J.B. moved his legs closer to her. "It's not the kayaking that's got you off balance."

"You're not going to give me an inch?"

"Honey, I'm not giving you a millimeter. And no more undercover work for me. They won't put me back in. I've done my bit. Nearly didn't make it back this last time."

"Won't you go stir-crazy at a desk?"

"I'll learn yoga. Get exercise." He smiled. "Have a proper sex life." Zoe tried not to let him get to her. Stick was right.

J. B. McGrath was a powder keg. "What about emotional commitment to others?" she asked lightly. "That was something you could avoid undercover. If you're just a regular FBI agent-"

"I'll never be that." "Do you talk to your superiors that way?" "I've got a place in Washington, and there's talk of having me put together a UCA training course." "UCA means undercover agent. The FBI and its acronyms." "You'd have been an NT. New Trainee."

"I'd have made it through the academy, you know. I didn't drop out because I was afraid of failure. I dropped out because-"

"Because you had Jen Periwinkle in your head."

Maybe he had a point. Maybe she'd gone into a tailspin not just because of her father and Aunt Olivia, but because she wasn't meant to stay on the course she was on.

He stared out the attic window, and she wondered what he saw when he looked at the harbor, the docks, the boats. He wouldn't see her father lumbering along the waterfront, her aunt with her cane as she set out on a bright morning to borrow books from the library. It'd be like if she were in Montana. She'd see an unfamiliar landscape, beautiful, but one that didn't conjure up images and memories. He'd never known his grandmother. Posey Sutherland wasn't real to him the way the best friend she'd left behind in Goose Harbor was real to Zoe.

"You know when it's time to stand down," he went on quietly. "You don't think you'll know when you're so into the work that's all you can think about, but when the time comes, you know." He leaned his crossed ankles closer to her, touching her thighs with his toes. "As for emotional commitment to others-right now I'm committed to keeping you from doing something stupid."

"That's not emotional."

"Oh, but it is."

She scowled at him, but couldn't sustain it and smiled. "You have no sense of romance."

"Look who's talking, the hard-bitten Mainer."

"I'm not hard-bitten. I know how to knit."

"And you have a tattoo of a rose on your left hip."

She gasped in spite of herself. She could see he knew he'd get to her with that remark. He smiled, cocky, pleased with himself, and pushed aside a half-dozen pillows and crawled over the rug to her.

"Right about here," he said, slipping the waistband of her pants down over her hip. "A beach rose. Pink."

"It's my own design." Her voice seemed disembodied, her mouth suddenly gone parched. "I had it done a couple weeks ago. It hurt like hell. One hot little needle prick at a time."

"Did it take long to heal?"

"It's healed now. It itched, and I had to beat it with a rolled-up newspaper-"

"Zoe."

He skimmed his fingers over her tattoo. She inhaled. "What?"

"You don't have to say anything. Just relax." He kissed the edges of the rose, flicked his tongue over her skin, whispered, "Trust me," and eased her shirt up, trailing his mouth up her hot skin.

He reached her bra, and she fell back into the pillows, not protesting when he undid the front clasp and exposed her breasts, took first one nipple, then the other, between his lips. Finally, he found her mouth, kissing her deeply, saying more words of comfort, desire, assurance, words she absorbed but couldn't quite make out, aware only of her own overwhelming desire and urgency. He eased her shirt up over her head, her bra off her arms, and held her close as he drew her pants over her hips.

"Tell me if you want me to stop," he said.

But the feel of his hands against her bare skin had her head spinning, her body aching. She held him, his sweater soft, his chest warm and hard against her breasts. "Don't stop."

He dispensed with her pants, laid her back against the pillows and gazed down at her with a frankness that made her self-conscious. But she didn't pull away, didn't grab a pillow and cover herself. He positioned himself alongside her, stroking her gently, boldly, until she was unaware of anything else, just his touch, her response.

"I want…"

But she didn't finish, instead rolling onto her side so she could slip her hands under his sweater. She felt his hot skin, then probed lower, immediately seeing, feeling, that he wasn't immune to what was happening between them.

He pulled off his sweater first, then his pants, and he came to her, taking her hand and placing it on him, letting her stroke him, touch him. He was thick, hard, sleek, and when she lay back onto the soft rug, he came with her, onto her.

"I'm not asking for anything," she whispered. "Just this."

"It's enough." He entered her slowly, as if he knew she hadn't made love in a long time, like this, never. "It's more than enough for right now."

But his gentleness didn't last, his need matching hers, then overtaking it, forcing her to stop thinking, to lose herself in the feel of his thrusts, of one moment after another that she wanted to etch forever in her mind.

He came in a series of hard, fast, deep thrusts that completely undid her, had her crying out with her own release.

They held each other for a long time, and he laughed softly, stroking her left hip. "I only meant to check out your tattoo."

"Ha."

"Zoe…" He kissed her hair. "Ah, Zoe."

She touched two fingers to his lips. "Don't talk. We can talk another time."

And they made love again, just as wildly this time, without words, and when they finished, the harbor was dark except for the glitter of lights from some of the boats and the gleam of the moon on the water.

J.B. pulled a blanket over her, then managed to crawl into his pants. "Come downstairs whenever you're ready. I'll find something for dinner. It just won't involve flax seed."

Zoe smiled at him. "I have a feeling this sort of thing never happened when Aunt Olivia lived here."

"I don't know, Zoe. I've read dozens of your auntie's letters to my granny. She knew the score."

"She didn't-she didn't mention a lover, did she?"

He laughed. "That revived you, the idea of old Olivia having a lover in her youth. No, she didn't say she did or she didn't, but she comes to life in those letters. She knew what went on between my grandparents. She understood the physical attraction."

"Jesse Benjamin swept Posey off her feet, didn't he?" "He did."

"You're a chip off the old block, then. A bad-boy lawman, and you swept me right off my feet."

"You were already lying among your pillows. The rest was easy." He smiled down at her. "And I'm not your evil nemesis."

He left, and Zoe rolled onto her back and stared at the slanted ceiling, but without J.B.'s warm body there next to her, she soon realized it was cold up in the attic. She scrambled into her clothes, her body aching. She'd kayaked, she'd been shot at, she'd been cut and she'd been made love to not once but twice, all in one day.

She glanced around at her tousled pillows and her scrunched-up chenille rug, and she had her doubts if she'd ever be able to write up here again.