IN A LITTLE CORNER OF MY HEART

BY

LILLIAN K. DUNCAN

DEDICATIONS

THIS AND ALL THAT I DO IS

FOR GOD'S GLORY

TO RONNY, NOW I KNOW WHY YOU

OCCUPIED A LITTLE CORNER OF MY HEART

FOR SO MANY YEARS.

CHAPTER ONE

Ramona clenched her eyes shut at the annoying buzzing of the hotel's alarm clock. She just needed five more minutes of sleep. She groped around for the snooze button but then her mind slowly came awake and she remembered where she was and why. She was instantly awake.

Ramona's blue eyes flew open at the insistent ringing of the hotel room's alarm clock. She opened her eyes fully and she looked at the clock, hoping that this was the first time it had gone off. She had a nasty habit of hitting that snooze button without actually waking up. She smiled. It hadn't gone off before so she was safe and up with plenty of time to get ready for the big day.

She would have taken bets that she wouldn't have slept a wink the night before but she had and surprisingly well. She stretched allowing her body to catch up with her already alert mind. She extended her body to its full length of five feet. Well, it was five feet if she exaggerated just a bit. She smiled and savored the moment. This was the day that she'd been working towards for so long. It was hard to believe that the day had finally come.

She sat up, her feet dangling off the bed. Her face lit up with a goofy grin. She jumped off the bed. She didn't have time to be dawdling. Even though she had a habit of being late, she refused to be late that day. She simply wouldn't allow herself to be late on the most important day of her life.

The silly grin persisted throughout the shower. She turned the shower knobs as far as they would go. She luxuriated in the billows of steamy heat. The stinging rays of heat pulsated through her body helping to wake her up. She sang a Springsteen song that she knew most of the words, off key as usual.

This was her day and no one could take that away from her. This would be a perfect day. She'd worked so hard and given up so much to get here but it had been worth it. Every date she'd turned down, every party she hadn't gone to, every vacation she'd passed up but none of that mattered now that she'd finally succeeded.

She'd always dreamed of being an author but it had seemed an impossible dream to a poor girl growing up in rural Ohio. She had loved books from the moment she could read. She was practically just a baby when she began toting her books with her wherever she went and she still did. She was rarely without a book to read when she had a few spare minutes.

Her girlfriends had heroines such as Jackie Kennedy, but hers had been Laura Ingles Wilder, Pearl Buck, and Louisa May Alcott. She imagined what it must be like to see your name on the cover of a book but her practical side won out and she'd become a teacher instead.

She'd traded in her dreams for the security of a regular paycheck and a bad marriage and what a bad marriage it had been. The thought of her marriage made her shake her head. Even six years after the divorce, she was still amazed at how she'd managed to ruin her life so thoroughly and how she'd completely lost sight of the person that she was during her marriage. She'd always considered herself intelligent but she'd had to rethink that position after she finally found the courage to leave her husband with God's help.

It wasn't the bad marriage that disturbed her. That happened to so many women. So often that people were rarely even surprised by divorce now. It was the fact of how long she'd let the abuse continue and how thoroughly she had convinced herself that she wasn't being abused.

She wasn't the first woman to find herself in an intolerable situation in her marriage but she'd let it continue for eighteen years. That was what disturbed her.

It was as if her brain had taken a hiatus as far as her marriage was concerned. She'd married a man that she thought she was madly in love with only to be betrayed again and again. Yet she'd chosen to ignore that behavior and make herself believe that he really did love her.

He would tearfully tell her after each of his affairs that it would never happen again, that he loved her, that he needed her, that he wanted a life with her. Yeah, right. He needed her so much that he had another woman moved into her house the day after she moved out. That's how much he'd loved her and needed her and wanted a life with her.

In the end, she didn't even like the man he'd become but that didn't stop her from trying to save her marriage. She refused to give up. As her marriage worsened, the more desperate she'd become to save it. She would do anything, believe anything, go anywhere to make him happy but nothing did.

In moments of lucidity, she knew that it was futile to keep trying. It took two people to save a marriage but it didn't stop her from continuing the fantasy that she really did have a good marriage and that someday he would love her the way she loved him.

She'd been such an idiot..

Ramona shuddered, in spite of the steamy water, at the memory of how she'd finally found the strength to leave. It was only after she had turned back to God that she'd found the courage to leave. Afterwards, she'd muddled along for months barely able to function still wanting him but knowing that she just couldn't go back.

She'd wanted to come to the conclusion that the idea of love was a fairy tale but the romantic in her couldn't quite believe it. She knew there was real love out there and that some people were lucky enough to find it. She just didn't happen to be one of the lucky ones.

One day she looked in the mirror and just couldn't stand the person she'd become. She made the decision to take back her life, to make it her own again. Ramona began reading all the self-help books that she could find, watching Oprah and other talk shows trying to understand why she'd messed up her life so completely.

One day, Oprah had a guest on who'd written a book about simplifying your life as a way to find happiness. She'd bought the book the next day and began reading it. When Ramona got to the section about creativity, it hit her like a ton of bricks. She needed to write.

She sat down at her computer and began to make up a story. She didn't know where it came from but her fingers flew across the keyboard. She didn't know what she was going to say until she saw it on the screen. She wrote late into the night but woke up feeling energized.

In the morning, when she reread with the practiced eye of a life long reader, and she was surprised to find that it wasn't too bad. She felt proud of her creative endeavor. She shared it with a few friends who'd loved it and encouraged her to write more. It was the first time in a very long time that she'd felt proud of anything she'd done.

That had been almost five years ago.

She began writing seriously, always dreaming of the day she would become published. That dream sustained her through sleepless nights, lonely holidays, weekends and summers. At night, she didn't fantasize of a man's arms around her but her name on the cover of a book and now it was finally going to happen. She felt a tingle of excitement. She would finally see her name on the cover of a book.

There'd been more times than she could remember when she wanted to give up. It seemed unobtainable. She'd sent out so many letters to so many agents and publishers that she wondered if she were single handedly keeping the postal service in business.

Billows of steam pulsated from the shower nozzle. She turned slowly allowing herself to be drenched. Streams of water ran in her eyes blurring her vision. She felt along the shelf until her hand found the shampoo bottle. She poured the vanilla scented shampoo on her red curls then reversed the water control. Cold water stung her body awake. She turned her face upwards allowing the water to clean away the cobwebs of the night's sleep.

She stepped out of the shower feeling awake and energized, ready to face the day, her day. She shook off the water and grabbed for a towel. The towel was thick and luxuriant with the hotel's insignia on it. She frowned at the insignia. She'd been more than a little surprised when her agent had told her that the publishing company was footing the bill at the five star hotel for the week.

Book publishers were notoriously cheap and they certainly didn't cater to their newest and as yet unproven writers. Her agent, Walt, had been a bit vague about it when she'd questioned him on the matter, simply telling her not to complain about treatment usually reserved for only the top writers in the industry.

She gave the insignia a last look. Something felt odd about the whole situation but she wasn't about to complain about the star treatment. She gave a shrug and put the matter out of her mind. This was to be a day of only happy thoughts. She told herself to stop being paranoid and looking for problems where there were none.

She walked to her suitcase and took out her Bible. It had been her constant companion since she'd gone back to her childhood religion. It had strengthened her and given her the courage to keep going after her divorce but even more important, it had helped her find real joy and peace again.

After her morning devotions, she walked to the hotel closet. She'd bought what she thought was the perfect suit but now it didn't seem so perfect. The steel gray suit was tailored and formal looking and very boring, she decided. It was completely opposite her usual style. It had seemed absolutely perfect in the store but now she couldn't understand what had possessed her to try it on let alone actually buy the thing.

She frowned and began to rummage through the hotel closet looking at the other clothes she'd brought with her but nothing seemed right. They were more to her liking but far too casual for such a significant meeting. She shrugged and slipped on the power suit. It would have to do.

Her hair, which she preferred to call strawberry blonde, contrasted perfectly with the steel gray material. The gray brought out the blueness of her eyes. The tailored suit showed off the waist she worked so hard to keep. Being short and loving to eat meant she either had to work out or look like her grandmother. She chose to workout.

Ramona looked at the clock and grimaced. Time to stop dawdling or she really would be late. She gathered up her still damp hair and pulled it back into a large antique brass barrette letting the curls cascade down her back. She knew she was too old to wear her hair so long but she didn't have the heart to cut it. Women in her age bracket should wear short chic styles not the unmanageable mop that adorned her head.

She carefully applied her makeup, just the way the make up consultant at the department store had demonstrated. She watched in amazement as her freckles disappeared supplanted with the clear creamy complexion she should have been born with. She looked in the mirror, surprised at the image that stared back. She'd been replaced with a sophisticated clone of herself. Her blue eyes sparkled with anticipation at the day ahead.

Her eyes darted to the clock. Somehow she had managed to fritter away the time and now she really was behind schedule. She would have to skip breakfast. Her stomach growled in protest but there was nothing that could be done. Ramona walked out of her hotel and into the streets of New York City.

CHAPTER TWO

The handsome blond man sat behind the desk scowling at the phone. His amber eyes grew darker with every word as he listened to the person on the other end of the line. It was obvious that he wasn't happy with whomever was on the other end of the line.

His fist slammed against the desk. "Martha." He bellowed. "It was your alcoholic daughter that managed to get herself and my daughter killed along with an innocent family. I won't have anything to do with this lawsuit. It's not as if you need the money. Just let it go, Martha." He forced himself to speak in a calmer voice. "I know you loved her but this won't bring her or Lacey back."

He slammed the phone down and paced around his tiny cubicle of an office like a caged tiger but that didn't ease the pain. It had been more than a year since his precious daughter was killed in that awful accident but whenever he said her name, the pain felt as if he'd only found out seconds before.

He picked up the chair and smashed it to the floor, pieces of wood flew through the air in all directions. A smell of wood permeated his office. His breathing was ragged and he forced himself to calm down. He knew from months of experience that nothing could make him feel better, not breaking a chair, not crying alone at night in his bed, not cursing God.

Nothing would bring Lacey back and so for months he'd sleepwalked through each day barely able to function. His boss had finally insisted he start therapy or quit his job. He'd chosen to keep his job.

He went back to the desk and opened a drawer and picked up a picture frame. He lovingly touched the silver framed picture of his daughter. His eyes filled with tears at the sight of the beautiful little girl with golden curls and the trusting blue eyes. She had trusted him to keep her safe and he had failed her. "I'm sorry, Lacey. I'm so sorry, Baby. Daddy loves you and always will."

He attempted to choke back the sobs that bubbled up but failed as he failed every morning so he sobbed. After a few minutes, he stopped and opened the drawer and reluctantly put the picture away. He ran his finger over the girl's angelic smile before he closed it away for the day.

He wiped away the tears and took several deep cleansing breaths. He allowed himself those few minutes each day to wallow in his self-pity and self-loathing. Then, he would put it away in the drawer with the picture and get on with his day and his life, such as it was.

It had been his therapist's idea and it seemed to be working. He was finally smiling again. He was even dating some. Not that it meant anything to him but it did help to fill the long lonely hours after work.

For months after the death of his daughter, he had been immobilized by grief and anger. The grief and anger were still there but he was back at his job and beginning to heal. Today was supposed to be a good day for him but his ex-mother-in-law had managed to ruin that but her announcement that she was suing someone and wanted him to participate in the lawsuit. He shook his head in disgust. He would have nothing to do with such a ridiculous idea.

Time to get to work. From a financial point of view, he didn't need a job but, oh how, he needed his job. It was helping him to regain his sanity. He had good days and bad days. This would be a good day. He smiled. He'd been looking forward to it for the past few months.

When Adam saw Mona's name during the monthly meeting where they discussed whether to take on a new project, he couldn't believe that it could be the same Ramona Meyers he'd known, fell in love with, and then been dumb enough to lose but it had been the very same Ramona Meyers.

He'd been in love with her or as in love as a twenty year old boy can be but he'd blown his chance and their paths had never crossed since not that he hadn't tried. He'd gone to social events, even his class reunions, hoping to run into her but it hadn't happened. He'd been too cowardly to just call her up. It was as if she just dropped off the face of the earth. He'd eventually married someone else.

Adam had called in a few favors and managed to be named her editor even though it wasn't in the usual genre that he worked with. He'd arranged for her to stay in one of the best hotels in the city the past few days at his own expense. Then, as a surprise, he was planning on taking her upstate to his cottage to finish the editing that needed to be done.

It was all work that could have been done from her own home using computers and faxes without a trip to New York City but he'd thought it would be fun to see her again and he needed some fun. He was ready for some fun. Not that he had any romantic notions about her. She was, no doubt, happily married with a brood of her own kids.

When he'd told his boss, Ben, about his plans, he'd agreed to them even though they weren't the usual treatment for a beginner writer. Truth be told, Ben was just happy to see Adam excited about a project. Adam had figured his boss would be a good sport about it and he had been. Especially when he found out it wouldn't cost him or the company a penny and it would make the company look good besides.

It would be good for Adam to spend time with someone from home. They could laugh and talk over old memories and maybe for awhile he might feel like the other Adam. The Adam that existed before the horrible accident.

Adam sighed and looked at the pieces of wood scattered about his office. It wasn't like him to lose control. He left his desk and began to pick up the broken pieces of the chair. He wished that it could be that easy to clean up his own life.

CHAPTER THREE

Ramona may have grown up in rural Ohio but she'd seen enough of the world to consider herself fairly sophisticated. She'd lived in Cleveland for many years and had traveled to many places including Paris, Mexico City, Rome and London. She was not a country bumpkin who'd just fallen off the turnip truck. Even so, she'd never experienced anything quite like the streets of New York during rush hour on the first work day of the week.

There were cars as far as Ramona could see in every direction with bicycles and motorcycles weaving in and out of them. Horns were blaring, tires were squealing, and voices were yelling. Waves of people kept coming down the street with no end in sight. People jostled each other on the crowded sidewalks as they hurried off to work.

It took fifteen minutes but she finally managed to hail down a cab. The cab chugged along at a snail's pace through the congested streets. Ramona took turns looking at her watch and then gawking at the sights around her.

There were people of every imaginable shape, size, and color. Some were wearing business clothes while others wore traditional garb from their native lands. She could only shake her head at the clothes the young people wore. As a teacher, she'd thought she'd become immune to teenagers and their ridiculous fashions but she had been wrong.

Even though it was morning, venders were already setting up their portable wagons with food from around the world. Her mouth salivated at the smells that assaulted her as they inched through the city. She wished she'd made the time for breakfast. Her stomach rumbled in protest at the fragrant smells. She saw signs announcing hot dogs, french fries, hamburgers, gyros, souvlaki, crepes, fish and chips, and any other food that any one could possible crave.

The cab finally pulled up in front of the building. She hadn't been sure if the taxi driver had understood her English when she'd given him the address of the building but apparently he had. She looked at her watch, she was already three minutes late.

"Fifty-five dollar." The driver announced in a loud voice.

At the hotel, he'd told her it would be thirty-five. Ramona with hands on hips opened her mouth to protest but then closed it. She didn't have the time to waste arguing. She dug around in her purse and threw the extra money at him. As she walked away, she heard him yell a rude word and then something about a tip. She wanted to go back and give him a piece of her mind but she forced herself to focus on the issue at hand which was to get to her publisher's office without being any later than she already was.

She pushed her way through the mob of people and into the building. She smoothed her hair down, surprised to find that it was still mostly in place. Only a few strands had managed to free themselves.

She followed the other people coming in and found the elevator where dozens of others were already standing and waiting but she figured she would still be one of the last ones to squeeze on. The elevator doors opened and people rudely shoved past her crowding in front of her. The doors closed without her. She looked in frustration as more people crowded around her waiting for the next elevator.

She took a look at her watch again. The minutes were ticking away. She was now almost ten minutes late. She saw there was no way she was going to make the next set of elevators either. Too many people had already shoved past her. She shook her head at the rude behaviors. This would never happen in Cleveland.

She only needed to go to the third floor. She looked around for stairs, a little exercise never hurt. Ramona was out of breath and a few more of the crimson strands had escaped by the time she reached the third floor.

She took a moment to tuck them all back in their rightful place. It served her right for forgetting to pack her mousse. Her hair could be very stubborn at times and it seemed the more important the occasion the more stubborn it could be.

After she'd gotten herself together she began searching for the office. She found it without a problem. At least, something was going her way, she thought. She checked her watch once more. She was now seventeen minutes late.

She felt her anxiety level rising. She hated being late and yet she always managed to be late to appointments. She was sure a shrink would have a logical explanation for her. She told herself to calm down. It wasn't the end of the world. It wasn't as if they would change their mind about her book because she was a few minutes late. She made a face at the thought. At least, she hoped that wouldn't happen.

Ramona stopped and gathered herself together before going in. She was about to fulfill her life long ambition and nothing could stop her now. No reason to be nervous. She took a deep breath and opened the door. All the hustle, bustle and madness of the city melted away as the door clicked quietly behind her.

Classical music filled the room. The office was carpeted in a lovely beige with walls that matched with only a few pieces of tasteful art breaking up the softness of the beige. The lights were soft not the hard unflattering glare of flourescent lights. The room even smelled calm. Her heart slowed down a few beats but not nearly enough.

"Good morning." The woman behind the desk was holding a phone to her ear. She wore a tan suit that blended in with the beige room. "It's okay, I'm on hold. I have been for ten minutes now." She explained with a gentle smile. The woman was somewhere in her fifties, Ramona guessed. She had short dark hair and kind eyes. "You must be Ramona Myers. They're waiting for you inside." She motioned toward a door with her elbow.

Ramona nodded. "Yes, I am. I'm late." She immediately felt stupid for telling the woman. The woman obviously knew that Ramona was late, an appointment book sat opened in front of her.

"Don't worry about it, hon." The secretary leaned closer. "Take a deep breath. Let me give you a piece of advice. I know you new authors are always so grateful but remember they're going to be making money off of you. You are part of the team, a really important part. Don't let them push you around."

She looked at the phone with disgust and then hung up. "I have a policy of not holding more than fifteen minutes even if I am talking to Spielberg's people." She rolled her eyes and gave a hearty laugh that came out sounding like a bark. She held out her hand.

"I'm Paula. Congratulations on getting published. I read your book. It was good. I'm always here so if you ever have a question, feel free to call me. Now you go on in there, hon, and don't you even think about apologizing. You just give them some attitude. You just start complaining about the rotten cab drivers in this town. It works every time." She winked at Ramona and then turned back to answer the phone that was ringing once again.

Ramona walked toward the door but hesitated. She was suddenly terrified. Her mouth was dry and her stomach was doing such violent somersaults that she thought she might be sick. She just knew she was going to make a fool of herself.

She lifted her hand to knock but remembered Paula's advice so instead she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, gave her head a toss and walked in like she owned the place. The two men sitting on opposite sides of the desk looked up.

She started to apologize for being late but stopped, instead thinking attitude with a capital A. "I know I'm late but my cab was so slow and I'm pretty sure that he might have cheated me."

The man behind the desk stood up. "At least he got you here, that's more than you can count on in this city. Hello, I'm Benjamin Downs." He held out a well-manicured hand. It was a firm but warm handshake.

So, this was Benjamin Downs, the man that was making her dreams come true. She'd only heard of him from her agent who happened to be the other man sitting in the room. Benjamin looked just the way you'd expect a successful publisher to look, a great suit, an even greater haircut with black hair and a sprinkling of gray, tall and tanned. He wasn't handsome in the classic sense but he oozed confidence, classiness, warmth and power and that made for an appealing package.

Ramona was suddenly glad that she'd worn the power suit even if it felt tight and uncomfortable. She knew she looked good. She smiled back with a confidence that she didn't feel. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Downs." She turned to the other man in the room. "Good morning, Walt."

Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson was her agent but he went by Walt. He'd joked that with a name like Ralph Waldo Emerson, he had no choice but to go into the book business and since he had no talent for writing he'd become a literary agent instead..

He was short, thin, balding with glasses and his prominent Adam's apple bobbed as he spoke. He looked remarkably like Don Knotts. Walt smiled at her. "Hello, Ramona. How was your hotel?"

"It was great."

The two men exchanged glances and gave each other a knowing look. She didn't like the way it made her feel. She felt like the odd man out as if they knew a secret and she didn't. They all sat back down and Benjamin Downs smiled at her. He looked like the cat that had eaten the canary.

She wondered what was up. She sat down next to Walt, grateful for one familiar face in the room. She'd talk to him on the phone several times and finally met him the night before. He seemed like an old friend now. Her pulse was racing but she forced herself to look calm.

Mr. Downs was all business as he handed her a final contract. She'd signed an earlier contract but her agent had renegotiated a few minor points. Her head began to swirl as words were tossed about that had no meaning for her. After about thirty minutes, the new contract was signed and Benjamin Downs hit a button on the intercom.

"We're ready for you."

The voice answered. "I'll be right there." Ramona's head jerked up at the sound of the voice but Benjamin began speaking and she focused her attention on what he was saying but failed. She looked back at the intercom trying to place the voice. There was something about that voice.

"Ramona, your editor will be your contact person here but don't hesitate to call Paula if you run into a problem. She is a force to be reckoned with by anyone in this city. If she can't handle it, she'll let me know." Benjamin leaned toward her in a conspiratorial manner. "To tell you the truth, she scares me most of the time."

They all chuckled. Ramona couldn't help but notice Benjamin Down's piercing green eyes. They sparkled with intelligence and good humor. They looked as sharp as an eagle and probably missed as little as the eyes of an eagle. An eagle could see a field mouse from a mile up in the sky. This was the feeling she got from Benjamin Downs. He didn't miss much, no doubt the key to his success.

Ramona's stomach fluttered. She could feel herself getting choked up. She told herself to stop it. The last thing she wanted to do was get emotional in front of two men that she barely knew. The emotions subsided a bit.

After all those years of sitting at her computer writing and rewriting and rewriting again, she was getting her book published. She'd turned down dates, parties, invitations for weekend jaunts to this place and that. Instead, she'd preferred to spend most of her free time writing.

Her friends had accused her of being a recluse and anti-social. They hadn't taken her writing seriously. They'd just assumed it was a hobby, something to keep her busy after her divorce. They'd scoffed when she told them she needed to write instead of go to dinner.

They hadn't understood her commitment to writing. Of course, now they were all very excited and happy for her. They didn't seem to remember that they had been Doubting Thomases and Thomasinas at one time.

She looked back at the intercom. It sat quietly now but she tried to recapture the sound of that voice. There was something about that voice. She was sure that she knew that voice from somewhere but that was impossible. She didn't know any editors or she might have gotten published sooner. Connections always helped in any business and certainly that was even more true in the publishing business.

The door opened and she stood up to greet her editor. She turned toward the man with a warm smile but the smile froze on her face.

CHAPTER FOUR

Adam looked at the sophisticated woman standing before him and felt a twinge of disappointment. He knew it was ludicrous but somehow he'd expected to the see the eighteen-year-old Mona standing in the room waiting for him. This woman was very beautiful indeed but she wasn't the girl he remembered.

That girl was a free spirit with an infectious laugh that you would do anything, no matter how ridiculous and silly, just to hear again. Her smile could make you dizzy. That girl would have jumped in to his arms and squealed with delight. Instead, this woman stood staring at him with a snide look that resembled a smile.

This woman was dressed in a somber business suit, her hair pulled back in a no nonsense style and even her freckles were gone. He shrugged inwardly. Oh, well, it was absurd to have thought that she wouldn't have changed. He'd changed more than he liked to think about.

Ramona's smile remained frozen and now she knew she absolutely was going to be sick. She sat back down. She prayed a silent prayer for strength. Her knees felt too shaky to hold her up. She could feel all eyes on her and knew she needed to do something or say something, not just sit there with a stupid smile pasted on her face.

She opened her mouth but no words came out. She managed to stand back up albeit with shaky legs. She looked at the three men in the room. They all looked back at her with goofy grins on their faces. It was obvious they were all in on this horrible joke, not that she found anything even remotely funny about the situation.

A fleeting thought came to her, even though her brain didn't seem to be functioning at the moment. Maybe, she wasn't going to get published after all. Maybe, the whole thing had been some elaborate hoax. Perhaps, her ex-husband had orchestrated it as some bizarre form of revenge. He was still furious at her for daring to leave him.

Adam gave a little chuckle. "I know I should have called to warn you but I thought it would be more fun this way. I wanted to see your reaction."

More fun for whom, she wanted to scream. Certainly not for her. Hadn't he had enough fun humiliating her all those years ago, making her the laughing stock of their home town? Did he have to do it again and on this day of all days? This was to have been her day, not his. How dare he ruin her day.

"Adam, I'm stunned. I'm just speechless. I just don't know what to say." There were many things she wanted to say but this was neither the place nor the time. She had fantasized many times about what she would say when the day came that she finally saw him. At one time, she'd known the speech she would give him word for word but that was a long time ago.

She'd gotten over him a long time ago but still she'd like to give him a piece of her mind. And now he stood before her and she couldn't say any of those things. Her shock was quickly being replaced with the old anger and resentment that she'd thought she'd left behind years ago.

She smiled sweetly and daintily held out a hand to him, not because she wanted to but she didn't know what else to do. They were all looking at her waiting for her to do something. He looked the same only older but certainly no wiser, she thought to herself. His dark sandy blonde hair was more stylish but not even a hint of gray could be seen. He was such an egotist that he probably colored it. He wore jeans and a sweater that emphasized his muscles and a flat stomach. She couldn't help but notice how well-defined his muscles were. He must spend most of his time at some gym working out.

She looked into his eyes. His eyes had always been the key to reading his moods. His brown eyes changed colors reflecting his feelings. Right then, they were the color of chocolate ice cream, a happy color. He ignored her outstretched hand and instead opened both of his arms to her as if she should just walk in to them like she had so many years ago.

That wasn't going to happen that day or any other day. She'd learned her lesson about trusting Adam Miles. She stood her ground so he walked to her and hugged her. She stiffened as his arms went around her. Anger seethed inside her.

He felt her tense up as he hugged her. He felt a sense of disappointment. This cold woman was definitely not the warm fun loving friend of his youth. Nevertheless, his voice oozed charm as he spoke. "It's been a long time, huh, Mona?"

She flicked an imaginary piece of lint off her skirt, then looked up to meet his questioning eyes. "Yes, a very long time, Adam. You certainly did manage to surprise me." She said in a cool voice being sure to keep her tumultuous emotions hidden.

She turned to Walt and Benjamin. "Adam and I grew up in the same small town together but I suspect you might already know that. His sister and I were best friends. I spent so much time at their house that we practically grew up as sister and brother."

"Well, I don't know about brother and sister, Mona." Adam interjected with a teasing tone.

She ignored his teasing. "I go by Ramona now."

"Well, that's going to be a point under discussion but we'll save it for later."

Adam gave her a smile that said he was in control and the thought infuriated her because she knew it was true. It wasn't fair, she'd worked very hard to get to this point. He didn't have the right to take that from her.

Benjamin gave her a captivating smile. "Yes, we know that you and Adam were friends. We were all in on the surprise. Adam told me that you two were old high school friends but he didn't tell me just how beautiful you were. If I'd known that I might have had him change his plans and keep you in the city so I could get to know you better."

Ramona wondered what he meant by plans Adam had made but she flashed Benjamin a thousand watt smile and looked up at him through her lowered lashes hating herself as she shamelessly flirted with the man. "I would have loved that. I've never been to New York before except as a stopover. It would be great to see a New Yorker's New York, Mr. Downs.."

"Call me Ben. Everyone does. We don't like to be too formal here."

"Okay, Ben." She heard the simper in her voice but couldn't help herself. Adam Miles needn't think that he meant anything to her, then or now. She had no feelings for him except, perhaps, some leftover anger but not even much of that. He wasn't worth the energy. She'd laid those feelings to rest long ago. She may have thought of him now and then and wondered what her life would have been like had they married, but then she would push those thoughts to a small corner of her heart.

Ramona threw a cold glance in Adam's direction before she turned back all smiles to Benjamin. She moved a step closer to Benjamin and gave his arm a light touch.

"What kind of plans are you talking about, Ben?" She asked lightly but with a sense of foreboding. She had a feeling she wasn't going to like those plans any more than she had liked her surprise.

"I'll let Adam tell you since it's his surprise."

"Another surprise. I don't think I can take another one." She gave a sultry laugh to show that she was joking. Inside, she cringed wondering what kind of plans Adam had made for her.

Adam watched the exchanged and realized that not only had she changed physically but she seemed to be a conniving wench who was more than willing to use her feminine wiles to get what she wanted and she had plenty of feminine wiles. He had to admit to himself that she had become a beautiful woman.

Not that it mattered to him how she lived her life but she'd always been such a sweet honest person. He was appalled to see just how much she'd changed.

"I took the liberty of making plans for us to work upstate in a cottage, Mona. I thought you would be more comfortable there instead of in a hotel room in the city."

"It's Ramona." She reminded him. The last thing she wanted was to spend a week in a cottage with Adam Miles, her first love and the first man to break her heart.

"Not for long." Adam flashed her a beguiling smile. "We think Mona Myers has a better ring to it." He turned from her and looked back at his boss as if the matter of her name were settled.

Benjamin smiled down at Ramona. "Is that alright with you, Ramona? About the cottage, I mean?"

The men all turned to look at her. Here was her chance to put a stop to this. Her face felt hot and she forced herself not to stammer. "It's fine, just fine. It's not a problem at all. It's just that I thought I would be spending the week here in New York and..." Her voice trailed off. She didn't know what else to say.

