Clay fingered the neck of his guitar. "Yeah, but here's the thing, Beaudine ... If our sister wanted to talk to you, she'd have done it by now."

The atmosphere in the room crackled with an ill will he recognized as the same kind of antagonism Meg had confronted every day she was in Wynette. "That's not necessarily true," he said.

Mother Bear's beautiful, blond fur bristled. "You had your chance, Ted, and from what I understand, you blew it."

"Big-time," Papa Bear said. "But if you give us a message, we'll be sure to pa.s.s it on."

Ted was d.a.m.ned if he'd spill his guts to any of them. "With all due respect, Mr. Koranda, what I have to say to Meg is between the two of us."

Jake shrugged. "Good luck, then."

Clay set down his guitar and stepped away from his brother. Some of his hostility seemed to have faded, and he regarded Ted with what seemed like sympathy. "No one else is going to tell you, so I will. She's left the country. Meg is traveling again."

Ted's stomach twisted. This was exactly what he'd feared. "No problem," he heard himself say. "I'm more than happy to get on a plane."

Dylan didn't share his brother's sympathetic att.i.tude. "For a guy who's supposed to be some kind of genius, you're a little slow on the uptake. We're not telling you a d.a.m.ned thing."

"We're a family," Papa Bear said. "You may not understand what that means, but all of us do."

Ted understood exactly what it meant. It meant these tall, good-looking Korandas had circled their wagons against him just as his friends had done against Meg. Lack of sleep, frustration, and a self-disgust that was tinged with panic made him lash out. "I'm a little confused. Aren't you the same family family who cut her off four months ago?" who cut her off four months ago?"

He had them. He could see the guilt in their eyes. Until this exact moment, he'd never suspected he had a spiteful nature, but a person learned something new about himself every day. "I'll bet Meg never told you everything she went through."

"We talked to Meg all the time." Her mother's stiff lips barely moved.

"Is that right? Then you know all about how she was living." He didn't give a d.a.m.n that he was about to do something grossly unfair. "I'm sure you know she was forced to scrub toilets to buy food? And she must have told you she had to sleep in her car? Did she mention that she barely avoided going to jail on vagrancy charges?" He wasn't telling them who'd nearly sent her there. "She ended up living in an abandoned building with no furniture. And do you have any idea how hot a Hill Country summer is? To cool off, she swam in a snake-infested creek." He could see the guilt dripping from their pores, and he bore in. "She had no friends and a town full of enemies, so you'll forgive me if I'm not impressed with your notions of how to protect her."

Her parents had gone ashen-faced, her brothers wouldn't look at him, and he told himself to back off even as the words kept coming. "If you don't want to tell me where she is, then the h.e.l.l with all of you. I'll find her myself."

He stormed out of the house, fueled by rage, an emotion so new to him he barely recognized it. By the time he reached his car, however, he regretted what he'd done. This was the family of the woman he loved, and even she believed they'd done the right thing by cutting her off. He'd accomplished nothing except venting his anger on the wrong people. How the h.e.l.l was he supposed to find her now?

He spent the next few days fighting a grinding despair. An Internet search failed to yield any clues about Meg's whereabouts, and the people most likely to have information refused to talk to him. She could be anywhere, and with the whole world to search, he had no idea where to start.

Once it was obvious the Korandas hadn't been the high bidders in the contest, the ident.i.ty of his matchmaker should have been immediately clear, but he still didn't figure it out right away. When he finally put the pieces together, he stormed to his parents' house and ran his mother to ground in her office.

"You made her life h.e.l.l!" he exclaimed, barely able to contain himself.

She tried to wave him away with a flick of her fingers. "A dreadful exaggeration."

It felt good to have a target for his anger. "You made her life h.e.l.l, and then suddenly, without warning, you turn into her champion?"

She regarded him with injured dignity, her favorite trick when she was backed into a corner. "Surely you've read Joseph Campbell. In any mythic journey, the heroine has to pa.s.s a series of difficult trials before she's worthy enough to win the hand of the beautiful prince."

His father snorted from across the room.

