“Would you?” Jenna pushed her hand up under Gard’s shirt, found the small, firm mound of her breast, and squeezed the tight nipple. Gard jerked, groaning deep in her chest, and the sound vibrated against Jenna’s palm. “Would you really?”

“We need to take this out of the kitchen.”

“Not tonight.” Jenna brushed Gard’s nipple lightly and trailed her fingertips down the center of Gard’s belly and out from beneath her shirt. “When we make love, I don’t want to think about anything except how hard you’re making me come. I’m not going to be able to do that until your arm is better.”

“I’m not going to wait that long.” Gard eased away but kept her hand on Jenna’s hip. “I know you don’t want me to.”

“You have no idea what I want you to do.” Jenna took a breath. Steadied herself. Got control. “Are we still on for five?”

“Do women always do what you want?”

“I never ask for anything they’re not willing to give.”

“Is that the deal?”

Jenna nodded. “Clean and simple.”

“No strings.”

“No strings.”

Gard’s gaze bored into Jenna’s, the gray shimmering to midnight. “Five it is.”

Chapter Eighteen

When Jenna got home, she wasn’t in the mood to recap the evening, but Alice was sitting on the front porch in the semidark, barefoot in striped boxers and a short-sleeved white T-shirt. Even though the table lamp in the parlor behind her threw a crescent of pale yellow light onto the porch, Alice was mostly in shadow. Each time she rocked forward into the moonlight her face appeared, ghostly and beautiful.

Jenna dropped into a rocker next to her and plucked at the bottom of the boxers. “Going native?”

“Ha ha.” Alice rocked slowly and rattled the ice cubes in the rock glass she cradled in her right hand. “It’s so quiet here. Sometimes I think it’s wonderful, and the rest of the time terrifying. I’m not used to being so alone with myself.”

“I know what you mean. It’s easy to feel lost, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think I could be happy here for very long.”

“Not enough happening?” Jenna had spent the first seventeen years of her life desperate to escape a place very much like this, on the surface at least. She’d been convinced if she could make her way to the city, opportunity would abound and anonymity would be her protection. Now she knew that safety wasn’t a place, or even a person, but a state of mind. She’d carved her safety out of nothing, and guarded it with all her will.

“I don’t miss the action,” Alice said, “at least not the way you think. Oh sure, I miss the easy access to the theater and good restaurants and first-run shopping. But it’s more personal than that. I’d slow down too much if I didn’t have all the competition around, pushing me just a little harder, just a little faster.” She laughed. “Maybe I’m not as much of a self-starter as I thought.”

“Afraid you might lose your edge?”

“Exactly. I guess my energy tends to synchronize with my environment.” She rocked a little faster. “Isn’t there a name for that?”

“Yes, a very big one, and I don’t think you’d really like the analogy.” Jenna laughed. “You know—the cold-blooded creatures that stop moving below a certain temperature?”

“Are you calling me a snake?”

“Absolutely not. And I do know what you mean.”

“But it’s not that way for you, is it?”

Jenna hesitated, thinking over her day. “I can write anywhere. As for the rest of it—I haven’t made up my mind. I feel like I’ve lost a layer of skin up here, as if I’m closer to the air and the earth and—well, everything. And I’m not really sure I want to be.”

“You mean you feel vulnerable.”

Just the word made Jenna anxious. “Maybe.”

“I take it you went over to Gard’s tonight.” Alice drained her glass and set it on the floor next to the rocker. “How is she?”

“I think her injury is a little worse than she wants to let on, but she’ll be all right.”

“I was wondering if you’d be back tonight.”

“I almost wasn’t. If she hadn’t been hurt, I might’ve stayed.”

“Moving a little fast, aren’t you?”

“Hardly.” Jenna didn’t share every detail of her private life with Alice, but Alice knew her pattern. She most often slept with women she’d met at an industry meeting or business event. After an evening of conversation, enough to establish the unspoken agreement that one night was all she was available for, she’d have an enjoyable few hours of physical satisfaction. She hadn’t been with a woman she’d spent more than a superficial hour or two getting to know in months. Now that she thought about it, in years. Without consciously deciding, she’d limited her personal interactions to the wholly impersonal.

“She’s not your usual type,” Alice said.

“I don’t know about that. She’s intelligent, good-looking, sexy as sin.”

