She snorted. “You always used to be.”

“You used to be argumentative and pigheaded.” He smiled broadly when she scowled at him. “See how we’ve changed?”

“I’m just going to let that go, because I’ve had a really good time.” She breathed deep as they wandered a bricked path, and looked up at the thick slice of waxing moon. “Into week two,” she murmured.

“You’re doing fine, Stretch.”

She shook her head. “I don’t feel like I’m getting to the meat of it. Not yet. The days are going by really fast. I’m not panicked or anything,” she added quickly, “but I’ve got serious concerns. So much is depending on me. People I care about. I’m afraid I’ll let them down. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes. You’re not alone in this. The brunt may be on you, but you’re not carrying all the weight.” He laid his hands on her shoulders, drew her toward him a little, until her body rested against his. “I want to help you, Dana.”

She fit well with him. She always had. And her realization of that made little warning bells sound in some dim part of her brain. “We already know you’re connected, somehow or other.”

“I want more.” He bent his head to brush his lips over her shoulder. “And I want you.”

“I’ve got enough to worry about right now.”

“Whether it worries you or not isn’t going to change a thing.” He turned her to face him. “I’m still going to want you. You’re still going to know it.” His lips curved as he ran his hands up and down her arms. “I’ve always liked that look.”

“What look?”

“That mildly irritated look you get when somebody gives you a problem to work out. The one that puts this little crease right here.” He touched his lips to her forehead, just between her eyebrows.

“I thought we were taking a walk.”

“We did. Now I’d say this evening calls for one more thing.”

He loved the way her lips curled just as much as he loved the flicker of surprise over her face when instead of kissing her, he slid her into a slow, swaying dance.

“Pretty clever,” she murmured, but she was moved.

“I always liked dancing with you. The way everything lines up. The way I can smell your hair, your skin. The way, if I get close enough, look close enough, I can see myself in your eyes. Your eyes always did me in. I never told you that, did I?”

“No.” She felt herself tremble, and the warning bells were lost under the thunder of her own heart.

“They did. Still do. Sometimes, when we managed to spend the night together, I’d wake up early to watch you sleep. Just so I could see you open your eyes.”

“It’s not fair.” Her voice shook. “It’s not fair to tell me something like that now.”

“I know. I should’ve told you then. But now’s all I’ve got.”

He touched his lips to hers, rubbed softly. Nipped gently. He felt her body slide toward surrender, and fought the urge to plunder.

He went slowly, for both of them, savoring what they’d once devoured, lingering where once they’d rushed. In the starlight, with her arms lifting to come around him, he wouldn’t allow himself to demand. Instead, he seduced.

He was still circling her in a dance. Or was it just that her head was spinning? His lips were warm, and patient, all the more arousing with the hints of heat and urgency she sensed strapped down inside him.

She sighed, drew him closer. And let him take her deeper.

Soft, slow, moist. The chill of the air against her heated skin, the scent of the night, the whisper of her name through lips moving, moving over her own.

If all the years between had formed a gulf between them, this one kiss in a deserted autumn garden began to forge the bridge.

It was he who drew back, then shook her to the core by grasping both of her hands, bringing them to his lips. “Give me a chance, Dana.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking. No, you don’t,” she said before he could speak. “And I don’t know the answer yet. If you want one that matters, you’re going to have to give me time to figure it out.”

“Okay.” He kept her hands in his, but stepped back. “I’ll wait. But I meant what I said before, about helping you. It hasn’t anything to do with this.”

“I have to think about that, too.”

“All right.”

But there was one thing she knew, Dana realized as they walked back for his car. She wasn’t still in love with him. They were, as he’d said, different people now. And what she felt for him now made the love she’d had for the boy seem as pale and thin as morning mist.

JORDAN let himself into the house, switched off the porch light. It had been a very long time, he reflected, since anyone had left a light on for him.

His choice, of course. That was what everything came down to. He’d chosen to leave the Valley, to leave Dana, and his friends and all that was familiar.

It had been the right choice; he would stand by that. But he could see now that his method of making it had been the flaw. The flaw that had left a crack in what had been. Just how did a man go about building something new on a faulty foundation?

He started toward the steps, then stopped as Flynn came down them.

“Waiting up for me, Dad? Did I miss curfew?”

“I see your night on the town put you in a cheery mood. Why don’t we step back into my office?”

Without waiting for assent, Flynn strolled back to the kitchen. He took a look around. Okay, it was a hideous room, even he could see that. The ancient copper-tone appliances, the ugly cabinets and linoleum that possibly had looked fresh and jazzy in his grandfather’s generation.

But he still couldn’t visualize how it could, or would, look when Malory got done with it. No more than he could understand why the prospect of ripping it apart and putting it back together made her so happy.

“The guys are coming in Monday to bomb this place.”

“Not a moment too soon,” Jordan commented.

“I was going to get around to it, sooner or later. It wasn’t like I was using it. But since Malory, stuff actually gets cooked in here.” He bumped the stove with his foot. “She has a deep and violent hatred for this appliance. It’s kind of scary.”