Surviving

Nikki Waite set down her Twinkie wrapper, licked her fingers and let out a soft, low whistle. She pushed her hat back from her sweaty forehead as she watched through a cracked, bug-spattered windshield as her quarry got out of a shiny, green Dakota and sauntered down the street.

Nikki figured she ought to have felt more exited, even pumped. She felt drained, like a limp dishrag. She almost felt sorry about what she had to do, seeing him in person. He was human. Well, sort of human, she supposed, considering that he was more good-looking than the average GQ model.

The car was like an oven and her stomach was hurting again. She'd been sitting on a hot vinyl seat way too long. For three weekends she'd done nothing but sit in her ancient truck watching people come in and out of the Sommerville bank where she had suspected he had an account.

It was Friday, payday, the day that most of the ranch hands came into town to cash their pay checks and hole up in the saloon for the evening. She had been counting on the fact that he might do the same. The last two Friday afternoon stakeouts had been busts and while she knew now that he worked at a ranch in the area, it would have been pretty hard to track him down in the boonies. She had known only that a Michael Yvan Blackheart had a savings account at the Sommerville Savings and Loan. It was a good thing he'd finally shown because Nikki had only enough money to last her today and then she'd have had to head back home.

Max, her dog, whined and scrabbled his nose against the window. There was a huge, ugly bug crawling around on the other side. She'd already admonished him twice for barking at it and for scratching and biting the cracked interior of her 1979 model Datsun two-seater pick-up.

Nikki grinned, ruffling the Jack Russell's furry neck. "Pretty soon, I'll be able to afford the biggest chew-bone in the pet store for you, fella. All I have to do is serve him, let Marco and Mick know and we're all set. Then we can go home." This she said in her squeaky, doggie voice.

The dog's ear's perked and he inclined his head at the sound of his beloved mistress, his favourite treat and the word ‘home'. Nikki was pretty sure her constant companion had been feeling a little stressed the two weeks they'd spent sleeping in the back of her minuscule pickup, hunting down Coeurnoir. He wanted his own bed and food bowl.

The papers were sure right about him. Michel Coeurnoir was a good-looking son of a gun. It had been a long time since Nikki had laid her eyes on a man that handsome.

She'd seen his picture in the tabloids and in the papers, but he'd looked different then. Those hockey card photographs hadn't done him justice. It was hard to believe that this man was the clean-cut, young hockey player she'd seen on everything from Nike ads to cereal boxes five years ago when he'd been in his NHL heyday.

He wasn't what you'd call classically handsome, but there was something truly compelling about him. He had the sort of looks that would make women sigh and men feel more than a little jealous. To Nikki's mind, he had just missed being pretty. She supposed it was his colouring. His sort of looks belonged more on a Botticelli angel than a man, let alone a man who'd been tried for murder.

His slightly curling cinnamon brown hair hung to the tops of his wide, denim covered shoulders, the perfect foil for his tanned skin and his long neck. His lean, longish jaw was covered in a dusting of dark stubble, his nose proud and slightly crooked, had obviously been broken a time or two.

She couldn't see them now but if she remembered correctly, his eyes were green or maybe grey. She also remembered them being topped by striking and shapely black brows.

She'd lay odds that during his stint in prison he'd had to beat the other cons off with a stick. Not that he was feminine. She was pretty certain that there was not a feminine bone in his body.

During his murder trial the cameras had spent a lot of time focussing on his appealing face. He'd had the habit of tapping his lip with two slender fingers during the testimony, Nikki remembered. Her teenaged half sister, Anna, had said with a sigh, that his lips were the exact colour of a pink-pearl eraser and that she didn't care if he had killed someone, he was just too beautiful to hate.

Turned out the jury felt the same way. He was found not guilty. Another man, the brother of the victim's wife was rotting in jail now after confessing to the crime. Some people still didn't believe in Coeurnoir's innocence. It'd always be that way with society. A trial and months of conjecture couldn't help but affect a man's worth. There were those who'd never accept that the man was not guilty, especially if he was a rich man who could afford good lawyers to buy a verdict of innocence.

"Let's get this over with, boy." She'd normally leave the small dog in the car when she confronted someone, but it was too sweltering hot and Maxie needed to pee, just like she did.

She unfolded her long legs out of the truck, and stepped out onto the blistering pavement. Her shirt was sticking to her back, her underwear riding up not quite where it should be, but it would have been unladylike to yank at it. She was working hard on being ladylike and respectable of late.

As she took a deep breath and straightened, the pain in her gut started up again, like a knife stabbing up under her ribs." That'll teach me to eat a gas station burrito," she muttered to herself.

Nikki followed the man down the tree lined, small town, main street. Banners for the upcoming Fourth of July block party waved in the hot breeze. The lobelia plants in the flower baskets that hung from almost every building were looking like they'd been subjected to one of her ma's frazzled perms.

Nikki was unable to help but notice Blackheart's perfect body as he strode along with an unconsciously graceful stride. His ass was perfect. More than a handful. Muscular, rounded and encased in form-fitting, faded Wranglers. The jeans were rodeo rider tight. She liked that look, always had. His long back was pretty respectable, too, impossibly wide at the shoulders and tapering down a narrow waist. He walked with this unconscious sway of his shoulders. Maybe it was something to do with skating, or being an athlete. Whatever it was, it was pretty potent to a woman. Even one who wasn't much interested in men lately.

"Now or never," she said under her breath, " Walter and Ma, here comes the next payment on that combine and maybe my own apartment." She quickened her footsteps so that she was even with him, took a steadying breath and said his name: "Michel Yvanneau Coeurnoir? "

Nikki gritted her teeth. It wasn't like she hadn't been through just this scenario before. She was an expert in the fine art of process serving. With a deftness born of practice she reached out and shoved the papers into the crook of his arm.

She discovered that his eyes, beneath the Stetson were not green or grey, but a combination of both, with flecks of misty blue and gold as well. They were large and wide and fringed with lustrous, black lashes. They were, in fact, the most stunning eyes she'd ever seen on a man.

He was fairly tall, too, she thought inanely as she tried to draw air into her lungs. At almost six-feet she usually looked down at men. She met this one almost eye to eye. He might have had an inch or so on her.

"What is this? He had the faintest trace of a French Canadian accent. The ‘th' came out like softly uttered ‘d '. God, even the way he spoke was dead sexy.

"Uh...um...You're being sued, Mr. Coeurnoir. By Danielle Eldred and the New York Knight's Hockey Club. For breech of contract." She grimaced at the sudden hot stab of pain that knifed her abdomen. She also grimaced because she wasn't supposed to reveal that she knew the whys and the wherefores of a court summons to the person she was serving. She usually didn't do that. Something in the man's quiet, low tones had demanded an answer. Her brain was fried in this heat, she decided, like an egg left out on the sidewalk.

She cleared her throat and mumbled, slumping a little. She could feel sweat pooling in her bra. "That's about all I know, sir. My job here is over."

It wasn't all she knew. Marco had told her a heck of a lot more, how this Danielle Eldred was so desperate to have her star player, and it was said by some, lover, back, she had brought in some high powered attorneys and New York's finest detective agency to find the elusive man. Nikki was just the last of a long string of people who had been looking for him.

"I wouldn't do it. Maybe you ought to hire yourself a good lawyer. I'd expect you're acquainted with some. Maybe they'll get you out of this, too." She gave him an encouraging smile, but the look he gave her in return said that he probably thought she was ragging on him. "It's been a slice, Mr. Coeurnoir. Come on, Maxie."

The small dog stayed where he was, fascinated by the man. Nikki had to call him a second time. The dog looked up at the man, gave him what she could only describe as an admiring, doggy smile and reluctantly followed at her heels. Normally the small black, white and tan dog would have growled at a stranger.

"Hope to hell I wasn't slobbering as much as you did, Maxie-boy," she muttered. " And come to think of it: Some protection you are, mutt," Nikki said, stooping to pick up the dog, as another sharp twinge of pain assailed her abdomen.

Michael Blackheart looked down at the papers in his hand and swore. A string of oaths. Some French. Some English. He didn't swear often, but he did it well.

He's learned the art from the best, his older brother, Rene, several foster homes, a stint in juvenile detention and then from the players of the NHL.

He turned his head and looked at the girl who'd served the papers. He'd taken one look at her and felt like he'd been punched in the guts. She was gorgeous. A woman like that ought to be tramping down some Paris runway.

He'd never seen such an engaging face. She had huge cornflower blue eyes, a wide delicious mouth, turned up nose, creamy, pale skin all covered with freckles. She was a nice package and he'd lay odds that she was a natural blonde-- not that he was ever going to unwrap her to find out for himself.

She was incredibly tall, though, something that didn't normally appeal to him. And he liked a woman with larger breasts and a little more padding. Her hips were as narrow as a boy's. She also looked like the twitchy, can't-sit-still type, a bit strange in a profession that demanded patience. He liked women with a calming aspect, the sort of woman who could make him feel relaxed. Though he never showed it, inside he was too damned twitchy himself.

Michael shook his head in self-reproach. What the hell was he thinking? She'd just served him. He'd never see her again, and that was a good thing. He'd been looking forward to a respectable dinner at Brody's and watching some television at home on his first weekend off in a month. And here he was thinking of some girl he'd never see again, not to mention the fact that bloody bitch, Danielle had gotten the idea into her head to sue him.

For breach of contract. Oh, that was a good one. She might has well have served him because he'd kept his zipper in park the whole time she'd known him. That was the only thing she'd ever wanted from him anyway. His superb stick handling.

"I'd say that girl has eight years and as many inches on you, boy," Chris Davenport said, tugging at the diminutive young cowboy's hat. "You ain't got a hope in hell."

"Yea, put a cow-pie under your pillow every night, make a big wish and you might grow up to look just like ole Mike. Then the girl's will come runnin'. Let's just hope you're more charming and talkative than he is," Chris quipped.

"Whatever that means," Michael said, with a shy grin. He rarely smiled but when he did it was usually over something Chris said. The tall, bearded foreman, though firm and no nonsense, had an easy way about him. They'd been friends since their first meeting three years previous when Michael had come looking for work and a place to escape the glare of the public eye.

The people he lived and worked with were well-aware of who he was, as were some others in the minuscule town of Ashcroft. It had taken a while for them to trust him, even though he'd been declared an innocent man. Chris had trusted him from the first and had seen to it that everyone respected Michael's privacy.

Michael frowned. As much as he'd have liked a cold draft, he figured he'd better give his lawyer a call in New York. No sense in letting this thing carry on any longer than necessary. "I think I'm going to pass on the beer. I have some business to attend to and Teresa asked if I'd pick up that stuff that came into the post office for her. I'll just stop at the Ashcroft café for something on the way back."

"Damn, damn, triple damn," Nikki swore, slapping the steering wheel. This was it. This was all she needed. She opened the door of her dead as a doornail truck and lifted the hood. No sign of life.

She was about twenty miles from town but she recalled from the sign on the road a few miles back that she was ten miles from gas, food and lodgings. "Damn,' she swore again.

She hoped she could make it. She was feeling terrible now, tired and drained, her stomach a dull aching pit. She pushed her hands through her jaw length hair, feeling the dust and sweat of the road in the matted locks. " What do I do, Maxie? I have twenty-one dollars and fifty cents to my name. I can't afford to get a tow or to fix this. I can't even sleep in a motel, even if they'll let you stay in the room."

Maybe she could get a Greyhound bus at the gas station. She'd just leave the truck at the side of the road. From the looks of the reddish pink liquid on the ground something important had died. Looked to be trannie fluid or something similar leaking out.

"Damn. Maxie, get out of the truck. We're going to have to walk." She reached into the bed for her pack and the dog's leash. There was about a half bottle of Naya water in the front seat. She's have to share it with Max.

God, if only she didn't have this stomach pain. It was getting almost unbearable. Way worse than period cramps. Way worse than labour cramps, she thought. She pulled on the Jack Russell's leash. He was in dig in mode. She refused to drag the stubborn little devil all the way to the gas station so she scooped him up and carried him under her arm like a wriggling sack of groceries. If it got bad enough she'd set him into the pack. Jack Russells liked riding like that for some damned unknown reason.

She'd gone about a mile when a car slowed up beside her. It was a splashy red convertible containing three boys of about college age. They were drinking from litre bottles of Coke. She could imagine else what the bottles contained.

"What are you doing out here all alone? " The driver suddenly maneuvered the car so that it blocked her path. She had to step back out of the way.

"How astute of you to have gathered that," she said, attempting to walk around the car. He nudged it a little further into her path, almost forcing her down into a culvert.

The driver, a baby faced blonde hopped out and walked towards her with a braggart's swagger. "Hey, want to party? We're headed to a friend's house. You look like you could use some R and R."

Nikki took a deep, measured breath. It was going to be pretty tough to kick ass with a stomach ache, a backpack and a struggling dog under her arm." Please, boys. I don't want to party. If you'll excuse me?"

They looked at each other and laughed. She figured the lame attempt at a joke went over their heads. "I like tough chicks like you, Dorothy. Need a ride? We'll take you anywhere you want to go, pretty lady."

"I don't want a ride with you, thanks." Maxie was growling and wriggling under her arm. She'd have let him go so he could grab the kid's leg or something but she was afraid that the little dog might get hurt.

She was so pissed off by this time, she barely registered the crunching sound of shifting gravel as another vehicle pulled to the side of the road.

The blonde boy turned his head at the sound of the newcomer's voice. So did Nikki. She knew that voice, low, commanding with the lilt of an accent.

"Dorothy's car broke down. We were just trying to be friendly. This is none of your freakin' business, man," said the boy called Jamie. His speech was laced with contempt, the words slurred drunkenly.

"No way. Don't give ‘em to him, Chip." The boy called Jamie suddenly got into some kind of marshal arts stance and threw himself at Michael Blackheart. Nikki watched in mute fascination as Michael deftly avoided the blow and with very little force of his own, upended the boy so that he lay at his feet in a slobbering heap. Then he reached over the boy's now stunned front seat passenger and yanked the keys out of the ignition. As a rather fitting finale, he stepped over the boy's prone form, fiddled up under the wheel well and yanked out the spare set of keys duct taped there.

"You'd think people would learn not to put their keys in such an obvious place. Never know when a car thief might be lurking around. Come and see me one day, Jamie. I'll show you a real good place to hide em."

"Looks like you're walking, guys. I'm going to leave the keys with Deputy Yanko. He's usually parked at Fred's cafe having coffee and a donut about this time."

Nikki thought about it. Her stomach ached, it was ten miles to the gas station and she didn't relish the thought of these three little pigs dogging her tail. She was about to answer him when he reached out to pet Max's head.

He didn't pull back. She watched in wonder as the work scarred but elegant hand caressed the dog's head with nary a reaction from Maxie but slavish adoration.

His mouth lifted at the corners and his eyes crinkled into a half smile. " I guess he doesn't think of me as a strange man." His words caused her heart to flip flop in her chest. He opened the passenger side of the Dakota. "He's a nice dog. Looks more like a rat in a dog suit to me though. Don't you, boy? You want that ride? I'm in kind of a hurry. I have to make an important phone call."

Nikki nodded, blushing. "Yea. Okay. I'm not crazy." She looked back over her shoulder at the three boys. "Could you please take me as far as the gas station?"

He took the dog, allowing her to throw the bulging pack behind the seat. She was climbing into the cab when the pain struck her again. A wave so strong that it left her breathless and hot. She clutched her stomach and held her breath waiting for the pain to abate. It was gone after a minute, but it left her feeling weak and tired.

Michael swung into the cab and started the noisy diesel engine. In the confined space so close to her, she could smell him. He smelled pretty damn good. Like fresh air and line dried denim and some kind of shampoo scented with sunflowers. She hoped he couldn't smell her cause she just smelled like dog, that pink liquid soap from the gas station and clothes that hadn't been washed in two days. The dog curled up in a ball right next to his hip and released a weary sigh. She wished she could do the same.

"Bout two years. I don't always do that job, but this one was pretty hard to turn down. I hate handing people their court orders worst of all. I hate divorces and custody battles. It's all so ugly." She looked out the window and cleared her throat." I'm usually a skip tracer. Mostly deadbeat dads and stuff. Sometimes I do repossessions, but I don't like that either. My brother has a bail enforcement company. I work for him mostly and part time for a couple of private detectives."

He gave her a fleeting smile. God, she thought, a person could begin to live on his smiles and nothing else. No food. No water. Nothing. She was sure they'd be rare and fleeting things, but like anything rare, often uncannily beautiful.