“Uh-huh. No argument there.” Alice propped her bare feet up on the railing. Her legs were smooth and sleek, a fine ridge of muscle etched along the length of her thigh. “But that’s not what does it for you with her, is it? She’s under your skin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone able to do that before.”

Alice was right. Gard was under her skin. Suddenly restless, Jenna strode to the edge of the porch and wrapped her arm around a column, trying to see through the dense night beyond the faint circle of light. Everything she’d said to Alice was true. Gard was interesting, bright, good-looking, sexy. But that wasn’t it. That wasn’t what made Gard so hard to get out of her mind. What was it that made Gard so different? Not just one thing—big things and little things. The way Gard had caught her when she’d fallen that very first night—so steady and sure, her insistence on taking her home and caring for her when she had no reason to care at all, asking—really asking—about her work. Gard made her feel special. And the way she touched her—God, the way she touched her. Jenna closed her eyes. Her lips tingled with the memory of Gard’s mouth traveling over her throat, pressed between her breasts. Her nipples tightened and her clitoris ached. And underneath the arousal, she yearned for the connection she had been so certain she didn’t need.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

“Serious, isn’t it,” Alice murmured.

“No. No, no it isn’t.” Jenna felt panicked in a way she hadn’t since she’d run away from home. Her life wasn’t out of control, she wouldn’t let it be. She wasn’t falling in love with Gard Davis. She wouldn’t let herself. They’d already discussed it, they’d already agreed. A few weeks. Neat and simple and no strings.

Gard couldn’t sleep. Her arm throbbed, but the pain wasn’t keeping her awake. After Jenna left, she’d rattled around the house for a while, walked down to the barn and checked on her animals, and ended up sitting astride a pasture fence listening to the night. The cool air helped dampen some of the fire from kissing Jenna, but nothing could douse the simmering coals deep inside. Back at the house, she lay naked on top of the sheets, staring at the ceiling or out the window at the waning moon, trying to figure out what was happening to her. When she’d been young, she’d desperately longed for a woman and thought her craving was love. Looking back, she recognized it as loneliness. The wealth and privilege she’d grown up with had been poor substitutes for intimacy, and she’d never quite fit in with her father and her brothers, and never known why.

Then Susannah had blown into her life with the force of a hurricane, whipping through the empty rooms of her heart and blinding her to what really lay between them. Had she known the devastation that was coming, she doubted she could have walked away. The elation of having Susannah, of believing they shared desire, passion, need—the exhilaration was too addicting. The union she’d thought they’d had was everything she’d ever wanted. But what she’d thought was love proved to be only her own need, and she’d been left battered and bitterly alone. Abandoned at heart, renounced by her family and peers, she’d turned her back on wealth and status and empty dreams. She’d rebuilt a life where the storms of passion would not seduce her. And she’d been, if not happy, satisfied. Until Jenna came along and woke the sleeping dragon. Now she wanted again. God damn it. God damn it.

Close to four she gave up trying to sleep. After a quick shower, she dressed methodically in jeans, a blue cotton shirt, and her work boots. She fed Beam, double-checked her appointment list to be sure she had the necessary equipment in the truck, and drove to the Hardy place. The house was dark when she pulled in front and cut her lights and engine. She sat listening to the engine tick and watched the front door, wondering if Jenna had changed her mind. Wondering if that might not be a good thing.

She wasn’t sure why she’d invited Jenna to come with her, to spend time with her. To be part of her daily life. None of that would really matter when Jenna finally heard the whole story, from Alice or someone else. As much as Jenna said her past didn’t matter, she didn’t believe it. Right now, Jenna was on sabbatical from her life, but she was Cassandra Hart every bit as much as she was Jenna Hardy, and Cassandra Hart did not belong in Little Falls, Vermont. Cassandra Hart did not belong with her.

Gard draped her arms over the steering wheel and watched the sun rise.

“Sorry. Did I keep you waiting?” Jenna said through the open passenger side window.

“No problem. I’m early. I didn’t see you come out.”

“I was down at the barn. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Must be contagious.”

“Do you still want me to come with you?”

Just at that moment the first ray of sunshine struck the yard, painting Jenna in a swath of gold. The red highlights in her hair shimmered like flame and the sky reflected in her eyes. Framed in the truck window, she might have been an image painted by an Old Master. Gard stretched across the seat, popped the handle on the door, and pushed it open with her fingertips. “Climb in. We’re going to have a busy morning.”