"Give her to me," Jack said, clearly exasperated.

Realizing at last that her overreaction was only making things worse, Maggie handed Amy to Jack. He calmed the little girl, then handed her to Tomas at the edge of the pool. "Amy wants to swing," Jack said to Tomas.

"Amy wants to swing," Amy agreed.

"Then Amy shall swing," Tomas said as he headed with her toward the playground at the rear of the backyard.

"Come here," Jack said, holding his arms wide open for Maggie. When she hesitated, he caught her wrist and pulled her into his embrace.

Maggie felt the warmth of him and realized she was shivering with cold . . . with fright . . . with frightful memories. "It was awful, Jack," she said, pressing her face against his chest. "It was awful."

"I'm sorry, Maggie. I'm so sorry."

She didn't say anything else, and neither did he. They simply stood in the soothing-but potentially deadly-water and let it lap around them until Maggie was calm again.

"Do you want to talk about it, Maggie?"

She shook her head and started to let go of him.

"Don't let go," he said. "My knees are like soggy noodles."

Maggie looked up at Jack and for the first time realized his features were pale, his eyes stark, like an overcast sky. "Why, you wretch! You were as scared as I was!"

"For a heartbeat, maybe. You always think you're going to be able to save them, but . . . sometimes things go wrong."

"Do you want to talk about it, Jack?" Maggie asked, meeting his gaze, returning his offer of solace.

He shook his head. "It's all in the past, Maggie. I can't change it . . . I just have to learn to live with it."

As she held tight to Jack, Maggie experienced a peace she hadn't felt for a long time. She wasn't the only one fighting demons. Jack understood what she'd suffered. Maybe, someday, he would tell her the rest. Maybe, someday, she would tell him, too.

"Hey," Jack said at last, looking down at her. "Are you all right?"

"I was just thinking."

"Anything you'd care to share with me?"

She focused her eyes on the glistening water. "If you listened last night, you already know most of it."

"I'm a good listener, Maggie."

Jack's invitation was more than a little tempting, but based on what he'd told her about his relationship with his mother, Jack wasn't a forbearing sort of man. He wouldn't be able to forgive what she'd done any more than she'd been able to forgive herself. He might be offering her comfort at the moment, but what he really wanted from her was down and dirty, hard and heavy, panting, sweaty sex.

If she was lucky.

Maggie found herself staring at Jack's naked chest, at the thick mat of dark hair beaded with water crystal rainbows. Woody had been blond, with only a small patch of curls in the center of his chest and a runner's lean physique. At six feet even, her husband had always seemed tall to her. Standing in Jack's shadow, Maggie was aware of his greater height, the greater breadth of his chest, his obvious strength.

If anyone had asked, she would have said such things didn't matter to her. But it seemed she was as much a creature of nature as any other animal that looked for the strongest mate, the one best able to protect her and her offspring. She found Jack's strength attractive. She laid a curious hand on his furred belly and heard him gasp.

She looked up at him, aware of his suddenly hooded eyes, his flared nostrils, the fullness of his lips. "I've always wondered what a 'washboard stomach' felt like," she murmured. Maggie brushed her fingertips across his ridged flesh. "Now I know."

Jack grasped her wrist. "What game are you playing now, Maggie?"

"The same one you were playing five minutes ago," she quipped. "What's the score?"

"So far, a big fat zero," Jack muttered. "It seems you're ready to change that. Let's get out of here-"

She laid her hand flat on his chest, a mistake as it turned out, because all she wanted to do was slide it up around his nape and pull his head down so he could kiss her. "It really is a shame I'm a murder suspect and you're . . . who you are," she said. "Otherwise, I might be tempted to accept your offer."

"Speaking of murder-"

"Let's not and say we did," Maggie said, abruptly stepping back from him and heading toward the stairs in the shallow end of the pool.

Tomas was still pushing Amy on a swing that was part of an elaborate playground. The little girl's shrieks of laughter were disconcerting because sometimes it was hard to tell whether Amy was just excited or really frightened.

"Tomas," Maggie called, "not so high."

"She likes to go high," Tomas replied.

"It's not safe," Maggie said.

Tomas caught the swing and slowed it down. "As you wish, mi querida."

When Maggie turned to settle herself on the pool stairs, she found Jack already there before her. "You didn't leave me much room," she said.

"You can always sit in my lap."

Maggie shook her head. "I haven't sat in a man's lap since . . . ." Since Woody died. "For a long time," she finished.

