And when she did, Carrie turned around, pressed her nose against the glass divider, and said, “Sure, Mom, I know what you guys are going to do. You're going to kiss.”

Under his tan, Carey flushed to the roots of his hair.

“You're blushing,” Molly whispered.

“She's my daughter,” he whispered back. “I'm embarrassed.”

“She's only teasing. Relax.”

“Sure?”

“I'm s-o-o-o tired,” she breathed, running her fingers down his muscled arm.

“See that we're not disturbed, Jess,” he said crisply. Shutting off the intercom, he pushed the control that slid solid divider panels over the glass partition. Turning back to Molly, he murmured, “Have I told you how sexy you look when you lift your arms in that dress?”

“Like this?”

With another swift gesture, he flipped the switch controlling the window tint, and they were shut off from the outside world behind black glass. “Exactly,” he whispered, touching the soft fullness rising above her strapless top. His bronzed fingers drifted over the satiny mounds, back and forth with a delicate languor she could feel warming her blood. His hands slid down the deep vee of her cleavage, and then further still until they slipped under her breasts and lifted them free of the constraining top. “I'm so glad you decided to take a nap.” His voice was velvet, like his touch.

“A three and a half hour nap,” Molly whispered. “I hope you don't mind.”

“Oh, I don't mind, Ms. Darian,” he murmured, bending low to caress the tip of her nipple with his tongue. “I've always found long naps fortifying.”

“Like Ovaltine,” she whispered, tremors of desire racing downward from his teasing mouth and lips and tongue.

“Not exactly,” he breathed, and gave her a small bite.

She trembled, shivers of pleasure fluttering down to her toes and stirring the first small flame of passion deep inside. She'd never last three hours; she responded to him too readily, too extravagantly. Her nerve endings would be flayed in an hour, charred beyond recognition.

“Slow down, Honeybear,” Carey whispered, unzipping her dress, replying to her as if he could read her mind.

“Yes sir,” she murmured back. His hands were like heated promise on her skin, teasing and stroking as he stripped her dress away and then her panties. Her desire soared recklessly, immune to words or censure.

But his own libido repudiated delay, and he quickened with scorching haste, responding to her fiery ardor. His own pleasure was intensified by the opulent readiness under his fingertips, as though he only need touch her lightly here and softly there and kiss her thus and she was open and wet and ready for him. She was the most passionate woman he'd ever known, he thought with a flaring excitement. “You're way ahead of me, sweetheart,” he murmured, sliding his finger over the dampness between her legs, stroking the slick entrance, slipping his fingers inside her heated wetness slowly at first, and then suddenly deeply so she cried out in pleasure.

“Good,” she whispered when she'd caught her breath, and he smiled.

“Greedy.”

“You betcha,” she said, leaning back into the seat corner, her smile the equivalent of a feline purr. And her husky words were followed by her hands, sliding down his chest lazily to the buttons at his waistline. She unbuttoned and unzipped with seductive slowness. With her he was always in love for the first time, his mind clearly operating in a dimension over which he had no control. He waited for her small hands to touch his arousal, quivering with the rare magic of anticipation. Her fingers stroked the thrusting, pulsing tip, and his erection grew. When she clasped him in a slow rhythm, his eyes shut with the tide of pleasure flowing through his senses.

“Now, now… now,” she breathily ordered moments later, lifting her hips to reach him, her hands clasping his shoulders.

He took her the first time with his clothes still on because he couldn't wait any more than she. But later, when she was straddling him and moving gently above him in mellow contentment, he found time to pull his shirt off. “Nice muscles,” she said, watching the ripple down his torso as he tugged the shirt over his head with both hands.

“I've been staying in shape for my Honeybear,” he replied, his smile pure happiness.

“You don't feel weak, then?”

“I don't know,” he said with a grin, “what do you think?” And he lifted her with his hips.

She didn't speak until the stabbing pleasure subsided. “Arrogant man,” she said, though her sultry voice tempered her rebuke.

“Not me, ma'am,” he drawled in western parody. “I follow your orders right ready. But, sweet missus, when you'all get tired of taking command, it's my turn.” His grin was full of wickedness.

She lay in his arms the last half-hour, their clothes restored, the windows half-open to let the summer breezes alter the cool, air-conditioned scent of lovemaking and feverish bodies. His car was equipped with a small bar so they'd washed simply with lemon flavored Perrier-“like a camping trip”-Carey had said with a grin.

“I adore wealthy young men with soft leather backseats and discreet chauffeurs,” Molly murmured, flushed with pink touches of color on her cheeks, her blue eyes luminous with impish cheer.

“I adore sexy young moms who adore wealthy young men.” His golden hair blew a little in the window breeze, and his smile was lavish.

We agree on everything, then, she thought. And when I join you on your mission to find Egon, one slight disagreement shouldn't mar such unruffled compatibility.

Carey was humming a romantic fifties ballad from one of those technicolor spectaculars MGM used to make. Feeling very much in love, he realized he'd like to have Molly with him on his search for Egon, if it were only a matter of sleuthing down his hidey-hole. Unfortunately with Rifat in hot pursuit, the risks were considerable. And when the shooting started, he wanted to be able to react without worrying about Molly.

“Why does that sound familiar?”

“It was the theme from the late movie last night, and at the moment I wholeheartedly agree with the cloudless lyrics.”

“We have everything, don't we?”

“That's a fact.” His grin was wide and sunny. “I think my luck's changed.”

“How much do you believe in luck?”

