When they drew apart, their eyes shone like flinders of glass as they studied each other in the faint greenish-white light. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Now tell me," he ordered softly. "What do we have working against us?"

It was difficult for Rachel to reason, with her pulses racing this way. She forced herself to ease back to her own side of the seat, but the moment she did he took up the sensual fingering of her hair again. She shivered, came to her senses, and shrugged away. "Don't do that, Tommy Lee," she demanded sensibly, forcing herself to evaluate the situation rationally. He was justified in asking her exactly why she was here and what she wanted from him.

"Sorry," he said letting go of her hair. "A minute ago I thought you were enjoying it."

"A minute ago I was, but I shouldn't have been."

"What are you afraid of, Rachel?"

"The same things you are. You… me… the past… the future."

"Broad answers. Could you narrow them down?"

She sighed and looked away from him in the hope that she would be able to think more clearly. "Oh, Tommy Lee, you're so… so practiced!" She made an irritated gesture with her hands.

"Practiced!"

"Yes, practiced. I have the distinct feeling you've done it all, said it all a thousand times before. Do you blame me for being put off by the thought of all those others?"

"All right," he snapped, "so I'm not a fumbling schoolboy anymore. Is that what you want?"

"I don't know," she said miserably, propping her forehead on her knuckles. "I'm so mixed up."

"I told you before, Rachel. Those other women were only substitutes."

"And when you say things like that it only makes me wonder if you give this standard line to every one of us."

He tensed; then the lines of his face hardened, and he removed his arm from the back of the seat. "I don't have a standard line," he stated angrily.

"You wanted me to tell you what we had working against us, so there it is-part of it-and I'm not sure I can ever get past it."

He studied her profile for a full minute, then went on with stern reproof in every word. "Let me tell you something, Rachel. When you first came home from college, you wore your hair down to your shoulderblades, and you had a saucy little red shiny-looking coat that barely reached past your butt, and the day you were married it was sixty-seven degrees and raining. You honeymooned in Greece, came back, and lived in a rented house at fourteen hundred Oak Street, and your phone number was 555-6891. You went to work for the Chamber of Commerce during the time when your hair was screwed up in Afro ringlets, and you wore a more sedate gray cloth coat that fall -that was when you had the maroon Chevy Nova, the one that kid sideswiped that time when you hit your head on the windshield and had to have stitches in your scalp-let's see…" With seemingly clinical detachment he clasped her head in both hands and explored her hairline with his thumbs. "I forget which side it's on, but I know it's right here someplace…"

She chuckled and pulled away. "Oh, Tommy Lee, you're impossible."

"Do you want me to tell you about the cinnamon-colored suede suit that really knocked my socks off when I first saw you walking by in it? Or the grand opening of your store, held on September fif..."

She cut him off with four fingers on his lips. "No, you don't have to tell me any more," she answered meekly.

He kissed her fingertips, then pressed them to his lapel before declaring in a soft, sincere tone, "I don't have a line where you're concerned, Rachel."

"I'm sorry I said that. I really am."

"But I don't know what you want from me. What is it, Rachel?" His hand gripped hers harder. His eyes, so close now, held a vulnerability he made no effort to hide.

"I don't know," she said. "Sometimes the thought of you scares me. You're so… so…"

"When I kissed you, you weren't scared."

"When you kissed me you caught me with my guard down."

His eyes dropped to her lips. He smoothed the back of her hand, and even through his stiff lapel she could feel the strong, fast thud of his heart. "You're afraid I'll use you and move on, is that it?"

"That's part of it."

"And the other part?"

She looked into his eyes with a sad realization that there were no guarantees in this world. "That I'll use you and move on," she admitted, then continued softly. "There are still feelings between us, I won't deny it. But why? Simply because we were denied the right to each other once a long time ago? And if and when we've explored those feelings, what then? Please understand, Tommy Lee, I don't want to hurt you, but it's becoming clearer all the time how easily that could happen."

"Suppose I'm willing to take the risk?"

The longer she sat with her hand over his clamoring heart, the more willing she herself was becoming. She withdrew her hand and searched for more reasons to stop this folly.

