She Was Trembling And She Didn’t Know Why.

Diane met Thomas’s intense brown eyes and a shudder of realization raced through her. She wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted him to crush her in his massive arms and remind her how it felt to be a woman.

Was that what she feared? That he would do all these things and more if she flew away with him to her brother-in-law’s palace in Elbia?

“Say yes,” he said so low, the words were a barely audible rumble across her humble Connecticut kitchen.

Diane looked up at the man who seemed to fill a good half of the room. His eyes were glistening obsidian, hard with determination.

She drew herself up in her chair. Now or never…a persistent voice whispered through her mind. Take a chance. Grab the ring. Risk your heart. For once in your life, do what feels good!

“All right,” she forced out at last. “I’ll go.”

Dear Reader,

Spring is in the air…and so is romance. Especially at Silhouette, where we’re celebrating our 20th anniversary throughout 2000! And Silhouette Desire promises you six powerful, passionate, provocative love stories every month.

Fabulous Anne McAllister offers an irresistible MAN OF THE MONTH with A Cowboy’s Secret. A rugged cowboy fears his darkest secret will separate him from the beauty he loves.

Bestselling author Leanne Banks continues her exciting miniseries LONE STAR FAMILIES: THE LOGANS with a sexy bachelor doctor in The Doctor Wore Spurs. In A Whole Lot of Love, Justine Davis tells the emotional story of a full-figured woman feeling worthy of love for the first time.

Kathryn Jensen returns to Desire with another wonderful fairy-tale romance, The Earl Takes a Bride. THE BABY BANK, a brand-new theme promotion in Desire in which love is found through sperm bank babies, debuts with The Pregnant Virgin by Anne Eames. And be sure to enjoy another BRIDAL BID story, which continues with Carol Devine’s Marriage for Sale, in which the hero “buys” the heroine at auction.

We hope you plan to usher in the spring season with all six of these supersensual romances, only from Silhouette Desire!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

The Earl Takes a Bride
Kathryn Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

With deep thanks to my wonderful readers,

who loved Jacob, Allison, Diane and Thomas in

I Married a Prince…and wanted more of them.

KATHRYN JENSEN

has written many novels for young readers as well as for adults. She speed walks, works out with weights and enjoys ballroom dancing for exercise, stress reduction and pleasure. Her children are now grown. She lives in Maryland with her husband, Bill, and her writing companion—Sunny, a lovable terrier mix adopted from a shelter.

Having worked as a hospital switchboard operator, department store sales associate, bank clerk and elementary school teacher, she now splits her days between writing her own books and teaching fiction writing at two local colleges and through a correspondence course. She enjoys helping new writers get a start and speaks “at the drop of a hat” at writers’ conferences, libraries and schools across the country.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

One

Diane Fields, mother of three, aroused him.

She pushed all the right buttons, as one of his American friends so aptly put it.

She looked at him…and those soft, hazel eyes with a hint of playful sparkle melted his trousers. Worst of all, she made Thomas forget he was employed by Jacob von Austerand, King of Elbia, who had a temper to rival his own and wouldn’t be pleased to discover his trusted right-hand man was mentally undressing his wife’s sister. Particularly while he was on a royal mission.

Thomas had watched her house for two hours before the lights in the end rooms dimmed and he decided it was probably safe to approach. Nevertheless, he remained behind the wheel of the glistening ebony Benz—concealed behind the glazed windows looking out at Long Island Sound, his strong fingers coiling and uncoiling nervously around the leather-wrapped steering wheel.

He studied the front windows, following telltale wisps of shadows behind them. Was she in the living room or her own bedroom now? He couldn’t remember the exact floor plan of the little Cape Cod in this quaint Connecticut town—Nanticoke—a place reminiscent of Chichester on the sea-swept coast of England, where he’d been born.

Maybe he should wait a little longer?

He was stalling for time and he knew it. Thomas cursed softly under his breath and flung open the car door. Straightening all six feet five inches of his muscular body, he rose up out of the leather driver’s seat and quietly closed the door.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Diane, he told himself as he crossed the street. Lord knows he’d been thinking about the long-legged brunette off and on for more than a year and almost constantly for the past two days. Thomas remembered in disturbing detail the lovely contours of her face…and other intriguing parts of her body. Diane Fields was a good-looking woman with a no-nonsense attitude toward life he could appreciate. In her own way she was tougher than her sister, Jacob’s bride. Thomas had seen Diane stand up to Jacob on behalf of Allison before His Royal Highness married her. The woman was a force to be reckoned with. But apparently she was in trouble now.

As chief advisor and security officer to one of the most powerful figures in Europe, Thomas Denton Smythe had been dispatched to find out what kind of difficulty the king’s sister-in-law was in and how bad it might be. As unofficial royal troubleshooter, he was expected to get to the bottom of things.

Bottom.

Why had he thought of that unfortunately provocative word? He marched forward, smothering a groan. Her bottom, he mused as visions of Diane appeared in his mind, at angles best not dwelt upon.

As Thomas neared the driftwood-gray bungalow, another, fainter light from the interior of the house flicked off. He drew a deep breath and strode bravely across the lawn, already having decided on the side door that led from the driveway directly into kitchen. Logistically it made sense. He didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot by waking her children.

Her husband was another reason for using caution. Gary’s truck had been conspicuously absent when Thomas pulled up in the sleek black sedan across the street. Even though it was nearly nine o’clock at night, well past the time a construction worker knocked off for the day, there was still no sign of the man.

Before he knew it, Thomas was standing on the four-by-four cement slab outside her kitchen door. There was nothing to do but knock and get it over with.

He waited for her to answer, his arms folded over his chest, wearing the same suit he’d traveled in—impeccable Italian tailoring, but cut much wider than the traditional sleek Continental silhouette to allow for his broad shoulders and muscled chest. He had taken clothes for granted in his younger days. But working for Jacob demanded a certain image.

Hasty, rustling sounds came from behind the door. As if Diane was throwing on a robe…or searching for a weapon before she opened her door at night to a stranger. Now he was certain Gary wasn’t around.

Good, he thought. He wouldn’t have liked any man who had married Diane, but even with an open mind he hadn’t been impressed with Gary Fields. There was something about the fellow he didn’t trust.

The white eyelet curtains lifted a bare inch from the left side of the window in the door. An apprehensive fern-green eye appeared for an instant, a sweep of chocolate-brown bangs, then the curtains swung back into place. But the door didn’t open.

Thomas cleared his throat. “Diane, it’s Thomas Smythe, the king’s advisor. It’s important that I speak with you.”

