"This girl," Joe said to Charles, "owns this house that we're both guests in. And these men-and women-look to her for leadership. She's the 'boss,' not me. They work with me, not for me."

The American lieutenant gazed out the bedroom door, into the hallway where Cybele had vanished. "That's incredible. She's the general of this motley army? She's so . . ."

Beautiful. Feminine. Slight of stature. Yet beneath Cybele's captivatingly dark eyes lay determination that was harder than steel, surrounded by tireless strength.

"Some of the best saboteurs I know are women," Joe told him. "Cybele and her friends have helped us fight the Nazis by setting bombs that bend railroad tracks, by providing information about munitions dumps and troop movements. Even just by painting one of Churchill's Vs for Victory on the wall of the commandant's house to keep the Germans on edge."

"It's a strange world we find ourselves in," Charles said. He shook his head. "I can't begin to imagine my wife, Jenny, blowing up train tracks. I can't even picture her able to open a can of paint."

"You'd be surprised what people can do if they have to," Joe countered. Charles had a wife. The knowledge relieved him a little too much. As if he really thought he himself had a shot with Cybele, provided Charles was out of the picture. It was ridiculous. She was unattainable, untouchable. She was Joan of Arc, burning with passion but married to her cause. She was an angel to admire from afar, floating high above base human desires, always out of reach.

"Will you talk to Cybele for me?" Charles asked. "Tell her I don't want to wait. I want to get back to the Allied side of the line as soon as possible."

"It's not going to be that simple. The line's way up to the north and west," Joe informed him. "Miles away. The fighting's intense-the Germans aren't letting go easily. Getting you across, at least right now, could be pretty difficult."

"Damn." Charles glanced up at Joe, his elegant lips twisting into a smile. "If I don't get back there soon, I'm not going to be considered wounded enough to be sent home."

Joe looked down at the other man's bandaged leg. "Until you can walk on your own-and quickly-moving you would be too much of a risk."

Cybele flowed back into the room then, bringing in a tray with Charles's lunch. Two precious eggs, a slab of dark bread, a bit of cheese, some of the ever-present turnips. "Risk," she said, having caught the word as she set down the tray on the bed beside Charles. She looked at Joe expectantly. "What are you planning now?" she asked him, switching into her native tongue.

"Our guest is impatient. He wants to return to his unit as soon as possible."

"He's too weak still," she said, then spoke in her stilted English directly to Charles. "You are not yet strong enough to go anywhere."

The lieutenant grinned at her. "Can't bear the thought of my leaving, can you? I do seem to have that power over the girls. And you are a pretty one, especially for a four star. Your wish is my command, General."

Cybele looked at Joe, but this time he took liberties with the translation. He told Cybele, "He'll go when you say he's ready to go."

Kelly sat behind her desk, completely overwhelmed. She knew she had to prioritize. She had to set up an administrative triage. But it was hard to get excited about paperwork when she'd just spent over two hours talking to Betsy McKenna's parents.

God, what a nightmare. Brenda and Robert McKenna had crumpled at the news that six-year-old Betsy's tests had come back positive. It was leukemia. And the fact that the survival rate was better than ever before didn't change the very real possibility that the McKennas could lose their precious child.

They'd finally left, but the dazed look in their eyes haunted Kelly. Dr. Martin, the head of oncology at Children's Hospital, wouldn't be able to meet with them until six. Technically, Kelly didn't really have to be there, but Brenda had asked her to come.

That wasn't going to be fun-getting into the technical details of the treatment and its risks.

As Kelly sat at her desk, the paperwork in front of her seemed stupid and unimportant.

She rested her head on a pile of files. Yes, that was definitely a far better use for them.

Her phone rang, and she jerked upright. It was her private line. She picked it up apprehensively. "Dad?"

"Uh, no, actually, it's Tom."

"Oh, God, what happened? Is my father-"

"Whoa, wait, everything's okay . . . Jeez, I'm sorry, Kel, it didn't even occur to me that you'd assume there was some kind of trouble if I called."

Kelly had been holding her breath but now exhaled in a burst. "Sorry," she said. "I'm sorry. My fault for overreacting."

It was Tom Paoletti. He'd called her on the phone-but not because her father was ill and needed her. Her pulse began to race for an entirely new reason.

"Actually," he said with a soft laugh, "now I feel really stupid because this is not an important phone call. I mean, it really could have waited until after you got home. I just wanted to find out . . ."

