She'd make tea, she thought as she hurried through the cabin. A glass and a half of wine was enough if she wanted her mind perfectly clear. She'd had another idea about the Land of Mirrors and how that red sea should reflect when she'd walked home.

Eager to tell him, she opened the door. Her delighted smile of welcome shifted to blank shock.

"Rowan, you shouldn't open the door without seeing who it is first. You're much too trusting for your own good."

With the spring breeze blowing behind him, Alan stepped inside.

CHAPTER 7

鈥淎lan, what are you doing here?"

She knew immediately her tone had been short and unwelcoming-and very close to accusatory. She could see it in the surprised hurt on his face.

"It's been over three weeks, Rowan. We thought you might appreciate a little face-to-face. And frankly-" He shoved at the heavy sand-colored hair that fell over his forehead. "The tenor of your last phone call worried your parents."

"The tenor?" She bristled, and struggled to fix on a pleasant smile. "I don't see why. I told them I was fine and well settled in."

"Maybe that's what concerns them."

The worry in his earnest brown eyes brought her the first trickle of guilt. Then he took off his coat, laid it neatly over the banister and made a pocket of resentment open under the guilt. "Why would that be a concern?"

"None of us really knows what you're doing up here-or what you hope to accomplish by cutting yourself off from everyone."

"I've explained all of that." Now there was weariness along with the guilt. It was her cottage, damn it, her life. They were being invaded and questioned. But manners had her gesturing to a chair. "Sit down, please. Do you want anything? Tea, coffee?"

"No, I'm fine, but thanks." He did sit, looking stiffly out of place in his trim gray suit and starched white Oxford shirt. He still wore his conservatively striped, neatly Windsor-knotted tie. It hadn't occurred to him to so much as loosen it for the trip.

He scanned the room now as he settled in a chair by the quiet fire. From his viewpoint the cabin was rustic and entirely too isolated. Where was the culture-the museums, the libraries, the theaters? How could Rowan stand burying herself in the middle of the woods for weeks on end?

All she needed, he was certain, was a subtle nudge and she'd pack up and come back with him. Her parents had assured him of it.

He smiled at her, that crooked, slightly confused smile that always touched her heart. "What in the world do you do here all day?"

"I've told you in my letters, Alan." She sat across from him, leaned forward. This time, she was certain, she could make him understand. "I'm taking some time to think, to try to figure things out. I go for long walks, read, listen to music. I've been doing a lot of sketching. In fact-"

"Rowan, that's all well and good for a few days," he interrupted, the patience so thick in his voice her teeth went instantly on edge. "But this is hardly the place for you. It's easy enough to read between the lines of your letters that you've developed some sort of romantic attachment for solitude, for living in some little cottage in the middle of nowhere. But this is hardly Walden Pond."

He shot her that smile again, but this time it failed to soften her. "And I'm not Thoreau. Granted. But I'm happy here, Alan."

She didn't look happy, he noted. She looked irritable and edgy. Certain he could help her, he patted her hand. "For now, perhaps. For the moment. But what happens after a few more weeks, when you realize it's all just a-" He gestured vaguely. "Just an interlude," he decided. "By then it'll be too late to get your position back at your school, to register for the summer courses you planned to take toward your doctorate. The lease is up for your apartment in two months."

Her hands were locked together in her lap now, to keep them from forming fists and beating in frustration on the arms of the chair. "It's not just an interlude. It's my life."

"Exactly." He beamed at her, as she had often seen him beam at a particularly slow student who suddenly grasped a thorny concept. "And your life is in San Francisco. Sweetheart, you and I both know you need more intellectual stimulation than you can find here. You need your studies, your students. What about your monthly book group? You have to be missing it. And the classes you planned to take? And you haven't mentioned a word about the paper you were writing."

"I haven't mentioned it because I'm not writing it. I'm not going to write it." Because it infuriated her that her fingers were beginning to tremble, she wrenched them apart and sprang up. "And I didn't plan on taking classes, other people planned that for me. The way they've planned every step I've ever taken. I don't want to study, I don't want to teach. I don't want any intellectual stimulation that I don't choose for myself. This is exactly what I've told you before, what I've told my parents before. But you simply refuse to hear."

He blinked, more than a little shocked at her sudden vehemence. "Because we care about you, Rowan. Very much." He rose as well. His voice was soothing now. She rarely lost her temper, but he understood when she did she threw up a wall no amount of logic could crack. You just had to wait her out.

"I know you care." Frustrated, she pressed her fingers to her eyes. "That's why I want you to hear, I want you to understand, or if understanding is too much, to accept. I'm doing what I need to do. And, Alan-" She dropped her hands, looked directly into his eyes. "I'm not coming back."

His face stiffened, and his eyes went cool as they did when he had outlined a logical premise and she disagreed with him. "I certainly hoped you'd had enough of this foolishness by now and would fly back with me tonight. I'm willing to find a hotel in the area for a few days, and wait."

"No, Alan, you misunderstand. I'm not coming back to San Francisco. At all. Not now, not later."

There, she thought, she'd said it. And a huge weight seemed to lift off her heart. It remained light even when she read the irritation in his eyes.

"That's just nonsense, Rowan. It's your home, of course you'll come back."

"It's your home, and it's my parents' home. That doesn't make it mine." She reached out to take his hands, so happy with her own plans she wanted him to be. "Please try to understand. I love it here. I feel so at home, so settled. I've never really felt like this before. I've even got a job sketching. It's art for a computer game. It's so much fun, Alan. So exciting. And I'm going to look into buying a house somewhere in the area. A place of my own, near the sea. I'm going to plant a garden and learn how to really cook and-"