“Now as ‘from now on.' Ten years is a long time to wait, and I'd rather not wait any longer.”

“You haven't exactly been waiting alone.”

“Well, neither have you.”

“I think your scorecard, at least according to the glossy magazines, totals considerably higher than my one-and-only husband.”

“How long have you been divorced?”

“Two years.”

“And there's been no one else?” A skeptical edge had crept into the bland question.

“No one appealed enough.”

“You fascinate me, Honeybear,” he said teasingly. “You mean it's all for me?”

“It is not for anyone. We live in liberated times, Carey Fersten. My life's my own, my body, too.”

“Pardonnez-moi.” His dark eyes sparkled. “Perhaps Ms.-” He waited for her to contribute the name he'd never known.

“Cooper. But I use my maiden name now.”

“I wish I'd known Cooper five years ago and now that I do, it doesn't matter, so Ms. Darian, perhaps you'd be willing to share some of your”-his eyes slowly slid down her body-“liberated sensibilities with me. If I appeal of course,” he added, smiling. “Am I going too fast?” His gaze was back on her face and while he spoke with lightness he was impelled by emotions he couldn't control. He couldn't have slowed down if he wished and it required all his self-control to keep from carrying her off to his bed.

Yes, Molly thought, considering this is the first time I've seen you in ten years, and no, because she was honest enough to acknowledge she'd wanted him ten years ago, all the time between and now. “You always were fast,” she said instead, smiling back, thinking Paradise had materialized right here in the gravel parking lot of Ely Lake park.

Carey exhaled the breath he'd been holding. “Back to square one, then, Honeybear. Can you stay with me now?”

“Stay with you?” She knew she was sounding obtuse or retarded or coy, but much as she wished to jettison her entire life on the spur of the moment, she had to consider her daughter who was waiting for her in the Cities, her business which didn't operate without her and, equally important, Carey Fersten's vagrant and capricious life. Including one impermanent wife and possibly ten such invitations to ladies a week.

“Stay, as in walk, talk, eat, play.” He paused, took a small breath. “… Sleep with me. Can you?”

A heated rush tore through her senses, but she couldn't-just like that-like picking up Boston cream pie in a cafeteria line. “Not now,” she said, her ambiguity a blend of logic and wanting. She was careful not to say no.

He frowned. It wasn't the answer he wanted. “When?” he asked, very quietly, not forcing too hard, but wanting to know if there'd be a “when” so he could last till then, only breathe small breaths and last till then.

“I don't know.” Was it because she was afraid of being a number-that old girlfriend, what's her name-who stopped by during filming. She was questioning his sincerity. “I have to be back in the Cities to pick up my daughter and I've an appointment with my banker in the morning.” The truth intervened to mask her uncertainties.

“Tomorrow then?”

“I'd love to, but…”

“But?” His query was very soft. He wasn't used to refusals.

“Look,” she said, hearing the small touch of resentment in his voice, deciding to be frank, “you walked into my life once and tore it apart. I don't know if I want a repeat performance… If I can handle one.”

“You were the one who married that summer, not me.” His voice was controlled but he'd never completely gotten over his anger.

“The wedding had been planned for months.”

“Not my idea of a reason to get married.”

“I was young.”

“That, at least, is a reasonable excuse.”

“You never mentioned anything more permanent to me.” After all these years did she want an apology?

“Damn right I did,” he said, and for a flashing moment he felt young and uncertain again. “It just wasn't good enough.”

“It was vague as hell and you know it.”

“You were nothing but a bundle of contradictions-flighty and uncertain, persuaded it could never work. That's what I remember. You only saw me between visits from your fiancй who was away at school, and even then I had to beg like crazy because you were so guilt-ridden. ‘What will my parents say? What will Bart's parents say? They're such good friends.'” His voice mimicked the words he'd heard so often. “I wasn't,” he went on in a cool tone, “getting reassurances about you wanting me, either.”

Molly's eyes widened. “None?”

“Besides that,” he hastily murmured.

She smiled at the correction and sighed softly. All the years of unrequited love vibrated through the gentle sound. “Oh, I did,” she slowly replied, “I wanted you… in every way. But all the pressures of the wedding-”

“And I didn't fit into the plans.”

She mutely shook her head. “You weren't even from the same world. And you never said anything about us-not voluntarily. Why didn't you talk about us?” she whispered.

Carey looked at her downcast eyes and tightly clenched fists, then took her hands in his and soothed the backs of them with gentle brushing movements of his thumbs. He glanced past her shoulder to the blue lake spread serenely below them, as if its serenity would somehow calm the tumult in his mind. “I don't know,” he murmured, thinking of all the years he'd searched for Molly in other women's arms. “All sorts of mixed-up reasons… fear mostly, I suppose. I'd never really thought of marriage and maybe I figured you'd change your mind about marrying Bart and I wouldn't have to consider it, right then. We could just be together… but the days kept ticking away… until they were gone. You'd never talked about marriage either except-that last night-and when you didn't accept my offer of marriage…”

She looked askance at him. “That was something to accept? The ‘I suppose… if you want to… I guess… maybe… if you give me some time'?”

“Christ, I was young, too. I don't know why I said everything wrong. But I did.” With a visible effort, he seemed to shake away the memories and his fingers twined strong and hard through hers. “All I know is that's past… it's over. About now,” he urged. “Can you stay with me tonight? Is that clear enough, Honeybear?” His glance was direct and imploring.

“Oh God… I have to go back. My daughter, my parents are-”

“Can you stay awhile?” His eyes were velvet soft and expectant as they always had been when he looked at her. Those breathlessly artful eyes, she thought, had the capacity to enter her soul.

