"You don't think I'm dog meat?"

Kristy looked so hopeful that Rachel's heart went out to her. Maybe she finally had a way to repay this intelligent, insecure woman for her kindness. "Come on." She guided her into the living room, where she seated them both on the couch. "I definitely don't think you're dog meat. You have beautiful features. You're petite, which is something men seem to go for, not that I'd know anything about it. And you seem to have fairly nice breasts hidden away under that blouse, not that I'd know about that either."

"You really think I have breasts?"

Rachel couldn't hold back a smile. "I guess you're a better judge of that than I am. What I think, Kristy, is that you decided a long time ago that you weren't attractive, and you've never bothered to reassess yourself."

Kristy sagged back into the couch. Disbelief, hope, confusion played over her face. Rachel let her take her time, and while she waited, she gazed around at the simple, rustic living room and thought how much she liked it. The breeze coming in through the screen door smelled of pine, faintly overlaid with the sweet scent of honeysuckle. Outside she saw Edward chasing after a firefly, and she wondered if Gabe had ever sat here and watched his son do the same thing. The image was too painful, and she shook it off.

"So what should I do about it?" Kristy finally said.

"I don't know. Maybe a makeover?"

"Makeover?"

"Go to a good salon and have them do your hair and makeup. Visit a trendy little boutique for a wardrobe update."

For a moment she looked hopeful, and then her expression clouded. "What's the point. I could walk into Ethan's office stark-naked and he wouldn't notice."

"We can try that, too." Rachel smiled. "But let's do the makeover part first."

Kristy looked shocked, and then she laughed.

Rachel decided that she might as well go all the way.

"One more thing. You have to stop fussing over him."

"What do you mean?"

"How can he look at you like a lover when you treat him as if you're his mother?"

"I do not!"

"You put the dressing on his salad!"

"Sometimes he forgets."

"Then let him forget. You baby him, Kristy. He won't die if he has to eat his salad plain."

"That's not fair. I work for him. Looking after him is my job."

"How many years have you done this job?"

"Eight. Ever since he took over as pastor."

"And you've done it well, right? Unless I miss my guess, you've been about the best secretary anyone could find. You can read his mind and predict what he wants even before he wants it."

She nodded.

"But what has it gotten you, other than a paycheck?"

Her mouth tightened with resentment. "Nothing. It hasn't gotten me anything. I don't even like the job. Lately I've been thinking I should go to Florida like my parents want. They went down there to retire, but they got bored, so they opened this little gift shop in Clearwater. They've been nagging at me to come down and help them run it."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to work with children."

"Then do it."

Her resentment turned to frustration. "It's not that easy. At least this way I can be around him."

"Is that all you want your life to be about? Staying around Ethan Bonner?"

"You don't understand!"

"I might understand more than you think." She drew a deep breath. "Dwayne dressed me up like a hooker and expected me to behave like a saint. I tried to be everything he wanted, but it never was enough." Kristy placed a sympathetic hand on her knee. Rachel lowered her voice. "Instead of thinking about living for Ethan Bonner, maybe it's time you started to think about living for yourself."

Kristy's expression was an endearing combination of yearning and disappointment. "No makeover?"

"A makeover only if you're not happy with the way you are."

"I'm not." She sighed.

"Makeover, then. But do it for yourself, Kristy. Not for Ethan."

Kristy took a nibble on her bottom lip. "I guess that means no Spandex."

"Do you want to wear Spandex?"

"I'd look silly."

"You do want to!"

"I'll think about it. Not just that, but everything."

They smiled at each other, and Rachel realized that something had changed between them. Until tonight, they had been polite acquaintances. Now they were friends.

During the next few days, Rachel's body came back to life with a vengeance. She felt young and erotically charged. The late-June weather was beautiful, with low humidity and temperatures that only occasionally reached eighty, but she always felt as if she were burning up.

As she worked, she kept the buttons of her cotton house-dresses unfastened at the throat and let the bodices fall open so the breeze could touch her skin. The damp, worn cotton molded to her breasts, defining their small, high shape in a way that made her feel voluptuous and sexy. She piled her hair on top of her head and fanned her thighs with her lifted skirts, trying to cool herself. And no matter what she did, she felt his eyes stroking her.

