The interior of the car became their only world, and the night breeze rustling through the riverbank trees their only music. They clung to each other as if no one else existed. And then they catapulted into space.

The next morning Nealy sat on the back step with her knees tucked under her nightgown and gazed into a backyard shining with the dew of a new Iowa morning. As steam rose from the coffee mug next to her, she breathed in the knowledge that had awakened her.

She had fallen in love with Mat.

Without wanting to, she’d fallen in love with his big voice and crooked smile, his booming laughter and agile brain. And last night, his generous, uninhibited love-making. But most of all, she’d fallen in love with the way his basic sense of decency wouldn’t let him turn his back on the two little girls he wanted out of his life. And so, in less than a week, she had unwittingly given him her heart. A heart he hadn’t asked for.

How could she have let something so damaging happen? And she hadn’t even seen it coming. She’d been so intent on chalking up her feelings to lust that she hadn’t taken into consideration what she knew about herself—she was a woman who would never give herself to a man she didn’t love.

It was hard to conceive of a more hopeless match. She was wise enough in the ways of celebrity to know she could never fit into his world, and she couldn’t imagine him fitting into hers. Why couldn’t he be an Ivy Leaguer who’d just made partner in a prestigious Washington law firm? Why couldn’t she be a schoolteacher, or a social worker, or a bookstore clerk?

As she tortured herself with might-have-beens, she thought of the many ways in which they were a perfect match. She was cool to his hot, quiet to his loud, thoughtful to his impulsive. But none of that made any difference.

She drowned her despair in the shower and, afterward, sneaked into the motor home to get Button before she woke up her sister. Even though Lucy didn’t complain about it, she seldom got to sleep in like a normal teenager. When Nealy returned to the kitchen, she flipped on the radio.

“Today marks the eighth day of the disappearance of First Lady Cornelia . . .”

She flipped it back off.

Mat got up just as Nealy was feeding Button her cereal. He gave her a toothpaste kiss, then asked her to stay in the house while he went out for a run. She was dividing her time between pondering yesterday’s Wall Street Journal report on federal interest rates and keeping an eye on Button when Lucy appeared on the sun-porch shortly after ten o’clock.