For a while she just sat on the bed looking at the room around her. The walls were a buttery shade of gold, decorated with a hand-painted ivy vine that trailed along the baseboard and around the lace-draped window. Aside from that, there were no adornments of any kind. In keeping with Amish ways there were no pic tures or wall hangings. The curtain was fancier than anything in her mother's house.

Ordinarily, Sarah thought of this austerity as a simple rule to be followed. Tonight the plainness left an aching emptiness in her. It seemed symbolic of her life, devoid of tangible, touchable happiness. She knew she was supposed to find her happiness in her faith, and she had tried and prayed, but there was simply something missing, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't make that feeling go away.

She wondered as she undressed if she would have felt this way had Samuel lived, had their son lived. There was no way of knowing. In all honesty, Samuel had never been able to extinguish the longing in her. Maybe children would have filled that void, but there had been only one, and that child, Peter, had died of pneumonia before he had seen his first birthday.

She hung her plain blue dress in the closet beside her two other plain blue dresses, pulled on a simple white cotton nightgown, and went to the dresser to brush her hair. Sitting on the oak bureau was the little vial of Evening in Paris perfume and her Glamour magazine. Feeling defiant, she took the top off the perfume bottle and dabbed some of the oily liquid at the base of her throat. The smell was strangely sweet and foreign to her, but she de cided she liked it, simply because it was something she wasn't supposed to have.

She flipped through a few pages of the magazine, her sense of rebellion building in her like a ball of compressed energy. Her eyes wandered over ads and articles, and she felt somehow less of a woman for never having worn panty hose or makeup. What possible sin could there be in wearing panty hose? How could a pair of aerobic shoes—whatever they were—corrupt her soul? Of course, she knew the standard answers to those questions—Be ye not of the world and worldly things—but it all seemed so petty to her. The way she saw it, the real issues of life had nothing to do with wearing lipstick or driving a car.

Frustrated, she heaved a sigh and left the magazine open on the dresser. She grabbed her robe and a towel and headed for the bathroom.

Matt lay on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He was still dressed. The mind-numbing weariness that had plagued him since the attack was nowhere to be found tonight. All he could think about as he looked up at the dancing shadows of branches on the ceiling was Sarah. She hadn't spoken a response when he'd told her he wanted her, but there had been a mixed message in her wide eyes. Desire and fear. She wanted him too. He knew that in the way a man in tune with women always knew, by her kiss, by the change in her breathing, by the subtle scent of her skin. But she was afraid of that wanting.

Well, surprise, Sarah Troyer, because I'm afraid of it too. This new love was an unknown thing to him. He didn't know what to expect of it. Certainly, he had always cared for the women he made love with, and he had always been a considerate partner in bed, but the rules had changed now. The game was different. The stakes were higher. He wanted to give something he'd never given before—his heart. That was scary.

But he was getting ahead of himself, he thought, pushing himself carefully upright. Before he could give Sarah his heart, he had to make sure she would stick around long enough to take it. He had come up with a couple of ideas on the subject of courtship. Tomorrow he would begin the campaign.

He shed his sweater and undid the button on his jeans, then limped barefoot toward the bathroom door, intending to get a glass of fresh water to wash down his nightly dose of pills. His hand stilled on the knob, and he listened intently for a moment. He had heard the tub running earlier and had tortured himself for awhile with the mental image of Sarah bathing, but that had been an hour ago. He heard nothing now and he tried to squelch his disappointment as he turned the knob and swung open the door.

Sarah stood beside the tub, her hair up in a haphazard topknot with streamers of chestnut silk floating loose around the edges. She wore noting but a soft blue bath towel and a look of wide-eyed surprise.

Matt held his breath lest this vision disappear. He knew he should have done the gentlemanly thing and backed out, closing the door and leaving Sarah to her privacy. He knew that was what he should have done, but there was no way in hell he was going to do it unless she told him to.

Desire sprang to life inside him, a sleeping beast awakened, coiling fire in his gut. The air in the bathroom was warm and steamy, pungent with the scent of heated perfume and woman. And Sarah stood there clutching her towel above her breasts, beads of water still clinging to her smooth bare shoulders. She looked up at him, her eyes midnight blue, her lips damp and slightly parted.

The tension built and tightened around them like an invisible web. Matt let go of the door and took a step closer. Sarah watched him without moving, without speaking, without breathing. He looked completely male and predatory. His black hair was mussed, strands falling across his broad forehead. His dark, glittering gaze was narrow and intense. His face was taut, all the planes and angles emphasized. His jaw had already begun to darken with a beard. The strong, clean lines of his chest had taken on a sheen from the steam or from perspiration, she didn't know which. Her gaze trailed down past the white tape around his ribs to the undone button at the waist of the jeans that were clinging to his lean hips, and lower, to the evidence of a strong and immediate desire.

Everything basically female in her stirred and throbbed. She was suddenly conscious of the weight of her breasts and the sensitive flesh knotting at their tips. And low in her belly a tight fist of need tormented her.

“I want you, Sarah,” he whispered.

Want. That word had haunted her all of her life. She wanted something to fill the gap in her heart. She wanted Matt Thorne. She wanted him now and she would want him still when he had gone. Why couldn't she, just this once, give in to the wanting? She wanted so badly to know what it was to have a man touch her with the same longing that was in her soul. She knew it wouldn't last. She knew that he would go and she would be left to her quiet life of duty. Couldn't she at least be allowed a beautiful memory to sustain her through a lifetime of longing and lonely nights? Who would that hurt? Where was the sin in wanting to be loved?

