“Then…where are you going in such a hurry? I thought you might want something to drink…maybe unwind…”

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said quietly. “I need to wash the sand out of my hair.”

It left him speechless. Memories of her beneath him in the sand, and her body soft and inviting, made him instantly hard and aching. She walked away, and he let her.

It was only much later when Debbie lay sleepless, staring out at the moonlight teasing the folds of the curtain at her windows, that she remembered she hadn’t told Cole she’d seen the mugger’s face.

*  *  *

Morgan sensed something had changed. Ever since their day at the beach, he’d felt the chill between them.

He saw his son’s silent anguish. When Debbie came in a room, Cole made an excuse to exit. If she needed something, he was the first to volunteer to get it, but always managed to return and leave it without having to face her. Morgan wanted to shake them both. It would have been obvious to a blind man with earmuffs that they were doing everything but what they wanted…and that was to fall into each other’s arms.

Cole had volunteered for a very extended and very dangerous assignment, and Morgan knew it was just an excuse to keep from facing what he was trying to ignore. Debbie. He missed his son, and he worried about him, but except for saying a prayer each night, there was nothing he could do but be there, should they need a sounding board.

Debbie smiled and laughed. She cooked and cleaned. She crawled into the pool and chided and teased Morgan through all his physical therapy. She coerced Buddy into joining them for meals so that she and Morgan wouldn’t be alone. There was no way she was going to admit aloud, to anyone, that she and Cole were having problems. She couldn’t admit it aloud, because she’d yet to admit it silently, to herself.

He’s just stubborn. That was her rationale for everything that made her ache. That was what kept her from packing her bags and taking the next plane back to Oklahoma. That was the only thing that kept her in her own room at night and not across the hall between the covers of his empty bed.

I can be just as stubborn. That was what kept her from falling apart every time she heard a siren. And when she listened to the local evening news, she did not let on, by so much as a gasp, that the latest drug bust had resulted in two deaths.