glanced down at his watch,
frowned at the time, then reached his hands high above his head in a lengthy stretch.
Just what the hell had happened tonight? he wondered, his body stirring to life as he
replayed the events in his mind. Last night, he then amended. How had things
between them changed so completely, so quickly? And just what was he going to do
about it?

He tried to tell himself it had been an aberration. The result of too much wine last
night and too little social life lately. Alcohol was a powerful aphrodisiac for some
people. He'd been horny, and Georgia had been handy.

But the moment the thought materialized, he knew it wasn't true. Yeah, he'd been
horny. But Georgia had never been handy. If he'd been turned on, it was by her
specifically. No other woman had even come close to making him feel the way he'd
felt last night, wine or no wine.

Absently, he reached for the tattered baseball that traveled with him wherever he
went and was never far from his reach, and he began to roll it from one hand to the
other. Despite the way he'd been shifted and shunted around in his life, Jack had
always held on to the baseball. Why? He really couldn't say. Through the years he'd
lost or let go of everything else he'd ever owned as a child and a young man. Yet for
some reason he'd always held fast to the baseball.

In times of planning or contemplation or stress, he found himself rolling the ball from
hand to hand, just as he was doing now. The activity brought him closer to himself
somehow, took him back to his roots, back to what he might have been if his life
had worked out differently. Until he'd received the letter from the private investigator
in Washington, holding the baseball was as close as Jack had ever come to returning
to his family. Returning to what he wanted more than anything else in the world.

The handful of rubber and leather and string was the final remnant of what his life
had once been, a symbol of his disrupted destiny. It was what New Age chumps
would have called a comfort object. To Jack, however, it was far more than that.

Everything he was now, everything he'd ever fought to achieve, every step he'd taken
in life had been with one intention and one alone—to find his brother and sister and
bring them back to where they belonged. To their family. To him.

To Georgia.

For some reason, her face roared up alongside the forgotten images of his brother
and sister, and Jack jerked forward in his chair at the realization of what that meant.
He associated Georgia with his family. Somewhere deep in his subconscious he
wanted her to be a part of the reunion, too.

And then he realized that he wasn't as surprised by the revelation as he should have
been. Maybe, without his fully recognizing it, she had been part of the plan all along.
Maybe that was really why he'd never married, and maybe it was really why he'd
come back to Carlisle after all these years. Not because he wanted to get even with
Georgia's father. But because he wanted to finish what he and Geo had started so
many years ago.

He leaned back in his chair and tossed the baseball toward the ceiling, contemplating
it absently as it slowly arced, catching it deftly in his other hand when it completed
its lazy descent. So what happened when one's best friend suddenly became one's
lover? he wondered. He gripped the baseball firmly in one hand and turned to stare
at the moon shining outside the French doors. Then, in one swift, heady rush of
recollection, he remembered the way Georgia had felt and tasted and smelled.

He smiled devilishly. He supposed he was about to find out.

* * *

This time Jack was waiting for her.

Even though she was ten minutes early, he was already there ahead of her. When
Georgia pushed through the big brass doors of The Bluffs, he was the first thing she
saw. Dressed for success in a dark power suit and sapphire necktie that warred with
his eyes for blueness, he leaned against an unmanned concierge desk, with a black
eelskin briefcase propped against his expensive Italian loafers.

With one elbow resting on the counter behind him, he was glancing down at his
watch and didn't see her come in, so she halted where she was and took a minute to
simply gaze at him. And she wondered what on earth she'd gotten herself into.

Jack McCormick had been out of her league when she was a teenager, she thought.
And he was out of her league now. Maybe for far different reasons, but he and
Georgia were still at polar opposites in so many ways. She wondered who she was
trying to kid that anything that might develop with the two of them could last. There
was just too much there between them, she thought. Too much past, too much pain,
too much missed out on, too much unexplored emotion. Whatever spark had ignited
last night would doubtless kindle and burn and expand to an unruly fire. And then it
would explode in their faces.

In spite of the Tightness she'd always felt about him, she suddenly realized that Jack
wasn't the kind of man for her. She wasn't sure why she knew that so well, especially
when all her life she'd been convinced otherwise, but there was something about him
now that hadn't been there before. And somehow she knew it would be responsible
for squelching any potential they had for something wonderful.

As if he'd heard her unspoken thought, Jack's head snapped up, and he held her
gaze fixed with his. Something hot and unmanageable awakened deep inside her, and
she knew that regardless of her certainty that their future was ill-fated, she would go

through with what she had come here for today.

She wanted Jack. She always had. From the time she'd been old enough to
understand what wanting was. And even if all the two of them managed to steal was
a couple of weeks one winter, she'd take it. She'd take it and store it in a secret place
way down deep inside, and she would feed off it for the rest of her life. She told
herself it would be enough. It would have to be.

Without even realizing she had made the decision to do so, Georgia strode toward
him, her steps faltering a little when he bent to pick up his briefcase and approach
her. They met at a point halfway between where each had started, and they smiled
when they simultaneously realized the significance of that.

"Hi," Jack said.

"Hi, yourself."

"I was half afraid you weren't going to show up."

"But I'm early."

His smile broadened. "I know."

She bit her lip, though whether because she was nervous or just scared of saying
something she'd regret later, she couldn't be sure. Her heart hammered erratically in
her rib cage, her palms were hot and damp, other parts of her body were warming
that had no business being warm in a public place, yet she hadn't even touched him.
Again she wondered just what she'd gotten herself into.

"Do you mind?" he asked. "I thought we could just order lunch to be delivered in
my room for us."

Did she mind? Georgia echoed. How did he know she'd been wondering if they
could do exactly that? She'd been more than a little disconcerted at the thought of
having to sit across from him in a crowded dining room, thinking the things she
would be thinking, realizing that what the two of them would be having for dessert
would be totally different from what everyone else at The Bluffs was having.

"No, of course I don't mind," she assured him, hoping she only imagined the wealth
of relief she detected in her own voice. "Actually, I was kind of hoping we could be
alone."

He nodded slowly. "Just you and me," he said. "Like old times."

Well, not quite like old times, she thought. There was that small matter of countless
hours of unbridled sex she was hoping for today that had been totally absent from
their relationship before. But she supposed it would earn her nothing to mention that
now, so she kept the thought to herself.

"Just like old times," she agreed a little breathlessly. Except that you wouldn 't

believe what kind of underwear I have on under this outfit, and it's absolutely
nothing like the white cotton stuff I used to wear. Which he'd never seen anyway,
she reminded herself. So how was he going to know how much trouble she'd gone
to today?

He'd know, she assured herself. Oh, yeah. He'd know.

"So what's your pleasure?" he asked her.

Georgia felt heat seep into her face at the inquiry, wondering how he could ask her
such an intimate question in the middle of a hotel lobby full of people who she was
certain just knew she was there for a...a...what was that word?...oh, yeah, a
nooner...then realized too late that he was talking about lunch.

His responding chuckle was low and lascivious. "I meant before that," he said, his
words punctuated by more laughter. "What's your pleasure for lunch?" Then, as if
he just couldn't resist, he added, "The other pleasures we'll get to later. I promise."

"How should I know what I want for lunch?" she snapped in response to the first
part of his statement, thinking it might be best to just ignore the last part.

He laughed harder. "Ooh, a little testy today, are we?"

"No," she barked. Then she, too, surrendered to the anxious laughter she couldn't
fight back. "No," she said less vehemently. "I'm not testy. Just..."

"What?"

She stopped laughing abruptly and scrunched up her shoulders, then let them drop
again. "Nervous," she finally told him honestly.

He seemed genuinely surprised by her confession. "Nervous? Why?"

She was genuinely surprised by his surprise. "Why?" she echoed incredulously.
"Why do you think?"

He shook his head, his lips parted as if he were trying helplessly to utter a response.
Finally he told her, "I have no idea."

She gaped at him. "Aren't you nervous about...you know... today?"

He shook his head again. "Of course not. Look, Geo, if you're having second
thoughts about—"

"No." She was quick to interrupt him. He smiled at the haste of her response, but
she ignored it. "It's not that."

"Then what?"

She really didn't know how to describe her fears to him. Simply because she wasn't
sure of their source. Finally she told him, "This is something that's been building for

more than twenty years. At least, for me it has been."

He said nothing in comment, neither expressing his astonishment at her revelation
that she'd wanted him—really wanted him—for more than twenty years, nor
confirming that he'd always felt that way about her, too. She suspected the former
was a more accurate gauge of his reaction than the latter. Doubtless he'd had no idea
that she'd harbored such feelings for him back when they were kids. God knew
she'd done everything she could to keep him from finding out. And he was decent
enough now not to put her on the spot about something that had happened two
decades ago.

"And I'm worried about what twenty years has done to my feelings,'' she added. '
'What the passage of time has done to me. To us. I'm just..." She sighed quickly,
squeezing her fingers into fists, then relaxing them again. "Nervous," she finally
finished.

His chest rose and fell slowly as he gave weight to her words, then he took another
step toward her. He lifted a hand and skimmed his fingertips gingerly over her lower
lip, then cupped her chin in his palm, bent his head to hers and kissed her. Lightly,
chastely, lovingly. And then he stepped back again.

The kiss had been harmless and had lasted maybe five seconds. But Georgia's head
was spinning and her heart was racing as if she'd just stepped off a roller coaster.
Her lips tingled where he had touched her, and a faint flutter of desire tickled her
belly. When her eyes met his, her knees nearly buckled, so scared was she to
acknowledge what she saw burning there.

"The past is in the past, Geo," he said softly. "Where it belongs. Whatever happens
—or doesn't happen—today, it will be because of the way we are now. Not what we
were. The past..." He sighed heavily and smiled sadly. "The past is an added bonus
of sorts. It was important on a level that has nothing to do with today. But even if we
hadn't had that, we'd still have this. I—"

He halted before he finished when he was jostled from behind by a woman in a hurry
to get somewhere. The bump to his body brought him forward again, and he
finished whatever he had been about to tel! her with another kiss. This one was a bit
less innocent than the first had been, but it packed all the punch of that one and
more. Georgia was reeling when Jack pulled away from her, and it struck her again
how deeply he shook her with just the merest touch.

"Can we go up to your room now?" she asked him, her heart pounding even more
ferociously when she heard herself ask the question.

He met her gaze levelly, stroking his fingertips along the line of her jaw. "Are you
sure that's what you want?"

She nodded, trying without success to ignore the shiver that shot through her with
his innocuous caress. "Very sure."

Without another word, he extended his arm toward the stairway, and Georgia
preceded him to his room.

Eight

When Jack closed the door behind them, he felt as if he were beating back the entire
world, if only for a little while. Somehow he felt both confident and comforted that
no one and nothing could touch them here. As long as they stayed in his hotel room,
and as long as no one breached their sanctuary, everything between them—
everything in the world—would be right and good, and no one could take it away
from them.

It was much the way he had felt whenever he and Georgia had met at the cove when
they were kids. The cove had been a quiet place, forsaken by everyone else in
Carlisle because of its craggy, uncooperative shoreline. It had been a perfect
companion for the kind of people Jack and Georgia had been, far removed from
town, away from all the things that made them unhappy. Whenever they were at the
cove, it was easy to forget there was a world out there to reckon with.

The same peaceful, easy feeling settled over him now.

With Georgia, somehow, there was no reason to worry about anything. She was all
he needed, all he wanted. He wondered why he hadn't realized that long before now.
When she had told him downstairs that what was about to happen between them was
something she had been wanting for two decades, it was as if the skies had opened
up and dropped the most wonderful gift into his lap. And in the very back beyond of
his brain, he began to understand that maybe, just maybe, he had been wanting it for
that long, too.

The year he had spent in Carlisle was buried so deep inside him now that he scarcely
remembered the place. Georgia, of course, had never gone far, nor had the
memories of the treatment he had received at the hands of his foster parents. The
rest of that period, however, was distant and hazy, as if he'd seen it in a movie he
couldn't quite remember now.

But thoughts and recollections of Georgia had always been there with him, close to
the surface, in too many ways for him to count. And now he had her back. Not only
in his thoughts, but in the flesh. She was soft and warm and wonderful. And she was
his for the asking.

She had turned when he closed the door to his suite, and she stood scarcely a foot
away now, watching him. Her blue jeans hugged her lean legs and full hips, and his
fingers twitched involuntarily as he thought about his hands caressing her as lovingly
as the faded denim did. Her oversize, cropped turtleneck sweater was kissed with all

the colors of autumn, and it struck him that Georgia was, too. Her hair was the color
of fall leaves afire with oranges and golds, her eyes were the same stormy hue as an
autumn sky, her ivory skin like the clouds.

Autumn had always been his favorite season. The cool, clean air redolent of wood
smoke, the changes in nature, the death that became rebirth, the promise that
everything—everything—had the potential to become renewed. And suddenly, but
not surprisingly, Jack discovered that he didn't want lunch. He only wanted Georgia.
And he never wanted to let her go.

Without saying a word, he reached for her, skimming the backs of his fingers along
the slender column of her neck before ducking them under her hair to curl them
around her nape. With the gentlest of pressure he pulled her forward, then closed his
eyes as he slanted his head to the side and covered her mouth with his.

She didn't struggle, didn't protest. She melted into him as if she were coming home
after a long and difficult journey, flattening her hands open over his shirt, trailing her
own fingers up along his neck to cup his jaw gingerly in her palm. Her lips brushed
his, her breath a warm wisp of wonder against his mouth. Then he felt her fingers
delve into his hair, and she pulled his head down to hers so that she could taste him
more fully.

Jack's briefcase tumbled forgotten from his fingers, dropping to the floor with an
indelicate thump, and he roped his arm around Georgia's waist to tug her more
completely against him. The heat of her body seemed to penetrate his clothes and
mingle with his own—her legs pressed into his legs, her belly molded against his
belly, her heart beat alongside his heart.

He felt her everywhere, in every dark corner of his soul that had never seen light, in
every cold chasm that had never felt warmth, in every lonely place that had never
been loved. Georgia filled him with the peace and goodness he had never been able
to find anywhere else in his life, and his spirit grew lighter with every touch.

She was right. Whatever was between them had been building since the day they'd
met. And now, finally, they were going to see it through to its obvious and inevitable
conclusion.

Conclusion. The word bothered him for some reason. It suggested that what they
were experiencing together would come to an end, and Jack was in no way ready for
that to happen. It was all too new, too different, too fragile. He needed to understand
what was happening between them before he could even begin to think about what
the future held. Certainly, he wanted Georgia to be a part of that future. But how and
when and what would that future be?

As if she sensed the turmoil eating up his thoughts, she suddenly pulled away from
him. She looked up at him intently, her gaze pinning his almost desperately, as if she
were searching for something she couldn't find.

Jack opened his mouth to reassure her, then realized he had no idea what to say. He
understood her concerns, but didn't share them. He had too many of his own to sort
through. There was nothing he could say to her to convince her that what was
happening was right. He only knew that it was. And all he could do was show her
how he felt. So he smiled, kissed her lightly on the mouth one more time, and
covered her hand with his.