Molly smiled at him, at the warmth and contentment washing over her, at the quizzical smile he was directing at her. “For a while,” she said.

“I'll settle for that,” he said quickly, like someone who'd had their hand over the buzzer on a quiz program, and, lifting her down from the wall with a light swinging motion, set her on her feet. “All the other Byzantine intracacies can wait,” he added with a grin, feeling as if divine grace had offered him a chance to relive his life. And he wasn't going to fuck this up.

Very politely, calling on all the courtesy he'd been taught and had acquired in the past thirty-three years, he said, “Come into my trailer. You can tell me all about your daughter and your new business, we'll have something to eat, we'll talk. And this time we're old enough not to be quite as stupid… We'll work something out.”

She grinned, his solicitude charming. “You're awfully cute.”

“And you're way the hell past ‘cute', Honeybear,” he said very, very softly. “You're a miracle of the heart, a million wishes fulfilled. And I'm seriously thinking about locking the door once I have you inside,” he finished in a whisper.

But he didn't because he was treading uncharted second-chance-in-life ground and reading the road map with caution. He said instead, the asterisk on his internal map denoting, GO SLOW, TRAVEL WITH CARE. “Why don't you call your daughter first so she won't worry. Tell her you'll be a little late.”

Molly hesitated. “I can't stay very long… I don't have to call.”

“This time I won't let you go so easily,” he said, handing her the phone. “Call.”

After speaking to her mother, Molly said, “Put Carrie on, will you, Mom? I'll explain to her that I'm running late and I'll pick her up at your house in the morning.” With her back to Carey, Molly didn't notice the startled look flicker across his face when she asked for her daughter.

After Molly hung up Carey challenged, “I thought you said your daughter's name was Charlotte Louise.”

“It is, but I call her Carrie. Char never appealed to me for obvious reasons, and Lottie always reminded me of a nineteenth-century tart. So… Carrie.”

“How old is she?”

“Eight.”

“And blond like you?” he asked more casually than he felt. Although he'd never met Bart, he knew he was dark-haired.

The eyes that met his were open, calm, proudly maternal. “Not exactly… quite a bit lighter. Pale, Nordic, more like yours, actually.”

Still no subterfuge Carey noted, and before he could ask the question that was bringing the adrenaline peaking in his nerve endings, Molly teasingly added, “Don't go getting a bigger ego than you already have. I did not name her after you.” And all the subconscious vaults Molly had securely locked years ago remained, through practice, secure.

While a suffocating sense of dйjа vu and subliminal fantasy held sway in his mind, Molly went on, “The name's only a coincidence. She was named after my grandmother whom I loved very much, and the diminutive was a simple process of elimination.”

“I see,” Carey replied with the same deliberate control that kept cast, crew, and the elements of nature in ordered compliance, and he dropped the discussion. Too many major upheavals had occurred in the past hour to add another unsettling speculation to an already overtaxed mind. Relax, he thought. There's plenty of time… for that. “Since you don't have to rush off,” he said like a congenial host, not a man whose life had just been turned upside down, “why don't I fix us something to drink or eat? Or would you rather go somewhere?”

“This is fine,” Molly replied, glancing around the tastefully decorated interior. It was the room of a successful man. Elegant but solid furniture. Lighting carefully designed to be both warm and unobtrusive. Some small, illuminated paintings. It was lived in, not cold like modern decor could sometimes be, but warm and relaxed. His desk was littered, a pair of riding boots were tossed in the corner near the door, and a splash of red carnations was casually spilling out of a clear glass vase on a small table.

Carey was quickly picking up a variety of clothes that had been dropped and draped on the furniture. Rolling them into a ball, he tossed them behind the couch.

“Still neat,” Molly remarked with a smile.

His head swiveled back around and he winked. “You gotta have the touch.”

“If you're that good about the cooking, maybe I should help you… or do you really know how to cook?”

“Sort of,” he answered, his grin infectious. “Remember the fettucini I made at my apartment on Third Avenue?”

It was incredible how perfectly it all remained in her mind. “I remember,” Molly murmured, and every wall, corner, picture, and chair of the tiny apartment Carey had rented above Mrs. Larsen's house came back in a warm rush of pleasure. It was there Carey had made love to her the first time… on the old iron bed on a warm spring night in April. He'd sneaked her up the outside staircase, past Mrs. Larsen's kitchen window, hoping his landlady wouldn't hear because she had strict rules about “female” guests. The bed was big and soft; they'd whispered in the dark room; only the light from the streetlamps had shone through the opened windows.

He'd undressed her with shaking hands, this young man who'd survived the horrors of Vietnam with unflinching boldness, then carried her across the patterned carpet and placed her gently in the center of his bed. She'd watched him undress. His movements were hurried, swift, shoes kicked off, his shirt pulled off male-fashion, with one sharp tug over the back of his head. She still remembered the play of golden light on his lean, muscled shoulders and curved torso, waist, and hips, as he stepped out of his jeans. Aroused and urgently ready, his maleness had brought a small gasp from her.

“I won't hurt you, Honeybear,” he'd whispered as he lowered his strong body next to her. “I'd never hurt you.”

“Drink first?” Carey asked, moving toward the compact, chrome kitchen. “Coffee, tea? Wine? Scotch?”

And Mrs. Larsen's rented room abruptly changed to an ultra-luxurious trailer-studio, all burnished metal and pale wheat wool and Bauhaus functionalism. “God, no,” Molly replied, shaking her head, “no wine or scotch. We were at the Holiday Inn drinking until four this morning. By the way,” she added, noting that his rangy frame limned against the entrance to the lighted kitchen hadn't gained an ounce, “I saw you walk in with Christina around three A.M.”