That did the trick. He heard the latch open. The door jerked wide. Diane stood in a splash of fluorescent light, backed by her kitchen table and a sun-flower-yellow decor. She was wrapped in a pink chenille robe. Quickly she pulled it into place when it slipped off one shoulder. Her hair looked damp, as if she’d recently showered and had only bothered to towel dry it. Even from a few feet away, she smelled of strawberries. She smiled in welcome, but looked a little puzzled.

“Thomas, I didn’t recognize you. Is something wrong? Are Allison and the babies all right? And Jacob?”

She would have kept rattling off questions at him if he hadn’t stepped into her kitchen, nearly filling it. And apparently startling the woman to silence. It was a reaction he often saw from strangers. The intimidation factor of his size was something he actively cultivated in certain situations. After all, he had been responsible for Jacob’s safety for many years, and now it was his duty to see to the entire royal family’s security.

Unfortunately, in this case, his physique and threatening scowl wouldn’t work in his favor.

With effort, he relaxed his shoulders, trying to make himself seem smaller, smiled and put on the charm he usually saved for visiting dignitaries and particularly bedworthy young women. “I’m sorry to arrive unannounced, Diane,” he lied in as soft a voice as his rumbling baritone could manage. “I’m in the States on several errands for Jacob, and I hoped you wouldn’t mind if I stopped by on my way through.”

She smiled up at him, unsurprised, as if people frequently dropped in on her at odd hours. “You’ve shaved off your beard.”

He chuckled. “Do I look very different?”

“Only for a moment,” she admitted. “At the window, in the dark. Not many men can make themselves look like James Bond just by shaving.”

He never went to films, but he was warmed by her comparison to a movie character she seemed to admire.

“Although,” she continued, “you’re probably head and shoulders taller than 007.”

He grinned, pleased. “Are the children still up?” he asked, knowing they weren’t.

“No.” She sighed. “They would have loved to see you again. Tommy took an immense liking to you. Maybe because you have the same name. He’s grown, you know. You’d be surprised how much, for a seven-year-old.”

Although she was smiling and chattering lightly, filling him in on accomplishments and changes in her three offspring—Tommy at seven, Annie, six and Gare, five—he could read an underlying tension in her nervous movements. Her fingers sought out unnecessary tasks—lining up the salt and pepper shakers on her table, straightening the kitchen towel hanging over the oven door handle. Another sign of anxiety revealed itself in the delicate lines around her pretty eyes and mouth.

He concentrated too long on her mouth, her elegantly shaped lips…and felt himself lean toward her.

She automatically fell back a step as if to make more space for him in the little room. “Do you have time for coffee? Or do you prefer tea?”

“Coffee would be great,” he said, although it hadn’t been at the top of his list of desires.

She spun around and busied herself with measuring grounds into the coffee maker, fetching milk from the refrigerator, digging two blue ceramic mugs from behind a collection of children’s plastic cups in the cupboard. She was offering him her best, though her mugs would have looked common beside the von Austerand’s fragile Sheffield bone china.

“May I help with—”

“No, no.” She cut him off with a wave of her hand as she transferred the sugar bowl and milk to the table. “Sit, sit. So, tell me how everyone is. Really,” she added breathlessly, sweeping damp brown tendrils out of her eyes. She looked suddenly very tired, holding herself together by threads as she swung back to the counter to watch coffee drip into the glass decanter. “Summer in Elbia…it must be lovely.”

“You’ve never been there, have you?” Thomas asked.

“To Elbia? To Europe?” She laughed. “Not likely. Do you realize the cost of foreign travel these da—” She caught herself, turned to blink at him and smile weakly. “Of course you don’t. Everything’s on the royal budget, isn’t it?”

“Most everything,” he admitted quietly.

“Must be nice,” she murmured, more to herself, he expected, than for his benefit. She sighed again. “Such an exotic world…far away…the stuff of dreams.”

The coffeemaker sputtered out its last drops of dark, fragrant liquid. A pungent aroma filled the kitchen, and Diane pulled herself out of her reverie to fill the mugs and bring them to the table. She sat down heavily, with a little inward sound that wasn’t quite a groan.

Thomas watched her as he lifted his steaming mug of black, unsweetened coffee to his lips. It was weak compared to the way he liked it. If they’d been together under different circumstances he’d have shown her how to make a strong European brew to his taste.

He hastily shook away the intimate thought as he watched her add two spoonfuls of sugar and a generous dollop of milk to her own mug. He reminded himself of his mission.

“You look well,” he said slowly.

Her eyes were fixed on her beverage. “Absolutely,” she said with a chipper lilt that didn’t come from the heart.

How to proceed? Thomas felt a little desperate. “I…we, that is, wondered…”

An arrow of suspicion shot through her eyes as they rose to meet his. “So that’s what this is.” She sounded hurt, and he kicked himself for not handling the situation more tactfully.

“Now, Diane—”

“You’ve come to spy on me,” she accused with a touch of dry humor.

“I’m sorry if I’m intruding,” Thomas whispered gruffly. “Jacob and Allison are worried about you and the children. They’ve received phone calls from Florida. Your parents believe you’re having problems of some sort but won’t tell them what it’s all about.”

The touch of anger in Diane’s eyes softened. She set her mug down a little too hard, and coffee sloshed over the lip onto the tabletop. “It’s nothing they can do anything about. I didn’t want to burden anyone unnecessarily.”

“I see.”

She gave him a look that could only have come from deep sorrow. Whatever had happened must have been pretty awful.

He set down his own mug firmly, hiked himself up even straighter in his chair and spread his huge hands over hers on the table in front of him. “If it’s that serious, Mrs. Fields, your family should be told.”

“It’s nothing that I can’t— It’s just that—” Something seemed to catch in her throat. A watery glaze covered her eyes, and she looked away from him.

Was she going to cry? He would never have thought it possible. Diane the fighter. Diane the veritable tigress when it came to chasing off the press in the days just after her sister’s marriage to Jacob, when no one in either family could go anywhere without a trail of reporters yapping like hyenas at their heels. He’d seen her run off a journalist and his photographer with a broom when the pair had tried to corner her children with questions in their own backyard.

And here she was, an emotional disaster, on the verge—unless he was mistaken—of breaking down entirely. He didn’t have a clue what to do.

“Diane, let them help.”

She pulled herself up and stood to face him as he rose from the table. The top of her head only reached the shoulder of his suit jacket. “I’m just tired. Days are pretty long around here. I should go to bed now.”

“Tell me what has happened,” he said, emphasizing each word.

