Hennessey's Heaven

Originally published by Bantam Loveswept, 1989

All rights reverted to author, 1999

Revised by author, 2001

Published by Awe-Struck E-Books, Inc.

Copyright 2001

ISBN: 1-58749-111-7

Chapter One

At the sound of a car engine whining, Hennessey looked up and saw a cream-colored sedan. It stopped and a slim woman in a red jacket stepped out from behind the wheel and headed toward his house with a long, loose-limbed stride that showed off her shapely legs as her white pleated skirt flirted around them. Her brown hair bounced freely on the collar of her jacket, and over her shoulder, she'd slung the strap of a red and black tote bag.

He remained seated in his rump-sprung deck chair, but his bare feet thudded to the floor of the sundeck as he leaned forward and watched her move. Moving was something she did very, very nicely.

Long before she was close enough for him to see that she had pink cheeks and a full mouth to go with her bouncy hair, the words of an old song lilted through his mind. "Pretty Woman." Oh, yes, she was the kind he'd like to meet and, of course, he was about to meet her. She was, after all, coming to see him, he realized, because there was no one else for her to see on the island. And if she'd found the bridge, it was only because his sister Carole had told him where it was. His throat tightened and something deep inside him seemed to say, I've missed you. He frowned and shook his head. How could he have missed her when he'd never met her? That was crazy.

But then, he reflected, there were those who thought "crazy" described him perfectly. His agent and good friend, Keith, said it did because he spent so much of his time hiding away in "rustic" surroundings. Hell, he didn't think his home was rustic. Rustic meant no electricity. Rustic meant no running water. Rustic meant no indoor plumbing. "Rustic," Keith was fond of saying, "also means no telephone." Okay, he conceded silently, in that way, his house was rustic.

He liked his privacy, though. He smiled, thinking that he didn't like it so much that he wanted this woman to go away. As she passed on by his deck with only a cursory glance upward, he shot to his feet and took a step toward the stairs. Where the hell did she think she was going, walking right on by, off the path and out into the field of wildflowers?

His jaw dropped when she came to a halt, set her bag down, and took off her shoes. Oh, those legs! Long and slim, and now she was hiking her pristine white skirt up around her waist, stripping down her panty hose. He felt sweat break out on his forehead as he stared at her exposed legs and thighs.

Beautiful. Exquisite! She balled up her hose, stuffed them into her tote bag along with her shoes, hauled the bag's strap over her shoulder again, and strode deeper into the overgrown area, holding her skirt up with one hand. What was she, he wondered, some kind of grass freak? Did she like the feel of it against her bare skin?

Hennessey groaned softly, thinking about all that bare skin. Never before had he considered that it might be nice to be a blade of grass.

She waded through the field, not only trespassing on Carole's wild garden, trampling dandelions and poppies and lupines and whatever else his sister was growing out there, but heading right for the sanctum of sanctums, the main house.

He sighed and got to his feet. A trespasser after all. Someone he was going to have to kick out. Life, he decided, was a bitch.

Venny McClure was furious. Where was Hennessey, the caretaker who was supposed to maintain the grounds of the island? Judging by what she had seen so far -- the overgrown jungle masquerading as a driveway, the fallen tree, and now knee-high grass and weeds growing rampant over the path to the main house -- the caretaker her aunts were so fond of had skipped out, leaving the entire island to go to ruin.

He was some kind of writer, she thought. He probably wasn't a very successful one if he had to do gardening to subsidize his rent. And weren't writers, like artists, traditionally irresponsible?

A vine snagged her panty hose and she stopped to unhook the thorns carefully. She should have changed into jeans before driving up here, she thought as she pulled off her high-heeled sandals, then hiked up her skirt to slip out of her ruined panty hose. Obviously she was going to have to spend the next couple of days cleaning up the place, she decided, as she held her skirt up in front and strode onward. She could handle a lawn mower and a hedge clipper with the best of them. It was clear that her aunts didn't know Hennessey had skipped, or they'd have made other arrangements.

As she passed between a stand of maples, the house came into view. With a smile replacing her frown, she paused on the path and looked at it. The house stood solid, gray and weathered and strong in the center of its... tidy grounds? Well! Everything on this side of the maples was pruned and clipped and mowed as if ready for the photographers from House Garden. What was going on here?

The veranda creaked as she walked across it. Wind chimes hanging from the roof tinkled a dainty counterpoint to the plaintive cries of the gulls over the water. Out of nowhere came a pair of hummingbirds, chasing one another, disagreeing violently. As they darted and feinted, the sun caught the red patches on their throats sending fractured shafts of ruby light in all directions and Venny forgot her anger. It felt too good to be here to let petty concerns destroy the moment.

A laugh of pure joy rose in her throat, ringing free, as free as being here made her feel. No problems here. No worries. No reporters. And above all, no Lars.

Swiftly. she unlocked the door and stepped inside. Setting down her tote bag, she went to the window and pulled the drapes back. The clear light gleamed on picture frames set on tables, and happy, familiar faces showed through the dust. It highlighted cobwebs strung from lamp to lamp and from wall to ceiling, but Venny didn't mind. She had expected to have to clean a bit to make the place habitable. She picked up a smooth wood carving of a great blue heron, ran loving fingers over the satin texture of it, then set it down and lifted one of a gull with its wings spread as if ready to lift off the piling on which it stood.

How long had it been since she had put blade to wood? she asked herself. Much too long. She was glad she had brought her carving tools. Maybe she would be able to create something good in the peace of this little island.

The strength of the ocean-reflected light was amazing to one accustomed to city smog and filtered sun, and she turned back to the window to drink it in -- and saw it caught in the auburn hair of the man who stood on the veranda looking at her, not three feet away with only a pane of glass separating them.

Lars! Venny's heart stopped. Her body went cold. She recoiled before her mind told her that the man was not Lars, that he only resembled him in his shape and stance and coloring. Like Lars, this man was tall with broad shoulders and dark red hair. But Lars would never appear in such a state in public. He would never have appeared that way in private, either, she realized.

This man's broad shoulders and solid torso were tanned to a rich mahogany shade, and his deep chest showed the power of sleek muscles that narrowed into a taut waist and rippled abdomen. His running shorts, the only garment he appeared to be wearing, clung to his slim hips. His thick hair curled lazily across his forehead and flirted with the lobes of his ears. Whiskers littered his chin. He was not bearded, just scruffily unshaven. Green eyes questioned her as he continued to look in, and for a long moment she was incapable of movement. Her gaze slid down his body again, and she tingled all over with a sudden rush of...

My Lord, she thought. Whoever he was, she was ogling him! And Venny McClure did not ogle men! Swiftly she pulled the drapes closed. She ran to the door, which she made sure was locked. She stood leaning against it, quivering crazily and not knowing why. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly, blowing her hair up and off her forehead, beginning to relax. The man had to be the caretaker. But why hadn't her aunts, or her father for that matter, told her how much he looked like Lars?

She felt the vibrations of his knock as if there were no door between his knuckles and her shoulder blades. She heard the resounding racket of it in her ears as it competed with pounding of her pulse. Lifting her hands, she covered her ears, shaking her head back and forth, trying to pretend he wasn't there. But it was impossible with him hammering on the door like a demented woodpecker.

The knocking went on and on and his voice thundered, "Hey! Open up! You're trespassing! Who are you?"

"Go away," she said, but didn't think her voice was strong enough for him to hear over the noise he was making. Then, all at once the knocking stopped. Footsteps -- soft, barefoot thuds -- receded down the stairs.

Slowly, she let her hands fall from her ears and forced herself to make her arms go limp at her sides as she took deep, replenishing breaths. Now she would be fine. Now she would deal with Hennessey and the way his looks made her feel.

But... what if he wasn't Hennessey? What if her first impression had been right and he had vacated the place? That could be anyone out there, she realized. A beach bum, a wanderer who had just happened by, or worse, a squatter. She'd heard plenty of stories of people sneaking into seldom-used summer homes and taking up residence. Often, they lived free for months before they were caught, and just as often they weren't caught. She knew her Aunt Eden had been here last summer for a week, and her father and stepmother in the fall, but since then no one had come. The log across the driveway she'd encountered was suspicious, too, in that the tree could have been deliberately felled so the squatter couldn't be surprised.

She was primed to fly into a panic when she heard the back door swing open, and she leapt toward the shaft of light its opening created, into the kitchen, ready to do battle with... with what? She glanced around wildly, and all that was close at hand was an old cast-iron teakettle. Picking it up, she swung it at the large, faceless shape looming dark against the light, and heard him laugh as he caught it at the widest arc of its swing and pulled its handle out of her hands. She reeled back as his sinister laugh faded into silence. The kettle's lid clattered to the tiled floor and rolled, spinning for a very long time before it slowed and almost stopped, rocking gently with a light, ticking noise that was the only sound save her rapid breathing.

The man took a step toward her, and she backed up. He set the kettle on the stove and replaced its lid. He took two more paces toward her. Eyes wide, she backed out of the kitchen and into the hall, through the bar of yellow light coming through the open door, watching as he crossed it, as it gleamed in his hair, glinted in green eyes, shone in the bristles on his chin, making him look even more unkempt.

One hand on the wall, she retreated into the dim living room, risked a quick glance away from him, and then darted to the fireplace -- and the poker. With that weapon in her hand she faced his menacing presence, silently daring him to come nearer.

"Put that down. I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to know who you are and what you're doing here," he said slowly in a voice much deeper than she'd expected -- much deeper than Lars's voice. He came to a halt just outside of the poker's range, but close enough for her to smell beer on his breath. "This is private property."

"I know that. I belong here."

He lifted his eyebrows and said, "Really? Without proof of that, I can only assume you're a trespasser."

She stiffened and stood even more erect, aware of a deep trembling inside herself. She fought to control it, to keep it out of her voice. She could make the same statement to him, she knew, but her throat was locked on the words in spite of her knowing she was the one on firm ground, that she could show him she was sure of herself and of her right to be here. There was power in being sure, wasn't there? Of course there was. She had only to tap into it. But the expression in his eyes left her feeling powerless.

"My name is Venny McClure," she said haughtily, hoping he took the tremor in her voice to be anger and not fear. "And who are you?"

McClure? Hell! Hennessey's interest subsided quickly. Stepping back, he turned to go. He'd understood that both of his landladies were elderly women. He frowned, changed his mind, and moved toward her again stopping when she flinched and lifted the poker threateningly once more and glared at him ferociously.

Suddenly he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. Did he really look so dangerous? He rubbed one hand over his jaw. Okay, so he needed a shave. He'd needed a shave for a couple of days. But he'd been busy. His book had been flowing well after a spell of his having to quarry every word and phrase out of the bedrock of his mind. He still didn't think he looked dangerous enough to be tackled with a poker, though. Yet maybe in the dim light... ?

He pulled open the drapes she'd closed so quickly when he'd appeared and turned to look at her.

Lord, but she was skinny, he thought, seeing her up close in the light. She wasn't just fashionably slender. Didn't she ever eat? Her prominent cheekbones stuck out above the clearly defined bones of her jaw and chin. In the vee formed by the lapels of her blazer he could see her collar-bone, long and delicate and barely covered by translucent skin. Her breasts scarcely made curves on the front of her jacket, and her skirt hung straight and neat to her knees. Her legs were nice, though, considering how thin she was. They were surprisingly nice, well-shaped and long. Brother, were they long. He smiled as he recalled the way the light gleamed on them when she'd lifted her skirt and had taken off her stockings. For just an instant he had one of the graphic fantasies he was subject to, of her long, slim legs wrapped tightly around...

She cleared her throat and he focused his gaze on her face, noting the wariness in her large brown eyes and being struck suddenly by the depth of sad- ness he saw there. He noted too, the thickness of the long, black lashes that fringed them, lashes that couldn't possibly be real. What was she, a misplaced model? But why would a model be so sad -- and so defensive? She glared at him, clearly still considering him dangerous; she hadn't relaxed her trembling grip on the poker.

Smiling in what he hoped would be seen as a polite and reassuring manner, he whipped a dust-cover off one of the chairs. "Won't you sit down, Ms. McClure?"

She only stared at him, backing away another pace and remaining standing. What was happening? he asked himself. Had his smile lost its charm? Old ladies liked him. Young ladies liked him. Hell, kids and dogs and even cops liked him. So why didn't she? He sure liked her. At least, he figured, he would if she ever gave him a chance. How could he help liking her? She was so pretty. She walked as if she knew exactly where she was going, and she smelled so sweet it made his chest ache.

It made his knees weak, too, and he thought about sitting down in the chair she had refused, but early training wouldn't permit him to sit while a lady stood.

Venny stared at him, biting her lip as the impact of his looks assaulted her. Slightly slanted green eyes under thick, expressive brows gazed into hers as if trying to read messages from her soul. Flat, broad cheekbones gave his face a triangular shape that terminated in a squared-off chin covered with an odd mixture of dark and golden whiskers. He smiled and she had to drop her gaze from his dazzling white teeth and the charming crinkles around his eyes. But her stare fell to the bronzed skin of his powerful shoulders and...

Good heavens! She was ogling the man again!

"Who are you?" she repeated with difficulty around the lump in her throat.

Oh, but she had a pretty voice to go with her pretty face and that wonderful, husky laugh he'd heard just before she'd opened the door and disappeared inside the house, Hennessey thought as his head spun. He steadied himself by staring at her face, trying to imprint it on his mind. She'd asked him a question, but for the life of him he couldn't remember what it was. But whatever she wanted...

"Yes," he said.

He saw her large brown eyes turn even more uneasy and he wanted to smile reassuringly at her, but she hadn't liked his first smile, and he was afraid to try again. He thought of saying something soothing, but couldn't talk through the tension in his vocal cords. He hoped she'd say something more in her rich, soft, sexy tone that sent little shivers down his spine. She did things to him no one else ever had for a long time as she stood meeting his gaze with questioning eyes.

All at once, he felt slightly sick to his stomach, the way he had felt as a kid just before the big ball game or on Christmas Eve or the night before his birthday. Vaguely, he recognized the feeling as excitement. He felt it rise higher and higher, and he wanted to laugh and dance and sweep her into an embrace and...

Her eyes were no longer questioning. Now they were crackling with anger, almost black but no less lovely to look at. "Well, don't just stand there staring at me," she snapped. "I asked you a question. Who are you?"

"I'm Hennessey, the caretaker."

Her eyes narrowed and her soft mouth tightened. No, she didn't like him at all. He didn't have to ask why. He knew. He felt sick again, but not with excitement. It was his hairless chest. He hadn't felt such regret for that lack of virile growth since his sixteenth year, when he'd realized that body hair wasn't connected to virility. But maybe she didn't know that. He'd have to start wearing a shirt until she realized...

Her gaze flicked over him with disdain. "If you're the caretaker, you haven't been taking very good care of this island or the onshore property, Hennessey." Her tone may have been less than dulcet but it wrapped around him nevertheless. Wow! But she was something! He wanted to hold her and kiss away the bar of tension drawing a vertical line between her high arched brows, to kiss her taut, pink mouth into submission. He could picture it moist and parted and seeking... him. Oh, hell, Hennessey, knock it off. You've just been too long without a woman. But he knew it was more than that. He continued to look at her. He wanted nothing more right this minute than to be allowed to look at her, angry eyes and all. And when he had looked his fill, then... Then he would touch... and...

His blank look irritated the heck out of Venny.

"Hennessey! Dammit, did you hear me? Don't you have anything to say?" For goodness sake, was the man stupid? He didn't appear to be, but one just never knew. Maybe he'd blown his mind on drugs or something.

Had she been crazy coming here alone? This man could attack her and there was no one around to help. He could even murder her and...

Suddenly she wanted to laugh at herself for being an idiot. Hennessey presented no physical danger to her, and she knew it. The danger he presented was much greater, with a far higher potential for disaster, and she knew she couldn't stay. Not with him around. She couldn't live next door to a man she couldn't keep her eyes off of. So, either she had to go, or he did.

"Hennessey." she said quickly while the urge was still pulsing through her, "I want you off this island."

He gave her a quizzical look. "You do?"

Venny nodded. "Yes. As of this moment, you can consider yourself evicted."

"Evicted? The hell you say!"

"That's right, evicted. And fired." She knew she had no right to do either, but surely if her aunts could see how he'd let the place get run down, they'd expect her to make other arrangements. Remembering the perfection of the lawns and gardens near the main house, she silently admitted a slight twinge of guilt. He'd surely looked after this end of the place. But she tilted her chin in her best lady- of-the manor fashion. She had to evict him. She couldn't possibly stay here while he lived on the other side of the island without a shirt. She didn't need a man around whom she'd find herself ogling all the time.

She firmed her resolve squared her jaw. "You can leave at once."

Hennessey sat down abruptly in the chair he'd readied for her. To hell with good manners. A lady didn't come waltzing in looking and smelling and sounding as sweet as this one did, sending a man's pulse rate off the top end of the scale, fine-tuning his libido, making it ready to do its thing at a moment's notice -- and then evict him.

"I have a lease, Ms. McClure."

"Which you broke, Hennessey," she said in a taut voice. "You live in the caretaker's house for next to nothing on the understanding that you keep up the whole property. You have not been doing that. The entrance to the driveway is in deplorable condition, and though I was able to get through, I wasn't able to get my car within two hundred yards of this house because there's a cedar tree at least six feet in diameter, lying across the road," she went on, exaggerating the size of the tree by only two or three feet.

"As for the grounds around your house, I'm sure you don't need me to describe them. I was forced to cut through there to make my way here, and my skirt got all covered in burrs." She flipped the hem out toward him, affording him a glimpse of a creamy thigh, "My shoes may never be wearable again, and I ruined a perfectly good pair of hose."

He couldn't help it. He grinned. "So that's what the striptease was all about."

Her mouth fell open. "Striptease?" Snapping her teeth together angrily, she glared at him. "You didn't prune the trees and then you hid behind all those apple blossoms surrounding the house and spied on me? You... you watched me, you... you..."

"Peeping Tom?" he suggested. "Voyeur? Cad?"

"Take your pick! You had no right!"

"I had every right: I'm the caretaker here. You were, as far as I could make out, a trespasser. For that matter you might still be one. You've only told me that your name is McClure. So far I've seen no proof."

Brown eyes, he thought as she snatched up her large tote bag, shouldn't be able to crackle and snap with temper. Brown eyes should never be anything but soft and doe-like, gazing with adoration into his own. She set the poker down and delved into her bag, coming up with her wallet. Flipping it open, she shoved it in front of his nose and just as quickly tried to snap it shut before he had a chance to more than glance at her picture. He captured her wrist, fingers encircling it with ease, as he studied her picture with care, reading every word on her driver's license.

Venny say his eyes twinkle and waited for the inevitable laugh, but it didn't come. Finally, he let her wrist go and she shoved it, wallet and all, behind her back. "There. See? Satisfied, Hennessey?"

"Nope." He got to his feet. "I'm satisfied your name is McClure. I'm not, however, satisfied that you have a right to evict me. As I recall, my landladies are named Paradise and Eden McClure." He grinned, and his eyes twinkled again as he added, "Unless they've died and left this place to their niece, Heaven McClure?

She felt herself flushing. She hated it when strangers knew her real name. She also wished he had remained sitting. He was too... overpowering and he was standing much too close but she refused to back away from him again, though she had the uncanny sensation his hand still banded her wrist. Suddenly, she was fighting for breath, struggling not to let him know in any way how his touch and his nearness affected her. It wasn't Hennessey she was reacting to. It was his likeness to Lars, to a memory -- an unpleasant one. Then why, asked a little voice inside her, was the sensation of his touch so far from unpleasant that she'd felt deprived when it ended? That was a question she was not prepared to dwell on.

"Grandniece," she said huffily. "And no, they haven't died, I'm happy to say. But if they were to see what you've done -- or haven't done -- they'd thank me for kicking you out."

Folding his arms across his broad chest, he gave her an arrogant look, one she was sure was calculated to be intimidating. "That being the case," he said, " I suggest you tell them. Then, if they want me evicted, they can do it. Right, Heaven?"

"Don't call me that!" Hennessey nearly grinned again as her eyes flashed dangerously. Once more, he felt that weird sensation of something exciting about to happen. It bubbled and tickled through his blood and he reached out to do what he'd wanted to from the minute he got close to her. He touched her cheek.

Her skin was satin smooth and marble cool, except for the hot flush flaring just over her cheek-bones. He bent his finger and trailed it slowly down the curve of her face. He'd thought she might leap away, but she did not. She held her ground, meeting his gaze with that same unconsciously enticing and challenging stare, with its secret, underlying note of despair.

"I won't call you Heaven if you won't kick me out," he said, reasonably, he thought, dropping his hand with reluctance. There was so much more of her he wanted to touch. The need to do it hammered through him along with the need to offer comfort.

"If I kick you out then you won't be in a position to call me anything," she retorted and this time he didn't even try to hide his grin.

"Since you aren't in a position to get rid of me, I guess it's a moot point, isn't it?"

He could see how reluctantly she nodded her agreement. Even if she had the right to evict him, the lease he had signed gave him sixty days notice. He admired her for accepting it would be futile to pursue this angle of attack.

"Very well, then. You can stay. But aside from when you're doing your work, I expect you to keep to your own side of the island, Hennessey. At all times. I also expect you to remove that carcass of a cedar tree from my driveway. And when you have to come here, please make sure you don't disturb me. Is that quite clear?"

He barely resisted the impulse to give her a crisp salute. He also barely resisted the urge to grin again. Damn, she was adorable! Even mad and ruffled and covered with burrs she was so cute, he wanted to cuddle her and kiss her and beg her not to be mad at him. He wanted her to like him.

"Yes, ma'am" he said, and slowly backed toward the door, never taking his gaze off her. He wanted to look at her forever. He wanted to imprint those big brown eyes, that tumble of curly hair into his very being. Hell, he wanted to do a lot more than look at her, but it seemed that was all he was going to get... today.

Chapter Two

When he was gone, Venny sank down onto the chair he had vacated and stared at her pleat-covered lap, picking burrs from the hem of her skirt, slowly bringing her nerves back under control. Oh, brother! What she should do was turn right around and leave, go home. But... she couldn't go home. She had been trapped the previous week by a horde of reporters and had made the only statement she intended to make: Yes, she was aware that her ex-husband had been released pending appeal, and yes, she was pleased that new evidence had been found that no doubt would prove his innocence. No, she never had thought him guilty.

"Thank you very much, but I have no further comment," she had concluded, and closed the door.

If only they had been content to leave it alone... but they had not. They came in droves. Newspaper, television, radio, even weekly magazine reporters, because Venny was news as much as Lars was news -- especially since he had been released and Philip Greely of Greely Concrete had been charged with fraud in the newly reopened case. Greely, barring unforeseen developments, would probably be found guilty within the month.

No one, not even Lars, who seemed to have had a change of heart during his two years in prison, appeared capable of believing that she had no feelings left for him. If that were the case, they asked -- not unreasonably, she had to admit -- why had she bankrupted herself in his defense? Not that her defense of him had succeeded, she recalled. He had been found personally negligent in the collapse of one wing of a new school their company had built.

There were those who had thought Venny should go to jail, too, but the courts had disagreed. She'd had nothing to do with the project.

Still she had felt responsible because she was the senior partner -- responsible to the government, to the children who might have been hurt, to Lars himself, and to the company she had founded. So she had paid for his defense, paid a high price. The cost had been her home and her business -- maybe even her future.

Perhaps Lars couldn't be blamed for thinking that she had acted out of love for him. But she hadn't, and he simply had to believe her. She hoped that her disappearing act would convince him.

Venny sighed and got to her feet, hauling her tote bag over her shoulder. She hadn't come here to worry about the past or the future. The present was all she felt like dealing with at the moment, and right now, that meant getting out of her city clothes and into something more casual. The first order of the day was to get the place cleaned up.

Activity was good for her, body and soul, and she continued with a will. By the time the house was habitable, Venny was pleasantly tired but satisfied with the job she'd done.

She had been aware as she worked of the periodic sound of a chain saw in the distance and knew that Hennessey was clearing her driveway. When the sound eventually dwindled she walked briskly in his direction, hedge clippers in one hand, machete in the other, heavy leather gloves stuffed into a pocket of her jeans. As she scuffed through piles of aromatic red-gold sawdust where the tree had been cut into blocks, she was relieved to see no sign of Hennessey. He'd rolled the blocks to the side of the road. She was grateful on both counts.

Her sneakered feet thudded on the planks of the wooden bridge that spanned the sixty feet of water between Gull and Whidbey Islands. She walked to what was referred to by the family as "the onshore property," and jogged the half-mile to where the driveway began at the main road. It was there she was determined to make her mark. She'd considered ordering Hennessey to do this job, too, but what with cutting out the log and mowing his own yard, she wasn't sure he'd have time.

"What do you think you're doing?" Hennessey asked, startling her as he came out of nowhere. She teetered on the edge of the drive, threatening to fall face first into the thorny vines.

He grabbed her by the upper arms, dragging her back to an even footing. "I'm clearing this mess out so my car will still have paint when I leave," she said, glaring at him over her shoulder, an action that put her face much too close to his bristly jaw and his shining green eyes. She could feel his breath on her cheek. He still smelled of beer. As he held her arms in his big hands, the tips of his fingers snuggled right up to the sides of her breasts, having a disastrous effect on her nipples. Her heart hammered hard and fast from the start he'd given her.

"Let me go," she managed to say.

"You're sure?" He sounded very uncertain.

She wiggled in his clasp. "Yes, dammit, I'm sure!"

