than passed the tray of food to Kristy through the window of his car, then opened the door and slid behind the wheel. He immediately caught a hint of her perfume. Tonight it reminded him of black lace and a rumba, which was ridiculous because he'd never done a rumba in his life and didn't intend to.

He closed the car door. "They had those big chocolate-chip cookies, so I got a couple of them."

"That's fine." She spoke in the cool, polite voice she'd been using all evening, as if he were her boss, not her friend.

The tiny rings on her fingers glimmered from the floodlights that had been turned on for intermission. He watched anxiously as she set the food between them and unwrapped her hot dog. He'd put mustard on it because that was how he liked his hot dogs, but the truth was, he didn't have any idea whether she liked mustard. They'd eaten a couple of thousand lunches together over the past eight years, but he couldn't seem to remember what she'd eaten at any of them, except he thought he recalled some salads.

"They didn't have any salad."

She regarded him quizzically. "Of course they didn't."

He felt like an idiot. "I wasn't sure whether you'd rather have regular mustard or spicy brown." He waited. "They had both kinds."

"This is fine."

"Maybe you like ketchup better?"

"It doesn't matter."

"And relish. Did you want relish?" He set his own hot dog down. "I can go back and get some."

"That's not necessary."

"Really? Because I don't mind." He had the door half open when she stopped him.

"Ethan, I hate hot dogs!"

"Oh." He closed the door and sank back into the seat, feeling foolish and depressed. On the drive-in screen, a clock, accompanied by marching sodas, ticked away the intermission time. He felt as if it were marking off the minutes of his life.

"I love chocolate-chip cookies, though."

He shook his head. "I've proved everything you threw at me the night at the Mountaineer, haven't I? I don't know anything about you."

"You know that I don't like hot dogs," she said gently.

She could have been bitchy, but she was being nice. It was one of so many good things about her. Why had it taken him so long to notice? He'd gone through most of his life barely thinking about Kristy Brown, and now he couldn't think about anybody else.

She wrapped her hot dog back up, returned it to the bag, and picked up a chocolate-chip cookie. Before she took a bite, she opened a paper napkin and spread it over the lap of her jeans. The jeans, along with her plain white blouse, had disappointed him. He supposed she'd decided to save her short skirts and tight tops for Mike Reedy.

He pulled the paper off his straw and punched it through the lid covering his large Cherry Coke. "So, I hear you and Mike are seeing each other." He tried to sound casual, as if the topic were of no more interest to him than last week's weather.

"He's a very nice person."

"Yeah, I guess." Tendrils of silky dark hair curled around her cheeks. He wanted to brush them back, and, for a moment, he imagined doing it with his lips.

She gazed at him. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Say it." She sounded impatient. "I know when you have something on your mind."

"It's just—Mike's a great guy, don't get me wrong, but—In high school, he was a little—I don't know. Maybe a little wild or something." For someone who was a pro at public speaking, he was making a mess of this.

"Wild? Mike?"

"Not now." He was starting to sweat. "No, it's like I said, he's a great guy, but he can be a little… spacey. You know. Distractible."

"So?"

"So." His throat was dry, and he took a sip of Cherry Coke. "I just thought you should know."

"I should know that he's distractible?"

"Yes."

"All right. Thanks for telling me." She bit into one side of the chocolate-chip cookie. Neat. No crumbs dribbled over the upholstery. He realized how much he liked Kristy's orderliness. Not just because she made things easier for him, but because his own interior world was so often chaotic, and she calmed him.

He wasn't calm now, however. That black-lace rumba perfume was getting to him, along with her neat white blouse buttoned all the way to the neck. Even as he told himself to change the subject, he plunged in again. "I mean, if he's driving or something, he might get… You know."

"Distracted?"

"Yes."

She set the cookie on her napkin, those seductive little finger rings glimmering. "Okay, Ethan. What's this about? All evening you've been acting strange."

She was right, so he didn't know why he was suddenly so angry with her. "Me? You're the one who decided to show up wearing jeans!" Only after the words had left his mouth did he realize how inappropriate they were.

"You're wearing jeans, too," she pointed out patiently. "Granted, you ironed yours, and I didn't, but—"

"That's not the point, and you know it."

"No, I don't know it. What are you trying to say?" She added the cookie to their growing pile of discarded food.

"Did you wear jeans the last time you went on a date with Mike?"

"No."

"Then why are you wearing them with me?"

