wrapped herself up in all this bull, and she's wearing herself down. I'm not coming in and finding her in a heap on the floor again.'
'What?' Amusement fled as Devin straightened in his chair. 'What happened?'
'She fainted—far as I can tell. She says she had an encounter with our great-grandmother.' He downed beer to wash both worry and unease out of his system. 'Yeah, right. They're both frying chicken the night before the battle. I'm not getting involved in that.'
'Is she all right?' Rafe asked.
'Would I be here if she wasn't?' He raked his fingers through his hair and fought to block out the image of her pale, small, still form on the kitchen floor. But he couldn't. 'She scared the hell out of me, damn it. Damn it.' He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, rubbed the heel of his hand over his aching heart. 'I can't take her being hurt. I can't stand it. The woman's ripping at me.'
With an effort, he pulled himself back, took another gulp from the bottle. 'She bounces back,' he muttered. 'I've never seen anybody bounce back like she does. She's fine now, dandy, back in control. She's not pushing me into getting hooked up with that business. She's not going to hook me into anything.'
'Brother.' With some sympathy, Jared opened another beer and passed it to Shane. 'You're already hooked.'
'Like hell.'
'At a guess, how many times do you think about her in a given day?'
'I don't know.' Annoyed, Shane decided getting drunk wasn't such a bad idea after all. 'I don't count.'
In lawyer mode now, Jared briskly cross-examined the witness. 'Anyone else you've thought about that much, that often?'
'So what? She's living with me. You think about somebody who's in the same house day and night.'
Rafe studied his nails. 'It's just sex.'
'The hell it is.' Like a bullet, Shane was out of his chair, fists ready. 'She's not just a warm body.' He caught himself, and his brother's sly grin. 'I'm not an animal.'
'That's a switch.' Unconcerned, Rafe sampled his own beer. 'How many other women have you wanted since Rebecca came along?'
Zip. Zero. Zilch. Terror. 'That's not the point. The point is...' He sat again, brooded into his beer. 'I forgot.'
'The point is,' Devin said, picking up the threads, 'you've lost your balance and you're falling fast.'
'He's already hit,' Jared put in. 'He just doesn't have the sense to know it. But, being a sensible woman, Rebecca might not fall so easy, especially for you.'
'What the hell's wrong with me?'
'As I was saying,' Jared continued. 'She's got a life in New York, a career, interests. You might have a problem keeping her from wriggling away. You'll have to be pretty slick to convince her to marry you.'
Shane choked, coughed, and gulped more beer. 'You're crazy. I'm not marrying anybody.'
Rafe only smiled. 'Wanna bet?'
Because Shane was terribly pale, Devin took pity on him. 'Have another beer, pal. You can bunk in the back room and sleep it off.'
It seemed like an excellent suggestion.
She didn't sleep. It wasn't only because Shane wasn't there and the house seemed to come alive around her. It was the wait for morning, through the longest night of her life.
She worked. It had always helped her through crises, small and large. She packed. The systematic removal of her clothing, the neat folding of it into suitcases, was a sign that she was ready to go on with the rest of her life.
If she had a worry, it was that she and Shane would part on uneasy terms. That she didn't want. When he came back, she told herself, she would try to put things back into perspective and achieve some kind of balance.
But he didn't come back, and the hours passed slowly to dawn.
When the sun had just begun to rise, and the gray mist hung over the land, swallowing the barn, she stepped outside.
It was impossible for her to believe, at that moment, that anyone wouldn't feel what she felt. The fear, the anticipation, the rage and the sorrow.
It took so little imagination for her to see the infantry marching through that soft curtain of fog, bodies and bayonets tearing it so that it swirled back and reformed. The muffled sound of boots on earth, the dull glint of brass and steel.
That first burst from the cannons, those first cries.
Then there would be hell.
'What are you doing out here?'
Rebecca jolted, stared. It was Shane, stepping through that river of mist. He looked pale, gritty-eyed, and angry enough that she resisted the need to rush forward and hold him.
'I didn't hear you come home.'
'Just got here.' She hadn't slept. He could see the fatigue in her eyes, the shadows under them, and detested the stab of guilt. 'You're shivering. You're barefoot, for God's sake. Go back inside. Go to bed.'
“You look tired,' she said, knowing her voice was more brittle than cool.
'I'm hung over,' he said flatly. 'Some of us humans get that way when we drink too much. Aren't you going to ask me where I've been, who I've been with?'
She lifted a hand, rubbed it gently over her heart. It still beat, she thought vaguely, even when it was shattered. 'Are you trying to hurt me?'
'Maybe I am. Maybe I'm trying to see if I can.'
She nodded and turned back toward the house. 'You can.'
'Rebecca—' But she was already closing the door behind her, leaving him feeling like something slimy that had crawled from under a rock. Cursing her, he headed toward the milking parlor.
They stayed out of each other's way through the morning. Rather than work in the kitchen, she closed herself in the guest room and focused fiercely on the job at hand. So they would part at odds, she thought. Perhaps that was best. It might be easier, in the long run, to hide behind resentment and anger.
From the window in her room, she saw him. He didn't seem to be working. Marking time, she decided, until she cleared out. Well, he would have to wait a little longer. She wasn't leaving until the day was over.
'Where are you, Sarah?' she murmured, pacing the room, which was beginning to feel like a cell. 'You wanted me here. I know you wanted me here. For what?'
As she passed the window, she looked out again. He was walking across the yard now, past the kitchen garden, where he had late tomatoes, greens, squash. He stopped, checked something. For ripeness, she supposed.
It was painful to look at him. Yet too painful to contemplate looking away. Had she really believed she could take the experience of love and loss as some sort of adventure—or, worse, as an experiment on the human condition? That she could examine it, analyze, perhaps write about it?
No, she would never, never get over him.
When he straightened from the little garden and walked toward one of the stone outbuildings, she turned away. No, she wouldn't wait until the end of the day after all. That was too cruel. She would speak to him again, one last time, and then she would go.
She'd send for the equipment, she told herself as she went downstairs. She would make her exit with dignity, albeit with dispatch. To Regan's, she told herself, breathing carefully. To run back to New York just now would look cowardly. It was pointless to make him feel bad, to let him know he'd had her heart and broken it.
Let him think that it had simply been an experience, one that was over now, one they could both remember fondly.
She was never coming back. At the base of the stairs, she stopped to press her hand to her mouth. Never coming back to this town, this battleground, this house. Though she would be in full retreat, she would not run.
She never glanced at the monitors, the gauges. Down the hall, she trailed her fingers over wood and paint, as if
