ne full moon a month was bad enough, Sheriff Jackson Brody thought sourly; two should be outlawed. Nature's rule of survival of the fittest had been all but negated by humans, with advances in modern medicine and the generally held view that all life was worth saving, with the result that there were a lot of very weird, and/or stupid people out there, and they all seemed to surface during a full moon. He was not in a good mood after working a car accident on a county road. As sheriff, his duties were not supposed to include working wrecks, but damned if every full moon he didn't find himself doing exactly that. The county was small and poor, mostly rural, and couldn't afford the number of deputies he needed, so he was always juggling schedules anyway.

Add the madness of a full moon to an understaffed department, and the problems multiplied. The accident he had just worked made him so furious he had been stretching the limits of his willpower not to cuss at the participants. He couldn't call them victims, unless it was of their own stupidity. The only victim was the poor little boy who had been in the passenger seat of the car. It all started when the driver of the first vehicle, a pickup truck, woke up and realized he had missed his turn by about a quarter of a mile. Instead of going on and finding a place to turn around, the idiot began backing up, going the wrong way down a narrow two-lane blacktop, around a blind curve. He was an accident waiting to happen, and he hadn't had to wait long. A woman came speeding around the curve, doing over sixty miles an hour on a road with a posted speed limit of thirty-five, and plowed into the rear of the pickup.

She wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Neither was the four-year-old sitting in the front seat. For that matter, neither was the driver of the pick-up. It was nothing less than a miracle that all three had survived, though the little boy was severely injured and Jackson had seen enough accident victims to know his chances were no better than fifty-fifty, at best. The car had had airbags, at least, which had kept the two in the car from going through the windshield. He had given the woman citations for reckless driving, not wearing a seatbelt, and not properly securing her child, and she began screaming at him.

Had he ever tried to make a four-year-old sit down and wear a seatbelt? The blankety-blank things chafed her blankety-blank neck, and the state had no business telling people what they could do on their private property, which her car was, and the car had airbags anyway so there was no need for seat-belts, blah blah blah. There she was, with bulging eyes and unkempt hair, a living testament to the destructive power of recessive genes, throwing a hissy fit about getting traffic tickets while her screaming child was being carried away in an ambulance. Privately, Jackson thought people like her had no business having children in their care, but he made a heroic effort and kept the observation to himself. Then the driver of the pickup, he of the bulging beer belly and breath that would fell a moose at fifty paces, added his opinion that he thought her driver's license should be taken away because this was all her fault for rear-ending him. When Jackson then gave him citations for reckless driving and driving in the wrong lane, he was enraged.

This accident wasn't his fault, he bellowed, and damned if he was going to get stuck with higher insurance premiums because a stupid hick sheriff didn't know an accident was always the fault of the one doing the rear-ending. Any fool could look at where his truck was hit and tell who was at fault here. Jackson didn't bother explaining the difference between the truck's hood being pointed in the right direction while the truck itself was going in reverse.

He just wrote the tickets and in the accident report stated that both drivers were at fault, and seriously pondered whether or not he should lock these two up for the safety of the universe. Terminal stupidity wasn't on the books as a chargeable offense, but it should be, in his opinion. But he restrained himself, and oversaw the transportation of both furious drivers to the local hospital to be checked out, and the removal of the damaged vehicles. When he finally crawled back into his Jeep Cherokee it was pushing four o'clock, long past lunch time. He was tired, hungry, and both angry and discouraged.

Generally he loved his work. It was a job where he could make a difference in people's lives, in society. Granted, it was usually scut work; he dealt with the worst of society, while having to maneuver on tippy-toes through a tangle of laws and regulations. But when everything worked and a drug dealer got sent away for a few years, or a murderer was put away forever, or a burglary gang was rounded up and an old lady on Social Security got her 19-inch television back, that made it all worthwhile.

He was a good sheriff, though he hated the political side of it, hated having to campaign for office. He was just thirty-five, young for the office, but the county was so poor it couldn't afford someone who was both good and with a lot of experience, because those people went where the pay was better. The citizens had taken a chance with him two years ago and he'd been doing his best at a job he loved. Not many people had that chance.

During full moons, however, he doubted his own sanity. He had to be a fool or an idiot, or both, to want a job that put him on the front lines during the periods of rampant weirdness. Cops and emergency room personnel could all testify to the craziness that went on during a full moon. A nurse at the local hospital, after reading a report that the tales about full moons were just myths, that the accident rate didn't really go up, kept a record for a year.

Not only did the number of accidents go up, but that was when they got the really strange ones, like the guy who had his buddy nail his hands together so his wife wouldn't ask him to help with the housework on his day off. It was obvious to them: a man couldn't very well work with his hands nailed together, now could he? The scariest thing about it was that both of them had been sober. So one full moon a month was all Jackson felt any human should be called upon to endure.

A blue moon, the second full moon in a single month, fell under the heading of cruel and unusual punishment. And because it was a blue moon, he wasn't surprised, when he radioed in that he was finished with the accident and heading for a bite to eat, that the dispatcher said, "You might want to hold off on the food, and check in on a secure line." Jackson stifled a groan. A couple of clues told him he really didn't want to know what this one was. For one thing, though the radio traffic was usually businesslike, for the benefit of the good citizens who listened in on their scanners, the dispatcher had fallen into a more personal tone.

And they didn't bother to check in on a secure line unless there was something going on they didn't want the listeners to know about, which meant it was either something sensitive like one of the town fathers acting up, or something personal. He hoped the issue was sensitive, because he sure as hell didn't feel like dealing with anything personal, like his mother running amuck at her regular Wednesday bingo game. He picked up his digital cell phone and checked whether or not he had service in this part of the county; he did, though it wasn't the strongest signal. He flipped the cover open and dialed the dispatcher.

"This is Brody What's up?" Jo Vaughn had been the dispatcher for ten years, and he couldn't think of anyone he would rather have on the job. Not only did she know just about every inhabitant of the small south Alabama county, something that had been a tremendous aid to him, but she also had an eerily accurate instinct for what was urgent and what wasn't. Sometimes the citizens involved might not agree, but Jackson always did.

"I've got a bad feeling," she announced. "Shirley Waters saw Thaniel Vargas hauling his flat-bottom down Old Boggy Road. There's nothing out that way except the Jones's place, and you know how Thaniel is." Jackson took a moment to reflect.

This was one of those times when growing up in west Texas instead of south Alabama was a definite handicap. He knew where Old Boggy Road was, but only because he had spent days looking at county maps and memorizing the roads. He had never personally been on Old Boggy, though. And he knew who Thaniel Vargas was; a slightly thick-headed troublemaker, the type found in every community. Thaniel was hot-tempered, a bit of a bully, and he liked his beer a little too much. He'd been in some trouble with the law, but nothing serious enough to rate more than a few fines and warnings. Other than that, though, Jackson drew a blank.

"Refresh me."

"Well, you know how superstitious he is."

His eyebrows lifted. He hadn't expected that. "No, I didn't know," he said dryly. "What does that have to do with him taking his boat down Old Boggy Road, and who are the Joneses?"

"Jones," Jo corrected. "There's just one now, since old man Jones died four - no, let's see, it was right after Beatrice Marbut's husband died in his girlfriend's trailer, so that would make it five years ago-"

Jackson closed his eyes and refrained from asking what difference it made how long ago old man Jones died. Hurrying a Southerner through a conversation was like trying to push a rope, though sometimes he couldn't stop himself from trying.

"-and Delilah's been out there alone ever since."

He took a wild stab at getting to the point of Jo's anxiety. "And Thaniel Vargas dislikes Mrs. Jones?"

"Miss. She's never been married." The wild stab hadn't worked.

"Then old man Jones was-"

"Her father."

"Okay." He tried again. "Why does Thaniel dislike Miss Jones?"

"Oh, I wouldn't say he dislikes her. It's more like he's scared to death of her."

He took a deep breath. "Because...?"

"Because of the witch thing, of course." That did it. Some things just weren't worth fighting. Jackson surrendered and let himself go with the flow.

"Witch thing," he repeated. That was twice in one minute Jo had surprised him.

"You mean you never heard about that?" Jo sounded surprised.

"Not a word." He wished he wasn't hearing about it now.

"Well, folks think she's a witch. Not that I think so, mind, but I can see where some would be uneasy."

"Why is that?"

"Oh, she keeps to herself, hardly ever comes to town. And old man Jones was strange, didn't let anyone come around. Even the mail is delivered by boat, because there's no road going out to the Jones place. The only way to get there is to hike in, or by the river."

Background established, she settled into her explanation. "Now, if Thaniel was going fishing, the best fishing is downriver, not up. There's no reason he'd be launching a boat from the Old Boggy ramp unless he was going upriver, and there's nothing up there but the Jones place. He wouldn't have the nerve unless he'd been drinking, because he's so afraid of Delilah, so I think you need to go out there and make sure he's not up to no good."

Jackson wondered how many sheriffs were bossed around by their dispatchers. He wondered just what the hell he was supposed to do, since Jo had just told him the only way to get to the Jones place was by boat. And he wondered, not for the first time, whether or not he was going to survive this damn blue moon. Well, until it killed him, he had a job to do. He assessed the situation and began solving the most immediate problems.

"Call Frank at the Rescue Squad and tell him to meet me at the launch ramp on Old Boggy -"

"You don't want one of the Rescue Squad boats," Jo interrupted. "They're too slow, and the guys are all helping with the clean-up at the tractor-trailer wreck out on the big highway, anyway I called Charlotte Watkins. Her husband's a bass fisherman - you know Jerry Watkins, don't you?"

"I've met both of them," Jackson said.

"He's got one of those real fast boats. He's gone to Chattanooga on business, but Charlotte was going to hook up the boat and take it to the ramp. She should be there by the time you get there."

"Okay," he said, "I'm on my way."

He pinched the top of his nose, between his eyebrows, feeling a headache beginning to form. He wished he could ignore Jo's intuition, but it was too accurate for him to doubt her.

"Send some backup as soon as someone comes available. And how in hell do I find the Jones place?"

"Just go upriver, you can't miss it. It's about five miles up. The house is hard to see, it kind of blends in, but it's dead ahead and you'll think you're going to run right into it, but then the river curves real sharp to the right and gets too shallow to go much farther. Oh, and be careful of the snags. Stay in the middle of the river." She paused. "You do know how to drive a boat, don't you?"

"I'll figure it out," he said, and flipped the phone cover down to end the call. Let her stew for a while, wondering if she had made a bad mistake sending the sheriff out alone into a possibly dangerous situation, on a river he didn't know and in a piece of powerful equipment he didn't know how to operate. He'd driven a boat for the first time at the age of eleven, but Jo didn't know that, and it would do her good to realize she wasn't omnipotent.

He didn't use his lights or siren, but he did jam his boot down on the accelerator and keep it there. By his estimation he was at least fifteen minutes from Old Boggy Road, and he had no idea how far down the road the launch ramp was. In a powerful boat he could easily go sixty miles an hour, putting him at the Jones place in five minutes or less, once he was on the water. That meant it would take him at least twenty minutes to get there, probably longer. If Thaniel Vargas was up to no good, Jackson was afraid he would have plenty of time to accomplish it. He felt a surge of adrenaline, the surge every law enforcement officer felt when going into a potentially dangerous situation. He hoped he wouldn't find anything out of the ordinary, though. He hoped like hell he wouldn't, because if he did, that would mean Miss Jones - had Jo actually said her name was Delilah? - was either hurt or dead.

Witch? Why hadn't he heard anything about this before? He'd lived here for three years, been sheriff for two, and in that time he thought he'd learned about all the county's unusual citizens. There hadn't been a peep about Delilah Jones, though, not from his deputies, not from the mayor or her secretary, who was the most gossipy person Jackson had ever met, not from the bar crowd or the women he dated, not from the blue-haired bingo circuit, not even from Jo. He hadn't missed the fact that Jo seemed well-informed on how to get to the Jones house. How would she know that, unless she'd been there? And why would she go, considering everything she'd said about the Jones woman being reclusive and her father being strange? If anyone was practicing witchcraft in his county, he should have known about it. It was all bullshit, in his opinion, but if anyone else took it seriously then there could be trouble. From the sound of things, that was exactly what was happening.

First there was the general blue moon craziness, then the wreck between the two idiots, and now this. He was hungry, tired, and had a headache. He was beginning to get severely pissed. Jackson reached Old Boggy Road in record time and churned down it, his tires digging in and throwing sand. The river was to his right so he kept an eye in that direction, looking for the launch ramp.

