illa was always aware, on the dimmest edge of her consciousness, that Diaz constantly watched her. She also knew that he was a man who never gave up, who never lost sight of his goal. Exactly what his goal was wasn’t always clear to her, but she had no doubt he was perfectly clear in his own mind what he wanted.

He wanted her. She knew it, and yet she couldn’t imagine how they could ever be together again. The rift between them, to her, was final and absolute. He’d betrayed her in the most wounding way possible, and forgiveness evidently wasn’t her strong suit. She had found that grudges weren’t heavy at all; she could carry them for a very long time.

Diaz wasn’t taking care of her out of the goodness of his heart. He was taking care of her the way a wolf cared for its wounded mate.

She had sensed that claim the first time he made love to her, that bonding of like to like. He wouldn’t willingly relinquish it.

She knew she was in danger from him; she knew it. Not physically. Physically, Diaz wouldn’t harm her. But emotionally he could devastate her, and she didn’t think she could bear any more devastation right now. She knew she should start making a push to leave this little house that had seen the total breakdown of her soul and then the first tentative steps toward healing. Finders needed her. She needed to be doing something, anything, rather than vegetating. She needed to get away from Diaz. But insisting on anything took more mental energy than she could spare; she was so horribly tired of thinking, of feeling. She had her hands full just existing.

One day while Diaz was outside she actually tried to call Finders, just to check in with Joann, but she had evidently left her cell phone on when they came here and the battery was dead. Next she tried the house phone, and discovered that long distance calls were blocked on it. She sat staring at the phone, trying to remember her code for charging a call to her home phone, but the only number that came to mind was her social security number and she knew it wasn’t that.

Diaz came in and noticed her sitting beside the phone. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to call the office.”

“Why?” he asked simply.

She stared at him, because the answer seemed obvious to her. “Because it’s been over three weeks and I need to check in.”

“They’re doing okay without you.”

“How do you know?” she asked with a flash of irritation.

“I called.”

“When? Why didn’t you let me talk to Joann?”

“I’ve called a couple of times, once to let them know where we are and another time to say we’d be here a while yet.”

She noticed he had totally ignored her question about talking to Joann. “It’s time to go home.”

He rubbed his neck. “Not yet.”

“Yes, it is!” To her surprise, she began crying. She said, “Damn it,” and went to her bedroom. She hadn’t cried in a couple of days, not even about Justin, so why was she crying now over something so inconsequential? This just proved Diaz right, and she didn’t want him to be right. She wanted to have something to do, to get back into a routine where she would have to think about something besides her own misery.

Did she really want to fly home if a flight attendant asking her if she wanted peanuts might easily reduce her to a sobbing heap?

After an hour of wiping her eyes and blowing her nose, she decided to take a walk before dark. She put on two pairs of socks and her coat; when she emerged from the short hallway, Diaz looked up and said, “Where’re you going?”

“For a walk,” she replied. Wasn’t it obvious? Then she opened the back door and realized why he’d asked. A slow, steady, gray rain was falling. She checked the clock on the wall and discovered the time wasn’t as late as she’d thought; it was the low cloud cover that made the day so dark. “Or not,” she said with a sigh.

He turned on the gas-log fireplace in the living room, and the coziness of it drew her. She didn’t want to sit in there with him, but the alternative was to return to her bedroom and stare at the four walls. The television was on satellite, which meant there was a multitude of channels available. To her surprise, Diaz was watching a decorating show on the Home and Garden Television channel with all the puzzlement of someone from another planet, as if he couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to glue tasseled fringe to a lamp shade.

“Are you thinking of taking up interior decorating as an alternate career?” she asked, surprising both of them by initiating the conversation.

“Only if someone holds a gun to my head.”

Milla surprised herself again by smiling. It was just a tiny smile, and it vanished immediately when she realized with astonishment what she’d done.

A smile, when she’d thought she would never smile or laugh again. He hadn’t noticed, but she had. She curled in a chair and watched the rest of the program with him, but the rain made her sleepy and she dozed on and off for the rest of the afternoon.

They ate an early supper; then Milla showered while Diaz took a last turn around the property. There was no threat for him to guard against, but watchfulness was ingrained in his nature, and every night he walked around checking to make certain the Jeep was locked up and no strangers were lurking around. They were the only strangers on the Outer Banks at this time of year, but that made no difference to him.