"I can cancel the plans if you prefer staying in the city, Mona." Adam said in a smooth tone that only managed to infuriate Ramona.

"No, that's fine. It's not a problem at all." She said cooly and flicked another imaginary hair off her suit to give her some where to look other than into his warm deep brown eyes that tugged at her heartstrings. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of thinking that she had any feelings for him. "Just give me directions and I'll get there but there could be a problem with the name." She looked back at Adam with challenge in her eyes. "I'm rather partial to Ramona Myers."

He shook his head. "Well, I ran the possibilities past a lot of people and we all agree that Mona Myers is the way to go. It's the sort of name that a reader can remember."

She looked at her agent with exasperation. "Don't I have some say about this?"

Walt's eyes bulged. He didn't like confrontation. "Of course, you do. Of course, you do but I have to agree with them. Mona Meyers has a nice ring to it." He patted her shoulder as he spoke. "I'm sure the two of you will be able to work this out, being old friends and all."

Adam interrupted with a grin that so aggravated her that she fought an urge to slap his face. "I'm sure we will, Walt. And no need for directions, I rented a car. It will drive you back to the hotel so you can pack your things. Take your time and pick me up here when you're ready to leave."

She glowered at him while he gazed at her sweetly completely oblivious to her emotional state. Could he really be this obtuse? He was just trying to torment her, she decided but then realized she was being ridiculous.

He had no idea how she was feeling. After all, they hadn't seen each other in years. He couldn't know just how much he had hurt her. She hadn't even known that she was still angry at him until he'd waltzed in to the room a few minutes before just the way he'd waltzed out of her life years ago, without any warning.

"That's not going to work." She said it more sharply than she'd meant to. Benjamin Downs' eagle eyes narrowed at the tone of her voice. She made an effort to normalize her tone. She didn't want him to think anything was wrong. She knew she was being silly. "I made lunch plans and I just can't break them. Just give me directions and I'll get there." Then she turned back to Benjamin with another one of those charming smiles. "But if you think I should, I can cancel my plans."

He smiled back at her warmly. "No reason to do that. Just keep the car and get there when you get there and Adam can find his own way there. If that's okay with you, Adam?"

They all turned to look at Adam. Ramona saw that smirk she knew so well. It was the same look she'd seen a thousand times when he got his way. There was nothing she could do about it. She wanted her book published and if that meant dealing with the devil himself then that was what she was prepared to do.

CHAPTER FIVE

Three hours later, Mona threw herself into the back of the waiting limo, still furious at the circumstances she found herself in and wondering how it had happened. She'd spent the past three hours, not at a lunch date as she'd told the men, but pacing her hotel room. Trying to calm herself down and trying to understand why she was so upset about the situation anyway.

She was amazed at all the feelings that a five minute meeting with Adam Miles had managed to bring to the surface. It didn't make sense to her why she was so upset. Still, she'd kept trying to figure a graceful way out of this situation without actually letting Adam know that she was upset at seeing him again after all these years.

She didn't know how this could have happened. It was just unbelievable that here she was ready to fulfill her lifelong dream of getting a book published and who should be her editor but the first man that broke her heart. It really was a small world, after all.

She didn't want Adam Miles to be her editor. She didn't want Adam Miles to have that kind of power over her. She didn't want Adam Miles in her life again. He'd been there once and it hadn't turned out well for her and there was no reason to think he'd changed.

She had no desire to get involved with another man that would be bad for her. She'd had her share of abusive relationships and she was done with it. She wasn't like a lot of women that kept repeating the same mistake over and over.

Even after three hours of pacing, she was still wound up. She took a deep breath and tried to relax. She looked around at the limo Adam had rented for her. She couldn't help but be impressed with it.

The limo was bordering on hedonistic, leather seats, a built-in car phone, a wet bar, and a TV with a VCR, a refrigerator with snacks. She rubbed her hands against the buttery soft seats that were the color of burgundy wine and decided she could get use to this kind of treatment. Of course, Benjamin Downs had warned her not to get use to this kind of star treatment before she'd left his office. He'd explained this week was really a gift from Adam not from the company.

She wondered why Adam was being so sweet to her. What did he want from her this time? He, no doubt, was just being nice to her, a girl from his home town. He probably didn't even remember that they'd gone out together and it had only been a few times. It probably hadn't even been important to him.

He had always been a nice guy. Everyone said so. No one had a bad thing to say about Adam, except Ramona, of course. She could say a lot of nasty things about him. How he'd stolen her heart and then stomped on it breaking it into a million pieces. At the time, she was sure she'd never love again but eventually she'd gotten over him and gotten on with her life.

She never completely forgot about him as much as she tried to. There was always that small corner of her heart that he occupied. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply several times. She felt her heart rate drop a bit. She tried to come up with a logical reason why she was so disturbed at seeing Adam again. True, he had acted like a snake in the grass but it had all happened so many years ago. There was no reason to feel any animosity toward him now.

They'd both been young and foolish. They'd both gone on to live their own lives without each other. It wasn't his fault that she had messed hers up. Mistakes of youth are to be forgiven and she'd thought she'd done that years ago.

She knew her emotional reaction was ridiculous and way over the top considering how long ago it had all happened but she couldn't stop the feelings. It was as if he'd opened a dam and she was trying to stop it with her finger. And it wasn't working.

She would just have to deal with this. She promised herself she wouldn't allow her emotions to interfere with the job ahead. Nothing would interfere with her book getting published, not even a jerk like Adam Miles. There was nothing to be done about it but make the best of a bad situation and she had no illusions that for her this was a bad situation.

She thought back to the visceral reaction she'd had when Adam walked into the room that morning. She told herself that the strong emotional reaction had just been surprise, nothing more. She hadn't been prepared to see him. She hadn't seen him in almost thirty years. In fact, she'd gone out of her way to make sure that she didn't see him. She'd avoided class reunions or going back to her hometown for fear of seeing him.

Now, that she had time to process the shock, she knew there were no leftover feelings for him. How could there be? He meant nothing to her now. Certainly, from time to time she wondered what her life might have been like had she made different choices but that didn't mean that she still had feelings for him.

She hadn't meant anything to him anyway. He had certainly proven that. She'd been young and naive but he'd helped teach her a valuable lesson. She decided she just needed closure. She'd never confronted him, never told him how he'd hurt her. She decided that was what all this emotion was about. She just needed closure.

She smiled grimly. Actually, the week might be very good for her, she decided. She would be able to exorcize this particular demon from her past. She would finally get closure and that was really all she needed from Adam Miles, some closure. He wasn't important to her and hadn't been for a long long time. She didn't still care about him. She didn't even know him. She didn't even know what kind of person he'd become.

With that thought, she leaned back to relax and enjoy the ride but jerked back up. It occurred to her that she needed to write while her emotions were still raw. Writing it all down would help with closure and hopefully get rid of some of the emotion bubbling inside her.

Writing had become her own personal form of therapy and it could possibly even make a great story. She could expand it, add some interesting events and quirky characters and it could become her second book but for now she needed to write the story the way it had happened so long ago or, at least, the way she remembered it happening.

She reached for her laptop.

"Adam, Adam. Leave us alone." The two ten year old girls screamed and giggled from their perch in the big apple tree. "We're going to tell." Each girl grabbed a green apple from the leafy branches of the tree and pelted Adam with them. Adam continued throwing the dead snake at them while they squealed in disgust.

Adam was the older brother of Becky. The tree belonged to Mona and had belonged to her for an entire three days. They'd been best friends since the moment her parents had moved into the house three days before.

They were complete opposites of each other but nevertheless had become instant friends. Becky was tall even at the age of eight. Mona was short, so short that she had to roll up her pants when her Mom didn't hem them quick enough to suit her. Becky was feminine to the point of being fragile and Mona was a tomboy who thought nothing of getting into fights with boys that teased her, especially when they teased her because of her height. Becky's hair's was so blonde it could only be described as white and Mona's was bright red.

That first summer wore on and the three children were inseparable playing together from sunup to sundown coming in only when their parents forced them to but as with all good things, the summer came to an end.

The season changed from the hot sunny days of summer to the cool days of autumn. As the autumn leaves changed from green to orange, red, yellow and brown, so did the friendship of the three children, never to return to those halcyon days of that first golden summer.

Adam was promoted to junior high and was too busy and way too cool to notice the little girls left behind in elementary school except to tease them mercilessly when he had nothing better to do with his time.

But the girls remained best friends.

As Mona wrote those last words, she felt the tears threatening as the often did when she thought of Becky. She opened the bar that was built into the back of the front seat and found a bottle of wine. She chose burgundy to match the color of the seats of the limo. She looked at the label. It looked like the good stuff not that she knew what she was doing. She poured it into a crystal goblet. She tapped her nail on it and heard the ping of expensive crystal. It was definitely the good stuff.

The red liquid swirled against her tongue. It trickled down her throat, drop by drop. She savored the tartness. She didn't drink often but did enjoy good wine. She leaned back and closed her eyes, taking another sip. She didn't want to think about Susanna. This story was about Adam not Susanna.

It didn't surprise her that thoughts of Susanna still saddened her. Susanna had been the best friend she'd ever had and Ramona had never gotten over the feeling that she had somehow failed Susanna in some way.

She opened her eyes, sat back up and took a deep breath. She knew she had to write about Susanna. Susanna was part of the story and Ramona would not leave her out of the story in spite of the pain. A writer has to be true to the story. She poured more wine.

If she was going to tell the story, then she would tell all of the story.

It was the summer of 1969. Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. It was the year of Aquarius, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and Easy Rider. Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh and Chappaquiddick. Ugly hurtful words were screamed across dinner tables as different generations shook their head in disgust at the other's ideas. The sixties may have been coming to an end but not the unrest or the social changes that they'd ushered in were just beginning.

All Susanna could talk about that summer was a music festival somewhere in New York. She asked her parents to let her go. They said no. She begged her parents. They said no. She told me she was going anyway and asked me to go. I said no.

I wished I'd said yes, Ramona thought to herself as she poured more wine. The older mature Ramona knew that it probably wouldn't have made a difference but she couldn't help but wonder.

I was sleeping when the phone rang that morning in August and I heard my mother yell my name from downstairs. I tried to ignore her but she kept yelling so I got up and put on my pink robe and pink fuzzy slippers and padded down the steps with a grumpy look on my face.

She handed me the phone with a worried look.

"Mona, this is Mrs. Miles. Is Susanna there with you?"

I looked at my mom with confusion but she just glared back. "No, she's not here."

"Do you know where she is?"

"No. Why?"

"She's not in her bed and it doesn't look as if she slept in it last night. I didn't even know she was upset. Did she say anything to you?"

"No, she didn't." I was awake now and worried. Susanna was rebellious by nature and tended to get into trouble. She was the one that had gone skinny dipping. She was the one that had tried marijuana. She was the one that had gotten drunk. She was the one that had begun to experiment with sex. "Let me call some of our friends and then I'll call you back."

I spent the next thirty minutes calling but no one knew where Susanna was or where she might be. I ran upstairs, dressed and ran across the yard.. Adam was crossing their yard and heading in the direction of ours.

We met at the old apple tree where years before he'd thrown snakes at us. I sat down in the old tire swing that was still tied to the branch. No one ever used it any more but my dad refused to take it down. Adam threw himself on the ground and leaned against the trunk.

"Hi Mona. What is going on?" He quickly looked behind him to make sure neither of his parents were outside and heard him curse. "Where is she?"

"I don't know. I really don't." Susanna had run away a few other times but it had always been to a friend's house and I always knew where she was each time so I could let her family know that she was okay. After a day or so, she would cool down and go home.

"Did she have another fight with your Mom and Dad?"

He shook his head. His sandy blonde hair fell in his face as he did. "Not that I know of. Unless they had it when I was at work. She didn't say anything at all to you?" He didn't sound like he believed me.

I had been moving my feet in the grass to move the swing but I stopped and looked at him. "I'm not lying, Adam. I'm not stupid. I would tell where she was if I knew." I yelled at him. "Haven't I always told before?"

He brushed his hair out of his eyes. His hair was chin length and only one the many things he managed to argue with his father about. "All right, all right. Don't get yourself all worked up."

"Don't tell me what to do." I screamed back at him. He gave me the finger which I chose to ignore. Instead I begin to twirl in the tire swing so he couldn't see that he'd hurt my feelings. I had such a crush on him but I hadn't even told Susanna about it and I sure didn't want him to know that he could make me cry.

He was so cool, so groovy. He played in a rock band with some other guys and sometimes on weekends they played at dances at the YMCA. Susanna and I always went but we'd make sure we told them how awful they were afterwards.

We talked for a few more minutes and he said he was going to go look for her. I wanted to go with him but he said no and I said that was fine with me. I didn't really want to go with him anyway. I went back inside to face the inquisition that was waiting for me from my mom. She finally stopped bugging me when she was satisfied that I was telling her the truth when I said I didn't know where Susanna was.

I turned on the TV and watched soap operas and games shows all afternoon. During commercials I would run over to the Miles to see if they had heard from Susanna or I would call another friend to see if they'd heard from her. They hadn't. Nobody had. No one had any idea where Susanna was.

As the afternoon wore on, my stomach began to knot up with worry. No one knew where Susanna was or where she might be. It wasn't like her to be so inconsiderate. She could be stubborn and bratty at times but she loved her parents. She wouldn't make them worry like this.

We sat down to dinner though none of us were hungry. My parents were as worried as I was. No one spoke much and we could hear Walter Cronkite giving the day's news on the tv set in the other room. We heard the weekly body count of the war. Then I heard him talking about a rock concert on a farm in New York where thousands and thousands of people were showing up.

I jumped up out of my seat knocking my chair over in the process. I ran to the living room without turning it upright. I could hear my mother yelling at me to pick up the chair but I ignored her. Walter Cronkite was talking about all these people showing up at a farm for some music festival. There wasn't anywhere for the kids to sleep or eat. Some cop talked about safety and health issues and the fact that they were sure many of the kids showing up were runaways but there were so many they couldn't do anything about it.

By then, my parents were standing beside me. They were staring at me instead of the TV set. I licked my lips. I didn't know what to do. Should I tell them what I thought or just ignore it? They were still watching me.

I pointed to the TV set. "I think that's where Susanna is."

Of course, there was whole different story on now so they had no idea what I was talking about. After I explained it to them, we all walked over together to the Miles' house. They were at their dinner table too but no one was talking or eating. Mrs. Miles eyes were red from crying.

I explained about the music festival in New York. No one argued with me after I told them. That was a scary moment when we all realized that Susanna was, no doubt, on her way to this Woodstock place or already there.

We sat in their living room as Mr. Miles called the police of our town hoping they could help him find Susanna. They were very apologetic but said the only thing they could do was take a missing persons report. They couldn't really help him except to give him the number of the police in New York.

It took over thirty minutes of constantly dialing the number but finally they were able to get through. Those police said the same thing they'd said on the TV news. There were just too many kids. There was no way they could go looking for Susanna but they took down her name and a description and promised they would call if they happened to find her.

Adam hadn't said a word the whole time we were there except to agree with me. He'd just sat quietly, listening to his father argue with the police about looking for Susanna. But now he brushed his hair out of his face. "I think I should go up there and try and find her."

All four parents looked at him as if he'd lost his mind.

Mr. Miles was the first to react. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm going up there, not you."

"Dad, think about it. No one is going to talk to you or help you find her. They're all hippies and flower children up there. They won't talk to you but they will me. I'll just tell them I got split up from my girlfriend and have they seen her."

They all grumbled about how it wouldn't be safe up there and my parents had the nerve to put in their two cents as if it were any of their business. I finally had heard enough. "I'm going, too."

Now they all turned on me, including Adam. Yelling and screaming that it was a ridiculous idea but I held firm. In the end, it was decided that Adam and I would both go and that both our fathers would go, too. When we got there, the fathers would go looking for her and Adam and I would stay together looking for her. The mothers would wait at the houses hoping she would call. Susanna never called.

Mona stopped typing, saved what she'd written and poured a bit more wine. She didn't want to write any more. She didn't want to think about it. Oh, why hadn't she gone with Susanna. Maybe, things would have been different if only Mona had gone with her but she'd been too afraid, too much of a goody goody to go with her. She'd let her best friend down. She took another drink, not really tasting the wine.

We drove through the night and arrived at Woodstock early Saturday morning. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before or since. There were more people than I'd ever seen in one place. People were sleeping in sleeping bags, blankets, lawn chairs, even on the ground. Some had clothes on, many did not.

It was wet and muddy and no one seemed to care. Some people were sleeping but most people were dancing or listening to the music that blared from the stage even at that early hour. Adam and my father set their watches and agreed to meet back at the entrance in three hours whether any of us had found Susanna or not. My father gave me a stern warning not to leave Adam's side which I solemnly promised.

Adam grabbed my hand and we walked through the crowd checking the faces of each of the girls. Every so often Adam would stop and show Susanna's picture but no one ever admitted to seeing her.

Everywhere we walked people were high and offered us every kind of drug imaginable. Most of them I had never heard of before. Some of the more practical people offered us food but we weren't hungry. People were dancing naked in the early morning drizzle. More than once we stepped over people passed out. People were having sex with each other out in the open not seeming to care who saw them. For three hours we walked through the throngs of people but found no sign of Susanna.

We met back at the entrance, checked in with the fathers who'd had no better luck and we began the trek again in different directions. My feet hurt but I didn't complain. I wanted to find Susanna. It was raining harder but none of the people there seemed to care. Everyone seemed happy. The music kept going and the people kept dancing.

Adam kept hold of my hand. I loved the way my hand felt in his. The warmth of his hand spread through my body. I pretended that we were boyfriend and girlfriend, just there to have fun like all the rest.

Out of nowhere a naked girl came running up to me. She grabbed me by the arm. Her nails dug into my flesh. I squealed in surprise and pain. "Help me. Help me." She cried over and over. Soon, we were surrounded by a group of people that assured me they were her friends. They weren't trying to hurt her, she'd just gotten hold of some bad acid and was freaking out.

A group of paramedics pushed their way through the circle of people and talked gently to the girl until she meekly followed behind them. One of the medics noticed the blood on my arms and told us to follow him. They would clean that up for me. We followed the workers and the girl without saying a word to each other. My stomach began to hurt but I wouldn't let myself think about why.

It took awhile but we eventually ended up at the first-aid station, if you could call the makeshift van that. We stood around until someone finally noticed us. A woman with a grim look came up to us.

"Is one of you sick or what?" She didn't have time for niceties. I pointed to the blood on my arm feeling foolish. They were people there a lot worse off than me but the woman left and was back in a moment wiping my arm with rubbing alcohol.

Adam pulled out the picture of Susanna and held it out to the woman. "We're looking for her. She's my sister. She ran away. Have you seen her?"

The woman took the picture out of his hand and looked at it. She looked up after several long moments and then back at the picture, then back at us. "This is your sister."

Adam nodded and I could only stare at the tired looking woman. My stomach hurt even worse than before. I knew she was going to say something that I didn't want to hear.

"We sent her to the hospital early this morning."

"What was wrong with her?" Adam asked. "Was it drugs?"

She patted Adam's shoulder. "I think you better get to the hospital, son." Was all the woman would say before she turned to help someone else.

Adam grabbed my hand and we started running back toward the gate. I couldn't run as fast so Adam was really pulling me along, urging me to go faster.

"What are we going to do, Adam?" I gasped out between breaths. "We can't just leave without our parents."

As if on cue, we heard my father yelling my name. We ran to them and told them what we'd found out. Susanna's Dad let out a small moan but soon we were all running back to the car. We all felt an urgency to get to that hospital as soon as possible. No one spoke on the way to the hospital. Adam still held my hand in the car.

We found the hospital without too much trouble. It was a madhouse. The little country hospital had run out of space hours before. They were not equipped to deal with this many people needing medical attention, most due to drugs but not all.

The halls were lined with beds. Kids were moaning and many of the them were strapped in their beds screaming. Doctors and nurses were running from bed to bed trying to do what they could. Everyone ignored us as we tried to ask questions.

I began to walk down the hall looking at each bed, seeing if it was Susanna. Susanna's father went to look for a doctor. It felt like a dream. Everything was moving in slow motion. I could hear my dad calling me back to him but I ignored him and kept walking from bed to bed.

And then, I was at the end of the hallway. There were only a few more beds left, heading the other direction. The people in those beds were not moving. As I got closer, I saw the sheets that were draped over the bodies. I walked up to the first bed and lifted the sheet.

I started crying. It wasn't Susanna but it was someone's best friend, it was someone's daughter. I wiped at the tears but they kept coming. I walked to the next bed. I touched the sheet. Electric shocks made their way up my body. I felt as if I were floating above all the pandemonium. I knew what I would find when I lifted up that sheet. I didn't want to look but someone had to find Susanna. She needed to go home so her Mom would stop worrying. I lifted the sheet up. From far away, I heard screaming and then the walls began to weave back and forth and then it got dark. I felt myself falling but could do nothing to help myself.

It was only later that we found out that it had been a drug overdose.

Ramona sat staring at the words she'd written, haunted by the memories they'd brought back. It had been a horrible time for her. It wasn't fair to lose your best friend to death when you were only fourteen. That wasn't the way life was supposed to happen.

"Ma'am. We're almost there." The driver's voiced jerked her back to the present. She'd become completely immersed in the past. It was if the present had fallen away leaving only Susanna and that stretcher. Ramona hit the enter button, then picked up the wine bottle but to her astonishment it was empty.

She looked around the limo to see where it had spilled. It hadn't. Then, she felt the light-headiness and realized with a sinking feeling that she must have drank the whole bottle herself. That wasn't a good thing since she rarely drank more than a glass of wine at dinner.

CHAPTER SIX

Adam stood in the kitchen gazing at the spectacular view below him. The cottage was built in to the mountain side and overlooked a lake. He never tired of looking at the view. Each season in the Adirondacks was beautiful and unique.

After Lacy had died, it had taken months before he could find the courage to come up without her. His therapist had urged him to go but he'd kept finding excuses not to. Finally, his therapist had ordered him to come up and so he had.

He'd been terrified at the thought of coming up without Lacy but when Adam had arrived, he'd been delighted to find wonderful memories of the times they'd shared. He'd found his daughter again.

It wasn't until that first trip back to the cottage that he'd been able to remember his daughter with joy and not just the pain of losing her. It had been one of his first steps back from the deep pit of grief he'd fallen into.

The cottage had belonged to his wife and her family before he'd married her but she had rarely come up with Lacy and him. It bored her, not enough bars or nightclubs to suit her taste. She preferred the New York club scene to life with Adam and Lacy.

In the summer Lacy and he would come up on a regular basis. He had taught Lacy how to ride a bike here. Every Christmas, they had a tradition of coming up to the cottage and go caroling with other neighbors and then back to someone's house for hot chocolate and cookies. He'd been glad that he could give some experience of what it was like to grow up in a small town rather than New York City.

He checked on the cake that was baking. It was his mother's recipe and had been a favorite of Mona's when they'd been younger. Mona had been a chocoholic before the word had been invented. The cake looked delicious. He would frost it later after it had cooled.

He heard a car pulling up. Perfect timing.

He opened the door just in time to see Mona falling flat on her face. She always had been a little klutzy. He rushed over to the car to help her. Adam leaned down to help her but recoiled, shocked at the smell of alcohol. She reeked of booze.

He was horrified. She'd changed even more than he realized. She must be an alcoholic to be falling down drunk this early in the day. What had he gotten himself in to? He shook his head in disgust and reached down to help her up. She pulled away.

"You're too drunk to stand up." He yelled losing his patience with her.

"I am not drunk." The words came out slurred. She pulled away from him but only managed to fall back down.

"Mona, let me help you up."

"I don't need your help and my name is Ramona, Ramona, Ramona" She yelled back at him. "And it's going to stay Ramona. You can't tell me what to do." She hiccuped on the last word.

He looked at her in amazement. Tears were streaming down her face. What was wrong with her? He shook his head, feeling nauseated at the sight of his old friend drunk on the ground. This was going to be one very long week. How had she even finished a book if she was this big of a mess?

Of course, he'd found that the more creative a person was the more baggage they brought with them. And there was no doubt that Ramona had a great deal of talent and apparently a great deal of baggage.

It wasn't his job to hold their hands but he usually ended up doing just that. But he refused to do that with Mona. She may have talent, Adam thought, but he refused to deal with this with her of all people. He'd spent enough time dealing with drunks to last him several lifetimes. All he'd wanted was a fun week with an old friend. He sighed. He guessed that wasn't going to happen now.

He took his hands off her. "Fine with me." He yelled back and stormed in the house. The door banged shut. Ramona laid her head back down on the frozen ground.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ramona woke up confused and not sure why she was in a strange bed in a strange room with a strange feeling in her stomach. Her head throbbed, her mouth tasted of dirt. She sat up and opened her eyes but the room was spinning. She fell back on the bed with a moan and squeezed her eyes tight, hoping that the spinning motion would stop.

She slowly opened them again. The ceiling above her was swirling into some very strange patterns. Her mouth began to water and her stomach clamped tight. She jumped up off the bed and looked around. She headed for the first door she saw. Luckily, it was the right room, the bathroom.

Afterwards, she slowly made her way back to the bed and laid back down. She either fell asleep or passed out. She wasn't sure which it was and at that point she didn't care.

The second time she woke up, she opened her eyes and looked around the room without feeling as if she were on a carousel. A picture of her falling from the limo and laying on the ground flashed in her mind. Horrified, the memories seeped back in to her fogged up brain.

"Oh, no" She moaned. How could she have been so stupid? She rarely drank and never to excess. She sat up and groggily noticed that she wore nothing but bra and panties. It was just like Adam to take advantage of her in a drunken state. The thought was too repulsive to even put in to words. She refused to even think it.

She stood up and looked around the room, spied her purse. She rummaged through it until she found what she was looking for. Aspirin. She poured four of them in her hand and went for water.

She quickly swallowed the aspirin with some water and splashed water on her face. She looked up and saw her reflection in the mirror. She needed more than cold water to face Adam. She jumped into the shower and turned it on full force, alternating between hot and cold. She toweled herself off and slipped on a pair of black stretchy pants and a big T-shirt from her luggage. She felt better but not much.

She didn't remember bringing in her luggage but it was sitting in the room near the bed. She didn't even remember bringing herself in. It must have been Adam even after she'd been so rude to him. She smiled. He had always been a nice guy. Then she frowned. That nice guy had broken her heart.

She dried her hair as best she could with another towel. She wondered if there was anyway she could sneak out of the house and slink off into the darkness never to be heard from again.

She was so embarrassed, no that was too mild of a word. Humiliated, disgraced, mortified were much better choices but still only scratched the surface. She didn't know how she could walk out there and face Adam but she had no choice.

She remembered the secretary's advice, have some attitude. That was what she needed, more attitude. She gave her head a fling, took a deep breath and walked out hoping she could find some of that attitude. She would need it to face Adam.

She opened the door and walked to a winding staircase. She looked down. Adam was on a love seat in front of a fireplace. He didn't notice her walking down the steps or, perhaps, he was just ignoring her. The room was dark except for a reading lamp that sat beside Adam. He was absorbed in reading a manuscript.

Her manuscript, no doubt. She wanted to cry. How could she have blown this opportunity? What had possessed her to get falling down drunk? She just didn't do things like that and now she'd done it when so much was riding on keeping a good relationship with Adam.

Adam's eyes left the manuscript and followed her down the steps. By the light of the fireplace, his eyes shone black. She knew what that meant. He was angry.

"Hi," She managed to say.

"Well, well. I guess you decided to join the living again." His snide voice grated on her nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. "Or should I say the sober."

She flung her head at him as if she didn't care and walked over to the fireplace where a fire was lit to take the chill off the April evening. Fingers of reds, oranges, and yellows danced against the dark walls creating a glow in the darkened room. She turned her back to Adam and warmed her hands.

After a moment, she turned back to him. He took off his reading glasses and just stared letting her squirm.

Attitude, she told herself. She gave a little shrug. "I'm sorry." She said being sure not to sound too apologetic. "I don't know what happened. I was writing on my laptop and drank a little wine but I guess I drank more than I realized."

"I guess so." He said dryly. He had no plans to help her out of this hole she'd dug for herself. Writing was a serious business. They had a lot of work to get done that week and he wanted her to know that if she had a drinking problem she would need to keep it under control while they were working

"What's that supposed to mean? I said I was sorry about what happened."

"I don't really care if you're sorry or not."

She was surprised at the bitterness she heard in his voice. She'd expected a little anger but not the intensity she heard in his voice. She ignored him and turned back to the fire. He wasn't going to make this easy but she deserved his anger. It was nothing compared the anger she felt for herself.

After a few moments, she turned back to him.

Attitude, she told herself. She gave a little shrug. "I said I was sorry." She said being careful not to sound too apologetic. "I feel totally ashamed but I can't change what I did. If you don't want to accept my apology, that is certainly your choice." As she put her hands on her hips, her damp hair fell in her face. She used one of her hands to push it off her face and then both hands were back on her hips.

He felt a tug at his heart, this was the spirited girl he remembered.

He kept his own voice neutral. "I just didn't realize you had a drinking problem."

"Don't be ridiculous. I do not have a drinking problem, Adam." She told herself to stop being defensive but it wasn't easy to do. He didn't know her and he had no right to make that kind of a judgement based on one incident.