Ted stalked out of the house, afraid of this new anger that kept erupting. He wanted to hop on a plane, to bury himself in work, to slip out of the skin that had once fit him so comfortably. Instead he drove to the church and sat next to Meg's swimming hole. He imagined her disgust if she could see him like this-see what was happening to the town. With the mayor's office sitting empty, bills weren't getting paid and disputes were going unsettled. No one could even authorize the final repairs on the library that his mother's check had made possible. He'd failed the town. He'd failed Meg. He'd failed himself.

She would hate the way he'd fallen apart, and even in his imagination, he didn't like disappointing her more than he already had. He drove into town, parked his truck, and forced himself through the door of City Hall.

As soon as he stepped inside, everybody started toward him. He held up his hand, glared at each one of them, and sealed himself in his office.

He stayed there all day, refusing to answer either the ringing phone or the repeated knocks on his locked door as he shuffled through papers, studied the city budget, and contemplated the sabotaged golf resort. For weeks the seed of an idea had been trying to break through his subconscious only to wither in the bitter soil of his guilt, anger, and misery. Now, instead of gnawing over the ugly scene at the landfill, he applied the cool, hard logic that was his stock-in-trade.

One day pa.s.sed, then another. Homemade baked goods began to pile up outside his office. Torie yelled through the door, trying to bully him into going to the Roustabout. Lady E. left the complete works of David McCullough on the pa.s.senger seat of his truck-he had no idea why. He ignored them all, and after three days, he had a plan. One that would make his life infinitely more complicated, but a plan nonetheless. He emerged from his seclusion and began making phone calls.

Another three days pa.s.sed. He found a good lawyer and made more phone calls. Unfortunately, none of that solved the bigger problem or finding Meg. Despair gnawed at him. Where the h.e.l.l had she gone?

Since her parents continued to dodge his calls, he made both LadyE. and Torie give it a try. But the Korandas wouldn't crack. He imagined her sick with dysentery in the jungles of Cambodia or freezing to death on her way up K2. His nerves were raw. He couldn't sleep. Could barely eat. He lost track of the agenda during the first meeting he called.

Kenny showed up at his house one evening with a pizza. "I'm seriously starting to worry about you. It's time you get a grip."

"Look who's talking," Ted retorted. "You went nuts when LadyE. ran out on you."

Kenny pleaded memory loss.

That night Ted once again found himself lying sleepless in his bed. How ironic that Meg used to call him Mr. Cool. As he stared at the ceiling, he imagined her gored by a bull or bitten by a king cobra, but when he began picturing her getting gang-raped by a band of guerrilla soldiers, he couldn't take it any longer. He threw himself out of bed, jumped in his truck, and drove to the landfill.

The night was cool and still. He left on his high beams and stood between the funnels of light as he stared out at the empty, polluted land. Kenny was right. He had to pull himself together. But how could he do that? He was no closer to finding her than when he'd begun, and his life had fallen apart.

Maybe it was the desolation, or the stillness, or the dark, empty land so full of untapped promise. For whatever reason, he felt himself standing straighter. And he finally saw what he'd missed-the glaring fact he'd overlooked in all his attempts to find her.

Meg needed money to leave the country. From the beginning, he'd a.s.sumed her parents had given it to her to make up for everything she'd gone through. That was what logic told him. His logic. But he wasn't the one calling the shots, and he'd never once gotten out of his own head to slip into hers.

He envisioned her face in all its moods. Her laughter and anger, her sweetness and sa.s.s. He knew her as well as he knew himself, and as he opened his mind to hers, the essential fact he should have picked up on from the beginning became blindingly clear.

Meg wouldn't take a penny from her parents. Not for shelter. Not for travel. Not for anything. Clay Koranda had lied to him.

Chapter Twenty-Four.

Meg heard the car creeping along behind her. Although it was barely ten o'clock at night, the chilly October rain had emptied the streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side. She walked faster past the wet, black garbage bags that sagged at the curb. Rain dripped through the fire escapes above her head, and trash floated in the flooded gutters. Some of the former redbrick tenement buildings on Clay's block had been spruced up, but most hadn't, and the neighborhood was dodgy at best. Still, she hadn't thought twice about clearing her head with a trip to her favorite cheap deli for a hamburger. But she hadn't counted on the rain driving everyone inside on her way back.

