"It's peaceful out here. No worries, no traffic, no tension." He looked at her sitting astride the chestnut gelding. The large animal was impatient to be moving, pawing the ground, eyes shifting, looking to the field like it was reason in itself to run; just like her, he thought. "He's a lucky man," he said abruptly, and he kicked the little roan he sat on into motion, passing the perplexed woman. Karen didn't say a word as she watched him gallop away; she reined the impatient animal beneath her around and headed back to the barn.

***

The sunlight was blinding on the crystal water as Izzy floated lazily on the raft, bobbing in the tiny wavelets. Alex sat on a deck chair with her sunglasses halfway down her nose, studying his lifeless form. "Hey!" She watched as his head jerked and he nearly capsized the float. "Aren't you going to answer me?" She knew he wouldn't because he hadn't heard the question. "Are you taking the blonde upstairs to the party tonight?" She rolled her eyes when he seemed to ponder for a moment as if he wasn't exactly sure who the blonde was. "Isaiah! Pauline wants an answer." Alex giggled when he grimaced. His mother had no patience, especially for Izzy's social life. More to the point, she had no patience for Izzy's social life, or any other inconvenience when it interfered with her own life. When he finally nodded, Alex said "yes' into the phone and hung up. Looking back to him as he pulled himself up and out of the water to stand on the cement edge, dripping and red as a lobster, she grinned. "Serves you right for falling asleep in the pool." "I didn't fall asleep," he said sleepily. That part was probably true. He hadn't had more than a few minutes of sleep at a time in days. Mona had told her how she heard him wandering all about the empty house at night. Raiding the kitchen. Alex looked quickly down the lean form in front of her, his midnight raids weren't showing, he still looked wonderful. Her heart pounded wildly in her chest. If he had treated her half as well as he treated that silly country girl, she would have been his for life. Alex looked at the ground to hide her frown, but he had never truly been hers to begin with.