His fingers tapped the manuscript that he still held on his lap. " I can't... no let me put it another way. I won't work with a drunk."

"I am not a drunk but you're just as much an idiot as you ever were."

Now, she was beginning to get under his skin. "Me, me the idiot. I'm not the one that..." He stopped and looked at her. He refused to be sucked into an alcoholic's convoluted argument ever again. He stood up and threw his hands up in surrender.

"You're right, I am the idiot, an idiot to be looking forward to working with you this week and looking forward to helping you with your book and looking forward to renewing an old friendship that got lost somewhere along the way."

She bit her lip trying to stop herself from reacting to his words but she lost the battle. She took a few steps toward him. "Old friendship that got lost along the way." She yelled. It hurt her head but she didn't care. "How sweet that you can arrange the past to suit the way you want it to be rather than the way it was."

He turned back to her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I am not one of your books that you can edit so you come out looking like the good guy."

He started to say something but abruptly stopped. Just like a drunk, he thought. When confronted, they would always manage to turn it around and put the other person on the defensive. Just like his ex-wife but he wasn't going to have any part of it

He stood up and walked to the foot of the steps. "There's food in the refrigerator. In the morning, I will call Benjamin to let him know this isn't working." Without even so much as a glance in her direction, he turned and walked up the steps. He called back to her. "But don't worry I won't tell him you're a drunk."

"I am not a drunk." She screamed but he only kept walking up the winding staircase. She stood with her back to the hot fire and watched him leave. "I am not an alcoholic, you arrogant idiot. I had a little bit too much drink. It's not like I killed anybody."

It took a moment for the words to sink in. He heard the phone ringing and the police saying there'd been an accident. He saw the tiny casket that belonged to his daughter as it was lowered in to the frozen January ground. A small moan escaped his lips.

He gasped for air but there wasn't any in the room. He doubled over but managed to sit on the step rather than fall down the steps. He began to hyperventilate.

"What's wrong, Adam?" Ramona rushed to his side. He shoved her aside. She touched his arm. "Adam, should I call a doctor? Are you having a heart attack?"

She started for the phone but he grabbed hold of her arm. "It's okay." He choked out.

Ramona stopped moving and looked at him questioningly.

"Water." He managed to choke out between gasps. She raced for the kitchen.

She handed him the glass and he took a small sip and forced himself to breathe slowly. This wasn't his first anxiety attack. His doctor was helping him to learn how to control them. After a few moments, his breathing returned to normal. He looked back at Ramona.

"I'm fine."

"I think we should go to the hospital. I think you are having a heart attack." Her cheeks were red and her own breathing was a bit ragged.

"I'm fine." He forced a grim smile to prove it. "It was just an anxiety attack."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, I get them from time to time since..." He stopped. He had no desire to talk about the death of his beloved daughter at the hands of her drunken mother to another drunk.

"Since when?"

"Since I got my promotion." He shrugged. "No big deal."

She searched his brown eyes that looked amber in the warm glow of the fireplace. She may not have seen him for more than twenty years but she knew that he was lying. He seemed so sad but it was obvious that he didn't want to share it with her. It wasn't her place to poke in to his business.

"No big deal." She gave him a punch in the arm. "You almost gave me the heart attack."

"Sorry."

"It's okay as long as you really are okay."

He held up his finger with a boy scout oath. "I promise."

"Fine. Is this argument over or what?" She asked with a crooked grin.

It reminded him of the girl he'd once loved but he knew that girl was gone replaced by a drunk. "Yes, it's over." He spoke softly and kindly. No need to hurt her. "Perhaps, we should just call Benjamin up and tell him it's not going to work out. That you will be needing a new editor."

She blinked back tears. That was fine with her. She hadn't wanted to work with him anyway. Now, she wouldn't have to deal with Adam. That was what she'd wanted to begin with.

"Sure. I'm sure that will be for the best."

"Good night, Mona." He said it softly but she could still hear the sadness.

She went to the kitchen to search for something to eat. She sat at the counter forcing herself to eat a peanut butter sandwich even though she wasn't hungry. She needed some food in her stomach. She felt better after she'd eaten but was more confused than ever.

She tried to take her mind off Adam and the feelings he kept stirring up in her. She looked around the room. It was an old-fashioned looking kitchen but with every modern convenience known to man. Microwaves, food processors, and other assorted appliances were lined up on the butcher block counter tops. The one wall of the kitchen was encased in glass with a sliding door that led out to a deck

She cleaned up her mess from the peanut butter sandwiches. He wouldn't be able to call her slob and a drunk. Then, she walked over and slid open the sliding glass door that led out to the deck from the kitchen.

She shivered from the chill of the April night but the fresh air felt wonderful. She felt an ease up of her headache. The night sky was spectacular, not a cloud in sight. There were no city lights to dim its beauty. The stars twinkled against the black velvet sky. Each constellation set up on its own easel. The moonlight exposed a shimmering lake below the house. She leaned against the wooden rail wondering how she'd managed to mess up the day so spectacularly.

She wanted to cry. This wasn't the way it was supposed to have happened. It was to have been a perfect day. She wanted to blame Adam but she was adult enough to recognize that

she'd messed up the day herself. She had no one to blame but herself.

A part of her was very angry at Adam. How dare he accuse her of being a drunk? He didn't know anything about her or her life. He'd betrayed her years ago and never had the guts to even apologize for what he'd done. On the other hand, the other part of her could see that the assumption was understandable considering what had happened earlier in the day.

Either way it didn't matter. She wouldn't have to work with him now so it had all worked out for the best. She thought about Adam and that sad look in his eyes. Something was bothering him and she wanted to help him. No matter whether he thought she was a drunk or not.

She paced the length of the deck debating whether she should go up to his bedroom and try to have a civil discussion about the day and what was bothering him. In the end, she decided that it would be better leave things the way they were.

In the morning, she would get a new editor and could forget she'd ever seen Adam Miles again. She could put the turmoil aside that he'd stirred up inside her. She had a new life and she didn't need ghosts from her past popping up. She needed to focus on her new career, not the past.

The cold forced her back into the house but she wasn't sleepy. She paused in front of a door that probably was Adam's room. She could hear music coming from behind the door. It was a haunting melody. She was tempted to knock and apologize once again for the mess she'd made that day and be more sincere about it. Instead, she went to her own bedroom and plugged in her laptop.

She began typing.

It was an unseasonably hot day in May. I was sitting on the tire swing trying to cool off. My father still refused to take the silly swing down. I'd come to realize that the tire swing symbolized my own childhood and he was reluctant to see it end. But my childhood would end whether he wanted it to or not. I was growing up.

I would be finishing up my junior year of high school in just a few short weeks. Next year, I would graduate with the class of 1973. There was a raging debate in our house about whether I was going to college or not going to college. Screaming had become the norm at the dinner table on a fairly regular basis.

I didn't want to go to college and my parents were refusing to listen to my viewpoint. I tried to explain to them I didn't want to waste four more years in school. I wanted to get out in the world and begin my real life and I didn't need a college education to do that. They disagreed and very noisily disagreed. I had no idea who would win.

I saw Adam walking across his old yard and toward me and my tree. I shook my head and thought I was hallucinating from the heat. The Miles family had moved out of the house and the area two years ago after Susanna's death. There were just too many memories for Mrs. Miles to cope with. I hadn't seen Adam since the day they'd moved out almost three years ago.

"Hi, Mona."

"Hi, Adam. I thought I was seeing things." I dragged my feet across the dirt and twirled on the swing trying not to show how pleased I was to see him. I was long over the crush on him but I missed him and Susanna both.

"Nope, it's me. I walked through the yard to surprise you and here I am." He gave me that same sweet smile that I loved to see. His hair was still blonde but even longer than the last time I'd seen him. It touched his shoulders and he had a mustache as well. He looked so grown up. He stood there and put his hands in his pockets then took them out.

I wondered why he was nervous. "How was your first year of college?"

"I flunked out."

"You're kidding." I screeched. He was so smart, there was no way I could believe that.

He shrugged and gave a sheepish grin. "I guess I partied too much." He ran his hands through his long locks. "I got my draft notice."

"Oh, no. " Those were words that no one wanted to hear. Everyone was sick of the war and only the most ardent hawks still thought we should be in Viet Nam. "What are you going to do?"

"I signed up for the Air Force. They let you do that, you know. That way I can pick my job."

"Oh, Adam." It was the only thing I could think to say. "Your Mom and Dad must be really freaked out."

"Yeah, I don't know if they're more upset that I got kicked out of school or that I got drafted. You can take that worried look off your face. I'll be fine."

"Don't tell me what to do, Adam Miles." I used a nasty tone but he knew I was kidding and we both laughed.

"I'll be fine." He repeated it as if he were trying to make himself believe it.

"Of course, you will be. You'll be great." I stood up and gave him a punch in the arm. "Just stop that partying."

"Funny, that's exactly what my mom said."

We talked a few more minutes and then he went inside to say hello to my parents. I walked out on the front porch with him. He walked down two of the steps to leave but then turned back around. He leaned over and kissed my cheek. He handed me a piece of paper.

"This is my address. You can write me if you want to. No big deal." And then he turned and he did leave. Over the next two years, we wrote back and forth. Gradually our letters took on a more intimate nature.

I'd dated in high school but nothing serious. Once I went away to college, I became more sexual but refused to go all the way with them. I told myself there was no particular reason why I didn't, just that I wasn't ready to.

It was the mid-seventies and the sexual revolution was in full swing. No one actually believed you had to wait until marriage before having sex and I didn't believe it either but still I waited. I just didn't know what it was that I was waiting for.

Then, I received Adam's letter that said he would be coming home for leave in a few weeks and that he hoped we could see each other while he was home and he made it obvious that he meant dating not just friends.

Now, I knew what I'd been waiting for. It was time for me to lose my virginity and I wanted Adam to be the one, my first love. I wasn't one for taking chances so I went to the doctor and got a prescription for birth control pills. I didn't want any surprises. I wasn't under any illusions that Adam and I were in love or anything like that. I certainly didn't want to complicate his life or mine with a pregnancy.

We weren't in love but there was a strong bond between us. We shared a past. I thought I could trust him. I knew he cared about me and that he wouldn't hurt me.

Ramona stopped writing and looked at the words she'd written. How stupid and naive she'd been back then. She'd been so wrong about being able to trust Adam or any man, if truth be told. She'd believed that he wouldn't hurt her but she had been wrong. She closed her eyes and willed the memories to go away.

Her whole generation had been wrong. They'd thought you could separate sex from love. They had been wrong. It was easy to see that now as an adult and the mess that young people were in, thanks to her generation's attitudes about sex. She knew now that her religious training had been right. Sex was very special and should be saved for marriage.

She didn't want to think about it any more that night. She undressed and hoped she could get to sleep. Her body and soul were exhausted from all the emotions the day's events had stirred up. She fell asleep within seconds of putting her head on the pillow.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Adam opened his eyes but knew that he must still be asleep and dreaming. He hadn't smelled a breakfast like that in years. His ex-wife didn't believe in cooking and he refused to hire a cook even if she could afford it to pay for it.

He sniffed. He recognized the bacon and eggs but knew he was dreaming when he detected the aroma of his Mom's homemade biscuits. He sat up but could still smell the heavenly aroma. Penance, no doubt, for her drunken display of the day before. Classic behaviors of an alcoholic he thought bitterly.

He wasn't getting sucked into that cycle.

"Never again. " He muttered as he stomped off to the bathroom.

He'd had enough of that in his marriage and his acceptance of the behaviors had cost him the life of his daughter. He would never forgive himself for not keeping her safe and he would never again forgive a drunk for any misdeeds..

He took a deep sniff, on the other hand, he wasn't stupid and he hated the thought of wasting food that smelled that good. Her back was turned to him as he entered the kitchen. He leaned against the doorway watching her. Her curly red hair was hanging loose down her back.

He imagined running his hands through those endless curls. Then, he frowned and told himself to stop it. This was not the girl he'd know before. This was a grown woman with a drinking problem. He didn't even want to be friends with her so he needed to stop having romantic thoughts about her.

Still he smiled as he watched her move with ease around the kitchen as if she'd been using it forever. Her body swayed with the gracefulness of a dancer. She was wearing some clingy purple pants and an T-shirt from a Springsteen concert.

The years had only made her more beautiful, more desirable. Too bad, she was a drunk. She turned to face him. Her eyes were clear and bright, no sign of the hangover that she must be experiencing. She gave a squeal of surprise when she noticed him. "Oops, you startled me. I didn't hear you come in." She smiled cheerfully.

"Morning." He barked at her.

She ignored his tone and remained cheerful. She would act cheerful if it killed her. "Good morning, Adam. I hope you're feeling better this morning. You had me worried last night."

He knew what was coming next, the con job. She would tell him how sorry she was and if he would just give her one more chance, she'd prove that she didn't have a drinking problem. It didn't matter who the drunk was, it was always the same. He'd learned that in Alanon.

He'd heard tearful story after tearful story as he attended the meetings, desperate to somehow find the way to help his wife. It was always the same. The family was the victim of the selfish behavior of the drunk and yet it was always so hard to leave them. He'd finally done it but he'd still been under the mistaken belief that it wouldn't be good to cut her out of their daughter's life completely.

That had been a fatal mistake for his daughter.

He didn't return the smile. "What's all this?" He gestured to the stove.

"I'm an early riser. I figured it was the least I could do after the mess I made of yesterday. Sit down and eat while it's hot."

He took a deep breath and put his daughter out of his mind. It wasn't Mona's fault and he had no reason to blame her for it even if she were a drunk. He sat down while she put bowls of food on the table. Bacon, scrambled eggs, hash browns, pancakes and yes, even biscuits.

"Milk or juice?" She asked.

He was dishing food out on his plate. Without stopping what he was doing, he answered with a mouthful of bacon. "Both."

"You got it." She set them down beside him and went to where her own plate sat. He was surprised as she took a little of everything, though not nearly as much as him.

They ate in silence for several minutes. She finally looked up from plate. "I'm really sorry about yesterday. I don't even know what happened. I was writing in the limo and didn't notice how much I was drinking. I can't tell you how embarrassed and sorry I am."

She sounded so sincere and he wished he could believe her. Before he had a chance to say anything, she continued talking. "I don't blame you at all for not wanting to work with me. After yesterday, I wouldn't want to work with me either. No hard feelings." She held out her hand and her head was tilted as she did. Her soft blue eyes gazed at him. She even had her freckles back that morning. She was making this hard for him.

He took hold of her hand and shook, he was surprised at the tingle he felt when he touched her. "Sure, no hard feelings. " He said it gruffly, "I mean you can unders..."

"Oh, I understand perfectly, Adam. Don't worry about it."

He realized he was still holding her hand. He dropped it. He noticed her blue eyes were twinkling. They were clear and showed no signs of the hangover she should have.

"Why don't you have a hangover?"

She shrugged. "Probably has something to do with the fact that I haven't gotten that drunk in about..." She tapped her index finger to her head as she thought. "In about six years. I was drowning my sorrows about my husband and his latest bimbo and what they were probably out doing instead of him being home with me, his loving and dutiful wife. In my drunken stupor, I took some sleeping pills to help me sleep. I was lucky. That was one night he actually came home early. I was even luckier that he noticed something was wrong with me."

"Bad marriage, huh?"

"Very bad."

"So, what happened that night?" He told himself he was just curious not that he cared about Mona.

"He saw the pill bottle and the wine glass and decided that maybe I should go to the hospital so he called and ambulance. It was a very close call. When I left the hospital, I didn't go home. Best decision of my life."

"He sounds like a real prince."

She laughed. "No, I wouldn't say that at all but the truth is he only did what I let him do. I didn't have to stay and tolerate the behavior. I have no one to blame but myself. I'm just glad that he came home that night and found me." She shrugged. "I haven't had more than a glass of wine since that night, Adam. Not even to celebrate my divorce when it was final and believe me I needed a few drinks that night."

He looked in to her clear blue eyes that sparkled. He wanted to believe her.

"You really haven't gotten drunk in six years?"

She held up two fingers. "Really, truly. I swear on my honor as a Girl Scout."

"You were never a Girl Scout, Mona."

She laughed again. "Oops, you're right. I forgot that you would know that."

Something tugged at him. Against his better judgement, he almost believed her. He wanted to believe her. After all, this was Mona, not some stranger. "So, you don't have a drinking problem?"

She laughed with what could only be called a hearty laugh, making him feel foolish for asking the question.

"No but I can sure understand why you think so after yesterday." She turned and looked at him. "The truth is I'm deeply committed to my faith. Adam, it's okay, really. I'm not trying to make you feel guilty. If we were strangers and I'd acted that way, you wouldn't even think twice about not working with me. It was totally unprofessional of me."

"But we're not strangers." His voice was soft and it sent shivers straight up her spine. She turned away not wanting him to see how that soft sexy voice affected her.

"Mona, look at me." It wasn't a request but she didn't want him to see the feelings reflected in her eyes. She put a few more things in the refrigerator giving herself time to gather herself. When she turned to him, her eyes were bright and clear.

"What?"

He spoke slowly, enunciating each word. "Tell me the truth, Mona. Do you have a drinking problem? This isn't about work, it's about friendship." He watched her intently looking for all the signs of evasion he knew so well.

She looked back her blue eyes meeting his dark eyes, wanting to get lost in them but she knew that time had come and gone many years before. The thought surprised her but she pushed it away. "Honestly, I don't have a drinking problem, Adam but thanks for being worried. It was just bad judgement on my part."

"I'll work with you either way. I just want to help you if you need it."

Instead of answering she turned and walked out of the room. She returned a few moments later and handed him some papers. She didn't say anything at first and when she saw that he was reading them, she very softly said. "This was what I was writing yesterday on the drive up. I guess that's why I didn't notice how much I was drinking."

She turned to the sink and began washing the dishes but she could hearing his breathing over the sound of running water. Suddenly, she felt his warm breath on her neck. Much to her consternation, she wanted to lean back against him, to feel his arms go around her to comfort her. She told herself to stop it. She wasn't a lovesick teenager any longer and she shouldn't acting like one.

"Why didn't you tell me this yesterday?" Each hot puff of air on her neck sent shivers through her. She managed to maneuver around and take a few steps back to put some distance between them. She had to lift her neck up to see his eyes.

"Because I felt like such a fool. Why do you think?" She stepped back another step giving herself breathing space. His body drew her to him like a magnet. She needed to stay out of his electromagnetic force field.

He thought for several long moments. His dark brown troubled eyes cleared up to the color of milk chocolate. "Let's just forget the whole thing and get down to work."

She frowned. This wasn't at all what she'd wanted to happen but there was no graceful way to get out of it now that he was willing to forgive her drunkenness of the day before. She owed him the same by forgetting about the pain he'd caused her decades ago. She gave an inward shrug. There was no reason why they couldn't work together as friends.

"What's wrong now?" He asked in exasperation as he registered the frown on her face.

"Nothing at all. Why do you ask?"

"The look on your face."

She shook her head and smiled. " I was just thinking about Susanna."

"Do you think her about her much?"

"Not so much any more and I try to stay focused on the happy memories." She said honestly. "But seeing you yesterday brought back the memories. I miss her so much. I miss the double dates we should have had, I miss being in her wedding and her being in mine. I miss our kids growing up together." She wiped at the tear that trickled down her cheek.

"I know." He said with a tired expression on his face. He touched the tear on her cheek. His therapist kept telling him that his choice of women who needed rescuing had to do with the fact that he kept trying to rescue his sister. He hadn't believe it before but now he could see that it made some sense.

He gave her a playful punch on her arm. "So, are we going to work together or not?"

"If you're sure? Don't feel you have to do this." She could do this, she told herself. It was ridiculous to be having such emotional reactions to this man. She didn't even know the man standing before her. She knew the child he'd been, just as he'd known her as a child. All those feelings and reactions belonged to another person in another lifetime.

CHAPTER NINE

"That's just the stupidest thing I've ever heard!" She screeched, her red hair flying in every direction as she shook her head. He turned away from her to hide the smile that lurked. She looked so cute but he was sure she wouldn't appreciate him saying so right at the moment.

"I don't think so at all and I don't believe that stupidest is even a word, Ms. Writer."

She gave her head a toss. "It must be since I used it."

She looked so adorable. Her red curls bouncing as she moved her head from side to side for emphasis. Her blue eyes blazing and her finger pointed at him trying to make him see her side of things as she paced around the living room. Her face was flushed with excitement making her freckles even more pronounced.

They'd been arguing for the past fifteen minutes. The raging debate was over not just a passage but a secondary story line that he wanted cut from the book.

"Mona, it's a good story line. You can always use it in another book but this book is too long and we have to cut some major portions out. This would be a good way to do it."

"I know." She moaned as she flopped down on the floor in front of the fireplace. She sat cross-legged with her head between her legs. "I know but I really like that story line."

All he could see was hair and legs and he couldn't help but appreciate both. He'd been wrong when he'd first seen her at the office. She hadn't really changed all that much. She was still passionate about the things she believed in and right now that happened to be an expendable story line.

"Can't you see my point here, Mona? That story line isn't connected to anything else in the story. It's not that it isn't a great story line. It just doesn't belong in this story."

She looked up and stuck her tongue out. "I know when I'm being patronized."

He chuckled. "Actually, it is a great story line." He spoke in an exaggerated tone. " I think it should be the basis of your next book."

"Fine, Adam." She made a gagging sound, then finished her sentence. "You're the boss."

"That's exactly what I love to hear." He smiled innocently at her. "Since you are in such an accommodating mood, I have another topic that I need to bring up."

She rolled her eyes but said nothing.

"You seem very attached to using Ramona Myers but I've got to tell you. I think Mona Meyers just sounds better. It's easier for people to remember."

"No, no, no." She jumped up. "I know it's just a romance but I want to be taken seriously. Do you think people would take Stevie King seriously or Johnny Kellerman or...or..." She stood up to pace warming up to her topic. "Or Bobby Lou Stevenson."

"Bobby Lou?"

"Aha! I got you. Robert Louis Stevenson." She stuck her finger at him to emphasize her point.

"That's just ridiculous and you know it."

She sat down beside him on the love seat. Ramona's stomach growled. She looked up in surprised and rubbed her stomach.

"I guess I'm hungry." She looked up at the clock on the fireplace mantle, surprised to discover that more than five hours had passed since breakfast. Adam set the manuscript down.

"Time for a break. Why don't you go take a walk to clear your head? I'll get something ready for lunch and then afterwards you can work on that change that you did agree to."

"I can help with lunch."

"No, you can't." He spoke in a firm tone. "First of all, you cooked breakfast and second of all, it may not feel like it now but this is hard work and you need to refresh yourself for the afternoon so you can do your rewrite."

"Fine with me." She headed for the door.

"Better put on a sweater, it's cooler out there than it looks."

She turned and gave him a crooked smile that melted his heart. "Don't tell me what to do, Adam Miles." But she did go back to her room and get the sweater.

CHAPTER TEN

Ramona walked out in to the bright April sunshine but realized Adam had been very right about the chill. It was so typical of April weather. Mother Nature couldn't decide if it was spring or winter. The trees had buds on them but thanks to the current cold spell more of them were on the ground than on the tree.

She walked along a stone pathway that winded back and forth but eventually went down the hill to the lake that she had noticed the night before from the deck. She walked down glad for the pathway since the hill was quite steep. At the bottom of the hill she turned and looked back toward the cottage.

There were other cottages scattered about the hillside. Most were built into the hillside using brown siding to camouflage them. She pulled her sweater tighter around her and continued to walk down the cobblestone path that led to the lake. The wind snapped at her face and her hair was going every which way. She did, indeed, have a slight headache but the fresh air was beginning to clear it away.

She watched as the sunshine danced its way across the rippling waters of the peanut-shaped lake. Ramona let out a sigh. This day was going much better than she had expected after the mess she'd made the first night and she had enjoyed working with Adam the past two days.

She decided the week would go fast enough as long as things kept going the way they were that morning. Putting the past behind her allowed her to enjoy Adam's company. She smiled. She had forgotten how much fun she use to have with him.

The wind picked up and she started back up the hill. Halfway up, she'd wished she hadn't gone to the lake. What had felt steep going down actually felt vertical going back up. She stopped at the midway point. She was winded. She vowed to get back to her running the next morning.

When she arrived back at the cottage, Adam was standing by the stove wearing a ruffled apron. He was holding a spatula and was frosting a cake. She giggled at the sight.

He gave an imaginary fluff of his hair. "What is so amusing?"

Another giggle. "You look just like your mother standing there."

"Well, there are worse people in the world to look like, young lady." He said in a perfect imitation of his mother's southern drawl.

"I suppose so, Mrs. Miles and I hate to admit it but you were right. I did need some fresh air. I feel much better now."

"And you did need that sweater, didn't you?" He asked with a knowing smirk.

"Does it really matter who's right or wrong in the big scheme of life?" She made an expansive motion with her hands.

"Yes, it does matter. Tell me." He demanded.

She arched her eyebrows. "Nope, not going to say it."

He advanced toward her holding the frosting-laden spatula as if it were a sword.. "Say it."

She squealed and took several steps back. "No, and you can't make me."

That was all he needed to hear. His slow advance suddenly turned into a leap and he was in front of her. She tried to run but his long legs got to her before she could take more than a few steps. He grabbed hold of her with both hands, holding the spatula only inches from her face.

"Tell me and I won't do it." He spoke in a sugary sweet voice and waved the spatula that dripped chocolate frosting.

"Are you sure? I don't know if you can be trusted. Do you promise?"

"I promise." He stopped waving the spatula.

"Fine." She pronounced in a truculent voice. "You were right. I needed the sweater."

Just as she finished saying the last word, he made his move. Quick as lightening, the spatula headed for her face. She tried to dodge it but it hit its mark, her nose then her cheeks..

"I lied."

He began to laugh. Ramona punched him in the stomach. "I will get you back for that Adam Miles. You are still the bully that you were when you were fourteen years old."

"And don't forget it." Without thinking, he leaned close to her and licked a spot of the frosting off her cheek. They both looked shocked by the action and both became intensely aware of their bodies pressed against each other. He let go of her instantly and she stepped back but still had a smile on her face. No reason to overreact to it, she told herself sternly. It was just two old friends having fun. It meant nothing..

"I'm going to go get cleaned up for lunch." She said with all the dignity of royalty. She heard him laughing as she walked up the winding staircase. Once in the room and away from Adam, she released the breath she'd been holding. She washed her face and traced the spot where his tongue had been. It still tingled.

That had been a mistake, just a mistake during a playful moment. She told herself and if she'd felt something akin to desire it was only a physical reaction. She didn't need or want a man in her life at this point in her life. Men were just a complication.

She'd given everything to her marriage and it hadn't been enough. She couldn't go through that again. She just needed to think of Adam as her old buddy not an old flame. She'd been with him all morning and it hadn't been a problem. She just need to take control of these fantasies and she would be able to make it through the week without making a fool of herself.

She was here to do a job. A job that meant everything to her. She wouldn't blow it by making more of the situation than it was. He was an old friend and now he was helping her book to be the best that it could be. That was all there was to it. He'd already broken her heart once and that was more than enough for her.

He managed to look contrite when she reentered the kitchen. "I'm sorry. I just couldn't resist." He held up the chocolate frosted cake. "But I did bake you your favorite. It's my mom's recipe."

"It is not."

"Is."

"MMMM." She licked her lips. "This was always my favorite." She eyed the cake wondering if she could start with desert.

"I know." He handed her the cake plate with a knife. There were two saucers and two glasses of milk already sitting on the table. "I called Mom and got it from her last week. She was so excited that we would be working together."

"Now?" She questioned as she eyed the cake.

"Of course, we'll have something healthy later."

They sat down. With great ceremony, she took a bite. She moaned with delight. He wondered if she knew how erotic she sounded. She seemed completely unaware of her effect on him.

She looked up from her plate and asked, "Now, I know you didn't have time to bake this while I was out walking. So, how did this happen?"

"I baked it the day you came up but didn't have time to frost it. Then, of course, when you arrived you were falling down drunk and I didn't think that would be the best time to give the cake to you."

"I wasn't falling down drunk." She protested.

"You fell flat on your face." He smiled evilly at her.

"I simply stumbled when I got out of the car." She took another bite then reached for the glass of milk.

"If you say so." He mumbled between mouthfuls.

"Well, maybe I was a little drunk but I thought you said you wouldn't mention it again."

"I know but its just too good." He gave her that charming smile. "And I can't wait until the pictures are developed."

Her mouth dropped open. You're kidding." She poked at him with the fork. "You better be kidding." He started laughing. "Yes, I'm kidding."

"Are you sure?" She looked at him doubtfully.

"I promise."

"That's what you said about the frosting."

"Was it?" He gave her a charming smile. "Oh, well, it's true this time. I'd forgotten just how gullible you are and how much fun it is to tease you."

"I am not gullible, I trust people. There's a difference." She finished the last of her cake and reached over with her fork and began to take little bites of his.

"Not much any more. I've found that if you trust people they will usually disappoint you sooner or later." He said ruefully. He pointed to the cake. "Would you like another piece?"

"No, yours will do just fine." She pulled his saucer over and ate his last bite. She looked back up at him. "When did you get so cynical about people, Adam?"

"When I grew up."

"When was that?" She asked softly. She watched as his brown eyes clouded over to the color of mud.

"It doesn't matter."