The old road narrowed and became one rutted lane, with massive live oaks on each side intertwining their branches to form an almost solid canopy. The dense shade gave relief from the heat for about a hundred yards, then he drove out into the sun-light and there the ramp was, down a shallow slope that curved back to the right and was hidden from view by the thick trees until that moment. He spun the wheel and headed down the slope, the Blue Moon rear end of the Jeep slewing around before he deftly corrected, A blue Toyota pickup, with an empty boat trailer hooked to it, was pulled to the side. Another truck, a red extended-cab Chevy, was backed onto the ramp and Charlotte Watkins was standing on the bank, one hand holding the rope to a long, sleek, red and silver fishing boat and the other hand slapping at mosquitoes as they swarmed around her bare arms and legs. Jackson grabbed his shotgun and Kevlar vest and vaulted out of the Cherokee.

"Thanks, Mrs. Watkins," he said as he took the rope from her. He put his right foot on the nose of the boat and pushed off with his left, agilely transferring his weight back to his right foot and stepping up into the boat as it floated away from the bank.

"Any time, Sheriff," she said, raising her hand to shade her eyes from the sun. "Mind the snags, now. If you get too far to the left, there are some mighty big stumps just under the water, and they'll rip the lower unit right off the boat."

"I'll watch," he promised as he carefully stowed the shotgun so it wouldn't bounce around, then slid into the driver's seat and hooked the kill switch to his shirt. As an afterthought, he tossed her the keys to his Jeep.

"Drive the Cherokee home. I'll bring your truck and boat back as soon as I can." She deftly caught the keys, but waved off any concern about the boat.

"You just be careful upriver. I hope everything's all right."

Worry etched her face. Jackson turned the ignition switch and the big out-board coughed into deep, rumbling life. He put it in reverse and backed away from the bank, turning the boat so he was headed upriver. Then he pushed the throttle down and the nose of the boat rose out of the water as it gained speed, before dropping down and settling on the plane, skimming across the water.

The river was slow-moving and marshy, filled with snags, shoals, and weed beds ready to snare anyone unfa-miliar with its obstacles. Mindful of Charlotte Watkins's warning - another woman who seemed to know an awful lot about the way to the Jones place - Jackson kept the boat dead center and prayed as he tried to balance urgency with caution, but urgency kept getting the upper hand. Maybe Miss Jones was having a peaceful summer afternoon, but maybe she wasn't.

The rush of air cooled him, drying the sweat on his body and making the thick heat of summer feel almost comfortable. As he skimmed past the little sloughs and cuts in the river he looked at all of them, hoping to see Thaniel doing nothing more sinister than feeding worms to the fish. No such luck. Then he rounded a bend in the river and saw a flat-bottom boat pulled up on the bank and tied to a tree. Thaniel was nowhere in sight. Jackson didn't slow. The Jones place couldn't be much farther up the river, because it looked as if Thaniel had decided to walk the rest of the way, so he could approach unnoticed. That gave Jackson a little more time, maybe enough time to head off any trouble. Even as he had the thought he heard the shot, a deep retort that boomed out over the water and was easily audible over the sound of the outboard motor. Shotgun, he thought.

He eased up on the throttle and reached for the Kevlar vest, slipping it on and fastening the Velcro straps. Then he shoved the throttle down again, the boat leaping forward in response. Fifteen seconds later the house was in sight, taking form dead ahead of him, just as Jo had said. The river seemed to end right there. The house was built of old, weathered wood that blended into the tall trees surrounding it, but in front of it was a short dock with an old flat-bottom tied to it, and that was what he saw first. He had to back off the power to bring the boat into the dock. He reached for his shotgun as he did, holding it in his left hand as he steered the boat.

"This is Sheriff Brody!" he bellowed. "Thaniel, you stop whatever the hell it is you're doing and get your ass out here."

Not the most professional way of speaking, he supposed, but it served the purpose of announcing him and letting Thaniel know his identity wasn't a secret. But he didn't really expect things to settle down just because he was there, and they didn't. Another shotgun blast boomed, answered by the flatter crack of a rifle. The shots were coming from the back of the house.

Jackson nosed the boat toward the dock and killed the engine. He leaped out while the dock was still a foot away, automatically looping the mooring rope around one of the posts as he did so, ingrained training taking hold so everything was accomplished while he was in motion. He ran up the short dock, the thudding of his boots on the wood in time with the hard beating of his heart. The old familiar clarity swept over him, the by-product of adrenaline and experience. He'd felt the same thing every time he jumped out of a plane during airborne training. Lightning-fast, his brain processed the details he saw.

The front door of the old wooden house was standing open, a neatly patched screen door keeping out the insects. He could see straight through to the back door, but no one was in sight. The porch looked like a jungle, with huge potted plants and hanging baskets everywhere, but there wasn't any junk sitting around like there was at most houses, his included. He took with one leap the three steps up to the porch, and flattened himself against the wall. The last thing he wanted was to get shot by the very person he was trying to help, so he repeated his identity.

"This is Sheriff Brody! Miss Jones, are you all right?" There was a moment of silence in which even the insects seemed to stop buzzing. Then a woman's voice came from somewhere out back. "I'm fine. I'll be even better when you get this jackass off my property."

She sounded remarkably cool for someone who was under attack, as if Thaniel was of no more importance than the mosquitoes. Jackson eased around the corner of the wide, shady porch that wrapped around three sides of the house. He was now on the right side, with thick woods both to the right and ahead of him. He couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, not a patch of color or a rustling of bushes.

"Thaniel!" he yelled. "Put your weapon down before you get your stupid ass shot off, you hear me?" There was another moment of silence. Then came a sullen, "I didn't do nothin', Sheriff. She shot at me first." He still couldn't see Thaniel, but the voice had come from a stand of big pine trees behind the house, practically dead ahead.

"I'll decide whose fault it is." He edged closer to the back of the house, his shotgun held ready. He was safe from Miss Jones's shots, for the moment, but Thaniel would have a straight bead on him if he chose.

"Now do what I told you and pitch out your weapon."

"This crazy bitch will shoot me if I do."

"No, she won't."

"I might," came Delilah Jones's calm voice, not helping the situation at all.

"See, what'd I tell you!" Thaniel's voice was high with anxiety. Whatever he had planned, it had gone sadly awry. Jackson swore under his breath, and tried to make his tone both calming and authoritative. "Miss Jones, where exactly are you?"

"I'm on the back porch, behind the washing machine."

"Put down your weapon and go back inside, so I can have a little talk with Thaniel." Again that little pause, as if she were considering whether or not to pay any attention to him. Accustomed to instant response, be it positive or negative, that telling little hesitation set Jackson's teeth on edge.

"I'll go in the house," she finally said. "But I'm not putting this shotgun down until that fool's off my property." He'd had enough.

"Do as you're told," he said sharply. "Or I'll arrest both of you." There was another of those maddening moments of silence, then the back door slammed. Jackson took a deep breath. Thaniel's whiny voice floated from the pine trees. "She didn't put down the shotgun like you told her to, Sheriff."

"Neither did you," Jackson reminded him in a grim tone. He eased to the corner of the house. "I have a shot-gun, too, and I'm going to use it in three seconds if you don't throw down that rifle and come out." The mood he was in, it wasn't a bluff. "One... two... th-" A rifle sailed out from behind a huge pine tree, landing with a thud on the pine-needle cushioned ground. After a few seconds, Thaniel slowly followed it, easing away from the tree with his hands up and his face sullen. A thin rivulet of blood ran down his right cheek. The wound didn't look like anything from a shotgun, so Jackson figured a splinter must have caught him. The tree trunk sported a great raw gouge level with his chin. Miss Jones hadn't been shooting over Thaniel's head; she had been aiming for him.

And, from the look of that tree, she wasn't shooting bird shot. Immediately the back screen door popped open and Delilah Jones stepped out, shotgun held ready. Thaniel hit the ground, braying in panic. He covered his head with his hands, as if that would do any good. God, give me strength, Jackson prayed. The prayer didn't do any good. His temper shattered and he moved fast, so fast she didn't have time to do more than glance at him, certainly not time to react. In two long steps he reached her, his right hand locking around the barrel of her shotgun and wrenching it out of her hands.

"Get back inside," he barked. "Now!" She stood as rigid as a post, staring at Thaniel, paying Jackson no more mind than if he hadn't been there at all.

"You're dead," she said to Thaniel, her voice flat and calm. Thaniel jerked as if he'd been shot. "You heard her!" he howled. "She threatened me, Sheriff! Arrest her!"

"I'm of a mind to do just that," Jackson said between clenched teeth.

"I didn't threaten him," she said, still in that flat, monotonous tone. "I don't have to. He'll die without me lifting a finger to help." She looked up at Jackson then, and he found himself caught in eyes the dark green of a woodland forest, watchful, wary, knowing eyes. He felt suddenly dizzy, and gave a short, sharp jerk of his head. The heat must be getting to him.

Everything kind of faded, except her face at the center of his vision. She was younger than he'd expected, he thought dimly, probably in her late twenties when he had expected a middle-aged, reclusive country woman, bypassed by modern inventions. Her skin was smooth, tanned, and unblemished. Her hair was a mass of brown curls, and her shorts stopped north of mid-thigh, revealing slim, shapely legs. He inhaled deeply, fighting off the dizziness, and as his head cleared he noticed that she had gone utterly white.

She was staring at him as if he had two heads. Abruptly she turned and went inside, the screen door slamming shut behind her. Jackson took a deep breath, gathering himself before turning back to the problem at hand. He propped her shotgun against the wall and cradled his on one arm as he finally turned his attention back to Thaniel. "Son of a bitch!" Thaniel had taken advantage of his splintered attention. The ground where he had lain was bare, and a quick glance told Jackson the rifle was gone, too. He jumped off the porch, landing half-crouched, the shotgun now held ready in both hands. His head swiveled, but except for a slight waving of some bushes there was no sign of Thaniel.

Silently Jackson slipped into the woods close to where the bushes swayed, then stood still and listened. Thaniel, for all his other faults, was good in the woods. It was about thirty seconds before Jackson heard the distant snap of a twig under a careless foot. He started to follow, then stopped. There was no point in chasing him through the woods; he knew where Thaniel lived, if Miss Jones wanted to file charges against him for trespass and any other charges Jackson thought were applicable.

He turned and looked back at the house, nestled among the trees and blending in so well it looked part of the woodland. He felt oddly reluctant to go in and talk to Miss Jones, a sense of things being subtly altered, out of control. He didn't want to know anything more about her, he only wanted to get in Jerry Watkins's boat and go back downriver, safely away from that strange woman with her spooky eyes. But his job demanded he talk to her, and Jackson was a good sheriff. That was why he was here, and that was why he couldn't leave without seeing her. The uneasy feeling followed him, though, all the way to the porch.

The washing machine she'd been hiding behind was an old-fashioned wringer-type model, he noticed with faint astonishment as he paused in front of the screen door. He couldn't see inside the house; there were no lights on, and the trees provided plenty of shade to keep the interior cool and dim. He lifted his fist to knock, paused, then gave two firm taps. "Miss Jones?"

"Right here." She was near, standing in the room just beyond the door. There was a strained quality to her voice that hadn't been there before. She hadn't asked him to come in.

He was glad, because he would just as soon never set foot in that house. And then, irrationally, it annoyed him that she hadn't asked him in. Without waiting for an invitation, he opened the screen door and stepped inside. She was a pale figure in the dim room, standing very still, and staring at him. Maybe his vision needed to adjust a bit more, but he had the impression she was downright horrified by him. She even backed up a step. He couldn't say why that pissed him off, but it did, big time. Adrenaline was pumping through him again, making his muscles feel tight and primed for action, but damned if he knew what he could do. He had to take her state-ment, read her the riot act about shooting at people, and leave. That was all.

Nothing there to make him feel so edgy and angry. But that was exactly how he did feel, whether or not there was rhyme or reason to it. Silence stretched between them, silence in which they took each other's measure. He didn't know what conclusions she drew from his appearance, but he was a lawman, accustomed to taking in every detail about a person and making snap judgments.

He had to, and he had to be pretty accurate, because his and others' lives depended on how he read people. What he saw in the dim light was a slim, toned young woman, neat in a pale yellow, sleeveless shirt that was tucked into khaki shorts, which were snugly belted around a trim waist. Her bare arms were smoothly tanned, and sleekly muscled in a feminine way that told him she was stronger than she looked, and accustomed to work.

