“As you wish.”

“And you?” he asked, raising her shirt. “What do you wish?”

He touched his thumbs to her nipples through her bra, and she couldn’t answer. Slowly, without any obvious sense of urgency, he lifted her bra and exposed her breasts to the cold breeze and the wet heat of his tongue. He took his time easing off her top, smoothing his hands and tongue over her throat, between her breasts, down her abdomen. He caught his fingers in the waistband of her pants and took them and her underpants off at the same time, exposing her to the same slow, erotic play of hands, teeth and tongue.

“I wish…” She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t talk. “I wish this could go on forever.”

With his fingers still on her, inside her, he took her hand and placed it on him. He was hot, throbbing. He thrust himself against her palm, a promise of what was to come. But she couldn’t last another second and moved under him, and he pulled back his hand, then entered her, pushing in hard and deep, his eyes locking with hers. “How long do you mean by forever?”

He took her to the precipice, then fell back again, over and over, until she couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, could only feel her own blinding need for release. When it came, he stayed with her, spun into a freefall with her, tumbling, picking up speed, but she kept pace with him until his own release overcame him. Afterward, completely spent, she wrapped herself around him so that she could feel the entire length of his body, the taut muscles, the hot skin as the chilly wind blew across them. He was real. So very real. She hadn’t imagined one second of what had just happened.

“A Yankee marshal,” she whispered, not sure if he could hear her, and smiled. “Dear God.”

She could easily fall in love with him.

She might have already.

And there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it, any more than she could stop the river outside her doors from flowing-not that she would if she could.

Finally he stirred. “What’s in squash casserole?”

“Summer squash, Ritz crackers, onions, cheese and butter.” She sat up, untangling her hair with her fingers. “Lots of butter.”

He threw his legs over the edge of her bed. “Another of Granny Dunnemore’s recipes?”

Sarah nodded. “One of my favorites.”

He grinned at her. “They’re all your favorites.”

He pulled on his pants and stood up, and when he turned to her, he winced and gave a mock shudder. “I wish I’d seen that before I carried you in here.”

She followed his gaze and realized that it was fixed on the picture of her and John Wesley Poe at her college graduation, in front of a table of strawberries and champagne. “He was running for governor then. My parents were out of the country-my father was serving as a special envoy to Indonesia during hard times.”

“There are always hard times somewhere.”

“I told them it was okay for them not to come.”

“You had Wes Poe,” Nate said.

“Yes.” She pretended not to hear the note of criticism in his voice. “And Rob. He came, too.”

“Did your parents make it to his graduation?”

She shook her head. “We had a grand party afterward here at Night’s Landing. We’ve learned to seize the moment, make up for lost time when we’re together.” She collected her clothes and held them close to her. “Why don’t I get dressed and make us some homemade biscuits to go with the squash casserole?”

He pulled on his shirt. “I thought you weren’t hungry.”

She threw a pillow at him and remembered his injured arm too damn late again, but he caught the pillow with his right hand and tossed it back at her. And in another minute, they were making love again, all thought of biscuits and squash casserole, of loving but neglectful parents-of the family friend who was now in the White House-vanished, which was, Sarah thought, just what Nate had intended.

“Leola and Violet used to tell a story about a Huck-Finn-type boy who lived on the river,” Sarah said as she led the way to the Poe house, the river on one side of the narrow trail, the thick woods on the other. It was after dinner, the sun low in the sky, but she had a restless energy that Nate, as tired as he was, understood. “They said he camped in the caves. I’m not sure when it was. I never asked. It’s one of a thousand questions I wish I could go back and ask them.”

They were on a section of trail that wound over the top of a near-vertical limestone bluff. One wrong step, and he’d be in the water. The river was quiet, no waves, no boats. “What’d he do, live off the land?”

“They claimed he’d fish, catch frogs and snakes. They liked frog’s legs themselves. I think Wes did, too.” Sarah paused atop the bluff and caught her breath. “I never developed a taste for them.”

Nate smiled next to her. “I’ve never eaten frog and have no plans to start. What about snake?”

“Oh, no. I’m not eating snake. Leola and Violet claimed they tried it once, when they were little girls.” She breathed out. “Hard to believe that was before World War One.”

Nate saw that talking about the Poe sisters and her friendship with the president relaxed her. He regretted having pushed hard earlier with his questions, but he’d never been a patient man. A patient lover, sometimes. This afternoon. His doctor probably wouldn’t be pleased with him, but, on the other hand, he felt fine. “Isn’t there a story about the president and a snake? I don’t remember the details. It came out during the campaign.”

She shuddered. “I don’t know how anyone stands a political campaign. I really don’t.”

“Do you know the story?”

She glanced at him, her eyes cool, their color matching the churning gray sky. “I was there.”

In spite of her seriousness, he smiled. “After this morning, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. You and your snakes.”

“Wes-President Poe-came to Night’s Landing not long after he and his wife had lost their fourth and last baby. A little girl, stillborn. They knew there wouldn’t be more. I was still in high school. Almost seventeen.”

Nate tried to picture her at almost seventeen. Pretty, intense, dragging her video camera down the river to interview her two elderly neighbors. And direct. She’d have been direct, too.

“I was walking back from the Poe house along this same path, not that far from here. It was a sticky summer day, oppressively hot.” Her accent seemed more pronounced. “Wes was standing below me on a narrow, treacherous ledge that leads to a cave just above the water.”

“He was there alone?”

“Ev stayed in Nashville. She was out of the hospital-her mother was with her. I’ve always thought Wes just needed some time to himself. He was grief-stricken-”

“Do you think he meant to jump that day?”

She shook her head but didn’t seem shocked by the question. “It was just such a hard time. Wes prides himself on getting things done, making things happen. But some things you just can’t control. I just think he wanted to be here, on the river.”

“Who saw the snake first?”

“He did. It must have come from the cave. I’ve seen them out on the ledge, sunning themselves.”

“Water moccasins?”

“Oh, yes.”

Nate remembered some of the story now. “He saved someone’s life, didn’t he? Yours? Isn’t that the story?”

“That’s the story.”

She continued along the trail. When they reached the Poe house, she led the way through the tall grass to the road, then down to the fishing camp and the cabin Conroy Fontaine had rented.

He was sitting out on a rusted lawn chair, chatting with an old man with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, and he squinted up at Sarah, then at Nate. “Evening. Sarah, your prune cake was fantastic. I almost sneaked into your house in the middle of the night to steal me another piece, but then I decided that probably wasn’t such a good idea.” He grinned lazily. “You did your granny proud.”