"I lived in Australia for a while. I've lived lots of exotic places actually. I came back here when I was ten. People thought I was pretty strange."

Oh, lord. Why had she said that? He was going to think she was weird, if he didn't already. "It's a long story. I think I see the gas station."

Nikita thought about the twenty one bucks she had, knowing it wasn't going to get her very far. He pulled the car around in front of a set of ancient gas pumps, stopped it and got out, taking the dog for her while she got her pack.

"All depends. I'm kinda low on funds." She figured she'd bus it home and just leave old Betsy to rot by the road. She deserved nothing more for crapping out on her.

"No. I'm okay." And what would he expect as payback, she wondered. Something weird in her made her feel like that wouldn't be so bad. Not bad at all.

What the hell are you thinking, Nikki Waite? This man? He had Mr. Wrong written all over his all too handsome face. Not to mention bad-boy, stud, jailbird. Not that he did kill that dude, but still-

Nikki swallowed hard and remembering her manners, stuck out her right hand. He took it in his warm, hard one. The contact made her feel even more light headed that she already did. "Thank you, Mr. Coeurnoir. I appreciate the help, though I probably could have handled those boys myself." She felt it was important to let him know that she could defend herself. If need be.

Fred scratched his nose. "Don't have much call for buses here, lady. You could ask around and see if there are any truckers headed up north. Might be able to hitch a ride with one of those fellas."

She'd have to figure that out. Oh, God, she was so hot. She looked from the counter to one of the booths where Michael was sitting, drinking a Coke. A pretty waitress was flirting with him while she took his order.

"I'll call collect." She punched in her grandma Addie's number. If she called Bobbie, her mother, she'd just get the third degree and the " you should have gone to beauty school speech". Oh, yea, and she'd have wanted to be working side by side with Bobbie like her cousin Gina did, giving perms or dying little old lady's hair purple and giving advise at no charge.

Nikki explained the best she could in between hearing about Grandpa George's high cholesterol and how Addie was pickling beets for the county fair.

"You think you might talk to the man who owns the motel and give him your Mastercard number so that I might stay the night in the motel and get some food? I didn't want to call Ma and get the beauty school speech. I can pay you back, Gran. I have five thousand bucks coming to me this week."

She managed to talk her grandmother into to it. She talked Fred into accepting a credit card number over the phone so she could take a room. She discovered that the bus was twenty bucks to Nelson City. She could get a ride from there. She'd hitch if she had to.

She promised Fred that the dog wouldn't pee in the room or leave fleas, took the key and prepared to follow Fred out to the cabin style motel rooms. All she could think about was a long, hot shower.

Nikki looked over at the booth where Michael was sitting. He didn't look back at her. That was okay, she thought. She really didn't want to stare into the disconcerting, beautiful blue-green eyes of Michael Coeurnoir again today. At least she told herself she didn't.

Michael was about to drive home when he noticed the small bag of dog biscuits tucked in the behind the seat compartment of the truck. They must have fallen out of the girl's pack. He thought about going to give them to Fred, who could just as easily drop them off at her room as Michael could.

"What the hell. I can give them to her," he said to himself, and walked out back towards the rooms. No one else ever stayed here so he knew she'd be in Cabin One.

The door opened. He didn't expect her to answer the door in a towel, her skin all flushed and creamy and beautiful. He had to swallow down this sudden, unaccustomed longing for the taste of a woman's damp, bare skin that just rose up in his chest.

She looked uncertain, tugging the towel higher over rounded breasts. She had a lot more up there than he's imagined. She bit her lip, stapling it between nice white teeth. When she finally let it go, her lips were more plump and pink and prettier than ever. God dammit, he thought, I ought to be running as fast as I can.

She seemed surprised that he was concerned about her. She nodded. "I must have a virus or something. The shower was just a little hot maybe. I'll be fine."

"I'm not nice." It was true. At least he'd always thought it was true. He'd spent a long time avoiding being nice to people. He wasn't mean. He believed in being polite, but distant enough that no one could get too close.

Nikki shut the door and took a huge gulp of air into her lungs. That was a little weird, she thought. Not that he's brought the biscuits to her, but the way her body reacted to him. She knew she was feeling ill, but now she could hardly breath.

Nikki went to the bed, pushing Max over a little. She flopped back so her head sank into the too soft pillow. "Was he looking at my breasts?" she whispered, touching one of them. The nipple was beaded up hard. She was well aware that she'd been thinking of him as she showered, as she soaped her skin and touched her body. Rather lascivious thoughts, too, considering that she felt so awful.

The pain started in earnest around nine p.m. Nikita was feverish and sweaty. Her stomach felt as if someone had put a knife through it. I'll be fine, she told herself. This is nothing. Just something I ate.

Maybe she ought to call for someone. She might be really sick. Oh, lord, she had no insurance. How was she going to pay for this if it was something bad? She went to the bathroom and got a wet face cloth, taking it back to the bed with her. She laid it on her forehead, the coolness almost too much to bear on her hot skin.

"Smoking your cigarette popsicles?" Chris asked. He's returned from town not long before. " What's bugging you? You only take those things out of the freezer when you're worrying about something. How old is that pack? "

"Personal stuff." He was thinking about the girl and the strange way she'd affected him. He had this weird feeling about her. She really hadn't looked well at all. "I have to make a phone call." He stubbed out his cigarette and went to the phone, thumbing through the book until he found the number. Bea answered.

"You're going to think this is strange. Could you check on something for me?" He explained the best he could, feeling somewhat foolish. If it was cramps, he was going to look like an idiot. Bea did sound like she thought it was strange but she went to check on the girl while Michael held on.

She was back a few minutes later. "You're right. She's in a bad way. Seems like her appendix, maybe. She won't let us call anyone. Not even an ambulance. This girl close to you, son?"

Chris came along so he could take Nikki's dog back to the ranch if the need arose. The two them got to the motel about a half hour later. Bea had helped Nikki to dress in jeans and a loose tee-shirt. She didn't look up when Michael and Chris came in.

She shook her head. Her hand came up and cupped his jaw. Michael was pretty sure she didn't know what she was doing. "Can't let you do that. Can't let you go being kind to me again."

"My friend Chris will take him back to my place." From the way the little dog was growling and barking, poor Chris might be minus a right hand, but Michael figured that if the burly cowboy could handle a steer, he could handle a Jack Russell who weighed no more than fifteen pounds.

Finally Michael had to wrap a blanket around the shivering girl and scoop her up into his arms. She fought him a little, saying she was too big for him to carry, that she could walk. It took him all he could do to keep her from passing out in shock during the car ride over to Sommerville Hospital where they admitted her immediately for surgery.

His heart had pounded like a drum all the way. It was still pounding as he waited for word on her condition. He could have used one of his frozen cigarettes.

He waited for three hours, reading every ancient Time magazine and even some of the lady's ones while he waited. He knew all about Teen Violence in America and the Five Secret Ways To a Man's Heart, some of which he doubted. The doctor finally came in and told him he could go in and see his wife if he wanted to.

"She came through it fine. I'm a little concerned about her fever though. You might want to sit with your wife while she comes out of it," she said with a smile.

He shook his head, almost saying that she wasn't his wife. Then something made him just nod and say that he'd do that. No sense having her wake up alone and scared. It had happened to him a few times in his life and for some reason he didn't feel right about it happening to her even though she was almost a complete stranger.

Michael sat in the vinyl covered chair beside her bed. She didn't seem all that peaceful despite the bags delivering a drip into her pale arm and the anaesthesia that remained in her system. He studied her face, pale lips, violet shadows under her eyes. He reached over and pulled a strand away from her eyelid.

Her hand twitched on the cotton blanket. He took it in his, wondering who Jesse was. A boyfriend? A lover? He felt the oddest twinge of jealousy.

Sometime around five she woke up and asked for a drink. He had to tell her she couldn't drink, but he rubbed her lips with ice as the doctor had said he might.

"Can't afford to be sick," she muttered, tossing off her blanket. He could see the fullness of her right breast through the thin white hospital gown."Have to get Jesse back."

No one ever called him that now. No one had ever called him an angel. A devil, certainly. It gave his heart a little start. She said it the proper way. Mee-chel. "Yes. It's me. Michel.."

Nikki woke, but had trouble opening her eyes. It was like they'd been glued shut and instead of just blinking open, they wanted to stay at half mast. She was aware of unfamiliar sounds, smells, pain and a weight on her thigh. The weight wasn't uncomfortable, just strange. It was like Max had been replaced be a much larger animal. Maybe a Great Dane.

I was so sick last night, she recalled. The last thing she remembered was watching Dawson's Creek and running to the bathroom to throw up. That was sort of her normal reaction to Dawson's Creek, but not so violent. She'd almost passed out on the bathroom floor. She remembered that the floor had been none too clean looking or smelling, at least not Bobbie Norman clean, which meant a haze of Lysol and arthritis inducing elbow grease. Some of her mother had obviously penetrated her sensibilities, so she'd forced herself to get into the bedroom, practically on her hands and knees. She didn't relish her mom knowing that she'd died amongst E-coli germs and other people's pubic hairs.

She opened her eyes. She was in a hospital room. There was an IV drip coming out of her arm. Oh, no, was the first thought. This is going to cost a fortune. I'm sunk.

He was sitting in the chair drawn close up beside the bed. She could see his wide back go up and down with the intake and release of each breath. His head was cradled in his rather muscular right shoulder, his face tucked into the crook of his elbow, the hand resting on his other shoulder. The denim of his shirt looked stretched taut enough to hurt his skin. The other denim clad arm was flung out over her leg, the hand lightly clasping her knee.

Oh, my goodness, she thought in wonder. Has a man ever been this hunky? He looked like he's materialized off the cover of one of her sister Anna's cowboy modern romance novels. All he needed was a half clad beauty clinging to him and a bed of pink roses. And the half clad woman can be me, she thought,

No roses, though. Daisies. In a meadow. With a horse in the background and a big white house with turrets where we can live happily ever after with our three– no four– kids and a whole bunch of dogs and cats.

Oh, yea. I'm on some heavy drugs, she decided. She looked down at his hair. Kind of maple syrup brown, the light from the hallway reflecting in its fine, shiny strands. Some bright red, some gold, even the odd gray one.

Her heart started to hammer and she hoped like hell that the funny blue machine she was hooked up to wasn't measuring anything. She was trying to think of what to do, if she should wake him, shake him, when a nurse came in. She was cute, dressed in hot pink uniform and white Nikes that had reflective bands. The tag on her chest said ‘Bernie.'

"Your appendix darned near burst. I'm surprised you're awake. Open up." She popped some new fangled, flat themometre into Nikki's mouth and picked up her wrist.

Well, do you blame me? Nikki thought. There's gorgeous man with his head on my thigh and his hand clasped round my knee. And I probably owe this hospital ten thousand bucks. She sighed.

Bernie pulled out the plastic thing. " At least your temperature's going down a little. Doc was afraid of infection." She was still speaking in a low whisper." Want me to wake Dreamboat up? I'd hate to do it. He looks pretty comfortable."

Nikki shook her head. She supposed she ought to say yes, but she really didn't want to face him yet. She had to think about this, to think about what she was going to say or do. She hoped he'd just wake up in a while, realise she was okay and leave.

Maxie. Where the heck was Maxie? Well, she decided, before she could get freaked out about it, Michael had taken care of her. No doubt the dog was in good hands, too.

But not her man. Something deep in her rational mind told her that was never going to happen. Not that she really wanted something like that to happen. She didn't need a man who was probably carrying way more baggage than she was. And she carried a ten piece set of Samsonite. No wheels.

Yep. He was beautiful. Certainly charming in a rather quiet way. He set her mind reeling and her motor running, but something told her that even if he found her desirable, he was not going to act on it. If, and at this point, she told herself, it was way too early to wonder about stuff like that... If she fell in love with a

She was getting sleepy again. He stirred a little, mumbled something and clutched her knee a little harder. Nikki bit her lip, reaching her hand down, touching the crown of his head. His hair felt just as silky and thick as she thought it would, his scalp warm against the pads of her fingers..

Michael woke. He could feel a hand in the hair at the nape of his neck, just resting gently there like it was meant to be. He wriggled his shoulders against the stiffness and the hand slid back, falling on the institutional pink cotton blanket, not before it snagged on his tangled curls.

He moved the hand over to rest beside her hip. She had big hands for a girl, the fingers almost as long as his, the palms much smaller. They were rough and unpampered fingers, the nails chewed down from nerves or boredom. There was chipped blue nail polish on her thumbnail, like she'd started to decorate her life and then thought better of it. There were old scars on the backs, like she'd been scratched by brambles or something. No rings, no telltale markings where she may have worn one.

Danielle's hands had been soft and supple, small and short, the nails polished with dark red. Like dried blood. Simone's had been elegant, Asian, the nails tiny and almond shaped. And then there had been Elena. He'd never forget her hands, the skin dusky , her touch gentle. Like rain or feathers...

He ran a hand though his hair, agitated. What had made him remember? He looked down at the girl. Nikki. She was a strange girl for dammed sure. But she was pretty damn cute.

Some of the bloom had returned to her face. Her lips seemed to be turned up in a contented smile. He would have said that she was as pretty as a flower if he could bring himself to say romantic s--- like that anymore. He wondered how old she was. Maybe ten years younger than him. Too young. Young girls wanted too much.

He reached over, unable to help it, touching her cheek with the back of his finger. She had nice skin. Velvety soft, like the skin on a peach.

"So she'll be fine." Michael's heart turned over with relief. It amazed him that he'd come to care about her so fast. Well, not care. He didn't really know what to call it. He wasn't known for his soft heart. More for his aloofness.

"You look familiar. You know...The way people look familiar when you pass them at the mall. You wonder if they might be a movie star or something. I swear, one day I'll walk right into Keanu Reeves and I'll say to myself: Where do I know him from? And I'll just keep walking-- Never mind." She snapped open a new thermometer." I do feel like I've seen you before."

She laughed. "Well, glad you could put aside the aversion. My name's Bernie. I'm going off shift now, but before I do can I get you something? Would you like some coffee?"

Bernie smiled." Well, do you want to tell her anything else when she wakes. I can pass the message on to Isabelle. She's in next. Flowery messages? Love poems?"

" I told you that travelling around in that broken down truck going after who knows who, who know's where, was going to get you into trouble one day. If you'd have been smart you would have gone with your cousin Gina and got your –"

"Well, it's pretty well dead so you won't have to worry about it. Anyway it wasn't the darned truck's fault. My appendix almost burst of it's own accord."

Nikki ran her hands through her hair and laughed. She felt better. The nurse had let her take a shower and hour ago. She was also wearing a blue hospital housecoat over her gown she didn't look indecent anymore.

Nikki could see her mother in her mind's eye. She was wearing her smock with the little lipsticks printed on it and she was up to her elbows in perm solution and curlers. Her feet, as usual, were killing her. Mrs. Otis Farber was under the dryer because she came in every Saturday for a shampoo whether she needed it or not. Mrs. Otis Farber went by her husband's name and she liked her hair big. Nikki's little brother was probably wondering in from time to time asking if he could have food and asking why wouldn't ma bleach his hair white.

" That's Walter's fault. I never saw a CrackerJack til I was eleven." That was true. Her stepfather, Walter, had bought her and her new brothers and sisters a box on the way home from the airport when they'd come to get her.

She had opened it up and pulled out a pink rhinestone ring and a matching bracelet. She'd never seen anything so perfect or so gaudy. And she'd fallen in love with the idea of finding a beautiful prize right out of nowhere, America and her new stepfather in the same moment. Of course at the time she hadn't known that Walter had fixed that box for her. That life really wasn't like that.

"Just thinking...One day, Ma, I'm going to find a really great prize in a box of Crackerjacks and you won't say that I'm weird anymore." Either that or she'd break a tooth looking for that elusive, single peanut that's at the bottom of every box.

Michael was standing in the doorway, his eyes lowered, looking at his booted feet. Probably listening to her. He was holding wildflowers in bright colours that looked to be stuck haphazardly in a mason jar. He looked like he'd just stepped out of a Ralph Lauren ad with his faded jeans and his white polo shirt.

"Ma, it'll be okay. I earned some money this weekend. I can pay it. Don't worry, okay. I'll call you tomorrow. And if Jack or Mick or Marco calls give them this number. And tell Walter and the kids I love them. And Grampa George and Gran. And you, too, Ma. I love you, too. And don't worry." She set the phone into its cradle.

