Remember When

In fact, I'm gone about two weeks out of every four.'

She dismissed that, peered at him intently above the rim of her glasses, and bluntly inquired, 'Do you go to church on Sunday?'

'No, I do not,' he informed her without hesitation or apology.

A disappointed look creased her brows, but she persevered. 'I see. Well, then, what about your family?'

'They don't go to church either,' he retorted with cool finality.

She looked completely taken aback. 'I was asking about your family, not whether they went to church.' She broke off a small piece of buttermilk biscuit and buttered it. 'Won't you tell us a little about your background?' she invited quietly. 'Tell us about where you're from and about your family.'

The suggestion that he do so was so impossible, so abhorrent that Cole stalled for time by taking a bite of his salad while he glanced at the people gathered around the table—nice people who believed there was nothing unusual about sharing Sunday dinner or sitting at a gleaming wood table or having knives and forks that matched or a carpet beneath their feet instead of filth.

He glanced at Diana, who looked as fresh and perfect as an American Beauty Rose, at Addison, who'd never done anything more 'demeaning' than lose a tennis game at the country club, and at Mary Foster, who subtly managed to exemplify dignity and grace and unaffected kindness.

On his left, Diana's grandfather smelled of fresh soap and Old Spice, instead of sweat. Across from him, Diana's grandmother gazed at him with alert, hazel eyes, her brows slightly raised in hopeful expectation, her face set off by wavy, white hair cropped jauntily and sensibly short, and gold wire-rimmed glasses that looked very nice on her. She looked proper and decent.

Cole would have found it easier and kinder to describe to her the lurid details of his most erotic sexual encounter than to tell her the truth about his early life and origins. Rather than spoil her illusions about her temporary grandson-in-law, he answered the questions with the same evasions that always served his purpose: 'I'm from a small town in west Texas called Kingdom City. I had two older brothers, who are dead now, and a few cousins, who eventually moved away and with whom I've lost touch—except for one of them. My only other living relative is my great-uncle, who I told you about earlier. My father expected me to stay and work the ranch. Cal believed I had the brains to make it through college, and he badgered me until I began to believe it. He'll like Diana very much. I'm eager for him to meet her next week.'

'I'm eager to meet him, too,' Diana put in, but she had picked up on the sudden chill, the aloof reluctance in Cole's entire demeanor at the questions involving his background, and she remembered that years ago, he'd been exasperatingly vague when she tried to find out more about him.

'My uncle lives west of Kingdom City, which is about one hundred eighty miles from San Larosa. It's not quite the hill country, but it's beautiful and unspoiled.' Cole paused and ate a bite of duck.

'San Larosa,' Rose Britton said to her daughter. 'Wasn't that one of your stopping places when you and Robert took the girls on their first camping trip to Yellowstone?'

'It's a popular place for campers,' Cole said, anxious to change the subject. 'Although I understand that much of the area's only suitable for experienced hikers and campers.'

For some reason that comment evoked laughter from the entire family.

'We weren't exactly 'experienced,'' Mrs. Foster explained. 'Corey and I had camped out a few times, and Robert had been a Boy Scout. His only other 'camping experience' was limited to 'tennis camp' in Scottsdale. But the girls and I thought it would be fun, so off we went on a three-week trip, each of us confident we knew all there was to know about 'roughing it.' '

Cole found it hard to imagine Diana as an avid camper when, even as a fourteen-year-old, she had seemed to be very fastidious about everything from her white tennis shoes to her short, neatly filed fingernails. 'Somehow, I never thought of you as someone who would like roughing it, even when you were young.'

'We all had a great time. I loved it,' Diana lied, straight-faced.

Something about that didn't ring true, and then a hazy memory snapped into focus. 'Didn't we once have a conversation at the Haywards' stable about things we disliked the most?'

Because Diana had been so infatuated with him at the time, each of their conversations had seemed like earth-shaking events to her, and she realized almost at once what he was referring to. Surprised that he remembered it, she took advantage of an unexpected opportunity for light-hearted banter. 'Did we?' she asked with a look of innocent bewilderment, before taking a bite of roasted potato.

