one he couldn't read, then bent to take out another pillowcase.
"Hello, Ethan."
"Grace." He tucked his hands in his pockets. It wasn't often he heard
her voice quite so cool.
"It's foolish to go all the way back around to the front of the house
just to avoid me."
"I wasa going to check something on the boat."
"That's fine. You can do that after I talk to you."
"I wasn't sure you'd want to talk to me." He approached her cautiously.
Her tone of voice took the blistering heat right out of the day.
"I tried to talk to you the other night, but you weren't inclined to
listen." She reached into the basket, apparently unperturbed that she
was now hanging his underwear.
"Then I needed a little time to myself, to settle everything in my
head."
"And have you?"
"Oh, I think so. First, I should tell you that what you told me about
what you went through before you came here shocked me, and it hurt me,
and I have nothing but pity for that little boy and rage about what
happened to him." She glanced at him as she secured the next clothespin.
"You don't want to hear that. You don't want to think that I have
feelings about it, that it touched me."
"No," he said evenly. "No, I didn't want it to touch you."
"Because I'm so fragile. Because I'm so delicate of nature."
His brows drew together. "Partly. And--"
"So you hoarded that nasty little seed all for yourself," she went on,
calmly working her way down the clothesline. "Even though there's
nothing in or of my life that you don't know. It's the way it should be,
in your opinion, that I'm an open book and you're a closed one."
"No, it wasn't that. Exactly."
"What could it have been exactly?" she wondered, but he didn't think it
was a question and wisely formed no answer. "I've been thinking about
that, Ethan. I've been thinking about a number of things. Why don't we
go back a ways first? You like to do things in neat, logical steps. And
since you like things to be done your way, we'll just be neat and
logical."
The dogs, sensing trouble, retreated to the water. Ethan found himself
envying them.
"You told me you've loved me for years. Years," she said with such quick
fury that he nearly stumbled back. "But you don't do anything about it.
You don't once, not once, come up to me and ask me if I'd like to spend
some time with you. One word from you, one look from you, would have
thrilled me. But oh, no, not Ethan Quinn, not with his broody mind and
incredible control. You just kept your distance and let me pine over
you."
"I didn't know you had those kind of feelings for me."
"Then you're blind as well as stupid," she snapped.
His brows drew together. "Stupid?"
"That's what I said." Seeing the outrage cross his face was balm to her
battered ego. "I would never have looked twice at Jack Casey if you'd