She was becoming obsessively sure of that. He worked sixteen-hour days in which she barely saw him. Rationally she understood it would have to be that way at the start. Emotionally she couldn’t cope. She didn’t know how to keep house in the primitive conditions. She didn’t know how to cook, much less on a wood stove. She was painfully shy with the strangers and local people. And she hadn’t been prepared for the snakes and bears. By the end of the day she was as exhausted as he, and when they came together at night she was frozen with the fear that she wouldn’t please him. Passion and anxiety were not a blend that went well together, and every morning she looked up at the tall, virile, healthy man that was her husband and saw his eyes shying away from her.

It was then that she had walked out. Emotionally destroyed, a bundle of inadequacy, a pale wraith of the fragile loveliness she once was. All the pieces had to be put back together because she was shattered, and it had taken a long time. She had not pursued a divorce. She didn’t want that piece of paper that would have given her her freedom. The thin band of gold had stayed on her finger. Not because she had any illusions of getting back with Kern, but because it served as a protection and kept other men away.

With Julia’s help in the beginning she had made it on her own. She was proud of her job and the life she had made for herself. The confidence she had in herself was real this time, not based on dreams.


The kettle whistled, and Trisha removed it from the burner. Just for a moment, seeing Kern hurt had brought back the old memories of a strong man who had his moments of vulnerability, who she had believed even needed her. Of course he really didn’t then and he certainly didn’t now.

“Damn it. I’ve been trying to get my mother here for ages. But not now, Tish.”

Trisha was reaching into the refrigerator. She straightened at the sound of his voice, bringing out a package of cheese. “So you talked to her.” She kept her face averted, slicing the cheese wafer-thin, making tiny sandwiches for Julia that she knew would please.

“I told her there was nothing wrong with me. I don’t understand why she had to hightail it out here from Grosse Pointe, and I don’t understand why she looks so awful. I just spoke to her on the phone last Sunday. She was ‘marvelous, darling,’” Kern quoted.

Trisha piled the little quarter sandwiches on a tray and bent to seek some sort of relish from the fridge plus parsley and olives, which Julia loved. “She fibs, Kern. Pit her against the average four-year-old and you could probably have a contest,” Trisha said calmly.

His smile was swift, like fresh air. She caught just a glimpse of it as she turned back to the tray. The deep-set gray eyes had almost pinned hers, and Trisha thought how like the mountain cats he was. The easy, sure movements. The eyes always alert. The subtlety of muscle cloaked in that golden skin of his. The scars and bandages took nothing away from him but added an unexpected illusion of human frailty. She felt disturbed as he watched her making the tea. “I don’t know what to tell you,” she added finally.

“Well, I can’t handle her now. People are flooding into the camp this season and I’m behind because of the ridiculous accident. Sit down for a minute, will you?” He scraped back a kitchen chair and waited.

She didn’t want to sit. She wanted to take the tray back to Julia and leave, quickly, but she couldn’t justify that kind of cowardice in her own mind. After pouring two cups of coffee, her own half full, she took the chair across from him.

“You’re going to have to stay until she’s ready to go home.”

It was what she had planned all along, but it sounded different coming from Kern, as if what he was talking about was staying with him. “Well, of course. After I have Julia settled, I’m going down to Gatlinburg to get a motel-”

“There’s three bedrooms upstairs. Don’t be ridiculous.” He lifted the cup and took a long sip of the bitter hot coffee, staring at her over the rim. “I barely recognized you when you walked in,” he said quietly. “I understand you’ve got quite an impressive job these days.”

“An assistant buyer at Markham’s is hardly impressive, Kern. But I like it,” she murmured, stirring a spoon into the coffee she didn’t really want.

“You went to school at night for two years. Started as a salesclerk. I’d call it impressive to start from nowhere and end up at the place you are. Mother told me you’ve got your own place, close to the river,” he continued. “When I first met you I never thought you’d be happy living in the city, but you’re right in the heart of it, aren’t you? And those rents aren’t inexpensive.”

“Yes,” she said flatly. So he had made a point of knowing what she’d been up to. Why? Rapidly she switched the subject. “How badly were you hurt? It was a car accident, wasn’t it?”

He grimaced. “The mountain roads weren’t meant for drag racers. It was a couple of kids. One of them got a broken leg and the other lost a few teeth. It could have been worse.”

