he next afternoon Gabe pried open the lid of the KFC bucket and extended it toward Rachel. They were sitting in their favorite place to take a lunch break, by the concrete turtle on the playground, with the big white screen looming above them offering shade from the midday sun.

Nine days had passed since that rainy afternoon they'd made love. The drive-in was opening a week from tonight, but instead of concentrating on that, all he'd been able to think about was having that sweet body underneath him again. Except she wasn't cooperating. First there'd been her hang-up about her period, something he was certain he could have overcome. But he hadn't pressed because he knew the money problem loomed in her mind, and he wanted her to realize how ridiculous that was.

His patience, however, had run out. There were only so many days he could spend watching those old cotton housedresses shape themselves around her body whenever a breeze swept through the lot, so he was making his move.

"You'll be glad to know I figured out the answer to our little dilemma."

"Which dilemma is that?" She pulled out a drumstick. He'd noticed she was partial to drumsticks. He, on the other hand, was partial to breasts, and, as he took one from the bucket, he enjoyed what he could see of hers peeking from the open buttons of today's ugly housedress, a red calico number he could swear he remembered Annie wearing when he'd been small enough to sit in her lap.

Rachel had pulled up the skirt and stretched her bare legs out in front of her. They were suntanned and lightly freckled. One knee sported an old scab, another a Band-Aid he'd affixed that morning after she'd ignored a scrape. Her calves seemed to get the worst of it. A bruise here, a scratch there. She worked too damned hard, but she wouldn't stick to the easier jobs he tried to give her, no matter how much he growled.

Her calves looked slim and feminine in contrast to the heavy white sweat socks collapsed around her ankles and those clunky black shoes. She kept them polished, he'd noticed, and he could only imagine the work it took to remove the paint and grime the shoes accumulated every day. At first he hadn't understood why she bothered, and then he realized that someone with only one pair of shoes had to take care of them.

He didn't like to think about Rachel slaving over those ugly shoes every night to keep them clean. He'd buy her a dozen pairs if he could, but she'd throw them right back in his face.

He cleared his throat. "The dilemma about your hourly salary and what you can do or not do during those hours."

"You're giving me a raise!"

"Hell no, I'm not giving you a raise."

He did his best not to smile at her look of disappointment. Although it wasn't easy, he was trying hard to keep her short of ready cash while he also made certain she had everything she really needed. The way she squeezed a dollar, he knew that if he gave her too much money, she'd save it up. And once she had enough, she'd leave town.

Sooner or later, she'd have to accept the fact that G. Dwayne hadn't left his five million dollars hidden away in Salvation, and then she'd no longer have a reason to stay. Gabe needed to make certain she couldn't afford to go. Not yet. Although he knew this town wasn't a good place for her, he also couldn't have her taking off until he was certain she had some way to stabilize her future. Her hold on survival was so very precarious, and somehow he had to make sure that she wouldn't ever be destitute again.

"I deserve, a raise, and you know it."

Ignoring her, he said, "I don't know why I didn't think of this right away." He stretched out on his side in the grass, propped himself on one elbow, and took a bite of chicken he didn't want. "I've decided to put you on straight salary. That means that whether we fling or not, your paycheck won't be affected."

Her eyes lit up with dollar signs. "How much straight salary?"

He told her and waited for that little ripe strawberry mouth to bite his head off. Which it did.

"You are the stingiest, the most penny-pinching, tight-fisted—"

"Look who's talking."

"I'm not rich like you. I have to pinch pennies."

"With a straight salary, you'll come out ahead. I'll still pay you overtime, but you won't be penalized if you have to take an hour off to run an errand. Or something." He paused and took another bite of chicken. "You should get down on your knees and thank me for my generosity."

"I should take a crowbar to your knees."

"Excuse me? I didn't quite catch that."

"Never mind."

He'd wanted to pull her into his arms right there. But he couldn't do it, not after the way it had been the first time between them. For all her talk about being a wanton woman, she deserved a bed this time, and not G. Dwayne's bed, either.

She deserved a date, too, although that didn't seem to have occurred to her. He wanted to take her out for a meal at a four-star restaurant just so he could watch her eat.

He loved doing that. Every day he came up with an excuse to feed her. He'd bring Egg McMuffins with him when he arrived in the morning and tell her he couldn't stand eating breakfast alone. Around noon, he'd announce that he was so hungry he couldn't concentrate until he had a bucket of KFC in front of him. In the middle of the afternoon, he'd haul out some fruit and cheese from the snack-bar refrigerator and make her take another break. If this kept up much longer, he wouldn't be able to snap his jeans, but she was looking healthier by the day.