"There's something else." Her lips dropped open and the tip of her tongue came out to wet them. "People say things about widows… unkind things." She swallowed and felt herself beginning to blush, recalling Marshall's readiness to become her lover, and his reasons for believing she needed one. And though she'd be the first to admit he'd been right, Rachel was chagrined when she faced the fact. Finally she blurted out, "I don't want to be thought of as a… a sex-starved widow. But I- I-was She stammered to a halt, feeling tears sting her eyes, hating this confusion, which was so foreign to her.

"You what? Say it. Don't be afraid," he prompted.

I suddenly find you more than I bargained for. I want to feel your arms around me, your mouth on mine, your hands on my body. I want to feel alive again, desired, loved. But I'm so afraid to let it happen with you.

"I'm afraid to," she said shakily.

He reached out to touch her cheek, reading in her eyes the unmistakable tug of carnality against which she fought. "Poor Rachel, so mixed up, wanting one thing, telling herself she wants another."

He studied her thoroughly, puzzling out this new, uncertain Rachel. Then he smiled, leaned close, and grazed her jaw with his lips. "So, what'll it be?" he murmured teasingly. "Wanna neck a little bit and see how it feels?"

She laughed unexpectedly, feeling the tension ease. And he kissed her neck with a fleeting touch that could scarcely be felt. But his scent was in her nostrils, smoky, mixed with the remnants of his shaving lotion and the starchy smell of new fabric from his suit. Her eyelids drifted closed, and his nearness sent the blood roaring to her ears.

"Mmm…" she murmured softly while he worked his way toward her earlobe and worried it gently with his teeth.

"Nice?" he murmured in return.

"Mmm…" It was more than nice. It was heady, enticing. "Tommy Lee," she whispered, "why did you leave the car running?"

He drew back to study her eyes, his arms forming an open harbor for her to sail into if she chose, one resting on the wheel, the other on the seat but not touching her. "If you want it off, turn it off yourself."

And so here it was-the choice. If she shut the car off there would be no turning back. If she didn't she had the feeling she'd regret it forever.

Her hand trembled as it reached toward the keys that dangled from the ignition on a silver chain. They chinked softly; then the car fell silent. Neither of them moved for a long, tense moment. At last, with his eyes rapt upon her, he reached through the steering wheel and shifted the car into park, felt for the light switch and brought darkness descending about their heads. His hand rose slowly to his temple, and with a twist of his head the glasses came off and he laid them on the dash. In slow motion, his hand closed about her neck, urging her near until she tilted toward him. For the space of several thundering heartbeats they hovered with their lips an inch apart.

"I don't want an affair," she claimed in a shaken whisper, but she needed very much to be kissed and caressed again.

"I know." His lips brushed hers in a kiss as tentative as the first one shared years ago in the break of a boxwood hedge. Her right hand came up to rest shyly against his chest, while his shifted to her hair, his long fingers threading through it.

They backed apart slightly, gauging each other's reactions and the dangers of carrying this to its limits. Those dangers were many and very, very real. But the great force of sexuality pressed down upon them, lying in their vitals with a heavy anguish of longing while their heartbeats scudded like thunder before a summer storm.

"Tommy Lee… we're crazy," she whispered.

"No," came his whispered reply. "We deserve this. We paid for it long ago."

CHAPTER TEN

They moved with one accord, tipping their heads until their lips met again in tremulous reunion, sweeping them back in memory to the time of sweet innocence, when only bright dreams lay ahead.

Rachel's fingertips moved from his lapel to his shirtfront, and felt the skin warm through the cotton as his breath came with a celerity 301 that matched her own. Their heads swayed in a lovers' choreography, seeking a firmer fit of mouth upon mouth. His hand flattened on her warm, bare back, drawing her nearer as his tongue slipped between her silken lips, bringing the taste of tobacco and some long-remembered essence as individual as a fingerprint. A sound rose in his throat-the end of the bitter, a rebirth of the sweet-and came a second time while his tongue scribed ever-widening circles over her eager mouth.