This Side of Heaven

steak?' he asked.

She cocked her head to one side, looked up at him and smiled. 'See what I mean about saying and doing totally opposite things?'

'No contradictions,' he said, loosening his hold on her. 'My actions have been telling you that I want you, and what I'm trying to do with words is ask you for a date.'

Cyn laughed, the sound deep and real and sweet. Her laughter filled his heart, warming the coldness, softening the hardness. 'Are you inviting me to your house for a steak dinner?'

'Sort of.' He released her completely, except for one slender hand that he held tightly. 'I'm not much of a cook, but I can grill a steak, if you'll help with the potatoes and salad—'

'Do you like ice cream?' she asked, her whole body swimming with giddiness. She felt like shouting and sing­ ing and dancing around and around. She was going to spend the evening with Nate Hodges. They were going to have a date—a real, honest-to-goodness date. Maybe there was hope for them, after all.

'Love it,' he said. 'Why?'

Tugging on his hand, she pulled him inside her house and led him to the kitchen. 'I'll pack a basket of goodies to take over to your house. We'll fix ourselves a banquet.'

He wanted to tell her that she was the banquet, a true feast for his lonely heart and tortured soul. And he would tell her—tonight. * * *

Nate sat on one end of the tan leather sofa, and Cyn sat on the other end. She had curled her feet up underneath her skirt; he had stretched his long legs out on top of the metal trunk. One of her Patti Page cassettes played on his stereo, the music and lyrics of 'What'll I Do?' filled the ultra-masculine room.

They had shared a delicious meal, after-dinner drinks and discussions on subjects ranging from the weather to poli­tics. They'd even broached the subject of his boating busi­ness in St. Augustine, from which he'd said he was taking a leave of absence.

More than once she'd tried to steer the conversation around to his past, and every time he'd artfully dodged her questions. Finally she gave up and began entertaining him with stories of how her father had disapproved of practi­cally every boy she'd ever dated.

'Once I realized that no matter how perfect a boy was, my father was going to find something wrong with him, I figured out a way to make him appreciate the fine young man I'd been bringing home.'

'And just how did you do that?'

'I started dating the absolutely worst boys in school.'

'Who were the worst boys in school?'

'Oh, you know, the ones who rode motorcycles, wore an earring and had hair down to their shoulders.' Playfully she reached out and flipped the end of his ponytail.

'Did your strategy work?'

'Of course. And it only took two perfectly awful dates before Daddy was asking about 'that nice young man' I'd dated a few weeks earlier.'

'Such a manipulative female.' He laughed, a genuine chuckle from deep inside. She made him feel good. Damned good!

'Not manipulative, just smart.'

'And did you enjoy being a bad girl?'

'I've never been bad. I've always been a good girl. Ask anyone who's ever known me.' She sat up straight, easing her legs out from beneath her skirt, inching them slowly to­ward Nate's where they lay stretched out on the trunk. 'Cynthia Ellen Wellington Porter has always been a strong, sensible, levelheaded girl who could shoulder any burden, overcome any tragedy, and take care of anyone and every­one who needs her.'

'And who takes care of Cynthia Ellen?' The moment he felt her leg touch his, he wanted to pull her close, entwining their legs in a sensual braid while their bodies joined in a passion neither could hide.

Cyn rested one of her legs atop his, the other cuddling beside it. 'I take care of myself and everyone else. I have ever since my mother was killed in a plane crash when I was fifteen. I'm a take-charge person. I've been that way for so long, I can't be any other way.'

'Didn't your husband take care of you?' Nate asked, wondering how a man could possess such a woman and not protect her as fiercely as he would the world's greatest treasure.

'Evan was a good man, but he was too busy taking care of all the kids at Tomorrow House to take care of me.'' Her eyes glazed over momentarily with a faraway pain, then brightened to their normal rich warmth. She felt as if she were betraying Evan's memory to criticize him in any way. It hadn't been his fault that he had never been able to give her the kind of possessive passion she had so desperately wanted.

Noticing Nate staring at her with a mixture of suspicion and understanding in his eyes, she tried to smile at him. 'Besides, I didn't need taking care of. Haven't you guessed by now that I'm a mother-to-the-world type of person?'

'Mothers, even mothers-to-the-world, need husbands to take care of them.' His own mother had desperately needed his father. She had been strong, strong enough to have and keep an illegitimate child in the morally judgmental fifties. But Grace Hodges had been so alone, so in need of—

'Nate, what's wrong?' Cyn asked, reaching out to take his hand, squeezing it tenderly.

'What?' He looked at her, his moss-green eyes slightly dazed.

'You looked so sad.'

'I was thinking about my mother.' He brought Cyn's hand to his lips, kissing it softly once, twice, three times. 'She was a strong woman like you, but she needed some­one to take care of her sometimes and there was no one there for her.'

'Your father?' Cyn felt his pain. It filled his eyes.

It marred his handsome face. He made a sound some­where between a groan and a snort. 'I never had a father. I don't even know who he was. Anyway, it doesn't much matter. He's dead. He died before I was born.'

'Oh, Nate, I'm so sorry.' She held his hand even tighter, longing to take him in her arms and give him comfort. But she wasn't sure he would accept it, not right now when the pain was so great.

'All he ever gave her was me.' Nate pulled away from Cyn's hold and stood up, his back to her. 'A bastard child of uncertain heritage who never fit into her blue-blooded Anglo family.'

Nate began to walk around the room as if movement alone would ease the tension from his big body. 'His name was Rafael. She told me that much. I guess she had to, since she named me after him.'

'Nathan Rafael.' Cyn thought how well the name suited him, how perfectly it blended his mixed heritage.

'She said I looked like him, and I guess I must. I sure don't resemble anyone in her family, except for my green Anglo eyes.'

'Your eyes?' Cyn asked as she stood up and went to him. 'You have green eyes like your mother?' She touched his face with tenderness.

'Don't feel sorry for me.' He stepped back, away from her touch. 'I don't want your pity.'

'What do you want from me?' she asked, her voice qui­etly pleading.

'Nothing. Everything. Too much. More than any woman could ever give.' He couldn't stand seeing the look in her eyes, the pure, undisguised love. He turned away, moving toward the windows. Didn't she know that if he took what she was offering, he would destroy her? Even if Ryker didn't pose an immediate threat, Nate knew he would still be the wrong man for Cyn. She was so gentle and caring, so filled with love for the whole world. And he was a man filled with bitterness, a man who had spent a lifetime fighting the re­alities of a brutal world far removed from Cynthia Porter's awareness.

Following him, she placed her hand on his shoulder. She wanted to tell him that she was willing to give him every­thing, all that was her, every beat of her heart, every fiber of her being, the very essence of her soul. Didn't he know she already belonged to him?

'Take a walk with me,' she said. 'Show me the old mis­sion again before it gets too dark to see inside.' She wasn't quite sure why she'd made the suggestion, but somehow she knew it was the right thing to do.

Without turning around, he nodded. 'No one knows for sure those old storage rooms were once part of a mission.' Then he turned around, his face a mask of calm, hiding the emotions he was fighting to conquer. 'Inside the sensible, levelheaded Cyn Porter is the soul of a romantic.'

'Who, me?' She breathed a sigh of relief, knowing she could handle a cordial Nate much easier than a brooding man in pain. 'Just because I love fairy tales and myths and want to believe in legends, you call me a