Her cheeks had filled out just enough so that her green eyes no longer seemed to be falling out of her face, and the bruises beneath her bottom lashes had disappeared. Her skin had taken on a healthy glow, and a few more freckles had popped out on her cheekbones. Her body was filling out a little, too. She'd never be plump, but she no longer looked quite so emaciated.

A shadow fell over him as he remembered how Cherry used to fret over her weight. He'd told her he'd still love her if she weighed three hundred pounds, but she'd counted calories anyway. He would have loved her fat or thin. He would have loved her crippled, old, shriveled. There was nothing that could have happened to her body that would have made him stop loving her. Not even death.

He tossed his half-eaten piece of chicken into the sack, leaned back into the grass, and threw his arm over his eyes as if he wanted to take a nap.

He felt her hand settle over his chest, and her voice was no longer angry. "Tell me about them, Gabe. Cherry and Jamie."

His skin prickled. It had happened again. She'd said their names. Even Ethan didn't do that anymore. His brother wanted to protect him, but Gabe was starting to feel as if they didn't exist in anyone's memory but his own.

The temptation to talk was almost overwhelming, but he held on to the few remnants of sanity he had left. He was crazy, but not crazy enough to have a cozy little chat about his dead wife's virtues with a woman he planned to make love to as soon as possible. Besides, he could just imagine what fodder Rachel and her sharp tongue would find in his memories.

The muscles in his shoulders flexed. He was lying to himself. Rachel would rip him apart for many things, but not his memories. Never that. Still, he resisted.

Her hand rested over his heart, and her soft breath fanned his cheek as she spoke with a tenderness he'd never heard. "Everybody else is too kind to point this out to you, Bonner, but you're in imminent danger of turning into one of those self-focused, self-pitying people nobody can stand." She gave him a gentle rub. "Not that you don't have plenty of reason for self-pity, and if you didn't still have so much of your life left, it might even be all right."

His blood churned, and a terrible anger rushed through him. She must have felt the constriction of his muscles because she laid her head on his chest to quiet him. A strand of her hair fell over his lips. He smelled her shampoo, and it reminded him both of sunshine and clean rain.

"Tell me how you met Cherry."

Her name again. His anger evaporated, and he felt an urgent need to talk about her, to make her real again. Still, it took him a while to manage the words. "A Sunday-school picnic."

He grunted as Rachel's sharp elbow dug into his stomach. Automatically lifting his arm, he opened his eyes.

She'd propped herself comfortably on his chest as if he were a lounge chair, and instead of giving him one of those pity-filled looks he'd grown accustomed to, she was smiling. "You were kids! Teenagers?"

"Not even. We were eleven, and she'd just moved to Salvation." He shifted into a half-sitting position, rearranging her elbow at the same time so it wasn't aimed directly at his diaphragm. "I was running around, not watching where I was going, and I spilled a glass of purple Kool-Aid on her."

"I'll bet she wasn't happy about that."

"She did the damnedest thing. She looked up at me and smiled and said, 'I know you're sorry.' Just like that. 'I know you're sorry.' "

Rachel laughed. "She sounds like a pushover."

He found himself laughing back. "She was. She always thought the best of people, and I can't tell you how many times that got her into trouble."

He lay back in the grassy shade of the giant movie screen, but this time he let the happy memories in. One after another, they came back to him.

A bee droned nearby. Crickets sawed away. Rachel's sun-scented hair blew across his lips.

His eyes grew heavy. He slept.

The next evening Rachel and Edward helped Kristy unpack. Kristy's new one-bedroom condo was small and charming, with a tiny patio and a compact kitchen complete with a skylight. The walls sparkled with fresh white paint and everything smelled new.

Her furniture had arrived from storage that day. It was mostly made up of the family pieces Kristy's parents hadn't wanted when they'd moved to Florida, and now Kristy was regarding all of it with displeasure.

Keeping her voice low, so no one but Rachel could hear, she said, "I know I don't have the money to replace this stuff, but it doesn't… I don't know. It doesn't fit me anymore." She gave a self-deprecating laugh. "Listen to me. Five days ago I got my hair cut and bought some new clothes. Now I think I'm a different person. I'm probably just feeling guilty about not moving to Florida like they want."

