I'll Be Home
Rachel Lee

Conard County Book #16

A Soldier's Christmas (Anthology)
Harlequin HQN Books
November 1, 2004

Chapter 1

The snow flurry that had begun when Seth Hardin left Casper, Wyoming, was a thick swirl of flakes by the time he was within a half hour of Conard County. In the glare of his headlights, against the backdrop of night, the snow seemed to be all that existed in the world. The black pavement of the highway was nearly invisible, its wetness soaking up the light, and only the drifts to either side delineated the road.

Little by little, however, the snow was beginning to stick. Traffic had lightened until Seth felt his was the only vehicle traveling at this late hour.

The weather and the darkness suited his mood perfectly. Coming home to Conard County—which wasn't even his real home—wasn't something he especially wanted to do. But Seth Hardin wasn't a man who avoided the hard things. If he had been, he wouldn't be a navy SEAL. He had endured things that gave him a self-knowledge far beyond most people's.

This was different, though. This was an emotional trial he was facing. The birth parents he was still coming to know were awaiting him. That was okay, he liked them both. But in that same county, in that same town, resided his ex-wife Darlene, now, by all reports, happily remarried.

He'd warned her that life as a navy wife would be brutal, with long periods of separation. It had been more brutal than either of them had anticipated, given the situation in the Middle East. And Darlene hadn't been able to handle it.

Intellectually he could forgive her, even understand it. Emotionally the scar was worse, he sometimes thought, than the one he'd gotten from the business end of an AK-47. Of course, that wound had been the beginning of the end. Or maybe it had been the end. Damned if he knew anymore.

As he drove through the night in a swirling cocoon of white, heading toward an unknown that might prove painful, his thoughts seemed to be on everything except the coming Christmas holiday. It had been three years since he'd last returned to Conard County, and he couldn't help thinking that this was a mistake.

But all his buddies had families, and this year he just couldn't face being the extra person at one of their dinner tables. That and the fact that Marge Tate, his birth mother, had been working on him to come until he felt that it would be downright Scrooge-ish to say no.

Oh, hell, this drive couldn't end soon enough. The quicker he was with other people, the sooner he could put all these self-pitying thoughts aside.

Bite the bullet. The thought popped into his mind the instant he first glimpsed the lights of Conard County through the thickening snowfall.

Surprisingly, though, he felt a burst of warmth in his chest, a true sense of coming back to a place he loved. Somehow, since the day he had stood on the Tate doorstep and told Marge he was her son, he had developed a deep connection to this place. For the Tate family. Much as he might have tried to deny it these past few years, it leaped up right now and reminded him that he had family.

As he pulled up he saw the familiar house, every light blazing. The family van, once necessary for carting six daughters around, had long since disappeared. Now the daughters had cars of their own, crowding the driveway and street. Janet wasn't coming, Marge had said, because her husband, an L.A. cop, had to work through the holiday. Seth wouldn't get a chance to see his niece or meet his new nephew.

But he believed the other five girls would be here. Certainly Wendy would, since she and her husband, Billy Joe Yuma—known to everyone except his wife as Yuma— lived here in town. And knowing the Tate family, there would be other guests as well. Nate adopted stray people the way others adopted stray animals.

It would be a madhouse, just what he needed to help him get through his first Christmas here without Darlene.

He parked as near the house as he could, two wheels in a snowdrift to make room for passing vehicles. The night wind held a vicious bite, a cold, wet sting that went right through clothes better suited for Virginia Beach than Wyoming at this time of year. He might need to buy a parka if this kept up.

There were sharp ice crystals mixed in with the soft, fluffy flakes now, promising worse to come. He pulled his duffel out of the back seat, locked the car and began to walk up the sidewalk that led to the front door. Salt, spread to clear the ice, crunched under his feet. The cold was already numbing his nose, and the wind snaked into the collar of his light jacket, making him shiver.

The curtains in the front window were open, giving a beautiful view of an undecorated Christmas tree awaiting the glory of lights. The other windows glowed with the inviting warmth of lamplight.

Bracing himself for what was to come, he rapped on the front door.

Sounds of voices came from within, sounds of laughter and music, calling him to a family gathering to which he belonged. He just wished he were in a better mood for it.

Then the door opened, and Marge's arms flew around him, hugging him and drawing him inside all at once.

"Seth!" she said with delight, holding him as close as if she had missed him every moment he'd been away. It had been a very long time since anyone had hugged him that way, and for the first time he called her Mother.

"Hi, Mom."

He dropped his bag and returned her hug, then stepped back a little, in time to see the sheen of tears in her happy eyes.

A hand fell on his shoulder and he turned his head.

"Welcome, son," said Sheriff Nate Tate.

"Dad."

The two were as alike as peas in a pod, despite the twenty-year difference in their ages. With a few more lines, some gray hair and a few more pounds, Seth would be indistinguishable from his sire. Dark-haired, tall, well-built men both, with weathered good looks.

Nate embraced him, too, then took his duffel, saying, "I'll take this up to your room. Marge, get something hot into this boy, he's freezing."

Marge touched his jacket. "This isn't nearly enough for this weather."

"I know. But it's not exactly easy to buy a parka in Virginia Beach."

She smiled, a beautiful smile, and took his hand. "Come into the kitchen and warm up before I unleash the rest of the family on you."

He was glad to follow her, not sure he was ready yet for the absolute uproar that was the Tate family and their husbands, boyfriends and family friends. It was like belonging to a small village.

His own childhood had been solitary, as the only adopted child of an older couple. Families of this sort were something he'd only seen on television programs. En masse they could still overwhelm him.

Marge sat him at the kitchen table. "Hot chocolate? Hot cider? Or something stronger?"

"Coffee, please. Coffee would be great."

There was a pot already made, and she brought him a cup. Black, just the way he preferred it. He slipped off his jacket, letting it fall back against the chair, and cupped his hands around the generous mug. Marge sat across from him, still beaming.

"I'm so glad you could come," she said gently. "We've missed you, Seth."

He didn't know quite how to respond. Surely she had to understand he'd stayed away for a reason.

Marge didn't pursue the issue. Apparently she had said all she needed to on the subject.

"Nearly everyone's here," she said warmly. "Except for Janet, of course. I think I told you she couldn't come. Mary pulled the holiday shift at her hospital. Apparently someone got sick, so she couldn't get away. She might be here the day after Christmas. Other than that, we're all going to be here. Even, would you believe it, Krissie's fiancé."

"She has a fiancé?" The thought startled him. He still thought of Krissie, the youngest of his sisters, as a child in high school.

"She's growing up, Seth." Marge shrugged. "You send your girls away to college and then next thing you know they're engaged."

A look of almost-sorrow passed over her face, and Seth asked impulsively, "Don't you like him?"

"Oh, it's not that at all," she hastened to assure him. "It's just that...my last baby is leaving the nest for good." She laughed softly. "I'm starting to feel old."

He didn't know what to say. These were all things he was utterly unfamiliar with.

"Anyway," Marge continued more briskly, "the girls are all doing well, and the men in their lives seem to be very nice—in fact, I love most of them like sons, so why am I getting all misty about it?"

"Because it's Christmas?" he suggested tentatively.

She nodded. "Probably." Surprising him, she reached out and squeezed his hand. "There's something I never told you, but I want you to know."

"What's that?"

She looked down a moment, then met his gaze straightly. "I almost died from the pain of giving you up for adoption. Don't stay away anymore, Seth. Please."

He didn't know how to answer that, either. He wasn't sure he had an answer just yet.

"Anyway," she said briskly, rising to get the coffeepot and top off his mug, "we also have a houseguest."

"So what's new?" he asked, drawing a laugh from her.

"It's Maria Hoskins, one of the schoolteachers here in town. She has no family here and we didn't want her spending the holiday alone."

Seth nodded. "I would have expected that."

Marge laughed. "You're getting to know us, I see."

"Some things are fairly predictable, yes."

Just then, a feminine voice outside the door called, "Marge? I was wondering..."

The words trailed off as a lovely young woman appeared in the doorway. It was as if something inside Seth suddenly hushed and went still.

She was of average height, her figure slender but not too much so. Her hair was a warm chestnut brown that caught the light and seemed to reflect fire, while her eyes were the deep blue of a calm sea. Her face was pretty, but just ever so slightly akilter, making it interesting rather than beautiful.

She froze in the doorway like a startled deer. "Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to intrude."

"You're not intruding," Marge insisted. "Come in and meet our son, Seth Hardin. We managed to pry him away from the navy for a few days."

"The navy?" The young woman came into the room smiling. "Really? I've been talking to the recruiter about joining. Maybe you can give me the real skinny. I'm Maria Hoskins."

Seth, who had sprung instantly to his feet at the sight of her, a courtesy so deeply ingrained he wasn't even aware of it, took her offered hand and shook it.

Delicate bones. Skin as smooth as satin. Warm. His own hand probably felt like ice to her.

"A pleasure to meet you," he said.

"Me, too."

"Sit, sit," Marge insisted. "What did you need, Maria?"

Maria laughed. "I was just wondering where you disappeared to. Everyone is getting ready to start a game of charades."

"Well, they can go ahead without me. Go back if you like, or stay here and have coffee with us."

The vision in blue jeans and a flannel shirt decided to stay and have coffee. "I'm terrible at charades," she confided to Seth as Marge brought her a cup of coffee with cream. "At both ends of it. I can't act things out, and I can't figure out any of the clues. They'll all do better without me."

Seth felt a smile crease his cheeks, such a rare expression of late that it felt awkward.

Marge laughed and patted Maria's hand. "Feel free to hide out with us."

Nate joined them then, taking a seat at the table with the announcement, "The weather forecast is getting worse. We might have two feet of snow by morning, and the winds are going to stay strong and gusty." 

Marge answered him. "In short, a blizzard." 

"Sounds like it. I'm going to need to warn my men. Unless there's an emergency call, I want them all safely at home or at the office, not stranded in a drift somewhere we can't find them fast enough." He looked at Seth. "You got here just in time, son."

Chapter 2

The uproar had at last settled for the night. After being warmly greeted by four of his six sisters and Billy Joe Yuma, his brother-in-law, he had been introduced to "the boyfriends," as Nate called them. Then he had been dragged into a game of charades that played out with a lot of laughter and joking.

Finally, Yuma and Wendy went home, taking all the boyfriends with them. Everyone else headed to bed, and as the odd man out—literally—Seth was given the sofa bed in the office, a small room where Nate kept up with his paperwork and Marge handled the family finances.

The familial warmth lingered, but sleep refused to come, despite the long drive. Finally he climbed out of the bed, pulled on a pair of jeans and padded out to the family room where the evening's fire burned low. A chill seemed to come from the glass doors, beyond which snow whirled wildly, so he put another log on.

Then he settled onto the couch facing the fire and stared into the dancing red flames, hoping they would hypnotize him into sleepiness.

What he absolutely did not want to do was think about the past. It was all his fault, anyway, and having tried to warn Darlene about the hardship ahead was no excuse. He simply should never have married her. He should have listened to his head instead of his heart and spared them both a lot of misery and grief.

So much of his life was shrouded in secrecy. The wife of a SEAL would know nothing except that her husband would suddenly be gone for days, or weeks, or even months. A wife would never know where her husband was, or what he was doing. Most wives would never begin to imagine the sorts of things SEALs were called on to do. And most of what SEALs did was never traced back to them.

The strain was hard on women, harder than having a spouse gone for six months at sea. At least when your man was assigned to a specific ship, you could e-mail him. You could keep posted on the ship's condition, and approximately where it was located. All a SEAL'S wife ever knew was that if he wasn't ashore with her at one of the two SEAL bases, then he was probably up to his neck in it somewhere on the globe.

He couldn't blame Darlene for being unable to live with that. But he could and did blame himself for letting his heart overcome his head.

Ah, hell, he was sick of the sound of his own thoughts. Coming back had been a mistake. Feelings that he'd firmly buried were bubbling up like the lava of a wakening volcano. He didn't need this crap. He needed to get his balance back.

The faintest of sounds alerted him and he twisted to look behind him. Maria Hoskins stood in the doorway, wrapped in a satin robe, a shadowy figure lit only by the firelight.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I couldn't sleep and thought I would sit out here for a while. But I don't want to disturb you."

She was exactly the kind of disturbance he needed. Something else to think about, someone to talk with besides himself. "You're not bothering me," he answered truthfully. "Come on in. I just put another log on the fire."

"Thanks." She joined him on the couch, sitting at the far end. "My room is on the corner of the house, and the wind is wailing like a banshee. It's such a mournful sound."

He nodded, though such things rarely affected him. "It's really blowing out there."

"What's a gale at sea like?"

The question seemed out of context, then he remembered she had said something about joining the navy. "Well, it depends on the gale."

She laughed quietly. "Of course."

"And it depends on the size of ship you're on," he added. "The bigger the ship, the less you get knocked around. But it can still be rough even in twenty-foot seas. A lot of times the waves get even higher. A lot higher. I was in a typhoon once and we had hundred-foot seas. That was a ride to remember."

"I thought ships avoided typhoons."

"They try to. But you have to remember how big a storm like that can be. You can't always get completely out of the way. But as a rule, yes, they're avoided." He smiled faintly. "I always enjoy a good gale."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" She laughed again, the same quiet, pleasant sound. "Marge says you're a SEAL."

"Yes."

"Then you must be a remarkable man."

He didn't know quite how to respond to that. He had met near-adoration before, usually from very young men, mostly teens, who thought being a SEAL was the epitome of manliness. He'd met "groupies" before, women who sought out SEALs at bars and other places because they were attracted to the sense of danger.

But none of that was evident in Maria's statement. Her tone and expression were utterly matter-of-fact. And oddly, that embarrassed him.