She was trembling when he touched her, so he lifted her hand to his mouth and
kissed each fingertip one by one. Then he grazed his lower lip with her fingers,
sucking one briefly into his mouth for a more intimate investigation. She gasped, the
sound almost inaudible, and her pupils expanded to nearly eclipse the gray of her
irises. Her mouth opened, too, as if she were experiencing the same erotic unreeling
of emotion that he was, and he couldn't help the warm chuckle that bubbled up
inside him.

Before she could comment on his reaction, he dropped her hand to his throat,
placing it over the knot in his necktie, silently bidding her to free him from his bonds.
For a moment she only continued to gaze into his eyes. Then hesitantly, tentatively,
her other hand joined the first and began to work the perfect Windsor knot free.

When she succeeded in her task, she slowly tugged the length of silk from beneath
his collar and discarded it on the floor. He stood completely still as she loosened the
button at his collar, then the one below it, and the one below that. But when she
spread the fabric open and ducked her hand inside, curling her fingers possessively
into the rich scattering of dark hair that covered his chest, Jack began to tremble,
too.

Her touch was electric. A jolt of heat shot into his heart raging beneath her fingertips,
then hastened to every cell in his body. He began to feel alive in parts of himself he
hadn't known could feel, reveled in a tingle of anticipation that shook him from the
crown of his head to the tips of his toes.

Lightly, leisurely, she continued her exploration, taking her venture further with every
stroke of her fingers. Her free hand unfastened the remainder of his buttons, then she
opened both palms over his warm skin and shoved both shirt and jacket over and
off his shoulders.

The cool air in the hotel suite shimmied over Jack's hot skin, raising goose bumps
and stirring his senses even more. He smiled at Georgia, hoping she couldn't gauge
just how feral he was beginning to feel. Evidently she couldn't, because she only
smiled back before returning her attention to his physique. Then, as if it were
something she did every day, she leaned into him, standing on tiptoe to press her
mouth to his neck. She skimmed the tip of her tongue lightly over his shoulder and
collarbone before dipping into the hollow at the base of his throat for an idle taste.

A burst of fever heat exploded deep inside him, and a ragged groan erupted from the
back of his throat. Unable to tolerate the upheaval of emotion that rocked him, Jack

snatched up her hands in his, spreading her arms wide. He circled her wrists with
strong ringers, noting the confusion on her face, but unable to let her continue with
her explorations until they had a few things settled. Not the least of which, he thought
with wild anticipation, was why she was still dressed.

"What?" she asked, the single word sounding thready and incomplete, uttered on a
vague sigh as it was. "What's wrong?"

When he didn't answer her, she tried to tug her wrists free, but Jack tightened his
grip and held her firm. "That was sneaky," he told her.

She smiled innocently, obviously pretending to be confused. "What was?"

"The way you got me half-naked," he stated baldly.

She wiggled her eyebrows playfully and smiled more broadly. "Half-naked? Wait till
you see what I have planned to get you buck naked."

Jack smiled back. "Oh?"

Her response was a slow, deliberate nod.

"In that case," he said, still holding her wrists, but lowering her arms to her sides, "I
think we need to set down some ground rules."

This time Georgia was the one to ask, "Oh?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Like what?"

He moved her arms behind her back, holding her delicate wrists in one big hand. She
struggled halfheartedly, her smile telling him just how badly she wanted to get away
from him— namely, not very badly at all. But when he moved his free hand around
to her front, pausing at the hem of her cropped sweater, delving a finger into the
waistband of her jeans, her struggles ceased and her smile fell.

"Wh-what kind of ground rules?" she asked him.

He leaned forward, rubbing his lips lightly over the side of her throat. ' 'Allow me to
outline them fully with a few illustrations," he said.

"No," she murmured with a weak shake of her head.

He lifted his head again and gazed down at her face. "No?" he asked, surprised.

Her eyes darkened with endless need and depthless passion. "I don't want you to
just show me, Jack. I want you to tell me, too. Everything."

Her challenge made him rigid. He ripened to life with the speed of a locomotive, just
like that. Bending his head to hers once more, until scarcely a whisper of air

separated them, he hauled her body fiercely against his. The hand at her wrists
pushed them into the small of her back, urging her hips forward more, until she was
cradled against the heavy heat of him. The friction of her body rubbing against his
hardened him even more, and her eyes widened in primitive recognition.

"All right," he said, his voice feeling as rough as it sounded. "I'll tell you. Everything.
You're not leaving this room until we've run the gamut of sexual exploration."

Her lips parted fractionally, and he felt her breath against his mouth. He dropped his
forehead to hers, closed his eyes and added, "I want you, Geo. All of you. I want to
fill my hands with you, fill my head with you, fill my heart with you. And I want to fill
you in return. All of you. Your body, your mind, your soul."

"Oh, Jack..."

He lifted his head to find that she had closed her eyes, too, and he moved his hand
from her waist to take her chin in his fingers. "Look at me," he told her.

Her eyes snapped open, and she met his gaze levelly, hungrily.

"You want to know what I want to do to you?" he asked, his voice gritty with so
much wanting.

She nodded and opened her mouth, but no sound emerged. So, taking her silence to
be an assent, Jack told her exactly what his intentions were, no quarter asked.

"I want to peel every article of clothing from your sweet flesh with my teeth, and
taste every silky inch of you."

"Oh, Jack..." she whispered again, her voice a soft caress.

He dropped his hand to her nape, burying his fingers in the cascade of her hair,
cupping her scalp in the palm of his hand. "I want you to open to me the way you've
never opened to anyone else before. And I want to go deeper, farther, faster than
any other man ever has."

"Oh, Jack..."

"I want to be on top of you, beside you, below you, behind you..."

"Oh, Jack..."

"I want to be inside you, Geo. Deep, deep inside you. And I want to stay inside you
forever."

"Oh...oh, Jack...okay."

He lowered his head to her neck again, and Georgia closed her eyes and tilted her
head to the right to give him fuller access to plunder the skin he seemed intent on
devouring. His fingers tightened over her wrists, and even if she'd wanted to, she

couldn't have broken free. She felt his other hand skim down to dip below her
sweater once more, his fingers opening over the bare skin at her waist, strumming
her lower ribs, electrifying her flesh.

She'd never been more aroused in her life. And she hadn't even taken her clothes off
yet.

Jack seemed determined to rectify that fact, however, because she felt him push her
sweater up, up, up, over her belly, past her ribs, above her breasts. When the soft
wool was pooled under her arms, she heard him suck in his breath at what he
encountered. The black brassiere was more wisp than lace, and under his scrutiny,
she could feel her hard nipples swell more eagerly against the deep demicups, knew
he could see clearly the outline of her wide aureolae.

He met her gaze silently, his eyes burning with something indecent, something
incandescent. The fingers on her wrists faltered somewhat, then tightened again when
he covered one of her breasts with his free hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

She bit her lip and groaned softly, but she continued to watch him as he held her
firm in his palm. He opened his fingers wide, then curled them into her heavy breast
again, this time raking his thumb lightly back and forth over her nipple. A hot spiral
of need began to unwind inside her, circling outward until she felt as if she would
explode. Then suddenly the motion of his hand stilled, and he moved his fingers
between her breasts.

"A front clasp," he said, lightly touching the closure of her brassiere. "How
thoughtful of you."

Before she could comment, and with expert speed, he flicked open the fastening and
spread the dark garment wide. Her breasts spilled free, and Jack's attention focused
fully on the blush she felt creeping up between them. He filled his hand with one,
lifting it toward his descending head, and sucked her deep into his mouth. He
flattened his tongue against her nipple, laving her, tasting her, torturing her, then
circled her with the tip. Finally he drew as much of her into his mouth as he could,
the pressure on her skittish flesh almost too much for her to bear.

She tried to jerk her hands free, wanted to bury her fingers in his hair and hold his
head steady, so that he could consume her this way forever. But he only held her
more tightly, both hands closing more possessively over their prizes, and continued
his feverish onslaught.

He continued to plunder her breast with a hungry mouth as he skirted his nimble
fingers lower again, and she felt him tug at the top button of her blue jeans until it
was freed. Then, still imprisoning her wrists behind her with one hand, he lowered
the zipper with his other, and dug his fingers inside. Slowly, methodically, he worked
the heavy denim down around her hips, cupping his hand over her bottom as he
slipped her jeans lower. Then, as he continued to suckle and nip at her breasts, he
moved his hand back to her front.

Georgia tried to open her legs wider to facilitate his venture, but the jeans hugging
her thighs prevented her from doing so. Her posture didn't halt Jack, however. He
nudged his fingers between her legs, stroking, furrowing, scoring, until she felt slick
and hot and restless everywhere he was touching her.

"Jack," she managed to gasp out.

"I'm busy," he murmured against her flesh.

"But I think we should think about maybe..."

"What?" His voice was as impatient as his activity was leisurely.

"Going to bed," she finally finished on a soft sigh.

He ceased immediately, his entire body seeming to consider her suggestion. Then the
hand between her legs stroked her one long, final time, and the tongue on her breast
streaked slowly from top curve to bottom. Jack lifted his head but didn't go far. He
only pushed his body flush against hers and began to dance her back toward the
bedroom.

Only then did she realize that they had moved no farther than inside the front door of
his suite. They'd been writhing and needy and groaning and moaning, and anyone
passing by out in the hall could have heard them and guessed with little effort what
was going on. For some reason, though, the thought of being overheard in the act
only heightened her senses and excitement. She'd never fancied herself an
exhibitionist, but clearly, Jack brought out the beast in her.

He continued their forward motion, his hands never leaving their posts, his eyes
locked with hers in a ferocious, feral gaze, until he backed her into his bedroom. In
spite of the noon hour, the room was enveloped by shadow and darkness, because
the heavy drapes were still drawn. Georgia let Jack lead her in the dance until they,
too, were swathed under cover of darkness, until her legs bumped against the edge
of the bed, and she could go no farther. Then she smiled up at him and tried to
wriggle her hands free again.

"You know," she said when he refused to release her, "it's not going to be any fun at
all for you if you don't let me use my hands."

The look he gave her told her he knew she had considerably more to work with than
just her hands, but he finally did turn her wrists loose. Georgia brought her arms
forward slowly, feeling a tingle of sensation simmer through her as blood that had
raced to other parts of her body began to warm her arms now, too.

Although his jacket had fallen to the floor out in the suite foyer, his shirt trailed down
behind him, still half-tucked into his trousers. He seemed not to notice, however,
because he was still too busy wreaking havoc on her body. She reached for his belt
at the same time that he tried to skim her sweater the rest of the way over her arms
and head, and she laughed at their inability to complete either task.

"You first," Jack said, tugging at her sweater.

"No, you first," Georgia countered, yanking at his belt

"No, you first," he insisted with a smile, giving the sweater another ineffective shove.

"No, you first," she argued lightly, using both hands this time in an effort to dislodge
the length of leather.

"No, you."

"No, you."

"No, you."

"No, you."

As they clawed at each other's clothing, Georgia began to giggle, a result of nerves
and need and uncertainty. Jack took advantage of her caprice to push her playfully
away and pull the garment up and over her head. She shrugged out of her brassiere
herself, then returned to him immediately and, still laughing, jerked his belt free of its
buckle, then went for the fastening of his pants.

Their bodies tangled while she worked at his zipper and he skimmed her jeans the
rest of the way down her legs. When they rose to stand again, still giggling, she toed
off her shoes and stomped her feet until the denim shook free and pooled neglected
behind her. Then she shucked off his trousers and briefs, and he repeated the same
little dance, until the two of them stood toe-to-toe in nothing but their socks.

In the bright rectangle of yellow light spilling through the bedroom door from the
living room outside, their feet were easily revealed, while the rest of their bodies
remained in shadow. Georgia was grateful for both the darkness and the fact that
they still had something on, even if it was just socks. Because in spite of her
heightened arousal, she still felt a little apprehensive about being fully naked with
Jack.

"I hate this part," he said, gazing down at the black socks on his feet. "I always feel
so foolish. Like I should be starring in a bad porno flick with a black strip over my
eyes to protect my identity."

Georgia chuckled anxiously and decided not to dwell on the fact that this type of
thing evidently happened frequently enough to Jack to warrant his having some
misgivings about his footwear. Not to mention that additional business about him
having some working knowledge of bad porno films. She, frankly, had never been
spontaneous enough to worry about what she did or did not have on her feet during
sex, never mind that porno flick thing. But of course, there was no reason Jack had
to know that.

"We could keep them on," she said, gazing down at her own argyle knee socks, one

of which was nestled around her ankle, while the other remained at half-mast on her
calf.

Funny, she really should have given as much thought to her footwear as she had to
her underwear. At the time, it just hadn't seemed necessary.

Jack seemed to give her suggestion some thought, then shook his head. "Nah. Too
kinky."

She nodded, then in silence they both bent to remove their socks and toss them
aside. Georgia finished first, and stood to watch Jack, who stumbled a bit on the last
one. In an effort to preserve his balance, he began to dance around, until his body
moved fully into the light from the doorway. Illuminated as he was then, she finally
got a load of him in all his glory as he straightened to his full height again. And she
found herself staring at him. All of him.

Hard.

She stared hard, and he was hard, every last solid inch of him. She had been right—
he had filled out quite a bit since they were teenagers. She had seen him without a
shirt on a few occasions when they were kids, and he'd been rangy and lean, with
just a suggestion of muscle and a light scattering of hair on his chest. Now Jack
was...

Magnificent. It was the only word that came to mind.

His chest was roped with muscle and corded with sinew, the subtle swells of his
physique lovingly defined beneath a pelt of dark hair and a layer of dusky skin that
looked as soft as silk. When he stood, the action was. accompanied by a symphony
of movement, each muscle flexing and relaxing, dancing and swaying in perfect
syncopation to a song only his body could perform. The whimsy of the idea struck
her as funny, but any laughter she might have felt lodged in her throat as he took a
step toward her. Then another. And another. And another.

"Now, where were we?" he asked when he stood before her, the heat of his naked
body washing over hers. Before she could answer, he added, "Oh, yeah. Here."

He reached for her, circling her waist with strong arms, pulling her body flush against
his, and then she could feel all those wonderful ripples of muscle caressing her belly,
abrading her breasts. She felt the stern, steady length of him press against her warm
center, and her eyes fluttered closed at the extent of his arousal. Almost as if of their
own free will, her fingers curled into the springy coils of hair on his chest, the dark
spirals winding around her fingertips as if trying to imprison her hands there forever.

He felt solid and strong, rigid and ready. For her. And for one quick moment mired
in irrational fear, Georgia almost backed out. Then he cupped his palms over her
fanny and pushed her toward him, and any fear she had held evaporated into a heavy
mist of wanting. She urged her hands up along his chest and over his shoulders,

cupping his shoulder blades lightly before skimming down his back. She mimicked
his hold on her, gripping his taut buttocks in her hands, and brought him closer still.

A wild, uncontrolled little sound escaped him at her soft touch, and he bent his head
to her neck to drag openmouthed kisses along her throat and shoulder. Georgia's
head fell backward, her hair cascading down her back, and he reached up to bunch a
fistful in his hand, tugging gently to expose even more of her skin for his plunder.
Then he moved his head lower, to drink from her swollen breasts, and all she could
do was arch her back toward him in the hope that he would take even more.