"This past week has been hard on you." Rachel placed the last of the glasses on a cupboard shelf that had already been lined with blue-and-lavender shelf paper. "And don't be depressed about the furniture. They're basic pieces. You can brighten them up with pillows, hang some museum posters. It'll look terrific when you're done."

"I suppose."

Edward strutted out of the bedroom. "We need a Phillips 'crewdriver to fix the bed. You got one?"

Kristy walked over to her small, neatly arranged tool kit, which sat open on the white counter that divided the galley kitchen from the condo's living area. "Try this."

With an air of self-importance that made Rachel smile, Edward took the screwdriver and swaggered off to join Ethan in the bedroom. Ethan Bonner might be at the top of Kristy's grudge list right now, but his generosity toward Edward made it hard for Rachel to hold on to her dislike. This was the first time her son had been given a chance to do real work with an adult male, and he was reveling in it.

Kristy glared toward the bedroom and hissed under her breath, "Ethan was awful Thursday night at the Mountaineer, but he's been acting as if nothing happened."

"I suspect he's having as hard a time forgetting about it as you are."

"Ha."

Rachel smiled and hugged her disgruntled friend. Tonight Kristy wore a bright-red T-shirt tucked into a pair of brand-new jeans. Her makeup had worn off, and she'd traded in her gold sandals for a pair of worn sneakers, so there was nothing overtly sexual about her dress, but Rachel had noticed the way Ethan's eyes had lingered on her anyway.

"I've wasted all these years mooning over an immature hypocrite, but I'm not doing it any longer!"

If Kristy got much louder, Ethan would hear her, but Rachel had interfered enough, and she didn't say anything.

"I saved most of my money while I was living at home, so I've got enough to go back to school. I only need a few classes to finish up my degree in early-childhood education, and I shouldn't have any trouble getting a job as a teacher's aide to help out with my mortgage payments until I'm finished."

"That's wonderful."

"I wish I'd done this years ago."

"Maybe you weren't ready until now."

"I guess." Kristy gave her a wistful smile. "It's nice, you know. For the first time in my life, I don't feel invisible."

Rachel suspected that came more from Kristy's mindset than her cosmetic changes, but she kept her opinion to herself.

Ethan appeared from the back bedroom with Edward at his side. "All done. Why don't Edward and I get started on that bookcase?"

"Thanks, but I'm not ready to put it up yet." Kristy spoke with a brusqueness that bordered on rudeness.

"All right. We can hook up the television."

"You've done enough, Ethan. Thanks anyway."

She couldn't have been more clearly dismissing him, but Ethan refused to take the hint and leave. "Come on, Edward. Let's see what we can do with that sticky bathroom door."

"The builder's sending someone to take care of it tomorrow. I don't really have anything else, Ethan. I'll see you at work tomorrow."

This was too direct to ignore, and as he returned the tools to the toolbox and made his way to the door, Rachel began to feel sorry for the gorgeous Pastor Bonner.

The windows were dark. Ever since the incident with the burning cross, Gabe had known that Rachel couldn't stay alone on Heartache Mountain. With Kristy gone, he was afraid for her.

He'd planned to get to the cottage earlier, but Ethan had stopped by, and Gabe had been forced to listen to a lengthy monologue about how rude Kristy had been to him, then ignore some none-too-subtle hints that Rachel was after his money: That was definitely true, but not in the way Ethan meant. One thing had led to another, and now it was nearly midnight.

He parked the truck by the garage and sat there in the dark for a moment, his thoughts in turmoil. Talking about Cherry this afternoon with Rachel, even so briefly, had begun to ease something inside him. If only Rachel lived in the cottage by herself, moving in might not be so complicated. But he would also have to deal with her son, and just the thought of being around that pale, silent little boy made the blackness descend all over again.

The child was an innocent, and he'd tried to argue himself out of his feelings dozens of times, but he couldn't. Whenever he looked at Edward, he thought of Jamie, and how the worthier child had died.

He drew in a sharp breath. The thought was ugly. Unforgivable.

He pushed it away as he took his suitcase from the truck and headed toward the house. Even though the night was cloudy and none of the outside lights were on, he had no trouble making his way. He'd spent hundreds of nights at this cottage when he was a child.

How many times had he and Cal slipped through a back window after Annie had gone to bed so they could explore? Ethan had been too young to go with them, and he still complained about having missed out on some of Gabe and Cal's best adventures.

An owl hooted in the distance as Gabe came around the side of the house. His shoes made a soft swishing sound in the grass, and his keys jingled in his hand.

