"You're thinking Duncan can't handle the complications of your life?"

"I'm not sure he'd want to, or why he would. Right now, he's infatuated and intrigued. And the sex, like the shoes, is quite the kicker. But

I'm a lot to deal with on a daily basis. And there are things I can't change or adjust. I'm just not in a position to."

Loo sucked through her straw, considered. "Do you always analyze everything into tiny pieces, and pick out the harder points?"

"Yes. Occupational hazard, I guess. Tough fit, I'd think, for a man who appears to take in the big picture quickly and find the shiny nuggets. I keep trying to… I'd say talk myself down from all this. Step back from the ledge, Phoebe. Your life's good enough, full enough as it is, so accept that. Take that last step, there's no coming back from it, not without a world of hurt."

"Love as suicide?"

"Maybe it is. Or it's walking out with your hands up in surrender, to take the consequences."

"Or it's coming out free, instead of staying a hostage."

"That's a point. I know what I'm doing, have to know what I'm doing just about all the time. It's annoying, and damn disconcerting, not to know what I'm doing with him."

"Can't tell you. But I think it'd be fun finding out."

Fun was exhausting. Carly gave in to it and sprawled sleeping in the back of Duncan's car on the way home.

"In case she's too zonked to thank you, I can tell you she had a big, bright, red-letter day."

"Me, too."

"I noticed. Boys and toys. She's got a whopping crush on you."

"It's mutual."

"I noticed that, too. Duncan, I have one favor to ask, and I hope you'll understand why I need to."

"Sure. You had too many hot dogs and want me to stop for Pepto."

"I had one hot dog, and I have Turns at home. Duncan, seriously. I'm saying-asking, really-that if things between us take a slide, or we get pissed off and each decide the other is the spawn of Satan, if you'll ease away from Carly. Give her time to adjust. This is a crappy thing to bring up after you've given us such a good day, but-"

"You've got-what's his name?-Ralph stuck in your head."

"Roy," she corrected. "And, yes, that's part of it. I can't think of anyone less like him than you are."

I m

"If that's true, you should already know it's a favor you don't have to ask. I know what it's like to be shut out and shut down."

"You do." She touched a hand to his arm. "I'm a worrying, overprotective mother."

"She's lucky to have one." He aimed a look at her. "Even if you turn out to be the spawn of Satan."

She wiggled her tired toes as he turned toward the house. "How about coming in, having a cool glass of wine in the courtyard?"

"Exactly what I had in mind."

A week later, Phoebe sat in Duncan's garden. Carly was having a sleepover at her new second best friend Livvy's house, which meant her mama could have the adult version of a sleepover.

They'd had a swim, and made love. They'd had dinner, and made love. Now it was nearly midnight-and it didn't matter!-with her sitting out in a lush garden smelling night-blooming jasmine, a glass of wine in her hand. She wore a flimsy excuse for a robe she'd paid entirely too much money for.

But if a woman couldn't splurge for such an occasion, when could she?

The night hummed, the breeze just balmy enough to cut back the heat while a fat old moon sailed over a sky dashed with stars and smeared with filmy clouds. He'd turned music on so that Bonnie Raitt's Deltarich voice oozed out of the garden speakers.

Phoebe sipped wine and gave some lazy thought to making love again.

"I feel like I'm on vacation," she told Duncan.

"I should've put little umbrellas in the drinks." His voice was as lazy as she felt. "Something with steel drums on the stereo. Except I don't have little umbrellas or any steel-drum CD. No, Jimmy Buffett. It should've been Jimmy Buffett and margaritas."

"This is fine. This is perfect. I may never move from this exact spot." She turned her head to smile at him. "You'll have to start charging me rent."

"I'll take it out in trade."

"I'm so glad you didn't want to go anywhere tonight. Clubs, bars, movies. It's so nice to just be."

"Clubs, bars, movies, they're not going anywhere. It's nice to just kick back."

"You had a busy week."

"Ava's a slave driver. Beneath that pretty face is the heart of Simon Legree. I think I looked at every tree and shrub for sale in greater Savannah yesterday. And all those drawings and layouts. Sod. Fountains. Statuary. Birdbaths, feeders, houses. What-all. She doesn't care for the concept of 'do whatever you like.'"

"She mentioned you took her by an old warehouse the other day. That you're converting it into apartments and shops."

"Yeah. Thought she'd get some ideas going on that and be too busy to drag me to another nursery. How about we take a sail in the morning? In fact, we can sail over to Savannah."

"That sounds perfect. Everything's just about perfect."

"Give me a couple minutes." He shifted toward her on the wide chaise, then slid a finger down to open the thin robe. "And I'll make it absolutely perfect."

She didn't have a doubt in the world, not when his mouth found hers, when his hands began to cruise. She reached out blindly until her glass clinked against the table. With her hands free, she tangled her fingers in his hair.

The breeze played along her skin; the music thrummed just under it. When her head fell back so he could run his lips down her throat, there was the white ball of moon overhead.

She moved under him, opened for him so when their mouths met again he slipped inside her. Slow and easy now, loose and lazy. Her eyes stayed open so that she could see herself in his. She felt herself rising and falling, rising and falling, in long, liquid waves of arousal and pleasure. When she spilled over the crest, she was still there, trapped in the blue of his eyes.

Why, she wondered, would she want to be anywhere else? "One more." He murmured it, then captured her mouth again, sumptuously. Her heartbeat thickened, her bones softened.

I love you. The words rose in her throat, ached to be said.

They were good words, Phoebe told herself. Good, strong words that deserved to be said. But perhaps saying them for the first time when still coupled with the man on his garden chaise wasn't the best choice of time and place.

Instead, she framed his face with her hands. "You were right. You made it perfect."

"Being with you…" He turned his head so his mouth pressed to her palm.

The gesture had her heart taking another stumble. Something fluttered inside her belly. "Being with me?"

His gaze leveled on hers. "Phoebe-" Her cell phone rang.

"I jinxed it!" She struggled up. "I should never have said perfect." She thought of Carly, her mother, her brother. Snatched up the phone. "Phoebe MacNamara." The sound of Dave's voice didn't loosen the knots in her gut until she was certain it wasn't her family.

"Bonaventure? Where?" Without pen, paper or much of anything else, Phoebe took mental notes. "Yes. For me, specifically? I'm on Whitfield Island, at a friend's. I'll be there as soon as I can. All right. Yes, all right. I'll be headed out in five minutes."

In fact she was already up and hurrying toward the house as she spoke. "Tell him I'm en route. No, no, don't." She glanced at Duncan as he pushed the door open for her. "I have access to a very fast car, but I'll need a kit. I'll call you back when I'm on the road."

She clicked off.

"I need to borrow your Porsche."

"No problem, but it comes with me at the wheel."

"I can't take you where I'm going."

"Yes, you can," he corrected as they ran up the stairs.

"Duncan." She tossed off her robe as she rushed into his bedroom. "There's a man chained to a grave at Bonaventure Cemetery." She grabbed clothes. "All he's wearing, apparently, is a vest of explosives."