Because, of course, it was an impossible relationship, and it always had been. Two people could hardly be further apart in their goals and outlooks on life than she and Tom Bennet. The attraction between them was partly physical and partly a remnant of her childhood, and Lila was strong enough to resist it.

  She had to be...

  Marie was dancing with Casey on the lawn, holding him in her arms while he squealed with laughter. Tom sat and leaned against the pillar, watching them with an absent smile.

  Lila finished gathering up the food and putting lids on containers, then went and sat on the step next to him.

  “The kids are really having a good time,” she ventured at last. “Aren’t they?”

  “They seem to be.” Tom laughed aloud when Marie dipped and twirled around the lilac hedge with Casey in her arms.

  “Tom...” Lila looked down, aimlessly fingering the hem of her shirt.

  He reached out with his good hand and touched her shoulder, stroking it gently, kneading her collarbone with his thumb. His touch was both soothing and arousing. Lila was torn between the urge to pull away and the equally strong desire to nestle close to him and feel the hard warmth of his body.

  Kelly came out of the house again, and Lila glanced over her shoulder to see the girl pause by Archie’s chair. She leaned over to whisper something to the old man. He listened, then nodded.

  While Lila watched in openmouthed astonishment, Kelly reached into her pocket and took something out, setting it carefully on the floor next to his chair.

  “Only till we’re finished painting,” she said to him as she moved toward the veranda steps, edging past Lila and her father. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” Archie said as casually as if this were an everyday occurrence.

  When Kelly started down the steps, Lila caught the tail of the girl’s shirt. “Hey, what’s going on here?” she asked, smiling. “What secret do you have with my father?”

  “No big deal. He’s looking after something for me,” Kelly said evasively.

  “I see.” Lila released the shirt and Kelly ran off toward the barn, calling something to Casey and Marie as she went.

  Tom and Lila exchanged a glance.

  “What are you looking after, Dad?” Lila asked her father.

  Archie didn’t answer, but she thought she detected a glimmer of amusement cross his brooding features.

  “Tom,” she said with sudden decision, “can we have a talk later? This evening, maybe?”

  He grinned, his eyes crinkling. “Just you and me, Lilabel?”

  “If you don’t mind,” she said, avoiding his teasing glance. “I wanted to...ask you something.”

  “Sure.” He leaned back, still holding her shoulder. “We’ll go for a walk by the river in the moonlight. It’ll be like old times.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE SUMMER DAY seemed to go on forever, fading gradually from afternoon heat to mellow twilight to the fragrant coolness of dusk.

  They finished their painting for the day and ate the remnants of their picnic meal on the veranda, talking and laughing as the sky turned from blue to mauve and the first star twinkled in the southwest.

  Marie got in her car and left, heading to her home in the city, while Lila and Tom bathed Casey and got him ready for bed.

  Both children were tired enough to be fretful, and Casey had managed to get paint all over his plump little body, even in his hair. Finally he and Kelly were settled in their beds in the spare room.

  Lila tidied the bathroom and tossed a load of wet towels into the washer, then came back to listen while Tom sang to Casey.

  ‘“Oh, Casey boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, from glen to glen and down the mountainside...’”

  She sat in the rocking chair, smiling, resting her head against the cushioned back.

  Casey’s eyes fluttered shut, then opened again. “Kelly’s got something,” he complained sleepily to his father. “It’s under her blankets, Daddy. She’s hiding it.”

  “Shut up,” Kelly said.

  But her voice wasn’t nearly as fierce, and when Lila glanced at her she seemed placid, almost gentle.

  A far cry, Lila thought, from the prickly, belligerent child she’d first discovered in that garbage bin.

  And now the little girl and Archie actually seemed to be building some kind of relationship.

  With fresh resolve, she got to her feet and moved toward the door, pausing to kiss both children before she left.

  “You promised me a walk by the river, remember?” she said to Tom.

  “Lilabel, how could I ever forget something like that?”

  She was almost frightened by the look of warm intensity on his face.

  This was for the kids, she told herself firmly. And for her father. Besides, nothing was going to happen.

  Nothing at all.

  “I’ll just get myself cleaned up a little,” she told him, “and meet you by your camper in half an hour or so. All right?”

  “I’ll be there. Kids, say good-night to Lila.”

  They joined in a sleepy chorus and she paused in the doorway to look back at their shining faces against the pillows.

  Lila smiled, her heart aching with tenderness. Then she became conscious of Tom watching her and turned quickly to leave, heading down the hallway toward her own room.

  HALF AN HOUR LATER, she met him in the cottonwoods near the river. The night was dark by now, the sky splashed richly with stars. A soft breeze murmured and rustled in the leaves overhead, and an owl hooted near the water.

  Tom was wearing a plaid shirt and clean faded jeans, and smelled pleasantly of soap and shaving cream. Lila’s heart beat faster when she drew near to him, but she forced herself to smile casually.

  “How do you get clean in there?” she asked, waving at the camper. “Wouldn’t you rather use one of the bathrooms in the house?”

  “It’s small but very self-contained,” he said. “There’s even a little shower next to the bed. Why don’t you come in and see?”