"Stay where you are!"

Rachel's shadow loomed on the, front porch, tall and straight. His lips framed a wisecrack, but, as he made out his grandmother's old shotgun pointed at his chest, he decided being a smart-ass wasn't a good idea.

"I've got a gun, and I'm not afraid to use it!"

"It's me. Damn, Rachel. You sound like a bad detective movie."

She dropped the barrel of the shotgun. "Gabe? What are you doing out there? You scared the life out of me!"

"I came up here to defend you," he said dryly.

"It's the middle of the night."

"I planned to arrive earlier, but I ran into a little trouble with Ethan."

"Your brother is a moron."

"He's crazy about you, too." He stepped up on the porch and took the shotgun away from her with his free hand.

She reached inside the screen door to flick on the yellow porch light. His mouth went dry as he saw her standing there with bare feet, bare legs, and the same blue workshirt she'd been wearing the morning the house was vandalized. Her rumpled curls looked like ancient gold in the porch light.

"What's that?" she asked.

"As you can see, it's a suitcase. I'm moving in for a while." "Did Kristy put you up to this?"

"No. Kristy's worried, but this is my idea. As long as she was living here, I never believed the danger to you would go beyond threats, but with her gone, you're more vulnerable."

He walked into the living room where he set down his suitcase and checked the shotgun. It wasn't loaded, so he gave it back. At the same time, he thought about the.38 he'd locked up before he left the house. Keeping a loaded gun next to his bed had suddenly seemed obscene. "Put that away."

"You don't think I can take care of myself, do you? Well, I can, so just hop back in that redneck truck of yours and go away."

He couldn't quite hold back a smile. She did that to him. "Save it, Rach. You've never been so glad to see anybody in your life, and you know it."

She made a face. "Are you really moving in?"

"I have enough trouble sleeping as it is without worrying about what's going on up here."

"I don't need a baby-sitter, but I guess I wouldn't mind a little company."

That, he knew, was the closest he'd get to an acknowledgment that she was worried. She disappeared to put the shotgun away, and he carried his suitcase down the back hallway to his grandmother's old bedroom, which was now empty of Kristy's things. As he gazed around at the old rough-hewn bed and the rocker in the corner, he remembered how scared he'd get at night when he was little. He used to sneak in here and crawl in with Annie. He could have climbed in with Cal, but he hadn't wanted his older brother to know that he was afraid. One time, though, he'd slipped in with his grandmother only to discover that his big brother was already there.

He heard Rachel behind him and turned. She looked rumpled and beautiful. The V-shaped crease in her cheek told him she'd been asleep when he'd driven up. He studied the shirt she was wearing more closely and felt vaguely irritated. "Don't you have anything else to sleep in?"

"What's wrong with this?"

"It's Cal's. If you need a shirt, you can wear one of mine." He tossed his suitcase on the bed, opened it, and yanked out a shirt that was clean, but marked here and there with various stains that hadn't come out in the laundry.

She took it from him and regarded it critically. "His is a lot nicer."

He glared at her.

She gave him an impish smile. "But yours looks more comfortable."

"Damn right it is."

She smiled again, and pleasure leached into some of the barren places inside him. He thought about how she managed to find amusement in the smallest things, even with her life hanging in shreds around her.

Her green eyes grew crafty, and he braced himself. She planted one hand on her hip, a gesture that hiked up her shirt a few more inches. She was killing him, and she didn't even know it. "If you expect me to cook, you have to buy all the food."

Rachel had more ways of holding on to her money than anyone he'd ever known, and he couldn't resist giving her a hard time. "Now why would I expect you to cook? I'm probably better at it than you are."

She thought about that. "You also eat a lot more, so it wouldn't be fair for me to spend my money on your food. Really, Gabe, you have the most enormous appetite I've ever seen. You're always eating."

Before he could figure out how to respond to that one, a small voice interrupted.

"Mommy?"

He whirled around and saw the boy standing there in the doorway. He was wearing a new pair of pajamas so big they had to be rolled at the cuff. Trust Rachel to protect her pennies by looking to the future.

She moved to his side as if the kid were burning up with fever, and when she bent over, he saw the edge of her panties. The boy gave him a brief, unfathomable look, then stared down at the floor. Gabe turned his back on them and busied himself unpacking.

"Come on, sweetie," Rachel said. "Let me tuck you back in."

"What's he doing here?"