"I just do my job," he said. "That's all."

She nodded, her blue eyes studying him. "Well, it's not an easy job."

"Neither is teaching," he countered.

She laughed. "It can be a little like guerrilla warfare at times. But mostly it's quite enjoyable."

"Then why do you want to leave?"

She tilted her head, her smile almost wistful. "Because something in me has a terrible yen to do a little traveling before I get too old to enjoy it. I can always come back to teaching in a few years if I want."

"Why the navy?"

"Join the navy and see the world. Isn't that what they say?"

He nodded, then couldn't quite contain a laugh. "Well, you'll get to see some ports, that's a fact. Assuming you get sea duty. And you'll become really familiar with your home port."

"It's more traveling than I could afford to do otherwise." She was still smiling, apparently not having taken his comment amiss. "And I've got to decide soon. I'll be twenty-seven in the spring."

"Well, you could always get a job with a cruise line. Pick one that goes to the places you'd like to visit."

"Hmm." Her smile grew crooked with amusement. "Are you trying to tell me something?"

He shrugged. "Not really. Just presenting alternatives to a four-year hitch that might take you to places you really don't want to go."

"I see." Her smile faded. "You've been there, haven't you?"

"Been where?"

"Places you really didn't want to go."

He could have laughed off her comment and said something about how he kept extending his enlistment, and you didn't put in nearly twenty years by accident. But something forced him to be straight with her. "That," he said flatly, "is part of the job."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I'll keep that in mind." Then she glanced away from him and said, "Oh! Look at the snow now."

A drift was building against the glass doors, and small white flakes were whirling in a frenzy. Rising, Seth went to turn on the outside light. Its brightness illuminated the snow, and nothing else. The world beyond had vanished in a whiteout.

"It's so beautiful," Maria breathed.

That's when Seth first realized she had joined him at the glass doors. "Yes," he said.

"I love storms of every kind. I'm crazy about thunderstorms. But this is so very beautiful. It's hard to care that tomorrow no one will be able to go anywhere."

"Was anyone planning to?"

She laughed. "Probably not. The schools are closed for the holidays, and most people have finished their Christmas shopping."

"I haven't," he admitted. "I didn't have time before I left, and I was planning to do it here."

No, he hadn't had time. He'd returned from a highly secret mission just hours before his leave began. He barely had time to jam clothes into his duffel, sign out and catch his flight to Wyoming. He certainly still hadn't enjoyed the opportunity to truly uncoil.

"I may," he said, "have to give everyone an IOU."

She touched his arm, sending a surprisingly electric tingle through him. Then she laughed. "They'll understand, Seth. The girls are grown up now."

"You laugh very easily."

Her eyes met his. "And you don't laugh at all."

It was true, he realized. He rarely laughed anymore. And when he did, it wasn't a deep, carefree laugh. More of an obligatory one. What a sorry ass he'd become.

"I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "It's none of my business."

He shrugged. "It's okay. No big deal. I've been drowning in self-pity for a while. My own company bores me."

"Because of Darlene?"

He shouldn't have been surprised that she knew. Hell, the whole county probably knew, given that Conard County boasted only about five thousand souls, and his dad had been the sheriff for nearly thirty years. Given that gossip was prime entertainment in a place this tightly knit, he'd probably been talked about from one end of the county to the other.

"Sorry," she said again. "It's just that your eyes..." She trailed off.

"That?" Now he did laugh, but it was a tight sound, humorless. "That's the thousand-yard stare, Maria. You've heard of it?"

"No."

"It's the look in a person's eyes that comes after he's been places people shouldn't go, seen things he shouldn't see." He shrugged again. "It goes with the job."

"That's sad."

"I'm a sad ass. Sorry."

She reached out suddenly and gripped his forearm. "Why do you keep putting yourself down?"

"Just being truthful."

"No, you're not." Her voice became stern. "Thank God for people like you who will do the tough jobs. I'm just sorry it costs you so much to do it."

He looked at her then, feeling every bit as hollow as his gaze. "That's right romantic."

She shook her head, frowning at him as if he were a thirteen-year-old in one of her classes. He recognized the look; more than one teacher had shot it his way. But he was past being worried by it.

"There's nothing romantic about it, Seth. But somebody's got to do it."

It was such a statement of the obvious that he didn't bother to answer. Hollow people didn't feel a whole hell of a lot, any way... except maybe self-pity, and that was starting to drain away into anger and self-loathing. So maybe he wasn't as hollow as he'd like to be.

She let go of his arm and settled back in her corner of the couch, giving him a brief, tantalizing glimpse of silky thigh. He ignored it and turned his attention back to the fire.

"I'm glad you came home, Seth," she said after a few minutes. "I think you need it more than you realize."

Maybe, maybe not. But sitting here in the warmth of the family room, looking at a crackling fire and deepening snow, with a lovely woman beside him, he began to realize something.

He realized just how much shit he'd buried these last years behind the facade of duty and work. How he'd driven himself to avoid his demons.

God knew he had plenty of them.

Chapter 3

It wasn't much later that Maria said good night. He listened to the swish of her satin gown as she disappeared down the hallway toward the bedrooms. He'd been a boor and he knew it, but right now he couldn't regret it. Right now he had some real issues to deal with.

Except that his mind kept shying away from them, as if some part of him feared that if he looked into the abyss he might tip over into it and fall forever.

Time passed, the fire began to burn low, the snow had deepened into a drift well over two feet against the glass doors. He wondered vaguely if it had snowed that much, or if it was just the wind building the wall of white. Stretching, he rose to toss another log on the fire. He certainly wasn't getting any closer to sleep, or any closer to facing his demons.

When the hell had this mess begun? What had started it? As he poked the log into position, it seemed to him that the problem might have begun before Darlene left him. Maybe the problem was part of the reason she'd gone. Maybe he'd died inside long before.

Maybe it was just being different. God knew, Special Ops people were different. They got to look inside themselves, know themselves, better than most folks. And what they learned about themselves wasn't pretty.

He knew, for example, that he could risk his neck to put a bomb on a ship in the middle of the night. He knew he could kill for a change of clothes to protect himself. He knew the stuff that most people liked to watch in movies, and he knew he was capable of the ugliest, dirtiest things in support of his mission and survival.

Maybe looking inside had started to pull him apart.

He drew the screen over the fireplace and turned. He tensed as he saw Marge, clad in footed flannel pajamas, standing near the couch.

"I thought I heard someone moving around," she said with a smile. "Can't sleep?"

He shook his head.

"I can't, either. How about I make us both a cup of cocoa."

He didn't really want it, didn't want her company. But some last bit of decency made him polite. "Sure. Thanks."

He shouldn't have come. He should have damn well stayed in the BOQ, locked himself in and faced all this crap where he wouldn't be interrupted.

Too late.

He smiled when a few minutes later Marge returned with two steaming mugs and offered him one.

"I know it's not heart healthy," she said with a little chuckle, "but I put some cream in it anyway. I come from a farm family, and I like it rich. The way my mother made it."

"Before everything in life became a threat to longevity?"

She laughed again. "You got it. The way I figure it, the human race wouldn't have survived this long if everything we ate and drank was fatal."

"Live in the moment?"

"It's the only one we have."

He nodded. "I couldn't agree more." He meant it. So why the hell was he all tangled up in his past?

"Seth..." She put her mug down. Firelight caught the red in her hair and made it blaze. "I know the divorce cut you up. I can't tell you how sorry I am. You know I was almost there myself."

He knew. The day he had showed up on the Tates' doorstep and announced to Marge that he was the son she'd given up for adoption, the son of the man she had later married, Marge's life—and Nate's, for that matter— had gone into a real tailspin. Seth had been a secret that Marge kept for twenty-seven years. And Nate had felt he could never trust her again.

"But, hon," Marge said, "it's been four years. So I have to think something else is going on. What the hell is tearing you up inside?"

Her eyes were liquid, as if she were on the verge of tears. He felt a moment of shame that it was so obvious he was messed up. "I didn't know I was wearing a sign."

"You aren't," she assured him. "But when I came in here a little while ago, and you turned away from the fire, I could see... I'm sorry, I caught you off guard."

"Forget it. No big deal."

"But it's not just the divorce?"

He shook his head and stared into the fire, not wanting to see all the sympathy and love in her gaze, neither of which he deserved. "No. I've been telling myself it was but...no."

"I didn't think so." She sighed, and he could hear her sip her cocoa. "Nate's done your job," she said finally. "You might do yourself a favor if you talked to him. He was...when he came home, it was a long time before he lost that thousand-yard stare."

Her words so closely echoed the earlier conversation with Maria that his head turned sharply toward her. But all he saw on her face was love and a kind of sadness.

"And I promise I'll leave it alone," she said. "I won't pick at your scabs."

He nodded again, for the first time wondering what it would have been like to grow up with this marvelous woman as his mother. Not that his adoptive parents hadn't been good parents. But they hadn't been the warmest or most expressive of people.

"Anyway," Marge continued, "you're probably going to feel overrun with everyone here." Deft change of subject.

Again he managed a smile. "It's fun, actually. I grew up as an only child."

"That's hard in some ways," Marge said, then added wryly, "and easier in others. Believe me. You wouldn't imagine how these girls could fight. Or what this house was like when all six of them had a pajama party on the same night. Nate and I used to say we ought to camp on the front lawn."

He nodded and managed a faint chuckle. "I can see it."

"Nowadays there's too much peace and quiet around here." She laughed. "And to think I used to wish for it."

She rose from the couch and dropped a kiss on his forehead. "Sleep, son. I'm here if you need an ear. And so is Nate."

"Thanks...Mom."

She smiled, as if it touched her that he was at last calling her that. "Good night."

Carrying her cocoa, she headed toward bed.

Outside the wind howled like a banshee, and the snow grew deeper still. It began to look as if it were going to bury the world.

Chapter 4

They were indeed snowed in. By early morning, nothing in Conard County was moving. In consternation, the Tate girls called their boyfriends over at Wendy's house and bewailed the fact that they couldn't get together. Marge, too, seemed a little upset, because they were supposed to decorate the Christmas tree together that day...and tomorrow was Christmas.

Sleepy, in an almost dreamlike state, Seth sat in an easy chair near the sliding glass doors and watched the family swirl around him as he sipped a cup of coffee. The aromas of a huge breakfast still lingered in the air: pancakes, bacon, eggs, home fries. Marge and the girls had really gone to town.

Outside, the blizzard continued, creating a whiteout that hid even nearby houses from sight. Nate had disappeared into his den to use the other phone to talk to his deputies.

"But, Mom," Krissie said to Marge, "Dad has a plow on the front of his Tahoe. He could get the boys."

Marge shook her head. "You know perfectly well that's a police vehicle and it can't be used for personal reasons. What's more, I won't have your father going out in this. He wouldn't be able to see past the front of the car."

Krissie scowled, then sighed and walked away, once again joining the other two women at the phone wanting to talk to one of the men trapped across town with their sister and brother-in-law.

Seth found himself trying to hide a smile, it was so cute.

Suddenly Krissie squealed. "The boys are coming over here!"

Marge went into action like a juggernaut. "No, they're not!" She spoke sternly and nudged her way through the girls to take the phone.

"You stay right where you are," she said into the mouthpiece. "You'd be risking your necks if you come out in this, and I'm not going to have the girls' father risking his to try to find you. Am I clear?"

Apparently she was, because she nodded, said goodbye and hung up the phone.

"Guess what," she said to her daughters. "You're stuck with your mom and dad just like in the old days."

There was a collective groan, but nobody moped or argued. Instead they turned on the TV and went to the weather channel.

"All day," Krissie announced. "We never have storms like this." She switched off the TV.

"It would have to happen now," Cathy remarked. "Let's go play a game or something."

"I want to sleep," Bets said. "I don't get enough sleep at school."

One by one the daughters disappeared toward their rooms, leaving Marge, Maria and Seth alone in the family room.

The wind still howled, sometimes loud enough to drown the sound of the ticking clock on the fireplace mantel.

"I guess," said Marge, "we'll have to go ahead with decorating the tree later. And I've got some pies to bake and some candy to make."

"Can I help?" Maria asked, starting to rise.

"No, you just relax. The girls always help me with this, and they're going to come out of their mopes and do it this time, too."

She looked rather purposeful as she strode toward the bedrooms.

Maria laughed quietly. "Those poor girls. All they want is their men, and now their mom's going to make them help bake."

"Better than brooding," Seth remarked. As he should well know. Problem was, he didn't take his own advice.

"Did you get any sleep last night?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"I'm sorry. I did finally. Good, deep sleep." Her smile was dazzling. "And if you don't mind, I'm going to go help with the baking, anyway. I don't like feeling useless."

He nodded, returning her smile. Then, once again, he was alone with himself. To hell with it, he thought, and went to the den to join Nate.

Nate was on the phone, but he smiled and waved Seth into the room. Seth sat across the desk from him in a wooden captain's chair. Behind him was the couch on which he'd tossed and turned too much.

"Okay," Nate said. "I agree, Micah. If it's that bad everywhere, we're shut down except for emergencies. Okay. You, too."

Nate hung up and regarded his son with a kindly eye. "No point risking my deputies out there unless there's a real need. Nothing's moving, not even on the state highway. Forecasters are calling it the blizzard of the century, for these parts at least."

"It does look wicked out there."

"Wouldn't be so bad if the temperatures weren't predicted to fall to about thirty below tonight after it stops snowing. Then we might have some real problems. The cold is always more deadly than the snow." 

"I hope everybody has enough heating oil." 

"They should. Cold is something we're used to in these parts."