Cole wasn't fooled. 'You know we did,' he countered with a lazy smile. 'Your top two least-favorites were dirt and camping.'

'No, they were snakes and camping,' Diana corrected him, her eyes sparkling with merriment. 'Dirt was third on my list.' She looked at Corey and jokingly said, 'Even so, we were very well organized and prepared for every eventuality, weren't we?'

Corey realized immediately what Diana wanted her to do, and she complied at once, eager to help Diana lighten the mood at the table. 'Our father wanted the trip to be a joint family effort, so before the trip, we all had assignments. Dad was in charge of transportation and finances; Mom was in charge of food and beverages; Diana was in charge of safety manuals and safety items. I was in charge of first aid and photography. And we were both supposed to have whatever items we felt we needed to be comfortable and safe. I figured Band-Aids and some sunblock would cover first aid, so I started reading up on wildlife photography, but Diana had a much different approach to preparedness. Weeks before we left, she began poring over The Camper's Guide to Survival in the Wilderness, and The Camper's Companion.'

'And,' Diana emphasized laughingly, 'the L.L. Bean catalogs, from which I had selected and ordered what I felt were absolute necessities for Corey and me.'

Cole's gaze shifted to her the moment she spoke, and Corey saw his smile grow warm before he turned his attention back to Corey, who continued, 'The day before we left, Dad went to get the motor home he'd rented, and Diana and I started carrying down the rest of our 'personal provisions' that she'd been storing in the attic as they arrived. Then we started with her 'campers' safety essentials' that the guidebooks had recommended, and then with the first-aid stuff.'

Gram joined in the story with a smile. 'The girls had to make at least fifteen trips to get it all downstairs,' she told Cole.

'And then,' Grandpa added, chuckling, 'Robert had to hitch a U-Haul trailer onto the camper to get it to Yellowstone. The problem was—' he continued, his shoulders starting to shake with laughter, 'Robert had never driven anything longer than his daddy's Cadillac in the fifties. When he pulled out of the driveway, he knocked over his mailbox with the trailer, and he drove off down the street, dragging the pole and box behind him—'

'Henry and I laughed so hard we could hardly chase after the mail.'

Cole was so entertained by the story and this additional glimpse into Diana's past that he forgot he was in hostile territory. 'What did Diana take along that took up so much room?' he asked, but Corey hesitated.

'Go ahead and tell him,' Diana told her with a laughing look. 'He's part of the family now, so, technically, he has a right to know.'

'It wasn't all Diana's stuff, it was for me, too,' Corey loyally pointed out before she went on. 'If she hadn't planned for both of us, I'd have left on a two-week trip with a torn sleeping bag, a couple pairs of shorts and T- shirts, my camera equipment, twenty rolls of film, and some Band-Aids. Period. Anyway,' she continued, 'Diana had an entirely different sense of what we needed in order to camp out in comfort and safety. She'd ordered a white tent for us with a red, white, and blue awning over the flap; then she'd coordinated our sleeping bags, our clothes, and even our lanterns and flashlights with the trim on the tent. Diana's were blue. Mine were red. We even had red, white, and blue plastic bottles filled with lotion and aspirin and everything.'

Uneasy about making fun of Diana's preparations, Corey stopped and poured herself more iced tea.

'You forgot the repellents,' Diana prompted, laughing. 'To be on the safe side, I'd brought a dozen cans each of mosquito repellent, wasp repellent, crawling-insect repellent, and flying-insect repellent. I also had several jumbo containers of snake repellent, which I diligently sprinkled around the outside perimeter of our tent every time we put it in a new place.'

'Snake repellent?' Cole said to Diana with a choked laugh. 'What did you think of Yellowstone?'

'It depends on who you ask,' Diana said dryly, and the rest of the family burst out laughing. Mrs. Foster