"You won't fall into the blackberry vines?"

She filled her lungs dramatically and let out her breath in a parody of patience, then swung her right foot backwards, the heel of her sneaker connecting solidly with his bare shin. He let her go.

"What did you do that for?" he asked, his tone telling her he felt wounded in more than the shin. Over her shoulder, she saw that he was rubbing it against the back of the other leg. He hopped around to stand before her. His eyes crinkled at the corners as if he were a hurt little boy who'd been slapped unexpectedly and unjustly.

Darn, she thought, even standing there like a hairy-faced stork, he was good to look at, and she had always liked the scent of beer...

"Because you can't seem to understand English," she said crisply, snatching her mind back from the abyss into which it was threatening to tumble. "I told you to let me go."

"I heard. I understood," he said, grinning now and standing on both feet. Both bare feet, she noticed, planted apart as if he were accustomed to standing on the deck of a ship in a stormy sea. "But I wasn't finished."

She frowned and shifted the heavy machete from one gloved hand to the other. "Finished with what?"

"Smelling your hair. Do you know it smells like honeysuckle?"

Again her breath left her lungs, but this time much more quietly and a lot more quickly. "I... No. No, I didn't know that." My goodness, what a thing to say to a total stranger!

"It does," he assured her, then changed the subject abruptly.

"I'll clear this out for you, since you want it done," he said grudgingly, but she shook her head. If he was too lazy to do it without being shamed into it, she was not going to let him exonerate himself so easily.

"Not necessary," she said. "I'm more than capable of doing it."

He grinned. "I doubt that. It's a mess. I let it grow over this way to keep out the idly curious. Ever since they upgraded this highway and tourists have been using it, beach properties along here have been considered fair game. Any driveway that looks half-way navigable, even if it's posted as private, gets its fair share of intruders. That's why I left the tree across the access to your place when it fell in February."

She wasn't convinced. "What about the gates?" she asked, eyeing the massive pair of red-painted wrought-iron pieces. "Why not lock them?"

"That might keep out cars," he said, shrugging his bare shoulders and sending her world tilting on a wobbly axis for a moment. "But not trespassers. They climb over or squoosh in around the sides. The excuse is always, 'Gee, mister, we just wanted to see what was down this road.' But" -- he sighed and reached for her machete -- "for the sake of your car..."

"No." She shoved it behind her back. She wanted him and his nearly nude body gone! "You have enough to keep you busy, mowing your own lawn."

He eyed her narrowly for a moment, and then asked pleasantly, "And what if I choose not mow my own lawn, Heaven McClure?"

She scowled at him before swinging the machete into the tangle of prickly vines at the side of the road as if she were swinging it at him and crying, "Off with your head!" he thought.

"You have... not been given a... choice, Hennessey," she said, panting and hacking wildly. "Your lawn needs to be cleaned up before those weeds go to seed and pollute the rest of the island."

"But..."

She stopped hacking and stared at him. "I will tolerate no excuses," she said in the tone she had long ago learned got the best results when dealing with men who thought it impertinent for a woman to believe she had the right to give orders. "That will be all." It was a calm tone, a disinterested tone, and she squelched any further attempts at argument by refusing to look at him again. In the office she would have looked down at some work on her desk. On a building site, she simply would turn and address someone else or walk away to attend to another task. Here, she merely turned and attacked the blackberry vines with renewed vengeance.

When she next looked up, he was gone.

Finished with her chore, Venny finally stood back and admired the cleared driveway entrance. Satisfied, she walked wearily back to her car, unable to resist a glance toward the caretaker's house. She stopped and stared, her blood beginning to boil. Damn the man. He still had not cut his grass!

As weary as she was, she marched purposefully toward his house, peering upward through the blossoming apple branches to see if he was there. There was no sign of him. Stomping up the steps to the deck, she wrinkled her nose at the smell of diesel fuel coming from the pale blue pickup parked in the carport below, and wondered how he could live with that stench so close to the house.

No matter, it wasn't her problem. Her problem was getting him to cut his grass.

Then she found him. She came to an abrupt halt.

Still unshaven, still shiftless, still dressed only in skintight shorts, Hennessey lay sprawled in a hammock strung between a post at one corner of the deck and a hook in the side of the house. A sheaf of papers lay on his stomach, one hand keeping them from blowing away in the evening breeze, and an empty beer can lay on its side below him. He was snoring. His chest rose and fell rhythmically. Venny squeezed her eyes shut.

She whirled from him and pounded down the steps again and back to her car. She spun gravel as she drove it home and parked it near the house. With her eyes blazing, she stormed inside for the key to the tool-shed. Outside again, she unlocked the door to the shed, flinging it back as she stomped right to the corner where the lawn mower was kept. She couldn't find it, although she did find a case of dynamite sticks she momentarily considered setting off under one unnamed caretaker.

It was nearly dusk, but there was enough light to enable her to cut at least part of the grass, and she intended to do it if for no other reason than to make Hennessey feel guilty. Yet how could she, if she couldn't find the mower? Maybe he kept it over at his place.

She nearly tripped on it as she strode along the path. She supposed he'd brought it over to cut down his weed field, but whatever his intentions might have been, Hennessey had succumbed to a nap attack before he'd attempted to do what she had asked of him.

She grinned as she wound the cord around the little wheel and gave it a steady pull to get some gas into the chamber. Then, with a quick rip, she started the machine, hearing it roar, thinking of his rude awakening. She marched ahead with it and watched cut grass and weeds fly out the blow spout in an arc of vegetative confetti. She cut a swath from one side of the yard to the other, then turned and was heading back when the handle of the lawn mower was grabbed out of her grip by an angry, bleary eyed man who stopped its engine and stood over her in a raging temper. "Of all the stupid, inconsiderate, thoughtless... women! he said, dragging the mower back toward the carport. "You leave my yard alone, Heaven McClure! You may be the most beautiful thing God ever created, but that does not mean I'm going to let you get away with bursting in here when I'm in the middle of an incredible, erotic dream about you and waking me up by mowing down my sister's wildflowers!" He rolled the mower into a smaller storage shed beside his house, shut the door, and locked it, carefully putting the key into the little pocket at the front of his shorts, patting it as if to make sure it was secure, never taking his angry gaze off her. "And that," he said, "is that."

Before she had any idea of his next intention, he clasped her shoulders, dragged her against his warm, bare chest, and kissed her hard on the mouth. When he let her go, she could only gape at him as he took the stairs back up to his deck two at a time.

Venny stomped home, fuming all the way. There was no dealing with a man like that! No way to get her message across to him! She slammed the door with enough force to rattle the windows.

Several minutes later, with the last of her four suitcases dragging down her aching shoulders, she climbed the stairs and dropped onto the bed in the front bedroom she'd readied for herself earlier in the day. She would finish unpacking tomorrow.

She thought briefly about food, then remembered there was none. She shook her head and staggered into the shower, glad she had thought to turn on the water-heater. She'd worry about eating in the morning. Right now she needed rest.

But sleep wouldn't come. Sighing, she turned on her bedside light, took out her paperback novel and read for twenty minutes. Sitting propped against the headboard with the window open, she could feel the fresh, salty air wafting in over her, bearing welcome whiffs of wild rose and lilac. Reading in bed usually relaxed her if she was tense, and it had been a luxury she was forced to give up during her marriage to Lars. "Bed," he had so often said in his lofty manner, "is for two things, and reading is not one of them."

Gritting her teeth, she concentrated on her book, refusing to think about Lars anymore. Finally, when she began to yawn, she turned out her light and snuggled her head into her pillow. Tonight, she promised herself, she wouldn't even dream.

And yet... sleep eluded her. Tired as she was, Venny kept going over and over her few meetings with Hennessey. She rolled over, uncomfortable not only in the unfamiliar bed, but with the way she had acted. During their first meeting she had allowed panic to cloud her judgment. She'd had no reason to threaten the man with eviction and certainly no right. She felt bad, really bad. She rolled over again, and again, thinking about what he'd said when he took the mower away from her, wondering if he truly did think she was "the most beautiful thing God had ever created" and if he really had been having an erotic dream about her. Was that why he had kissed her? She touched her lips, remembering the firmness of his, and wondered if she would have kissed him back had he held her for more than those few seconds. No. Of course she wouldn't have. She'd have kicked him in the shins again. Definitely she'd have done that.

Finally she slept.

Her dreams were peopled by a man who looked like Lars but didn't sound like him, by herself as a little girl, and her aunts, who scolded her for being rude to a tenant or a neighbor, for treating a fellow human being as if he were a subhuman, for acting like a lady of the manor -- who had no manners. She dreamed she was crying, begging them not to take away her privileges, promising never to be rude to anyone again.

She sat up in the tangled sheets and squinted against the bright light, rubbing her eyes. She could hear the whine of an outboard motor somewhere and wondered if Hennessey was out fishing. Did he like fishing? Did he like sailing? What did he do with his days here on this secluded little island? Oh! What did she care what he did with his time -- as long as he spent some of it cutting his damn grass.

She got out of bed and threw off her nightgown, wishing she could as easily throw off thoughts of Hennessey, but reminders of him were everywhere, even in the bits of slivered greenery on the clothing she had shed the night before. It sprinkled the carpet where she had walked -- greenery from Hennessey's jungle. Maybe he liked it that way, and after all, he was the one who lived there, wasn't he? She remembered the flowering apple branches that hung down over his deck, nearly obscuring the house. What would it be like to sleep in a hammock under them, breathing in their sweet perfume? Would it give her erotic dreams too?

She smiled and wondered if he was wearing a shirt today. She wiped the smile off her face immediately. Of course he was, and even if he weren't, she wouldn't be seeing him. She'd made it perfectly clear that he was to stay away.

She sighed and began to dress. The sound of the outboard had dwindled by the time she was clad in jeans and a bright print blouse that should have cheered her up but somehow didn't.

She was just hungry, she told herself, rubbing her empty stomach. She'd drive into town and have a good breakfast before going grocery shopping. She really should have stopped to shop yesterday, but she had wanted so badly to see the island. In her bag was half an apple, brown where it was cut, though it had been wrapped in plastic. She decided it might even taste good if she didn't took at it, so she bit into the fruit as she ran down the stairs to the main floor, her sneakers thudding on the uncarpeted treads, bag bumping against her hip, book tucked securely under her arm. Reading at the table, even when she was alone in a restaurant, was another habit of hers that Lars had found deplorable -- and another habit she had picked up again with pleasure after they'd separated.

She wrinkled her nose as she smelled coffee. Coffee? Her mind was playing tricks on her. She followed the aroma into the kitchen and, sure enough, there on a back burner was in old-fashioned percolator, sending forth such a tantalizing scent, she chose not to wonder where it had come from. Besides, she knew perfectly well where it had come from. The difficult part was trying not to care that he had accepted her rudeness and then turned it around by doing something nice. But it was impossible not to care. She felt like a louse.

She poured out a cup, saw sugar and powdered whitener on the counter, stirred both into her coffee, and wondered why he had left a dish of butter beside them. Another delicious aroma began to spread itself throughout the kitchen. In the oven, which was set on warm, she found a basket of bran muffins wrapped in a damp towel.

Breaking open one of the steaming muffins, she found it full of plump raisins. With a groan, she slathered butter on it, ate half in one mouthful and savored the next half, taking sips of coffee between bites. Before she knew it, five of the muffins were gone and she was staring down at the papers she'd peeled off them.

"Five?" she said aloud. "I ate five of them?"

"Looks like it," said a voice from the doorway, and she twisted in her chair to look at him. "You needed them. You're too skinny."

He was shirtless again, but this time in place of skintight shorts he was wearing skintight faded jeans slung low on his lean hips. He wore boots, half- laced, and no socks. His hair was damp with sweat, as were his shoulders. To both clung bits of cedar twigs. Lord, but the man was handsome, even in casual dress. Or... maybe because of it?

He lolled in the doorway, loose and relaxed and perfectly at home, his gaze lazily sweeping over her. He had shaved. His jaw and chin looked smooth and infinitely touchable. She curled her fingers tightly in her lap.

"Good morning, Heaven," he said with a smile that had her insides turning cartwheels. "I've come to apologize and explain."

"I..." She swallowed hard and continued to look at him. What a smile he had! "I have to apologize too."

He lifted his shoulder from the door frame and stood erect, his formerly teasing eyes serious now. "No, you don't. You never have to apologize to me for anything."

She blinked and turned back to the table. She didn't want to look at him anymore. Looking at him, at the strange expression in his eyes, was disturbing. And she did not want to be disturbed. So why didn't her stomach stop doing back flips?

"My aunts would expect it of me. They are both great sticklers for manners," she said, shredding one of the muffin papers. She heard him open a cupboard and take down a mug. He filled it.

"Your aunts would never know."

He sat down across from her, his eyes sweeping over her face again. He had such an intense stare it made her uncomfortable. She moved restlessly in her chair, wishing he would look at something other than her. He didn't. Even when he lifted his mug and sipped -- black coffee, she noticed -- he kept his gaze on her face.

"They'd find out somehow," she said, and had to smile at the memories that came rushing back. "They always did. I never knew how, but if I'd done something wrong, they knew, and they took away my privileges. They never raised their voices, and never, but never, spanked me. They only Took Away Privileges. And whenever one of them used the phrase I could hear the capital letters."

She'd smiled! Hennessey thought his heart was going to burst. She had smiled at him, Heaven had smiled on him. Even though he knew the smile wasn't something he should take personally, that it was a smile of reminiscence, he loved it. And he was right, her eyes were gorgeous when they were soft, just as gorgeous as when they snapped with temper. "What kind of privileges?"

She smiled again and this time she looked right into his eyes. If he'd been the kind of man to faint, he figured he just might have keeled over on the spot. Instead, he smiled back at her and reached across the table in take away the paper she was shredding. It was a good excuse to touch her.

Heaven jerked her hand away as if the same thing had leapt through her bloodstream as it had his when his fingers brushed over hers, as if it jolted her through and through too.

She bit her lip and looked down. They're real! The thought rocketed through him. By golly, those lashes are real, all hers. As ridiculously long and thick as they were, they were the ones God had given her. He wondered what they feel like fluttering against his throat and he nearly groaned aloud.

"They wouldn't let me go fishing," she said.

What in the world was she talking about? "Who wouldn't?" He'd kill them!

"My aunts. When I did something wrong. Or they wouldn't let me go berry picking or swimming or sailing. They always knew what my favorite pastime was and they took it away from me for an hour or day, or sometimes two days if I was really bad."

Fascinated, wanting her to go on and on, he asked, "What kind of things did they consider bad?"

She laughed and just as it had yesterday when he'd heard her laughter, the sound tingled though his whole body and came to rest where a laugh was most unlikely to raise a reaction. But raise one it did. He blew out a hard breath and shifted on the chair, wondering if his jeans could stand the strain. They'd have to. He wasn't leaving. He tried deep breathing. It didn't help much, but it didn't hurt.

Oh, good grief! Venny felt her eyes widen as she suddenly became vitally, totally aware of his chest, of the way it rose and fell, of the way the muscles played under his bronze skin. What was he doing? Why was he doing it? Whatever it was, she wished he'd stop.

Then she shook herself free of the thought. For Pete's sake, the man was only breathing! He had a right to breathe without her ogling him didn't he? She wanted to look away, but couldn't, so fascinated was she by the ripple of his muscles. Her hands itched to touch him, and she curled them tightly together in her lap again before sliding them under her legs and sitting on them. What would he say if she asked him to quit breathing?

But he had asked her something, hadn't he? What had it been? Oh, damn, this was ridiculous! He was stealing her mind just by filling and emptying his lungs!

"What did you say?"

"When?" She was startled by the depth of his voice. Lars's voice had never rumbled as if it had come from deep inside him. How could she have thought for one minute that Hennessey was anything like Lars except superficially?

"When... what?"

He shook his head and drew in another breath and hers caught in her throat. "Uh, Heaven? I think we'd better slow down and take a few steps back, here, okay?"

"Yes, okay." Back up enough steps to get yourself out of this kitchen so l can get myself back under control, she begged silently.

"You said your aunts took privileges away from you for misbehaving. I asked you what constituted bad behavior and you still haven't told me. All you did was laugh and drive me right out of my skull."

"I did? Drive you right out of... Why?"

"Don't change the subject. What kind of bad behavior?"

"Oh. Well, I suppose slamming the screen door once too often after I'd been told to close it quietly. Or not coming home in time for meals. Or... well lots of thing. Being rude the way I was to you yesterday would have qualified." She took a deep breath. "I do apologize. And I thank you for breakfast."

Hennessey felt his head growing light again as she lowered her incredible lashes, and he wanted to crawl across the table on all fours -- he didn't think he could walk even if he could manage to stand up -- and lift her face so he could see the black arcs on her white skin. He wanted to whisper her name so she would open her eyes slowly, so slowly, lifting those concealing lashes as a dancer lifts a fan...

She snapped her eyes open when he made a soft, explosive sound and stared at him "Are you all right?"

"Who, me? Sure, I'm fine." His voice was as jerky as his heartbeat. That described him, too: Jerky. He was acting as if he was fourteen again, and he had to cut it out. He had to get himself out of this house, and fast, before he turned into the clumsy, horny teenager he was emulating and made a grab for her.

"I have to go," he said hoarsely, and stumbled to his feet, feeling stupid and gauche and immature. "I came to tell you I'm sorry I can't cut down the wildflowers because..."

"That's okay. I was thinking as I got out of bed that... Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine. Why?" Got out of bed? Why had she had to mention bed? What was she trying to do to him?

"Well, I don't know. You look stunned. As if no one has ever apologized to you before, or thanked you for anything."

"Nobody who looks like you ever did either one," he said. "Apology accepted, though, and you're welcome to the breakfast. Next time I'll make it breakfast in bed."

He heard himself say the words and recoiled in horror. Oh, hell, what had happened to putting his brain in gear before engaging his mouth. Wasn't that a lesson he'd learned twenty years ago? At thirty-five he should be well beyond blurting out his innermost thoughts.

Venny gaped at him as he stood looking down at her in a -- she searched her mind for a word of description and could come up only with "tormented" manner "I... thank you. I guess. But now that the road is clear, I intend to go into town and buy groceries, so you won't have to provide my breakfast anymore Hen... Mr. Hennessey."

"Hennessey's right," he said. "Not Mister. Just Hennessey."

With that he wheeled on the heel of one boot and loped out the door, over the back porch and up the drive. Getting to her feet Venny watched him through the window. Before he went out of sight around a bend, she saw him leap into the air and bang his heels together.

The man, she decided, turning from the window with a reluctance she wondered at, was a total kook.

So why was she staring at the chair he'd sat on, with a grin on her face that she couldn't wipe off?

Chapter Three

Venny slowly rinsed out the coffee cups, put the muffin papers into the garbage and turned off the burner under the percolator. She floated up the stairs, brushed her teeth, checked her hair, and put on a dash of lipstick, wondering at the unexpected glow she found in her eyes. Goodness! Get a grip on yourself! You're insane to feel this way about a man you met only the day before! She should put him right out of her mind she knew. In fact, that was what she would do. She would get into her car, go into town, and buy groceries and whatever else she could think of to make her self-sufficient so he wouldn't feel obliged to provide for her again. And then she would forget that he even shared the island with her.

Straightening her shoulders, tucking her blouse into her jeans, she frowned, remembering his saying. "You're too skinny."

Damn! Who did he think he was, her doctor? That was what Dr. Hinkle said every time he saw her, be it in his office or in the supermarket. She did not need Hennessey putting in his two cents' worth. She did not need Hennessey at all, for anything. Ever.

Back downstairs she grabbed up her bag, slung it over her shoulder, and ran out to the car.

Hennessey saw her coming toward him with her loose yet purposeful stride. He smiled and leaned on the sunwarmed end wall of the boathouse, watching her approach. He was looking forward to the day, now that she was a part of it. Her brown hair bounced on her slender shoulders. He knew her mouth was pink and full and made to meld with his, and after he had become her hero, surely it would do so again. And it would be heaven.

Heaven. He continued to watch her as she approached. He knew exactly the way her sweet scent would come wafting over him. He knew exactly how it would make him feel. His knees grew weak in anticipation. He knew her brown eyes would be soft and doelike, and maybe just a little bit worried as they gazed into his. Her arched brows would draw together, her mouth would droop a little, and she would ask him for help. Oh, he'd help her, all right, but first he'd kiss her senseless.

He'd been expecting her. He'd made lots of noise so she'd know where he was. He'd conjured up a lovely vision of this morning's second encounter with Heaven. He'd imagined himself performing the miracle required, becoming the hero of the day. "No problem," he'd say to quiet her effusive thanks. "Just takes a little bit at know-how."

And then she'd reach up and kiss in thanks, and he'd be very careful how he held her so as not to smear her with the grease on his hands. But he'd find a way to draw her close to his body in order to soak up the warmth and the scent and the goodness of her...

"Dammit, Hennessey!" Her voice slashed through his daydream and he blinked in surprise at the grease on her hands and arms, the smear across her face, the black streak on the front of her print blouse where one gently curving breast had brushed over something dirty.

"What?" He knew he was gaping at her, knew his mouth was wide open, knew that as impossible as it seemed, she had the required know-how herself to figure out the problem with her car and had come to him to have it corrected -- only not in the way he had hoped.

The lady came with fire in her eyes and murder on her mind.

"All right, Hennessey," she said crisply, her brown eyes nearly black within their frame of thick, long, lashes, her mouth taut with anger, her shoulders set back and square as if she were about to take a swing at him. "Where is my rotor? What kind of stupid games are you playing? How did you think you were going to get away with disabling my car? And what in the world possessed you to do it in the first place?"

He had to smile. He couldn't help it. Everything about her made him want to, especially the grease smears on her face.

"Dammit, Hennessey, don't just stand there grinning like an idiot! I want the rotor for my engine and I want it now! I -- Thank you very much," she snapped, sounding singularly ungrateful, as he handed her the part he had snatched from her car's engine the night before.

"If you'd locked your door, I wouldn't have been able to get the hood open," he commented to her back as she whirled. He was sure she'd heard him because her shoulders went even stiffer and she stormed away. He followed her back to where her car stood.

"Hey, come on, Heaven. Don't be mad," he cajoled. "I'll put it back. It was only a joke."

"Funny, funny, funny," she said, and brushed him aside, ducking under the hood. She did the work herself, while he remained several feet away, watching the deft and expert way she handled her tasks, as if she had cut her teeth on parts of the internal combustion engine. He winced when she slammed the hood and wiped her hands on a rag before getting behind the wheel. Now, he knew, he was really going to get it, because of course the car still wouldn't start.

Only -- to his chagrin -- it did. Almost at once. She hadn't drained the battery, as he knew he'd have done, as most people would have done long before checking the engine to see why it wasn't starting.

He scratched his head as she shut the car off, got out and, without even looking at him, without acknowledging his presence in any way, let him know that she knew he was there and not to be trusted. She carefully locked all the doors, checked the hood to ensure that it couldn't be opened, then sailed, head high, into the house.

Moments later she came out again, her hands, face, and arms clean. Dressed in crisp, white slacks and a bright yellow sweater, she looked like sunshine. She unlocked the car, swung the door past his legs, missing his kneecaps by a fraction of an inch, and drove up the road.

He saw her brake, saw her backup lights come on, and watched as she reversed to where he stood.

Looking at him with fire still flickering in her eyes, she said, "Why Hennessey? Just tell me why?"

He did what he had wanted to do the moment he'd seen her earlier in the morning, the moment he'd seen her for the first time, what he wanted to do every time he saw her. He bent and leaned in her car window, then covered her soft full lips with his in a hard and telling kiss. Wrapping his hand around the back of her head, threading his fingers though her hair, he kissed her until she opened her mouth to accept him and kissed him back as if she were as powerless to resist the pull between them as he was.

Presently, he lifted his head from hers, ducked back out of the open car window and said, "That's why, Heaven. Because I was afraid you were going to leave. And I couldn't let you go without doing that again."

She stared at hard for a moment, her eyes wide and bemused, and then she frowned, put the car in gear and drove away.

The man was out of his mind! Venny slowed and turned onto the highway. She sighed. Hennessey was not the only nut on the loose. Because, she remembered, what had she done to stop him?

Nothing. That was what. She wasn't even as mad as she knew she should be. Her anger had begun to abate before she'd finished scrubbing the grease off herself and changing clothes. Strangely, Hennessey's kiss hadn't done a thing toward bringing her anger back, which said a lot about her state of mind, assuming she had a mind. If any other man had disabled her car and then kissed her until she was weak and incoherent without a word of encouragement from her she'd have been ready to commit murder. So what was different in this case? Nothing was different. At least nothing should be. Yet why had she let him get away with it? Not only this morning, but after the mowing incident too. Well, she told herself, if he ever tried anything like that again, he was going to learn that she was not a piece of putty he could mush in his hands. No siree! Hennessey was in for one mighty big surprise if he thought he was going to get away with kissing her silly every chance he got. Because he was not going to get another chance!

Thinking of surprises, she had to smile as she remembered the expression on his face when she demanded her rotor back, expertly inserted it, put the distributor cap back on and reconnected all the wires, then set the breather into position and fastened it down with a twist of the wing nut on top. Like most men he had assumed all women were helpless around cars.

When the engine had refused to start, she had checked the three basics to combustion: Air, fuel and spark. Air she knew was available. Her fuel gauge had told her she wasn't out of gas The pool of gas in the carburetor indicated that the fuel pump was working. Spark, she discovered, was the missing element, and the distributor was the likely culprit. The wires had been in the right position, but a gleaming scratch on the top of one of the screws that held the distributor cap down had made her pause. With a screwdriver she had removed the distributor cap and checked inside, staring in disbelief at where the rotor should have been, even though the scratch on the screw head told her that someone had tampered with her car during the night.

