“Oh for God’s sake,” Jenna muttered, stalking across the room to the dresser where she’d left her electronics. What was wrong with her? Hormone storm?

“Have a good night?” Alice asked.

“Marvelous. Are you really sure you want to stay here?” Jenna grabbed her laptop and carried it over to the other double bed. The space between her bed and Alice’s was just wide enough to accommodate a nightstand with an alarm clock and a lamp. “It’s pretty cramped.”

“You worry me.” Alice clicked a few keys, then set her laptop on the mattress by her side. “You really can’t be serious about staying up here, so what does another day or two matter?”

Jenna opened her mail program and scanned it as she answered. “Actually, I’m going to move into Elizabeth’s house. The farmhouse. It’s silly to pay to stay somewhere when the house is mine. You’re welcome to come.”

Alice’s brows drew down. “You’re really going to stay long enough to make the move worthwhile?”

“Since you canceled my tour, I’m free—travel-wise at least—for the rest of the summer. I’ve got to get a jump on the new books, and I feel like it’s going to come easily here.” She played the work card without the slightest twinge of guilt. Alice would never argue with anything that helped her work, and in this case, it was true. “It’s perfect, really. What better way to stay motivated than to be immersed in the environment? I’ll be killing two birds with one stone. Handling Elizabeth’s estate, which is going to be a little more complicated than I anticipated, and cranking out the first book.”

“Three birds. You’ll be resting too.” Alice stretched and wiggled her bare toes, flashing the bright red polish on her pedicured nails. “Because God knows, you’re not going to be busy with much of a social life around here.”

“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t about to tell Alice the social life around here was a lot more exciting than anything she’d experienced in the big city, or that she didn’t have any trouble at all thinking of just who she’d chose for company. She hadn’t stopped thinking about Gard since the moment Gard had walked out on her. She didn’t make a habit of casual encounters, but intimate company wasn’t all that difficult to come by when she needed it. And damn it, she really needed it now.

No sexual foray in memory, not even the great marathon sex with Brin, came close to the intensity of the interrupted kiss with Gard. The woman turned her on like no one she’d ever been with. She bet she could come right now with barely a stroke, a theory she would have loved to test if Alice hadn’t been three feet away. She couldn’t remember the last time a woman had gotten her so excited she’d had to take matters into her own hands. She usually had far better control than that.

Of course, maybe Gard affected her so strongly because Gard pulled back first, catching her when she’d already let down her defenses. When she’d ached to have Gard take her. Gard had wanted her, she’d seen the desire in her eyes. But something held her back, and that something nagged at Jenna like a splinter just under the surface of her skin. She could see it, could feel the constant little stabs of pain, could hear the constant taunts of do it, do it, do it. She wanted to dig beneath the surface and find out what caused a woman like Gard—handsome, smart, accomplished—to resist something as simple as a kiss. What was that all about?

“Where did you just go?” Alice sat up, her expression moving from curious to suspicious. “What’s going on?”

Jenna considered making something up. She wasn’t in the mood for an argument with Alice. She was still too unsettled after the near miss with Gard. But lying wasn’t her style. And this was Alice, after all. “The social opportunities around here are just fine.”

“You’re stalling.”

Jenna laughed. “I am. I, uh, kind of made a move on Gard tonight.”

“Jenna!” Alice looked like she was going to take flight. “I told you not her. Why, why, why can’t you ever do anything I say?”

“You’re kidding, right? You’ve got to be kidding. I always listen to you.” Jenna was laughing so hard at the absurdity of Alice’s statement she could hardly catch her breath. “I’m like a good little soldier. You give me my schedule, I follow it to a T. You tell me you want a manuscript yesterday, I deliver the day before yesterday. I’m sorry my love life isn’t quite as easy to arrange as my writing schedule.”

“What did you do? Please God, tell me you didn’t sleep with her.”

Suddenly serious, Jenna said, “And if I had?”

“Just tell me. Did you?”

“No, but I wanted to.”

“Okay. Clearly, compromise is needed.”

Jenna shook her head, but before she could say that her personal life was not something she was going to let Alice manage, Alice interrupted.

“Here’s the deal. Go ahead and sleep with her, because I have a feeling you’re going to no matter what I say. But it stays here. Kind of like Vegas. What happens in” —she frowned— “Bumfuck, Vermont, stays in Bumfuck, Vermont.”