She looked up at him, a spark of proud fire momentarily brightening her sad eyes. “Please go.”

“You are not leaving this room, and I’m not leaving this house until you tell me what’s going on.”

“Why does it matter?” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “It’s the possibility of scandal, isn’t it? If the press hears the king of Elbia’s sister-in-law is bereft of a husband and can’t pay her electric bill, they’ll have a field day. Won’t they?”

Thomas’s heart stopped. So that was it. “Gary’s…left you and the children?” he asked hesitantly.

“Gone…flown the coop…absconded with a floozy from the office…good riddance.” She fluttered a hand carelessly in the air, but the gesture didn’t fool him a bit.

“Dear girl, I’m so sorry,” he muttered, trying to recover from his shock and think of something…anything appropriate to say.

“Well, I’m not,” Diane said in a quiet voice just short of cracking. “It’s been a long time coming. I should have insisted years ago…didn’t…couldn’t find a way to—”

The last ounce of strength drained from her. She turned with a choking sob and rushed toward the doorway into the living room.

Thomas cut her off with one enormous stride. She ran smack into his chest with her bowed head. His big arms immediately wrapped around her, pinning her there. She struggled for exactly half of one second, then went limp in his bear hug of an embrace.

Neither of them said a thing. But now that Thomas had her in his arms, her trembling body flush against his, he wasn’t sure what to do with her.

She didn’t push or squirm or indicate she needed space, oxygen or even words of solace from him. She seemed content just to remain where she was.

It was at that moment he became aware of an embarrassing development. Down below his belt. He felt himself move, extend, become…firm.

Thomas squeezed his eyes shut and willed himself to remember he was duty bound to Jacob to protect, defend and honor the members of his family. Desire wasn’t supposed to enter the equation. That meant not responding to Diane as if she were a beautiful, soft, desperately overworked woman who might welcome a man. That meant switching off his hormones for one bloody hour, finding out what he needed to know, mending whatever was broken the best he could…and getting the hell out.

If he played his cards right and there were no technical delays at the airport, he could be on the royal jet and headed back toward Europe in a matter of hours.

But at the moment a woman was weeping on his chest. Probably ruining his new suit jacket, he thought regretfully. He had paid an exclusive tailor in Florence to make it for him, at the cost of more lire than his recent week on the Riviera with a sultry French actress. In retrospect, the suit had seemed the better deal.

Diane made no sound, moved not a muscle. Nevertheless he knew she was crying by the bucketful.

“Mrs. Fields,” he said, “I’m good at fixing things. Let me help.” Although he’d meant to be gentle, even paternal, his words came out clipped, tense, businesslike.

If she hadn’t been moving before, now she was suddenly as still as granite, hardly breathing, taut from her tiny bare feet to the top of her shampoo-fresh head. “Help?” she whispered hoarsely. She looked up at him with incredible sadness. “You silly man, this isn’t a matter of diplomacy or rescuing Jacob from a mob of overenthusiastic paparazzi.”

“I realize that,” he began, employing his best diplomatic tone nevertheless. “But perhaps there is a way to work things out between you and your husband.”

“No, there isn’t.” She ducked out of his arms and began pacing the vinyl flooring. “I know it was the right thing to do, signing those papers, but I can’t bear to think how my kids are going to suffer.”

Thomas frowned, feeling something like panic tug at his gut. “What papers?” Did she mean separation papers? Or was she already divorced? He couldn’t walk out without something more exact to report to Jacob. But he also wanted to know, for himself.

“Mr. Fields is where now?” The words came out casually enough, but the muscles in his shoulders and arms bunched, as if prepped for battle with the man who had broken the heart of this amazing woman.

“I don’t know and I can’t say that I really care.” She smiled grimly at him.

Thomas stared at Diane, hesitant to push further. Seeing her in such anguish was devastating to him, although he didn’t understand why. Over the years he had hardened himself to the pain of others. He held little sympathy for anyone who wasn’t part of the royal family or the inner circle of the court. The von Austerands had, in every sense but one—blood—become his family.

After all his own parents had deserted him—each in their own way. He had been barely five years old when his mother had left his father, the Earl of Sussex, his two brothers and him. At six he’d been shipped off to a boarding school by his aristocratic father. Who had bloody well cared about him then?

The troubles of strangers were of no consequence to him. And Diane, though related by marriage to Jacob, was in all other ways a stranger. Yet, watching her suffer the rejection of the father of her children, he felt truly and deeply moved.

“I’m sorry,” Thomas began slowly. “He’s a fool to have left you.”

She gave him a tiny, appreciative shake of her head.

“If it’s money you’re worried about, there are ways to track down a deadbeat father and force him to do his share. It’s the law in this country.”

“I know. I’d just rather do this on my own. They’re my kids. He wouldn’t have left if he’d loved them.”

Thomas winced. Had his mother not loved him and his brothers?

Diane pulled the chenille belt tighter around her waist to close an enticing gap over her chest that Thomas was having difficulty pretending wasn’t there.

“I suppose not,” he said, mourning the view now blocked by fuzzy tufts of fabric.

Diane cast him an irritated glance. “You’re not going to leave, are you.” It was a statement.

“Not until I have something more to tell Jacob.”

She whirled toward the living room and disappeared around the corner. He found her digging through a stack of mail scattered across the coffee table among crayons, dried-up bits of modeling clay and miniature dinosaurs in molded multicolored plastic.

She came up with a long white envelope and thrust it at him. “Here. This tells all. Read and relay as much as you like to my concerned family.”

Her robe slipped open again.

He ached to kiss her. There. Right there between her beautiful breasts.

But she was holding the envelope out to him. Waiting.

Reminding himself of his duty for the hundredth time, Thomas took it from her, extracted its contents and unfolded a five-page document. “It’s a divorce settlement—legally signed, dated, notarized.” He looked up at her, but whatever emotions he expected to see in her eyes were absent. She’d pulled herself together in the time it had taken him to scan the agreement.

“You’ve accepted sole custody of the children and released your husband of all financial responsibilities?” He didn’t understand. “Why, Diane? Did he coerce you into signing this?”

“No,” she said. “I’m the one who filed for divorce and had the papers drawn up.”

“And your lawyer…he didn’t—”

“He advised me against releasing Gary from his obligations to the children. He said I had grounds to demand support plus a large settlement for emotional injury due to his desertion.”

“But you ignored his advice.”

She looked him squarely in the eyes. “I don’t want anything to do with Gary Fields. The children and I are better off without him.”

“No doubt,” Thomas agreed. “But still—”

“Don’t say another word,” she warned, shaking a finger at him as if he were one of her brood. “It’s done. Now all I have to do is figure out how to survive on pride…because there sure isn’t a lot of money coming into this household.”