He had been one surprised man -- almost as surprised as she had been at his answer to her question: Why?

She shivered, recalling the way he had leaned inside her car, placed his lips on hers, and taken what he wanted. Even now she could feel the pressure of his lips slowly tempting hers apart, the hard thrust of his tongue, the gentle movement of his fingers in her hair. Had he felt her response to his kiss? Had he guessed how it aroused her? Had he felt her tongue return the caress of his? Oh! Of course he had! The man was no stranger to kissing. He knew what he was doing. He had turned her to mush again -- and he'd even been wearing a shirt. Good grief! She had to put the man out of her mind!

But he sat on the end of her shopping cart, smiling at her as she shopped. He perched beside her hood ornament as she drove home, his long, bare legs crossed and broad, hard shoulders gleaming the sun. Didn't he know it was only May? It might be an unseasonably warm May, but it wasn't warm enough for him to run around half-dressed! What did he wear in July?

Venny licked her lips and told herself it was a darned good thing she planned to stay for only a month. Come July she had to be a long, long way from Gull Island and a shirtless man named Hennessey.

Hennessey what? she wondered. Or was it what Hennessey? Her aunts never had given any indication whether Hennessey was his first name or his last. In fact, they had said little about him although her Aunt Paradise had smiled strangely when Venny had asked for a key so she could come to the island retreat for the first time in about six years. Paradise had exchanged pointed glances with her sister Eden, who had said that of course Venny could use the house as long as she wished. The two of them has looked almost triumphant, and now that she thought of it, Venny recalled how often they had urged her to take a break, go to Gull Island and enjoy herself.

In view of what she knew of Hennessey's physical likeness to Lars, and recalling how often her aunts had commented that women were usually drawn to a certain type of man, it all began to make sense.

Back home again, determined to stop thinking about him, Venny unloaded her groceries, stacked things in cupboards, filled the refrigerator with perishables, then stood back, satisfied. Now she could start her vacation in earnest. She could rest. Taking her book she walked purposefully outside and sat down on a chair she had dragged onto the porch the day before, putting her sneakered feet up on the railing. She leaned back, opened her book and started to read.

Moments later, she slammed the book closed and set it on the floor, shutting her eyes. She would try to sleep. But the very same thing that had prevented her enjoying the book kept her from sleeping. She could still feel Hennessey's arms around her, feel his lips parting hers, feel his tongue slowly exploring the inside of her mouth, feel his body hardening against hers and -- Now wait a minute! He had been outside the car and she on the inside and their bodies had not touched at all. She was embellishing the memory with pure fantasy, and it had to stop!

She groaned and shot to her feet, running down the steps and the crushed shell path toward the beach.

The sharp thorns of wild roses caught at her sweater as she pushed her way through the overgrown end of the path and jumped down onto the gravel, then scrambled onto one of the large, silvered beach logs. Considering the care Hennessey had taken with the rest of the landscaping around the main house, she was surprised he'd let this path grow over -- until she thought about it. He'd left it for the same reason as he'd left the driveway in such a mess on the onshore property: To discourage trespassers. Okay, he was forgiven.

She walked the length of the log's worn surface then jumped to the next one. Moving briskly, she could circle the island in about an hour, so she set out at a good clip, stopping now and then to examine something washed up by the tide.

She came upon an oar and wondered if it could belong to Hennessey. Perhaps she should go and ask him. It would it the neighborly thing to do.

With a grimace of self disgust, telling herself not to reach too far for excuses to see the man, she jammed the oar handle between two logs, standing upright so that anyone looking for it would be able to spot it easily. Assuming anyone would want an oar with a split blade.

As she walked, she picked up, examined, and discarded many pieces of wood, retaining those she felt had potential. She ended up with three, wondering what shape would disclose itself when she began carving each one. Her fingers moved over the rough surfaces, assessing the grains and textures and suddenly she was eager to begin. It had been a long time since she had felt so eager about anything.

More quickly now she walked on and started up the inner side of the island, where the curve of the shore narrowed the gap of water to just under sixty feet at high tide. She had to duck to go under the wooden timbers of the bridge, remembering the days of her early childhood when there had been no bridge, and they'd been able to get to the island only at low tide, or by rowboat. She frowned, looking at the condition of the undersides of the timbers, seeing unmistakable signs of dry rot and indications that ants had invaded the wood. The bridge would have to be replaced soon, or they would once more be limited in their access to the house by the vagaries of wind and tide. Abandoning the beach a hundred yards farther on, she pushed through the bushes onto an old trail through the forest at the tip of the island. It would make her trek home shorter, she rationalized, shoving aside bushes that had grown into the disused path. The fact that the route kept her out of sight of the caretaker's house was pure coincidence. Besides, it was nice to be in the solitude of the miniforest until the path led her back to the beach on the outer side of Gull Island once more.

When she stepped up onto the path to the house, she came to an abrupt halt. The wild roses had been cut back.

Her heart stopped as abruptly as her feet. Hennessey had been there, and she had missed him.

Oh, don't be stupid, she told herself. Did she want him poking his head around her door every ten minutes and kissing her? Of course she didn't. And hadn't she told him yesterday to keep out of her hair? His having ignored her order and come over to bring her muffins, then come back to make sure she found them, was not significant. Nor was his having kissed her. Or her having kissed him back. Though, she was forced to admit, as of this morning she no longer really wanted him to leave her strictly alone.

It might, she thought, be nice to have companionship -- occasionally -- while she was on the island. And Hennessey, as the island's only other inhabitant, was the logical person to provide that companionship. There was also the chance that he was lonely, living as he did in almost total isolation. Venny sighed. He chose to live there, didn't he? Maybe he resented her presence as much as she had thought she was going to resent his.

And then she smiled. He had disabled her car so she couldn't leave. He had brought her muffins. He had cleared a path for her to get to the beach. He was thinking about her just as much as she was thinking about him. She sighed again. Obviously, they both had vivid imaginations if a couple of little kisses could have such an effect on them.

Still, she felt exceedingly lighthearted as she ran into the house and collected her carving tools to take them back to the beach. Her fingers itched to begin.

At the same time Venny was deciding she could not concentrate on reading as long as the memory of Hennessey's kisses kept intruding, Hennessey was sitting at his computer. The cursor winked at him like an evil eye saying, "Hit a key. Any key. Hit a key. Any key," over and over again. He hit a capital H -- and then backspaced over it. He hit it again and kept on typing. Heaven was in my arms today. Today I touched Heaven. Then he quit, staring at his monitor, at the gray words standing out on a pale blue background. The cursor still winked in its silent, insistent demand for another word, another sentence, another paragraph but his mind blanked it out as he reread the words he had typed, relived the sensations they evoked, and went off into a tailspin again.

For a long time he sat there, savoring the memory of her taste.

He sighed raggedly. Was what he felt for her more than lust? It had to be. There was more than just chemistry at work between them -- at least on his part. He couldn't get the woman out of his mind.

Abruptly he pushed his chair back so hard that it rolled right off the plastic mat he kept it on to protect the carpet. He got to his feet, went into the bathroom, and showered until the cold water made him shiver. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and then shaved again. He combed his hair very carefully and pulled on a pair of clean jeans, socks and shoes, wiggling his toes uncomfortably inside them. He wore shoes only when he absolutely had to. He felt the same about shirts. To show Heaven that he was more than just a bum, he'd go a lot further than making his feet uncomfortable and hemming in his shoulders with cloth. Grabbing a green shirt from his closet, be shoved his arms into the sleeves, did up the buttons, and tucked it in.

He turned to leave the bathroom, wheeling on one foot, then went back. He brushed his teeth.

Her car was there, but she wasn't. The doors of the house, front and back, stood wide open. He went inside and called her name. No answer. He checked out the living room, then the kitchen. He opened the fridge and closed it quickly.

"You're out of your mind, Hennessey," he mumbled. "You think she heard you coming and hid in the refrigerator, for Pete's sake?"

Making a face, he opened it again. It held fruit and vegetables, cheese and milk and eggs and even a bit of meat. The cupboards contained canned and packaged goods. Then, satisfied that she had plenty of good food, he decided he should find out where she was, just to make sure she hadn't fallen and hurt herself. She looked so frail it was surely his duty as caretaker to ensure her safety and well-being. His employers would expect it of him. Wouldn't they? Certainly. They loved their niece, cared about her welfare. He mounted the stairs.

She wasn't up there. On her bed lay a wispy pink confection with lace around the top and bottom, and he reached out to touch it, but jerked his hand back.

"Get out of here, Hennessey," he ordered himself. "Next thing you know you'll be snatching things from clotheslines, you pervert, you!" He galloped down the stairs, eager now to be out of her house before she discovered him making a fool of himself.

On the porch, open and face down as if it had been carelessly dropped through lack of interest, he saw a paperback copy of a book -- one he knew well, Ferris Wheel, written by A.B. Hensen.

He stared at it for a moment. It reminded him that what he should do was do was go home and get back to work.

Heaven had been reading, then she'd chosen something else to do. She wasn't sitting around waiting for him to show up. She was out somewhere enjoying her vacation. She had not come there to be bothered by him. She'd made that clear yesterday, hadn't she?

Yesterday... He remembered the sadness he'd detected in her eyes. Maybe she was sitting quietly in some corner, brooding. Did she want to be alone, or would she appreciate having someone to take her mind off her troubles? He wouldn't come on to her. He'd just sit beside her and be her friend. Hell, he thought, everyone needs a friend, but never more than when trying to work through personal disappointments. Right. He would find her. Whistling, he set off down the path toward the beach.

He saw a tuft of yellow yarn caught on a wild rose thorn and remembered her yellow sweater, remembered the swell of breasts so small and tender under its fine knit, remembered... Remembered he was just going to offer her friendship, companionship. Pulling the tuft from the thorn, he held to his nose, pretending he could smell traces of her unique perfume on it.

She was nowhere in sight on the beach. Which direction had she gone? If he started one way, would he be following her and probably never catch up or would he be heading out to meet her? What if he waited for her to come back? He had no idea how long she might have been gone. She could return at any minute.

He'd give her half an hour or so, and then he'd go and look for her, just to be sure she was all right, just to see if she needed company, maybe even solace -- a shoulder to cry on. He swallowed hard, thinking of her face against his shoulder, her tears on his shirt, and wondered if he could stand hearing her weep for another man. Was it a man who had made her sad? He smiled. He might have his work cut out, teaching her that not every man would make her unhappy, that he was one man whose aim in life was fast becoming to do everything in his power to make Heaven McClure smile.

He rolled the bit of yellow fluff into a ball and tucked it into his shirt pocket before loping up steps to the path and getting the hedge clippers out of the garden shed. He cut back the wild rose bushes so she would have a clear path, and just as he was putting them back, he heard her jump onto gravel, heard the crunch of her footsteps.

Through the crack in the hinge side of the door he watched her run up to the house carrying a small piece of driftwood in one hand and a couple of others stuck in the back pockets of her jeans. She bounded exuberantly up the steps and across the porch. She wasn't sad today. She looked happy, excited, devastatingly appealing and totally tempting, and Hennessey was incapable of movement.

As she disappeared into the house, his knees went soft and mushy and all he could do was stand there inside the shed, thinking about the way she looked when she was running. Oh, but she was beautiful! His mouth went dry and his heart began pounding hard his chest, as if he had just had the life scared out of him. She created the strangest sensations in him. Oh, Heaven McClure, what are you doing to me? He was a fool, standing in a stuffy old shed thinking about her, when he could just as easily be inside the house with her, getting to know her. Kissing her ...

On wobbly legs, he stepped out of the garden shed and moved toward the front of the house, but before he could come out from behind the hedge that separated the shed from the rest of the yard, she had returned, carrying a flat box in one hand, and the driftwood in the other. With a light step, she headed back toward the beach.

Venny wasn't sure exactly when she became aware that Hennessey was watching her. The knowledge seemed to come over her gradually, and when she glanced up and over her shoulder, he was there.

Again, her heart came to an abrupt halt and she stopped breathing. With difficulty, she forced herself to draw one breath, to let it out slowly. Her heart resumed its toil. At least he was wearing a shirt. She was glad, immensely glad, that he was there.

She smiled.

Head spinning, Hennessey stepped over the log she was sitting on and slumped down beside her, leaving three feet of space between them. But, leaning sideways, he propped himself on one hand as he watched her work. "What are you doing?"

"Carving." She held up what she was working on, turning it from side to side, her head tilted as she examined the wood. "I think there's a hooded merganser in here."

Her earnest appraisal of the material brought a smile to his face. "You do? What makes you think that?"

"The grain of the wood. Look." She stroked her fingers across the top of the chunk she held and he felt as if they had stroked his skin. "See how it sweeps along here then angles upward?" Her fingers made the same motion over again. He felt the same sensation along his skin, only stronger. "This is its back, its neck, and here" -- One thumb traced a short arc upward -- "here is the crest. Or will be." The sharp blade of her knife sliced through the wood again and again as he watched the shape of the duck's back begin to emerge. Changing from a knife to a fine chisel, she started work on the creature's neck.

"Did you do all those woodcarvings in the house?" She nodded, not taking her eyes off her work as she took small nicks out of the wood. "It was my hobby for years."

"Was?"

Venny glanced from her carving to Hennessey's interested face. "Is," she stated firmly, knowing suddenly that it would be again. She had given it up before and had not resumed when her marriage failed, which had been foolish. "I haven't done a lot of it during the past few years," she went on, "so I'm rusty, sort of feeling my way with this one."

He watched in companionable silence for a long time, then said, "You don't look rusty. You look very sure, very deft, and... and very happy. Carving gives you a lot of pleasure, doesn't it?"

Surprised, she looked at him again, holding her knife still, then she nodded. "Yes. It does. You're very observant." Lars, she couldn't help remembering, had never realized what pleasure carving gave her. He considered it an unfeminine, messy hobby. He'd have preferred her to take up needlepoint. Yet this man, having watched her carve for less than an hour, knew how much it meant to her.

"I've trained myself to be observant," he said. "Though I suppose I've always been what other people might call snoopy. I like to imagine I can figure people out."

"I think you do more than imagine it." He made no comment and several more minutes of companionable silence went by before she was through having to concentrate on the delicate operation of liberating the duck's head from its prison of wood. How easy it was to be quiet beside Hennessey. He didn't twitch or fidget uncomfortably when she failed to entertain him with smart repartee or stimulate him with intellectual dialogue. "You're a writer, aren't you? What kind of books do you write?"

He shrugged and grinned. "Detective stories."

Lifting her brows, she said, "Oh. I read a lot of those. I like mysteries and action and danger. But only vicariously." Then, looking back at her work, she carefully scooped out a graceful curve to begin forming the mergansers crest. "I don't remember reading anything by anyone named Hennessey, though," she said apologetically, casting a sidelong glance at him.

"That's okay." He smiled easily. "'Most people don't know my name."

As she had thought yesterday he probably wasn't commercially successful. "I'm sure they soon will," she said kindly. "I understand it can take a long time for a writer to become well known."

"That's true," he said.

Hands and fingers tired from the unaccustomed exercise of carving, Venny set her work on the log both their feet rested on, slid her knife back into its velvet lined case with several others of different sizes and shapes, and put that with her carving. She wiggled her fingers, rubbed her right hand. He moved close, took her hands in his and began to massage them.

"Hennessey..." Venny stiffened as his hands came over hers, warm and strong and very sure in their movements -- as sure as he seemed to be of his right to be touching her.

"Hush," he said. "I like to touch you. Let me help."

Chapter Four

"I..." I can do it myself, she was about to say but the stroking of the pads of his thumbs against the stiffened tendons in the backs of her hands, the massaging of the tips of his fingers in her palms was not a sensation she was capable of denying herself.

Slowly, methodically, his gaze on her hands as he stroked away the tension, his fingers circled, following the ridges of muscle almost up to her elbows, sliding the sleeves of her sweater ahead of them.

She watched his long, brown fingers against her lighter skin, noticing for the first time the square, flat nails, the creases in his knuckles, the light tufts of hair on the backs of the index fingers. She wondered if he could feel the pulse hammering in her wrists and if he could feel it, if he knew why it was so rapid. She knew she should pull her hands out of his, knew she should move away from him, knew she should tell him she didn't want him to touch her, but the fact was she didn't want to move away. She liked to feel him touching her and was incapable of pulling her hands free.

Oh, dammit, a diversion was definitely in order! She had to get her breath back and her mind off things it was best not to contemplate, but she could think of nothing to say or do that might divert Hennessey -- or herself.

Hennessey felt the fluttering pulse in her wrists, felt it speed up, sensed that her breathing was as shallow and rapid as his own. His touch was not relaxing her. He lifted his gaze to her face. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were bright and she was sitting very, very still, as if afraid to move, afraid any movement might propel her right into his arms. Oh, how he wanted her there! He would have tightened his grip on her hands and drawn her close, but a wariness in her eyes told him to take it easy, not to rush things. He'd have Heaven in his arms -- and his life -- before long. Something told him he wouldn't have long to wait.

Something else told him it was a damn good thing, because he didn't think he was going to be able to wait very long. Not for Heaven

"Do you sell any of your work?" he asked.

"A bit. Mostly, when I was carving before, I did it to relieve tension, for my own pleasure, and I gave the carvings to people who liked them."

"I like that one. Will you give it to me?"

She smiled. "Sure. When it's finished." Then, with a small frown, she said, "Will you give me something you're written to read?"

"If you think you'd enjoy it."

"I'm sure I would. I've never read anything by someone I know. It would be an interesting experience."

He wondered if, once she knew his pseudonym, she'd have the same problem his sister had while reading his books. Carole claimed that she felt uncomfortable, even embarrassed, reading his love scenes because it made her feel as if she were looking over his shoulder when she shouldn't be, peeking into his mind.

"I'd like my sister, Carole, to see some of your carvings," he said, his stroking touch slowing on her arms and hands. "She'd love them and would insist that you let her display them for you in the craft shop."

"Your sister works in a craft shop?"

"She owns it. And a seed supply business," he said. "Wildflowers of the Pacific Northwest, which is why my yard is such a mess. I let her use it to grow wildflowers as a source of seed for her business."

Her eyes widened. "People buy seeds for weeds?"

He chuckled. "That sounds like a good advertising slogan 'Seeds for weeds.' Maybe you should offer to write her ad copy for her."

Venny shook her head and managed to pull one hand free to shove her hair back from her face. Hennessey held her other. It was so very, very nice, she thought, to sit in the sun holding hands with Hennessey while the clouds floated by and redwing blackbirds chattered in the wild rose bushes growing at the top of the beach.

"She can have it for free if she wants it. But I still don't understand why people want to grow weeds."

"They're weeds only if they grow where you don't want them. People pull foxglove out of their carrot patches but plant it in their flower beds."

"Can't they go out and collect their own seeds or dig up plants in the woods or along the roadsides or wherever weeds -- er -- wildflowers grow?"

"Sure. And many do. But those who can't, need a source and she supplies one. She also grows some of the more difficult varieties and sells plants rather than seeds."

"And because I felt like throwing my weight around, I wrecked part of her best source. I feel awful about that, you know."

Hennessey moved closer to her on the log, breathing in the scent of her hair. He didn't want her to feel bad. He wanted her to be happy all the time. "Don't worry about it for one more second," he said. "My yard may be her best source, but it isn't her only one, and you cut down only a bit of it," he said comfortingly. "Anyway, there's an island out there" -- he waved his free hand toward the water -- "Fox Island, that's another good source for her. I'll take her out in your aunts' sailboat and she can get whatever she wants."

"Oh, yes!" Venny said, beaming. "Fox Island. I'd forgotten how pretty it can be in the spring all covered with wildflowers. I'll have to make a trip out there before I leave."

"I'll take you," he said quickly, not wanting to think about her leaving. "I want to check out the boat before you go out alone, okay?"

To her own surprise, Venny said, "Okay." She looked down at their linked hands. He must have known perfectly well that she was capable of checking the boat out herself. He wanted to go out with her, and she wanted him to go too.

She stared into space for a minute, thinking how long it had been since she had wanted so much to be with a man, to walk with him, talk with him, sail with him -- since she had felt this kind of kinship with another human being. She wondered what would happen if she looked up at him. Would he bend his head and kiss her?

She looked up, saw something in his eyes that made her go weak and warm inside and dropped her lashes quickly.

"Heaven..." She heard the rasp in his voice and knew he was going to kiss her. She closed her eyes and swayed dizzily. She was glad she had his hand to cling to.

"Heaven," he said again, his breath warm on her cheek as he leaned closer to her.

"What?" she whispered, opening her eyes and seeing his jeans-clad thigh close beside her own. Who had moved? Had she? Had he? Had it been both of them? It didn't matter. What mattered was that less than two inches separated his thigh from hers, that his arm was now angled down behind her back, his hand planted firmly on the log right next to her left hip, and the fingers of his other hand were warm in her hair as his palm slid against the side of her jaw. She was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate.

"Hennessey..." If he kissed her again, she'd never recover.

"Hmm?"

She put one hand on his arm to fend him off. "Please ... don't." Her voice carried no conviction and her fingers wrapped themselves around his biceps, drawn by the heat and the power and the fine tremor beneath the smooth cotton of his shirt. He smelled of aftershave and soap and... Hennessey.

"Why?" His lips were nearly brushing hers. Her eyes wanted to close. Her mouth wanted to open. Her neck wanted to go limp and let her head fall back onto his arm.

"Because I'm..."

The hand under her hair was cupping the back of her head, long fingers cradling her skull. "Because you're what, Heaven? Scared?"

Wordless, breathless, she nodded.

"I really, really need to kiss you." he said huskily. And then he did.

Flames licked through her, setting up bonfires in the oddest places -- and some not so odd but unaccustomed to the intensity of the burning. His tongue slid along her lower lip, seeking admittance to her mouth, and she opened for him, welcomed him with a soft sound of compliance that he met with a sigh of pleasure.

Her arms rose, wrapped around his neck, and she inserted her hands into the thickness of his hair. She didn't fight it. She let them stay there, feeling her breasts flatten against his chest, feeling his mouth leave hers and trace a delicious, tingling trail down over her jaw and onto her throat, where it lingered with heated ardor before returning to her lips and captured them once more in a kiss that left her weak and trembling against his body.

When Hennessey lifted his head and looked down at her, her lips were parted, her eyes were closed, and her eyelids were fluttering as if she was trying to open them but was unable to find the strength. He bent and kissed her lids gently, feeling the silk of her lashes under his lips, then he took her mouth again, powerless to resist its yearning pout.

He felt her resistance the moment it was born and took his mouth from hers, letting her bury her face against his shoulder for a long and tender moment while he rocked her slowly from side to side, his heart hammering in his chest like a freight train passing through a tunnel.

He cupped his hand under her chin and tried to lift her face. She shook her head. He stroked her cheek with his fingertips until she finally agreed to lift her head, and he smiled at her tightly shut eyes.

"Heaven, look at me," he said. She opened her eyes at his soft command. "Are you still scared?"

She nodded, then slipped from his arms. She picked up her case of tools and the half-carved merganser and walked around the end of the log and up the path to the house. He made no move to follow her. Not now. Not yet, he decided.

"So am I, Heaven," he said softly. "So am I."

The telephone rang at twenty to seven that evening. Venny froze in her chair. It rang once, twice, and kept on ringing. It couldn't be her father or her aunts. They had agreed to let it ring twice, hang up, and then let it ring again so she would know it was one of them. It rang steadily seventeen times. She forced herself to go back to her crossword puzzle.

It rang again at eight fifteen. This time there were twenty rings. She stared at it the whole time and found herself shaking when it stopped. At ten thirty, when it began again, she went into the kitchen and turned on the tap, letting water thunder into the sink, but even that couldn't drown out the noise of the phone. She darted out the back door, along the drive, across the bridge and all the way to the gates at the end of the road. With shaking hands, she swung them together, shot home the big bolts, top and bottom, that held them and then leaned on them, panting.

Stupid, stupid, she told herself. If that was Lars on the phone, he was nowhere near here -- unless he was calling on a cell-phone. She shuddered. If he was on Whidbey Island, shutting the gates wouldn't keep him out. He could simply reach in and slide the bolts free. But... somehow shutting them was a symbolic gesture, an announcement to the world that she did not want Lars back in her life and would go to almost any lengths to convince him of that.

Slowly, she walked along the dark driveway toward the house, marveling at Lars's tenacity, at his insistence that she hear him out as if she hadn't listened to his lies for three long years. If she listened to him, she knew lies were what she would hear again, and she had no intention of putting herself through another ordeal. If only he would leave her alone!

But... had it been Lars on the phone? What if it had been Hennessey? She looked over at his house, at the glimmer lights glowing through the maple branches. No it hadn't been Hennessey. For one thing, he didn't have a phone. She was sure her Aunt Eden had said he refused to have one in the house. That was why she kept the line here connected, though the place was seldom used -- she wanted him to be able to call out in the event of an emergency.

But... what if he had changed his mind and installed one? Or gotten a cell? Everyone had them! Maybe there was something wrong. She bit her lip and turned in the direction of his lights. It would be a good idea to check on him wouldn't it? Just in case? And maybe he'd invite her in for coffee and she wouldn't have to lie in bed at home and listen to the phone ring and ring and ring.

