was warm against the top of her head, and she stepped away from him as if he’d breathed fire into her hair.
“I’m fine.” She drew a deep, steadying breath. “Why don’t we take a break?”
“Sounds good to me,” he readily agreed, and together they sank to the ground facing each other.
“How’s your knee?” she asked. She wanted, needed conversation to take her mind off the feel of his chest against her own.
“Sore,” he confessed.
She frowned thoughtfully. “I hope you aren’t doing further damage by walking on it.”
“I don’t have much choice.” He frowned and raked a hand through his hair. Elizabeth noticed the dark stubble that shadowed his cheeks and chin, a growth of whiskers that merely added to his attractiveness. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth. About all of this.”
She gazed at him in surprise, waiting for a cutting remark, a touch of sarcasm, a subtle indication that somehow everything that happened was her fault. There was none of those things. His eyes showed genuine contrition.
“There’s nothing to apologize for.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, still looking at him. “You didn’t crash your plane on purpose, right?”
“Right, but I do intend to have a conversation with my mechanic.” The hard glitter in his eyes made her grateful she didn’t have the responsibility of maintaining Talbot’s plane.
“So, tell me about Twin Oaks. Why did Richard want to take Andrew there so badly? Why did he want me to meet him there?”
Talbot leaned back against a tree and extended his legs in front of him. “I can only guess what Richard thinks by the conversation we had before he left. I told you, the last week or so he’s been pretty introspective, and when he does talk, it’s been about Twin Oaks. Twin Oaks was the place of our childhood, a time in our lives when everything seemed wonderfully right.”
Elizabeth leaned forward, captured by his words, by the very idea of a childhood where everything seemed “wonderfully right” when her own childhood had been so horrifically wrong. “Tell me about it,” she urged.
His features relaxed and a smile curved his lips, letting her know his memories were pleasant ones. “Twin Oaks is so tiny it doesn’t even warrant a dot on a map. We lived there until we moved to Morning View, Kansas. That was a year before our mom and dad’s deaths. Twin Oaks is the kind of town where everyone knows everyone else and there’re lots of potluck dinners and town gatherings.”
“Sounds lovely.” And what was even lovelier than his words was the warmth that emanated from his smile. She’d never before bathed in the warmth of Talbot’s smile, and it was a distinctly pleasant experience.
“It was,” he said. “I remember it as the only time in my life when I was carefree, and the biggest responsibility I had was going to school.” His smile widened and his eyes lit with humor. “And my biggest worry was if Mom was going to make another of her terrible surprise casseroles for dinner.”
Elizabeth gazed at him thoughtfully, suddenly realizing the burden that had been placed on him by his parents’ untimely death. “It must have been hard for you to be twenty-one and suddenly responsible for a fourteen-year-old.”
He shrugged, the smile gone. “The way I saw it at the time there wasn’t any choice. I became responsible for Richard, or I let him become a ward of the state and go into foster care. He’s my brother and I could never allow that to happen.”
He got to his feet. “We should get moving,” he said, and in his words she heard him slam the door to any discussion about his past.
Still, as they continued to walk, Elizabeth found herself thinking about the twenty-one-year-old Talbot taking on the role of parent for his younger brother.
When most young people were exploring their first real breath of freedom and adulthood, going to clubs and dating, Talbot had taken the reins of his father’s company and accepted the responsibility for a teenage brother. For the first time ever, she felt a grudging respect and admiration for Talbot.
“Are you sure we aren’t walking in circles?” she asked after another hour or so. They’d once again stopped to rest.
“I’ve been watching the sun and I’m pretty sure we aren’t.” He rubbed his knee thoughtfully. “But I’m surprised we haven’t come across anyone, not even a group of campers.”
Elizabeth looked up at the waning sunlight that broke through the trees, then looked back at Talbot. “We’re going to be here overnight again, aren’t we.”
“At this point it’s a strong possibility.” He frowned and raked a hand through his disheveled hair. “It’s going to get dark soon, and I don’t want us stumbling around in the woods then.”
Elizabeth fought the sense of unease that always permeated her when she thought of the dark. “I’m starving,” she said in an effort to change the subject.
“Yeah, me too. I’d love a big juicy steak, medium rare, and a baked potato smothered in sour cream.” He looked at her with a touch of humor. “And I suppose if your dream meal were in front of you, it would be a lettuce leaf with a drizzle of dressing.”
“A lot you know,” she retorted. “My dream meal would be a double cheeseburger with a side of French fries and the biggest chocolate shake in the world.” She picked a dried leaf from her hair. “Why on earth would you think I’d be interested in rabbit food?”
“Because whenever you and Richard came to my place for dinner, you usually didn’t eat much of anything.”
Elizabeth well remembered those nights when she and Richard had first been married and Talbot would request their presence at dinner. How she had hated those family gatherings! “I was always too nervous to eat,” she confessed.
He eyed her in surprise. “Nervous? You always appeared amazingly cool and collected to me.”
“I was a good actress,” she replied. “Inside I was a quivering bundle of nerves and knew if I tried to eat, I’d probably throw up.” She grinned at him. “Remember the Big Burger down the street from your house? I used to make Richard stop there on the way home and I’d get a burger, fries and a shake.”
She could tell he was surprised by her confession. “What made you so nervous?” he asked.
She hesitated a moment before replying. She couldn’t very well tell him that he made her nervous, with his gorgeous dark eyes and sculpted features. She couldn’t tell him that whenever she was around him, all she could think about was how it might feel if he kissed her, made love to her. At the time, she hadn’t even wanted to admit what she felt to herself.
She wasn’t about to tell him that her nervousness and tension around him was a result of an acute awareness of him, not as a brother-in-law, but as a virile handsome man whose eyes constantly held the chill of dislike.
“You,” she finally replied. At his puzzled look, she said, “Oh, come on Talbot, I knew how much you hated me. I knew you thought I’d gotten pregnant on purpose in order to trap Richard.”
“Why did you marry him?” His