Milla had just pulled on her nightgown when the bathroom door opened without warning and Diaz said, “Put your coat and shoes on and come outside.”

Without question, spurred by the urgency in his tone, Milla hurried to put on her coat over her nightgown and slip her bare feet into her shoes. She stepped out onto the back porch with him and said, “Oh!” in hushed delight.

The rain had changed over to snow flurries. There was no chance of having an accumulation; the temperature, cold as it was, was still above freezing and the ground was still too warm and too wet. But the snow looked magical, swirling down out of a black sky.

Diaz looked down at her sockless feet, shook his head, then simply swung her up in his arms and went down the steps with her. Milla automatically clutched his shoulders for support. “Where are we going?”

“To the beach.”

He carried her over the low dunes to the beach, right to the ocean’s edge, and stood there in the darkness, the silence broken only by the rhythmic rush of the waves. Tiny snowflakes swirled around them and disappeared as soon as they touched down. She had grown up accustomed to seeing snow every winter, but since moving to El Paso snow was generally something she saw only if she was traveling. She certainly hadn’t expected to see it here, on a southern beach. She started shivering almost immediately, but she didn’t want to go inside and miss a minute of this.

The snow shower was of short duration, and after it ended she spent several minutes staring up at the black sky waiting for more, without success. “I guess that’s it,” she said, and sighed.

Diaz’s arms tightened around her, and he carried her back into the house.

Milla went to bed soon afterward and went right to sleep. Since coming here she had slept twice as much as she normally did, as if her body was trying to make up for years and years of erratic hours and unending stress, and also to give her battered mind a rest. Her dreams were slowly becoming more normal, so she didn’t wake up crying every night. She wasn’t dreaming at all that night when she started abruptly awake to find a dark shadow looming over her, and a naked, heavy weight pressing down on her.

“Shh,” Diaz said as he pulled her nightgown up to her waist and spread her legs. “Don’t think.”

“What—” she began, then inhaled sharply as he rubbed the head of his penis around her opening to moisten it, and pushed inside. Her nails dug into his biceps. She was moist, yes, but not ready; she felt every inch of him as he stretched her soft tissues and settled deep.

Don’t think? How could she not think? But her mind was so tired, so bruised from the long weeks of grieving, and with intense relief she felt herself sinking into purely physical sensation. She should tell him no, but she didn’t. When he kissed her, she tilted her head and kissed him in return. She needed this escape from herself, and he had known it.

She moved her hands to his shoulders and clutched them as he settled into a slow rhythm. Because she wasn’t already aroused, her body only gradually responded to his hands on her breasts, his kisses, the back and forth motion inside her. She felt tension grow in him as he fought the rise of his own climax; sweat gleamed on his hard shoulders and along his back, making her palms slippery, but he didn’t falter in the rhythm. There was just enough hallway light coming through her open bedroom door for her to see the glitter in his eyes as he watched her, waiting for and reading each tiny response in the quickening of her breath and heartbeat, the way her legs climbed to hug his hips. Her body began lifting to his to meet each slow thrust, and her arms slid around his neck.

She didn’t want this to end. She knew it had to, knew he couldn’t last forever, but as long as he was inside her the world was held at bay. What he was giving her, besides pleasure, was surcease. He had watched her for weeks, waiting, and tonight he had acted. She’d known he would, eventually. The only wonder was that he’d waited so long.

She felt both relaxed and protected with him, at least from outside forces. Nothing, it seemed, could protect her from him, and tonight she wasn’t even certain she wanted to be. Claimed, and mated. She was his, but was he hers? And if he was, what in hell did they do about it?

“I don’t even know what you want,” she said fretfully, beginning to lose herself in rising sensation.

“This,” he muttered in a dark, rough tone. “You. Everything.”

Her head tilted back, her spine arched, and she began climaxing. He cradled her close and kept up his slow rhythm until her unconscious cries had faded, her fingers had stopped digging into his back, and her legs loosened around his hips. Milla relaxed against the pillows, her eyes closing, her muscles limp and her body replete.

