I am."
"I know who and what you are!"
"No you don't. You know only what I've
permitted you to see." His dark eyes swung my way,
commanding me not to question. "Listen, Heaven, I'm
trying to warn you while you can still pull away." My lips parted to speak and object, but he
reached to hush me with his fingers put over my lips. "Why do you think Tony ordered you to stay
away from me. I find it very difficult to hang on to the
cheerful, optimistic side of me that blossoms only
when the days grow long, and the warmth returns." "We can always move south!" I cried, hating
his seriousness, the shadowed look in his eyes. "I've tried that. I've spent winters in Florida, in
Naples, Italy, all over the world I've traveled trying to find what others find so easily, but I take my winter thoughts with me." He smiled, but I wasn't comforted. He wasn't joking, though his tone tried to be light. There was a darkness deep as a bottomless pit behind
each of his pupils.
"But the spring always returns, followed by the
summer," I said quickly, "that's what I used to keep
telling myself when we were cold and hungry and the
snow was six feet high and it was seven miles to
r /> Winnerrow."
His soft, dark eyes caressed me and flooded
warmth into my face. He poured more champagne
into my glass. "I wish I could have known you then,
and Tom, and the others. You could have given me so
much of the kind of strength you have."
"Troy! Stop talking like that!" I flared,
frightened because I didn't understand his mood and
angry because he should be kissing me now, taking
off my clothes, not talking. "What are you trying to
tell me? That you don't love me? That you're
regretting you've made me love you? Well, I'm not
sorry about anything. I'll never be sorry you gave me