Nate settled back in his chair. It creaked beneath him, but he ignored the sound as if he'd heard it so many times it had become inaudible. "Now," he said, "about you."

"What about me?" 

"You're looking bad, son."

"My clock's all messed up from my last mission. I just couldn't sleep."

"Hmm." The sound implied disbelief. "You been really busy?"

"Lately, yes. All the terrorist stuff. Keeps us hopping." 

Nate nodded. "I thought it might. You know, son, there aren't many who can stay in this business as long as you have." 

"It's all I know." 

"I know. And that concerns me." 

Seth felt a spark of resentment. "My decision." 

"Of course it is. And I'm damn proud of you. I'll be honest, too, and admit that sometimes I miss parts of it myself. But only parts of it."

Seth nodded, needing no elucidation. He knew which parts he wouldn't miss himself.

"Be that as it may," Nate continued, "maybe you ought to give some thought to a career change. Maybe you could take a training position."

Seth nearly jumped out of his chair but restrained himself, instead gripping the arms of it with white-knuckled intensity. "What is it with everyone? You, Marge..." 

"Maybe we're seeing something you're not."

"You don't know me that well." It was a nasty thing to say, and he wished the words gone the instant they escaped. But they hung in the air, an accusation, a self-indictment. 

Nate's face creased with inexpressible sorrow. "I wish I could change that," he said quietly.

"I'm sorry," Seth said, ashamed. "I didn't mean that the way you probably took it."

"It's all right. Too much water under the dam now, and too little time to make up for it. But you might keep in mind that you haven't come home in four years, and that makes the changes in you pretty damn obvious. That's what we're seeing, Seth."

Seth nodded. Whether he liked it or not, apparently Marge and Nate could see the internal demons he was struggling with. And it was pointless, he told himself, to get defensive about it. Absolutely pointless.

"I am struggling with some issues," he said finally. "I was blaming it all on the divorce, but it seems there's more to it. I'm trying to work it out."

Nate nodded. "Good. We're here if you need us for anything at all."

* * *

"Come play with me," Maria said to him when he emerged from the den.

"Play with you?"

She was smiling at him, looking adorably huggable in a navy-blue sweatsuit and white furry slippers.

"Yes," she said. "I've been banished from the kitchen. Evidently it's a family tradition, and I'm a guest, so I'm supposed to stay out of the way. So I need somebody to play with."

At that moment icy snow rattled against the sliding glass doors. Seth looked over his shoulder and realized the blizzard seemed to be worsening still. "Just don't say you want to build a snowman."

Maria laughed, tossing her head. "I want to have fun, not die of hypothermia. There are plenty of board games. Or we can play cards."

He lifted a brow at her. "Seven-card stud? Or Texas Hold 'Em?"

"Poker?" Her brow creased. "I don't know if a schoolteacher should..."

He waved away her protest. "This may be a small town, but nobody here will squeal on you. Besides, I bet most of the folks in these parts play poker on cold nights."

She laughed again, her eyes sparkling. "You might be right. But I've never played."

"I'll teach you, then we'll see if we can get some of the others to join us."

"I wonder where I can find a deck of cards," Maria said, looking around.

"I'll ask Nate."

"Sure," Nate said in answer to the question. "There're a couple of new decks of cards in the drawer in the entertainment center, and poker chips if you want them. And the card table is in the hall closet."

"Which means," Seth told Maria as he set up the card table, "you're safe. If the sheriff of this town owns poker chips, who's going to say anything when the schoolmarm plays the game at his house?"

Maria laughed again. Seth realized that he really liked the sound of her laughter. Short, long, loud or quiet, every one of her laughs lifted his spirits.

"Wow," he said when he opened the large drawer in the entertainment center.

"What?" she asked, coming to peer over his shoulder.

"I was expecting a couple of boxes of plastic chips." He pulled out a long leatherette case and carried it to the table. Opening it, he said, "These are the real things. Clay chips." Pulling a black one out of the neat side-by-side stacks, he turned it in his hand, savoring the feel of it. Then he passed it to Maria.

"Like they use in casinos," he said. "Man, he's even got them marked with denominations."

"I take it this is special?" Maria asked, turning the chip over and noting the gold impression that read "50."

"Most people won't go to the expense. Nate must play a lot of poker."

"I like the way it feels."

"Yeah." He smiled at her. "Heavy. Solid."

She laughed again. "Now I really do think it's okay to play."

"Well, we're not going to gamble, anyway. Just play for the chips. Come on, let's set up."

Just then Nate joined them, carrying a large, oddly shaped canvas case. "Did I hear somebody say 'poker'? I've got a poker tabletop here."

He zipped open the case and pulled out the tabletop. It was folded in the middle, made of heavy fiberboard, but when he opened it there was a green felt octagonal tabletop with chip racks and cup holders. "Gotta do it right," he said.

Seth started counting out chips as Maria said, "You'll join us, won't you, Nate? But I have to warn you, I've never played before. Seth is going to teach me."

Nate winked. "I always love playing with a fish."

Maria laughed again.

"Set it up for seven," Nate told Seth. "Marge and some of the girls will join us in a little while, I'm sure. And let me warn you, Marge and Krissie are both sharks. Killer Hold 'Em players."

"So we'll play stud," Seth said with a wink to Maria. "Take away their edge."

It was Nate's turn to laugh. "That'll do it," he allowed.

They played the first dozen or so hands with all the cards faceup, so Maria could get a sense of the game.

"This is cool," she said finally. "I think I'm ready to play."

"Okay," Nate said. "My deal. Everybody ante up."

Chips were tossed into the center of the table as Nate shuffled, then dealt each of them three cards, two facedown, one faceup.

Seth glanced at his and knew he was going to fold immediately. It was more fun, anyway, to watch Maria furrow her brow as she studied her own hand.

"Remember," he told her, "that unless you already have the makings of a good hand, you probably should fold. And you can get a sense of whether or not you'll draw the card you need by looking at our faceup cards. Nate is showing an ace. It would probably not be wise to try to draw to three aces. Same for my nine. And we both have spades, so that reduces the number of spades in the deck if you're thinking about drawing to a spade flush."

She nodded. "I remember. Besides, you said not to draw to a flush unless I already had three of the suit."

"That's a good rule for beginners," Nate agreed.

Maria smiled and pushed two ten-dollar chips into the center. Seth folded.

"Uh-oh," Nate said, then laughed. "I call." He pushed twenty in.

Another card was dealt to the two of them. Maria had a pair of tens showing now, Nate an ace and a three. Maria bet, Nate folded.

"By George," Nate said, "I think she's got it."

Maria laughed and proudly showed her three tens. "I think I have it," she said.

"You certainly did," Seth agreed. His eyes met hers, and he felt a warmth somewhere deep inside. He wanted to look away, to deny the feeling, but her gaze held his and the sense of warmth continued to grow.

"Your deal," Nate said, passing the cards to Maria. Shattering the moment.

Seth sighed, feeling as if he'd been breathless for an eternity. "Ante up," he said, to cover a sense of awkwardness. This was not good, not good at all.

Chapter 5

The need for sleep finally caught up with Seth during the middle of the afternoon. Excusing himself, he headed for the couch in the den and crashed, falling instantly into a deep sleep.

When he awoke again, the world was dark and silent. Confused, he bolted upright, then remembered. The wind reminded him. The howl had diminished not at all.

He swung his feet to the floor and stretched. Night was a friend to him, and the bit of firelight that seeped beneath the door was enough to bring the room into focus. Nate's den. He could see the outlines of various furnishings by their shadows, or by the way they reflected just a bit of the orange glow.

Rising, he went to open the door and find out why it was so quiet. He was shocked to realize that the entire house was in darkness. By the firelight in the family room he could see the Christmas tree in the corner, its decorations glinting. He had missed the tree trimming.

A glance at the clock on the mantel told him he had slept for nearly twelve hours. Outside the snow continued to blow.

"It's stopped snowing," Maria's voice said from behind him.

He jumped and turned, spying her shadow on the couch.

"The wind is just blowing everything around," she told him. "The drifts will probably be deeper than ever by morning."

"Why didn't someone wake me?"

"Nate said you needed the sleep."

"But it's Christmas Eve."

"Yes." She said no more than that.

"God, I feel awful for missing it."

"Everyone understood." Her voice was gentle. "Are you hungry? Marge left you a plate in the microwave."

"Maybe later."

He stretched again and went to sit at the far end of the couch from her, resting his elbows on his knees and staring into the fire.

"We've got to stop meeting like this," she said, a tremor of laughter in her voice. "People will start talking."

He was surprised to hear his own laugh answer her. "Yeah. Can't sleep?"

"I was asleep. Something woke me up."

He looked over his shoulder at her. "The wind?"

"I don't know. I just know that I was suddenly wide awake. Too awake to sleep. It happens sometimes."

There was a rustle as she stirred, and firelight glinted off satin. "I was sitting here thinking about life."

"That's heavy-duty."

"Yeah." She gave a little laugh. "I'm sure you know about that. But, anyway, I was sitting here thinking about my real reasons for wanting to join the navy. The thing is, the farthest I've ever been out of Wyoming is Denver. I was born in this tiny town up north, population around three hundred. I grew up there, then went off to college in Laramie. And when I graduated, I was offered a teaching job here. By comparison to my hometown, this is the big city."

He nodded encouragingly, and leaned back a bit to see her. "What makes you think the world out there is better?"

"I don't know that it is. Maybe it's not. But it's different."

"Very different."

"I know. At least from my trips to Denver. But I've never even seen the Great Lakes, let alone an ocean."

"You know what endless prairie looks like?"

"Yes, of course."

"Paint it blue."

She laughed. "Okay, okay."

"I'm sorry. I don't mean to make light of what you're saying. The world is full of exotic places, but unfortunately when I'm there I'm usually working. I wouldn't make a good travel brochure."

"I don't expect you would." She sighed and stirred again, unwittingly creating the seductive sound of satin against skin.

"You know where I'd like to go?" he said suddenly.

"Where?"

"Antarctica."

"Wow." She laughed. "Now, that is different."

"Well, it's the only place on earth where they've never fought a war."

He didn't need her silence to tell him he'd made a serious misstep. He opened his mouth to apologize, but was forestalled by the sound of her voice.

"Oh, Seth," she said, a mere sigh. Then, "You can't be sure of that." Her tone had turned teasing, as if she were trying to lift his spirits. "I've heard that some people think Atlantis is buried under all that ice."

"People have theories about Atlantis being everywhere."

"I know. My personal favorite is Central or South America."

"How come?"

"Because I don't think we've ever given those civilizations their due. Nor do I think archaeologists are willing to recognize that there's a lot of evidence for world-wide seafaring before recorded history."

"I take it this is an area of interest for you?"

"It's one of the reasons I want to travel."

"Then don't do it in the navy. Most of the places you'd want to visit are the places we're least likely to go. And when we do go there, you don't get a lot of time ashore."

"Then what would you suggest?"

The bummer of it was, he didn't have an alternative. "Go back to school? Study archaeology?"

She shook her head, her eyes glinting in the firelight. "Then I'd have to buy into the accepted theories."

"I guess so."

"You're in the navy," she said. "Why are you so dead set against it?"

Good question. One he wasn't sure he wanted to answer. Or that he could answer. "I'm just going through a bad spell," he said finally. "It happens."

"Have things been especially difficult lately?"

"I guess." But he didn't want to go into it. Couldn't go into it, anyway. Most of what he did was so damn secret he wasn't even supposed to know it himself. An old joke, but too true.

Then he heard himself say, unwillingly, "I think I'm getting tired of living my life in secrecy."

She moved a little closer to him. "That would be awfully hard, I imagine."

"You know how most people talk about their lives? I can't do much of that. I can't discuss most of what I do, and I can't even discuss the stuff with the people I do it with, because somebody might overhear. So we go out, do the job, come back, get debriefed, and it's like it never happened."

"That must have been hard on your marriage."

"Damn straight. Hard on any kind of relationship." Except with his teammates. They shared the secrets, even though they could never mention them. They trusted one another with their lives. There was an intimacy there he couldn't even achieve in marriage, and he was beginning to resent the hell out of that.

But he didn't know how to express that, without revealing too much to a woman who was still a stranger. Nor did he know if he was ready to give up the only intimacy in his life, which was with his team, in order to try to create a different intimacy with people on the outside.

He didn't even know if he could achieve that intimacy with anyone else.

And that, he realized, was what had been bugging the hell out of him. His life was deformed not just by ugly things, but by secrets, as well.

"But you know," she said gently, "there are lots of people who can't talk about their jobs. Lawyers, doctors, other people who do secret things for the government."

"But there are things they can talk about. If he doesn't mention a patient's name, a doctor can say to his wife, 'I saw a really interesting case today.'"

"Maybe he can. And how much of that is she going to be interested in?"

He didn't think it was quite the same thing, but he didn't want to argue with her. What was that perfume she was wearing? It teased and tantalized him in the same way the sound of satin slipping over her skin tantalized him.

Whoa there, man, you've been away from women too long.

But that wasn't the case and he knew it. He hadn't been away from them, he simply hadn't wanted them. Too emotionally bruised to even think about it, really. But he was thinking about it now, at the worst time possible. For God's sake, this woman was his parents' guest.

She spoke. "People can share what they choose to share. And if there are restrictions on job details, it doesn't have to be the end of the world."

He looked at her. "You think not? When most husbands come home, their wives don't have to wonder where on earth they've been for the last week or month, and what they've been doing."

"Maybe, but that's not the point, is it?"

"Why not?"

She tilted her head to one side. "Well, there are things you can talk about. Like the emotional climate you've been through, how you feel about it, how hard it was. A million things that don't give away any secrets."