She started pacing again, this time crisscrossing the oval, braided rug that nearly covered the living room floor. “Listen, Thomas, I wasn’t trying to hide anything from Ally and Jacob…or from my parents. Or embarrass anyone. I just didn’t want them to worry, you know? I had decided to wait until I was sure of the end result. I didn’t know until yesterday’s mail that Gary had signed the divorce papers.”

“But he did.”

“In a heartbeat.” She laughed dryly, shaking her head. “He never loved me, not really. I don’t think even I know what love is. I was a good wife to him, but now it’s finished. And I’m glad, I really am. Neither of us was happy.”

“I understand.” What still didn’t make sense to him was why she hadn’t fought for what was rightfully hers. She couldn’t possibly support three children on the money she made from her in-home day care business.

She looked up at him from beneath thick, dark lashes. “Sorry, you don’t deserve to get dumped on like this. You’re just the messenger, right?”

Her fingertips were lightly smoothing the vee of skin between her throat and breasts, unconsciously opening the robe again. He followed their teasing pattern, wishing she’d stop doing that. He was having enough trouble giving a damn about wayward husbands and legal documents. He imagined how her long, delicate fingers would feel sliding down his bare chest, across his belly, descending to—

“We hadn’t been intimate for a long time,” she continued, more to herself than to him. “Sex just didn’t seem very important to Gary.”

Personally, he couldn’t imagine any man not wanting to be intimate with Diane. “Most married men are interested in sex, no matter what else they may say. They just search for a suitable outlet…which may or may not be their wife.”

“Outlet. How harmless sounding,” she murmured, nibbling thoughtfully at her bottom lip. “Is that all we women are to men?”

He put a hand out to touch her shoulder consolingly but thought better of it and drew his curled fingers away. “Of course not, not where a real man is concerned.” But he had a flash of guilt for the women he’d used in the past. Did it matter that they’d used him, as well? For his money, for the gifts, for an entry into glamorous royal functions and a leg up in society? Maybe he wasn’t totally innocent, either. “I just meant,” he added slowly, “that Gary’s character isn’t of a caliber to match yours. He didn’t deserve you.”

She looked at him strangely, as if trying to decide how seriously she should take his compliment. She had stopped keeping track of her robe’s antics: one creamy shoulder was bare.

Thomas turned away and stared out the front window at the Benz, parked in a shadowy patch between two streetlights. He drew a deep breath, recentered himself, told himself sternly that his reason for being here was Jacob…not his lovely, tempting sister-in-law.

“May I tell your sister and the king what I’ve learned tonight?” he asked, his voice restored to its formal, controlled chest rumble.

She didn’t answer right away. “Of course. But before you return to Elbia I will have called Allison and spoken with her. I realize they will need to know. I’ll also call my parents.”

“The children—” he began, but she cut him off.

“Gary never spent much time with them. They obviously miss him, but his absence isn’t a big change for them. The money will be tight for a while, but I’ll figure out what to do.” She sounded confident.

“You’re sure?”

She gave him a sunbeam of a smile. “Of course. I’m a survivor, Thomas. If you knew me better, you’d understand that.”

He nodded but decided to try one last time. “I have the authority to give you a blank check—”

“Somehow I guessed you would have. Tell Jacob for me, No, but thank you. We’ll manage.”

There was nothing more he could do. Right? He’d learned the truth and offered assistance, which had been politely refused. If he telephoned the pilot at JFK, he might still make it back to Elbia by midday tomorrow.

“If you’re sure,” he said, taking her hand in a gesture calculated to be gentle, friendly, consoling.

“I’m sure,” Diane whispered.

Then she ruined everything.

She stepped up to him, rose onto her toes and kissed him lightly on the ridge of his jaw. A feather of a kiss from a woman who had the charity to respond with graciousness toward others despite her own immeasurable grief and disappointment.

“Thank you for coming, Thomas,” she whispered. She undoubtedly didn’t intend for her breast to brush against his arm as she withdrew. But it did.

He marched to the car, cursing his body for betraying him. One little kiss, one accidental touch, one bare shoulder…and his hormones were bouncing around inside of him like blasted Ping-Pong balls. Now there was no way he could leave for home tonight.

Two

Diane shooed her three darlings outside. Tommy, named after her dad, a retired Amtrak conductor, was leader of the pack. As the oldest child on the street, he was undisputed monarch of the neighborhood. Occasionally his sister, Annie, tricked him into doing what she wanted. But most of the time he saw right through her ploys.

Gary, Jr., known only as Gare from the time he was born, was the baby of her adored litter. He would begin kindergarten in the fall but didn’t look old enough. He idolized his big brother, collected dinosaurs and favored chocolate syrup poured over everything. Including mashed potatoes, if she’d let him have his way.

Altogether, they got along well and Diane would have cheerfully welcomed three more of the same. She loved children, so much so that she’d begun a day-care service in her home to enable her to stay home with her own while bringing some money into the house to help with expenses.

She let a nearly forgotten wish pass through her mind. If she could…if she ever had the money, she’d take her children with her on marvelous trips to far corners of the world. They would hike through exotic countries…share delicious foods of other cultures…listen to the music and language and laughter of other lands…and learn about people others called foreigners but she thought of as neighbors.

Dreams. Beautiful girlhood dreams that had been nourished by three years of studying international relations and sociology in college. They would never come true.

Diane put out a hand to touch the door frame and let her eyes close for a moment. The darkness behind her eyelids brought a temporary sense of separation from reality. It was so tempting to stay like this—shut off from overdue bills, from the loneliness, from the knowledge that traveling the world would never come to be.

As fond as she was of Thomas, she’d lied to him the night before. How she was going to make ends meet, she didn’t have a clue. Not yet. She had to come up with a plan.

When she opened her eyes, Tommy was helping little Gare onto the swing. Annie was swooping down the slide in their securely fenced yard. The June sun was warm. Unless someone took a spill, they’d be content for at least an hour on their own. And it was Saturday—no day-care kids. Now was as good a time as any to consider her options.

Forty-five minutes later, her checkbook lay open in front of her on the kitchen table. Checks to cover the most urgent bills had been written, bringing her balance down to almost nothing. In two weeks she’d be paid again, but without Gary’s earnings she’d be hard put to continue making ends meet.

Thomas had been right. She’d been too proud to ask Gary for help. But she wouldn’t go begging to her ex now. Alternatives. That’s what she needed. What were hers?

