took on a closed, hard expression.
'But he loves me,' she said fiercely. 'Despite everything he says and everything he's done, he loves me.'
'What about you?'
'Of course I love him!' she cried, furious with Paige for asking the question. 'I gave up everything for him. I have to love him!' She sucked in her breath as her words hit her. What was she saying? Did she truly love Sam or was she still caught up in an old, worn-out obsession?
'I'm definitely not an expert on love,' Paige said slowly. 'But I think there are lots of different kinds. Some are good and some are bad.'
'How do you tell the difference?'
'The good love makes you better, I guess. Bad love doesn't.'
'Then what Sam and I had was definitely good love, because he made me better.'
'Did he? Or did you do it yourself?'
'You don't understand. Daddy wanted me to be his perfect daughter. Sam told me I should be strong and free. I listened to Sam, Paige. I listened to him and I believed him.'
'And what happened?'
'A miracle happened. I discovered that Sam's vision was right for me. It was a perfect fit.'
'That should have made him happy.' Cynicism edged Paige's words.
Susannah blinked against the sting of tears. 'But it didn't. A big part of Sam liked the old Susannah Faulconer. Deep inside, I don't think he wanted me to change at all.'
'I like the new Susannah.'
The unusual softness in Paige's voice pierced through Susannah's misery, and she looked at her sister as if she were seeing her for the first time. Against the sunlight, Paige's profile was as soft and blurred as an angel's. 'Did I treat you so terribly when we were growing up?'
Paige plucked at a blade of grass. 'You treated me wonderfully. I hated you for it. I wanted you to be awful to me so I could justify how awful I was to you.'
Something warm opened inside Susannah like a loaf of her sister's bread. The awful chill that wouldn't go away thawed a little.
'I thought if you were out of the way, Daddy would love me,' Paige said. 'But he never did. Not really. You were everything to him. Even after you left, he let me know I couldn't compete. The irony of it was that I did so many things better than you-the meals were more imaginative, the house prettier. But he never saw that. He only saw the things I didn't do well.'
Paige's unhappiness touched a chord inside Susannah. 'After the way you've taken care of me, I can't imagine you not doing anything well.'
Paige shrugged off the compliment. 'Look at my checking account some time. And I'm completely disorganized. I hate everything connected with FBT business. Daddy should never have left the company to me. I don't know what I would have done without Cal.'
Susannah looked away.
'He's been a good friend to me, Susannah,' Paige said earnestly. 'You really humiliated him.'
'I know that. And the selfish part of me doesn't care. Isn't that awful? I'm so glad to have escaped marrying him that I'm willing to feel guilty about what I did to him for the rest of my life.'
'Even though escaping Cal meant that you married Sam?'
Susannah stared at the dappled shadows on the ground. Nothing had changed, but some of the turmoil inside her seemed to have eased. 'I could never regret having had Sam in my life. In a funny way, he created me, just like he created the Blaze. In the end I guess his vision of me wasn't right for him. But it was right for me.'
'Are you going back to him?'
The pain that was never far away spread through her again. She was a fighter, and she didn't take her marriage vows lightly. In the deep quiet of the olive grove, the vow she had made on her wedding day came back to her as clearly as if she had just spoken it.
'No,' she murmured. 'No, I'm not going back.'
'That's good,' Paige said softly.
For dinner that night, Paige fixed a cheese pie with fresh marjoram and tossed a handful of pine nuts into a dish of green beans. As Susannah ate her sister's wonderful food, she began to feel at peace with herself. Something important had happened in the olive grove. Maybe she had finally completed the task she had begun when she'd run away from home. Maybe she had found herself.
The next morning after breakfast, Paige once again dragged her down to the beach. As she stripped off her clothes, she said, 'This time you're going in the water. No more excuses.'
Susannah began to protest, but she stopped herself. How much longer was she going to wallow in self-pity? Reaching for the tie at the back of her neck, she unfastened her halter top, then pulled off her clothes until she was as naked as her sister.
'I've got bigger boobs than you,' Paige called out in a deliberately taunting voice as Susannah waded into the surf.
'I've got longer legs,' Susannah retaliated.
'Giraffe legs.'
'Better than duck legs.'
The water was sun-warmed and wonderful, the surf gentle. Susannah bent her knees and settled down so that the water covered her shoulders. The sea was gentle and soothing. For a while, anyway, it made her feel well again.
'You can't stay out too long,' Paige said, flipping over onto her back. 'You're a real paleface. Not to mention other parts of you.' A wave passed in a swirl of foam beneath her. 'What should we have for dinner tonight?'
Susannah turned on her back to float. 'We just finished breakfast.'
'I like to plan ahead. Lamb, I think. And a tomato and cucumber salad with feta crumbled on the top. Stuffed eggplant-You're starting to drift out. Come back in.'
Susannah obediently did as she was told.
That evening they worked together in the kitchen. Paige opened a bottle of Skeponi, a local wine, and poured two glasses for them to sip while they worked. 'Slice that cucumber thinner, Susannah. Those things look like hockey pucks.'
'I'm not enjoying this,' Susannah grumbled after she produced another slice that was too thick to meet her sister's approval. 'Why don't you cook while I straighten out your checkbook?'
'You're on,' Paige said, laughing.
Five minutes later, both sisters were happily occupied-Paige with a hollowed-out eggplant and a mixture of pine nuts, herbs, and currants; Susannah with her pocket calculator and what she quickly labeled 'the checkbook from hell.'
Just as they were getting ready to eat, Susannah heard the sound of a moped approaching the cottage. Paige stiffened. The moped stopped, and several seconds later someone knocked. As Paige opened the door, Susannah glimpsed a handsome young Greek with thick curly hair. Paige immediately stepped outside, but Susannah could hear bits of conversation through the open window.
'… in village today. Why you not come to me?'
'I have company, Aristo. You shouldn't have come here.'
The conversation went on for several minutes. When Paige reentered the cottage, the old hard look had settled over her face. 'One of my legion of lovers,' she said tightly, picking up the last of the serving dishes and carrying them to the old kitchen table.
Susannah brought over the wine bottle and poured them each a second glass. 'You want to talk about it?' she asked cautiously.
Paige's tone immediately grew caustic. 'What's there to say? Unlike you, I've never been Miss Pure and Innocent.'
It was Paige's first attack. Susannah set down her wineglass. 'What are the new ground rules between us, Paige?'