"I like these blue, hairy ones," he said. He was looking into her eyes and she was struck again with how beautiful his own were. So misty green tonight, they seemed to change with his mood, and surrounded with a veritable thicket of lashes that made her feel envious. There were little wrinkles radiating from the corners and she assumed he squinted a lot. Or smiled, but she doubted that because he seemed so serious. Nikki tried not to look at his mouth. It was just far too intoxicating. She suspected she was still under the influence of something to be reacting to him this way.

"When they're not bleary." She was flattered by the compliment but told herself to remain detached. There was no sense making a big deal of anything.

"Everything. My dad was a botanist and an artist. I helped him catalogue stuff. My gran has a garden. It's huge. She was a botanical artist, too. She draws roses. The petals could almost blow off the page."

That made her laugh and then she groaned a little. She had this feeling he thought she was odd. It didn't matter. She knew she was. "Thank you for staying with me. It was nice of you not to leave me alone. Oh, oh–" She clapped her hand over her mouth dramatically. " I forgot. You're not nice, are you?"

He sat, his hands sort of awkwardly placed on the arms of the chair. She got the feeling he didn't sit much. Or relax. There was this undercurrent of power about him. Like he was reigning it in, mastering it, like he probably did everything in his life. He'd gotten quite adept at showing an icy calmness to the world, but when she looked at him only one word came to mind. Passion. It sort of shone like a beacon from his eyes every now and then. Drawing her in. Making her want

She looked into his expectant eyes. And the memories broke free and floated right up to the surface like that monster that hid near Davy Jones locker. She swallowed hard. Nope, she told herself. I won't cry. It's just what I've been through that makes me want to open myself up right now and spill it all out. To him.

Nikki stared at her hands, folded carefully on the blanket in front of her. A peaceful pose, but she felt hardly peaceful inside. Thinking about Jessie, or Jenny as she was called now, always did this to her. The torment of losing her would stay like a knot inside her chest for as long as she lived. And as long as she lived she would try to untie that knot and set her life free, but when she thought she was just getting on the right track, something, somewhere would go wrong and remind her of what she was. Remind her of her daughter, her mistakes and her inability to find what she needed to make her happy and whole inside herself.

She had always wondered about that. Did people find happiness inside themselves by themselves? Or did they need someone else to help them? Sometimes others just hindered.

She had tried to talk about her feelings at first, but after a time no one wanted to hear her. She'd had to get on with her life, they said, such as it was. After a time only the dreams had remained, that one day, if she was lucky, she'd have everything she wanted and needed and that pain she'd suffered would be a burst bubble, a memory. But she was not lucky. And God, it seemed had never been on her side. She wondered sometimes if what had happened to her when she was a little girl had stolen the sun right out of her heart, had made her such a dismal failure.

Maybe she'd just been born on the wrong side of the sun. Maybe there was just something that was bad inside of herself. There were legends like that in some of the cultures that she and her father had met. That some people lived in fine little empires by the grace of God. And others were chosen to scrabble in the dirt.

She had made so many mistakes. Unable to stay in school. Unable to settle down in one place. Unable to find steady meaningful employment. Unable to find someone she could love and love her in return. She did feel like a failure. Utterly.

What had happened her was just another inch in a very long, knotted string of mistakes and wrong turns, she supposed. And she was sure that she ought to feel monumentally shamed for sitting there feeling sorry for herself while this man, this man especially, sat watching her.

"Yes. I gave her up." She'd been made to do that. Pressure from her parents. Steven's. Doctors. Lawyers. All conspiring." She was born deaf. I couldn't look after her, so they said. They were right. I couldn't really look after myself. I was failing school and the psychologists said..." She stopped speaking for a moment. " They said I was not very mature for my age because of... Steven's parents are very wealthy. They give her everything, special schools, the right doctors. I loved Steven a lot. I thought that maybe he'd marry me and take care of us, but..."

There was this almost terror stricken look is his eyes. Like he was asking himself: Did I say that? He cleared his throat. "She read the pregnancy test wrong."

Michael sighed. "Honestly, I don't know. She was a really nice girl, but I didn't want to be tied down. I wasn't very dependable." He looked slightly sheepish." I came from a rough background, but you've probably read about me in the tabloids. I guess it's not an excuse. I don't really believe in excuses anyway."

"About the tabloids. I only read the Elvis sightings and the Jesus in a tree stuff." It was a lie. She knew something about him. How his father had beat his mom. How he'd left and the family had been split, the children sent to different relatives and then foster homes outside of Quebec. How he'd been in trouble and then straightened himself out.

"We just towed it with my Dakota. You'd get a ticket on top of everything else if you'd left it beside the road. Have to pay the cost of towing and storage."

"To the ranch. Tee and Terry are okay about stuff like that. Greg thinks he can fix it. He'd pretty good with vehicles. How many empty Crackerjack boxes and Twinkie wrappers do you figure are behind the seat?"

"I can let you go tomorrow, if you have somewhere to rest for a week or so. We can send you on your way with a prescription. I know you live in Haynsville. I can't allow you to drive all that way. I'd like to see how you're progressing."

"I can let you go tomorrow," the doctor said, " if you have somewhere to rest for a week or so. We can send you on your way with a prescription. I know you live in Haynsville. I can't allow you to drive all that way. I'd like to see how you're progressing."

Before Nikki could protest that, tell Michael that she had no intention of imposing on him, that he really had no reason to think that he was responsible for her, the doctor was speaking again in her quick, all-business way. Doctors were always in such a hurry to get what they had to say said and done, Nikki thought, barely listening because she was thinking about what Michel had said. His words were repeating over and over in her head like a broken record.

So Nikki found herself sitting on the edge of the bed at nine-thirty am waiting for him to pick her up. She was freshly shampooed, hair blow dried by Isabelle and wearing her jeans and a horrible tee-shirt some patient had left behind. She had puked on the other one it seemed. Her extra clothes were still in the truck.

The night before, Bernie had been coming into change Nikki's dressings so Michael left soon after. It was awkward. She'd hardly known what to say to him.

They'd talked for a while after he left and Nikki had explained to the nurse how they were virtual strangers. She didn't tell her about Michael's past or the fact that she was serving him court papers, just that they'd met by accident and how kind he'd been.

Nikki didn't answer, thinking that girls like her did not end up with men like him. She was far too much of a mess. A flake. A dreamer. Oh, God, she thought, make this week go fast. Give me a place to hide, so that I don't fall for him. Let me think of all sorts of nasty things so I don't feel so damned good when he's close to me.

" Hey! Watch that thing, you ugly cuss." Chris Davenport made a big show about leaping back from the syringe of antibiotics Michael was brandishing with what seemed like very little care. Michael looked down at his hand and conceded that he was, perhaps, a little distracted. He had no one to blame for that but himself. He'd slept a total of three hours the night before. Nikki's dog yelped at the slightest noise and had doggie dreams in which he was probably chasing badgers down tunnels. For a man who slept alone and liked it that way, having a body in his bed, albeit a small furry one, was a major distraction.

He would not admit that part of his restlessness had come from a dream he'd had soon after falling asleep. That dream was not about chasing badgers down holes. But he, like the dog, woke up twitching and panting and in a state he hadn't suffered since high school. It had been a little disconcerting. If he'd been a drinking man, a man quite in control of both his baser bodily needs and his emotions, he may have gone for the whiskey.

"This one is a he, Mr. Davenport. I think he's a pretty good animal." He frowned as he yanked the syringe away from the steer. Michael never said so, but doing this made him feel a little woozy every time. He was not a big fan of needles, giving them or being on the receiving end. "You must still seeing double from Saturday night. You and Greg sure tied one on."

"I like seeing double. Make me feel like I have two women on my lap. Make that four women. Remind me to tell you the one about the lawyer and the lap dancer. I wasn't talking about the steer."

" The girl you can't stop mooning about, butt head. How is she doing?" Chris grinned, scratching his beard. "Lord, she's cute. I like ‘em tall. What was her name? "

Michael opened the gate of the smaller pen and released the year old steer into the grassy corral." Yea. I asked her if she wanted to come here." He'd known that Tee was too kind to ever turn anyone away. She had the sweetest disposition of any woman he'd ever met, except when she was pissed at Terry, her husband. He'd marry a woman like Tee, if he were the marrying kind. He'd had a hard time escaping the probing questions his pretty strawberry blonde boss had drilled at him, though. He always considered it an irony that as a man who didn't pry into anyone's business if he could possibly help it, the people he chose as friends lately tended to be the snoopy type.

He put it down to them caring for him, something that he wouldn't have accepted or even recognised even a few years back. That people actually cared about his needs, treated him like a normal man and one of the family for no reason other than that they liked him, was a difficult concept for him to grasp.

It didn't matter that he had certain enviable skills or looks or money as had once mattered. He was treated like anyone else was treated here. It was hard to fathom indeed, this idea of family. He was even getting used to teasing. Teasing used to make a red haze come over his vision. Made him want to strike out at someone. Now he could almost laugh. And tease back, knowing he wasn't going to get a mouthful of fist.

Michael sighed."I'm not the town Lothario like you are, Chris. She needs a place to stay. I felt sorry for her. She's hurt. She has a family who cares about her. I figured this way she'd be less stressed and so would they, knowing someone is looking out for her. I don't think she has much money. Okay? Can't see her recuperating at Fred's for a week."

"I'm not looking to impress anyone. I shave whenever I get to it. Whenever the itch makes me nuts. Jesus, Chris. You have some weird ideas." Michael shook his head and went off to prepare another syringe. Chris was laughing like he'd just told some amusing joke.

Truth was Michael had looked in the mirror this morning and decided that three days worth of stubble was kind of sloppy. He'd also decided his hair was getting way too long. He only wore it that way because it made him look older. He always thought he looked to young and now he felt too old. He'd looked critically at himself and wondered if Nikki liked men with long hair or short.

The dog, Max, had been sitting on the bath mat staring at him. It had been the strangest damned thing. The dog followed him from room to room, sniffing the air as he made coffee, settling on the carpet at his feet, inclining his head, making eye contact.

Then he'd given himself a mental kick in the ass. No woman had ever complained about his stubble or his hair. And he wasn't supposed to care about that because he wasn't getting himself attached to anyone.

The sun hurt her eyes, she thought, but it was lovely. It was a beautiful day, not too hot, the sky cerulean blue and totally cloudless. She wished she could feel better about it all, about being alive after a very close call, about being with him.

Michael was standing by the Dakota truck waiting for her, a frown marring those perfect features. They'd had words in the hospital when she'd told him she had to see someone about paying the bill. It seemed her bill had all been looked after. Certainly not by her.

She walked over to the car and Michael. He was hatless this morning, the light, warm breeze picking at the tendrils of his shiny hair, the locks blowing across his forehead. The sun caught in the auburn strands and brought out the tiny flecks of gold in his eyes. In the sunlight his eyes appeared an ethereal grey blue. There was this rare fern her father had shown her once in the Choco region of Columbia, the bottom leaves that never saw sunlight were the exact same blue green shade as his eyes. She remembered how those leaves had sparkled with dew.

It's a beautiful plant to look at, he told her, but the natives prize it for its power to heal a broken heart. No one is ever going to see this colour in their lifetime but you, punkin'.

As usual he stole her breath, his soft slight accent and his beautiful face made her forget about almost everything but him and this wondrous enchantment he'd so quickly built in her.

Almost everything but this guilt that weighed on her mind. That she had imposed on him and that he'd really have never had much to do with her, even disliked her, if she hadn't seemed so helpless and down on her luck.

"I mean to pay you back, Michael," she said. " I know you refused to discuss it in there and I wanted to spare you a scene in front of strangers, but I told you already, I can manage to pay--."

The curt answer made her bristle a little. "We'll have to work out some sort of payment schedule. I can get a good chunk of it to you soon and I can talk to my step fa--"

She was going to say that she didn't like to be cut off from speaking in mid sentence but she didn't. She moved closer to him. He was holding the passenger side door open. It was a little cramped because the car beside him had parked crookedly. She was close enough to him to smell his clean scent, like Dial soap and toothpaste and maybe a little horse thrown in, but that wasn't unpleasant at all. As he was holding the door the back of his hand brushed the bare skin of her arm causing a little shiver of reaction to shoot through her.

"Nope." She was a little awkward getting in and the high seat of the truck caused her stitches to pull somewhat. She was a little breathless when she was finally seated.

That was a smart mouthed remark, she thought. Like he knew already what she might ask him. "Did you have much of a fortune left after your manager made all those bad investments and embezzled that cash from you?"

She saw his jaw tighten. "I had a little bit after I sold my house and my cars and some memorabilia I'd collected. I don't like to talk about that very much."

"That woman, Danielle, was willing to pay a lot of money to find you and get you back in the game. Didn't she drop you like a hot potato after that guy confessed and you got out of prison?"

"I think she'd pay almost anything to get you back for a year or so. You'd probably bring a lot of people into the arena, Michael. Do you miss it?"

They drove a while in silence. She watched the endless flat fields roll by. She bent down and pulled off her shoes. It hurt her stomach, but it was worth it. She wriggled her bare feet on the car mat.

"I never wore them for six years and when I came home I found out that I had heel spurs. It was awful. I miss the jungle sometimes," she said softly, almost to herself, watching the dry crops sway in the breeze. There was a drought in this part of the country, going on two years.

"They have oaks and pines and all that stuff. Trees people plant. The rain is enough in the spring to make the ground smell damp. I lived in the rainforest for almost six years. When other kids were watching cartoons and collecting Barbies, I was looking at beautiful birds and butterflies and licking rainwater of huge leaves."

Nikki laughed."You might say that. My father took me there when I was four. Do you remember I told you I thought I might have malaria again when I was sick. That's where I got it. The first year I got there I almost died, but this medicine man my father knew saved my life."

"I guess that's what you call it. I get mad at him for doing that sometimes, but other times I'm glad I got to see everything. I have a lot of memories that no one else will ever have. You know it's all going to be gone soon. Some of the places I lived are already gone to raise cattle."

"When I came home, I didn't know how to do a single math question. I didn't know who the president was but I could name a lot of jungle plants in Latin. Iryanthera porcata. Psychotria coopri. I knew how to kill an animal with a poison blow dart."

Nikki was laughing just as they pulled up under a huge, hanging gate labelled, Triple T Ranch. The road was gravel and he took the corner a little too fast causing her to fall towards him a little. Michael reached out and steadied her, his hand just landing quite naturally on her thigh.

She looked out at the landscape. Everywhere, along the road and beyond were little weathered birdhouses nailed to every other fence post or hanging from the birch trees that lined the road like tall white sentinels. Wild roses and morning glory vines trailed up the posts and Nikki longed to get out of the truck and just breath in the scent of flowers and sunshine. Little black and grey birds and small white butterflies seemed to be fluttering everywhere.

He grinned back at her. "Those are nesting boxes. I think I've built a hundred or so of the damned things myself. Usually Sundays when I figure I ought to be laying on my back watching football. Tee's hard to say no to. She's hoping repopulate the ranch with wild birds. Used to be a neighbouring rancher who used pesticides on his feed crops. Some of the bird and bug population died off. "

"Pretty big. 15,000 acres. 300 head of cattle, thirty saddle horses. Much of the land is pasture but a good part of it is devoted to trees now. Tee hires students to plant stuff for her. This place even has a natural swimming hole."

" There are three of us full time. Chris and Greg and me, though Greg's at school in the winter. Tee runs most of the domestic things and looks after the gardens and Terry, her husband, sees to the machinery. He's actually a sports writer. He's holed up in his office most of the time. He doesn't spend much time with the livestock, but he's capable of it."

" That's where I started playing hockey seriously. I'd always managed to play in Quebec when I was little. All of us had skates of some kind, no matter how poor we were and there was always a kid with a flooded backyard or the park to go to. At the ranch one of the guys in charge used to hit up the minor leagues for used equipment for the poor little hoodlums."

She looked at him, surprised at his self-mockery and surprised that he would reveal so much to her. It also amazed her that he was content to work for others when he could easily be his own boss. He was staring straight ahead as he drove, fairly quiet again. She wanted to pursue his past a little more, but that would come in time. If she had time. She hoped her natural impatience would not get the best of her. She knew that such statements about his feelings were few and far between. Perhaps one day he would tell her what exactly had happened, besides being accused of a crime he did not commit, that led him to leave his other life behind and come here. For now she had a good idea why.

They pulled into a yard with an impressively large ranch house, new, but built to resemble a gracious Victorian. It was painted, of all things, pink. But it looked perfect. Absolutely perfect. Especially with the huge garden surrounding it and the climbing roses. Three or four white rockers with high backs were arranged on the wide porch completing the comfortable picture.