She was quiet as she walked up the steps to his sun deck and across it to where golden light shone out through undraped sliding glass doors. She lifted her hand to knock, but then went rigid, her mouth falling open, her eyes wide.

Hennessey perched on one of those kneeling stools in front of a computer, his back to the door, his hands moving swiftly over a keyboard as words filled the screen in front of him.

He was naked.

Venny stared for much longer than decency permitted, then backed away, bumped into a wooden table, tripped over one of the two deck chairs, and flew down the steps. She locked herself into her house, ran up to her room, and flung her clothes off, in a hurry to get into the safety of her bed. With the pillow pulled over her head, she wouldn't hear the phone if it rang.

"Hi." Hennessey stood at her back door, a square pan covered with a towel in one oven-mitted hand. "Do you like coffee cake? I made some for breakfast. If you'll supply the coffee, I'll supply the cake. How does that sound?"

"I..." Venny stared at him. He had no shirt on with his faded jeans. He had no shoes on. She hardly noticed. What she saw was a mental image of the back of a naked man ... without a tan-line to show that he'd at least worn trunks when he'd gotten his sun-bronzed color.

He smiled and stepped into the kitchen as if her half-strangled word had been an invitation, an agreement to his plan. He set the cake-pan onto the table and sat down. He whipped off the cloth. The cinnamon scent that arose from the coffee cake made Venny's mouth water. Wordlessly, she poured two cups of coffee and set one in front of him. Stirring cream and sugar into hers, she sat on the edge of a chair and looked down at the crusty brown top of the cake. He shoved his chair back, got two small plates from a cupboard, a knife and two forks from a drawer and served them both.

They ate in silence and then put their plates aside. Hennessey picked hers up and set it atop his, aligning the forks neatly side by side. He drained his cup. She did the same. They looked at one another.

Venny bit her lip. He was doing it again! Breathing that way, making his chest muscles rise and fall under his sleek, beautiful skin, making her hyperventilate from watching him. She picked up her empty coffee cup, found she had nothing to drink to wet her dry lips and mouth, and stumbled to her feet. She reached for his cup, "More?" she managed to ask. He nodded.

Venny walked back to the stove, felt the pot and found it barely warm. She twisted the knob to turn the heat on under it. When she turned back, he was standing waiting for her. She lifted her gaze to his and licked her lips.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"Something is," he contradicted her, his eyes intense.

"I came to your house last night."

"You did?" She knew without knowing how she did, that his surprise was a sham. "Why didn't you come in?" he asked.

"You know why," she said. "And you knew I was there."

"No, I did..." he began, then sighed gustily. "Oh, hell, Heaven, I can't lie to you." He ran a hand through his hair. "Why can't I lie to you?" he asked plaintively. "I've never had trouble telling white lies to anyone else when it seemed really necessary."

"You haven't?"

"No. Never. I'm sorry if I embarrassed you last night. I'm so used to having the island to myself that I didn't think, and anyway, if I had and had thought it was you who was going to catch me bare-ass naked, I guess I wouldn't have cared and... am I making any sense? Was that as bad as it sounded?"

"I'm not sure."

"Did you need me for something, Heaven?" He smiled down at her and she felt warm inside. She remembered a fragment of a dream, of Hennessey standing in the middle of the bridge blocking Lars's path, keeping him from her.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I just wanted to talk, but when I saw you were -- uh -- busy... I didn't want to talk. I wanted to -- " She broke off, not quite sure what she had been going to say, but certain that if she kept on blurting out idiotic statements she was going to get into all sorts of trouble. She'd come much too close to saying naked, before she substituted busy. "I didn't know you would be... working. I'm sorry if I disturbed you when I tripped over the chair."

"No," he said softly, his voice a caress. "I mean, yes. You did disturb me, but it doesn't matter. I like the way you... I'd have let you in if only you hadn't run away."

She knew her face was flaming at the thought of what would have happened if she'd knocked. He'd have stood up, turned around, walked toward her and... She dropped her head to let her hair hide her face, but he grabbed her shoulder and shook her lightly. For just that instant, his fingers tightened on her but then gentled as she glanced up at him swiftly.

"I had a towel. I'd been in the shower. I probably wouldn't have stood up naked."

"Probably?" she echoed, swaying toward him as if drawn by a magnet, feeling a wild and rising excitement in her blood, wanting to feel his lips on hers, hard and strong and potent, like they'd felt before. What if he could see all that in her eyes? She lowered her lashes to keep her wanton thoughts from him, to keep herself from ogling him.

"No, look at me. I like to look at your face," he said. "I'd like to look at a lot more than your face," and she blinked, startled, staring at him.

"I think I'm going to have to get it over with and kiss you right now, Heaven," he said in a strangled voice.

Her insides leapt. "What?" She could scarcely force the word out. Her heart hammered so hard she thought it might rattle her teeth. Her legs felt rubbery and her lids felt leaden. And her lips burned from the heat of his smoky gaze. "Get it over with?" Get this fantastic feeling of... of... anticipation over with? Why did he want it to be over with? Wasn't he enjoying it too? She thought vaguely that feelings as good as the ones she was experiencing had to be shared. They couldn't be all on her side. "Get it over with? Why?"

"Because if I don't, if I don't get it out of my system, I'm never going to be able to speak another sensible sentence in front of you."

"That sounded pretty sensible to me."

"I forced myself to concentrate, but any minute now I'll be babbling again like a fool."

She could feel the heat of his body against hers, and they weren't even touching, except for his hands on her shoulders. "Would kissing me cure you?"

"Couldn't hurt." He tugged her an inch or two closer and she felt his breath fan over her face.

"Do you think it would cure me of babbling too?"

He smiled. "You haven't been babbling, Heaven. Everything you've said has made perfect sense, and your voice sings in my ears. If I haven't seemed to understand your words it's just because when I look at you and hear your voice, what few marbles I have left go rolling around in my head and addle my brains."

"Really?"

"Remember, I can't lie to you."

"Are you going to kiss me?"

"Do you want me to?"

For some weird reason, she didn't even try to lie to him. "Yes. There seems to be something very wrong with my ability to achieve coherent thought, too, so maybe you're right. It couldn't hurt."

He continued to look at her, moving his fingers over her shoulders slowly, one thumb brushing against her neck every so often. The waiting was driving her crazy -- as crazy as he was. "Hennessey?"

"Your ability to achieve coherent thought? If you can come up with a sentence as wordy as that, Heaven, you aren't in as bad shape as I am."

"I concentrated too."

"Yeah, well, concentrate on this."

And then he kissed her. He kissed her, the world rocked farther over on its axis than it was ever meant to go. Mount Baker exploded somewhere to the east. The Olympic Mountains rumbled and tilted into the Pacific out to the west and the little island lifted up a thousand feet and dropped abruptly back into the water. The resulting tidal wave washed over Venny's head and she would have drowned if she hadn't been able to cling to something hard and solid and warm while the waves rose over her, tumbling her end over end until she was gasping for breath, leaving her shaken and trembling in the wake of the storm.

And that, she realized vaguely, was just a kiss!

"Uh-oh," someone said.

After what seemed like an hour or so later, someone answered. "Uh-huh." Venny opened one eye. Something green glittered in her immediate field of vision. Another eye. It blinked slowly, rust-colored lashes with golden tips flicking up and down.

"It's boiling."

"Damn right."

"Got to turn it off."

"Can't. Turned on, now, Heaven. Oh, brother. Turned on doesn't describe it."

"Harrumph!" Someone cleared her throat loudly. The sound barely penetrated Venny's consciousness. She was concentrating again. Or maybe ogling.

Hennessey said, "Go away," but because he was taking tiny tastes of her lips she didn't think he meant her. His tiny tastes didn't appear to appease his hunger any more than they did hers, because he kept coming back for more.

"Albert Einstein Hennessey, we need to have words!" insisted a voice from somewhere in the void. "So would you be good enough to introduce me to your friend before I take you apart, one limb at a time? I may need a witness to the fact that fratricide is sometimes justifiable."

Slowly, Hennessey lifted his head. He couldn't have moved quickly if a rattlesnake had been threatening him. "This is Heaven," he said and turned back to the woman in his arms. "Heaven," he repeated, feeling a big, stupid grin smear itself over his face.

"I can see that, big brother, but who is she?"

"Albert Einstein Hennessey?" Heaven asked him.

"Hush," he said. "You didn't hear that."

"Yes. Yes, I did. I'm pretty sure I did, anyway. Was it worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollars?"

He stared at her, completely bemused. She planned to charge him for her kisses? "It was worth more lots more. A million. Ten million. Several gazillion. But I haven't got that much yet. Will you kiss me again a few times on credit?"

"Not the kisses! Your name! Was it worth a bundle?"

"Worth a bundle of what?" he asked.

"Mine was." Venny smiled at him. It was so easy to smile at Hennessey, she thought. It had never been as easy to smile at any other man. Something warm and alive and immensely happy inside her seemed to be growing and growing and growing.

"Yeah?" He dipped his head, his lips hovering over hers but she was still smiling and looking and torn between wanting him to kiss her again, and wanting to continue to look at him.

"Neither of you is making any sense," said the other voice that had been intruding every so often. Venny dragged her gaze from Hennessey's face and looked past his shoulder at the tall redhead who stood looking at the two of them. She was a laughing-eyed feminine replica of him.

"I know." Hennessey's voice drew Venny's attention from the woman right back to him. "That's why I kissed her."

"Because you weren't making any sense?"

"Yup."

"And now you are?" the woman asked with a laugh.

"No. I'll have to do it again. See you, Carole."

"Oh no, you don't, Ab Hennessey! You go back into a clinch and I'll never get you out of it again!" The redhead wrapped a hand around his neck and pulled until Venny was sure he'd choke. She slipped out his arms to save his life and went to turn the heat off under the boiling coffee, wondering vaguely who had turned the burner on high. Had it been the woman -- his sister? Carole?

"I want to know what happened to the wildflowers you were growing for me in your yard!" Carole demanded. "You mowed half of them down, you moron. Now where am I going to get my seeds?"

"Uh-oh." Venny sank her teeth into her lip and watched Hennessey stumble to a chair as if his knees couldn't hold him up any longer.

"Heaven," he said, his gaze pinned on her, not his sister, softening again even as she watched, "Uh, I mean -- Venny. Venny McClure." He appeared to be concentrating hard again. She tried to do the same as she clung to the handle of the refrigerator for stability. "Meet my sister, Carole Hennessey. I can explain about the grass and the flowers. I'm sorry they got mowed down."

"Me too," Venny said weakly.

"Wow! The flowers aren't all that got mowed down," Carole said dryly, taking Venny's arm and leading her to the chair next to Hennessey's. Obediently, Venny sat.

Hennessey took a deep breath and he went into a tailspin again as he drew in the scent of her skin.

Before he could fade out completely, Carole said, "You pay attention! I want to know where I'm going to get the seeds to fill my orders now that you've wrecked a good portion of my most productive source!"

"Don't you yell at him!" To Hennessey's amazement, Heaven leapt to his defense. "It was all my fault. I cut the grass because I got so mad when I saw him sleeping. You see, I was already kind of mad at him for looking so much like Lars, and when I tried to evict him, he wouldn't go, and I didn't want to have to see his bare chest and -- "

Hennessey couldn't have felt worse if she'd gut-shot him. "You do hate my chest. I knew it. I knew it yesterday when you glared at it. Oh, hell, Heaven, I know it doesn't have any hair on it but I can't help that, and believe me, hair isn't everything."

"I don't hate your chest. I like it! Haven't I been ogling it all the time?"

"You have?" Another of those big, stupid, uncontrollable grins attacked his face. "Ogling? Really? I didn't notice."

"You didn't? I can't keep my mind on anything when you're exposing all that chest. I can't help staring. Especially when you breathe."

"I have to do that every so often," he said in apology. He moved his chair back several inches from the table and hooked one elbow over the back of it, wanting to show off his chest for her.

She ogled.

He breathed.

Carole gagged.

"I think I might throw up," she said.

"Do it outside," Hennessey told her without taking his gaze off Heaven's appreciative face.

Chapter Five

Hennessey smiled again and touched Venny's cheek with one fingertip. God! He could do that all day long, for all she cared.

"Harrumph!" His sister cleared her throat again.

"Carole, go away."

"Nope." A chair scraped as she pulled it out and plunked herself down, elbows on the table, chin in hands, a grin on her face. "I wouldn't leave if you paid me. This is the most fascinating thing I've seen. My brother's going right out of his skull -- falling in love before my very eyes."

Without taking his eyes off Venny, he said absently, "Is that what I'm doing?

"Sure looks like it to me."

"Don't be silly," Venny said, shaking her head and disengaging her gaze from Hennessey's chest. "You can't possible be falling in love with me. I'm too skinny."

"And what," Carole asked, "does that have to do with anything?"

"Yeah, right," Hennessey said, scowling at her.

"Men don't make passes at girls with no -- " Venny clapped a hand over her mouth and both Hennesseys shouted with laughter. "What have you done to my mind?" she wailed. "I've never sunk to reciting dirty doggerel before."

"Could be you're falling in love too," Carole suggested, as she got up and reached for the coffee pot, wrinkling her nose as she threw out the bitter boiled dregs. She rinsed the pot then began to prepare a fresh brew.

"I most certainly am not," Venny said huffily. "I met him only a couple of days ago and he was scruffy and unshaven and reeked of beer. The next time, he took the lawn mower away from me and kissed me silly Then he tampered with my car to in the middle of the night and kissed me again in the morning until I couldn't think straight. He did it again yesterday afternoon on the beach and he sits around with nothing on! How could I have ... Dammit. I did not! I am not! I didn't come here to fall in love. I came here to hide. Besides, I'm still suffering from a broken heart. From two broken hearts as a matter of fact. People with broken hearts do not fall in love!"

"Ever hear of rebound?" Carole asked, and looked at them over her shoulder as she set the coffee pot back on the stove and turned on the heat. But her humor faded in the stunned silence her words had left.

Venny felt stricken by Carole's question. Hennessey looked stricken. Slowly, even Carole's face took on a very strange expression. Hennessey unhooked his arm from the back of his chair and pulled his chest back in.

Venny lowered her lashes to cover the hurt and dismay she knew must show in her eyes.

"I'm sorry. That was tactless," Carole said finally. "Look. I didn't mean to burst your bubble. I... Hey, Ab, come on. Come back. I... Oh, damn!" She smacked her forehead with her palm as her brother ignored her and strode out of the house, banging the door behind him. "I'm sorry, really sorry, Heaven..."

Venny sighed and watched as Hennessey strode away, his shoulders back, his head high, hair glinting in the sun. "Don't call me that," she said automatically, wondering why she continued to let Hennessey get away with it. He'd said he wouldn't if she didn't evict him, and she hadn't evicted him so he shouldn't. But he did. And oddly, coming from him, she kind of like it. Not from Carole, though. "My name is Venny."

"Okay, Venny. As I said, I'm sorry to have burst your bubble."

"It's all right. That was a bubble that needed to be burst. We were both acting crazy as loons."

"I'll go along with you on that," Carole said. "But I am sorry. I could go and bring him back, then disappear while the two of you sort it out."

Venny shook her head. "No. It's better this way. What was happening had to stop. It was insane. I don't know what came over me. But it won't happen again." she added staunchly.

"It will if my brother is half as gone on you as I think he is," Carole said, a note of warning in her tone. Venny sat very still and smelled the fresh pot of coffee perking. She made herself focus on that. Coffee was normal. Coffee was real. Coffee, she could handle.

Heaven. Heaven had come into his arms on the rebound. A broken heart, she'd said. Two broken hearts. Two broken hearts? How the hell did one woman have two broken hearts? he wondered. She had only one heart, didn't she? He sat back on his heels, a paint scraper hanging idly from his hand and listened to a wasp buzz high in the rafters of the boathouse. Nope. She had to have more than one heart. One of her own -- broken of course -- and one of his, which left him with what? Nothing. That was what. Nothing, zilch, zip, just an empty feeling inside and a hunger in his blood.

"You're out of your mind, Hennessey!" he shouted. "You met the woman the day before yesterday. She does not have your heart!" No? a small voice asked inside him. What's she got then? One of your big toes?

He wiggled the big toes on both of his bare size twelves. Nope, she sure didn't have one of them.

He sighed and applied the scraper to the bottom of the small sailing dinghy he was working on in the warmth of the shed. He didn't know what it was she had, but whatever it was, she'd have to either give it back to him or give him something to replace it -- because right now he didn't know which end was up.

It took a couple of hours to finish scraping and sanding the hull, and when he was done, he began to check the seams, one by one, for damage, but he found none. It was a tight little craft, well-built and solid, needing only a new coat of antifouling paint on its bottom and a strip of coaming around the stern.

After cleaning up the scraped paint and hosing down the floor of the boathouse to reduce dust, he swung open the double doors at the front end of the shed, propped open the windows on both sides for ventilation, and proceeded to apply copper paint. Why the hell was it called copper paint? The damn stuff was blue! The rhythmic slap, slap, slap of his brush was soothing and hypnotic, and by the time he was finished, his mind was more or less back to normal.

He had to laugh at himself. He'd gone overboard for a stranger. He'd seen other men do it and had laughed at them, assuming it meant nothing, that it wasn't real, only a fantasy. In most cases, after a few days, the men in question agreed. So he was shocked that it had happened to him. He'd always thought himself too sensible.

But in a way, maybe it was good. It would give a whole new dimension to his writing. Why not put it to work? After all, wasn't he entitled to have some good come out of this lunacy? Since he had never experienced such an intense and instantaneous attraction to a woman, he'd never used the device of love at first sight in any of his stories. Not that it was love he was experiencing. Lust at first site was more accurate. But it was normally called love, wasn't it? That didn't mean he had to call it that, though -- except in fiction.

Thinking about it as he squished his paint brush up and down in a can of thinner, he realized that it could become the basis for a powerful motivation for one of his characters. Though he based his plots on true situations, he had to fictionalize all of what he wrote. His cases, the few he took on, provided only the germs of ideas.

Well, fine. This encounter with Venny McClure could be used in exactly the same way. As a germ of a notion, a hook on which to hang a plot, an unreal interlude in a very real world. All he had to do was remember that it was fiction. He could use the feelings that had rocked him off his feet yesterday and this morning. He would use them and then discard them, because, after all, they simply were not real.

Feeling better, he hung the brush to dry on the pegboard at the end of the shed and stuffed his hands into the hip pockets of his smeared jeans.

Sauntering out of the boathouse, whistling, taking care not to glance over at Heaven's aunts' house, but keeping his eyes firmly on the path ahead, and keeping his mind firmly on the chapter he meant to begin as soon as he turned on his computer, he went home.

As he stared at an empty screen, he thought of Heaven. Again the word "rebound" echoed through his mind. But this time he weighed it. He didn't just react to it.

Did it matter, really, why she had responded to him? Wasn't the important thing that she had? What if it wasn't a rebound thing at all? As Carole had pointed out when she came running after him, the simple fact that he wasn't the first man in her life didn't mean she'd come into his arms because someone else had hurt her. It just as easily could mean she enjoyed being in his arms, was attracted to him because she liked his looks -- despite his hairless chest.

For sure she wasn't the first woman in his life. He'd been hurt by relationships that had gone wrong. But that had nothing to do with what he felt for Heaven. He certainly wasn't on the rebound. He scowled, wondering exactly what he did feel for Heaven.

Could Carole have been right? He didn't think he'd ever come close to truly falling in love, but...

Hennessey got to his feet. He knew he wasn't going to get any work done until he sorted out his feelings for Heaven McClure. He walked directly to a bookcase and took out a hardcover copy of his latest book, The Golden Gondola, which was on the national best-seller lists. It was number three on the Times list and his publisher was sure it would rise to the top and stay there a while. On the back of the jacket was a picture of him, taken over a year before, sun and shadow highlighting his face as he leaned on the lattice surrounding the deck. He would take it to her house even though he had heard her car drive out while he was still in the shed and had not yet heard it come back. He wanted his book to be there waiting for her. He wanted her have a little time to get used to the idea that he was A. B. Hensen as well as Hennessey. What if she'd left Ferris Wheel lying on the front porch because it had bored her? She might need time to compose something polite to say to him about his work. He opened the book, scribbled on the title-page and then loped down the stairs to the path. He jogged all the way to her house, up the steps, and then hesitated.

Ferris Wheel still lay untouched on the floor, spread open, upside down, the corner of one page bent inward. He picked it up again. She hadn't touched it since he'd last seen it. The dog-eared corner showed him she was less than halfway through. He wondered what her reaction would be when she got to the part where Neufelt started to make love to Katrina. Would she be embarrassed, as Carole had been, and feel voyeuristic? Or would she see herself as Katerina perhaps. And him as Neufelt?

The thought was fascinating. He wished he could look over her shoulder, or better yet, into her mind, when she was reading his story. It would be nice to watch her face. Hell, it would be nice to watch her face if she was cutting her toenails!

Setting the paperback down on the seat of the wicker chair, he put The Golden Gondola on top of it, front down so that she would see his picture the minute she saw the book. Then, feeling sick to his stomach with apprehension, he turned to leave.

Inside the house the telephone rang. It rang several times before he moved and pulled open the screen door. He lifted the instrument and answered with a brief "Hello?"

There was silence on the other end before an astonished male voice asked, "Who the hell are you?"

"Who do you want?" Hennessey countered.

"I want to talk to Mrs. Parish," said the other man. Hennessey was about to tell him he had the wrong number when he added, "Mrs. Venny Parish," and Hennessey went numb.

He remembered the ringless fingers on those slender hands that had lain so trustingly in his own as he massaged the stiffness out of them. He also distinctly remembered her saying, "I'm Venny McClure." Didn't she use her married name? Was she still married? Was she separated from her husband? Had she come to the island to decide if she was going to stay married? Was she still in love with Parish? Was this guy on the phone Parish?

"Is she there?" the man asked impatiently, his manner abrupt.

"I'm sorry. She isn't here at the moment. May I take a message?"

"Exactly who are you, and what are you doing there?" asked the man on the other end as if he had every right to know.

Hennessey hesitated for a moment. What would happen if he said, "I'm the man who's about to become her lover"? Would the man hang up and forget about her? He was sorely tempted, but hell, he thought, what man could ever forget Heaven McClure? "The name's Hennessey," he said. "I'm the caretaker."

Relief was almost tangible in the man's quick release of breath. "Oh! I see. Well, Hennessey, would you be so good as to tell Mrs. Parish when she returns that Lars called?" With stiff fingers Hennessey picked up the pencil by the phone and wrote the message in his neat upright script. Lars called.

"Lars who?" he said. Lars, who looked like Hennessey? No, she had said Hennessey looked like Lars. That bit of memory ate at him, gnawing holes in his insides.

The man laughed. "Parish, of course," he said, turning Hennessey's world into a nightmare. "Her husband. But she'll know. Tell her I'll call back. That we have to talk and I'll explain everything. No, wait. Tell her instead that I'm coming up there in a week or so. Maybe sooner. Got that?"

"Got it." Hennessey said and read the message back in a voice he didn't recognize as his own. He drew a neat lines through what Lars Parish had said before he changed his mind.

"Good," the man said either in congratulation for Hennessey's being able to take a message accurately or in satisfaction that everything was now properly settled between him and Venny. Without waiting for further word from the caretaker he hung up and Hennessey stood staring down at the paper, at the words he had written and then crossed out. They were still legible: Will explain everything... And cure Heaven's broken heart? Or one of them. He wondered bleakly who had broken the other one.

He left the house and headed home. He was nearly there when he heard her call his name. He went rigid at the sound, turned and saw her getting out of her car, flushed and heartbreakingly beautiful.

Oh, no! That word again: Heartbreak. Let her go inside and find the message from her husband, Lars, who would explain everything and presumably fix up her broken heart.

As for Hennessey, he had a work in progress waiting for him and a hung-up plot with nowhere to go. If he had to work all night and all the next day, he'd get it going somewhere.

Venny stared after him, wondering why he had given her such a strange look, what it had meant. For goodness sake, he'd looked like a startled Sasquatch! And then he had run -- not walked -- he'd bolted away along the path as if she were the devil and he had to avoid her at all costs to save his soul. That was crazy. Only this morning he had been holding her and kissing her, and she had been holding him and kissing him back as if they had just discovered lips. Yet now, he wanted to be far, far away from her.

Rebound. Damn Carole. Venny might have said that the beautiful bubble she and Hennessey had created had needed to be burst, but during the hours she had spent driving and walking around Whidbey Island revisiting old haunts, she had decided that she'd been wrong. There was nothing wrong with what was happening between herself and Hennessey. In fact, it was all good. Their relationship was progressing a little too fast, maybe, but it was still wonderful. Only -- he still thought she was on the rebound.

She'd been certain that, given a chance to think it over, he'd come to the same conclusion she had: The past did not matter. What counted was the present and what happened to both of them the minute they touched. They might have to learn to temper it with common sense, to slow down the pace but they didn't have to stop it entirely.

Wondering why, if he was going to run away again Hennessey had even bothered to come, she plodded up the steps to the porch and saw the book he had left on her chair. Picking it up she stared at the picture on the back of the jacket her knees becoming weak. Blindly she groped for the chair, sat down, and turned the book over, reading its title, taking astonished note of the author name before realizing she was sitting on another book by the very same man. Hennessey was A.B. Hensen.