Those were things he didn't talk about to anyone. It was understood by those who went through it with you, but never mentioned. Hell, the whole team had been there. They sure weren't going to sit down and hold a group therapy session about feelings.

No, when the job was done, it was done. Over. Finished. Put away. Nobody talked about it after debriefing. Nobody wanted to talk about it.

But Darlene had always wanted to know. He'd never been able to satisfy her by telling her it was all secret, and he was home now, so just forget it.

He looked away from Maria, staring into the fire's dancing flames, then over to the whirling snow in the night outside.

Maybe she was right. Maybe there was a different kind of intimacy, a kind he'd never been able to share with anyone. Most of the time, his feelings were locked up pretty tight. He didn't have room for them in his life. At times they could be a threat to his very survival. Most of the time they were simply something he didn't want to look at too closely.

But apparently they weren't going to stay safely locked up, because over the past few years he'd been growing steadily more depressed. And blaming it on Darlene wasn't cutting it.

Fact was, after four years, he didn't give a damn about Darlene one way or another, except that in a fair-minded sort of way he was glad she was at last happy. God knew, he hadn't made her happy.

In fact, he might as well be brutally honest with himself and admit that he'd been relieved when she packed her bags, because living with her had been a constant reminder of his shortcomings.

"Seth?" Maria's voice was gentle. "I'm sorry. Did I upset you? I didn't mean to. I only wanted to make you feel hopeful."

He turned and looked at her, feeling his eyes grow hot and feeling the hollowness in his heart. "No, it's okay. You made me realize something."

She was sensitive enough not to ask him, but for some damn reason he told her, anyway. He needed for once, to speak out loud to someone about what was going on inside him. And Maria was a pretty safe listener, considering he'd probably never see her again after this holiday.

"I've been lying to myself," he said. "I go around thinking I'm brutally honest with myself, but the truth is, that's just a cover. I've been lying to myself for years."

She scooted down the couch and laid a hand on his arm. "Seth..."

"Let me just say it, okay? It's time I faced up to it. The fact is, the only way I can do my job is to cut off my feelings. Oh, sure, I can laugh and joke with the guys. That's okay. I can get the hots for some woman. That's okay. But the thing is, I spend my life on the surface because I can't look down inside. I don't dare. Because I damn well know I'm not going to like what I find."

Her hand squeezed his arm gently, comfortingly, but she said nothing.

"I tell myself I know what I'm capable of. I know better than most people in the world will ever know. Better than I hope they ever have to know. That makes me different, sure. We SEALs like to think that makes us special. It sure as hell sets us apart. We know that our families will never understand, that we live in a whole different world."

"Yes, you do," she said quietly.

"It puts up this wall between us and our families. We know it. We even accept it. They can't go where we've been, live how we've lived, do what we've done. And we tell ourselves that what we do protects them from ever having to live the way we live."

"Don't you think it does?" she asked gently.

He looked at her again. "Yeah, it does. That part is true. I mean, if we go sink a ship that's carrying weapons-grade plutonium to some terrorist group, we're saving lives. Saving our families. Maybe even saving the world. Hell, we even pat our own backs because we do it in such a way that none of the crew dies. Hoo-ah!"

"It's true."

"I know it's true. But the thing is... We know all this stuff on the surface. We do all this stuff on the surface. But for the past couple of years it's like something inside me is trying to tell me that what's underneath is important, too. And I don't want to look at it. Because I know I'm going to hate myself."

"Oh, Seth..."

"I was even glad when Darlene left. I didn't admit it to myself or anyone else, but I was relieved. Just living with her reminded me of the walls. And I made her miserable, I know it." His face hardened to concrete. "The simple fact is, Maria, whatever the reason I do it, I'm not a whole lot different from a terrorist."

"Oh, my God!" Suddenly her arms were around him, holding him tight. Her voice was whispering in his ear, "No, Seth, no..."

And inside, all he could feel was glacial ice.

"It's not the same, Seth. It could never be the same. You don't set out to kill dozens, hundreds, even thousands of innocent civilians simply to make a point. You don't take people hostage and shoot them one by one to make a point."

"No."

"You don't wrap explosives around yourself, then climb onto a bus full of men, women and children. You don't hijack airliners, or grab entire teams at the Olympics. You don't encourage people to do that. You're not the same at all."

The ice inside him thawed a bit, but not a whole lot. He still had a lot of ugly memories.

"You're being too hard on yourself," she said. Her cheek was pressed to his, her lips near his ear, her voice a quiet murmur. "Yes, you've done things that are hard to live with. I'm sure you have. And I'm glad you've done them so I haven't needed to."

Through the frozen pain, the ice that filled him, he began to feel her womanliness. It was like a small candle flame of heat deep within him, and he needed desperately to reach for it, to turn it into a blaze that would melt away all the awful things within him.

But she was a guest in this house, the house of his parents. Whatever else he might or might not do, he'd never taken advantage of a woman in his life. He knew better than that.

But it felt so good to have her arms around him, to feel the soft pressure of her full breasts against his chest. To smell her perfume, rising right from the curve of her shoulder, so close to his lips right now.

He could have devoured her. He could have clung to her as if she were a life preserver. But his self-control was still intact. As always. So instead, he contented himself with wrapping his arms gently around her slender waist, returning her hug.

Thanking her for it.

They stayed that way for a long time. Little by little her fire melted away the iciness, until he began once again to feel warmth within him. It was only a small thaw, but it was a beginning.

Finally she startled him by kissing his cheek softly. Then she released him and settled back onto the couch. Reluctantly, he let her go, feeling bereft.

She sighed, as if she, too, felt the loss. "Don't do this to yourself, Seth," she said quietly. "If you're starting to hate what you do, then do something different. But don't be your own judge, jury and executioner, because you're not being fair to yourself."

Maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was just worn out. Worn down. Or maybe he just needed to take a good hard look at all the things he'd been burying. Maybe he just needed to let the emotional dam burst, so there'd be room for all the new stuff he was bound to accumulate.

And maybe he just needed to get over himself.

"So tell me about teaching," he said, shrugging off his self-pity.

He had a feeling she withdrew from him a bit then, as if his change of topic had been received as a rebuke. He didn't know how to tell her otherwise, especially when she didn't say anything about it.

"It's a rewarding job, for the most part," she answered. "It's the best job in the world when I can actually manage to instill some excitement in my classes. If it weren't for this gypsy urge in my blood, I'd probably be content to live and die a teacher."

"Sounds like a wonderful job. You know, maybe you could get a job teaching overseas. There are American schools everywhere. I bet you could get a job almost anywhere."

"I've thought about it. The problem is I'd be tied to one place again."

A chuckle escaped him. "Lady, you've got a significant problem."

She laughed in response. "Difficult to please, that's me. I want to have my cake and eat it, too. And yes, I've checked into working for cruise lines, but their in-port turnaround is so fast it wouldn't leave much time ashore. A few hours if I'm lucky."

"Travel agent? Then you'd have an excuse to go to exotic places. You'd have to check them out."

"That's one thing I haven't considered."

"Flight attendant?"

"I don't think I have the patience for that. I can tolerate misbehavior in children, but I'm not very understanding of idiocy in adults."

He laughed again, realizing that in some odd way this conversation was lifting his spirits. He turned on the couch, raising one leg and leaning against the arm so he could look right at her. "You are indeed a difficult woman." His tone was teasing.

"I know," she said mock mournfully. "I've got objections to every single thing I've thought of. I guess I'm a perpetual malcontent."

"But you don't seem discontented."

"I'm not really." Her voice grew serious. "If I have to, I can live without all the travel. But I may break down and move to a larger town, where I have a choice of more than one movie a night."

He laughed. "That is a good point."

"They're talking about putting in a second theater, but I may be gray before they get around to it. Besides, this is a really hardworking town. In the evenings most people are ready to collapse with their families. And I've usually got papers to grade or lessons to plan. It's not like there's a huge demand for entertainment around here."

"No, I don't suppose there is."

"It's not like I don't have enough to do, because I do. More than enough. But I feel restless, anyway."

"Something's missing."

She nodded. "Exactly. I was even saving for a cruise to Antarctica...until I actually checked into the cost of it. So now I'm saving for a cruise to Alaska. But it won't be the same thing, and I can't quite tell you why."

He thought about it. "Maybe it's not adventurous enough."

"That could be." She tilted her head. "Maybe I'm an adventuress," she said jokingly.

He laughed at that but shook his head. "Adventurer. None of that diminutive stuff. I've had more than enough sensitivity training, and I can tell you, no more actress, waitress, stewardess..."

"Okay, okay! I didn't know you guys got sensitivity training."

"Mostly it's race relations stuff, but since Tailhook we've been getting stuff about dealing with the opposite sex, too. Much needed."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I still know guys who think it would be an insult to them personally if a woman were allowed to try out for the SEALs."

"What do you think?"

"If she can do it, more power to her. But if you want my honest opinion, any woman who tries right now is apt to find herself getting twice the crap and ten times the guff."

"Isn't that always the way?"

"Sure it is."

"Well," she said, "I don't want to be a SEAL. I know I don't have what it takes. I want to see the world from a more comfortable viewpoint."

He laughed again, and realized that he liked, really liked, this woman. She had humor and common sense by the bucket-load, and she was beautiful besides.

And he wanted her.

Chapter 6

The silence between them grew of its own accord. It was as if, at the very same instant, their minds had had the same thought. And between them had sprung this pregnant quiet, a quiet that grew deeper and thicker with each passing instant.

Maria had never felt like this before. Oh, she'd been attracted to Seth from the instant she laid eyes on him, but that had been only yesterday. And while she'd avoided dating since coming to Conard County, largely because if she married someone here she would be here forever, she had had some hot-and-heavy relationships during her college years.

But nothing had ever felt like this, as if the whole world were holding its breath, waiting. Instead of growing tense with expectation and anticipation, she felt herself growing soft and languorous, her muscles relaxing as if she trembled on the very edge of sleep.

But sleep was the furthest thing from her mind. She was yielding. Without a touch, without a word, her entire body was readying itself to yield to this man, as if he already owned her heart and soul.

It was strange. It was wonderful. If she was still breathing, she didn't know it. She was afraid to make even the slightest move, for fear of shattering the moment. Afraid that he would touch her, afraid that he would not. Wanting and not wanting.

A yearning grew to match the softening of her every muscle, an aching tingle between her legs that superseded everything else. A heaviness that seemed to pin her to the couch.

His eyes... even in the dim, flickering light from the fire his eyes bored into her, asking questions to which she had no answers. At least not yet. He wasn't something she had planned on, or even wanted, but he was here. Now. And like an irresistible force, he held her in thrall.

Somehow, the distance closed between them. So close now she could reach out a single hand and touch him. Her breath locked in her throat, and warring signals ran through her body, paralyzing her, as they at once demanded she reach for him and wait for him.

She would never know who moved first, and in the end, it didn't matter. Suddenly they were clinging together as if they would drown if they let go. Hungry mouths met and fused, stealing and giving breath all at the same time. Hands clutched, arms gripped, skin found skin....

One of them groaned. It might have been her. Something deep inside her felt as if it were clawing its way to freedom, rising up within her to sweep her away from everything.

There was only one thought in her dazed mind...more!

Her hands found their way under his shirt, discovering warm, smooth skin and a ridge of scar tissue that for now she ignored. His stubbled cheeks scraped hers, burning her delicate skin, and for once she savored the feeling.

Then his hand slipped within her robe and found her breast. She sucked air with the delight of it, the feel of his roughened palm against her tender skin, his fingers playing skillfully with her nipple, feeding the ache deep inside her until her every nerve ending throbbed in time to his touch.

Another groan from somewhere... then...

She was holding her breath. He pushed her away so that she'd fallen back against the arm of the couch, and he stood over her, a shadow against the fire.

"I can't... I won't...." Then he turned and left her.

She heard the door closing, but she lay there feeling dazed, as if she'd been hit by a truck.

She had been hit by a truck. She'd opened herself to this man, made herself utterly vulnerable and then... he walked away.

At that moment, if she thought she could have succeeded, she might have tried to kill him.

But only in that moment. Anger gave way swiftly to the pain of humiliating rejection. Burying her face in her arm, she let the hot tears fall.

* * *

For Maria, Christmas Day passed in a blur of noise and confusion and laughter. The wind had stopped, so the plows managed to clear the streets in town by 9:00 a.m. The family promptly went to church, where they met up with Wendy and Yuma and the boyfriends. Then back to the Tate house for the opening of presents while the aromas of roasting turkey filled the house.

Everyone took Seth s IOUs in good part and suggested he send them something from his military base, preferably, as Krissie said, "Something that says 'My Brother Is a Navy SEAL' on it."

Seth laughed and teased her about sending her a Zodiak signed by all his teammates.

In fact, Maria thought with a twinge, he was in good spirits throughout the day, as if he had exorcised some kind of demon during the night. And good spirits only made him even more damnably attractive.

He and the guys cleaned up after dinner, letting all the cooks rest, then life devolved into naps and board games, and a de rigueur double feature of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and Miracle on 34th Street.

But then the wind started to pick up again and the snow started flying. Nate switched off the Christmas carols that had been playing on the stereo and put on the TV, tuning in to the weather.

"Hell," Nate said, "it's starting again. We're going to be snowed in again tomorrow."

The three girls immediately insisted their boyfriends be allowed to stay at the house. Nate hemmed and hawed about sleeping arrangements.

"Well, someone can have my bed," Seth offered. "I'll go home with Wendy and Yuma. I've hardly had a chance to talk with them."

Nate frowned, as if he wasn't sure.

"It's okay," said Seth. "Really."

"I can sleep on the floor," one of the boys said. "Right here in front of the fire."