She was clean, even her bare feet-which, he noticed, sported pale pink polish on the toes; toes that were curling, digging into the floor, as if she had to force herself to stand there. Her hair was a brown, sun-streaked mass of curls. She didn't hurt the eye, though she wasn't beauty-queen material. She was pleasant-looking, healthy, with a sweet curve to her chin. Her eyes, though... those eyes were spooky. He was reluctant to meet them again, but finally he did. They were her best feature, large and clear, fringed with thick dark lashes. And she was watching him now with... resignation? For God's sake, what did she think he was going to do? He didn't know how long he'd been standing there staring at her. The same thing had happened on the porch, only this time he didn't feel dizzy. He needed to take care of business and get going. The summer days were long, but he wanted to be off the river well ahead of sundown.

"Thaniel slipped away," he said, his voice unaccountably rough. She gave a brief, jerky nod. "Do you make a habit of shooting at visitors?" The green eyes narrowed.

"When they stop downriver and sneak the rest of the way on foot, yes, that makes me a bit suspicious about their reason for calling on me."

"How do you know what he did?"

"Sound carries a long way over water. And I don't hear many boats coming my way except Harley Whisenant's, delivering the mail. Since Harley was here this morning, I knew it wasn't him."

"You shot first."

"He was trespassing. I fired in the air the first time, as a warning, and yelled at him to scat. He shot at me then. There's a bullet hole in my washing machine, damn him. My second shot was to defend myself."

"Maybe he thought he was defending himself, too, since you shot first."

She gave him a disbelieving look. "He sneaked onto my property up to my house, carrying a deer rifle, and when I yell at him to leave he fires from cover, and that's defending himself?"

He didn't know why he was giving her a hard time, except for the edginess that had him as prickly as a cactus. "You're right," he said abruptly.

"Well, thank you so much." He ignored the sarcasm. "I need to take a statement."

"I'm not going to press charges." She couldn't have picked anything to say more likely to rile him. In his opinion, a good deal of additional harm was done because people declined to bring charges against criminal actions. Whatever their reasoning, they didn't want to "cause trouble," or they wanted to give the perp "another chance." In his experience all they were doing was letting a criminal go free to commit another crime. There were circumstances that called for a little mercy, but this wasn't one of them. Thaniel Vargas wasn't a teenager caught on his first misdemeanor; he was a thug who had intended serious harm to another person.

"I beg your pardon?" He said it softly, reining in his inclination to roar, giving her a chance to rethink the situation. When he'd been a sergeant in the Army, enlisted men had immediately recognized that softness for the danger sign it was. Either Delilah Jones wasn't as attuned to his mood as his men had been, or she wasn't impressed by his authority.

Whatever the reason, she shrugged. "There's no point in it."

"No point?" She started to say something, then stopped and gave a slight shake of her head. "It doesn't matter," she said, as if to herself. She bit her lip. He had the impression she was arguing with herself. She sighed. "Sit down, Sheriff Brody. You'll feel better after you've had something to eat."

He didn't want to sit down, he just wanted to get out of here. If she wasn't going to press charges, fine. He didn't agree, but the decision was hers. There was no reason for him to stay a minute longer. But she was moving quietly and efficiently around the old-timey kitchen, slicing what looked like homemade bread, then thick slices from a ham, and a big chunk of cheese. She dipped a glass of water from a bucket, and placed the simple meal on the table.

Jackson watched her with narrowed eyes. Despite himself, he admired the deft, feminine way she did things, without fuss or bother. She made herself a sandwich, too, though not as thick as his, and minus the cheese. She sat down across from the place she had set for him, and lifted her eyebrows in question at his hesitancy. The sight of that sandwich made his mouth water. He was so hungry his stomach was churning. That was why he removed the Kevlar vest and set the shotgun aside, then sat down and put his boots under her table. Without a word they both began to eat. The ham was succulent, the cheese mellow. He finished the sandwich before she had taken more than a few bites of hers. She got up and began making another one for him.

"No, one was plenty-" he lied, not wanting to put her to any more trouble, not wanting to stay any longer.

"I should have thought," she said, her voice low. "I'm not used to feeding a big man like you. Pops was a skinny little thing; he didn't eat much more than I do." In thirty seconds another thick sandwich was set down in front of him.

She sat down again and picked up her own sandwich. He ate more slowly this time, savoring the tastes. As he chewed, he took stock of his surroundings.

Something about this house bothered him, and now he realized what it was: the silence. There was no refrigerator humming, no television squawking in the background, no water heater thumping and hissing. He looked around. There was no refrigerator, period. No lamps. No overhead lights. She had dipped the water from a bucket. He looked at the sink; there were no faucets. The evidence was all there, but he still asked, "You don't have electricity?" because it was so unbelievable that she didn't.

"No."

"No phone, no way of calling for help if you need it?"

"No. I've never needed help."

"Until today."

"I could have handled Thaniel. He's been trying to bully me since grade school."

"Has he ever come after you with a gun before?"

"Not that I remember, but then I don't pay much attention to him." She was maddening. He wanted to shake her, wanted to put his hands on those bare arms and shake her until her teeth rattled. "You're lucky you weren't raped and

murdered," he snapped.

"It wasn't luck," she corrected. "It was preparation." Despite himself, he was interested. "What sort of preparation?" She leaned back in her chair, looking around at the silent house. It struck Jackson that she was very comfortable here, alone in the woods, without any of the modern conveniences everyone else thought they had to have.

"To begin with, this is my home. I know every inch of the woods, every weed bed in the river. If I had to hide, Thaniel would never find me." Watching her closely, Jackson saw the secret smile lurking in her green eyes and he knew, as sure as he knew his own name, that she doubted she would ever be reduced to hiding.

"What about the other stuff?" he asked, keeping his tone casual. She gave him a slow smile, and he got the feeling she was pleased with his astuteness.

"Oh, just a few little things that give me advance warning. There's nothing lethal out there, unless you step on a water moccasin or fall in the water and drown." He stared at her mouth, and felt a little jolt, like another kick of adrenaline. Despite the coolness of the house he broke out in a light sweat. God almighty, he hoped she didn't smile again. Her smile was sleepy and sexy, womanly, the kind of smile a woman gave a man after they had made love, lying drowsy on tangled sheets while the rain beat down outside and there were only the two of them, cocooned in their private world.

The sexual awareness wasn't welcome. He had to be careful in situations like this. He was a man in a position of authority, alone with a woman to whose house he had gone in an official capacity. This wasn't the time or the place to come on to her. Silence had fallen again, silence in which they faced each other across the table. She took a deep breath, and the inhalation lifted her breasts against the thin cotton of her blouse. Her nipples were plainly outlined, hard and erect, the darkness of the aureolas faintly visible where they pressed against the fabric. Was she cold, or aroused? The skin on her arms was smooth; no chill bumps.

"I'd better go," he said, fighting the sudden thickness in his throat, and in his pants. "Thank you for the sandwiches. I was starving."

She looked both relieved and reluctant. "You're welcome. You had that hungry look, so I-" She stopped, and waved a dismissive hand. "Never mind. I was glad to have the company. And you're right about going; if I'm not misaken, I heard thunder just a minute ago."

She got up and gathered their glasses, taking them to the sink. He got up, too. There was something about her unfinished sentence that pulled at him. He should have let it go, should have said good-bye and got into the boat and left. He hadn't heard any thunder, though his hearing was pretty good, but that was as good an excuse as any to get the hell out of there. He knew it, and still he said, "So you - what?" Her gaze slid away from him, as if she were embarassed.

"So I... thought you must have missed lunch."

How would she know that? Why would she even think it? He didn't normally miss a meal, and how in hell would she know if he looked hungry or not, when she had never seen him before today? For all she knew, ill-tempered was his normal expression. Witch. The word whispered in his mind, even though he knew it was nonsense. Even if he believed in witch-craft, which he didn't, from what he'd read it had nothing to do with telling whether or not a man had missed lunch. She had noticed he was grouchy, and attributed it to an empty stomach. He didn't quite follow the reasoning, but he'd often seen his mother ply his father with food to gentle him out of a bad mood. It was a woman thing, not a witch thing.

"Meow." He almost jumped a foot in the air. Now was not the time to find out she had a cat.

"There you are," she crooned, looking down at his feet. He looked down too, and saw a huge, fluffy white cat with black ears and a black tail, rubbing against his right boot. "Poor kitty," she said, still crooning, and leaned down to pick up the creature, holding it in her arms as if it were a baby. It lay perfectly relaxed, belly up, eyes half-closed in a beatific expression as she rubbed its chest.

"Did the noise scare you? The bad man's gone, and he won't bother us again, I promise." She looked up at Jackson. "Eleanor's pregnant. The kittens are due any time now, I think. She showed up about a week ago, but she's obviously tame and has had good care, so I guess someone just drove into the country and put her out, rather than take care of a litter." The cat looked like a feline Buddha, fat and content.

Familiars were supposed to be black, weren't they, or would any cat do, even fat white pregnant ones? He couldn't resist reaching out and stroking that fat, round belly. The cat's eyes completely closed and she began purring so loudly she sounded like a motor idling. Delilah smiled.

"Careful, or you'll have a slave for life. Maybe you'd like to take her with you?"

"No, thanks," he said dryly. "My mother might like a kitten, though. Her old tom died last year and she doesn't have a pet now."

"Check back in six or seven weeks, then." That wasn't exactly an invitation to come calling any time soon, he thought. He picked up the shotgun and vest.

"I'll be on my way, Miss Jones. Thanks again for the sandwiches."

"Lilah."

"What?"

"Please call me Lilah. All my friends do." She gave him a distinctly warning look. "Not Delilah, please." He chuckled.

"Message received. I guess you got teased about it in school?"

"You have no idea," she said feelingly.

"My name's Jackson."

"I know." She smiled. "I voted for you. Jackson's a nice Texas-sounding name."

"I'm a nice Texas guy" She made a noncommittal sound, as if she didn't agree with him but didn't want to come right out and say so. He grinned as he turned to the door. Meeting Delilah Jones had been interesting. He didn't know if it was good, but it was definitely interesting. The blue moon mojo was at full strength today. When things settled down and he had time to think things over, when he could be entirely rational about the weirdness and come up with a logical explanation, maybe he'd come back to visit - and not in any official capacity.

"Use the front door," she said. "It's closer."

He followed her through the small house. From what he could tell there were only four rooms: the kitchen and living room on one side, and each of those had another room opening off it. He figured the other two rooms were bedrooms. The living room was simply furnished with a couch and a rocking chair, arranged around a rag rug spread in front of the stone fireplace. Oil lamps sat on the mantel and on the pair of small tables set beside the couch and chair. In one corner was a treadle sewing machine. A handmade quilt hung on one of the walls, a brightly colored scene of trees and water that must have taken forever to do. On another wall a bookcase, also handmade from the looks of it, stretched from floor to ceiling, and was packed with books, both hardback and paper. The whole house made him feel as if he had stepped back a century, or at least half of one. The only modern appliance he saw was a battery-operated weather radio, sitting beside one of the oil lamps on the mantel. He was glad she had it; both tornadoes and hurricanes were possible in this area. He stepped out on the porch, Lilah right behind him, still holding the cat.

He stopped dead still, staring at the dock. "The son of a bitch," he said softly.

"What?" She pushed at his shoulder, and he realized he was blocking her view.

"The boats are gone," he said, stepping aside so she could see. She stared at the empty dock, too, her green eyes wide with dismay. Her flat-bottom was gone, as well as Jerry Watkins's bass boat.

"He must have doubled back and cut the boats loose while we were eating. They can't have drifted far. If I walk along the bank, I'll probably find them."

"My boat had oars in it," she said. "I always have them in case I have motor trouble. He didn't have to cut them loose, he could have rowed mine out, and towed yours.

That would save him the trouble of hiking back to his boat, and once he got to his boat he'd probably let the current take them. I figure they're at least a mile downstream by now, maybe more. That's if he doesn't decide to sink them.

"I'll call in -" he began, the notion so automatic that the words were out before he realized he didn't have his radio. He didn't have his cell phone. They were both in the Cherokee, which Charlotte Watkins had driven home. And Lilah Jones didn't have a phone. He looked down at her. "I don't suppose you have a short-wave radio?"

"Afraid not." She was staring grimly at the river down which her boat had vanished, as if she could will it back.

"You're stuck here. We both are."

"Not for long. The dispatcher -"

"Jo?"

"Jo."

He wondered how well she knew Jo. Jo hadn't talked as if they were anything more than distant acquaintances, but Lilah not only knew who his dispatcher was, she had called her Jo instead of Jolene, which was her given name. "She knows where I am, and she was supposed to send backup as soon as some was available. A deputy should be along any time."

"Not unless he's already on his way," she said. "Look." She pointed to the southwest. Jackson looked, and swore under his breath. A huge purplish black thunderhead had filled the late-afternoon sky. He could feel its breath now in the freshening wind that fanned him, hear its voice in the sullen bass rumble of thunder as it marched toward them.