He'd look up from wherever he was working, wipe his hands on his jeans, and gaze at her. Her skin seemed to hum. It was crazy. She felt languid and tense at the same time.

Sometimes he'd bark out an order or a veiled insult, but she barely listened because her senses transformed whatever brusque words he was speaking into the ones he really meant.

I want you.

And she wanted him back. For sex, she told herself. Only for sex. Nothing more. No intimate entanglement, no exchange of feelings, only sex.

When her body grew so hot she feared it would burst into flame, she made herself think of other things: her growing friendship with Kristy, Edward's excitement as he told her about his day, and the Kennedy chest.

Each night she walked to the notch at the top of Heartache Mountain and gazed down at the house where she had once lived. She had to get inside so she could resume her search for the chest, but she couldn't take the chance that he'd be there. He hadn't said a word about the missing key, and, with the drive-in opening just two weeks away, she could only hope he'd forgotten about it. Surely he would have said something if he hadn't. She wanted to scream in frustration. If only he'd go away so she could get inside.

Nine days after the night she'd first broken into his brother's house, she finally got the opportunity she'd been waiting for.

He came up to her as she was fastening new chrome knobs to the storage cabinets in the snack shop. Even before she heard his footsteps, she caught the scent of pine and laundry detergent and wondered how someone who did manual labor always managed to smell so clean.

"Ethan and I have business to take care of. I'll be away for the rest of the afternoon, so lock up when you're done."

She nodded and her heart raced. While he was occupied with his brother, she could finally get into the house.

She finished her job in record time, then drove to Annie's cottage where she fetched the key from its hiding place in the back of her dresser drawer and set off down the mountain. By the time she reached the bottom, a light drizzle had started to fall.

The full skirt of the housedress she was wearing that day, a worn pink cotton printed with turquoise squiggles, grew damp, along with her heavy shoes and the tops of her socks. She took them off in the laundry room so she didn't leave any telltale tracks and proceeded barefoot up the stairs of the silent house.

She searched the nursery first, firmly repressing all those nostalgic pangs that made her want to curl up in the old rocker that still sat by the window and remember the feel of Edward's downy little head at her breast. When she didn't find the chest there, she headed for her former bedroom.

This room had changed more than any other, and as she gazed at the high-tech equipment positioned on a modern, L-shaped work station near the window, she wondered about Dr. Jane Darlington Bonner, Gabe's physicist sister-in-law. Was she as happy with her marriage as she'd looked in the magazine photo?

She made a quick search of the room's closet and bureau, but found nothing. The large bottom drawer set into one end of the work station was the only other place to look, but the idea of going through a stranger's desk seemed more an invasion of privacy than anything else she'd done. Still, she had to know, so she slid the drawer open, then drew in her breath as she saw the chest tucked inside.

She felt its contents shift as she took it out. Her breath quickened as she lifted the small hinge and saw a stack of multicolored computer diskettes lying inside. She withdrew them and placed them in the bottom drawer, then tucked the chest under her arm and rushed for the stairs. She felt light-headed with relief. As soon as she got the chest back to the cottage, she could search it, even take it apart if she had to.

Just as she hit the top step, Ethan Bonner pushed open the front door. She froze, but it was too late. He spotted her immediately.

His expression grew stony. "Adding larceny to your other sins?"

"Hi, Ethan. Gabe sent me over to pick this up."

"Did he?"

She forced herself to smile as she came down the steps, her feet bare and her damp skirt clammy against her legs. Nothing was going to make her give up this chest. "Don't ask me why he wants it. I'm just the hired help, and he doesn't tell me anything."

"Maybe he'd explain if I asked him."

"Oh, that's not necess-"

"Gabe!" Ethan tilted his head toward the front door, which he'd left open. "Come in here, will you?"

Panic rushed through her. "That's all right. I can talk to him when I get back to work." With a jaunty wave, she tucked the chest higher under her arm and made a dash across the cold marble floor for the back of the house.