She could ask her parents for a loan. Or she could reconsider Jacob’s blank check. But either one would be a temporary fix at best and leave her feeling indebted to her family. She stood up, stretched and walked across the kitchen to work the stiffness out of her bones. It took making a cup of tea and circling the kitchen table for another ten minutes to come up with the obvious answer: get a better paying job.

That would mean working outside of her home, leaving her children in someone else’s care when they weren’t in school. Other mothers did it; she could, too. But she felt as if she was breaking a silent promise she’d made to her babies when they were born. She sat down again at the table, convinced she couldn’t feel any worse.

A moment later a series of fist-on-wood thuds rattled the glass pane in her kitchen door. She twisted around in her chair with a startled jerk just as Thomas Smythe opened her door without invitation and stepped inside. She was immediately reminded of the deliciously illicit feelings he’d awakened in her the first day they’d met…and every time since.

“I thought you’d have left for Elbia by now,” she said, pushing back from the table to stand up.

He shrugged, his shoulders threatening to break out walls. “I had a few more matters to look into before I left,” he said, placing a white paper sack on her table that looked as if it had come from the local bakery. He had only a slight English accent, which she attributed to the amount of time he’d spent in the United States and other countries on behalf of Jacob.

“What kind of matters?” She dug into the bag and brought out an enormous raisin scone. As anxious as he’d seemed to get out of her house the night before, she figured they must have been terribly important to keep him in Connecticut.

“Just details. Like making sure you have enough cash on hand to survive the next few months.”

The big guy doesn’t give up easy, does he? she thought, amused by his insistence on doing his job, but also a little annoyed at Jacob’s interference. “Well, there’s nothing you can do if I don’t want help, is there?” She took a bite of the scone, then waved it in challenge at him. “Short of dumping truckfuls of cash into my accounts, but you don’t have the name of my bank or the account numbers, so…” She nearly choked on a mouthful of crumbs at the mischievous twinkle in Thomas’s dark eyes. “You wouldn’t. You didn’t!”

He just looked at her. He wasn’t quite smiling, but she was sure the effort to keep a straight face was costing him.

“Damn you, Thomas. And Jacob, too. It’s no doubt his name that loosened tongues.” She tossed his raisined peace offering on the table. Men! What right did they have to take over her life? She was perfectly capable of working things out for herself. Surviving the next few months might not be fun, but she’d find a way.

“It’s for your own good. In the children’s best interest,” Thomas explained solemnly.

“Well, you can tell Jacob that I resent his intrusion into my private life!” she snapped. “I don’t need anyone’s charity.”

“You’ll lose your house. You’ll be on the street,” Thomas said calmly.

“The hell I will.” She flashed her eyes at him.

“If accepting a gift isn’t your preference, consider the money a short-term loan.”

She glared at him, but couldn’t stay angry. She’d always liked him. What amazed her about Thomas was that he never seemed to think of himself. He was always doing things for Jacob—bringing him documents, keeping him on schedule for his appointments, driving him here and there, protecting him from outsiders. He seemed on duty twenty-four hours a day. And now he protected her sister, nephew and niece as well. He was a little scary sometimes—because of his size and booming voice. But he was, she believed, one of the most honorable and dedicated men she’d ever met.

He continued calmly, his dark eyes fixed on her face. “You have to be reasonable, Diane. If not for your own sake, then for the children….”

She felt silly, turning down gobs of money. Giddiness took over. She did what every first-grader learns to do when confronted with adult logic. She covered her ears, closed her eyes and belted out “The Star Spangled Banner” as Thomas continued his argument.

Halfway through the first verse, Diane was struck by a steamroller of male flesh. She let out a gasp of shock as Thomas forced her up against the kitchen counter, seized her by the shoulders and kissed her fiercely on the mouth.

Diane struggled for precisely two seconds, then went limp against him. Do men really kiss like this? she wondered dizzily, all other concerns driven from her head. His lips were warm and full. He didn’t just kiss her, he consumed her. The faint scratchiness of morning stubble added heat to his mouth against hers. His big hands released her shoulders, but only to allow his fingers to rake through her tousled hair. His palms clamped either side of her head and pressed her toward him again, increasing the pressure on her lips.

It felt so good, she thought she would die.

When Thomas finally relinquished his claim to her lips, he pressed her blazing cheek against his shirtfront and breathed heavily for several seconds. She felt the rise and fall of his immense chest beneath her cheek. Heard his heart thudding strongly.

“Is that supposed to satisfy my banker? Or just you?” she asked, her voice unusually husky sounding.

“Both of us—you and me.” He ground out the words.

“Uh-uh.” She had to catch her breath and refocus her thoughts before she could come up with anything more to say. Through the window over the sink she glimpsed Tommy, Annie and Gare. They’d been joined by two neighbor children and all were now busily digging in the sandbox.

“You started it,” Thomas said at last.

“What?” She tried to pull away, but he made no move to release her. “Me? I believe all I did was tell you I didn’t want Jacob’s money!”

“Last night, woman,” he said. “You kissed me.”

“But…but that was just an innocent peck on the cheek!” she protested, although she remembered the electricity she’d felt zap between them at the touch of her lips. “It was a gesture of thanks, that was all.”

“It was more,” he said, sounding irritatingly sure of himself.

“Was not.”

Was too, her Tommy would have replied.

But the Englishman said nothing more for another moment. At last he sighed and moved a step back from her, his hands dropping to his sides. “I’ve never met a more maddening woman in my life.”

She decided it would be safer to pretend smugness than to let him see how thoroughly he’d shaken her. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she retorted, flashing him a chipper smile.

“It may well be,” he murmured, gazing down at her with more intensity than she had ever seen in any man’s eyes. “It may well be…Diane.” His hand rose from his hip to the level of her chin. She didn’t pull away as his thumb caressed the fragile line of her jaw, then touched her lower lip before retreating.

“Did Jacob tell you to offer physical as well as financial consolation?”

For a fraction of a second he looked hurt. Then his expression hardened and he took three stiff steps back from her. “His instructions were to find out what, if anything, was wrong and offer help if that seemed prudent.”

“Prudent.” She couldn’t help chuckling dryly at the old-fashioned sound of the word. “I don’t believe what we were doing just now would be considered prudent by Jacob, especially in his present status as reformed-playboy king.”

Thomas cleared his throat, looking more uncomfortable by the moment. “I’m sure it wouldn’t, Mrs. Fields.”

She shrugged. “Please…we can’t very well revert to courtly etiquette, not after that kiss.”