She began moving him out of the room into the hallway. "It's Gabe's cottage. He can come here whenever he wants."

"It's Pastor Ethan's cottage."

"He and Gabe are brothers."

"Are not." Gabe heard them turning into Annie's old sewing room. The boy said something he couldn't quite make out, but it sounded like behead—a peculiar word for a five-year-old to know. The kid was strange, and Gabe knew he should feel sorry for him, but memories were swallowing him up.

Jamie in his pajamas fresh from his bath. That little whorl of dark, wet hair on the top of his head. The way he'd snuggle into Gabe's lap with his favorite book, sometimes falling asleep before they reached the end. Sitting there with a sleeping child heavy in his arms and one small, bare foot cupped in his hand…

"Do you have everything you need?"

He hadn't heard Rachel come back in. He blinked his eyes and shook his head. "No." The breath left his lungs in a shudder. "I need you."

She came to him at once, pressed her body against his, and he knew this waiting had been as hard on her as on him. He pushed his hands underneath the shirt she wore, his brother's shirt, and touched the soft skin beneath. But then she broke away. He felt a chill at her desertion, only to realize she was locking the door.

How many times had he or Cherry done that? Locked the bedroom door in that old Georgia farmhouse so Jamie wouldn't wander in? The pain came back.

Rachel cupped his jaw, and her soft whisper fell on his cheek like a prayer. "Stay with me, buddy. I need you, too."

She always seemed to understand. Once again, his hands found her warm flesh. She wiggled against him and began tugging at his clothes. She was demanding, impatient, and her clumsy eagerness aroused him to the point where he could barely think. In moments he was naked except for one sock.

He had known Cherry's body as intimately as his own. Where she liked to be touched and how she wanted to be stroked. But Rachel was still a mystery.

He stripped his brother's shirt from her, being deliberately rough enough to tear a few buttons so she wouldn't be tempted to wear it again. Then he pushed her back on the bed.

She immediately rolled on top of him. "Who made you boss?"

He laughed and buried his mouth against her breast. She straddled his hips. She hadn't taken off her panties, and now she tortured him with them, lightly sliding the nylon back and forth, up and down, leaving a damp, silky trail.

When he couldn't stand it any longer, he curled his hands around her hips and brought her down hard against him. "Playtime's over, sweetheart."

She leaned forward, dragging her nipples across his chest. Her hair curled around her freckled shoulders, and, as a strand fell over his lips, the preacher's widow regarded him with devilish eyes. "Who says?"

He groaned, slipped his fingers inside her panties, and gave her a dose of her own medicine.

After that, both of them went a little crazy, and because they couldn't make any noise, their lust was all the more frenzied. She bit his chest, then sucked his tongue. He swatted her rear then kissed her until she was breathless. First one rolled on top, and then the other. She made him sit up, then impaled herself, not taking off the panties, merely pulling the crotch aside. Their passion was red-hot, visceral. Thrilling beyond belief. The very walls of the room oozed sex.

He hated it when he awakened in the night to find that she'd gone back to her own bed.

An idea tugged at the corner of his mind. Maybe he should marry her. It would keep her safe and out of trouble. And he wanted to be with her.

But he didn't love her, not like he'd loved Cherry. And he couldn't raise her son. Not now. Not ever.

For the rest of the night, sleep eluded him, and at dawn, he finally gave up and took a shower. He knew she was an early riser, but she still wasn't awake by the time he'd dressed. He smiled to himself. He'd worn her out.

The kitchen was quiet. He unlocked the back door and stepped outside. A wave of nostalgia hit him. He felt as if he'd taken a step back into his childhood.

Both he and Cal had been born when their parents were teenagers. His father had been in college, and then gone on to medical school, before he'd eventually set up practice in Salvation. His Bonner grandparents were well-to-do and embarrassed by their only son's forced marriage into the trashy Glide family, but Gabe and his brothers had loved their Glide grandmother, and they'd spent as much time on Heartache Mountain as their parents would allow.

He remembered running outside first thing in the morning, so eager to start the new day that Annie had to threaten him with her wooden spoon to get him to eat breakfast. As soon as he'd wolfed it down, he'd race back out to find the creatures that waited for him: squirrels and raccoons, skunks, possums, and the occasional black bear. Bears weren't as common now. The chestnut blight had wiped out their favorite feed, and the acorns that replaced them weren't nearly as reliable a food source.

He missed them. He missed working with animals. But he couldn't think about that now. He had a drive-in to run.

