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Chapters (20)
  1. Cover
  2. Contents
  3. Also by Nora Roberts
  4. Title Page
  5. Copyright
  6. Dedication
  7. Chapter 1
  8. Chapter 2
  9. Chapter 3
  10. Chapter 4
  11. Chapter 5
  12. Chapter 6
  13. Chapter 7
  14. Chapter 8
  15. Chapter 9
  16. Chapter 10
  17. Chapter 11
  18. Chapter 12
  19. Special Excerpt from Calculated in Death
  20. About the Author

She stared at him. He hadn’t moved, but she saw that he had tensed. “That’s odd,” she murmured. “I don’t usually confuse anyone. Nothing seems to be exactly the way I expect it to be with you. I guess I’m a coward, because every time you come near me I want to run.” She closed her eyes. “That’s not true. You asked me once if I was afraid of you, and I said I wasn’t. That’s not true, either. I am afraid. Of you, of me, and most of all of thinking I might never feel this way again with anyone else.” She began to roam the room again, picking up a pillow, tossing it aside, shifting a lamp. “I wish I knew what to do, what to say. I don’t have any experience with this kind of thing. And, damn it, I wish you’d kiss me again and shut me up.”

He thought he could feel each separate nerve in his body stretch. “Libby, you know I want you. I haven’t kept it to myself. But under the circumstances . . . the fact that I’ll be gone in a few days . . .”

“That’s just it.” Suddenly she wanted to weep. “You will be gone. I don’t want to wonder what it might have been like. I want to know. I feel . . . oh, I don’t know how I feel. The only thing I’m sure of is that I want you to make love with me tonight.”

She stopped, shocked that she had said it aloud, stunned that it was perhaps the truest thing she’d ever said. Then the nerves were gone, and the shock with them. She was absolutely calm, and absolutely certain.

“Caleb, I want to be with you tonight.”

He rose. The hands he tucked in his pockets were two tense fists. “A few days ago it would have been easy. Things have changed, Libby. I care about you.”

“You care, so you don’t want to love me?”

“I want to so badly I can taste it.” When his gaze whipped to hers, she could see that he spoke nothing less than the truth. “I also know that you’ve had a little too much to drink and more than too much to deal with tonight.” He didn’t dare touch her, but his voice was like a caress. “There are rules, Libby.”

She took what she knew might be the biggest step in her life when she moved to him and held out both hands.

“Break them.”

Chapter 7

Chapter 7