He looked at me then. "Nothing and no one is going to keep me here, do you understand?"

"I understand."

He took a ragged breath. "This place, this life...Lately I've started to understand what made my dad so mean and crazy he ended up in jail. It'll happen to me too."

"No." I protested softly.

"Yes it will. You don't know me, Liberty."

I couldn't stop him from wanting to leave. But neither could I stop myself from wanting him.

I crossed the invisible barrier between us.

His hands lifted in a defensive gesture, which was comical in light of the difference between our sizes. I touched his palms, and the taut wrists where his pulse rampaged, and I thought, If I never have anything from him except this one moment I am going to take it. Take it now, or drown in regret later.

Hardy moved suddenly, catching my wrists, his fingers forming tight manacles that kept me from moving forward. I stared at his mouth, the lips that looked so soft. "Let go," I said, my voice thick. "Let go."

His breath had quickened, and he gave a slight shake of his head. Nerves were jumping in every part of my body. We both knew what I was going to do if he released me.

Suddenly his hands opened. I moved forward and pressed my body against his, length to length. I gripped the back of his neck, discovering the embedded toughness of his muscles. I tugged his head down until his lips caught mine, his hands remaining half-suspended in the air. His resistance lasted for a matter of seconds before he gave in with a rough sigh, putting his arms around me.

It was so unlike what I had experienced with Gill. Hardy was infinitely more powerful, and yet so much gentler. One of his hands slid into my hair, his fingers cradling my head. His shoulders hunched over and around me, his free arm clamping across my back as if he wanted to pull me inside himself. He kissed me over and over, trying to discover every way our mouths could fit together. A gust of wind chilled my back, but heat surged wherever I touched against him.

He tasted the inside of my mouth, his breath coming in scalding rushes against my cheek. The intimate flavor of him confounded me with desire. I clung to him tightly, shaken and aroused and wanting it never to end. desperately gathering every sensation to hoard as long as possible.

Hardy pried away my clinging arms and urged me back with a forceful push. "Oh,

damn," he whispered, shivering. He moved from me and grasped the pole of the backstop, resting his forehead against it as if relishing the feel of chilled metal. "Damn," he muttered again.

I felt sleepy and dazed, my balance wavering in the sudden absence of Hardy's support. I scrubbed the heels of my hands over my eyes.

"That won't happen again." he said gruffly, still facing away from me. "I mean it, Liberty."

"I know. I'm sorry." I wasn't, actually. And I must not have sounded too sorry, because Hardy threw a sardonic glance over his shoulder.

"No more practicing," he said.

"You mean basketball practice or.. .what we just did?"

"Both," he snapped.

"Are you mad at me?"

"No, I'm mad as hell at myself."

"You shouldn't be. You didn't do anything wrong. I wanted you to kiss me. I was the one who—"

"Liberty," he interrupted, turning toward me. Suddenly he looked weary and frustrated. He rubbed his eyes the same way I had rubbed mine. "Shut up. honey. The more you talk, the worse I'll feel. Just go home."

I absorbed his words, the inexorable set of his face. "Do you... do you want to walk me

back?" I hated the thread of timidity in my own voice.

He threw me a wretched glance. "No. I don't trust myself with you."

Glumness settled over me, smothering the sparks of desire and elation. I wasn't sure

how to explain any of it, Hardy's attraction to me. his unwillingness to pursue it, the

intensity of my response...and the knowledge that I was never going to kiss Gill Mincey again.

CHAPTER 6

Mama was about a week overdue when she finally went into labor in late May.

Springtime in Southeast Texas is a mean season. There are some pretty sights, the dazzling fields of bluebonnets, the flowering of Mexican buckeyes and redbuds, the greening of dry meadows. But spring is also a time when fire ants begin to mound after lying idle all winter, and the gulf whips up storms that spit out hail and lightning and twisters. Our region was scored by tornadoes that would double back in surprise attacks, jigsawing across rivers and down main streets, and other places tornadoes weren't supposed to go. We got white tornadoes too. a deadly rotating froth that occurred in sunlight well after people thought the storm was over.

Tornadoes were always a threat to Bluebonnet Ranch because of a law of nature that says tornadoes are irresistibly attracted to trailer parks. Scientists say it's a myth, tornadoes are no more drawn to trailer parks than anywhere else. But you couldn't fool the residents

of Welcome. Whenever a twister appeared in or around town, it headed either to Bluebonnet Ranch or another Welcome subdivision called Happy Hills. How Happy Hills got its name was a mystery, because the landscape was as flat as a tortilla and barely two feet over sea level.

Anyway, Happy Hills was a neighborhood of new two-story residences referred to as "big hair houses" by everyone else in Welcome who had to make do with one-level ranch dwellings. The subdivision had undergone just as many tornado strikes as Bluebonnet Ranch, which some people cited as an example of how tornadoes would just as likely strike a wealthy neighborhood as a trailer park.