  She pictured herself alone with him in the tiny enclosed space that was mostly bed.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “Maybe later, all right? It’s such a nice evening, I’d rather go for a walk. But it’s getting a little windy. Do you think we’ll need our jackets?”

  She realized that she was chattering in nervousness, and that he knew it and was amused.

  “No, honey,” he said. “You won’t be needing that coat.”

  Lila left her jacket on the hood of the truck and turned away, heading along the path through the trees to the water’s edge. She was conscious of him following, moving along behind her with the prowling, catlike grace that she remembered so well, though occasionally she saw him wince with pain when he thought he was unobserved.

  “Remember when we were kids,” she said over her shoulder, “and we spent all those months one summer mastering the art of slipping through the trees without making any noise?”

  “We were terrific woodsmen,” he recalled. “But we never did manage to build a fire with kindling and a forked stick, did we?”

  She laughed, feeling more comfortable now that the conversation had moved away from campers and beds. “No,” she said. “We always had to give up and use matches to make a fire for our tea.”

  “God, those days were fun, weren’t they?” He caught up with her as she emerged into the clearing by the shore, and fell in step next to her.

  “Yes,” she said. “We had a lot of fun.”

  They walked along in silence, the prairie breeze warm against their faces.

  With spectacular, breathtaking suddenness, the moon rose above the river cliffs to the southeast. It was almost full, and painted so brightly orange from the summertime dust hanging along the horizon that it resembled a new sun in the black, star-dazzled sky.

  “Oh, Tom. Look at that.” Lila stopped and gazed upward, enchanted.

  “That’s another thing I’ve dreamed about,” he said, standing next to her. “So many years I’ve stretched out in hundreds of different beds in places all over the country, and thought about the moon rising on those cliffs.”

  She looked at his finely etched profile and his hair lifting in the wind. “Did you ever—” She stopped abruptly.

  “What?” he asked, turning to fall into step beside her as she moved off along the riverbank, hands deep in her pockets.

  “Nothing. Listen to the owls. That’s one of my favorite sounds. The owls and nighthawks, the crickets and coyotes...all together they make a whole symphony orchestra.”

  Tom smiled, his teeth flashing white in the darkness. “I know. While we were painting the barn, Casey told me how the crickets all wear little black suits and sit in chairs playing tiny musical instruments.”

  Lila sighed with pleasure. “What a lovely image. You know,” she added dreamily, “I’ve always thought I’d like to write children’s books and get Dad to illustrate them. Some of the artwork he could do in paintings, and for others we could use his carved animals in different poses and have them photographed.”

  “That would be a great idea. Why don’t you do it?”

  “My job doesn’t leave me enough time. And Dad is hardly what you’d call a dynamic creative partner these days, you know.”

  “Poor Archie.”

  There was a brief silence while the water lapped against rocks along the shoreline and the muted animal chorus sang all around them.

  “A minute ago you were going to ask me something.” Tom touched her arm. “What was it?”

  Her heart began to beat faster. “I don’t remember.”

  “It was about the moon. I told you how homesick it made me whenever I thought about a full moon over these cliffs, and then you started to ask me if I ever did something, but you didn’t say what.”

  “I forget.” She quickened her steps a little and plunged her hands deeper into her pockets, though her cheeks were warm.

  He kept pace with her, his face tense with effort, and she slowed her steps again. “Should I tell you what you were going to ask, Lila?”

  “You still think you can read my mind?” she asked with a touch of annoyance.

  “I know I can,” he said calmly. “So stop and look at me.”

  Reluctantly she glanced over at his face, so close to hers in the moonlit darkness. The wash of light on his cheekbones, the outline of his sculpted mouth, the weathered lines around his eyes and the breadth of his shoulders all made her feel weak and light-headed with urgent longing.

  He stopped in front of her and looked down steadily. “You were going to ask me,” he said, “if there was ever a time during these past fifteen years when I looked at the moon and wondered if somewhere you were doing the same thing, watching the moon and thinking about me.”

  She forced herself to turn away and started off down the shoreline again, plunging blindly toward the distant curve of water.

  “So I was right,” he said, catching up with her. “Wasn’t I, Lila?”

  She shook her head and looked across the water, biting her lip to keep from responding.

  He put a hand on her arm, holding her so she couldn’t walk away. “Hey, don’t you want to know my answer?” he asked.

  “No!” she said with rising tension. “Tom, I don’t want to have this conversation at all. I really don’t.”

  “My answer,” he said as if she hadn’t spoken, “is yes. Every time I looked at a full moon for fifteen years, Lila, I thought of you. I wondered where you were, and if you were happy, and if I’d ever see you again. I ached to hold you and touch your face and hear you laugh. Every time I saw the moon,” he repeated softly, looking up at the sky.

  “Well, that wasn’t right,” she muttered, shuffling her feet uneasily in the damp, shimmering gravel. “If it’s true, you shouldn’t have been thinking things like that, Tom.”

  “Why not?”