"Then maybe it's time you did," Jack said, catching her as she started to sit and easing her onto his lap.

"You have bony knees," she protested with a laugh.

"They aren't the only thing that-"

She put a hand over his mouth. "You're in-corrigible."

"I can't resist you, Maggie. I don't want to resist you."

"What about all my secrets?"

"You'll tell me when you're ready."

Maggie got the unspoken message. He wasn't willing to wait until she had been proved innocent. Whatever had been started between them would now be resumed . . . had already been resumed, she realized, remembering the playful touches-maybe more than that in hindsight-Jack had given her when they'd been frolicking with Amy.

Although she had carefully maintained the two inches of space between her back and Jack's front ever since she had sat down, there was nothing she could do to avoid the feel of his masculine, hair-roughened legs beneath her. Maggie felt a physical need so strong it made her ache inside. Jack seemed ready to move forward, but she wasn't so sure she was.

"I should get up, Jack. People will get the wrong idea."

"People?" Jack said. "Look around, Maggie. Roman and Lisa are in the house. Tomas is busy with Amy. And Isabel. . . ."

Maggie looked toward the lounge chair where Isabel had been sunbathing and saw she was missing. Maggie followed Jack's gaze and watched the kitchen screen door swing closed as Isabel stepped inside.

"We're all alone, Maggie. There's no one here to stop us from doing anything we want."

"Not now, Jack," she said.

He kissed her nape as his hand closed over her breast. His touch was shattering-like a bolt of lightning streaking to her core. Oh, God, this can't be happening. Not now. There's no privacy, no- "When, Maggie?" he demanded, his voice harsh with need.

"Later," she gasped.

"When?"

"Tonight."

He bit her on the nape, then kissed away the hurt, his hands making one last grasping foray across her breasts that left her shivering with need.

He let her go and said, "Okay, Maggie. Tonight."

Lisa had barely taken two steps inside the kitchen door when Roman reached for her. She shivered as the air-conditioning hit her damp skin and stepped willingly into his embrace, pressing her body against his seeking heat. His arms surrounded her, and he pulled her snugly against him, hissing as water from her suit soaked through his sleeveless T-shirt and hit his flesh.

"I'm getting you all wet," she protested with a laugh. She tried to back away, but Ro-man held her tight.

"I don't care," he said. "I just want to hold you."

She pressed her cheek against his. It was almost as smooth as Amy's and smelled of soap because Roman thought cologne was a waste of money. "People should smell like people," he'd said. So sometimes Roman smelled of the strong antiseptics he used at the hospital and sometimes like the soap he used in the shower and sometimes, when the musky scent of sex had permeated his skin, she could smell her-self when she pressed kisses on his flesh.

Lisa had been aware of a sort of desperation in Roman's lovemaking last night. She had never been so frightened for their marriage as she was when they lay panting on the sheets afterward.

What's wrong, Roman? she'd wanted to shout. What's happening to us?

She and Roman used to spend hours at night in bed just talking. Last night, Roman hadn't said two words to her. The only explanation she could find for why he was coming home so late, why he no longer wanted to talk to her, why he was always so tired after a day at the hospital, was that he was spending his time and energy with some other woman. With Isabel Rojas.

Then why did he make love to you last night?

Lisa had no answer to that. Unless it was simply that she'd asked. Maybe she would start asking more often.

Lisa stood quietly in the middle of the Mexican-tiled kitchen floor letting the warmth of her husband seep into her, wondering whether he had ever held Isabel Rojas this way. She forced the insidious thought from her head as her fingers trailed up Roman's back to his nape. She felt him tremble and marveled at the power she had to make him quake. Could Isabel make him shiver and shudder and cry out as she could?

Lisa's heart pounded in her chest. She knew she should listen to the voice of reason. It told her, Roman would never leave you without warning in the middle of the night like your father did. He loves you and Amy. He would never leave Amy.

But Lisa's mother had said her father loved Lisa dearly, too. And her father had left one day and never come back. Her mother had become a bitter and angry woman as they became poorer and poorer.

Lisa clutched Roman's neck tighter. If only she could hang on to him all the time. But she had to let go every morning so he could go to the hospital. And nowadays she was as guilty of coming home late as he was. Reason had very little to do with her fears . . . or her feelings for Roman Hollander.

On the day he had come to give an evening lecture on medical ethics at the Bates School of Law in Houston, she had sat in the classroom, listening to the timbre of his voice and the intelligent sense of what he had to say, and realized long before the two hours were up that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.

