“Why is it so simple when I’m with you?” he whispered suddenly, his cheek grazing hers, his lips nuzzling in her hair. “You think I haven’t known other women over the years? I’ve loved, Misha. But not like this.”

Her lips met his again, all hunger, all sweetness. She thought fleetingly of his other women, and hoped there had been thousands. Millions. She hoped he had tried them all, every brilliant, beautiful woman who had ever existed, and that he had found none who made him ache as he did for her. All of her concentration was centered on inducing that darkened look in his eyes, on matching the increased pressure of his mouth. She heard the low, guttural sound in the back of his throat. She could taste that sound on her tongue, his wanting.

She drew back slowly, looking at him, unsmiling.

He bent down, picked up her hat and brushed the snow off it. Gradually, he fitted it on her head again, pushing her hair beneath it.

“You are,” she told him softly, “a very special man.”

His smile was lazy. He hooked an arm around her neck, and they started walking out of the arboretum. Matthew broke pace only long enough to brush a single kiss near her ear. “You know I chose a walk so I could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that I could keep my hands off you. Now look what happened…”

“It was your fault.”

They talked nonsense the entire way home. Lorna thought, If I breathe just right, if I don’t step on any sidewalk cracks, this isn’t going to end.

It should have ended when they got back to her place. Johnny and Brian arrived less than ten minutes later from their respective school buses, almost before Lorna had a chance to take off her coat. The boys concurred that it was absolutely essential that they build a snowman immediately. She agreed, supervising the chaos of gathering up mittens and hats and scarves, afraid to look at Matthew for fear she would see that his expression had changed with Johnny’s arrival.

But it hadn’t. He was chuckling, having somehow found the ingredients for hot chocolate while she was getting the kids ready to go out. When she finally closed the door on the boys, he was stirring the pot on the stove. “If I had that much energy, I’d patent it,” he remarked.

She grinned. “They’re exhausted after a full day in school. You should see them when they’re fresh.”

“I don’t wake up that fresh first thing in the morning.”

“Actually,” she said thoughtfully, “I’ll bet you do wake up fresh. Not as in wide awake, but as in hot-blooded and ready.”

“Misha.” He affected a schoolmaster’s scold, and then chuckled when she put both palms to her flaming cheeks.

“I don’t believe I said that,” she groaned.

The hot chocolate was steaming. She put two mugs next to him and he poured. “You’re going to Quebec with me the first of the year, right?”

“Pardon?”

“Quebec. Their winter carnival. Ice sculptures and the Château Frontenac and two weeks alone together. Can you work it?”

She closed her gaping mouth, and then opened it enough to take in a sip of scalding cocoa. Her still-freezing hands curled around the cup; she decided for a minute that the cold walk had actually addled her brain. Certainly on general principles she had always been opposed to exercise. Look what the walk had done for her. All her good sense had flown out the window; her heart was convinced they didn’t have a single problem to solve, and she could have sworn Matthew had just asked her to go on a two-week vacation with him.

“There’s more snow due tonight,” she said politely.

“Misha. I want you to come with me.”

She set down the cup. There was no point in spilling the contents all over the floor. Chocolate stains were terrible to clean up. Her mind went blank. She thought, I’m getting high blood pressure already. The thudding in her chest was definitely erratic. “Matthew. I…Johnny…”

She met his eyes and was instantly drawn into a dark whirlpool. Yet the warmth in his gaze didn’t quite match the sudden tension in his face, the tightness around his jaw. He leaned back against the counter, watching her. “What about Johnny?” he asked, very quietly.

“I’m not free to go away just anytime. I can’t leave him-”

He nodded. “I know that. And I’ll make arrangements for someone reliable to take care of him for a couple of weeks.” His eyes refused to release hers, as if he could hold her gaze and propel her emotions any way he wanted. “Of course your son’s important to you, Misha, but that’s just the point. Let’s make sure the two of us know what we’re doing before we bring anyone else into it.”

He was right, she thought. Rationally, she believed that, too-that the two of them needed time together before Johnny got involved, and before Richard, Sr., came into it for that matter. Two weeks alone together should tell both of them whether they were building a relationship on fantasy or reality. Her eyelashes fluttered down, and she picked up the cocoa cup again. A sudden sensation of fullness in her throat made it difficult to swallow.

