“Where are we going?” She found herself whispering, not sure why.

“To a rock.”

“A rock,” she repeated, incredulous. “You woke me from a sound sleep so I could see a rock?”

“Not see, sit on one.”

“I couldn’t do this at noon in the warm sun?” she muttered, laughing at him.

“Not if you’re going to look at the stars.”

Carol’s step faltered. “Do you mean to tell me you rousted me from a warm, cozy sleeping bag in the middle of the night to show me a few stars? The very same stars I could see from my own bedroom window?”

Alex chuckled. “Are you always this testy when you just wake up?”

“Always,” she told him. Yawning again, she covered her mouth with one hand.

Although the campsite was only a few feet away, it was completely hidden behind a clump of trees. Carol could hear the ocean—presumably at the bottom of some nearby cliff—but she couldn’t see it.

“I suppose I should choose a tree now. Which one looks the friendliest to you?” Carol asked.

“A tree? Whatever for?”

“To hug. Didn’t you tell me this afternoon that if I ever get lost in the woods a tree is my friend? If we get separated, there’s no way I’d ever find my way back to camp.”

Alex dropped a kiss on her head. “I won’t let you out of my sight for a minute, I promise.”

“The last time I trusted a guy, I was eighteen and I was pregnant three weeks later.” She meant it as a joke, but once the words were out they seemed to hang in the air between them.

“You were only eighteen when you got married?”

Carol nodded, pulled her hand free from his and shoved it in the pocket of her jacket. She could feel herself withdrawing from him. She drew inside herself a little more.

They walked in silence for several minutes.

Suddenly Alex aimed the flashlight at the ground and paused. “This way.”

“Over there?” Carol asked. She squinted but couldn’t see any rock.

“Just follow me,” Alex said. “And no more wisecracks about what happened the last time you listened to a guy. I’m not your first husband, and it would serve us both well if you remembered that.” His words were light, teasing, but they sent Carol reeling.

He reached for her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. She could almost hear the litany of questions in Alex’s mind. He wanted her to tell him about Bruce. But no one fully knew what a nightmare her marriage had been. Not even her mother. And Carol wasn’t about to drag out all the pain for Alex to examine.

Within a couple of minutes, Alex had located “his” rock. At first Carol thought it looked like all the other rocks, silhouetted against the beach.

He climbed up the side, obviously familiar with its shape and size, then offered Carol his hand. Once they were perched on top, he spread out the blanket and motioned for her to sit down.

Carol did and pulled her knees under her chin.

Alex settled down beside her. “Now,” he said, pointing toward the heavens, “can you see that outside your bedroom window?”

Having forgotten the purpose of this outing, Carol cast her gaze toward the dark sky, then straightened in wonder and surprise. The sky was so heavy with stars—hundreds, no, thousands of them—that it seemed to sag down and touch the earth. “Oh, Alex,” she breathed.

“Worth waking up for?” he asked.

“Well worth it,” she said, thanking him with a smile.

“I thought you’d think so.” His returning smile flew straight into her heart.

She’d been struck by so much extraordinary beauty in such a short while that she felt almost overwhelmed. Turning her head slightly, she smiled again at this man who had opened her eyes to life, to beauty, to love and whispered fervently, “Thank you, Alex.”

“For what?”

“For the hike in the rain forest, for the view of the cove, for ignoring my complaints and showing me the stars, for…everything.” For coming into her life. For leading her by the hand. For being so patient with her.

“You’re welcome.”

Lost in the magic, Carol closed her eyes and inhaled the fragrant scent of the wind, the ocean and the night. Rarely had she experienced this kind of contentment and uncomplicated happiness.

When the breeze came, the trees whispered, and the sound combined with the crashing of the surf below. The scents of pine and sea drifted over her. Throwing back her head, Carol tried to take it all in.

“I don’t think I appreciated how truly beautiful you are until now,” Alex murmured. His face was carved in severe but sensual lines, and his eyes had darkened with emotion.

Carol turned, and when she did, he brushed back the curls from her cheek. His hand lingered on her face, and Carol covered it with her own, closing her eyes at all the sensations that accompanied his touch.

He brought his free hand to her hair, which he threaded through his fingers as though the texture was pure silk. He traced her lower lip with his finger. Unable to resist, Carol circled it with the tip of her tongue….

Time seemed to stand still as Alex’s eyes sought and held hers.

He kissed her, and it was excruciatingly slow. Exquisitely slow.

He pressed warm kisses in the hollow of her neck and slipped his hands inside her jacket, circling her waist and bringing her closer. “The things you do to me,” he said in a low voice.