More. The word erupted in her brain over and over again. Somehow she got the
feeling that she would never have enough of Jack to satisfy her. The immediacy and
intensity of her need for him startled her, and she wound her fingers tightly in his hair
and pulled his head back up to hers. She nuzzled him softly, then covered his mouth
with hers. Deeply, leisurely, thoroughly, she tasted him, her tongue joining and
mating with his until they were both gasping for breath. Directing his hand back to
the damp, heated core of her, she fell back onto the bed, struggling to pull back the
spread and blanket, surrendering to both when they were only halfway down.

And then she felt Jack on top of her, his weight and length nearly overwhelming her.
He settled his pelvis between her thighs, nosing her breasts before suckling her again,
then dragging his open mouth down along the downy line of her belly to her navel.
He dipped his tongue into the small indentation, then quickly trailed lower, cupping
the backs of her thighs as he opened her legs for a more intimate invasion.

When she realized his intentions, Georgia tried to cry out for him to stop, but the
dance of his tongue against her sensitive flesh paralyzed her for a moment When she
finally did find the strength to move again, she could only curl her fingers wildly into
the bed sheet and turn her head into the mattress, because Jack pinned her legs down
with his elbows and gripped her hips fiercely to hold her in place.

Time dissolved as he consumed her, and all she could feel was a dizzying ecstasy
like nothing she'd ever experienced before. A tight coil of heat began to unwind deep
down inside her, building gradually, expanding slowly, then gaining speed, faster and
faster, until an explosion of sensation rocked her. She cried out—his name, her
delight, her love for him—then slowly, oh, so slowly, descended back into herself
again.

She was nearly coherent when he rose above her, his dark shape fuzzy and indistinct
thanks to the darkness of the room and the muzziness of her own thoughts. Vaguely,
she realized he was reaching for the nightstand, and when she understood why, she
circled his wrist lightly with confident fingers.

"It's okay," she told him quietly. "I've already taken care of that."

For a moment he said nothing, then he responded softly, "You have?"

She nodded, then bit her lip a little anxiously. "I, um, I have a diaphragm in."

In the darkness she couldn't make out his expression, but she felt his body shift a
little against her. Uncertain what the movement indicated, she hastened to explain
further. "I was involved with someone several years ago, seriously, I thought at the
time, but the relationship didn't work out."

Jack hesitated only a moment, then asked, "Why didn't it work out?"

"The man I was involved with..." she began.

But her explanation remained unfinished when she realized she had no idea how to
explain what had gone wrong. It had been nothing specific—the relationship just
hadn't worked out. The man in question hadn't been...what? she wondered now.

When Jack still silently demanded an answer, she tried again. "He wasn't..." She
sighed heavily. You, she finished for herself. "Right for me," she told Jack.

He moved back beside her and cupped her breast possessively in one hand, and she
realized that it was all the explanation he needed. "So it's been several years, then?"
he asked as he rubbed his thumb lightly over her nipple, hardening it again.

She met his gaze as levelly as she could in the semidark-ness. "Yes. It has."

"It's been a while for me, too."

"Not years, I'll wager."

"No," he told her frankly. "But a while."

"What happened to the last woman you were involved with?"

He seemed to think about her question for a moment before responding. Then he
lifted his curled fingers to Georgia's cheek, skimming them lightly over her heated
flesh with the tenderness of a man who wants to move slowly and thoroughly. She
felt that touch to the bottom of her toes, and her heart hammered faster behind her
ribs.

"I've never been involved with anyone," he told her. "Not the way you're asking,
anyway."

"Why not?"

In response, he rolled her to her side and lay behind her, scooping her hair aside with
a swift, gentle motion, and nipped her neck gently with his teeth. One hand continued
to cradle her breast, rolling her nipple between thumb and forefinger. The other
splayed open over her belly, and as she was turning to look back over her shoulder,
to repeat the question he seemed not to have heard, he entered her from behind,
quickly, deeply, completely.

"Oh," she cried out softly. "Oh, Jack."

He urged his hand lower, nestling his fingers in the dark hair between her legs, and
pushed her back toward him as his own hips came forward. She felt him go deep
inside her, rousing her, filling her.

"Just as I thought," he said roughly, the words whisper soft against her ear. "A
perfect fit."

She turned her head more and he caught her lips with his for a quick kiss. Then he
dropped his head to her shoulder and pulled himself out of her, entering her again
before she could protest, this time with a swiftness and intensity that hadn't been
there before. With one hand palming her breast and the other pressing against her
belly and more, he rocked his hips rhythmically against hers with a quick, deft stride.

After that, Georgia lost herself to him, to the fast explosions of sensation that pelted
her one after one after one. Having Jack this close for the first time was nearly more
than she could tolerate, and a frenzied mixture of emotion clouded everything else,
plunging her into a haze of confusion.

Yet instead of pulling away from him, as her rational mind urged her to do, she
followed her instincts and rushed headlong into him, moving as deeply into him as he
had into her, pulling him inside her, pressing him to her heart, possessing him
forever. And whatever confusion she had felt began to dissipate, to be replaced by
the simple knowledge that she was with the man she loved, the way she had always
wanted to be.

With one final thrust he culminated their union, and they both stilled and cried out at
the power of his release. The moment stretched as if time ceased to exist. Then he
slumped forward over her, gathering her close with what little strength he had left, his
chest rising and falling raggedly, his heartbeat hammering rapid-fire against her back.

Georgia could only lie motionless and let him hold her, so stunned was she by what
had happened. She'd had no idea it could be like that. Nothing had prepared her for
the way Jack had made her feel. And a great cold weight settled soundly in her chest.
She'd been wrong, so wrong, when she'd told herself a finite time with him—be it
two days or two weeks— would satisfy her for the rest of her life.

Because she knew immediately and irrevocably that even two lifetimes would never
be enough with Jack.

Nine

Jack roped his arms around Georgia's waist and held her fast with all his might. He
never wanted to let her go, just wanted to lie beside her this way forever, full and
contented and happy. Had he realized how it could be between them—or rather,

how it had always been—he would have returned to Carlisle years ago. Now that he
knew, now that he fully understood the way it was with them, he would never leave
again. He wouldn't be able to. Not unless Georgia went with him this time.

He turned her over to face him and was stunned to find her crying. In the pale light
of the room he saw her hair fanned out in a tangle of russet curls on the mattress
beneath her, and her skin seemed paler somehow, her expression worried. She gazed
back at him in silence, two fat tears streaming from her eyes, trailing into her hair. An
indistinct but very real fear welled up inside him, and Jack brushed the soft tresses
away from her forehead and lightly kissed first one tear and then the other. Then he
pulled back again and cupped her cheek in his hand.

"What?" he asked softly. "What's wrong? Did I hurt you?"

She expelled a single soft chuckle, a sad smile playing about her lips. "No," she told
him quietly, her voice sounding as if it were coming from a very great distance away.
"Not the way you think, anyway."

"Then what?" he insisted, grazing his fingers through her hair again. "Geo..." Panic
clawed at the back of his throat, and he swallowed hard in an effort to dislodge it.
''Why... why are you crying?"

She sniffled and swiped halfheartedly at her eyes, then rolled completely to her back
and folded her arms around his neck, pulling him down atop her again. "It's
nothing," she told him, the words spoken gently against his neck. "Truly. I just... I—
I never knew it could be like that, that's all."

As much as he hated to, he reached behind himself to loosen her arms from around
his neck, then pulled back and gazed down at her intently. He wanted to see her face
when he asked his next question, wanted to see if she was telling him the truth. "Why
would something like that hurt you?"

She shook her head quickly. "It doesn't hurt me. I don't know why I said that the
way I did. I'm just not thinking. My brain is still scrambled from what happened."

She was lying. He knew she was. She had answered too quickly, too neatly, too
heedlessly. She wasn't lying about the lovemaking being good beyond belief, but
about that being what had caused her to cry. He knew without question that her
having made love with him was indeed what had made her unhappy. But he couldn't
fathom why. There was more to what she was telling him than she was letting on,
and he wanted to press her to give it to him straight. Something in her voice checked
him, however, and he couldn't bring himself to utter the demand.

They had time, he told himself. They could talk about it later. Because he sure as hell
wasn't going anywhere.

He wrapped his arms around her and rolled to his own back, effortlessly pulling her
atop him. She didn't object, but instead nestled into him as if it were a place she

occupied on a regular basis. There was just something so right about the two of
them being here this way, he thought. There was none of the awkwardness, none of
the uncertainty, none of the questionable sexual politics that normally accompanied a
couple's first time together. Instead, it seemed as if they had been doing this for
years, so familiar and comfortable was it to have Georgia with him.

In spite of that, he couldn't help himself when he asked her, "Are you okay?"

He felt her nod against his chest, then heard a muffled "Mmm-hmm."

Telling himself he shouldn't push his luck, he asked further, "Just okay?"

This time he felt her chuckle. "Better than okay," she said softly.

When she didn't elaborate, he told himself he really shouldn't push his luck, then
asked, "How much better than okay?"

Georgia lifted her head from his chest and smiled at him. Somehow, the smile wasn't
quite as broad or as brilliant as her others had always seemed to be, but he assured
himself it was simply a result of the poorly lit room.

"Considerably better than okay," she told him.

He eyed her warily. "Define considerably."

She shoved a fistful of hair away from her face and curled her fingers in the soft dark
fur of his chest. Then she grinned and arched one eyebrow playfully. "Well, for one
thing, I can't feel the lower half of my body."

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. "I hope that wasn't the case the whole time we
were...you know."

She laughed. "No, it happened afterward. After my insides spontaneously
combusted."

"Wow," he told her.

"Wow," she agreed.

"I'm not sure I ever inspired numbness and spontaneous combustion in a woman
before,"

Her smile fell at that, and he wanted to kick himself senseless for being so
thoughtless. "No, Geo, I didn't mean it like that," he said hastily. "I'm not trying to
remind you that there have been scores of women before you."

"There have been scores of women before me?" she asked incredulously.

"No," he assured her quickly, amazed at the way he was suddenly tripping over
every word he spoke. "Of course not."

She nodded. "Only dozens, then, right?"

"No, Geo, not even one dozen," he told her, wondering if she even believed him.
"Not even half a dozen."

"Oh, now, you can't possibly expect me to believe that."

"Why wouldn't you?"

"Because you're so..."

"What?"

"Jack..."

She stretched his name out over several syllables, and he couldn't help the warm
feeling that pooled inside him to hear her do so.

"What?" he asked again. "Go ahead and finish. There must have been lots of women
in my life because I'm so...?" His voice turned up as he left the statement unfinished,
making it a question only she could answer.

"Because you're so..." She sighed fitfully, clearly annoyed with herself for having
dug herself into such a deep pit. "Because you're so gorgeous. And sexy. And
smart. And charismatic. And easy to talk to."

This time he was the one to chuckle. "Oh, is that all?"

She cupped his jaw in her hand, skimming her fingertips along his cheekbone, and he
realized he was really beginning to like the way she did that.

"And because you're just so wonderful," she added quietly. "Really too good to be
true."

He covered her hand with his and guided it back to his lips, then dropped a soft kiss
on each fingertip. "I'm true, Geo. I may not be good, but I am true."

She studied his face closely, as if she couldn't quite believe what he said. He wished
he knew what had her so frightened. Then he could do whatever he had to do to
completely dispel her fears.

"Have dinner with me tonight," he said, knowing the offer wasn't nearly enough to
chase off whatever had suddenly come between them. But he knew, too, that he just
wasn't ready to let her go. It was that simple. "We never did have lunch. We can
spend the afternoon together, and order something in the room tonight."

She was silent for a moment, as if she were weighing a matter of global importance.
"I can't," she finally said, her disappointment unmistakable.

"Why not?"

"I like to be home when Evan gets in from school. I know he's old enough to take
care of himself, but he came home so often to no one when he was younger, and I
don't want to remind him of that."

And then Jack remembered why things between him and Georgia weren't so simple
after all. For one thing, there was Evan. Of course, Evan wasn't necessarily an
insurmountable object. It wouldn't be easy winning over the boy, nor would it be
quick. But it wouldn't be impossible, either.

Yet Georgia's son inevitably reminded Jack of the other man in her life he had never
been able to please—her father. And Gregory Lavender, unfortunately, was the wild
card. Jack had no idea what the man was going to do, nor could he gauge Georgia's
reaction to whatever it might be.

Simple, it seemed, was the last thing this relationship was turning out to be.

"When can I see you again?" he asked, hoping he only imagined the desperation he
sensed in his voice.

"Soon," she told him.

"How soon?"

"Jack, I—" She halted abruptly, as if she were frightened of his' reaction to whatever
she had been about to say.

"What?" he asked, that strange fear welling up inside him again.

She searched his face with hungry eyes, then gingerly scored her fingers through his
hair. "Can we take this slowly? Please?"

He didn't want to take it slowly. He wanted to grab with two fists everything they
could possibly take together, and he wanted to seize it as fast as he could.
Something told him he had to win Georgia over completely and irrevocably, and he
had to do it now. But the look on her face suggested that would be unwise, and
perhaps even impossible. She'd always been the cautious one, he remembered now.
In every aspect of her life. He supposed having grown up the way she did, never
knowing what would set her father off, she had learned to be wary about everything.

Jack, on the other hand, had learned at an early age how quickly and easily a person
could lose everything he'd ever loved.

"Geo," he said, striving for lighthearted and feeling anything but, "it's taken us more
than twenty years to get this far. Just how much slower do you want to go?"

She inhaled a little raggedly, but her gaze never left his. "No, Jack, getting this far
only took us two days. Two days," she repeated emphatically. "We're not who we
were twenty years ago. We're adults now. And this adult, for one, is moving too
fast."

He nodded slowly and bent to kiss her again, sweetly, innocently, hastily. Then with
much reluctance he pulled away. "Can I at least call you tonight?"

Although he hadn't considered the question that forward, Georgia seemed to give her
answer significant thought before uttering it. "I guess that would be okay."

Once again he had to bite back an irrational impatience, then remembered that they
had never eaten lunch. "Do you want to order something to eat? You must be
starving."

She shook her head. "No. That's okay. I really should get home."

And because he could think of nothing else to say that would stall her leaving, Jack
nodded and moved away. They dressed in stilted silence, avoiding each other's eyes,
neither seeming to know what to say to break up the uneasy friction that had settled
over them. He watched Georgia's methodical, mechanical movements as she worked
her clothes, her hair and her composure back into place, and he wanted more than
anything to mess them all up again.

But she turned to him before he had the chance, silhouetted in the light from the
outer room, and said simply, "I'll see you."

He crossed to where she stood, brushed her cheek lightly with bent knuckles and
asked her, "When?"

She sighed heavily. "Call me. We'll talk."

"Yeah, you're damned right we will."

She opened her mouth to say something else, but Jack cut her off by covering her
mouth with his, kissing her soundly, deeply, resolutely. He felt her tremble beneath
him, felt himself shaking with uncertainty. No sooner did he pull away from her than
Georgia fled, not once looking back, not once calling out something flirtatious over
her shoulder, not once telling him goodbye.

And Jack knew then what it was like when friends became lovers. It was awkward. It
was uncomfortable. It was uncertain.

In other words, it was pretty much impossible.

