And even though she had always taken pride in her aloneness, coming so close to foundering, she realized, had been somewhat of a chastening experience for her. She was far too relieved to have been rescued to mind that she wasn’t alone anymore.

Troy managed to find his way to the supermarket he’d noticed yesterday on his way into town without asking Charly for directions. He was glad of that, since she finally seemed to be relaxing a little, and he hadn’t wanted to rile her if he could avoid it. She sat up when he pulled off into the parking lot, though, roused and suspicious.

“What’s this?” she demanded to know, in her edgy, camouflage tone.

“Like I said-real food.” He rolled the windows down and pocketed the keys. “Sit tight-keep Bubba company. Be right back.”

“I swear, if you bring back yogurt,” she said darkly, glaring at him through the window, “you’d better be prepared to wear it. Or anything green!”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a mock salute and went off smiling to himself.

It took him longer in the store than he expected. When he came out, when he first walked up to the Cherokee, his heart did a hard flip-flop, because he couldn’t see either Charly or Bubba inside. But when he got closer, he could see that what she’d done was recline her seat all the way down, and it looked like she and Bubba were pretty much sharing it. She had her arm around the pup’s neck, and he had his big ol’ head tucked in underneath her chin and both of ’em were snoring away like babies.

Troy stood there for a minute just looking at the two of them, the woman he’d only known for a day, and his very own dog. His heart was still doing flip-flops, and there was a wicked little pulse going like a hammer in his belly.

Oh, Lord, he thought. Oh, dear Lord. What am I gonna do about this?

Charly and Bubba both woke up when he opened the door, jumping apart like a couple of kids caught kissing in the closet. The dog, who had the better sense of smell, started whining and drooling, while Charly righted her seat and raked her fingers through her hair and generally tried to look as if she hadn’t really been napping, just resting her eyes for a minute.

Troy plunked the sackful of groceries on her lap and climbed in behind the wheel while she was poking through it, looking for something she could object to.

“What’s this?” she asked, holding up the first thing she came to, which was a foil sack, warm to the touch and fragrant enough to drive poor ol’ Bubba half-crazy.

Troy gave her a smile. “Rotisserie chicken. Lemon pepper.”

She sniffed. “Barbecue’s better.” And a moment later, “Whole-grain bread? Didn’t they have any sourdough?” And finally, “Milk? You must be kidding.”

“That’s right,” said Troy placidly. “Low fat.”

She did some of that swearing under her breath he hadn’t heard for quite a while, then said in a suspicious tone, “Okay, where are the vegetables?”

“They’re in there.”

“Where? What kind? I don’t see any-hey,” she exclaimed as he made a left at the main road instead of turning right, “where are we going? The motel’s back that way.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I know.” And then he took a breath and let it out slowly while he thought about how he was going to explain to this beautiful, sexy, incredibly desirable woman why he didn’t care to be alone with her in a motel room.

As galling as it was to have to admit it, the truth was, he just couldn’t trust himself with the woman in a situation that afforded him both the means and the opportunity to take her to bed. He’d always considered himself a man of fairly good character where women were concerned. and with strong enough willpower to keep himself within the boundaries he’d set for himself. But for some reason, with this woman, all bets were off. God help him, every time he got close to her, he found himself doing things he had no business doing, and wanting to do things he had no business even thinking about. Not with somebody he’d known for less than twenty-four hours. Not with somebody in the state she was in, and based on what had happened last time they’d been alone together, maybe not exactly capable of making her own best decisions, either.

But he didn’t want to explain all that to Charly, partly because he wasn’t comfortable letting her know just how vulnerable to her he was, and partly because he was pretty sure she wouldn’t see anything particularly wrong with it. Not that he thought it was usual for her to go jumping into the sack with a guy within hours of making his acquaintance, or that she’d somehow been overwhelmed by his own personal charms. Hell, no. He didn’t have any illusions about that. She’d been emotionally vulnerable and he’d been available, that was all. End of story. And as far as he could see, those circumstances hadn’t changed a whole lot.

Well, okay, except in a couple of ways. For one, they’d already made love one night. And a memorable, most enjoyable time it had been. Which would make it a whole lot harder to avoid doing again.

And for two…well, to put it bluntly, now he cared about her. Which made it a whole different story.