“Not exclusively, but I won't turn it down, either. And your stopping at Ely Lake Park that Sunday was one hundred percent bona fide luck, as far as I'm concerned. I didn't even know where to begin looking for you.”

She felt the solid warmth of his shoulder beneath her head, the pleasant weight of his arm across her stomach, the pleasure in his wanting her. “Happy?”

“Damn right.” And he hugged her closer.

Bernadotte's home was large, built of pale local fieldstone and reminiscent in both its size and sprawling central courtyard plan of a medieval monastery. How appropriate for a hermit, Molly thought. And how inappropriate for his son, profligate in all things. But, coming out into the drive to meet them, Bernadotte was gracious and hospitable, not at all what she had expected. He was in fact so far removed from his normal composure that Carey was reminded of a remark his mother had once made when he mentioned his father's tranquillity. “You didn't know him when he was young, darling,” she had said with a smile. “He was a very serious, pleasure-seeking man.”

Carey saw the unutterable charm today, the attentive courtesy and captivating social loquacity he'd never before witnessed. The courtly gallantry Bernadotte showed Molly and the two young girls was unconstrained, as though he hosted parties of young ladies every day. They were instantly captivated. As Molly and Carey followed Bernadotte and the two skipping young girls into the house, Molly quietly said, “I thought you said your father was reclusive.”

“He always has been,” Carey slowly replied, astonished by the sight of the trio before him, his father bending toward the chattering girls, responding to them in ways that made them squeal with laughter.

“He seems wonderful,” Molly said, watching her daughter's face glow with smiling delight, understanding where Carey had acquired his effortless charm.

“I told you he was anxious to meet you.”

“You also told me he never had company, except your mother.”

“Well, you're family now.”

“Does he know that?”

“It sure looks like it to me,” Carey replied with a grin. “I've never seen him so delighted in my life.” Taking Molly's hand in his, he began walking again, his dark gaze on the extraordinary sight of his tall, white-haired father entertaining two nine-year-olds.

“In that case, I can relax. We passed muster.”

“Darling, no one has to pass muster.” But in a curious way, Carey, too, felt relieved. Knowing his father's eccentric attitude toward company, Carey hadn't been altogether certain of the degree of warmth his father would exhibit. Apparently Bernadotte was as enchanted as he with his daughter and future wife. Since he had been deliberately reticent over the phone, Carey used their first quiet moment together to explain the situation to his father.

The housekeeper, Mrs. Bailey, suggested she show Molly and the girls their rooms, and Carey took the opportunity to speak with his father. They all agreed to meet at the pool for lunch.

A few moments later, Carey and his father sat over iced tea in the library. Both men relaxed in the soft comfort of worn leather chairs. Carey had kicked off his sandals the minute he sat down; the glazed tile fronting the terrace door felt cool on his feet.

“She's a beautiful woman,” Bernadotte said, thinking how perfect they looked together, golden beauty and youth. But more important he'd noticed how happy his son appeared, how he looked at Molly with a curious kinetic devotion, both volatile and ardent, like a fledgling young boy in love. This was dramatically different from the tolerant indulgence with which he'd viewed women over the years.

“The same one I spent my last summer with-before going out to U.S.C.”

“I thought she bore a remarkable resemblance to the photo you kept on your desk that summer.”

“And Carrie's my daughter.” There was a world of pride in his voice.

Without a modicum of surprise, Bernadotte casually said, “I thought so. She's very much your daughter-her face, her movements, and horse-mad, like you were at nine.”

“Perhaps it's genetic,” Carey said with the doting smile of a father.

“Perhaps,” Bernadotte replied softly, his smile nostalgic as he recalled his own youthful equestrian training under his father's tutelage. His father was patient and kindly to a young child, instilling in his son his own passion for riding. Something Bernadotte had, in turn, taught to Carey. And now his granddaughter had inherited their love of horses. “She has your hands. She'll be good.” It was as if he read Carey's mind.

“I was about to ask if you would help Leon with her first lessons.”

“Carrie and I have already agreed on five o'clock, after the heat of the day has passed.” He lifted his brow in indulgent amusement. “She's insistent, just like you.”

“Do you mind?”

“Of course not, can't abide tractable people. I would have known she was yours blindfolded. She has the same decisive way of making a question a foregone conclusion. And the inflections in her speech… I wouldn't have thought it possible to inherit those patterns, but-” He raised his tall crystal tea glass. “Thank you for a delightful granddaughter. I had, quite frankly, given up hope.”

“You knew my feelings on Agent Orange.”

“Yes… apparently you didn't know of her existence?”

“No.” And then Carey filled his father in on the bizarre set of circumstances which had transpired, making Molly and Bart unaware of Carrie's paternity.

“You're a very lucky man,” his father said at the conclusion of Carey's explanation.

“I know, and it makes this search for Egon doubly frustrating. Going off and leaving Molly and Carrie behind is difficult… unsettling.” He looked across the small distance separating them, thinking how little his father had changed over the years, knowing he'd done the right thing bringing them here. “It's the hardest choice I've ever had to make, but I can't leave Egon out in the cold. You know what Rifat's like.” In short, brusque sentences, Carey described his fear at seeing Ceci at the press conference, and his subsequent dash to the Merchandise Mart to find Carrie and Lucy safe only because of their own resourcefulness.

“They'll be safe here,” Bernadotte assured him. “The surveillance cameras are quite effective, as is the monitoring equipment.” Bernadotte preferred his privacy, and had developed a highly sophisticated electronic barrier around his estate as more of a hobby than a necessity.