* * *

The message light was blinking on her answering machine when Georgia returned to
her house. There was no sign of Evan, and although she had beaten him home by a
good half, hour, she still felt uneasy about seeing him. Her son would take one good
look at her and know exactly how she'd spent her afternoon. And although she told
herself that her personal life was really none of Evan's business, she couldn't help
but recognize the fact that their two lives were entwined, and had been since the day
they'd met Nothing happened to him that didn't affect her, and there was nothing she

encountered in her life that didn't ultimately apply to him in some way.

Which was exactly how it should be between mother and child, she thought.
Regardless of how the two became united.

She chose not to think about the afternoon she'd just spent with Jack, at least for
now. She still wasn't sure why she felt so uncomfortable about it, when making love
with him had been something she'd dreamed of and wondered about off and on for
so long. What had begun as an instantaneous, almost unmanageable attraction the
moment she'd recognized him in Rudy's, had turned into an incomprehensible,
almost unimaginable feeling of displacement

She just didn't feel like herself. And Jack didn't feel the way she remembered him
feeling. And the deep, abiding affection they'd always held for each other had
somehow turned into something neither of them seemed capable of dealing with.

Maybe it was that the passage of years had blurred her memories of him, she
thought. Maybe that was why she felt so strange. Maybe it was the maturation of her
emotions and perceptions that now colored everything—including Jack—in a
different stripe. Maybe she'd changed more than she realized from what she had
been as a young girl. Or maybe Jack was the one who had changed from the young
boy he had been.

Probably it was a combination of all those things, but right now her emotions were
too raw for her to even think about it She needed to put some space and time
between this afternoon and whatever the future held. So she shrugged out of her
coat, made herself a cup of chamomile tea and settled herself next to Molly on the
sofa. The big dog immediately laid her head in Georgia's lap, looking up with soulful
brown eyes that made her smile.

"At least I know how you feel about me," she told the dog, Tabbing her gently
behind one soft ear. "As long as I keep your doggie bowl filled with kibble and
throw you the occasional Milk-Bone, you'll love me forever, right?"

Molly's tail thumped rhythmically against the cushion as she cuddled even closer.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Georgia said with a chuckle. "I just wish men were as
easy to figure out."

She sipped her tea and let the bittersweet warmth ease through her, then reached
over to the answering machine and punched the button that would play back the
messages. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back on the cushion, listening
with half an ear to disembodied voices organizing her life for her.

A message from the hospital, asking if she could pull an extra shift next week, and
another one from the local library, begging her to reconsider her decision not to chair
the fundraiser this year. There was one from the veterinarian reminding her that Molly
was due for her shots, and one from her father's assistant telling her that her father

wanted to talk to her.

It took a moment for the final message to register, and when it did, Georgia leapt
toward the answering machine to play it back again, certain she must have dozed off
for a moment and dreamed it.

But she heard once more, clear as a summer morning this time, a man's voice
informing her, "This is Stewart Romer, Gregory Lavender's assistant. Your father
wishes to speak to you. Please return my call at 555-7272 as soon as you get in. I'll
be in my office until seven." Beep.

And that was that.

The.first communication she'd received from her father in nearly two decades, and it
had been cool, distant and vague, and had come through someone else entirely. How
very appropriate.

Georgia tried to dispel the uncharitable thought, but it was a little difficult to feel
generous under the circumstances. She was still smarting from the odd mix of
feelings generated by her interlude with Jack, and now she was faced with
confronting the other man who had removed himself from her life without a
backward glance twenty years ago.

Now that she thought about it, she mused, having been abandoned by the two most
significant men in her life at such an early age, it was a wonder she hadn't sworn off
men completely.

There was no question that she would return Stewart Romer's call, and immediately
at that. Regardless of her father's reason for reaching out, he was reaching out,
however tepid and unfatherly the gesture seemed to be. If he was trying to contact
her, there must be a very good reason. He could be sick. He could be in trouble. He
could be hurt. Or he could even be looking to make amends for the past after so
much passage of time.

Georgia hated herself for that last hopeful thought, telling herself she was foolish for
wishing for such a thing, and that it would only bring her more heartache. Instead,
she firmly punched the buttons that would connect her to Stewart Romer and watted
for his secretary to connect her. Then she identified herself, asked about her father
and braced herself for the other man's reply.

"Miss Lavender, your father would like you to be at his house at six o'clock this
evening."

Georgia bit her lip hard and tried to keep her breathing level. As always, her father
was issuing orders he knew she would obey, and as always, she felt she had no
choice but to obey him. In spite of that, before agreeing to the edict, she asked,
"Why?"

A brief hesitation from the other end of the line told her that Stewart Romer, a man

she'd never met before, was surprised by her response. "I'm sure your father could
tell you that better than I could. Shall I inform him that you'll be there?"

Again Georgia hesitated. She reminded herself she was a grown woman fully capable
of making her own decisions, and if she didn't want to see her father, she didn't have
to. All she had to do was say no. But to turn him down would mean she was just as
capable of holding—and willing to hold—a grudge as he was. It would mean she
had no desire to mend a rift that had cut her deeply for too many years to consider.

If she said no to her father now, she knew she would never have another chance to
put things to rights between them. And although he was chiefly responsible for their
lack of communication over the years, he was also the one who was making an effort
to end it now, regardless of his reasons for doing so. How could she possibly refuse
to at least try to straighten things out between them?

Even if it ended badly again, at least she would know she'd made an effort. She
didn't kid herself that things between her father and herself would ever be warm and
fuzzy and wonderful. But the knowledge that she was so utterly cut off from the only
blood relative she had was something with which she had never quite come to terms.
She had to at least make an effort to sort things out for the better. She had to.

"All right," she told her father's assistant. "But tell him I can't make it at six. Tell him
I'll be there at six-thirty instead."

And with that simple act of defiance, Georgia dropped the phone back into its cradle
and slumped back against the sofa. Only then did she realize how badly she was
shaking. Only then did she realize what she had done.

She had agreed to see her father again. On his turf. Without any backup. Completely
unarmed. And suddenly she desperately wanted Jack to be there with her, as he had
been there for her when they were kids.

But for the life of her, she had no idea how to ask him for help.

* * *

It wasn't the sight of the house that shocked her. Georgia had driven by it often
enough over the past several years to know that it was gradually deteriorating, and
she knew that her father was the kind of man who would be unwilling to spend
money to have anything repaired for something as frivolous as cosmetic reasons.
No, what shocked her was the sight of her father.

She'd seen him, too, often enough over the past several years, to know that he was
deteriorating, as well. Working at the hospital as she did, she also had friends who
informed her—unofficially, of course—of his visits to places like Neurology and
Cardiology and Radiology. And in spite of the unsteadiness of their relationship, she
took some comfort in the reports that his presence in such places came about only
for tests.

But she hadn't seen him for several months now, in part because she had been busy
with the holidays—which she and Evan celebrated in Dickensian proportions, thanks
to her having been denied such festivities when she was a child—and in part because
she knew the cold weather kept her father inside most of the winter.

So when he opened the front door, it surprised her to see that he looked even older,
weaker and more frail than she had ever seen him looking. And it bothered her
greatly that he was only now letting her know how badly things had become with
him. Something inside Georgia twisted hard at the sight of the person she had once
loved, admired and feared above all else looking now like little more than a sick old
man. It seemed he was only human after all.

"Hello, Daddy," she said, her voice sounding nothing like it normally did, but more
like an uncertain fourteen-year-old girl's.

"Georgia," he greeted her simply.

When he didn't immediately invite her inside, she shifted her weight from one foot to
the other and said, "Long time, no see."

He nodded. "Yes. It has been a long time."

He was going to make her ask, she realized. Even though he was the one who had
commanded her presence at the house, he was going to make her ask him to allow
her inside what had once been her home. She swallowed hard, reminded herself he
was her father and said softly, "Aren't you going to invite me in?"

He moved aside, and before he could slam the door in her face, she pushed past
him. The interior of the house was exactly the same as it had been the day she'd left
for college. It smelled the same, too, she noted—a bit dusty, with a hint of cedar
from the big trunk in her father's bedroom, the remnants of dinner still lagging
behind.

Odd, the things that stayed with yoa, she thought. One whiff of the house and she
was right back where she had been as a teenager. Feeling obsolete, inconsequential
and powerless. Suddenly she wondered if coming to her father's house had been
such a good idea, after all.

The soft sound of the door clicking closed behind her made her flinch, and she spun
around to face her father, hoping— needing—to get this over with as quickly as
possible. "Why did you want to see me?" she asked without preamble.

He eyed her intently. "Don't you want to come in and sit down?" he asked, suddenly
the gracious host. "Have some coffee?"

She shook her head. "No. Thank you. I'd just as soon know what it is you wanted to
talk to me about."

"Well, I'd like to sit down," he told her. "It's difficult for me to get around these

days. I'm not the man I used to be."

She nodded, wondering if she should read some double meaning into his statement,
or if he was just messing with her head the way he had done when she was a girl.
She never had been able to tell what her father was thinking. So often, she had
thought he meant one thing, then he would jerk the rug out from under her with
another message entirely.

"All right," she said, turning toward the living room. "I'll sit down. But I can't stay
long."

The house was warm—too warm, really—so she shook off her coat and hugged it
to herself. She was still too hot in her gold oversize sweater and brown wool
trousers, so she shoved her long sleeves up to her elbows in a fruitless effort to cool
herself down. Then she took a seat on the sofa—in exactly the same spot she had
always occupied whenever her father was taking her to task for something—and
stared straight ahead. Her father sat, too, in a well-worn Queen Anne chair by the
fireplace—exactly the same spot he had always occupied whenever he was taking
her to task for something. And for a long moment neither of them spoke.

Finally, when she made no effort to move things forward, her father said, "I
understand Jack McCormick is back in town."

Georgia's head snapped up, and she met his gaze levelly, anger simmering just below
her surface. This was why he wanted to see her? Not because of something between
the two of them, but because he'd heard Jack was back in town? "Yes," she said
evenly. "As a matter of fact, he is."

Her father paused only a moment, then steepled his fingers together beneath his chin.
"And I hear you've been seeing him."

A small fire ignited in her belly, the heat climbing quickly to the back of her throat.
She bit the inside of her jaw hard and reminded herself she was no longer a girl of
fourteen, that she could see anyone she wanted to see, do anything she wanted to
do.

"Not that it's any of your business, but yes," she said evenly. "I have been seeing
him."

He dropped his hands back into his lap, crossed his legs casually and continued to
gaze at her with unnerving calm. "I even hear you spent most of this afternoon in his
hotel suite with him."

Georgia was up off the couch like a shot. Without saying a word, she jammed her
arms back into the sleeves of her jacket, pulled her hair free of the collar and turned
to leave. She wasn't about to sit here and be berated for seeing Jack by a man who
had removed himself from her life two decades ago. She wasn't a child, she wasn't
his responsibility and, dammit, she wasn't answerable to him for anything anymore.

There had been nothing wrong in seeing Jack when she was a teenager, and there
sure as hell wasn't anything wrong with seeing him as an adult. If her father thought
he was going to use this opportunity to try to bring her back under this thumb after
all this time, he was sorely mistaken.

She was nearly to the front door, nearly home free, when his voice halted her.

"So you've developed a backbone after all these years."

She spun around and glared at him. "I had a backbone when I was a kid," she
informed him icily. "You just never bothered to take the time to notice."

"Maybe I noticed more than you realize," he countered.

"And maybe you didn't."

Her charge seemed to stump him for a moment, because he seemed genuinely
perplexed by what she said. But as quickly as he had let it slip, he put his mask back
into place, and Georgia was left wondering again exactly what her father was
thinking. She had always hated him for that—for being able to hide his feelings so
thoroughly, when she had always been helpless to do anything but display hers for
the entire world to see.

"So you've let him back into your life after all these years," her father said.

She hesitated, wondering why she should expend the energy to get into this with him
now, when his opinion—where Jack had been concerned, at least—had never
mattered in the first place. In spite of that, she heard herself answer, "In a lot of
ways, Jack never left my life."

"He's not the boy you remember."

She thrust her chin up some, not sure why she should feel so defensive. "I know
that."

"He'll hurt you now worse than he hurt you then."

She expelled an errant chuckle, devoid of humor. "Oh, like you really care."

Her father said nothing in response to that, only gazed at her with that maddeningly
level gaze that had always made her squirm. It had the same effect now. She felt an
uncontrolled shiver wind through her body, and she had to force herself not to
buckle into a mass of helpless defeat. But she, too, remained silent, staring him
down, steeling herself against the rush of adolescent fears and emotions that
threatened to overrun her. Her father's expression changed when she refused to back
down, and ultimately he was the one to look away.

"He's no good for you, Georgia," he finally said, staring at the spot on the sofa she
had vacated.

"That's not for you to decide," she rejoined.

"There are things you don't know about him, things that—"

"It's none of your business, Daddy," she interrupted, feeling a strength whose
source she couldn't identify welling up from somewhere deep inside her. "It wasn't
before, and it isn't now."

"Oh, isn't it?" he asked, his voice dripping with contempt. When he turned to look at
her again, he seemed his old self once more—angry, scornful and mean.

She shook her head. "No. It's not. I'm not a child anymore, and you have no
jurisdiction in my life. You turned your back on me twenty years ago—"

"I turned my back on you?" he interjected. But she ignored him.

"And I've gotten along just fine without you all these years," she said. "You're not
going to make me feel the way you used to make me feel. You're not. I've come too
far for that."

He contemplated her outburst for a moment, then evidently decided not to comment
on it. Instead, he asked her, "Did you know I'm about to lose the company?"

She dropped her gaze to the floor. Now, she supposed, they were finally coming to
the crux of the matter as to why he had called her in the first place. "I'd heard you
were having some problems with the business financially," she said, "just like
everyone else in town has heard. But no, I didn't know you were about to lose it
entirely."

"Actually, lose isn't the correct word," he told her. "Someone is taking it from me.
Without my consent."

She looked up at him, confused. "How can someone take it without your consent?"

"It's a forceful takeover by another business, another businessman. Someone's been
courting my shareholders, buying up stock faster than I can talk them into holding on
to it, paying them considerably more than it's worth, more than I can currently
guarantee them."

She shook her head. "Why would someone do that? Why would someone want a
company that's failing?"

As if cued by her question, a knock on the front door sounded behind her. It
prevented her father from responding right away, but it didn't keep him from smiling.
Smiling strangely, Georgia thought. Why on earth would he smile at a time like this?

"You'll have to ask him that question," he finally said.

She still eyed him silently in confusion.

"Go ahead," he told her. "Answer the door."

Automatically, because she had always done what her father told her to do, Georgia
spun around and curled her fingers over the doorknob. At the same moment she
began to turn the cold brass knob, she realized she already knew the answer to her
question, and something equally cold and hard settled in the pit of her stomach.

I acquire companies that are failing or on the verge of bankruptcy, then I...bring
them back into the black. Once they're up and running again and making money,
I sell them for considerably more than I paid for them.

Sounds both profitable and philanthropic.

Well, profitable, anyway.

Oh, no. It couldn't be, she thought. But she knew even as she pulled the front door
toward herself that she would see Jack standing on the other side. The cold winter
wind whipped his hair down over his forehead, and his blue eyes were absolutely
glacial. A shiver wound through her that had nothing to do with the cold, and she
lifted a hand to her mouth.