"Better yet," said Wendy, "Maria can come with us, too. We've got plenty of room."

Maria's heart slammed. It was the last thing on earth she wanted to do. The very last thing. Yes, she was friends with Wendy and Yuma. That was how she had become part of the Tate family circle. But if she could be at the opposite end of the planet from Seth Hardin tonight, so much the better.

"Really," said Marge, "I don't want to shove her out...."

"No shoving, Mom," Wendy said confidently. "Maria and I have been friends for years. It would be nice to have her stay with us."

"I can just go back to my place," Maria volunteered quickly.

"No!" and "Not in this weather!" were the answers she received from Marge, Nate and Wendy.

That seemed to decide it. The girls wanted their boyfriends, nobody was going to let Maria stay alone during this next blizzard, and so...

So. She tried to smile as if she were happy with the arrangement. And really, she promised herself, it wouldn't be so bad. Not with Wendy and Yuma there. They'd probably stay up well into the night, playing clubs or hearts and gabbing the way they usually did when they got together.

There was time for dessert, rich pies and ice cream and hot coffee laced with brandy, before it was time to go. Still, it all seemed to happen too fast.

All of a sudden she was in the back seat of Yuma and Wendy's battered Suburban, only a few inches away from Seth, while the snow whirled whitely around them, promising to bury them once again.

* * *

"Already the worst winter some portions of Wyoming have seen in recorded history," the TV weatherman was saying when Wendy switched the set on.

"Oh, goody," she said, happily. "Everybody stay home so we can stay home and drink hot toddies and enjoy our holiday."

Wendy and Yuma—nobody called him Billy Joe except Wendy—worked for the county's emergency response team. She was a flight nurse, and he a helicopter pilot. He was also a lot older than she was—nearly two decades— but it was not the first or even second thing you noticed about them when they were together. You noticed the love.

Maria's friendship with them had begun her first year of teaching in this town, when Wendy and Yuma had come in to tell her class all about their work, and later to take them out to the airport so they could see the rescue helicopter.

Somehow in the midst of all the confusion, she and Wendy had hit it off, and later over dinner, she and Yuma had hit it off as well. They'd been close ever since.

"Like family," Wendy was fond of saying.

Maria helped Wendy unload the hefty portion of leftovers Marge Tate had sent with them—turkey, gravy, stuffing, pie, yams, spinach casserole. Everything went into a well-stocked refrigerator.

"I tried," Wendy said, "to tell Mom that I'd shopped for a bunch of young males. I'm stocked to the rafters already. I figured those boys would go through this house like a wave of locusts. They made a pretty good start on it, too. Trust me, if we get snowbound for a month we won't starve."

Maria laughed.

"You think it's funny? Sam sat here last night and ate a whole jar of peanut butter with a spoon."

"You're joking!" Maria couldn't imagine it.

Wendy laughed. "Kid you not," she said. "I suggested he'd get fuller if he put it on bread, but he said it was better plain."

"Wouldn't I just love to have a metabolism like that. Sam's so thin and tall!"

"Me, too." Wendy patted her midsection. "I'm battling this tummy all the time."

The women exchanged looks of understanding. Neither of them would ever be a runway model or a movie star. Instead of the current vogue in female beauty, they simply looked healthy.

"On the other hand," Maria said, "neither of us is living on lettuce leaves."

Wendy laughed again. "Nor am I ever going to. I'll just keep fighting the battle of the bulge."

In the living room, Seth had helped Yuma build a fire on the hearth. The house was an older one, built around the turn of the century, with high ceilings, tall windows and ornate woodwork. It was also full of drafts.

"I keep plugging holes," Yuma said, pointing to how the heavy curtains over the windows stirred a little each time the wind gusted. "It may take the rest of my life to find them all. We're saving for some double-paned windows. Maybe they'll help."

"It's still a great house," Seth remarked.

"Oh, sure. Built to last. But leaking like a sieve right now. It's a good thing all the rooms have fireplaces or wood stoves. Otherwise we'd go broke on heating oil."

The living room was furnished in comfortably battered furniture. Yuma waved Seth into one of the easy chairs, and took the other himself.

"How have you been doing?" Seth asked Yuma. Years ago they'd discussed Yuma's posttraumatic stress disorder, a remnant of his days as a MediVac pilot in Vietnam.

"Actually," Yuma told him, "I haven't had a flashback in nearly two years now. I have the odd nightmare, but that's been it."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"But what about you?" Yuma asked. "Something's bugging you, man. You're not looking good at all."

"I'll deal with it."

"Sure. Like I did."

The words hung between them on the warming air, too insightful for Seth's comfort. Finally he said, "Damn it, everybody's looking straight through me."

Yuma laughed quietly. "Not hard to read the signs when you've been there. Listen, I won't badger you, but I'm here if you want to talk. Other than that...maybe it's time to consider a change, man."

The thought panicked Seth, although he wouldn't have expected it. But fear suddenly rose in him, grabbing his throat, stifling his breath. He knew fear. He knew its every mood and savagery, he knew what it could do to him and he knew what it could do for him. But this...this fear was something else.

And he didn't know how to read it.

"You can do other things," Yuma said, sounding as if he came from miles away. "You can take a training position. Switch to the Coast Guard and work in a rescue crew. Hell, you can go to work for Nate as a deputy, if you want to give up the adrenaline kick. But there are plenty of things you can do, Seth. Plenty. You've sure as hell done your part for this country."

Seth didn't reply. He couldn't.

As if on cue, the women joined them then, bearing cups of coffee and a tray of nibbles. Conversation drifted into more desultory avenues, reminiscences of the day, talk of the blizzard. Ordinary things.

Seth sat among them, half listening, saying nothing, feeling as if he were miles and centuries away.

Chapter 7

Seth awoke during the night again. Of course he did. He was in an unfamiliar place, and when he was in an unfamiliar place, he rested with his senses on high alert. Years of training and experience had made that impossible to turn off. Besides, his job made him something of a night owl, anyway.

The wind was still blowing hard, causing the house to creak around him, singing a high-pitched note at his window. The room was warm, though, from the heat of the woodstove in the room directly below him.

Finally, too restless to stay in bed, he rose and pulled on his clothes, then reached for the parka and gloves Nate had lent him.

He needed to feel the wind on his face, and thought maybe the cold air would clear some of the cobwebs that had been stifling his brain for days. He needed to face the elements, if only briefly, because they were the only pure and untrammeled thing in his life.

He crept down the stairs as quietly as he could, then through the hallway to the front door. He could hear the sting of icy snow against the stained glass mounted in the door, and was drawn to the sound as if it held some kind of promise.

He opened the door. The wind and snow slapped his face. He stood on the porch on boards blown clear by the wind, staring into a night that was surprisingly well illuminated by the streetlights. The snow caught their light and reflected it a million times, until the whole world was wrapped in a white, hazy cocoon.

The streets had vanished again, though, filled in between the hills left by the snowplows earlier. The snow was so dry that it formed little eddies like dust devils, and snaked across the level areas like sidewinders. All around him the night was filled with the hiss of moving snow and the whistle of the wind.

A gust whipped around the corner of the house, catching him unawares and slapping his face with stinging crystals. He closed his eyes tight, then when the assault stopped, he pulled up his hood. The parka was warm, but his thighs were rapidly registering the deadly wind, even through thick denim. It was well below zero, and he had no illusions about staying out here very long.

But the air smelled so crisp and clean, so much drier than what he was used to. Although he could only draw in small bits at a time because it was so cold, it still invigorated him and refreshed him.

God, it was beautiful!

He suddenly wished he could go cross-country skiing, just strap on a pair of boards and skim away into the darkness, into a pristine world made virginal by the snow. Maybe later in the week, he promised himself, when the weather settled and he could rent the gear.

He needed a really good workout. His body wasn't used to as much idleness as he'd put it through these last few days. Too much food, too little activity. No wonder it felt as if his brain were buried in sludge.

Finally he could no longer ignore the warning ache from his legs, and the shivering that started despite the heavy parka he wore. Regretfully, he went back inside.

The warmth of the house felt overpowering now after being outside. Still shivering, he hung the parka on a coat tree in the hall and went to the kitchen, figuring it was the room farthest from the fireplaces and woodstoves, and therefore the one in which he could warm up again without feeling quite so smothered.

To his surprise—or maybe not—Maria was already there, sitting in the near dark at the table. The only light on was the one over the stove.

"Oh!" she said, startled, when he came into the room. "I didn't know you were up."

"I stepped outside," he replied. "It's amazing out there. Beautiful."

She nodded. "I love blizzards. Can I get you something?"

"No, thanks. I just want some water."

"Glasses are in the cabinet to the right of the sink."

"Thanks."

He filled one, then sat across from her at the table. She was, he realized, rapidly becoming part of his nights.

She didn't make any jokes this night, however. Nor did she even speak to him beyond the minimal courtesies. She was upset with him, he realized, and as the memory of last night reared in his mind, he understood why.

But he didn't know what the hell to do about it. Mentioning it might embarrass her further.

"Excuse me," she said. Then she rose and carried her mug away with her.

He had hurt her, and he didn't have the words to explain why.

In the living room, away from Seth, Maria sat sipping her tea and growing angrier by the second.

Last night she had been hurt, humiliated, embarrassed. All day long she had put that on the back burner, being a courteous, pleasant guest, participating in everything and laughing as hard as anyone. But tonight, alone, the memory came back to haunt her, and hard on the heels of rejection and humiliation came a scalding anger.

He owed her something beyond "I can't... I won't...." He owed her, at the very least, an apology. But he'd come into the kitchen and sat there like a brooding sphinx, saying not a word.

Well, damn him to hell. He could sit there in his private pity party, tearing himself to pieces emotionally, letting no one even try to help.

But even as she had these bitter thoughts, she knew she was being unfair. Okay, the guy was genuinely troubled. Now he was paying the price for the last sixteen or seventeen years of his life. People did that, if they didn't deal with things as they happened. He needed some time to indulge himself and sort things out so he could bounce back.

Perfectly normal. Wendy had told her what Yuma had gone through, and Yuma himself had shared some of it.

But if he needed to be alone with his demons, why had he reached out to her in such a way, then cast her aside? He had no right to do that to anyone. Not anyone!

But as she sat there fuming, staring into the embers of the dying fire, her anger, too, began to burn down.

She needed to be honest with herself, and honesty forced her to admit that she wouldn't have been at all happy with herself if she'd made love with Seth last night.

She wasn't the type to fall into a man's arms. She wasn't the type to give herself so readily or freely. Somewhere deep inside, she feared her attraction to him had less to do with his personality than it had to do with the fact that he was exotic in her experience. He'd traveled the world, done countless dangerous things. And even when he was struggling with himself over his past, he still had an aura of danger.

Maybe she was attracted to the idea of him, rather than the man himself.

But a period of reflection told her that was not the case at all. It wasn't the dangerous things he'd done that attracted her; it was the fact that he could agonize about them. That he had a heart and soul that remained un-hardened despite it all.

And of course, he was just a very attractive man. Lean, weathered, muscular. Handsome, but not too handsome. In fact, he was very like the imaginary lover she had dreamed up in high school.

Maybe that was why she had succumbed so quickly. But whatever it was, she ought to be grateful to him for pulling them both back from the abyss. If she'd had half a brain at the time, she'd have done it herself.

But that didn't ease the sting that came from knowing she had been completely lost in his arms, but that he had not. That he hadn't been as overwhelmed by her as she had been by him. In fact, he had left her feeling downright unattractive. And she had made herself so vulnerable to him that she still felt like a raw nerve ending.

Sighing, she sipped her tea and told herself to grow up. It was ridiculous to be both grateful that he had retained some sense and spared her, and angry that he hadn't been so overwhelmed by her charms that he'd forgotten all common sense. She was appalled by her own inconsistency.

But, as she stared into the embers and listened to an occasional coal pop, she realized that this was about something far more significant than mere physical attraction. The simple fact was, she cared for Seth in ways that had nothing to do with his attractions as a man. She had known him for such a short time, and yet she yearned for his companionship. Yearned to sit in the quiet dark with him and just be.

It didn't matter whether or not they spoke a word. What did matter to her was that they be together. Near enough to touch, even if they didn't.

What was growing inside her was far more dangerous than mere physical attraction, and had far less of a basis. She hardly knew the man. Yet she felt as if she'd known him all her life. How silly. How... scary.

And now, strangely enough, she was beginning to wish she hadn't given him the polite cold shoulder in the kitchen. Began to think of ways she might go back in there and apologize, then wondered what exactly she needed to apologize for? For not being chatty? He hadn't exactly been chatty himself. She'd been polite, asked him if she could get him anything, then when he sat there in silence, she'd gotten up and left.

That didn't call for an apology. She wasn't his hostess, for crying out loud.

And what's more, she didn't need another rejection. There had been too many rejections in her life.

"Maria?"

His voice, so close when she had thought herself all alone, startled her and she jumped. Her tea sloshed dangerously close to the edge of her mug.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's, uh, not a problem," she said, hastily setting her cup on the end table so the tremor of her hands wouldn't give her away.

She didn't want to look at him, didn't want to see his tall, powerful shape highlighted by the dim red glow of the fire's embers. It was scant relief, however, when he sat on the couch beside her.

"Look," he said quietly. "I want to apologize."

She kept her gaze firmly fixed on the fire. Her hands knotted together, and her heart climbed into her throat. "For what?"

"For the way I behaved last night."

It appalled her to realize that if he apologized for making a pass at her, she was going to feel even more crushed than she did now. "No..." She had to find some way to forestall those words.

"No, really," he insisted. "I'm sorry. The way I..."

She was going to knock his block off if he said he was sorry for kissing her. He was going to find out just how much fury a scorned woman could produce. Her fists clenched until her nails bit into her palms.