Several smaller buildings, like small guest houses and a huge stable were situated not far away. They were painted white like the stables. Michael pulled his car into a space along side an expensive SUV. He told her to wait, that he'd help her out. She almost wished she hadn't. She'd forgotten about her shoes and the ride had left her sutures hurting.

"You don't have–" He was already slipping the shoe over her foot, casually taking her ankle in his warm hand. "Thanks," she managed. She had never figured the ankle as an erogenous zone. Hmmm, she thought. My arm, my thigh, my ankle. A little up and to the left and he might hit pay dirt.

Just then the front door of the house opened. A lovely woman in jeans and a loose shirt came down the porch stairs followed by three gorgeous Red Setters and one barking, jumping black, white and tan bundle of energy called Maximilian.

"Maxie!" The dog, as was his usual greeting ran in ten full circles around the yard, ears back, legs scooting, bobbed tail pointing straight out behind him. Nikki was used to it but Michael just looked at the hilarious display in wonder. As a matter of fact his jaw dropped at little.

"I can't bend, you goofball Maxie. Oh, yes, you're my baby boy!" she said laughing. "Can you hold him for me, Michael. I have to let him kiss me."

Let him kiss you? he thought, looking at her bright eyes and her windblown hair, remembering the feel of her slender ankle in his hand and the fresh washed scent of her skin.

Nikki finally moved back after her laughing face had been covered with sloppy kisses and licks. Michael was recalling, with some amused distaste, the way that Maxie had greeted him upon awakening that morning, bathing his neck and his bare chest and his face. He'd taken his hand and shoved the little beast away, which he'd discovered was a mistake. No one pushes a Jack Russel away when he is set on doing something.

"I painted my parent's house one summer. My step-dad said I got more paint on the sidewalk than the house," Nikki said, with a grin. "I finally got the hang of it."

Tee smiled, "I've put Nikki in the suite at the back of the house. That way she won't have to climb all those stairs and if she wants to slip out for a midnight walk or swim or something, she'll be set."

Michael narrowed his eyes a little. He knew what Tee was up to. He just hoped Nikki didn't clue in. He looked at Nikki's face. She didn't seem to be bristling over the idea of moonlit strolls and midnight dips in the pool. It had, undoubtedly, gone right over her head. Thank God. Michael swallowed and pushed his hat back from his head.

"I have to run, Nikki. I'm not meaning to be rude, but we've got a big barbeque this weekend. It's sort of an annual thing I do to raise some money for charity and celebrate the fourth. There's one hundred and fifty coming by the last count. Angie and I do some of the food ourselves and I have to see to some details. Michael, you make sure that Nikki feels at home. And, Michael, tell Angie to feed this girl. She's way too skinny."

She ran to the SUV and then turned, calling. "Sweetie, Chris was looking for you. He's having some trouble hammering together that dance floor out back. Bye, Nikki," she called over her shoulder.

They walked down the sidewalk that led to the back of the house. They had to walk under a rose-bower, groaning with Clematis and red roses. As they walked under, their shoulders brushed. She stopped at the contact and moved back So did he. " Sorry," she said.

He ought to have moved, but he stayed there, watching as she stood on tip-toe and pulled down a flower. He watched her breathing in the scent of a dark red, trailing rose. The scent of old roses was all around them, the heady perfume drawn out by the morning's heat.

"Oui, tres belle," he said, forgetting himself and breaking into his native tongue. He seldom did that any more. He stared at her face in profile, the small chin, the lovely curve of her smiling lips and her sweet, turned up nose, the way the sun and the red cast of the rose shadows picked up tiny glints of red in her blonde hair, the graceful way her breasts rose as she lifted her hand up to touch the flower.

She was suddenly filled with this vision of lying on her back right here in the grass beneath this rose bower while he nuzzled and kissed her neck, his slight beard stubble catching her hair, his hands warm and strong at her waist, and he was whispering those words...

She let the rose she'd been holding spring back into position, averting her gaze from those beautiful green-blue eyes and that strong, perfect profile.

She'd seen the remains of an ancient statue once in a museum her father had taken her, somewhere in their travels. She'd been a little girl. He'd had to lift her up so she could touch him. She'd felt so compelled to touch.

Nikki remembered connecting with the breathtaking beauty of the man's features, memorising his face with her small fingers, the deep-set eyes, rather imperious nose, lovely small, flat ears, sensual mouth shaped somewhat like the curve on the side of a cello.

"Yes. Very much. I love him, Daddy." She remembered running her finger down the firmly cut chin. There was had been just a little divot there, a dimple, somewhat like her own chin had and she'd thought to herself: When I am big and fall in love he has to look just like this and he'll be nice to me and I won't be lonely ever again.

But that man had possessed lifeless, blank eyes instead of warm, clear green ones and flesh of cold white alabaster instead of tanned, smoothly textured skin. He would never smile or breath or speak. Not like this man would.

She stood on tip toe, reaching over his wide shoulder, to work at the brambles he was caught in. One branch was caught in his hair, the other on his shoulder. She released the brown curl, swallowing hard at the silky way it seemed to wrap itself round her finger. He turned a little, to see what she was up to, she supposed, his nose nudging her jaw, his breath a soft puff against her neck.

She managed to pull most of the fabric out of the tiny, sharp thorns without damage, scratching her thumb. She hardly noticed. She was too caught up in the feel of his firm, hot flesh beneath the cover of white cotton. There were some wee drops of blood where he had been scratched. A drop of her own fell to join them.

He was looking at her, his face merely an inch away. His eyes were half closed, shuttered, the lashes thick fans. His nostrils flared just scarcely. His mouth was open a little, revealing straight, white teeth, the bottom lip lush and full and so kissable.

He closed his eyes for just a second. He seemed to be taking a deep breath and composing himself. Fitting his features back into a mode of control.

Nikki suspected that he didn't like to be out of control. She swallowed back a knot of disappointment all her own and schooled her features into a smile that felt phony and pasted on.

The man who rounded the corner was tall and thin, like a rather grumpy looking, middle aged Hank Fonda. "Thought we heard your car. We're having trouble with the friggin' dance floor. It's unbalanced and bouncing like two whores jumping on a waterbed. I won't be accused by my dear wife of causing Governor Short's drunken wife to fall on her fat ass again like she did last year."

"That was regarding the dog." Michael looked totally helpless. "I'm going to get my hat before my head fries," he mumbled. " Do you want to take Nikki and introduce her to the guys?"

TNT laughed."He's afraid we're going to tease him in front of you. Michael, here, mon chere Michel, to those who love him, is the most bashful guy there is. You look at him and you think: If this was Happy Days, he'd be Fonzie. Especially on ice or on the back of a bronc. The man is that cool -- but only in his element, mind you." He waved a hand in the air with flourish, like the lady on Price is Right. " Now look at him the wrong way or ask him about a lady, my dear, and he blushes and stammers and shuffles off to Buffalo. Poof! The whole illusion is shattered." He sighed. "Come on, gorgeous. Come talk to a real stud. You go get your hat, Ritchie Cunningham."

Nikki was having a hard time not to laugh. This man would make a great foil for her mother, she decided. They could drive people nuts together.

Chris and Greg were putting together the temporary wooden dance floor. Both men stood up and took off their hats. Nikki was a little surprised to see that the tall man's head was shaved, but he was certainly attractive in a large, rugged way. The other man was probably her sister Anna's age. He looked to be a bit of an imp.

Terry introduced them and then stated that reinforcements had arrived. He was going off to see a lady about a beer and a sandwich. He had a column due at twelve noon and it was eleven thirty.

"What do I write about?" he asked. " The Cowboys are shit? Or the Titans are shit? " He scratched his head. " Never mind. I'll write about cross-dressers in the NHL. That's always good for a laugh. My e-mail will be hopping. You want a long, cool one, Nikki?"

No fan of country herself, Nikki was seeing more and more reason to like Tee. Her mother spent all day warbling to Shania and Reba and Vince Gill, only she couldn't hit the high notes as well as Vince, her pudgy faced dream man. For one full week Nikki'd swept hair off the floor of Cleopatra's House of Beauty and listened to how Ma just couldn't believe that sweet Vince and Amy had broken their happy homes to be together.

Nikki came back to earth and smiled. She was learning a lot about Mikey. They'd come pretty close to some kind of dance in the rose arbour. She could still feel the press of his hand at her waist. She'd like to dance with a man like him. Last time she'd danced was at a friend's wedding. He'd had sweaty hands and his breath smelled like Doritos. He's asked her if she'd like to get lucky. She'd asked him in her best Clint Eastwood Dirty Harry drawl if he ‘felt lucky.'

She made small talk with the two cowboys for a time until Michael returned dressed in faded Levi jeans. He was shirtless, still in the act of slipping on a worn chambray shirt. Nikki wanted to avert her eyes.

No, she didn't want to. She just figured she ought to in order to save her sanity. She'd seen a whole lot of shirtless men before, but there was just something about this one that set her heart to hammering.

She knew for a fact that cowboys only went around shirtless like those big, tanned, brawny, hairy males on the cover of romance novels (Real cowboys didn't even roll their shirtsleeves up.)

He wasn't particularly tanned or brawny. He wasn't very hairy either. His skin was smooth, like velvet, over his strongly built frame with its generous but not over-pumped covering of muscle. His body radiated sheer power without being bulky, and was whipcord lean without being wiry. He was pretty damned near as close to her ideal as any man was ever going to come.

Yep, Nikki decided, trying to reign in a severe case of galloping hormones. Coming here to recover was going to be a big mistake. If things go wrong and crazy like they usually do for me, by the time I leave here I'll just be recovering from something else. And it's going to be a lot more painful harder to get over than a mere burst appendix.

Not long after Michael came back and started in hammering and sawing, Nikki knew she'd been in the sun too long. Maybe it was just the way he swung his hammer that made her feel all weird.

She was still a little shaky from the anaesthesia and her stomach hurt. The housekeeper, Angie, came out with drinks and sandwiches for the men and offered to show her to her room. When Angie offered Nikki lunch and a cool drink in her room, she accepted.

The room was lovely, with a huge bed and chintz armchairs, private bath, a television and video recorder as well. She supposed a person could get quite comfortable here if they'd a mind to do so. She saw that someone had brought in her measly bag of clothes and personal articles from the truck and left them in the room. Maxie was flaked out on the bed, too.

There was a phone by the bed, so Nikki ate half of her lunch and then called her mother. She was sure Bobbie would be anxious to hear from her. She ended up getting her brother, Billy, on the phone. He accepted the charges, but didn't even enquire as to how she was feeling." Yea, I'll find Ma."

"Well a few things have happened round here. It's been some day. Walter's been sick with some kind of flu. And Anna came home from college and told us she was getting married."

"Nikki, please. Seymour's a good boy. Yes, it's him." She could hear her mother sigh like she was holding out for Matt Damon for her favourite daughter, Anna.

"They're going to do it in a few months. Before he has to go to graduate school. In Idaho I think. She's been sort of holding out on me. They've been engaged since last Christmas."

"We'll just have it at the Elk's Hall, I guess. Least there will be some flowers left in Gramma Addie's garden and we won't have to buy any. Seymour's parents aren't wealthy either. I'm thinkin' white peau de soi for her dress."

"He wanted to know where I was?" Her heart usually gave kind of gave a wild thump when someone mentioned Steven. Today it didn't even pitter-patter. "What did he want?"

"There's been some trouble there. They--those damned Harpers– just assumed that you'd gone off and taken Jenny. She went missing on the weekend."

"They found her, honey. She'd gone off with some boy. Seems she met a sixteen year old boy at the pool and he thought she was older. She looks so much like you did at her age. Tall and so pretty...She'd been at a party for some girl in her class."

"She's fine. Apparently they found her around midnight at some hamburger joint. She was at the doctors today and all. She wasn't hurt or abused or anything. Just mad as a hen, so Steven told me later. Flushed her hearing aids down the john so she wouldn't have to hear any more questions. He apologised for suspecting you'd taken her. Probably his Mom and Dad put that notion in his head. Steven was never the problem. Those two hell-sent–"

"Well, it's okay, honey. Don't worry. I'd say that little girl has some of her mama in her. She's rebelling against those Harpers and their fine private school for the deaf--"

"I mean the she has your good points, too, baby. You can't help what happened. If your father hadn't taken you, you'd never have been all wild as a teenager and--" She heard her mother's voice break, heard the audible sniff and sob.

"Steven said to tell you he's sorry you're sick. They're all off to some fancy party for the Fourth. He's taking Jenny with him, so she'll be okay. Won't be leavin' that child alone with no one but a maid for company, thank goodness."

"Okay. I'm glad about that too, Ma. Bye, Mom. Tell Anna I'm happy for her." She set the phone back in the cradle, buried her face in her hands and cried.

Michael didn't see Nikki with the rest of the group for dinner that night. All day while pounding nails into lumber, he'd looked forward to her being there. His disappointment that she was staying in her room felt almost palpable and it both scared him and elated him in a strange way. He supposed it meant he'd found his heart again after so long not knowing where it was. This ability to be stirred up about a woman was something he'd felt had long passed him by.

But he also felt like this thing was going way too fast. Like when you're a kid on one of those playground spinning things and you want to go faster and faster because it makes you feel so damned great, but you're scared shitless you'll fall off and tear your new jeans and your mother'll whip your ass. Something bad usually came out of something you thought was good. It was all a matter of time. At least in Michel Coeurnoir's world it had always seemed that way.

There hadn't been much love in his world. Not many real examples of how to make things work when life hit a snag. Or how to react when someone just wasn't behaving in the way you'd come to expect them to. Wanted them to.

When life hit a snag his father had drank or hit someone. His mother had just retreated into herself or run away. His brother lashed out with fists and words and blame. Michel just punched a wall or a door or cut his arm until it bled and the pain inside him didn't hurt so much.

He was scared shitless he was going to fall in love with her, only to have her really look beyond the looks God had seen to bless or curse him with, find out exactly what a mess he was, and then go off screaming in another direction. It had been that way with Elena. Everything had felt good and then it just dissolved. Or blew up. Yea, it had blown up when things got rough for him that year. That year he'd gone from top of the world to rock bottom at lightning speed.

I can't take your moods anymore, Michel. Why do you take it all out on me? Why can't we just be happy like...like normal people. Like the neighbours. Like my parents. Why can't you be like I want you to be, Michel? Like I thought you were in the beginning? I want a baby, Michel...Then we'll be okay...

Tee always insisted on Sunday dinner together. Most times they were all on their own, but Tee just had this thing about Sunday. If Sunday was a no go then she postponed it to Monday. She was adamant.

No one was allowed to just stay out with the cattle or fiddling in the barn saying they'd grab a sandwich later. She came from this huge Italian family where everyone shrieked at each other to pass the pasta. And on Sunday it was always pasta or some kind of Italian dish. Since she and Terry didn't have any close family or kids this was her way to compensate. She'd told him that she felt he was family with tears in her eyes. He'd had a hard time not crying himself.

She even made TNT put pants and a shirt with sleeves on, thinking that Nikki might show. "I will not eat with a half naked man. Now if Michael or Chris were naked that would be a different story. Sorry, Greggie, honey you have some growing to do before I'll say that to you. Here baby, eat some ravioli."

"Nikki isn't feeling too well. The drive was too much, I suppose. Poor thing looked awfully pale. I plan to fatten her up. I think she could look like Miss Piggy by the time she leaves here."

"The Yarboroughs will not be here. They were disappointed with the service at the Calloway Club where they all stayed last year. I say it's bullshot. Bill has the chance to golf with Kevin Costner at a celebrity golf thing in Vegas."

"Well, good, dear wife. Is that scumbag, Paul Barton coming? He's usually good for a laugh. So's his witch of a wife and the cling-on son who won't grow up. Wonder whose wife he'll try to f--- this year."

Michael looked at Chris and tried not to laugh. That dude, Barton, was a shmuck. TNT always told it like it was. No wonder he was one of the top syndicated sports columnists in the world. Michel had met him after Terry had written a scathing article about rich NHL pretty-boys who believed that their hockey stick was an extension of their dick. He'd protested and he and TNT had become friends. Terry had been his most vocal supporter after Gary Furst had been murdered and the blame had been placed on Michael.

Michael was full. His stomach. His heart. His head. He had a million things to do and couldn't sleep. He went to the shelf in his small living room and looked at the tapes he had stored there. Old memories. Old movies he liked. He didn't read much, but the tapes relaxed him.