“And what about you?”

“A few cuts and scrapes. Nothing.”

The scar on his forehead and bandaged wrist weren’t “nothing.” Julia had spoken of a concussion and broken ribs. Still, it was typical of Kern to downplay his own hurts, and as far as wanting to share with her-well, of course he wouldn’t. “The camp looks double the size it was before. And the house…”

“Naturally, it’s finished,” Kern said curtly. “You stayed with mother for a time after you left?”

Unconsciously she reached to smooth back a tendril of hair that brushed her cheek. “Yes,” she admitted a little ruefully. “I certainly didn’t intend to. When Uncle Nate moved from Grosse Pointe to California, he left a few boxes of my things with Julia, because she was closer-”

“And it was a lot less trouble than having to mail them here,” Kern interrupted dryly. “God forbid he should ever have had to go out of his way for you.”

Trisha gave a little shrug, surprised he had remembered her uncle at all. “It wasn’t his fault he had an orphan thrust on him when my parents died. I hadn’t planned to go back to live with him nor your mother. It was just a question of going to her house to pick up my things. But the day I went it was raining and I had a halfhearted case of flu. The next thing I knew-”

“Mother had taken you over.”

“With appalling speed.” Trisha shook her head. “Well, I was ill, and then later it was a question of getting on my feet with a job. Talking to Julia about my leaving was like arguing with a brick wall. But whether or not you believe me, Kern, I grew to care for her very much and still do. Once I got past that formidable exterior…” She stopped, rather appalled that she was telling him so much so easily.

Kern leaned forward. “Go on,” he said, encouraging her.

“Well…I invited her to dinner after I was set up in the apartment. She was so shocked-as if she thought I’d just forget her once I left. Apart from my being an indifferent cook at best in those days, I don’t think anyone had had the nerve to serve Julia spaghetti in years. Much less invite her to a place decorated in early attic,” Trisha said dryly. “I remembered that she was fussy about salad dressings so I made a Jell-O molded salad. No one can mess up one of those. Only…”

The corner of his mouth was twitching. She felt an odd stirring inside to see that slash of a smile. “Go on.”

“I had molded it beautifully,” Trisha said frankly. “Only I seemed to have molded in the spoon I’d stirred it with. She never said a word. When she offered to serve the salad I just said yes, and it was only after she was gone and I was cleaning up that I saw she had carved very carefully around the spoon…”

He had such a delicious chuckle, throaty and vibrant. Trisha smiled back, an unexpected warmth curling all through her at the sound of him. His eyes softened in laughter, the corners crinkling in little fan lines, and when he stopped smiling the sensual softness was still there when he looked at her.

“Anyway, she took care of me for a time, and I found myself reversing the role, taking care of Julia from time to time. I didn’t think you’d mind, Kern. Julia never even brought up the two of us. And when she was determined to come down here and see you, I couldn’t say no to her.”

Kern stood up to take his empty coffee cup to the sink. She’d deliberately tried to provoke his laughter with the silly little story, and she had. Five years ago there was none, and suddenly his laughter was a reminder of how they might have related to each other. She stood up, too, and took a breath.

“Well, I’d better get this tray to your mother,” she said briskly. “I may just stay here tonight, Kern, if you really don’t mind. Then by morning if Julia’s better I can have us both out of your hair quickly-”

The vise of his fingers suddenly grasped her wrist. Her shocked face stared up in amazement at his instant change in mood. Hawk eyes seared hers. “So we managed fifteen minutes of casual conversation. We almost sound like old friends, Tish,” he said sarcastically. “Very cool, very relaxed, very poised, Trisha. Not at all the way you used to be!”

His work-roughened hand did odd things to the soft skin of her own. “It’s still there, I see. I saw it the minute you came in.”

The slim gold band seemed to wink at both of them. For a moment she looked up at Kern, her eyes like two blue ink drops on snow. Her face had whitened, not because of the sudden rough contact, but because her senses were unexpectedly assaulted by the closeness of him. He was such a sexual man. The piratelike beard enclosing a mouth that was incredibly smooth-textured. The outdoor scent that was uniquely a part of him. The careless array of thick black hair around a face whose expression was never careless, always alert, always perceptive…