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  Like a candle burning bright—

  Love is glowing in your eyes.

  A flame to light our way that burns brighter every day.

  I was words without a tune,

  I was a song still unsung.

  A poem with no rhyme, a dancer out of time . . .

  But now there’s you.

  And nobody loves me like you do.

  When the song came to an end, she drew a shaky breath, and he realized she was trying to pull out of the music’s spell by picking up their conversation about their mutual favorites. “What’s your favorite sport, Zack?”

  Zack tipped her chin up. “My favorite sport,” he said in an aching, husky voice he scarcely recognized as his own, “is making love to you.”

  Her eyes darkened with a love she wasn’t trying to conceal from him anymore. “What’s your favorite food?” she asked shakily.

  In answer, Zack bent his head and touched her lips in a soft kiss. “You are.” And in that moment, he realized that sending her out of his life tomorrow was going to be harder than it had been to hear the prison gates clanging shut behind him five years ago. Without realizing what he was doing, he tightened his arms around her, buried his face in her hair, and squeezed his eyes closed.

  Her hand touched his face, her fingers spreading over his rigid jaw, and her voice was shattered. “You’re planning to send me home tomorrow, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Julie heard the absolute finality in the word, and she was so attuned to him that she knew it was going to be futile to argue, but she did it anyway. “I don’t want to go!”

  He lifted his head, and even though his voice was still soft, it was steadier and more resolute. “Don’t make it harder than it already is.”

  Julie wondered desolately how it could possibly be any harder, but she swallowed back that futile protest and did as he asked for the time being. She went to bed with him when he asked and tried to smile when he asked. After he’d brought them both to a shattering climax, she turned in his arms and whispered, “I love you. I love—”

  His fingertips covered her lips, silencing the words when she tried to say them again. “Don’t.”

  Julie dragged her gaze from his and bent her head, staring at his chest. She wished he would say it back to her even though he didn’t mean it. She wanted to hear the words from him, but she didn’t ask because she knew he would refuse.

  43

  THE BLAZER’S MOTOR WAS IDLING, exhaust curling thickly from its tailpipe into the frosty air of dawn as they stood beside the car. “There’s no snow in the weather forecast,” Zack said, glancing up at the faint pink sunrise streaking the sky as he reached around the steering wheel and put a thermos full of coffee on the passenger seat beside it. He looked down at her, his expression composed. “You should have clear roads all the way back to Texas.”

  Julie understood the rules for this departure because he’d made them clear this morning—no tears, no regrets—and she was trying desperately to seem composed. “I’ll be careful.”

  “Don’t speed,” he said. As he spoke, he reached out and pulled the zipper of her jacket up higher and then smoothed the collar up closer to her chin. The simple gesture almost made her cry. “You drive too damned fast.”

  “I won’t speed.”

  “Try to get as far from here as possible without being recognized,” he reminded her again, taking her sunglasses from her hand and sliding them onto her nose. “Once you make it across the Oklahoma line, pull into the first rest stop you pass and leave the car in front of it. Stay out of sight for fifteen minutes, then go straight to the pay phones and call your family. The Feds will be listening in on the conversation, so sound as nervous and confused as you can. Tell them I left you at the rest stop on the floor of the back seat, blindfolded, and that I vanished and you’ve gotten free. Tell them you’re coming home. Once you get home, stick strictly with the truth.”

  He’d already taken a neck scarf from the house, knotted it as if it had been tied around her head and tossed it in the car this morning. Julie swallowed and nodded because there was nothing left to do or to say—at least, nothing that he wanted to hear.

  “Any questions?” he asked.

  Julie shook her head.

  “Good. Now, kiss me good-bye.”

  Julie leaned up on her toes to kiss him and was surprised when his arms closed around her with stunning force, but his kiss was brief, then he set her away from him. “It’s time,” he said flatly.

  She nodded but couldn’t seem to move, and her resolve not to make any sort of uncomfortable scene cracked a little. “You’ll write to me, won’t you?”

  “No.”

  “But you could let me know how you are,” she said desperately, “even if you can’t tell me where you are. I have to know you’re safe! You said yourself they won’t watch my mail for very long, if at all.”

  “If I’m caught, you’ll hear about it on the news within hours. If you don’t, you’ll know I’m safe.”

  “But why can’t you write to me?” she burst out and instantly regretted it when his face became stiff and aloof.

  “No letters, Julie! It’s over when you leave here today. We’re over.” The words lashed her like whips even though there was no unkindness in his tone. “Tomorrow morning, you are to pick up your old life where you left it. Pretend none of this ever happened, and you’ll forget it within weeks.”

  “Maybe you’ll be able to do that, but I won’t,” she said, hating the sound of pleading and tears in her voice. She shook her head as if to negate her words and turned toward the car, angrily brushing her shoulder against her wet eye. “I’m leaving before I make an even bigger fool of myself,” she choked.

  “Don’t,” he whispered harshly, catching her arm and stopping her from leaving. “Not like this.” She looked up into his fathomless eyes, and for the first time, Julie wasn’t so certain he was handling this morning’s leave-taking as easily as she thought. Putting his hand against the side of her face, he smoothed her hair back and said solemnly, “The only foolish thing you’ve done in the last week is caring too much about me. Everything else you said and did was . . . right. It was perfect.”

  Closing her eyes, fighting back tears, Julie turned her face into his hand and kissed his palm as he’d kissed hers once before and she whispered against it, “I love you so much.”

  He jerked his hand away, and his voice turned condescendingly amused. “You don’t love me, Julie. You’re naive and inexperienced, and you don’t know the difference between good sex and real love. Now be a good girl, go home where you belong, and forget about me. That’s exactly what I want you to do.”

  She felt as if he’d slapped her, but her wounded pride forced her chin up. “You’re right,” she said with quiet dignity, getting into the car. “It’s time to return to reality.”

  Zack watched her car disappear around the first curve and vanish from view between the towering snowdrifts. He remained there long after she was gone, until the freezing wind finally forced him to remember that he was standing outside in a light jacket. He’d hurt her because he had to do it, he reminded himself again as he turned to the house. He couldn’t let her waste one extra moment of her precious life loving him or missing him or waiting for him. He’d done the right thing, the noble thing, by ridiculing her love.

  He went into the kitchen, listlessly picked up the coffee pot, and reached for a mug from the cabinet, then he saw the mug Julie had used that morning, sitting on the counter top He reached out slowly and picked it up, then he pressed the rim to his cheek.

  44

  TWO HOURS AFTER SHE LEFT the mountain house, Julie pulled the car off onto the shoulder of a deserted stretch of highway and reached for the thermos on the seat beside her. Her throat and eyes hurt from the tears she adamantly refused to shed, and her mind was dazed from her futile effort to block out the painful memory of his parting words:

  “You don’t love me, Julie. You’re naive a