"A thunderstorm probably won't last long." At least he hoped it wouldn't. The way things were going today, the storm's forward progress would stop just as it was on top of them. She was staring worriedly at the cloud. "I think I'd better turn on the weather radio," she said, and went back inside, Eleanor cradled in her arms.

Jackson gave the empty river another frustrated glance. The air felt charged with electricity, raising the hair on his arms. The blade of lightning slashed down, flickering and flashing, and thunder rumbled again. He was stuck here for at least a few hours, and maybe all night. If he had to be stuck anywhere, why couldn't it be in his own home? There was always a rash of accidents on a stormy night, and the deputies would need him. Instead he would be here, in a house in the back of nowhere, keeping company with a witch and her pregnant cat.

Lilah put Eleanor on the floor and turned on the weather radio, then went into her bedroom, which opened off the living room, and pulled down the side window. The front window was protected by the wide porch, so rain wasn't likely to come in there. With an ear cocked toward the radio, she then did the same in the back bedroom. She knew that Sheriff Brody had come in from the porch, but she deliberately ignored him, doing what needed to be done. He was entirely too big for her small house, too stern, too authoritative, too... too male. He disrupted her peaceful life far more than Thaniel Vargas had ever dreamed of doing. What on earth had Jo been thinking, sending him out here?

But of course Jo didn't know, and she had, rightly, been worried about Thaniel. Well, poor Thaniel wouldn't be bothering her again, and there was nothing she could do about it. If he hadn't run she might have-well, whether or not she could have helped him was a moot point, because it was too late now. Still, regret filled her. Whatever Thaniel's faults - and they were many - she didn't wish him any harm. And though she would have tried to help if... if he hadn't run away, years of painful experience had taught her there was very little she could do to alter fate.

That was why the sheriff filled her with such panic. She had known, the moment she saw him, that he was fated to destroy her safe, comfortable, familiar life. She wanted to get as far away from him as she could, she wanted to push him out of her house and lock the door, she wanted... she wanted to walk into his arms and rest her head on a broad shoulder, let him hold her and kiss her and do anything else he wanted to her. In all her life she'd never met a male, boy or man, who elicited even the slightest sexual response on her part.

She had always felt isolated from the rest of the world, forever alone because of what she was. The thought of spending her life alone hadn't bothered her; quite the opposite. She enjoyed her solitude, her life, her sense of completion within herself. So many people never achieved wholeness, and spent their entire lives searching for someone or something to make them whole, never realizing that the answer was within themselves. She liked her own company, she trusted her own decisions, and she enjoyed the work she did. There was nothing-nothing-in her life that she wanted changed.

But Jackson Brody changed everything, whether she wanted him to or not. It wasn't just his aura that attracted her, though it was so rich she was almost spellbound by it. All his colors were clear: the dark red of sensuality, the blue of calm, the turquoise of a dynamic personality, the orange of power, with fluctuating spikes of spiritual purple and yellow, healing green. Nothing about him was murky. He was a straightforward, confident, healthy man.

What had so stunned her, however, was the sudden flash of precognition. She didn't have them often; her particular talent was her ability to see auras. But sometimes she had lightning bursts of insight and knowledge, and she had never been wrong. Not once. Just as she had looked at Thaniel and known he would soon die, when she first focused on Jackson Brody the wave of precognition had been so strong she had almost slumped to her knees. This man would be her lover. This man would be her love, the only one of her life.

She didn't want a lover! She didn't want a man hanging around, getting in her way, interfering with her business. He would; she knew he would. He struck her as impatient, used to giving orders, slightly domineering, and, oh my, sexy as all get out. He certainly wouldn't want to live out here, without any of the modern conveniences to which he was accustomed, while she much preferred her uncluttered life. She felt better without hustle and bustle, without electrical machines incessantly humming in the background.

Nevertheless, he would undoubtedly expect her to move to town, or at least to someplace less isolated and more accessible. Once he realized she couldn't be relocated, he would give in, but with bad grace. He'd argue that he wouldn't be able to see her as often as he could if she lived closer. He would visit whenever it was convenient for him, and expect her to drop whatever she was doing whenever he pulled his boat up to the dock. In short, he would be very inconvenient for her, and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it. For all the success she'd had in evading or altering fate, she might as well strip off her clothes right now and lead him into the bedroom. That was another worry. She was rather short on experience in the bedroom department. That hadn't been a bother before, because she hadn't felt even an inkling of desire to get that experience. Now she did. Just looking at him made her feel warm and sort of breathless; her breasts tingled, and she had to press her thighs together to contain the hot ache between her legs. So this was lust. She had wondered, and now she knew.

No wonder people acted like fools when they were afflicted with it. If Thaniel hadn't stolen the boats, the sheriff would have already been gone, and she likely wouldn't have seen him again for quite a while, if ever. She would have gone about her quiet, very satisfying life. But she should have expected that trick with the boats; how else could Fate have arranged for Jackson to stay here? And of course a storm was coming up, preventing any of his deputies from arriving. All of it was inevitable. No matter how inconceivable her visions, almost immediately there would set in motion a train of events that brought about the conclusion she had foreseen.

Not for the first time, she wished she wasn't different. She wished she didn't know things were going to happen before they did; that was asking a lot of a person. She couldn't regret seeing auras, though; her life would feel colorless and less interesting if she no longer saw them. She didn't have to speak to someone to know how he or she was feeling; she could see when someone was happy, or angry, or feeling ill. She could see bad intentions, dishonesty, meanness, but she could also see joy, and love, and goodness.

"Is something wrong?" He was standing right behind her, and the sharpness of his tone told her she had been standing in one place, staring at nothing, for quite a while. Getting lost in her thoughts was no big deal when she was alone, but probably looked strange to others.

She blinked, pulling herself back to reality "Sorry," she said, not turning to face him. "I was daydreaming."

"Daydreaming?" He sounded disbelieving, and she didn't blame him. A man had tried to kill her less than an hour ago, they were stranded, and a whopper of a storm was bearing down on them; that should be enough to keep her thoughts grounded. She should have said she was thinking, instead of daydreaming; at least that sounded productive.

"Never mind. Have there been any weather bulletins or warnings on the radio?"

"Severe thunderstorm warning until ten tonight. High winds, damaging hail."

Hours. They would be alone together for hours. He would probably be here until morning. What was she supposed to do with him, this man she was going to love but didn't yet? She had just met him, she knew nothing about him on a personal level. She was attracted to him, yes, but love? Not likely. Not yet, anyway. Fresh, rain-fragrant wind gusted through the screen door.

"Here it comes," he said, and she turned her head to watch sheets of rain sweeping upriver toward the house. Lightning speared straight downward, and a blast of thunder rattled the windows. Eleanor meowed, and sought shelter in the cardboard box which Lilah had lined with old towels as a bed for the cat. Jackson prowled restlessly around the small room. Lilah looked at him in exasperation, wondering if he ever just went with the flow. It was irritating to him that he couldn't affect the weather somehow, either postponing the storm or sending it speeding off, so one of his deputies could risk getting upriver to him.

She gave a mental shrug. Let him fret; she had work to do. The first sheet of rain hit the house, drumming down on the tin roof. The late-afternoon sunlight was almost completely blotted out, darkening the rooms. She moved through the gloom to the oil lamps set on the mantel, her hand setting surely on the match box. The rasp of the match was unheard in the din of rain, but he turned at the sudden small bloom of light and watched as she lifted the globes of the lamps and touched the match to the wicks, then replaced the globes. She blew out the match and tossed it into the fireplace. Without a word she went into the kitchen and dupli-cated the chore, though there were four oil lamps there because she liked more light when she was working. The fire in the stove had been banked; she opened the door, stirred the hot coals, and added more wood.

"What are you doing?" he asked from the doorway. Mentally she rolled her eyes.

"Cooking." Maybe he'd never seen the process before.

"But we just ate."

"So we did, but those sandwiches won't hold you for long, if I'm any judge." She eyed him, measuring him against the doorframe. A little over six feet tall, she guessed, and at least two hundred pounds. He looked muscled, given the way his shoulders filled out his shirt, so he might weigh more. This man would eat a lot. He came on into the room and settled at the table, turning the chair around so he faced her, his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. His fingers drummed on the table.

"This irritates the hell out of me," he confessed. Her tone was dry. "I noticed." She dipped some water into the washbowl and washed her hands.

"Usually I can do something. Usually, in bad weather, I have to do something, whether it's working a wreck or dragging people off of flooded roads. I need to be out there now, because my deputies will have their hands full." So that was the cause of his restlessness and irritability; he knew his help was needed, but he couldn't leave here. She liked his sense of responsibility.

He watched in silence then as she prepared her biscuit pan, spraying it with nonstick spray. She got her mixing bowl and scooped some flour into it, added shortening and buttermilk, and plunged her hands into the bowl. "I haven't seen anyone do that in years." He smiled as he kept his eyes on her hands, deftly mixing and kneading. "My grandmother used to, but I can't remember ever seeing my mother make biscuits by hand."

"I don't have a refrigerator," she said practically. "Frozen biscuits are out."

"Don't you want to have things like refrigerators and electric stoves? Doesn't it bother you, not having electricity?"

"Why should it? I don't depend on a wire for heat and light. If I had electricity, the power might be off right now and I wouldn't be able to cook."

He rubbed his jaw, brow furrowed as he thought. She liked the sight, she mused, eyeing him as she continued to knead. His brows were straight and dark, nicely shaped. Everything about him was nicely shaped. She bet all the single women in town, and a few of the married ones, were hot for him. Short dark hair, bright blue eyes, strong jaw, soft lips - she didn't know how she knew his lips were soft, but she did. Oh, yeah, they were hot for him. She was a bit warm herself. She thought of walking over to him and straddling his lap, and an instantaneous flush swept over her entire body. Warm, my foot; she thought she might break out in a sweat any minute now.

"Running a gas line would be even harder than running power lines," he mused, his mind still on the issue of modern conveniences.

"I guess you could get a propane tank, but filling it would be a bitch, since there aren't any roads out here."

"The wood stove suits me fine. It's only a few years old, so it's very efficient. It heats the whole house, and it's easy to regulate."

She began pinching off balls of dough and rolling them between her hands, shaping them into biscuits and placing them in the pan. If she kept her eyes on the dough, instead of him, the hot feeling cooled down somewhat.

"Where do you get your wood?"

She couldn't help it. She had to look at him, her expression incredulous. "I cut it myself." Where did he think she got it? Maybe he thought the wood fairies chopped it and piled it up for her. To her surprise, he surged up out of the chair, looming over her with a scowl. "Chopping wood is too hard for you."

"Gee, I'm glad you told me, otherwise I'd have kept doing it and not known any better." She edged away from him, turning to the sink to wash the dough from her hands.

"I didn't mean you couldn't do it, I meant you shouldn't have to," he growled. His voice was right behind her. He was right behind her. Without warning, he reached around her and wrapped his fingers around her right wrist. His hand completely engulfed hers. "Look at that. My wrist is twice as thick as yours. You may be strong, for your size, but you can't tell me it isn't a struggle for you to chop wood."

"I manage." She wished he hadn't touched her. She wished he wasn't standing so close that she could feel the heat from his body, smell the hot man smell of him.

"And it's dangerous. What if the ax slips, or the saw, or whatever you use? You're out here alone, a long way from medical help."

"A lot of things are dangerous." She struggled to keep her voice practical, and even. "But people do what they have to do, and I have to have wood." Why hadn't he released her hand? Why hadn't she pulled it away herself? She could; he wasn't holding her tightly. But she liked the feel of his hand wrapped around hers, liked the warmth and strength, the roughness of the calluses on his palm.

"I'll chop it for you," he said abruptly.

"What!" She almost turned around; common sense stopped her at the last minute. If she turned around, she would be face to face, belly to belly, with him. She didn't dare. She swallowed. "You can't chop my wood."

"Why not?"

"Because -" Because, why? "Because you won't be here."

"I'm here now." He paused, and his tone dropped lower. "I can be again." She went still. The only sound was the storm, the boom of thunder and wind lashing through the trees, the rain pounding down on the roof. Or maybe it was her heart, pounding against her rib cage.

"I have to be careful here," he said quietly. "I'm acting as a man, not a sheriff. If you tell me no, I'll go back to the table and sit down. I'll keep my distance from you for the rest of the night, and I won't bother you again. But if you don't tell me no, I'm going to kiss you."

