He tossed aside his coat, taking her in his arms, said against her hair, ill wanted to hold you," which he did, tightly, for a long minute before easing her back. In the darkness he studied her face, feature by feature, as though searching for a change that the few days apart might have brought. "How was your Thanksgiving?"

Paige had to struggle to think back that far.

No man had ever cut short his vacation to be with her. No man had ever taken to stealing in her bedroom window. No man had ever held her with arms that trembled or touched her face with eyes whose hunger lanced the dark. No man had ever made her feel so full.

"It was okay," she managed to say, though her thoughts clung to all these things that made Noah unique. "Yours?"

"Nice. For a day. Then I got restless." He kissed her, then smiled down apologetically, then kissed her again. This time when he smiled there was a question in his eyes.

Paige answered it by pulling up the hem of his sweater. While he pulled it over his head, she started unbuttoning his shirt. and while he wlled it off. she kissed his chest. By the time she was ready to move on, his trousers were open. She slipped her hands inside and held him while she sought his mouth.

"I missed you," she whispered, and felt his response in her hands. He drew away from her only long enough to toss aside the rest of his clothes and her nightgown, then tumbled her back to the bed.

He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

His mouth was eloquent without a word, with his hands and body echoing all it said, and when he drew her up off the bed and settled her onto a magnificent erection, she felt beautifully and thoroughly complete.

He held her, one arm around her hips, one arm around her back, perfectly still. In her ear, in a faintly ragged breath, he whispered, "I was dreaming of this all the way home. Had a five-hour hard-on.

Hope the flight attendant didn't notice."

Paige laughed. She ran her fingers through the hair on his chest, over the wall of muscle that was so comfortably broad. "You are a corrupter," she whispered. ill wasn't thinking about this at all."

"Not at all?"

"Not at all." It wasn't sex she'd been thinking of, but the completion. When she was with Noah, she felt content.

"There goes my ego."

But nothing else. He was huge inside her. She closed her eyes to more intently savor the pleasure.

He pulled her close again and drew in a long, shaky breath against her brow. "I love it when you do that."

"Do what?"

"Tell me that you feel good that way."

She coiled her arms around his neck and held on tightly.

ill love you," he whispered.

Her heart cauaht. "Me ton " "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

His body tensed. "Christ," she heard him murmur seconds before he pushed her back, and while her hips rose to meet him, he drove into her again and again.

It was a while later, after they had dozed in each other's arms and woken softly, that he said, "Did you mean it?"

She didn't pretend ignorance. She had never before told a man that she loved him. She hadn't even thought it about Noah until he'd said the words himself, and then the meaning of everything she'd been feeling seemed to congeal. "Yes. Did you?"

"Yes." He paused. "It's kinda nice."

"And kinda scary."

"Lots scary." He settled her more comfortably against him and drew up the quilt. In a quiet voice he said, ZSolnething exciting happened while I was home. An old friend of mine is president of the Board of Trustees of a prep school there, my alma mater. He said that the Head has just announced that he's leaving."

Which meant that Noah would be applying for the job. And he'd get it.

Which meant he would be moving to Santa Fe. Just when she'd fallen in love. It wasn't fair.

"The job isn't automatically mine," he cautioned. "There'll be a formal search, but everyone involved knows me and my family, and the fact that I'm an alumnus of the school is a plus." ills it a good school?" she asked against his chest.

"Not good. Great. Great reputation, great student body, great alumni support, great endowment."

"Everything Mount Court doesn't have."

"You could sav. It'd be a feather in my cap."

She nodded against him.

"You could come with me," he suggested.{ "Me? Oh, no. My life is here."

"You could move it there."

To New Mexico? "But I like it here " "You say you love me," he said in the simplistic [ way men had of doing, as though love conquered all, as though love forgave all, as though love con doned the creation of havoc.

She was suddenly miffed. "Love is only one part of my life. The entire rest of it is here in Vermont."

"What if we were to get married9" She took in a breath the wrong way and began to cough. When she had recovered, she pushed herself up so that she could see his face. It was a futile move. Between half-lidded eyes and the dark, she couldn't see much, which was nearly as unfair as his request. "Marriage has never been in my game plan."

r "That doesn't mean it's bad."

"It was for you before."

"That was then, this is now. You and Liv are worlds apart." He took her chin in his hand.

"Either you're very cynical, or very frightened.

Which is it?"

"Neither," she said, then, "Both," then, "Hell," and sank down on his chest. Seconds later, when the baby monitor emitted a distinct cry, she bobbed back up. USami's been sick." She found her night gown and, pulling it over her head, left the room.

Sami was only half-awake. She was congested whimpering as she stood against the bars of the crib scrubbing at her nose and eyes with her fist.

Paige lifted her out and held her close. "Shhhh, shhhh Mommy's here,"

she crooned. "Is my little girl not feeling great?"