He ran his eyes across the titles. One sort of leaped out at him. NHL awards banquet, 1995. His last year as a player, days before the murder. He and Elena and he had been so in love. He'd asked her to marry him after years of living together and months of not getting along.

Someone had filmed him and Elena dancing. She was so small, slight. If he closed his eyes he could still feel the delicate bones of her ribs and spine beneath the bared dusky flesh of her back. She was wearing the prerequisite perfect, black dress, her hair falling like a smooth, shiny mink cape over her shoulders. She'd always smelled like something Eastern. Something exotic like patchouli or jasmine. He hadn't liked it much, but he'd not the heart to tell her.

She'd had such a perfect, normal life with everything she'd ever wanted. It was hard for her to understand what his life had been like. That money and fame and people idolising you really didn't change things. She'd never quite understood the concept that she couldn't change what he was inside him, no matter how she might have wanted to make him fit her ideal.

Once he'd believed that she had been the one who had let him down. In those days after she had gone to the police with her belief that he might have murdered Gary. In hindsight he could see that he had scared her with his pain and his anger at being duped and humiliated and for that he was sorry.

He watched the video with an almost eerie clarity of memory. He'd looked at her smiling face as they danced. She'd been so excited about the ring. They'd chosen it together...

I have to be there. I want to pick it out. I'm the one who has to wear it, silly... He remembered that day, how they'd gone to get the ring and then fell into bed, making love for hours. And then it fell apart. He discovered that his money was gone. That he'd failed again...

Michael sighed and shut off the VCR. No sleep tonight he thought. He might as well go string up those millions of tiny twinkle lights for the party. In the dark and by the light of the moon he could at least see how they would look.

Nikki dialed a familiar number. She'd thought about this all day as she lay resting and thinking about Jenny and her sister's wedding. Someone else was going to have to serve Michael Blackheart with his court papers. She hoped he hadn't been in touch with a lawyer yet. As far as she was concerned she'd never seen him and there was no reason for him to worry any longer.

She wasn't going to take that money from Danielle Eldred. She didn't care if the woman turned around and sued her ass now. She'd probably be breaking some law, but she didn't care. She'd pay Michael back every cent of the money from the hospital bill, even if she had to work security at Walmart for the rest of her days.

She thought maybe getting the call to Mick over with would bring her sleep. It didn't. She just kept seeing Michael, feeling his hard, muscled shoulders as she'd reached up to free his shirt in the rose arbour. He'd come so close to kissing her. She tossed and turned until midnight, then turned on the television. There was nothing on but talk shows and infomercials. She clicked the television off and looked down at the dog who seemed a little miffed to be disturbed.

She pulled on the light robe that Tee had loaned her, leaving it open over t-shirt and loose cotton sleep shorts and left through the French doors that led to the back patio.

The sky was clear and black and filled with a million stars, the moon full and huge, looking far bigger than it did in her part of the country. From the upstairs balcony, she assumed Tee's room, she could hear the unmistakable sounds of Beth Orton. Nikki loved her plaintive voice and beautiful guitar melodies. The soft, sad sounds of the song, Stolen Car seemed to hang in the sultry air with the scent of roses and geraniums.

She walked round the corner from her room to the surprising sight of white fairy lights, hundreds of them, strung around the struts of the dance floor and on posts that surrounded it. They'd even been strung up in the trees. She could see the moths and other bugs that flitted amongst them.

Nikki whirled at the familiar voice, her heart catching in her throat."Hi," she whispered. She had not realised how much she'd missed him for just that day she'd spent alone in her room. She didn't know what it was. There was a sexual spark, but this was far more than that. It was like she'd found the last elusive key to a puzzle for which she'd searched her whole life. Silly as it seemed, he was her Rossetta stone.

Michael was holding a tangled string of lights in his hands. His shirt was open to the waist, revealing his deep, solid chest, his hair loose and damp with perspiration, or perhaps a dip in the pool, the silky brown strands curling at the ends. He got close to her and she was able to see his striking eyes, moonstruck, almost crystalline amidst the shadows of his dark arching brows and long eyelashes.

His voice was so gentle, it made her want to cry again. She'd done way too much of that today. She'd done a lot of thinking. She had to stand up to the Harpers about her child. She had to face a lot of things she'd been avoiding.

"I'll cross that bridge when I get to it. Like I told you, I'm like that cartoon character who lives under the little black cloud. I'm used to it. Bad things happen in threes. I ought to expect at least one more thing."

"I like doing this. It's the least I can do for Tee and her lost boys. I have to go out and count cattle tomorrow. I figured I might as well do this when it wasn't too hot. I still can't get used to this heat. I feel like I'm melting."

She sighed. Oh, God, if he only knew..." I should get in." She moved to leave the stage. He reached out and stopped her, clasping his hand over her arm.

"Hey, dance with me. There's music, a full moon, stars, six hundred and fifty lights twinkling. If that doesn't put a guy in the mood to dance I don't know what does."

"Be my guest." Michael pulled her to her feet. In his boots he had at least three inches on her. "I'll watch the toes," he said. He moved and took her into his arms, his arm clasped lightly around her waist, her hand in his rough, cool palm. Her chin rested on his shoulder. A strand of his hair tickled her nose. She could smell his skin. Damp with chlorine, the remains of soap and shampoo.

Stay true to the things I knew when I was younger, When food and love was all that left to hunger, cause when I stray from that truth as I get older. Too much leaves an empty hollow hunger... The sounds of a cello blended with acoustic guitar and the light catch of his breathing.

She could feel him move his head a little, looking at her profile, studying her. Her eyes were focussed on the twinkling lights. If she looked into those eyes she was lost. His hand tightened a little on her waist. She could feel her breasts, tight and hard against his warm, bare chest.

Michael lowered his mouth to hers. He took control of the kiss, set the pace. She'd never been kissed with such thorough, aching sweetness in all her life. He took her face in his hands, his long fingers threading through the strands of her hair. He started with small, delicious nibbles, velvet soft lips brushing the fullness of her mouth, until the kiss became deeper and fuller, until a soft little moan she barely recognised as her own escaped her lips.

Nikki pressed her hands to his chest, gasping as his tongue played at the seams of her mouth, until she opened to his seeking tongue like a night flower. He moved his hand, anchoring her head to his by cupping the back of her neck, the other seeking her breast through her light t-shirt.

"God damn," Michael swore, fumbling through his freezer for a package of cigarettes. Under a bag of mixed vegetables he found the crushed pack containing one broken cigarette and a few shreds of tobacco.

"Please don't let me singe my f---ing eyebrows off," he prayed, lighting the stove. He'd done that once at eight, copying his old man. Poof, his hair had gone up in a ball of flame along with his brows and lashes. He'd been whopped good for that one. He'd looked like Pee-Wee Herman for a month until everything grew back.

He took a deep drag of the cigarette, the acrid smoke burning his lungs. She thinks I'm a h---- jerk. Like I can't wait to jump her bones. What did I think I was going to do? Have her right there in the grass?"

He'd been thinking about her the whole time he'd been out there, how she'd feel against his body, skin to skin. She was so tall. They met up in all the right places. It was like their bodies were meant to join, to stay like that forever.

He'd worked himself up into such a state he'd had to dunk his head in the pool to cool off. When she'd shown up there, with those long bare legs and her hair all silvered by the moon something crazy had just whooshed through him. Like a rocket. His heart had been thumping around like a wild bronco in his chest.

It still was. "Dammit," he said, tossing his cigarette into the sink. He turned on the faucet and watched it fizzle, washing it down the drain.

"Yea. You don't think I'm going to sleep with the snakes, do you? There's some fence that's ready to go in pastures 6 and 9. Should take this afternoon and tomorrow. I'll work until the sun goes down."

Tee informed Nikki that Michael had gone for the day, perhaps until the following afternoon. She knew that he was avoiding her.Why had she let that happen? Why had he started that if he'd no intention...She sighed. There were a million whys. Not that they could have done anything anyway. It was stupid to even think about it.

But he had haunted her dreams last night. She'd woken to twisted sheets and an aching sense of restlessness and desire that she knew only he could assuage. She'd often awoken feeling empty and lonely in her life, but never like that.

No wonder he'd run. She'd been way too desperate. He could probably smell it. Like the sulphur smell of a flare gun she was sending out as a distress call. Come and get it!

Nikki shook her head and tried to look pleasant and blank. She didn't pour her heart out to people. She looked down at the dismal clothes she was wearing. She'd washed her few things but she still looked like a worn, wrinkled bag lady. That stuff had never mattered to her before.

"Maybe you could do something for me. I've got a ton of Mexican flowers that need fluffing. I want to attach them by wires to rope garlands. Angie said she'd try to do it and I'd ask Greg but he's make them look like shit–"

" Great. You can just rest and do that. You look so pale, hon. You stay here in the air-conditioning and I'll got to Michael's and borrow some movies for you. He lets me go over and take anything I want. Unless you want to watch soaps?"

So Nikki spent the afternoon twisting brilliantly coloured flowers on to garlands. It would have been okay but for the times that Max would grab a flower and shake it like it was a rat. She'd watched Heaven Knows Mr. Alison with Robert Mitchum and Debora Kerr. It was sad and it made her sniffle. She'd had no idea it would be like that, having never watched it before. The boy did not get the girl. A nun and a marine alone on a South Pacific island. A lot of unresolved sexual tension and broken dreams.

She got to her feet, stretched with a little pull to her stomach muscles, not as bad as the day before. Horatio Hornblower , Roman Holiday, Three Days of the Condor, Witness, Star Wars In the bottom of the box there was a tape with a sticker that said " NHL Awards Banquet".

Curious, Nikki popped it into the machine. It was half wound to a frame of Michael, laughing. He was wearing a tuxedo, his collar undone, bow tie hanging down. His hair was far shorter. He looked so young, so happy and almost heart-wrenchingly beautiful. He could only be described as beautiful.

She watched in mute fascination, her heart pounding, as the camera pulled back and then the screen was filled with Michael and a woman. They were dancing...His partner had sable-dark hair, her features delicate, refined, her eyes just glowing with adoration for him. She was his consummate equal, it seemed.

Her head came just to his nose and he was looking down at her with love just glowing on his face, those perfectly sculpted, sensual lips drawn into a smile that would make angels weep for joy.

"Holy shit," sighed Nikki on a breath that kind of emptied her lungs and made her feel almost sick with jealousy. Not about the ring. The fact that he loved her that much and probably still did, if he was in the habit of watching this tape.

By Friday Nikki had begun to feel better physically. Michael and Chris had been wrapped up with the problem of a missing bull. Bulls, it seemed, were always going missing on ranches, but this one was a particular headache.

According to TNT it had the best set of balls in the business. Then he asked her if she'd ever seen that movie with Marky Mark. The one about the porn star. She'd swallowed piece of waffle whole and nodded. " Well, Magic is that hung. He's magnificent."

Tee told him to just shut up and eat. "If you talk about well hung bulls tomorrow I'll kill you. Michael will find Magic. He always does. He's been having a time with the fences in the west pastures. Posts are always in need of patching. Takes a lot of work and time to fix a barbed wire fence. Almost need to be a engineer to make one."

It was as if she was taking great pains to explain Michael's absence. It didn't need explaining. He hadn't thought much of that kiss or he'd thought better of what he was getting himself into. It was nothing new to Nikki. Didn't take much for her to turn a man off.

"Tee, I wouldn't exactly fit in with a bunch of society types. Believe me, I've had my run ins with the cream of the crop before and it wasn't pretty. I'm sort of socially retarded." At least that was what the Harper's lawyers had said about her in court when she was seventeen and trying to keep from losing her child. They'd painted this weird picture of her as the kidnapped jungle girl. That she'd learned bad things from her father. Things she would never grow out of. No stability. No sense.

Nikki smiled at her. "This was great food, Tee, but I'm a little nervous about seeing the doctor. Do you mind if I excuse myself? I have to call a pet store about a cardboard carrier."

Nikki closed the door to the doctor's office and stepped into the street. She'd spent a half hour waiting for the doctor, who was late, listening to women gush about their new babies. It was pretty disheartening. She wanted to join in to talk about the wonder and the joy, but she couldn't. Her child had been removed from her care two months after she'd taken her home.

Nikki was a little late getting out, but Tee had told her, she was never on time anyway. She went to the pet store and bought the carrier. Tee was waiting for her on the street when she came out.

"Did you know there is actually a brand new dress shop here that does not cater to women who want to look like Wynonna Judd or Kathie-Lee Gifford?"

"I figure the treat's always on you. I wish there was some way I could pay you back. All of you." Nikki's voice caught in her throat. "I'm A-okay by the way. Doc says that I can go home."

"I know a perfect way for you to pay me back, but for some reason I know that you won't go for it. That doesn't mean I don't have some tricks up my sleeve yet. Come on, love. Chocolate sprinkles are calling my name."

She had just hung up from confirming her bus reservation when Tee knocked and came into her room. She had a dress draped over her arm, and a pair of sandals in one hand.

"This for you. Size eight dress. Size ten and a half sandals. I only dream about that size nowadays, the dress I mean. My feet are a hell of a lot smaller than this. I took the liberty of checking your shoes."

"Built in bra. Ever read Erica Jong? She advocates the simplicity of all in one undressing. The zipless fu– never mind, you're too young." Tee held up some blue satin thong panties."Butt floss. Sexy? Right? "

"Why do I feel like I should be dressed like that little mouse and calling you Cinda-rellie? I can sing A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes–"

"Not that Magic. But–" She grinned. "Did I ever tell you about the time I caught Michael down at the swimming hole. Well, I never caught him, but I got an eyeful–"

Nikki took in a quaky, nervous breath and then breathed it out slowly. People were already milling around the yard. Tons of people, wealthy types from the city or other ranchers from the surrounding area.

Oh, she felt weird. Tee had put enough mascara on her for Tammy Faye Baker and the pins from the messy love-knot her hair had been pulled into were digging her scalp. Tee had said Nikki looked sensational, like she had been in a tussle with a sexy male. Nikki just figured she looked like she'd gotten out of the bath without doing her hair. Or that maybe some guy had put her in a headlock.

She'd put on the dress to the sight of bare, white shoulders and the tops of her breasts peeping out and had promptly asked for the matching cardigan. " It's ninety-six degrees. You'd like--like a nebbish. I'm hiding it until the temperature drops," Tee had said. "And I'm hoping some gorgeous cowboy will notice that you're cold and wrap his arms around you."

Michael was over by the pool, near the groaning food tables, chatting to some gorgeous woman. Everything looked perfect, the Mexican theme of flowers and bright streamers, the waiters clad in formal shirts and bolo ties, the Foo Fighters blasting happily away on the state of the art disco system.

He was wearing a sea green shirt and a pair of well-fitting black jeans, de rigour for the stylish cowboy's dress-up day. They sort of skimmed his slender hips and encased his remarkable legs like a glove. The sight of that tush, his hip tilted a little, was a religious experience. The man was unbelievably sexy. Unlike most of the men, he'd come hatless and the setting sun caught bright red in the mahogany strands of his hair. He was one of these people, she decided, that would just fit in no matter how difficult or ugly his past had been. He could rise above it all. He'd been born that way. Destined for far more than she'd ever been.

She looked at profile that deserved to be on a Roman coin, the shy grin that revealed that deep slashing dimple, the way he looked shyly down at his feet and then raised those captivating eyes beneath a shutter of lashes to just blow the woman he was speaking with clean away. Looking at him made Nikki positively shiver with longing.

He kissed me. Why did he do that? Loneliness or just because I happened to be there? He's going to take one look at me now and see how awkward and out of place I am and he'll be happy as hell he didn't push it further.

With some relief Michael managed to end his conversation with the wife of a bull breeder from Tennessee and went off in search of Chris and a beer. He was tired after three days of hard work in the sun chasing the elusive and wily Magic. His back hurt from repairing fences. And his ass ached from riding for days, keeping his eyes peeled for anything black that might be peering out of the shadows. When he'd finally found Magic the bull had put up one hell of a fight. It had been midnight before Michael and Chris corralled him in a makeshift pen.

He'd used half a bottle of Absorbine Jr. last night after a half hour long, blistering hot shower. He'd fallen into bed last night face down, stark naked, not even towelled off, expecting to sleep. He still smelled like wintergreen.

He'd figured the bodily exhaustion to be enough to knock him out. Instead he'd been staring at the ceiling thinking about her. All night, feeling the texture of her skin under his fingers, the scent of her hair and the look of longing in her blue eyes.

Michael walked over to join TNT and Chris. He took the beer gratefully and tipped it back. It went down like silk. Six more and he might feel human. Only he never drank six beers. Well, at least not since he'd turned thirty. Two was his limit.