The thought depressed him. He moved down off the step and gazed toward the old garden. Last summer, his mother and Cal's wife Jane had tended it during the period when they'd both moved out on their husbands. It was overgrown again, although he could see where someone—Rachel, probably, since she didn't seem to know how to relax—had begun tidying it.

A shrill, high-pitched scream broke the morning stillness. It was coming from the front, and he shot around the side of the house, his heart pounding, thinking that this time it would be worse than painted graffiti.

He came to a dead stop as he saw the boy standing alone on the front porch, near the far end. He was still dressed in his pajamas and frozen in fear as he stared down at something that was blocked from Gabe's view.

Gabe ran forward and immediately spotted what had made Edward scream. A small snake coiled against the wall of the house.

He reached it in three swift strides. Shoving his hand through the railing, he snatched up the snake before it could slither away.

Rachel came flying out the front door. "Edward! What's wrong? What's—" She saw the snake hanging from Gabe's hand.

Gabe regarded the cowering child with impatience. "It's only a garter snake." He held the snake toward the boy. "See that yellow down its back? That's how you know it won't hurt you. Go on. You can touch it."

Edward shook his head and took a step backward.

"Go on," Gabe commanded. "I told you it won't hurt you."

Edward shrank farther back.

Rachel was at Edward's side in an instant, babying him as usual. "It's all right, sweetie. Garter snakes are friendly. There used to be lots of them on the farm where Mommy grew up."

She straightened and gave Gabe a look of cold fury. Reaching down, she snatched the snake from his hand and pitched it over the railing. "See. We'll let it go so it can find its family."

Gabe regarded her with reproach. She was never going to make a man out of the boy if she kept protecting him like this. Gabe had exposed Jamie to snakes when he was a toddler, making sure he could tell the good ones from the poisonous ones, and he'd loved touching them. The voice of reason told him there was a big difference between a child who'd grown up with snakes and one who hadn't, but his son was dead, and he couldn't listen to reason.

Edward curled against her. She patted his head. "How about some breakfast, Mr. Early Bird?"

He nodded against her belly, and Gabe could barely make out his words. "Pastor Ethan said I was s'posed to come to Sunday school today."

Rachel looked annoyed. "Maybe some other time."

He mentally cursed his brother for planting the idea in the boy's head. Ethan hadn't given a moment's thought to what Rachel would go through if she walked into a church service.

"That's what you said last Sunday," Edward complained.

"Let's open the new box of Cheerios."

"I want to go today."

Gabe couldn't stand listening to the kid argue. "Do what your mother says."

Rachel whirled on him. She began to speak, only to clamp her mouth shut and hustle her son inside.

Gabe avoided them both by taking a long walk in the woods until he found the place where he used to keep his animal sanctuary. He'd built some cages when he was. around ten or eleven and used them to doctor whatever wounded animals either he or his friends happened to find. Looking back, he was surprised at how many he'd been able to save.

The memory brought him only sadness. Now he didn't even want to be around animals. He'd been able to heal so many living creatures, but he couldn't heal himself.

He wasn't ready to face either Rachel or the boy, so he headed into town, where he picked up coffee at McDonald's. Afterward, he made his way toward Ethan's church and parked in his accustomed place a block away. He'd been attending services the last few Sundays, always sitting in the back, coming in late and leaving early so he didn't have to talk to anyone.

Rachel had turned her back on God, but he'd never quite been able to do that. His faith wasn't strong like his brother's, and it hadn't helped him. But something was there, and he couldn't let it go.

Despite his recent irritation with Ethan, he liked hearing him preach. Ethan wasn't one of those irritatingly righteous men of God who thundered absolutes and acted as if they had the only pipeline to heaven. Ethan preached tolerance and forgiveness, justice and compassion—everything, Gabe realized, that Ethan wasn't showing to Rachel. His brother had never been a hypocrite, and Gabe couldn't understand it.

He glanced across the congregation and saw that he wasn't the only latecomer. Kristy Brown sneaked into a rear pew long after the Prayer of Confession. She wore a yellow dress with a very short skirt, and her expression practically dared people to make something of it. He smiled to himself. Like everyone else in Salvation, he'd never paid much attention to Kristy unless he'd needed something done. Now she'd become a force to be reckoned with.

After the service, he drove to Gal's house and called his brother to tell him he was moving out for a while. When Cal heard why, he exploded.

"You're moving in with the Widow Snopes? Ethan said you were tangled up with her, but I didn't believe him. Now you're living with her?"

