She nodded…drew a long, shuddering sniff. “In here I do-” she touched her temple “-in my grown-up head, I do.” Then her chest. “But in here…I don’t know. Sometimes there’s this person in here, inside me, this little girl, and she feels…ashamed and dirty and scared-” Her voice broke, and a huge shudder ran through her as she gathered herself to flee.

He didn’t think, wasn’t aware of moving, but somehow he had her wrapped in his arms, with her face pressed against his heart. He murmured things…soothing things…sounds without words, and she began to sob like a heartbroken child. She fought it, though, her body rigid, hands clutching at his shirt, gathering fistfuls of it, as if she wanted to rend something-anything. And he held her and stroked her hair and shielded her face from the chill and the light with his hand, as if she were a small, terrified orphan creature he’d found. And he let her cry.

He held her until she grew quiet, and when he felt her stir and resist his embrace, he let her go.

She pulled away and straightened a little, fingers plucking at the sopping wet front of his shirt. “Boy,” she said groggily, “do I know how to kill a moment, or what?”

He looked at her, smiling a little, too overcome with tenderness for her even to laugh. “There will be other moments.”

“Yeah, but…” She cleared her throat, sat up straight and wiped her cheeks with both hands, not looking at him now. “Here I was, all set to seduce you into carrying me off to bed and making love to me all night. Guess that’s not gonna happen.”

Laughter rose to his throat in a painful lump. He thought, God, what am I going to do about this? If I hurt this woman, I deserve all the hellfire and brimstone You can muster.

“Not tonight, anyway,” he said gently as he stood and held out his hand to help her up. He smiled. “Although I am going to carry you off to bed.”

Her eyes widened above the hand she’d pressed to her still-streaming nose. “You are not! Big as I am, you’d have to be crazy. Probably cripple you for life.”

He slipped an arm around her waist, laughing. “That was a figure of speech. Although,” he added wryly as they walked slowly together, in step, back toward the house, “I have to tell you, it doesn’t do much for my machismo that you don’t think I could.”

She swiveled her head toward him, and when he looked at her, he saw that her eyes were dark and grave, and that she wasn’t smiling. “Honestly, Tony?” she whispered. “I believe you could do just about anything you set your mind to.”

He couldn’t answer her. And again, fear and guilt were a painful tangle inside him. Dear Lord…what am I gonna do?

Like a proper gentleman, he walked her to her bedroom door and kissed her. And although her fingers lingered on his chest and he felt the tug of her longing as if it were something tangible-a rope, a lasso around his heart-he said good-night and left her there.

“Sleep well…” he whispered as he touched his lips to her forehead, knowing he would not.

Brooke woke to sticky eyelids and a dry mouth and the feeling that she’d spent the past several hours at the bottom of a deep, dark well. Climbing out of it seemed not worth the effort-until she heard noises from beyond her bedroom walls and remembered. I remember…moonlight, and Lady…and Tony. Tony…and me being a brazen hussy. Tony kissing me. Me…talking. Me…crying. Tony…

A profusion of emotions, many of them in conflict with one another, nibbled furiously at her: shame and longing…fear and delight. Shameless longing…

She threw back the covers and rose, only to discover she felt as wobbly as if she’d been in bed a week with the flu. What is this? she thought. Am I sick? I’m never sick.

The noises she’d heard had become voices-Tony’s and Daniel’s-and they were coming from the kitchen. Curiosity overcame both physical and emotional weakness, and she pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, raked her fingers through her hair and tottered across the hallway to the bathroom. When she emerged a few minutes later, she felt marginally better, but also keenly aware that she’d overslept. It had to be nearly time for the school bus, and Daniel-

These worries carried her as far as the kitchen doorway. There she halted, transfixed, as if caught in some paralyzing force field. She stood absolutely still, bathed in warmth and light, and knowledge sifted into her consciousness like sunbeams. Love. That’s what this is. I love this man.

The tableau in the kitchen consisted of two people and one dog, all three, for the moment, unaware of her presence. Tony-he was standing in front of the stove, and he was wearing an apron. An apron! Where he’d found it, she couldn’t imagine; even she never wore an apron. Daniel-he was at the table, busily assembling his lunch while keeping up a revealing commentary on the personality quirks of his various teachers. Hilda-she sat at attention between the two but had eyes only for Tony, for reasons that became evident when he flipped her a slice of what appeared to be…

“Hey-Mom! Tony made French toast. With cinnamon. We had it with applesauce, ’cause it’s healthier for you than syrup, and it was really good, Mom. Hey-is it okay if I take the last piece of chicken for my lunch? And we’re out of bananas, but that’s okay, because Tony said he’s going to town, today, anyway and he can get some more, so I’m taking grapes instead.”

Her son’s words fell on her ears and rolled away like raindrops on feathers. Encased in her shaft of enlightenment and towed by the tractor beam of Tony’s gaze, Brooke floated into the kitchen. She murmured absent replies to Daniel’s questions and didn’t think to scold Hilda, who knew very well she wasn’t supposed to eat people food or beg for treats from the table or stove, and had, in fact, already slunk off to her corner, looking guilty as sin. Tony smiled at her, and she smiled back.

“Hope you don’t mind,” he said, hefting a pancake turner in one hand, a griddle in the other. “We thought we’d let you sleep in this morning.”

