They slept for a long time, and then awakened simultaneously to make love. The world was dark and the only sound Shay could hear, besides her own breathing and Mitch’s, was the bubbling of the hot tub.

She crooned and stretched in luxurious abandon as he kissed and tongued her breasts and her stomach, stroked her with his hands. Shay was seized by a keening tension as Mitch loved her and she clasped his shoulders in her hands. “Now, now,” she breathed.

He parted her legs with a motion of one knee and took her in one swift, masterful stroke, filling her with himself, driving out all thoughts of death and sadness and loss.

With a cry, Shay arched against him, her body acting on its own, clutching at life, affirming life, demanding life. “Oh, God,” she gasped, breathless. “Mitch, Mitch—”

He fit his hands beneath her quivering bottom and lifted her up, to possess her more fully, to be possessed by her. “It’s all right,” he said to that part of Shay that was ashamed to feel such primitive need. There were no words, however, as their bodies waged their tender and furious battle, rising and falling in a feverish search for fulfillment that ended in a hoarse shout for Mitch and a sob for Shay.

He held her, his chest heaving and damp beneath her cheek, as she cried.

“How could I—how could I do that? My mother—”

Mitch’s hand smoothed her hair back from her face and then his arm tightened around her. “Shhh. You’re alive, Shay. Your body was reminding you of that. It’s an instinctive thing, so stop tormenting yourself.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better!”

“Of course I am, I love you. But what I said was true, nevertheless. Any brush with death, direct or indirect, will produce that response in a healthy person.”

He spoke with such authority. Shay thought of Mitch’s encounters with death, all chronicled so forthrightly in his books, and wondered whom he’d been with afterward. Some Colombian señorita? “That lady pilot, in Chapter Six of The Connection—”

Mitch gave an exaggerated snore.

Shay jabbed him in the ribs and then, conversely, cuddled even closer. She fell asleep and dreamed that she and Mitch were making love on the lush floor of a Colombian jungle, vines and tropical plants and enormous, colorful flowers making a canopy for their bed.

Life went on, Shay discovered, and it carried her with it. She said goodbye to Riley and Garrett and Maggie, got Hank into school and gave two weeks’ notice at her job.

“We’ll be sorry to see you go,” Marvin said quietly, sitting behind his broad, paper-littered desk. “But Jeannie and I both wish you the best of luck wth your business.”

Shay let out a sigh of relief. Marvin was a reasonable man, but she had been worried that he’d think her ungrateful. “Thank you.”

Behind his fashionable wire glasses, Marvin’s eyes twinkled. “Those commercials you made were first-rate, Shay. I couldn’t have done a better job myself.”