"Why'd you brush him off like that?"

"Who?"

Stef propped her fist on her hip. "Seriously?"

"I didn't brush him off." She wanted to add that she also didn't need to defend herself to anyone, but especially not to an employee. But that would have sounded as peevish as she felt, so she let it go. "I've lectured the boys about being cautious with strangers. I was setting an example."

"He's not a stranger. He's renting the house next door."

"Anybody could rent the house next door."

"Point taken. But if that guy had looked at me like that, I would have-"

"Like what?"

"Like he wanted to lick you all over."

"Stephanie!"

The younger woman only laughed. "What did he want when he called you back?"

"He asked about, uh...garbage collection."

Stef's eyes narrowed. "Okay, don't tell me."

Time to change the subject. "Are the boys down?"

"They were waiting for a story from you, but they went unconscious the second their heads hit the pillows."

"Thank you. I had to see to some things in my office. Reply to some e-mails." Look under the front doormat.

"Mind if I borrow your car again? I'll cover the gas."

"Seeing Dirk?"

"Um-huh."

"You're welcome to invite him to come here one night."

Stef wrinkled her nose. "I don't think so. He wouldn't exactly fit into the cozy family scene. He's not the type."

"Oh? What type is he?"

"Hip. Tattoos and a beard. He's older than me."

"By how much?"

She laughed. "I think my instinct is right. You'd take one look at him and disapprove. But that's cool. It's not like I'm that smitten. At the end of next week, I'll be going back to Kansas, and Dirk will be a blurry memory of my summer."

After Stef left, Amelia continued upstairs and went into the boys' bedroom. She kissed each of them, then sat on the edge of Hunter's bunk and watched them while they slept. Usually that brought her a sense of peace and well-being.

Tonight, it only served to remind her how vulnerable they were, how young and innocent, and totally dependent on her to protect them. Many times, she'd had to shelter them from Jeremy's dark moods, his heavy drinking, his rants about her working at the museum. After returning from his second tour in Afghanistan, her job had been one of the first things he'd picked quarrels over.

He'd wanted her waiting at home for him when he got off work every day and had resented any evening event or meeting that she was expected to attend. He became increasingly belligerent over having to stay at home with the boys until, finally, she began making excuses to George Metcalf as to why she had to miss work-related occasions.

But their evenings spent at home together were far from idyllic. She couldn't say anything that didn't spark a touchy reaction or full-throttle fight. The boys' constant activity and noise grated on him.

At first Jeremy had been a proud and boastful father to both boys. She had photographs of him cuddling them. In those, he looked happy and content. He'd been playful and had dazzled them with tricks, such as pulling pennies from their ears. He'd indulged them with treats and small gifts, which she allowed because he had missed much of their infancy. His desire to spoil them was understandable.

But after that second tour, his interaction with them became unpredictable. He'd become too short-tempered and impatient to be a hands-on dad. The overindulgent daddy became an angry man that her boys grew wary of, and their wariness irritated him, making the time he spent with them volatile. Ultimately she became afraid to leave them alone with him. Which was one of the main reasons she'd left. Protecting her children had become more important than saving the bad marriage.

Disturbed by those memories, she kissed the boys one more time, then went into her bedroom. Now that she knew eyes were watching, she made certain to pull down the shades before undressing.

It was a large and rambling house, and Dawson occupied very little of it. He didn't generate enough noise to fill it, either, so he heard every creak of wood, every faucet drip, and every thud of unknown origin.

He'd chosen to use one of the upstairs bedrooms, solely because the windows on the west side of it afforded an unrestricted view of Amelia's house.

From it, he watched Stef get into Amelia's car and head toward the village. Shortly after she left, he saw Amelia enter her bedroom, walk straight to the row of windows, and pull down each shade with a purposeful tug, as though she knew he was watching. She wanted him to know with certainty that she was closing off not only his view but also his access to her life. A few minutes later, the light in the room went out.

With one hand propped high on the jamb, he continued to watch her house through his open window. The breeze off the ocean was balmy and moisture-laden. Against the skin of his belly, it felt like a woman's breath. Like the softest of open-mouth kisses.

Groaning, he turned his face into his raised arm and rubbed his forehead against his biceps, cursing himself for being every kind of fool. He should have heeded his impulse to call Headly and tell him to screw this trial, screw Jeremy Wesson and whoever his parents had been, he was coming home.

But he'd taken one look at Amelia, and his ennui had turned into razor-sharp awareness. His disinterest became avid curiosity. He wanted to know all there was to know about her.

No, scratch that. Not all. He could do without knowing about her personal relationship with her ex. Because every time he thought about her in bed with Jeremy Wesson, about Wesson or any man moving on top of her, inside her, he wanted to hit something.

The hell of it was, Headly expected him to turn Wesson's life inside out. Pivotal years of his life had been spent with Amelia. If he did this thing for Headly, and did it right, there was no way he could omit the active role she had played.

He gave her house one last careful study, then walked to the bed and lay down, stretching out on his back. The pills he'd taken earlier were kicking in. He'd caught a pleasant buzz from the combo of them and Kentucky's elixir, and he was feeling drowsy. Maybe tonight would be the first night that he would sleep through without having the nightmare. Please, God.

Closing his eyes, he forced back the ghastly images that continually lurked on the borders of his mind. To replace them, he conjured up Amelia's face. Having finally gotten to see her eyes up close, he knew they were a deep, deep blue. Hooking her hair behind her ear was an absent-minded habit, as he'd suspected when he saw her do it in the courtroom. She also had a tendency to bite her plush lower lip.