No! She said it over again in her mind. It still did not make sense. How could he be A.B. Hensen, her very favorite male author? He was the only one she considered truly sensitive to women and their feelings, who wrote about women as if they were as real to him as his male protagonists were. How could Hennessey be that man, a successful writer who surely did not need to live in a caretaker's house owned by two old ladies? He did not need to mow lawns and trim hedges and clear paths to subsidize his rent. She put her hand over her eyes, remembering how she had felt sorry for him. Yikes! Had she sounded impossibly patronizing when she told him that she understood it often took a long time for a writer to gain recognition? He must have been laughing on the inside while agreeing with her outwardly.

She groaned as she walked into the house and closed the door. She had felt sorry for him. She had pitied him for having to be a caretaker when there was no need for him to be one. He could afford to buy his own island and hire someone to take care of the grounds for him. So why did he continue to live here?

There was no answer, she finally decided, setting both his books aside and picking up her crossword magazine again. Maybe a challenging puzzle would take her mind of Hennessey, alias A.B. Hensen.

It did not, and finally she went into the kitchen, where, with automatic movements, her mind far from the task, she made spaghetti sauce and set it on the stove to simmer. Later, she knew, she would have to eat, and if she had something prepared, it be easier. She wandered into the living room and sat with the both books on her lap again. She just stared at the picture of A.B. Hensen. Then she put the hardcover book into the bookcase and opened the paperback to where she had left off the day before.

She tried to read but could not concentrate, hearing Hennessey's voice in every word the hero said. She soon gave up on the story, getting to her feet.

She checked on her sauce, then headed out to the shed, where she clamped her hooded merganser carefully into a padded vise and did more of the delicate detail work before she could begin the final sanding. Hennessey had said he liked it. He had asked if he could have it. Had he been serious, or was he simply being polite? With a saw blade so fine it looked like a smooth wire, she carved pointed feathers into the tail of her duck, thinking about Hennessey's intent way of watching her work. No, he had not made the request merely out of politeness any more than she had asked for one of his books for that reason. He wanted his carving.

And because he did, absurdly she wanted it to be perfect, the best work she had ever done.

Or was that so absurd? She blew dust away with a quick puff, then brushed the surface of the wood with fine bristles until the feathers stood out in the grain. Hennessey had been truly appreciative of her craft. Surely, if anyone else were as complimentary, she would be just as willing to make a thing of beauty for that person. It didn't have to be something personal, did it?

It didn't. But it was.

She worked until her hands and arms ached and the pain in the small of her back threatened to start shooting right up her spine into her head. Then she forced herself to leave. In the living room, she turned on the lights, lit a fire, and sat down, wanting to pick up Ferris Wheel, but knowing she'd be unable to concentrate on the story. Her gaze roamed around the room until it came to rest on the blank screen of the television. Was the cable connected? She doubted it. Nevertheless, needing something to get her mind off Hennessey, she went to turn it on, but she stopped when she saw the folded piece of paper lying beside the phone.

Hennessey had been in her house! It must haven been him. But why hadn't be left the note with the book outside or the book with the note in here? she wondered.

Eagerly she picked it up and read the first four words, then dropped it as if it were on fire. Lars called. Those were the second two. Lars! Damn! So it had been him the phone. Just as she'd feared. Of course he'd know the island was her retreat, and if she wasn't at home, it was where she'd run to. If only he would leave her alone! She had told him that there was nothing more for either of them to say, that they'd said it all three years ago and it hadn't made any difference.

It seemed he still didn't believe her.

She picked up the note from where it had fluttered to the floor and read beyond the first few words, squinting to make out the scratched out lines. The rest of the message was worse news. No! He was not coming here. She had brought him here just after they married, so proud of the family island, so much in love with him she had been certain he would love the place as she did. He had hated it, been scathing and sarcastic and had complained constantly during the two days they stayed. She had never asked him to come back again, and now, now more than ever, she did not want him here. And she would not allow it.

She stared at the note until she no longer saw the words, just Hennessey's firm handwriting. It was like he was, upright, strong, steady. He wouldn't let Lars bother her if she asked for...

She snorted. Oh, no you don't, Venny McClure! She told herself. You handle your own problems, as always. With that, she crumpled the note and flung it into the fireplace. It lay at the edge of the fire, a small ball of yellow paper, the P of "Parish" standing out on one of the many facets as the flames licked nearer, threatening to obliterate those first two words Hennessey had written: Mrs. Parish.

She frowned and snatched the note off the hearth, opened it and stared at it again, watching its singed edges crumble away in brown flakes. Why had Hennessey addressed her so? After the way he'd kissed her, to say nothing of the way she'd kissed him, he shouldn't feel he had to call he Mrs. Anything. Her frown deepened. Obviously Lars had referred to her as Mrs. Parish. Damn him. He had no right. But at least she understood why Hennessey had bolted away along the path between the maples. He was reacting exactly as she would react if someone came up to her and introduced herself as Mrs. Hennessey, his wife.

She wanted to go and tell him that she hadn't asked Lars to call her, that she didn't want him to come, that she never wanted to see him again and had every intention of refusing to listen to him.

She also wanted to tell Hennessey she had never used Lars's surname professionally, and had stopped using the name Parish even socially the minute her divorce became final. She wanted to tell him being on the rebound had nothing to do with why she was attracted to him. Only the memory of the shocked hurt on his face as he'd torn away after his sister's ill-considered words, and the haste with which he had escaped from her that afternoon, prevented her from going to him. Because, what if there were some other reason for his actions?

What other reason? She couldn't think of one. She smoothed the note again and carried it with her back to her chair, where she folded it in half and slipped it between the pages of her book -- his book.

For a long time she sat quietly, sometimes reading, but most of the time off in a fog where Hennessey stood at her door smiling and holding out his arms to her, saying that he didn't care if she came to him only on the rebound, just as long as she came to him.

"What garbage!" she muttered finally, jumping to her feet. Then, with a determined tilt to her chin, she marched back into the kitchen and stirred her spaghetti sauce vigorously. When it was done she boiled water and added spaghetti, stirring for a few minutes until the water was boiling hard again, then made a salad. When her meal was ready, she looked at the quantity of food she'd prepared.

It was enough to last her a week.

Did she want to eat leftover spaghetti from now until next Tuesday? She did not.

And she wouldn't.

Chapter Six

Hennessey froze and stopped stirring the mixture of vegetables in his electric wok. Footsteps. Coming up his stairs. Was it Heaven? No, Mrs. Parish. Lars Parish's wife. An untouchable woman. An undesirable woman. Hah! Undesirable meant the surge of desire shooting through his blood at the thought that she was there was entirely inappropriate.

When her knuckles rapped on the glass of his sliding door, he considered stepping behind the screen that blocked the kitchen area from the living area, hoping she would go away.

She knocked again, and he knew she could see his shadow across the floor. If he failed to answer, she'd believe he was hiding from her. He'd feel like even more of a fool than he already felt. He turned down the heat and set his spoon and spatula aside.

Venny looked up at him. He was wearing a shirt with his faded jeans and not so much as a hint a smile lightened his hard green eyes. "Mrs. Parish," he said. "Did you get the message I left by your telephone?"

His coldness slapped at her like a wet towel. As she stood torn between her impulse to turn and run back the way she had come and her resolve not to be stuck with leftover spaghetti, he looked down at her. His mouth was set in a hard line. His eyes held no warmth, no welcome.

Tilting her chin, she said, "Yes. I came to thank you for taking it. And to thank you for the book." She didn't know what else to say as he continued to look at her without encouragement, without expression, and with such devastating... politeness. Tenant to landlady. Caretaker to home-owner. What had happened to man to woman? What had happened to her being allowed ogle his chest?

She let her gaze fall and twisted her hands together for a moment before forcing herself to ball them at her sides and return her gaze to his.

Hennessey gripped the sides of the doorway in both hands, holding on for dear life to stop himself from grabbing her and dragging her inside with him, against him, pinning her to his body and wrapping her in his arms. He knew he had to say something, but anything he said would only be banal and uninteresting to a woman whose name was really Parish but who wore no rings and called herself McClure -- a woman who still got calls from a man claiming to be her husband and speaking as if he had every right to know who was in Venny's house and why.

"I cooked too much spaghetti," she said in a rush. "Will you come and help me eat it?"

His knees went rubbery. He had to swallow hard to get rid of the big knot in his throat muscles. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to step outside where he had kept her standing and lift her into his arms, carry her back to her house, and feast on spaghetti that she had made with her own hands before he feasted on her.

"Unless you don't... like it, that is," she added, clearly offering him an out -- and maybe wanting to save herself from humiliation if he said no?

"I... no." No what? No, I don't like it? No, I don't not like it? No, I won't come and help you eat it? No... what? Even he didn't know. But it didn't matter what he meant. He had said no and she was leaving. She simply shrugged, muttered something that might have been a nonchalant "okay," smiled a small, uncaring smile and walked down the steps, her head held high. He watched her stride along the swath she had cut in the weeds and then into their midst until she disappeared between the big maples that separated their two houses. He watched until she was out of sight and then slowly slid the door closed.

It was better this way. Wasn't it? He scraped his overdone stir-fried dinner into the garbage. His mouth watered. He could almost taste that spaghetti. He almost could taste Heaven. Gritting his teeth, he took out his peanut butter jar and a box of saltines, looked at them for a moment or two and then shoved than back into the cupboard and slammed the door.

He showered again, and shaved, though he certainly didn't need to. He combed his damp hair until it lay fairly tame on his head. He put on clean jeans and shoes and socks again and plastered what he hoped was a friendly -- not lascivious -- smile onto his face. Carrying a bottle of red wine, he loped down the steps from his deck.

He paused in the twilight to pick a handful of bright orange poppies and strode toward the gap between the maples. There was nothing in the world wrong with having a friendly dinner with the woman, was there? Besides, he had only Parish's word that they were married. Venny had never said so. Didn't he at least owe her the courtesy of asking?

Venny shoved her half-empty plate away and stood. She scraped the food into the garbage and put sauce along with the leftover spaghetti into a bowl and stirred it all together before slamming it onto a shelf in the refrigerator beside the salad she'd piled into a covered plastic container. She should just heave the whole works into the garbage, she thought, but wasting food went against all her aunts' training. She leaned on the counter and sipped a glass of milk. She hated milk, but the doctor had told her she needed it in order to gain weight.

"You're too skinny..."

Hennessey's words of that first morning when she'd eaten five of his bran muffins echoed cruelly through her mind. He hadn't seemed to think her skinny when he held her close and kissed her, touched her, and...

Angrily, she threw the rest of her milk down the drain and washed her few dishes, leaving them to dry in the rack. Hennessey's assessment of her figure was not something she meant to worry about ever again.

He was so rude! He'd not even given her even a polite "no, thank you," just a plain, unequivocal "no." Well, at least she knew where she stood with him. He believed that rebound business and wanted no part of her because of it -- and because of Lars's phone call. She frowned as she paced back into the living room. What was she complaining about, anyway? Getting entangled in any kind of romance at this stage of her life simply wasn't smart. She was down, beaten, her career reduced to ruins, and she was working for hourly wages again, doing the one thing she'd sworn she would never do -- secretarial work. That had been all she could get. It was not, however, all she meant ever to have. She would rebuild. She stoked the fire and watched it burn but a fire unshared was not the friendly thing one would be if she had company. It crackled just as nicely and it flickered just as prettily, but it simply wasn't what she had expected it to be.

She picked up Ferris Wheel as she sat down in a comfortable chair. Opening it, she read a few paragraphs, then slammed it closed and sent it winging, Frisbee-style, to land on the couch. Reaching out to a low shelf on the bookcase, she chose something more soothing, a classic that surely wouldn't have the same effect on her mind and body. She sat for several minutes reading the same senseless paragraph over and over before she closed that book, too, using Hennessey's note as a bookmark. Leaving the book on the arm of the chair, she went to throw more wood on the fire. The fire didn't require it, but she needed physical activity.

Hennessey paused on the veranda and looked in the big front window. Venny was sitting curled in a chair, with lamplight shining down on her dark brown hair as she read Ferris Wheel. The book rested on the slope her thigh as she bent her head over it and he spent several delicious moments contemplating what it would be like to lift that book, replace it with his hand -- or his head... his lips...

Two more lamps sent their glow through the room, and a crackling fire burned on the hearth. It was a lovely scene, one he was content just to take in and not disturb for several minutes. Besides, he realized, this was his chance to watch her face as she read his work. He edged closer to the window, intent on gleaning what she was feeling from the expression in her eyes, the curve of her mouth, the lift of her brows... But her face had no discernible expression other than one of sudden disgust. Her mouth twisted and her nose wrinkled. She smashed the book shut, and flung it spiraling across the room to land face up on he sofa.

Hennessey felt as if it were his own body she had flung away from her. Biting his lip, he watched as she leaned over and chose another book by feel. Did she know already exactly what book she was reaching for, or didn't she care? Was anything better than what he had written?

Was she mad at him, or was she hurt? The thought that he might have hurt her by being clumsy, by being scared to accept her invitation because of a damned telephone call he'd intercepted, cut into him. If he hadn't known she was married, he would have leapt at her invitation. Hell, he probably would have leapt at her when she'd appeared at his door.

What was he doing, staring in at her like a ghost, concealed in the deepening darkness while she sat there, serene and content with her fire and her book and her glowing lamps? Had she eaten? Had she saved any for him? Would she feed him now if he asked very, very politely and apologized humbly for having been so rude? There was only one way to find out.

He was about to leave the window and step to the door when she closed the book on her lap and stared over at the fire. He saw her stand gracefully and lay the book on the arm of her chair before going to crouch before the fire. Crowding closer to the window, he cupped his hands and peered in at the gold-embossed title on the spine of the book she had chosen over his work, then reeled back in shock, feeling more hurt than he had ever felt before in his life.

Little Women? She had replaced his work with a story that had to be a hundred years old? A kids' book? He was still smarting with the knowledge when he heard the phone ring and heard her voice clearly through the slightly open window.

"Oh. Lars. Yes. I got your message. It seems you haven't gotten mine." Lars must have spoken for several minutes, because Venny remained silent, standing half-turned from Hennessey so he couldn't read the expression on her face. Then she said, "I am not playing hard to get, dammit. I am -- "

He must have interrupted her, because again she stayed quiet for another couple of minutes. When she next spoke, Hennessey knew he should leave at once. He knew he should have left as soon as the phone rang. Hell, he should never have come in the first place.

"He is the caretaker, for goodness sake, Lars. I can't help how he sounds. No, he doesn't spend much time here. He left a note by the phone. Lars, there is no need for you to feel that way."

What way? Hennessey asked himself as he slipped quietly from the porch, wine bottle hanging from one fist. Jealous? No, there was no need for her husband to feel jealous. After all, Hennessey was, as Venny had said, only the caretaker.

A caretaker whose caring she didn't want, and a novelist whose story had been replaced by Louisa May Alcott's.

Clearly Venny McClure Parish preferred an old, familiar story to a new, exciting one...

Did that also mean she preferred an old, familiar relationship to a new, exciting one?

Venny sat up in bed, swung her feet over the side, and gazed out over the silver water gleaming faintly under the stars. Why was she letting someone else's fantasy, a piece of fiction, for Pete's sake, disturb her? It was insane. She had to go to sleep and forget every word she had read, every emotion those words had evoked. She was tired. She ached for sleep. But she also ached for the closeness she had been reading about, ached for the special kind of sharing and exchanging and renewing of spirit that she had missed for so long and that had been so clearly described in the devastatingly evocative passage in Ferris Wheel. She wrapped her arms around herself, lost in the memory of the passage and in thoughts of the man who had created it, until exhaustion and chills drove her under her covers again.

Yet when she finally slept, memories filtered through her dreams and remained with her all night. She awoke in the dawn and lay watching the ripples of water outside her window reflecting on the ceiling, while ripples of tension flickered through her body and she was forced to fling herself out of bed and into the shower.

"Do not think about him," she admonished herself aloud, then sipped coffee and ate toast. Only -- how could she not think about him? She was sitting in the same chair she had sat in eating his muffins one day, then his coffee cake another, looking at the chair he had occupied, seeing again in her mind's eye his bare brown chest rising and falling as he breathed. Damn, but he was a nuisance! Why wouldn't get out of her mind? In his own way he was as much of a problem as Lars. No, darn it, he was more of a problem. All she had to do to keep Lars out of her hair was refuse to answer the phone and go and buy the biggest, strongest padlock she could find to fasten the gates at the end of the driveway. Lars would never lower his dignity to climb over them or, as Hennessey had said, "squoosh in around them." That, she decided, was exactly what she would do. Not only would going out to buy the lock ensure she wouldn't have to hear the phone ring and ensure that Lars couldn't get in when he did show up, it would put her far away from Hennessey for an hour or two.

Grabbing her purse and her keys, she strode out to the car.

When she returned, she could hear Hennessey hammering loudly on something in the boathouse, and she quickly shut the back door to block the sound from her ears. She would not go over there, she vowed. Not on a bet. No way. She was staying put.

Pouring herself a cup of coffee, she carried it out to the front porch and came to a halt, staring down at the wilted handful of orange poppies lying on the top step. Where had those come from? And when had they been left?

The "where" was easy -- Hennessey. The "when" she established by stooping and picking up the flowers. Even the stems were limp, suggesting that they had lain there since the night before. Last night?

Had he changed his mind about dinner after all? Had he come over, bearing flowers, to accept her invitation? He must have. But he had left without coming in. Again she asked herself why.

She shook her head. That was a question she feared Hennessey might have her asking far too often.

Venny went back inside, poured coffee into another large mug and, carrying both carefully, walked toward the boathouse.

It was warm inside. Walking silently the length of the shed to where the wide double doors had been folded back at the water end as if in preparation for a launching, she breathed in the scents of tar and oakum and paint and wood, and heard Hennessey whistling softly as he hammered. She knew he was unaware of her presence and bent to look under the cradle on which the boat sat, seeing only his bare feet and his lower legs, which were encased in tight jeans.

"Hennessey? Is it okay if I come in?"

The whistling and hammering both stopped abruptly. There was a muffled sound that might have been a choked-off oath as his head popped up over the stern.

"I thought you might like a cup of cof -- " she began, but her sentence was cut off in mid-word as he stepped out from behind the boat.

He was shirtless.

Of course, he would have to be. It was a cruel conspiracy he and his chest and shoulders had drummed up to keep her off balance. Sunlight slicing in through cracks in the wall-shingles striped his face and neck and shoulders. Her eyes went wide as she tried not to ogle him and she spoke the first thought that came into her head: "Why are you sucking your thumb?"

He was sucking his thumb because he had slammed the hammer onto his thumbnail the minute he heard her voice. He had jammed the thumb into his mouth not so much to alleviate the pain, as to hold back the string of curses he feared might burst forth.

All thought of curses, all memory of pain fled the minute he saw her moving toward him. Relief washed over him She was here! She had forgiven him. Again, a lost little voice inside him said I missed you, but this time it completed the sentence: I missed you, Heaven McClure.

His breath ran out of his lungs through his nose and he didn't bother to draw any more in -- to do so might have detracted from his ability to concentrate on looking at her.

"Coffee." She completed her last word in a whisper as if her breath had retreated to the same place his had.

She was wearing a pair of shorts that should have been banned, a top that clung to her body and was cut in a deep V between her small, firm breasts, and left her arms and most of her shoulders bare. He could see the individual bones of her shoulders and he wanted to cover their fragility with his hands to keep them from being damaged by falling cobwebs or breaths of wind. She held coffee mugs in her hands. "Would you... like some?"

He couldn't speak. He simply nodded and felt his mouth part in a big, sappy grin around his thumb. Realizing how ridiculous he must look, he snatched his hand away from his mouth and shoved it behind his back.

She held out a cup to him from an arm's length away. He didn't reach out for it, and she came closer. He still didn't reach out, and she came another half step toward him until the cup was nearly touching his chest. He could smell her perfume. He breathed it in deeply and watch her eyes widen as the cup trembled and slopped coffee down onto his bare toes.

"Ouch!" Startled, he stepped back and saw dismay shadow her face.

"Oh, Hennessey, I'm sorry!" She thrust both mugs at him, crouching down, ineffectually wiping the coffee off his foot with her bare hand, and he was unable to suppress a groan as her touch rocketed through his body.

"It's okay, Heaven. It didn't burn me. I... get up. Please, get up."

He set the coffee cups on the end of the boat cradle before the heat of them burned through to the bones of his fingers, and before the heat of her touch set him on fire from the feet up. He lifted her, dragging her to her feet before snatching his hands back, biting his lip as his thumb throbbed. He put it in his mouth again, then pulled it out. Picking up his coffee -- this time by the handle -- he gulped, never taking his eyes off her.

She frowned and reached out with one long finger to stroke the swelling tissue of his thumb with a touch that must have been able to heal. At least the throbbing stopped -- in his thumb.

"What did you do to it?" she asked, the concern in her tone making his heart glow. She lifted his hand higher and peered at it, trying to assess the damage. When she wrapped her fingers around his wrist, tugging his hand into a bright beam of sunlight, he really didn't resist at all.

"What did you do to it?" Venny asked again. In the brighter light, she could see that his thumb was red on the tip and already a lavender half moon was beginning to show at the base of his nail.

"I hammered it, but it doesn't hurt now. It feels... heavenly," he said, smiling at her. "I'm sorry, Heaven. I was rude to you last night."

"Maybe I had it coming. Wasn't I rude to you the first day I got here?" she asked with a small shrug.

"That doesn't matter. I came over, you know. Later. But I didn't knock."

"I know."

"How do you know?" Had she seen him skulking around her window? He lifted his cup and sipped, more to try to block the sweet scent of her as the breeze swirled it around his head than because he wanted to drink. He set the cup down and took one step closer to her, half-closing his eyes as he breathed in her scent, wondering what flowers she smelled like.

"Poppies," she said.

"Oh, my Lord!" he whispered, gazing at her in awe while he dropped down abruptly to sit on the edge of the boathouse floor, dangling his legs over the rocks below, never taking his eyes off her. "Can you read my mind all the time? If you can, I should be blushing."

She gave him a wary look and he grabbed her hand before she could flee. She sat down in the sun, her feet dangling near his, her perfume washing over him in great, mind-numbing waves. He drew a deep breath and watched her lashes flutter shut.

"I can't read your mind any of the time, Hennessey," she said in a thin voice. "And would you please quit breathing like that?"

He controlled his breathing as best he could, pleased that she was as aware of him as he was of her. "If you can't read my mind how did you know what I was thinking?"

"When?" Her voice was a soft whisper, faintly bewildered.

"When what?" His was a rough rumble. He slid his uninjured hand across her slim shoulders and drew her unresisting into the curve of his body.

"Just now. I was wondering what flower you smelled like and you said poppies. Weren't you reading my mind?"

She smiled a slow, sweet smile that turned his heart inside out and then she rubbed her cheek against his chest for an instant, before she seemed realize she was doing it. "You asked how I knew you'd been at my house. I knew because you brought the poppies. You must have dropped them."

He remembered picking them, remembered carrying them and the wine, remembered standing on her porch in the dark watching her read. He recalled the hurt of seeing her fling his book away and choose another one, and he would never forget the phone call. He also remembered stumbling away, wine bottle in hand. He must have dropped the flowers and they'd lain there all night for her to find, so she would know what a fool she had been, so she could laugh secretly at him, so she could know he had stood on the outside looking in while she talked on the phone to her husband.

Suddenly his hard-won conviction that Venny was no longer married began to crumble around the edges. As he looked into her beautiful eyes, breathed in her delicate scent, and felt her tender skin under his rough fingers, he felt big and stupid and useless and inept. Of course she was still married!

The strength of that belief came over him like a storm, and it blew away the crumbled dust of his former conviction.

Heaven was married to Lars Parish. No man in his right mind would ever let her go. Lars, when Hennessey had spoken to him yesterday had not sounded anything but mentally healthy, securely self-confident. Married.

He steeled himself. With an effort he took his arm from around her shoulders and sat apart from her, reaching up with one arm for her coffee mug. He handed it to her, then got his own.

"You forgot to put cream in yours," he observed, wondering how long he could refrain from touching her. From touching Mrs. Parish. Lars Parish's wife. He didn't know Lars Parish, but he wished him every ill in the book.

"I don't always use it," she said. Venny felt bereft as she wondered why he had taken his arm from around her so abruptly, and just as abruptly had changed the subject. The salt-laden breeze had suddenly turned chilly. She was grateful for the paltry warmth of the tepid coffee mug in her hands, but it didn't make up for the warmth his arm had provided.

"I prefer it this way. I only use sugar and cream because I'm supposed to gain weight."

"Have you been sick?" His tone, she though, was decidedly uninterested.

"No," she replied tautly, and the silence went on and on, growing heavier and heavier, until she found the courage to ask, "Hennessey, why did you come to my house last night?"

"I was... hungry," he said, and she heard his cup click against his teeth as he took a sip.

"Oh." She slanted a glance up at him. "You... lost your appetite?"

"Yeah." He grimaced. "I heard you on the phone. With your husband."

His comment startled her. "Lars? He's not my husband. We've been divorced for nearly three years."

It was his turn to say "Oh." Slowly, a big grin grew on his face. "He... said he was your husband. When I took the message."

She shook her head, thrilled with the quality of that grin on Hennessey's face. "Are you sure he actually said it? Or did you just assume he was? Because of the name. I gather he called me Mrs. Parish. I don't use his name, Hennessey. He knows that, but he..." She shook her head again. Until the previous day she'd thought Lars would get the picture: That she was just not interested in resuming any kind of relationship with him, but now she didn't know. She didn't know much of anything anymore, it seemed. Except that she wanted this man by her side to know the truth. "What made you think he was my husband?"