“No-of course, I don’t mind.” She said it with a gasp as she grabbed hold of the back of a chair and held on to it, fully aware it was all that was keeping her from drifting on into his arms for a good-morning kiss. Which would be the natural way for a woman to greet her man the morning after they’d made love. Which they hadn’t, of course. But they would…soon. That knowledge-that certainty-made her voice husky when she added, “That’s…nice of you. You didn’t have to do that. But thanks.”

“No problem. Happy to do it. I told you-the sisters. I don’t want you to have to wait on me.”

And she got lost in his eyes and his sweet, sweet smile…

Blessedly oblivious to adult undercurrents, Daniel chattered on as he stuffed his lunch bag into his backpack, slung it over his shoulders and shrugged it into place. He brushed her cheek with a kiss, bumped knuckles with Tony, and went charging out the door, with Hilda on his heels. And silence crept into the kitchen, heavy with awareness and charged with tension, like a spring storm cell.

Tension sang in the clanging Tony made as he put down the pancake turner and griddle, rumbled in the grating sound of the chair as Brooke pushed it aside. Then she was across the kitchen, and his arms reached for her, and when her body collided with his, Brooke felt as if all the forces of a storm were breaking loose inside her. The fury and power, the excitement and wonder of it filled her mind and took over her body, leaving no room for fear or questions or doubt. No room for thought. She only knew when his mouth found hers…at last.

She tasted of toothpaste, he discovered, and for some reason, he found that endearing. A moment or two later-or it could have been longer; he’d rapidly lost the ability to track time-he discovered she wasn’t wearing a bra under her T-shirt. That he found not so much endearing as-not surprisingly-sexy as hell. Accepting the inferred invitation, he slipped his hands under her shirt and brought them up along her rib cage to cradle the sides of her breasts in his palms. And her gasp tore her mouth from his, and she buried her face in the curve of his neck and shoulder.

“Hey…” He whispered it with his lips close to her neck, just below her ear. “I thought you said you only turn into a brazen hussy during the full moon.”

“Moon’s still full out there somewhere,” she mumbled from the depths of her hiding place.

He wanted to laugh, but her hands were busy behind him, untying the apron’s strings…tugging his undershirt free of his waistband, and then the feel of her hands on his skin drove every hint of mirth from his mind.

Then he did laugh, not because anything was funny, but because the emotions raging inside him needed some kind of safety valve, and for a grown man, laughter seemed infinitely preferable to tears. It was soft laughter, low and breathy, but it shook him to his core.

“Brooke, honey,” he said feebly, “I think it’s time I carried you off to bed now.”

“If you insist,” she murmured, smiling at him, and her eyes, peeking from under her lashes, had a pixieish glint.

He did. He swept her up in his arms and was amazed at how light she seemed. Or rather, how strong and powerful he felt.

He was amazed that this woman could make him feel things he’d never felt before, when he’d known…well, quite a few women in his life. Every one had been special to him in her way, but this woman…Brooke…She was his birthday and Christmas, the most wonderful Christmas of his life, with an endless supply of packages, each one to be slowly unwrapped and savored, each one revealing something new and exciting and wonderful. Somehow he knew that with this woman, he’d still be finding new packages to open when they were both ninety.

The realization stunned him and tempered his passion with a tenderness and care he was sure he’d never felt before.

And didn’t want to look at too closely-not then.

He carried her to his room-the spare room-not hers, and wasn’t sure why. Some primitive instinct, maybe, that made him want to bring her into his place-a kind of claiming. And that, too, was something he’d never felt before. And didn’t want to look at closely.

He looked instead into her eyes and lost himself there.

“I hope you don’t think-” she began, and he dipped his head and silenced her with a kiss.

“I don’t,” he whispered. This isn’t a time for thinking, love. If I let myself think-

He couldn’t let himself think.

He wanted her. Wanted her as he’d never wanted a woman before. Wanted her with the finest nerve endings in his skin and the deepest marrow in his bones. But it was a strange kind of wanting, because he wanted not to take something from her, but to give it. He wanted to give her pleasure and joy. He wanted to give her happiness. And hope. He wanted to give her all the good things in the universe, tied up with flowers and ribbons, and watch her face while she opened them. He wondered whether he would be able to give her all those things…and then knew, beyond any doubt, that he was the only one who could.

All that was in his eyes when he looked at her, in his mouth when he kissed her, in his hands when he touched her. It was in the unhurried way he removed her clothes and smiled at her shyness and at her whispered, “Guess I’m not such a brazen hussy after all…”

It was in the way he gave himself over to her so she could undress him at her own pace, even though her explorations-sometimes shy, sometimes brazen-made his muscles knot and his jaw creak with their demands on his self-control.

Her skin tasted to him like ice cream melting in the sun, and smelled of old roses. When she tasted his, it felt like the most exquisite torture and the greatest pleasure he’d ever known.

He groaned-could not help it-and she whispered, “Are you going to have your way with me now?”

“I think-” and he could barely form the words “-you’ve got it backwards. You…are having your way with me.”

She tilted her head, and her expression was poignant, eager and sweet. “May I?”

“Yes, love…oh, yes. Whatever you wish.”

And so she straddled him and gave to him the gifts he’d wanted for her: pleasure and joy and happiness and hope. And he watched her face while she gave to him, and knew he’d never be the same again.

Sometime later, when the earth had righted itself and resumed its normal spin, and she’d become reoriented to her place in it; when they lay together in the tumble they’d made of the double bed, talking in sleepy murmurs of the wonders and coincidences of fate, Brooke remembered.