The building that housed Clay's cramped fifth-floor walkup was almost two blocks away. She'd subleased his dingy apartment while he was in L.A. shooting a meaty role in an indie film that might be the break he'd been waiting for. The place was small and depressing, with only two minuscule windows admitting trickles of thready light, but it was cheap, and once she'd gotten rid of Clay's greasy old couch, along with the detritus left behind by various girlfriends, she had room to make her jewelry.

The car stayed with her. A quick glance over her shoulder showed a black stretch limo, not anything to get nervous about, but it had been a long week. A long six weeks. Her brain was fuzzy from exhaustion, and her fingers so sore from laboring over her jewelry collection that only willpower kept her going. But her hard work was paying off.

She didn't try to convince herself she was happy, but she knew she'd made the best decisions she could about her future. Sunny Skipjack had been on target when she'd said Meg should reposition herself for the high-end market. The boutique managers she'd shown her sample pieces to liked the juxtaposition of modern design and ancient relics, and the orders had come in more quickly than she'd dreamed possible. If her life's goal was to be a jewelry designer, she would have been ecstatic, but that wasn't her goal. Not now. Finally, she knew what she wanted to do.

The car was still right behind her, its headlights yellow smears on the wet asphalt. Rain had soaked through her canvas sneakers, and she pulled the purple trench she'd found at a secondhand store more tightly around her. Security grilles barred the windows of the sari shop, the Korean discount home-goods store, even the dumpling place-all closed for the night.

She walked faster still, but the steady hum of the engine didn't fade. It wasn't her imagination. The car was definitely following her, and she had a block to go.

A police car sped by on the cross street, siren blaring, red light pulsing in the rain. Her breath came more quickly as the limousine pulled up next to her, its dark windows menacing in the night. She started to run, but the car stayed with her. Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw one of the back windows slide down.

"Want a lift?"

The last face she'd ever have expected to see peered out at her. She stumbled on the uneven pavement, so dizzy she nearly fell. After everything she'd done to cover her tracks, here he was, framed in that open window, his features shadowed.

For weeks, she'd labored deep into the night, focusing only on her work, not letting herself think, refusing to sleep until she was too exhausted to go on. She was ragged and empty, in no condition to talk to anyone, let alone him. "No thanks," she managed. "I'm almost home."

"You look a little wet." A shaft of light from a streetlamp cut across one molded cheekbone.

He couldn't do this to her. She wouldn't let him. Not after all that had happened. She started to walk again, but the limo stayed even with her.

"You really shouldn't be out here by yourself," he said.

She understood him well enough to know exactly what lay behind his sudden appearance. A guilty conscience. He hated hurting people, and he needed to rea.s.sure himself that she wasn't permanently damaged. "Don't worry about it," she said.

"Would you mind getting in the car?"

"No need. I'm almost home." She told herself not to say any more, but curiosity got the best of her. "How did you find me?"

"Believe me, it wasn't easy."

She kept her eyes straight ahead and didn't slacken her pace. "One of my brothers," she said. "You got to them."

She should have known they'd cave. Last week, Dylan had taken a detour from Boston to tell her Ted's calls were driving them all nuts and she needed to talk to him. Clay sent her a stream of text messages. Dude sounds desperate, Dude sounds desperate, his last one said. his last one said. Who knows what he might do? Who knows what he might do?

Worst-case scenario? she'd replied. she'd replied. He'll miss a 4-foot putt. He'll miss a 4-foot putt.

Ted waited until a taxi pa.s.sed before he replied. "Your brothers gave me nothing but trouble. Clay even told me you'd left the country. I forgot he was an actor."

"I told you he was good."

"It took me a while, but I finally realized you wouldn't accept money from your parents anymore. And I couldn't see you leaving the country with what you took out of your checking account."

"How do you know what I took out of my checking account?"

Even in the dusky light, she could see him raise his eyebrow. She moved on with a snort of disgust.

"I knew you'd ordered some of your jewelry materials on the Internet," he said. "I made a list of possible suppliers and got Kayla to call them."

