till buttoning his shirt, Matt strode purposefully down the stairs. Meredith whirled around as he stalked past the kitchen doorway, pulling on a leather flight jacket, heading for the front door. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going outside to find your keys. Do you remember where you dropped them?"

Her lips parted in surprise when she saw the granite determination that hardened his jaw. "I—I dropped them as I walked around the front of the car, but there's no reason for you to go out there now—"

"Yes," he said flatly, "there is. This charade has gone on long enough. Don't look so surprised," he snapped. "You're as bored with this pretense at marital bliss as I am." She drew in a sharp breath as though he had slapped her, and Matt added coldly, "I admire your tenacity, Meredith. You want the Houston property for twenty million, and you need a quick, congenial divorce with no publicity. You've spent two days catering to me so that I'll be more agreeable to both. You tried and you failed. Now, go back to the city and behave like the competent executive you are. Take me to court over the Houston property and file for divorce, but knock off this nauseating farce! The role of humble, loving wife doesn't suit you, and you must be as sick of it as I am."

He turned on his heel and strode out the front door. Meredith stared at the place where he had stood, her heart twisting with panic, disappointment, and humiliation. He'd suddenly decided these last two days were a boring charade! Blinking away frustrated tears, she bit down on her lip and turned back to the frying pan. She'd obviously passed up her best opportunities to tell him she hadn't had an abortion, and she didn't have the slightest, the vaguest idea why his mood had suddenly turned so hostile. She hated that volatile unpredictability that was Matt; he'd always been that way. You never knew what he thought or what he was going to do next! Before she left this house, she was going to tell him the truth about what had happened eleven years ago, but now she wasn't certain he was going to care, even if he believed her. She picked up an egg and hit it so hard against the side of the frying pan that the yolk slid down the outside.

For ten minutes Matt pawed through the snow near the BMW's front tire in a futile effort to find Meredith's damned keys; he dug and sifted until his gloves were soaked and his hands were frozen, and then he gave up and checked out her alarm system, looking through the window. There was no sign of a keypad, which probably meant hers could be disabled only with her car key. Even if he jimmied her door lock and got in to hot-wire the damned car, an alarm system like hers was designed to disable the vehicle so it couldn't be driven.

"Breakfast is ready," Meredith said uneasily, walking into the living room when she heard the front door slam. "Did you find the keys?"

"No," Matt said, striving to keep his temper under control. "There's a locksmith in town, but he isn't open on Sunday."

Meredith served the scrambled eggs she'd made, then she sat down across from him. Desperately trying to restore some semblance of the relationship they'd shared yesterday, she asked in a quiet, reasonable voice, "Do you mind telling me why you've suddenly decided this whole weekend has been a boring plot on my part?"

"Let's just say my faculties have returned along with my health," he said shortly. For ten minutes, while they ate, Meredith tried to engage him in conversation, only to have him rebuff her attempts with curt, brief replies. The moment he was finished eating, he got up and said he was going to start packing up the things in the living room.

With a sinking heart, Meredith watched him go, then she automatically began to tidy up the kitchen. When the last dish had been washed and put away, she went into the living room. "There's a lot to pack," she said, determined to find a way to make him more receptive. "What can I do to help?"

Matt heard the soft plea in her voice and his body responded with a fresh surge of lust as he straightened and looked at her. You could go upstairs with me and offer me that delectable body of yours. "Suit yourself."

Why, Meredith wondered fiercely, did he have to be so damned unapproachable now, and why did he suddenly find her boring and irritating? His father had said Matt had been wild with grief over her alleged abortion and that, when Meredith had refused to see him, it nearly killed him. She'd thought at the time Patrick must be grossly exaggerating Matt's feelings for her, now she was certain of it, and the certainty made her feel strangely, inexplicably, despondent. It didn't surprise her though. Matt had always been capable of shouldering great responsibility, but it was impossible to know what he was really thinking and feeling. Hoping against hope his mood would improve if she left him alone, she went upstairs and spent the morning packing away linens and bedding and the contents of the closets, most of which he'd told her at breakfast were to be donated to a charity. Only the family mementos were being kept, and she carefully sorted through his parents' closet, making certain that nothing of sentimental value went into the boxes destined for charity. When she took a break, she sat down on the bed and opened a photograph album that had evidently belonged to Matt's mother. It was filled with pictures that were so old, most of them were fading. Many of them were of relatives in the old country: sweet-faced girls with long hair and bonnets, and handsome, unsmiling men with Irish surnames like Lanigan, O'Malley, and Collier. Beneath each picture was the date it was taken and the name of whoever was in the photograph. The last picture in the album was the most current—it was a wedding photograph of Matt's mother and father. April 24, 1949 was written beneath the picture in her neat script. Judging from the variety of names in that album, Elizabeth Farrell had lots of cousins and aunts and uncles in the old country, Meredith thought with a soft smile, wondering wistfully what it would be like to come from a big family.