"He told me that. In those words."

"I don't know why he lied," she said, sensing it was a problem for Hennessey and she had to help him deal with it before they could go any farther.

And where did she think they were going? Even more to the point, where did Hennessey think they were going? Did he even think about them at all?

Chapter Seven

"Why would he tell me he was your husband, Venny?"

"I've never known why Lars does a lot of the things he does. And a long time ago I quit caring why."

Hennessey leveled a look at her that made her that made her want to squirm. "Can you really say that? Before you hear his explanation when he comes here?"

"I told him not to come. I don't want to see him. Whatever explanation he was talking about is not something I want to hear."

How could she make Hennessey understand that not only did she not want to hear what Lars had to say, she was afraid to listen to him? She couldn't make anyone else understand something she didn't understand herself. But she knew that if she were to listen to Lars, to let him get to her again there was every danger that his incredible persuasive abilities would have her almost believing him, even when she knew on one level that he didn't know how to tell the truth.

"But maybe you'd find you were glad you'd let him explain.

"As far as I'm concerned infidelity can never be explained adequately," Venny said. "Especially deliberate infidelity by a man who knows the hurt he's causing and shows no remorse. A man who -- " She shut her mouth, appalled at what she had said. What had possessed her to blurt out the words no matter how true they were? Was she out of her mind? Did she care if Hennessey thought she was telling the truth about her marriage? Did she care that he knew it was well and truly over and could never be renewed regardless of what Lars said?

She sighed. Unfortunately, she did care.

Hennessey watched Venny draw small circles on her thigh with her thumbnail. He reached out and stilled her hand, feeling the warmth of her sun- bathed skin, the satiny texture of it, feeling his heart thudding hard in his chest, feeling his jeans grow tight again. He tried to reconcile those feelings with the massive surge of anger he felt toward the other man.

"I'm sorry he hurt you." I promise I never will.

"It's okay. I'm sorry I said what I did. Other people's marital problems are always such a bore."

He moved his hand up her arm and then back down, slipping his fingers between hers. "Nothing about you bores me, Heaven. Everything about you fascinates me. Such as how you know about cars. Tell me about that."

She flicked a glance at him, and he thought he saw in it relief that he'd offered her a new topic of conversation.

"I used a lot of machinery in my business. I figured if I was going to be effective, I'd have to know how to maintain it. So I learned."

"What business is that?"

"Construction. I build houses, office buildings, schools."

He didn't try to hide his amazement. "I knew your father was in construction. He never mentioned that his daughter worked with him."

"I didn't. I formed my own company when I was twenty-one." She made a disgusted face. "Dad would only let me work in his office."

Hennessey grinned at the disdain in her voice. "What's wrong with that?

"It'd have been terrible. Look, Hennessey, from the time I was five and my mother died, I traveled from site to site with my dad. I grew up on construction sites, for Pete's sake. I could read a blueprint by the time I was eleven and at sixteen I knew as much about stresses and loads and bearing walls as most builders. It was all I ever wanted to do, yet when it came right down to it, I learned that as Dev McClure's kid I might be a welcome observer, but as Dev McClure's partner, I was not welcome at all. Dad had known it all along, known that I wouldn't be accepted once I'd grown up and the crews saw me as a woman instead of a little girl. I have to admit he never led me to believe it would be otherwise. In fact, when I turned down architectural school, he insisted that I at least take a secretarial course. I did it because he wanted me to but never meant to use my skills."

"So you went into business for yourself. I admire you, Heaven. I hope you were wildly successful and showed them all."

She was silent for few minutes, the nodded. "Yes, I was successful."

He waited for several seconds then tilted her face up to look into her eyes. "But?"

Her smile was crooked, slightly bitter. The hurt in brown eyes cut into him. The sadness he had seen that first day increased now, tenfold. "How did you know there was a 'but'?"

"Because you're here. And because you're not happy." He swept the hair back from her forehead. "Tell me, Heaven."

Briefly, she outlined what had happened, ending by saying, "So while I was never seriously considered culpable, I still felt responsible for what had gone wrong, even though I didn't believe -- have never believed Lars deliberately used substandard supplies."

He was silent for several minutes, staring out over the water, squinting against the glare. When he turned to face her again he said, "You allowed that belief to cost you your business and your home. You stood behind him in every way, including financially, when even his wealthy family turned away, and you still can tell me it's all finished between you?"

She nodded. "It is all finished." Her gaze locked with his as a warm blanket of silence draped itself over them with only the soft sound of waves lapping at seaweed covered rocks to intrude.

"He caused the broken heart you came here to get over?" Hennessey asked, reminding Venny of what she had told Carole.

This time, her smile was more secure. "That was a dumb thing for me to say. I've been over that broken heart for ages. Maybe I'll never get over the other one -- losing my business -- but I have added encouragement to sock away everything I can, so someday I'll be able to rebuild it."

"You hope to rebuild?"

"I plan to," she said, her chin firmly squared. "Even though I'm going to have to start from scratch without the capital I had originally, meaning it's going to take longer and be a lot harder."

"Would your father help you financially?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. If I asked. After all, I've proved myself capable. But I won't ask. The first time I had inherited money from a trust fund that helped me get started. Then, when I needed expansion capital, I took Lars in as my partner. But this time, I intend to do it on my own."

"Without Lars as a partner?"

"Without Lars as a partner -- or anything else."

He lifted one hand and touched the tip of her chin, drawing a line down over her throat and into the V at the front of her top. She held her breath while he slowly traced his way back up and across her bottom lip. Her heart beat a steady, slightly accelerated rhythm. Her lower lip tingled from his touch, and she had to rub it with the tip of her tongue to still the sensation.

"You said I look like him."

"Did I? When?" She had trouble breathing when Hennessey was close.

"The morning -- " he broke off abruptly. "Yesterday morning. When Carole was here.

She thought about it, then nodded. It didn't seem possible that she'd thought at first that he resembled Lars. "I was wrong, Hennessey, you don't look like him. Not really. You are the same physical types maybe, but you're not like Lars at all."

"What is Lars like?"

She bit her lip. It wasn't easy to describe him. Physically, yes, he was very much like Hennessey, but there the likeness ended. "He's a very... self-assured man, I guess. But no. That's not really because it sounds as if I think you're not self-assured and I can see you are. Maybe 'self-righteous' describes him better. And he can never, ever be wrong. Or admit he's wrong. Or admit that anyone who disagrees with him might have a valid point to make. Some people call him a bully. From the day we got married, he wanted me out of the business, but he couldn't force me, since I was still the senior partner and I never let anyone bully me. But he never quit trying. He wanted me at home."

Hennessey watched her face as she spoke, saw in her eyes that she must have fought many a long, hard battle to resist Lars Parish's "bullying." He thought, too, that in a way he could sympathize with Lars. If Heaven were his wife, he wouldn't want her anywhere near a construction site. But he also knew that if a construction site was where she wanted to be, he'd keep his mouth shut. If there was no trust between two people then what kind of relationship could they have? And Heaven, he was certain, was a woman to be trusted.

"Did you stay home?"

She shook her head. "I finally agreed to stay in the office most of the time. It was easier than doing battle constantly, and at least there I could keep my eye on everything that was going on.

"Our marriage lasted for two and a half years, and when it was over, I wanted to buy Lars out but I couldn't. So we agreed to continue running the business as partners. He did the fieldwork, I continued to manage the office and finances and contracts. But when Anna -- a woman who had been my family's housekeeper for a number of year when I was a child -- got sick, I went to her, leaving Lars in full charge. I stayed with her in Arizona for eight months until she died. I did try to keep in touch and on top of things via computer and telephone, but it was during these eight months that the company built the school wing that collapsed. My being away was the only thing that kept me from being sent to jail with Lars for negligence."

"But you weren't negligent. Your company wasn't, I mean, and neither was Lars, given what you said. And now that you know for sure he's innocent, maybe you should see him. Maybe you owe him a chance to explain."

"No, Hennessey." She met his gaze, her own eyes crackling with anger. "I have no need to see him, don't want to hear what he has to say. And the breakup of our marriage had nothing to do with his having gone to jail. We were divorced even before the charges were made. And I don't want to talk about him anymore." she added firmly.

He looked at her and nodded, then faced the water. They were silent again, but she didn't find this silence companionable or easy. A yard or two below their swinging feet, purple starfish clung in massed clumps to barnacle-clad rocks. Brown weed waved on the incoming tide. Water gurgled as it sucked around the creosote pilings that held the end of the boat shed aloft. A gull screamed. She glanced up and saw it chasing a bald eagle, whose piping cry sounded forlorn, plaintive, so unlike the mighty roar she'd always thought a creature as magnificent as an eagle should be able to produce. Finally, the eagle, tiring of the sea gull's antics, turned on it, driving it off.

"How did you get to be a writer?" she asked when her and Hennessey's mutual silence had gone on too long, grown too pregnant, the tension too high between them. For a moment she thought he might not answer, but then a slow smile curved his mouth up on one side. "I've been a writer since the day I learned hold a pencil in my hand," he said. "I never wanted to be anything else, to do anything else."

"My aunts said you were a private detective too."

"That's true. When I was in my teens, I was working on the kinds of things I liked to read, copying style. Of course, I was going nowhere fast. Then, when I was in college, a professor told me that before I'd be able to write about life, I was going to have to live it. He suggested I get a job doing something I'd find interesting and rewarding and learn how to do it well. Then I'd be able to write about it with some authority. I changed courses in my junior year, and went into Criminology, then on to the police academy. I worked as a cop for three years, started writing -- and selling -- and then quit to write full time. I took out a private detective's license just to keep me in the real world part-time."

"Your stories are good. At least I enjoy them," she said, not meeting his gaze, remembering how her enjoyment had changed to something much more personal once she knew the author and could picture him as the hero in his book.

"I'm glad," he murmured sliding one finger under her chin, trying to lift it. She resisted for as long she could, but something -- not the pressure of his finger against her flesh -- made her give in.

"Is your name really Albert Einstein Hennessey?" she asked, steering the conversation to a safer topic than whatever it was made him glad, made him look at her like that. "That's what Carole called you, and it surprised me."

"It is Albert," he said, "but not Albert Einstein. I... Holy cow! Did I really tell you the truth about my name? I don't believe myself! I never tell anyone my real name! I... Well, damn! I did say that I couldn't lie to you, didn't I? I'm not sure I like this, Heaven."

"It's okay," she said, unable to prevent herself laughing softly at his agitation. She patted his hand comfortingly. "I can tell you hate it. I won't use it to my advantage, I promise. What's your real middle name if it's not Einstein?"

Without hesitation, mesmerized by her big brown eyes, he said, "Percival. I don't use that, either."

They shared another laugh.

"I can understand why," Venny said, edging slightly from him. "But where did the 'Einstein' come from?"

"My sister added it when I sold my first book. She thought I was some kind of genius."

"Are you?"

Hennessey chuckled. "I can't believe you asked me that. I mean, after the things I've done since I met you."

Venny liked the sound of his laughter. It was warm and intimate and it curled around her like a soft cloak. She liked the way his green eyes captured her gaze and held it. "I'm glad you don't use the name Albert. You don't look like an Albert to me," she said musingly. "So what do you want me to call you?"

"Darling would be nice."

She compressed her mouth so she wouldn't smile. "Hennessey, be serious."

"What if I said I've never been more serious in my life?"

She snorted. "What do your friends and family call you?"

"My family calls me Ab. And my friends, those who don't want a pop in the snoot, just call me Hennessey. Now tell me about your name," he said. "How did you get to be called Heaven?"

"Nobody calls me that except you and the federal government," Venny said, finding the internal strength to pull her hand out of his clasp. "And I'm not sure why you do."

"Because it's so right for you."

She chose to ignore that -- and to ignore the little ripple of... something... his words elicited. "As you know, my father's aunts -- your landladies -- are Paradise and Eden McClure. Their sister, my grandmother, was the first Heaven McClure. Their father was a traveling preacher. He believed people always lived up to their names and he wanted very religious daughters."

"Did he get them?"

"I think so. Aunt Paradise and Aunt Eden never found men who could live up to their father's high standards, so they never married. They are both devout in a... well, an eccentric way."

"Your grandmother Heaven did marry, though, I assume, since she became a mother and a grandmother. So how did you come to have the McClure name too?"

"My grandfather was a distant cousin with the same name. It probably took a member of the family to be crazy enough to go along with Great-grandpa's wish that his daughter's children be given names of a similar nature. Luckily she had only one -- my father."

"And what's his name?"

Venny grinned. "He'd probably disown me if he knew I'd told you. He calls himself Dev. His name really is Divinity."

"Wow! And having had that done to him, he still followed family tradition and saddled you with the same handicap?"

"Actually my dad says he always swore that if he had children they'd have names like Susan or Jim. But my great-grandfather was still alive when I was born, and he offered my mother a fair size trust fund for me if she'd name me after my grandmother. So she did. Against my father's wishes. But everyone calls me Venny."

He slipped one hand under her hair and curled it around the back of her neck. "Everyone but me and federal government," he reminded her. "I'm never going to think of you as anything but Heaven." He leaned closer, his warm breath fanning her cheek.

"Hennessey..." She ducked her head down, trapping his hand between her cheek and her shoulder. "Don't."

He relented for the moment. But his heated gaze promised her he would kiss her again. Soon.

"Did you finish Ferris Wheel?" he asked she blinked at the abrupt change of subject. She dropped her head lower to let her hair fall as a curtain to shield her from his gaze.

"Not... yet."

He cupped his hand around her chin and turned her face toward his once more. His thumb stroked over the arch of her cheekbone, and she knew the heat she felt was visible to him under her tell-tale skin.

"Why not, Heaven? Don't you like it?"

Venny wished she could look anywhere but into his eyes, but she had no choice. They compelled her to meet his gaze. She nodded. "I like it."

"But you put it away -- threw it away -- as if it disgusted you," he said, startling her. She saw his lower lip jut out. She had hurt his feelings by flinging his book away. She couldn't believe it. He was an internationally acclaimed writer and he still was insecure about how the public received his work?

"Oh, Hennessey..." She wanted to kiss his jutting lip, to make his hurt better.

"And then," he added, "you started reading Little Women."

She couldn't resist. She reached up and ran the pad of her thumb over his bottom lip just as gently as he had run the tip of his finger over hers. "You are going to have to do something about your Peeping Tom problem," she said softly.

He shuddered as if the sensation of her thumb stroking over his lip affected him as much as the knowledge of his response affected her.

"I'm sorry, Heaven," he said. "It's just that I like to look at you. I was going to knock and ask if I could come in, but then I saw you reading, and I just had to look at you for a while." He frowned. "But... why Little Women?" His arm across her back was like a bar of hot steel, yet the fingers that had cupped her chin had been cool and infinitely tender. His eyes held questions, his expression still betraying his hurt.

"Because it didn't... bother me to read it," she said bashfully.

"And it did bother you to read my book?"

"Yes," she whispered, and his breath escaped swiftly. She knew that when she'd said "bother" her eyes must have given her away. He'd have seen that to her "bother" meant "excite."

"What part were you reading?" His voice rumbled and vibrated in her bones. It was a moment before she could reply.

"Neufelt was kissing Katrina and.. ." She let the sentence trail away. There were some things she didn't find easy to talk about, and her own sensual feelings were among them. Reading what he had written about a man and a woman kissing had made her remember in vivid detail just how she had felt when she was kissing Hennessey. It had made her ache to do it again. It had made her...

"Just kissing? That's all?"

A small, embarrassed laugh escaped her. "That was enough!"

He shook his head. "It wasn't enough for Neufelt," he said softly, then stole her breath away by adding even more softly, "Or Katrina."

She knew he was right. It hadn't been Little Women she'd taken to bed with her after all. Something in her expression must have told him the truth, because he smiled again and bent toward her, brushing his lips slowly over hers.

"Heaven... you know what came after they kissed. How did that make you feel? Did it bother you too?"

She nodded.

"It turned you on?"

"I... Hennessey, don't," she said, struggling to fight the spell he was weaving around her. "Please. I don't want to talk about it."

"Neither do I, Heaven. I want to do something about it." She swayed closer and tilted her face up. Slowly, their lips brushed, barely touching, then moved apart so their gazes could collide and each could assess what the other was feeling. Just as slowly, one of her hands rose and spread itself over his chest, feeling the heat of his skin, the strength of his muscles, and the heavy thudding of his heart.

"You excite me far more than I've ever been excited before. I'm glad my writing affects you. I'm glad I excite you. And I'm glad you're not married, Heaven McClure."

"Me, too, Hennessey. I... aren't you going to kiss me?" she asked, her head spinning lazily as she breathed in his scent, felt his skin under her hands.

"Do you want me to?"

"Neufelt didn't ask Katrina. He just... did it."

Hennessey drew in an unsteady breath and moved back several inches although he still held her. His gaze was sober as he said, "I'm not Neufelt. And you're not Katrina. I have to be very sure you understand that, Heaven. This is not a fantasy. This is real. You and me. Hennessey and Heaven. The start of something very big and very important and very... lasting."

"You can't be sure."

"I am."

She searched his face for a long time and then nodded. "Why is it so easy to believe you? I know I shouldn't. Logic tells me I'm being crazy. How can you be so convincing, Hennessey? Is it because it's your business to... communicate?"

He brushed his lips over hers again. "There are plenty of ways to communicate, and not all of them involve the written word. I didn't convince you. You already knew it. You knew it the first time we kissed and so did I."

She shivered, remembering the first kisses they'd shared. She would never forget them. Never! She pulled his head down again. "Kiss me, Hennessey. Now."

He did, and she drifted through a wonderful, sensuous cloud of pleasure where all that mattered was the heat of his body, the hardness of his arms, and the deep slow probing of his tongue as he sought and found every small sensitive part of her mouth, until she glowed all over with delight. And through it all there was always such a deep thread of tenderness that she wanted to weep for all the lost years she'd spent before she'd met him.

When he lifted his head and pushed himself away from her, she wasn't ready for him to break contact with her. He traced the line of her eyebrows with one finger, drew it down her cheek and along her jaw, then outlined her ear.

"Communication, Heaven. What did I just tell you?"

She hesitated, knowing the answer, but afraid to say it, wishing she could pretend it wasn't true. Because the moment she admitted she knew what he had said, her resistance would be so weakened, she feared for herself. Her independence was important to her and she wasn't sure she could trust him not to destroy it as Lars had tried to do. And she didn't know if she could trust herself not to let it happen. But he was waiting for her answer with patience she thought alien in a man, smiling as he watched her inner struggle.

"Do you want me to say it with words?" he asked. "Because I can, Heaven. Now. All of a sudden, for the first time in my life, those words would be true."

Chapter Eight

Venny swallowed around the tightness in her throat but speech remained impossible. She shook her head and saw him smile again as he bent and kissed her tenderly, surely.

"Then I'll have to communicate this way until you want me to say it the other way."

For long moments she could only stare at him, her throat aching, her eyes filled with tears that had no part of sadness. She felt a growing need to admit what she had known somewhere deep inside the moment she had first seen him. But still she shook her head and tried to pull away from him "Stay with me," he whispered. "Don't run from me, Heaven. Don't run from... this. And believe what I tell you, because it's true."

She tried to smile. "Hennessey you're crazy, you know. And we shouldn't be here together. It's all wrong."

He closed his eyes for a moment before he said, "What's wrong with it?"

"I..." She bit her lip. "Well, I guess there's nothing exactly wrong with it, but it is crazy for you to say... to think that you feel... about me."

"I may be crazy, Heaven, but that's no reason for you to look so scared. I assure you I'm perfectly harmless."

She slid her hand from his shoulder, down his biceps to his forearm, reveling in the texture of his skin, the sun-baked heat of it, and the power of the muscles. He was so good to touch she couldn't seem to stop. "I didn't mean to look scared."

"Well, you did," he said gruffly. "Venny, don't get the idea I'll start asking for something you aren't ready to give. I know you have to finish getting over Lars. I can wait as long as it takes."

She was touched by his words. "I am all over Lars," she said. "But for us, well, it is too soon. We met such a short time ago. I don't leap into relationships."

Who was she kidding? She had leapt all right, and was barely managing to keep her balance on the other side. Given one little push, one tiny breath of wind, she'd fall. Suddenly she knew why she had looked scared to Hennessey. She was scared. Because if she fell, she realized she'd fall so hard she'd never recover.

"I know you're afraid of getting hurt again."

She wanted to deny his words, but couldn't. "Maybe getting hurt is what life is all about." What was she doing, asking him to urge her to take the risk?

"No," he argued, taking her by the shoulders. "I don't believe hurting is ever good for anyone." He took her mouth with his own, slanting his lips over hers hungrily, his arms hard and supportive around her back, and she flowered for him, her lips moving across his, over his face, down his throat, and pausing at the pulse hammering there.

He covered one of her breasts with his hand, and she shifted aside, ashamed of their smallness. But he moved her right back to where he wanted her, placed his hand where he wanted it, and gently massaged her flesh until she gasped from the pleasure it gave her. Shifting her yet again in his embrace, he gave her other breast equal time and attention.

"Such perfect, beautiful breasts," he said as if he knew how sensitive she felt about their small size.

"Too small." Her voice was breathless and husky.

"Not for me," he said, and dipped his head to the V in the front of her top. She felt his warm hands against her bare skin as he slid her top up from her waist. And then his lips were caressing the undersides of her breasts. "Perfect," he said again. And this time the heat over her nipple was the moistness of his mouth and she felt dizziness overcome her.

"Oh. Heaven, I want you so bad!" he whispered hoarsely moments later, and Venny realized she was lying on the floor-boards, with only his hand behind her head and his arm under her shoulders keeping her from their rough texture. His thigh pressed between hers and he slid one bare foot up and down her calf.

He lifted his torso up and gazed into her eyes searchingly before he said, "You can turn me to mush just by looking at me."

"I'll remember that," she said. Taking his shoulders in her hands, she pushed him back against the boards. She kissed him slowly, moving her lips gently against his, touching them with her tongue, parting them, stroking him with her heat and moistness until he responded in kind. She sighed and ran her fingers through his hair, then touched one of his nipples with her tongue and plucked at it with her lips. He trembled and moaned. Before she knew what he was about, he snatched himself away from her, rolling them both to their sides, holding her tightly. She moved sensuously in his arms, loving the feel of their flesh together.

Hennessey knew he'd gone almost to the point of no return. "Stop, love," he said. "Don't do this to me. Not here. Not now."

Tilting her head back, she looked at him with eyes that glowed, he thought, like pieces of dark topaz, and her gaze made him warm all over; warmer than he had been in years. It was an inner warmth that somehow completed him, made him whole for the first time in his life.

Slowly he drew away from her, picked up the knit top he had taken from her, and tugged it down over her head, sliding her arms into it. Then, after smoothing it. down over her waist, his hands molding her shape, he got to his feet and pulled her up. "Heaven..." he said.

"What?" She trembled in his arms.

"You communicate pretty well, too," he said. "And I love the language you speak."

"I... didn't say anything," she protested weakly.

"Oh, yes, you did, Heaven. I heard you loud and clear." He dropped a kiss on her nose. "And someday very, very soon, you're going to tell me the same thing again -- in words."

She shot him an alarmed glance and dropped to the rocks below, just above the high-tide mark, up onto a large beach log and ran away. He watched her go until she was around the end of the island and out of sight.

But he didn't care that she had run. He knew what she had told him. And he knew she knew it too.

Venny was calm by the time she got home. Her chest heaved, her legs burned from her run, but her emotions were firmly under control.

Nobody falls in love so quickly. That is a basic fact, she told herself as she flung her winded body onto a chair on the front porch. It was not possible. Love was something that grew out of a long association. It was the result of two people getting to know one another over time. It came after friendship. It came when two people had delved into one another's personalities, knew one another's likes and dislikes, knew about one another's families and backgrounds and hopes and aspirations and...

It did not spring full-blown into being in a woman at the sight of a manly chest.

Nor did it grow deeper and more potent after just a few kisses which were, when all was said and done, just kisses, she realized. Men and women kissed one another every day and did not feel it necessary to declare their love. It was positively sophomoric to think that just because the joining of two pairs of lips, the touching of skin on skin, had made her blood sing and her heart pound with desire, and her body ache for more and more, she was in love -- not that she thought she was.

But Hennessey did.

She could not go on letting him believe she was in love any more than she had been able to let him go believing she was married, or that she cared about Lars. No, for reasons she couldn't quite fathom, she wanted nothing but truth and trust between her and Hennessey.

She puffed out a long breath and blew her hair off her face. She stared out over the water and felt her breathing begin to slow, her pulse rate return to normal. Then, she went inside where she showered and changed.

As she picked up her shorts to throw them into the hamper, she felt the hard form of the second padlock key in her pocket. Pulling it out, she tossed it in her hand, watching it turn over in the air, light winking off it as if it were a coin being flipped.

Heads, she would give it to him. Tails, she would not. But on a key, which side was which? She examined it again. It was identical on both sides. Still, she said to herself, "Heads I will. Tails I won't." And flipped it one more time.

Hennessey's fingers flew across his keyboard as words filled the screen before him. He was dimly aware of a dull ache at the small of his back and another in his legs. His mind was filled with the scene he was creating. He was within that scene. He was as much a part of it as it was a part of him.

