oney lay in his arms afterward, her head on his shoulder. He toyed idly with her hair, wrapping silky curls around his big brown fingers while she discovered the textures of his chest and explored old scars that she had seen but never touched.

He was quiet.

She wasn't.

"I never thought it would be so wonderful, Dash. It didn't hurt at all, and I wanted it to last forever. I was worried— You know, you read about it in books, and that sort of gives you high expectations. But then you've got to ask yourself, is that the way it really is?" She touched a scar near his nipple. "Where did this one come from?"

"I don't know. Montana, maybe. I worked on a ranch up there."

"Uhmm. I can't imagine anything more wonderful than sex. I was afraid that I'd be—You know, since I haven't had any practice, I thought I might be sort of a dud." She lifted her head, her forehead wrinkling. "I wasn't a dud, was I?"

He kissed the tip of her nose. "You weren't a dud."

Reassured, she lay back down and resumed her stroking. "But I still don't know a lot, and really, I don't see why we can't do it again. I'm not sore. Really, I'm not. And I want to make sure I satisfy you—I know that's important. And I haven't done any—you know—oral sex or anything."

"Jesus, Honey."

She propped herself up on her elbow to look at him. "Well, I haven't."

A faint, ruddy glow stained his cheekbones. "For pete's sake, where do you get your ideas?"

"I may not have had a lot of experience, but I'm a big reader."

"Well, that explains it."

"And another thing..."

He groaned.

"Everything happened so fast. Well, not fast. Really slow, which was wonderful. But I got a little crazy. Which wasn't my fault because everything you were doing to me was making me crazy. Not crazy, exactly, but—"

"Honey?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Do you think you could sort of wander toward the point you're trying to make before both of us die of old age?"

She toyed with the edge of the sheet where it lay over his waist. "My point—" She hesitated. "It's a little embarrassing."

"It's hard to imagine there's anything much left that could embarrass you."

She gave him a glare that was supposed to be withering, but she was so happy that it fell short of the mark. "What I'm trying to say is that—In the heat of passion, so to speak, I didn't get a chance to... I didn't actually..." She stroked the edge of the sheet. "The point is..." She took a deep breath. "I want to look."

His head shot up. "You what?"

Now she was the one with the ruddy cheekbones. "I want to... look at you."

"Sort of like a science experiment?"

"Do you mind?"

He chuckled and then dropped his head back to the pillow. "No, sweetheart, I don't mind. Look away."

She drew back the sheet, and within a very short time Dash seemed to set aside all his reservations because they were making love again.

He was in the shower when room service banged on the door the next morning. He had ordered coffee and she had ordered waffles, sausage, toast, juice, and blueberry cheesecake. She wanted to eat everything, taste everything, do everything. She smiled and hugged herself. She was all woman. One hundred and two pounds of female dynamite. The meanest and toughest hombres in the West hadn't been able to whip Dash Coogan, but she had brought the king of the cowboys right to his knees.

Sashaying through the living room, all sexy and full of herself, she secured the belt of the robe she had thrown on after she had come out of the shower and opened the door. "Bring it right—"

Wanda Ridgeway pushed past her and stormed inside. "He's here, isn't he? He wasn't in his room. I know he's here."

"Mother, please." Meredith reluctantly followed.

Dash and Wanda had been divorced for years, but Honey was immediately guilt-stricken. "Who—who are you talking about?"

The sound of the shower could be heard clearly from the direction of the bedroom, and Wanda gave her the sort of look that grown women give children who are caught in a lie.

"Mother thinks my father is here," Meredith said stiffly.

"Dash?" Honey widened her eyes just as Janie did when she was trying to wiggle out of a tight spot. "You think Dash is here?" She gave a phony laugh and widened her eyes even more. "Why, that's ridiculous." Another phony laugh. "Why would Dash be using my shower?"

"Then who is it?" Wanda asked.

"A man—I—I met a man at the wedding...."

Reddening, Meredith turned toward her mother. "I told you he wasn't here. You always think the worst of him. I told you—"

"She's lying, Meredith. Your whole life you've blamed me for the divorce. Despite all your hellfire talk, you still think your father walks on water. You think that he's all lit up with a great big halo just like Jesus. Well, your father couldn't walk on water if it was made out of concrete. His zipper broke up our marriage; not me."

The shower stopped.

Honey darted a nervous glance toward the doorway. "I don't mean to be rude, but if there's nothing else...."

"Hey, Honey. Come in here and dry my back."

Meredith sucked in her breath at the sound of her father's voice. Wanda lifted her head in triumph.

"His shower was broken," Honey stammered. "I was with another man, but he left. And then Dash called and said his shower was broken, and he asked if he could use mine."

Dash came through the door, drying his hair with one towel, another wrapped around his hips.

"Honey—"

He broke off.

Wanda crossed her arms over her chest, her expression smug. Meredith gave a hiss of outrage.

Dash went still for only a moment before he resumed drying his hair. "What are the two of you doing up so early?"

"How could you?" Meredith gasped.

"It's not what you think, Meredith." Honey rushed to his side. "Dash, I was just telling Wanda and Meredith about how the shower in your room wasn't working. And you called to ask if you could use mine. And since my—uh— companion for the night had left, I said that would be fine, and—"

Dash looked at her as if she'd lost her mind. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Your broken shower?" Honey inquired weakly.

He slipped his towel down around his shoulders, grasping the ends with his hands as he turned to Meredith. "There wasn't any broken shower, Merry. Honey and I spent the night together, and since we're both consenting adults, it's nobody's business but ours."

Wanda's eyes glittered with malicious satisfaction. "Your daughter finally gets to see for herself exactly what kind of man her father is."