At noon she went downstairs. They had sandwiches for lunch, and although Matt wasn't friendly, at least he answered her questions and comments with aloof courtesy, and she took that as an encouraging sign that his mood was improving. When she'd finished cleaning up after lunch, she gave a final satisfied glance at the gleaming kitchen, then she walked into the living room, where Matt was methodically packing books and knick-knacks into boxes. She paused in the doorway, watching the way his chamois shirt stretched taut across his broad, muscled shoulders and tapered back whenever he lifted his arm. He'd taken off the jeans that had gotten damp while he was searching outside for her keys, and in their place he was wearing a pair of gray slacks that molded themselves to his hips and the long length of his muscled legs. For one hopeless moment she actually considered walking up behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist, and laying her cheek against the solid wall of his back. She wondered what he'd do. Push her away, probably, Meredith decided dismally.

Mentally, she braced herself for a rebuff and stepped forward, but after a half day of enduring his unpredictable temper, her nerves were scraped raw and her own temper was strained to the breaking point. She watched him taping the last box of books shut, and said, "Can I do anything to help you?"

"Hardly, since I'm already finished," he said without bothering to turn.

Meredith stiffened, her frayed temper sending bright spots of warning color to her high cheekbones. With a last effort to sound polite, she said, "I'm going up to Julie's room to pack some things she left behind. Would you like me to fix you a cup of coffee before I do?"

"No," he snapped.

"Is there anything else I can get for you?"

"Oh, for God's sake!" he exploded, swinging around. "Stop acting like a patient, saintly wife, and get out of here!"

Fury blazed in her eyes, and she clenched her hands into fists, fighting back tears and the simultaneous urge to slap him. "Fine," she retorted, trying valiantly to hold on to her shattered dignity. "You can make your own damned dinner and eat it alone." Turning on her heel, she stalked up the stairs.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he demanded.

She turned on the landing, looking down at him like an angry, haughty goddess, her hair tumbling over her shoulders. "It means I think you're rotten company!"

That was such an understatement that Matt would have laughed if he weren't already so furious with himself for wanting her—even now as she stood up there, glowering at him. He watched her turn her back on him and disappear down the hall, then he wandered over to the window. Bracing his hand high on the sill, he stared out across the drive. The plowed drive. Dale O'Donnell had evidently come while they'd been having lunch. For several minutes Matt stood at the windows, his jaw clenched, fighting against the impulse to go upstairs and discover for himself if Meredith actually wanted the Houston property badly enough to climb into bed with him. There were worse ways to spend a wintry day and night—and no better revenge than to let her do it, then send her on her way, empty-handed. And still he hesitated, held back by some vague scruple... or sense of self-preservation. Shoving away from the window, he got his jacket from the closet and went back outside, absolutely determined to find her car keys this time. He found them only inches away from where he'd stopped looking before.

"The drive is clear," he announced, walking into Julie's room where Meredith was putting old scrapbooks into a box. "Pack your things."

Meredith lurched around, stung by his icy tone, her hopes for a reprieve, for a return to the mood of yesterday, dying. Gathering her courage, she slowly finished wrapping the last scrapbook. Now that it was time to tell him about her miscarriage, she fully expected him to react with the equivalent of "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." Just thinking of that possibility made her seethe with anger. After a half day of enduring his sarcasm and frigid silence, her nerves and her temper were strained to the breaking point. Carefully, she put the wrapped book into the box, then she straightened and looked at him. "Before I leave, there's something I have to tell you."

"I'm not interested," he bit out, striding forward. "Get going."

"Not until I tell you what I actually came here to say!" she said, then cried out in shocked alarm when he grabbed her arm.

"Meredith," he snapped, "cut the crap and get moving!"

"I can't!" She burst out, jerking her arm free. "I—I don't have my keys." He saw it then; the small suitcase lying beside the bed. Matt wasn't clear on much about the night she arrived, but he sure as hell would have noticed if she'd been carrying a suitcase when she got out of that car. The shock of seeing it would have registered on him. Her car was supposedly locked, but she'd managed to get a suitcase out of it! Turning on his heel, he yanked her purse off the dresser, turned it upside down, and unceremoniously dumped the contents out. A set of car keys landed on top of her wallet and makeup case. "So," he said in a silky voice, "you don't have any keys?"