"Because this isn't a date?"

"It's Friday night, and we're parked in the next-to-last row of the Pride of Carolina! I'd say that's a date, wouldn't you?"

Her eyes snapped, no longer gentle at all. "Excuse me? Are you telling me that, after air these years, the great Ethan Bonner finally asked me out on a date, and I didn't even know it?"

"Well, that's not my fault, is it? And what do you mean, finally?"

He heard a long labored sigh before she spoke. "Just what is it you want from me?"

How could he answer that? Should he say, "I want your friendship," or "I want the body you've been hiding away all these years"? No, definitely not that. This was Kristy, for pete's sake. Maybe he should just tell her she had no right to keep changing around on him, and he wanted things back the way they were, but that wasn't true. At the moment, he only knew one thing. "I don't want you sleeping with Mike Reedy."

"Who said I was?"

The fake diamond studs flashed in her earlobes. She was mad at him. Well, fine, he was mad at her, too, so what difference did the truth make? "I looked in your purse this week. The condom you had in there is gone."

"You looked in my purse? Mr. Honest Ethan?"

The fact that she seemed confused, rather than angry, took some of the wind out of his sails. "I apologize. It won't ever happen again. I was just—" He set aside his Coke. "I was just worried about you. You shouldn't be sleeping with Mike Reedy."

"Then who should I be sleeping with?"

"No one!"

She got all stiff and starchy. "I'm sorry, Ethan, but that's no longer an option for me."

"I sleep alone. I don't see why you can't, too!"

"Because I can't, that's all, not any longer. At least you have a seedy past to look back on. I don't even have that."

"It wasn't seedy! Well, maybe it was, but—Just wait for the right man, Kristy. Don't give yourself away cheaply. When the right man comes along, you'll know it."

"Maybe I know it right now."

"Mike Reedy isn't the right man!"

"How do you know that? You can't even remember that I hate hot dogs. You don't know when my birthday is or my favorite singer. How would you know who the right man is for me?"

"Your birthday is April eleventh."

"Sixteenth."

"See! I knew it was in April!"

She arched one fine eyebrow at him, then took such a deep breath he suspected she was counting to ten. "I took the condom out of my purse because I felt stupid carrying it around."

"So you and Mike haven't…"

"Not yet. But we might. I really like him."

"Like isn't good enough. You like me, too, but that doesn't mean you're going to have sex with me."

"Of course I'm not."

He felt a stab of disappointment. "Of course not."

"How could I? You're celibate."

Exactly what did she mean by that? That if he weren't celibate, she might consider it?

"And," she went on, "you're not attracted to me."

"That's not true. You're my—"

"Don't you say it!" Feathery tendrils flew and the fake diamond studs flashed. "Don't you dare say I'm your best friend, because I'm not!"

He felt as if she'd punched him. Much of his job involved counseling others. He understood the complexity of human behavior far more than most people, so why was he so clueless about her?

The clock on the screen ticked off its final minutes. He'd always been tenacious, but she'd somehow taken the fight out of him. He knew he was hurting her, even if he didn't understand exactly how, and the last thing he wanted was to hurt Kristy Brown.

"Kristy, what's happening to you?"

"Life is happening to me," she said softly. "Finally."

"What does that mean?"

Her silence lasted so long he didn't think she would answer, but she did. "It means I've finally stopped living in the past. I'm ready to move on with my life." She looked over at him in a way that made him think she was engaged in some internal struggle. "It means I'm not going to be in love with you anymore, Ethan."

He felt as if a jolt of electricity had passed right through him, except he didn't know why he should be shocked. At some unconscious level, he supposed he'd known she was in love with him, but he hadn't let himself think about it.

She gave a soft, self-deprecating laugh that made him ache. "I've been so pathetic. All that wasted time. For eight years I sat at my desk, Little Miss Efficiency, bustling around to find your car keys and make sure you had milk in the refrigerator, and you never even noticed. I had so little regard for myself."

He had no idea what to say.

"Do you know what's really ironic?" There was no bitterness in her voice. She spoke calmly, almost as if she were talking about someone else. "I would have been the perfect woman for you, but you never noticed. And now it's too late."

"What do you mean, the perfect woman?" And why was it too late?

She regarded him sadly, as if his failure to understand disappointed her. "We have the same interests, similar backgrounds. I like looking after people, and you need looking after. We share the same religious beliefs." A slight shrug. "But none of that mattered because I wasn't hot enough for you."

