“I want to touch you while the sun comes up. I want to watch you, to be in you when the day takes over. I just want you,” he said and kissed her again.

So with words that touched her heart, he seduced her. With hands thorough and skilled, he aroused her. She gave herself to him, thrilled to be wanted, grateful to want. She opened herself on the dew-laced grass as the last stars guttered out like candle flames, as the moon slid away under the rise of shadowed land. As those first glimmers of red and gold eked through the night-dark woods.

He took what she offered; gave her what he had. With her he ended the night and began the day. The dreams of death and despair faded away. Inside him something turned, just a little. Something clicked and fell.

Here was hope. Here was Hope. And she was perfect.

As he felt her crest, birds woke singing. And the sky bloomed with another dawn.

SHE EXPECTED GUESTS by three, and the family well before. After she picked up her car, drove back to the inn, she spent the time doing her routine room checks.

She needed to be busy, she thought, so she wouldn’t be tempted to speak her thoughts aloud. To speak to Eliza.

In Nick and Nora she checked the lights, the TV remote, the room folder, added a bit to the room diffuser before going out and doing the same in Jane and Rochester.

Fresh flowers would arrive early afternoon.

She moved from room to room changing lightbulbs when needed, adjusting room temperatures.

Back in the kitchen she filled a fruit bowl, set out cookies, made a fresh pitcher of iced tea.

In her office, she checked and answered emails, phone messages, busied herself while she wished the time away.

Today, they’d tell Lizzy they’d found her Billy. What would happen then, she couldn’t know. But she wanted to.

Just as she wanted to know what had been behind that look in Ryder’s eyes in the predawn dark. He’d been too quiet, even for him, since they’d found Billy Ryder’s grave.

And there’d been something quietly urgent in his lovemaking. They should have laughed, she thought now. Two people making love on the lawn with a dog for silent company should have laughed, been playful. But he’d been intense, so focused.

And she? She’d been swept away, taken under by his intense, focused need.

She wanted to reach him. She thought she’d begun to, and now? She didn’t know, and he wouldn’t say.

She remembered Avery’s words. You didn’t love and try to change. That was true, that was real and right. So she’d wait until he was ready to tell her what was behind that look in his eyes.