In her panic and desperation, Meredith unthinkingly put her hand on his chest. "Matt, please listen to me—" She watched his gaze rivet on her hand, then it slowly lifted to her face, and when his eyes met hers, there was a distinct change in him, though she was unaware that it was the intimacy of her gesture that caused it. The rigidity left his jaw, his body relaxed; his eyes were no longer hard and indifferent, but lazy and speculative; even his voice was different—smooth, soft, like satin over cold steel. "Go ahead and talk, sweetheart, I'm hanging on to every word."

Meredith's mind rang out an alarm as she looked into those heavy-lidded gray eyes, but she was too desperate to speak to heed the warning or even to notice that his hands were slowly gliding up and down her arms. Drawing a quick, steadying breath, she launched into the speech she'd rehearsed all morning: "Friday evening, I went to your apartment to try to reason with you—"

"I already know that," he interrupted.

"What you don't know is that your father and I had a raging argument."

"I'm sure you didn't rage, sweetheart," he said with thinly veiled sarcasm. "A well-bred woman like you would never stoop so low."

"Well, I did," Meredith said, shaken by his attitude but determined to forge ahead. "You see, your father told me to stay away from you—he accused me of destroying our baby and newly destroying your life. I—I didn't know what he was talking about at first."

"I'm sure the fault was his for not making himself clear—"

"Stop talking to me in that condescending way," Meredith warned with a mixture of panic and desperation. "I'm trying to make you understand!"

"I'm sorry. What is it I'm supposed to understand?"

"Matt, I didn't have an abortion—I had a miscarriage. A miscarriage," she repeated, searching his impassive features for some sign of reaction.

"A miscarriage. I see." His eyes dropped to her lips and his hand slid up her arm, curving around her nape. "So beautiful..." he whispered huskily. "You always were so damned beautiful..."

Stunned into blank immobility by his words and the husky timbre of his voice, she stared at him, not certain what he was thinking, unable to believe he'd accepted her explanation so easily and calmly. "So beautiful," he repeated, his hand tightening on her nape, "and such a liar!" Before she could summon a coherent thought, his mouth swooped down, seizing hers in a kiss of ruthless sensuality, grinding her lips apart. His fingers shoved into her hair and twisted, forcing her head back and holding her captive as his tongue drove insolently into her mouth.

The kiss was intended to punish and degrade her, and Meredith knew it, but instead of fighting him as he obviously expected her to do, she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her body to his, and kissed him back with all the shattering tenderness and aching contrition in her heart, trying to convince him in this way that she spoke the truth. Her response made him stiffen in shock; he tensed, as if he intended to shove her away, and then with a low groan he gathered her into his arms and kissed her with a slow, melting hunger that demolished her defenses completely and drove her mad with helpless yearning. The kiss deepened dramatically, his mouth moving urgently, persuasively, on hers, and against her, Meredith felt the rigid pressure of his aroused body.

When he finally lifted his head, she was too dazed to immediately grasp the meaning of his caustic question, "Are you using birth control? Before we get into bed so you can show me how badly you really want that Houston property, I want to be certain there won't be another child from this encounter—or another abortion."

Meredith lurched back, staring at him in stunned anger.

"Abortion!" she choked. "Didn't you hear what I just told you? I had a miscarriage."

"Damn you, don't lie to me!"

"You have to listen—"

"I don't want to talk anymore," he said roughly, and his mouth captured hers in a bruising kiss.

Frantic to stop him, to make him listen before it was too late, Meredith struggled and finally managed to tear her mouth from his. "No!" she cried, wedging her hands against his chest, burying her face against his shirt. His hand clamped against the back of her head as if he intended to force her head up again, and Meredith fought with a strength born of terror and panic, shoving his hands away and tearing out of his grasp. "I didn't have an abortion—I didn't!" she cried, backing up a step, her chest rising and falling in sharp, shallow breaths, her words spilling out with all the pent-up pain and fury she felt. Gone was the carefully rehearsed speech she'd planned, and in its place came a torrent of anguished words. "I had a miscarriage, and I nearly died. A miscarriage! No one will perform an abortion when you're nearly six months pregnant—"

Minutes ago his eyes had been smoldering with desire, now they raked over her with savage contempt. "Evidently they will if you've given an entire wing to the hospital where it's performed."

"It's not a question of legality, it's too dangerous!"

"Apparently it was, since you were in there for almost two weeks."