He might as well have been a famous movie star, he seemed so unattainable, so unapproachable. Yet she couldn't let him leave without speaking to him. She had come up to him at the lectern after class with a thought-provoking question, one that would take at least two or three cups of coffee to discuss, and invited him to a nearby coffee shop to discuss it.

"I don't know . . ." he hedged.

She had looked him in the eye and said, "I'm twenty-four, Dr. Hollander. I'll be graduating in two months, and I plan to practice health-care law. I think these issues are important to my future. I would appreciate having the benefit of your wisdom and experience."

She knew it wasn't her mind he was evaluating as he looked her up and down, and Lisa could tell he liked what he saw. She knew she looked good even in the jeans and T-shirt she was wearing. It was the first time she could ever remember being grateful for her beauty.

"All right," he agreed.

"My name's Lisa," she said, as they walked up the stairs of the tiered classroom to the door. When he didn't offer his first name in return, she prompted, "What's yours?"

She saw the struggle on his face, the wariness and the yearning. The hunger had been unmistakable in his dark eyes even then.

"Roman," he said at last. "My name's Roman."

"That's a beautiful name, Roman."

"I've always thought it was kind of . . . never mind," he said with a self-effacing smile. "I'm glad you like it."

The force of his smile had made her knees buckle. She grabbed reflexively for his arm, and he said, "Are you all right, Lisa?"

Lisa. The sound of her name on his lips had made her quiver inside. She looked for some excuse for stumbling and said, "I'm a little stiff from sitting, I suppose. The walk to the coffee shop ought to solve the problem."

"Take my arm," he said. It was a gallant gesture men her age knew nothing about.

"Thank you, Roman." She had tried to calm her rattled nerves as she slipped her arm through his and laid her hand on his coat sleeve. It was the softest wool she'd ever felt and warm from his body. She stayed as close to him as she dared for the entire walk from the law school to Carey's Coffee Connection.

They had drunk coffee until Lisa was floating, while she listened to Roman talk animatedly about medicine. He was dedicated to his work, it seemed, to the exclusion of all else. His dark eyes made her heart jump when he focused them on her, and she was mesmerized by his hands, so strong and skilled . . . and gentle. She knew they would be gentle.

It wasn't easy getting Roman to talk about himself, but she did. "I can't believe you've never been married," she said when he ad-mitted he was a bachelor. "You have so much to offer a woman."

A charming flush rose on his cheekbones. "I . . . I . . . "It was the first time in five hours and forty-five minutes he'd been speechless.

The blush, and the tongue-tied moment that followed it, made him seem less godlike. Those small signs of humanness made her bold enough to say, "I live near here, and this place is about to close. Would you like to come home with me, Roman, so we can continue this discussion?"

She saw his nostrils flare for the scent of her, watched his dark eyes turn nearly black with desire, saw the rigidity in his full lips. The hair lifted on her arms as he reached across the booth for her hand and held it in both of his own. She felt the pulsing beat of his heart through his skin and realized her own was racing to beat in time with it.

"Why me, Lisa?"

She hadn't expected the question but knew instinctively what he was asking, his voice harsh with confusion and sexual desire. Why are you issuing this invitation-for which I'm grateful and honored-to make love to you? You're young and beautiful and could surely have any man you wanted. Why did you choose me?

From things she had gotten Roman to admit, she knew he was overly conscious of the nearly twenty-year difference in their ages, that he was aware most women didn't consider him traditionally handsome, that he was committed to his work and had very little time to spend dating. He had proved by staying single long past an age when most men married that he wasn't the marrying kind. So what, he was asking, was the attraction?

Lisa knew the answer, had known it since Roman opened his speech in the classroom by saying, "Life is uncertain. Everyone here should grab for life with both hands and live it to the fullest every day, because there are no guarantees."

As his hands curled into fists, grabbing at a life lived in the here and now with no thought for tomorrow, Roman Hollander had squeezed out the emptiness her father had left inside her. Hope had spilled into the chasm, hope that she could find happiness by choosing to live each day without worrying about the future. And she owed it all to Roman. His words, his ideas, had filled her up and made her whole again.

But they didn't know each other well enough for her to tell him that. She had welcomed the signs of his vulnerability but had been careful to show him none of hers. "Does it matter why?" she said at last. "I want you, Roman. Isn't that enough?"

Despite Roman's husbandly devotion for the past four years, Lisa hadn't been able to shake the fear that had always shadowed her marriage. Lately, the fear had grown to more than a shadowy specter.