She wouldn't let him brush the topic away. "Yes, it does matter. At least to me, it does. Tell me the story of your life, Adam."

He chuckled. "It's so boring you would be asleep before I got to age thirty."

"Try me." She insisted.

He looked at her for a moment, seriously considering telling her about his marriage and his child but decided against it. There was no reason to depress her with the sad story, especially since they seemed to be having such fun.

"Another time, Mona. Why don't you finish telling me yours?"

"No way." She gave him a wicked smile. "But I will tell you this. When you least expect it, Adam Miles, I will get you back. I am not the patsy I once was."

"You have never been smart enough or fast enough to get one over on me." He challenged her.

"We shall see."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

After lunch, Ramona went up to her own room to work on the changes that they agreed on. She spent the afternoon hard at work on her laptop. She was pleased about the changes and though she would never tell Adam. She thought he was right about omitting the story line they'd argued over earlier and she really could use it as a basis of another story.

She hit the print button and laid on the bed to take a nap but her mind kept going back to the past. She sighed and opened her eyes, giving her laptop a hateful stare. She walked back to the desk and opened the file she'd named Adamstory. She read through what she'd already written and was surprised to see that it actually made sense considering she'd written it as she was getting looped. She read the last few sentences she'd written.

I thought I could trust him. I knew he cared about me and that he wouldn't hurt me. That's why I chose him to be the man to give my virginity to.

Boy, had she been wrong about that. She closed her eyes and let herself slip back in time remembering the feelings of the innocent eighteen year old girl that she'd been. She felt the pain of the heartbreak and the loss of her innocence.

Tears trickled down her nose. She took deep breaths but kept her eyes close feeling the anger and the sorrow. It was time to let go of the past. She wanted to erase that anger from her heart. She couldn't get rid of the feelings without experiencing the feelings. She'd never allowed herself to admit that Adam had hurt her. She'd just tossed the experience out and started dating every man that asked her out.

She thought of Adam, the twenty year old. She thought of Mona, the eighteen year old. She whispered the words that she'd needed to say for more than two decades. "I forgive you, Adam." More tears trickled and she said the words again. She sat quietly letting the emotions roll over her like ocean waves. After several minutes her breathing returned to normal. She smiled. She took a deep breath and began to type.

The timing was perfect. The doctor said the birth control pills would be effective by the time Adam got home. As the weekend approached, my excitement and my nervousness increased. I was excited about seeing Adam again after all this time and about the new aspect our relationship had taken on through our letters.

I was nervous about my decision to lose my virginity but I was sure it was the right time and the right person. I just didn't know how to tell him what I wanted. And what if he didn't have the same feelings about me? What if he weren't interested in me? Then, I would feel really stupid.

I decided I would play it cautiously. I would let him make the first move and we would take it from there. I arrived home early that Friday. My parents just thought it was one of my regular weekends home until I told them Adam would be in town for the weekend.

They were surprised to find out that I had kept up correspondence with Adam but seemed pleased about it. I told them we were going out that evening to hang with friends. It would be late when I got home so not to worry about me.

I changed outfits about fifty times before I heard the doorbell ring. I'd gone dressy, then sexy, then sexy and dressy. I finally chose casual but made sure I looked good. I picked out a pair of my favorite bell-bottoms. They were hip-hugger jeans with flowers embroidered on the legs. I picked a light blue T-shirt but made sure it was one that emphasized my curves.

I was wearing a short hair style at the time and with lots of combing and Dippity-Do I could make most of the curls go away. I heard my mom yelling for me, so I ran down the steps but remembered to slow down before he saw me. I didn't want to appear anxious.

He was talking with my Mom and Dad and didn't see me. He had changed. He looked older somehow. He was a man now. His hair was cut short and his body had filled out with muscles that hadn't been there before. My mouth went dry and I suddenly felt shy.

"Hi." I said from the steps.

"Hi, Mona." He turned and I noticed his eyes going over my body. My face felt hot. We talked a few more minutes and then we left in my 1974 Mustang that was the color of a copper penny . My parents hadn't wanted me to buy it but relented when I'd saved the money through my summer jobs. It was my reward for agreeing to go to college.

I sat in the car without turning the ignition. I couldn't think of a thing to say. "You look great, Mona." He ran a finger along my arm as he spoke. It left a tingle. "I didn't want to say anything in front of your parents but you really look great."

"Thanks." I smiled at him still feeling shy. My face felt hot again for some reason. I turned on the ignition. His former band was playing at a bar in a neighboring town so the plan was to go hang out there which was fine with me. I was nervous as it was.

The band was already playing when we got there but someone had moved several tables together and a group of his old high school friends motioned for us. He was old enough to drink alcohol but I wasn't so I ordered a coke and then sneaked sips of his rum and coke when the waitress wasn't watching.

We danced and in between songs talked with his friends. He held my hand or at times, he would trace my embroidered flowers with his finger. I was having trouble remembering to breathe.

After the last intermission, his friends talked him into getting up and playing and singing with them. They played some songs from when he'd played in the band with them. I danced with some of the other guys at the table. We were all having a good time.

Then, they played an old Gary Puckett and the Union Gap song. "You're much too young..."

I saw the smile on his face as he sang the words and looked at me as he sang. I knew I'd been right all those years ago when Susanna and I would go to the Y to listen to them. Whenever they would sing that song, I was positive that he was looking at me and singing the words straight to me.

I decided he was giving me a silent message that he liked me but knew the time wasn't ready but he never said anything so I decided it was wishful thinking on my part. The song ended and I stood on the floor and waited for the other song that I just knew he would sing next.

That song had always made me even madder than the Gary Puckett song. I waited and I heard the familiar notes and the words. "Come back when you grow up. You're still living in a paper doll world."

It was a slow song so my partner grabbed me and we began to sway to the music. Suddenly Adam was by my side and tapped in. He still held the microphone and he continued to sing the words as he held me and we moved to the music. I could feel his warm breath on my neck as he bent down to dance with me.

I felt as if I were in a dream. After years of having a crush on Adam, he finally had noticed me. He wanted me tonight, nobody else. There were plenty of girls at the bar that would have been ecstatic if he'd picked them but he hadn't. He picked me.

The dance finished but he didn't let go of my hand. He smiled at me. "Are you ready to go?"

I nodded my agreement. When we got out to the car, he asked if he could drive. Once we were in the car and driving, he asked, "Are you ready to go home?"

I knew that it was my turn to take a chance. "Not really, unless you're tired."

"Not me. I know the perfect place to go."

I felt my nervousness returning. My stomach was fluttering. I kept up a running monologue with him, chattering, asking inane questions as he drove along. I knew I should shut up but I couldn't. He drove for awhile and we ended up at a lake. We sat on the hood and talked. He pointed out different stars and I pretended not to know which was which and didn't tell him even when he made a mistake.

His finger dropped back down to the flower on my pants. He traced it slowly and his fingers left a burning trail behind it. I was nervous and when I'm nervous I talk, I turned to say something but as I did he leaned in and our lips met. The kiss was sweet and gentle.

I leaned closer and his tongue began to probe my open mouth. We kissed for what seemed like an eternity and then he grabbed my hand and led me back to the car and then we were in the back seat. It was tiny but we managed to squeeze in.

We kissed and kissed. His lips trailed down my neck. His hand went under my t-shirt and I stiffened involuntarily. He hesitated but I wanted him to keep going.  I whispered to him that it was okay. His hand slowly unzipped my pants. He tugged at my blue jeans and I wanted more but something inside of me said to stop.

This wasn't the way I wanted my first time to be in the back seat of a car. It felt tacky and trashy. Maybe if we'd been outside on a blanket with the stars above us twinkling down as witnesses. Maybe, if we'd been in my dorm room with a couple of candles lit and some soft music playing in the background. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

I took my mouth away from his and struggled to come to a sitting position. Both of our breaths were coming in short hard gasps. "Wait a minute."

"What's wrong?"

I wanted to say this felt wrong, It made me feel cheap like a whore. That I wanted a little romance and that I hadn't seen him in over two years and I'd never even kissed him before and that I wanted to slow down just a bit but I didn't. Instead, I said. "Nothing."

He leaned back in to kiss me but I turned my cheek to him instead of my lips. He gave me a kiss and leaned back against the seat with a sigh of frustration. We talked a little about nothing and then he asked if I were ready to go home and I said I was. We made plans to meet the next night and that made me feel better. The next night I could tell him what I was thinking and feeling. It was just too hard at that moment.

I dropped him off at his friend's house where he was spending the night. He kissed me a few more times before he went inside. There were so many things I wanted to tell him but I couldn't seem to get the words out. I didn't know how to say what I was feeling. I didn't know how to explain things. I would tell him the next time I saw him.

Ramona stopped typing and took several deep breaths trying to ignore the emotions that were churning inside her. She hadn't known then that the next time she would see him would be in a publishing house almost thirty years later.

I drove home and went to bed. Instead of sleeping, I lay in bed remembering how it felt to have him kiss me. Then, I planned how I would tell him the next day that I wanted to do more but not in a back seat of a car. I finally managed to fall asleep.

It was after ten the next morning when I got out of bed. I immediately called my best friend, Donna, to tell her what was happening. As we talked, she became very quiet.

"What's wrong, Donna?" I played with the phone cord as I sat on the floor.

"Nothing."

"Then, why aren't you more excited?"

"I just don't know if Adam is the right person, Mona." Pause. "But it's your life. It's up to you."

My stomach fluttered. "I don't understand. You always liked Adam. You were excited when I told you that I might let him..."

"I know. I know but..."

Silence.

"But what?"

"It doesn't matter, Mona. If you like him go for it."

"What doesn't matter?" I felt confused as if she were speaking in code.

"I ran into Willie at the store when I went and got some milk for Ma."

My palms turned wet. "And what happened?"

"He told me something but you know Willie. "

I wiped my hands of my pant legs. "What did he tell you?"

"He said that he saw Adam with Darla last night."

"That's not true. He was with me."

"Willie said it was real late about three in the morning. He was driving Greg's car and they were at the lake."

"At the lake?" That's where we'd been earlier in the evening. He wouldn't have gone back up there with someone else.

I told her Willie must be wrong and I hung up but deep inside I wondered about it. Adam wouldn't do that to me. I knew I could trust him. He wouldn't be so mean and hurtful. That was the reason why I'd picked him to be the first. He was a nice guy and wouldn't just use me for sex.

I hung up trying to pretend that it didn't matter to me what he did. I knew where Greg worked so I drove down there and luckily he was on duty. He tried to ignore the question but finally admitted that yes, Adam had borrowed his car the night before but he didn't know why.

I made up some story about why I'd asked and told him not to tell Adam that I'd asked about the car. I told myself it didn't matter if he'd been with Darla the night before. It wasn't as if were going together. He had the right to see anyone he wanted to. It didn't matter to me.

But it did mean something. It meant that I wasn't special to him. That he'd just wanted sex with someone, if not me then someone else would do. It didn't really matter who, all that mattered was that he wanted sex. It meant that I was wrong, I couldn't trust him and that he would hurt me. No, not would hurt me but did hurt me.

I went home packed my clothes and went back to school. I told Mom I'd forgotten about a paper that was due on Monday and that I just had to finish it. I didn't leave a message of any kind for Adam, I just left.

I spent the weekend waiting for Adam to come to my school or to call. He didn't do either. I thought he would follow me back to school or at the very least write to me but I never heard from him that weekend or in the days, weeks, or months that followed.

As Ramona hit the save button, a thought came to her from out of the blue. What if it weren't true? What if he hadn't gone with Darla? In all the years that she'd thought of Adam and how he'd betrayed her, she never once thought that it might not be true. She'd been too angry at him to give him the benefit of the doubt.

She shook her head. No way, that it wasn't true. She'd lived her life believing that he'd betrayed her. Why would Willie have made that up? No, it was true. He'd been twenty. It hadn't been the right thing to do but he wasn't the first twenty year old that had let his hormones make his decisions.

She shrugged. It was understandable. For the first time in her life, she could think about it without getting angry. That was a step in the right direction. Perhaps, she had really forgiven him. She smiled and wasn't it about time to do that. They'd both been young and stupid. She'd run away instead of confronting him with the truth.

Things could have turned out differently if she'd talked to him instead of running away.

A knock on the door startled her back to the present.

"Yes." She said softly not quite trusting her voice.

"Time for dinner."

She thought about telling him she wasn't hungry but knew that wouldn't be fair to him after he'd spent the time cooking. "I'll be down in a minute."

She got off the bed, fluffed her hair and walked to the door. She could handle this. No big deal.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mona walked down the steps to the soft romantic sounds of Kenny Gee and his flute. Mood music, she thought cynically, as she looked around the room. He'd built a fire in the fireplace and there were candles glowing throughout the darkened room adding a soft golden haze.

Some things never change. It looked like a room with romance on it's mind. She shook her head. It wasn't going to happen. He could play any kind of games that he wanted. She was immune to it, she told herself stoically. She was in control of her emotions and her body now. She wasn't a teenager any longer. She was an adult that made choices based on what was best for her not based on her libido.

A little voice inside her screamed, "liar."

Her steps slowed but she kept moving them not quite sure what to make of the scene before her or how to react to it. He obviously was trying to seduce her. To finish the job that he'd started years ago. She smiled to herself. Maybe he needed some closure too, just a different kind of closure than hers. Too bad, he wasn't going to get his closure but she was. She could already feel it happening.

From the warm glow of the fire, she could see a blanket had been placed on the floor.

He stood at the bottom of the steps. "I thought you deserved a nice dinner. You worked very hard today."

"Oh,." was the only thing she could think to say.

"Is the music okay?"

Romantic music was exactly what she didn't want but she hastily assured him that his taste in music was fine. "Sure." Was all she could manage to say.

"A picnic." He announced cheerfully and with a fling of his arms. He seemed pleased with himself and she had to admit it was picture perfect but way too romantic, she thought uncomfortably. This wasn't what she had in mind for the week.

She slowly walked over to the fire.

The flames gave the illusion that her curls were dancing. The fire flicked across her face and he could see the confusion there. He wanted to cross to her and hold her, to kiss away the confusion but instead he sat down and motioned for her.

He couldn't remember a time when he hadn't loved her but she'd gone out of his life. He'd never been quite sure what had happened. One minute she'd been a part of his life and then the next minute she wasn't.

He'd moved on with his own life but he'd never forgotten that crooked smile or that curly red hair but he'd always assumed it was just sweet memories of a childhood crush. But in the short time they'd been together that day, he knew he could easily fall in love with her again if he let himself. He just wasn't sure if he wanted to let himself.

When he'd seen her standing in the office, looking so cool and sophisticated he'd assumed she'd changed and then when she fell out of the car drunk he knew she'd changed but today working side by side with her, laughing with her, teasing her, he knew she was still the Mona he remembered.

She sat down Indian style across from him. "Well, well, this is lovely." She said it sarcastically.

"No, you are lovely." He smiled devilishly at her.

Her heart pounded. Stop it. "Are you trying to seduce me?" She asked with a chuckle to show that she was joking even though she wasn't.

"Don't be silly. I just thought you deserved something special." He held up a wine bottle to offer her some. "You worked so hard today."

"No thanks, a soda will be fine for me. Is this some kind of test to see if I do have a drinking problem?" She asked.

"Don't be ridiculous. You convinced me that you don't make a regular habit of getting falling down drunk." He lifted up a plate with brie, it was oozing thickly out on the plate and was surrounded by apple wedges and crackers. She scooped the cheese onto the apple wedge and bit into it. The apple was tart and perfectly complemented the warm cheese.

They munched in silence but it was a comfortable silence. He took a sip of his own wine. And then looked at her. He cleared his throat nervously. "The topic of us just doesn't seem to be coming up naturally so I'm bringing it up."

"What do you mean?" She asked knowing that it sounded stupid even before the words were out.

"We can't pretend that nothing happened between us?"

She felt a flutter in her stomach. She was in control. She could do this. "Why not?" Her voice didn't belie the whirlwind of emotions coursing through her. "Nothing did happen, remember?"

He scooted closer to her side of the blanket. "That's not the way I remember it." His voice oozed over her like warm honey. The sound of that deep throaty voice sent chills up her spine. She tried to ignore how sexy his voice sounded.

She jumped up off the blanket to put space between them. "I need a soda." She practically ran out of the room. She was calm and in control when she came back into the room with her soda in her hand.

"Adam, the past is the past and I think it's best if we leave it where it belongs in the past."

"I'm not so sure about that. It seems like you're angry at me about something and I want to know what. And besides I never have been able to figure out what went wrong with us."

She gave him a tight little smile and sat back down, again on the opposite end of the blanket from him. "I'm not angry about anything. That's all in your imagination." And it's the guilt you feel.

He looked at her for several long moments. She refused to meet his eyes. Instead, she busied herself putting food on her plate. When she'd finished that task, she looked back up at him.

"What?" She asked with exasperation.

"I don't think it is my imagination but..." He held up both hands as if he were a traffic cop. "But if you don't want to talk about it. That is fine with me. You always did have a bad habit of running away when things got tough."

He began to pile food on his own plate, fried chicken, baked beans, potato salad.

"I did not do that.

He smiled at her. "Sorry, I was asked not to discuss the past but you did do that, all the time. Don't you remember the time that you and Susanna and I decided to go to the orchard and borrow some apples. I climbed up to get them and got stuck. What did you and Susanna do?"

Ramona started laughing.

"Did you go get help for me?" He scooted closer. "No, I don't think so. The two of you left me stranded in the tree for hours. If that's not running away, I don't know what is."

"It wasn't running away. It wasn't our fault you were too chicken to come back down."

"The branch below me cracked. I couldn't get down."

"That wasn't our problem." She tried to stop laughing. "You know, Adam. You are still a brat. " She picked up a roll and threw it at him. "Did you make this food?" She asked.

"Of course." He smiled innocently at her.

Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Are you sure?"

"Okay, you got me." He shrugged. "I went to the store this afternoon while you were working. But I could have cooked it if I'd wanted to. I am quite the cook, you know."

"If you say so."

"Well, if you won't talk about the past. Tell me about the present. What have you been doing with yourself since the last time I saw you."

"Oh, that's easy. I went upstairs and made changes in my manuscript that my editor asked me to do."

"That's not what I meant and you know it."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Fine. I'll answer the question. A little of this and that. What about you?"

She watched as his eyes clouded over. Just looking into his eyes, she knew there was something bothering him but he didn't seem to be willing to share it with her. She wouldn't push. He had a right to his privacy.

"Oh, this and that. You know how that is."

"Very funny, Adam."

"Come on, Mona. Tell me about yourself. I know that you got divorced but did you get remarried, any kids. What? What? What?"

She relented.

"No, I'm not remarried and I never want to get married again. Marriage was invented by men for men, just like holidays. Men get to sit and watch the football games while the women kill themselves fixing a feast for the men. Afterwards, the men take a nap while the women clean up the mess and then. And then, the idiot men wonder why the women don't gratefully fall in bed with them later."

"That's just a little cynical, don't you think?"He asked with raised eyebrows.

"No, I do not think so. It's the truth and that's why I'm not falling in to that trap again."

He gave her an intense probing look. "Tell me how you really feel, Mona."

They both laughed.

"What about kids, Mona? Any kids?"

She took a moment to steady herself before answering. It was a question she never got use to answering. "No, I wasn't lucky enough." She gave a shrug. "It just wasn't meant to be." It took a moment before she could meet his eyes.

His eyes showed kindness as she looked into them. She wanted him to put his arms around her and comfort her. Not a good idea. The little voice warned her.

"I sense there's more to that story than you gave me but I won't probe. I didn't mean to bring up a sore subject."

She hastily reassured him. "No, no, it's fine. I would have loved to have been a mother but it just wasn't in the cards."

She was surprised as she watched his own eyes fill with tears.

"I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "Don't be. I'm okay with it. A friend told me something once after she lost her own child. I couldn't imagine how she could keep going on and not only continue living but enjoying her life."

He felt as if he might not be able to take his next breath.

"What was her secret?" He needed to know the secret so desperately.

"She told me that children are a gift from God. They don't belong to us, we are only taking care of them until God wants them back with him. I just wasn't lucky enough to get that gift but God has given me so many other gifts that I can't feel sorry for myself about that one."

Silence. He stood up. He needed to move. He grabbed up a few dishes and rushed to the kitchen to compose himself. He hadn't meant to get on such a painful topic. He came back in with more of the chocolate cake he'd baked for her.

She continued the conversation as if he hadn't just jumped up and left for no reason."That's an interesting way of looking at it, don't you think? Actually, if you think about it that could be said about all the relationships in your life. They are a gift meant to be enjoyed and appreciated in the present. No one knows what the future holds."

She felt that she'd struck a cord with him but when she looked at him his eyes were clear and bright. She reached for her cake.

"Why didn't you have any, if you don't mind me asking? Was it a physical thing?"

"No, it wasn't physical. I'd already begun to suspect my marriage was in trouble and I just refused to bring a child into such an unstable situation."

The words rang so true for him. He'd thought a baby would make Victoria happy, make her stop drinking, make her happy to be his wife but he'd been wrong. He wanted to tell Mona about his beautiful Lacy but he couldn't get the words out.

He simply said, "Makes sense to me. Do you miss being a mother?"

"Sure but I just converted my motherly energy to my students."

He asked questions about teaching and she gratefully accepted the change of subject. She didn't want to think about such sad things. It was only later that she realized he'd managed not to talk about his own private life at all. He had her laughing and giggling again in no time at all.

When she began to yawn, he told her to go to bed and he would clean up the picnic. Later that night in bed, she realized he hadn't tried to seduce her in the least little bit. She smiled, she guessed he wasn't interested in having that happen either. She could relax and enjoy the week.

As Adam cleaned up the mess they'd made, he thought about what Mona had said. A child was a gift on loan from God. He smiled. Somehow the thought made him feel better than he had in more than two years. He'd been lucky enough to have his daughter for eight years. Now, she was back with God. Looking at it that way, he felt blessed that he'd had Lacy for those eight years. He hummed as he washed the dishes feeling that heavy weight lift from his soul, just a bit.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The next morning, Ramona was up at the crack of dawn. She stood and watched the end of the sunrise, wishing she'd gotten up just a bit earlier to have seen all of it. She slipped on sweat pants and her running shoes.

She had no choice but to run. They way Adam was feeding her, she wouldn't be able to fit into any of her clothes so that she could waddle on to the plane to go home. When she reached the kitchen, she was surprised to find him sitting at the kitchen table sipping coffee and reading the morning paper.

"I can't believe you were up before me."

"Well, some of us don't believe in wasting the day away in bed."

"Wasting the day, it's not even seven."

He shook his head and made tsking sounds. "Seven o'clock. That is just shameful staying in bed that late."

"Go jump in a lake."

More tsking sounds. "Such nastiness and so early in the morning." He walked to the cupboard and pulled a cup of the shelf. "I will just ignore that crude remark. Coffee?"

"No thanks. If I drink that before I run, I'll have to come back in ten minutes to go potty." She leaned over and began doing some stretches to loosen up her muscles.

"Want some company?"

She looked up at him. "Sure. Do you run often?"

"Nah, but I hate the thought of you running in the woods alone. They can be treacherous in spots. This way I can give you a guided tour of where to go and where not to go. Hold on. Just give me a minute to change." He walked out of the kitchen. She heard him running up the steps.

As she waited for him, she listened to the morning news show with half an ear. Then a story caught her interest.

He clomped down the steps. "Ready?"

"One minute. Let me listen to this."

They both listened as the newscaster interviewed a woman from New York City. She was saying that she'd been in her car the day before and when she'd pulled in to her driveway three men pushed her out of the way and stole the car. The woman tearfully explained that her fifteen month baby had been in the car at the time. They went on to describe the car, a red Mustang convertible with a black top.

"She's lying." Adam pronounced. "She did something to that kid and is just trying to cover it up."

"You don't know that."

"Sure, I do. It happens all the time. You see it on the news whenever you turn on the TV. That's why I hate the news. Mothers just don't seem to care about their kids any more."

She was surprised at the bitterness his voice and words portrayed . "Well, it could be true. Not all women are like that."

He thought of his own marriage experience and snorted. "Enough of them are."

They walked out the door, still arguing.

"Obviously, I don't run as fast as you. So, just go at your own pace and I'll go at mine."

"Good enough. Just stay on the path. I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself, fair maiden."

"I can take care of myself, Adam Miles. I don't need you to protect me" And with that pronouncement, she sprinted off leaving him to watch her back.

He smiled at her receding form as her red curls bounced every which way. She really hadn't changed all that much. Perhaps, a little sadder but no one got through life without some bumps a long the way and apparently her marriage had been one big bump.

He wondered how he could have let her slip out of his life so easily. They could have had such a good life together.

He yelled at her. "Be careful, now. There are all kinds of ravines and things that you can fall into." She yelled back but he couldn't make out the words but he could just imagine what they might be by the tone of her voice. He took off after her and easily caught up with her.

"Did you hear what I said about the ravines?" He hadn't even broken a sweat yet, she noticed. Her own breathing was steady but deep.

"Yes, I heard you."

"Good, because it seems that a couple of times every year someone comes out here and breaks an ankle or leg from a fall."

She looked over in surprise. She hadn't known he owned the cottage they were in. She didn't have the energy to ask him about it right then. After about fifteen more minutes of running, sweat was pouring down Ramona's face.

He looked over with a devilish grin. "That's enough warm-up for me. I'll see you on my way back." He sprinted off.

"Show off." She managed to yell at his back.

"You betcha, sweetheart."

She ran for another fifteen minutes and then turned around to go back. She'd learned the hard way not to make the mistake of running so far that she couldn't make it back without bringing herself to the point of exhaustion. She had just reached the area where the woods ended and the lawns began when she heard movement behind her.

Adam slowed to a walk beside her. She was pleased to see that he was at least sweating. She nudged him with her elbow. "I think you were lying when you told me you don't run all that often."

"Perhaps a slight exaggeration."

They entered the house. Adam tagged her. "Last one up, washes the other ones back." He sprinted up the steps.

"You wish." She yelled and slowly walked up the steps and to her own room.

An hour later, they were dressed and sitting at the table finishing the remnants of breakfast. He buttered a piece of toast. "You know, Mona. We could take a little break today so we could talk about a few things."

She didn't want to talk about things. She didn't want to think about things. "There's nothing to talk about Adam. I told you that last night. The past is gone. Let it stay buried. And the name is Ramona."

"You will always be Mona to me and there are things to talk about. I want us to clear the air so we can start over."

She had hoped to ignore the past but it was obvious that he wasn't going to let her ignore it. So, if he wanted to deal with it that was fine with her but there was no way she was going to admit just how much he'd hurt her or how deeply she'd cared for him. It was in the past and she meant to keep it in the past.

She stood up. "Fine, just remember you are the one that wanted to have this little chat not me" She slammed the glass down on the kitchen table. Her hands were on her hips. She could feel her lips wanting to quiver but she used all her strength to make them remain still. "I realize I didn't want to have sex with you that night but I never told you that was going to happen so you had no right to be mad at me about it."

"But..."

"Don't interrupt me." She snapped at him. "You want to know what happened, so I'm going to tell you. Now, I realize we had no kind of commitment at all but I thought it was really tacky of you to go pick up Darla after being with me only minutes before."

He stood up. "But..."

"Oh, just sit down. I wanted to have sex with you that night. I planned to have sex with you that night but it didn't feel right in the back seat of the car. It felt cheap and trashy and I wanted my first time to be special. Was that too much to ask for, just a little romance?" She suddenly ran out of steam and was horrified by how much she'd said.

She wasn't quite sure what to do with herself so she swirled around to leave the room but he had hold of her shoulders before she could take a step. "Don't touch me." She managed to choke out through a strangled voice.

"I'm not going to let you run away from me again." She felt his breath on the back of her neck. She shrugged his hands off her shoulders and took several steps away from him before she turned back to him. She took all her strength and gave him a bright sunny smile.

"It doesn't matter anymore, Adam. That was all a long time ago. We were both kids." She spoke softly forcing her voice to remain calm keeping the emotion out of her voice. "The past is the past and that's where our almost romance belongs. In the past."

"But..."

She refused to let him finish. "But nothing. We always were friends and maybe we can be friends now and I'm glad about that. I'm glad nothing happened that night between us or we couldn't be here now working together."

Something changed in his eyes and she knew that she'd convinced him that she didn't want anything more than friendship from him. She felt a twinge of sadness but refused to acknowledge it. This was what she wanted. She was the one in control now. She didn't want any complications in her life now and Adam Miles would be a complication.

"But don't I get to tell my side of the story?"

"What's the point, Adam? What's past is past. We both survived your stupidity and made our own lives. Now, here we are again with the opportunity to be friends and I for one am glad about that but there is nothing about the past that I want to discuss." She said firmly. She turned to walk out of the kitchen but he took hold of her shoulders and turned her back to him. His hands stayed on her shoulders. She couldn't help but notice how nice it felt to be held by him.

"The point is I don't know what you talking about. That's the point. Explain to me what you are talking about."

She went through the story once again, pleased that she accomplished it without all the emotion. Just the facts. How he' dropped her off and then went and picked up the town slut. She finished with her hands on her hips and waiting for his excuses to pour out of him. Instead, he began to chuckle and then the chuckle turned into a laugh.

She felt her face getting hot and told herself to just calm down. She watched as he struggled to compose himself.

"I'm glad you are having so much fun."

