“Tired?” he asked.

“Only a little. Kurt?”

“Mm-hmm?”

She leaned back, touching his leg. “Come to bed with me.”

He stroked her hair.

“It’s been so long,” she said.

“You are something.”

“I’m glad you still think so.” She turned to face him and took his hand. “It’s late. Bob will be up early.”

“It’s Christmas, and you offer gifts to your old lover.”

“Not so old,” she teased. “You’re in your thirties, last I looked.” She put her fingers between his and enjoyed the softness of his large and long-fingered, artistic hands. “You’re so warm.”

“And you’re so inviting.”

A moment passed.

“Yet you sit there,” she said, slightly peeved.

He had been looking at her hand, reacting to its movements between his fingers, but he fixed his eyes on hers and she could read what she saw in them as easily as she could read the casinos’ neon billboards down on Lake Tahoe Boulevard, through blizzards, rain, whiteouts. He wanted her as much as she wanted him. In his unguarded eyes she saw the same need, caring, and lust she was feeling.

“Come upstairs with me,” she said.

“I can’t do that.”

She took her hand back. She wanted to couple mindlessly with him, and this interruption in what should be a flowing thing bothered her. “Why not?”

“I’m not them.”

“Who?”

“The others.”

She knew who he meant. So what about them?

“All of them. Men you’re no longer with. Jack. Collier. Paul. Others I don’t know about.”

Nina looked back through the years, at the flaming and burning out in between. She considered Mick. Had she really loved Jack? She had caused the divorce as much as he had. Would her love for Collier have lasted? They had never gone beyond the first glory of romance.

And Paul-pain lacerated her-had she known all along that he was wrong for her? Strung him along?

“You don’t trust yourself with men.”

“You ought to know why.” The heat of her reaction surprised her.

Kurt said slowly, looking down, “I disappeared from your life when we were in love. That disrupted both our lives. But Nina, I had no choice. You know that. I suffered, too.”

Although she tried to stop it, the image rose in her mind of a young girl wearing a short flowered dress on a bench overlooking Lover’s Point in Pacific Grove. That girl looked out at the holiday revelers, now eternally frozen in place in her mind, getting soaked by salt spray, waiting for hours for a man she trusted totally. It was the memory, the one she had returned to again and again, cried over, puzzled over. She had clung to this memory, kept it strong in her mind, and allowed it to structure her life. The memory seemed tattered around the edges now, though, no longer lit with an awful radiance. It felt like a disaster that had happened to two young people she had once known.

Still, from the remnant of her pain, she said, “But I didn’t know why for twelve long years. Even though I understand why now, the scar will always be there.”

“Where?”

What a silly question. That scar wasn’t real. “Well, there’s this,” she said instead. “The one I told you about.” Her finger traced along her chest. Shot, survived. Knocked down, got up. Deserted, continued alone. She had gone on without him.

He reached for her, wrapping his fingers around her chilled ones. Under her own fingers she felt her pulse quicken.

“There?” he asked.

“Everywhere.” You wounded me more than any gun ever could, she thought. “I’m not the girl you knew. I got tough. I had to. I don’t believe-”

“In me?” His hand tightened over hers. “Or you don’t believe in love, is that what you’re saying?”

“Let’s not talk. I’ve said everything I want to say.” She had been exposed under that thin cotton dress, her heart steady, right at the surface, beating for him, ready to make any sacrifice. She had never felt entirely happy since. That much she admitted, but silently, only to herself. She took her hand out from under his and moved it so that it pressed against her breast. A wash of feeling splashed through her body like an ocean wave. “I still want you. That never changed. Take me to bed.”

He took his hand away and, seemingly absentmindedly, put his finger in the center of her neck, to a hollow nobody else had ever noticed or touched specially, only him. “You haven’t changed. You’re still the woman I loved, chasing squirrels off the porch at Fallen Leaf, swatting at mosquitoes with your flip-flop. Falling asleep while I played Bach in that ratty cabin of yours.”

“No, I’m not.” She closed her eyes for an instant and recalled him making incredible sounds come from a beat-up piano as shadows spread over the lake.

He stroked her arm. Her body rippled under his touch. “We can begin at the end,” he said.

Mesmerized by the power of his touch, she felt unable to make sense of the jumble of sensations. She had trouble tracking what was old business, what was new, and what was happening right now. She urgently needed to get it over with, get him out of her system so he-so he-she got up and took off her sweater, unbuttoned her jeans.

“Stop, Nina,” he said.

“I need someone right now. Not tomorrow or someday.”

“You have me, okay?”

“I don’t want to be alone upstairs. I don’t understand what’s going on.” She looked at him, at his calm face and the warmth in it. He wasn’t exactly rejecting her-or was he?

“No, I’ll sleep on this charming couch.” He punched its gnarly cushions. “Tomorrow I’ll move to a hotel, look for a permanent place.”

“And where am I in this?”

“Nearby. Taking hikes with me and Bob. Teaching me to live in the mountains. Taking it slow with me.” He turned away and gazed out into the black night.

She came up behind him and circled him with her arms, pressing her body against his back. “Kurt, what is all this you’re saying? Don’t you want me?” His shirt scratched against her bare skin.

“Don’t you see what I’m offering you?”

“I only know that we’re here tonight, and…”

“We have a child together.” He turned to face her and smiled, that amiable grin of his, eyes trying to tell her-what? He brushed her face lightly, as if brushing past a veil. “A chance together. It’s late, but it’s not over for the three of us. Don’t you see?”

A thought took shape in her mind, too big, too much to ask for in this shifting world. Could he mean…

We have a child together, she thought. A child, a sacred tie. That’s what he’s saying. He’s talking about-he’s talking about uniting a family. He wanted real love.

“I…”

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. He put his hands on her arms and faced her. “I never loved anybody but you.” Then he pulled her closer until she could feel the hairs on her skin touching his face, and then closer, until she felt the light steam of his breath on her mouth and she bent back in his arms. His body smelled like pine on a hot day. He kissed her, but gently.

“Nina,” he whispered.

“Yes, Kurt?”

“Good night.”

“Sleep well.” Nina picked up her sweater, shook her head, smiling, and went upstairs to bed.