Oddly enough she felt stronger, in better possession of her mental facilities in the aftermath of Thomas’s amorous onslaught. She was puzzled by this unexpected side effect. Maybe the brief taste of pleasure had syphoned off pent-up energies that had been interfering with her effective analysis of the situation. At the very least she’d been reminded that men and women did, under the right circumstances, interact with passion.

Had Gary even once embraced her with such fervent desire? She couldn’t remember. She thought not. No, definitely not. She certainly hadn’t felt her body respond as it had when Thomas kissed her. Which was somewhat in excess of cataclysmic.

“I-I’m truly sorry for overstepping my bounds,” Thomas muttered, avoiding her eyes. “I was out of line.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “You definitely were.”

He adjusted his shoulders, ran his tongue between his lips and seemed to make up his mind to meet her gaze again. “I’ve never forced a woman. It wouldn’t have gone further than the kiss. I wouldn’t even have kissed you if you were still married. Please, forgive me if I’ve embarrassed you.”

“I forgive you, Thomas.” Why did everything he say send teasing vibrations through her? “I suppose you might have been misled by that silly thank-you kiss. I’m not focusing very well these days on other people’s feelings. There are so many things still to be resolved, even though Gary’s been gone for over six months.”

“That long?” He looked surprised.

“Actually, it seems longer. For the past two years, maybe more, he hasn’t been around much at all.”

“I am sorry…truly I am.” Even now he looked as if he wanted to touch her, but she didn’t understand why that should be. Allison had told her something of Thomas’s taste for glamorous women.

Nevertheless she stepped around the kitchen table to the other side. Furniture made good defensive fortifications. From this distance she thought she saw a shadow pass over his eyes. It occurred to her she might have hurt his feelings or touched on some hidden injury without realizing it.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so rude,” she said apologetically. “I have been very short with you, and I know it. But it’s totally against my nature to accept help. I’ve always been able to fend for myself.”

“Isn’t that what your sister was trying to do by keeping her baby to herself?”

Diane remembered as if it were yesterday. She smiled. “At the time, it seemed unlikely the father of Allison’s child would ever come back into her life. Who could have known the college boy she’d fallen for was a prince—complete with royal palace and a country at his bidding?”

Thomas smiled, too, looking a centimeter less tense. “At one time I didn’t believe Jacob was other than a spoiled rich boy who needed looking after while he was in an English school away from his family.”

“You started working for him that long ago?”

“Yes,” Thomas said, pulling out a chair, then motioning for Diane to sit in it.

She sat, then picked up the scone she’d dropped on the table and took another bite. He spotted the pot of coffee on the countertop and poured each of them a cup.

“I’d just come out of the British army after serving overseas. I wanted to stay home for a while in London, see if I could find a decent job….” He winked at her. “Talk a few girls into bed while I was at it. Those were my only goals. Simple ones.”

“Simple but laudable for a young man,” she commented with a hint of sarcasm.

“Well, they didn’t work out. Instead, I acquired a young lad who always seemed to be getting himself into trouble. The first time I saw Jacob, he was at the wrong end of another man’s fist, getting beaten to a bloody pulp by a couple of what you Americans call longshoremen. I stepped in to even up the sides, and we managed to walk out of the pub alive.

“He was still in school at the Crenworth Academy and headed, he informed me, for more years of formal education in the United States. His future had been mapped out by his family. He hated not being able to make his own decisions about what to do with his life.”

Diane nodded. “I understand.” Hadn’t so much of her own life been determined by chance?

“To make a very complicated story short,” Thomas continued, “Jacob attached himself to me. I don’t know why. Maybe because I didn’t keep reminding him of who he was, because I really didn’t know.” He smiled. “But it wasn’t long before a crotchety royal chancellor cornered me and filled me in. You could have knocked me flat with a teaspoon. A crown prince. Being prepped to take over the throne of one of the wealthiest little countries in Europe—Elbia. And there I was taking him out to pubs, pulling him out of fights and walking him home, both of us drunk as skunks. I was shocked. I apologized and promised the man I’d never meant Jacob any harm. It was just that I liked him, I really did. And I sort of felt sorry for the lad.”

Diane was amused by Thomas’s tale. “Then what happened?” she asked, as he polished off his first scone and reached hungrily for a second from the sack.

“I told the old man I’d make myself scarce. But he says in this German accent you could cut with a knife, ‘You vill continue to go everywhere with Jacob. You vill not let him out of your sight for as long as you or he lives. The king vill pay you vell to continue protecting his son.”’

Diane laughed at his imitation. This was a piece of palace lore she hadn’t heard from Allison. But she couldn’t help noticing that Thomas mentioned surprisingly little of his own background before he’d met Jacob, and she made a mental note to ask him about that later. She was curious.

Diane finished her own buttery scone and sat back to lick delicious crumbs from her fingertips while Thomas finished a third pastry. They drank another cup of coffee slowly, in companionable silence. For some reason she had the distinct impression that Thomas’s mind wasn’t as quiet as his body.

At last he looked across the table at her.

“What now?” she asked. “No more Mr. Nice Guy?”

He frowned. “What?”

“I think it comes from a movie, or maybe a TV show. Don’t know which,” she murmured, automatically taking in the sounds of play from the backyard. She’d learned to read them so well she could tell the children were safe.

Thomas folded his hands and observed her over the wide knuckles. “Learning to accept help when it’s necessary to one’s survival is an important life lesson,” he said solemnly.

His eyes felt as if they were driving an opening through her body to her heart, making way for his message. She lifted her gaze to the ceiling and sighed. “I see. So what you’re telling me is that Jacob intends to help me whether or not I want his help.”

“That’s right,” Thomas said. He reached across the table, lifted a strand of hair from over her eye and tucked it behind her ear. “I’d say you’ve had a rough six months, at least. You deserve a rest and time to think about what you want to do. It’s not just your own life, it’s your children’s future that is in the balance.”

Tears suddenly threatened. She willed them away and swallowed over the tightness in her throat. This was the one argument that had a chance of swaying her. Her children’s welfare. She could insist that everyone leave her alone, as long as she risked only her own security. But as soon as Thomas put the situation that way, she couldn’t let her pride make decisions that might hurt her babies.

Thomas nodded as if he understood the shift in her mind set. “Good. Your immediate finances can be dealt with in the form of a short-term loan from Jacob,” he said calmly, his hand rising to stave off an objection she no longer had the strength to make. “I’ve already deposited money into your checking account. And—” he rushed on “—please don’t make so much of this. You have no idea how insignificant a few thousand dollars is to His Majesty. Think of it as a fistful of pennies taken from Fort Knox.”