Thinking of that caused a physical response of unequaled lust.

For weeks, he'd been sleepless during the nights, wound up tight during the days, his nerves flayed by recurring memories and nightmares of war. So, probably, this intense physical reaction was based on nothing more than a critical need for solace. Like any straight guy, one of the first places he would seek it was a woman's body. It couldn't cure the malady, but it could provide temporary relief from the symptoms.

But if it was only comfort he needed, wouldn't any breasts feel as soft? Couldn't forgetfulness be found between any pair of thighs? Wasn't one woman's hand as effective a magic wand as another's, one woman's mouth as mind-numbing as the next?

He had thought so. He'd lived his adult life believing so. Whether a sexual relationship lasted for a few months or a few hours, he'd got from it what he'd wanted and no more than he'd invested.

His customary nonchalance didn't apply here. Not to Amelia Nolan. No, this was something else. This wasn't a crotch throb that would be easily pacified. This was different. A first and only. This was hell.

He hoped Jeremy Wesson was frying in one of his own.

Chapter 7.

Mom!"

"Mom! You gotta come see!"

Amelia was in her office composing an e-mail to George Metcalf when the boys rushed in, tracking in sand and practically stumbling over each other in their haste. Their faces were sweaty and flushed.

"What in the world?" It had been less than ten minutes since she'd heard them leaving the house on their way to the beach. "Did a spaceship land on the shore?"

"No, it's better. You gotta come see." Hunter took her hand and tried to pull her from the desk chair.

"Hold on. Where's Stef?"

"She's down there. Come on."

"Okay, I'll come down, I promise. Just let me finish this-"

"No! You gotta come now." Grant was bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Come see."

"If it's that stupendous, I guess my e-mail can wait."

Laughing, she let each one take a hand and drag her from the room, down the stairs, and out through the front door. Her laughter subsided when she looked beyond the dunes. Stef, looking sleek and bronze and young, was chatting with "hot, hot, hot" Dawson Scott. He had on swim trunks. A ball cap worn backward was keeping his hair out of his face. Something he said caused Stef to tip her head back and laugh.

"Hurry, Mom!"

Hunter tugged harder on her hand and together the three of them went down the steps. When they reached the boardwalk, the two boys left her and bolted ahead. She was too miffed to remember to warn them against splinters.

As she crested the dunes, she saw what all the excitement was about. A dragon had been sculpted into the sand. It had fangs and scales and claws, and a body that arched in and out of the sand for twelve feet. She didn't need to guess who the sculptor had been. Her sons were dancing around him like aboriginals worshiping a totem pole.

He'd placed her in an untenable situation. She couldn't spoil the boys' excitement, and, damn him, he knew it. Pasting on a smile, she approached the dragon. "My goodness!" She pressed her hands together and placed them under her chin, as though completely captivated. It worked to fool the boys.

Both were grinning up at her, their rapture apparent. "Isn't it awesome, Mom?"

"It certainly is! I hardly know what to say." This last, she addressed to Dawson, whose eyes were concealed by a pair of aviator sunglasses. She sensed him watching her closely and gauging her reaction from behind the dark lenses.

"Dawson made it!" Grant said.

"Did he?"

"Yeah, and he said he could make other stuff, too. We're gonna build a battleship."

"And a castle for the dragon," Grant added.

It was all she could do to keep from grinding her teeth. "Wow."

Stef, who'd been carefully observing Amelia as the scene unfolded, clapped her hands. "Before all these projects get under way, we'd better put on more sunscreen."

The boys chorused protests, but she placed a hand on each of their shoulders and turned them toward the house. "March. The sooner we do it, the sooner you can come back."

Hunter dug in his heels. "Dawson, will you still be here?"

He hesitated and looked at Amelia, but when she remained stonily silent, he smiled at the boys. "I'll be around."

"Don't leave!" Grant shouted over his shoulder as Stef propelled him up the boardwalk.

Neither she nor Dawson spoke until the trio had topped the dunes. Then he said quietly, "I meant only to surprise them. I thought I'd be finished before they came outside. They caught me putting on the final touches."

"I asked you, more nicely than warranted, to stay away from us."

"My house shares the beach with yours."

"But you picked this spot for your...your dragon. What made it so ideal? As if I didn't know."

"I'm not going to interview your children, Amelia."

Her tummy fluttered in reaction to his using her first name, and in such a low and infuriatingly reasonable tone. But she didn't address it, not wanting him to know that she had noticed.

He said, "I don't see the harm in my spending some time with the two of them."

She dragged back a strand of hair that had defied her hat and blown across her mouth. "Well, let me tell you what the harm is. Aside from the fact that I don't know anything about you."

"That's not true."

"Okay, you've got credentials. They don't speak to the kind of person you are."

"I-"

She held up her hand to stop him. "Secondly, Grant is too young to remember much, but Hunter can recall when his grandfather died. Then-"

"They lost their father."

"That's right."

"So they could use a little man-time, don't you think?"

"Absolutely. But not with a man I know virtually nothing about. Not with a snake-oil salesman who will be here today and gone tomorrow. Not with a man who's ingratiating himself with them only in order to get to me so he can write a big, juicy story for his magazine."

"That's not why-"

"Save it. I already know you're a liar."

Angrily, he whipped off his sunglasses. "A liar? How's that?"