Meredith realized he'd already considered all this long ago, arrived at his own logical, if erroneous, conclusions, and that nothing she said was going to make any difference. The realization was shattering, and she turned her head aside, brushing at the tears of futility starting to spill from her eyes, but she could not stop talking to him. "Oh, please," she implored brokenly, "listen to me. I hemorrhaged, and I lost our baby. I asked my father to send you a telegram to tell you what happened and to ask you to come home. I never imagined he'd lie to you, or stop you from getting into the hospital, but your father said that's what he did..." The dam of tears broke loose, flooding her eyes and shattering her voice as she wept. "I thought I was in love with you! I waited for you to come to the hospital. I waited and waited," she cried, "but you never did."

She bent her head, her shoulders jerking with sobs she couldn't suppress any longer. Matt knew she was crying, but he was rendered incapable of reaction by a memory that had started screaming through his brain when she mentioned her father—a vision of Philip Bancroft standing in his study, white-faced with rage: You think you're tough, Farrell, but you don't even know what tough is yet, I'll stop at nothing to get Meredith free of you! After that tirade, after Bancroft's rage was spent, he'd asked Matt if they could try to get along for Meredith's sake. Bancroft had seemed sincere. He'd seemed to accept the marriage, albeit reluctantly. But had he really, Matt wondered now. I'll stop at nothing to get Meredith free of you...

Meredith raised her eyes to his then, wounded blue-green eyes. In a state of paralyzed uncertainty, Matt looked into those eyes, and what he saw nearly sent him to his knees: They were filled with tears and pleading. And truth. Naked, soul-destroying, unbearable truth. "Matt," she whispered achingly, "we—we had a baby girl."

"Oh, my God! he groaned, and he yanked her into his arms. "Oh, God!"

Meredith clung to him, her wet cheek pressed against his shirt, unable to stop the outpouring of grief and sorrow, now that she was in his arms. "I—I named her Elizabeth for your mother."

Matt scarcely heard her;his entire being was tormented with the image of Meredith, lying alone in a hospital room, waiting in vain for him. "Please, no," he pleaded with fate, clasping her tighter to him, rubbing his jaw against her hair. "Please no."

"I couldn't go to her funeral," she whispered hoarsely, "because I was so sick. My father said he went... you d-don't think he lied about that too, do you?"

The agony Matt felt when she mentioned a funeral and being sick almost doubled him over. "Oh, Christ!" he groaned, holding her tighter, running his hands over her back and shoulders, helplessly trying to heal the hurt he had unwittingly caused her years before. She lifted her tear-drenched face to his and begged him for reassurance: "I told him to be sure Elizabeth had dozens of flowers at her funeral. I told him they had to be pink roses. You... you don't think he lied to me when he said he sent them?"

"He sent them!" Matt promised her fiercely. "I'm sure he did."

"I couldn't—couldn't bear it if she didn't have any flowers..."

"Oh, please, darling," Matt whispered brokenly. "Please don't. No more."

Through the haze of her own sorrow and relief, Meredith heard the anguish clogging his voice, saw the ravaged sorrow on his face, and tenderness poured through her, its sweetness filling her heart until she ached with it. "Don't cry," she whispered, her own tears falling unchecked as she reached up and laid her fingers on his hard cheek. "It's all over now. Your father told me the truth. That's why I came here, you see... I had to tell you what really happened. I had to ask you to forgive me—"

Leaning his head back, Matt closed his eyes and swallowed, trying to clear the painful lump of emotion that was clogging his throat. "Forgive you?" he repeated in a ragged whisper. "For what?"

"For hating you all these years."

He forced his eyes to open and he looked down at her beautiful face. "You couldn't possibly have hated me as much as I hate myself at this moment."

Meredith's heart lurched at the naked remorse in his eyes; he'd always seemed so completely invulnerable that she'd thought him incapable of deep feeling. Or perhaps her judgment had been clouded by her youth and inexperience. But whatever the case, she thought nothing of trying to comfort him now. "It's over. Don't think about it," she said softly, leaning her face against the hard wall of his chest, but it was a hopeless suggestion because in the silence before he spoke again, that was all either of them could think about. "Were you in much pain when it happened?" he said finally.