"Hot enough! What kind of thing is that to say? Do you think that's all I look for in a woman?"

"Yes. And please don't patronize me. We've known each other too long."

He got mad. "Now I get it. That's what all of these changes have been about. The tight clothes, the new hairstyle, that damned perfume. You got yourself fixed up so I'd notice, didn't you? Well, I noticed, all right, and I hope you're happy about it."

The Wise God of Talk Shows clucked her tongue. Ethan… Ethan… Ethan …

Instead of retaliating as she should have, Kristy smiled. "It's a good thing you did notice, or I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to come to my senses."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's so fundamental, Ethan. So trite. But I guess the simple truths are always like that, aren't they? Rachel warned me when this started that, if I wanted to make changes, I needed to make them for myself and not for you or anyone else. I pretended to agree with her, but I didn't really understand how right she was until that day I showed up for work all dressed to kill and you were so appalled with me."

"Kristy, I wasn't—"

She held up her hand. "It's okay, Ethan. I'm not upset about it any longer. I'm even grateful. Your rejection pushed me to do some things with my life I've needed to do all along."

"I didn't reject you! And I don't see how you can just instantly fall out of love with somebody you said you've loved for years." What was he doing? Was he trying to talk her into loving him?

"You're right. You can't." He felt a tiny spurt of hope, but it was quickly dashed as she went on. "Now I know that it hasn't been love. That needs to work two ways. What I've felt for you was infatuation, obsession. You've been my fatal attraction."

And now you are one boiled bunny, the Mighty Talk Show Host pointed out.

"I think you're giving up on us too easily," he heard himself saying.

"What are you talking about?"

"Our relationship."

"Ethan, we don't have a relationship."

"Yes, we do! How long have we known each other? Since—what, sixth grade?"

"I was in third grade. You were in fourth. Our classrooms were across the hall from each other."

He nodded, as if he'd known that, but the truth was, he didn't remember.

"You and Ricky Jenkins came plowing out of the door one day after school, and Ricky crashed into me." She began packing up their untouched food, her movements automatic. "I was carrying some books and a salt map of Mexico. I fell, the books went everywhere, Mexico cracked. I was so shy then. I hated for anyone to notice me, and, of course, I was mortified. Ricky ran right on, but you stopped and helped me pick everything up. When Ricky looked back and saw what you were doing, he yelled out, 'Don't touch her, Eth. You'll get cooties.' "

She looked over at him, and a small smile curled her lips. "I wanted to die when he said that, but you didn't pay any attention, even though some of the other boys had started to laugh. You took my arm and helped me get up, then you handed me my books and told me I could probably fix Mexico without too much trouble."

The clock on the screen had disappeared, and the second feature was about to begin. She folded her hands in her lap, as if that were the end of it, and he could feel her slipping away from him.

"Did you?"

"What?"

"Fix Mexico?"

She smiled. "I don't remember."

An ache filled him, a desire to make things better for the shy little girl Ricky Jenkins had knocked down. Ethan's hand seemed to have a will of its own as it slipped along the back of the seat and curved around the nape of her neck.

Her lips parted. Startled. The floodlights went out, plunging the lot into darkness.

He pushed the food sack out of the way, leaned forward, and kissed her. A pity kiss. A healing kiss. All better.

And then something inexplicable happened. As he felt those soft lips move beneath his own, the world split open and music exploded in his head, not Handel choruses or Puccini operas, but the raw shriek of dirty, sweaty, throbbing, feel-her-up, toss-her-down, come-on, come-on, Come On Baaaaby! rock 'n' roll.

His hands were all over her. Kneading her breasts, pulling at buttons, tugging at her bra clasp, delving into that sweet, plump flesh. And she wasn't resisting. Oh, no, she wasn't resisting at all. His lips found a small, puckered nipple offered up to him.

Her quick, efficient hands flew under his shirt, yanking it out of his neatly pressed jeans and playing feverish tracks on his back, while her breathy moans flamed his passion with fast, hot riffs.

He shoved his hand between her legs, cupping her through the denim. She pushed against him in a needy little bump and grind that took away his reason. He worked her zipper. She worked his.

The dirty backbeat of her tongue pulsed in his mouth, doing what he wanted to do. Had to do.

Skin. Soft, damp with perspiration. And then wetness. He sank into it with his fingers.

She had him in her hands, played a throbbing lick that pushed him to the edge of oblivion.

