"Stop it," Donna said quietly. There was something in the air now that gave Tara pause, and she became attentive.

"I hate it when you laugh at me.

You think I don't know what I'm talking about, but I do."

"I'm not laughing at you, Donna," Tara insisted.

Donna shook back her hair and ignored her.

"Look, I know you love me, Tara, but I also know there's a part of me you don't respect. I've been married three times. I've had my share of lovers. At least I've tried to live a full life. But you haven't." Donna had found her footing. Her dark eyes were on Tara's blue ones and they weren't about to let go.

"Donna, I don't think less of you for the way you live."

"If I was a man, you wouldn't give me the time of day. I've watched you, Tara. You pick your lovers over until you find the cream of the crop. You quote the guy's curriculum vitae, for goodness' sake, instead of telling me what a good tush he has."

Donna had been fingering the stem of her flute and now pulled the gla.s.s toward her.

"I loved each of my husbands," Donna said.

"I adored belonging. The sound of Mrs. before my name was like music to my ears. My heart just filled up when I opened the closet and saw my clothes hanging next to someone else's. Sometimes I would spend hours looking at the ring on my finger."

Donna's hand went to her nearly flat chest.

"That ring meant I was so special that someone wanted me forever. Even if we didn't make it to forever, it was still wonderful to think we tried."

Donna put that same hand to her head and ran her fingers through her blond hair as if that helped her think. Her eyes wandered from Tara's.

"Men and women aren't meant to live the way you do." She sighed and looked back at her friend.

"If people didn't make commitments, the human race would have died out a long time ago."

"If the human race had to depend on me, we'd be in trouble." Tara laughed, unsure how to continue this personal, so deeply private, conversation.

It was usually Donna who dug into her soul and bared it. Tara wasn't crazy about hers being mined.

"You might feel differently if you met the man of your dreams," Donna suggested.

"I don't dream about men," Tara joked.

Donna was tenacious.

"You did once." Tara's brow furrowed as she silently pleaded a defective memory. Annoyed, Donna went on, "Georgetown. Seventeen and you had your first drink. Probably the last time you were ever out of your mind. You told me about him then."

"Those were the fantasies of a little girl," Tara said testily. Ben Crawford. She didn't want to talk about him tonight. Not with Charlotte, and certainly not with Donna, who had never met him.

"You were a young woman."

"I was a little girl, and that was a long time ago."

Tara stood up and collected the gla.s.ses, ending the conversation. She looked down on her friend and spoke softly, more gently than was her first instinct.

"Marriage and a man aren't what I need, Donna.

So don't try to make a girl's daydream into a woman's reality. It just ain't going to happen because you want it to. I do love you for wanting to make things right. Just don't go too far."

With a look she terminated the conversation, but Donna touched her arm, speaking in a voice that chilled Tara.

"One day soon people will stop calling you beautiful.

Instead you'll be handsome. Someday you won't be asked to give the keynote speech at a fancy conference; you'll be talking at rubber-chicken luncheons about *my career as a lawyer." Even if your name is Limey." Tara moved. Donna tugged at Tara's shirt to make her listen.

"There are fashions and you won't be part of them. Your father's gone. He was a legend here and some of his aura clings to you. But it won't last forever."

Donna dropped her hand and leaned away from her friend. Her eyes fluttered down. She'd made her p.r.o.nouncements sadly, as if even she, the teller of enchanted tales, couldn't find a happy ending for this one.

"You've walked through life cutting a straight path, guarding your privacy and your home. You didn't look at what you left behind or shoved aside to keep all this safe. You've always been headed forward to a destination only you could see. You have no great ambition because everything came so easily. You subst.i.tuted tradition and comfort for great pa.s.sion. You've never been tested, Tara.

That's why you're sad. Half your life is gone and you haven't taken the time to give someone all of yourself." She sighed and looked straight at Tara.

"You're the last of the Linleys and it's a pity to see such a fine family end with you. Think about it. Lie awake some night and let yourself be afraid of something, for something. Find some pa.s.sion in your life, even if it's to mourn what you haven't pa.s.sed on to another generation."

Tara listened, enraptured by this odd soliloquy, delivered with such precision and deliberation. She wanted to rebut this fantastic nonsense, yet she found herself mute and embarra.s.sed, wondering if Donna wasn't one hundred percent correct.

