"Tyber..." Her violet eyes were heavy-lidded with sleep and rising passion; he thought her wildly sexy.

He lifted her hand from where it was resting on the bed, ardently pressing scorching lips to her palm before swirling his tongue across the sensitive center.

Zanita's breath caught.

His thumb and forefinger held her wrist up for the downward play of his open mouth across her inner arm. Slowly, he traversed the arm, caressing with velvet lips that gently blew across the moistened skin.

It was devoutly erotic.

And all this time, he remained embedded in her to the hilt.

Strange, but it seemed to him as though time had somehow slowed down just for Tyberius Augustus Evans, slowed down so he could savor each minute sensation, each quivering breath she took, each moment they were joined together.

Zanita watched him silently. On a strange level, coming from one dream into another, she felt as if she were two people: the awake Zanita, keenly feeling every point of indelible sensation from the pulsating touch of this man, and the other Zanita, the Zanita still caught in her dream, seeing, as if through a gauzy veil, a man so utterly beautiful, a man making deep-felt, torrid love to a woman while she was still sleep-warmed by him.

Tyber paused, quietly raising his lashes to meet her eyes.

Zanita held her breath. There was a seriousness about him.

He waited silently, staring into her with those light blue eyes of his... staring at her, not moving, as his pupils began slowly dilating to his arousal, staring at her while she felt the slightest trembling inside her from him.

"Kiss me. Kiss me now, Tyber." Her voice caught on his name.

He sealed his mouth over hers, blending them. A scalding heat poured from him into her; his lips teased, his tongue stroked, his teeth nipped. But he did not move.

He was driving her mad. She needed, wanted him to- She tried to wiggle her hips.

His hands came down to hold her still.

She moaned against his mouth.

He twitched inside her, but stayed still.

"Please, Tyber, let me-"

He shook his head.

His tongue thrust inside her mouth. She whimpered, kissing him back, locking their mouths together.

"Just feel, baby."

He began to throb; she could feel him throb. Intensifying. Heat. It was beating along and through her. His pulsing or her pulsing? Something was happening. He was-she was-They. Became.

Her breaths were short, shallow, rapid; she was panting.

His breaths were deep, ragged, building...

When she began to cry into his mouth, he moaned into hers, squeezing his eyes shut. He did not move.

Impossibly, he was swelling more in her. Tight. He was in so tight.

She began to tremble.

He quickly clasped his arms around her and clutched her to him in a powerful grip. She screamed her release against him; he shouted his against her.

She felt a long, hot splash inside her.

"I'm sorry. It just happened. I wasn't going to. Is it okay, baby?"

She tenderly cupped his cheek. "Yes, it's okay." There was no need for him to be concerned in any way. "Don't worry, Tyber."

He smiled tenderly at her. "You too, baby." There wasn't a doubt in his mind from that moment on that he was irrevocably hers.

When she came into the kitchen, Zanita skittishly viewed the orange muffin Tyber was popping into his mouth, "What is that?"

"Butternut squash muffin." He placed one in front of her. "It's butternut-everything until next spring. I expect you to help me out here."

She eyed the muffin dubiously. "What does it taste like?"

"Like a mufffin made out of squash. Eat up." He saluted her with his half-eaten one.

Zanita sat down, tentatively taking a little bite out of the muffin. "Not bad."

"I'll remind you you said that come January."

"Can't Blooey freeze any of the crop?"

"Froze it; canned it; cold-stored it." Tyber looked at the plate of muffins in front of him with a resigned expression.

She reached across the table to pat his hand consolingly. "You'll survive, Doc."

Unfortunately, Blooey chose that exact moment to walk in the back door carrying yet another bushel. "Didn't get nearly as cold as what they feared last night. I managed to save these rascals-be looking forward to these beauties on a cold winter night, eh, Captain?" He whistled off to the pantry.

Tyber's head clunked against the tabletop.

Zanita giggled. "It's a good thing I love butternut squash."

He raised his head four inches off the table and showed a woebegone face. "Just wait until he starts on the soup." He shuddered, dropping his head again with a thunk.

"Well, at least you can look forward to your dessert every night."

"Squash pie," came the voice from the tabletop.

"I'm sure you're exaggerating... aren't you?"

He raised his head to give her a "you'll see" grin.

Zanita hesitated before taking a sip of her coffee, raised her eyebrow at him, then shrugged her shoulders.

Tyber drank his coffee slowly, watching her over the rim of his cup. "Do you have an unnatural fear of... hogs?" he asked conversationally, as if he were asking her to pass the butter.

"What?" Her cup clattered back into the saucer. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, several times when you've been disturbed in your sleep, you've mentioned... hogs."

"Oh, you mean The Hogs."

"The hogs?" He looked a little wary of her now.

"Yes; at night they sometimes come by my grandfather's farm causing mayhem."