"It's not that, Mona. It's just that what you told me was a nice story but the problem is that's just what it is. A story. That didn't happen."

She shook her head at him. "Of course it did."

"No, it didn't, sweetheart."

She looked at him and tried to say something, then stopped. She walked a few steps toward the doorway but then turned back.

"What do you mean it didn't happen?" She finally managed to sputter out.

"I never slept with Darla. I never saw her that night."

"Of course, you did. Everybody slept with Darla."

"Not me." He held up his hand as if taking an oath. "Honest Injun. I never slept with Darla. Not that she didn't try, I just didn't want her."

"But you were with her that night."

"Not really. After you dropped me off, I borrowed Greg's car and went for a drive. On the way home, I saw Darla walking. I picked her up and drove her home."

Mona stared, not believing what he said.

"You're making that up."

"I swear." He came and sat down in a kitchen chair beside her.

She sat there for a few moments, digesting what he'd just told her. Did she believe him? She wasn't sure but she didn't know why he would bother to lie, after so many years.

"Then, why was I told that you did?"

"Who told you?"

"Well." She spoke slowly as if trying to remember the details. "Donna told me first and she said that Willie had told her. So then I went to ask Willie and he said he'd seen it with his own eyes."

Now, it was his turn to think. He put a few more dishes in the sink. Then, he turned back to Ramona. His finger was tapping his forehead in an exaggerated thinking mode.

"It seems to me that I remember old Willie boy having a crush on you, am I right?"

"Well, yes." She took dishes to the sink for him. "Everyone knew he had a crush on me but what does that have to do with anything?"

He rolled his eyes at Ramona. "So naive. Mmmmm. Let me see. This guy has a big big crush on you. You go out with me the night before and then he tells your best friend he saw me pick up the sleaziest girl in town." His voice dripped sarcasm. "Gosh, what would his having a crush on you have to do with the fact that he told you this big lie? I can't imagine, Mona. Can you?"

He looked at her and she met his eyes. For a moment, they were suspended in time. Then, she started laughing.

"I can't believe what an idiot I was back then and still am." She shook her head. "It never once occurred to me in all these years that Willie might be lying."

"Yeah, you were so willing to believe the worst about me. That wasn't very nice."

She shrugged. "Well, in my defense. It's not like you didn't have a bit of a reputation for being a ladies' man."

"Who me? You must be mistaken."

She grabbed a spoon from the table. "Oh right. You just dated almost every girl in town." She threw the spoon but he ducked. They finished washing up the dishes and cleaning the kitchen.

"I didn't date Darla so it wasn't every girl in town."

Ramona shook her head. "You know just the other night, that very thought flashed in my brain that maybe you hadn't really done that but I've lived my life believing that you were a snake in the grass that I was well rid of."

"Now, don't you feel bad?"

She shrugged. She was tired of thinking about feelings.

"Maybe but if you didn't do anything wrong why didn't you come after me or contact me?"

"That's an easy one to answer. I figured that you decided you didn't like me and I didn't want to be a pest. I did come back to your five year reunion, to football games and even a couple of your family events but you never showed up. What was that about, huh?"

She used the plaid dish towel and rubbed the plate in her hand until there couldn't have been a drop of moisture on it. "The truth." She looked up at him with a smile.

"Yes, the truth."

"I knew you were going to be there and I didn't want to see you. I thought you didn't want me. Why would I put myself through that again?"

He flung soapy water at her from the sink. "That's the dumbest thing I ever heard of."

Quick as lightning, she reached in the sink with the glass that she had been drying, filled it with water and flung it at him before he could move away. "Don't call me dumb, Adam Miles." She yelled the words as she ran out of the kitchen trying to escape whatever his next move would be.

He was right behind her when he made his lunge for her. His arms enveloped her and they both tumbled to the floor. She twisted in his arms until she faced him. Her breath was ragged from the running.

"It was dumb, Mona. I could have been doing this to you all these years." He leaned down and his lips pressed lightly against hers. She felt her body straining forward but she managed not to press her body against his even though it was what she wanted.

She flung her head back, breaking contact with his lips. She gave him a toothy grin. "It might have been nice but we are all grown up now. That's all in the past and now we are just friends." She twisted trying to extricate herself from his arms.

He held on tight. "No, No. Not the dreaded just friends words." He nuzzled at her neck. "What's wrong, Mona? Doesn't that feel good."

"Nothing's wrong. We need to act like the grown-ups that we are. I just don't think we should start anything."

He leaned close whispering in her ear. "Oh, sweetheart. I don't want to start anything. I want to finally finish what we started years ago."

His lips pressed against hers and it was suddenly hard for her to think.

His words tugged at her heart but her mind said no. She maneuvered her arms in front of her and gave him a playful shove. This time, he let go. She felt a twinge of disappointment that he'd given up so easily but she knew it was the right thing to do.

"I see you are still quite the ladies' man, huh, Adam." She laughed to ease the tension.

"Not me." His brown eyes were the color of caramel. "I practically live like a monk."

She laughed. "I just bet."

She sat up and moved away from him. "Adam. I know I already told you that I'm a Christian now and that my faith is very important to me."

"So." He gave a little shrug.

"Part of my faith is not having sex outside of marriage." She smiled sweetly at him. "Time to get to work, buddy. Time's a wasting."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

They were sitting in chairs opposite each other at the kitchen table. Both had a manuscript and a red pen. Ramona was wearing her reading glasses that she hated to admit that she needed.

Adam was looking at the manuscript. "I think those words sound awkward. He isn't going to change from some macho man to a mushy girly girl in the span of five minutes just because she kissed him. We need to change the way he says it. Don't you agree?"

No response. He looked up. Ramona was staring off into space.

"Mona, Mona. Earth to Mona."

She looked at him. "What did you say?"

"I said. I think you should kill him off."

She jumped up. "What?" She screamed.

"Oh, sit back down. I'm just teasing."

"Oh." She felt fooling for thinking he might be serious. She looked up at him." I was thinking about something else. You really didn't sleep with Darla?"

"Nope."

She shook her head. "How can that be? I just can't believe that." It would take a little time for her to get use to the idea that he hadn't betrayed her. "But you did borrow Greg's car? Why would he lie? He told me the same thing."

Adam's amber eyes turned darker. "I probably told him that I picked up Darla but it's not my fault if he thought something went on. Back then, I was in the habit of taking drives at night when I couldn't sleep and I do seem to remember being too frustrated about something that night to sleep. " He leered at her.

"You are such a pig." She tossed a pen at him.

He pounced on her and held her hands behind her back. "No, just a man."

"Whatever." She wiggled trying to get away.

His lips moved closer to her lips. She didn't move away. She felt his lips touch hers and she closed her eyes savoring the sensation of his lips against hers but only for a moment. She knew it was wrong to send signals to him that she was interested in him when she wasn't.

"Stop that."

He let go of her and tilted his head to look at her. "Are you sure, Mona? I think it would be very nice if we explored these feelings together."

"We aren't having any feelings. You are just being bad." She shook her head vehemently at him.

"Why did you run away instead of coming and finding me?"

She looked surprised at the idea. She started to say something but stopped. She took off her glasses and laid them on the table. "Gosh, that's a good question, Adam."

He buffed his nails on his shirt. "That's why I asked it."

She stood up and paced around the kitchen. Then, she poured herself a cup of coffee. "Do you want some?"

Adam shook his head.

She paced around a bit more and then looked at him. "Why didn't I go ask you about it or at the very least go yell at you about it? If it had been true, then you deserved to get yelled at."

He shrugged.

"That was stupid on my part. I guess I was so hurt that I didn't want to see you." She set the coffee cup down. "You, You ." She pointed a finger at him. "You were supposed to come and find me. That's why."

"I had to go back to the base. You knew that."

"That's true, I suppose. Well none of it matters now. We both survived and got on with our lives. Now, back to work."

He relented and agreed to the change of topic. "Fine, we'll finish this discussion later. You are such a slave driver."

After two more hours of working, they agreed to end the work day.

Adam said, "We'll go into town tonight for dinner. If that's alright with you?"

She breathed a sigh of relief. It would be good to get out among people. Ramona needed to be around other people and regain her perspective. She had too many thoughts and ideas jumbled up inside her that were just aching to get out.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

During dinner, Ramona tried unsuccessfully to draw Adam out about his life. It was only later that she realized that again and again, he always managed to turn the conversation away from him and back to her. He would tell funny stories about work or ask questions about Ramona never answering the same questions when put to him. She wondered what he was hiding from her.

Once they arrived home, he walked her to her own bedroom door. Before she could stop him, he had her in his arms and his lips pressed against hers, not the sweet kiss of the afternoon but the passionate kiss of their youth.

It took all of Ramona's strength to not respond but she reluctantly pushed him away. "Adam, I really am glad to see you again but I'm not willing to just pick up where we left off years ago. I am not the same naive young girl I was then. I don't just fall into bed with people. I told you before I'm very committed to my faith."

There was a long pause. "If that's what you want. Then, I'll see you in the morning."

He gave her a gentle smile and turned from her. She heard his footsteps going away. It felt the same way it had years before. His door clicked shut but to Ramona it felt as if a door had just slammed shut for her.

She stood there not at all sure that was what she wanted. Her heart told her she didn't want to push him away but her brain told her it was for the best. She stood at the door not sure what to do. A part of her knew that all she really wanted was for him to come back and hold her and tell her everything would work out.

She'd made a commitment to herself and to God that she wouldn't have sex without being in a marriage. It had been a tough decision but she hadn't ever regretted it until that night. Tears slipped out. She automatically started to fight them back but decided to give in to them. She opened her own door and went down on her knees by her bed. She prayed for a long time as the tears subsided. In the end, she recommitted herself to abstinence.

She could be honest enough with herself to admit that she'd wanted that kiss to go further, much further but she knew it wasn't the right thing to do. She wasn't a teenager any longer. She made decisions with her brain not her heart. Her heart had done enough damage to her. She was in control not her feelings. Feelings were fickle and couldn't be trusted.

Even though she almost believed him when he told her she'd been mistaken about him sleeping with Darla, there was a small part of her that said no, it couldn't be. She couldn't have been mistaken about such a watershed event in her life and if she was mistaken that only pointed out how bad her judgement was about people.

All the more reason to make decisions with her brain not her heart. She didn't believe in fairy tales and happily ever after except in the books that she wrote. She'd spent her marriage making decisions from her heart and it had brought her nothing but more pain. She'd endured and forgiven more affairs than she could remember.

Ramona tossed and turned through the night trying to sleep but her mind kept taking her back to that kiss again and again. Only in her dreams, could she admit she wanted to love and be loved.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The next few days flew by for Ramona. They worked hard on the editing and reminisced about their childhood. They shared favorite memories of Susanna. She was relieved that Adam was keeping his distance from her. That was what she wanted. She didn't need any complications in her life.

A few days later, Adam awoke early feeling cranky and grouchy. Being near Mona was driving him crazy. All he wanted to do was take her in his arms and hold her and make love her but she wouldn't let him near her.

He was sure she felt the same way about him. He could feel it when they touched accidently or their eyes would meet but she kept pretending she wasn't having any feelings for him except friendship. Adam could understand that. Mona had told him about her first marriage. Her ex-husband had hurt her so much and it scared her to think about trusting another man.

Adam wanted her but it wasn't just a physical attraction like she seemed to think.

It was the tinkle of her laugh, the way her blue eyes ignited when she got angry, the way her hips swayed as she paced around the room as they worked. He had laughed more in the past few days than he had in ages. There was a connection between them that deserved exploring but she wouldn't let him get close to her in any way but he wasn't ready to give up.

He'd thought several times about telling her about Lacy but he didn't want her sympathy. He wanted her back in his life because it was right. The week was coming to an end and if he wanted to break through that brick wall that she'd built up so high he would need to do it soon.

Mona had told him that she hadn't slept with him that night because she wanted more romance than the back seat of a car. If she wanted romance, then he was going to give her romance. A thought popped into his head and soon it was on its way to becoming a full-fledged plan. He jumped out of bed eager to put his plan into action.

Ramona woke up with dried tears on her cheeks but she shrugged them away with the explanation that she must have drooled on herself during the night. It was more difficult to ignore the sick feeling in her stomach or the urge to just go back to bed and sleep for the rest of the day, but decided she just needed to get outside and run.

Mona groaned as she lifted herself out of bed. She wasn't even sure if she'd slept. She'd tossed and turned most of the night. She felt betrayed by her body and her mind. All she could think about was Adam. Adam telling her she was wrong about that passage. Adam laughing at one of her silly jokes. Adam kissing her, touching her, holding her. Adam, Adam, Adam.

She wasn't going to make it through the rest of the week without making a fool of herself at this rate. She inspected her bloodshot eyes and dark bags under her eyes as she faced the mirror. It wasn't a pretty sight.

"Wow, I need to do something." Actually, she knew what she needed. She needed to get as far away from Adam Miles as she could. And in that second, she knew that was exactly what she would do. There wasn't that much left to do and what work wasn't finished could be finished by phone, fax, and e-mails. Computers were truly a wonderful invention. She would work through the day and then find an excuse to leave that evening.

With that decision made, she felt better. She decided to take a run before she showered and dressed for the day.

She heard noises coming from Adam's room. She had planned on running alone but decided it would be nice of her to ask and see if he wanted to run with her. She knocked on the door but no answer but she could still hear noises. She knocked louder and heard a voice that time, assuming it was Adam telling her to come in, she opened the door.

At the very moment, she opened the bedroom door, Adam walked in to the bedroom from his adjoining bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. She couldn't help but notice the water drops glistening on the ripples of his muscles and his washboard flat abs.

She stood rooted to the spot. "Oops." She squealed when she was able to find her voice. He stood smiling back at her practically flexing his muscles for her. "Sorry, I thought I heard you say come in."

Unembarrassed, he slowly moved his hands up to his hair and brushed the water out of his sandy locks. "Don't be sorry, darlin. I've made it clear that I want you and if you've changed your mind about my offer, I'm delighted."

"You are such a pig, Adam." She said as she regained some sense of equilibrium. "I just wanted to let you know I was going out for a run and wanted to know if you wanted to go. I thought it was the polite thing to do."

He looked chagrined. "Then you didn't change your mind?"

"I don't do one-night stands anymore. You had your chance and you blew it." She forced her eyes to look in his eyes.

"We still need to talk about..."

"I refuse to talk about it again, Adam. It's done and over. It's in the past and that's where it's staying. I"ll be back in a bit."

He heard the slamming of the door.

She walked out the door and immediately felt the drop in temperature that the night had brought with it. She wondered if she should go back in for a jacket but decided against it. After all, she would get heated up soon enough by running.

The sun was just beginning to peek up over the mountains, and warmed the morning sky even if it did nothing for the temperature itself. She shivered and began to stretch. She started off with a walk and began to quicken the pace as her muscles loosened up. The natural beauty of the area began to work its magic and soon she was in the zone and. She let her mind wander.

The last few days had been great in so many ways and not so wonderful in one specific way, Ramona thought. The writing and editing process had been exhilarating but even more so getting to know Adam all over again had been great. He was even more funny, sweet, and thoughtful than she'd remembered. She'd been so focused on thinking the worst of him for so long that she'd forgotten what a good guy he was.

She definitely was enjoying being with Adam but she didn't enjoy all the emotions and to be honest all the physical longings that being with him was bringing to the surface. She'd thought she'd tucked those feelings away long ago but they seemed to have a force of their own and wouldn't just stay quiet any longer.

That was why she needed to get away from Adam. She didn't know how much longer she could trust herself to stay uninvolved emotionally. She pondered on the possibility of a relationship between Adam and herself. Intellectually, she could acknowledge that it could be fun but the thought of opening up and sharing her emotions with someone, anyone terrified her. The thought of sharing them with someone that had already broken her heart once was too much. She wasn't a masochist.

She hadn't had a serious relationship since her divorce. She'd given all that she had to give to her former husband and he'd thrown it back in her face. She wouldn't risk that pain again for anyone and certainly not for Adam Miles who'd done his share of hurting her in the past even if it hadn't been his fault.

No, she wasn't willing to risk those feelings again, even though Adam touched something deep within her. He tugged at something that wanted to come up to the surface but Ramona wasn't having any part of that emotional roller coaster again. The ups and downs of true love were for women in their twenties not for her.

She'd had enough of that. All she wanted now was her career and maybe sometime in the far away future a comfortable relationship with a man. Adam wasn't that man. He caused too much emotions and feelings in her. He still had the power to hurt her.

Thinking of Adam made her wonder what was going on with him. There seemed to be a sense of sadness in Adam but she didn't know why. Every time, she tried to get him to talk he would manage to change the subject. He'd talk about the book, the news, and reminiscences of their childhood but nothing of his personal life.

He'd somehow gotten her to talk more about her marriage than she had in years. He seemed truly interested but she didn't feel comfortable telling people about what an idiot she'd been in her.

She yelped, more in surprise than in pain, as she stumbled and fell to the ground. She looked around her and realized she'd fallen into one of the ravines that Adam was always warning her about.

She smiled even though she was in pain. Perfect, this would be the perfect excuse for needing to leave. She would just complain about the ankle more and more as the day went by until she convinced Adam that she needed to see a doctor.

She stood up and grimaced with real pain, maybe she wouldn't have to pretend. She limped back toward the cottage. She hoped Adam was somewhere that he could see her pitiful return but his car was gone when she got back. He certainly could have let her know he was going in to town. She might have wanted to go with him. She wondered what he could be doing.

After a hot soak in a tub full of bubbles, her ankle was almost back to normal but she'd done a little acting in college and wasn't above using it now to get what she wanted. And what she wanted was to get away from Adam. She didn't want to spend one more night with Adam. She looked out the window and saw that he'd finally returned.

She opened her bedroom door and began to hobble down the steps. She gave him a brave smile as he watched her descend.

"What happened?" He asked with enough concern in his voice to make her feel guilty but only a bit.

"I was out running and not paying attention and I fell into one of those ravines that you are always warning me about." She gave a shrug and smiled bravely.

"How badly is it hurt?"

"Oh, I'm sure it will be fine in a little bit. I soaked in a hot bubble bath and that seemed to help." She answered using a brave tone but let her voice shake to let him know she was truly in pain.

He visualized in her a tub surrounded by hot steamy bubbles. His thoughts went to places it shouldn't go. He jumped up out of his seat and went to her. "Well, sit down." He touched her elbow to help her walk. She felt a warm surge through her arm. She looked up at him wondering if he could feel how strongly she reacted every time he touched her. She definitely needed to get away from him.

He helped her to the chair and bent before her. "Let me look at it."

"Oh, that's okay, Adam. Don't worry about it. I'm sure I will be fine. No need to make a fuss."

He ignored her and proceeded to take off her shoe. She didn't know what to do so she leaned back and closed her eyes, willing her face to remain passive. She felt his warm fingers rubbing against her skin as he peeled off the sock. He rubbed, squeezed and prodded.

It felt wonderful. A soft moan escaped her lips.

"Did that hurt?"

His voice brought her back to reality. "Just a little." Her face flushed at her indiscretion. "I'm fine, really Adam. No big deal."

He looked up giving her a knowing smile. "If you're sure, Mona."

"The name is Ramona." She reminded him for the thousandth time that week.

He sat down on the floor cross-legged still in front of her. "Why don't you like to be called Mona any more, sweetheart?"

"My husband always called me Mona the Mother of All Naggers. He thought my expectations of him were too high."

"And were they?" He asked softly not wanting to break the moment.

She gave a bitter laugh. "I don't know. Maybe, if you consider expecting your husband not to mess around with every bimbo that he meets too high of expectations."

"No, Mona. I don't think those are too high of expectations."

He leaned toward her and she didn't move away. His lips touched her lips. They were warm and tasted slightly of coffee, french vanilla. His hand reached out and he smoothed a curl away from her face and then he moved away from her breaking the spell.

He cleared his throat. "Ready to work or do you want to have that ankle of yours checked by a real doctor?"

She blinked her eyes at the rapid change of topic but she was grateful for it just the same.

"Well?" He looked at her questioningly.

"Well, what?" She asked trying to focus on his words

"Work or the doctor's?"

"Work." She wondered why he hadn't taken advantage of the moment.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

They got into the work rhythm and the morning and afternoon flew by. Somewhere mid-afternoon, she forgot that she was supposed to be limping and could no longer use that as an excuse to leave. Not that it mattered, she realized they would be finished by the end of the day at the rate they were going and could leave anyway.

By 5:30 that evening, they were finished. Each agreed to take one more look at the manuscript after a few days rest from it but in essence her book was finished.

"That's it," announced Adam solemnly. "Don't look so worried, it's going to be a great book. Over the Rainbow and Back is only the first of many great Mona Meyers' best sellers." His eyes twinkled.

"That does have a nice ring to it, doesn't it?" She asked as she stretched. He watched her as her arms reached toward the ceiling wishing instead that they were reaching for him.

"It does?" He asked in a mocking tone.

"Yes, it does." She threw her hands up in surrender. " I give in. I guess that's the name we use."

"Good girl, Mona."

She stood and put her hands on her hips and tossed her head back in a Mae West imitation. "Excuse me." She said with exaggeration. "I am not a girl. I am woman. Hear me roar."

"Oh, I hear you." He said, "Time to celebrate. You go take a long hot bubble bath and get yourself all prettied up and don't come down here a minute before..." He consulted his watch. "A minute before 8 PM."

"Why?" Her voice was filled with suspicion.

"Don't worry about it. It's a surprise. You just go up and pamper yourself. You deserve it, you've worked very hard this week. Okay?"

"What have you got up your sleeve."

"Oh, you can trust me." He held up the boy scout hand signal. "Remember, I really was a boy scout." He gave her a playful push. "Now, go. So I can work on your surprise."

"I suppose." She sounded doubtful but she went up the steps.

"Hold on a minute." He went to the kitchen and came back holding a silver tray containing a plate of cheese and crackers and a soda. "To hold you over until dinner. Now don't come back down until I come up and get you."

At 7:55, Adam knocked on her door. She opened it and immediately began to laugh. Adam stood before her in a tie-dyed psychedelic T-shirt and a ridiculous looking wig that sported long sideburns and hair down to his shoulders.

He ignored her hysterical laughter and handed her a bouquet of daisies with a flourish. "For you, madam." He gave a courtly bow.

"For me." She gave a little curtsy but was still laughing. "Thank you, kind sir. And what do I owe the pleasure to?"

"I'm here to pick the lovely maiden up for our date."

"Date? You didn't say anything about a date, Adam." She took a step backwards as if trying to ward off evil spirits.

"Oh, come on, Mona." His voice practically purred. "It will be fun. We've both worked very hard this week, we deserve some fun. And besides, I've worked very hard so you can have some fun tonight."

It was against her better judgement but what choice did she have. It would be rude to ruin his surprise. "Fine, but just remember it's just for fun. It's not a real date. We are way too old to go on dates."

"Speak for yourself, sweetheart. You're only as old as you let yourself be." He gave her an evil smile. "Speaking of which. Stop right there." He reached around the corner and brought back a shopping bag. "Just a few things to get you in the mood." He reached in and handed her a matching tie dye t-shirt of her own.

"No way." She laughed but reached for it and slipped it over her head.

He reached back in the bag. "Let's see. If I can find anything else in here." His fished out a wig for her. It was a Cher wig with long black straight hair and bangs.

She dutifully stuffed her hair in the wig. She was beginning to feel like an old hippie from the sixties He reached back in the bag with a flourish.

"And the piece de la resistance." He handed her a set of love beads.

"Wow, these are so groovy!" She said in her best imitation of a flower child. "I feel as if I'm stepping back in time."

"That's the idea, sweetheart. We are just two fun loving teenagers out to have a bit of fun."

"Sounds good to me."

He grabbed her elbow and led her out of the room. "Anything you say, sweetheart. Your wish is my command."

"And don't call me sweetheart." She snapped at him.

"Okay." He waited for a second and then finished with a deadpan delivery. "Sweetheart."

"You are hopeless, Adam Miles." Ramona laughed feeling like a teenager in spite of the warning bells that were blaring in her head. She was having fun.

"I'm a hopeless romantic if that's what you mean by hopeless." He countered. "As you are about to find out."

She could hear music blaring as they left her room. It was old-fashioned rock and roll, the good stuff. She could feel the base vibrating.

"That doesn't sound very romantic." She talked loudly so she could be heard over the music.

Adam leaned in close and whispered in to her ear. "Oh, there are all kinds of romantic, sweetheart, as you are about to find out."

She gave him a playful elbow in his stomach. "Don't call me sweetheart."

"Whatever you say, sweetheart." The chills running up and down her spine should have made her run back to her room and lock the door but she was having too much fun and it was the last night. There wasn't anything wrong with having a little fun with an old friend.

At the top of the steps, he stopped and turned her toward him with both hands on her shoulders. "Now, you are about to enter a time warp. It can be scary but..." He stopped for dramatic pause. He touched the love beads that adorned her neck. "But these will protect you."

She giggled. "Love beads."

"Ah yes, but these aren't just any love beads, my dear Mona. These are special love beads that will protect you during your time travel."

She did a little shuffle. "I'm ready." She laughed.

How could he have ever let her get away? He led her down the steps and she could see the bright white light of a strobe light flashing over and over. In the little glimpses of brightness, she could make out a table sitting in the middle of the living room. It was a simple card table but in the flashing light could be mistaken for a table at a disco.

He held her seat out and helped her to sit and then he disappeared into the flashes of white. She recognized Jefferson Airplane singing. He was back in a flash with two glasses.

"Here's your, it's just coke since you're not old enough to drink but don't worry I'll share mine with you when nobody's looking." Tears sprang to her eyes but before she could respond, he'd grabbed her hand and pulled her out to his makeshift dance floor and then they were dancing to the sounds of the sixties and seventies.

After dancing and laughing for what seemed like an hour, they went back to the table, and Ramona was grateful for the coke that was still sitting on the table. She took several long sips trying to catch her breath. Adam held up a finger and motioned that he would be right back. She watched him disappear back into the flashes of the strobe light. She tasted his drink while he was gone. It was the same as hers.

Suddenly, she was sitting in darkness and silence, no strobe light, no blaring music. She savored the quiet. Her ears needed a rest from the seventies. Suddenly there was a soft light emanating from somewhere. Then Adam was back at the table.

"Want some of my rum and coke?" His silly wig was on his head but slightly lopsided. She reached up and straightened it. He grabbed her wrist. He brought it to his lips and gently kissed the back of the hand.

"Are you having fun, Mona?"

"Yes, Adam, I am having fun but..."

"Good, you deserve it. You worked very hard this week."

"So, did you." She pointed out.

"Yes, I did and I'm having quite a lot of fun." She saw a streak of sadness cross his eyes but it was gone before she could even ask what it was that made him so sad. He hummed along to the song playing for a few moments. He scooted his chair to the other side of the table so he was sitting close to her. He took hold of her hand in both of his hands and just held it. Then one of his hands slipped down to her leg and he traced the shape of a flower on her leg.

Feeling that finger tracing that flower left her breathless. Why couldn't she put him and their almost love affair out of her mind? Why did it all still mean so much to her? It shouldn't but yet it did and it didn't make sense to her.

He leaned in close and she felt his breath against her neck. "See, I remember that night." He whispered to her. "I remember all the details of that night perfectly, Mona. Can we talk about that night, now? Just for a few minutes and then I won't bring it up again, ever."

She nodded because she didn't trust her voice to be able to speak.

She tried to remove her hand from his but he held on tight. " I cared so much about you and knew you were the kind of girl I could fall in love with, the kind of girl I wanted to marry. I wasn't trying to rush you into sex. When you said no, I believed you. I wasn't mad at you."

She tugged at her hand but again he held it tight in his own two hands, he was slowly rubbing her hand between his.

"You weren't ready to do what I wanted to do and that was fine with me. I was willing to wait but the next day when your mom said you'd left because you had a paper to finish I knew that wasn't true. I knew you'd changed your mind about me and so being young and stupid, I let you go without a fight. I thought you weren't interested in me. If I could go back and change that I would but I can't. I can only tell you that I'm sorry for hurting you."

"It doesn't matter, Adam."

"Yes, it does. I hurt you and my decision not to come after you changed both of our lives. I don't know about you but for me, I don't think it was a good change. It's only been spending this week with you that I realized how much I have missed you."

He brought her hand up to his mouth again. He kissed each knuckle but his eyes never left her eyes and with each kiss something deep inside her melted just a little. After he had kissed every part of her hand, he said again. "I'm sorry, Mona."

They both looked at the other for what seemed like an eternity. She took a deep breath. "There's nothing to be sorry about, Adam. It was as much my fault as yours. I shouldn't have left. I should have found you and talked with you about it instead of just running away."

He gave her a goofy grin. "Good. Then let's dance some more."

She stood up but he disappeared for a moment and then she stood in the darkness again. When the light returned it was too a million stars reflected on the ceiling and walls. This time the music was soft and slow and he took her in his arms and they swayed to the music.

It felt nice to be held and treated like a woman. He pulled her against him and nuzzled her neck. One song floated into the next until she felt as if she were on a cloud somewhere dancing in the heavens. Then a song began to play. She recognized the tune immediately and tried to step away from him knowing that things were about to get out of hand if she didn't put a stop to it.

Instead his arms encircled her and in spite of her better judgement, she leaned in to him feeling his warmth. Their bodies began to sway to the beat of the music as Bobby Vinton crooned. Adam sang the words softly in her ear.