"Fire's a blazin', ladies."

Slowly Tara turned to the doorway, trying to clear her head. Bill Hamilton leaned casually against the doorjamb, one jean-clad leg crossed over the other. Slender, on the right side of rangy, he seemed to belong there in her desert house.

Perhaps this was what Donna was talking about. A man to dream of. A man whose looks could steal your breath, whose smile could warm you fifty feet off. Tara was almost smiling when Donna shot out of her chair. Their moment was over and now the evening belonged to three, not two.

"Honey, that's marvelous!" Donna's hands fluttered over him as she joined her man of the moment.

She looked at Tara a minute longer but spoke to Bill.

"Girl talk's over. You've been so patient.

I think we're ready for that champagne, aren't we, Tara?"

"Absolutely," she said and walked behind them into the living room, where she sat in the highbacked chair while Bill and Donna cuddled on the couch.

Three.

"Towels are in the front room cupboard. I've put a coffeepot in the bathroom so you don't have to come to the main house for a cup. There's shampoo and there's a hair dryer. Extra blankets in the chest. It gets cold out here."

Tara stood back and surveyed the guest house.

It was a cozy little cottage that backed onto the Rio Grande. In the spring and summer there wasn't a more magical place on the face of the earth. The little adobe structure was shaded by the graceful arms of cottonwoods in bloom, sage sprang up around the courtyard, and the river tumbled by at a lazy pace. Unfortunately, in the winter there wasn't a chillier place. Still, it was preferable to having Bill and Donna in the guest room next to hers. They could frolic to their hearts' content out here in the frosty bungalow and she'd get a good night's sleep.

"This is great." Donna tested the bed with a little jump and a giggle.

"Real nice, Tara. Thanks. Couldn't have asked for a better welcome considerin' we just moseyed in here without so much as a phone call." Bill stowed his gear in the closet and looked around, obviously pleased.

"Considering nothing. It's been a wonderful evening And I still reserve the right to a challenge match on Yahtzee. I've never been beaten that badly in my life."

"You got it." Bill c.o.c.ked his finger and shot her his promise.

Tara lingered, touching the quilt rack by the door.

"Back door's open at the main house. Donna knows where everything is, so help yourself." Tara was headed out when she turned around.

"Listen, I've got to go to a fund raiser tomorrow night for Woodrow Weber's gubernatorial campaign. Shouldn't last too long. Would you two like to come? We could have dinner in town after."

"Sounds wonderful!" Donna grinned and clapped her hands. A party. Her favorite thing.

"Aw, I don't think so." Bill talked over her.

Tara waited for an answer. A look pa.s.sed between the two. Donna smiled apologetically and explained.

"Bill's not one for crowds of fancy folk, as he puts it. How about we settle for dinner?"

"Sounds good. I'll leave directions on the kitchen table. It's c.o.c.ktails after work so plan on meeting me in front of the hotel around seven-thirty. Or eight." She looked from one to the other for confirmation.

"You're on." Bill grinned, sat on the bed, and draped an arm over Donna's shoulder. He buried his face in her hair, keeping his smiling eyes on Tara. That was her signal. Three was a crowd.

Tara smiled a goodnight and stepped outside, shutting the door behind her. She hooked her thumbs in her belt and peered at the night sky. It was clear and lovely and she wasn't quite ready for bed. Walking to the paddock, she planted her boot on the lower rung of the fence and hoisted herself up, putting her crossed arms on the top board.

"Shinin'. Pretty boy," she called softly, though there was no need.

The horse sensed her presence.

He pranced toward her, bringing the animal warmth and companionship Tara loved. A strong creature, this horse of hers, bigger than life, yet gentle. If he were a man, Tara would have no trouble falling head over heels in love. She made affectionate noises as he laid his muzzle over her shoulder and nuzzled in.

"That's right, old boy. That's right. You love me.

I'm not going to be an old shriveled-up prune, am I?"

Tara put her face against his warm, silky jaw. He snorted gently and tossed his huge head back. Tara chuckled and raised one hand to pet him, balancing herself on the wood as she had since she was a girl. In those days she'd petted a dozen different horses, cared for by half as many ranch hands. In those days the land had stretched for miles, instead of acres, on either side of her home.