Lilah inhaled, fighting for oxygen. She couldn't say a word, couldn't think of anything to say even if she had the air. She was feeling hot again, and weak, as if she might collapse against him.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, and turned her into his arms. His lips were soft, just the way she'd known they would be. And.he was gentle, rather than bruising her lips by pressing too hard.

He didn't try to overwhelm her with a sudden display of passion. He simply kissed her, taking his time about it, tasting her and learning the shape and texture of her own lips. The leisurely pace was more seductive than anything else he could have done. She sighed, a low hum of pleasure, and let herself relax against him. He gathered her up, wrapping his arms around her and lifting her onto her toes so that they fit together more intimately.

The full press of his body against her made her catch her breath, and that now familiar wave of heat swept over her again. She looped her arms around his neck, pressing even closer, shivering a little as his tongue moved slowly into her mouth, giving her time to pull away if she didn't want such a deep kiss. She did, more than she had ever thought she would want a man's kiss. Her heart thudded wildly in her chest. Pleasure was a siren, luring her to experience more, to take everything he could give her. His erection was a hard ridge in his pants; she wanted to rub herself against it, open herself to it. Knowing herself to be on the verge of losing control, she forced herself to pull away from the slow, intoxicating kisses, burying her face instead in the warm column of his throat.

He wasn't unaffected. His pulse hammered through his veins; she felt it, there in his neck, just where her lips rested. His lungs pumped, dragging in air. His skin felt hot and damp, and he moved restlessly, as if he wanted to grind his hips against her. He didn't say anything, for which she was grateful. Innate caution told her to slow down, while instinct screamed at her, urging her to mate with him; it was fated, anyway, so why wait? What would waiting accomplish? The outcome was the same, no matter the timetable. Torn between the two, she hesitated, not quite willing yet to take such a large step no matter what the fates said.

"This is scary," she muttered against his throat.

"No joke." He buried his face against her hair. "This must be what it feels like to get hit by that famous ton of bricks." The knowledge that he was as rattled as she wasn't very reassuring, because she would have liked for one of them to be in control.

"We don't know each other." Neither did she know with whom she was arguing, him or herself. All she knew was that, for one of the few times in her life, she wasn't certain of herself. She didn't like the feeling. One of the foundation bricks of her life, her very self, was her knowledge of herself and other people; not to know was if that foundation was being shaken.

"We'll work on that." His lips brushed her temple. "We don't have to rush into anything." But when he did know her, would he still want her? She worried at that, feeling, not for the first time, the weight of her differentness. She came with so much excess baggage that a lot of men would think she was more trouble than she was worth. That thought gave her the strength to push gently at his shoulders. He released her immediately, stepping back. Lilah took a deep breath and pushed her hair out of her face, trying not to look at him, but the clear, dark red of passion emanating from him was almost impossible to ignore.

"I'd better get those biscuits in the oven," she said, stepping around him. "Just sit down out of my way and I'll have supper ready in a jiffy."

"I'll stand, thank you," he said wryly. She couldn't help it; she had to look, meeting his rueful blue gaze in perfect understanding. The dark red of his aura was still glowing hot and clear, especially in the groin area, though more blue was beginning to show through in the aura around his head. But he did move out of her way, leaning against the wall by the door. She put the biscuits into the oven and opened a big can of beef stew, dumping the contents into a pot and placing that on top of the stove. The simple meal would have to be enough, because she wasn't about to go out into the storm to chase down a chicken for supper. The biscuits could cool, and the beef stew could simmer until he got hungry again. He was watching her. She felt his gaze, his utter male focus on her.

Being female wasn't something to which she gave a great deal of thought, but under that intent study she was suddenly, acutely aware of her body, of the way her breasts lifted with each breath, of the folds between her legs where he would enter. She didn't have to look down to know her nipples were tightly beaded, or at the front of his pants to know his erection hadn't yet subsided. His unabashed arousal did more to turn her on than any sweet nothing he could have whispered. Something had to be done to lessen the sensual tension, or she would shortly find herself on her back. She cleared her throat, mentally searching for a neutral topic.

"How did a nice Texas boy end up in Alabama?" She already knew; Jo had told her. But it was the only thing she could think of, and at least the question would get him to talking.

"My mother was from Dothan." No further explanation followed.

Deciding he needed more prodding, Lilah said, "Why did she move to Texas?"

"She met my dad. He was from west Texas. Mom and a couple of friends from college were driving to California after graduation, and they had car trouble. My dad was a deputy then, and he stopped to help them. Mom never did get to California." That was better; he was talking. She breathed an inner sigh of relief.

"Why did she come back to Alabama, then?"

"Dad died a few years ago." He settled his shoulders more comfortably against the wall. "West Texas isn't for everyone; it can be hot as hell, and pretty damn empty. She never complained while Dad was alive, but after he died, the loneliness got to her. She wanted to move back to Alabama, close to her sister and her friends from college."

"So you came with her?"

"She's my mother," he said simply. "I can be in law enforcement here as easily as I could in Texas. Mom and I don't live together, haven't since I was eighteen and went away to college, but she knows I'm nearby if she needs anything."

"It didn't bother you at all to leave Texas?" She couldn't imagine such a thing. She loved her home, knew it as intimately as she knew herself. She loved the scent of the river in the early mornings, the way it turned gold when the dawn light struck it, she loved the dramatic weather that produced violent thunderstorms and torrents of rain, the hot, humid days when even the birds seemed lethargic, and the gray winter days when a fire in the fireplace and a cup of hot soup were the best she could ask of life.

He shrugged. "Home is family, not a place. I've got some aunts and uncles in Texas, a whole herd of cousins, but no one as close to me as Mom. I can always visit Texas if I feel the need." He loved his mother, and was unabashed about it. Lilah swallowed, hard.

Her own mother had died when she was five, but she cherished the few memories she had of the woman who had been the center of life in the isolated little house.

"What about you?" he asked. "Are you from here originally?"

"I was born in this house. I've lived here all my life." He gave her a quizzical look, and she knew what he was thinking. Most babies were born in a hospital, and had been for the last fifty years. She was obviously younger than that, but too old to have been part of the birth-at-home fashion that was making a comeback in some sections.

"Didn't your daddy have time to get her to the hospital?"

"She didn't want a hospital." Was now the time to explain that her mother had been a folk healer, like her? That she too had seen the bursts of color that surrounded people, and taught her daughter what they meant, how to read them? That she had known everything would be all right, and thus hadn't seen any purpose in spending their hard-earned money on a hospital and doctor she didn't need?

"That was one tough lady," he said, shaking his head. A small smile curved his mouth. "I delivered a baby when I was a rookie. Scared the hell out of me, and the mother wasn't too happy, either. But we got through it, and they were both okay" The smile turned into a grin. "My bedside manner must have been a tad off, though; she didn't name the baby after me. As I recall, her exact words were: 'No offense, but I never want to see you again for the rest of my life! " Lilah threw back her head on a gusty laugh. She could just see a young, inexperienced rookie deputy, sweating and panicky, delivering a baby.

"What happened? Did the baby come early, or just fast?"

"Neither. West Texas does get snow, and that was one of the times. The roads were in really bad shape. She and her husband were on the way to the hospital, but their car slid off the road into a drift not a mile from their house, so they walked back home and called for help. I was in the area, and I had a four-wheel drive, but by the time I got to their house the weather was even worse, so bad I wouldn't risk the drive." He rubbed his ear.

"She cussed me, called me every name I'd ever heard before, and a few that I hadn't. She wanted something for the pain, and I was the one keeping her from getting it, so she made sure I suffered right along with her." His grin invited her to laugh at the image his words conjured.

Lilah snickered as she checked on the biscuits. "What about her husband?"

"Useless. Every time he came around he got an even worse cussing than I did, so he stayed out of sight. I'm telling you, that was one unhappy lady."

"How long did her labor last?"

"Nineteen hours and twenty-four minutes," he promptly replied. "The longest nineteen hours and twenty-four minutes in the history of the world, according to her. She swore she'd been in labor at least three days." Under the amusement in his tone was a thread of... joy. She tilted her head, wondering if she read him correctly.

"You liked it." The words weren't quite a question. He laughed. "Yeah, I did. It was exciting, and funny, and amazing as hell. I've seen puppies and calves and foals being born, but I've never felt anything like when that baby slid into my hands. By the way, it was a girl. Jackson just didn't seem to suit her."

His aura was glowing now with more green in the mixture, shot through with joyful yellow. Lilah no longer had to wonder when she would fall in love with him. She did in that moment, something inside her melting, growing hotter. She knew her own aura would be showing pink, and she blushed, even though she knew he couldn't see it. She felt trembly, and had to sit down. This was momentous. She'd never thought she would love the way others did, not romantically. She loved many people and many things, but not like this. Always, mixed in with her feelings, was the knowledge that she was set apart from them, a caretaker rather than a partner.

Even with Pops she'd been the rock on which he leaned. But Jackson was a strong man, both mentally and physically. He didn't need anyone to take care of him; rather, he did the caring. If she hadn't been able to see his aura, she would eventually have loved him anyway. But she could see it, and she knew the essence of the man. That, and her own precognitive recognition of him as her mate, destroyed her sense of caution. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and let him do whatever he wanted. Instead she got up and checked the biscuits. She stood there with the oven door open, letting heat escape, staring blindly at the biscuits. Jackson came up behind her.

"Perfect," he said with approval. She blinked. The biscuits were a golden brown, perfectly risen. She had a good hand with biscuits, or so Pops had always said. She took a deep breath, and, using a dish-cloth, took the hot pan out of the oven and set it on a cooling rack.

"Why does Vargas think you're a witch?" That brought her to earth with a thud. The change in his tone was subtle, but there: He was the sheriff, and he wanted to know if anyone in his county was practicing witchcraft.

"Several reasons, I suppose." She turned to face him, her expression cool and unreadable. "I live alone out in the woods, I seldom go into town, I don't socialize. The witch rumor started when I was in fourth grade, I think."

"Fourth grade, huh?" He leaned against the cabinet, blue gaze sharp on her face. "I guess he'd been watching too many Bewitched reruns." She lifted one eyebrow and waited. "So you don't cast spells, or dance naked in the moonlight, or anything like that?"

"I'm not a witch," she said plainly. "I've never cast a spell, though I might dance naked in the moonlight, if the notion took me."

"Do tell." The gaze warmed, and moved slowly down her body. "Call me if you need a dancing partner."

"I'll do that." He looked up, met her eyes, and as simply as that, there was no longer any need for caution. "Are you hungry?" he asked, moving closer, stroking one finger up her bare arm.

"No."

"So the biscuits and beef stew can wait?"

"They can." He took the dishcloth and set the pan of stew off the eye.

"Will you go to bed with me, then, Lilah Jones?"

"I will."

Lilah lit the lamp in her bedroom and turned it low. The storm and heavy rain made the room as dark as night, lit briefly by the flashes of lightning. Jackson seemed to fill the small room, his shoulders throwing a huge shadow over the wall. His aura, visible even in the low light, pulsated with that deep, clear red again, the color of passion and sensuality. He began unbuttoning his shirt, and she turned back the bedcovers, neatly folding the quilt and plumping the pillows. Her bed looked small, she thought, though it was a double. It was certainly too small for him. Perhaps she should see about getting a larger one, though she wasn't certain how long he would use hers. That was the problem with the flashes of precognition; they told her facts, but not circumstances. She knew only that Jackson would be her lover, and her love. She had no idea if he would love her in return, if they would be together forever or only this one time.

"You look nervous." Despite the sharpness of his desire, which she could plainly see, his voice was quiet. His shirt was unbuttoned but he hadn't yet removed it. Instead he was watching her, his cop's eyes seeing too much.

"I am," she admitted.

"If you don't want to do this, just say so. No hard feelings - well, except for one place," he said wryly.

"I do want to do this. That's why I'm nervous." Looking him in the eye, she unfastened her shorts and let them drop, then began unbuttoning her shirt. "I've never been so... attracted to anyone before. I'm always cautious, but-" She shook her head. "I don't want to be cautious with you."