Where are You now? his mind screamed. Why aren't You telling me to stop? He waited for the Enforcer God, the Wise God, the Mother God, but he heard only silence.

"Stop," Kristy whispered.

His fingers were inside her body; her hand encircled him. "Stop," she said again.

But neither of them wanted to let the other go.

She shuddered, and he realized how close she was to falling over the edge. Her voice caught on a husky note. "You can't do this, Ethan."

Her dearness swept through him like a clean, cool breeze. She was worrying about him, as always. Never thinking about herself.

It had been a very long time, but he hadn't forgotten what to do. He drew her closer and moved his thumb… gentle circles. She gasped. He kissed her, and with all the tenderness in his heart, he let her fall.

Afterward, neither of them wanted to talk. They readjusted their clothes, moved apart, cleaned up his spilled Cherry Coke, pretended to watch the movie. He drove her home and wasn't surprised when she didn't ask him in, but as he opened the car door for her, he found himself inviting her to his sister-in-law's brunch the next day.

"No, thank you," she said politely.

"I'll pick you up a little before eleven."

"I won't be here."

"Yes," he replied firmly. "You will."

The phone rang as Rachel began to dry her hair from her morning shower. Gabe was in the backyard banging away at something, and Edward played on the front porch, so she wrapped the towel around her head and dashed to the kitchen to answer.

"May I speak with Rachel Snopes, please?" a woman said.

"This is Rachel Stone speaking."

A baby fussed in the background, and the woman's voice faded slightly. "It's all right, Rosie. I'm right here." Once again, she spoke directly into the receiver. "I'm sorry, Ms. Stone, but my daughter hasn't quite recovered from our car trip yesterday. We didn't get a chance to meet last night at the drive-in. I'm Jane Darlington Bonner, Cal's wife."

The woman's voice was businesslike, but not hostile. "Yes, Mrs. Bonner?"

"Please. Call me Jane. I'm having a family gathering in an hour or so. I apologize for the late notice—to be honest, I'm pretty much throwing the whole thing together at the last minute—but I'd like you and your son to come."

Rachel remembered Cal's visit to the snack shop yesterday afternoon. She'd been standing right there when he'd invited Gabe, and it would have been easy for him to include her in the invitation if he'd wanted to.

"Thank you, but it's probably not a good idea."

"You obviously met my husband yesterday." The lilt in her voice contained nothing but good humor.

"Yes."

"Come anyway."

Rachel smiled and felt herself warming to this woman she'd only seen in a magazine photograph. "It's not just your husband. Ethan's not too crazy about me, either."

"I know."

"And I very much doubt that Gabe wants me drawn any closer into his family circle. I think I'd better pass."

"I won't press, but I hope you change your mind. Cal and Ethan are two of the most pigheaded men on earth, but they mean well, and I'm dying to meet the notorious Widow Snopes."

Rachel found herself responding to the woman's gentle humor with a laugh. "Come up to the cottage anytime."

"I'll do that."

She had just hung up when Gabe walked in from the backyard. A trace of sawdust clung to his jeans, and he looked happier than he had in days.

She smiled at him. "What are you doing out there?"

"Building a little aviary. Tweety Bird's going to have to get acclimated to the outdoors before we can release him."

All this for one small, very common sparrow?

He walked over to the sink and turned on the water to wash his hands. "I asked Chip if he wanted to help, but he said no."

"Will you stop calling him that?"

"Not till he tells me to." He grabbed a paper towel and came over to give her a good-morning kiss. It was fleeting, but the casual intimacy made her remember last night's lovemaking. Now she laid her cheek against his chest and tried not to think about how soon this had to end.

His fingers captured a lock of her hair and looped it behind her ear. He kissed the place it had been, then stepped back. "We have to be at Cal and Jane's soon, and I still need to shower, so stop distracting me."

"We?"

"You know that I don't want you here alone."

Disappointment settled over her as she realized there was nothing personal in his invitation. He didn't want her drawn into his family; he was merely doing guard-dog duty. The bedroom was the only private place she occupied in Gabe's life, and he'd never promised her anything more.

"I don't think that's a good idea. I'd have a hard time eating with both your brothers shooting daggers at me."

"I haven't seen you run from a fight yet."

"Gabe, they hate my guts!"

"That's their problem. I have to go, and you're not staying here by yourself."

She concealed her hurt behind a smile. "All right. It might be fun to torture your odious brothers."