Sarah sighed as the last of Natsuko dropped away under Quentin's gaze. "Fairhope lost to your high school in the football playoffs once."

"I remember." Quentin nodded. "I came down for Owen's game."

"I wonder whether we saw each other." She envisioned sixteen-year-old Quentin, tall and thin, a head above the crowd, untamed hair, gla.s.ses, a coat in November, worn jeans, the deck shoes in comparatively mint condition. She asked, "Can you picture me with brown hair?"

"I didn't see you there," he said. "If I had, I would have known it right then."

Known what? she ached to ask. But she didn't want to know.

After the dusk faded, they went back inside. They had run out of ingredients for Indian food. Now, between bouts of making love, they talked, or one of them slept. Sarah thought each time surely that was the last time. And each time, after a pause, she felt Quentin rise into her again.

Late at night, when the noise of traffic outside her window had all but died away and Quentin had fallen asleep, Sarah fantasized about what it would be like to be with him, move in with him, marry him, have kids with him.

She could do the band's PR from home. She pictured herself living in his Birmingham mansion, surrounded by hills and trees. But he'd be gone on tour all the time. And she'd always worry about what he was doing on tour with Erin.

Okay, this was a fantasy. She didn't have to think about Erin. She could pretend Quentin was faithful and not interested in Erin. She pictured him devoted to her. This was easy, after he'd made such careful, caring love to her all afternoon and evening. She pictured him as a guy she'd met at college, dated in the vibrant city, moved in with, and eventually married, like Harold. Like Wendy and Daniel, an easy relationship with nothing more serious keeping them apart than Daniel being exacting, Wendy talking out her a.s.s, and the waterbed effect that had winged her in pregnancy. And now they had a beautiful baby.

Sarah and Quentin would not.

She realized, heart sinking into her belly, that she had fallen in love with him, and this was going to turn tragic.

But not yet. Not tonight.

She felt his eyelashes flutter and his stubble sc.r.a.pe against her cheek, and he stirred awake. In the soft glow from the streetlights outside, he smiled his slow, sleepy smile at her.

"What have you done to me?" she whispered.

He stirred against her down below. "Let me show you."

They slept late in the morning, made love, ate one of Quentin's huge breakfasts, made love again, and hailed a taxi for LaGuardia. Sarah was hopeful. In the sunny morning, possibilities for the future seemed brighter. Natsuko was skeptical. What Sarah read as Quentin's enthusiasm this morning, Natsuko read as mania.

There did seem to be a marked increase in heavy petting when the airplane neared Birmingham and the Fasten Seat Belts light blinked on. And in the terminal, as they were about to pa.s.s through security, Quentin flattened her against the wall and pressed his lips to her chin. On her scar.

She shoved him away. "Did you check your phone?" she asked him suspiciously. "Did you get a message from Erin?"

He stepped out of the way of other travelers pa.s.sing. "No, I haven't gotten a message from her at all," he said.

Sarah nodded. "That's the problem, isn't it?" She looked through the security checkpoint. "You think she's out there waiting for you, don't you?"

He put both hands in his hair. "Sarah-"

"You know each other so well." She turned on her high heel and stalked toward the gate.

"Sarah," he said above and beside her as she walked quickly. "Sarah, I don't want to leave it like this."

As they pa.s.sed into the public section of the airport, Erin looked up from a bench. Her big, innocent blue eyes held a troubled expression, and she wrapped both arms around her abdomen. She looked strikingly like Wendy had looked sitting in the airport when she was pregnant.

Sarah went cold.

She supposed it could be Owen's baby.

And it could be Quentin's baby, from several weeks before.

Or Quentin could have had a relationship with Erin all along, unbeknownst to Sarah. Sarah didn't think so. She'd been with him so much. She didn't know where he'd find the time. He actually needed sleep at night. Besides, if he'd done it in the last few days, Erin wouldn't know she was pregnant this soon.

No, it was from before. Erin hides sobriety from men. She must have suspected all week, and now she knew for sure. It was Quentin's baby, all right. Otherwise, Erin wouldn't have come to fetch him from the airport.

Quentin called to Sarah, but she kept walking right past Erin. She wasn't going to look back. It took forever for her to reach the door to the parking deck where she'd left her BMW. Finally she couldn't stand it any longer. She looked back.