Her fist tightened briefly, then relaxed, and the towel fell away.

Matt drank in the sight of her, thinking that this was what a woman was supposed to look like—soft and curvy, her skin glowing, her breasts full, hips rounded. He ached to touch her, to mold those ripe curves to the angular hardness of his own body. Closing the distance between them, he felt the web of sensuality wind tighter around them. He breathed in the scent of it, tasted it on his tongue, then he leaned down and tasted Sarah, pressing his mouth to the spot where neck met shoulder. His hands skimmed up her sides to claim her breasts, testing the weight of them, brushing his thumbs across the distended peaks of her dusky peach-colored nipples. He caught her gasp in his mouth, rubbing his lips over hers.

Sarah melted against him. She felt hot and boneless and alive in a way she never had before. She pressed herself against Matt, moaning deep in her throat at the exquisite abrasion of his chest hair against her nipples. His hands slid down her back, tracing lightly over the hollows and ridges, sweeping down to cup her buttocks. His fingers kneaded her flesh, stroked, caressed. All the while his kiss sent her mind spinning, cartwheeling beyond all sense and control. Only two thoughts held fast: She loved him and she wanted him. Beyond those two thoughts was only sensation.

He bent her back, his body curving over hers like an archers bow, strong and taut. His arousal nudged her belly, urging her to press her hips tighter to his. He trailed his mouth down the column of her throat, his tongue flicking out to catch the beads of moisture left over from her bath. The scent of cheap perfume burned his nostrils, and he smiled at the idea that Sarah, so devoutly plain and simple, was still a woman at heart and pampered herself with hour-long baths and dime-store cologne. He let himself think she had put it on especially for him, and the idea sharpened the edge of his desire even more.

He brought his mouth back up her throat, to her ear, to her temple. He raised his hands to undo the knot in her hair, then stood back a fraction of an inch so he could watch the shining waves tumble down. She was beautiful and she was his, and Matt had never wanted so badly to sweep a woman up into his arms and carry her to his bed as he did in that moment. He moved to do just that, then checked himself, reminding himself it wasn't the prudent thing to do, considering his injuries.

Sarah stared up at him, her eyes dark with passion, her mouth swollen from his kiss. She moistened her lower lip with the tip of her tongue as she moved a hand to touch the quivering muscles of his belly, and a hot surge of adrenaline scorched away what litde sense he had left.

He led her across the room and placed her on his bed. She pulled the sheet up over her breasts as she watched him hook his thumbs inside the waistband of his jeans. Denims and briefs descended together and he stepped out of them and came to the bed naked except for his bandages. Naked, beautifully aroused, overwhelmingly male.

“Are you nervous, sweetheart?” he whispered, gently tugging the knot of sheet out of her fist and drawing it away from her body.

Sarah glanced up at his face, trying to come up with a witty remark, but her brain refused to cooperate. It had been a long time for her and she had only ever been with one man, a man who had only ever been with one woman. She was suddenly filled with such an overwhelming sense of inadequacy, she was afraid she might actually start to cry. She wanted so badly to please Matt, but she wasn't at all sure she knew how to go about it. He was bound to have sophisticated tastes and know all the subtle secrets of making love, while she knew only that she loved him.

“I'm nervous too,” Matt admitted quietly. The bed dipped beneath his weight as he stretched out beside her. He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her face in the thin silver light filtering through the window. “I want so much to please you, Sarah,” he murmured, echoing her thoughts. Then he set himself to the task.

He captured her left breast in his free hand and rubbed his thumb gendy over her nipple, drawing a soft gasp from her. Murmuring words of approval, he bent his head and caught the tender bead in his mouth, sucking, caressing it with his tongue. Sarah'5 back arched off the bed. She tangled her hands in his short dark hair and moved restlessly beneath him. Electric sensations swirled beneath his mouth and shot all through her, congregating in the pit of her belly.

Knowing exactly what she was feeling, Matt slowly slid his hand down, over the soft slight swell of her tummy and lower, pressing gently with the heel of his hand, groaning in satisfaction as she lifted her hips into the pressure. He cupped her feminine mound, his fingers massaging her soft, warm flesh, parting the delicate petals to stroke the heart of her desire.

Sarah stiffened and moaned, swamped by sensation and yet wanting more. She ran her hands over Matt's strong shoulders, learning every muscle that lay beneath the smooth warmth of his skin. As he slid up her body she let her fingers explore farther still, down the solid columns of flesh that flanked his spine, down to the rounded firmness of his buttocks.

As he bent to kiss her again he caught her by one wrist and pulled her hand over his hip to wrap it firmly around his erection, showing her exactly the way he liked to be stroked. His whole body shuddered at the pleasure of having her touch him, claim him. Her small fingers explored the length of him, wrung gasps from him as she feathered touches across his velvety tip, stroked downward to cup him. Matt returned the pleasure, sliding his fingers once more through the tight nest of curls at the juncture of her thighs to tease and to test her readiness.

“I want so much to please you,” he whispered again as he shifted his weight and knelt between her legs. “Sarah. My sweet, sweet Sarah.”