Flushed and nervous, Bree raked a hand through her hair. She suddenly knew he was serious, and the old Bree sneaked to the surface, the Bree who was terribly afraid of foundering in unfamiliar waters. “Hart,” she said haltingly, “you don’t marry someone just because you love them. There have to be other reasons. Sane, rational reasons. Sensible reasons.”

He was silent.

“We argue all the time,” she reminded him.

He said nothing.

“We haven’t known each other very long. We don’t have anything in common. I don’t even know where we’d live!”

Still he said nothing.

“And my life is a mess-haven’t you been listening? I-”

“Yes, I’ve been listening,” Hart interrupted quietly, “but I’ve never seen your life as a mess, Bree. All I saw was that you’d taken a turn you didn’t like and were backtracking toward a different path. Perhaps,” he added lightly, “I misunderstood a great deal. Because I never much gave a damn where we’d live. Or about ‘sane, rational reasons,’ either.” He sat up, ducking his head for a moment, and when he raised it there was a lazy grin on his face, typically Hart, swiftly erasing any hint of an earlier emotional turmoil. “You can put your smile back on, red. Nobody’s upset. And anyway,” he said firmly, “it’s time for breakfast.”

He pulled her to her feet, and for a moment Bree stood absolutely still. Then she reached for her jeans and tennis shoes. She’d hurt him. She’d rather break all four limbs than ever hurt Hart. She’d never meant to be insensitive; she’d tried to treat the subject of marriage lightly because Hart treated everything lightly…but not this. She could see from the quickly masked vulnerability in his eyes that he’d simply known no other way to ask her…or that maybe she’d never given him much of a chance.

“Corn Flakes at your place or mine?” Hart’s teasing grin was the same, only his eyes looked different. Hollow and weary.

“Hart-”

“Yours. Then you’ll get stuck with the cleanup. Come on, lady.” He gathered up her sleeping bag and the netting, motioned her to hurry up tying her shoes and then flung an arm loosely across her shoulders as they started from the woods, all devil-may-care. “We’re going to make wine today,” he said swiftly.

“Wine?” There was such a huge lump in her throat that she could barely talk. Her hands were trembling. Hart loved her. Could he really? He’d already dropped the subject as if it had never been mentioned. Bree didn’t want to drop it, but she didn’t have the least idea how to reopen the door she’d just closed in his face.

Hart stopped to turn and chuck her under the chin. Very gravely, he turned up one corner of her mouth and then the other as if he could order up a smile. “Cherry wine,” he continued. “There’s no reason to look all upset. We’re going to have a very good time. I picked up an antique press a few days ago, and I want to put it to use.”

Bree surfaced, forcing the smile he was so insistent she wear. She searched his eyes and found there only a shuttered determination that she didn’t know how to handle. Vaguely, her mind registered what he’d been talking about. “Hart, don’t be an idiot. Where on earth are you going to find cherries at this time of year?”

“I’ll get the cherries. And the sugar and the yeast. All you have to do is provide the brawn, honey.”


He wasn’t joking. Three hours later, Bree’s yard looked like a winery. A sticky winery. Hart had brought down two lawn chairs from his place. And two wooden barrels. And a hundred pounds of cherries.

The wine press stood in the center of the mess, an innocent-looking contraption. One poured a bowl of cherries into the machine and turned the crank, and voilà, cherry juice was supposed to stream out into the waiting sterile bowl, and the pits and cherry skins were all supposed to remain inside.

It wasn’t working. The pits and cherries remained inside, just as the cherry-press inventor had intended. But most of the cherry juice, as far as Bree could tell, was all over her. Wearing a fresh pair of white jeans-definitely a foolish choice of attire-and black halter top, she whipped back her hair with the side of her wrist and glared at Hart.

“How did you miraculously produce that clean white shirt?”

He grinned at her, his fingers still buttoning the shirt. “I picked up a pile of shirts from the local laundry yesterday, and left them in my car. And since the other shirt seemed to be a little sticky-”

“Very little,” Bree said ominously.

“You’re obviously much better at this than I am.”

“The question is how I let you talk me into this to begin with.”

“I must have asked you real nice?” Hart peered down into the bowl, batting aimlessly at a few buzzing bees that had grown interested in the sweet project. “Think of the delicious brew we’ll have later on,” he coaxed. “Look, I’ll take another turn-”

“You will not.” The last time he’d had a round at the cranking job, cherry juice had ended up all over the lawn. He’d been banished to the lawn chair. Wearing a pair of cutoffs and now a fresh white shirt, he barely looked as though he’d been in the first skirmish, much less the war.