"I'm sorry," he said again, "for the way I... pulled away from you."

For an instant, she wasn't sure she'd heard him correctly. He couldn't really be saying...

"I've been thinking about it since," he continued. "I had no right to ... make a pass at you. But when I did ... well, the reason I left was because I didn't have the right to do what I was doing. You were the guest of my parents, you hardly know me...."

Relief flowed through her. The reasons he had just given her were valid, reasons she would have chosen herself. They weren't a rejection of her, but of the situation they were in.

"It's okay," she said, smiling at him. Her insides still had a severe case of the jitters, but the smile came naturally.

"Well, I'm still sorry. I can imagine how I made you feel."

Which surely put him on the list of the world's most sensitive men, she thought. Still smiling, she shrugged. "You did what was best. I'm not sure that either of us ... was ready for where we were heading."

"Probably not." He sighed and sank farther down on the couch, crossing his long legs at the ankles, then folding his hands on his flat belly.

"Are you feeling any better?" she asked him.

"You know, I think I am." He glanced at her and smiled. "I've been drowning in self-pity for so long I think I almost forgot how to climb out of the pit."

"And you've remembered?"

"A bit, anyway. Because it struck me a little while ago, as I was sitting in the kitchen, that yesterday doesn't matter nearly as much as tomorrow. I can't change the past. But I can change what I do from here on out."

"Will you?"

"I don't know. Because the truth is...I'm honestly not sure I've been such an awful person. I don't like some of what I've had to do, but someone had to do it. And I'd like to think more good has come out of it than bad."

"I'm sure it has." She hesitated, then offered, "Unfortunately, life isn't black and white. It's all kinds of shades of dirty gray. It's rare that we get to do something purely noble."

"If ever." He sighed and leaned his head back against the couch, turning it so he could look at her. "I was being purely noble last night, or so I thought. Then I couldn't get your face out of my head. I wounded you."

She could feel her cheeks redden and was grateful he couldn't see it. Bad enough that he had read her so well last night.

"Maria?"

He was asking, but she wasn't sure she wanted to tell him. Then she remembered how forthright he'd been with her, and the painful things he'd been willing to share. This was the very least she owed him.

Her voice muffled with shame, or possibly embarrassment, she said, "I felt...rejected. It's just...I've been rejected too often."

"I'm truly sorry. Because I wasn't rejecting you. Not at all."

"I understand that now."

"But what do you mean, you've been rejected too often?"

Did she really want to go into this? She hesitated for a long time, then finally plunged in. "I knew I wasn't the prettiest girl in school, and I was too smart, or so people kept telling me. No big deal."

"Maybe it was a big deal."

"Maybe," she admitted. "I never even got asked to the prom."

"Ouch."

"Exactly. So off to college. And I met this guy in my Bible study group and we started dating, and he hardly ever touched me. I figured he was being a good Christian, you know. We had all promised to abstain, and so on. So I didn't let it bother me until I found out he was sleeping with my best friend."

"Oh, Maria..."

She shrugged again. "I was young, and unfortunately it messed me up a bit. So I got involved with this guy who was different. You know what I mean? He was on some kind of edge, he was different from the people I usually hung around with and his attention was flattering. I got suckered right in. So one night I gave him my virginity, and the next morning he tossed me out and never spoke to me again."

"Oh, babe, I'm so sorry."

"Hey, a lot of women could tell you the same stories. I'm not special."

"I think you are special, and you're also a very pretty woman."

She gave an embarrassed little laugh. "Well, all the pieces finally grew together in proper proportion."

"I'll say!"

The obvious admiration in his voice caused her to blush again, and once again she was grateful the light was both dim and ruddy.

"You don't have to perjure yourself," she told him jokingly.

He laughed. "I'll swear it on a stack of Bibles. You're a very attractive woman. And if nobody else has noticed that, the world must be blind."

"I don't know if they have noticed. I've been here since college, and I've made it a point not to date."

"How come?"

"Because I don't want to spend the rest of my life here. Crazy, I know. It's the kind of place most people would love to live. But..."

"But you're a gypsy."

"Yes, at heart I guess I am. At least until I've seen something of the world."

"Well, it's a good idea to do the things you want before you tie yourself down."

"Exactly," she said. "What about you, though? Don't you ever want children?"

He sighed again and turned to stare up at the ceiling. "Yes, I do want kids," he said quietly. "But it would probably be best to wait another few years, until I can retire."

She looked at him, feeling surprised. "You're going to retire?" The idea seemed amazing.

"Sure, when I get my twenty in. I'll be thirty-eight, plenty of time to start a new life."

"Well, of course, but..."

"But what?"

"You balk any time someone suggests you do something else with the rest of your navy career. I guess I just assumed you'd never retire."

"There was a time I figured I'd go for thirty. But I've got to be honest, Maria. I won't be fit to be a SEAL much longer. Age catches up with the best of us, you know. In fact, statistically speaking, there's a good chance over the next few years that I'll display a cardiac anomaly that will ground me. It happens to folks like me all the time. Nothing to really worry about, but enough to get you pulled off special duties. Anyway, nobody can do this job forever."

"I wouldn't think so. But a training position..."

He shook his head. "I think I'd be better off making a clean break. I don't want to feel as if I'm on the outside looking in."

She nodded slowly. "I guess I can understand that. But what will you do then?"

"I've got plenty of time to decide. But I've been thinking about going back to college. I didn't have the chance to go when I graduated from high school, and over the years I've taken some correspondence courses. I think I'd like to get a degree."

"In what?"

He smiled. "Who knows? All the possibilities are still open to me."

She smiled. "I remember feeling like that once. It was my sophomore year in college. A glorious fall day, with cool dry air and lots of sunshine. And I remember this elation just bubbling up to fill me because I stood at a cusp, I could take any direction I wanted. It was a feeling of such sheer freedom."

"Exactly," he agreed. "And you know what? Just thinking about it gives me that feeling. Thank you."

"Me? For what?"

"For talking with me last night and tonight. For giving me something to think about besides my own misery. I still have a future. And damn it, I'm going to make the best of it!"

Chapter 8

The change in him was so radical that Maria found herself wondering if it were real, or just some kind of manic episode.

But he didn't sound edgy or hyper; he just sounded as if he'd made some kind of peace with himself. God knows he needed to. He'd been beating himself up something awful last night.

He rolled his head and looked at her again. "You're wondering if I've lost my marbles."

"Yes. No. Well, not exactly. It's just such a change."

"Yeah, I know. Thing is, I've been sick of myself for some time now. But it was like I was caught in some kind of whirlpool that just kept sucking me down no matter how hard I fought it.

"But I've been thinking about a lot of things today. About Nate—Dad—and Yuma. And about why I do the things I do. And I realized I've been making it far harder on myself than I need to. And after talking with you last night I realized...if I'd ever talked to Darlene the way I talked to you, she might not have left."

"Which means?"

"Which means I've crossed the Rubicon, and someday I might actually be good at building a relationship. Like you said, not everything is classified."

He closed his eyes, savoring this moment of peace. He knew that he still had stuff to deal with, but it was as if he'd at last been released from the hell he'd been steadily sinking into because of his sense of failure after Darlene left him.

He'd finally worked his way to the core of the problem, and with a small nudge from Maria had figured out exactly where he'd gone wrong.

There were still problems he needed to address, of course, and he knew it wasn't going to be easy to stay on this side of the Rubicon. Old habits died hard. But Maria was right. There was another kind of intimacy.

And he needed to explore the twists and turns that had led him to this point. He needed to talk about them to get them perfectly clear in his own head.

He opened his eyes and found that Maria still appeared to be wide awake and attentive. "Can I bend your ear?"

"Be my guest."

And she smiled, that smile that did crazy things inside him. That made his heart skip a beat. There was something else here that was going to have to be dealt with one way or another, but he wasn't anywhere near ready to get to that.

"I think," he said slowly, "that I got into this mess because I was alone for so long."

She nodded encouragingly.

"I don't know if you're aware of it, but I was adopted."

"Marge told me. She said she and Nate weren't yet married, and he was in Vietnam when she learned she was pregnant with you. Apparently her father disapproved of Nate and was stealing her letters to him, and his letters to her."

Seth nodded. "And when she learned she was having me, she was sent away. She thought Nate had abandoned her, thanks to her father, and gave me up for adoption."

Maria nodded. "It's such a sad story, Seth."

"Sadder for them, I think. I had a good family. It wasn't a demonstrative family like the Tates, though. And I was an only child. So I kind of developed a tendency to keep things inside."

"I can see that. You must have needed to depend on your own resources a lot."

He nodded. "For almost everything except food and shelter. Don't misunderstand me. My adoptive parents were good to me, and they loved me. But we never did find a really good way to relate."

"I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "A lot of kids have it a lot worse. I was lucky. But, anyway, at eighteen I joined the navy to see the world. Sound familiar?"

She gave a little laugh. "Yes, it does."

"And being eighteen, as soon as I could, I volunteered for the SEALs. Looking back, I'm not sure if I needed to prove myself in some way. I do know that I wanted to be the biggest, baddest dude on the block." He gave a small snort of laughter. "Not unusual at that age."

"No, it's not."

"Anyway, I actually made it through BUD/S, the training program. And I discovered something I'd never really experienced before. The kind of companionship that men can have when they undergo hardship together. When they depend on one another for their lives. We grew up together, Maria, in those six months. And we were cemented in ways I can't really put into words."

"I can imagine it, though, Seth. It must have been really intense."

"'Intense' doesn't begin to cover it. They force you to realize that you are not going to make it without your buddies. No way. They force you to realize that each of us holds the lives of our teammates in our hands. I don't know of much else like it.

"Anyway, by the time you go through that, you've changed. Significantly changed. I certainly wasn't a kid anymore. I was acutely aware of my limits, my abilities, and more important, my dependencies on the rest of the team. And what I didn't know by the end of BUD/S, I sure as hell knew after a couple of missions."

He fell silent, still sorting through his thoughts. She waited patiently. He liked that about her. Darlene, frankly, had never been one to sit quietly and wait for anything. She'd had a vitality that had kept her talking and prying, and seldom quiet. Until the end.

"Well," he said after a moment, "I think I'm getting a little sidetracked here. The point I'm trying to get to is that I was used to being solitary, and suddenly I had a sort of family with truly intense connections. But it was another undemonstrative family, another family where things weren't talked about. I mean, we did our missions, got debriefed, and basically forgot about them because they were secret and we couldn't discuss them. So while we were closer than brothers, it was an ...unspoken closeness. And the more we did, the more was left unsaid. We got quieter, steadier, tougher, more cynical about some things. And we felt increasingly separated from the world around us, because of our experiences."

"That's... unfortunate."

"In a way, yes. It's necessary, but it has its down side. Maybe more so for me than others. I don't know. Plenty of SEALs actually are married, although I have to admit there are a lot of divorces, too. It's hard on wives. Very hard. We have a closeness they can't be a part of. You know, I just realized that."

"How so?"

"That our wives are shut out. It must be really hard for them. We have this bond, and they're always outsiders to it. They can never, ever be part of it. Damn, I wouldn't be surprised if they get jealous of it."

"Maybe some do."

"Maybe." He sighed and rubbed his eyes. "So, bottom line is, I'm probably more closed than most. And maybe because of that, I didn't make enough room in my life for anything except the team bond. It was the most intimacy I'd ever known in my life."

"Oh, Seth." Her voice didn't sound sad, exactly, but it did sound very sympathetic.

"I think," he said finally, "that I kept Darlene on the other side of a glass wall. I put a huge barrier between us, instead of bringing her to the other side with me. You know, I think I need to call her and apologize."

"That might be a very good idea, if you don't think it'll just upset her."

He looked at her. "It might do her some good to know none of it was her fault. I know when she left she was blaming herself, saying she wasn't the right person, that she'd failed me and she couldn't live with it anymore. God, I messed her up."

Maria went to the kitchen to make them both some hot chocolate, leaving Seth to think in solitude for a few minutes. She had to admit she was pretty impressed with him. Few people could sort their way through their own psyches as well as he seemed to be doing.

She put the kettle on and turned on the flame beneath it. The brief whiff of the gas suddenly transported her back to her grandmother's as a small child.

Sitting in her grandmother's kitchen at the big round oak table perpetually covered with oilcloth, was one of her happiest childhood memories. Grandma would give her a brown sugar lump as she puttered around making tea for herself, or dinner for the two of them.

On warm summer evenings, they would sit in rockers on the front porch and drink homemade lemonade while the breeze ruffled the vines on the trellis. Trips to the pond to feed the ducks stale bread. "Picnics" of graham crackers and strawberry jam mixed with powdered sugar to frost them, taken on long walks along the train tracks until they found a place where Grandma felt they could settle and have their delightful snack.

As the kettle whistled, Maria started back to the present, and wondered why she had traveled down that particular memory lane. It had been a long time since Grandma had passed on, a long time since Maria had felt utterly safe and happy.

Maybe it was because she didn't feel safe now. Not simply because she was contemplating a major life change, a change so drastic she could barely begin to imagine what it would really be like. But, perhaps, because of the man in the living room, who was waking yearnings she thought she'd put aside a long, long time ago.

Busying her hands, she dumped packets of cocoa mix into mugs, then poured boiling water into them. When she picked up the spoon and began to stir, however, her thoughts drifted again.

Drifted to her grandmother, drifted to Seth. Somewhere inside her there was a connection, but she couldn't find it. Two more disparate people she couldn't imagine.