Meredith's lips trembled and then contracted bitterly. "I'm going to pray for you, Daddy. I'm going to spend the rest of this day on my knees praying for your everlasting soul."

Dash whipped the towel from his neck. "Don't goddamn bother! I don't need anybody praying for me."

"Yes, you do. You need all the prayers you can get." Meredith glared at Honey. "And you! You're an affront to every woman who values the sanctity of her own body. You tempted him just like the whores of Babylon."

Meredith had hit too close to the truth, and Honey winced. Dash, however, took a step forward.

"You stop right there," he said, his voice low with warning. "Don't you say another word."

"That's what she is. She—"

"Enough!" Dash roared. Before Honey knew what was happening, he had drawn her to his side. She went weak from the rush of feelings that his protectiveness evoked within her.

"If you want to stay part of my life, Meredith, you're going to have to accept Honey, because she's going to be part of it, too."

Honey's head lifted to look at him.

"I'll never accept her," Meredith said bitterly.

"Maybe you'd better think about what you're saying before you go slamming too many doors."

"I don't have to think about it," she replied. "If I accepted this sordid relationship, it would become my sin, too."

"You're going to have to work that out for yourself," he said.

Wanda stepped forward. "Go hold the elevator for us, Meredith. I'll be along in a second."

Meredith obviously had more on her mind that she wanted to say, but she didn't have the nerve to defy her mother. Refusing to look at her father, she darted Honey a hate-filled glance and did as she was told.

"You had to bring her here, didn't you?" Dash said after Meredith had left.

Wanda stiffened. "You haven't had to live with her. You've been the good guy who breezes into town every few years with an armload of presents. I've been the nasty bitch who sent her daddy away. She's twenty-one years old, and I'm sick of living with her blame."

His mouth drew tight. "Just get out."

"I'm on my way." She slipped her purse strap higher on her shoulder, and then some of her malice seemed to fade. She looked from Dash to Honey and back to Dash. She shook her head.

"You're getting ready to screw everything up again, aren't you, Randy?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Every time you start to get your feet back on solid ground, you do something to spoil it. As long as I've known you, that's been your way. Just when things are getting good for you, you always manage to ruin it."

"You're crazy."

"Don't do it, Randy," she said quietly. "This time, don't do it."

Silence fell between them. His face was rigid, hers pensive. She gave his arm an awkward pat and left them alone.

Honey's eyes raced from the closed door to Dash. "What did she mean? What was she talking about?"

"Never mind."

"Dash?"

He sighed and gazed out the window. "She knows I'm going to marry you, I guess."

Honey swallowed hard. "Marry me?"

"Go on and get dressed," he said harshly. "We've got a plane to catch."

He wouldn't talk about his startling announcement during the flight, or even after they reached Los Angeles. Finally, she gave up trying. On the freeway from the airport, he swore at other drivers and cut them off. But even his bad temper couldn't dampen the choir of angels singing inside her.

He had said he was going to marry her. Her world had split open like an egg, revealing a jeweled center.

He swore darkly and cut between two vans. She realized they were heading toward Pasadena instead of to the ranch, and her stomach began to cramp. He was taking her home. What if he hadn't meant what he'd said at all? What if they weren't getting married, and he was trying to find a way to tell her he'd changed his mind?

"I'll bet you didn't pack a single pair of jeans in that suitcase."

He sounded so accusing that she grew defensive. "We were going to a wedding."

"You always have a smart comeback, don't you?"

She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could speak, he went on. "Now here's the way we're going to do this. I figure the best thing is to go down to Baja. We'll get married there and then camp for a few days. We've got another week before we have to be back on the set, and we might as well make the most of it."

The choir of angels burst into a chorus of alleluias. "You mean it?" she breathed softly. "We're really getting married?"

"What do you suggest as an alternative? Did you want to have an affair?" He spit out the word as if it were a particularly loathsome obscenity. "Did you want to live together?"

"Everybody else does it," she said tentatively, trying to understand his mood.

He looked completely disgusted with her. "Is that all the value you put on yourself? I'll tell you one thing, little girl. I've been low in my life, but I've never been so low that I didn't marry a woman I loved."

He loved her! The knowledge radiated inside her like a sunburst. She no longer cared about his bad mood or anything else. He had said that he loved her, and she was going to be his wife. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but there was something so forbidding about him that she didn't quite have the nerve.

He didn't speak again until they arrived at her house. "I'll give you ten minutes to get rid of all those fancy clothes and pack some jeans and boots. We'll spend the night at the ranch and then set out first thing tomorrow morning. It'll get cold at night, so bring a set of long underwear. And you're going to need your birth certificate."

Birth certificate! They really were going to do it. Giving a little whoop of happiness, she reached across the car to hug him, then raced into the house to do as he had directed.

None of her family seemed to have noticed that she'd been gone. She packed quickly and told Chantal she wouldn't be home for a few days. Chantal wasn't curious enough to ask for an explanation, and Honey didn't give one. Part of her still couldn't believe that Dash Coogan was really going to marry her, and until it had happened, she didn't want to jinx herself by telling anybody.

He was drumming his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel when she returned to the car. "You didn't have to wait out here," she said as she climbed in. "You could have come inside."

"Not with that bunch of cannibals."

She decided there would be time enough to sort out his opinion of her family after they were married,

but she couldn't as easily dismiss something he had said earlier. As the car shot onto the Ventura, a small chill clouded her happiness.

"Dash? What you said earlier about always marrying the women you loved. I don't want to be loved the same way you loved your other wives. I want—I want it to be forever."

He glared at the freeway in front of him. "That just goes to show what you know."