“Bree-”

She gave him a suspicious look. The last of three. It would be just like him to act useless just to get out of doing any serious work. She knew Hart.

And her heart was so damned full of love for him that she was very close to crying, and had been all day. Hart would get her involved in some asinine activity simply to get her mind off her troubles. He’d done it before. She was only beginning to realize how often. “Take off your shirt,” she ordered briskly.

“My shirt? Why?”

“Just give it here. This isn’t working. We’ve used fifty pounds of cherries, and at best, we’ve got a cup of potential wine. If you’re going to do something old-fashioned, Hart, you’ve got to do it right. Strip,” she ordered flatly.

“Honey, if you’re in the mood, all you have to do is say so.” Slowly, Hart unbuttoned his shirt, grinning at her.

“Dream on.” He was going too slowly; she positioned herself in front of him and unbuttoned the shirt herself. The last button didn’t want to undo, probably because her heart had decided to suddenly go manic. His denim cutoffs were so old they were more white than blue; they fit snugly on his hips and snugly on the…front of him. Sunlight climbed all over his chest. That close, Hart smelled like Hart, that definitive man smell, creating wanton thoughts and vagrant wishes and a bold, blatant ache in Bree that utterly, totally distracted her.

Hart’s fingers abruptly tickled under her chin. “You want me to lick off all that cherry juice?” he murmured. “I’ll bet you have it all over you, Bree. It’s dribbled down your shirt-”

She flushed. “It hasn’t either.” Her fingers all but tore the shirt from his shoulders. “Now, into the cabin you go. I want clean feet. Sterile feet. And bring out the big flat pan in the cupboard by the stove. We’re going to crush the cherries the French way, Mr. Manning-”

It was her turn to sit back in the lawn chair with a glass of lemonade. She wrapped some cherries in the clean white shirt; Hart’s job was to stomp them until he’d squeezed the juice out into the pan.

“If you don’t stop laughing-” he warned.

She couldn’t stop. She wasn’t in the mood to laugh; she was still in the mood to cry, but he looked so silly. He started to whistle the theme from Zorba the Greek, and that didn’t help. Nothing helped. She felt her mood lighten in spite of herself. She kept watching Hart for the least sign that he was upset or even that he was willing to talk again, but the minute he felt her eyes on him he’d say something insulting, and then she’d insult him back, and then they’d be laughing again…

It was an hour later before they had enough cherry juice to pour into the crocks, and then it was simply a matter of adding sugar and yeast. Except that Hart poured in too much sugar. Bree stood back for the torrent of muttered four-letter words that followed.

“Which couldn’t matter less,” she scolded him. “You don’t think anyone would be crazy enough to drink this?”

“I’ve got news. You’re drinking at least half,” Hart said flatly.

“Only if there’s a hospital nearby.”

“Look, the brewing process will destroy any germs-”

“Hart. There are undoubtedly creatures in that juice. We’ve drawn every insect from at least five hundred miles around. Between your feet and the bugs-”

“I suppose you think my feet will add an unpleasant taste?”

Hart sounded injured. Bree felt injured. Her cranking shoulder felt like a candidate for a sling; she was so physically tired she was dizzy-how many years was it since she’d had a full night’s sleep, anyway?-and somewhere deep inside her, there was another ache.

Laughter suddenly died, for no reason at all. She lifted her head, and suddenly Hart’s eyes were there, as midnight-blue as when she’d first seen them, but different. Love was there. Hurt was there. A depth, an enigmatic softness, a blue sky turned into night.

And he was looking back at her. She could almost see what he did, an utterly bedraggled woman without makeup, cherry juice on her nose, a halter top clinging to her, red hair flowing in a curling tangle all around her. She had to have circles under her eyes…but she felt beautiful, the way he looked at her. So incredibly beautiful…

She wrenched her eyes away from his only because she heard a car, and even then the station wagon had pulled into the yard before she turned around.

The station wagon was familiar. So was the man who stepped out of it. Tall, dark and attractive, he was dressed in a conservative summer-weight suit, his shirt crisp. He peeled off his sunglasses when he spotted her. “Bree?” He sounded unsure as he gave the bedraggled lady in the yard a quick once-over.