He was in the huddle stance again, a winded football player, fists on hips, head down. Like he was listening to Erin's plan. Not like he was in love with Erin.

Now he rocked back on one foot, hands still on hips, and watched Sarah go. And in that one glance, Sarah saw that she'd been fooling herself.

He wasn't in love with Erin. He'd told Sarah he was, out of habit. Now he was in love with Sarah.

She had sensed this, but Natsuko had been protecting her. Quentin had fathered Erin's child. When he found out, he would marry Erin, just as he'd talked about doing whatever Sarah wanted to do that first morning. Because he was a decent guy. A responsible man.

Mission accomplished. With Erin and Quentin on the mend, permanently this time, the band would never break up now. Sarah walked out of the terminal before she could cry.

"There is a vibe," Erin had said to Quentin at the airport. "But I'm not going to ask if you did her. In exchange, I want you to concentrate on this concert, and let the record company go on her way."

Tamping down his panic, Quentin had obeyed, for the time being. He'd watched Sarah's perfect a.s.s in those tight pants exit the terminal. She'd looked back only once, wearing the poker face.

And now, poker face still on, she sat in the middle of the block of folding chairs set up in front of the stage beneath the statue of Vulcan, watching the run-through of the concert. The way her hair was pulled into a sophisticated ponytail down her back, it looked more brown than blond or pink. She wore the emerald necklace with a low-cut green dress. Her hemline was so short that he thought she might give everyone a peep show when she uncrossed and recrossed her legs.

He was very glad when they finished the rehearsal and she climbed the stairs to the stage. The TV people were trying to tell the band something about where the cameras would be. Quentin turned his back on all of them and held out a hand to Sarah.

Ignoring him, she called, "Remember, the FCC will be watching the broadcast, Erin, so no nipple."

Erin started to holler some very creative girl-obscenities at Sarah, but Owen covered her mouth and Martin tugged her away by the hand. Placidly, with the poker face, Sarah watched the scene she'd caused. Quentin's three bandmates piled into Owen's truck and roared out of the parking lot, honking the horn three times, a message: Rule Three.

After they'd driven off, Sarah turned to Quentin. "Did you know I've never heard the whole band sing in person before?"

"You listened to us finish the alb.u.m that night after you got stung."

"I've never heard you sing in person while I was awake," she clarified. "And Quentin, you are terrific. You all sound terrific together. I thought so from hearing your alb.u.ms, but there's no comparison to hearing you live. I've never worked with an act this talented. I feel privileged to have helped the Cheatin' Hearts stay together. It would be an absolute shame if something happened to break you up."

He put a hand on her soft elbow.

"Don't." She pulled away. "I don't want any. That's not what I meant. I honestly just wanted to let you know how talented I think you are. Musically."

"Sarah," he said reproachfully. "You're at my rehearsal. Dressed like that. Don't tell me you don't want some."

"I don't want anything from you," she said. Then her poker face broke into a wistful grin. "Well, maybe I do. I may want you to eat your heart out."

"You want some," he insisted. "I happen to have some that I can give you."

"Or loan to me," she snapped.

He sighed and ran his hands back through his hair. "Look, I really do have something in the big-a.s.s truck that I need to give you. Besides that," he added at her expression. "Come on."

They walked across the parking lot to his truck. He closed the door behind her, rounded the truck, and slid into the driver's seat. It had been a good ploy to get her into the truck, but he didn't want to give her the bag just yet. That would definitely ruin any chance he had of getting her clothes off.

Apparently she had the same goal in mind, because she'd forgotten all about the ploy. "We really shouldn't," she said. "There are stagehands around."

He looked past her out the windows of the truck. "They're all gone for the night."

"There's a security guard around somewhere," she said. "One would hope."

"Down by the entrance," Quentin a.s.sured her. "Anyway, isn't the chance of being caught part of the thrill of doing it in a pickup?"

"I wouldn't know."

"Me, neither. So let's go back and get something we both missed out on in high school."

He wasn't going to reach out and grab her. He was afraid she'd bail out of the truck and drive away in her BMW, and he'd never see her again. Instead, he waited.

"Do you happen to have any cheap cologne in the glove compartment, like boys wore in high school?" she asked. "Left from the former owner of the truck? Or planted for effect?"

"Cologne triggers my asthma," he told her.

"Pity." She rushed into him, kissing the corner of his mouth hungrily.