"Please, just tell me it's not you," she whispered.

Obviously, he knew what she was talking about. Obviously, her father had
summoned him here, as well, for precisely the reasons he had commanded Georgia's
presence. Obviously, Gregory Lavender was still pulling both their strings.

Obviously, nothing had changed at all.

Ten

"It's me," Jack said softly. "But it's not what you think."

A big, black, gaping hole opened up in her midsection, and every good thing that
had ever happened to Georgia in her life was suddenly sucked inside it, disappearing
amid the darkness. All the nice things Jack had ever said to her, all the warm things
he'd made her feel. All the lazy afternoons when just being with him had made up for
all the bad stuff in her life, all the hopes and dreams she'd ever embraced for a future
between the two of them. Gone. With that one confession, everything—everything—
changed.

"Oh, Jack."

"Georgia, let me explain..."

"Yes, do, Georgia," her father piped up. "This should be good. Let him explain how

he's taking Lavender Industries— my livelihood and your legacy—and everything the
company holds. How he's going to gobble up everything that's ever mattered to this
family, including the house where you grew up, and spit it out again as the bottom
line. Let him explain how he's putting an old man like me out on the streets in the
dead of winter. I'd like to hear an explanation for that."

She glanced first at her father, then back at Jack, refusing to believe such a thing of
the man she loved. Unfortunately, she found herself believing it without much trouble
at all. Jack had always hated her father. He'd never made that a secret. But why now,
after all these years, would he do something like this?

"Jack?" she asked, still willing to hear him out. Surely there was a good explanation
for this. What it was, she couldn't imagine. But surely there must be one.

He continued to meet her gaze levelly, but all he said was, "We need to talk."

"We've had two days to talk," she reminded him. "I asked you flat out what kind of
business you had in Carlisle, and you evaded the question completely. At the time I
didn't think much about it, but now..."

"Now?" he asked.

A sick feeling rolled around in her stomach, and she swallowed hard. ."Now I can't
help but think you've been deliberately lying to me all along."

He shook his head at her. "Don't tell me you're going to listen to your father before
you listen to me. After the way he treated you, after all the things he said and did to
you when we were kids, don't tell me you're going to side with him in this."

"I haven't sided with anyone," she assured him. "All I want to do is find out what's
going on."

"He's stealing Lavender Industries from me," her father said.

Georgia and Jack both turned to look at her father, who stood and crossed the living
room with slow, carefully modulated strides. He looked so old, she thought, a
feeling of utter helplessness washing over her. So old and weak. He should have
someone caring for him, someone here with him to make sure he didn't fall or take ill.
He shouldn't be alone at this point in his life. And as well as she knew all that, she
also knew she couldn't be the one to care for him. Not only was she confident he
would never welcome her presence in such a capacity, there were just too many
conflicting emotions about him tearing her up inside.

But she still couldn't turn her back on him completely. He was her father.

"He's taking everything," he said when he halted his progress a few feet before
reaching Georgia. "He's taking the business, the stock, the equipment, the
inventory...he's even taking the house."

She turned to Jack, silently demanding verification. She willed him to tell her that her
father's charges were all unfounded. But he said not a word in his own defense.

"Is that true?" she finally asked. "You're even taking the house?"

His jaw clenched tight, Jack nodded once.

"You're going to force my father out of his home?"

This time Jack nodded more forcefully. "You're damned right I am. The way he
forced you out twenty years ago."

Even though she had known he would admit to it, hearing Jack confirm her fears hit
Georgia like a blow from a sledgehammer. "Oh, Jack," she said, barely able to voice
the words aloud. "This is the surprise you were telling me about? The way you're
repaying the debt you think you owe me? You're stealing my father's life? How can
you do such a thing?"

He gaped at her, clearly unable to believe her response. "How can I? It's easy, Geo.
All I have to do is remember the way he treated you when we were kids, replay in my
mind all the vicious things he said to you. All I have to do is remember the way you
looked every time you tried to please him, only to have him belittle you at every
turn."

"All I have to do," he interrupted, his voice ruthless now, relentless, "is remember
that he always came first with you."

Well, that certainly brought her up short. "What?" she asked, certain she couldn't
possibly have heard him correctly. "What are you talking about?"

"You always wanted to please him," Jack said, his voice sounding tired now,
downtrodden. "It was always your father. Never me. You never worried about me
the way you worried about him."

She opened her mouth to deny the charge, but no words emerged. He was being
ridiculous, of course. Jack had always mattered more to her than anything. Didn't he
realize that? How could he even begin to think he'd meant less to her than her father
had? She'd always loved him above everything else in her life. Even her father. How
could he not know that?

"Jack," she tried again, "that's not true..."

But evidently he didn't want to hear any explanations from her. "What I'm doing in
Carlisle," he said, "I'm doing for us, Geo. Yes, I'm taking your father's house and
everything else he holds dear. Because I want him to know what it feels like to have
nothing. The way he took everything from you."

Georgia looked at Jack, really looked at him, for the first time since seeing him again,
and finally she understood the source of the uneasiness that had been present

between them since their reunion. Simply put, the Jack who had returned to Carlisle
two days before wasn't the same Jack who had left twenty-three years ago. The man
she had given herself to that afternoon, the man she had fancied herself in love with,
was nothing but a stranger.

And she realized then that she didn't love this man at all. She loved the boy he had
been. The angry young man who had still been able to give something of himself,
who instead of lashing out at those who wronged him, had sought to improve both
himself and his lot in life. That Jack had never blamed anyone, had never wanted
revenge. He'd simply wanted to escape from everything that had ever gone sour in
his life. The boy had just wanted to be happy. The man wanted to be avenged.

The Jack who had returned to Carlisle wouldn't be satisfied with simply leaving the
past behind. This Jack wanted retribution for the wrongs committed against him and
those he cared about. This Jack was an unforgiving man who had room in his heart
for only one thing—payback. And there was no way Georgia could love a man like
that.

"You're not doing this for us," she said softly. "You're doing this for yourself. I
never wanted revenge. Back then, you didn't, either. I don't know why you've
changed in that respect, but I haven't. All I ever wanted was to live as good a life as I
could. I still do. And I thought that was what you wanted, too. Obviously, I was
wrong."

"Georgia, it's not that simple," he began.

But she held up a hand to stop him. "Yes, it is. It is that simple. You're just too
blinded by this misplaced need for vengeance to see it."

"We need to talk about this," he insisted again.

She shook her head and pushed past him, out into the cold night, oblivious to the
chilly air that wrapped around her. "I don't think there's anything else to say," she
told him.

He took a step toward her, then stopped. "There's plenty more to say."

"Then say it to my father," she told him, taking a step backward to compensate for
his. "Whatever all this is about, it's between the two of you." Her voice sank a little
when she added, "Evidently, it always has been. Certainly neither of you has ever
considered my feelings in the matter."

"How can you say that?" Jack asked her, his own voice dropping in volume, though
whether because he was having trouble getting his words out or because he didn't
want her father to hear, Georgia couldn't have said. "You've always been what's
mattered most to me. Always."

She felt tears welling up in her eyes, and willed them back. She was not going to cry,
she promised herself. Not yet. Not while her father and the stranger who had once

been her love could see her. "I haven't been what's mattered to you," she said. "Not
if the way you're acting now is any indication."

"Geo..."

She hesitated, then turned to him once more. "You know, Jack, you may be right
about your family."

He shook his head, obviously confused by the sudden change of subject. "What do
you mean?"

"You said last night that you were afraid they might not approve of what you've
become. And you're right. They probably wouldn't. They'd probably be shocked
that someone who once cared so much for them could only care about himself
now."

"Geo..." He tried again.

"Good night, Jack."

As an afterthought, she remembered her father, then turned to him, as well. "Daddy,"
she said by way of a farewell. Because there was nothing more she had to say to
him. Not now. Maybe not ever again.

His response to her was another odd smile, a combination of torment and triumph.
She wasn't quite sure what to make of it, and discovered that, at the moment, she
didn't much care to try. She was tired and numb and just wanted to go home. So
without looking back, she headed for her car and took refuge inside it. But it wasn't
until she had rounded the corner at the end of her father's street that she allowed
herself to cry.

* * *

Jack watched as Georgia made her way slowly down the lawn and folded herself into
her car, noting that her steps never faltered and she never once turned her head to
see what was behind her. And he continued to watch as her car rolled out of the
driveway and into the street, observing idly the flash of red taillights as she braked
for the stop sign at the corner, the rhythmic on-and-off of the yellow turn signal, and
then the pale puff of exhaust as she disappeared from view.

And all the while, he wondered Why doesn't she understand?

He turned to Gregory Lavender and found him grinning with that knowing grin that
Jack had learned to hate a long, long time ago.

"I told you I had the secret weapon," the old man said.

"You have nothing," Jack countered.

But Gregory Lavender only grinned some more. "And now, so do you."

Jack shook his head. "You're wrong. I'll get her back. She just doesn't understand.
Once I talk to her, once I explain..."

He cut himself off when he realized how desperate he sounded. Gregory Lavender
must have noticed, too, because he laughed, an eerie, hollow sound that echoed off
the empty house behind him.

"Why?" Jack asked. "Why did you do this? Why is it so important for you to keep
Georgia and me apart?"

The other man glared at him for a moment, then replied, "You're not good enough
for her. You never were."

Jack stared at the man, dumbfounded. Was that it? he wondered. Had that always
been the reason Georgia's father had hated him? All along, Jack had thought it was
because Gregory simply hadn't wanted his daughter to be happy, that he'd wanted to
deny her anything that might bring her joy. Was it as simple as the fact that, like so
many fathers, he simply hadn't approved of the boy she liked? Could it possibly
have been that innocent?

"What's good enough for Georgia isn't for you to decide," he said.

"You're wrong," Gregory countered. "She's my daughter. I'm her father. Her mother
died when she was four years old, and I promised her before she went that I would
make sure Georgia became the best that she could be."

Jack gaped at him. "And you did that by insulting and belittling her? By denying her
the most basic human need— love?"

"I promised her mother that Georgia would be what we'd always planned for her to
be," Gregory reiterated, ignoring Jack's questions.

"Don't you think Georgia should have had some say in that?"

The other man shook his head. "She's just a girl. She can't possibly make those
decisions on her own."

"Georgia isn't a girl. She's a woman. She's been a woman for a long time."

Georgia's father gazed steadily at Jack, but there was no way for him to gauge what
the old man was thinking. Finally Gregory said, "Now you're the one who doesn't
understand. I'm her father. Her father."

Jack nodded. "You're right. I don't understand. The fact that you're her father just
makes this all the more incomprehensible. I would think you'd want what's best for
her."

"I do."

There was no sense in standing here arguing with him, Jack thought. He was no more

able to understand the old man's machinations than he was able to understand why
Georgia couldn't see things his way. And although he honestly didn't care whether or
not he ever came to understand Gregory's thoughts on the subject, he sure as hell
wanted to make sure Georgia understood Jack's. He needed to see her. Needed to
explain. Once she realized...

Jack inhaled deeply and released the breath slowly. "Our business isn't finished," he
told Gregory.

"Oh, I know that," the other man replied heartily.

Ceding the last word for once in his life, Jack turned his back on Georgia's father
and exited exactly the way she had, only moments before. He just had to make her
understand, he told himself. Once she realized his reasons for going after her father's
business, she'd realize that he'd done it for her as much as he had for himself. She'd
know then how much he loved her. And everything would be all right. It would have
to be.

It would have to.

* * *

"You look like hell."

Georgia glanced up from her position on the sofa, where she had been staring
blindly at the fire, and glared at her son. "Thanks, Evan. I'm glad you pointed that
out to me. I fee! so much better now."

She'd driven straight home from her father's house, fixing her thoughts on the traffic
and the lightly falling snow so she wouldn't have to think about anything else. But
now that she was safe and sound inside her own house, she no longer had that
luxury, and she was helpless to do anything but think about what had happened less
than an hour ago.

Think about the fact that her father had wanted to see her only because of Jack's
involvement in the loss of Lavender Industries, about the look of triumph on her
father's face when Jack had made his confession about his guilt, about how Jack had
always thought her father had come first.

Jack, Jack, Jack. No matter what her thoughts were, they always circled back to him.

More than anything else, she saw Jack's face as he stood there and told her flat out
that the revenge he was wreaking against her father was for her, for the two of them,
and not because he simply wanted to satisfy his own need for vengeance. He had
lied to her about that, as he had lied to her about so many other things since coming
back to Carlisle. And she was reminded again of how badly she had misjudged him.

"Is it your father, or is it him?" Evan asked from his seat at the kitchen table, where
he had spread out his history book and an assortment of maps to study.

Although she knew perfectly well what him her son was referring to, Georgia feigned
confusion. "Him who?" she asked. "Who's him? What are you talking about?"

Evan hesitated for only a moment, then said, "Ever since you got home, you've
barely said a word. I know you were going to see your father. But I figure he
probably has something to do with this, too." He paused briefly again, rolling his
pencil between his thumb and forefinger with much thought. "Look, Georgia, I just
wanna know if you're okay, okay?"

It was at times like these that she wished she'd never met Evan Beneke. Because
these were the times when he reminded her so much of Jack. Of what Jack had been
like when he was young. Concerned, caring, able to see past the facade she threw up
to defend herself in times of turmoil, and to tear down the walls she built in a fruitless
effort to keep herself from falling apart. In so many ways, Evan had become the
friend Georgia had lost the day Jack McCormick left town. And right now she just
wasn't sure if she was up to facing him.

"I'm okay," she lied softly.

"What happened?"

"I'd really rather not talk about it, Evan. It's kind of complicated."

He nodded and glanced back down at his homework, but only for a moment. "I just
need to know...was it your father, or was it him?'''

Georgia pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes closed tightly. "I
don't want to talk about it," she said again.

"Hey, if your old man is anything like my old man..." Evan began again, clearly
unwilling to drop the subject.

She sighed, surrendering to the inquisition. One thing about teenage boys. They
never quit until they got their way. "Actually," she said, "my father is quite a lot like
your old man." She turned to look at Evan fully. "He never hit me, but he never liked
me, either."

There, she'd said it. Something she'd always known, but could never quite bring
herself to admit. She supposed she could convince herself that her father had loved
her in his own strange way, and that he'd behaved the way he had when she was
young out of some misguided sense of fatherly duty. She couldn't fathom how he
had decided that his brand of parenting was the correct way to raise a child. But she
could almost believe that he had been doing what he thought was best for her
because, in a way, he had loved her.

But he'd never liked her. He'd never respected her. He'd never tried to figure her out
as a human being. From her work with troubled kids, she knew that kind of thing
happened in cycles, that adults tended to treat their kids the way they had been
treated themselves as children. Her father's father had probably been just like him.

For that reason, she had always tried to maintain some kind of compassion in her
heart for Gregory Lavender.

But that didn't mean she had to subject herself to him and his coldness for the rest of
her life. It was clear to her after tonight's debacle that her father had changed not at
all. Nor did he seem willing to alter his ways any time soon. But that was his
problem. Not hers. That's what she always told the kids she counseled. They
couldn't solve their parents' problems. They could only work on their own. And if
that meant staying away from the people who had raised them, then that's what they
had to do.

