This Side of Heaven

eyes. Restless and frus­trated, Nate tossed and turned, longing for peace, for the pure dark moments of sleep when all his problems van­ished.

If only he could sleep without dreaming—without seeing her lifeless body and Ryker's one gloating blue eye staring at him. * * *

Cyn slipped the cassette into the tape deck sitting on the first shelf of the bookcase near the back door. The living room in the cottage ran from front to back, the entire length of the house, so that both front and back doors exited from the same room.

Listening to songs from the fifties always reminded Cyn of her mother. Her father had often said she had inherited her romantic nature from Marjorie Wellington, who had lived an ideal life with a loving husband and two children— until it all ended tragically when the small airplane on which she'd been traveling crashed. Denton Wellington had been devastated, and had blamed himself because Marjorie had been touring the state on behalf of his congressional elec­tion.

Cyn would never forget how amazed family and friends had been that the plump, shy, fifteen-year-old Cynthia had shown a strength and courage that quite literally held both her father and younger brother together in the weeks and months following Marjorie's death. Cyn suspected that it was then that her fate had been sealed. Soon, everyone who knew her grew to depend upon her strength—in any crisis and under any circumstances.

Perhaps it was because others quickly forgot that Cyn, too, needed occasional support and comfort that the dreams started. For months after Marjorie's death, she dreamed of the strong, protective man with the incredible green eyes.

Cyn heard the small antique clock in her bedroom strike twice. Two o'clock. Pre-dawn hours when the world slept, when most people were lost in comforting renewal. But she couldn't rest.

After taking a long, soothing bubble bath, she'd slipped on her aqua silk gown and crawled into bed. After over an hour of endless tossing, she'd gotten up, put on her robe and rambled around the cottage, finally making her way into the kitchen to pour herself a cup of the coffee she'd prepared earlier. She knew sleep would be impossible. She couldn't stop thinking about what had happened tonight.

She had met the stranger, the handsome and magnetic man she'd seen on the beach. The man with the green eyes that so reminded her of her dream lover. She found it dif­ficult to imagine Nate Hodges as a comforting protector, someone capable of unselfish care and ultimate gentleness. Cyn felt certain that he was as hard and cold and danger­ous as the knife he had put to Lazarus Jones's throat to­night. And yet... she couldn't dismiss the feeling that she knew this man, that she'd known him all her life. Perhaps in another life?

Cyn shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest and gripping her elbows in a fierce hug. What made her think something so outrageous? She was tired. Exhausted. The stress that had been building in her life for the last year had taken its toll on her emotions. The always-strong, always-reliable and in-control Cynthia Ellen Wellington Porter had finally reached the limits of her control. She had begun imagining things, things like seeing a resemblance between that brute Nate Hodges and the man from her dreams.

Opening the door leading to the patio, Cyn watched the sky, dark and mysterious, filled with countless stars and one big, bright moon. She breathed in the sharp, poignant smell of the ocean, felt the crisp, cool wind coming off the Atlan­tic. Leaning backward, she rested her head against the door­frame.

Sooner or later, she'd have to sleep. But not tonight. What if he came to her to comfort her? What if, after all these years, she would awaken to remember more than his eyes? What if, as he held her within the strength of his arms, she looked at his face and saw Nate Hodges?

The softly rhythmical cadence of the surf as it swept over the shore lulled Cyn's ravaged nerves like the sweetest lul­laby. Looking out at the ocean, she watched as wave after gentle wave covered the beach, then retreated, only to re­peat the process, again and again.

Drawn by the night, the hypnotic lure of the ocean, the smell of the water and beach, the big, yellow moon and the romantic music coming from inside the house, Cyn stepped outside. The wind chilled her for a moment, then her body adjusted as she walked to the edge of the patio and took a step down. Just as she reached the final step, her bare feet encountering the sand, she saw him.

He was at least twenty feet away, standing alone on the beach. Noticing that he'd changed into cutoff jeans and a clean shirt, and the end of his short ponytail appeared damp, Cyn assumed he had returned home to bathe. Where was home for him? Surely, somewhere close by.

Had he, too, tried unsuccessfully to sleep? Somehow she knew why he had come back, why he was on the beach tak­ing a late-night stroll. He was seeking sanctuary from the demons that plagued him, and he was coming to her for the peace that could be found only in love. At the thought, she shuddered, wondering how on earth she knew that Nate Hodges was haunted by the past, that he was lonely and hurting, and in desperate need of her comforting arms. How could she possibly know such things about a total stranger?

He walked toward her, each step slow and deliberately measured, as if he were wary of her. She could feel his un­certainty, so strong was his apprehension. This big, dark and dangerous man was afraid of her. For some reason, he didn't want to be here right now, lured into coming to her as surely as some force beyond her understanding had guided her outside to wait for him.

Mesmerized, Cyn watched him approach. So tall. So big. So overwhelmingly male. Her mind told her to run, to es­cape the predatory look in his eyes, but her heart told her to open her arms to him, to take him into her comforting em­brace and give him sanctuary. Cyn shivered with anxiety and with a need she didn't want to admit was sweeping her away, near the point of no return.

Nate moved closer, his gaze taking in every inch of her with undisguised hunger. So small and soft and alluring, she couldn't be real, he told himself. But she was. She was as real as the star-laden sky, the ancient ocean and the gran­ules of sand beneath his feet. And she was his woman. The woman he'd dreamed about since he'd been eighteen. No matter how badly he wanted to deny it, he couldn't. A man whose life often depended on gut- level instincts, he knew, deep in his soul, that Cynthia Porter was the brown-eyed lover from his dreams, the woman destined to be his, the woman Ian Ryker would seek out and destroy.

And he knew he had no right to be here, on her beach, his soul reaching out for hers. Getting close to this woman would mean trouble for both of them.

Her waist-length blond hair hung in disarrayed waves, the ends slightly moist as if she'd recently bathed. Her femininely round body was encased in aqua silk, the material as blue-green as the ocean and just as fluid where it clung to her curves.

He took a step forward, then waited. He could see the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, as if her breathing had be­come labored. He took another step. She stood, unmoving. Her lips parted, but she didn't speak. His next step put his body within inches of hers.

He looked into her eyes. The sight that met his gaze was like a welcome home, so familiar was the rich brown warmth.

Cyn couldn't move. She stood, transfixed, her gaze mat­ing with his, the experience unbelievably erotic, as if they had often exchanged this visual love play many times while their bodies joined in life's most primeval dance.

Finally, he broke eye contact as he glanced downward at her breasts, her waist, her hips and legs. Cyn felt his gaze as it moved over her, making her nipples harden with desire, her knees weaken with longing and her femininity moisten with passion.

She had never known such raw, primitive feelings. This man, this big, savage beast of a man, made her long for things she had never experienced—except in her dreams.

Nate reached out, running the back of his fingers across Cyn's cheek. When she moaned, softly, sweetly, he felt his whole body tighten with arousal. God, he had never wanted anything so badly.

She leaned her face into his caressing hand. Suddenly, he shot his fingers into her hair, grasping a thick handful. She moaned again, tilting her head backward, arching her neck.

'You shouldn't be out here,' he told her. 'You shouldn't have been waiting for me.'

'What... what makes you think I... I was waiting for you?' she asked as she felt him loosen his tenacious grip on her hair, allowing his fingers to cup her scalp. 'After what happened tonight, I couldn't sleep. That's why I'm out here.'

'You knew I'd be back.' His moss-green eyes, eyes so dark a green they appeared black, held her with their mes­merizing power.

'Where...where did you go, after you followed me here?'