Still Waters

But wait. Zack hadn't said anything at all about love.

Maddy found herself in the kitchen, staring down at the clutter Zack had left on the counter last night. Her spirits suddenly felt as cold and limp as the stack of untouched toast. Zack had mentioned need and friendship and mutual comfort-even, in a less direct way, desire-but had never, in any way, direct or otherwise, talked about love.

Her stomach growled. She picked up a piece of leathery toast and bit into it, chewing thoughtfully as she examined her feelings. Presently she swallowed and took a deep breath.

Well, okay. She'd faced that reality and decided that she didn't care. She'd concluded long ago that Zack was probably still carrying too much pain around with him to be capable of love anyway. For now, it was enough that he needed her.

Never a very discriminating eater, Maddy polished off that piece of toast and one more, and, in the absence of anything that looked like a coffeepot, a glass of milk. She drank it slowly, sitting at the kitchen table, gazing out at the pool. This, she realized, must have been where Theresa had been sitting when she'd caught Zack kissing her…

It was a beautiful June morning, with the fog already burning away. Beyond the pool deck and the emerald dichondra, flowering shrubs were rampant. Hummingbirds darted about, elusive but captivating flashes of iridescence. The air was a golden shimmer, alive with birdsong.

Sunshine had turned the turquoise rectangle of the pool into a jewel set in terra cotta and jade. Maddy sat staring at that sparkling water for a long time. Then she got up, rinsed her milk glass and set it carefully in the sink, secured her toga, and walked down the stairs to the basement. There she paused to take a deep breath, then pulled open the glass door and stepped with determination into the morning.

Zack went looking for Maddy and found her on the deck. He paused inside the glass door to stare at her as she stood with her back to him, gazing at the pool as if entranced. She looked like a goddess in her sheet toga, with the sun turning the tumbled cascade of her hair to burnished gold. The sheet had slipped low in the back, baring the seductive and graceful curve of her spine. Athena, strolling the gardens of Olympus.

Not entirely certain that the familiarity she'd acquired during the night with his nude body would carry into broad daylight, he stepped back from the door before she could turn and see him. He rummaged in the closet for a reasonably presentable bathing suit and stepped into it. Then he went out to Maddy and dropped a good-morning kiss onto the lush curve of her shoulder.

' 'Mornin', sunshine.' He wrapped his arms around her and stood very still, with his head lowered next to hers, just immersing himself in the scent and feel of her.

'Hi.' Her voice was shy and breathy, but with an underlying huskiness that he hadn't heard before… except, come to think of it, when she'd turned that dragon of hers into a puppet Mae West.

He felt her cheek move as she smiled, and she lifted a hand to touch his hair.

'You were up pretty early, considering,' he said.

She laughed low in her throat, a wonderfully sexy sound. Zack had a feeling that everything she said and did from now on was going to have that connotation for him. It might get to be a problem…

'I was hungry,' she said.

'Hmm. Find anything to eat?'

More of that delicious laughter. 'Toast.' He groaned. 'No, it wasn't bad-really. I hated to see it all go to waste. And I had some milk. Couldn't find the coffee.'

'Coffee's bad for you.'

'I knew it,' she said with a sigh. 'A certified health nut.'

'Nobody's perfect,' he acknowledged, nuzzling her neck. 'Hey, I love your toga. Let's see… What was it you did to my towel last night?'

'Zack! Don't you dare. Stop that-' She whirled away from him, clutching her sheet and laughing. 'Actually, I was just standing here, thinking…'

' Bout what?' He folded his arms across his chest in a consciously arrogant, completely masculine stance.

She grinned at him and muttered, 'Well, that too. But I was thinking about… what we discussed last night. My problem.'

'Yeah?' Knowing it was important to her, he made an effort to put a damper on his libido. For the moment. 'And?'

'And I was wondering if it had done any good. You said it would help to talk about it, and I did feel better last night, but I don't know if it's changed anything. I can't believe the fear could be gone, just like magic.'

'And were you thinking that this might be a good time to try it out?'

She nodded. He went to her and put his hands on her arms. 'Sweetheart, I'm game. But don't expect too much of yourself, okay? Talking about your problem is only the beginning. You're right-it isn't magic.'

'I want to try.' Her gaze was steady, and there was a stubborn look to the set of her mouth. He smiled and kissed her.

'Okay, babe. One problem, though. What are you going to wear?'

He was laughing, but she looked really crestfallen.

She breathed a little 'Oh…' of chagrin and put her fingers to her lips. 'I don't have anything.'

'Well,' he said judiciously, 'you don't really need anything, I suppose.'

'Zack! It's broad daylight!'

He lifted his hands. 'We're completely private here. No one to see but me.'

She chewed her lip in confusion, torn between a lifelong habit of modesty and one of life's primal temptations: the joy of skinny-dipping.

'Wait. On second thought,' Zack amended hurriedly when he saw a dewy flush of excitement tinge her cheeks, 'I think it might be a little too distracting for the teacher. Come on, let's see what we can find.'

The best he could come up with was a white T-shirt that came about to mid-thigh on her. A suit bottom stymied him completely. Most of his suggestions so horrified Maddy that she finally pushed him outside in exasperation and announced that she'd take care of the problem herself, thanks!

When she eventually came back out to the pool, pink-cheeked and ruffled and looking like a child in a nightshirt, Zack couldn't resist asking, with the hush of suppressed laughter in his voice, what she was wearing under it.

'My underpants,' she loftily informed him.

'And what, dare I ask, are you going to do for underpants when… um… eventually it becomes necessary to… ah…'

She gave him a quelling glare. He cleared his throat and attempted to arrange his features in an expression of earnestness and responsibility.

'if you can get your mind out of my underwear,' she said, 'we can get down to business-'

It was no use. Zack became convulsed with laughter. Maddy tried her best, but when he hauled her into his arms he felt her body shaking with mirth. 'Hush,' he said sternly, breaking into fitful chortles, 'this is serious stuff.'

Which, of course, they both knew it was. Maddy's bathing costume wasn't that funny. It was just a safety valve for the tension they were all too aware of, an antidote for the dread that lurked just beyond the silliness.

They managed to keep their faces straight until Maddy hopped off the edge of the pool into the water. Trapped air inflated the T-shirt like a pair of water wings. It rose in a billow around Maddy's chin, baring her midriff and the now totally transparent panties below. Zack gazed at her raptly and murmured, 'I think I'm going to enjoy this.'

She glared at him and deflated the shirt, submerging herself to her neck to make certain it was thoroughly wet. When she straightened up again, looking smugly triumphant, he shook his head in wonder and said, 'I know I'm going to enjoy this!' The wet T-shirt was doing what wet T-shirts are famous for doing-defining her magnificent breasts in minute detail, and far more tantalizingly than if they'd been totally bare.

Maddy glanced down at herself and did her best to look disgusted. 'Really, Zachary. If you are through behaving like an adolescent voyeur-'

'But when I was an adolescent, I didn't have time to be a voyeur,' Zack protested. 'Gimme a break!'