He shrugged the shirt off and let it drop to the floor. Lamplight gleamed on his shoulders, delineating the smooth, powerful muscles, and the broad chest shadowed with dark hair. Lilah inhaled deeply through her nose, feeling the warmth of arousal spread through her. She forgot what she was doing, just stood there looking at him, greedily drinking in the sight of her man undressing.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and leaned forward to pull off his boots. Now she could admire the deep furrow of his spine, the rippling muscles in his back. Her heartbeat picked up in speed, and she got even warmer. The boots thunked on the wooden floor. He stood and unfastened his pants, let them drop, and pushed down his shorts. Totally naked, he stepped out of the circle of clothing and turned to face her. Oh, my. She must have said the words aloud, breathing them in hunger and lust and maybe even some bit of fear, because he laughed as he came to her, brushing aside her stalled hands and finishing the job of unbuttoning her shirt. He put his hands inside the shirt and smoothed them over her shoulders and down her arms, slipping the shirt off so easily she scarcely knew when it left. She wasn't paying attention to her clothing anyway, only to the jutting penis that brushed her belly when he moved. She wrapped her hands around it, lightly stroking, exploring, delighting in the heat and hardness and textures, so different from her own body. Now it was he who sucked in a breath, his eyes closing as he stilled for a moment. Then he moved even closer, pushing his hands inside her panties and gripping the globes of her bottom as he pulled her to him. She had to release his penis and she made a sound of... disappointment? Impatience? Both. But there was reward in the pressure of his hard, hairy chest on her breasts, in the rasping sensation to her nipples. Her entire body seemed to go boneless, melting into him, curving to fit his contours.

His breathing was ragged. "Let's get you naked so I can look at you," he muttered, releasing her bottom long enough to push her panties down her thighs. She wiggled until they dropped to her feet, and his breathing caught on a groan. "God! You're a natural-born tease, aren't you?"

He pulled her up on her toes, welding her to him.

"Am I?"

She had never thought about teasing a man before, never wanted to; but if what she was doing was teasing him, then that was only fair, because she was driving herself crazy, too. The feel of their bare bodies brushing together was so delicious she wanted to moan. She kept moving against him, rubbing her nipples against his chest and turning them into hard, aching peaks. He stroked his hands over her bottom and back, his hands so hot and rough she wanted to purr. Then one hand went lower, curving under her bottom, and his fingers dipped between her legs. She gasped, arching into him as an almost electric sensation sparked through her. One finger explored deeper, slipping a little way into her. A soft, wild noise erupted from her throat, and she all but climbed him, one leg wrapping around him as she levered herself up so he could have better access. Panting, she buried her face in his throat, clinging for dear life while she waited in agony for him to deepen the caress. Slowly, so slowly, that big finger pressed deeper and she rocked under the impact. That wild little noise sounded again, and her hips surged, trying to take more of his finger. Pleasure and tension coiled in her, tighter and tighter, until it was pain and something more, something beyond anything she had imagined.

"Not yet," he said urgently. "Don't come yet."

He turned and half-fell with her onto the bed, cradling her against the full impact of his weight as he landed on top of her. With a twist of his hips he settled between her thighs, and his erection prodded at her folds, briefly seeking her entrance before finding it and pressing inward. Her entire body contracted, tightening around that thick intrusion, though she couldn't tell whether her body's reaction was in welcome or an effort to limit the depth of his penetration. His hips recoiled, his buttocks tightened, and he pushed deeper, deeper, until her inner resistance was gone and in one long slide he was all the way inside her. She would have screamed, but her lungs were compressed with shock and she could barely breathe, much less scream. Her vision blurred and darkened. She hadn't realized... His penis felt almost unbearably hot inside her, burning and stretching her. She ached deep inside, where he was. He lifted up on his elbows, panting, the expression in his blue eyes both incredulous and ferociously intent.

"Lilah... God, I can't believe this. Are you a virgin?"

"Not now." Desperately she clutched his buttocks, her back arching as she tried to take him deeper. "Please. Oh, God, Jackson, please!"

She bucked her hips at him, her head thrown back as she wrestled with the almost savage pleasure that held her on the edge of release.

He was still hurting her, but her entire body was throbbing with a need that overrode any pain. She wanted him deep, she wanted him hard, she wanted him to pound into her and hurl her over that edge. He gave in to her sensual imploring.

"Shhh," he soothed, though his voice was rough with his own need. "Easy, darlin'. Let me help..."

He reached between their bodies, his callused fingertips finding the bud of her clitoris and gently pinching it up. Again and again he squeezed it, catching it between two of his fingers, and with a sharp cry she imploded, her body twisting and heaving in the paroxysm of climax. A harsh sound tore from his throat. He gripped her hips, his fingers digging into her buttocks, and thrust hard, driving into her so fiercely the bed thudded against the wall. He climaxed convulsively, grinding down on her for long seconds before collapsing, shaking, on top of her. She wrapped her arms around his sweaty shoulders and held on tight, partly to comfort him in the aftermath and partly to anchor herself. She felt as if she would fly into a hundred pieces if she let him go.

Tears burned her eyelids, though she didn't know why. Her heart still galloped in a mad race to nowhere and her thoughts swam, a kaleidoscope of impressions and wishes and disbelief. She hadn't known making love would be so hot, so uncontrolled. She had expected something slow and sweet, building to ecstasy, not that headlong dash into the fire. His heart pounded against her breast, gradually slowing, as did his breathing. His weight crushed her into the mattress. Her thighs were still spread to accommodate him, and he was still inside her, though smaller and softer now. Now that the storm within was over, she became aware again of the storm without. Lightning cracked so close by that the thunder rattled the entire house, and rain drummed on the roof, but that was nothing compared to what had just gone on in her bed. Storms came and went, but her entire life had just been changed. Finally he lifted his head. His dark hair was matted with sweat, his expression strained and empty, the expression of release.

"Okay." His voice sounded rusty, as if his vocal cords didn't want to work. "When you said 'not now' did you mean that you didn't want to talk, or that you had been a virgin until then, but now you weren't?"

She cleared her throat. "The second choice." Her own voice sounded rusty, too.

"Holy hell." He let his head drop again. "I never expected - Damn it, Lilah, that's something you should tell a man."

She moved her hands over his shoulders, closing her eyes in delight at the feel of his warm, sleek skin under her palms. "Things happened kind of fast. I didn't have a lot of time to consider the shoulds and should nots."

"There are no should nots, in this case."

"What would you have done differently, if you'd known?"

He considered that, and sighed against her shoulder. "Hell, probably nothing. There's no way in hell I would have stopped. But if I'd known, I'd have tried to slow things down, and given you more time."

"I couldn't have stood it," she said starkly. "Not one minute more."

"Yes you could. You will. And you'll like it." If that was a threat, it failed miserably. A tingle of excitement shot through her, sending a spark of life into her exhausted muscles. She wiggled a little.

"When?"

"God," he muttered. "Not right this minute. Give me an hour."

"Okay, an hour."

His head came up again and he gave her a long, level look. "Before we get carried away again, don't you think we need to talk about birth control? Specifically, our lack of it? I doubt you're on the pill, and I don't generally carry rubbers around with me."

"No, of course I'm not on the pill, but I won't get pregnant."

"You can't be sure."

"I just finished my period two days ago. We're safe."

"Famous last words."

She sighed. She knew she wouldn't get pregnant, though she didn't know how to explain to him how she knew. She wasn't certain, herself. It wasn't a flash of precognition, at least not like the usual flash. It was more a sense than a knowing, but there wasn't a pregnancy in her immediate future. Next month, maybe, but not now.

She sighed. "If you're so worried, then we won't do this again, all right?"

He regarded her for a minute, then grinned. "Some chances," he said, leaning down to kiss her, "are just meant to be taken."

They heard the outboard motor not long after dawn, when the sun had just turned the eastern sky a brilliant gold. The storms of the night had lasted longer than expected, until almost three o'clock in the morning, but now the morning sky was absolutely cloudless.

"Sounds like the cavalry is arriving," Lilah said, tilting her head to listen.

"Son of a bitch," Jackson said mildly. "I was hoping rescue would take a little longer." He took a sip of coffee. "Do I look like an enraged, frustrated sheriff who was left stranded by a turnip-brain two-bit thug, or a man who's had a night-long orgy and whose legs are as limp as noodles?"

She pretended to study him, then shook her head.

"You could use some practice on the enraged and frustrated look."

"That's what I thought." Putting his cup down on the table, he stretched his arms over his head and gave her a lazy, contented grin. "Instead of arresting Thaniel, I may give him a commendation."

"What are you going to arrest him for?" she asked in surprise. "I told you I'm not pressing charges."

"Whether or not you do, he stole two boats, not just yours. What happens depends on what he's done with Jerry Watkins's boat, and what Jerry wants to do about it. If Thaniel was smart, he left the boats at the launch ramp, but then again, if he was smart he wouldn't have taken them in the first place."

"If he left them out, the amount of rain we had last night would have sunk them," Lilah pointed out. "It takes a lot of rain to swamp a boat, but I think we had enough to do the job, don't you?"

"Probably." Getting up from the table, he walked into the living room and looked out the window. "Yep, it's the cavalry." Lilah stood beside him and watched the boat carrying two deputies approach her small dock. The river was high and muddy after the night's storms, so high her dock lacked only a few inches being underwater. They carefully tied the boat to the post and stepped out, both wearing Kevlar vests and carrying shotguns. They cautiously looked around. Jackson quickly bent and kissed her, his mouth warm and lingering. The look he gave her was full of regret.

"I'll come back as soon as I can," he said, keeping his voice pitched low. "I doubt it'll be today, and whether or not I can make it tomorrow depends on how much damage the storms did, and if there are any power outages or cleanup to do."

"I'll be here," she said, her manner calm. She smiled. "I have no way of going anywhere, without my boat."

"I'll either get it back, or I'll make damn certain Thaniel buys you a new one," he promised, and kissed her again. Then he picked up his vest and shotgun, which he had placed by the front door in anticipation of his "rescue," and walked out on the front porch.

Both of the deputies visibly relaxed when they saw him. "You okay, Sheriff?" the older of the two called.

"I'm fine, Lowell. But Thaniel Vargas won't be when I get my hands on him. He stole both the boat I was using, and Miss Jones's boat. But he'll wait; how much damage was there last night?"

Lilah stepped out on the porch behind him, because it would look strange if she didn't.

"Good morning, Lowell." She nodded to the other deputy. "Alvin. I just made the sheriff some coffee; would y'all like a cup?" She saw Jackson's brows rise in surprise that she knew his deputies, but he didn't comment.

"No thanks, Lilah," Lowell answered. "We need to get on back. Thanks for offering, but I've drunk so much coffee since midnight I doubt I'll sleep for two days."

"The damage?" Jackson prompted, taking charge of the conversation again.

"Power was out over most of the county, but it's back on now all except for Pine Flats. A lot of trees went down, and there's roof damage to a bunch of houses, but only one actually went into a house, the LeCroy place out near Washington High School. Mrs. LeCroy was hurt pretty bad; she's in the hospital in Mobile."

"Any car wrecks?" Lowell gave him a weary look. "More than you can count."

"Okay. Sorry I wasn't on hand to help."

"I'm just sorry it took us so long to get out here, but with the storms the way they were, only a fool would have gone out on the water."

"I didn't expect anybody to risk their lives coming after me. I was okay, just stranded."

"We weren't sure, what with Jo telling us she sent you here after Thaniel Vargas. But Thaniel seemed okay, not nervous or anything, and he played dumb, said he hadn't been up here and hadn't seen you."

"You saw him?" Jackson asked sharply.

"He helped us get a tree out of the highway. Anyway, we figured the storm had caught you. We didn't want to take any chances, since you could have run into some other kind of trouble out here, so we came looking."

Jackson shook his head. He never would have figured Thaniel capable of that much brass; maybe that thick-headed act was more of an act than fact. If so, he'd have to take Thaniel a lot more seriously than he had before. Walking down to the dock, he handed the shotgun to Alvin and stepped into the boat.

"Well, let's go to work," he said. He turned and raised his hand. "Thanks for feeding me, Miss Jones."

"You're welcome," she called, smiling as she hugged her arms against the early morning chill. She waved them good-bye, a wave both deputies returned, then went back into the house. Jackson settled onto a boat seat.

"Y'all seem to know Miss Jones pretty well," he said, driven by curiosity.

"Sure." Lowell got behind the wheel. "We went to school together." It was such a prosaic answer that Jackson felt like smacking himself in the head. Of course she had attended school; she hadn't lived her entire life marooned upriver. He had a mental image of a small, solemn Lilah sitting in that little flat-bottom boat, clutching her schoolbooks, being ferried back and forth in all kinds of weather.

Because he wanted to know, he asked, "How did she get back and forth to school?"

"Boat," Alvin said. "Her daddy brought her. He'd take her to the park ramp, closest to school. If the weather was good, he'd walk her the rest of the way. If it was raining, a teacher would meet them and give her a ride."

At least he wouldn't have to fret about that young Lilah being left alone at the boat docks, Jackson thought; her father had been concerned for her safety. Though why he would fret about something so long in the past was beyond him. The trip downriver was much more leisurely than his risky dash up it the day before. The swollen river was full of trash, making caution necessary. Jackson hoped he'd see two boats tied to the shore when they got to the ramp, but no such luck.