He lowered his coffee cup. "You're kidding. In Stockboro?" He had never heard of any motorcycle gangs in the area.

She waved her hand. "All the time. And believe me, it's like they get some kind of demented pleasure out of ransacking the place."

"Is there no one to stop them? Where are the authorities?"

"Forget it. It's been tried before. It's hopeless, been going on for years. Why, I remember one night when I was still a teenager, I was coming home late from a party at my girlfriend's so I was trying to sneak in the back, when I was suddenly surrounded by them."

Tyber leaned forward in concern, taking her hand. "They didn't hurt you, did they, Curls?"

"Well, they snuffled me a little, but generally they're pretty harmless."

"Snuffled you?"

"Yeah, but they moved on quickly because they were really after my grandfather's corn."

"You're talking about real hogs, aren't you?"

"Of course. What else would I be talking about?"

Tyber leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers against the side of his cup. "One can only surmise and hope for the best."

"Huh?"

"Never mind. Blooey wanted me to ask you if you like"- he pulled a heavily scrawled piece of notepaper from his pocket-"fritata."

"What is it?"

"It's a..." He paused. "It's got-it's sorta flat... I'll tell him you like it."

"Okay." Tyber didn't see the corners of Zanita's mouth lift in fond amusement as he absentmindedly returned the note to his pocket. He was such a sweet man.

"Here." He pulled a little black box out of the same pocket, sliding it across the table to her.

"What is it? A light sabre?"

He didn't even blink. "It's for the front gate, so you don't have to call Blooey every time you come in. It's keyed with a discrete frequency which I change on a regular basis for security."

"What if I get locked out?" She took the box, placing it in her purse.

He gave her a wickedly charming smile. "Not you, baby."

Throughout the following week, Tyber diligently "explained" to Zanita the Law of Gravity, the Law of Symmetry, and Murphy's Law-the latter when he was interrupted by a phone call during a vigorous explanation of Ohm's Law. Zanita knew that for the rest of her life, should anyone innocently mention Sir Isaac Newton in passing, she would blush to the roots of her hair.

She fell into a routine of sorts at My Father's Mansion.

Zanita left for work every morning at nine-thirty, after being sent on her way with a hearty breakfast from Blooey and a lingering kiss from Tyber.

Lately, Blooey had taken to giving her a brown bag for lunch when he discovered she usually skipped the noon meal. When she told him it wasn't necessary, he firmly closed the subject by saying, "To keep the scoundrels out there from devourin' ye whole." Zanita took the bag.

When Zanita returned in the late afternoon, Tyber was always on the veranda swing, sitting sideways with his back against the arm rest, his long legs bent at the knee, booted feet resting on the other arm rest, sipping a cup of something warm. Hambone was usually relaxing close by him, perched on the porch banister, obviously hanging out until the next meal.

After the first day, when Tyber drew her down to sit between his legs, resting her back against his chest as he shared his hot drink with her and giving her little nibble kisses on the back of her neck, it became something of a habit. Zanita never knew if it was Tyber's regular routine to sit on the porch swing at that hour, or if he stopped his work just to wait for her to come home so they could sit and unwind together after the day.

All she knew for sure was that she began looking forward to their quiet hour before dinner. Once she jokingly asked him what they were going to do when it got too cold to sit outside. He immediately replied, "We move to the hammock in the conservatory-it's heated for the plants."

Zanita was discovering that there wasn't anything about this man's life that she didn't like.

After a particularly trying day, she trudged tiredly up the veranda stairs. The porch had become her beacon that day. She just could not wait to sink onto that swing. Lie back between his legs. Let his warm strength surround her. Today, especially, she was immeasurably grateful for Tyberius Augustus Evans.

It had been raining on and off all day. She had been caught mostly in the "on" stage, chasing down a ridiculous story thirty miles outside of town involving a woman who claimed she had been abducted by aliens. All of these beings from outerspace, she said, looked exactly like Norm from Cheers.

Of course, Zanita didn't find out that last part until she had accompanied the bizarre woman across four miles of bog-infested fields in the pouring rain while she searched for the evidence the woman claimed she had hidden there.

The "evidence" turned out to be an empty six-pack of Bud.

Her head throbbed, her joints were aching, and she suspected the little scratchy feeling at the back of her throat was not going to just go away. She settled against Tyber with a heartfelt sigh.

He smiled against her hair as he handed her the hot drink. "Hard day?"

She held the warm mug up to her forehead. "I don't even want to talk about it."

"All right." He counted to three and waited.

"Can you believe the paper sent me out on this ridiculous lead about a woman abducted by aliens?"

Tyber grinned, gasping theatrically. "No! Not here in Stockboro!"

"I know-it's unbelievable! They had me trudging after this poor, misguided woman through four miles of bogs, looking for empty beer cartons."

"Empty beer cartons?"

"The aliens all looked like Norm."

"From Cheers," he supplied, wryly.

"Yes."