“Agreed,” Jenna said, because that was her plan as well. “If we sleep together, it ends when I leave.”

“You mean it?”

“Absolutely,” Jenna said with certainty. After all, what other alternative was there?

“A beer—Dogfish Head if you’ve got it,” Gard said to the bartender in the roadhouse one county over. She didn’t drink where she worked, unless she was meeting Rina for a quick beer and burger in the evening. If she showed up at one of the taverns in Little Falls at one in the morning, everyone would know about it by breakfast. One of the simple realities of small-town living. So she’d driven close to an hour for a little anonymity. She needed to burn off some energy or she’d be up pacing around half the night again. All she could see was the hazy want in Jenna’s eyes. Her clit still pounded with frustrated arousal. Maybe a beer would dull the desire.

“Here you go.” The bartender slid a sweating bottle across the counter to her. Two wet trails like fat snail tracks followed the bottle’s path. She pushed a five back. “Thanks.”

The bar was one big room divided into a small seating section with tables and chairs at one end, a couple of booths across from the bar where she sat, and a pool table tucked into an alcove just to the left of the door. She and three men in long-sleeved green work shirts and canvas pants occupied the bar, each with an empty stool between them, defining their territory and their isolation. She drained her beer and asked for another. This one she sipped, knowing it had to be her last.

Lust curled inside her, gnawing at her flesh while the memory of Jenna’s mouth seared the surface of her brain. She had sworn off women because of Susannah, but she hadn’t wallowed with a broken heart. She hadn’t been interested in getting to know anyone beyond the casual conversation that would lead to a night or two of sex, and she hadn’t even had that in a couple of years. She knew more about Jenna Hardy than she’d known about the women she’d slept with, and the disruption of the pattern she’d grown comfortable with disturbed her. Jenna disturbed her. She was beautiful and sexy and smart. Who wouldn’t want to sleep with her? Hell, she did want to sleep with her, was practically sick with wanting her. But Jenna pulled up her shields and retreated from intimacy just as she did, and that was damn scary. She knew a little bit about why people put up barriers, and if Jenna had unhealed wounds, she didn’t want to expose them. She didn’t want to know about them or care about them or risk making them worse. She didn’t want the responsibility, and she sure as hell didn’t want the pain.

She looked down and saw that her bottle was empty and now she had no excuse to stay. She reached for her keys on the bartop and stopped when a feminine hand settled on her wrist. A young blonde, maybe twenty-five, slid onto the stool next to her and leaned against Gard’s shoulder.

“Get you another one?”

“No, thanks. I’ve hit my limit,” Gard said.

“Not a big drinker.”

“No. Can I get you something?”

“Coke?”

“Two Cokes,” Gard called to the bartender. She didn’t know the young woman, and she didn’t look or sound like a local. She was wearing tapered blood-red pants that ended mid-calf, a skimpy white spandex top, and low-heeled sandals. The men at the bar paid them no attention. “Are you staying around here?”

“I’m organizing summer conferences at Bennington College. I was just on my way back from a weekend in Boston. That’s where I live.”

“How did you end up in here?”

“I was starting to get a little sleepy so I thought I better stop.” She lowered her voice. “You were the safest-looking one in here. I hope you don’t mind.”

Gard laughed. “I think they’re all pretty safe, but I definitely don’t mind. I’m Gard Davis.”

“Madison Elliott. My friends call me Madison.”

Gard laughed again. “Nice to meet you, Madison.”

Madison looked pointedly at Gard’s left hand when Gard handed some bills to the bartender. Madison’s thigh pressed a little more firmly against hers.

“If you’re too tired to drive,” Gard said, “I can take you to Bennington. You can have someone drive you back here tomorrow to pick up your car. It should be safe enough in the parking lot, and I know the county sheriff. She can have someone check on it. If you like.”

“You’d do that? Drive me to Bennington tonight?”

“Sure. I’m used to being up at all hours. And we wouldn’t want you to get in an accident.”

“You could stay with me—I’ve got my own room—and drive me back here tomorrow.” Madison drank some Coke and pushed the glass away. She caught Gard’s gaze, held it unblinking. “If you like.”

Gard collected her change. “Let me drive you home.”

Chapter Fifteen