Time hung for a split second as countless possibilities spun out enticingly around her.

". . . if I could use your computer to sign on to the Internet," Tom finished.

"Oh," Kelly said, as disappointment settled down around her like a damp blanket. He only wanted to use her computer. He didn't want to take her dancing, to see a movie, to go to dinner. To have wild sex all night long. "Well, sure. Yeah. That's no problem."

"I'll sign on as a guest, use my own account, of course."

"Of course," she echoed. "Use it for as long as you like, whenever you like."

"Thanks," he said. "I really appreciate it."

"Actually," she said, "I'm not sure when I'm going to be home. I've got a meeting at six that could run for a while. I can call Mrs. Lerner and see if-"

"Don't sweat it. I'll hang with your father for as long as you need me to."

Kelly closed her eyes. "Thanks."

There was the slightest of pauses, and then he said, "Well, I won't keep you. . . ." at the exact same moment that she opened her mouth and said, "You know, Tom, I was wondering . . ."

This was it. She was going to do it. She was going to ask him to have dinner with her. She was going to ask him out on a date.

"Whoops," he said with a laugh. "Sorry. What's up?"

Ice. Her entire cardiovascular system was suddenly filled with ice.

"Um, I was wondering if you knew that my computer's in my bedroom," she told him. Chicken. God, she was such a chicken. "I figured I better tell you where it is so you don't have to search the whole house." She closed her eyes, wincing silently. Not only was she a chicken, but she sounded like an idiot. An idiot chicken. "My room's on the second floor, west wing. White walls, blue curtains . . ." Big sign on the wall saying IDIOT LIVES HERE.

It was the same bedroom she'd used as a child-a spacious room with a private bath and French doors connecting to a balcony that looked out over the backyard and the pool. From her second-floor vantage point, she'd been able to see Tom wherever he was working in the yard. Between the balcony and her tree house, she'd pretty much had him covered.

Perverted idiot chicken.

"Oops," he said. "I didn't realize you kept your computer in your bedroom. I don't want to invade your privacy or-"

"Do you smoke?" she asked.

"No."

"Then no problem," she said. "It's just a room I happen to sleep in. Brace yourself, though. It's a mess. Just kick aside the dirty laundry and ignore the fact that the bed's not made."

He laughed again at that. He had an incredibly sexy laugh, low and husky and intimate. He could have made a fortune on one of those 900-number phone sex lines. "I thought the cleaning lady was just in."

"Mrs. Lerner's under strict orders to stay out of my room," Kelly told him. "I happen to like my mess."

"And you're sure you want me going in there?"

He didn't know the half of it. "It's really okay." Kelly flipped through her calendar, searching for the next evening she was available and . . . "You wouldn't happen to be free Thursday-tomorrow-night?"

Dear God. She did it. She'd actually said the words.

"Yeah, sure," he said. "Why? You need me to stay with your father again? No problem. I'm there."

Words he'd completely misunderstood. How on earth did men live through this time and time again? It was a wonder more of them hadn't simply given up and become monks.

"No." She closed her eyes, braced herself. "I was hoping you'd have dinner with me."

There was complete silence for at least a solid second. But it was a very, very long second.

"Well," he said. "Wow. Yeah, that would be . . ."

Kelly waited.

"Nice," he finished.

It wasn't quite the word she was hoping for. But it was far better than a lot of words he might've come up with.

"Okay, good," she said. God, that had been easier than she'd imagined.

There was another brief moment of silence, during which she realized he could well have accepted her invitation simply because he was kind and he didn't want to hurt her feelings. Maybe even right now he was trying to figure out how he could get out of it. Maybe . . .

She started to stammer. "Because, you know, I just thought it would be nice-" Oh, crap, there was that awful word again. "-to go someplace that isn't work or home with someone who . . ." Looks like you. No, wrong thing to say. "Someone who . . ." Has a penis. Oh, God . . . "Someone who . . ."

"Isn't eighty years old?" he suggested.

"Well," she said, "yeah. Sort of. God, that sounds awful."

"It's not," he said. "Everyone needs a break. A little distraction."

