When I open my eyes, hers are only inches away, green and wide, full of curiosity. She closes them, rises on tiptoe, and presses her lips to mine, sending another thrill of heat through me. From the first moment it is a knowing kiss, not the timid tasting of strangers, but the self-assured encounter of lovers who recognize each other. Her tongue is warm against mine, her lips cool. My senses read every curve and valley beneath the linen, and my arousal is immediate. Immediate and obvious. I slip my hand into the small of her back and for a moment kiss her as I truly want to, and the passion of her response explodes the boundaries I had perceived around us. As she kisses me, I feel something shift deep in my soul, a heavy door, and whatever stirs behind that door is too powerful to set free here, in this place. I break the kiss.

“Well,” she says with a laugh, “I guess that answers that question.”

“Which question?”

“Did we really feel something yesterday.”

Her cheeks are flushed, and part of her hair has fallen around her neck. She points at the edge of the flower bed beside us, where her gimlet glass lies in the monkey grass. “I dropped my drink.”

“I’m sorry, Caitlin.”

“I can get another one.”

“I meant for getting so . . . you know.”

She shakes her head. “I liked it. Hey, you didn’t break any laws here. You look like you saw a ghost.” Her smile vanishes. “You did see a ghost. God, I’m such an ass sometimes.”

“It’s all right.”

She takes my hand again. “This just happened, okay? Nobody’s fault. We’ll just be friends, if you want.”

“This is unfamiliar territory for me.”

“We’re the only ones out here, Penn. Everything’s fine.” She reaches behind her neck to pin her hair back up. “Do you need a ride home?”

“No. I need to talk to Sam Jacobs. He’ll give me a ride. Thanks, though.”

She releases my hand and gives me the kind of encouraging smile you give a sick friend, then walks up the steps ahead of me. As she turns the doorknob, I reach out and touch her elbow. “I do think that lunch would be nice, though.”

She turns and smiles. “Same place?”

“Works for me. Twelve?”

“I’ll meet you there.”

She opens the veneered door and goes inside, and I follow, watching her wend her way through the crowd in the hall, drawing looks from most of the women and all of the men. A woman that beautiful and perceptive hasn’t been seen in these precincts for quite some time. Not since Livy Marston came back from the University of Virginia to serve as Queen of the Confederate Pageant.