It sounded like such simple, logical advice, she told herself now. So why was she
having so much trouble dealing with it?

"You need to stay away from him, Georgia," Evan said. "He's poison."

Those were virtually the exact words she'd spoken to Evan during one of their
sessions a few years ago. His father had been poison. It had been vital that the boy
be removed from the home where he'd grown up before he turned into the kind of
person his own father was. That had been crystal clear to Georgia. So why did she
find her own father's behavior so cloudy?

She nodded a response, but felt in no way positive about it. "Do your homework,"
she said softly.

Evan watched her closely for a moment, then ducked his head back down to the
paraphernalia spread out on the table before him. But he never scratched his pencil
across the paper, and he never flipped a page of his book. Georgia sighed and
glanced back down at the big dog who lay beside her, and scratched Molly behind
the ear. Then she looked up and lost herself to the gaily dancing flames in the
fireplace once again.

And she felt more empty and hopeless than she had ever felt in her life.

* * *

Jack was still awake at 1:00 a.m., and still dressed in the blue jeans and black sweater
he'd worn to Gregory Lavender's house, when the knock sounded at the door of his
suite. Because he wasn't expecting anyone, he squinted through the peephole, and
although he told himself he should be amazed to find Evan standing on the other
side, he couldn't quite bring himself to be even mildly surprised.

He flicked back the dead bolt and turned the doorknob, but he hadn't even begun to
pull the door inward when it was slammed open from the other side. The doorknob
went flying from his grasp as the door crashed into the wall behind it, and while he
was still trying to come to grips with his astonishment, Jack was nearly overrun by
almost six feet and more than one hundred and fifty pounds of adolescent anger.

Evan shoved him—hard—and Jack went stumbling backward, but he managed to

right himself before he lost his footing completely. The next thing he knew, the boy's
left fist was coming forward fast, and only at the last possible moment was Jack able
to lift his arm to deflect the blow. But the teenager regrouped immediately and
brought his right hand back, his dexterity catching Jack by surprise, and landed his
fist squarely against the older man's chin.

Stunned for a moment, Jack could only stare at the boy, and Evan took full
advantage of his bemusement by hurtling a blow to Jack's middle. He doubled over
for only a moment, long enough for Evan to ready another fist, then straightened
quicidy and lunged forward, catching the boy soundly around the neck. He spun
Evan around and gripped the boy's wrist tightly in his own fist, jamming his arm
against his back to disable him.

With his free hand Evan clutched the arm around his neck and yanked hard, but
Jack, taller and heavier, and maybe even angrier now, easily dominated him. The boy
danced and kicked and squirmed and fought, but Jack's superior strength won out.

For several more moments, even though he was obviously bested, Evan battled to
free himself from Jack's possession. But Jack held fast, even tightening his grip
more, until finally, finally, Evan relaxed against him.

Or at least seemed to. Jack was by no means going to trust that the kid was giving
up. So he maintained the headlock and twisted arm, his breathing, like Evan's,
coming in rapid, ragged gasps. His hair fell down onto his forehead and into his
eyes, but he only stood firm with his prisoner.

"Are you finished?" he asked the boy through gritted teeth when he was able to find
his voice. He still couldn't quite believe the kid had attacked him so fiercely.

"Dunno." Evan spat it out. "Do you feel lucky?"

Jack shook his head. "No, not particularly. Not tonight."

"Then maybe you're not as dumb as you look." Evan began to lash against Jack
again, and Jack reaffirmed his hold.

"Just what the hell is your problem?" he asked the thrashing teenager.

Evan continued to struggle for a moment, then halted as abruptly as he'd started and
snarled, "Just what the hell do you think my problem is, old man?"

God, it was like hearing himself all over again, Jack thought. If he closed his eyes, he
could almost hear himself speaking to Georgia's father in exactly the same voice
more than twenty years ago. Had he really been this angry back then? he wondered.
Had he honestly held such a single-minded goal to go after whoever had wronged
him and the ones he loved? He honestly couldn't remember now.

But he could remember one thing. As much as he'd despised Gregory Lavender, it
had never even occurred to Jack to actually raise a fist to the old man. No matter

what Georgia's father had done to her, Jack had never tried to beat him up, as much
as he may have wanted to at times. But Evan obviously had no qualms about striking
out, both verbally and physically. Evan had so much hostility and resentment bottled
up inside him, he was blind to the repercussions of his actions. He was acting
without thinking, and that could only lead to trouble.

Jack should know. It was what his own life had been driven by for the past
twenty-three years.

"You think we could talk about this like human beings?" he asked the boy.

"Don't wanna talk," Evan said, renewing his struggles to free himself from Jack's
tenure. "I just wanna beat, the crap outa you for what you did to Georgia."

Jack jerked the boy backward again until he ceased his protests. "And just what did I
do to Georgia?"

Evan still gripped the arm around his neck with bruising vigor, but he eased up on
his struggles otherwise. "You hurt her, man. And I don't like to see her get hurt."

"That's your job in life, is it?" Jack asked. "You're her paladin?"

Evan hesitated a moment, then asked, "What's a paladin?"

Jack, too, took a moment to answer, and when he did, his voice was low and level.
"It's what I used to be."

He released the boy immediately after that, giving him a gentle shove forward to put
some distance between the two of them. Evan staggered a few steps and spun
quickly around with both fists raised, but Jack was ready for him this time, and the
boy seemed to realize it. Evan dropped his hands back to his sides, then lifted one
again to thrust his hair out of his eyes.

Blue eyes, Jack noted. Black hair. Surly as hell. Angry as all get-out. God, he really
was looking at himself two decades ago. He and Evan were two of a kind.

And if somebody didn't do something now, Evan was going to wind up just the way
Jack had. Still surly. Still angry. And now, in addition to that, vengeful and mean.

Just like Gregory lavender.

Jack dropped into a chair that was thankfully close by, because he might have
crumpled to the floor otherwise. He propped his elbows on his knees, buried his
head in his hands and wondered what the hell had gone wrong. How had it all come
to this?

"Do me a favor," he told Evan without looking up.

Silence was his only response for a moment, followed by a wary "What's that?"

"Go over to the desk and open the top right-hand drawer. Bring me what you find
there."

He heard more silence, then, surprisingly, the uneasy shuffle of big boots scuffing
across the carpet as Evan went to do as he'd asked. Then there was the scrape of a
drawer, and a curious expulsion of air from the boy.

"It's just a ratty old baseball," Evan said.

"That's what you think," Jack told him, finally looking up.

He held up his cupped palms in a silent demand for the ball, and, recognizing the
gesture immediately, Evan tossed it to him. The feel of the worn leather and rubber
as it smacked against Jack's palm was comforting, but the sense of well-being that
normally accompanied the solidity of the sphere eluded him.

"Tell me something," he said, glancing up at the boy once more.

Once again Evan's response was silence, which Jack interpreted to mean he was
open for conversation. So he ventured, "Why are you in foster care?"

Evan shrugged, but the gesture was in no way casual. "I ran away from home. It
kinda got to be a habit with me."

Jack nodded. "Why did you run away?"

This time the boy's silence was profound, something that Jack also easily
understood, because it had been his own mode of communication for so long. "I
was five the first time I ran off," he told Evan. "My father started hitting my mother,
who was pregnant with twins at the time, and I just wanted to get out before he came
after me again."

Evan stared at Jack, didn't talk, didn't move, didn't blink.

"But he found me anyway," Jack continued, glancing back down at the ball in his
hand. "He always found me anyway." He palmed the baseball more tightly and
sighed. "Think fast," he said as he tossed it back to Evan.

Automatically, easily, the boy caught the ball, then he offered it half a glance and
looked up at Jack again. "What?" he asked, the single word question encompassing
more than he could ever know.

Jack hung his head again. "Hang on to it," he told the boy. "You're going to need it."

Evan settled the ball on the desk and shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his
blue jeans. "I don't need anything from you."

"Fine," Jack retorted, standing. "If you've said everything you want to say to me—"

"I never wanted to say anything to you, old man. I just wanted to—"

"Then get out," Jack concluded, pointing to the still-open door to his suite. "And tell
Georgia I'll see her tomorrow."

Evan laughed, a sound completely lacking in good humor. "I don't think she wants
to see you."

"That's tough. I want to see her."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah."

Evan met his gaze levelly, and for some moments the two men simply stared each
other down. Then Evan moved away from the desk and strode past Jack without a
backward glance.

"I ain't tellin' her nothin', man," he said as he passed through the door.

And that, Jack supposed, was as close as the boy was going to get to an apology
for his behavior. No apology at all.

Eleven

Georgia was on the beach with Molly when Jack found her the following morning.
He'd received no answer when he'd knocked at her front door, but somehow he had
known she was close by. So he had climbed the stairs to the deck on top of her
roof, had scanned the beach until he'd located a solitary speck about a half mile up,
then scaled the dunes behind her house to wait for her on the beach.

The Atlantic was greenish-gray and oily looking, its fat, tumultuous waves warring
with each other over which would reach land first He watched the water sway and
rock, and thought that its indecision seemed appropriate somehow. How often in his
youth had he stood at the cove and found solace in the way the angry water battered
the rocks without gaining a single victory? He had felt like the ocean himself on those
occasions. Exhausted, unfocused, but unable to stop raging against the battlements
that confined him.

Georgia spotted him long before she would have been able to recognize him, but he
knew she was aware of his presence and identity, because her progress seemed to
slow. His gaze never left her as she gradually neared, Molly cantering along beside
her, sometimes at her heel, sometimes running up toward the dunes to chase crabs
and tumble tangles of seaweed.

The wind blasted her hair about her head, unrestrained as the russet tresses were, so
he had a hard time deciphering her expression, even when she drew close enough for

him to see her face. She made no move to tame her hair, or shove it away from her
eyes, anyway, something that told him she wasn't particularly ready to reveal
whatever she was thinking about. A knee-length oatmeal-colored fisherman's sweater
hugged her curves, and faded blue jeans embraced her slender calves.

She seemed younger this morning somehow, he thought, a realization that struck him
as funny for some reason. He himself had never felt like more of an old man.

"Hi," he called out when she was within earshot.

"Hi, yourself," she called back.

At the sound of his voice, Molly immediately ran up to greet him, nuzzling his hand
and wagging her tail. Georgia, however, was clearly less excited about his
appearance, because she halted when a dozen feet still separated them.

"We need to talk," Jack said, reiterating his assertion of the night before. His reasons
for wanting the conversation, however, were completely different now.

"I think you said everything you needed to say last night," she told him, her voice
cool, distant.

"Maybe," he conceded. "But something tells me you didn't get the chance to say
nearly enough."

She dipped her head forward in silent agreement, but didn't take advantage of the
opening he'd offered.

"Well?" he cajoled.

Her chest rose and fell as she drew in and released a lengthy sigh. "Well, what?"

He glanced around to emphasize the fact that they were so utterly alone. Only the
whip of the wind knifing through his dark blue sweater, Molly's incessant panting
and the scream of a solitary sea gull circling overhead punctuated their conversation.
He settled his hands on his jeans-clad hips and pinned her with a steady gaze,
oblivious to the chilly air assailing them.

"Here's your chance," he told her. "It's just you and me now. Your father—and your
son—are nowhere around. Say whatever it is you want to say to me."

Georgia shook her head. "It would be wasted breath," she told him. "It wouldn't
change anything."

He nodded. "You're right. It wouldn't"

She dropped her gaze to the sand, but not before he noted the look of absolute
anguish in her eyes.

"Because everything has already changed," he told her. "More than you can possibly

know."

"Oh, I know," she assured him, meeting his gaze again, her eyes now filled with
steely determination. "I saw for myself last night how much everything has changed.
Especially you."

"Did you?"

In spite of her affirmation that such a dialogue would be pointless, she opened up
with a barrage of condemnations. "You're nothing like you were when you lived in
Carlisle before. Before, you were a kid with some problems, but you were a good
guy. You never went for blood, you never looked for the worst in people, you never
sought to make people pay for the things they did to you. And dammit," she
concluded, her voice sounding choked now, hopeless, "you never lied to me, Jack."

"I still haven't lied to you, Geo."

"You've done nothing but lie to me since you came back to Carlisle."

"Lies of omission." He tried to correct her.

"But still lies," she insisted.

He said nothing to mat, uncertain how to defend himself. So he just continued to
gaze at her, and wondered what he had to say, what he had do, to put things back to
rights between them.

"You're a stranger to me," she continued, her voice dropping a notch, so that he had
to strain to hear her over the roar of the rushing waves. "And the knowledge that I
made love with you is..."

Now her voice trailed off completely for a moment, but she rallied again before he
could contradict her charge. "The knowledge that I made love with you makes me
feel like...like..." She paused, turning to look out at the ocean. "I always wanted you,
Jack. Always. You can't imagine how much. But I wanted what you were before, not
what you are now."

"And just what exactly am I now?"

She met his gaze again, but said nothing for a moment. Then she shoved a fistful of
hair out of her eyes, holding it back on the crown of her head, as if she wanted
desperately for him to see her face when she spoke.

"You're not human anymore," she told him. "You've turned into something I don't
even recognize. You're like...like some kind of animal that feeds off wounded, dying
creatures. You exploit other people's misfortune and use it to your advantage.
You're...you're a scavenger, a...a jackal," she concluded, chuckling nervously at her
pun. "By your own admission, you prey on failing businesses, failing lives."

"You once considered that to be philanthropic," he observed.

"That was before I understood the kind of man you've become."

"I'm the same Jack you always knew."

"No, you're not. The Jack I loved as a girl would never have wanted retribution the
way you do. Certainly he wouldn't have enjoyed it as much as you seem to. The
Jack I loved didn't prey on other people's hard times. He just wanted to get away
from hard times—from everything that was ugly and unfair. He didn't want to bring
ugliness and unfairness into other people's lives. Not even the people who'd
wronged him."

"I have changed, Geo."

"I know. That's the problem."

"No, I mean since last night. I've changed."

She gazed at him in silence for a moment, then countered, "You'll excuse me if I
have trouble believing that. It took twenty years for your transformation before. I
hardly think you're going to turn around again in less than twenty hours."

"I had a visitation last night," he said by way of an explanation.

She almost smiled at that. Almost. "What, the ghost of Carlisle Past?"

He shook his head. "More like the ghost of Carlisle Yet to Come."

The levity that had seemed to ease her somewhat vanished, and her expression
clouded over. "Evan," she said.

He nodded.

"I heard him leave last night, but I thought he was just going down to the beach. He
does that sometimes at night. Just like you used to."

"Well, last night he came to see me."

She hesitated a moment, then asked, "What happened?"

Jack shook his head. "He, uh...he reminded me of some things I needed to be
reminded of, that's all."

"Like what?"

"Stuff you don't know," he told her frankly.

She swallowed with some difficulty. "You always told me everything when we were
kids."

"No, you just thought I told you everything. There were some things I couldn't share
with you. Not with you or anyone."

She eyed him speculatively. "Something tells me you shared them with Evan last
night."

He nodded slowly. "Evan is able to understand."

"And I'm not?"

Jack shook his head silently. Then he, too, turned to gaze out at the sea. When the
silence began to stretch uncomfortably, he cleared his throat and began again. "I
think I need to talk to my family."