His hot breath sent chills down her back. She knew she needed to break away from him but she was powerless. Something inside of her opened up and she felt tears begin to flow down her face. They kept dancing as the song played over and over.

He whispered in her ears. "I'm sorry, Mona. I never meant to hurt you." She didn't answer except to move closer to him. The tears continued. His arms tightened around her. His lips landed on her neck. They were soft and warm and she knew she was losing the battle.

She was entranced. It was if something magical had happened and more than twenty years had slipped away. This time they had the chance to do it right this time. She felt that kiss to the bottom of her toes. Her knees turned to jelly. He enfolded her in his arms and she leaned into him feeling his powerful muscles as she did. She didn't know if her own legs would hold her up. They stood in the middle of the floor kissing for many long moments.

A sigh escaped her. She moved away from him.

"What's wrong?" Adam asked her.

"Nothing. It's just..." She wasn't sure what to say without him misunderstanding her. She took the easy way out. "I'm hungry."

"Great. I'll get the food." He smiled but it looked like a forced smile to her.

He came back with two plates of pasta. He lit the candles that were on the table. He'd changed the music while he was gone. There was soft music playing in the background. With the stars shining on the ceiling, it felt as if they were dining outside.

"This is so wonderful, Adam. I've never had anyone treat me like this before."

"That's a shame. You should be pampered on a regular basis.

She took a bite of the pasta with Alfredo sauce. "This is delicious."

"I told you that I could cook."

"So, you did."

Ramona ate several more bites then set her fork down. "Adam, we need to talk."

"I'm right here." He looked into her eyes.

"I don't understand what's going on here. I've had a good time with you. I'm glad we got all the misunderstandings out in the open but I told you before that I'm a Christian and I decided long ago that I would not have sex outside of marriage and I plan to keep that comittment."

"I didn't do all this just to get you in bed, Mona." She heard anger in his voice. "Is that what you think?"

"No, that's not what I think but I'm not stupid either. It is very commonplace for sex to be a part of adult relationship. I understand that most men wouldn't want a relationship with a woman without sex being a part of it."

"I'm not in the market for marriage." His eyes were dark brown.

"Neither am I," She said hurriedly." That's what I'm saying. I don't see anywhere for this relationship to go except as a friendship."

"I don't think God expects you to live like a monk," Adam said with exasperation.

Ramona's heart sunk. She'd hoped that he would answer that he respected her decision and her religion. She'd hoped that he would say that he still wanted a relationship with her but she'd known that wouldn't happen.

"It's what I expect of myself, Adam." She said it softly but with a finality that told both of them there was no more to discuss. She forced a smile. "It's okay, Adam. We can be friends. Long distance relationships don't work anyway. This will be better."

She stood up. "Let's clean up the kitchen and call it a night."

Adam had a lot more to say but he decided that tonight wasn't the night to say them. He would wait until a better time came. "There's not much to do. I can handle it. Go on up to bed. I'll see you in the morning."

"Great. This was a wonderful night, Adam. It was so special. Thank you."

"I'm glad you liked it."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"We have some things we need to talk about, Mona." Adam told her as she walked into the kitchen the next morning. Her red curls were still damp from her morning shower. During the shower she decided that she'd had enough of these emotional rollercoasters that she'd been on during the week. She was determined to keep things light and fun until it was time to leave. She didn't want Adam to know that he'd broken her heart again.

"I don't want to talk about serious things. I don't want to even think about serious things. My book is finished and..." She danced around him and began singing. "Girls just want to have fu-uu-un."

"I know but there are things you need to know."

"If you insist upon talking then I want to run before we do. Want to join me?"

"No, you go ahead. I have some phone calls to make but we are going to talk when you get back."

"Okay, okay, we'll talk." She held her hands up in mock surrender.

He yelled at her as she walked out the bedroom door. "And don't forget to wear a jacket, it was supposed to get below freezing last night and they are saying we might get some snow so don't stay out long."

She stuck her head back in. "You don't tell me what to do, Adam Miles."

He heard her giggling as she walked down the steps. She walked out and squinted at the bright sun. She shook her head. He didn't know what he was talking about. It was a beautiful day but he was right about it being cold. The temperature had dropped considerably during the night. She could see her breath as she stretched to loosen her muscles. She walked down the street to loosen the muscles even more.

She ambled past several houses then began to pick up the pace when she saw a woman walking to her mailbox. She was an older woman but fit and trim and in a bright neon orange running suit.

"Good morning." Mona called out.

"Morning, dear." The woman called back. She stood and waited for Mona to reach her. "I've been seeing you and Adam run for the past few days. Adam hasn't been up here in a long time, I was surprised to see him here and certainly at this time of the year."

Mona didn't want to stop and chat. She didn't want her muscles to cool back down but she hated to be rude. "We came up to work on a book. Adam is my editor."

"Oh, how lovely. Is it your first book?"

"Yes, it is and I'm so excited about it. It's like a dream come true."

"I'm surprised to see Adam up here without his wife and child. His wife would come up all the time with their daughter when she was younger but Adam rarely comes up without them."

Her stomach flipped and her heart took a nose dive. "His wife and child?" She asked.

"Oh yes. The cottage belonged to his wife before they got married." Her laugh tinkled. "Such a happy family."

Ramona looked back toward Adam's cottage. She corrected herself, Adam and his wife's cottage. "I've got to go. It was nice talking to you." She began running.

Adam married. How could she have been so stupid? He hadn't told her he wasn't married but he hadn't told her he was married either. You would have thought the topic would have somehow come up during the course of the week. No wonder he had told her that he wasn't in the market for marriage. He was already married.

That was why he refused to talk about his own personal life. Every time she'd asked him questions, he'd managed to avoid answering them. He didn't want her to know that he was married and had a family. That would have interfered with his plans to seduce her. He must have been quite angry when she wouldn't fall in bed with him.

Oh, why couldn't he have been honest? She leaned over, hugging her head to her knees. She wouldn't have allowed herself to fall in love with him again. The realization stunned her. She had fallen in love with him that week or maybe she'd never fallen out of love with him or at least the idea of him.

The truth was that the Adam she thought she knew was just an illusion. He didn't exist except in her own mind. He'd probably lied about Darla, too. She stood down in the middle of the road hugging her knees to her chest. What was it about her that made men think they had a right to take advantage of her?

She needed to tell Adam what she thought of him and all men like him and then leave. She wanted him to know that he had no power over her. She would walk away from him, no run away from him again, just like she had so many years ago. It had been her choice then and it would be her choice now.

A sob escaped her with that thought but she was determined to show him that she didn't care. She turned back toward the house. She took a step toward it but stopped. She just couldn't face him, yet.

She needed to run first. She needed time to collect herself and absorb what she'd just learned so that when she walked in and told him that she was leaving she would be in control. She wouldn't even tell him what she'd found out, she'd just be cool as ice. He'd never know that he'd hurt her yet again.

Her heart shattered at the thought of leaving him again. She knew she would never see him again. She would make sure of that. Why was she attracted to the wrong kind of men? She loved him but there was no way she could or would be involved with a married man.

She looked at the house again and then started running. She just couldn't go in there, not yet. Instead of taking her regular path down by the lake, she crossed the street and began to run uphill through the trees. Her tears prevented her from seeing but she continued to run and sob. Her breathing was ragged but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered any more. Adam had betrayed her once again and this time she'd known she shouldn't do it. Every part of her mind had told her over and over not to get involved with him.

A tree limb scratched her face as she ran too close to a tree. She didn't notice the blood that mixed with her tears. He'd just been playing with her emotions all week pretending that he cared about her.

Her side hurt from running too fast but she continued up the path. She tripped and felt a twinge in her ankle but she kept running. She needed to run. She had just been a momentary diversion, she thought bitterly. A trinket of the week. A challenge. He wanted to see if he could conquer her this time since he hadn't been able to the last time.

At least, she'd stuck to her principles and hadn't done anything that she was ashamed of. She tried to shake off the feelings that were assaulting her and regain control of her emotions but the tears didn't stop. This was the man that she had mooned over for over twenty years and she'd been stupid enough to fall for him again.

She kept running. She didn't notice the path ending.

Once again, She'd made the mistake of thinking that he was her friend but friendship hadn't stopped him from taking advantage of her then and it hadn't stopped him from trying to take advantage of her now.

Why did she keep making the mistake of thinking he was a good guy? Betraying his wife obviously wasn't a problem for him. Apparently, he didn't have an ethical bone in his body. He wasn't worth crying over, she thought angrily.

She swiped at the tears and willed them to stop but they continued. She didn't know if she were more angry at him or at herself. She should have learned her lesson when he'd left her and gone to Darla that night but no she still had wanted to believe in him. What a fool, she was. He'd been a snake in the grass then and he was still a snake in the grass and he would always be a snake in the grass.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Adam took his shower and thought about the previous night Things had been perfect between them for awhile. He'd known he felt something for Mona but he hadn't expected the feelings to be so deep. Making love to her would have been wonderful but if she wasn't comfortable with that then he could live with her decision. He knew that he wanted her in his life. Though the thought scared the dickens out of him, if Mona wanted marriage then marriage it would be.

He hadn't believed that you could fall so in love with someone so quickly but then again maybe he had never stopped loving her. Perhaps, that was why he could never make his ex-wife happy, he hadn't been in love with her. He had come to love her at one time but she'd killed all that long before she'd killed herself and Lacy.

The thought of Lacy made him smile. He missed her and he would always love her but she'd been a wonderful gift that he'd cherished during the time he'd been given with her. He had been a good father to her. He had no regrets in that area except that he shouldn't have let her go with her mother no matter what the courts had said but Mona was right. Children are a gift from God and only God knows when it's time for them to go home.

He wandered through the house cleaning up from the night before, all the while making plans for a future with Mona. The minute she got back from her run he would get down on his knees and ask her to be his wife. He didn't need more time to know that she was what he wanted for the rest of his life.

She would write and he would be her editor. They would go on book tours together. He would be by her side loving her while she enjoyed her success as a writer and he had no doubts that she would be very successful as a writer. She had the talent and he had the know how and the connections to make it happen for her.

He began to wonder why she wasn't back after an hour passed. He walked outside and shivered. The storm clouds were gathering and the sky was darkening. After making a complete circle of the house, he started walking up the road looking for her but saw his nosy neighbor out. As much as he hated to he walked toward her.

"Good Morning, Myrtle. How are you?"

She looked up from her gardening pretending to be surprised. "Oh, Adam. I didn't see you. I wondered if you were going to say hi to me before you left. You've been up all week and haven't stopped in once to see me. Shame on you."

"Well, I've been busy. This has been a work week, not a vacation week for me."

She raised her painted-on eyebrows ever so slightly. "Oh. With a lovely young thing like that, I would have thought it was all fun and games. I wouldn't think Victoria or her mother would approve of you bringing up some..." She stopped and wrinkled her nose in distaste just to let him know that she didn't believe him. "Client to Victoria's house."

"Well then, it's a good thing it's my house now."

She put in hand to her breast. "Adam, I am shocked at your attitude."

He was getting impatient but he knew he had to play the game or not get the information he was looking for. "Myrtle, Victoria has been dead for more than a year now. She could have willed the house back to her mother but she didn't. She wanted me to have it, even after the divorce. I have a right to do what I wish with it."

"Well still, a little respect for the dead wouldn't hurt you."

His first urge was to say he hadn't respected Victoria when she was alive and he certainly wouldn't be a hypocrite and pretend he had any warm fuzzy feelings for her now but he fought the urge and ignored her comment. "I'm looking for my client. Have you seen her?"

Myrtle stood up and adjusted her hat and looked at the sky for a moment. "It looks like snow clouds, don't you think?"

He managed to contain his impatience but just barely. "Yes, the weather is calling for a winter storm possibly even a blizzard. That's why I'm looking for my client. I wanted to head back to the city before the storm hit."

She moved the hat on her head as if it were a crown and she were royalty. "Well, yes that makes sense. Yes, I saw your little friend. Oh, I'm sorry, I mean client."

"Which way did she go?"

She ignored his question and continued talking. "We had a nice little chat but she seemed upset afterwards. I can't imagine why." She smiled innocently at him.

He spoke through clenched teeth. "What did you say to her, Myrtle?"

"Well nothing much, Adam. I may have expressed my surprise that you would bring a woman up here other than your wife." She removed her gardening gloves as if she were a southern belle and placed them gently in her hands. "After all, it was her house, Adam. I don't know why you won't just sell it back to her parents."

"Myrtle, my ex-wife is dead."

"Yes, I know that. Poor Victoria. You hardly mourned her at all."

He wanted to scream that there had been nothing to mourn. He couldn't mourn something that had never been. Marrying Victoria had been the worst decision of his life. They'd had a horrible marriage except for his wonderful daughter who he'd managed to kill by ignoring and avoiding his wife's drinking. It was a relief not to have to deal with her drunken tirades, her DWIs, her trips to the rehab centers, not that he had wished her dead. Adam smiled patiently at Myrtle. "This was a business trip, Myrtle. Nothing more and I really don't feel like discussing Victoria or our poor excuse of a marriage with you or anyone."

She put a hand on her hips, still wearing the bright yellow jogging suit. "MMMM. I guess that means you didn't discuss it with your girlfriend. Oh, excuse me. I mean client. Perhaps, you should have and then she wouldn't have been so upset when she found out you had a wife."

"I don't have a wife. You did mention that Victoria was dead, didn't you?" His brown eyes were growing darker by the second as he tried to contain his anger and get some information from Myrtle.

She looked back up to the darkening sky placing her gardening gloves in one hand and then the other. She was deliberately being slow and he knew it but he could out wait her. "I don't think it came up in the conversation, Adam. I could be wrong but I can't seem to remember saying anything about Valerie's accident. Was that wrong of me?" She asked in a simpering tone with a maddening smile.

Adam's brown eyes grew black in their anger. He first impulse was to grab her by the shoulders and shake her until she gave him some real information but he managed to restrain himself but just barely. A sickening feeling was beginning to grow in his stomach and spreading outward. "Tell me what you said exactly, Myrtle."

The gloves went back and forth several more times. She looked upward as if trying to remember what she'd said to Mona. "Oh, I don't know. Something to the effect that I was surprised to see you up here without your wife and daughter." She smiled at him. "Well, didn't you tell your little friend that you had a family?"

"I don't have a family anymore thanks to my ex-wife, the drunk. She was my ex-wife at the time of her accident and you know it. Why would you mislead Mona like that? There was no reason for it. You just enjoy sticking your nose in places where it doesn't belong."

She looked shocked at his words. "Adam, there is no reason to be rude."

"You were rude to my guest."

"I just thought she should know the truth."

"But you didn't tell her the truth. You gave her misinformation just to serve some petty need for revenge." He turned to leave as she was sputtering at his latest insults.

"I guess you don't want to know where she went."

"Yes, I damn well do want to know and I want to know now. Stop playing games with me and tell me"

The first soft flakes of snow began to fall.

She gave a sigh. "I saw her running off in to those woods."

Myrtle pointed across the street and up the hill, not the jogging path that he'd told Mona to stay on. Adam turned and sprinted toward the woods not bothering to say good-bye to Myrtle.

Myrtle and Valerie's mother were best friends. It came as no surprise that she would say or do whatever she pleased just to aggravate him but heaven help her if she hurt Mona in the process.

This set of woods were much more heavily forested. There wasn't much of a path to follow. Most of the hikers and joggers avoided those woods for safety reasons. He'd told Mona not to explore that area alone. It was too dangerous.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ramona ran until she could run no more then she fell to the ground and sobbed until she began to hyperventilate. Between gasps for air and the hiccups, she worked to regain control of her emotions and her breathing.

After all, she had been through this before many times. It wasn't the first time she'd been betrayed by a man. Her breathing slowed. Only then it had been her husband. Thanks to her ex-husband she knew how to handle betrayal.

She'd been stupid enough to trust Adam. She'd believed him when he told her hadn't betrayed her years ago. He'd made her feel as if she were nineteen again and now her heart felt as if it just been broken for the first time.

She sat up cross-legged on the cold ground taking slow even breaths. She'd thought she'd learned her lesson about men from men but apparently not because once again she'd allowed herself to get suckered into the romantic notion of love. She shook her head savagely. Never again would she trust a man.

The thought made her want to cry. She believed in love but love just wasn't worth the pain when they finally showed their true colors to her. It just wasn't her destiny to find a lasting love to share her life with. She'd known that for a long time now but she'd forgotten that during the week with Adam.

Forgetting it even for a moment had brought her more heartache and pain than she had the energy to bear. Wet snow flakes fell on her. The wetness and the cold of the snow brought her back to reality, she shivered.

Ramona sighed. They'd had so much fun and it had been so easy to believe he was still the one for her. To believe that he had always been the one for her. She'd gotten life confused with her romance novels. Happy endings were fiction at least as far as she was concerned.

She sighed again and stood up. It was time to go back. She would deal with this pain and get on with her life. As far as she was concerned, this was just a little hiccup in her life, some momentary craziness and now she wanted her real life back, not this craziness. She'd be fine in a few weeks.

She wiped her eyes and nose with the end of her T-shirt. She did some stretches to loosen her muscles that had grown tight while she sat on the cold ground. Ramona looked around, not quite sure what direction she had come from. She tried to get her bearings. Everything looked the same. The snowflakes had turned into a steady stream and were sticking to the ground. The wind was picking up.

She shivered and rubbed her bear arms to warm them up. She wished she'd worn that jacket now. She took her best guess and began to walk but after a few minutes decided it was the wrong direction so she went back to her starting point and headed off another way. She gave a sigh of relief, this way looked more familiar. She was almost certain it was the right way back to the cottage.

The wind began to blow harder. Walking wasn't warming her up enough so she began a slow jog, as much to stay warm as to get back to the cottage. All she wanted now was to go home and climb into her own safe bed. She looked up at the darkening clouds through the tree branches.

That was all she needed, all she wanted. She wanted to go home and get back to school and to her daily routine or work and writing. A routine that didn't include Adam Miles. She didn't need him. Her life had been fine without him and now that her book was getting published, her life would be even better.

Adam ran through the woods searching for any sign of Mona but he had no idea which way to go. He yelled until he was hoarse but got no response. He knew it would be better to go back to the cottage and wait for her to return but he hated the thought of Mona being in the woods alone upset about the things Myrtle had said to her. He needed to find her and tell her the truth. He wished he'd already told her about Victoria and Lacey but he hadn't want to ruin the week by telling her.

Mona must be devastated at the thought that he was married. What was wrong with Myrtle? Mona would believe that he had only wanted sex from her not the love that he desperately wanted and needed. He looked around. The snow was beginning to accumulate.

She shouldn't be out in these woods, especially with the worsening weather. The woods were not a friendly place on a good day and they could be deadly during a snow storm. He ran through the woods but could find no sign of Mona. He made the decision to go back to the cottage. Hopefully, Mona was already there and he'd simply chosen the wrong direction when he began looking for her.

He smiled hopefully. He knew she would be upset and most likely in her room packing her clothes, no doubt infuriated at him but he would be able to set things right this time. He wanted nothing more in life than to love her and be loved by her. Together they could build a beautiful life. Together they could erase each other's hurts that life had thrown at them.

Once he explained the situation and what a nosey meddling woman his neighbor was, everything would be fine. Everything would be fine just as long as Mona got back to the cottage safely. He looked at the ever darkening sky with dismay.

He turned back toward the cottage. Once out of the woods, he made his way directly to his own cottage but he noticed that Myrtle was standing at her door watching him. He ignored her and quickened his pace. He opened the door, yelling for Mona but there was no answer. His heart began to sink. He ran up the steps hoping that she might be in her room but ignoring him.

He knocked at her door but there was no response. He opened the door but the room was empty. He'd known it would be but he'd hoped that Mona would be there. He opened her closet. Her clothes were still hanging in it. She hadn't left for home. That meant she was still out in the woods.

He checked his watch. She'd been gone for almost two hours. Way too long but not long enough to call the police. Adam knew the cops would just laugh at him if he called them now. He went back down the steps and finished cleaning up the props from the night before. With each piece that he picked up, his anger at himself grew.

If he hadn't pushed her, she would be here now and he could have told her about his wife and child but no, he'd been so blinded by his own needs that he hadn't thought of her feelings, of what she needed from him which was to be patient.

He could have been patient and let the friendship develop and gradually build into more. He could have given her the time she needed to learn to trust him but his own selfish needs had come first and now she might be in danger.

He walked back to the front door and looked outside at the ever increasing snow and the darkening sky. The clock said it was morning but it looked more like early evening. He paced around the room telling himself that she was fine. That she would be back any second but he didn't believe it.

He marched purposefully to the door to go back out and look for her once again but he stopped. He knew that it wasn't the right thing to do. He had no idea which direction to look for her in. He looked at his watch. He would wait thirty more minutes and then call for help.

Ramona came to a dead stop in the woods. She looked around her at the mounting snow. The brightness of the morning had turned dark without her noticing it.

She hadn't listened to the weather but it was obvious that an April snow storm was brewing and she knew that New York's weather was as unpredictable as Ohio's. She picked a new direction and started running. She needed to get back to the cottage before the storm worsened. She ran focusing only on finding her way out of the woods. She didn't want to think about Adam or the pain that he'd cause once again. She could wallow in her self-pity later. For now, she needed to get back to the cottage and out of the storm.

More time passed before she admitted that she might be lost and even then she wasn't willing to say that she was absolutely positively lost. She stopped and took several deep breaths to calm herself down. She didn't need to panic. She needed to think logically about what to do. She looked around trying to figure out which way was North. She didn't have a clue.

She looked down at the snow covered ground. There was close to an inch of snow. In the time that she'd been in the woods, the snow had gone from light to heavy. The snow was covering her tracks as fast as she made them.

She wondered what would be the best thing to do. Stay in this spot and wait for Adam to find her or to keep moving. The frigid wind that whipped through her t-shirt and sweat pants, chilling her to the bone made the decision for her.

Keep moving, she decided. At least, if she ran she would stay warm and she might possibly luck out and find her way out of the woods and back to civilization. She trembled but she wasn't sure if it was from fear or the cold. Nothing looked familiar. She felt the beginnings of panic but forced it away. She wasn't in a good situation now but panicking would only make it worse.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Adam paced through the living room, looking at the clock every thirty seconds or so. Only fifteen agonizing minutes had managed to tick by and it looked as if two inches of snow had fallen during that brief time.

The sky was darker and the wind was beginning to howl. He stomped over to the phone with determination. He wasn't waiting a minute longer. For every minute that he waited it was one more minute that Mona was out there, cold, alone and upset. If she walked in after he made the call then he could just feel like a fool but at least she would be safe.

He hit some numbers on the phone and then drummed his fingers as he waited for the phone to be picked up on the other end.

"Sheriff's Office." The voice on the other end sounded bored.

"I need to talk to the sheriff. It's an emergency."

"I'm sorry. He's not available."

"Well then, who is available?" Adam asked louder than he meant to. He immediately apologized for his rudeness. "I'm sorry. I'm just very worried."

The female voice remained calm but didn't sound bored any longer. "Not a problem, sir. Could you explain the problem to me and I'll make sure you get the help you need?"

"This is Adam Miles. I'm up at Lake Whatchakowa with a colleague and she went for a run quite some time ago and I'm afraid she's lost and with the storm coming, I think we need to get some people up here to search for her."

There was a long pause. The woman's voice held compassion now. "Hold on a moment and I will connect you with the deputy on duty."

"Thanks and I'm sorry about before."

"Don't worry about it, sir. I'm sure everything will work out."

He heard a crisp click in his ear and then the phone immediately began to ring. He began tapping his foot after the fifth ring. Finally after the eighth ring, he heard a hello. He explained the situation again and the deputy assured him he would be right out to discuss the matter.

Adam continued to pace and watch the snow pile up for the next twenty-five minutes. The sheriff's office was no more than fifteen minutes away. Adam grumbled and muttered to himself until he saw a cruiser slowly making its way down the street. He watched the door open and saw the shortest fattest police officer he'd ever seen get out of the car and waddle up the sidewalk.

Adam opened the door and watched as the man fumbled around searching for his ID and in the process lost his hat which revealed an almost bald head that had a few long strands of graying hair combed over the baldness in a sad attempt to hide it.

Trying to hide his impatience, Adam told the officer to come in out of the frigid wind.

"I'm Deputy Shines. I'm here to take a report on a missing woman."

He held up his clip board as if to show how official it all was. Adam groaned inwardly. He hated bureaucrats. "I want more than a report written up. I want a search started immediately before the storm gets any worse."

Deputy Shines raised an eyebrow. "I will be the judge of that, sir. Now, let's start with the pertinent information."

Adam had dealt with enough people like this to know he wasn't going to win so he gave the necessary information with a smile and a pleasant voice. Honey does attract move flies than vinegar.

After several routine questions about name and age, Deputy Shines asked. "Now, explain to me what happened this morning."

"Mona went for a run and she just never came back. I waited for awhile and then I went to look for...." A knock on the door interrupted Adam. He rushed toward the door. "Oh, thank God. That's probably her."

He opened the door only to find Myrtle standing there with a smug smile on her face.

Adam spoke through gritted teeth. "Not now, Myrtle. I'm busy." He began to close the door but she shoved her way past him with a phony smile pasted on her face.

"Yes, I know, Adam. That's why I'm here. After all, I am the last person to see her alive. I thought the officer might want to talk to me."

Shines looked confused. "Alive? Is she dead?" His breathing immediately became faster. Adam thought he might begin to drool. Suddenly, the deputy looked just like an English Bull Dog.

"No, she's not dead." Adam snapped. "She's in the woods and probably lost. That's why we need to get a search party organized as soon as possible."

Myrtle pushed her way past Adam and went up to the deputy. "His little girlfriend wasn't dead the last time I saw her but that was before he ran into the woods after her like a wild man She was mad at him. Who knows what happened if he found her?" She paused for the drama. "I have no idea if she's still alive now. You know, his first wife died under suspicious circumstances, also."

Deputy Shines took an eager step toward Myrtle. "What kind of suspicious circumstances, ma'am?"

Adam exploded. "There were no suspicious circumstances. She was a drunk that got behind a wheel and killed my daughter and an innocent family along with herself."

Myrtle put a flustered hand to her breast as if she might swoon. "You see what kind of a temper he has." Shines nodded in agreement with her and then turned back to Adam with a scowl on his face.

"You told me she was a colleague not your girlfriend." He said in an accusing voice.

Adam bit his tongue to keep from yelling. "She is a colleague. I'm an editor and she is an author of a book. We came up here to put the finishing touches on the book. This woman doesn't know her or the situation. She's just a busybody."

"So, is she your girlfriend or not?"

"We have a personal relationship if that's what you're asking. We grew up beside each other but haven't seen each other in years.."

"So, did the two of you have a fight this morning?"

"We did not."

Myrtle barged her way in to the conversation. "You mean you didn't have a fight when she found out you were married and had a family."

The Deputy was scribbling furiously and sweat was popping out on his forehead and he was only seconds away from hyperventilating.

"I'm not married and I don't have a family thanks to my ex-wife. Myrtle, what is wrong with you?" Adam hollered. He turned toward the deputy who was writing furiously. Little beads of sweat had popped out on his forehead.. "But you can see what happened, this nosy bi...bi.. biddy acted as if I were married and Mona probably got upset and ran into the woods and ended up getting lost."

The Deputy nodded but still looked very unhappy with Adam.

"Now can we get a search party together?" Adam asked in an almost pleading voice. They were losing valuable time with this nonsense that Myrtle had started.

The Deputy pondered the question. "Perhaps, she just left because of the fight."

"We didn't have a fight." Adam paced the living room like a caged tiger. He moved toward the fat deputy as if he were charging him. Deputy Shines took a step backwards and almost toppled over the chair. "I want something done and I want it done now. Do you understand?"

The Deputy took a few more steps back, clearly flustered. "That..ah... that...um.. would be my...um... decision."

Adam continued to advance toward the deputy. "Then, I suggest you make that decision now." He said in a menacing voice that promised action would follow if the deputy didn't do what he wanted.

Deputy Shines regained his composure. He pointed his finger at Adam. "Now, look here, mister. You need to just calm down."

Adam was in no mood to calm down. "No, what I need is a search party. If you don't have the authority, then I will call someone that does. It's up to you." Adam walked to the phone and put his hand on the receiver. The two glared at each other.

The Deputy looked away. "Fine. What was she wearing?"

Adam threw up his hands in frustration. "What difference does that make? If you find a woman in the woods, it's probably her and even if it isn't, that woman probably needs to get out of the woods too."

Deputy Shines ignored Adam's outburst and with as much dignity as possible waddled to the door. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped sweat off his brow. Then he turned back to Adam. "I'm going to make some calls and get the ball rolling."

The deputy turned to Myrtle. "I may need to ask you more questions later, Ma'am."

After the Deputy shut the door, Adam whirled around to Myrtle. "What is wrong with you? You just caused us to lose valuable search time."

"I have no idea what you are talking about, Adam." She shrugged with a nonchalant air. "I simply came over to voice my concern about that poor girl. I know what kind of temper you have. Do you really think Victoria could hide it from us?"

"I didn't do anything to Victoria. I always knew you were nosy but I didn't realize until today that you are evil. Get out of my house and don't come back." She made no effort to move. He roared at her. "Now."