"I wonder what Thaniel did with Jerry Watkins's boat," he growled.

"No telling," Lowell said. "The damn fool probably just turned it loose. Jerry will be fit to be tied; he set a store by that boat."

At least Jerry Watkins would have insurance on his boat; Jackson very much doubted Lilah would have it on hers. How would she replace it? He gave his bank account a quick mental check; one way or the other, Lilah would have another boat - by tomorrow, if he couldn't find hers. He couldn't bear the thought of her being completely stranded out there, though she was so damn competent he could see her hiking into town if necessary, even though it had to be twenty, maybe thirty miles around.

But what if she got sick, or injured herself. She chopped her own wood, for God's sake. He went cold at the thought of an ax buried in her foot. She had become more important to him, faster than anyone he had ever known. Twenty-four hours ago he hadn't known she existed. Within two hours of meeting her, he'd been in bed with her, and he'd spent the most erotic, exciting night of his life in her arms. He had climaxed so many times he doubted he'd get a hard-on for days. Then he thought of Lilah, waiting for him, and a sudden pooling of heat in his groin told him he had miscalculated. He jerked his thoughts back to the day's work before he embarrassed himself. The Watkins truck was still sitting where Charlotte had parked it, boat trailer still hitched to it. At least a tree hadn't come down on the truck during the storms; that would be the final insult to a good deed. He looked around; there were some small branches scattered around the parking area, but nothing substantial. Lowell eased the boat into the bank and both Jackson and Alvin climbed out. While Alvin went to the truck to back the trailer into the water, Jackson surveyed the area.

Yesterday he'd been in too much of a hurry to think about details, but now his cop's eye swept the launch ramp, not missing a thing. The parking area was surprisingly large, given how isolated and little-used the launch ramp was.

But... was it little-used? The area was free of weeds, showing that there was a good bit of traffic. The sandy dirt showed evidence of a lot of different tire tracks, more than he expected. That was strange, given what Jo had said about the best fishing being downriver. Lowell and Alvin competently took the boat out of the water. They had come in two vehicles, one county car and then the truck pulling the boat, which Jackson assumed they had borrowed from the Rescue Squad. That made five vehicles he could count since yesterday afternoon: his, Thaniel's, Charlotte Watkins's, and now these two.

The rain had destroyed all but the deepest tracks, but he could still make out at least three more sets of tracks besides the ones he knew about. Now, why would there be so much river traffic up here? The fishing wasn't good, and right past Lilah's the river got too shallow for boat traffic. He tried to think of a logical explanation for the tracks. Being in law enforcement, his first thought was that maybe drug dealers were meeting here, but he discarded that idea. It was too open, and though Old Boggy Road wasn't the busiest road in the world, there was occasional traffic on it. As if to prove it, at that moment a farmer drove by in a pickup truck, and he craned his neck to see what was going on. No, drug dealers would find a place where they were less likely to attract attention. So... who was coming here, and why? He strolled over to Lowell and Alvin.

"This little ramp gets a lot of use, doesn't it?"

"A fair amount," Lowell agreed.

"Why?"

They both gaped at him. "Why?" Alvin echoed.

"Yeah. Why does it get so much use? Only someone who doesn't know the river would come up here to fish." To his surprise, both deputies shifted uncomfortably. Lowell cleared his throat.

"I guess folks go to visit Lilah."

"Miss Jones?" Jackson clarified, wanting to make certain there wasn't another Lilah in the area. Lowell nodded. Looking around the area, Jackson said, "From all these tire ruts, I'd say she gets a lot of company." He tried to picture a steady stream of visitors to Lilah's isolated little house upriver, but just couldn't.

"Some," Lowell agreed. "A lot of women go to see her." He coughed. "And-uh, some men, too, I guess."

"Why is that?" A variety of wild reasons ran through his mind. Marijuana? He couldn't see Lilah growing marijuana, but the place was certainly isolated enough. He didn't let himself seriously consider that.

Women didn't go to backwoods women for abortions anymore, either, so that was out. Nothing illegal, for sure, because his deputies obviously knew about whatever was going on up there, and had done nothing to stop it. The only thing he could think of that made sense was so ridiculous he couldn't believe it. "Don't tell me she really is a witch!" He could just see it now, boat after boat making its way upriver for spells and potions. She had denied the witch thing, said she didn't know anything about spells, but in his experience people lied all the time. He dealt with serial liars on a daily basis.

"Nothing like that," Alvin said hastily. "She's kind of an old-timey healer. You know, she makes poultices and stuff." Poultices and stuff. Healer.

Of course. It was so obvious, Jackson wondered that he hadn't seen it. Relief spread through him. His imagination had been running wild, a sick feeling congealing in his gut. He had just found her, a woman who appealed to him on every level, and he couldn't bear the thought of her being involved in something shifty. He didn't know where this thing between him and Lilah was going, but he intended to follow it to the end.

"It's how she makes her living," Lowell said. "People buy herbs and things from her. A lot of folks go to her rather than a doctor, because she's so good at telling them what's wrong."

He wanted to grin. Instead he collected his vest and shotgun from the boat and said, "Well, let's go round up Thaniel Vargas. Even if we get the boats back and Jerry Watkins doesn't press charges against him, I want to scare about ten years off the bastard's life."

Thaniel Vargas was nowhere to be found. He had gone to ground somewhere, Jackson figured, waiting for the trouble to blow over. Because things were still kind of busy in the county, with the continuing power outage in Pine Flats and cleaning up from the storm, Jackson couldn't devote a lot of time or manpower to finding him. More than anything, he wanted to get back upriver to Lilah's house, but it just wasn't possible that day. Besides the problems from the storm, the blue moon craziness was still in full force. At traffic court that day, a woman totally lost it and tried to get out of paying a speeding ticket by holding the judge hostage. Why anyone in her right mind would want to trade a simple fine of fifty bucks for a felony charge was beyond Jackson.

Getting the court-house settled down took several hours out of his day, hours when he needed to be somewhere else. He got home at midnight that night, tired and disgruntled and aching with frustration. He wanted Lilah. He needed Lilah, needed the simple serenity of her, the quietness of her home that was such a contrast to his hectic days. They had known each other for such a short period of time, he wasn't certain that they had anything more than a one-night stand, brought about as much by cir-cumstance as by mutual attraction. But he had been her first lover, her only lover; Lilah wasn't the type of woman to have a one-night stand. For her, making love meant something.

It had meant something to him, too, something more than any of his other love affairs. Lilah was special: honest, witty, with the bite of irony he enjoyed, and gutsy. She was also sexy as hell, with her well-toned, femininely muscled body and her cloud of curly hair that just begged to have his hands in it. Though he was her first lover, she hadn't shrunk from anything he wanted to do. She had met him halfway in everything, enjoying what he did to her as much as he enjoyed doing it, and returning the favor. He couldn't imagine such uncomplicated joy ever getting boring. Until now, his house had suited him perfectly. It was an older house, with high ceilings and cranky plumbing, but he'd had the main bathroom completely redone, and the kitchen, not that he was much on cooking. It had just seemed like a smart thing to do.

His bed was big enough for him, not like Lilah's too-short, too-narrow bed. They'd had to sleep double-decker, when they slept - not a big sacrifice. He'd liked having her sprawled on top of him, when he wasn't on top of her. But now his house felt... empty. And noisy. He hadn't realized until now how much noise a refrigerator made, or a water heater. The central air system blotted out the night's sounds of crickets and the occasional chirp of a bird. He wanted Lilah. He took a cold shower instead, and crawled into his big, cold, empty bed, where he lay awake, muscles aching, eyes burning with fatigue, and thought of that first searing, electric moment when he pushed into Lilah's body. That got him so hard he groaned, and he tried not to think about sex at all. But then her breasts came to mind, and he remembered the way her nipples had peaked in his mouth when he sucked her, and how she had moaned and squirmed when he went down on her. Sweat sheened his body, despite the air conditioning. Swearing, he got out of bed and took another cold shower. He finally got to sleep about two o'clock, only to dream erotic dreams and wake up needing, wanting Lilah even more than before.

At eight twenty-one in the morning, Thaniel Vargas's body was found floating in the river. He was easily identified because his wallet was still stuffed in his jeans pocket, along with a can of chewing tobacco. If it hadn't been for his wallet, his own mother would have been hard-pressed to identify him, because he'd been shot in the face with a shotgun.

"I don't think he's been dead long," the coroner said, standing beside Jackson as the body was wrapped and loaded in a meat wagon. "The turtles and fish hadn't been at him much. As fast as the river's flowing, the current would have kept him on the surface, plus that dead branch his arm was tangled in gave him added buoyancy."

"How long?"

"It's just a guess, Jackson. I'd say... twelve hours or so. Hard to tell, when they've been in the water. But he was last seen night before last, so it couldn't have been much longer than half a day."

Jackson stared at the river, a sick feeling shredding his guts into confetti as he thought this through. He plainly remembered Lilah staring at Thaniel and saying, "You're dead," in that flat, unemotional tone that had been even more chilling than if she had screamed it at him. And now Thaniel was dead, from a shotgun blast. Lilah had a shot-gun. Had Thaniel gone back to her house yesterday, or even last night?

Had she made good on her threat, if it had indeed been one? That was the best-case scenario, that Lilah had been forced to defend herself, or even that she had shot Thaniel at first sight. He didn't like it, but he could understand if a woman alone shot first and asked questions later when a thug who had been shooting at her the day before came back for more target practice. He doubted the district attorney would even indict under those circumstances. Worst-case scenario, however, was the possibility that Lilah was lying in a pool of blood at her house, wounded or even dead. The thought galvanized him, sending pure panic racing through his bloodstream.

"Hal, I need that boat!" he roared at the captain of the Rescue Squad, referring to the boat they had used to retrieve Thaniel's body from the river. He was already striding toward the boat as he yelled. Hal looked up, his homely face showing only mild surprise.

"Okay, Sheriff," he said. "Anything I can help you with?"

"I'm going up to Lilah Jones's place. If Thaniel went back to shoot up the place again, she might be hurt." Or dead. But he didn't let himself dwell on that. He couldn't, and still function. "If she's hurt, she'll need medical attention, and transport. I'll call for another boat and follow you."

Hal unclipped the radio from his belt and rapped out instructions. The Rescue Squad boats were built for stability, not speed, which was a good thing in the roiling river, with all the broken limbs and debris floating downstream, but Jackson still cursed the lack of speed. He needed to get to Lilah. Desperation gnawed at him, tearing at him with the knowledge that, if she had been shot, if she still lived, every second help was delayed could mean she wouldn't survive. He knew gunshot wounds; damn few of them were immediately fatal. A head or heart shot were about the only ones that could kill on contact, and that wasn't guaranteed. He couldn't think of her lying bleeding and helpless, her life slowly ebbing away. He couldn't. And yet he couldn't stop, because his experience gave him graphic knowledge. Images rolled through his mind, an endless tape that made him sicker and sicker.

"Please. God, please." He heard himself praying aloud, saying the words into the wind. Getting to Lilah's house took forever. He had started out much farther down the river than from the ramp on Old Boggy Road.

He had to dodge debris, and a couple of times the boat shuddered over submerged limbs. The engine stalled the last time, but it restarted on the first try If it hadn't, he probably would have jumped into the river and swam the rest of the way. At last the house came into view, nestled under the trees. Heart pounding, he searched for any sign of life, but the morning was still and quiet. Surely Lilah would have come out on the porch when she heard the outboard motor, if she was there. But where else could she be? She had no means of transportation.

"Lilah!" he yelled. "Lilah!" She had to be there, but he found himself hoping she wasn't, hoping she had gone for a walk in the woods, or borrowed a boat from some of the multitude who evidently found their way to her house for folk remedies. He hoped - God, he hoped almost anything at all had taken her away from the house, rather than think she didn't come out on the porch because she was lying somewhere dead or dying. He nosed the boat up to the dock and tied it to the post.

"Lilah!" Boots thudding, he raced up the dock just as he had two days before, but the adrenaline burn he'd felt then was nothing compared to the inferno he felt now, as if he might burst out of his skin. He leaped onto the porch, bypassing the steps. The windows on this side of the house were intact, he noted. He wrenched open the screen door and turned the knob of the main door; it was unlocked, and swung inward. He stepped into the cool, dim house, his head thrown up as he sniffed the air. The house smelled as before: fra-grant and welcoming, the faint odor of biscuits lingering, probably from last night's supper. The windows were up and pristine white curtains fluttered in the slight morning breeze. No odor of death hung like a miasma, nor could he detect the flat, metallic smell of blood. She wasn't in the house. He went through it anyway, checking all four rooms. The house seemed undisturbed. He went outside, circling the house, looking for any signs of violence. Nothing.