Diane let out a deep breath. Viewed that way, she was probably being foolish to make such a fuss. “All right. But it’s just a loan.”

“Agreed.” Thomas looked quietly pleased with the negotiations, though he didn’t risk setting her off with a full-blown smile. “Next of concern—your health and emotional well-being.”

She laughed dryly. “Believe it or not, money can do nothing to repair a heart that’s been stomped flat.”

“I suppose not,” he admitted, his huge dark eyes lingering compassionately on her face. “But a change of venue and a break from work might.”

“You mean, a vacation?”

“I think it’s time you visited your sister. She misses you, you know. It’s not as if a queen can dash halfway around the world whenever she feels homesick or wants to see her family.”

Diane stared at him. “Fly to Europe? Talk about throwing away mon—”

He reached across the table and laid his hand on top of hers. The heat of his strong fingers closing over hers silenced her. “Stop thinking about money. I told you, it’s nothing. You sound like your sister.”

Diane couldn’t help smiling at that, just a little. “Our parents were very thrifty people. New Englanders generally are. Sorry.”

“Nothing wrong with being sensible,” Thomas allowed. “But there are times when cash spent is wisely parted with.”

She rolled her eyes. “I have a feeling this is going to cost Jacob more than the proverbial few pennies. Go on.”

“I have arranged everything. All you need to do…is agree,” Thomas said with almost painful slowness, as if this was a difficult part he’d rehearsed. “Before I came to your house this morning, I contacted your parents in Florida.” Barreling onward, he paid no attention to her gasp of outrage. “They would be thrilled to have the children join them for the rest of the summer. I’ve arranged for Jacob’s private jet to take us to Vienna tomorrow night. From there, his helicopter will carry us to Elbia. I felt you might need a day to prepare and pack.”

“Generous of you,” she commented, not bothering to hide her sarcasm. The nerve of the man! Taking her life into his hands as if he was planning one of Jacob’s diplomatic jaunts. “But I could never put my children on a plane and watch them fly off alone.”

“That’s been taken care of. Allison told me you often employ a young lady named Elly Shapiro, three doors down the street from you. I’ve spoken with her mother about the possibility of her taking the position of nanny for the summer. In return she’ll receive a generous stipend for her college fund.”

“And no doubt be thrilled with the chance to spend three months in Florida, away from her brothers and sisters,” Diane added. He seemed to have thought of everything. “And what am I supposed to do in Elbia for the whole summer?”

“You’ll have the luxury of time to do anything that appeals to you…other than work. No responsibilities. No budgeting, cooking or laundry. Just time to visit with Allison and your niece and nephew, tour whatever parts of Europe appeal to you, shop for new clothes in the best boutiques, read—”

“Eat!” Diane added, getting into the spirit of the moment, although she still had nagging reservations that she was doing the right thing. Maybe she would only be avoiding the inevitable by allowing Thomas to sweep her off to Europe. “I understand there are a few decent restaurants in Europe…perhaps even in Elbia.”

Thomas’s eyes twinkled with appreciation for her humor. “So I’ve been told. Prepare to put on a few pounds…or burn them off as Allison does by including a vigorous, hour’s walk in your daily routine.”

Admittedly, it did sound wonderful. Too wonderful?

Life just isn’t this easy, Diane reasoned sadly. Solutions to problems don’t simply fall from the sky in the form of wealth and palaces. Yet…wouldn’t she be foolish not to let her sister and brother-in-law lend a hand, just to give her breathing room? Thomas was right, in a way. If she took a short break from life, she might be able to function more efficiently and figure out what she was going to do with her future.

Besides, she mused, there was a secret part of her that had always yearned to break loose. To do something totally without consideration for what was proper or frugal. Sometimes she envisioned all the passion in her life stored up inside of her, waiting for a chance to gush forth like champagne from an uncorked bottle. Had she let Gary become the cork in her bottle? And now that he was gone…what sort of life would she live? A drab, uninteresting one? Or one that was adventurous and promised her new horizons? She imagined the next ten years flashing by as quickly and unremarkably as the first decade of her adult life.

“I…I don’t know,” she said softly, blinking away a hot, prickly sensation behind her eyelids.

“Don’t think about it,” Thomas growled impatiently. “Just say yes, and I’ll finalize the arrangements.” His hand found hers and closed over it, warm and reassuring. “You won’t regret it. I promise.”

She was trembling and she didn’t know why. Reluctance to be separated from her children for so long? She didn’t think so. She knew they would be safe with Elly as an escort and deliriously happy with their grandparents.

No, something else brought on the tremors. Something else terrified her. She met Thomas’s intense brown eyes and a shudder of realization raced through her. She wanted him to kiss her again. She wanted him to crush her in his massive arms and make her remember what it felt like to be a woman.

Was that what she feared? That he would do all these things and more if she flew away with him? Then the summer would end and she’d be left with mere memories…and a lonely life back in Connecticut where she’d started.

“Say yes,” he said, so low the words were a barely audible rumble across her kitchen.

Diane looked up at the man who seemed to fill a good half of the room. His eyes were glistening obsidian, hard with determination. The muscles in his face had turned rigid. Taut ridges ran down the sides of his neck, into the starched, white collar of his shirt. He was an incredibly strong man. She had felt the muscles of his chest and arms when he’d held her. She imagined he would have a wealth of thick, richly textured hair across his chest that would be delightful to play with.

Why in Heaven’s name was she thinking about a man’s body when she should be concentrating on her future!

Diane drew herself up in her chair. Now or never…now or never, a persistent voice whispered through her mind. Take a chance. Grab the ring. Risk your heart. For once in your life, do what feels good!

She couldn’t make her voice work for a full two minutes. “All right,” she said at last. “I’ll go.”

Three

There was more to packing Diane’s children off to their grandparents than Thomas had anticipated. All three had minds of their own, and each had specific ideas as to which clothing was “cool,” which favorite stuffed animals or toys they simply could not leave behind. In the end the three suitcases Diane had planned expanded to six. One each for clothing and a smaller one for beloved teddy bears, pillows and playthings.

Elly arrived the morning of the trip flushed with excitement, her blond ponytail swinging like a metronome in time to the music playing through the earphones of her portable tape player. As lively as she was, she was a responsible girl, and Diane trusted her implicitly.

“They are definitely going to exhaust my parents,” she said, laughing, as she waved all four of them through the boarding gate later that morning.

“I expect so,” Thomas agreed, although he hadn’t had much experience with youngsters.