The horse threw his head and danced away from her, teasing, wanting to play. Tara wasn't in the mood. A lot had happened that night and her mind was full: Ben Crawford's return to Albuquerque, Donna's observation of Tara's loneliness, a man like Bill Hamilton sitting in her home as if he'd visited for years. Tara shushed Shinin', then held out her arms. He walked back into them and she ran her hands down his shoulder, noting how well his winter coat had come in. He'd be warm tonight. She gave him one more pat.

Jumping down from the fence, Tara brushed her hands on her jeans and surveyed her domain. The champagne and the cold. Donna and Bill behind closed doors, and the age of the evening convinced Tara it was time for bed. If she was destined to be a crusty old broad, a courthouse fixture, then so be it. If it ever really bothered her, she'd deal with it. She'd give herself a deadline, make a list, do some research, see a shrink, learn a new joke, but she sure as heck wouldn't read any of Donna's self-help books.

Head down, she chuckled at herself and Donna and the world at large while she watched her feet kick over the hard-packed ground. She needed new boots. The dry winter showed no signs of changing. There was a gopher hole that needed to be filled in. Tara looked up. The cottonwoods, so lush and green in the spring, surrounded her like skeletal remains planted upright instead of laid in the grave to rest. She shivered. The night had suddenly gone beyond cold. She tipped her head back and looked at the black sky, trying to feel for any hint of snow. There was none. Eyes earth-level, one last over-the-shoulder look at Shinin', she gazed past the trees to her house, so softly lit on this winter night, and knew that something had changed.

Tara was tired, but not so weary that the difference in the s.p.a.ce around her went unnoticed.

Alert, hardly panicked, she narrowed her eyes, scanning the corral and the entrance to the barn. Every hair p.r.i.c.kled, every muscle tensed for confrontation.

An animal? No. Shinin' would have been skittish. Whatever was out there was ahead of her, not behind. Irritated, she took her hands from her pockets and walked two paces, stopped, and breathed easy.

"You don't need to hide," Tara called.

She counted the time in heartbeats, waiting for the silence to end. Finally Bill Hamilton broke free from the black shadow of the huge cottonwood that stood between the paddock and the main house. He paralleled her, his fingers digging deep into his back pockets. Even in the dark Tara could see the flash of his teeth, the glint of those opaque eyes of his. She imagined he shook back that long, straight dark hair of his but it was hard to tell, blending in with the night the way it did.

He wore no jacket. It was as if he had come out of the guest house quickly, looking for something, instead of being prepared for a late night stroll.

There was no cigarette held up to explain his presence, no embarra.s.sed laugh to pretend that he'd snuck out to explore her property, curious about his lover's friend.

"I wasn't hidin'." He offered no alibi.

"Oh?"

"I was lookin' for you."

"Really?"

He moved idly toward her, his feet kicking at the dirt with each step, his eyes never wavering.

"No sense beatin' around the bush."

He was closer now and she could feel him. She felt the heat of him, the vibrations of an unusually intense man who knew his power though, perhaps, not how to use it. Tara was intrigued, and no longer guarded. Champagne, conversation, and charisma were a deadly combination. He was close now, almost shoulder to shoulder, and her reaction was getting stronger.

"Is there something you need?" Tara took charge, but Bill didn't seem to notice.

"Nope. Not really." He gave the ground beside her one last scuff, walked over to the fence, and hopped up on the first rung the way Tara had done. He missed his footing, grabbed for the upper rail, and pulled himself up. Cautiously he turned around and hung on so that he was looking at her, listing toward her.

"Nice horse." He half turned again and held out one hand to Shinin'. The horse danced back delicately, hoof-over-hoof. Shinin' snorted and threw back his head. Surprised, Tara moved forward to calm him. But Bill Hamilton had turned away from the animal, almost lost his footing again, and then righted himself. He laughed and there was an excessiveness to it that bothered Tara, but Bill Hamilton gave her a glow-in-the-dark grin.

Tara stood her ground, seeing he needed no help.

"You're not a cowboy at all, are you?" Tara said.

He shook his head, let go of the railing with one hand, and put a finger to his lips, "Shhh.

Don't tell Donna. She decided I was a cowboy, *cause I dress like one.

Probably sound like one, too. I'm not educated like the two of you."

"Doesn't make you bad," Tara a.s.sured him.

"Doesn't make me a cowboy either," he chuckled.

Feeling more comfortable on his perch, he locked his elbows and hung away from the fence.