Yet perhaps that wasn't true. Grandma had been tough, tougher than Maria hoped she'd ever have to be. The woman had survived homesteading in the wilderness of Wyoming, had survived droughts and blizzards, the deaths of some of her children, the loss of her husband. . .so many sorrows and hard times. Yet Grandma had persevered, moving forward into each new day with a peace that seemed to bless those around her, as if hardship had taught her she could survive whatever life brought. Maria admired her strength—and maybe envied it a little.

Seth, too, had survived unimaginable difficulties. He took them on willingly. Maybe that was the connection. Didn't that make him pretty damn special, too?

By comparison, Maria felt untested and untried. Maybe that was why she was thinking of joining the navy. Maybe she sought tests and trials of her own. Maybe the journey she really needed was not so much one of seeing exotic places as it was of finding herself.

Or maybe it wasn't even that. Maybe it was just that there was a huge void in her life she needed to fill, and she was casting about for a way to do it. But was joining the navy the right way? Or just running away?

Sighing, she gathered up the mugs and went back to the living room. It seemed Seth wasn't the only one who needed to do some soul-searching.

Chapter 9

The wind kicked up with renewed force. Mug in hand, Seth wandered to one of the tall windows and drew the drape back so he could look out.

"The whiteout's even worse now," he remarked.

"This is certainly the longest storm I've seen since moving here," Maria replied.

"It's rugged, all right. I'm not sure it isn't mostly just the wind, though. When I was outside earlier it was so dry the snow was blowing over itself."

"That happens sometimes," she agreed.

"I didn't see much of it when I was growing up in Denver."

"Well, heck, haven't you heard? That's a tropical climate."

He laughed and let the curtain fall so he could turn and look at her. "So it seemed. People were forever driving as if they couldn't believe that snow had fallen overnight. It got pretty bad sometimes."

"Once a bunch of us from college, over semester break, decided to pile into a friend's car and take a trip. We hit Denver first, soaked up a little nightlife, then headed up into the mountains after a snowfall." She laughed and shook her head.

"And?"

"Well, it wasn't too bad in Denver. The roads were starting to clear by about nine in the morning, so we packed up and headed west, figuring we might spend a few hours in Vail, maybe do some skiing there or at Copper Mountain. Anyway, the higher we got into the mountains, the worse the roads got, so we were moving at a pretty steady thirty to thirty-five. And all these cars were zipping past us at sixty, skis on the roof racks, wanting to get to the slopes as early as possible."

She shook her head and laughed again. "We cracked up laughing later, though, because as we approached the Eisenhower Tunnel, most of these cars had skidded off the road. I mean, the shoulder and the median looked like a parking lot. And we just kept chugging along at thirty."

He chuckled. "I've seen that a few times myself."

"Of course, anywhere you live, every winter you have to learn to drive again at the first snowfall."

"But in Denver it's like every snowfall is the first one."

"For some people, anyway," she laughed. "I'm sure it's only a handful. But an amusing handful."

"A dangerous handful." He smiled over his mug at her. "I like your laugh."

She froze, feeling embarrassed again. "It's just a laugh."

"No, it's a nice laugh. Infectious. Makes me grin just hearing it."

"Well, thank you."

"You're welcome," he said with mock gravity.

But as he lifted his mug to his lips, his gaze held hers, and even in the dim, ruddy light she could tell that something had changed.

His stare made her feel self-conscious, and she looked down at herself, wondering if she was still decently covered. Satin wrapped her like a cocoon. So she looked into the fire and cast about for some way to change the mood. Because if he came on to her again and then pulled away, she'd probably be scarred for life.

As if she wasn't already.

"I should put another log on," she said finally.

"I'll do it."

He crossed the room, set his mug on the mantel and squatted before the fireplace to open the screen. The view, she thought, was a nice one. Narrow hips, tight rump...

Oh, heavens, she had to stop thinking this way!

She wasn't built for flings, and a fling was all this could ever be. In a week or two, whenever his leave was up, he'd return to Virginia Beach and they'd probably never meet again. Not after she joined the navy. There was no reason to believe she'd ever be stationed anywhere near his SEAL team. And even if she was, who was to say that he'd ever want to see her again?

But she couldn't drag her gaze away from him as he poked at the fire, stirring up the embers, then placing another two logs on it. He waited, squatting, until they caught, then put the poker back and closed the screen.

She pulled her gaze away just in time as he straightened and turned toward her. "There," he said. "You'll keep warm now."

Warmth wasn't her problem. His mere presence was keeping her warm enough to have withstood the cold outside. "Thank you."

"Maybe," he suggested, "after this blows over, if it warms up some, we can go cross-country skiing together."

She wished her heart would stop doing little flops in her breast. "I'd like that."

Skiing, at least, was safe. They'd be busy having fun, and it would be too cold out there to get into any trouble. Safer then sitting alone together in this dimly lit living room while the wind howled outside.

She really ought to go back up to her room. But she couldn't make herself move. It was as if her body didn't want to be any farther from Seth than it was now. In fact, it wanted to be even closer.

Floundering for some self-control before she hurled herself into this man's arms in a blind need to satisfy the growing ache within her, she said, "I imagine it's been difficult to get used to a new family."

He had returned to his post by the window, holding the curtain back and watching the snow whirl like dervishes. "Difficult? I don't know that I'd say that. They've all made it as easy on me as they possibly could. Although I felt like hell when Marge and Nate separated after I showed up."

"What made you come looking for them?"

He dropped the curtain and turned toward her. "My adoptive parents had died. While I was going through their papers, I learned about Marge. And...well...I didn't have any family at all. I don't know whether I just needed to satisfy my curiosity or if I needed something deeper. I know it never entered my head that she was married to my real father, or that her husband didn't know about me. God, did I feel like hell."

"You weren't responsible."

He shook his head. "I was responsible, all right. I should have thought it through better before I just popped up on the doorstep."

"I think the outcome would have been the same. Marge told me that after all those years, not telling Nate about you was in large part because she didn't want to disrupt your life. And she knew Nate would want to find you. She felt she was sparing you both. But once you contacted her in any way... Well, I honestly think the same thing would have happened. And from what I see, I think the breakup actually strengthened them."

He nodded slowly. "Nate told me it made him a better husband."

"So it all worked out for the best. Still.

"Still," he agreed, "it's not the same as a family you grow up with. Especially since I'm away so much. But I love them all, don't misunderstand me."

"I could see that." She smiled. "They're pretty fond of you, too."

He chuckled. "They were even good about my IOUs. Maybe you can help me do some shopping for them. I'm not as in touch as I ought to be."

"I'd be glad to." Maybe this was getting just a little too cozy? Yet not even her emotional survival instinct could pull her away.

"What about your family?" he asked. "Where are they?"

"My two brothers are in computers, and they travel all the time. Right now, Sam is on a job in Germany, and Frank is in Japan. And my parents are still in the little town I grew up in. Except this year they went to Hawaii for Christmas. They've been saving for years. Mom says she's wanted to spend a Christmas there ever since the first time she heard Bing Crosby sing 'Meli Kalikimaka.'"

"I bet they're sitting on the beach right now."

"Probably. Soaking up sun. It'll be good for both of them. They hardly ever get away because they own their own business. It's practically a twenty-four/seven job."

He nodded. "More power to them, then."

"That's what I say. And that's why I'm spending the holidays at the Tates'."

"No wonder you want to be a gypsy. You must be dying of envy."

"Sometimes." Then she laughed. "But I also hear my brothers complain about their travels. Never home, no time for dating, why rent an apartment when they're hardly there...that kind of thing."

A sudden gust of wind rattled the windowpanes and stirred the curtains just a little.

Maria couldn't repress a shiver. "I hope to God no one is out in this."

As if in answer to her thoughts, the phones all over the house started shrilling. Someone picked it up on the second ring.

Seth looked at the clock. It was 3:00 a.m.

"This isn't good."

"I'm going with you," Seth insisted as Wendy and Yuma climbed into their cold-weather gear. "It's too dangerous for you two to go out there alone. Hell, you won't be able to land in this. I have plenty of experience rappelling in worse conditions."

"I don't know," Wendy said. "You're not medical personnel."

"I know plenty of first aid. Plus I know how to go down, get someone in a basket. Do you?"

Wendy and Yuma exchanged glances. "We're trained for mountain rescue," Yuma said.

"Yeah, but I bet you don't go out to do that with just the two of you."

"He's right," said Wendy, looking at Yuma.

"Okay, okay, but borrow my extra boots, man. You'll freeze your feet off."

"I'm coming, too," Maria announced. She was descending the stairs in jeans and a sweater, and boots. "At least as far as the hangar. If you get stuck in a snowdrift, you're going to need help digging out."

And that was how the four of them came to be sitting in Yuma and Wendy's Tahoe with the snowplow on the front.

"Damn," said Yuma, "time's a-wasting." Lowering the plow, he hit the accelerator and roared down the driveway and onto the road, with only a small skid or two.

Seth was convinced that the only reason they were going to get through this to the airstrip was because of the tire chains. He could feel the snow pushing back at them, reluctant to give way even before the plow. And when it did give way, it blew back at them, obscuring their view.

And Yuma just kept going faster and faster, driving more by memory than by sight.

It was going to be a hell of a trip.

Chapter 10

The MediVac helicopter was safely tucked in its hangar. Yuma had to plow away enough snow to haul it out and bring it to the helipad.

As he was pulling it out with a small tow truck, Wendy was inside with Maria and Seth, starting up the radio, telling Maria how to operate it. "We're probably going to have to take the patient to a hospital in Laramie," she told Maria. "But when we come back, we're going to need someplace to land. Do you think you can manage the plow?"

"Of course," Maria said. "You can count on me."

"Thanks." Then Wendy turned to Seth. "And thank you. Frankly, I don't think I could do this by myself."

"That's what brothers are for."

She smiled at him, a huge, warm smile. "I always wanted one just like you."

Impulsively, Seth turned and hugged Maria, whose eyes were showing strain. "We'll be back before you know it. Honestly, Maria, for what we're going to do, these conditions aren't as bad as they look."

She nodded, returned his hug as if she never wanted to let go. Then, with evident reluctance, she stepped back.

The helicopter was on the pad now, and the rotors were beginning to turn as the engines whined. Seth and his sister ducked under them and climbed aboard the Huey. Old but well maintained, she was a great bird. Once the door closed behind them, the noise was dampened, but only a bit. Wendy handed Seth a headset.

"Okay, can everyone hear me?"

"Yo," answered Yuma.

"Yo," replied Seth.

"Seth, we're going out to a ranch about twenty miles from here. A woman called and said her husband had gone out to the barn to check on the livestock, and hasn't come back. We don't know exactly what we're going to find. The patient is young, maybe thirty-five, but with this cold...well, he might have had a heart attack. Or he might simply have grown hypothermic and be lying out there somewhere in the snow. If it's the latter, we have a good chance."

She didn't give the odds on the former, but Seth could read between the lines. "The cold," he said after a moment. It would reduce his brain's need for oxygen. "Right now it might be his best friend."

The trip was rough; the wind was stronger at higher altitudes than it was on the ground. Still, Seth had taken far rougher helicopter rides, rides with serious danger at the other end. Seth spent the time checking the rappelling equipment and the retrieval basket.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Wendy asked over the headset. "I can do it."

"I bet I've had a lot more experience with this than you...under far worse conditions."

A staticky laugh reached him. "I don't doubt it."

The flight was mercifully short. Even with the headwind they made good time, and after only ten minutes they were over the ranch.

"I'm going to put you out between the house and barn," Yuma said, his voice crackling over the radio. "The wife said her husband had a safety rope running between the two buildings, so he shouldn't be too far from it. She may already be out looking for him herself."

"Not good," Wendy remarked. "I told her to stay inside."

"Well, if she didn't, we may have two victims out there. I'll get in touch with Maria and see if she can raise the wife on the phone. Meantime, Seth, I can't go too low or I'll blow up so much snow you won't know where you are."

"Roger that," Seth said. "We have fifty feet of rope."

"Winch and basket ready?" Yuma asked.

"Yes," said Wendy. "All set back here."

"Then it's all yours, Seth. Switch to mobile for comm check."

Seth changed over to the lightweight radio headset that was attached to the transmitter in his pocket. The headset itself fit into his ear with a mike that reached to his mouth. He pulled a ski mask over his face.

"Comm check," he said. "One, two, three..."

"I've got you," Yuma answered.

"Me, too," said Wendy.

"Okay," Yuma said, "we're right over the spot. I don't see any movement, but the rotor wash is stirring the snow some. You've got ten minutes, Seth. Any longer and you'll be a casualty, too."

"Roger. I'm going now."

He pulled open the side door on the Huey, attached the rappelling gear to the rope, then eased himself backward out of the chopper.

The drop was easier than a lot he'd made; it wasn't even the coldest. The stinging snow couldn't reach him through his ski mask, and he was on the ground and up to his knees in snow in only a few moments.

"I'm down," he said. "Releasing rope now." He detached his gear, and an instant later Yuma pulled the chopper up and away, so the wash wouldn't kick up the snow more than it already was. Then the chopper turned and the floodlamps came on, illuminating a large swath of the area in question.

Seth saw the safety rope between the house and the barn almost immediately. He slogged toward it, grabbed hold and began to make his way toward the barn. There was still evidence that someone had walked this way, a depressed path through the snow that was already starting to fill in.

As he walked, he checked around him for any signs of another depression, one that might have been made by someone who fell. Nothing.

Then he reached the barn.

"I'm checking inside before I head back to the house."

"Roger," Yuma replied.

The rope led straight to a small door. Marks in the snow testified that it had recently been opened. Seth pulled at it, fighting the wind, then stepped into the relative warmth and the utter darkness of the building. The smell of hay and horses was strong. A nicker greeted his entry, and the stirring of hoofed feet.