"It's not like that," Gabe replied, even though that wasn't quite the truth. "She's become a target around here, and I think she's in danger."

"Then let Odell take care of it."

Gabe heard a soft little mouse-like squeal in the background, and realized it was coming from his niece. Rosie was a beautiful baby, full of mischief and already itching to try her wings. A small pain lodged in his chest.

"Look, Gabe, I've talked to Ethan. I know you've always had a weakness for wounded animals, but this wounded animal is a rattlesnake. Anybody who's been with you for five minutes can tell you're an easy mark when it comes to money, and—Hey!"

"Gabe?" His sister-in-law's voice cut in. Although Gabe had only been with Dr. Jane Darlington Bonner a few times, he had immediately taken to her. She was brainy, assertive, and decent, exactly what Cal needed after making a career out of youthful bimbos.

"Gabe, don't listen to him," Jane said. "Don't listen to Ethan either. I like the Widow Snopes."

Gabe felt duty-bound to point out the obvious. "That's nice to hear, but I don't believe you've ever met her, have you?"

"No," his sister-in-law replied in her no-nonsense voice. "But I lived in her awful house. When Cal and I were having all our trouble—I know it sounds silly, but whenever I was in her bedroom or the nursery, I'd feel this funny kinship with her. There was this wickedness about the rest of the house, and a goodness about those two rooms. I always thought it came from her."

He heard a bark of skeptical laughter from his brother in the background,

Gabe smiled. "Rachel's the farthest thing I can imagine from a saint, Jane. But you're right. She's a good person, and she's having a tough time. Try to keep big brother off my back for a while, will you?"

"I'll do my best. Good luck, Gabe."

He made some other calls, including one to Odell Hatcher, then packed up the perishables from the refrigerator and headed back to Heartache Mountain. It was mid-afternoon when he parked next to the garage. The cottage windows were open and the front door unlocked, but Rachel and the boy weren't inside.

He carried the groceries into the kitchen and unloaded them in the refrigerator. When he turned around, he saw the boy standing just inside the back door. He'd entered so quietly that Gabe hadn't heard him.

Gabe remembered the way Jamie had flown into their big old rambling North Georgia farmhouse, door slamming, sneakers banging, usually yelling at the top of his small lungs that he'd found a special earthworm or needed a broken toy repaired.

"Is your mother outside?"

The boy looked down at the floor.

"Please answer me, Edward," Gabe said quietly.

"Yes," the boy murmured.

"Yes, what?"

The boy's shoulders stiffened. He didn't lift his head.

The child definitely needed some toughening up, for his own sake. Gabe forced himself to speak quietly, patiently. "Look at me."

Slowly, Edward lifted his head.

"When you talk to me, Edward, I want you to say, 'Yes, sir' or 'No, sir' 'Yes, ma'am' and 'No, ma'am' when you talk to your mother or Kristy or any lady. You're living in North Carolina now, and that's the way polite children speak around here. Do you understand?"

"Uh-huh."

"Edward…" Gabe's tone carried a soft warning note.

"My name's not Edward."

"That's what your mother calls you."

"She's allowed," he said sullenly. "Not you."

"What am I supposed to call you?"

The child hesitated and then muttered, "Chip."

"Chip?".

"Don't like Edward. Want everybody to call me Chip."

Gabe considered trying to explain to him that Chip Stone might not be the best choice of names, then abandoned the idea. He'd always been good with children, but not this one. This one was too strange.

"Edward, did you find the ball of string?"

The back door opened and Rachel came in. Her dirty hands and smudged nose indicated that she'd been working in the garden. Her gaze immediately flew to her son, as if she were afraid Gabe might have used thumbscrews on him when she wasn't looking. Her attitude made him feel guilty, and he didn't like that.

"Edward?"

The boy went over to the old cupboard, tugged open the left drawer with both hands, and pulled out the twine ball that had been there, in one form or another, for as long as Gabe could remember.

"Put it with the bucket I was using, would you?"

He nodded, then gave Gabe a wary glance. "Yes, ma'am."

Rachel regarded him quizzically. Edward let himself out the back door.

"Why'd you name him Edward?" Gabe asked, before she could start in on him about what had happened that morning with the garter snake.

"It was my grandfather's name. My grandmother made me promise to name my first son after him."

"Couldn't you call him Ed or something? Eddie? Nobody calls little kids Edward anymore."

"Excuse me. I seem to have forgotten… Exactly which part of this is your business?"

