LITMIR.BIZ

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one-handed skill, he’d pushed back a lock of her blond hair and secured it behind her ear, leaving her profile exposed and vulnerable.“You’ve grown your hair long,” he remarked.

      “Not long,” she’d muttered, swinging her head away.“Just longer than I used to wear it.”

      “It changes you, makes you less…vibrant.”

      She’d felt his gaze on her, sharply observant.“Turn left at the next intersection,” she said, “and keep your eyes on the road. I don’t want to end up in the ditch.”

      But what she really meant was, Stop trying to look inside me. There’s nothing there anymore.

      It was true. Losing him had left her heart so impoverished it could barely function. Oh, it pumped out its daily quota of blood all right, but the real heart was gone and left a space where the true love of her life had once lived.

      “This is a far cry from your old place,” he’d said, slowing down for the approach to her house.“Practically country, from the looks of it. What made you decide to move out of the apartment?”

      She didn’t bother explaining that she’d wanted to leave behind everything associated with him because remembering was too painful. Instead, she leapt from the car as fast as her still-trembling legs could carry her, anxious to put as much distance between him and her as possible.

      He’d sensed her aversion and had dropped her car keys into her hand with curt formality.“I know we didn’t part on the most loving of terms,” he said, “but I had hoped you’d since found it in your jealous, insecure little heart to get over your pique. Apparently I was wrong.”

      “I’m sorry,” she’d said, aware that the words were hopelessly inadequate.“I’m too dazed to know how I feel or what I should be saying.”

      “So it seems.” He’d shrugged and looked around at her house and its winter-bare garden that sloped down to the river.“Do you mind phoning for a taxi? I’m not sure where we are exactly, but I’d guess it’s a bit too far for me to walk back to Bev’s place.”

      “Of course. Would you…do you want to wait inside?”

      His gaze had zeroed in on her again with brutal candor.“Yes. I want to see where you live, where you sleep, what you wear in bed, and if you keep my picture on your nightstand.”

      “Oh…!” She’d quailed at the prospect and with the disquieting insight of an old lover, he’d detected her dismay.

      In that bossy way of his that before had always invited her defiance, he’d continued, “But I’ll wait to be invited. Get inside, for Pete’s sake, and pour yourself a stiff drink. You look as if you could use one. I’ll walk back to the service station we passed a mile or so down the road, and call for a taxi from there. We can put off the glad reunion until another time.”

      She’d been happy to comply.“Thank you!”

      The heartfelt relief in her response had sent a grimace skittering over his features.“I said ‘put off’, sweet pea, not ‘forget’. You will be seeing me again. We have so much news to catch up on.”

      Then he’d turned and marched down her driveway, the firm thud of his stride gradually diminishing into silence.

      If only he’d chosen to disappear in a puff of smoke…!

      Stepping out of the shower, Georgia swathed her hair in a towel and checked the clock on the wall. Eight twenty-five. Four hours, give or take a few minutes, before she met her mother and sister. Four hours in which to digest the reality of Lieutenant Colonel Adam Cabot’s resurrection from the dead and make her peace with it.

      She had thought herself safe from such upheaval. Had spun a cocoon around herself so intricately woven that she’d been sure nothing could threaten it. Not passion, or hate; not rage, or joy. Just calm affection, subdued pleasure, serene indifference.

      She had turned to Steven, her new house, her work-and yes, the thousand and one busy things associated with a wedding that, this time, her family wholeheartedly approved of—hoping these things would be enough to compensate for what she had lost.

      Beverley Walsh, Adam’s grandmother, had tried to warn her, the day they’d accidentally met downtown about six months after Adam had supposedly died.“It takes two years, foolish child,” she’d said, referring to the fact that Georgia and Steven were spending a lot of time together.“After that, although you won’t have forgotten your first love, you will have accepted its loss. Then, and not before, will you be ready to start over with someone else.”

      Georgia hadn’t been able to wait that long; the pain was too crushing, the guilt too severe. It wasn’t just the fact of Adam’s death, it was knowing she’d sent him to it.

      She’d been with him, the day he received the call from his C.O. asking him to postpone his retirement for an extra two months, “just long enough to put this prototype fighter jet through its paces and identify the bugs bothering our other pilots. You can spare me that, can’t you?”

      “I’m afraid I can’t sir. I’m getting married in six weeks,” Adam had said, but Georgia had seen the flare of excitement in his eyes, the sudden longing he’d tried to hide, and she’d known that, if it had been up to him alone, he’d have snatched at this last chance to fly the most exciting fighter aircraft yet to leave the drawing boards.

      “I think you should go,” she’d said, after he’d hung up the phone.

      “No. All that’s behind me.” He’d tried to sound accepting but she’d heard only the regret, the sudden resurgence of uncertainty that had dogged the months before he’d finally reconciled himself to giving up military life and settling down as a civilian.

      Sensing this, and because she loved him, she had offered him an escape, manufacturing a reason that had everything to do with what she thought he needed, at the cost of what she desperately wanted: a man she adored for her husband—and a father for the child he did not know she had conceived.

      “I’m not sure getting married is such a good idea,” she’d said, giving voice to the most barefaced untruth of her life.“I think a cooling-off period might be very good for us.”

      “Haveyou lost your mind?” he’d said.“What about the three hundred guests your mother had to invite to the wedding? What about the dress and the veil and all that other paraphernalia?”

      “What about the things that really matter to us?” she’d countered, and because they’d once been valid, she was able, with a conviction that left him stunned and angry, to rattle off all the reasons for not going ahead with their wedding.

      “Are you trying to tell me you don’t love me, Georgia?” he’d asked at last.

      To deny that was more lie than she could bring herself to utter.“No—just that I’m not sure either of us loves the other enough to give up our freedom. Let’s put the wedding on hold for now and see how we feel when you get back.”

      It had been a not unreasonable gamble, she’d thought at the time. She’d found out only the day before that she was five weeks pregnant. Once his two month term was up, they’d still have plenty of time to get married before the baby was born.

      “I thought we’d decided we couldn’t be happy away from each other, Georgia,” he’d said, but although his voice had been somber, his eyes had betrayed him. He was behaving like a gentleman when all he really wanted was to be an officer on active duty again.

      She hadn’t been able to bear it.“Oh, please!” she’d cried.“Just go, and stop pretending it’s not what you want, too.”

      Some of the light had gone out of his eyes at that.“Since you put it so kindly, maybe I will.”

      “Terrific!” She’d wrenched his ring from her finger and flung it at him.“There, now it’s official. The engagement’s off until you finally decide you can live without the Air Force. Go and

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