She gave him an ugly look and skittered out of the house.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Ramona stood amid the trees, shivering with snow swirling around her. It was still daylight but it was snowing so hard, she couldn't see more than a few feet. She was in trouble and she knew it. She could barely feel her fingers and her feet were numb. The wind pressed against her throbbing head.

How could she have gotten herself in such a mess? She was about to realize her lifelong dream and instead here was in the middle of a snow storm lost in the woods. She'd let a man mess up her life once again. Only this time, she'd managed to get herself in serious danger in the process.

She had promised herself over and over after her marriage that she would never let herself be vulnerable again to a man. Not only had she broken that promise but she'd done it with a man that had already broken her heart once before.

She had to keep warm. She needed to move to generate body heat. She took a few steps forward and stopped to look around. She shrugged. It didn't matter what direction she chose since she was now hopelessly lost. She had no idea which way took her back to the cottage but she had to keep moving. Had to keep warm.

She'd lost track of the time but guess it was mid-afternoon. She rubbed her bare arms and wished she'd worn a jacket. She shook her head, she really wished that she'd not ran into these woods. Adam was right about one thing, she did run away when she was upset. Her first instinct was to run from the problem rather than confronting it.

That's what she'd done with Adam years ago, that's what she'd been doing when she ignored her husbands infidelities, and that's what she'd done that morning when she'd found out that Adam was married. Only this time, she'd really chosen the wrong way to run.

She shook her head and started jogging through the snow. She hadn't realized until that moment that she was a coward. She'd always chosen to ignore or run away from problems. She didn't want to rock the boat or upset someone.

Of course, they might have done something to upset her but that didn't matter. It was just important that she didn't upset them or make them feel bad. She wiped snow off her nose and touched the scratch the branch had made earlier. It had stopped bleeding.

She looked down at her arms, they were scratched up from running through bushes and trees for the past few hours. Her stomach growled. She hadn't eaten breakfast before she left. She'd thought that her and Adam would have a long leisurely breakfast when she got back and talk about the things he'd wanted to tell her.

Of course, now she knew what he needed to tell her. He needed to tell her that he was married, she thought bitterly. Her running had slowed to a walk. She was tiring and didn't know how much longer she could keep going.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Adam's cottage was now the center of frenetic activity. They were state police, deputies, and off duty officers from neighboring communities, emergency vehicles, ATVs, and trucks carrying sophisticated electronic equipment.

The State Police had taken over the search within minutes of arriving at Adam's house and for every bit of unconcern that Deputy Shines had exhibited, his counterpart, Lieutenant Fetzer had shown twice that amount of concern.

Lieutenant. Fetzer was Lieutenant Andrea Fetzer. She was tall and muscular and looked as if she could take care of herself in a fight against any man that wanted to test her. Adam knew that the chances were high that she had probably had to do just that more than a few times in the male dominated world that she lived in.

Her brown hair was so short that had it been any shorter it would have been a crew cut but her hair only enhanced her most outstanding feature which were her green eyes. They were bright and vibrant and those green eyes never stopped moving or watching. Adam had watched those eyes as she'd informed Deputy Shines that she was in charge of the investigation. He'd known then that she knew what she was doing. Adam breathed a sigh of relief that she was there and in charge instead of that bumbling idiot.

There had been a brief power struggle when she'd first arrived between herself and Deputy Shines. It was clear that Deputy Shines had no plans to let a woman tell him what to do but the struggle had been brief. Fetzer had not only won it hands down but very quickly. There was talk of the storm being upgraded to a blizzard. The wind was whipping through the trees and off the lake at more than fifty miles per hour and more than eight inches of snow had fallen in the six hours since Mona had been missing.

Volunteers from all over the county continued to arrive to help out the police. Search parties had been sent out but with no luck. They were back and a systematic plan was being devised.

With the arrival of the state police came the ever present and always annoying TV cameras. Adam refused to allow them in the house so they stayed outside interviewing people. Myrtle, of course, was the first to volunteer for an interview in front of the cameras. Adam was so sickened by her phony professions of concern that he walked away from the cameras and refused to talk to them on or off camera.

Shines had let search teams go out haphazardly with no plan of action. They hadn't been successful and Fetzer had called them back in to reorganize. Search teams were being organized in groups of four. Two people on each ATV and two ATVs on each team. Teams would be dispatched into the woods to search a specific area.

The rescue teams were in constant contact with the communications center. The communications center was located in a van that the state police had brought with them. There was only enough room in the van for three people at a time so they'd moved into Adam's living room to coordinate the search.

The first groups out had found no sign of Mona but everyone was hopeful. Especially, now that they were getting organized in a serious way. It was still early in the search but the storm was hampering the rescue efforts. People kept looking up at the darkening sky with worried expressions.

Adam walked from group to group trying to be helpful but only managed to get in the way. One kind officer finally took pity on him and asked him to organize the volunteers in the kitchen that were providing coffee, hot chocolate and sandwiches.

Adam made an effort in the kitchen but it was being so smoothly managed that he eventually gave up and went back to the living room. He found Fetzer.

"Lieutenant Fetzer." She turned to look at him. She looked calm and in control of the situation. Adam smiled at her. "I want to go out and search, too."

"No." She started to turn back to the other officer.

"Why not?"

She sighed and turned back to Adam. "It's not a good idea. The woods aren't a very safe place right now and the last thing I need is you being in them. You're upset and you might make an error of judgement that would endanger more people."

He started to argue but she patted his shoulder. "I know you want to help but you going into the woods won't help. Let me and my men do their job. I know it's hard to be the one waiting but there isn't much you can do right now." She motioned to another officer who immediately left the group she was with and walked over to Adam and Fetzer.

"Sue, can you find something for Adam to do. He wants to help."

Sue was short but not as short as Mona. She had brown hair that was tied in a pony tail behind her head. Her brown eyes expressed sympathy for Adam.

"Come on Mr. Miles. Let's take a walk."

"Call me Adam." He muttered not happy that he was being handled by the two women but never the less he went with her without an argument.

"Okay, Adam and you can call me Officer Render." She laughed. "Just kidding. Call me Sue. It's too cold to go outside why don't we take a walk upstairs and you can show me this beautiful house of yours."

"Do you always get the sympathy detail?"

She laughed. "Not always but I am really good at it so I don't mind."

He gave her a half-hearted tour of the house and they ended up in Mona's bedroom which was quite a mess. There were clothes and papers strewn about.

Sue smiled. "I guess she's not much of a house cleaner, is she?"

"No but she's a good writer and some day she will be a great writer."

They talked for a few minutes about Mona and the book she'd written. Then, Sue asked, "You seemed to care more about her than just as a co-worker. Is that true or am I off base on that?"

He shook his head. "No, you're not wrong. Mona and I grew up together in the same small town in Ohio. I fell in love with her when we were teenagers but life got in the way. I was hoping to have a second chance with her. Things seemed to be going our way this time and now this."

Sue patted his arm. "I'm sure things will work out. It's a big woods but it's not that big. I'm sure they will find her."

He walked to the window. He moved back the curtain and stood watching the snow pile up in the dwindling light of the afternoon. He heard the ferocity of the storm increasing minute by minute. "I don't know it's snowing so hard and it's so cold. She didn't even have a jacket on and she's been out there so long."

Sue sat on the bed. She didn't argue that point with him. There was no hiding from the fact that the woman was in danger and it was getting more dangerous by the minute for her. Adam turned back to Sue.

"Do you believe in fairy tales, Sue?"

She didn't hesitate for a moment. "Yes, I do, Adam and so does every other girl that ever lived. Don't believe it when they say they don't. We all believe in fairy tales and happy endings. That's what keeps us going day after day through the bad stuff."

"I'm in love with her. I never expected that to happen. I was in love with her again after spending one day up here with her." He sat down on the bed.

They talked a few more minutes and then Sue left him to his own thoughts. They weren't happy thoughts. Mona had been out in the harsh weather for more than seven hours. According to Myrtle, she'd only been wearing a jogging outfit with not even a jacket or sweater on. She must be freezing. She could already be... he couldn't even make himself think the words.

He couldn't imagine his life without Mona. She'd only been back in it for less than a week but in that time, he'd fallen head over heels in love with her again. There were so many things he wanted them to do together. So many things he wanted to tell her.

He'd never get over the loss of his daughter but he finally could see happiness in his future if Mona were by his side. And now because of his stupidity and his impatience, he might lose her forever.

He sank to his knees knowing that this was all his fault.. His life had been so empty after the death of his daughter that he hadn't stopped to consider Mona's feelings in all this. He knew he wanted her and so he had bulldozed right over her thoughts or feelings. He had never once considered what she wanted or whether she wanted him at all.

He couldn't lose another person that he loved. He promised that if God would keep her safe, he wouldn't push Mona again. When Mona was found, Adam would let her come to him in her own time and in her own way. He would let her decide how fast their relationship progressed or if it progressed at all. He just wanted her alive.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Ramona wandered through the trees dazed and confused. She was so cold and so hungry. She tried to keep focused but she was so tired. She seemed to remember that it was important to keep moving so she did but it was aimless walking with no specific goal in mind.

She stumbled over a fallen log that was hidden by the snow. She fell to the ground. She knew she should get up but perhaps if she rested for just a few minutes then she would be able to run again.

She laid her head on the ground. The snow was soft and she could almost believe that it was a pillow. The snow didn't even feel all that cold anymore. Her eyes fluttered. She was so tired. She needed sleep. It was important to sleep right now.

She would talk to Adam later. She remembered that she was mad at Adam but that wasn't important right then. The only thing that was important was to sleep. Her breathing turned slow and steady.

Day had turned to evening, Adam had been sitting on the floor for quite some time, half crying and half praying when he felt a sharp stab of anxiety. It wasn't just a thought, it was physical feeling. He didn't know why or how but he knew deep in his soul that Mona was in danger.

Dear God. I know that I haven't been the best of believers in a long long time but please I beg you to protect Mona not for me but for Mona. Keep her safe. Amen.

He opened his eyes. He had to do something. He couldn't just sit in a warm cozy house while Mona was out in a blizzard. He didn't care what Fetzer thought about it. He was sick of sitting here and waiting for other people to find her. They didn't love her, he did. He would find her. He wouldn't stop until he did.

He took the steps three at a time and went to find Fetzer. She was outside standing by the van. She was in the middle of a conversation with another officer. There seemed to be a flurry of activity that made Adam wonder what was happening. Many of the workers and volunteers were walking to their cars and leaving.

Had they found Mona? Surely, they would have told him if that were true. Adam felt a sick knot forming in his stomach. He didn't care who Lieutenant Fetzer was talking to. Adam had to know what was going on. He barged up to her. "What's going on? Why is everyone leaving?"

Fetzer held up a hand motioning for Adam to wait. Adam turned to another officer standing nearby.

"What's happening?"

The young red-headed officer looked uncomfortable and his face flushed red. "I guess they're calling off the search."

"Calling off the search?" Adam moved closer to the man. "Why? Did they find Mona?"

Before the young officer could answer, Lieutenant Fetzer was by Adam's side. "We have to call off the search."

"Why? Did you find Mona? Is she okay? Where is she?"

Fetzer held her palm up to him as if to ward off the questions. "No but..."

"Then why would you call off the search? We have to find her now before the storm gets any worse."

She put a sympathetic hand on Adam's shoulder but he shrugged it off. Fetzer didn't look happy. She spoke softly so only Adam could hear her."Let's go talk in the house and talk in private."

"No, let's talk here." He knew he was being obnoxious but he didn't care.

The big woman gave a shrug as if to say fine with me. The television reporter nudged the camera man who promptly turned his camera on the two of them. Unbeknownst to either of them, they would be the lead story on that night's news.

Adam and Fetzer continued to glare at each other. She broke eye contact and smiled. She spoke softly so only he could hear. "The storm is the problem. We can't stay out in that storm any longer. My people can't see a thing out there and it's getting too dangerous. They could drive right past her and not see her. I'm.."

"We can't let her stay out there all night." Adam screamed at Fetzer. "She can't survive out there all night in this weather. We have to find her."

She winced at the truth of his words but her voice remained calm as Adam's escalated in loudness and anger. "And we will find her but it will be in the morning. It's just too dangerous out there now. I won't endanger my men or the volunteers. We will be back out first thing in the morning to continue the search."

"And what then you'll be able to search for her dead body. That's not good enough we have to continue the search." He looked at the sad faces of the people standing around him. "Why don't you ask your people if they want to continue?"

"I'm sorry Adam. I understand how you feel but it's my responsibility to keep all these people safe. It's not their decision, it's mine. You just have to trust in God to keep her safe through the night."

Adam gave her a shove. "It's not God that I don't trust, it's you. I thought you were trying to rescue her but you're only concerned about your own safety." Adam looked around and saw a dozen or so of the would be rescuers. He saw in their faces what he felt, anger and frustration.

"I'll bet if you asked these people, most of them would go back out in that weather to find Mona. They don't want to quit." He saw many of them nod their agreement to what he'd said.

"It doesn't matter what they want or don't want. I'm in control and they will listen to me. It's too dangerous for them and the equipment to go back out in the dark in this kind of weather."

As they had talked, more and more of the searchers had come in from the woods. All stood in silence watching Adam screaming at Fetzer and Fetzer calmly talking to Adam.

"The equipment. Is that what you're worried about, the equipment?" Adam became aware of the cameraman pointing the camera at him.

All eyes turned to see what Adam was staring at. For a moment there was stillness and then Adam advanced toward the cameraman slowly, one deliberate step at a time. The man tried to take steps back but was blocked by other people who had gathered to watch the scene unfold.

Fetzer rushed around Adam and stepped between them. "I will take care of this." Adam pushed her out of the way and kept advancing toward the camera man. "No, you won't. I will take care of this. This is my property and as far as I know, I still get to say who comes on my property."

The cameraman found his voice. "Look, I'm just doing my job."

Adam was nose to nose with the cameraman. He clenched his hands and unclenched them. He wanted to hit the man and relieve some of his frustration but he unclenched his fists. Adam looked at Fetzer. "I want this man arrested for trespassing."

The female reporter pushed her way through the crowd her perfectly dyed blonde hair swirling in the gusts of wind. "You can't do that. We have freedom of ..."

Adam gave her a look of disdain. "I want her arrested, too."

Lieutenant Fetzer gave a slight smile and then nodded at two of her men who immediately came forward. She whispered to the officer who immediately turned to the reporter and the cameraman. They told them their Miranda rights in a monotone voice showing no emotion.

The crowd began clapping and cheering as the two were taken away in handcuffs.

Adam watched the scene play out. Adam held out his hand to Lt. Fetzer. "I'm sorry. I'm just worried. Of course, you have a job to do and you have rules to follow. It's not your fault." As Adam walked away, he muttered under his breath, "but I don't have rules to follow."

The rescue workers were parking the ATVs in an orderly fashion and then turning the keys into Sue who was checking them off on a list. Adam watched in frustration, as the last set of searchers came in and turned in their keys. Sue looked up and noticed Adam watching her, their eyes met but she quickly turned away.

Lt. Fetzer came up to Adam and mouthed some cliches trying to make him feel better. Adam stood and accepted them without comment. He kept his eyes on the officer with the snowmobile keys. She glanced back at him nervously several times as if afraid he was going to attack her for the keys.

When the last ATV had been parked and the keys given to her, Sue Render trudged through the mounting snow to the communications trailer. As she walked past Adam, she brushed his elbow and kept walking. A set of keys fell out of her hands and into the snow. She kept walking. Adam walked to the trailer and stooped down to retrieve the keys.

As Sue walked back past him, she whispered without stopping, " Make sure there is a full tank a gas and take an extra can with you." She walked to her own car and left without a backward glance at Adam.

Adam smiled. She really did believe in fairy tales.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Ramona's lay sprawled in the snow as the temperatures plummeted.

"Mona. Mona. Wake up, do you hear me?"

"No, go away. I'm sleepy." She kept her eyes closed.

"No, I'm not going away and you have to get up now." The voice insisted.

"No, Susanna. I don't want to get up now. I'm just too tired."

The voice softened for just a moment then turned firm again. "Mona, you have to open your eyes and sit up. It's not time yet and you still have things to do."

Mona clenched her eyes even tighter. "No." She yelled at the voice.

"Don't you want to see me? We haven't seen each other in a long time."

Mona whimpered. "Yes, I want to see you. I've missed you but I'm afraid."

"I know you're afraid, Mona but just open your eyes and look at me."

Mona opened her eyes. There sat Susanna cross-legged in the snow. Her straight long blond hair was as beautiful as Mona remembered it being. Susanna smiled at her.

"That's good. Now sit up so we can talk."

Mona squeezed her eyes shut. "No, I'm tired and you aren't even here. You're dead."

Mona felt a warm hand brush against her arm. "I am here, Mona. You just saw me. Now open your eyes again." The voice commanded in a no-nonsense tone.

Mona opened her eyes. Susanna was still sitting there in the snow beside her. "You are dead." She stated in an argumentative tone. "Oh, Susanna why did you do that?"

"It's just like you told Adam. Children are gifts and it was my time to go home. It's nothing to be sad about. You need to tell Adam he doesn't have to be sad about me any more."

Mona sat up and crossed her legs. They sat staring at each other as the snow fell harder and harder.

"Now, it is not your time to come home. You have to get up and get walking."

"No." Mona responded stubbornly. "I'm too tired and besides I don't know which way to go."

"I know you are but you have to stand up and start walking. That's all you have to do."

"That's easy for you to say."

"Will you do that for me, Mona? Please, please, please."

"Oh, okay."

"Promise me."

"I said okay."

"I want you to promise. You never broke a promise to me. Promise me that you will stand up and start walking."

"All right, all right, I promise."

Ramona opened her eyes. The dream had been so real. She'd felt that she could have touched Susanna had she reached out. She wondered why she was sleeping and sitting cross-legged in the snow at the same time. The snow swirled around Ramona taking her breath away. It was dark now and it was difficult to see more than a few feet in front of her.

She muttered. " A promise is a promise even if it was only a dream."

She was scratched and bleeding but it didn't bother her since she couldn't feel anything. She was too cold to feel anything. Her hands and feet were numb. Ramona pulled herself up on her knees and tried to stand but couldn't.

She couldn't feel her feet or her legs any more. She pulled her sleeves down over her arms to give some warmth. It didn't work. It wasn't that she felt cold any longer because she didn't but she hurt everywhere, the way it hurts when you foot falls asleep, only worse, much worse.

It was hard to think. All she really wanted to do was go back to sleep. She closed her eyes and thought of home. She wanted to go home and she knew that if she slept now, she would never see her home again.

She knelt in the snow. Dear God, I'm in big trouble here. I trust you and I believe in you and if this is my time, so be it. But if it's not my time, then give me the strength to keep moving. Amen.

She crawled to a tree and used it as leverage to stand. She stomped her feet over and over until she felt her feet come back to life. Tears sprung to her eyes at the pain but she was standing. Ramona focused on the next tree and hobbled to it. Her eyes found the next tree and she began to move toward it. She walked from one tree to another. She ignored the pain and kept thinking of home.

The distance between trees kept began to lengthen. She was leaving the woods.

She moved faster, as fast as her frozen feet would allow her. She winced at the pain but kept moving. All she needed to do was to find a house and then she would be safe. Tears warmed her frozen cheeks.

She stopped and looked around her. There were ghostly shapes around her. She guessed they must be rock formations. She had no idea which way was best but going straight had led her out of the woods so that was the way she would go.

She limped through the piled up snow not able to lift her feet anymore so she dragged them along. She began to maneuver through the ghostly shapes that she found out were rocks. She took a step and for just a second time was suspended and then she fell.

She screamed but the whistling wind drowned out her screams if anyone had been close enough to hear them which seemed unlikely. It seemed as if it took a million years to hit bottom. Time slowed as she tumbled into the darkness. She had no doubt that she would soon be dead. She whispered the words, "I love you, Adam."

And then she hit the ground.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Adam stood at the living room window listening to the wailing wind, anxiously waiting for all the would be rescuers to leave. The house was already empty and there were only a few people left. Then, he could go find Mona himself. Time was running out for her. She'd been out in this blizzard for most of the day. There was no way she could survive a night with these frigid temperatures.

He had to find her.

"Please God, keep her safe until I find her."

There was a light tap on his door. When he opened the door .Fetzer stood there with a grim smile on her face.

"Let's go, Adam."

"Go where?" Adam tried to sound innocent but failed. The last thing he wanted was to get Sue in trouble for dropping the keys.

"Let's go find Mona. Isn't that what you were going to do with those keys you picked up." She held up a huge gloved hand. "Don't bother to deny it and don't worry about the officer. I'm sure she wasn't aware that she dropped the keys but you should have given them back to her when you found them."

"Let's go." Adam was anxious to get moving.

She motioned for him to wait. "I've already got two ATVs gassed up and ready to go and besides I know the areas we have already searched but first we need to look at the map so you have a general idea where to look. There's no reason for us to cover areas already searched."

"I thought it was against the rules."

"It's against the rules to put my men in danger. What I do when I'm not working is my choice."

"What about the equipment?"

She smiled, her green eyes lighting up. "I don't care about the equipment."

They both turned to look back at the drive as they heard a truck approach Adam's house. It stopped and two men got out of the truck and walked to the house. Adam held the door open for them and they walked in without an invitation.

Fetzer didn't look surprised to see them. "Tony, Doug. What are you two doing here?"

"We went home and got our own ATVs. We are going to continue searching for Ms. Myers. There is no way she can survive the night in this storm."

"Now, Tony, Doug. We've already been through this. I won't endang..."

"Ma'am, with all due respect, we are here as private citizens. We have a right to do what we want on our own time."

She nodded. "You are both good men. Let's go." She tossed a key to Tony. "Go get four radios out of the van. If we're going to do this let's do it right."

She unfolded the map she was holding and set it down on the dining room table. She outlined a large area with her finger "We spent most of the day searching this lower area on the assumption that she couldn't have traveled much further than five miles on foot and in this weather. The search was thorough so we have to assume she actually did make it out of that area. Now, had she gone east, she would have gotten out of the woods and ended up in some of the farmer's fields and we'd have heard about it by now."

Tony walked back in with two more men and six walkie talkies. "Look who showed up."

Adam was choked up at the thought of these men coming back after having been out all day in this horrible weather. He tried to thank them but they all brushed his thanks away.

Lieutenant Fetzer looked proud but said nothing. She pointed back to the map. "I was just saying that I think we can eliminate the east. I want us to concentrate on the West and the North. Tony, Doug, and Mark, I want you to take the western area. Take this map with you, it shows the caves in the area. You'll need to check each cave. I know it's going to slow you down but if she was lucky she found one and curled up in it and slept through most of the day."

The men nodded and left. The Lieutenant yelled after them. "Keep those radios on at all times and be careful."

"Yes, Lieutenant." They echoed back in unison.

They turned back to the map. Still using her finger to point at the map, Lt. Fetzer explained. "Ron, we're going to take the Northern section. We're going to start right here where the teams stopped earlier. We'll each take a three mile section and zigzag back and forth. We'll cover more ground that way. We'll go north until we get to the Cliffs."

The Cliffs were a natural phenomena in the area and very popular for rock climbers and hikers but they were deadly in the winter, even for the experienced climber. If she'd somehow made it that far, she would be endanger not only from the weather but from falling. They might never find her up in those crevices.

"The Cliffs." Adam repeated back with a worried look. "You don't think she could have made it that far, do you? That's more than fifteen miles away."

"I'm sure she didn't, Adam." She tried to sound reassuring but all three of them looked worried.

"If she got to the Cliffs. She'd be in real trouble. All those crevices and drop offs." Ron offered the information though none of them needed to hear it to know that it was the truth. He saw the look the lieutenant gave him. He hastened to reassure Adam. "That's a long way from here. I'm sure she couldn't have made it that far north in this kind of weather."

They walked out into the blustery wind. Their skin instantly numbed from the frigid wind that continued to blow. Once on the ATVs, the windshield cut off much of the wind making it more bearable but it was still slowgoing because of the low visibility, the amount of snow and the trees.

To Adam, it felt as if he were moving inch by inch. He wasn't making fast enough progress. Every minute that passed was one more minute that Mona was in danger. As he crawled along, his thoughts kept going back to the Cliffs.

More and more, Adam became convinced that Mona had somehow made it to them. He didn't know how she possibly could have and yet he was sure that was where she was. That was where he needed to go look for her.

He hit the button on the radio.

"Lt. Fetzer, this is Adam. I'm going to go on further north and check out the Cliffs. I just have a feeling that's where Mona is."

"Absolutely not, Adam. We have to do this in an orderly fashion. We aren't going to find her based on a feeling. We're going to find her by being efficient and searching each area, grid by grid."

"I understand what you're saying but I really have to go up there." As he clicked off his two way radio, he heard Fetzer yelling at him but he had to go with his gut feeling on this. He headed straight ahead to the Cliffs.

After about twenty-five minutes, the trees began to thin out and he knew he was approaching the Cliffs. He stopped the snowmobile at the edge of the trees.

Please God, help me find her. I know she's up here somewhere. Lead me to her, I promise I won't ask for anything, just keep her alive. If she doesn't want me, I'll learn to live with that. I will never pressure her again. Please God, just let me find her.

As if on cue, the snow and wind stopped abruptly. He could see the ghostly outlines of the jagged rocks by the glow of the moonlight. He knew this was the spot.

He trudged through the snow looking for footprints even though he knew it was a senseless act. The wind had blown them away if they'd ever been there to begin with. He knew it was foolish of him to think he knew where she was, as if they had some sort of psychic bond. Still he believed exactly that. He believed God had led him here to find her.

She probably had managed to get this far north by sheer stubbornness alone. If anything could have saved her life, it would be her stubbornness, he thought with a grim smile. As he plowed his way through the mounds of snow, he yelled her name over and over but no response came back. He stepped forward and the earth gave way. He toppled as he lost his balance. More snow gave way. He scratched at the ground trying to stop the fall but it was only more snow that crumbled away as he clawed at it. He felt himself falling through the blackness.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

He landed with a thump and was momentarily dazed. He was surrounded by blackness but as his eyes adjusted he could see the haze of light from the flashlight that he'd been carrying. He must have dropped it as he'd fallen.

He'd been lucky. He'd only fallen a short distance and nothing was broken. He stood and stretched his hands toward the opening. His hands were only inches from the top but he realized those few inches might as well have been miles.

If he couldn't reach the top, he couldn't reach the top. And if he couldn't reach the top then he couldn't pull himself out and the idiot that he was he'd left his radio back at the ATV. He wouldn't be able radio for help.

He jumped and clutched at the snow in hopes that he could grasp on to a jagged edge of a rock to pull himself out. The only thing that happened was that the icy cold snow fell in his face. He jumped and clawed and jumped and clawed but had no success grabbing on to anything that would help him.

After quite some time of jumping and clawing, the only thing Adam had managed to do was knock down a considerable amount of snow. The crevice that had become his prison was about four feet wide, not much space but enough space for Adam to pace.

He would take about two steps forward and then had to turn and take the two steps back the way he'd just come. He stepped over the pile of snow that he'd managed to knock down again and again trying to come up with another idea.

He looked down at the pile of snow that he'd been stepping over. Slowly an idea formed. He took his foot and stomped down on the snow. Then he jumped and clawed so that more snow would fall. Then he stomped that snow down. He stood on the packed down mound of snow. His hand grazed the top of the hole. He brushed at the opening knocking down more and more snow until he finally felt rock.

He stomped down more snow and grasped the edge of the crevice. Using his feet to anchor himself against the wall, he began to pull himself up. He fought the urge to rush, he knew this could be his only chance to get out.

Inch by inch, he pulled himself up. His arms strained under the pressure but he ignored the pain and thought of Mona out in the cold alone. He had to get out and find her before it was too late.

After what seemed an eternity, he made it on solid ground. In spite of the cold, he was sweating. He lay on the snow covered ground, gasping catching his breath. Wet snow fell on his sweaty face. The snow and the wind had started back up while he'd been trapped.

He very carefully made his way back to the ATV and retrieved his radio.

When he got back to where he'd fallen, he went down on his hands and knees. He started crawling over the ground and yelling Mona's name. He took one step at a time, felt for solid ground beneath him and then moved forward another inch. Time and time again, he would have to change direction when he couldn't feel the ground under him.

"Mona, Mona."

She struggled toward awareness but it was difficult. She wanted to sleep. She could hear her name being called but she didn't know from which direction. She fought her way to consciousness but when she opened her eyes she was still surrounded by darkness.

She felt horrible, more horrible than she'd ever felt in her life. She closed her eyes. She wanted to sleep. Her eyes fluttered shut and she began to float back to sleep.

"Mona, Mona," came the voice again. Only this time, it was Susanna's voice not Adam's. "Open those eyes. You promised. And a promise is a promise."

Why wouldn't the voice be quiet so she could slip back into the darkness? She felt safe in the darkness. She didn't want to open her eyes.

"Mona, Mona." She opened her eyes in exasperation. This time it was Adam's voice. She focused on keeping her eyes open. She listened to the yelling. It was Adam, Adam Miles, but how could that be. She hadn't seen Adam in years. Where was Susanna?

She sat up straighter and moaned as she did, everything hurt. Adam, Susanna. Memories of the past week slipped back into her consciousness. She tried to stand but couldn't. She fell back to the ground. The memories rushed back to her. Running. Snow. Cold, so very cold. Running and walking. Crying and more crying. She heard the voice again and she opened her mouth to yell but only a croak came out.

