“Alan, 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.”