Once in Every Life

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needed?flour, salt, eggs, and milk. She plopped the ingredients on the table and got to work.

Two hours later, she had five carefully cut out, pancake-sized circles of dough scattered amidst a mountain of flour. Grimacing, she pinched off a section from the biggest one and tasted it. The dough hit her stomach like a lead balloon.

"No more," she mumbled, feeling decidedly ill. She was through taste-testing. This was batch number six, and there was enough dough in her gut to make a large pizza.

She didn't care if the biscuits tasted like shoe leather. She was done. Period.

She backhanded the sheen of sweat from her brow and tucked a flour-coated lock of hair behind her ear. Straightening, she set down the rolling pin and clapped the excess flour from her hands. For the first time in two hours, she looked up from the table.

And winced. The kitchen was ... trashed. There was no other word for it. Dozens of pots and pans were strewn across the floor, their existence forgotten as she'd searched for a cookie sheet. Flour covered the table and lay like a dusting of new-fallen snow on the floorboards. Smoke clung to the ceiling.

Cooking, apparently, was a dirty business.

Oh, well, she thought. You didn't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Turning back to the now hot stove, she dragged a huge cast-iron pot toward her. It bumped and scraped and clanked atop the metal stovetop.

She lifted the lid and tossed in the potatoes, onions, and preserved carrots she'd cut up earlier. Setting the lid down carefully alongside the pot, she filled the pot to the top with water, added salt from the box alongside the stove, and dropped in the haunch of meat she'd found in the mesh container hanging above the dry sink.

She watched it simmer for a few moments, then shoved

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her hands in her apron pockets and slowly turned around. The magnitude of the mess struck her again, and she winced. It made her tired just looking at the chaos around her.

Sighing, she walked over to the table and slumped on the hard wooden seat. She knew that if she didn't do something?and fast?she'd fall asleep right there and then.

Tiredly she pushed to her feet, grabbed two buckets from beneath the dry sink, and headed outside.

Her breath caught at the beauty of the afternoon. Lush grass rolled out from the house and dropped gently toward the sea. Thousands of wildflowers peeked colorful faces up from the rolling, golden-green grass. Far below, the steel-blue water of Haro Strait sparkled. Sunlight gilded the softly rustling leaves of the oak tree.

She closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of springtime. Birds chirped, wind whistled, leaves fluttered, bees buzzed. To Tess, so many years in silence, it was like the finest of symphonies. Nothing in Carnegie Hall could be so grand.

Humming, she ambled lazily toward the cistern and threw back the heavy wooden lid. Clear blue-green water caught the sunlight and sparkled up at her.

It took her forever to fill and heat sixteen buckets of water, but when she returned to the kitchen and poured the last bucketful into the full-length copper tub she'd found in the shed, she knew it had all been worth it.

She stripped out of her waistless nursing gown and tossed it over the nearest chair, eagerly climbing into the tub.

The water was barely more than lukewarm, but it felt heavenly just the same. She scrubbed her hair and body with lavender-scented soap until her skin tingled and glowed. Then she rested her head on the tub's copper rim

g4 and closed her eyes. She'd just relax for a few minutes before she had to clean the kitchen-----

Before she knew it, she was asleep.

Chapter Seven

Jack was dead tired as he climbed the sagging steps to the house. At the closed door, he stopped, trying to find the icy numbness he would need to deal with Amarylis. It was difficult?he was so damn tired?but he kept trying, searching his soul for the shield of detachment he needed so desperately with his wife. Steeling himself, he yanked the door open and strode inside, running right into the copper bathing tub. An echoing clang echoed through the humid room.

Jack looked down. His blood immediately ran cold.

Amarylis was asleep in the tub, her arms draped casually on either side, her knuckles resting on the wooden floor. Moonlight-pale hair cascaded all around her, puddling on the floor in swirling, touchable pools. And her skin. Sweet Jesus, her skin ...

The pink outline of her nipples shimmered through the colorless water. Desire flashed hot and hard through his body. God, how he remembered the feel of her flesh, how pliable and warm and willing she'd once been.

The door slipped out of his nerveless fingers and banged against the wall with a loud thwack.

She came awake with a start. "What? Huh?"