Four children born of last year's marriages are christened and I can't help but watch as Jed and Beth try to sneak from the edge of the crowd. I wonder if the pain of losing their child this fall is too much to bear.

Finally, in the middle of the week, I find myself alone and I rip the flowers from my hair. I am tired of the villagers, tired of Harry and the Sisters and the Guardians and the well-wishers.

I am tired of the happiness. And so I go to the old lookout tower on the hill, the one place where I'm sure to find solitude.

But when I arrive there's already someone there and I'm about to turn back when I recognize the figure sitting against the tower. It's Travis. I feel a flutter inside me. It has never occurred to me that he would come to this place, that anyone but me ever came to this place.

It's been so long since we have been alone together that I can only stare at him, my eyes hungry. For a moment I consider turning and heading back, of leaving him here and pushing aside temptation. He is not mine, cannot be mine, and it's too painful to be near him and know the finality of our situation.

But before I can move Travis holds a hand out to me and says, “Mary, come pray with me.” His words are my undoing. I run, tripping over my tunic and crawling and scraping at the ground until I am at his side, my hands on his chest, my breath coming out in pants.

“Oh, Mary,” he says, thrusting his hand into my hair and cupping my head. He pulls my face to his, across everything that has been separating us. I need him with an urgency that I cannot escape.

He stops my head just as our lips are about to touch, to finally learn home. He is panting and I can only breathe the air from his lungs. We stay like this for what seems like eternity, unable to commit to each other, to bridge everything between us.

“Mary,” he whispers. I can feel the movement of his lips.

I am waiting for him to push me away and tell me that we cannot do this. That I am not his to take and that he will not betray his brother. I thrust my head into the crook of his shoulder, pressing my forehead against his neck.

It's a warm day and he's sweating and I press my mouth against his skin, tasting his salt on my lips. I want to melt into him, to forget every barrier between us and it is everything I can do to suck in air and sit here and not press myself harder against him.

He's not mine but Cass's and I know I should turn away, leave this place. But I'm not strong enough to do so. Just this last time I want to revel in his essence, to wrap it around me like a memory.