Meredith started to ask him again not to think of it, but she realized in some part of her mind that he was asking her to share with him now the things that would have been his right to share with her long ago. At the same time, he was offering her the belated chance to turn to him for the comfort that she'd needed from him. And Meredith slowly realized that she wanted that, even now. Standing in the circle of his arms, she felt the slow, soothing strokes of his hand against her nape and shoulders, and suddenly she wasn't twenty-nine anymore; she was eighteen, and he was twenty-six, and she was in love with him. He was strength and security and hope. "I was sleeping when it started," she began. "Something woke me up—I felt strange, and I turned on the lamp. When I looked down, the blankets were soaked with my blood. I screamed." She stopped, and then made herself continue. "Mrs. Ellis had just come back from Florida that day. She heard me and woke up my father and someone called an ambulance. The pains started coming, and I begged my father to try to call you, and the paramedics arrived. I remember them carrying me out of the house on a stretcher, and they were running. And I remember the sound of the siren screaming and screaming and screaming in the night. I tried to cover my ears to block out the sound, but they were giving me an injection and the paramedic held my arms down." Meredith drew a shuddering breath, not sure she could go on without starting to cry, but Matt's hand was drifting down her spine, holding her pressed against the solid strength of his body, and she found the courage to finish. "The next thing I remember was the sound of a machine beeping, and when I opened my eyes, I was lying in a hospital bed with all sorts of plastic tubes attached to me and a machine monitoring my heartbeats. It was daylight, and a nurse was there, but when I tried to ask her about our baby, she patted my hand and told me not to worry. I asked her if I could see you, and she said you weren't there yet. When I opened my eyes again, it was night and there were doctors and nurses all around the bed. I asked them about the baby, too, and they said my doctor was on his way and everything was going to be just fine. I knew they were lying to me. So I asked—no," she amended with a sad smile as she tipped her head back and looked at him, "I ordered them to let you come in because I knew they wouldn't dare lie to you."

He tried to smile back at her but it didn't reach his tormented gray eyes, and she laid her cheek against his chest. "They told me you weren't there, but that my father was, and then my doctor arrived, and my father came in, and everyone else left the room...."

Meredith stopped, cringing from the memory of what came next. As if Matt sensed what she was feeling, he laid his hand against her cheek, pressing her face to the rhythmic beating of his heart. "Tell me," he whispered, his deep voice ragged with tenderness and sorrow. "I'm here, and it can't hurt as much this time."

Meredith took his word for it, her hands sliding up his chest to his shoulders, instinctively clutching them for support, but fresh tears were flooding her eyes and clogging her voice. "Dr. Arledge told me that we'd had a baby girl, and that everything humanly possible had been done to save her, but they couldn't because—because she was too little." Tears raced down her cheeks. "Too little!" she repeated on a heartbroken sob. "I thought baby girls were supposed to be little. Little is such a—a pretty word... so feminine..."

She felt Matt's fingers digging into her back, and somehow the suppressed force of his reaction gave her strength. Drawing a long breath, she finished, "Because she was so little, she couldn't breathe properly. Dr. Arledge asked me what I wanted to do, and when I realized he was asking me if I wanted her to have a name and a—a funeral, I started begging him to let me see you. My father was furious at him for upsetting me, and he told me he'd sent you a telegram, but that you weren't there. Dr. Arledge said I couldn't wait for days to make these decisions. And so I—I decided," Meredith concluded brokenly. "I named her Elizabeth because I thought you would like that, and I told my father I wanted her to have dozens and dozens of pink roses. And I said I wanted all the cards to be from us and to say, 'We loved you.'"

Matt's voice was raw. "Thank you," he whispered, and she suddenly realized the wetness on her cheek was not only from her tears, but also his.

"And then I waited," she told him with a ragged sigh. "I waited for you to come, because I thought that somehow, if you were there, everything would start to be better." Within moments after she finished, Meredith felt a sense of relief, of calm sweeping over her.

When Matt finally spoke, he, too, had gotten control of his emotions. "Your father's telegram reached me three days after he sent it. It said that you'd had an abortion, and that you wanted nothing more from me except a divorce, which you were already instituting. I flew home anyway, and one of your maids told me where you were, but when I got to the hospital, they informed me you'd specifically said you didn't want me allowed up to see you. I went back the next day with some half-formed plan of getting past the security guards at the desk of the Bancroft Wing, but I never got that far. A cop was waiting at the doors to serve me with a signed court injunction that made it a criminal act for me to go near you."

"And all that time," she whispered, "I was in there, waiting for you."

"I promise you," he said tightly, "that if I'd thought there was a chance you wanted to see me, no court order, no force on this earth, would have stopped me from getting to you!"

She tried to reassure him with a simple truth: "You couldn't have helped me."

His body seemed to stiffen. "I couldn't?"

She shook her head. "Everything medically possible was already being done for me, just as it had been for Elizabeth. There wasn't anything you could have done to help." Meredith was so relieved to have the truth out in the open at last that she abandoned her pride and took it one step further. "You see, despite what I had put on the cards with the roses, I knew in my heart how you really felt about the baby—and about me."

"Tell me," he said gruffly, "how did I really feel?"

Surprised by the sudden terseness in his tone, Meredith tipped her head back. With a soft smile to prove she meant no criticism, she said, "The answer to that is as obvious now as it was then: You were stuck with both of us. You slept one time with a silly eighteen-year-old virgin who did her best to seduce you, and who didn't have sense enough to use birth control, and look what happened."

