On Mystic Lake

He eased back into the bed, on the other side of Izzy. “That was your teacher, Izzy-bear. She said they’re having a class party on Friday—and all the kids want you to come. ”

Izzy looked scared. “Oh. ”

Nick smiled at her, a soft, gentle smile that seemed to reach right into Annie’s heart. “She said something about cupcakes. ”

Izzy frowned. “I do like cupcakes. ”

“I know you do, Sunshine. ” He pulled her against him with one strong arm. “There’s nothing wrong with being scared, Izzy. It happens to all of us. What’s wrong is if we don’t try things because we’re afraid. We can’t hide away from the things that scare us. ”

Annie heard so much in his voice, all the remnants of the lessons he’d learned the hard way. She felt a warm rush of pride for him, and she wondered again how she was going to leave this man, how she was going to return to her cold, sterile life, where she would end up searching in mirrors once again for evidence of her own existence.

Izzy sighed. “I guess a party would be okay. Will you’n Annie take me?”

“Of course we will. ”

“Okay. ” She looked up, gave Nick a tentative smile. “Daddy, will you read me another story, Daddy?”

He grinned. Reaching down to the floor beside the bed, he produced another book. “I thought you might ask that. ”

He read like an actor, using deep, bass monster voices and high-pitched little-boy roars. Izzy sat perfectly still, her adoring eyes focused on her daddy’s face. When he smiled, she smiled; when he frowned, she frowned.

As he turned a page, he glanced at Annie. Over the child’s dark head, their gazes locked. There was nothing sexual in his eyes at all; there was just the simple pleasure of a man reading his daughter a bedtime story. The way he looked, as if this moment were the culmination of his every hope and dream, tore a ragged bite from Annie’s heart and left her with the strangest urge to cry.

After story time was over, Nick went back to his room and waited. Twice, he poked his head out and looked down the hallway. Twice it was empty, save for the feeble glow of a few poorly placed wall lights.

He paced the tiny room, bumping his head on the slanted roof almost every time he turned to the right.

Then he heard a knock.

He surged to the door and yanked it open. Annie stood in the doorway, wearing an oversized T-shirt and a pair of navy-blue kneesocks.

They barely made it to the bed. Kissing, groping, laughing, they fell onto the pile of wrinkled sheets. The tired old mattress creaked and groaned beneath them.

Nick had never wanted a woman so badly in his life, and Annie seemed to share his urgency. He held her, stroked and fondled and caressed her. She rolled with him, kissing him with a greediness that left him breathless, pulling his tongue deep into her mouth. They did anything and everything, made love and slept and made love again.

When it was over, Nick lay exhausted on his bed, one arm flung out against the wall, the other curled protectively around Annie’s naked hip. She lay tucked against him, her bare leg thrown casually over his, her nipple pressed against his rib cage.

He could feel the aftermath of their lovemaking in the fine sheen of sweat that clung to her skin, smell it in the sweetness of the air. Her head was resting on the ball of his shoulder, her breath caressed his skin.

He was afraid suddenly that she would pull away now, draw out of his arms and scurry back to her father’s house, and that he’d be left with nothing but her lingering scent and the cold chill of her absence along his side. “Talk to me, Annie,” he said softly, stroking the velvety skin in the small of her back.

“That’s always dangerous,” she said with a laugh. “Most people who know me want me to shut up. ”

“I’m not Blake. ”

“Sorry. ” She snuggled closer to him. One pale finger coiled in his chest hair, then absently caressed his skin. “You . . . bring out something in me. Something I wouldn’t have believed was there. ”

“Oh yeah? What is it?”

She rolled half on top of him, her crotch settled intimately against his thigh. Her beautiful breasts swung enticingly in front of his face, and it was damned hard to keep his concentration on her words. “I used to be . . . organized. Efficient. I fed everyone and dressed everyone and went shopping and made lists and kept appointments. Blake and I had sex, if we were lucky, on Friday nights at eleven forty-five, between Jay Leno’s first and second guests. It was always . . . nice sex, comfortable. It felt good and I had orgasms. But it wasn’t like it is with you. I never felt as if I were going to leap out of my skin. ” She laughed, that broad, infectious laugh that seemed to come from someplace deep inside her. Kathy had never made him feel this way, as if the whole world was open to him and all he had to do was reach for his dreams.

Dreams. He closed his eyes. They came to him so often now, the dreams he’d long ago put aside. He remembered again how important a family had always been to him, how he’d imagined his life would chug along on a bright and easy road, crowded with laughing children all around him.

If he’d

chosen Annie, all those years ago, maybe everything would have been different. . . .

“How come you and Kathy never had more children?” Annie asked suddenly.