Pulling a flashlight off his belt, he switched it on and hunted for a light switch. When he found it, near the door, he flipped it on. Nothing happened. All he would have was the beam of his flashlight.

"Oh, God," said a woman's voice from a few feet away. "I think he's dead."

The husband did indeed seem dead as Seth dragged him outside and loaded him into the basket. "Go," he said, and the basket began its climb.

But the wife was in little better condition. He knelt beside her while her husband was being pulled up, and felt her violent shivering. She'd dressed to come outside, but not well enough. Worry about her husband had caused her to rush and cut corners. She wore mittens, but they were frozen stiff from the moisture released by her body. She had pulled up the hood on her parka but hadn't zipped the snorkel all the way, probably for fear of not seeing him. Her head was tucked down into her chest, and all he could see of her by his flashlight was the top of a hood edged in fur.

"I found him outside," she said, shivering so hard her voice kept breaking. "He was in the snow. I dragged him in here...."

Two minutes later he sent her up on the basket, too. Five minutes after that he followed her.

Wendy put the rancher and his wife on bunks along one side of the Huey and covered them with blankets. They were going to the Community Hospital, she told Seth. The rancher was still alive, although his heartbeat was so slow it was hard to detect.

Then she returned her attention to her patients and to radioing the emergency physician and the hospital. Out of the loop now, Seth pulled off his headset and settled into the bucket seat, watching his sister work.

Even in the bouncing helicopter, her movements were swift and efficient, her touch always gentle. He admired her dedication to saving lives even under dangerous conditions.

"Where's your baby?" Wendy asked the woman.

"M-m-my s-s-sister's."

Then he looked at the rancher's wife, still shivering as she lay in the top bunk, and wondered if the rancher knew what a lucky man he was to have a woman like her in his life. A woman who would go out into a deadly night to try to save him was pretty damn special. He finally caught a glimpse of her face as she turned toward Wendy.

His heart stood still.

The woman in the top bunk was Darlene.

* * *

"How's the pad look?" Yuma asked Maria over the radio.

"Some snow has blown over it," she told him, peering out the windows. "But it doesn't look too bad."

"Rotor wash is going to kick up a mess," he said, his voice crackling on the radio. "Okay, we'll be leaving the hospital in just a few minutes. There's a switch on the panel behind you as you face the radio. Yellow, and it reads 'lights'. I forgot to hit it before we left. Flip it, will you?"

She did as asked, and through the swirling snow saw the landing pad light up. "On," she told Yuma. "The pad's lit."

"Thanks, Maria. Be there in ten."

She sat back in her chair, listening to dead air on the radio, waiting. It was a long wait. She'd been on the edge of her seat with fear earlier, knowing that Seth was rappelling down into the storm. She'd nearly jumped for joy when she heard he'd found the couple. She listened as they were raised to the chopper, and then as Seth followed them up. Relief had washed over her, leaving her weak.

Then she'd listened as Wendy talked to the hospital about her patients. And she'd heard their names.

Seth's ex-wife.

She sat there, waiting for the chopper to return, wondering if her world was about to shatter around her.

When the chopper landed, it swirled up so much snow that it nearly vanished in the whirlwind. But moments later, the rotors began to slow, and the snow began to yield again to the wind, blowing away.

Seth and Yuma stayed outside to tow the chopper back into the hangar, but Wendy came directly into the office. She took one look at Maria's face and said, "You heard."

"His ex-wife." Maria nodded, trying to look as if it didn't matter.

"He's going back to the hospital to see her."

"He probably should."

"Yes." Wendy sat beside her and looked out the windows. "Look..."

"Please," Maria said. "It's no big deal. But if you're taking him to the hospital, could you drop me at my place? It's on the way."

She felt Wendy look at her, but she kept her gaze fixed elsewhere.

"Of course," Wendy said finally. "But you'll come over again later today?"

"Sure." Maria managed a bright smile. But she didn't mean it.

The plows were out, working steadily to try to clear roads. The return trip was far quicker and easier than the outbound trip. The first stop was Maria's house. It was then that Seth spoke the only words he'd spoken in her presence since his return.

"See you later," he said.

"Sure," she answered, then climbed out.

Yuma, ever safety conscious, waited until she was inside her front door before he drove off. The night was still cold enough to kill.

Then she was alone inside her tiny house, alone with her thoughts, alone with her feelings. Alone with the realization that she had become far too involved with a man who had entered her life two short days ago.

Chapter 11

"Seth!" Darlene's eyes widened as he entered her hospital room. "I thought I'd imagined you. You saved us."

He brushed that aside. "Your husband's going to be okay."

"Yes, they told me. He should be in that bed right there soon. It's nice that they put couples together now."

"Yes." He stood awkwardly at the foot of her bed, looking at her familiar, yet somehow unfamiliar, face. Feeling the need to say something but not quite sure how to begin.

"How are you doing?" she asked him. "You look a little thin."

"I had some growing to do."

"Oh." Her eyes shifted away from him, then came back. "I'm sorry I failed you. You warned me I wouldn't be able to handle it."

He shook his head hard in denial. "You didn't... You didn't. I did."

"No..."

"Darlene, I didn't come here to argue. I don't want to upset you. I just want you to know..." He hesitated, seeking the words. "I was the one who failed. Because...because...I didn't ever let you into my life. I kept you on the outermost edge of it. And I'm ashamed to admit it took me all this time to figure it out."

"Oh, Seth..." Her eyes filled with tears.

"I'm sorry. I swore I wasn't going to upset you. But... You're the kind of woman who'll go out into a deadly blizzard to save her man. I wasn't good enough for you. I never appreciated just what a jewel you were. And I kept you away from me. I'm sorry."

"Seth..."

"I'm happy for your new life. I hope you've found all the things I couldn't give you. Godspeed."

Then he turned and walked out, ramrod straight, feeling that finally, finally, he'd gotten his head and heart in order.

Wendy and Yuma had waited for him. And when he asked them to drop him at Maria's house, they said not a word.

Thus it happened that a half hour after they'd dropped Maria off, he was hammering on her door, not caring if he woke the entire neighborhood.

The hammering frightened Maria. She had just finished changing into her nightclothes, a somewhat less-fancy outfit than she'd taken with her to be a guest. She was wearing a knee-length T-shirt, fuzzy slippers and a warm flannel robe.

And now someone was banging on her door as if the world were about to end.

Concerned, she pulled back the curtain over the window in her front door and saw Seth standing out there in the cold. On the street behind him was Wendy and Yuma's truck.

At once she opened the door, letting in a blast of cold and stinging ice crystals. "What's wrong?"

"I need to talk to you."

"Sure," she said, but not at all certain she should let him in. She stepped back, anyway, and he turned to wave the car away. Yuma and Wendy drove off into the night and Seth stepped into the warm quiet of her home. She closed the door behind him, shutting out the night.

"What's wrong?" she asked again.

He faced her and startled her with a smile. "Not a damn thing."

He threw aside his jacket. It landed somewhere on the floor. Then he kicked off his boots and tossed his gloves in the same general direction.

"Seth?"

Then, oh, then, he took her into his arms and kissed her as if he were dying of thirst and she was the water of life.

He felt her instant of resistance and almost pulled away, but then she melted into his arms as if she wanted to fill every crack and crevice between them with her body. Her mouth answered his kiss, just as hungry and needy, just as rough and passionate, as if she, too, had waited forever for this moment.

Along with his rising, unstoppable passion he felt wonder and awe that she was welcoming him so readily. With his hands he sought to give her wild pleasure, stroking her back and hips over and over, pulling her closer and closer to his throbbing manhood.

Her need suddenly seemed to meet his, for she arched against him, pressing her pelvis to his, causing him to groan with unbounded delight and need.

His hands slipped within her robe and found thin cotton, sensuous in its softness. With his thumbs he traced her ribs gently as he held her close, as his mouth plundered hers and hers plundered his in return.

All he could hear was the hammering of his heart and the gasps they both made. Finally one hand lifted, finding her breast and kneading.

The touch electrified her. She arched her hips hard against his and groaned, a sound from deep within her. It was the most exciting sound he had ever heard.

Her breast was firm, full, its nipple already hard and begging. Impatient now, he wrapped one arm around her waist to hold her, then bent her back until his mouth found that nipple through the fabric. He sucked, hard, then nibbled gently, feeling the tremors run through her, feeling her nails dig into his shoulders. Hearing her groans.

Her hands were suddenly tearing at his shirt, pulling it open, then pressing warm to the skin of his chest, finding his own nipples to pinch. The surprise of it shocked him just an instant, then the pleasure of it kicked him into overdrive.

Her robe and shirt vanished. He barely spared a moment to take in her lush beauty before he tore off his own shirt and unfastened his jeans so they fell to his knees.

Then he swept her onto the couch and settled himself between her welcoming thighs. She was wet and open and welcoming, and as he plunged into her he thought he heard her say, "Yessss...."

But the driving need of his body was in control and he plunged again and again into her soft, hot depths, feeling the indescribable pressure building within him.

Distantly he heard her cry out. Then his own shout joined hers as with one last thrust, he emptied himself into her.

Sweat-soaked skin clung. Breaths rasped quickly, gradually slowing. The world returned, dim, quiet, a counterpoint to all that had happened.

With some surprise, as he lay on her, Seth realized his jeans were still tangled around his knees. It could have been embarrassing, except that he couldn't feel embarrassed with this woman. Not when she still clung to his shoulders, not when her lips were pressing tiny kisses along his collarbone.

Slowly, he lifted his head, daring to meet her eyes. Daring to learn her reaction.

She smiled as she met his gaze. A smile filled him, too, and emerged at last on his face.

Sighing, happier than he could ever remember feeling, he touched his forehead to hers. "I must be crushing you."

"I'm loving it."

But reluctantly he withdrew from her. He had to struggle a bit because of his jeans, which made her giggle. He pretended to scowl at her as he fought the twisted denim and finally freed himself of it.

Then he lifted one of her feet and pointed to the fuzzy slipper. "I'm not the only one."

She went off into a peal of laughter, surely the most beautiful sound he'd ever heard.

"I'm thirsty," she said suddenly. "Want something?"

All he wanted was her. Again. Right now. But he was more than rewarded for his patience when she rose from the couch and padded naked to her kitchen.

"Something warm?" she asked over her shoulder.

"Right now I'm as warm as toast. Maybe warmer."

She laughed. "You're naughty."

"I can get naughtier."

"Good." With an impish smile she disappeared.

But when she was no longer in view to distract him, he realized reluctantly that they needed to talk. So he pulled on the jeans he had just struggled out of and picked up her robe.

He followed her to the kitchen, where she was putting the kettle on. She turned with a smile that faded when she saw his jeans and what he was carrying.

"You're leaving?" she asked.

"Absolutely not. But, Maria, we need to talk. We really do."

She nodded slowly. "Okay." She sounded frightened.

Hell, he realized he was feeling frightened, too. He helped her into her robe, then sat at the dinette until she had finished making two cups of tea. He noticed that she sat across from him, not beside him.

"I'm listening," she said.

"I guess," he said slowly, "I should start with Darlene."

Her heart slammed and her hands tightened around her mug. She didn't think she wanted to hear this at all. "What about her?" she asked, then winced at the belligerence of her tone.

"Just that..." He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. Then he looked straight at her. "I saw her tonight. I talked to her."

"I know." She waited, suddenly fearful that now that he'd settled his business with Darlene, he'd leave.

"I said goodbye to her. I mean really goodbye."

"Goodbye?"

"Yes. I went in there and told her how I'd failed her. I apologized for keeping her on the edge of my life. I was able to do that because of you, Maria."

She wanted to wave that aside, but something told her to remain perfectly still and quiet for now.

"I was able to face up to who I was back then, and all the things I'd done wrong. And I told her I was sorry. And I walked out of that hospital feeling like I'd shed a hundred pounds of dead weight."

"I'm glad."

He smiled at her. "It was because of you. You made me see what the problem was. And more than that, by talking to you, I realized I could overcome it. I've shared things with you that I've never told anyone."

She didn't know exactly how to reply to that, mainly because she didn't know where he was heading. Was he about to say, Now that you've helped me figure it out, I'm going back to my life. Thanks, it's been swell?

She tightened her grip on her mug even more.

"The thing is," he said, "I've become intimate with you in so many ways I thought I never could. And I realized tonight...well... I love you."

Shock froze her tongue. Her eyes were huge, but she couldn't speak a word.

Finally he asked tentatively, "Did I upset you?"

Mute, she shook her head.

"Maria?"

Finally it burst out of her, too. "I love you, Seth."

An instant later they were in each other's arms, laughing, and maybe crying a little, too.

A long time later they lay in her bed holding hands, staring up at the darkened ceiling while the wind keened outside.

"I wanted to ask you," he said. "About our future. You want to travel. But I've got nearly four years left. Can we compromise so we don't have to be apart?"

"Compromise how?" she asked.

"Well, I could take a training position at Coronado. That's in California. Would you mind living in California for four years? Then we could travel the world. Together."

"Oh, Seth..." She rolled into his arms, amazed that all her dreams could come true in one night because of this one man.

"Could you handle it?" he asked. "I'd rather you not enlist, because we might not be stationed together."

"Oh, Seth," she said again. "Of course I could handle it. I'd love it!"

He sighed, then snuggled her closer. "I love you, Maria. I promise I'll do whatever it takes to make you happy. And if I slip, tell me. Promise you'll tell me."

"I promise," she said. "Just keep being you, Seth. The man I fell in love with."

"Will you marry me?"

"I wouldn't think of doing anything else."

He laughed. "I guess I finally found my way home." She knew exactly what he meant. Home was in his arms. Forever.