He came first, she seconds later, exploding as he kept pace with her, whispering for her to enjoy, enjoy, enjoy. And she did, crying out with the joy of it, with the rawness and beauty of their pleasure.

Much later, when they were back in their jeans and sitting cross-legged on the narrow bed, Jared fastened his mesmerizing gaze on her. “Come with me to Saigon, R.J.”

“ Saigon?” Assuming he was just kidding, she laughed. “Oh, sure, I’ ll just call up TWA and have them mail me a ticket.”

But he was serious. “It’s just a year. I’d pay your way-consider it a loan. When you got back you could pick up where you left off. R.J., you’re so smart, you’ll be drowning in money by the time you’re thirty. We’d have a whole year together, the two of us.”

“If the N.V.A. didn’t overrun us first. You should hear my grandfather on the subject. Anyway, what would I do while you were off being an architect? Keep house? Make you dinner? I’m not going to take a year off from college just to hang around in Southeast Asia.”

Jared eyed her a moment. “You could get a job. I don’t need you to wait on me. Look, I have connections-”

“That’s just my point. Jared, please try to understand. I can’t let you pay my way or find me a job.”

“You don’t have to agree to anything that makes you uncomfortable,” he said quietly. “But R.J., after all that’s happened to your family, don’t you want to see Vietnam?”

She swallowed, stifling a rush of tears, amazed that after eleven years she still missed her father as much as she did. Nineteen years old and the emptiness just didn’t go away. She could feel him hugging her fiercely before he left for Southeast Asia for the last time. But she couldn’t see his face. She didn’t know why. Since she was eight she’d tried to remember what he’d looked like that hot afternoon at the airport, and she just couldn’t.

“Yes, I want to see Vietnam,” she said. Then she looked at Jared and added, “But on my own nickel.”

To his credit, he didn’t walk out on her, but leaned forward until she could see the flecks of white in his blue eyes. “Rebecca Blackburn, you are a giant pain in the ass sometimes. I’ll have you know I’ve been saving all year for this trip.” The break in tension was short-lived, and his expression grew serious again as he reached over and brushed his fingertips across the top of her hand, resting on her knee. “You might not get another chance, you know. You’re letting your pride get in the way of what could be the experience of a lifetime.”

“Maybe I am. But I haven’t badgered you to stay in Boston and watch me suffer through my second year of college.”

“I know. R.J.-” He broke off and looked away, tears glistening in his eyes. “I didn’t want this to happen. I’m going to miss you.”

She wanted to cry, but refused to. “Then what you’re saying is we’re finished.”

He pulled her to him, stroking her thick hair. “No, R.J., we’re just beginning.”

He drove back to Florida with her. They took the long way, stopping everywhere-and sharing everything. Driving, expenses, food, themselves. Rebecca discovered that Jared wanted to make his own way in the world, too. He didn’t feel sorry for himself or whine about having money, something Rebecca appreciated. He’d learned, he’d said, just to make his own decisions and not sweat the family’s reactions.

Rebecca saw him off at the Orlando airport. He’d say goodbye to his father in San Francisco, then start the long journey to Southeast Asia. For days after he left, she moped, walking in the citrus groves and trying to imagine that the sweat pouring down her back in the early summer heat was from long hours of lovemaking.

Jared called when he arrived in Saigon. She took no pleasure at the loneliness she heard in his voice. His apartment was small and hot, he told her, but he was selfish enough-loved her so much-that he wished she were with him. But they understood each other. He’d done what he had to do, and so had she.

They exchanged letters through the summer while she worked at Disney World and helped in the groves and went picnicking, fishing and frog-catching with her brothers, and through the fall when she resumed classes, her job at the library, and Sunday-night supper with Sofi and her grandfather on Beacon Hill. Thomas Blackburn continued to win at her and Sofi’s trivia game, and he refused to comment on the relationship between his granddaughter and Jared Sloan. Not, Rebecca was confident, that he didn’t have an opinion.

“You think we’re doomed, don’t you?” she asked him one night in February, almost a year since she’d met Jared.

He sniffed. “That’s hardly any of my business.”

“Since when’s that ever stopped you from stating your opinion? You told Sofi you thought her last boyfriend looked like a mushroom.”

“Well, he did-and she thought so, too.”

“So what about Jared?”

“I consider Jared Sloan a friend.”

“And?”

“And there’s a great deal of history between you and him.”

“That doesn’t tell me a thing.”

Sighing, he patted her hand. “Your life is for you to live.”

“Do you think I should have gone to Saigon with him?”

That one was easy; he didn’t even hesitate. “No.”

“Grandfather…”

“ Vietnam,” he went on, cutting off her attempt to get at the deeper issues of his own years there, “isn’t a place for Blackburns.”

Maybe it was that comment, that night, more even than missing Jared that made her decision for her. It didn’t matter. Two weeks later she’d changed her mind.

She would go to Saigon.

Sixteen

Jared was closing in on forty and as good-looking as he’d been at twenty-five when Rebecca had been in love with him. In the dim parlor light, she could make out the fine lines at the corners of his eyes and the first touches of gray in his dark hair. He’d kept in shape: his abdomen was tight, and the muscles in his shoulders and arms suggested he still liked to sail and jog. He wore good-quality jeans and a plain navy pullover.

He recovered quickly from the initial shock of seeing her again after so many years. “R.J., what’re you doing here?”

“I live here.”

“She’s renting her old room upstairs,” her grandfather amended.

Jared gave a small laugh. “I should have known a tightwad Blackburn like you would camp out with family. Sorry for the intrusion. I’ll leave-”

Thomas snorted. “Oh, please, let’s not start all that nonsense. Where would you stay?”

“The Ritz.”

“I have enough on my conscience,” Thomas said in his dry, understated way, “without adding the cost of an unnecessary night at the Ritz to it.” He turned to his granddaughter, still rooted to her spot in the doorway. “Rebecca, Jared is a guest in my house. I’d be most appreciative if you’d retire to your room and permit us to carry on our conversation in private.”

A polite, stuffy way of telling her to get lost. Rebecca stood her ground. “I’m not going anywhere until I find out what Jared’s doing in Boston.”

“If he wants you to know his affairs,” Thomas replied, “he will tell you them.”

“Then you’d better give up, R.J.,” Jared told her, not nastily, but she got the point.

Rebecca made a face at him that would have done a twelve-year-old proud. She was still steamed from her earlier go-round with her grandfather over the Frenchman’s appearance that afternoon. Thomas had refused to discuss how one of the two-man team that had murdered Tam fourteen years ago could have known her father or even if Thomas himself recognized the detailed description she gave him. Nor would he speculate on what the Frenchman might be doing in Boston, what he might want-anything. His remedy for Rebecca’s heightened state of anxiety was to make her a pot of hot tea and encourage her to take a vacation. A long one. Preferably somewhere far from Boston, like Budapest.