  “Oh, come on. It’s obvious why not. Because you were a married man. You had a wife and children and other responsibilities. It’s not right to spend your time brooding about...something that’s past and gone.”

  “Married!” he echoed with so much bitterness that she looked at him in alarm. “My God, what a farce.”

  “Can you tell me about it, Tom?” she pleaded, falling into step beside him. “Can’t we just talk for a little while about what your wife was like and what happened to her, and why the children seem so—”

  “No,” he said harshly. “We can’t. It’s all over, Lila. Those days are finally behind us. Maybe someday I’ll tell you more, but for now the best thing is to bury it, forget the past and keep moving on. Those poor kids have suffered so much. I don’t want them to start dealing with it all over again.”

  She glanced at his hard profile with its familiar look of stubbornness. When Tom Bennet retreated into himself, he could become more remote and inaccessible than anybody she’d ever known.

  “You brought me out here to talk about something,” he said. “Not just to enjoy the moonlight. I can always tell when you get that purposeful look, Lilabel.”

  She smiled wryly. “I guess you really do know me pretty well, Tom.”

  He glanced down at her, his face softening. But his eyes remained hard and intent. “I know you all the way to the center of your soul, Lilabel. You’ve been the woman in my heart for as far back as I can remember.”

  “Tom,” she pleaded, “we were just kids.”

  “Maybe so. But we aren’t kids anymore.”

  “I know we aren’t Look, I don’t want to...” She floundered a moment, then took a deep breath. “I really came out here tonight to offer you a sort of business proposition.”

  With one of his unsettling shifts in mood, he gave her a sexy, irrepressible grin. “Well, that’s great. I’d love to be propositioned by you, Lila. Especially if you’ve got the same kind of business in mind as I do.”

  Lila swatted him impatiently, but this was unwise, because touching his hard-muscled arm made her knees go weak with sudden fiery longing.

  “I think it would be best for everybody if you stayed here a while,” she said. “The kids are enjoying the place, my dad seems to be getting a little better, you’re looking stronger every day and we’re actually getting all kinds of work done around the farm. So,” she concluded lamely, “it would be a good idea if...”

  Her voice trailed off when she saw how intently he was watching her.

  “If what, Lila?”

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “If you just...let me hire you as a farm supervisor for the rest of the summer. You could spruce up all the things that need doing, and the kids would...”

  He waved a hand to stop her halting voice.

  “What you really want,” he said, “is for me to join the ranks of ‘men Lila used to sleep with,’ like poor old Trev? The loser-type guys that Lila looks after by paying them money to do little chores for her. Is that what you’re planning for me?”

  He looked unbearably sad. Lila moved closer and put a hand on his forearm, stroking it with an automatic, caressing gesture.

  “Come on, Tom,” she pleaded. “It’s not like that and you know it. I’m just trying to hold on to you and the kids for a while, until it’s safe for you to travel. Why are you so upset?”

  “I’m not upset.” He stared down at her, his eyes unfathomable. “I’m just hurt.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you seem to think...”

  He turned and strode away. This time it was her turn to quicken her steps, and she almost had to run to keep up. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Why are you reacting this way?”

  He picked up a fallen branch and began absently to strip the loose bark. “I don’t like being treated the same as that boy-toy you married, as if you need to come up with a nice little plan to manage my future so I won’t go astray.”

  “Tom, I never...”

  “I’m not that kind of man, Lila. I thought you knew me better.”

  She faced him, though it took a considerable amount of courage to meet that intent gaze. “Maybe I don’t know you after all. So why don’t you help me out? Tell me what kind of man you are.”

  He moved closer, still watching her with the same unfathomable expression. Finally he put his hands on her shoulders, gripping so tightly she almost cried out with pain.

  “I’m a man who adores you, Lila Marsden. I’ve never forgotten a single thing about you in almost thirty years of loving you. Wherever I travel I take you with me. You’re almost always the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing in my mind when I drop off to sleep. You always have been, and you always will.”

  “Tom,” she whispered, staring at him in amazement. “I didn’t mean to...”

  He dropped his hands abruptly and moved away from her.

  “So don’t go putting me in some kind of box,” he said over his shoulder. “Don’t make plans for my next few weeks and tell me how it’s going to be best for me and everyone else if I fall in line. I’m not Trevor.”

  “I never said you—”

  “I thought you learned a long time ago that I can’t be managed and organized.”

  She waited miserably, hugging her arms in the thin cotton shirt. By now the moon had faded to a disk of cold silver, as high and pale as a coin tossed into the sky, and the wind was freshening.

  Tom hesitated, and she could sense that he was struggling with himself. At last he crossed the gravel between them and took her into his arms, rubbing her back against the evening chill.

  “Sorry,” he murmured against her hair. “I shouldn’t yell at you, because none of this is your fault. I know you’re just trying to help me and my kids. But being alone with you like this, especially back here where it all started...this is more than I can stand, Lila. It makes me crazy.”

  His voice was husky, almost on the edge of breaking. She reached up to touch his face, laying her palm tenderly on his hard cheek.

  “Tom,” she whispered, “let’s stop fighting. I’m so tired of fighting with you.”

 

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