She stepped around a broken whiskey bottle. "I'm sure she was more than willing to help you out."

"She told everyone that she owned a boutique in Phoenix and she was trying to find the designer of some jewelry she'd spotted in Texas. She described a few of your pieces-said she wanted to carry them in her store. Yesterday she got your address."

"And here you are. A wasted trip."

He had the nerve to sound angry. "Do you think we could have this conversation inside the limo?"

"No." He could deal with his guilt all by himself. Guilt didn't add up to love, an emotion she was done with forever.

"I really need you to get in the car." He grunted out the words.

"I really need you to go to h.e.l.l."

"I just got back, and trust me, it's not all it's cracked up to be."

"Sorry about that."

"d.a.m.n it." The door swung open, and he jumped out while the limo was still moving. Before she could react, he was dragging her to the car.

"Stop it! What are you doing?"

The limo had finally braked. He pushed her inside, climbed in after her, and slammed the door. The locks clicked. "Consider yourself officially kidnapped."

The car began to move again, its driver hidden behind the closed part.i.tion. She grabbed the door handle, but it didn't budge. "Let me out! I don't believe you're doing this. What's wrong with you? Are you crazy?"

"Pretty much."

She'd delayed looking at him for as long as she could. Any longer, and he'd see weakness. Slowly she turned her head.

He was as dazzling as ever with those tiger eyes and bladed cheekbones, that straight nose and movie-star jaw. He wore a charcoal gray business suit with a white shirt and navy tie. She hadn't seen him so formally dressed since his wedding day, and she struggled against a dark tide of emotion. "I mean it," she said. "Let me out right now."

"Not until we've talked."

"I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to anybody."

"What do you mean? You love to talk."

"Not anymore." The interior of the stretch had long seats running up the sides and tiny blue lights edging the roof. An enormous bouquet of red roses lay on the seat in front of a built-in bar. She dug into her coat pocket for her cell. "I'm calling the police and telling them I've been kidnapped."

"I'd rather you didn't."

"This is Manhattan. You're not G.o.d here. They'll send you to Rikers for sure."

"Doubtful, but no sense taking chances." He s.n.a.t.c.hed the phone away and shoved it in the pocket of his suit coat.

She was an actor's daughter, and she produced a bored shrug. "Fine. Talk. And hurry up about it. My fiance's waiting for me at the apartment." She pressed her hip against the door, as far away from him as she could get. "I told you it wouldn't take me long to forget you."

He blinked, then reached for his bouquet of guilt roses and set them in her lap. "I thought you might like these."

"You thought wrong." She flung them back at him.

As the bouquet hit him in the head, Ted accepted the fact that this reunion wasn't going any better than he deserved. Kidnapping Meg had been one more miscalculation on his part. Not that he'd planned to kidnap her. He'd intended to show up at her door with the roses and a heartfelt declaration of everlasting love, then sweep her off into the limo. But as the car turned onto her street, he'd spotted her, and all his common sense had vanished.

Even from the rear, with her body enveloped in a long purple trench coat, her shoulders hunched against the rain, he'd recognized her. Other women had the same long-legged gait, the same determined swing of the arms, but none of them made him feel as if his chest had imploded.

The dim blue lights in the limo's interior picked up the same shadows beneath her eyes that he knew had taken up residence under his own. Instead of the rustic beads and ancient coins he was used to seeing dangling from her ears, she wore no jewelry, and the tiny, empty holes in her lobes gave her a vulnerability that tore at him. Her jeans poked out beneath the hem of her wet purple trench coat, and her canvas sneakers were soaked. Her hair was longer than it was when he'd last seen her, spangled with raindrops, and bright red. He wanted her back the way she'd been. He wanted to kiss away the new hollows below her cheekbones and put the warmth back in her eyes. He wanted to make her smile. Laugh. Make her love him again as deeply as he loved her.

As she stared straight ahead at the part.i.tion that separated them from his mother's longtime Manhattan driver, he refused to consider the possibility that he was too late. She had to be lying about the fiance. Except how could any man resist falling in love with her? He needed to be sure. "Tell me about this fiance of yours."

"No way. I don't want you to feel any worse about yourself than you already do."