She walked toward him across the warehouse floor, a woman unafraid, sure of herself and her right to be there. Sunlight from the narrow windows placed high in the rough walls flickered across her face like a strobe, showing him long lashes, shadowing large eyes, a lush pink mouth that he thought would look beautiful in a smile or parted and moist in passion. She held her mouth firm and straight, yet still its curve was voluptuous. Her dark brown hair bounced on the shoulders of her white jump suit. She was a very thin woman. Her breast bone stood out, long and slender under translucent skin. Her legs swung as if she knew exactly where she was going. There was a purpose to her walk that Jackson liked, just as he liked the plump pinkness of her lips, the dark arch of her eyebrows and, as he stepped out from behind the packing cases with his revolver in his hand, the way her lips parted in surprise...

Hours after writing the scene, Hennessey groaned and acknowledged that his body was protesting strongly against the rigid position it had been held in for far too long. His back and shoulders burned intolerably despite the supposedly ergonomic posture his padded kneeling chair forced him to assume. His knees ached. His head hurt. Even his fingertips were sore.

He rubbed his temples, trying to erase from his mind the scene he had just finished, with Jackson and the woman two days after that first meeting in the warehouse together again. In a motel room. She was wrapped artfully in a sheet, he sat nude on the end of the bed, grinding out a cigarette in the ashtray on his knee. The postcoital cigarette. Did he want to leave that in? he wondered. He thought for a moment. It was pass´ wasn't it? Everyone was health conscious now.

He'd put it in only because he needed a smoke himself after writing the scene -- and he hadn't smoked in six years.

He took the line out, tapping the delete key with one finger and placed Jackson where he'd surely rather be anyway, back in bed with the woman.

He shook his head and saved what he had written, then exited his word processing program without reading anything back. Tomorrow would be soon enough, he thought. He'd be able to distance himself from it, assuming, of course, that he would ever be able to distance himself from a character who looked exactly like Heaven McClure.

He leaned back, rubbed his hands over his eyes and glanced at his watch. What a marathon session that had been! There was nothing like losing yourself in your work. He rose, feeling his muscles groan. Some invisible force pulled him to the window of his bedroom, the only room that gave him a good view of Heaven's house. Parting the drapes, he saw the glow from her lights. Oddly, just seeing them eased his aches.

His stomach rumbled. Stretching, he went to the fridge and took out a cold beer, snapping the tab and downing half the contents of the can in one long gulp. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he examined the contents of the fridge. Some bologna, curled around the edges -- he flung it into the garbage. One egg. Some greenish Canadian bacon -- that followed the bologna. Half a head of lettuce that was turning brown on the cut side. A tomato with some foreign substance oozing out of a black spot on its top and a few odd bottles of salad dressings completed the inventory. He shut the door.

Opening a cupboard, he found crackers and peanut butter and a jar of jam with ants running around inside. He flung the jar in with the bacon and bologna.

He wondered again if Heaven had kept the spaghetti she'd offered him the evening before or if she'd thrown it out. He yearned to go to her but he'd promised himself he'd wait. She had run from him because she was afraid, because she wasn't ready. So he'd wait until she came to him, because he knew she would. He could feel it deep inside. She didn't realize it yet, but when she was ready, he'd be there.

Finishing off his beer, he rubbed a hand over his jaw, felt a bristle of beard, and shrugged. Carole wouldn't care how he looked -- she'd feed him.

He galloped down the steps, surprised to discover it was raining. Turning the key in the ignition of his pickup, he sat while the diesel engine warmed up. When it was running smoothly, he backed out, careful not to glance at the lights gleaming through the wet trees that separated his house from Heaven's lest they draw him in like a moth to a flame. Later. They would be together later. Another day whenever it was right for her.

In the meantime, he'd be better off not seeing her.

The gates were closed.

Grimacing, he got out of the truck, wishing he had stopped for a jacket because the rain was cold. He dashed to the gates gleaming in the beams of his headlights. They were stuck. He shook them, expecting them to part and come swinging open down the hill toward him. He shook them again before noticing the chain wrapped between the wrought-iron spindles and the shiny new brass padlock swinging in an arc.

"Well, damn," he muttered, shaking his wet hair out of his face. "She's locked me in! Trapped me on the island!" He got back into his truck and reversed down the drive. "Damn," he said again. "That makes me mad. Nobody locks Hennessey up."

But even as he said it, he could feel a big, idiotic grin splitting his face as it usually did whenever he thought of seeing Heaven.

Venny scrambled eggs for dinner, grated cheese on top of them and put a lid on the pan until the cheese melted. She slid the eggs onto a plate, added buttered toast, poured herself a glass of wine and sat at the kitchen table, wondering what Hennessey was having for dinner.

She picked up her fork, poked it into the eggs and lifted a bite to her lips, wrinkling her nose and putting it back down. She sipped at the wine in her glass and looked at the food on her plate. Over and over her mind replayed the scene in the boathouse. She saw herself lying on a dusty, hard floor, Hennessey leaning over her, tracing the shape of her stupidly small breasts, his nails raising her nipples to aching peaks. He had taken her shirt right off her and she had made no move to stop him. She would have made love with him right there but he had pulled back. If it hadn't been for his sense of right and wrong, his personal integrity, she would simply have let him take her on that sunwarmed floor, where anyone drifting by in a boat would have been able to see them.

She could hear his words, his shaken voice, as he said, "Not here, not now." Oh, Lord how close she had come to asking him, Then, where? When? She had managed not to say the words, but they still echoed in her mind, in her heart. Because she wanted him as she had never wanted another man in her life. She could smell his scent on herself though she had showered and changed her clothes. It was as if his essence had permeated her soul.

She got to her feet, scraped the cold, cheesy eggs into the garbage, and threw the toast on top of them. She wasn't hungry. Finishing her wine, she poured another and carried it into the living room. She sat looking at the copy of Ferris Wheel she had finished earlier, and the hardcover copy of The Golden Gondola that she was afraid to start. How could she ever begin to forget the way Hennessey affected her if she read what he had written? Only... She frowned. Did she really want to forget the way he made her feel? And more importantly, was she going to be able to? She wandered around the main floor, knowing she would never forget.

In the living room again, she stood for a moment staring at the glowing fire she had lit earlier. She contemplated what would happen if she decided not to try to forget him and his magic spell. She knew it was going to be impossible to put the man out of her mind entirely, to keep him out of her life completely, so why not just accept things the way they were?

She paced to the kitchen with newfound excitement running through her and poured her wine down the drain, checked her hair in the mirror, and reached for her jacket hanging by the back door. She would invite Hennessey for dinner.

Her hand was on the knob when a sharp rap sounded on the other side of the door. She jerked it open and dropped her jacket to the floor.

It was Hennessey, soaking wet and looking... furious. She backed up.

He stepped in, shedding water, leaving the door swinging open in the moisture laden breeze. Venny could only look at him. A wet shirt was just as good as no shirt, she thought. Maybe even better. It outlined his muscles and clung to him like a second skin. Her mouth went dry. She had to moisten her lips with the tip of her tongue. He was breathing -- that way -- again, even if it was in anger. Why was he so mad? And what would it feel like to touch him when he was wet and warm and breathing hard? She couldn't help herself. She lifted one hand and flattened it on his chest. She stared at it, white against the dark blue cloth. She watched her fingers glide apart, spreading to cover more of the tempting territory, curling slightly as if to test the depth of the muscles beneath the steamy shirt. He sucked in an even deeper breath, almost a gasp, and she flicked her gaze to his face. His anger was gone, replaced by a different kind of heat.

With a gentle finger he touched her hair, her cheek, her chin. He breathed even more deeply, and she was mesmerized by the sight and the feel of the rising and falling muscles of his chest. Her other hand joined the first, helping it explore.

"Heaven..."

"What?"

"Look at me." His voice rasped. His hand curved around her jaw.

She smiled. "Hmm. I am."

He lifted her chin. "Look at me. Not at my shirt."

She gazed into his eyes. "Your chest," she corrected him. "I love to look at your chest." His eyes were green. Had she noticed before? She couldn't remember. It seemed she had just discovered how green they were -- like new leaves on a maple. She wanted to go on gazing at them undisturbed while she felt his chest rising and falling beneath her hands.

"Shirt, chest, whatever," he said. "Why did you lock me in?"

"Did I?" She frowned, then shook her head. "Uh-uh. I didn't. The door's open."

With his foot, he swung it closed, his hands still curved around her face, his fingers sliding deeper into her hair. "The gate. You locked the gate. I wanted out."

"I don't want Lars to get in. Why do you want to get out?"

He blinked slowly. "Why did I want out? Did I? Nah. I didn't. Surely not." And then, he must have remembered. His bemused gaze cleared somewhat. "I was going to my sister's place. For dinner."

Venny dropped her lashes to try to hide from him the disappointment she knew must have leaped into her eyes. "Oh. I'll get you a key." She didn't move.

"Okay." He didn't move either except to tip her face up to his, fanning her shuttered lids with his warm breath.

She opened her eyes. "Hennessey..."

"Heaven..."

They spoke at the same moment. She gave him a little wave of her hand that told him to go first. He shook his head, gesturing for her to proceed.

"You could eat here..."

"I'm not hungry..."

Again their words mingled, just as their breaths mingled, and they swayed closer and closer together. He cradled her head between his hands and said softly, "I don't want to leave."

A drop of rain fell from his hair and landed on her face. He bent and drew it up with his lips. She squeezed her eyes shut again, afraid he would see the tears of relief she could feel stinging behind her lids.

"I don't want you to leave."

"If I stay, I'm going to kiss you. And I need a shave."

"Yes. I see." She curled her hand around his jaw.

"Don't you care?" She shook her head.

"I've been drinking beer."

"I like the smell of beer."

"And the taste?"

"Oh yes." She swallowed hard. "I've been drinking wine."

"Dry wine or sweet?"

"Dry."

"Will it make your kisses dry?"

She shuddered as she felt his body touch hers with a heat she had never felt before. "I don't think so."

"Good," he said. "Because I want your kisses, Heaven. And I want them wet and deep and strong and sweet."

"Oh, Lord..." She moaned as desire surged through her in ever-increasing waves. "Do you always talk about things like... that?"

"Does it bother you?"

She nodded, feeling a warm flush begin somewhere under her blouse and rise up past her loose collar.

"Bother you how? As in... excite?"

She gazed at him through her lashes and then lifted them slowly to meet his eyes. His face was pale. She didn't think all the moisture beading his forehead and upper lip was from the rain. "Hennessey, you know you excite me. Why do I have to say it?"

"Because I like to hear it just as much as you like to hear about what you do to me."

She sighed and slid her palms up over his shoulders. "How do you know all these things about me?"

"Because you are my other half, Heaven."

"Oh." She was weak and breathless and dizzy and completely unable to argue with him. He was right, as crazy and as impossible as it was, the man was right -- about everything.

"Are you going to talk about it all night, or are you going to kiss me?" she asked, feeling a bubble of laughter rise in her throat. Oh, yes, he excited her, all right. He made her feel wild and wanton and... Incredibly desirable.

"If I kiss you once, I'll do it again, and then I won't be able to stop," he warned softly, stroking her hair back from her face. To her, it didn't sound like a warning. It sounded like a promise.

"I know you won't. Because I won't let you. Hennessey..." Her voice trailed off, and she closed her eyes as she added. "I... want you."

"Heaven..." Hennessey felt as if there weren't enough oxygen in the world to sustain him. "I... Why are you looking scared again?"

She opened her eyes and looked at him, licking her lips nervously. "Because... I've never said that to any man before."

"Oh, Heaven." He rocked her in his arms, ready to burst with love for her. "My Heaven. I love you. You know that, don't you?"

He felt her nod her head against his chest. "I know. I... Oh, Hennessey, hold me."

He nudged her face up with one fist and kissed her, slanting his lips across hers, sliding the tip of his tongue against her bottom lip until she opened farther and drew him inside.

His breath coming in huge ragged gasps, Hennessey set her back from him, cradling her face between his hands again, and looked into her eyes.

"It has to be now, Heaven. I have to make love with you now."

"Yes." Her breasts rose and fell rapidly under the thin blouse she wore. Her hands covered his. He could feel the fine tremor in her fingers. "Yes, Hennessey. Now."

Chapter Nine

She slipped away from him and walked up the stairs on weak legs, knowing he was right behind her. In her room, she turned on one light beside the bed and waited as he shut the door to close the two of them in together. The intimacy of the gesture nearly made her collapse as desire came rushing over her.

They had been alone together before, but it wasn't the same. This time was special. They both knew why they were in this softly lit room. They both anticipated eagerly the joining of their bodies, a union they had both contemplated and were now ready to enjoy. She had, Venny knew, reached a turning point in her life. Ever after, time would be measured as Before Hennessey and After Hennessey.

So why did they both hesitate? Why were they just standing there, looking at each other? She wondered who was going to make the first move?

She did. She reached up and unfastened the top button on her blouse.

"No," he said. "Let me." He lifted a hand and carefully unbuttoned the next one, sliding it out of its hole with trembling fingers.

She touched his hand, stilling it before he could move farther.

"Why are you shaking?" she whispered. He drew in a ragged breath and smiled his thousand-watt smile.

"Because I want you so much."

"Do you want me to undress myself?"

He shook his head. "I want to do it. Slowly. Okay?"

She nodded, fighting the lump in her throat. She'd read about lovers undressing each other as if they were opening gifts and had wanted to share the experience with Lars, but he said if the aim was for both of them to get naked and into bed, then it was more efficient for them to take off their own clothes and get on with it. Naturally, that was what they had done.

She closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of Hennessey's hands on her.

She smiled. His hands felt wonderful as they brushed over her skin, sliding her blouse off her shoulders and down her arms. She trembled as he fumbled with the front clasp on her bra and then slid the straps down and away dropping it to the floor. At his soft sound of appreciation, she opened her eyes.

She watched his face as he looked at her, saw him smile as he touched her breasts with gentle fingertips, and shuddered at the wave of sensation it caused.

"Hennessey... I don't think I can stand up much longer."

"Yes, you can." He dipped his head and tasted first one nipple then the other. "If I can, you can." Then he stepped back, his hands at his sides.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's your turn."

Eyes wide, she lifted her hands and slowly slipped his shirt across his shoulders. "Why are you shaking?" he asked, as she had.

She licked her dry lips. "Because I want you so much," she replied, as he had.

"You're going to want me a whole lot more before this night is over," he promised, then groaned as her fingers, then her lips, touched his chest. He gasped as her mouth grazed one of his nipples. "Don't do that!"

"Why not?" She continued her ministrations, sliding her hands around the hard flesh of his waist, up over his ribs.

"Because the night will be over a whole lot sooner than either of us wants if you don't stop," he muttered, but she noticed he filled his hands with her hair and held her head to his chest, moving it back and forth as she kissed her way across it.

She tugged his shirt out of his waistband and tossed it aside. Oh, how wonderful it was to arouse each other slowly, to make every sense a part of their lovemaking, to take such care with other! It was the way she had dreamed it should be, and now, with Hennessey. she was finding that dreams did come true.

Reaching up, she sought his lips, and he gave them to her unstintingly as their bare upper bodies stroked softly back and forth, skin mating with skin. Soft sounds of pleasure rose and fell, voices made nearly mute with hunger still were able to urge and praise, and plead. Hennessey tasted of salt and spice, his hair was thick and crisp to her touch, and the satin of his chest caressed her cheeks as she moved her face against him. Within her, a hot flood began pulsing through her blood, making her go limp in his arms as she lost strength in her limbs.

He knelt before her, running his hands down her thighs, around her calves, her ankles, then lifted each foot in turn while he took off her shoes and socks and kissed her instep. Then, sliding his hand back up her legs, thumbs circling inward as he neared the tops, brushing over her most sensitive parts, he unsnapped the waist of her jeans and drew the tab of the zipper down. Slowly, so slowly she thought she would go mad, he eased her jeans down, steadying her to help her step out of them. She clasped his shoulders, otherwise she would have fallen with the dizziness that spun through her head. She whispered his name and he looked up, smiling at her reassuringly.

"Do you like me to touch you, Heaven?"

She could only nod. He knew she did! Her whole body was aquiver and there was no way -- and no reason -- to hide from him just how great her need for him had become.

She marveled at the freedom she felt with Hennessey. Some vital part of her she had always withheld before for fear that giving it would allow a man too great a power over her was now pouring forth under Hennessey's eloquent touch. She knew she was able to give freely of herself because he was willing to do the same. Their sharing, their coming together, was equally important to both of them.

Once more, his hands made an upward journey, adoring her, stroking her, parting her flesh inside its thin covering of pale green nylon until she sobbed with need and dug her nails into his shoulders. "Hennessey... Oh, hurry!"

"All right, love. All right. Soon. But let me do this my way. Let me love you slowly, please. I want you to know how much I need you, how important you are to me. I want you to know how it can be."

He waited, watching her face until once more she nodded. She smiled and filled her hands with his hair, trying to steady her gasping breath. "Yes," she said. "Show me how it can be."

He drew her panties down just as slowly as he had done with her jeans, and then tracked back up her legs with his mouth, kissing her knees, her thigh, following the path his thumbs had made. When he parted her moistness with his tongue, she went rigid, arching toward him, sobbing with ecstasy until she cried out sharply and fell -- only he was here to catch her. He placed her gently onto the bed, speaking soothingly to her, stroking her body until her urgency tapered off to a sweet, banked glow that she knew would catch fire and flare again the minute they resumed.

"You are very beautiful," he said. "I've dreamed of seeing you like this, naked and soft and wanting me. Do you still want me, Heaven?"

"More than ever," she confessed.

"I'm here," he told her. "I'm yours."

Trembling, she sat up and reached for him. drawing him close to the edge of the bed, her hands fumbling with the buckle of his belt. She saw his Adam's apple bob up and down as she tugged his zipper over the hardness at the front of his jeans.

Sliding her hands inside, she shoved his jeans down. Under his white briefs, she could see the strength of his need for her and it fanned the glowing embers of her own desire. He stepped away, kicked off his shoes and tore free of his socks, then shucked his jeans and shorts completely. She reached out to him, gathering him into her embrace, holding his head to her breast as he murmured his love.

How rapidly her banked desire ignited again! It whipped through her, arching her against him, She parted her legs and wrapped them around him. He groaned as he fitted himself into the cradle of her body, and rubbed sensuously against her.

She curled her fingers around his hard arousal, stroking softly, then more firmly as he thrust himself into her clasp. She adored him, adored the feel of satin skin over iron hardness, knowing that it was for her and her alone that he waited and yearned.

He raised his head and looked into her eyes, urgency roughening his voice as he said, "Heaven. Stop." He rolled away from her, sitting on the edge of the bed. "I didn't come... prepared." he said, his voice muffled in his hand. "I have to go home and get... Oh. Lord, Heaven, I'm sorry... this is -- "

"Not a problem," she interrupted, kissing the shoulder he presented to her. "I'm protected, Hennessey." She was deeply touched by his conscientiousness. Never had she felt more cherished in her life. She ran a fingertip down the valley of his spine and felt him shudder as he turned and caught her tightly to him.

Tenderly, he tilted her down onto the bed, parted her legs with his hands and slowly pressed inside her, filling her with his hardness, his strength.

"I love you, Hennessey," she said, and tightened her legs around him. "Oh, how I love you! Now, darling. Now, please."

He moved then, starting slowly, pulling back and surging forward until she was sure she could take no more. But each time she took more and reveled in it. She welcomed him, clung to him, as she began the long, precipitous climb up to where she had never quite been before. She hung there for an endless time, inner spasms clutching at him, triggering his own release. At the last instant, her eyes flew open to meet his awed gaze as they soared together into space.

"Is this real?" Hennessey asked a long time later, sliding to her side. "I'm not just fantasizing again, am I?

Venny smiled and kissed his warm, moist skin. "It's a wonderful fantasy, isn't it? It feels real to me."

"Me too."

And then they just held one another, unable to let go, both harboring a secret terror that maybe it wasn't real.

An eon later he lifted himself up on one elbow and said, "Did you tell me that you love me?"

She nodded and drew a fingertip from the center of his forehead down over his nose and across lips. "I did. And I do."

"Are you going to marry me?"

She smiled. "Is that what you want?"

"It's what I want. It's what I want very, very much, and the sooner the better, because I seem to have this inner fear that something will try to take you away from me. And I warn you, Heaven, I won't permit it. Albert Percival Hennessey always gets his way," he added with a grin.

"Does he now?" She kissed him.

"Yup. Are you going to fight it?"

"I don't think so," she said, nuzzling her cheek against his chest. "But I think we should wait a while."

"What's to wait for, Heaven? I've been waiting for you all my life." He kissed her deeply. "I've never been in love before. Never." A look of pain creased his face momentarily. "I'm jealous, you know. I hate knowing that you loved someone else first."

"Don't be, Hennessey. Please don't be. I love you now. I can't conceive of ever not loving you. I think I've been waiting for you all my life. But we've only known each other a few days. It's not enough."

"I agree." he said, stroking his hand down her body, following it with his mouth. "I don't know if I'll ever have enough of you. Heaven, I need you again."

"Darling..." She gave herself over to the magic of his touch, creating magic of her own as she stroked him in return and then parted her body for his welcome invasion. Rocking against him, locked tightly around him, she forgot that it was too soon to make the kind of commitment he was talking about. She forgot everything but her ever-growing love for Hennessey. And when she slid into sleep, still locked around her lover, she forgot that there was even a world outside their room.

"What do you want for lunch?" Hennessey asked, coming Into the shed, where she was working on a fat, stylized owl, carving its round eyes into the soft yellow cedar.

"I don't know. What are you offering?" She had no real need to ask. She knew perfectly well what he was offering, and it was nowhere near lunchtime yet. She also she knew that she was going to accept, just as she had every morning for the past week and a half, and every night, and every time during the day that they happened to look at each other or touch each other.

Sometimes, she wondered if their happiness possibly could last. The intensity was so great, surely it would burn itself out, she thought. But neither the happiness nor intensity showed any signs of doing so. Indeed they were growing bigger and more uncontrollable each day. The more she knew him the more she wanted him. The more they shared, the more they had to share. When he spoke of marriage in the near future, her arguments were weaker and less positive. She knew that the formality of the rite was important to him, and she wanted to do it for his sake. But in her heart, Hennessey was already her husband, and she knew without knowing where the deep conviction had come from that theirs was a marriage that would never end, as her first one had.

He bent close and told her what he had to offer, making her laugh at his boldness and inventiveness, then gasp at his strength and swiftness as he plucked her off the stool where she sat and carried her into the house.

She sighed and purred with deep pleasure as they settled into each other's arms. Much later he slid out of the bed and pulled the sheet off her drowsy, sated body before dragging her to the edge of the mattress while she fought and clung to her pillow.

He took it from her, set her on her feet,

And kissed her soundly. "Wake up," he said briskly. "You'd sleep all day if I'd let you."

"That's because you don't let me sleep during the night," she said.

"Yeah? Who kept who awake last night?" he asked, running a hand down the middle of her back and then up again. "Not that I'm complaining," he added. "I've discovered that I don't need sleep anymore. In fact, I wonder why I've wasted so many hours of my life doing it. Now that I've found such a wonderful replacement, I intend to forget about sleep altogether."

He bent and kissed her again, hugging her to him. She wanted to burrow against him and close her eyes for several hours, but he set her away much too soon and said, "Let's go sailing today."

Suddenly she wasn't sleepy. "Yes." Her reply was enthusiastic as she headed for the shower, Hennessey close behind her. "I still haven't made my spring pilgrimage out to Fox Island. Do you want to do that?"

"I want to do anything you want to do," he said. "I want to be anywhere you want to be."

When they were dried and dressed again, he led the way into the kitchen where they made sandwiches and put them into an insulated bag along with several cans of beer and some fruit. They were nearly out the door when the phone rang. Venny went numb, her hand locked around Hennessey's arm, her gaze holding his.

"Answer it," he said quietly.

She shook her head.

It continued to ring. In her mind, she counted, eight, nine, ten... all the way up to twenty-three before it quit. Lars...

"You're going to have to talk to him eventually," Hennessey said later as they sailed across the rippled waves of Admiralty Inlet, in the shadow of a massive naval vessel steaming by.

"I have nothing to say to him."

"Obviously he has something to say to you. What are you afraid of, Heaven? That you won't be to say no face to face?"

She stared at him. "No! Of course not. But -- " She broke off, confused thoughts tumbling through her bead. She knew there was no truth in Hennessey's suggestion, yet she couldn't offer him any explanation for the panic she felt every time she thought of having to face Lars. She knew the fear was completely illogical, even irrational. Nevertheless, it was very, very real.

From then until he raised the centerboard and she lowered the sail as they ghosted into a narrow cover on Fox Island, they were both quiet. He took her hand as they settled down with their lunch, surrounded by multicolored, blowing wildflowers. "It's okay, love," he said, drawing her to him. "Don't mind me. It's just that as a writer, I hate loose ends and to me, Lars seems like one. I just have to remember that he's your loose end, not mine."

"He's not mine, either," she said, leaning into the curve of his body. "Now, feed me, mister, before I turn violent and do desperate things to your person."

Hennessey laughed and handed her a sandwich. "For a skinny lady," he said, "you do pretty well in the packing-it-away department."

"You're worried that I might grow plump?" she asked, knowing the likelihood of that was extremely remote. She didn't have the build that lent itself to plumpness, though now, in her new, happy, state, food suddenly tasted great and she was eating everything in sight.

He watched her down two sandwiches, an orange and a can of beer then smiled when she patted her tummy and said "See? Plump. Still love me?"

"I'll always love you, no matter what shape you're in," he said. "Fat, skinny, in between, pregnant..." He laid a hand over her abdomen. "Heaven, when are we going to get married?"