“The things I do to you?” She rested her forehead against his own. “They can’t compare to what you do—have always done—to me.”

His lips twitched with the beginnings of a smile, and Carol leaned forward just enough to kiss him again.

Under her jacket Alex slid his hands up her back. He stopped abruptly, went still and tore his mouth from hers.

“What’s wrong?” Carol asked, lifting her head. Her hands were on his shoulders.

“You’re not wearing a bra, are you?”

“No. You said I had only five minutes to dress, so I hurried.”

His eyes burned into hers, then moved lower to the snap of her jeans. “Did you…take any other shortcuts?”

“Wanna find out?”

He shook his head wildly. “I…I promised myself when you agreed to go camping that I’d do everything I could to keep my hands off you.” Although she was still in his arms, Carol had to strain to hear him.

“I think that was a wise decision,” she murmured, looking up at him. Alex’s expression was filled with surprise. An inner happiness she’d banished from her life so long ago she hadn’t known it was missing pulsed through her now.

When he finally released her, Carol was so weak with longing that she clung to him, breathing deeply.

“Carol,” he said, watching her closely as she shifted positions. She climbed onto his lap, wrapped her legs around his waist and threw her arms around his neck.

“Oh…Carol.” Alex moaned and closed his eyes.

“Shhh,” she whispered, kissing him deeply. He didn’t speak again for a long, long time. Neither did she…

Thursday afternoon, with a stethoscope around her neck, Carol walked down the hospital corridor to the nurses’ station. Her steps were brisk and her heart heavy. She hadn’t talked to Alex since late Sunday, when he’d dropped Peter and her at the house after their camping trip. There could be any number of excellent reasons why he hadn’t called or stopped by. Maybe he was simply too busy; that made sense. Maybe he didn’t want to see her again; perhaps he’d decided to start dating other women. Younger women. Prettier women. He was certainly handsome enough. Perhaps aliens had captured him, and he was trapped in some spaceship circling uncharted universes.

Whatever the reason, it translated into one glaring, inescapable fact. She hadn’t seen or heard from Alex in four days. However, she reminded herself, she didn’t need a man to make her happy. She didn’t need a relationship.

“There’s a call for you on line one,” Betty Mills told her. “Want me to take a message?”

“Did the person give a name?”

“Alex Preston. He sounds sexy, too,” Betty added in a succulent voice. “I don’t suppose he’s that handsome guy you were having lunch with a little while ago.”

Carol’s heart slammed against her ribs—first with alarm and then with relief. She’d done everything she could to ignore the gaping hole in her life without Alex there. All it would’ve taken was a phone call—she could have contacted him. She could’ve asked Peter to talk to James. She could’ve driven over to his house. But she’d done none of those things.

“Carol? Do you want me to take a message or not?” Betty asked.

“No, I’ll get it.”

Betty laughed. “I would, too, if I were you.” With that, she turned and marched away.

Carol moved to the nurses’ station and was grateful no one else was around to overhear her conversation. “This is Carol Sommars,” she said as professionally as she could manage.

“Carol, it’s Alex.”

His words burned in her ears. “Hello, Alex,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound terribly stiff. Her pulse broke into a wild, absurd rhythm at his voice, and despite her best efforts, a warm sense of happiness settled over her.

“I’m sorry to call you at the hospital, but I haven’t been able to reach you at home for the past few nights.”

“I’ve been busy.” Busy trying to escape the loneliness. Busy ignoring questions she didn’t want to answer. Busy hiding.

“Yes, I know,” Alex said impatiently. “Are you avoiding me?”

“I…I thought you…if you want the truth, I assumed you’d decided not to see me again.”

“Not see you,” he repeated loudly. “Are you crazy? I’m nuts about you.”

“Oh.” Her mouth trembled, but whether it was from irritation or sheer blessed relief, Carol didn’t know. If he was nuts about her, why had he neglected her all week? Why hadn’t he at least left her a message?

“You honestly haven’t figured out how I feel about you yet?”

“You haven’t been at the school in the past few days, and since I didn’t hear from you it made sense—to me, anyway—that you wanted to cool things down, and I don’t blame you. Things are getting much too hot and much too…well, fast, and personally I thought that…well, that it was for the best.”

“You thought what?” he demanded, his voice exploding over the wire. “When I get home the first thing I’m going to do is kiss some sense into you.”

“When you get home?”

“I’m in Houston.”

“Texas?”

“Is there any other?”

Carol didn’t know. “What are you doing there?”

“Wishing I was in Portland, mostly. A friend of mine, another contractor, is involved in a huge project here and ran into problems. There must’ve been five messages from him when we returned from the camping trip. He needed some help right away.”