"Greg's already found some little blonde girl, but she looks to be a little young. Might have to watch that, boy," TNT quipped. He excused himself, saying that he's be beaten about the head and shoulders if he didn't mingle." She might be jail bait. Looks a little familiar."

"She looks beautiful. Nice dress. Make-up. Hair all tousled like some movie star's. I saw her a while ago. She was talking to some guy. You know, that vet from Sommerville. Matt somebody or other. He's kind of tall and blonde. They look like they ought to be on a Viking wedding cake."

"I've heard this before, man." He slapped his friend on the back, gave a short smile and walked away, passing the Harpers. He nodded but they barely acknowledged him. He's never been able to stand the white haired man with his cold eyes, his rich airs and his snooty hot-to-trot wife. They were from somewhere in Nikki's part of the state if he wasn't mistaken.

Nikki finally escaped the vet. He was good looking if you liked blonde men but she found him a little boring. Even though Michael barely said a word he didn't bore her. She would gladly listen to anything he had to say or didn't say. She'd fill in the conversation lulls herself. Maybe they didn't need words.

The D.J had started a new song: Oh ya get me ready in your fifty-six Chevy, Why don't we go sit down in the shade? Take shelter on my front porch, Dandelion sun scorch, Like a glass of cold lemonade? I will do the laundry if you pay all the bills. Where is my John Wayne? Where is my prairie son? Where is my happy ending?

She made her way through the throngs of people until she spotted Greg sitting on a bale of hay with a tall, blonde girl with long coltish legs stretched out in front of her.

She stared at the girl's face. A mirror of her own at that age, but tarted up with make-up, her long hair flipping around slender shoulders, her breasts small and high. The only difference was the eyes. The girl had Madeline's eyes, deep brown, almost the colour of Madeira wine.

Nikki walked over on legs now frozen and jerky. Her stomach was fluttering like crazy. She walked over just as Jenny placed her arm on Greg's forearm, leaned rather seductively towards him. She didn't even know she was being like that. Jeez, Nikki thought, Where'd she get that move? Couldn't be inherited from me. I couldn't charm my way out of a paper bag.

Of course the girl couldn't hear her. With the hearing aides she wore, expensive ones, almost invisible, Nikki would still have to make eye contact or touch her. When she was close enough she spoke to Greg. " Greg, TNT is looking for you." It was an out and out lie.

Jen pretended not to hear. She had this belligerent pout on her face. She got to her feet and started to walk off but Nikki blocked her path. Nikki knew that an inability to hear was not the case. The girl understood perfectly. It made her angry all the same that the child would just ignore the question.

The child. That was a misnomer. Nikki hadn't been allowed to see her in four months and the last time she'd seen her Jen had asked to see a movie, so they'd spent two hours of the three allotted sitting in a darkened room not talking. She'd grown at least three inches and the makeup was new. She looked more eighteen than twelve. But then all the girls looked older now.

It had to be the face paint and the sultry, expensive clothes. Nikki had visions of her daughter being on the Sally Jesse show talking about her adventures on the dark side and being hauled off to boot camp. But then that was not her grandparent's style and they were the one's raising her.

Oh, God, Nikki thought. I was sort of like this, only I didn't have any money. I must have driven Bobbie crazy. Two years after her father had relinquished her back to Bobbie, he'd killed himself, and she'd gone wild. She remembered those days as a painful blur, fighting with her mother over everything, treating her younger siblings badly, unable to listen to any reason and all the while just wanting to throw herself in someone's arms and cry out her pain. She'd been convinced that no one loved her, that no one was ever going to understand her or want her. She still felt like that, but she was learning that no magical being was going to take on all her trouble and make it disappear for her.

"He's not some Spice Boy you can oggle from afar in a magazine. He's an adult male. He has feelings. And he had expectations." Oh, God. This was going clean over the kid's head. Why couldn't she be wiser? If only she could think of what to say.

"Spice Boy? Yea, right. What are you doing here?" she repeated. She never called Nikki mom. She never called her anything. Just empty air. Nothing.

Nikki told herself that this was what the child had been raised to think, but she still suspected that Jen could look right inside of her and see the flaws that lay below the surface. That she had formed part of this opinion on her own with no help from her snooty grandparents.

"Just go away. I don't feel like having the third degree from you, too. Don't we usually talk about Maxie and the weather and your weird grandma and her flowers. No personal shit. Okay?

Her voice was almost perfect. Angry, with inflections. No flat nasal tones to mar it, at least not to the untrained ear. Amazing. She'd had the very best speech therapists and for that Nikki was grateful. She could never have gotten that sort of help or training in the state programmes to which Nikki could have sent her. This girl could be whatever she set out to be. No so-called handicap would ever stand in her way.

"I don't blame you for feeling bad, Jen. I don't blame you at all. Look at me please. Or I won't know if you hear me." Jen raised her small delicate, determined chin. Nikki wanted to yell that she hadn't given her up, that the child she loved had been taken from her, but she didn't. "You know you can talk to me. You can tell me anything. I'm listening."

"Then listen to me. I speak from experience. You're young. There's plenty for you to do in your life before you get into a lot of grown up stuff –"

"I've heard this same crappy speech from my dad." For moment the girl's eyes met hers and there seemed to be a silent plea. "I hate you. Why don't you just leave me alone? I didn't want to come to this stupid party. I knew I should have stayed home." She shouldered past Nikki and stomped off towards the food tables, leaving Nikki to stare after her, wondering what she should do.

Nikki fought the urge to roll her eyes. "Hello, Steven." She ran her gaze down his lean, runner's body, coming back to chocolate brown eyes set deeply in a thin, aesthetic face. He wasn't very good looking anymore. Oh, he was clean and suave and well put together, but he looked older than thirty two. He was losing his hair. His chin was weak. He had none of his father's fierce power and little of his mother's charm. He'd compensated with good schools, fine clothes, fast cars and faster friends. Nikki could almost hate him if it wasn't for the odd memory of him being kind to her when she needed someone as a young girl.

" Maybe someone ought to, Steven. She's a brat. My mother used to yell at me. And I didn't say anything to her other than to– "Nikki sighed. " Jenny was coming on to a twenty year old boy. She's twelve years old, dammit. Why are you letting her dress like that?"

"Well, give her less money for glitter and take her to Walmart for something less sleazy. Hell her tops lower than mine and I feel like I'm hanging out."

"Kids start earlier now." Steven pushed back his hair. " Everything... MTV ‘s pushing half naked boy-toys in her face and rap music and Austin Powers is talking about shagging and sixteen year old girls are wanting breast implants."

" This is difficult, Nikki. We're doing the best we can, but she just always seems one step ahead of the guidebooks. You know what? She's had her period since she was nine."

"Ah, another milestone passed me by." She was a little surprised that Steven stiff-shirt, prissy pants Steven would even reveal such a thing. " And guidebooks? You're raising her according to some owner's manual? Is that your dad's idea?"

Steven laughed." Do you know what? She is exactly like you. She is so like you it's scary. The mouth that roared. My parents thought–" He laughed. " They thought they were going to take that incredibly beautiful little blonde being and mold her into this perfect robot. It just never worked. I think the first words that came out of her mouth, even though delayed because of the deafness, was: No! I'll do it myself."

"Maybe that, but I'm not that independent. I just want to think I am." She sighed. " What kind of help are you getting her? I mean that's what your parents do, isn't it? Send her to experts?"

" A therapist. How much of that kid's time is taken up talking to well-meaning strangers, Steven? I saw a shrink when I came home after being with my dad. She was nuttier than I was."

"They don't look at their big, sterile house and wonder if she's rebelling because they leave her with a maid all the time, do they? They don't look at the fact that she goes to a live-in school and only comes home on weekends."

"I know, but maybe it's time you asked her what she wants. Maybe she needs to be in a normal school. Oh, but, I forgot. She might mix with the riff-raff."

He frowned. "I don't want you to think that. I've been thinking this over a lot. It's almost kismet that you're here. I was thinking about this all the way up here, hoping you'd be back by Tuesday morning, so you could come with us."

"Family counselling. The police recommended it after they found her last week. There's a good woman doctor. She works bringing families in crisis back together."

He laughed. "When Jenny went missing it was the scariest moment of my life. I had a long talk with the police social worker. She suggested that Jenny might have issues about you."

"Something she said. I don't know exactly. She won't let her feelings out, but I think she needs you, Nikki. I think we did both you and Jenny a grave injustice twelve years ago."

He walked toward her. " Please, think about this. I am at the end of my rope. Don't punish me by saying no. Jenny is the one I'm thinking about. Can we set aside our differences and work on helping her?" He put his hands on her shoulders.

Nikki sighed and closed her eyes in weariness as Steven drew her into his thin, wiry arms for a hug. " I can do it for her, Steven. But only for her."

Michael broke his own rule. He helped himself to two more beers from the cooler. Okay, he told himself, so she was in some deep conversation with that skinny wimp, Steven Harper. So she'd let him hold her. Big deal.

And then it struck him. Harper was a rich dude from Nikki's town, had a twelve year old deaf daughter, no wife, and two controlling assholes for parents.

Nikki had been in love with him? Harper's kid was her kid. He sighed and drained off the rest of the bottle. No wonder the girl was skittish as a new foal when it came to matters of the heart. She'd probably been though the ringer with that bunch.

It didn't strike Michael as odd at first, that someone was speaking his name, his real name. And then whoever it was repeated the words and Michael turned.

The speaker was a tall man with cold, pale blue eyes. Michael didn't recognise him as one of the regulars but there was always someone new here every year. Had he perhaps recognised Michael from his hockey career or from his later days of being plastered in the tabloids? While he didn't like it, that was easy enough to remedy.

"Sorry, dude. Anyone ever tell you this isn't a suit and tie affair. And may I compliment your tailor and whoever manufactures your antiperspirant. It has to be near one hundred today."

The Blades are offering twenty-four million over two years, Mr. Couernoir. Six million cash on signing. A bonus to be decided if you appear at training camp in shape."

"Tell Ms. Eldred that she can hold her offer between her legs and light it on fire." He made to move past Zalman. Zalman stopped him by laying a hand over Michael's forearm.

" I've heard your brother was a drug addict. He has some sort of brain injury, doesn't he? I know that you're helping him now, but treatment's expensive and you have no real fortune any longer. They have this fabulous clinic in Lucerne–"

He wasn't really ashamed of himself. He'd been a little nonplussed to find Nikki's daughter was watching the whole thing with great interest. He was sorry about the fancy cake he'd landed on, but that was about it.

He wrapped a towel loosely around his hips and went into the kitchen. He could hear Kenny Wayne Sheppard's slide guitar wailing. The party was still going strong. He was going to scrounge in the freezer for a cigarette when he heard the tap on the door.

Had she just made a huge mistake? He seemed angry, his tone gruff, almost a growl. He was a little too intimidating, a strange light in those intense gray-green eyes, but to look at him, wrapped in that thick white towel, his smooth, shower damp skin and his hair curling at his nape and over his forehead, he could have graced the ceiling of the Sistine chapel.

"Obviously. Come in." He reached out and took her wrist. Nikki almost yelped at the press of his fingers, not hard exactly, or painful, but pressure enough to be meaningful. To say this was not a man to be toyed with or taken for granted. Not that she'd had any intention of being a tease, but– God, he was just so– so very formidable sometimes.

Nikki walked into his small, neat house, more like a studio apartment actually, one large room, a kitchen on one side, a couple of recliners and a pine armoire with television and stereo system in front, book shelves, a large pine bed with a rumpled duvet in the back of the room. Comfortable, but not luxurious. He'd lived many ways in his life. She wondered which was the real him.

She swallowed hard. "Yes. Within reason, of course. No heavy lifting." She was having trouble meeting his eyes. Why didn't he offer to put on clothes? Was he thinking that she was here for–

He has such a beautiful torso, she thought. Sculpted and smooth with a covering of flesh that looked incredibly inviting. Soft and hard at once. She could imagine pressing her lips into his hard shoulder. Tasting the dampness that pooled in the ridges of his collar bones or in the delicate, satin swirls of his ears, tugging the silky ribbons of his hair with eager fingers. Tugging his mouth to hers, just melding with him.

He gave her a devilish grin."Then I won't be polite." He drank from the carton as she watched. Fascinated as his throat went up and down. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and tossed the carton in the sink.

"You look beautiful in this dress. I never got to tell you." He touched her bare shoulder with the tips of his fingers, trailing them slowly across her sensitized skin to the crook of her elbow. Something low and deep in her belly beat with an anticipation that matched her quickening pulse.

She could sense the tightly coiled tension in his body, the slight tremor in the hand that stroked her from elbow to wrist, following the path of one long blue vein that showed beneath the pale skin. She could feel him stir the blood there to life, if that was possible, like some sort of sorcerer. He took her hand and raised it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles, letting his tongue brush faintly on the back of her hand, watching her reaction with those mysterious eyes.

She stapled her bottom lip with her teeth as he let her hand drop to her waist, brushing his hand down the front of her dress, from shoulder to hip, his fingers catching on the hard, aching tip of her left breast. She felt herself quake with longing. Longing to touch him to be touched by him.

He moved closer so that her nostrils were filled with the scent of his skin, soapy fresh and warm. His hair smelled like Head and Shoulders. God, was that smell going to make her tremble from now on, because it sure smelled provocative now. His mouth came down on hers again, exploring her lips with tentative little kisses. He tasted like sweet orange juice with a hint of beer and toothpaste. Weird, but good. So good, really. He captured her bottom lip with gentle teeth and sucked on it, making her legs want to go out on her. Her whole body was throbbing wildly now as he led her to his bed, walking backwards, his mouth never leaving hers, his kisses wild and lush, his hands on her shoulders, guiding her, pulling her into him.

He broke the kiss, and sat down on the edge of the bed, pulling her by the waist against him. Jeez, she thought. I'm the one who needs to sit. I'm going to fall in a heap at his feet here. He looked up at her through that thicket of lashes, his hair now curling boyishly over his forehead instead of being scraped ruthlessly back

"Tell me if I hurt you. I'll stop," he whispered. He tugged her closer between his legs, his mouth covering her breast right through the thin fabric of her dress. Oh, God, she thought, do people do this sort of thing? Sucking her through the sheer layers of fabric was incredibly erotic, yet made her feel curiously deprived, like she wanted to yank down the dress herself so that he could really...

And then he did that, anticipating her eagerness, her willingness, his hands reaching behind her slipping down the zipper, tugging the straps down so that they lay over her elbows, her breasts now bare, the damp fabric catching on her distended nipples.

He looked up at her and gave this delicious, greedy smile and buried his face between her breasts. She felt the rasp of his beard on her tender flesh. She buried her hands in the damp curls of his hair, as his tongue played havoc with her senses and she groaned in a guttural way that shocked and almost embarrassed her.

He ran his hand down her hip to her thigh, tugging her skirt upwards, the rough skin of his palms and fingers catching on the fine, soft fabric, until she could feel his hot hand on the skin of her hip, her lower tummy, his fingers up inside the elastic of her panties. He moved his mouth from her breast and ran his tongue down her sternum, licking the skin until he met the barrier of fabric pooled there.

He touched her damp heat with his fingers, just there. Just right. Just so. The first ripples of ecstasy took her unaware, like quicksilver. Just as the fireworks began to burst and swell from the party.

She heard him laugh in delight, against her flesh. He went back to her breast, licking the soft underside, tugging on her nipple with guarded teeth, his fingers driving her mad.

"Oh..." The feelings that burst within her were astounding, inflaming, intense. The pulsing throbs seemed in tune with the bursts of fire outdoors. She could imagine the colours, the wild intense colours. And then suddenly she was on her back beneath him and he was sliding her unsexy panties down her legs and tossing away the towel from his hips, his face intent, his eyes deep and gray-green like a sea in a tempest.

She cried out as he lowered his mouth and found her, his tongue satin fire, so that she was writhing, totally shameless now. She was hurtling towards him, and in the journey she knew she was finally finding herself. When she thought she could take no more pleasure, her pulled himself up, his arm locked near her shoulders, just staring down at her intently, not saying a word, a little grin playing at the corner of his beautiful, pink-pearl lips like a satisfied cat. Then he reached over her, fumbling in the night stand, swearing a little at his clumsiness.

She flung her arm over her eyes, her head spinning, quite unable to think, barely able to breath. And then he was back, lowering his mouth to hers, his tongue making a hot sweep of her mouth, so that she could taste herself and him like a crazy love potion that she was going to crave forever.