The doorbell rang; it was absolutely the last thing she wanted to hear. She got up from the kitchen chair, giving Matthew one last searching glance. She knew she was going to say yes. But she wished she could tell by looking at him if he wanted an affair or a future. She didn’t need a written declaration to know she would bring him more problems than she was worth in the long term. Johnny. The senior Whitaker. The past that infringed on both of them.

Once he was out of sight and she was striding down the hall, she changed her mind and decided she would have to say no to the trip. She knew that once he was near her again she would vacillate once more. You’re a Ping-Pong ball, she told herself disgustedly as she opened the door.

Stan Valicheck took one look at her violent scowl and raised his eyebrows. “Have I come at a bad time? I thought we said four.”

Four. Wednesday. About translating his mother’s story. “Of course you haven’t, Stan. I was waiting for you,” Lorna lied brightly, dredging up a smile of welcome as she encouraged him to come in. She took his coat and propelled him toward her office, wondering vaguely if she could lock Stan in there and then lock Matthew in the kitchen. Not likely.

“I’ll be back in two seconds,” she told Stan. “Just make yourself comfortable…” She gave him a warm smile as he eyed her flight out the door with eyebrows raised in bewilderment.

Lorna’s smile died when she left him. Pushing her hair back distractedly, she headed for the kitchen again, only to find another pair of raised eyebrows waiting for her there. “I have a client,” she said unhappily. “I’m sorry, Matthew, but I’d forgotten I made an appointment for four today. It shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes…”

“I’ll keep an eye out for Johnny. There’s no problem, Misha.”

She agreed. There wasn’t any, or there shouldn’t be. Yet she felt a tugging anxiety that he would make something out of her client being a man. “I’ll make dinner after this, if you want to stay,” she said hesitantly.

“If you end up working a long time, I’ll take Johnny and go out for some fast food.”

“I won’t be long,” she insisted.

His eyes seared hers for a second, as if dissecting her strange tension. “Go talk to your client,” he advised finally.

So she did, closing the door to the office as she sat down at the desk across from Stan. It worked, closing the door. Her office and the manuscript and the brown-haired man with soft dark eyes in front of her honestly diverted her attention. She settled back, tried to relax, and once she began talking, the tensions dissolved like ice crystals in warm water.

Stan didn’t even know, she realized, what the manuscript was about. Fifteen minutes slid to twenty, then to a half hour. She had to explain the different kinds of translating problems she would encounter and the hesitation she felt in doing something of this nature. Anna would have to make the decision whether she wanted Lorna to deliver a word-for-word translation or render the story less literally but with the flavor and texture of the original. A too-free translation could destroy a manuscript, change its meaning and distort its tone, and yet word-for-word translations could do the same thing, because of the subtle nuances of language, the different idioms and mind-sets of separate cultures. “It wouldn’t matter, Stan, if this were going to be something just for you and your family. But I had no idea your mother was such a literate woman. I think she’s terrific. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. But if she wants to sell the story-”

“I don’t see that there’s any problem,” Stan said frankly. “Lorna, I trust you. There’s no question that my mother feels the same way.”

Lorna hesitated. “That’s kind of you, but you hardly know me.”

“We spent four hours with you last Saturday. I don’t consider myself a poor judge of character. And from everything you’ve been saying, I would guess you’ll be conscientious to a fault.”

She shook her head. “All I’m suggesting is that I give the manuscript to someone else-one of the professors at the U of M whom my father used to know-to get his advice. Then, if he agrees with what I think, I could bring that viewpoint back to your mother.”

The half hour became a full hour before Lorna eventually stood up. Despite the success of the conference, her nerves were on edge. On the one hand, Stan was a living ego boost. He had shown the slightest hesitation at her disheveled appearance, then he gave a faint smile as if he accepted her choice of working attire. He seemed to think that everything she said was fine. Yet to be so thoroughly accepted… Well, it was impossible to feel uncomfortable around him, but to some extent she felt a little irritated. A man of forty should not have such faith in a total stranger, and he’d worked awfully hard to give the impression that they were friends idly mulling over a problem together, rather than two people working out a business arrangement. Finally, Lorna opened the door and ushered him out of her office.