He shrugged and said without self-pity, “They were what another Zeke Cutler used to dream about.”

“And now you make the world safe and secure for other people and let them dream your dreams for you.”

“You really have to get together with my friend Sam,” he said, amused. “The way I see it, I’m just earning a living the best way I know how.”

“Does that mean you’ve ruled out marriage and children?”

“Have you?”

“I know I can be happy without them. If they happen, they happen.”

The humor, always so unexpected, sparkled in his whole face, not just his eyes. “That’s awfully fatalistic for a woman who’s half Pembroke. Aren’t Pembrokes all about risk and adventure and taking chances?”

“I don’t take many chances with people.”

“You take chances with people all the time. The people you employ, the people who buy a Pembroke Springs product, the people who stay at the Pembroke or even stop at your rose gardens-they’re all in one way or another risks.”

“That’s different,” she said airily. She wasn’t going to lose this one. “It’s not like I sleep with them or brought them into the world.”

Zeke smiled, smug, as if he had her. “They’re still people and they’re still risks. So I rest my case.”

“You can’t just declare victory. You know it’s different. Okay, okay. Never mind. Let’s look at you. You take physical risks, but I don’t see you running around with a toddler on your shoulders.”

She stopped right there, her throat constricted as she imagined it. Zeke’s dark hair blowing in the wind and his laughter mingling with the squeals of the black-eyed baby riding on his shoulders. It was so vivid and real in her mind that she knew it was possible.

He put down his iced tea and got to his feet and lifted her into his arms. “No more talk.”

Her attraction to him, percolating under the surface all day, erupted. The man looked at her-talked to her-as if he knew her. What she was thinking and feeling. She was accustomed to keeping her inner workings to herself, unavailable, even undetectable, to others, but Zeke had worn down all her defenses. Or maybe it was just the timing. She was confused and frustrated and scared, and he happened to have shown up when she didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t know. She wasn’t even sure right now that she cared.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he said.

“Mattie and Nick should be making their entrance any minute.”

Zeke shook his head. “I had Ira give them my room.”

“Since when do you have Ira do anything? And those two have been divorced for almost fifty years-they’ll start fighting and wreck the place.”

“Oh, I think they’ll manage.” His arms tightened around her, so that she could feel the strength of him, and sense his own ambivalence. He lived in the present. Well, for now so could she. “Let’s go, Dani.”

She looked at him. “Don’t you want to hear about Nick’s being blackmailed during the filming of Casino?”

A muscle tensed in his jaw. “Upstairs.”

Although it wasn’t yet dark, Nick collapsed onto the brass bed in the small, attractive room on the third floor of the house his grandfather had built. He couldn’t have stayed on his feet if he’d wanted to. He was just too tired. It seemed as if answers, or perhaps just the right questions, were all around him, teasing him, eluding him, and if he could just be still and think, they’d come to him.

He could hear Mattie in the bathroom, washing up, brushing her hair, performing the nightly routine she’d had since she was a girl in Cedar Springs. Nick had never thought he’d live to see her grow old.

She came out, a towel draped around her neck, looking radiant. “You’re so quiet. Don’t you dare die on me.”

“Wouldn’t want to annoy you.”

Regret washed over her face, and she sat on the edge of the bed. “I’m sorry-staying here must be strange for you.”

Ever since turning up the driveway to the Pembroke, Nick had felt as if he was touching the past. Everything triggered a memory. But memories did him no good, and he tried to repress them. His were all so old, back to a time even before Mattie. Most of the people he’d known in those days were gone. Yet, strangely, the beauty and possibilities Dani had discovered in the once-neglected property comforted him, and so did the memories that lurked always in his mind. In his granddaughter’s restorations he saw not just her stubborn, risk-taking nature, but also a bit of Pembroke determination. They’d been dreamers and survivors. His grandmother, too. Ulysses’s widow, a woman who’d chosen happiness over regret and despair.

Mattie slid under the crazy quilt with him, her body slim and small. “Stop thinking, darling,” she said, snuggling beside him. He felt like a pack of toothpicks. “Let’s just lie here a while and listen to the rain.”

Zeke fingered the Cedar Springs Woolen Mill label on one of Dani’s old blankets. “This was made when the mill first opened, I’d say.” He was sitting up, the muscles of his bare chest taut, his skin looking almost golden in the evening gloom. “That’s well before Joe worked there, or even my mother.”

Dani detected a note of nostalgia in his controlled voice. Lying alongside him, she asked, “Did you ever work there?”

He let go of the blanket. “No.”

A summer Adirondack thunderstorm was crashing around them. They’d left the windows open, the curtains billowing in the strong, suddenly cool breeze. Lightning flashed and cracked, followed almost immediately by an enormous clap of thunder that seemed to shake the entire cottage. The storm had to be directly overhead. Dani couldn’t think of a better time to make love. And she and Zeke had already, explosively. But that didn’t stop her from wanting to again. Her life, she decided, had become very complicated.

Outside there was a hissing sound that grew louder and louder, and then the hard, driving rain came, pounding and drenching the cottage. The wind was still blowing hard into the bedroom, bringing with it sprays of rain. Zeke jumped lightly off the bed and banged the window shut.

Watching him, Dani was struck again by how unbelievably sexy Zeke was. He looked so hard and capable, and she’d given up hope her attraction to him would ever wane. If he walked out of her life now and turned up again in another fifty years, it would still be there, one of those givens in life. Dani Pembroke would always want to make love to Zeke Cutler.

He caught her staring and smiled. “Like the view?”

“I didn’t realize white knights could be so sexy.”

He laughed. “And I didn’t realize hotheaded heiress entrepreneurs who like to climb rocks could be so sexy.”

“Ex-heiress,” she corrected.

“Once an heiress, always an heiress. It’s a matter of attitude, not money.”

She didn’t argue the point. Instead she enjoyed the idea of being sexy-of his thinking and saying she was sexy. To have him respond to her that way-even if just for now-felt good.

“Are there any other windows that need to be shut?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Good,” he said and came back to bed with her.

The rain crashed against the window, and there was another flash of lightning, then the rumbling roar of more thunder. The storm was moving fast.

Zeke slipped his arms around her, hooking one leg into hers. He was slippery and wet from the rain that had blown onto him, his skin cool to the touch of her fingertips, her lips. They kissed for a long time, slowly, tongues exploring. They paid no attention to the storm. The lights flickered. He cupped her bottom with his hands, then, in the same slow rhythm as their kiss, moved them up her sides, and she wondered what she felt like, tasted like, to him. Was she as new and exciting and different to him as he was to her? Was he as amazed and absorbed by what they were becoming to each other? She didn’t want the answers. Not now.