He plunged himself into her, shocking her a little because she could feel her eyes widening and this big "OH?" in her mind that she didn't dare let out. It was a little scary how he filled her. It was never like this before.

"Oh, God...Nikki... Nothing ever felt like this." he said, mirroring her thoughts, his teeth nipping at her shoulder. He was keeping his arms straight like her was doing pushups, afraid she knew, that he would hurt her scar. Oh, God, I love you for that Michel.

She had to bite her tongue to keep from saying it aloud and then maybe she did say she loved him, because after that he was coming, his body shaking almost wildly, his cries of release sweet and deep in her ear, and then he flopped over on his side, his face still buried in her neck, his beard catching in her hair, his hand possessively cupping her breast..

And she, Nikki, was wanting to cry. She could feel it welling in her like an ocean tide, as she imagined how she looked laid out like a half consumed feast on her back, there with her new dress pooled wantonly around her hips and the marks of his stubble on her fair skin.

She didn't want to leave him. She didn't want to. She could feel one tear squeak out of her eye and trickle down her temple as he tugged the coverlet around them and fell into a satisfied sleep.

Michael had fallen asleep, the sleep of a man utterly spent, utterly satisfied. Somewhere in his head, as he had been swept into sleep, he knew he was probably blowing it, being unbelievably rude and boorish, that she might be pissed at him for not cuddling and talking. He was not a cuddly kind of man. And talking came hard for him. Maybe later. Maybe after another sweet ride and he hoped to God there would be another. Once could never be enough.

Comfortable anguish. That was how he felt as he'd buried himself in her sweetness. He'd felt both mended and torn in a way difficult to describe. Like she'd healed him in one way and laid him bare in another.

Giving himself to Nikki had been that, laying himself bare. Letting himself go, just letting himself go and finding to his joy, that he could soar again. He'd had other women in the last few years, but he'd usually tugged his pants on after and left them.

Never. And yet she would leave here and he could do nothing to stop her. She was a mother first. That made him feel strangely jealous and fiercely proud.

He was back in New York, walking through the cold, marble halls of the luxury 5th Avenue apartment he shared with Elena. He often had the dream, searching for her, knowing that he would find her in the bedroom and when he did, he would look at her and feel nothing but all consuming disgust in himself and her, and this wish to kill her for betraying him.

It was what he'd felt in those few agonising moments after she'd told him that she was leaving him, that the police were coming to take him, that she had called them and told them about her suspicions that he had killed her lover in a fit of anger and jealousy. Gary, his former friend, his confidant.

Days before she had told him. She had sworn it had only happened once and he deep down he had believed her. She swore she hadn't known that Gary had been stealing from Michael, squandering everything, covering with fake investments or phony stocks.

Michael knew his temper had been hard to control. He'd only to raise his voice and Elena had jumped like skittish cat. She could not bear to argue or to have him disagree with her.

They'd fought verbally, almost physically, the day she had told him of the affair. he had shaken her like a rag doll until she cried. Before that he would have left the room, punching something, throwing something. Never at her, never in her presence, but the aftermath of his self-directed anger had shocked her nonetheless.

That had shocked her at first and she had covered it well. They could make more money. He had plenty of money coming in. He'd pushed over a curio of her precious trinkets, smashing everything everywhere. Things her mother and Elena had collected on their travels abroad. He'd stormed out and drank for three days.

In this dream, this same dreadfully familiar dream, he walked down the hall, his feet silent on the priceless Aubusson runner. Elena was in their room, brushing her hair. She looked up at him and smiled.

She was so beautiful, so rare and refined. He'd always been swept away by the force of his need to possess her. In the other dreams she had invited him in, taken off his clothes, piece by piece and dropped to her knees. Submissive as she always had been...

Nikki had been lying beside him in the dark, watching the ceiling fan rotate, like a scene from an old movie. Maybe Cassablanca or something. She'd never understood that movie, why Ingrid Bergman didn't just stay with Bogie.

He was still asleep, deeply asleep. She pulled back and looked at his face. He looked like a boy in his sleep. Beautiful, with his lips slightly parted and his eyelids, delicate and traced with fine lines, white where he was not tanned.

She wasn't sorry that he's fallen asleep. She didn't know about that talking stuff after carnal relations, or carnival relations as she and her sister, Anna had nick-named it after Anna's last boyfriend left her pissed off.

She met Tee on the patio going back to her room. The party was wrapped up but for a few people cleaning up the mess. TNT was passed out in a lawn chair with a bottle of tequila cradled in his arms. It was well after one a.m.

Nikki tugged up the straps of the dress, wondering if Tee could see the lip prints on her bodice. She supposed she could see something given the shrewd look on her face. "What are you looking at?" Nikki snapped.

She wondered if Tee's x-ray vision could see that she wasn't wearing panties either. They'd probably been hiden somewhere underneath him. She'd given up looking so she'd made her escape without them.

"Steven Harper was looking for you last night. I told him you were still tired from your illness. He said to tell you he'd be here to get you at seven."

Nikki didn't say those words. " I really need to go home. My mother's worried. She gets that way about me." She cleared her throat. "Thank you, Tee. Really. I loved it here. And I owe you big time."

"I really need to get some sleep. Steven's very prompt. If you aren't up, thanks again." She squeezed Tee's hand. " I felt like Cinderella tonight."

"Shit, too bad. Nikki, I know it's your daughter you care about helping now, but you count for something too. Don't just set this evening into a compartment labelled beautiful nostalgia, okay. He's a sensitive man. He's been hurt and he can't always say what he feels. You have to give him a chance. There are troubles left in him. There always will be, but he's well worth the effort. I'm afraid he mightn't come after you, even if he needs to. He's far too proud. Think about that, will you?"

"No," he said, scrubbing his face with his hands. He'd slept like a dead man. Where was she? Nikki. He thought about the night before and groaned inwardly.

"Here. I came here." He looked around, hiding a shrivelled condom under the duvet. Where the hell had she gone? When had she gone? The towel was still there. He wrapped it around his hips and slid out of bed. His bones were still aching from the three days on the range and his eye was puffed up.

Chris grinned and then pulled something white from his back pocket. A pair of white, cotton bikini panties. He twirled them on his finger. " Nice. Cross dressing in the NHL? Or did someone leave these here last night?

Nikki road in the back of the beamer with Maxie. Jenny was up front pouting. She looked out the window and up on the ridge, daydreaming that there was a cowboy out there on a huge horse, riding like wildfire to stop her leaving. He was beautiful, quite determined the wind stirring his coffee coloured hair, lifting the fringe on his weathered chaps.

Bobbie always cried. It was a holdover from the old days. Her mother cried when she came home from work if she was half an hour late. Billy, her little brother, just wanted to know if her scar was gross. Walter gave her a kiss, said: Welcome home, Sugar, and went out back to the barn to fiddle with his machinery and listen to his Grateful Dead eight tracks.

She couldn't really say that it was good to be home. She ended up back with her brother Jack's security firm. He had the contracts for security at the Wal-mart so she wound up doing what she hated, walking a beat in plain clothes through the store all day, responding when the walkie talkie told her to check whatever area a shoplifter might be lurking in. God, she cringed when it was kids or little old ladies. She hated the blood-drained faces and the fearful looks.

The Harpers went off to Europe and Steven's plan swung into action. Nikki had her doubts about it the plan, but Steven was confident that Jenny would come to accept Nikki again. Nikki was not so sure and wondered why Steven was going all this trouble. Had he gone though some kind of personality transplant she didn't know about?

Jenny was not responding indifferently to the therapy sessions. Nikki had to admit that she sometimes wanted to drop off into a dead snore, too. After about two weeks of the tedious talks and role playing, she was wanting to start knitting an afghan like her gramma so she'd have something else to think about.

As for Michael, he never long left her thoughts. Every night she went to bed, closed her eyes and remembered him. She loved him. It was just as plain as the nose on her face. This was going to haunt her forever. This pain was never going to go away.

After a month he hadn't contacted her. Two weeks after she got home she mailed him a check. Half of the balance of her pay-check. Pretty meagre. When her bank statements came back, the check wasn't cashed. It made her furious, but seeing as it was his bank account that helped her trace him in the first place, she just called the bank and talked her way into having them make direct deposits. See what he could do about that, she thought smugly. And then later she was hoping that he'd just come and see about it himself.

And something in her heart said he was the one who'd have to come to her. Then she'd know that he really did want her and not that she was throwing herself at him again.

Her mother was all wrapped up in Anna's wedding plans. It was difficult for Nikki with that going on as well, the wedding stuff laying about the small farmhouse, her mother's sewing machine going all day and half the night running up the bridal gown and the bridesmaid's dresses. All the excited giggles and the plans when Gramma Addie would drop in. Nikki didn't know how she was going to face wearing the yellow satin gown with the huge bow in the front. She looked unbelievably awful in it, but Anna liked it and seeing her in it made Bobbie cry.

At the end of July, Steven asked her if she might move into the Harper home for a week. It was nothing untoward. He wanted to go off on an Ironman competition in Florida and he needed someone he could trust to stay nights with Jenny. Nikki decided it couldn't be that bad. Paloma, the maid, would look after the girl during the day and if they coincided their days off, things would be fine.

Jenny resented Nikki's being there for the most part, talking to her only when she needed something. Nikki knew that she was probably not being completely up front about her whereabouts during the day, but decided that she'd just have to trust her. She couldn't keep the kid under house arrest. That stuff hadn't worked with her. Nikki was pretty sure that Jenny would grow out of this creepy phase.

She'd had one break though. Jenny had actually offered to paint Nikki's toenails with some sparkly green polish. While she wasn't overly fond of having green toenails she'd had to bite her lip to keep from crying because Jenny actually wanted to do something for her.

Things went back to normal a day later though. Jenny was at home when Nikki got there after work, giving her the silent treatment, watching the screen captioned televison. After a time she'd go up to her room and shut the door. Nikki would eat something and go to the guestroom.

On Friday two of the security team took sick and Nikki was called to see if she could work a double shift. Paloma hadn't arrived yet so she went up to Jenny's room, tapping on the door.

"What's the problem?" she asked. She'd been up for some time, Nikki knew, but it was still important to Jenny to make a fuss. Make Nikki feel like an ogre.

"I've got to work tonight. When Paloma gets here, ask her to stay until ten. I'll be home by then. If she can't you'll have to get her to drive her to Grandma Bobbie's house."

"Can I count on you to do this? And to behave yourself? I have to go. Paloma will be here in half an hour. I tried calling her but she must be en route. Okay?"

Nikki just sighed. " I have to go." She had this feeling all would not go well this day. She'd already shed a few tears this morning. The clock radio had come on to that Gino Vanelli song: Wild Horses. That line kept going through her head I'm gonna follow my heart instead of good advice, Hey you. No matter what you do, Wild horses could not keep me away, from you.

He was on his way to New York to speak to a lawyer he hadn't seen in years. When he'd gone to work for the Triple T he'd left everything else behind. He didn't know exactly what he had left of his fortune or what he might owe. He didn't care. He assumed he didn't owe much. His apartment had been sold with the instructions that whatever was left should go into a trust for Rene so that he'd always be looked after.

Falling in love with Nikki, and he knew it couldn't be anything but that, had spurred him to tie ups some loose ends in his life. He'd decided he would go to New York to see his lawyer. His original lawyer had retired , but the young man who'd taken his partnership seemed most anxious to see him when they spoke on the phone. He was also going to see Danielle and get her off his back for good. About Elena, he'd decide how he felt when he got there. He didn't care much about her either way.

He'd also decided to see Nikki. That had been way harder. Too many sleepless nights had passed and he figured that what he had to say had to be said in person.

He went to a phone booth and found the Harper's address. It was a pretty swishy place. He walked up to the front door but no one answered. There were lights on that he could see faintly through the glass front doors and a car was parked in the drive. Rock music was blaring from somewhere and he could hear screams and splashes from a backyard pool. He decided to go around.

He found Jenny, Nikki's daughter in tears yelling at some teenaged boys to: "Go home. My mom will be home any minute and she'll kill me. Please, just go home."

He was pretty certain that Jenny was glad to see him but later when the guests had gone she was biting her nails and pouting, her long legs pulled up on the lawn chair.

Jenny's brown eyes were totally innocent. "I could tell her Wednesday. There's this party I want to go to. Nik's kind of a bitch when it comes to this kinda stuff."

Michael just raised an eyebrow. " I think you should tell her tonight. I'll take you to your grandmother's. I have to catch a plane in three hours. Maybe you could give her my cell-phone number."

The Wal-mart. Nikki groaned as flashes of memory came back. Some white kid with a FU BU hat and a ring in his eyebrow pushing her hard and cases of Castrol GT and wheelbarrows which were displayed on the top shelf on the other side coming down on her head.

"Don't, honey. They had to put in sixteen stitches. But the doc was really good. He only shaved off a little bit of hair. Gramma Addie and I were gone all day at the outlet mall in Norbert City looking at stuff for the wedding day before yesterday. We got back at ten to find that you'd been taken to the hospital."

"Just til they can do some tests and make sure you're okay. And don't worry. Wal-mart is paying for this. They're the ones who put those wheelbarrows up there. Oh, Jen's here. She and Anna went to get some coffee. I'll go out and find her."

A week later Nikki was still recovering from her second bout of hospitalisation that summer. If she never saw the inside of a hospital it would be too soon for her. She stretched out in the sun by Steven's pool, lifting her hands to touch the fine row of stitches and the lovely shaved spot that was now growing in with very fine stubble. Jen and Billie were sitting not far away reading a bunch of magazines Steven had bought for her. He was turning out to be a pretty good guy.

He pushed the magazine under her nose. "Him. This hockey player guy. Jeez, if I'd known who he was I'd have asked him in. He's awesome, man. And you know this guy? Jeez, you know what a rookie card of his is worth?"

Nikki grabbed the magazine. It was him, looking far different. No wranglers. No denim shirt. He was wearing a GQ quality suit, expensive black tinted sunglasses and his hair was cut. He's cut his hair! she thought in alarm.

Oh, Well, he looked pretty good with it short. It looked like a paparazzi photo, the caption saying that the elusive Michel Coeurnoir was seen leaving the New York Blade's management offices with his lawyer. Will we be hearing more about the rumoured twenty-four million dollar contract?

Nikki was making sandwiches in the immaculate granite and polished steel Harper kitchen. Jenny walked in and sat at the counter off the island.

The guy from the wreaking company hooked up Nikki's truck to the tow truck as Chris and Michael watched. Michael wasn't going to miss it. Every time he looked at it he thought about her.

"No. I didn't feel like it." Michael thought about Nikki, but pushed the thought out of his mind. He'd waited as long as he could for her to call, but she hadn't called, so he figured there was no use dwelling on it.

"Yea. I've got a lot more than I thought." He yanked open the stable door. A few million, in fact. Turned out a few of the shady investments had actually come through. He had also been given some pretty hefty residuals.

"Go after her, man. You love her. Go tell her so. So what if she didn't call you. Try it again." Chris grinned. " Go on, Sir Loins-a-lot, you go after that Crackerjack Queen. Show her what you're made of."

"It's going to rain. Gonna be a cloudburst," said Gramma Addie, looking out the front windows of Cleopatra's house of beauty. Adrian was in her seventies but didn't show it. She was still a natural red-head like Nikki's mom and her siblings. She was never wrong about anything, especially the weather.

"Don't say that," Anna wailed. "It will not rain on my wedding." Her mother was busy building Anna's hair into a spectacular beehive. She called it a Grecian or something. What ever. Nikki thought it looked dumb, but she wouldn't say anything. Anna had already flipped out three million times.

Jenny was having her h air done by Gina, Nikki's cousin.Gina was Anna's maid of honour. Two of her college friends were sitting under the bonnet dryers."Are you gonna be taller than Seymour, Aunt Anna?" Jenny asked sweetly.

Oh, the child had such tact. Just like her mother. Nikki gave her a warning look across the room. It was getting so that she could actually do that without being called Stalin or something.

Nikki had already had her hair done. The place on her head where she'd had the stiches had grown in a little and Gina had managed to blend it into a really stylish haircut, kind of a shag thing. Even Jen liked it and had said so. She had her yellow dress on and her hat with the baby roses around the brim. She figured she looked pretty stupid, but who the hell was going to care?

"Closed today. Oh, Hi Bernie." Bernie was the owner of the town's only yellow cab. Had been driving the same one since 1968. "Not open today. Anna's getting married. Come back on Monday." Bobbie cut men's hair since the unisex thing became popular, though some of the ladies in town had never gotten quite used to it. Beauty parlours were sacred.

