Frustration edged away wiser constraints on her mouth. "Why, Gray?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Lori-"

She forged ahead, in spite of him, maybe to spite him for once. "Why do you think you're not meant to be a father?"

Finally she dared to ask the question that had tormented her for over a year. Of course, now she no longer wanted to know for herself, but some lucky child deserved this man as a father. She didn't linger overlong on the thought of the woman who might give him that child. "You're great with kids. Look at how you deal with Magda. And I've heard you talk about your nieces and nephews. You obviously adore them."

"That's different."

"Because they don't come with a wife?"

"Partly." He met her gaze dead-on, honest as he'd always been, even when it hurt.

Lori swept aside the shards of pain his single word had sprinkled over her and hated that he still had the power to wound her.

So he didn't want a wife.

Not that she wanted the position. She needed a man who wasn't afraid of commitment, a steady man who wanted to put down roots and build a life rather than play games and sing Karaoke until the end of time.

But how she would miss his smiles.

Why couldn't she have smiles and constancy wrapped up in a package that sent her heart stuttering like it did with a simple look from Gray? "So you're just a confirmed bachelor who plans to shower Barbie dolls and Tonka toys on other people's kids for the rest of his life."

"It's better that way."

"Why?" she demanded, confused, angry and more curious than she wanted to be.

He twined a length of her hair around his fingers, linked to her but not touching. Gray stared at the simple lock as if it might hold the answer. Slowly he released it, one strand at a time. "Why do you want to know? It won't accomplish anything."

Good question. She struggled for an answer. "Aren't we both trying to find a way to say goodbye to each other? You talk about helping me with Magda, but I think there's more to it than that." His eyes darted away from hers, confirming her suspicions. She stilled the unproductive disappointment and charged ahead. "Is that what this is all about? Putting the past to rest for good?"

"Seems like you know me pretty well after all. Maybe you can tell me why I don't plan to get married."

"Ever? Not to anyone?"

"Ever."

All confusion about the two of them aside, she couldn't help but ache at the thought of Gray spending the rest of his life alone. "If I knew the answer, Gray, we wouldn't be sitting here right now."

Would he respond? While always truthful when he spoke, he sometimes opted for silence or covered the moment with a laugh and a smile. Would this be one of those times? A lone car drove past, and she almost gave up. What difference would it make, anyway?

Gray scratched a hand over his heavy, five-o'clock shadow. Lori prepared herself for his lighthearted quip.

Not a smile in sight, he said, "My dad."

Confusion muddled her tired brain. "Your father?"

"My father was a POW in 'Nam."

"Oh, Gray, how awful." She had to touch him. Taboos be d.a.m.ned, she couldn't let such a revelation go past without contact and comfort. Lori laid her hand over his on the floor. Gray twitched, but didn't pull away.

She searched in the dark for something to say, but he hadn't given her much to go on. "I knew your father was active duty Air Force, but you never told me... How long?"

"Four years overseas. Three of them in the camp."

Lori stroked his fingers one at a time. "You must have been young when he left."

Tendons and veins bulged and rippled along the top of his hand. "I was five. Davis was three. Mom was pregnant with Mary Ann."

"Your poor mother." Poor young Gray, she thought but didn't dare say. Instead she linked their fingers without giving him a chance to say no.

His jaw worked double time. "d.a.m.n straight."

"But your father came home."

Gray's grip tightened, painfully. "Yeah, he came home."

"What happened?" she asked, then wished she hadn't His hold slackened, and he slid his hand free.

"He finished out his time in the service, retiring at thirty years."

"End of story?"

"For him maybe. It didn't matter to him what it cost my mom to see him put on that uniform every day. It didn't matter that it almost killed her to send him off to fight in other conflicts around the world." Gray pinned her with eyes that glittered in the dark like the fluorescent lighting of his aircraft. "It didn't matter because the military is in his blood. It's a calling, something he couldn't turn his back on no matter what it cost. Even if it cost him his family."

"But your parents are still together. They're still a family." She tried to take his hand again, offer something to smooth away the harsh lines she'd never seen on his playful face before.

