didn't have to think about where I would step or which way I would turn.

Hardy's skin smelled like smoke and sun. I wanted to push beneath his shirt and explore every secret place of his body, every variation of skin and texture. I wanted things I didn't know how to name.

The band took the pace even slower, the two-step fading into another song that curtailed the dancing into a standing, swaying embrace. I felt him all against me now, and it filled me with agitation. I laid my head against his shoulder and felt the touch of his mouth on the apple of my cheek. His lips were dry and smooth. Transfixed, I didn't make a sound. He crowded me closer against him, one of his hands sliding low on my h*ps and imparting a gentle pressure. As I felt how aroused he was. my thighs and h*ps settled against him hungrily.

The span of three or four minutes is pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. People lose hundreds of minutes every day, squandering them on trivial things. But sometimes in those fragments of time, something can happen you'll remember the rest of your life. Being held by Hardy, suffused in his nearness, was an act of far greater intimacy than sex. Even now as I look back on it I can feel that moment of absolute connection, and the blood still rises to my face.

When the music snapped into a new rhythm. Hardy led me away from the dance canopy. His hand cupped my left elbow, and he murmured a warning as we crossed bulky electrical cables that crossed the ground like uncoiled snakes. I had no idea where we were

going, only that we were headed away from the concession stands. We reached the boundary' of a red cedar rail fence. Hardy fitted his hands around my waist and lifted me up with astonishing ease. I sat on the top rail, so that we were face-to-face, my closed knees pressed between us.

"Don't let me fall," I said.

"You won't fall." He grasped my h*ps securely, the heat of his palms sinking through my summer-weight denim. I was seized by a nearly uncontrollable urge to part my thighs and pull him forward until he stood between them. Instead I sat there with my knees primly cinched and my heart hammering. The dusty glow of the fair lights fanned out behind Hardy, making it difficult to see his expression.

He shook his head slowly, as if confronted with a problem he couldn't begin to solve. "Liberty, I have to tell you.. .I'm leaving soon."

"Leaving Welcome?" I could hardly speak.

"Yes."

"When? Where?"

"In a couple of days. One of the jobs I applied for came through, and...I won't be coming back for a while."

"What are you doing to do?"

"I'll be welding for a drilling company. I'm starting on an offshore rig in the Gulf. But they move the welders around a lot, wherever the company has a contract." He paused as he saw my expression. He knew my father had died on a platform rig. Jobs on offshore rigs were high-paying but dangerous. You have to be crazy or suicidal to work on an oil rig with a blowtorch in hand. Hardy seemed to read my thoughts. "I'll try not to cause too many explosions."

If he was trying to make me smile, the effort flopped. It was pretty obvious this was the last I'd be seeing of Hardy Cates. There was no use in asking if he'd ever come back for me. I had to let go of him. But I knew that as long as I lived, I would feel the phantom-pain of his absence.

I thought about his future, the oceans and continents he would cross, far away from everyone who knew and loved him. Far outside the sphere of his mother's prayers. Among the women in his future, there was one who would know his secrets and bear his children, and witness the changes the years worked on him. And it wouldn't be me.

"Good luck," I said thickly. "You'll do fine. I think you'll end up with everything you want. I think you'll be more successful than anyone could begin to guess."

His voice was quiet. "What are you doing. Liberty?"

"I'm trying to tell you what you want to hear. Good luck. Have a nice life." I pushed at him with my knees. "Let me down."

"Not yet. First you're going to tell me why you're mad when at every turn I've tried to keep from hurting you."

"Because it hurts anyway." I couldn't control the words that burst from me. "And if

you'd ever asked what I wanted. I would rather have had as much of you as I could and taken the hurt that came with it. But instead I've gotten nothing except these stupid—" I paused, trying in vain to think of a better word. "Stupid excuses about not wanting to hurt me when the truth is you 're the one afraid of being hurt. You're afraid you might love someone too much to leave, and then you'd have to give up all your dreams and live in Welcome for the rest of your life. You're afraid—"

I broke off with a gasp as I felt him grab my shoulders and give me a little shake. Abbreviated as the motion was, it sent reverberations through every part of me.

"Stop it," he said hoarsely.

"Do you know why I went with Luke Bishop?" I asked in reckless despair. "Because I wanted you and couldn't have you, and he was the nearest thing I could find to you. And every time I slept with him I wished it was you. and I hate you for that, even worse than I hate myself."

As the words left my lips, a sense of bitter isolation made me shrink from him. My head ducked, and I wrapped my arms around myself in an effort to take up as little physical space as possible.

"It's your fault," I said, words that would cause me infinite shame later, but I was too worked up to care.