"What happened, Meredith?" he demanded.

"What happened? You know what happened. I came looking for you to give you the glad news, and you did the noble thing—you married a girl you didn't want."

"Didn't want?" he exploded, his harsh voice in complete opposition to the poignancy of his words. "I've wanted you every day of my godforsaken life."

Meredith stared at him, mesmerized, doubtful, joyous, shattered.

"And you were wrong about something else too," he said, his expression gentling as he framed her tear-streaked face between his palms, his fingers brushing the wetness away. "If I'd been able to see you in the hospital, I could have helped."

Her voice dropped to a shaken whisper. "How?"

"Like this," he said, and still cradling her face, he bent his head and brushed his lips over hers. The exquisite tenderness of his kiss, the caressing way his fingers slid over her face, destroyed Meredith's defenses completely, and fresh tears welled up just when she thought she had cried them all. "And like this—" His mouth slid to the corners of her eyes, and she felt the touch of his tongue on her tears. "I'd have taken you home from the hospital with me, and held you in my arms—like this—" he promised achingly, drawing her against his full length, his breath against her ear sending shivers down her spine. "When you were well enough, we'd have made love, and later, when you wanted me to, I'd have given you another baby—" He didn't say "like this," but when he shifted her backward onto the bed and followed her down, Meredith knew that was what he meant. She knew it as surely as she knew it was wrong to let him take off her sweater and unfasten her jeans, as surely as she knew it was impossible for her to have another baby. But, oh, the sweetness of pretending, just this once, that all of this was reality and the past was only a dream that could be altered.

Her heart wanted desperately to try, but some tiny voice of reason warned that it was a mistake. "This is wrong—" she whispered when he leaned over her, his chest and arms bare and bronze.

"This is right," he said fiercely, and his lips covered hers, parting them with familiar, insistent skill.

Meredith closed her eyes and let the dream begin.

Only in this dream she wasn't merely an observer, she was a participant—hesitant at first; as shy and awkward as she'd always been when confronted with his bold sexuality and unerring expertise. His mouth tormented and enticed hers, his tongue sliding on her lips, flicking at the crease, while his hands shifted endlessly down her sides, her legs, sliding with tantalizing languor upward toward her breasts. Meredith moaned inwardly with a combination of awakening delight and recurring inhibition, and slid her hands uncertainly into the crisp, curly hairs on his muscular chest, touching. His mouth became more demanding, his hands so near her aching breasts, but not touching, thumbs playing over her ribs. Just when she thought she would die from the need, he drove his tongue into her mouth, and his hands took hard possession of her breasts, kneading, teasing, instinctively rubbing hardened nipples, and the cry that Meredith had been suppressing erupted at the same moment her restraint broke. Her body arched toward his, and she ran her hands feverishly down the bunched muscles of his arms, welcoming the invasion of his tongue, giving him hers, rolling with him onto her side. He tore his mouth from hers, and she moaned in protest at the loss, then shivered in delight as he kissed her ear, sliding his lips down her neck, then over her breasts, until they closed hard on her nipples. Lost in the dark, silent wanting, she felt his hand slide to the triangle between her legs, seeking and finding every hot, damp place, touching and caressing, until she writhed against him.

Matt knew the exact moment that she relinquished her body entirely to him; he felt the tension leave her, her legs relaxing, then opening for him, and the poignant sweetness of her well-remembered surrender sent desire raging uncontrollably through him. It made his heart thunder and his body throb until even his limbs began to tremble as he shifted on top of her. Gone was his hazy hope of prolonging this unbelievable, momentous joining; all that mattered was being a part of her again. The veins in his arms stood out as he held himself above her, his eyes clenched shut, easing himself into her an inch at a time, fighting the overpowering need to bury himself full-length in her incredible warmth, to devour her with his hands and mouth.

His control began to slip when she arched her hips, and again when she slid her hands over his shoulders and whispered his name, but when he opened his eyes and looked down at her Matt was lost: This wasn't a figment of his fevered imagination—the girl he had loved was the woman in his arms; the beautiful face that had haunted his dreams was inches from his, flushed with desire, her shining hair spilling over his pillow. She'd been waiting for him in that hospital; she had never tried to rid herself of his baby or him. She had come to him here, endured his hatred and braved his anger—and then she had asked for his forgiveness. The realization was overpoweringly poignant, and even then Matt might have been able to continue moving slowly and steadily inside her—if Meredith hadn't chosen that moment to run her fingers through the hair at his nape, and lift her hips, and whisper, "Please, Matt." The exquisite sweetness of his name on her lips and the arousing shift of her body reaching for his tore a silent groan from him, and he drove into her, plunging again and again, until they were both wild with wanting, reaching together for it... finding it in the same moment, exploding together and then shattering. Limbs entwined, hearts thundering, he wrapped her in his arms, and still he kept thrusting, wanting to spill eleven years of yearning into her, and Meredith held him to her, her body beginning to convulse again, until her rhythmic spasms had finally drained him of everything except a feeling of overwhelming joy and peace.