He turned his head to give her better access to his neck while he fumbled with one hand in the glove compartment for a condom. Then he laid her down on the seat, and quickly found that this was inconvenient. "Where the h.e.l.l do you put your right elbow?" he complained.

"I don't know." She laughed.

"I reckon kids in high school are a lot skinnier." He pushed off her and fished for the lever to let down the seat back. In the process, he leaned on the horn and startled both of them.

"Sit up," she suggested. "Let me ride you."

Quentin didn't need any convincing. He sat up in the middle of the long seat and unfastened his shorts. Then he pushed her panties aside and pulled her onto his c.o.c.k. Oh, he'd been afraid he wouldn't get any more from her, ever. This was too good to be true.

She slid up and down him for a few moments, but he wasn't getting everything he needed. He put his hands on her back and pressed her tightness down onto him. She gasped and worked herself up and down, like she enjoyed this as much as he did.

He pulled the sleeves of her green dress off her shoulders and nipped at her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then suckled her as he pulsed into her.

"Que'n," she gasped in that half-gone Fairhope accent. Her fingernails dug into his forearm.

He was going to have to do this again. Somehow he was going to figure out a way to do this with her again. And again.

She shuddered on his c.o.c.k. He gave it to her harder and faster. Her hands, her lips, were everywhere on him, frenzied. With a final groan, he emptied himself into her.

He held her tight and still for a few minutes, with his c.o.c.k inside her. The mountain breeze was cool on his skin, and the frogs were loud in the trees outside the open truck windows. He traced his fingers through the baby blond strands that had come loose from her ponytail and framed her face. He set his forehead against hers.

Finally he joked quietly against her cheek, "Now is when you cry and say you wish we hadn't done it."

"Wrong." She kissed his jaw and made the hair on his arms stand up. "Now is when I say that felt fantastic, and I thank my lucky stars I'm such a loose woman."

She sounded like she was done for the night. He was not. He slipped a hand under the hiked-up skirt of her dress, onto her flat belly.

She jerked out from under him and moved away, across the seat, pulling up the sleeves and neckline of her dress to cover her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. "Don't do that," she said.

"But that's one of my favorite parts," he complained, fastening his shorts. "You made me think the first morning you were here that I might have gotten you pregnant. Seems like I could touch you there if I wanted." He blurted it out more angrily than he'd intended, and he wondered where all this emotion was coming from. He was logical, and he still had everything under control.

Then it occurred to him that he might not have everything under control after all. "Did you lie to me that first morning? Did we do it?" It came out hoa.r.s.e: "Are you pregnant?"

"No," she said quietly, gazing down at her manicured hands in her lap.

He reached over and took her chin in his hand, so she had to look at him. He asked again, "Sarah, are you pregnant?"

"No," she said, glaring at him with dark-fringed eyes. She jerked her chin away.

"Then why do you act like you just saw a ghost?"

She huffed out a sigh. "What did you want to give me?" she asked coldly.

Reluctantly, he pulled the shopping bag from behind the seat. "I'm in a band. I have to get along with them. And sometimes that means doing things I don't want to do." He pa.s.sed the bag to her.

She peered inside at her clothes from Quentin's dresser drawer, which Erin had packed up for her.

"But, Sarah," he began, taking her hand.

"'But, Sarah,'" she repeated woodenly, pulling her hand away.

"I want to be with you," he said in a rush. "Only you. But it will get me in big trouble. And I need to know how you feel about me."

"I feel more than I should," she said, meeting his gaze head-on.

"You think I'm in love with Erin," he said. "I'm not. There was a time when I was, but that was a long time ago, and way before you."

"You told me you were in love with her. In the emergency room."

"I never told you I was in love with her," he objected. "I told you I love her." He laughed shortly. "I love Owen, too, on a good day."

Sarah stared at him with the poker face.

"My G.o.d, Sarah," he said, feeling the anger rise again. "You don't still believe I'm on c.o.ke, do you?"

"No," she said. "I don't believe you're stupid, either."

Oh no.

She said through her teeth, "Why all this subterfuge? And if you pretend again that you don't know what subterfuge means-"

He opened his hands. "To keep you away."

She nodded. "Anything to protect yourself. You're used to doing what makes you feel good at the moment. That's fine when you're twenty-one. Or, at least, it's to be expected. But when you're thirty, it's irresponsible."