Diaz gently kissed her forehead, then withdrew and tucked the covers around her again, and left as quietly as he’d entered.

Milla lay there, drowsing and trying to decide what was different, for about a minute. She needed to get up and clean herself as she usually did after they made love, but she was so sleepy now and, really, she didn’t feel wet—

She came fully awake, aware of what had happened. Or rather, what hadn’t happened. He hadn’t come. He’d seen to her pleasure, then left without taking his own.

She was out of bed and moving before the thought finished. As soon as she entered the short hallway, she heard the shower running in the bathroom. She pushed open the door and saw him through the clear shower door. He stood with his head bowed and one arm braced against the shower wall in front of him, water beating down on him as he slowly worked his other fist up and down.

No. As she pulled her nightgown over her head and dropped it to the floor, everything in her rebelled at leaving him to this lonely release after he’d so unselfishly seen to hers. She jerked the shower door open and stepped in. “I believe that’s mine,” she said, reaching out to still his fist, then replacing it with her own.

Slowly he raised his head, and she was taken aback by the fierceness in his dark gaze. “Don’t do this unless you mean it,” he rasped.

She didn’t hesitate at the ultimatum. She shook her hair back out of her face as the warm water rained down on her head. His shaft was iron hard in her hand, and in her hand wasn’t where she wanted it. She didn’t let herself think; she just reached up and gripped the shower pipe and used it to lever herself up so she could wrap her legs around his hips. She wasn’t high enough, so she braced one arm on his shoulders and pushed herself higher, trying to maneuver so she could ease down on his thrusting erection.

With a growl he wrapped one arm around her hips and pulled her against him, dipping his head down to close his mouth over her left nipple. His penis pushed up between her legs; gasping, she adjusted her position just a little, then let herself begin to slide down, stretching, enveloping him in her wet heat. He released her nipple as she slowly dropped down, a rough sound catching in his throat.

Just as he’d done to her, she slowly moved up and down, caressing him with her body, drawing out his response. He ground his teeth together, fighting not to come when she was just as determined he would. Frustrated, she wondered why he was holding back—until she heard herself moan, and realized the friction was working on her, too.

The battle there in the shower was in close-combat conditions. With the clinging grip of her body she tried to wring a climax from him, locking her legs around him and pumping hard. He slowed her down with that one arm around her hips, grinding her against him and sending her response rocketing.

The warm water began to go, but the heat generated by their bodies was so intense she scarcely noticed. Diaz turned her so they were out of the spray, breaking her grip on the shower pipe and bracing her against the tile wall. Milla gripped his head with both hands, kissing him with all the fierceness she could muster; then she lost the battle and her head arched back as she began to climax. With an inhuman sound, as if he’d been pushed beyond his limits, he jerked convulsively and began pumping into her with short, hard thrusts that took him to the hilt and made her cry out.

Afterward he slumped against the wall, pinning her to the tile. She was beyond limp, beyond drowsy. He kissed her shoulder, then let his legs bend so that they slid down the wall to sprawl on the shower floor.

Again, silence fell. She didn’t know how to explain what she’d just done, and in any case, she was acutely aware of his stated condition: Don’t do this unless you mean it. Don’t do it unless she accepted him as her lover, though arguably what had just passed between them made that a moot point. Don’t do it unless she tore down the wall she’d erected between them. Don’t do it unless she was his and he was hers, with all the ramifications of what that meant. She’d done it, and God help her, she meant it.

Somewhere along the way she’d been stupid enough to fall in love with him. If she hadn’t loved him, his betrayal wouldn’t have hurt so much. Enraged her, yes, but not hurt. She couldn’t imagine how, in her lifetime, she’d managed to love two such different men as David and Diaz. One was sunshine, the other was darkness. Perhaps, though, it made sense: the woman she’d been before couldn’t have loved Diaz, but she was no longer that woman. She’d wanted to be, but she wasn’t. The terrible things that had happened had changed her, and there was no going back. She would always love dressing up and fussing with her hair, love decorating her surroundings, the way people did in that program that had so bewildered him, but she was a stronger, harder, fiercer woman than she’d been when Justin was snatched from her arms.

The big question now was: Where did they go from here? She was just as lost now as she’d been that morning. The difference was, now she wasn’t alone.