“Peter, did you say something about wanting to go camping?” he said, casting Carol a defiant look. “James and I were thinking of heading for the Washington coastline this coming weekend and thought you and your mother might like to go with us.”

“We are?” James asked, delighted and surprised.

Peter’s eyes widened with excitement. “Camping? You’re inviting Mom and me to go camping?”

At the mention of the word camping, Carol opened her car door and vaulted out. Her eyes narrowed on Alex as if to declare a foul and charge him a penalty.

“Are you two free this weekend?” Alex asked with a practiced look of innocence, formally extending the invitation. The ball was in her court, and he was interested in seeing how she volleyed this one.

“Yes,” Peter shouted. “We’re interested.”

“No,” Carol said at the same moment. “We already have plans.”

“We do?” her son moaned. “Come on, Mom, Mr. Preston just offered to take us camping with him and James. What could possibly be more important than that?”

“I wanted to paint the living room.”

“What? Paint the living room? I don’t believe it.” Peter slapped his hands against his thighs and threw back his head. “You know how I feel about camping,” he whined.

“Give your mother time to think it over,” Alex urged, confident that Carol would change her mind or that Peter would do it for her. “We can talk about it tomorrow evening.”

James gave Peter the okay signal, and feeling extraordinarily proud of himself, Alex led the way to his van, handing his son the keys.

“You’re going to let me drive?” James asked, sounding more than a little stunned. “Voluntarily?”

“Count your blessings, boy, and drive.”

“Yes, sir!”

Carol was furious with Alex. He’d played a faultless game, and she had to congratulate him on his fine closing move. All day she’d primed herself for the way she was going to act when she saw him again. She’d allowed their relationship to progress much further than she’d ever intended, and it was time to cool things down.

With her mother lighting candles in church and having heart-to-heart talks with God, things had gotten completely out of hand. Angelina barely complained anymore that Alex wasn’t Catholic, and worse, not Italian. It was as if those two prerequisites no longer mattered.

What Carol hadn’t figured on was the rush of adrenaline she’d experienced when Alex pulled into the school parking lot. She swore her heart raced faster than any of the runners on the track. She’d needed every ounce of determination she possessed not to toss aside the magazine she’d planted in the car and run to him, bury her face in his chest and ask him to explain what was happening to her.

Apparently Alex had read her perfectly. He didn’t appear at all concerned about her lack of welcome. That hadn’t even fazed him. All the arguments she’d amassed had been for naught. Then at the last possible minute he’d introduced the subject of this camping trip, in what she had to admire was a brilliant move. Her chain of resistance was only as strong as the weakest link. And her weakest link was Peter.

Grudgingly she had to admire Alex.

“Mom,” Peter cried, restless as a first grader in the seat beside her. “We’re going to talk about it, aren’t we?”

“About the camping trip?”

“It’s the chance of a lifetime. The Washington coast—I’ve heard it’s fabulous—”

“We’ve got plans.”

“To paint the living room? We could do that any old time!”

“Peter, please.”

He was silent for a minute or so. The he asked, “Do you remember when I was eleven?”

Here it comes, Carol mused darkly. “I remember,” she muttered, knowing it would’ve been too much to expect him not to drag up the lowest point of her life as a mother.

“We were going camping then, too, remember?”

He said remember as though it was a dirty word, one that would get him into trouble.

“You promised me an overnight camping trip and signed us up for an outing through the Y? But when we went to the meeting you got cold feet.”

“Peter, they gave us a list of stuff we were supposed to bring, and not only did I not have half the things on the list, I didn’t even know what they were.”

“You could have asked,” Peter cried.

“It was more than that.”

“Just because we were going to hike at our own pace? They said we’d get a map. We could’ve found the camp, Mom, I know we could have.”

Carol had had visions of wandering through the woods for days on end with nothing more than a piece of paper that said she should head east—and she had the world’s worst sense of direction. If she could get lost in a shopping mall, how would she ever find her way through dense forest?

“That wasn’t the worst part,” Peter murmured. “Right there in the middle of the meeting you leaned over and asked me what it would cost to buy your way out of the trip.”

“You said you wouldn’t leave for anything less than a laser tag set,” Carol said, tormented by the unfairness of it all. The toy had been popular and expensive at the time and had cost her a pretty penny. But her son had conveniently forgotten that.

“I feel like I sold my soul that day,” Peter said with a deep sigh.

“Peter, honestly!”

“It wasn’t until then that I realized how much I was missing by not having a dad.”

The kid was perfecting the art of guilt.