He gripped her wrist and held it between them. "Lori, your training should have taught you better than that. Just because two people live together and exchange a few vows doesn't make them a family. We haven't been a family since he walked out the door to Vietnam."

The bitterness in Gray's voice stopped her cold. She'd asked for this, thinking there had to be something more beneath the songs and smiles. But she hadn't expected an intensity that almost scared her. For herself or him, she wasn't sure.

The vaporizer chugged in the silence. He carefully released her arm with exaggerated control.

Gray looked out the French doors as if searching for something in the night sky. "I'm just like him, Lori. Whether I'm a flyer, doctor, or a ditch digger, I'm going to do it in the military. It's in my blood. Some men can juggle it all, family and service. I'm not one of them. I'm too much like my father, too driven, too selfish. And I won't do to any woman what he has done to my mother."

"How do you know if you haven't tried?"

"Who says I haven't tried?"

Steamy air weighted her lungs until she couldn't find the breath to talk.

"I tried twice. Desert Storm wrecked one relationship."

She inhaled that thick air, but it did little to ease the band constricting her sides. "And the other?"

Silently he stared back at her with the answer they both already knew. Did she want him to say it? What would it gain either of them?

He looked away, and the moment pa.s.sed. Lori deflated against the bed.

Gray was d.a.m.n right she'd picked up a trick or two about human nature in all those counseling courses. Her every professional instinct shouted there was more about his father and his family than Gray was sharing. Even so, his set jaw as he stared out at the twinkling sky told her it wouldn't do any good to push him. He'd spilled as much as he planned to. End of discussion.

Lori rested her head against the mattress and closed her eyes as if that would somehow block out visions of the man beside her. Regardless of the rest of his story, he'd made it clear. He had his reasons for staying single. He had plenty of commitment in his life. He'd just committed himself to the Air Force.

Knowing that should have freed her.

It didn't. Instead of hearing his words, she saw his eyes, the flash of pain that had likely not been as well hidden in the young boy.

More than anything, she wanted to cradle that child to her and make his world right. She wanted to comfort the man and thank him for finally sharing a part of himself with her, even if it scared her more than a little and pushed them farther apart.

How sad something that should have sent her hot-footing it away only made her want to hold him even more.

*** Legs stretched out on the floor in front of him, Gray stared through the French doors for what seemed like hours. He'd tracked air traffic, civilian and military, as it circled the city, any distraction to keep from thinking about what he'd told Lori.

He listened to the whir of the vaporizer, Magda's slight but steady snore, Lori's even breathing as she slept beside him.

Gray turned to look at her, the edge of the mattress rubbing along his neck. Lori slumped asleep, propped in the corner created by the end table and mattress. Her arm draped up to the bed, her hand on Magda's arm.

Unable to stop himself, he reached to rest his hand on top of Lori's. She didn't wake, but still laced her fingers with his. He held on to her soft hand and stared out the door again.

He hadn't meant to tell her so much. There was so much more he could have said. Not that it made any difference except to leave him feeling as if he'd taken a load of shrapnel internally.

Lori had just listened and held his hand, like now. She gave to others even in her sleep. Just like his mother.

And he'd pushed her away. Just like his father.

Gray freed his hand if not his thoughts.

G.o.d, he was tired. He'd monitored patients through the night before. What was it about this particular mother and daughter that drained his reserves more than a wardful of patients? She'd bombarded his defenses until he'd stupidly indulged in morose psychobabble garbage.

Time to shake it off pal. If he was that tired, then Lori must be past exhaustion. She needed to be in her own bed.

Gray stood and checked Magda, careful not to wake her, then scooped Lori into his arms. Just like a few days before, a year ago, she snuggled in for a secure fit. Thank heaven she slept on though. He wasn't up to resisting any more of her groggy gropings.

Limp with deep sleep, Lori didn't stir during his walk down the hall to her bedroom. He lowered her to her bed and tucked her under the covers with lingering hands.

Lori's towering four-poster canopy bed enticed him to stay. The door finished its swing in, the lean of the house and gravity at work until the door clicked shut as if defying him to leave. A bottle of peach lotion waited on the bedside table like an invitation to remember things he could never forget, anyway.

