fifty thousand to be out of my life."

Why hadn't he come looking for her?

Why?

She had gone looking for him.

"At first I refused to believe her. I drove all the way to your

uncle's house, pounding on the door at six in the morning like some crazed loon, looking for you."

She raised her head, trying to put it all behind her.

"He told me you'd taken off."

Her voice grew quiet to hide the hoarseness in it.

"I figured it was with your newfound windfall."

How could she have thought that he would have sold what they'd had for money?

He'd accepted what had happened because he thought it was better for her.

It hadn't been for him.

The first few months of life without her had been a living hell.

"I took off because I couldn't stand to be in the same city that you'd been in. There were just too many memories. I rode that motorcycle as far as I could, straight to California."

He shrugged.

He'd been pretty crazed then, crazed with grief, with anger and alcohol.

He didn't remember the trip at all.

All he recalled was getting there, to the edge of a pier, and then

suddenly stopping.

"Maybe I had some mixed-up idea of riding straight into the ocean with it, I don't know."

He laughed shortly.

"Somewhere along the line I decided that would make your mother too

happy."

He remembered looking down into the black waters, a moonless sky above him, and thinking that darkness had swallowed him up.

It had taken a great deal to pull back.

"So I didn't."

His tone changed as he gave her a clipped summary of the next nine

years.

"I came back, became a cop and met Celia. She was a friend of mycousin's. The rest I told you."Caitlin felt as if the floor had dissolved beneath her feet.She was standing in midair, like some cartoon character, just waiting until she became conscious of the fact that there was T.

nothing there before she began to fall.

"Then you didn leave me?"

What was the point of going over things?

They couldn pick up where they'd left off.

He knew that.

Too much time had passed.

And the dreams had been cleared from his They didn't belong in each other's world.

They never had "Not for the reasons you thought."

He looked at her face and tried to remain unaffected.

The young girl he had loved was still there.

And because he'd loved her, he had to le her alone.

"But maybe your mother did us both a favor."

Right now she was contemplating justifiable homici with her mother as

the victim.

How could he say that, after what she'd done to both of them?

"What?" she cried hoarsely.

Slowly he picked up the wrappers from the table an stuffed them into

the bag, avoiding her eyes.

Coward's way, Redhawk, he upbraided himself.

"What you wrote-what your mother said you wrote made sense after I

calmed down and thought about it." looked up at her.She was watching him quietly, working lower lip."You come from the right side of the tracks an I'm a half-breed. You have a place in this world and I don' except for the one I make for

myself."

He shrugged.

"That why I like being a cop. I'm still on the outside, but I make difference, anyway."

Celia hadn't understood that.

She ha wanted him to be someone.

Caitlin stared at him for a long moment without being able to utter a

sound.

When she did, her voice was I emotionless.

She couldn't expect things to go back to t way they'd been just because things had been cleared up.

great deal of life had happened to both of them.

But his words still hurt.

A small part of her would h wanted him to try to recapture what had been.

When he h kissed her she had almost been able to bridge the gap.

hadn't he4 'You've gotten dumber since I knew you.

No, smarter.

He shrugged carelessly, walking to t kitchen to throw away the bag.

He was aware of her following.

Graham looked around for the garbage and didn't see it.

"Must be the blow to the head."

She took the sack from him.

Opening the cabinet door beneath the sink, she tossed it into a tall

receptacle.

"What blow to the head?"

It ached a little now that he mentioned it.

He'd thought he had jarred his teeth loose when he had hit the