The process from the time it reached the Madam and backed up to the hole was excruciatingly time-consuming. Most people left over the course of the next few hours. Willa was one of the few to stay. She couldn’t leave. She was riveted.

Watching the actual planting was breathtaking, like watching a primitive battle between man and beast. The tree seemed like some great animal, fighting against the hunters trying to capture it. As the machinery lowered the gigantic root ball covered in burlap and wire, the men grabbed the ropes tethered to the limbs. They yelled, and the tree groaned and actually seemed to writhe against its restraints. The men holding on to the ropes moved in sync, running one way, then the next. They knew this animal; they knew its habits. They knew how to tame it.

And then, finally, it was in.

It was one of the most glorious things she’d ever seen.

She was certain Colin had no idea she was there. He’d never once looked up from the site. When it was over, his color was high, his clothes were wet with sweat, and he was out of breath. He looked positively orgasmic.

That’s when he finally looked up and around, as if searching for someone. He found Willa in the small crowd that was left. He slowly smiled, and bam, there it was, that lust she’d felt last night. It was heavy and elemental. It was connected to everything around them for one electric moment. It actually made her take a step back.

How did he know the effect this would have on her, when she didn’t even know herself?

It was too much, this feeling that she didn’t know her own nature, her own root system, anymore.

She turned around and left.

For the rest of the day, Willa felt jumpy, on edge. When she got back to work, she would give a start every time the bell over the door rang. When she got home, she kept expecting a knock on the door. She got in the shower because her skin felt hot, like a sunburn, as though she’d been exposed to something that day that had a lingering effect on her. She couldn’t get rid of it.

The phone rang just as she got out of the shower. She ran to her bedroom to answer it. “Hello?”

“I think that went well today,” Colin said in a low voice.

This was what she’d been expecting all day. “Yes,” she said, swallowing, her mouth suddenly dry. “I think you accomplished what you set out to do.”

“Take Saturday off and spend it with me.”

Maybe the beauty of his being here for only a month was that she could get this itch he’d caused out of her system quickly. Then he’d leave, and she could go back to normal. That was her justification for finally giving in and saying yes.

At dinner that night, Paxton’s father clicked around on his smart phone, which had replaced the newspaper he used to bring to the table, and her mother chatted happily about what good news coverage the tree planting had, and how it would make up for all the negative publicity the skeleton had caused.

“I’m just glad that nasty bit of business is over,” Sophia said. “It didn’t reflect well on any of us. Paxton, you should hold a special meeting to tell the club that everything is fine with the Madam now. I heard a rumor that some members actually wanted to change the venue for the gala. Imagine! After the invitations have already gone out.”

“Yes,” Paxton said. “I heard that, too.” She knew she shouldn’t have said it the moment it came out.

“And you didn’t tell me? I had to hear about it from Shane Easton!” Twenty-five years ago, Sophia had been president of the club, and she’d groomed Paxton to be the same. When the time came for Sophia to leave the club, Paxton had had a difficult time trying to keep her mother from still trying to control things through her. She’d been so happy the day Sophia stopped asking for every single detail of meetings the moment Paxton got home. That’s not to say she didn’t still expect to be kept in the loop.

Colin cleared his throat. “I’d like to make an announcement,” he said. “I don’t want anyone at this table setting me up with a date for the gala. I know you may be tempted to. But don’t.”

“But Colin, I was thinking about that nice Penelope Mayfield,” Sophia said, immediately distracted.

“Ha!” Colin said, pointing a finger at their mother with the hand holding his wineglass. “I knew you were planning something. No. I refuse.”

“Oh, Colin,” Sophia said indulgently. Colin looked at Paxton and winked. He’d done this for her.

After dinner, Colin retreated quickly to the patio, something he had taken to doing all week. Tonight, Paxton followed him.

“I don’t get it,” she said as she took a seat in the lounge chair next to him.

“Get what?” Colin asked, his head back against the cushions, his eyes closed.

She tried to mimic his position but couldn’t get comfortable. “Mama adores you. Daddy isn’t trying to make you play golf anymore. And still you can’t wait to get away.”

“You should know this better than anyone, Pax. It takes a lot of energy to keep up that deflector shield.”

“If you moved back, you wouldn’t have to eat dinner with them every night. I do because I live with them. You’d have your own place.”

“I know.”

“When are you moving back?” she asked. “You don’t have to live in New York for work. This could be your home base.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet.”

“Ready for what? To be here for your family? Gee, Colin, it must be nice to be you.” She had no idea why she was picking a fight with him. He didn’t deserve it. He wasn’t even the real reason she was upset.

“I’m here now, aren’t I? You asked me, I’m here.”

“For a month.”

His chest rose as he took a deep breath of calming air. “I’m tired, Pax. I don’t want to fight with you.”

Her brother never slept well. That, at least, was something they had in common. “I don’t, either. I’m sorry.”

The crickets made up for their lack of conversation for a while. Clouds were rolling in, dimming the light as they passed over the moon, making it seem like a power surge. Paxton could feel her emotions mirrored in the sky. Bright surges of happiness. Dark periods of moodiness.

Paxton finally said, “It’s Willa Jackson you’re taking to the gala, isn’t it?”

“I’m working on it,” he said with a smile. He turned his head on the cushion to look at her. “What about you? Who are you going with?”

Before last week, before the kiss, she would have said Sebastian. But now she wasn’t so sure. He’d volunteered at the free clinic over the weekend, but now it was Tuesday, and she still hadn’t heard from him, even after leaving him an apologetic message today. She didn’t like being apart from him. It left a hole in her life she didn’t know how to fill, because he’d been her best friend, her only friend. But how could she look him in the eye after what happened, after knowing, definitively, that he could never give her what she’d wanted so much, what she’d wanted all her life? For a moment, she envied her brother’s nice, untangled life. For a moment, she understood why he stayed away.

“I think I might go alone,” she said. “There will be too much to do for me to pay attention to a date, anyway.”

“I’ll be your date,” he offered.

“No, get Willa to come. She should be there for her grandmother.” Paxton paused. “Willa was at the tree planting today. Did you see her?”

“Yes, I saw her,” he said. “I invited her to come.”

Paxton gnawed at her bottom lip. “So you two … talk?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I guess she told you all about what happened Friday night.”

“No, actually,” he said. “I asked. She wouldn’t tell me.”

That surprised her. “She didn’t tell you anything?”

He lifted his head. “I’m getting the same impression from you that I got from her. Is there more than one secret? What’s going on?”