"All I'm saying is that he doesn't like his name. He told me I have to call him Chip."

Dark-green storm clouds gathered in her eyes. "Are you sure you're not the one who told him something was wrong with his name? Maybe you told him he should call himself Chip."

"No."

She stalked forward, finger pointed toward his chest like a pistol. "Leave my son alone." Bang! "And don't you dare interfere between us again the way you did this morning." Bang! Bang!

She'd never been one to mince words, and she kept after him. "What you did with that snake was cruel, and I won't allow it. If you try anything like that again, you can move right back out of here."

The fact that she was right made Gabe feel cornered. "In case you've forgotten, this is my house." It was his mother's. Close enough.

"I haven't forgotten anything."

A small flutter of movement in the periphery of his vision caught Gabe's attention. He looked past Rachel's shoulder toward the screen door and saw Edward standing there, taking in the argument.

Even through the screen, Gabe could sense his watchfulness, as if he were guarding his mother.

"I mean it, Gabe. Leave Edward alone."

He said nothing, merely looked past her toward the door. Edward realized he'd been spotted and disappeared from view.

The lines of strain at the corners of Rachel's mouth put Gabe out of the mood to argue with her. Instead, he wanted to pull her back to the bedroom and start all over again. He couldn't get enough of her. But they weren't alone…

He extracted the square of paper he'd stuck in his back pocket and unfolded it. It was his guilt offering for what had happened that morning, but she didn't have to know it. "Odell gave me the the names of everybody who was at the airstrip the night G. Dwayne escaped."

Her bad mood vanished. "Oh, Gabe, thank you!" She snatched the list from him and sat down at the kitchen table. "Is this right? There are only ten names on the list. It seemed as if there were a hundred men there that night."

"Four from the sheriff's office, and Salvation's entire police force. That's it."

Just as she started to study the list more closely, they heard a car approaching. He went into the living room ahead of her, then relaxed as he saw Kristy get out of her Honda. She was dressed to kill in khaki shorts and a slinky green top.

Rachel hurried to greet her. Edward raced around from the side and threw himself at Kristy. "You came back!"

"I told you I would." She bent down and kissed the top of his head. "I'm tired of working, so I came by to see if you want to go to the pig roast with me this afternoon."

"Wow! Can I, Mom? Can I?"

"Sure. But go clean up first."

Gabe wandered back to the kitchen and was pouring himself a cup of Rachel's pansy-assed coffee when the two women came in.

"But why would you want Dwayne's Bible? What do you—" Kristy broke off as she caught sight of him. He knew she'd been worried about Rachel being here alone, and he detected relief in her expression. "Hi, Gabe."

"Kristy."

"I want the Bible for Edward," Rachel said, without looking at him. "It's a family heirloom."

So, Gabe thought. She wasn't even going to tell Kristy the truth. He was the only one who knew.

Kristy sat down at the table and studied the list.

"One of these men had to have stolen it the night they confiscated my car." Rachel picked up the cup of coffee Gabe had just poured for himself and took a sip. He didn't know why, but it felt nice to be taken for granted. Rachel seemed to be the only person who expected anything from him these days.

Kristy regarded the list thoughtfully. "Not Pete Moore. He hasn't been inside a church in years."

Rachel leaned back against the sink and cradled the mug in both hands. "The person who took it might not have done it for religious reasons. He could very well have wanted it as a curiosity piece."

In the end, Kristy entirely eliminated six names and said the other four were highly unlikely, but Rachel refused to be discouraged. "I'll start with those, but if I don't discover anything, I'm talking to the rest."

The boy rushed into the kitchen. "I'm clean! Can we go, Kristy? Are they going to have a real pig there?"

As Rachel went over to check Edward's hands, Gabe picked up the coffee mug she'd abandoned and walked out onto the back porch. A few minutes later, he heard Kristy's car drive away.

Quiet once again settled over Heartache Mountain. He and Rachel would have the cottage to themselves for the rest of the afternoon. Heat rushed through his veins. God bless Kristy Brown.

He shut his eyes for a moment, ashamed of how much he wanted Rachel, because he didn't love her. He couldn't. That part of him no longer worked. But he loved being with her. She calmed something inside him.

The screen door banged behind him. He turned toward her, only to feel his anticipation fade as he saw the determined look in her eyes.

"Let's go, Gabe. We're going to find that Bible right now."

He got ready to argue, but then gave up. What was the use? Rachel's mind was made up.