Lori's hand trailed down his arm and held fast to his hand. "Stay. Sleep."

Did she know what she was offering? Or was she talking in her sleep again, trapped in the familiarity of a year ago?

Gray found her eyes open, fairly clear. Her touch was steady and warm. "Stay."

He thought of mentioning Magda as an excuse, but beside Lori's bed the nursery monitor glowed with a single red light. Magda's gentle snuffling floated through the device. He would hear her if she called out from down the hall.

Too tired to argue or pull his hand free, Gray lay beside Lori. On top of the fluffy comforter. No use tempting fate. He would just grab a little shut-eye in case Lori or Magda needed him, easier than making the cross-town drive again.

Taking care of Magda, then falling victim to Lori's gentle prodding left him more wiped out than he'd been after a Desert Storm mission. Gray closed his eyes and hoped like h.e.l.l combat-induced dreams wouldn't chase him into sleep.

Chapter 10.

Lori settled deeper into the most incredible dream. And it involved plastering herself against Gray's warm, solid body.

Surrendering to the dream proved irresistible. She'd been so long without. Without him.

Her hungry hands climbed over his back, along the rippling cut of muscles and pure man. Her fingers itched with impatience to feel him, not the well-worn T-shirt. A frantic trek to his waist brought her to the hem of his shirt. She tunneled inside.

Skin to skin she touched him. Her face buried in his neck, she inhaled, snuggled closer, pressed her lips to the delicious salty taste of his shoulder. She kicked her down-filled comforter to the foot of the bed so she could cuddle closer.

Gray groaned. Somewhere in her hazy mind she heard him, felt him turn his face to her.

"Lori?"

Instinct guided her mouth to his before he could say more.

Searing, hot need painted vibrant reds and blues on the backs of her eyelids. Heat combusted within her, sleep evaporating. Her hands paused, tensed. What was she doing? Other than almost pa.s.sing out with pleasure just because she had Gray's mouth against her, fully, finally.

She thought of pulling away. For all of one practical second.

Lori twisted her fingers in his hair and yanked Gray closer. Hard. No doubt, remnants of sleep clouded her judgment. She didn't care. How could she think, much less reason while her legs tangled themselves with Gray's?

She worked her lips over his in a silent, demanding plea he couldn't miss, hopefully couldn't resist. Opening, urging, she traced her tongue along his mouth, then nipped at his bottom lip. Again, harder.

His lips parted with a hungry growl. Bold, strong hands clamped along her back, one on her waist, the other between her shoulder blades, both firm and insistent.

Forget about deluding herself into thinking that sleep muddled her reactions. She knew exactly what she was doing and simply couldn't stop.

The past year slid away as their tongues tangled, tasted, tempted. Her hands remembered he liked the brush of her thumbs just below his jaw, along his collarbone, over his small, flat nipples. Gray traced a tantalizing touch down her spine, one vertebra at a time until she was ready to scream with the need for more, had done so often before. He had to remember, too, and that stirred her to a near frenzy as she thought of what would come next.

If only they didn't stop.

Gray rolled her to her back, anchoring her to the mattress and the moment as she stared up into his glittering eyes. Her shirt scrunched up. His followed. Gray's bristly chest rasped her b.r.e.a.s.t.s to agonizing tightness. Her fingers crawled down his back, found their way into his shorts and gripped his taut b.u.t.tocks.

His shorts inched low on his hips, hers following as Lori rocked against Gray. With frightening ease, they recaptured their familiar rhythm. Together, but frustratingly incomplete as two layers of cotton separated them.

He was such a great kisser, and Lori loved to kiss. Loved to kiss him, loved to look at him. Her leg hooked around Gray's hip, and he grabbed the back of her knee. Their boxers inched lower, his as well as hers, with Lori's every restless, needy wriggle. The hard, hot length of him pressed to her, so close, so intimate. No longer feeling cotton, just Gray, she savored that moment of delicious realization just before...

He slid in.

Full, thick pressure filled her, stretched her. The pleasure of it, after so long without, shimmered to an almost painful intensity, and she screamed her release into his mouth.

Gray's shoulders tensed beneath her palms. His eyes opened wide.