"I think that's probably a good idea."

He sighed heavily, then turned to look at Georgia again. "But first I need to settle
things with you,"

She let go of her hair, and it went flying in the wind again, down over her face,
obscuring her features. "Unfortunately, I think you have settled things with me."

"No, I haven't."

"What's left?"

"I still owe you a dance."

Georgia shook her head, confused. "A dance?"

He watched her levelly, his position never altering, his expression inscrutable. "The
other day, when we had lunch at The Bluffs, you said you wished I had been at the
senior prom, because then you might have gotten to dance once or twice. I should
have been there," he said simply. "With you. And if things had been different, I
might have been. So I owe you one or two dances."

She arrowed her eyebrows downward. "It's not necessary. I wanted to dance with
the Jack I knew as a kid. Not—"

"I owe you those dances," he insisted.

"Jack..."

"Come on. At least let me have a cup of coffee to warm me up before I go."

Before I go. The words sounded and rebounded in Georgia's brain as a careless,
ceaseless echo she knew would never leave her. What the hell, she thought. One cup
of coffee wasn't going to change anything. She would still feel cold and empty when
he was gone, no matter what happened now.

"Fine," she conceded. "One cup of coffee."

"And one dance," he added.

Yeah, right, she thought. They'd see about that.

The house was as warm and inviting as the beach had been cold and forbidding, but
Georgia was less comfortable with Jack in the small, intimate setting than she had
been outside. Thankfully, he crossed to the living room while she went into the
kitchen to start the coffee brewing, and she was grateful for the distance, however
small. But when she heard the strains of a twenty-three-year-old song about lost love
regained rising from the stereo speakers, she spun quickly around.

"Not that song," she told him.

"But that was always your favorite," he reminded her.

"I don't want to hear it, Jack."

"Well, I do."

The singer's voice was low and mellow, and she sang once more with feeling about a
man who disappeared one night, only to return changed in too many ways for her to
count. She wondered through the lyrics of the song if she should give him a second
chance. And ultimately, by the song's end, she decided she would. But the song
wasn't over yet, Georgia reminded herself. And frankly, she'd heard enough.

"Turn it off," she told him.

Jack shook his head slowly and opened his arms wide. "Dance with me."

"No."

"Dance with me, Geo."

He smiled then, a smile redolent of the boy he had been so long ago, and if she
hadn't known better, Georgia might have been able to convince herself that no time
at all had passed since they were teenagers. If she were prone to whimsy— which,
of course, she was not—she might even have been able to conjure in her imagination
a vivid scene of how her senior prom could have been if Jack had been the one to
escort her.

He would have been dressed in a tacky powder blue tuxedo with sapphire velvet
piping, she supposed, because that seemed to have been the rage back then. And
she would have been reduced to wearing something along the lines of a tacky
lavender dress of some synthetic disco fabric. In spite of herself, Georgia smiled at
the image of seventies teenage chic.

"What's so funny?" Jack asked when he noted her expression.

She surrendered to the image and very nearly laughed out loud, "Nothing," she told
him. "Just... may be there are one or two things that have changed for the better in
the last twenty years."

"A lot of things have changed for the better," he corrected her. He opened his arms
again. "Come on, Geo," he cajoled in a rough, anxious voice. "Dance with me."

She shook her head. "I'd rather dance with—"

"The Jack I used to be," he finished for her, dropping his arms back to his sides. "I
know that. And that's what I'm trying to tell you. He's right here in this room with
you now. Dance with me."

Although she couldn't quite bring herself to believe his claim to an overnight change,
she found herself moving slowly across the kitchen and living room to where he
stood. When only a few inches separated them, he pulled her into his arms and,
reluctantly, stiffly, she allowed him to hold her close.

The song that had been her favorite twenty years ago ended then, so Jack reached
over to the turntable, picked up the needle and settled it back at the beginning again.
Then he lifted her limp arms and circled them around his neck, draped his own arms
around her waist and began to sway their bodies back and forth in the kind of
formless, meaningless dance that teenagers seemed to prefer.

"Hi," he said softly.

She tipped her head back to gaze fully upon his face, and it struck her again that
although time and age had wrought significant changes there, his eyes were still as
blue and beckoning as the deepest part of the sea. "Hi, yourself," she replied just as
softly.

"Having fun at the prom?"

Although she didn't want to, she felt herself warming to the fantasy, and she smiled.
"It's okay, I guess. The music's pretty good so far. And Robby Warner spiked the
punch with rum. But the decorations are totally gross. I don't know whose idea it
was to make the theme 'Dust in the Wind,' but I could do without all the
tumbleweeds."

Jack smiled back, and she shivered at the feel of the low chuckle rippling up from his
chest. "You look great in that dress," he told her. "What kind of fabric is that?
Polyester?"

She nodded. "Qiana. It's the latest thing."

"It's very nice."

"Thanks. You look pretty good yourself in that tux. Even if it is powder blue."

He made a face at her suggestion that he would ever don such a thing. "A tux jacket,
at least," he corrected her. "If nothing else, it does match my blue jeans and sneakers
pretty well."

She laughed. "Figures Jack McCormick wouldn't dare be a slave to fashion."

"Not now, not ever," he replied resolutely.

"Oh, I don't know," she told him. "I can see you decked out in eight-hundred-dollar
Italian power suits someday."

His smile fell, but he quickly rallied it again. "I guess everyone can change."

She made no comment to that, because she was all too certain that he was right.
She'd seen the evidence herself, as much as she wished she hadn't

"So, what happened to your date?" he asked her when the silence began to weigh
heavily. "What's a nice, Qiana-wearing girl like you doing in a gym like this all
alone?"

"I came with my cousin, who is a complete geek," she said in her best impression of
a seventeen-year-old. "He took off and left me all by myself."

"How fortunate for me. And you, too," he added as he pulled her closer still.
"Because now you won't be going home alone."

"That's what you think. My father told me he'll pick me up at ten, and—"

With the mention of her father, the fantasy immediately evaporated, and Georgia
withdrew her hands from around Jack's neck. She tried to pull away, but he held her
fast, urging her even closer when she doubled her fists against his chest.

"Let me go," she told him.

"Not until we finish this dance."

She shoved her hands against him with more determination, but he tightened his hold
even more. "It is finished," she insisted.

"Not yet, it's not. There's something you need to know."

"I've already learned more about you than I want to know."

She squeezed her fists more fiercely and pushed even more insistently at his chest in
an effort to free herself from his embrace. But Jack refused to let her go.

"Jack..." she began, her voice laced with warning.

"I sold it back to him, Geo," he told her flatly.

He stopped moving his body in time to the music, really halted all motion
completely. She, too, ceased her struggles for a moment and locked her gaze with
his, not so much because she was surrendering to him, but because she couldn't
quite make herself believe what she thought he was trying to tell her.

"What are you talking about?" she asked.

"Lavender Industries," he said. "I sold it back to your father. The whole thing. Every
share of stock I bought. I made arrangements with him early this morning to transfer
his company entirely back to him. But I don't suppose he bothered to call you and
tell you that, did he?"

She blinked, confusion clouding her brain. "No. He didn't."

"Yeah, I didn't think so."

She hesitated for a moment. "So...how much did you sell it back to him for?"

He, too, paused before answering. "Don't worry. I gave it to him for rock-bottom
prices."

"How much?" she demanded.

Jack met her gaze intently. "One dollar."

She gaped at him, expelling a quick sound of disbelief. "That must have been very
expensive for you."

"Not nearly as expensive as it would have been for me to keep the business."

"Lavender Industries is in that bad a shape, is it?"

He shook his head. "No, actually. It's not. Your father's company is in much better
shape than I thought it was when I went after it. It won't take much at all to bring it
back around. Your father just needs to hire some more savvy, more technologically
oriented people, and invest a little more time and money to bring it up to date, that's
all."

"Then why would it have been so expensive for you to keep it?" she asked.

His reply was quick and to the point. "Because it would have cost me you. And I
can't afford to lose you, Geo. I just can't. Anything else, but not that."

"Oh, Jack..."

"You were right," he interrupted her, before she could utter any objections. "About
everything. I had changed over the years. I don't know why, or how it happened, but
by the time I came back to Carlisle, I had turned into something I never intended to
become. Maybe I just lost sight of my goals, or maybe it was because I didn't have
you to center me once I left here, I don't know. But..."

He sighed heavily and released her, then immediately gripped her by the shoulders
again, as if he simply could not let her go.

"But somewhere along the way I forgot what really mattered," he continued. "You.
And instead, I became the kind of man I always swore I'd never be. Someone like
your father. Someone like my father. I honestly didn't realize that until Evan came

after me last night."

She eyed him curiously. "What do you mean, Evan came after you last night?"

Jack shook his head. "Just that the kid's got more going on inside him than I realized.
And it made me realize, too, that there's more going on inside me than I originally
thought. Seeing Evan brought it all back, Geo. What my life was like before I went
into foster care, and how it was when I was under the supervision of the state. I
didn't think I'd ever forget that, but I had. Until I saw it all raging out of Evan last
night."

"He's had a rough time of it, Jack," she told him. "His own parents turned on him."

He nodded quickly and squeezed his eyes shut tight, as if he were trying to beat
back memories he'd rather not have replaying in his head. And Georgia got the
feeling then that maybe Jack and Evan had more in common than even she had
initially realized.

"The way that kid was last night," he began again, opening his eyes to meet her gaze
with an intensity that made her belly burn, "the way he was going after revenge, so
angry, so focused on that one thing..." He dropped his hands back to his sides and
swallowed hard, then shoved his fingers fiercely through his hair. "All I can think is
that Evan is going to end up like me someday. And I don't want him to wind up like
that. Hell, I don't want to wind up like that."

This time Georgia was the one to reach for Jack, circling his forearms with gentle
fingers, pulling his hands from his hair and down into her own. A single step forward
brought her body against his again, and she looped his arms around her waist, and
hers around his neck. When she settled her head against his chest, she heard the
warm, regular thump of his heartbeat beneath her ear, and she wondered how either
of diem could ever have believed that he would become such a man.

"You didn't wind up like that, Jack," she told him. "You almost did, but you figured
it all out in time, and now you're back." She looked up at his face and tried to smile
reassuringly. "All that matters is that the Jack I always loved—the Jack I still love—is
right here with me, right now."

He set his jaw firmly, and furrowed his brow. "Do you, Geo?" he asked, his voice a
hoarse whisper. "Do you really love me?"

She nodded. "Yes. I do. I've always loved you. You, and no one else."

He tightened his arms around her, giving her a gentle squeeze. "I love you, too.
There was never anyone but you. No one even came close."

He dropped his head to rest his cheek against her hair, and she both felt and heard
him sigh with complete and utter resolution.

"I'm dissolving my business," he said.

The announcement surprised her, but she felt a. warm ripple of delight spiral through
her at hearing him offer it. "Jack, are you sure you—"

"I don't want it." He cut her off. "It belongs to another man, not me. I don't know
what I'll do for a living, but I do know I just want to stay here in Carlisle with you.
Forever. If you'll have me."

He lifted his head and curled a finger under her chin, tipping her face back so that
she could meet his gaze. "Will you have me?" he asked her quietly.

She nibbled her lip a little anxiously as she met his gaze, then, after a moment, replied
to his question by asking one of her own. "Do you promise you'll stay forever? The
way you are now?"

He smiled a little sadly. "Well, I can't promise I'll never change, but I can promise
you that if I do, it will only be for the better. And I can also promise you that I'll
never leave you. Never."

As promises went, Georgia thought, it was the only one she'd ever wanted to hear.

"Then I'll have you."

He smiled, the first genuine, unhurried, unworried smile she'd seen from him in more
than twenty years. And it dazzled her. Just as it always had. She laughed, feeling the
joy that accompanied it to the bottom of her heart and the top of her soul. And then
she threw her arms around him and hugged him as hard as she could.

"I can't wait to introduce you to my family," he said with a laugh as he scooped her
up into his arms and off the floor. "Hell, I can't wait to introduce myself to my
family," he added as he spun her around, laughing harder.

"Surely they'll be able to come to Carlisle for the wedding," she said with a
breathless sigh, feeling dizzy and disoriented, and not just because he was spinning
her in circles.

Jack abruptly stopped then, and Georgia realized belatedly that he had never really
mentioned marriage in his vow to stay with her forever. She had simply assumed that
was what he meant, but now that she thought more about it...

But instead of putting her back down on the floor, he bent and caught her under the
knees, hauling her body completely up against his chest, holding her as if he had no
intention of ever releasing her again.

"We can get married at the cove," he said. "And spend our wedding night in the
honeymoon suite at The Bluffs."

She smiled, feeling relief and rejoicing bubble through her. "Maybe I can even talk
Evan into giving me away."

"Don't count on it," Jack said, his voice more remorseful than resentful. "I have a

feeling that kid will never quite trust me to be the man you deserve."

"It won't be easy," she agreed. "But in time, I think the two of you will be okay."

He nodded, and she wasn't sure whether or not he believed her. That was all right,
though, she told herself. Because she believed in him. And in Evan. They were both
men who loved her and wanted what was best for her. She only wished she could
say the same thing about her father.

Immediately she pushed the thought away. Her father was her father, and only he
could change the way things were between them. For now, Georgia had what she'd
always wanted. Jack. A family. The things that were really important to her.

"There's something else we need to get straight here," she said softly. "Right now.
Before we go any further."

Jack's gaze flickered from her eyes to her mouth and back to her eyes again. "What's
that?"

She eyed him intently as she told him, "My father never came before you. Never.
You were always first with me, Jack. From that first day you spoke to me. Maybe
my father understood that, and maybe that was the real reason he hated you, I don't
know. But he never came before you. No one will ever come before you. Do you
believe me?"

Jack nodded silently, as if only now certain that she spoke the truth. Then he curled
his arms more closely toward himself, bringing Georgia forward until he could kiss
her soundly on the lips. She curled her fingers into his hair and kissed him back
deeply, her tongue tangling with his over possession. For long moments they only
stood in the middle of her living room, vying over who was more intent on devouring
whom, until Jack took a step forward. Followed by another. And another. And
another.

He lengthened the kiss with a languid kind of curiosity as he carried her down the
hall, simultaneously tasting and testing. He found her bedroom with little trouble and
entered without spoken invitation, then dropped to sit on the bed with her in his lap.
He ended their kiss only long enough to meet her gaze with his, as if silently
reasserting his intention to stay with her forever. Georgia smiled and wove her
fingers gently into his hair, then leaned forward and kissed him again.

Jack curled his hand around her nape for a moment, then cupped the back of her
head in his palm, draping his other arm over her thighs. Georgia pushed herself
closer to him, circling his shoulders with anxious arms, tangling her fingers in his
hair, kissing him more deeply still—with all the wanting and longing that had been
building for too many years to consider. He seemed to sense her need then, because
he opened his hand over her thigh and squeezed hard, dragging his fingers up her leg
and under her sweater, settling his splayed fingers possessively over her fanny.

She uttered a wild little sound in response to his touch, and he pressed his palm
more firmly over her denim-clad flesh. When she shifted on his lap, she heard him
groan, then felt him swell to life against her hip. The hand on her bottom began to
journey higher along her back, then moved forward to cover her breast. She tore her
mouth from his to murmur his name, and he pressed his mouth to the sensitive skin
of her neck, brushing his lips lightly over her throat.