"Don't know. Ella took the dispatch. Said I was supposed to come here with my cab, give this to you and then take you somewhere. Not supposed to say where."

Nikki shook the box. It had been tampered with, she thought, but expertly. She tore open the flap. Inside of it was popcorn and a key. Seemed to be a house key. There was no note. Nothing.

Ernie let her into the cab. It smelled like take-out chicken. In the backseat Nikki found a bouquet wrapped in cellophane. A dozen yellow roses.

"Curiouser and curiouser," she muttered. Was this someone's idea of a joke? Was it Steven? Oh, no, she thought, please don't let it be Steven. What if she were on her way to see Steven? She'd have to let him down and poor Jenny...

"Where are we going, Ernie?" Just as she asked there was this monstrously loud clap of thunder. The sky opened up and rain started to pour down.

Finally he pulled off at a dirt road with a mail box at the junction. The deluge of rain had turned the road into a river of mud. Ernie got out of the cab and shook his head." Gloria won't make it up there. She'll get stuck for damned sure. You'll have to walk it, or I can take you home. Don't like that house myself. Some say it's haunted."

Five minutes walking and her hem was covered in mud. Ten minutes later she was soaked and her hat collapsed around her ears. Nikki almost fell an few times, but trudged on, the flowers tucked up under her arm. By the time she could see the house on the hill, her heart was pounding and she knew she looked ridiculous. The bridesmaid from hell.

Nikki looked around. No car in front. The paint was peeling on the house revealing about ten other colours. But the broken porch boards had been fixed with new lumber.

She took off her muddy satin pumps and walked in. It was cleaner than it should be, she decided. She wondered through the first floor. "Hello? Are you here?"

She felt incredibly silly. She lifted the skirt of the soaked dress and made her way up the stairs. The hall light was on. The place had power anyway, but for how long? The storm was raging now. She could smell the wet dust and the once dry earth mingling with the scent of roses.

The room was large. It had a scarred wood floor that had been cleaned and polished. The plaster was showing through layers of peeling wallpaper, but there were new lace curtains tacked at the windows. The windows had been opened wide and the curtains fluttered in the breeze like sails.

The amazing thing, the thing that made her eyes widen and her heart sort of pound in the roof of her mouth, was the bed. There was a white iron bed right in the middle of the room. It had been made up with fat pillows dressed in Battenburg cases and a lace trimmed comforter. At the end of the bed was a folded quilt in the Wedding Ring design.

Across the pillow was the missing yellow rose. She picked it up, noting that there was another CrackerJack box on the bed, just peeping out from under the pillow. She opened it with shaking fingers. Inside was a ring. The biggest honking diamond she could imagine.

He looked her up and down. He was panting. There was straw in his hair. He was shirtless and rain ran in rivulets down his chest. " Um, h----. It stands for h----." He ran a hand through his wet hair. "You're here. What are you wearing?

" I thought you weren't coming. I-I got nervous and I went to the barn to look at something. To kill time. Maybe to hang myself. There's this old pinball machine out there. The real estate agent told me about it–"

"Yea. I'll explain that later. Anyway I thought you weren't coming and I went in the barn and climbed up to the loft and there were–" He shuddered. " Bats."

"This was supposed to be a grand seduction. I was going to be naked in that bed holding a rose just for you." Michael frowned. "And then I thought that was too creepy. It was TNT's idea anyway. I felt so sleazy, I put my pants on. This just isn't me, Nikki. And then the rain started and I thought you weren't coming... and then the..."

"It's pretty damned close." She smiled at him. He was so beautiful and wet and bedraggled. Tears tugged at the chords in her throat almost painfully. She walked toward him and opened her arms. He stepped into them, wrapping one strong arm tightly around her waist, lifting her up against his strong body. His mouth turned up in a smile she could only describe as divine. Angelic.

She looked into his eyes. They were the exact colour of sunlit sage, she thought. I am so glad he found me." You got a bathtub in there?" she whispered.

"I'm not used to pretty. I live with five people and one small bath. I've lived in grass shacks and a lean-to during a monsoon and hostels in Singapore. There's more to life than pretty."

"I have to get to know you better, Nikki. There are so many things I want to know about you." He touched her face, running two fingers down her cheek, searching her eyes with his. His were thick lashed, heaven blue. Looking into them made her feel weightless.

She looked away from him because the feeling was almost too much. There was a huge old claw footed tub, a little rusty but clean, a stack of towels on a rickety table.

"Oh, God. Yes. I'm sorry. I've been...never mind. I missed you, Nikki. Every minute. I kept thinking I blew it, turned you off in some way. I was too eager, too needy, that there was something about me or my body that you didn't like–"

"I know that now, Michael...Michel." She reached up to touch his lips with her fingers, that perfectly molded, pink bottom lip. She loved his face, his sweet, far too handsome for his own good face. She loved this man. She wanted to hold him for the rest of her days, until they were old and grey and losing their teeth and had to walk with canes. She wanted to protect him from bats and garter snakes, and anything else he might fear, his troubled past and his dark nightmares. She wanted to give him a home and love his kids and give him back rubs and have spats with him and make up so sweetly that they'd forget whatever was said in the heat of passion.

He pulled her into his arms, his mouth finding, taking all she had to give him. He kissed her with an urgency and a tenderness she'd not forgotten, prayed to know again, dreamed of while she'd slogged through her day to day activities, while she'd walked miles of aisles in the Wal-mart listening to the piped in music, comparing every song about lost dreams to her lost dreams, never daring hope that she'd be lucky enough to have him come for her. Nikki Waite was not going to hide her heart under the bed anymore.

And he loved her. He loved her. He'd not said it yet, but she could taste it in his kiss and see it in the fathomless depths of his multi-coloured eyes. She could feel it in his hands and the way his body seemed almost alarmingly big and hard against her damp satin gown. She moved her hands up and down the damp, smooth skin of his back, unable to feel the ribs or the bones through strong muscle and satin flesh, sliding her fingers down into the worn denim of his pants, feeling the glorious power of his body.

She didn't realise that his fingers had released all the little satin buttons down the back of her dress, until she felt the cool air and the slide of warm, rough fingers down her spine. She shivered as his hands bared her shoulder, as he pressed his open mouth to her skin, tasting her with his tongue. She shivered, taking a deep shaking breath. I will not rush this or anticipate...

He was done the buttons. She could feel it. She shrugged and the yellow dress slithered down in a heap at her feet. She heard him swallow, hard, saw his eyes widen in appreciation as he took in her strapless bra, tap panties and lace topped stockings, all a gift from Addie who shopped regularly at the Victoria's Secret. "You need something special, sweetie," she'd said. "To make you look good where no one sees. And you never know when you might get hit by a bus."

His touched the lace that edged the bra, touched the place right between her breasts where her heart lay. She closed her eyes and her hand fluttered to cover the scar, still red and angry. She willed her heart to slow down.

Michael took her hand and moved it away. "Don't," he whispered. "I will always love this part of you. mon coeur. It brought you to me, Nikki. You gave me back something I'd lost a long time ago and thought I'd never find again."

Michael turned back to her just as she bent to roll down her stockings. " Let me," he said, his eyes shimmering. He dropped to one knee and kissed the tender pink scar on her tummy. He kissed the curve of her hip and her belly button, pressing his hands into her waist. He rolled down the tops of the hose, kissing her thighs where the elastic lace had pressed its design into her flesh, licking the flesh at the curve of her knee, until she had to press her hand into his shoulder. Her body felt like a ripe peach about to burst and trickle sweet juice from every pore.

With more kisses, and expert fingers, he removed the rest of the under things and helped her into the tub. When she was in he took a washcloth and scrubbed the smut and the cobwebs from his face and shoulders. He grinned at her, his face shiny, his hair on end. He looked like a little boy, a beautiful, mischievous sexy boy. "How do I look?"

Still kneeling outside the bath, sitting back on his heels, he looked her over. His gaze was hot, needy. He took the cloth and used it to wash the mud of her legs and feet, smiling, touching her with only the cloth so that she shivered and longed to feel his hands. She felt weird in a way being bathed. It was an intimate act.

Just his eyes and his cloth covered hand, but it was...it was heaven. She watched as he touched her bare breast with the soapy cloth. Rinsed her until she was shiny clean and new. Finally, wordlessly, her helped her out, wrapping her in a towel, kissing the drops of water from her ear, her neck. She gasped as he scooped her up into his strong arms.

Michael carried her to the bed and laid her down on it, looking down at her. Then he stood back up and shucked down his jeans almost frantically. He wasn't wearing underwear. She could feel her eyes widen and the spit back up in her throat and told herself to swallow. Oh, my golly, she thought. Yippee kay yay ay. I never really saw that before, cowboy.

He removed something from his pocket and tossed the jeans aside, coming back to join her, the bed creaking. She sank her head back in the pillows as he noshed delightfully at her neck, tongued her ear, catching the lobe between his teeth. And then he was cupping one breast in his hand, covering the other with his mouth, not rough exactly, but forceful enough that she cried out and raised her hips up a little as the yearning sped through her veins like some sort of drug. A dangerous, compelling sweet, sweet drug she'd crave forever.

He made her feel...loved. Like she was flying right up and out of herself. But she knew he'd be there to catch her when she fell. That's what people who loved you did.

He licked her tummy and then looked back up at her, his eyes burning deep green-blue and surrounded by lashes like spiky stars. She shivered in delight and buried her hands in his warm, brown hair as her whole world tilted like a whirly gig. And then he was kissing her everywhere, his mouth seeking, discovering, hot and desperate, his hands and fingers restless, urging, moving lower until his fingers stroked her there between her legs, and then his hot mouth covered here there where she wept for his touch.

"I don't think I can wait," he said suddenly, coming back to hover over her, his arms stiff and hard and muscled, clamping on either side of her torso.

His eyes were wild, his jaw held tight and hard. The look of fierce desire on his face took her breath away. He turned his back to her for a second, fumbling with the foil packet with shaky hands.

"Please, Michel," she said, beaconing him down to her. Grasping his face, her fingers on his ears. She brushed his lips with hers, brushed her mouth along his bristly jaw, gently bit his chin. "You have such a beautiful, warm mouth. I love your lips, Michel." She played her tongue along the seam of his lips, tugged at his lower lip with her teeth, and then kissed him fully, mating her mouth with his.

She felt his hands grasp her hips as he entered her. Her felt perfect, totally. She wanted him there forever. He thrust into her, groaning the words into her mouth. "Oh, God...yes. Nikki, I love you."

He had no idea what time it was. He stared at the ceiling at the huge cracks as she nestled into him in sleep, her long slender body curved against his. The curtains were blowing and the rain continued to fall. He stroked the bright blonde hair against her neck protectively, still wanting her, like he would want her every day, every minute of his life.

Nikki made arrangements with Steven on Monday to pick Jenny up for dinner. She had introduced Michael to no one in her family yet and they had all looked suspiciously at her when she came home from what she secretly referred to as her love tryst.

A tryst. With a man who honestly appeared to love her and accept everything about her. The most beautiful, most ardent, kindest man she'd ever known. As if she would ever be able to claim something so romantic.

But she could and she just wanted to hug herself thinking about it. Only trouble was she'd had to work. The girl who chose the cable radio stations in the store must have been in a light mood because that day it was all sappy love songs that Nikki normally hated, but that day she was in love with all of them. Even Barry Manilow.

She was glad that Anna and Seymour had headed off to a short honeymoon in Chicago. The wedding had gone well despite her absence or maybe, she thought ruefully, because she wasn't there. With all her luck she'd probably have tripped and fallen walking down the aisle or closed her eyes in the wedding pictures like she usually did in group photos.

Nikki had spent to whole of Sunday night awake or in half sleep, either thinking of being in his arms or some nightmarish scene of Jenny being totally adamant about her not marrying Michael. Oh, how she wanted to marry him.

She met Michael after work, still wearing her work clothes of jeans and a sweatshirt, typical Wal-mart couture. Her heart kind of skipped a beat and her stomach flopped at the sight of him leaning against his truck, waiting for her, the sun in his hair and a happy grin stretching that perfectly pouty mouth when she waved at him.

She wanted to throw her arms around him, but she wasn't much for public displays of affection. Or PDA's as Jenny called them derisively when Nikki tried to wrap her arm around her daughter's shoulder. She contented herself with a quick kiss on the cheek and a brush of his fingers against her own.

Jenny grinned and then bit it back." I thought it seemed kinda cool. The CrackerJack box with the key in it. It was kind of like that children's book with the treasure map with the key you bought me for Christmas when I was nine."

Jen tried her best to ignore Michael, to be cold with him, but Michael was Michael after all. It would be difficult even for a hard nosed twelve year old who figured she was twenty-five to ignore Michael. They talked about horses, one of Jenny's favorite subjects. She's been riding dressage since she was eight. She seemed quite interested in the breeding and training of rodeo and cutting horses. When Michael talked about it in his quiet, softly accented voice, even Nikki could get into the subject.

"Duh," she said to indicate that Nikki was being both stupid and redundant. "Then there'd be other kids and stuff, right? Babies. Like I'd have half brothers and sisters."

"You're kinda old, aren't you? To be walking around in one of those gay, neon pink whale T-shirts with "Baby on Board " printed on the stomach."

"I'm not even thirty. And I won't do that. I swear." To her daughter ‘gay' referred to anything remotely square or heartwarming or sappy or something adults did...

Nikki sucked in a deep breath. Pain tugged at the chords in her throat." You are not a freak. You have a hearing problem. You do really well with it. I'm proud of you. So proud."

"I'd love her or him anyway, no matter what they came out like. I'll have to see about it. Go to a doctor for genetic counselling or something and see what Michael thinks." Not that she was indulging in wishful thinking, or anything.

"I was hoping that I could scare him off, you know. I sorta tried that night you got hurt in the Wal-mart and then he seemed kinda cool and I started feeling badly–"

"Whatever! Jeez. Mom. Since when do you give grammar lessons? I told you about that night, didn't I? That I said you and Dad were getting married?"

Jenny grinned. "Talk about brutal honesty. You think Mr. Hunky French Cowboy might let me keep a horse at his place? Maybe he could teach me rodeo stuff."

Nikki took a deep breath watching Michael put a cutting horse through her paces. She never tired of watching him, the way he gentled the big horse, whispered sweet-nothings in her ear until she tossed her head in delight. She watched with a delighted twitch of her own as his elegant, long fingers stroked the mare's glossy neck and made her his.

The wedding was the following day. It was late fall and the trees and shrubs around the Triple T Ranch were just beginning to shed their bright Autumn leaves. Nikki was a little nervous. It was just family and friends and Tee had taken all the preparations in hand from flowers and catering right down to the dress Nikki would wear. It was a simple sheath of ivory silk and with it she would wear the delicate veil that had been Addie's own. Addie chose the underwear, what there was of it.

Nikki hugged herself against the freshness of the breeze, feeling the tears fall down her cheeks. They were happy tears for the most part. She'd been crying a lot lately, mostly when she found out that Michael's brother Rene was too fragile in health to attend. Michael had tried manfully not to show it, but Nikki knew it hurt.

"Here," Chris joined her at the fence, pressing a bright blue bandana style handkerchief into her hand. "Blow your nose. What is it about chicks and weddings?"

" Yea. There's about ten of ‘em. Cowboys have courage. Cowboys are cheerful even if they fall on their ass. Real cowboys aren't quitters, but they know when to call a spade a spade. Cowboys do the best they can at all times. Cowboys are honest. Cowboys know how to treat a lady. Cowboys always pay in cash. Cowboys keep their word. And cowboys always carry a fresh hankey just in case there's a pretty girl around who needs to give her nose a honk."

When she turned back Michael was walking towards her with that self-confident loose hipped stride that always made her heart jerk in her chest.

"Hi there, wife-to-be, " Michael said softly, pulling his equine companion closer. She nuzzled his neck with her big horse lips while he tugged off his gloves and tucked them into his back pocket. The horse, thinking he had a treat hidden there, nipped at his back pocket.

She laughed and pulled herself up onto the fence rail. The wind blew her hair into her mouth. He reached up and pulled it away, letting his gloved hand trail down her cheek. She looked down into his eyes which were a lovely, misty teal colour today because of his hat brim shading them.

He smiled at that. "If you love me half as much as I love you, Nikki Waite, I am one lucky man. I bless the day Danielle decided to sue me and you gave me that summons."

She bit at her lip because it was trembling. She didn't know quite what to say, her heart was so achingly full. She pulled him towards her, lowered her mouth to his smiling one and showed him instead.