“Now, once again,” he argued, “I have the rare opportunity to experience the great out-of-doors, and it’s like a nightmare happening all over again. My own mother’s going to pull the rug out from under my feet.”

Carol stopped at a red light and pretended to play a violin. “This could warp your young mind for years to come.”

“It just might,” Peter said, completely serious.

“Twenty years from now, when they lock those prison doors behind you, you can cry out that it’s all my fault. If only I’d taken you camping with Alex and James Preston, then the entire course of your life would have been different.”

A short pause followed her statement.

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Mother.”

Peter was right, of course, but Carol was getting desperate. At the rate this day was going, she’d end up spending Saturday night in front of a campfire, fighting off mosquitoes and the threat of wild beasts.

Because she felt guilty, despite every effort not to, Carol cooked Peter his favorite chicken-fried steak dinner, complete with gravy and mashed potatoes.

After the dishes had been cleared and Peter was supposed to be doing his homework, Carol found him talking on the phone, whispering frantically. It wasn’t hard to guess that her son was discussing strategies with James. The three of them were clearly in cahoots against her.

Carol waited until Peter was in bed before she marched into the kitchen and righteously punched out Alex’s phone number. She’d barely given him a chance to answer before she laid into him with both barrels.

“That was a rotten thing to do!”

“What?” he asked, feigning innocence.

“You know darn well what I’m talking about. Peter’s pulled every trick in the book from the moment you mentioned this stupid camping trip.”

“Are you going to come or is this war?”

“It’s war right now, Mister Preston.”

“Good. Does the victor get spoils? Because I’m telling you, Carol Sommars, I intend to win.”

“Oh, Alex,” she said with a sigh, leaning against the wall. She slid all the way down to the floor, wanting to weep with frustration. “How could you do this to me?”

“Easy. I got the idea when you told me it was too much to hope that you’d miss me.”

“But I don’t know anything about camping. To me, roughing it is going without valet service.”

“It’ll be fun, trust me.”

Trusting Alex wasn’t at the top of her priority list at the moment. He’d pulled a fast one on her, and she wasn’t going to let him do it again.

“Is Peter sleeping?” Alex asked softly.

“If he isn’t, he should be.” She didn’t understand where this conversation was heading.

“James is asleep, too,” he said. “After the cold shoulder you gave me this afternoon, I need something to warm my blood.”

“Try a hot water bottle.”

“It won’t work. Keep the door unlocked and I’ll be right over.”

“Absolutely not. Alex Preston, listen to me, I’m not dressed for company and—”

It was too late. He’d already disconnected.

Eight

Standing in front of her locked screen door, Carol had no intention of letting Alex inside her home. It was nearly eleven, and they both had to work in the morning. When his car pulled into the driveway, she braced her feet apart and stiffened her back. She should be furious with him. Should be nothing; she was furious!

But when Alex climbed out of his car, he stood in her driveway for a moment, facing the house. Facing her. The porch light was dim, just bright enough to outline his handsome features.

With his hands in his pockets, he continued to stand there, staring at her. But that seemed such an inadequate way to describe the intensity of his gaze as his eyes locked with her own. Not a muscle moved in the hard, chiseled line of his jaw, and his eyes feasted on her with undisguised hunger. Even from the distance that separated them, Carol saw that his wonderful gray eyes had darkened with need.

He wanted her.

Heaven help her, despite all her arguments to the contrary, she wanted him, too.

Before he’d marched two steps toward her, Carol had unlocked the screen door and held it open for him.

“I’m not going camping,” she announced, her voice scarcely audible. Her lips felt dry and her hands moist. Once she’d stated her position, her breath escaped with a ragged sigh. She thought of ranting at him, calling him a coward and a cheat to use her own son against her the way he had, but not a word made it from her mind to her lips.

Alex turned and shut the front door.

The only light was a single lamp on the other side of the room.

They didn’t move, didn’t breathe.

“I’m not going to force you to go camping,” Alex whispered. “In fact, I…” He paused as he lowered his eyes to her lips, and whatever he intended to say trailed into nothingness.

Carol felt his eyes on her as keenly as she had his mouth.

In an effort to break this unnatural spell, she closed her eyes.

“Carol?”

She couldn’t have answered him had her life depended on it. Her back was pressed to the door, and she flattened her hands against it.

Not once during her marriage had Carol felt as she did at that moment. So…needy. So empty.

He came to her in a single, unbroken movement, his mouth descending on hers. Carol wound her arms around him and leaned into his solid strength, craving it as never before. Again and again and again he kissed her.