She lifted her head and smiled. “You took a while. Did Bertis offer you another piece of her fruit cocktail cake?”

“Cake? No. No, we were just . . .” The wide cotton strap on her nightgown slipped on her shoulder, and the impression faded. She looked like Nell again, the woman he’d been thinking about all evening. “We were just talking.”

As he sat on the edge of the banquette, the idea of making love with her passed from desire into a consuming need. “Are the girls asleep?”

“Out cold.” She studied him for a moment. “Is something wrong?”

“No, why?”

“I don’t know. You looked odd when you came in.”

He started to tell her about Cornelia Case, but came to his senses just in time. He had seduction in mind, not a discussion of current events, and the news could definitely wait until later. “Must have been that fruit cocktail cake resettling in my stomach.”

She stood, and the light provided a hazy silhouette of her body through her nightgown. “Do you want something to drink? Another root beer?”

The most he could manage was to shake his head. He found himself rising, taking a step toward her.

She gazed up at him, and he saw wariness in her eyes, the last emotion he wanted her to feel.

“Mat, we need to talk about this. There are two children just behind that door.”

“Yeah, I know.” He had been thinking of little else. It was one thing to tell himself they were sound sleepers, but now he realized how thin that door really was. Time to improvise. “It’s hot in here. Let’s go for a walk. ”

“I’m in my nightgown.”

“It’s dark. Nobody’ll be able to see a thing. Besides, that nightgown covers up more of you than the clothes you were wearing all day.”

“Still . . .”

“There’s a path right behind us that heads into the woods a little way. We can keep Mabel in sight.”

Unexpectedly, her mouth curved, and he remembered her delight in simple pleasures. “I’ll get my shoes.”

A few minutes later they were walking down a path strewn with mulch chips. Just enough light penetrated the trees from the campsites to show the way. Nealy took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of woodsmoke and rich, damp vegetation, absorbing the idea that she was wandering around outside in her nightgown. “Isn’t this wonderful?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty nice. Give me your hand so you don’t trip.”

She didn’t believe she was in danger of tripping, but she slipped her hand into his. It felt big, solid, and unfamiliar. Although she was the veteran of tens of thousands of handshakes, the only hands she held for long belonged to children. “I had a good time tonight.”

“I hate to admit it, but I did, too.”

“They were nice to Lucy. She didn’t swear once while we were with them?”