After a time, Bett’s spine gradually unglued from the back of the straight chair. The rev really wasn’t so bad; she was even beginning to be rather taken by his low, sonorous voice. He was actually very comforting, in a spooky sort of way.

He related a number of incidents in the life of her mother and father that he could not possibly have known-if, that is, Bett weren’t already aware that Elizabeth had spent time on the phone with him. Her mother seemed suspended in that world of wanting to believe. Bett felt a rush of protective love for her…but it wasn’t necessary. The reverend wasn’t doing any harm.

He claimed Chet loved Elizabeth and would always love her, that he wanted her to be happy. That he would be waiting for her in another world, but in this one he wanted his wife to take up the reins of life again, even to find someone else to love…

Elizabeth stiffened indignantly at that.

Bett didn’t. Her dad, who would have deplored this whole scene almost as much as Zach did, would probably have offered those same words, and meant them. The reverend went on a little longer, surprising Bett when he assured Elizabeth that Chet didn’t need to talk with her again through any medium when he was always in her heart. Didn’t the rev count on repeat visits for his money? Bett was even more surprised when he finished with her mother and, before she could rise from the table, grasped both her hands.

“Oh, really, this isn’t necessary. I-”

“There’s a spirit calling you, too, Mrs. Monroe,” the Reverend Moody said soothingly. “All you have to do is relax and let it happen.”

“I am relaxed, thank you, but I-”

“Brittany,” her mother hissed scoldingly.

Bett sighed.

The reverend’s eyes focused dead behind her on Zach for one long, level moment before they closed. “A living, loving spirit,” said the low seductive undertone. “Someone from your past. A lover? Yes, I think a past lover, Mrs. Monroe…”

Bett stiffened as if she’d been doused with ice water. What else had her mother told the reverend in those phone calls? And actually, Elizabeth couldn’t have known that Bett had lost her virginity to Zach when she was nineteen…

“A long time ago…before you were married, for certain… well, this marriage…it’s one of the strongest auras I’ve ever felt, Mrs. Monroe. It’s a man-I’m trying to picture him-a very tall, very handsome young man. The two of you were so very young, so very much in love, so very eager to explore all the meanings of love together. I see long, blissful nights of passion. I see him taking you in his arms that first time-”

Zach’s chair scraped behind her. Her right hand was plucked from the reverend’s grasp, then her left one. “Thank, so much, Rev,” Zach said crisply. “We’re leaving now.”

Bett considered mentioning that Andrew had hardly been “very tall” and that the reverend certainly had enough creative imagination to sell swampland in Arizona. After one glance at Zach’s face, though, she decided it just wasn’t the right time.

Chapter 5

“A lot of nonsense, really,” Elizabeth said virtuously. “I knew that ahead of time. You don’t think I didn’t?”

“Of course you did,” Bett agreed.

“You think I needed some stranger to tell me your father loved me?”

“No, Mom,” Bett agreed.

“And what a shyster he was, with all that business implying you weren’t a virgin when you married. Honestly, Brittany! I remember now that he asked me on the phone all about the family, and maybe I even mentioned Andrew’s name, heaven knows why. I know I can get to talking on occasion…but I certainly never would have intimated such a thing. I know perfectly well you were a good girl when you married Zach…”

Bett removed her tongue from her cheek long enough to reply, “Yes, Mom.” The last one in, she closed the front door and dropped her purse and sweater on the couch. Zach was already heading upstairs. He had barely said a word the entire drive home, not that he wasn’t exhausted. After working a twelve-hour day, he’d needed that ridiculous outing like a hole in the head. It was after midnight, and no wonder he was a bit…taciturn.

It undoubtedly had nothing at all to do with that slight oversensitivity he’d always had on the subject of one Andrew Alexander.

“Brittany, wouldn’t you like to have a cup of tea with me before we go to sleep?” Elizabeth paused hopefully in the doorway to the kitchen.

“Honestly, not tonight.” Bett gave her mother a hug and a smile. “I’m really bushed, and the alarm will be ringing at five-thirty.”

“Maybe I should go to bed then, too,” Elizabeth said absently.

“Good idea.”

“Is it supposed to be nice tomorrow? I didn’t hear a weather report after dinner.”

Bett put one foot on the stairs. “Good night, Mom.” One could get drawn into these rambling conversations for an endless period of time. Elizabeth could discuss for up to an hour whether or not she wanted to go to bed. Bett understood; night was the loneliest time, the time when Elizabeth missed her husband most, the time when she needed someone close to her. Tonight, though, she was stuck with a daughter who felt somewhere between old-rag tired and porcupine edgy.