He collapsed against her, his skin fiery, his breathing labored, and then he moved onto his side to keep himself from crushing her, taking her with him, his arm around her back, his fingers buried in the bunched satin of her hair. Silent, floating, still intimately joined to her, he let his hand drift up and down her spine, reveling in the sensation of being held inside her wet warmth and the brush of her lips against his collarbone.

He closed his eyes, savoring it, filled with reverence for all the things she was and for all the things she made him want to be. Eleven years ago he'd been cheated of heaven; he'd found it again this weekend, and there was nothing that he wouldn't do to avoid losing it again. Then he'd had nothing to offer her except himself; now he could give her the world—and himself. He felt her breathing even out and realized she was falling asleep. He smiled to himself, a little embarrassed by his lack of restraint that had worn them both out so completely and so quickly.... He'd let her sleep for an hour, he decided, and himself too. Then he would wake her up and make love to her more properly and thoroughly. After that they would talk. They were going to have to make plans. Even though he expected that she might be hesitant to break off her engagement on the strength of one afternoon in bed with him, Matt knew he could persuade her of the simple truth: They were meant to be together. They had always been meant to be together....

Nudged from his sleep by a sound somewhere in the house, Matt opened his eyes and stared in mild confusion at the empty pillow beside him. The room was dark, and he rolled onto his side, squinting at his watch. It was almost six o'clock, and he leaned up on his elbow, surprised that he'd slept for almost three hours. For a moment or two, he was perfectly still, listening, trying to decide where Meredith was, but the first sound he heard was the last one he expected: It came from outdoors—a car engine firing, motor revving.

For a moment of ignorant bliss he decided she must have been worried about her battery running down in the cold, and he tossed off the quilts and rolled out of bed. Combing his hand through his hair, he walked over to the window and pushed the curtain aside, intending to open the window and call to her to let him take care of that. What he saw was a pair of red taillights glowing brightly as the BMW sped down the long drive toward the main road.

He was so stunned that his first reaction was to worry that she was driving too damned fast—and then reality hit him. She had left! For a split second his mind couldn't seem to absorb the shock. She had crawled out of bed and crept off in the night! Swearing savagely under his breath, he turned on the lamp and yanked on his pants, then he stood, hands on his hips, glaring at the empty bed in a state of near paralysis. He could not believe she'd run away as if they'd done something she was ashamed of and couldn't bear to face in daylight.

He saw it then—the note propped on the nightstand, written on the same pad of yellow paper she'd used to make her notes for the board of directors meeting. He snatched it up, hope flaring in his chest that she'd merely gone to find a grocery store or something.

"Matt," she'd written, "what happened this afternoon should never have happened. It was wrong for both of us—understandable, I suppose—but terribly wrong. We both have our own lives and plans for the future, and we have people in our lives who love and trust us. We betrayed them by doing what we did. I'm ashamed of that. And even so, I will always remember this weekend as something beautiful and special. Thank you for it."

Matt stood staring in furious disbelief at the words, feeling absurdly—stupidly—as if he'd been raped! No, not raped, used, like some paid stud who she could take to her bed when she wanted a "special" time, and then dismiss afterward like an insignificant peon whom she was ashamed to have been with.

She hadn't changed one damned bit in all these years! She was still spoiled and self-centered and so convinced of her own superiority that it wouldn't occur to her that maybe, just maybe, someone from a less privileged class than her own might be worth consideration. No, she hadn't changed at all, she was still a coward, still—

Matt checked himself in mid-thought, amazed that his anger could actually obliterate his memory of everything that he'd discovered. For the last few minutes he'd been judging her based on all the erroneous things he'd believed of her for eleven years. That was habit; it was not reality. Reality was what he'd learned of her in this room; truths so painful, and so beautiful—that they'd made him ache. Meredith was no coward, she had never run away from him, from motherhood, or even her tyrannical father who she'd had to deal with at the store all these years. She had been eighteen, and she had thought she loved Matt—a slight smile touched his eyes at the memory of her astounding admission—but it vanished when he thought of her lying in the hospital waiting for him. She had sent flowers for their baby, and named her Elizabeth for his mother.... And when he never came back, she had picked up the pieces of her life, gone back to college, and faced whatever else the future handed her. Even now it made him cringe to remember the things he'd said and done to her in the last few weeks. Jesus, how she must have hated him!