She tried again, it was louder this time. She put a little of the snow in her mouth, waited for it to melt and tried again. It sounded louder to her but she couldn't be sure.

The moon slid back into the darkness leaving Adam alone with only his own voice for company. He continued to yell Mona's name even though he could barely hear his own voice above the wind.

Then, he heard something. He thought it was a voice but it could have been the wind playing tricks. He stopped to listen. He heard it again. It was a voice but Adam couldn't be sure where it was coming from. His heart gave a flutter. Mona was here and she was alive. He wasn't too late.

He turned on the radio. "Lieutenant, Lieutenant, I'm at the Cliffs. I just heard Mona yelling. Get some help up here."

"Are you sure you heard her?"

Was he sure? No, he wasn't sure but he was absolutely sure she was here and he had heard something. He pushed the call button.

"Yes, I'm sure. I heard her yelling."

"Okay, I'm calling in some help. We'll be there as soon as we can."

That was music to Adam's ears. He began yelling Mona's name and then waited for some response. Nothing. He hadn't imagined her voice. He was sure of that, he just had to find where she was.

He moved closer to the noise. He yelled and he heard some sort of response.

"Mona, Mona, can you hear me?" He yelled above the wind.

There was a mumbled response.

"Where are you, sweetheart? I can't find you."

Another mumbled response. He turned in the direction of her voice. He went down on his knees. "Keep talking, sweetheart. That way I can find you." He moved toward her voice on hands and knees using his hands to brush away snow.

After what seemed like an eternity, he found an opening. "Mona, Mona, are you down there?"

"Yes," The response was weak but she was alive. His hot tears fell on the snow.

"Oh, thank you, God. Thank you, God."

"Adam, is that you?"

"Yes, baby it's me. Don't worry. You're safe now." He managed to choke out between his tears. He brushed furiously at the snow uncovering the crevice.

"Adam, I got lost."

"I know, honey but it's okay. You're safe now."

"I thought I was going to die."

Tears sprang to his eyes. He had thought the same. "But you didn't, you're going to be fine."

"I'm so sleepy." Her voice was slurred and seemed to be weakening. "Susanna keeps waking me up and won't let me go to sleep. She keeps making me promise not to go to sleep but I'm so tired."

"You can't go to sleep now, Mona. We're going to have you out of there in just a little bit. You need to stay wake."

"But I'm tired and you're..." The voice trailed off to nothing.

"Mona, Mona, you've got to stay awake." He yelled down at her. He flashed his light down but couldn't see where she was. She must have fallen a long distance.

"Adam." Came the response so soft that he could barely hear it. "I love..."

"Honey, I love you. Mona, Mona." But no response.

After much too long of a wait, the roaring of motors came from a distance.

"They're here now, Mona. It won't be long, baby. I'm so sorry. I love you. I love you. I never meant to hurt you. Please forgive me but you need to know I'm not married. I would never hurt you." He waited for a response but none came.

Adam couldn't blame her for that. He was probably the last person she wanted to see right now and that would be her choice, he thought as he remembered his promise to God. Mona was going to be safe and that was all Adam needed. He wouldn't push her to be with him, he would abide by her wishes, even if that meant never seeing her again. He felt a stabbing pain but knew he would keep the promise as long as she survived this ordeal.

Fetzer was by his side carrying a back pack with her.

"How is she?" She yelled so she could be heard above the wind. As he talked she opened her back pack.

"I think she lost consciousness. She was talking a minute ago but then just stopped."

"Do you think we can get her out?"

"I don't know. I can't see anything but she sounds like she's far away."

Fetzer produced a flashlight and threw the beam down the hole. Both of them peered over and saw Mona crumpled in a heap at the bottom.

"Mona." Fetzer yelled down but no response. She yelled several more times until they saw some movement.

Mona lifted her head. "Adam."

"I'm here sweetheart."

Fetzer interrupted. "Mona, I'm going to throw you down a blanket. Wrap yourself up in it." She picked up a small silver square about a foot long and a foot wide.

Adam looked at in disgust. "That's not going to keep her warm."

"Yes, it will. It may not look like much but it will get the job done." She unfolded it knowing that Mona would have difficulty even doing that after being out in the cold for such a long period of time. She tossed it down the crevice.

Adam and her watched it float downward. It landed near Mona but she made no move to pick it up.

"Mona, pick up the blanket and wrap it around you." He saw some movement and after a moment Mona picked up the blanket and slowly wrapped it around her. Even from the distance they were at, they could see her struggle to do the simple chore.

They heard more motors coming. Fetzer yelled at them to be careful and they slowly made their way to them.

"Mona, my name is Andrea. How are you feeling?"

"I'm cold."

"I'm going to lower some water to you. I want you to drink it. Small sips unless you want to get sick."

Fetzer pulled out a jug of water and then a rope. She tied the rope on the handle of the water jug and lowered it into the hole. Adam watched in frustration. He wanted her out of there rather than making her more comfortable.

As if reading his thoughts, Fetzer turned to Adam. "Relax. We're going to get her out but she needed to start get warmed up now. She probably already has frostbite. We don't want it getting any worse."

"What I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to and by the way you didn't follow my orders."

"Well, maybe not but I found her."

She shrugged. "I guess there's something to be said about not following the rules."

"I've always thought so."

"I'm sure." She said dryly. She stood up and looked at her men. They were standing ready to take orders from her.

"Any of you have ropes?" They nodded. "Go get them and let's see if we can get her out of there."

While they waited for them to return with the ropes, Fetzer called into her office and requested a helicopter to pick them up but was told that would be impossible. The weather conditions wouldn't allow a helicopter out for any reason. So she asked for an ambulance to be at Adam's cottage waiting for them instead.

She shrugged at Adam. "We'll have to take her back on the ATVs. Not the best idea in her condition but it's the only way. When they were back with the ropes, they began tying them together. Once that was done. The attention went back to the hole and Mona.

"Hey, Mona. How are you doing?" Fetzer yelled down at her.

"A little better. Thanks for the water."

Adam thought she sounded stronger.

"Good. Now. We are going to lower this rope. Tie it around yourself and we are going to lift you up. Can you do that?"

"Sure."

Adam thought he could hear her teeth chattering even at that distance from her. They all watched as she attempted to tie the rope around her. Then they formed a line ready to lift her out.

"I can't do it. My hands won't work right."

"That's okay. We'll do." Adam yelled down at her.

Fetzer pulled the rope up and began to tie some loops. Adam stood by frustrated but held his tongue. It was obvious that she knew what she was doing and he'd already proven that he didn't.

Fetzer slipped the rope over her head and then handed the rope to Adam.

"Pull on this."

He did as requested. He saw that the loop tightened up on Fetzer as he pulled.

"That's good." Fetzer yelled loud enough to be heard over the wind.

Adam handed her back the rope. "Maybe I should go down and help her."

The lieutenant shook her head. "No, too much weight. Let's just try this first." She turned back to the hole and yelled directions to Mona again.

"Okay." Mona called up to them after several long moments. Fetzer yelled back to the men that she was ready.

It was completely dark now except for the lights of the rescuers that shone like beacons. The men lined up behind each other and picked up the rope. They started pulling using the hand over hand method. They heard a moan and immediately stopped.

"Mona, what's wrong?" Adam yelled out.

"It hurts."

"There's nothing we can do about that. Can you handle the pain?" Fetzer asked.

"Go ahead. Just hurry." Came the answer.

The pain and cold that Mona had endured were more than most people could imagine. It had been more than twelve long hours since she'd left for her morning run. The group of rescuers began pulling again, quicker than before.

He could see a spot of red hair rising from the crevice. They'd freed her. He let go of the rope and went to her. He took hold of her under her arms and helped pull her out the rest of the way. She was finally out of the crevice.

"Mona." Adam whispered in her ear but there was no response. She'd lost consciousness. She was wrapped in another silver blanket. Two rescuers led the way with their lights and the rest followed behind carrying Mona inside the blanket.

Adam insisted on being the one that Mona would ride back with and no one argued with him. She still hadn't regained consciousness so Adam got on the ATV first and then Mona was sat down in front of him. Fetzer led the way and the group proceeded back to the cottage.

The ambulance was waiting when they arrived as well as TV cameras and before Adam knew what was happening, Mona was lifted off the ATV and unto a stretcher.

Adam ran along side the stretcher, crying not caring what anyone thought. "Mona, I love you. Can you hear me, sweetheart? I love you." He crooned to her until they reached the ambulance door.

A man stopped him from entering. "Sorry. You can't come with us."

"But I have to." Adam pushed the man's arm away from him. Out of nowhere, two men grabbed his arms and pulled him away. He watched in frustration as they drove away.

Andrea Fetzer was beside Adam and patted his arm. "Let's go. You can ride with me."

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Twenty-four hours later, Adam found himself pacing the corridors of the hospital. The blizzard was over leaving behind more than two feet of snow in the upper New York region. He was driving everyone crazy including Mona's parents. They had hopped on the first available flight out of Cleveland after Adam called.

Mona was out of danger but was still listed as critical. He had only been allowed to see her twice. Both times, she had been too sedated to make much sense. She kept talking about promises and Susanna. Adam didn't know what to make of it but he was just grateful she was alive.

The doctors assured them that she was progressing and would be fine. She'd broken one leg and has a bad sprain on the other ankle from the fall down the crevice. There was some damage from frostbite but they felt that she would have a full recovering barring any complications. The doctors were predicting that she might lose some feeling in her fingers and toes but all in all that was too bad considering what she'd been through.

For the past thirty minutes, Mona's parents had been in the room with her and the doctors. The door opened and her mother walked to him and gave him a big hug.

"She's doing much better now. She's going to be fine. She fell asleep again but before she did she said that she wanted to see you later, maybe in a few hours." She spoke in a soft gentle voice. "So, why don't you go back to the hotel and rest for a bit and then come back."

"I didn't want to leave until I saw her again."

She patted his arm reassuringly. "She's fine. Go take a nap, that way you'll feel better when you do see her." It wasn't what he wanted to do but he didn't want to argue with the person that would hopefully be his mother-in-law some day so he agreed.

"Did you talk to her? Did you tell her that I'm not married."

Her mother looked upset at the question. "I tried to but she refused to talk with me about you at all. She said she would take care of it herself. She said she wasn't running away any more."

Adam felt a knot forming in his stomach. That didn't forebode well for him or a future relationship with each other but he was sure once he explained it to her everything would be fine between them.

Mrs. Myers smiled gently at him. "She's convinced that Susanna saved her. She's talking about Susanna making her get up and keep walking."

"I know. She told me the same thing. It was probably a dream she had while she was sleeping."

"Well, don't make the mistake of saying that to her. I did and she just about bit my head off. Now you need to go rest."

Once back in the hotel room, he knew Mrs. Myers had been right. He did need to rest. He was exhausted and fell asleep without even taking off his clothes. He woke up several hours later and after room service and a shower he felt refreshed, almost human again. Everything would be fine once he talked with Mona and explained everything.

Ramona knew Adam would be coming soon. She didn't know what she would say to him but she knew one thing. She wasn't running away from him or any confrontation again. She was done running. She would face this problem and hopefully future problems and deal with them but she was glad she had a few hours to herself before she did that.

She'd refused to talk about Adam with her parents even though they'd tried. This was something she would deal with Adam with. What had happened between her and Adam was there business and only their business.

Ramona readjusted her pillow for the hundredth time and looked at the clock again. She tried to get comfortable but it wasn't easy to do with a broken leg and a sprained ankle. No doubt, he would tell her how sorry he was and that he would leave his wife for her but it didn't matter. Ramona wouldn't be able to look herself in the mirror if she even considered doing that for a second.

She'd had it happen to her too many times. She wouldn't do that to another woman no matter if she loved the man or not. Not to mention, he had a family. She wouldn't break up a family. It just wasn't who she was.

She heard footsteps approaching her door.

She would simply look Adam in the eyes and tell him how despicable she found him and his behavior and then he would be out of her life forever. He would never know that she still loved him.

The door opened and all Ramona could see were flowers and balloons. Her heart melted, just a bit, but she forced herself to stay angry at him. Adam's head peaked around. He called in a stage whisper.

"Mona. Are you awake?"

"Yes, come in."

He started arranging flowers and balloons around the room.

"What is all this?"

He shrugged. "I just wanted you to know that I was a little worried about you." His crooked grin melted her heart a bit more.

"Just a little?"

"Just a lot." He admitted. He turned back to her. His brown eyes were the color of dark chocolate as he looked at her. "I was terrified. I wasn't sure if I would ever see you alive again and if I didn't it would have been my fault."

"It wasn't your fault, Adam. I'm the one that ran away again. I seem to keep doing that to you but I'm not going to do it anymore."

She took a deep breath and struggled to sit up so she could face him on more equal ground. "Why..."

Before she could finish the question, Adam spoke. "I'm not married."

Mona's eyes went wide with that pronouncement. She didn't say anything for a moment and then said, "You're not. That lady..."

"She lied."

"She lied?" Mona felt confused. She hadn't expected to hear that he wasn't married. "What do you mean? Why would she lie about something like that?"

"Just that. She lied to be mean and hateful. That's just the kind of person she is." He pulled a chair up beside the bed.

"You're not married?"

"No, I'm not married now. I was married and that's what I was going to tell you about that morning when you got back from your run. I'd avoided your questions all week and I thought you had a right to hear about my marriage from me." He caressed her cheek and moved down to her shoulder where it rested. "But you never got back. You scared me to death."

"You're not married?" She repeated it again. "This is going to take a minute for me to process."

"Take your time. We have the rest of our lives to talk." His fingertips played with her hair. "I was married to an alcoholic."

"Oh no, Adam." She struggled to sit up. "That's why you reacted so angrily when I showed up at your doorstep drunk that day and why you were convinced that I was an alcoholic."

He shrugged. "Probably."

"The lady said you had a daughter. Where is she, with her mother?"

He was prepared for that question but it still hurt. He took a deep breath. His hand slid down Mona's shoulder and he clasped her hand. "Both of them are dead."

"Dead." Mona looked at Adam. He was pale.

"Yes, it was my wife's weekend to have her. I had full custody but she got to keep her every other weekend. The court didn't care that Victoria was an alcoholic. She was Lacy's mother so she got visitation." He paused to take a deep breath. She clasped on to his fingers tighter. "Apparently, she ran out of vodka and decided to take a drive to get some more. She took Lacy in the car with her. Blood tests showed that she was more than three times the legal amount of alcohol in her system."

"Oh, Adam." Tears were forming and beginning to trickle down Mona's nose.

"After she left the liquor store, she ran headlong into another car. That car had two little kids and their parents in it. Everyone in both cars were killed."

Her mind flashed back to that first day when they'd been arguing about her being an alcoholic. She'd thoughtlessly told him that it wasn't like she'd killed anyone. That was when he'd had the anxiety attack.

"Oh, Adam. That's horrible. You must have hated me when I showed up drunk and then the things I said afterward trying to defend myself."

More tears trickled. He wiped them away for her.

"No, I didn't hate you. I was angry but I think I was taking my anger for her out on you. I overreacted to the whole situation."

"You had every right to. How awful for you, Adam."

"It was. It's been rough but I've struggled through it. I still am struggling."

"God will help you, Adam."

"I'm afraid I don't have the same faith in God that you have. I've not been a good Christian like you."

"It doesn't matter, Adam. He loves you. All you have to do is reach out and he'll be there to hold you up."

"I've been angry at God for a long time but when you told me that Lacy had been a gift from God but that he had wanted her back with him, that helped a little."

"Susanna said I was right about that and she told me to make sure I told you that."

"When?"

"When I was lost Susanna came to me and helped me. She made me get up and keep moving. I didn't want to but she made me promise."

"You mean you dreamt about Susanna?"

Mona smiled and shrugged. "Okay, you can say it that way if it makes you feel more comfortable. Either way, she was there and she made me keep moving and she told me I was right. Life is a gift to be cherished but we don't all get to keep the gift for the same amount of time. When it's time for someone to go home, then we'll be sad and selfish for us but we should rejoice for them."

Mona's hand reached for Adam's hand. They sat in silence for a long time both lost in their own thoughts. Knowing what she knew now, Mona felt so horrible for him. He'd been through so much..

"I don't claim to be perfect."Adam stood beside her hospital bed. He grasped her hand. She felt safe with her hand in his, like nothing bad could ever happen to her with him by her side. Without warning, he bent down on one knee still grasping her hand. She tried to pull it away but he held on tight. A torrent of words poured from his mouth. "I know I'm not perfect. I've made a lot of mistakes in the past. The biggest mistake being letting you walk out of my life all those ye..."

"Adam, that's in the past. It doesn't matter anym..."

He held a finger to her mouth to quiet her. "I was such an idiot then and I have no excuse for what I did or how I hurt you. But I know this, I loved you then and I love you now and I will love you forever."

She stirred in the bed trying to stop what was about to happen. She didn't want to humiliate him. She didn't want to hurt him.

The words rushed out in a torrent. He wouldn't be stopped. "I know we haven't seen each other in years but I know I do love you and I want a future with you." His words tumbled out so she couldn't stop him from talking. "I know I don't have a right to a future with you after I almost got you killed."

"You didn't..."

He ignored her. "But I love you and I want to marry you. We can have a wonderful life together if you just give us a chance. Will you marry me?"

He finally stopped talking and his brown eyes met her. She saw in his eyes that he was sincere but it made no difference.

"Oh Adam." She sounded so sad that it broke his heart. "Don't you understand? You deserve more than me. It wouldn't work between us. For some reason, I always believe the worst about you. You deserve someone that trusts you and has faith in you and I can't be that woman. I can't trust any man."

"It doesn't matter. You'll learn to trust me. It will take time."

She shook her head feeling the tears threatening to fall. She knew that sooner or later, she would ruin it and then she would be alone again and she would have hurt Adam in the process. She didn't want that to happen.

She closed her own eyes. He needed to find a woman that didn't always think the worst of him. A woman that would have faith in him.

Tears leaked out in spite of herself. She spoke softly as if that could cushion what she was about to say. "Adam." She opened her eyes and looked back. "I'm sorry. I don't want to be involved with anyone right now. It's not about you."

He gripped her hand tighter refusing to let her go. His brown eyes transformed to copper as confusion crossed his face. "But I'm not married. Myrtle was just..."

"I understand. That's not the problem. If anything it was all my own stupid fault for believing a woman like her. I should have known better."

He struggled to hold back the tears. "It is my fault and you almost died because of me. I should have told you that I'd been married before but I was just waiting for the right time."

Now she was the one that grabbed his hand. "It wasn't your fault. I am the one that wandered away and got lost in the middle of a blizzard. How could that be your fault? You didn't do anything wrong."

"I love you. I want us to share a life together." He choked out the words.

"No, you don't. When I told you that night that I wouldn't have sex outside of marriage, you told me then that you weren't in the market for marriage. That was the truth. You're just having all these guilt feelings about what happened."

He shook his head vehemently. He needed to make her understand that he loved her and wanted to marry her. "That's not true."

She took a deep breath. She had to make him understand no matter how much it hurt him. "Adam, I don't love you. The week was wonderful with you but it wasn't love. We don't even know each other. Yes, I was upset when I thought you were married but that wasn't because I thought we had a future together."

She wiped away the falling tears.

"It was because I thought I'd done to some woman what had been done to me. I know how horrible it feels to have your husband cheat on you. I didn't want to do that to another woman. But it was never about love."

"I don't believe that." He watched her carefully for a moment and then demanded, "If you don't love me, then why are you crying?"

"Because I care about you, Adam." She waited a beat and wished she didn't have to say the next part. "You are my friend and it hurts me to hurt you. That's all nothing less, nothing more."

His brown eyes locked with hers and he didn't speak for many long moments. He just looked into her eyes as if he were unlocking her soul. She wanted to look away but was afraid that would give her away. It would reveal too much of her feelings.

He had to believe her when she told him she didn't love him or want him as part of her future except as a friend. She returned his stare without flinching. The moment went on and on. Her hands were sweating but she continued to meet his eyes.

He leapt up off his knees causing her to jump in surprise. He paced the room. "Mona, I know you love me. I felt it..." He stopped in mid-sentence, remembering his promise to God. Mona was alive and well and Adam had no choice but to keep his part of the bargain, not to pressure her into a relationship that she obviously didn't want.

She saw the change in his face. His eyes turned black for just a moment and then the anger was gone. He gave her a sad look. "If that's what you want, Mona. Then, so be it."

He turned and walked out.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Ramona's blue eyes flew open as the alarm clock buzzed. She was instantly awake surprised to have slept at all. She would have taken bets that she wouldn't be able to sleep a wink but she had actually slept surprisingly well.

She was up and out of her apartment in record time. It was only when she got outside and saw the drizzle that she remembered the weather report from the night before and of course, she had forgotten her umbrella.

Ramona literally ran to the bookstore. Her hair frizzed just a bit more with each drop of rain that landed on the red curls. She walked in and shook her head letting her red curls and the rain go everywhere. She rushed to the romance section and scanned the shelves until she found what she was looking for.

Her book. There it was. This was the day Adam had promised it would be on the shelves and there it was, her book, Over The Rainbow and Back by Mona Meyers. She picked up the book.

Tears filled her eyes and a warm feeling settled over her. There was her name on the cover of a book. It was something she'd always dreamed of but never believed would happen to her but it had. She was thrilled, more than words could express. She savored the feeling.

It felt good, very good; however, in the past few months she'd come to understand that a person needed more than her name on a book cover to be happy. It was all well and good to be successful but when you didn't have anyone to share your triumphs, it just didn't mean as much. People weren't meant to be alone.

She'd talked to Adam several times over the course of the past month but always about the book, nothing they talked about could even be remotely considered personal. He was friendly and excited for her but that was where it stopped.

It hurt but it was what she'd chosen. She'd hoped that he might bring up the topic of them again and she could tell him she'd made a mistake but it hadn't happened. She'd made the decision and now she had to live with it even if it was the wrong decision.

Her loneliness was of her own making. She had no one to blame but herself. He'd made it more than obvious in that hospital room that he wanted her in his life. She'd been the one that was afraid. She'd been the one that hadn't wanted to make a commitment. She'd been the one that hadn't wanted to take the risk.

Now, she understood that love was very much worth the risk but it was too late. She'd had a second chance and she'd blown it again. Rarely, did second chances come along in life but it had and she'd thrown it away and all because she'd been afraid.

She clasped the book tighter.

"So, is it everything you thought it would be." A voice asked.

She looked up startled to be staring into beautiful brown eyes. "Oh, Adam." Without thinking she threw herself in his arms. She felt him flinch so she quickly took a few steps back. "How did you find me?"

"Oh, that was easy. I just found the nearest bookstore to your house. I knew you would be here when it opened. I wanted to see your face when you saw the book on the shelf for the first time."

She looked around. "You've been here watching me the whole time." She hoped he hadn't been able to read her mind the last few minutes. She'd been feeling the agony of defeat instead of the thrill of victory. That wouldn't do. She didn't want him to know that she was still mooning over him like a lovesick teenager. She put an eager smile on her face.

"Did I look as excited as I feel?"

"Actually, you looked a bit pensive but that is usually what happens. The moment comes and it's a bit overwhelming."

She chuckled. "More like terrifying."

"That too."

"You flew all the way to Cleveland just to see my face when I saw the book on the shelf? That's a bit extreme, isn't it?"

"No, I was here on business anyway."

Ramona's heart cracked a bit, for just a moment she'd hoped that maybe it wasn't too late for them. A woman walked up to them. She was tall and lithe in a way that Ramona never would be. The woman grabbed Adam's arm possessively. The crack in her heart grew.

"Adam, are you about ready to go?"

"Just about. Sholana, this is Mona Meyers. Mona is our latest and I might add best new author. " He polished his nails on his jacket. "Of course, I like to think I had a little to do with it since I did edit the book."

Sholana held out a perfectly manicured hand to Ramona. She said in a silky voice that practically purred. "It's nice to meet you."

Ramona wanted to claw her eyes out. Ramona's own fingernails were ragged, she'd spent the weekend cleaning her basement trying not to think about the book. Ramona felt short and squatty next to this tall beautiful woman.

Ramona managed to sound friendly when she opened her mouth. "It's nice to meet you, too and Adam is right, he is a wonderful editor." They did make a beautiful couple, Ramona reluctantly admitted to herself. Adam deserved someone that looked like this, Ramona thought, surprised at the bitterness and anger that oozed through her.

"I'm sure he is." Sholana purred, her eyes fluttering at Adam. "That's why my company has hired him."

Ramona's eyes darted toward Adam. He looked uncomfortable. "Is that true, Adam? You won't be my editor on the next book."

His eyes turned a molten bronze color and his complexion matched it. "No, I was going to tell you but I didn't have a chance, yet. That's the way it works in the publishing business. Most editors work in several different houses during their career."

"Of course." Ramona struggled to sound as if it didn't matter to her. "Business is business."

"It was just too good of an opportunity to pass up."

Ramona smiled up at him, hoping it looked sincere. "Then, I'm happy for you and I'm glad we got to work together. Good luck." She held out her hand. "Thanks for everything."

He ignored her hand and enveloped her with his arms. For just a moment, she savored the warm happy feeling that being in his arms gave her and then she stepped away. She saw anger flashing in Sholana's eyes. She'd been right to think Adam was with Sholana now. That was obvious by the way she looked at him and latched on to him.

"I've got to go. I'm training my replacement at school this week. Walt has gotten me hooked up with a book tour that starts in a few weeks." She'd actually started her leave the week before but she had to get out of there. She turned, she didn't want him to see the tears forming. If she didn't leave now, she would lose it.

His hand touched her shoulder. She shivered from the contact. She risked one quick glance back. "Thanks, Adam. For all your help on the book. I couldn't have done it without you."

"Yes, you could have and would have. You are a talented writer and I predict you will be a successful one, also. That doesn't always happen even if you are talented but I have confidence in you, Mona. Of course, all the publicity from your rescue helped."

She gave him a smile and walked out of the store as the tears began to fall. She was glad for the rain that was falling. No one would notice that it was tears not the rain that trickled down her face. She was half way up the block before she turned back.

Adam was stepping in to a limo. The driver was holding the door for him. The limo driver slammed the door shut. To Ramona, it sounded as if a window of opportunity was being slammed shut.

She might never see Adam again. After all, more than twenty years had passed before she'd seen him again, there was no reason to think she would ever see him again. Was she willing to let him walk out of her life without telling him that she loved him?

The limo driver walked around the sleek black limo and opened his own door. Adam was with Sholana now, her mind argued. She couldn't compete with a beauty like that. Her heart argued back that it wasn't about competing. It was about telling the truth, it was about taking a risk. It was about not running away from the truth.

The motor of the limo started up. The limo pulled out in to traffic. Ramona's heart stopped and she couldn't catch her breath. The limo was moving forward toward her. Her heart screamed, go for it and she did.

Without thinking she jumped out in the road and in front of the limo which promptly screeched to a halt. Adam climbed out of the limo.

"Mona, what's wrong?"

Her hair was dripping wet thanks to no umbrella.

"Nothing. I just remembered something I needed to tell you." Rain dripped down her nose.

"What's so important that you had to jump out in front of my car in the rain? You're lucky he didn't hit you." He demanded.

She looked down at her feet. This wasn't the place or the time. She looked back up to tell him never mind, that it wasn't important. His eyes were filled with concern not love. He didn't love her anymore.

"I just wanted to...." It didn't matter if he loved her or not. She had to tell him the truth. Like the old saying, the truth will set you free. "I just wanted to tell you that I love you, Adam. I love you, I always have and a part of me always will. There's a part of you in a small corner of my heart and you will always be three. I know you don't love me any more but I just had to..." She was rambling but couldn't make herself stop.

He held a finger up to her lips. She looked up in to his eyes. .His lips found hers and she couldn't talk for several long moments. "Ramona, I love you."

She looked up in wonderment. "You do?"

"I do."

"I thought you were with Miss Perfect Blondie there."

"Don't be catty, Mona"

"The name is Ramona and Adam, you don't tell me what to do."

"She's my boss, nothing more. I took the job with her company because it's based here in Cleveland. I thought if I lived here, maybe we could work things out."

"You moved to Cleveland." Mona couldn't have been more shocked if he'd told her he had moved to the moon.

"I did." His arm went around her. "Come on, get in the car before we both catch pneumonia. I think we have a lot of talking and planning to do."

"Planning?" She looked up with a shy smile.

"Yes, Mona."He bent down and kissed her softly on the lips. She didn't move away. She let the warmth of his lips warm her heart. He pulled away and went down on his knees in the middle of the street in the middle of the rain. Horns started honking and she could hear people cheering and yelling.

"I love you and I want you in my life forever. That is, if you will have me. Will you marry me, Mona Myers?"

She smiled through more tears but they were happy tears. "Yes, I will marry you and it's about time you asked. I've been waiting a long, long time to hear those words come out of your mouth."

She tugged him up and his strong arms went around her, holding her tightly. She opened her eyes and lifted her eyes to the sky to thank God for this miracle that she'd never thought would happen.

"Oh, Adam. Look." She moved away and pointed. "A rainbow."

He looked behind him and they held hands as they stared at the rainbow.

"It's a sign from God." They both said it at the same time.

She looked at him in surprise. "I've been working on my faith, Mona. We're going to have a wonderful life with God in our marriage."

She smiled and he put his arms around her. This was right where she wanted to be. Her life had come full circle.