“Maybe I should work on one of the afghans for a while. If I don’t get started, they’ll never get done.” Elizabeth peered up at her daughter at the top of the stairs.

Bett turned the corner out of sight, that slight prick of guilt gnawing inside the way it always gnawed when she failed her mother, even in the littlest things. Behind the closed door of the bathroom, she washed her face, rugged off the smocked dress and tossed it in the wicker laundry bin. To accuse her mother of selfishness was absurd, when the lady would positively break her back to “do for” and please her loved ones. But it did seem that Elizabeth always needed something from Bett, and Bett hadn’t stopped feeling drained for a week.

The door to the master bedroom was closed. Silently, Bett turned the knob and tiptoed into the dark room wearing only her bra and half-slip. Zach had crashed; she could see his long frame sprawled on the bed in the shadows. Slipping off the rest of her clothes, she slid slowly down between the cool sheets. The mattress and pillow cushioned her weary body. For a moment, she lay on her back, and then instinctively turned, sliding an arm around Zach’s waist to cuddle next to him.

It was difficult to cuddle next to steel.

Zach, though totally still and silent, was not asleep. Every muscle from his neck to his spine could have won an award for stiffness. Since he hadn’t said anything, Bett knew he didn’t want to talk. She hesitated unhappily. There were times to give a mate space, and times when that space only made things worse. After putting in the grueling workdays he’d been putting in, and after a fiasco like the evening just past, Zach was certainly entitled to a little “let me alone” time. Only she had the feeling he was annoyed by something completely different.

She leaned back a little, staying on her side. Slowly, with an almost imperceptible touch, her palms smoothed up Zach’s back and her fingers curled on both sides of his neck. His muscles actually tightened at her touch. She paid no attention. Letting the heels of her hands rest on his bare shoulders, she pressed her fingers lightly around his collarbones, her thumbs rubbing gently into the nape of his neck and his scalp.

Gradually, her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, to the black and white and gray of moonlight. Her hands looked very white next to Zach’s dark skin, a sensuous contrast. Her gentle touch turned bolder, as she massaged muscles that didn’t want to unknot, concentrating on his most vulnerable spots, absorbed in the challenge. Her fingertips slowly took on the warmth of his skin and fed it back to him. As the knots smoothed out, her own tension eased and turned into lazy pleasure at the touch of him. She tested the effectiveness of her treatment with her forefinger. She pushed just slightly at his back; he immediately collapsed on his stomach. Zach was a disgraceful sucker for a back rub.

Silently, she tugged the sheet off altogether and straddled his back, feeling a thousand totally sexual nerve endings tingle with interest at the feel of her bare thighs against his bare hips. It was so very dark. Barely a hint of moonlight strayed in through the windows; not a sound intruded in the still room. Her hands rubbed and kneaded and smoothed. Arching forward, she massaged his shoulders, the tips of her breasts gently teasing the smooth skin of his back. Then she worked down, vertebra by vertebra, her legs tightening around his hips in natural balance as she moved. Her hands seemed to become part of his skin, and when she heard his groan of pleasure she smiled, but didn’t stop.

Only when she was certain every tendon had gone limp, every muscle had relaxed, did her fingertips change their rhythm to a slow caress of circles and butterfly patterns.

“About a hundred years ago,” she whispered lazily, “I understand that a woman used chicken blood to convince a lover that he was the first.” She traced the line of his spine with a long, gentle finger. “I don’t think they sell it at the drugstores nowadays.”

Even in the darkness, she could see his thick black lashes flutter upward. So he thought she didn’t know what was bothering him? She leaned forward, letting her nipples rub back and forth between his shoulder blades.

“So maybe I never should have told you about Andrew? Or maybe you shouldn’t have asked. How was I to know it was going to bother you so much?” Her lips pressed tightly on the nape of his neck, then trailed along the curl of his shoulder in a series of very light kisses. “Or I could have told you he was a bastard. That the sex was dreadful.” Bett took a breath, and then let her tongue erase all those little kisses on the way back to his neck. “Loving with you is perfect, you know. There isn’t any comparison, and never has been. But I refuse to lie to you, Zach, out of…pride. Yes, I had another relationship, and it was a very good one. I grew up because of it; I was ready to learn what love was and what I wanted from a relationship because of it. Without Andrew, Zach, the two of us might never have been. So if you expect me to be ashamed of what happened before I even met you-”