He had threatened her and bullied her... and yet, when she discovered the facts from Matt's father, she had braved a snowstorm to come and tell him the truth, and she had done it knowing that when she arrived, she was going to find brutal hostility.

Leaning a shoulder against the bedpost, he gazed at the bed. His wife, Matt decided with mounting pride, didn't run away from things that would make most people take to their heels.

But tonight she had run from him.

What, he wondered, would make Meredith flee like a frightened rabbit, when, for the first time all weekend, there could have been total harmony between them?

In his mind he quickly reviewed the past two days, looking for answers. He saw her reaching for his hand, asking for a truce, and he remembered the way she'd watched their hands joining—as if the moment was profoundly meaningful to her. Her fingers had trembled when he touched them. He saw her smiling up at him with those glowing blue-green eyes of hers—I've decided to be just like you when I grow up. But most of all he remembered the way she had cried in his arms when she was telling him about their baby... the way she had put her own arms around him, too, holding him to her as naturally as she had in this bed... the way she had moaned beneath him, her nails biting into his back, her body welcoming his with the same exquisite, shattering ardor she had shown him when she was eighteen.

Matt slowly straightened, struck by the most obvious answer. Meredith had very likely run away tonight because what had happened between them was as shattering to her as it was to him. If it was, then all her plans for her future with Parker and the rest of her life were jeopardized by what had happened in this house and especially in this bed.

She was no coward, but she was cautious. He'd noticed that when they'd talked about the department store. She took calculated risks, but only when the rewards were great and the likelihood for failure was comparatively small. She'd admitted that herself downstairs.

Given that, she sure as hell wasn't going to want to risk her heart or her future on Matthew Farrell again if she could possibly avoid it. The ramifications of making love with him, of getting involved with him again, were too overwhelming for her to face. The last time she'd done it, her life had become a living hell. He realized that to Meredith, the likelihood for failure with him was enormous, and the rewards were...

Matt laughed softly—the rewards were beyond her wildest imaginings. Now all he had to do was convince her of it. To do that, he was going to need time, and she wasn't going to want to give it to him. In fact, considering the way she'd fled tonight, he half expected her to fly to Reno or somewhere else immediately in order to sever all ties with him at the first possible moment. The longer he thought, the more convinced he became that she'd do exactly that.

In fact, there were only two things he was more sure of, and that was that Meredith still felt something for him, and that she was going to be his wife in every way. To accomplish that, Matt was now prepared to move heaven and earth; in fact, he was even prepared to permanently forgo the gratification of finding her lousy father and making her an orphan. In the midst of those thoughts, he suddenly realized something that made him stiffen in alarm: The roads that Meredith was driving on were bound to be treacherous in places, and she was not likely to be concentrating very well right now.

Turning, he headed swiftly down the hall to his room.

Walking over to his briefcase, he took out the phone and made three calls. The first call was to Edmunton's new chief of police. Matt instructed him to have a patrolman watch for a black BMW on the overpass and to discreetly escort the car back to Chicago to make certain the driver got home safely. The police chief was perfectly willing to comply with the extraordinary request; Matthew Farrell had contributed a very large sum to his election campaign.

His next phone call was to the home of David Levinson, senior partner in Pearson & Levinson. Matt instructed Levinson to appear, with Pearson in tow, in Matt's office at eight sharp the next morning. Levinson was perfectly willing to comply. Matthew Farrell paid them an annual retainer of $250,000 to do their legal utmost—whenever and wherever he wanted it done.

The last call was to Joe O'Hara. Matt instructed him to get out to the farm and pick him up immediately. Joe O'Hara balked. Matt Farrell paid him a lot of money to be at his beck and call, but Joe also regarded himself as Matt's protector, and his friend. He didn't figure it was in Matt's best interests to have a mean of escape from the farm if Meredith wanted him to stay. Instead of agreeing to leave at once, Joe said, "Is everything all patched up between you and your wife?"

Matt scowled at this unprecedented failure to follow instructions at once. "Not exactly," he said impatiently.

"Is your wife still there?"

"She's already left."

The sadness in O'Hara's voice banished Matt's annoyance with his prying and made him again realize the depth of his driver's loyalty. So you let her go, huh, Matt?"

Matt's smile was in his voice. "I'm going after her. Now, get your tail out here, O'Hara."

"I'm on my way!"

When he hung up the phone, Matt stared out the window, planning his strategy for tomorrow.