His fingers skimmed her breast over the gauzy fabric of her brassiere, hooking
beneath the front closure to unfasten, it. Then he pushed her heavy sweater up under
her arms, and he nuzzled the fragrant flesh between her breasts before dragging the
tip of his tongue along the lower curve of one.

She caught his head in her hands and urged him upward, and he drew her nipple into
his mouth, sucking her hard. Her head fell backward, then her body began to follow,
and he caught her in his arms to hold her in place before she could tumble out of his
lap. He held her fast while he tasted her, over and over, his tongue darting first
quickly and men leisurely, at once insistent and indolent, generous and demanding.
Finally he took her breast in one hand and focused his attentions completely, until
she cried his name out loud on a sigh of delight.

At her exclamation, he pulled away and tugged her sweater over her head. She
shrugged out of her bra as he did so, then bent her head to kiss him again. She
clawed at his sweater until it was bunched around his neck, then allowed him to
move away from her long enough to yank it up over his head. Then he pushed her
backward onto the bed, and covered her body with his, settling his hips between her
legs, weaving his fingers through her hair.

"I love you," he vowed, his voice a quick rush of air. "I have always loved you. I
will always love you."

She nodded, feeling the words all the way to the center of her soul. "I love you,
too," she promised in return. "Always, Jack. Always."

He kissed her again, a long, hard, thorough kiss that punctuated his sentiments and
stated his intentions quite clearly. Then she felt his hand working its way between
their bodies, unbuttoning the fly of her jeans, urging the zipper low. He continued to
kiss her as he tucked his hand inside the softly worn denim, beneath the white lace of
her panties, until he located the deep, damp core of her. He swallowed her meager
protests with another kiss, then dragged his fingers through the soft folds of skin that
housed the heated heart of her.

Georgia went still at his invasion, lying nearly motionless so that she could focus on
the lazy wanderings of his fingers. But soon she was moving with him, lifting her
hips higher on the mattress, opening her legs to facilitate his explorations. He
dropped his head to her neck, to her shoulder, to her collarbone, tasting her breast
again as he continued to minister to her with such exquisite care. The combination of
sensation was nearly too much for her to bear, and she dug her feet into the mattress

in an effort to push herself away.

All she succeeded in doing, however, was enabling Jack to skim her jeans and
panties down around her knees. Ultimately, she wasn't sure whether it was she or he
who removed the garments completely, but the next thing she knew, she was lying
naked beneath him, the denim of his jeans abrading her legs, the rough skin of his
jaw wreaking havoc on her neck.

Almost incoherent, she instinctively unbuttoned the fly of his jeans, then shoved her
hands below the waistband at his back, beneath the cotton of his briefs, grasping the
hot, hard flesh of his buttocks. Jack stilled at her transgression, then lifted his head
from her neck to meet her gaze. She clenched her fingers fiercely in possession, and
he squeezed his eyes shut tight. Then she shucked the denim down, down, down to
his thighs, and felt his solid, heavy shaft nestle between her legs.

Bending her knees, she urged herself forward, until her hips were parallel with his.
She wrapped her fingers around the heated length of him, guiding him toward her,
urging him inside. The moment she breached her softness with him, he propelled
himself forward, driving himself as deeply as he could, halting only when he could
go no farther.

Georgia gasped at the depth of his penetration, feeling fuller and more complete than
she had ever felt in her life. Just when she was beginning to grow accustomed to the
feel of him inside her, filling her, he withdrew, and before she could utter a protest,
he slammed into her again.

This time she cried out loud, losing herself in the sound of his name as it surrounded
them both. He moved inside her, slowly at first, then increased his rhythm, rocking
his hips forward against hers with an even, pulsing regularity that spanned aeons. She
began to move with him, her body seeming to respond on its own, neither of them
giving thought to what was happening, but surrendering to their instincts instead.

A fast, furious fabric of response began to unravel inside her, and Georgia yielded to
it completely, letting it run wild. Gradually the feeling built, until she could no more
control what was happening inside her than she could control the hot reactions at the
earth's core. Just when she thought she was about to lose herself to it completely,
Jack rolled until he was beneath her, and as she straddled him, he penetrated her
farther, deeper than she ever could have imagined.

All over again he started up the steady pulse of his possession, and for a moment
she was lost in the wave of sensation that rolled over her. Then she leaned forward
and kissed him, the quick touch of her mouth on his all she needed to center herself
again. Once more, she began to move with him, her rhythm right in stride with his.
And in no time at all she felt that unreeling of passion deep within her again.

Little by little, the feeling expanded, moving through her slowly at first, but quickly
accelerating until she was helpless to stop it. Jack's motion increased until he was
bucking hard beneath her, and as he reached his zenith, she climaxed, too.

Together they cried out at the culmination of emotion, and at the way their bodies
seemed to fuse into one. For a long moment he maintained the arch of his body
beneath her, emptying himself deep into her womb, her heart, her soul. She felt as if
time ceased in that single moment, felt as if the two of them were destined to remain
lost in their coupling forever.

Then Jack relaxed beneath her, wrapping his arms around her neck to pull her body
down alongside his, and she knew they still had plenty of time left. Time to-enjoy
each other, time to love time to live.

She stretched out beside him and nestled close, reveling in the slickness and heat
from their bodies that joined and mingled in their closeness. She spread her hand
open over his heart and felt it gradually slow, from a scream to a whisper, from an
alarm to a promise. And she knew then what she had always known. Jack was hers
forever. And she would always be his.

"I love you," he said again. The words were low and thready, but the feeling was
fierce.

"I love you, too," she echoed, wondering if she would ever be able to say it enough
for having felt it for so long.

"We made it, Geo. Both of us."

She nodded, knowing what he was talking about without him having to elaborate.
"There will be no going back now," she added.

He smiled, his eyes closed, his chest still rising and falling with each deep breath he
inhaled. "I don't want to go back. I just want to go forward. With you."

She buried her fingers in the soft pelt of hair on his chest and propped her head in
one hand, her elbow anchored on the mattress beneath her. "It's not always going to
be easy," she whispered. "We'll have Evan to think about. Sometimes he can
be...difficult."

"He's a teenager. They're always difficult, from what I understand."

She paused before adding, "And there will always be the specter of my father
looming."

Jack shook his head slowly, then opened his eyes to gaze upon her face. He knifed
his fingers through her hair and smiled again. "Evan will come around eventually," he
said, his words certain. "As for your father, well... He can't hurt us anymore, Geo.
Not unless we let him."

She nodded, too, but still felt a twist of melancholy wind tightly in her chest.

"It will be okay," Jack told her. "I promise you that. We have everything we need,
you and me. Right here. Right now."

She smiled, too, pushing thoughts of her father to the back of her mind, where she
knew they would linger forever. "Then I guess we should start making wedding
plans," she said.

He swallowed hard. "I'll start by contacting my brother and sister. I'll call that private
investigator in D.C. this afternoon."

He hesitated for a moment, then asked, "Will you go with me when it comes time to
see them?"

She searched his face for a moment, then cupped his rough jaw in her palm. "If you
want me to."

"I want you to."

She grinned at him. "Okay. I can't wait to meet them, Jack."

He smiled and lifted his head to kiss her quickly on the mouth. "Neither can I, Geo,"
he told her. "Neither can I."

"Don't worry," she whispered, edging close to him again. "They'll love you. Maybe
almost as much as I do."

Epilogue

"It was a beautiful wedding, you guys."

Jack turned to find his sister, Lucy, large and unwieldy in her eighth month of
pregnancy, waddling toward him across the deck behind his and Georgia's house,
wearing a flowered summer dress that caught the August breeze and danced with it.

He'd never seen her wearing a dress before. Since meeting her last winter, he'd rarely
encountered her in anything other than denim and flannel. Or denim and cotton. Or
denim and denim. The feminine clothing seemed odd on her, but he was flattered
that she'd gone to the trouble to dress up for his wedding.

Behind her, her husband, Boone, was talking to their brother, Spencer,* and behind
him, keeping two unruly toddlers in tow, was Spencer's wife, Roxy.

His family, Jack thought with a smile as he reached for his own wife, circling
Georgia's waist affectionately. He'd never expected to have it so good.

"Thanks, Lucy," he told his sister, no longer stumbling over her name as he had for
months after meeting her. Although a part of him would always think of her as
"Charley," and of Spencer as "Stevie," it hadn't been that difficult to distinguish the
adults from the toddlers he remembered from his own childhood.

They'd spent a lot of hours together, just the three of them, sharing what few
memories they had of their time together, imagining what it might have been like if
their parents had lived and the family had remained a unit. Lucy constantly amazed
Jack with her knowledge of the way things had been, in spite of having been ripped
from her family at only eighteen months of age. Her descriptions of the house, the
yard, their parents...all of it had been right on the mark. Spencer mostly claimed
memories in his dreams, but Lucy's waking hours, too, were filled with hazy and
sometimes not so hazy recollection.

But neither she nor Spencer remembered the way things had really been in the
McCormick household—the fights, the repercussions, the need to hide. And if Jack
had his way, they never would. Although he'd been five or six at the time of the
separation, he had pleaded a foggy memory of that time so that he wouldn't be
expected to fill in all the blanks. They were best left empty, he thought. For all of
them.

All in all, he decided, his kid brother and little sister had wound up in better
situations than they would have suffered had the three McCormick children not been
divided. And although he hated to admit it, they probably had done better than they
would have if he'd been old enough to care for them himself.

Mostly, Jack just tried not to think about the passage of thirty-odd years without
them. There was no point to it, really, and if he allowed himself to consider the
possibilities of the past too much, he nearly succumbed to the what-ifs and
how-abouts and might-have-beens. What was important, he told himself on such
occasions, when he felt himself slipping, was that the three of them were together
now. That they would never be separated again.

And what was important was that none of them would have found such perfect
partners if destiny hadn't played out the way it had.

Spencer and Roxy were the epitome of opposites attracting, so utterly devoted to
each other and their children that Jack found himself almost envious at times. Until
he remembered that he, too, had found someone with whom to share such a union.
Lucy and Boone, as well, seemed joined at the hip, and Jack never tired of hearing
their endless promises to each other, promises he knew they would always fulfill.

And Georgia. His wife. Devotion and promise only scratched the surface of what the
two of them had planned for their own future. They'd bought a house in Carlisle
together, one that overlooked the cove, with room for them and a surly teenager—
who was growing decidedly less surly with the passage of time—and enough spare
rooms to house the other two McCormick children and their families whenever the
need to get away for the weekend struck them.

And much to Jack and Georgia's delight, the need had been striking frequently.
Virtually every weekend the house was full, the three siblings reuniting for everything
from holidays to cookouts to simple get-togethers for no reason other than they

wanted to see each other. And they wanted to see each other a lot.

In addition to buying a house, Jack and Georgia had tried to simplify their lives
enough that they had plenty of time to spend with each other and with Evan. Georgia
had hired someone else to run her shop in town, and Jack had enrolled at the local
community college, looking to get a degree in social work. He and Evan frequently
spent their evenings at the kitchen table doing their homework together.

Then the weekend would come, and Lucy and Boone and Spencer and Roxy and
the kids with it, and the reunion of siblings would occur once again, every bit as
enjoyable as the first one had been.

"Jack."

Georgia's voice cut into his reverie, but he welcomed the intrusion. She looked more
beautiful than he'd ever seen her, her dark red curls piled high on her head at the
center of a circlet of yellow roses. Her dress was the color of fresh butter, the dewy
chiffon whipping around her legs in the summer breeze. Her gray eyes were bright
with a mixture of happiness and uncertainty, and only then did he note that she was
worrying something in her hands other than the tiny bouquet of white flowers she
had carried during the ceremony.

"What is it?" he asked.

She glanced down at the mailer-sized white vellum envelope, then back at Jack. "It's
from my father. It came by messenger a few minutes ago. Evan answered the door."

Jack gazed over Georgia's head at the teenager, who looked more than a little
uncomfortable in the tuxedo shirt and jacket he had paired with blue jeans and
sneakers.

"He just handed me the envelope," Evan said with a shrug, "and told me it was from
Gregory Lavender."

A hard knot formed at the back of Jack's throat. Neither of them had heard a word
from Georgia's father since that cold February morning when Jack had sold him
back his company for four bits. They'd learned through the Carlisle grapevine that
he'd managed to bring Lavender Industries out of its slump, and that he'd hired some
fresh-faced, whiz-kid computer hacker from Virginia Tech to come in and turn the
business around.

And although Georgia had sent her father an invitation to the wedding, he'd never
returned the RSVP, not much to their surprise. Now, however, in the middle of their
reception, he'd sent a special messenger over with a response of some kind. What
that response might be, however, Jack wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Should I open it?" she asked, seeming genuinely unsure of how she should
proceed. He nodded. The other McCormicks and their spouses formed a circle
around her, and she offered each of them a look of apology. They were familiar with

the situation between Georgia and her father, but Jack knew none of them
understood it.

She lifted the envelope up before her, then shook it a bit. "It's not ticking," she joked
halfheartedly.

"Open it," Jack said.

She slid her thumb beneath the flap of the envelope and extracted a fat sheaf of
papers bound with a white satin ribbon. Atop them was a small envelope the size of
one that would be enclosed with a gift. Georgia handed the stack of papers to Jack,
then withdrew a card from the second envelope. Even before she read the message
aloud, Jack had a pretty good idea what it was going to say, and he wasn't quite sure
how he felt about it.

"It's from my father," she said, stating what they already knew. "It's...it's a wedding
present."

"What does the card say?" Jack asked.

She handed it to him so that he could read the words himself.

"Congratulations," it said in the heavy, uneven scrawl he recognized as Gregory
Lavender's. "Here's something for your future. You never could plan very well."
And that was it. No signature, no warm wishes. Just a gift from Georgia's father, for
what it was worth.

"What did he send?" she asked, dipping her head toward the papers Jack was
flipping idly through.

"Stock certificates," he said. "Looks like there's about a forty-nine-percent share in
Lavender Industries here. All in the names of Jack and Georgia McCormick."

Georgia met his gaze, her eyes wide, but she said nothing.

He shook his head. "I'm not sure what it means, either, Geo. But he's made some
kind of overture, that's for sure."

"To the newlyweds!" someone called out from behind them.

The toast broke the spell, and Jack and Georgia exchanged a look that said they
would talk more about her father's gift later. They turned to find that Evan's new
girlfriend, Mallory, had offered the toast, and they smiled as they lifted their glasses
to acknowledge the sodas the two teenagers had raised.

Jack smiled at the young couple, even as they smiled back at him. Mallory Guinness,
a fourteen-year-old redhead with eyes the color of an autumn sky, had grown up in
Carlisle, and her father in no way approved of her seeing Evan Beneke. It was going
to be interesting, Jack thought, to watch the relationship develop.

"To the newlyweds!" everyone else around them chorused.

"To a future full of promise," Lucy said softly.

"And family," Spencer added.

Jack pulled Georgia close and sipped his champagne in acknowledgment of the
good wishes. And he knew without question that their future would be filled with
both.