Chickens clucked contentedly, pecking at bugs. Birds sang. Eleanor waddled out from under the porch, still fat with kittens. He stooped to pet her, his head swiveling as he checked every detail of his surroundings.

"Where is she, Eleanor?" he whispered. Eleanor purred, and rubbed her head against his hand. "Lilah!" he roared. Eleanor started, and retreated under the porch again.

"I'm coming." The voice was faint, and came from behind the house. He jerked around, staring into the trees. The woods were almost impenetrable; he could be right on her, and not be able to see her. "Where are you?" he called, striding rapidly to the back of the house.

"Almost there."

Two seconds later she emerged from the trees, carrying a basket - and the shotgun. "I heard the outboard," she said as he reached her, "but I was a couple of hundred yards away and - uumph."

The rest of her words were lost under the fierce assault of his mouth. He hauled her up against him, unable to hold her close enough. He wanted to meld her into his very flesh, and never let her go. She was okay. She was alive, unharmed, warm and vibrant in his arms. The wind blew her soft curls around his face. He drank in her smell, fresh and soft, womanly. She tasted the same, her mouth answering his. He heard the basket drop to the ground, and the shotgun, then her arms were around him and she was clinging tightly to him. Need roared through him like an inferno, born of his desperate fear and relief. He tore at her clothes, stripping down her jeans and panties and lifting her out of them.

"Jackson?" Her head lolled back, her breath coming in soft pants. "Let's go inside -"

"I can't wait," he muttered savagely, lifting her up and backing her against a tree. Her legs came up and locked around his hips as she automatically sought to balance herself. He wrenched his pants open, freed himself, and shoved into her. She was hot and damp and tight, her inner flesh enveloping and clasping.

She wasn't ready for him; he heard her gasp, but he couldn't stop. He pulled back and thrust again and he went all the way in this time. On the fifth thrust he began coming, his body heaving against her as he spurted for what seemed like forever, until his head swam and his vision blurred and darkened, and still the spasms took a long time to die down, small bursts of sensation rocking him. He sank heavily against her, pinning her to the tree. His legs trembled, and his lungs heaved.

"I love you," he heard himself muttering. "Oh, God, I was so scared."

Her hands were clasping his head, stroking, trying to soothe him. "Jackson? What's wrong? What happened?" He couldn't speak for a minute, still in shock from what he had said. The words had just boiled out, without thought. He hadn't said those words to any woman since his high school days, when he fell in love on a regular basis. But they were true, he realized, and that shocked him almost as much as saying them. He loved her.

He, Jackson Brody was in love. It had happened too fast for him to come to terms with it, to think about it as they gradually became enmeshed in each other's lives. Logic said he couldn't possibly love her after so short a time; emotion said to hell with logic, he loved her.

"Jackson?"

He tried to pull away from that emotional brink, to function as a sheriff instead of a man. He had come here because a man had been murdered, and somewhere along the line he had forgotten that and focused, instead, on the woman at the center of the situation. But he was still inside her, still dazed from the force of his orgasm, and all he could do was sink more heavily against her, pressing her into the tree trunk. Birds sang around him, insects buzzed, the river murmured. Bright morning sunlight worked its way through the thick canopy of leaves, dappling their skin.

"I'm sorry," he managed to say. "Did I hurt you?" He knew he had entered her far too roughly, and she hadn't been aroused and ready.

"Some." She sounded remarkably peaceful. "At first. Then I enjoyed it."

He snorted. "You couldn't have enjoyed it very much. I think I lasted about five seconds." The sheriff still hadn't made an appearance; the man held full sway.

"I enjoyed your pleasure." She kissed his neck. "It was actually rather... thrilling."

"I was scared to death," he admitted baldly.

"Scared? About what?"

Finally, belatedly, the sheriff lifted his head.

Jackson discovered he couldn't question her, or even talk about Thaniel, while in his present position. Gently he withdrew from her and eased his weight back, holding her steady while her legs slipped from around his hips and she was once more standing on her own two feet.

"We'd better hurry," he said, picking up her clothes and handing them to her, then pulling up his own pants and getting everything tucked back in place. "The Rescue Squad could be here any minute."

"Rescue Squad?" she echoed, brows lifting in surprise.

He waited until she was dressed. "I was afraid you'd been hurt."

"Why would I be hurt?"

She still looked totally bewildered. As a man, he hated having to question her. As a sheriff, he knew he had to do it or resign today.

"Thaniel Vargas's body was found this morning."

A stillness came over her, and she looked at him but somehow she wasn't seeing him, her gaze turned inward.

"I knew he'd die," she finally said.

"He didn't die,' Jackson corrected. "He was murdered. Shot in the face with a shotgun."

She came back from wherever she had gone, and her green eyes focused sharply on him. "You think I did it," she said.

"I was afraid he'd come back and y'all started shooting at each other again. I was afraid I'd find you dead, or dying." His voice was remarkably calm, considering how shaken he felt.

She shook her head. "I haven't seen Thaniel since day before yesterday but I don't have any way to prove it."

"Lilah." He gripped her shoulders, shaking her a little to get her attention. "You seem to think I'm going to take you in for murder. Baby, even if you did kill him, after what happened no D.A. would prosecute, at least not the D.A. here. But I don't think you could murder anyone, not even Thaniel, and he was one worthless jackass. If you say you didn't kill him, then I believe you."

The man was speaking again. The sheriff struggled to regain his detachment, though he thought it was a losing cause. He would never be detached when it came to Lilah. She stared at him, a sense of wonderment coming to her eyes. In a flash of intuition he knew then she hadn't believed him when he blurted out that he loved her. Why should she? Men said "I love you" all the time in the heat of passion. And they had known each other less than two days. He was acutely aware that she hadn't said anything about love in return, but that would wait.

"But one thing keeps eating at me. Day before yesterday, you looked at him and said, 'You're dead,' and damn near scared him to death right then." He didn't ask anything, didn't try to form her answer in any way. He wanted her response to come from her own thoughts.

To his surprise, she went pale. She looked away, staring at the river. "I just knew," she finally said, her voice stifled.

"Knew?"

"Jackson, I -" She half-turned away from him, then turned back. She lifted her hands in a helpless gesture. "I don't know how to explain it."

"In English. That's my only requirement."

"I just know things. I get flashes."

"Flashes?"

Again the helpless gesture. "It isn't a vision, not exactly. I don't really see anything, I just know. Like intuition, only more."

"So you had one of these flashes about Thaniel?" She nodded.

"I looked at him when I came out on the porch and all of a sudden I knew he was going to die. I didn't know he was going to get killed. Just... that he wasn't going to be here anymore."

He rubbed the back of his neck. In the distance he could hear the droning of an outboard motor: the Rescue Squad was getting close.

"I've never been wrong," she said, almost apologetically.

"No one else knows what you said." His voice was as somber as he felt. "Just me." She bent her head, and he saw her worrying her lower lip.

She saw his dilemma. Then she raised her head and squared her shoulders. "You have to do your job. You can't keep this to yourself, and be a good sheriff." If he hadn't already known he loved her, that moment would have done it for him. And suddenly he knew something else. "Are these 'flashes' the reason Thaniel thought you're a witch?"

She gave him a rueful little smile. "I wasn't very good at hiding things when I was young. I blabbed."

"Scared him, huh? And all these people who come to you for treatment - you just look at them and have flashes about what's wrong with them?"

"Of course not," she said, startled. Then she blushed. "That's something else." The blush both intrigued and alarmed him.

"What kind of something else?"

"You'll think I'm a freak," she said in dismay.

"But a sexy freak. Tell me." A little bit of the sheriff was in his tone, a quiet authority.

"I see auras. You know, the colors that everyone has around them. I know what the different colors mean, and if someone's sick I can see where and know what to do, whether or not I can help them or they need to see a doctor."

Auras. Jackson wanted to sit down. He'd heard all that New Age mumbo-jumbo, but that's just what it was, as far as he was concerned. He'd never seen a nimbus of color around anyone, never seen proof such a thing existed.

"I haven't told anyone about the auras," she said, her voice shaking. "They just think I'm a... a medicine woman, like my mother. She saw them, too. I remember her telling me, when I was little, what the different colors meant. That's how I learned my colors."

She gave a quick look at the river, where the boat had come into view. Tears welled in her eyes. "You have the most beautiful aura," she whispered. "So clean and rich and healthy. I knew as soon as I saw you that -" She broke off, and he didn't pursue it. The Rescue Squad boat had reached her dock, and the two men in it were getting out. One was Hal, who had come along himself to take charge if the Squad was needed, and the other was a tall, thin man Jackson recognized as a medic, though he didn't know his name. Lilah did, though. She left Jackson's side and walked out of the trees into the open, her hand lifted in a wave. Both men waved back.

"Glad to see you're okay," Hal called as they started up the dock.

"Just fine, thanks. Thaniel hadn't been here, though."

"Yeah, we know." Hal looked past Lilah to Jackson.

"You left about a minute too soon, Sheriff. I still can't believe it."

"Believe what?"

"Jerry Watkins drove up just as you went out of sight. We were just getting the boat in the water. I tell you, Jerry looked like hell, like he'd been on a week-long bender. He looked at the body bag in the meat wagon and just broke down, crying like a baby. He's the one killed Thaniel, Sheriff. He jumped Thaniel about his boat, and you know how Thaniel was, too stupid to know when to back down. He told Jerry he sunk the son of a bitch. Beg pardon, Lilah. Jerry set a store by that boat. The way he tells it, he lost all control, grabbed the shotgun from his truck, and let Thaniel have it."

After years in law enforcement, little could surprise Jackson. He wasn't surprised now, because dumber things had happened. And though the full moon was waning, weird things would continue to happen for another couple of days.

He did feel as if he'd dropped the ball, however. He should have thought of Jerry. Everyone who knew Jerry knew how he loved that boat. Instead he'd been so focused on Lilah that he hadn't been able to see anything else.

"He sat down on the ground and put his hands on his head for your deputies to arrest him. Guess he saw that on television," Hal finished. Well, that was that.

Thaniel's murder was solved before it had time to become a real mystery. But one little detail struck him as strange. Jackson looked at the medic.

"If you knew Lilah was okay, that Thaniel hadn't been killed in a fight here, why did you come along?"

"He came to see me," Lilah said. She shook her head. "I can't help you, Cory. You've got gallstones. You're going to have to see a doctor."

"Ah, hell, Lilah, I haven't even told you my symptoms!" "You don't have to tell me, I can see how you look. It hurts like blue blazes every time you eat, doesn't it? Were you afraid you were having heart problems, maybe?" Cory made a face.

"How'd you know?"

"Just a hunch. Go see that doctor. There's a good gastro specialist in Montgomery. I'll give you his name."

"Okay," he said glumly. "I was hoping it was an ulcer and you could give me something for it."

"Nope. Surgery."

"Damn."

"Well, that's taken care of," Hal said. "We'd better get back, we still got some more work to do in Pine Flats. Will you be along soon, Jackson?"

"In a little while," Jackson said. From the way Hal winked, he figured the older man had cottoned on to the fact that there was something between him and Lilah. Frankly, Jackson didn't care if the whole county knew. He and Lilah watched the two men get back into the boat and head back downriver. Jackson squinted his eyes in the bright sun.

"Auras, huh?" What the hell. If he believed she could have flashes of precognition, why not auras? If you loved someone, he thought, you accepted a lot of stuff that you never would have considered before. Privately he'd check on Cory's diagnosis from a doctor, just to make sure, but for some reason he figured Lilah had been right. Auras were as good a reason as anything.

She reached for his hand. "I told you that you have a beautiful aura. I probably would have loved you just because of what I saw in it. But I had another flash when I saw you the first time."

He closed his hand warmly around hers. "What did that one tell you?" She gave him a somber look. "That you were going to be the love of my life." He felt a little light-headed.

Maybe it was just the culmination of a very stressful morning, but he remembered that feeling of dizziness the first time he'd seen her. "Didn't you say those flashes had never been wrong?"

"That's right." She rose on tiptoe and kissed him. "They're one-hundred-percent accurate."

He needed to get back to work. He needed to do a lot of things. But he didn't need to do them as much as he needed to hold her, so he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, breathing in the essence of the love of his life, so happy he thought he might burst.

"We're going to do this up right," he said aloud. "The whole enchilada. Marriage. Kids."

"The whole enchilada," she agreed, and hand in hand they walked into the house.