In his view, children were a loud, frequently sticky, inexperienced tribe that interfered with an ordered adult life. You couldn’t discuss politics with them without their eyes glazing over. You couldn’t brawl with them the way you could with your mates on a football field. You couldn’t talk about sex or Verdi or high-caliber weapons in their presence without generating scowls from other adults in the room. Children didn’t seem of much use to him.

Yet Thomas had grown surprisingly fond of Jacob and Allison’s babies. Cray was now three years old and called him Toms. The child just couldn’t seem to get his mouth around that second syllable. Kristina was a delicate, squirming creature of six months. Thomas had been terrified of her at first. He was convinced that touching her with his big, awkward hands would instantly crush the child. But one day Allison simply plopped the baby in his arms as she took off across the garden after a runaway Cray. And there they’d been—the two of them. Thomas and Kristina. Staring at each other.

Thomas had instantly lost his heart to the blue-eyed mistress of the nursery.

Now he found excuses to hold her, to spend a few minutes of every day in the nursery soaking up the smell of talc and baby sweetness. He was convinced that little Kristina saved one special gurgle that sounded like ta-ta just for him. And she did something special for him whenever he held her. She relieved some of the torment he felt every time he looked in a mirror and saw his mother’s face looking back at him. His mother, who had deserted him. He had always been convinced they were alike in ways other than physical, that he was as incapable of strong attachments as his mother had proved to be. But when he held little Kristina, he believed he might be a gentler, kinder, better person. For just those few minutes…the doubts and agonizing guilt went away.

But surely, these two royal children were different from all others. Diane’s boisterous threesome were small strangers to him and likely to remain so. He told himself he was just doing what was necessary to help the prince’s sister-in-law out of a jam. That was all.

No, he thought with sudden, grim clarity as he walked beside Diane through the terminal. There’s more to it than that.

There was this maddening attraction that even now plagued him with prickly urgency to touch her as they walked through the terminal crowded with travelers. He remembered their kiss. He ached to repeat it. The thought of his lips on hers brought a sudden rush of heat to the nether regions of his body, and now a needy groan escaped his lips before he could stop it.

“Anything wrong?” Diane asked placidly, looking around at the busy airport shops with interest. Her eyes were a vivid, excited emerald today, full of anticipation of the adventure ahead. She seemed totally unaware of his torment.

“No. Nothing,” he grumbled. He wistfully eyed a crowded bar to their right called Port of Call. A double scotch would take the edge off. But he was driving and couldn’t indulge himself.

“It’s too bad the flights couldn’t have been closer together,” she mused, stopping to finger a pretty Irish wool shawl at an import shop. “We might have been able to leave directly after putting the children on their plane instead of having to drive back to Nanticoke.”

“I had thought about that,” he admitted. “But there was a delay in completing the maintenance check, then new flight plans had to be filed. Your passport won’t be delivered until later this afternoon. Seven hours’ wait in an airport would be a bore.” On the other hand, even an hour alone with Diane at the little Cape Cod wasn’t likely to be relaxing. He felt wound tighter than Big Ben’s spring.

“I suppose.” She sighed. “It’s just as well. I still have some cleaning to do before I can lock up the house for the summer.” She fell silent for the remainder of the hike to the short-term parking garage.

He wished he knew what she was thinking. Could she possibly guess how alert his body was to every move she made? The subtle sway of her full hips was enough to send sweat trickling down his spine under his clean white dress shirt. The purposeful tilt of her chin made his heart hammer. She seemed driven by a fresh supply of energy today—and he could think of dozens of ways to help her expend it.

Until now the children’s presence and obstreperous enthusiasm for the trip had made it impossible for any real sense of intimacy to develop between them. Diane had been busy with laundry and packing, and he’d needed to verify the children’s travel arrangements, then secure a car and driver to whisk the foursome directly from the arrival gate in Orlando to the grandparents’ home.

The night before they were all to leave, ten o’clock had rolled around before Diane had been able to get all three children settled in their beds. This admittedly had been an awkward time for him. Thomas had felt a restlessness growing inside as he’d contemplated their being alone at last. He hadn’t realized how much he’d longed for a chance to have Diane to himself.

But before he’d been able to decide how best to handle the situation, Diane had announced she was “totally done in” and would be calling it a night. She’d handed Thomas a pillow and blanket, then nodded toward the couch. Disappointed, he’d stretched out on the lumpy cushions. Minutes passed. He’d thought about Diane lying in her bed in the other room. Tried to ignore the insistent cravings of his body. It had seemed impossible to find a comfortable position for his long body on the too-short sofa. He’d listened to the softly seductive sounds of Diane turning restlessly between her sheets, to her sighs as she drifted off to sleep…to his own heart racing in his chest. He hadn’t slept at all.

But now an empty house awaited them. Thomas didn’t know how he was going to keep his hands off Diane. If he’d been a religious man, he’d have prayed all the way from Long Island to Nanticoke. Instead, he concentrated on driving.

The traffic on I-95 was relatively heavy for a Sunday morning. He expected that was due to the season. During the summer, vacationers would be on the road and locals on their way to the beaches. Whatever the reason, he felt deeply grateful for the distraction the weaving cars and speeding RVs provided. He didn’t have time to dwell on the hunger building inside his body.

As soon as he pulled the sedan into her driveway, before his hands even left the steering wheel, Diane threw open the passenger door and bounded toward the house like an Olympic sprinter. He followed her inside, wondering why she was in such a rush. When he walked through the kitchen door, she was already on the telephone, speaking in regretful tones to the only child’s mother she hadn’t been able to reach the day before.

Thomas pressed the heels of his hands down on the back of a kitchen chair and waited until she finished giving the woman the name of two other day-care providers in town and hung up. “Was she giving you a hard time about leaving for the summer?”

Diane jumped as if she hadn’t realized he was in the room. “Oh…not really. It’s unsettling for a parent to have to alter child-care arrangements on short notice. The problem is, she may be so happy with one of the women I’ve recommended, I might not get her back in the fall.”

“Perhaps you’ll decide to choose another kind of job by the time you return.”

“I know. I’ve been thinking a lot about alternatives.”

Thomas couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away from that expressive mouth of hers as she bubbled on about careers she’d once dreamed of having—a translator for the U.N., liaison for a diplomatic mission, member of a negotiating team on assignment in a foreign country. He didn’t for a moment doubt she’d be good at any of them. But since she’d never had a job outside of her home, he feared she would need some time to work herself up the governmental ladder. Her lips twitched with emotion when she spoke, settled into a firm line of determination, pouted, trembled subtly, then lifted on a strand of hope. They were constantly moving. He longed to press his mouth over them, quiet them. Force them to respond to his own lips.

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