God, yes. "Although, to be honest, there's a chance I might have to cancel at the last minute. One of my patients . . ." She had to clear her throat, glad she was talking to him over the phone, glad he couldn't see the sudden very unprofessional tears that welled in her eyes at the thought of sweet little Betsy McKenna and what she was faced with simply to survive. "She's starting chemotherapy, and she and her parents might need a little extra attention." Her voice wobbled slightly, and she coughed to cover it. "Excuse me."

"Oh, man, that must be hard as hell," Tom said softly.

Kelly closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than to lose herself in her nearly lifelong attraction to this man. She didn't want to have dinner with him tomorrow night. She wanted him to take her for a ride on his old motorcycle, the one that was still carefully kept under that drop cloth in the garage. She wanted to go fast, fast enough to blot out all her pain and anger and fear.

It was the fear that hurt the worst. Fear that Betsy McKenna would die despite the advances of modern medicine, despite the care of one of the best children's hospital staffs in the world. Fear that her father would go to his grave without reconciling with Joe, fear that Joe would never recover from such a terrible blow. Fear that she'd live the rest of her life wishing she'd had just a few more months with her father, wishing she'd had the nerve to look him in the eye and tell him that she'd loved him-even when he drank, even when he was cruel-and to ask him if maybe there wasn't a time when he'd loved her back, just a little bit.

Fear that she would die just as angry and just as tragically alone.

She needed a distraction, all right, but she wanted something a little more high octane than dinner and conversation. She wanted full body contact and hot, deep kisses. She wanted wild abandon, total, breathtaking full penetration. She wanted to feel nothing but pleasure, nothing but heat. And wild Tom Paoletti was just the man for the job.

She'd spent the past sixteen years waiting for a chance to kiss him again. Wondering if the reality could stand up to the perfection of the memory. Maybe tomorrow night she'd find out.

"How old is she?" Tom asked, his husky voice like velvet against her ear.

"Just turned six." Her lower lip trembled as if she were no older than that herself. Come on, Ashton, get a grip.

"Damn."

"Tom . . ." Kelly clamped her mouth shut. What was she going to do, just ask him to have sex with her? A dinner invitation was one thing, but, God . . . She could imagine his surprised response, his attempt to be polite. Well, sure, that would be nice, but . . . "I'm sorry," she said instead. "I really have to go."

"Kelly, I'm . . . here if you need anything."

"Thanks," she managed to choke out before she dropped the phone back into its cradle.

And then, although she wanted nothing more than to drop her head onto her paperwork-laden desk and cry, she steeled herself the way she'd done so many times before and got to work.

Her father would have been proud.

Chapter 7.

"WHAT GOOD IS an apology if you're not going to stop doing the thing that you're apologizing for?" Charles's voice shook with anger. "That's like saying you're sorry for hitting me on the head with a two-by-four, while you continue to hit me on the head with a two-by-four!"

"But I'm not hitting you on the head," Joe countered hotly. "If you want to use that analogy, then you have to picture yourself hitting me over the head with that same two-by-four since 1944! You're the one who should apologize to me!"

As Tom came into the room, he saw Charles had stuck his fingers in his ears and was singing at the top of his lungs, "La, la, la, la, la!" to block out Joe's words.

"What the hell is going on in here?" Tom had to raise his voice to a roar to be heard over them.

The two old men both fell silent, although they still stood, facing off like a pair of ancient boxers, in the middle of Charles's vast living room.

Charles had his oxygen tank at hand, and he took a hit off it, covering his mouth and nose with the face mask, glaring at Joe.

"Why don't you wear the nose clip?" Joe asked wearily. "If you need the oxygen-"

Charles picked up his walker and flung it as far as he could across the room-which wasn't very far. "That's why," he said bitterly, trembling with anger. "I can't walk by myself, I can't breathe by myself. Why doesn't God just strike me with lightning and kill me now?"

"Because there are things left undone," Joe countered.

"Like telling stupid stories to stupid interviewers?" Charles had to sit down, and as he lowered himself onto the sofa, Tom stepped forward to help. Instead of a thanks, he got a dark look and a frown. "Stupid stories that mean nothing now? The past is the past, and the dead are dead, Guiseppe. Digging them up-"

"Guys," Tom said. "Exactly what happened during the war?"

As he'd expected, they both shut up. Dead silence.

Tom waited. He was in no rush. He had Kelly's permission to use her computer whenever he wanted. He could play referee for hours and still have plenty of time to scan his old files, to read his notes on the Merchant, to wade through his doubt.