She covered his hand with hers, loving the heat of it, the tenderness, thinking of the time ahead when there really would be a child within to love. "Any time you want. Any time soon."

With a wild whoop that sent a cloud of cormorants into startled flight, Hennessey crushed her tightly to him and kissed her until her head spun. In a hurry, he gathered up the plastic wrap from their sandwiches and stuffed it into the bag. Next, he gathered up Venny and heaved her over his shoulder, then went striding down over the rocks, sure-footed and strong, while she hung on, laughing.

"What are you doing?" She demanded as he dumped her into the stern then splashed back through knee-deep water to shove the bow off the shore. "What's the big rush?"

"The big rush," he said, hauling the sail up hand over hand, "is that you have agreed to marry me any time I want and I want to marry you today or tomorrow or, at the very latest, next week. So we have a lot to do."

Sitting back, grinning at him, she crossed her legs at the ankles and propped her on the centerboard housing. "What's to do? We just get a license. Go to a judge and get married." Crouching so the boom could clear his head, Hennessey shifted her over to make room on seat for himself. He wrapped her firmly in his arms, the tiller caught between them.

"That's what you think, lady. I, for one, have never been married before, and I mean to do it right. Long white gown, veil, music, church, the whole bit. Understand?" His green eyes glittered with zeal.

Venny leaned her head back and laughed. "Oh, Hennessey, my darling, wonderful Hennessey, you are going to look fantastic in a long white gown! Do you want a floor length veil, or a fingertip? And will your gown have a train? Will - - "

"Will you kiss me again?' she whispered shakily several moments later. He complied, only stopping when a loud long ship's whistle warned them that, sail giving them the right of way or not, they really should pay attention to their surroundings in this busy channel.

"You haven't worked for three days Hennessey," she reminded him once the sailboat was back in its cradle in the boathouse. "And didn't you tell me you had an evil, mean-tongued editor who blisters your ears over three thousand miles of fiber-optic cable?"

"Did I say that? I couldn't have. My editor is an angel with infinite patience. It's my agent who nags me unmercifully. You're right again, though, as always. I should be working. But first I'm going to run into town and pick up my mail at Carole's. Want to come?"

She shook her head. It wasn't that she didn't want to go with him. She did. She always wanted to be with him. But she knew that if she didn't make herself scarce, the chances were that he wouldn't get back to work when he got home. "I have things to do, too, so I'll see you later.

"Dinner at your place or mine?"

"My turn, I think," she said. If it was her turn to make dinner, that meant it was also her turn to provide their bed for the night. She loved alternating. He'd laughed when she said it made her feel deliciously decadent, and accused her of being a closet bed-hopper.

"And if you forget to come and eat, I'll come and get you," she promised. She slipped out the door of the boathouse, thinking about the many times he had gotten lost in his work and she'd had to drag him away so he could eat, and of the times when he'd done the same for her. They made a good team, she and Hennessey, she decided as she watched him walk away. They cared for each other, looked out for each other. It was a good feeling.

They hadn't discussed yet where they would live, but he had said one day that he was lucky enough to have a completely portable profession, so she didn't foresee any problems. In fact, she gloated, perching on her stool at the workbench in the shed, she didn't foresee any major problems at all for herself and Hennessey. Ever.

She was carefully buffing a graceful ibis to add to the stock that Carole had requested for her craft store when she heard Hennessey's truck come back.

Smiling, she heaved a soft sigh, glad that he was back on the island with her, even though she knew it would be several hours before she would see him again.

She was surprised, then, to hear the distinctive sound of his diesel engine start up again a scant hour later, and she walked out of the shed to the back of the house in time to see the blue truck come bouncing down the drive toward her place. Hennessey was dressed in dark slacks, a pale knit shirt, and a gray sport coat. It was the first time she had seen him anything but island-casual, and he looked marvelous. She ran to him happily, stopping only when she saw the pile of luggage on the passenger side of the seat and the grim expression on Hennessey's face.

"What's wrong?' she asked, knowing something terrible had occurred.

"I came to say good-bye." His voice was flat, his eyes dark, and she felt the first rising of fear in her heart.

"Good... good-bye? I don't understand, Hennessey. Why?"

"I have a case," he said. "I'll be gone... a while."

She lifted a hand to touch him. He stepped back.

"Hennessey... ?" Clearly, the case was upsetting him badly. "If it's such a terrible case... do you have to take it?"

He shook his head. "I want to take it. I want to get away."

"How... how long do you expect to be gone?"

"I have no idea. Probably a very long time."

She stared at him, unable to grasp what was happening. "What about us?"

He shrugged. "I imagine you'll be gone when I get back." She could see that he didn't care. A great sickness rose up in her, choking her, making it nearly impossible to talk.

"Is that what you want?"

"I think it would be best, Hea -- Venny. For both of us. Or should say all three of us?"

She shook her head hard, hoping to clear it. Why was he suddenly calling her 'Venny?' She hated it, coming from him! "What? What three?"

"You, me, and Lars. I know now why you've been so afraid to see him. You're afraid to compare us. Because in your heart you know which one of us you really want."

"Yes," she said. "Of course I do. I want you."

"No. Stop it. Stop lying to yourself -- and to me. It won't work, Venny. You can't use me to replace him. He's the one you have to face, the one you have to deal with, come to terms with, not me. I am not Lars. I can't be him. Not even for you."

"But I don't want you to be him!" she said, anguished. "Hennessey, I love you. And I know you love me. We're going to get married, have children together, make a life with each other. I won't let you do this, dammit! I won't let you throw it all away out of some weird kind of misplaced jealousy. I don't want Lars Parish. I want Albert Percival Hennessey, dumb name, hairless chest, and all."

Something flickered in his eyes for an instant and hope rose wildly inside Venny's breast, only to die again when he shook his head and reached into the truck.

"No, you don't, Venny." he said. "This is the man you want."

She looked at the news magazine he handed her, at the headline saying, "Parish Completely Exonerated. Nightmare over for heir to Parish empire," and at the full-face, full-color picture of Lars on the cover. She rubbed her eyes as she began to understand. Even she, who had loved them both, could not have said which man had posed for the photo.

"No, Hennessey," she said, "Oh, no. It isn't like that. Please, darling, believe me."

But he only got into the truck, closed the door, and started the engine. He backed away and drove off, leaving her with the magazine clutched in her hand.

Though she watched, she didn't so much as see him take a tiny look back.

Chapter Ten

"Did he say when he's coming back?" Venny sat on the patio at the back of Carole's house sipping a cold drink, her gaze pinned hungrily to the one-page letter Hennessey's sister was reading. It had been nearly two weeks since he had gone, and she had come to Carole's every day wanting news. Finally Carole had gotten some.

Carole shook her head and handed over the note. It made Venny's heart ache to see his handwriting. All he said was that the case was going to take a while, there was a lot of leg work to be done, and would Carole make sure Fred Sordum went out to the island to look after the grounds. There was no mention of Venny, no suggestion that he thought she might still be there, no hint that he had ever known Heaven McClure.

She folded the note carefully and set it on the round table, blinking back tears.

"I'm sorry." Carole said. "He's got to be the most stubborn fool in the world, Venny. But if you can hang in there and wait for him to smarten up, he's one stubborn fool who's going to thank you for it in time."

"I'm not going to give up," Venny assured the woman whose friendship she had come to value highly. '"I'll be on the island waiting for him when he comes back, because I believe in what we had -- have -- together."

But though she said the words and meant them, in her heart she was beginning to wonder if it would do her any good to be there when Hennessey returned. What if Carole was wrong and he didn't thank her in the end?

Sensing that her gloom was depressing her friend, she got up and took the check Carole had given her for the sale of her carvings.

As she drove home, back to the loneliness of the island, she wondered if she could actually make a living by selling her work. If she didn't go back soon, she would lose her job. Not that she'd consider it any great loss, but it paid her way. Without it -- or something else -- she was going to be in serious financial difficulty. Already she had dipped into her savings to pay the next month's rent on her apartment. But how could she leave before Hennessey came back? The fact was, she couldn't She could put an ad in the local paper, she thought, but what could she hire herself out to do? Lay foundations? Frame? Roof? She had noticed houses going up all over the place and building crews busy doing jobs she knew how to do, although she hadn't done any of them for a long time. And she also remembered the raised eyebrows, the shakes of heads, the outright belly laughs she had received when she had lost the business and started looking for work in the field. No. No one was going to turn her loose on a building site -- not unless she was the general contractor, the one in charge, as she had been before.

She thought about the dynamite and caps she had found in the locked shed shortly after she'd arrived.

Maybe that's what she should do -- become a blaster. She still had her powder ticket. She could paint a sign on the door of her car. "Have dynamite. Will travel." Or she could have a little flyer printed up: "Demolition while you wait. Houses razed. Problem rocks and stumps removed. In-laws ousted."

Sure, she told herself. She had about as much chance of making a living as a powder-man as she did making it as chimney sweep. What she had to was get practical if she were to work on Whidbey Island. It would have to be at something else, she realized. But what else could she do besides carving? Not too much if she refused to sit in an office all day. What was wrong with carving? Nothing, she decided, getting out of the car to unlock the gates. She drove through, stopped, alighted, then went back and closed and locked them securely.

Carving it would be, and considering the size of the check Carole had given her, it didn't seem like such a bad bet. Her birds were well received, and she could do orcas and small animals. She'd been carving for most of her life purely for enjoyment. So why not do it for gain? She might not make much, but she could get rid of the apartment, sell her furniture, and spend the rest of the year on the island. The aunts would be happy to have her there.

Venny parked her car under the twisted madrona tree at the side of the drive and got out feeling better, more secure than she had for days. She almost was smiling as she said aloud. "All right, Hennessey. Stay away as long as you like. I can outwait you. As long as your sister keeps selling my wares, I'm not budging from this island. And when you get back I'll put a new padlock on that gate and throw away the keys until you come to your senses and believe the truth when it's given to you. And that," she added, in a shaky, suddenly tearful whisper, "is a promise."

The phone woke her early the next morning. She lay listening to it ring downstairs, and suddenly she was struck by the conviction that it had to be Hennessey. She flung back the covers, leapt out of bed, flew down the stairs, and snatched up the receiver.

"Hennessey!" she cried.

"Venny?"

It was Lars.

She sobbed uncontrollably.

"Venny!" Lars shouted. "Don't hang up. Please, don't hang up. Listen to me. Stop crying Venny. What's wrong? Tell me what it is. Are you sick? Are you hurt? Venny, come on. Talk to me."

She bit the back of her hand, listening to the disembodied voice coming from the phone and choked back her tears. Finally, she was able to answer. "I'm all right. What do you want, Lars?"

"You don't sound all right. You're crying. You thought it was the caretaker calling. I know something's wrong, Venny, so don't try to kid me. Remember, I know you better than anyone else in the world."

Obviously, his time in that country-club prison he'd been sent to had done nothing to his ego. She met his words with silence. There was nothing to say. He was wrong but would never believe that. Was she destined to have people refusing to believe her for the rest of her life?

"I'm tired of the games you're playing, Venny," Lars informed her in his crisp I've-made-a-decision manner. "I'm leaving as soon as we finish this conversation, and I expect you to be there when I arrive. We have unfinished business and we have to sort it out. Do you understand, Venny? This time, I'm not taking no for an answer. You will see me. And if you refuse, if you run from me, I'll track you down. I'll keep after you until you sit still and let me make everything up to you.

Again, she was silent. She heard him sigh. "Venny... Oh, all right. Sulk then. It won't change the outcome. I'll see you soon."

He phoned several hours later. "I was held up. A business deal. Something great, by the sounds of it. I won't be there till this evening."

"Suit yourself, Lars. I'm not seeing you. If you want to make the trip for nothing, that's your business." She hung up on him.

It was nearly dusk the next time he called, and Venny heard the thread of fury in his voice. It chilled her. The icy, unspoken anger, what she had privately referred to as his "silent rage" always had terrified her. Though he had never manifested overt violence in their years together, she'd sensed Lars possessed a vast potential for it.

"Unlock the gates," he said. "Dammit, Venny, do you think for one minute locked gates will keep me from getting to you? Are you going to unlock them?" he demanded when she said nothing.

"No," she said plainly. "I am not."

"Then you leave me no choice. I'm coming back. I'll bring bolt cutters for that chain."

"Lars, I warn you. Don't. I will not see you! You're wasting your time," she said, her voice high and thin.

This time, he was the one who hung up. Venny stood by the phone for several precious minutes, her fists clenched, her nails digging into her palms. Did she have the courage to carry through with the crazy plan forming in her mind?

Yes. Yes, she did. She had to prove to him once and for all that she truly meant what she said: He was not welcome on her island, not welcome in her life.

How long would it take him to locate bolt-cutters or a hacksaw or something else to part that chain, snap the lock? There was no way of telling, but she had to assume as man as resourceful as Lars wouldn't be held back for long.

Tugging on her jacket, she went out into the rain, feeling the heavy drops splatter onto her hair and knowing she would be soaked before she was finished, but what had to be done -- had to be done.

She saw his headlights half a mile away at the top of the drive. He was sitting there, waiting, certain she would give in. Did she have news for him!

Working without so much as a flashlight once she was out of the storage shed, she got to work. She glanced up as she got to the island end of the bridge and saw his car in the process of turning around. His tail lights winked out behind the trees.

Rushing, but still extremely careful, deliberate in her actions, she readied things exactly as she would if she were on a job for someone else.

She had just finished when she saw his headlights returning, saw him stop at the gates. She counted, knowing she had to time it just right. Too early and the effect would be lost. Too late, and she wouldn't be able to do it at all. How long would it take him to cut the chain or break the lock? Only seconds. She listened hard, watching the lights as they continued to shine on the trees. When they moved, she set the timer and held her thumb over the button she would push to start it ticking, leaving just enough time to make herself scarce. But she had to wait to be sure he was really heading her way, that it hadn't been a coincidence that a car had stopped up at the head of the drive.

Yes, it was he, she realized as the lights moved down the hill toward her. He was coming. Taking a deep breath, Venny pushed the button and stood erect, ready to start her run for safety, but suddenly she heard the sound of the approaching vehicle, saw the lights coming fast, too fast, swinging in crazy arcs as the vehicle bounced in and out of ruts and she knew it wasn't Lars. He would never have driven so fast over a rough surface! And she knew, as she stood in horror, just who it was.

"No!" she whispered, and ran not to safety, but onto the bridge, her feet thundering as she forced more speed from her body than ever before, praying as she ran, crying as she prayed, hearing the rumble of the diesel engine.

Bumping over the ruts, half-blinded by heavy rain the wipers spread over his windshield, Hennessey had his mind on the lonely, empty island he would find, the cold, empty bed he would sleep in. He almost didn't notice until it was too late. He slammed on his brakes and came to a shuddering halt only inches from the orange and black barrier that blocked his entrance to the bridge. In the gloom his headlights picked out another barrier on the other side of the bridge, and a flying figure somewhere in between.

"What the hell?" he said, getting out of the truck. "Who..."

"Run! Run! Run!"

It was Heaven. She was screaming at him as she ran. He could hear her feet thudding as she neared him and now he could make out her words. Run where? Run why? All he could think of was the massive weight that just had been lifted from him. She had waited! She had known him better than he'd known himself and had trusted in their love.

She slammed into him screaming, "Come on!" as she dragged him. "Hurry! Run!" He nearly fell to his knees, he was so startled by her strength as she pulled him by the arm to the rear of the truck. He ran with her until she shoved him hard and stuck a foot between his. He went down into a ditch and spit out mud as she landed at his side in the same instant that an earthshaking crump! lifted the two of them up several inches and dropped them again. It was followed by yet another sound, another tremor of the ground and then nothing but falling rain and deep, eerie silence.

Slowly, Hennessey lifted his head. He rolled over in the mud and sat up, lifting Heaven to her knees. Even in the gloom of twilight he could see her face was white, her mouth trembling. She tried to speak and choked.

"What in the bloody, flaming hell was that?" he asked in a hollow voice that sounded completely unlike his own.

Once more, Heaven tried to speak. She made a visible effort to stop shaking. She cleared her throat and folded her hands. "That was the bridge," she said like a polite little girl. "I blew it." And then she fainted right back into the mud.

Hennessey scooped her up, strode toward the truck, then stood for a moment staring at the broken boards and the shattered timbers visible in his headlights. Water swirled around the debris as the tide ebbed, leaving bare patches on the bar between Whidbey and Gull Islands. He shifted Venny in his arms and carried her to the cab of his truck. He turned on the overhead light and cranked up the heater.

In its warmth she sat looking at him, her eyes huge and dark in her ashen face. Slowly, tears gathered and rolled down her cheeks. He brushed them away.

"Don't tell me," he said. "Let me guess. The person in the car pulling up behind us is Lars, isn't it?"

She sniffed and nodded.

"Pretty dramatic way of saying no, isn't it, love?"

"Love?"

He kissed her very very gently. There was no passion in his touch, only tenderness. "Love," he said softly. "My love. My wife to be. Right?"

Her smile may not have been straight on her face, but it went straight to Hennessey's heart. As he kissed her again the door beside her was yanked open and a male voice yelled, "What the hell is going on here?"

"I'm kissing my fiancée," Hennessey said -- and did so again.

"Venny? Venny! Who is this jerk?"

"This is Hennessey. We're getting married.

"No! Dammit, Venny, you haven't given me a chance. You have to listen to me."

Reluctantly, Venny pulled herself out of Hennessey's arms and swung around to face her ex-husband. "No, I don't have to listen to you." she said. "Lars, do you know what I did tonight? I blew up a bridge so you couldn't get to me. If it hadn't been for Hennessey's coming home, I'd be on the other side of sixty feet of water and you'd be over here all by yourself."

Lars turned and looked over the barricade she had erected. "You did what? Are you out of your mind? Did you honestly think that such a futile gesture would keep me away? I told you, Venny, we have unfinished business. Did you think I'd forgotten that all I'd have to do was wait for low tide and walk across the pass?"

"Oh!" Venny felt her breath escape her and felt Hennessey's suppressed laughter against her back.

"You were the one who forgot that little fact, weren't you, my demolition darling?" Hennessey muttered.

"You keep out of this," she said for his ears only, but he opened the driver's side and stepped out into the rain.

"Tide's out enough now," he said to Lars. "I suggest we all go to Gull Island and get into dry clothes. Seems you and Venny have things to finish up."

Venny slid across the seat of the truck, under the wheel and followed him.

"No." she said. 'You and I are going home. And so is Lars -- but not with us." Hennessey put an arm around her and gave her a little shake. "Dammit. It is finished, Hennessey!" she cried, her voice shaking. "I don't even want to be in the same area-code as him!"

He led her away from Lars, out of earshot, and placed both hands on her shoulders as he looked deeply into her eyes, his own eyes glittering in the light from the two sets of headlights. "Uh-uh. No. Heaven. It isn't finished. Not until you can face him without being afraid. And not until you can forgive him. So please. Do it for me, love. For us."

She didn't want to. She ached to resist. But how could she resist him? There was no way. So she would try. She would listen to Lars, hear him out, though she knew that forgiveness was out of the question. She drew in a tremulous breath. "All right, Hennessey. I'll listen to him. For us."

After the men had stopped at Hennessey's for dry clothes for both of them, Lars came to her. In the living room, he took a seat opposite her. He wore Hennessey's green shirt and a pair of his jeans. Even in his almost-double's clothing, he didn't look as much like Hennessey as she might have expected. There were differences and if they were subtle, they were still noticeable to her. He had a sulky tilt to his mouth that Hennessey never had. His left eyebrow was slightly higher than his right. He had a small mole on his right temple at the hair line. And he had a hard time meeting her eyes for more than a second or two.

He laughed uncomfortably. "There's not much point in my doing this, is there?" he asked. "You aren't going to take me back no matter what I say."

"No, Lars," she said quietly.

"But still, I want to tell you. When this whole thing happened, the school, the court case, everything, while I was in prison, Venny, and you were the only one who believed in me, the only one willing to go to bat for me, I had to do a lot of thinking. I remembered the lousy way I treated you. The other women and well, you know." His gaze faltered and he looked down at his lap for a few moments. "And while I was thinking, remembering, I decided that if it was the last thing I ever did, I'd earn you forgiveness, and your... love... again." He steadied his gaze on hers, holding it for several beats. "I did have that once, didn't I?" he asked, and for the first time since she'd met him he sounded uncertain.

"Yes," she said softly. "Yes, you did. But it died, Lars. A long time ago."

"No. I killed it. And I want you to know that I'm sorry. The other women meant nothing to me. It was just a... a game. A game I enjoyed. I truly believed, Venny, that I'd be able to make it up to you in the end, to make you love me again. Until I met Hennessey." He paused for a moment, his hands gripping the arms of his chair. "What do you think it is, Ven? Attraction to a type? He does look a little like me, you know."

She shrugged and smiled a bit. She knew exactly what it was, but it would be cruel to tell Lars that instead of her being attracted to a type, she was certain Hennessey always had been the one she was destined to love. Lars, with his likeness to him, simply had gotten in the way of her search.

"I guess it doesn't matter, though," he said with a sad smile, and got to his feet.

She rose, too, and stood waiting, knowing he had more to say.

"Did I tell you I'm sorry?" he asked, and she nodded. "And did I tell you thanks?" Again she nodded. "Then I guess there's nothing more to say."

She reached out and touched his hand. "Yes," she said. "Yes, Lars, there's something more to say. Something I have to say. I don't know if you really care one way or the other, or if it will matter at all, but I want you to know that I forgive you and hope that you'll be happy."

He drew in a deep breath. "Sure, Ven. I'll be fine. And thanks. If I go now, I guess I'll be able to get off the island before the tide comes back in." It was almost a question, she thought. And she thought, too, that with any encouragement from her he easily would decide that maybe the tide was coming in too fast. She nodded.

"Yes. You'll make it back to your car. I'm glad we talked. I'm sorry I was so... reluctant. Good-bye, Lars."

He reached out and drew her to him lifting her face with one hand and placing his lips across hers for a brief moment. He tasted... strange, alien.

"Bye, Ven." At the door, he paused pulled a slip of paper from the pocket of the green shirt he wore and set it on a table

"For you," he said. "With my love. Tell Hennessey I'll send his things back."

And then he was gone, closing the door quietly behind himself.

"What is that?" Hennessey asked, appearing only seconds after Lars had left. Venny unfolded the paper and looked at it. Wordlessly, she passed it to Hennessey. Pursing his lips, he whistled long and low. "Alimony?"

Venny shook her head. "No. That's the exact amount of my trust fund. He must have gotten it from his family." She blinked tears from her eyes. "He's given me back what I lost in defending him. I can start my business up again, Hennessey."

He sat down in an overstuffed chair and pulled her onto his lap. "Is that what you want to do?"

"It's one of the things I want to do."

"Ah... and what are some of the others?"

"I want to be your wife. I want to have your babies. And I want to build us the best and most beautiful house an architect can design." Her eyes laughed as she said soberly, "But first, I guess I have to build a bridge."

"That'll be interesting," he said. 'I've never known a lady bridge builder before. Or a lady house builder. Will you build me a special room to work in? One that's totally private so I can strip down to work and be comfortable?"

She nodded solemnly. "I'll build whatever you and the architect tell me to build."

He smiled. "Good. I like the idea of an obedient wife."

"Don't expect too much of that, my love."

"I won't."

"Did you finish the case you were working on?"

"Heaven... there was no case."

"Oh." She waited, her gaze on his.

"I was... scared. That's all. Just plain, stupid scared. I couldn't face losing you, so I ran out on you instead, if that makes any sense."

"None at all," she told him, and kissed him. "Loving each other is all that makes sense, Hennessey."

He smiled. "I know that now. I'm sorry it took me two weeks to figure it out." His smile faded as he cradled her face between his hands. "But you know, when you were in here with Lars and the door was shut, I was more scared than I'd been in my entire life."

"Hennessey... you had nothing to be afraid of. How can I make you believe that?"

"By loving me. For the rest of our lives."

"I will."

"And when he kissed you, I thought I might kill him."

She sat up, pushed his hands off her and glared at him. "You were Peeping Tomming again."

"'Peeping Tomming'? Heaven, that's revolting."

"It certainly is," she agreed, unbuttoning his shirt cuffs. "Peeping Tomming is among the most revolting of crimes. We'll have to do something about your problem."

"Indeed we will." He stood up, spilling her off his lap onto the rug, then helped her to her feet. She walked with him, still working on the buttons of his shirt. Then he scooped her into his arms and carried her up the stairs. In her bedroom, he set her down and closed the door securely.

She peeled his shirt off, dropped it on the floor, then stood back, looking at his chest. "Breathe," she ordered, and smiled as his lungs filled, rippling the muscles and the gleaming, bronzed skin. "I want to ogle."

"Know something else that scared me half to death?" he asked, standing where she had left him, his gaze intent on her face.

"When I gave Lars my shirt and he changed, I saw his hairy chest."

Her gaze flew to his face. She tried to look suitably sober. She tried to feel some sympathy for Hennessey's fears, but though she compressed her lips and firmed her face and drew her brows together in a scowl, it was to no avail. Flinging herself into his arms, she howled with laughter.

"I love you, you idiot! I love you, you insecure, sensitive beautiful, smooth-chested man. I love you just the way you are. And if it takes me the rest my life, I'll get that message across to you one way or another."

Some time later, he lifted himself up on one elbow and grinned down at her. "Well, that was one way," he said. "Now how about showing me another?"

To learn about other books Awe-Struck publishes, go to the Awe-Struck E-Books website at http://www.awe-struck.net/

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