“It’s a nice evening,” he finally managed to say through the truckload of gravel in his throat, keeping his eyes focused steadfastly through the windshield as he tried to tiptoe his way around a lie. “Nice and warm…doesn’t look like it’s gonna rain. Thought we’d have us a picnic. You know of any place around here we can go and park?”

There was an odd little silence before she said, “Yeah, actually. I do.” He could tell by the sound of her voice that she was looking straight at him, and knew that he was taking a risk, meeting her eyes, even for a moment. He chanced it anyway, but she’d already turned her head away. “It’s not too far from here,” she said softly. “Bear right at the fork.”

Beyond the place where the main highway out of town branched off, the road got curvier and began to climb. A little farther on she told him to turn right where a sign said, Mourning Spring Park-No Camping-Closed at Dusk.

“Ignore that,” she said. “Everyone does.”

“Ah,” said Troy dryly, “let me guess-the local lovers’ lane?” Lord, he hoped not

She didn’t reply. The narrow paved road wound down and down. Troy was conscious of trees he couldn’t see, and lush vegetation closing in around them, shutting out the stars. At Charly’s direction, he pulled into a wide graveled clearing, parked and turned off the engine. In the Cherokee’s headlights he could see picnic tables and trash cans and the trunks of large trees. A car parked down at the far end of the clearing started up its engine and pulled slowly past them, lights off.

“Sorry, kids,” Troy muttered. He rolled his window down and he sat for a moment, listening to the music of the night…the ticking of the cooling engine, the rhythmic singing of frogs, the screech of cicadas in far-off trees, the rush and tinkle of running water, the rustling of leaves. And closer by, the breathing sounds of the dog in the back seat, and of the woman next to him. The air felt cool and moist on his skin and smelled of ferns and moss and rotting leaves and rich, dark earth. Eden must have smelled like this, he thought.

He left the car’s headlights on while Charly carried the sack of groceries to one of the picnic tables and he got Bubba’s leash on him and secured it to a nearby trash can. Then he hauled out the blankets he’d started keeping in back to protect his new upholstery when he’d first got the pup, and gave them a good shaking. He got the battery-powered emergency lantern out from under the front seat, set it on the picnic table and spread the blankets out on the ground. When he came back from turning the car lights off, Charly was already carrying the grocery bag over to the blankets.

“You don’t know what’s been on those tables,” she said with a shudder. “And you don’t even want to.”

They settled themselves on the blankets, out of reach of Bubba, whose leash allowed him as far as a corner and no farther. One by one, not looking at each other, they laid out the things Troy had bought, placing them on the blanket between them-save one, wrapped and cushioned in plastic, which he set carefully aside. From a tree nearby an owl hooted his hopeful question, and Troy thought again of Eden. He was beginning to have doubts about whether this picnic had been such a good idea after all.

He got out his pocket knife and began whittling at the loaf of bread, cutting off huge slabs while Charly laughed at him and muttered, “Boy Scout.”

“Nope,” he said placidly, slathering the slabs with spicy-sweet honey mustard, “SEALs.”

He then turned his attention to the chicken. The first piece, covered with greasy, well-seasoned skin, he meant to offer to Bubba, since the poor guy was whimpering and slobbering all over himself and just about to pee himself in his excitement and anticipation. But when Charly saw what he was doing, she snaked out her arm and snatched the chicken out of his hand just in the nick of time, exclaiming indignantly, “What are you doing? That’s the best part!” And poor ol’ Bubba gave a woof of disappointment as he watched her pop his morsel into her own mouth.

Troy just shook his head in resignation and went back to slicing, while Charly defiantly cooed and licked her fingers with exaggerated smacking sounds. In the lantern light he could see the sheen of grease on her lips and fingers, along with a wicked gleam in the look she slanted his way. He knew she was teasing him, taunting him, tryin’ her best to get his goat. He just couldn’t quite be sure whether it was the food she was giving him a hard time about, or something else entirely.

“Here you go, guy,” Charly was crooning to the dog, “you can have this instead.”

Well, that got Troy’s attention off of Charly’s lips and the busy pink tongue she was cleaning them with barely in time for him to rescue a drumstick from Bubba’s slavering jaws. Which was just about more than the poor dog could handle; he gave a brokenhearted yip and sat back on his haunches, quivering all over, until Troy got the meat pulled off the bone for him. Then it disappeared in one gulp, before Charly’d even had a chance to utter a squawk of indignation.