Page 13

L aura couldn’t cast off the tension. Since she’d learned Noah had taken Glenna into custody, she felt as if she was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Sebastian was in no mood for a cuddle. Alexis had gone home for the night, so an impromptu girls’ night was out of the question. She couldn’t call Joshua to confide in him because she was still lying to him about Noah’s part in all this.

She winced at that, hating that she and Noah continued to keep him in the dark. What would he think when he discovered her subterfuge?

Laura told herself not to think about that now. She told herself not to think about anything, but her mind was so full, she couldn’t relax.

A hard rap on the front door of her bungalow made her jerk. Sebastian hissed. She dropped the book she had been trying to read to the coffee table and rose from the sofa. Tiptoeing to the door, she peered out through the peephole.

At the sight of Noah, she felt a stir. Snatching open the door, she asked, “What are you doing here so late?”

He held up Allison’s schedule. “I thought we’d go over this.”

“Oh,” she said and stepped aside. “Come in.” Before Sebastian could dart out between her legs, she scooped him up. “Naughty,” she muttered and waited until Noah shut the door before setting him down again.

“If he wants to be an escape artist,” Noah stated, “he should lay off the Fancy Feast.”

“He’s not fat,” Laura said. “He’s fluffy.”

Noah smiled the knowing, self-satisfied smile that never failed to get her dander up. “Whatever you say, mommy dearest.”

“That’s my coat,” she said, pointing to the camel-colored jacket draped across his arm.

“You left it,” he explained, handing it over, “at L Bar the other night.”

“You didn’t have to bring it to me.”

“If you don’t leave your things around for others to steal, I wouldn’t have to.”

Laura tucked her tongue into her cheek. As she led him into the kitchen and den, she indulged herself by asking, “Did my stepmother really hit you today?”

“She grazed one off me,” he replied. “What about it?”

“At the moment, I’m having trouble blaming her. You have a very slappable face.”

He threw his head back and laughed. A full-bodied laugh, straight from the gut.

It went straight to hers. She sucked in a breath as the corners of his eyes crinkled and his teeth gleamed. For a split second, she saw the man as he had been in the navy uniform in the photograph at Allison’s, and her heart stuttered.

He caught her staring at him, aghast, and the laughter melted in a flash. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

It took her a moment to speak. “I didn’t think you knew how to smile—really smile...much less laugh.”

His frown returned, all too at home among his set features. “You sound like Allison. ‘You don’t smile enough, relax enough. You don’t put yourself first enough.’”

The words echoed in her head. Allison had said something similar to her. She shook off the odd feeling it gave her. “What about the piece of paper?”

Paper crinkled as he straightened out the creases and handed it to her. “ CJK is obviously CJ Knight. But what about these initials? DG. ”

She studied them. “You couldn’t find someone on your short list to match them?”

“No,” he admitted. “Is it possible you missed someone when you gave me the names of staff and guests?”

She shook her head. “No. There’s another set of initials. KB. ”

“That’s Kim Blankenship, your guest in Bungalow Seven,” he proposed, “or your horseback adventure guide.”

“Kim Blankenship is in her late sixties. She’s here with her husband, Granger. She built a cream cosmetics empire and is here taking a well-deserved break. And Knox?” Laura instantly rejected that idea. “The private lessons were for guests.”

“Maybe Allison made an exception,” Noah pressed. “Didn’t you say he was flirtatious with her?”

“Yes,” Laura granted. “But Knox is flirtatious with every woman. Even me.”

“Don’t like that,” he muttered.

“Why not?” she challenged. “It’s not like you and I are really...”

As she trailed off, his gaze became snared on her. “Really what? Kissing? We’ve done that. Touching? We’ve checked that box. The only thing you and I aren’t doing right now, Pearl, is sleeping together.”

Her mouth went dry. She forced herself to swallow. “It’s not real.”

His eyes tracked to her mouth before bouncing back to hers. Her body reacted vividly. Her heart rammed into her throat.

She wanted his mouth on hers. She wanted to know what it would be like, she realized, for Noah to kiss her and mean it . Not for show—for himself and her.

She demurred. They wouldn’t be able to uncross that bridge. Once they went to the other side, she wasn’t sure she could swim back to safety. She feared what she would find with him. Fire and brimstone, perhaps? Too much, too hard, too fast?

It sounded wonderful. She reached for it even as she turned away. “Knox Burnett didn’t kill Allison,” she said clearly, walking into the kitchen.

Noah’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “The queen of Mariposa has spoken.”

She reached for a wineglass. “Quentin called me ‘queen.’ Or ‘queenie.’ Sometimes, he just called me Q. Except when he left. Then he just called me a cold hard bitch who would get what was coming to her.” She pulled the cork out of the bottle next to the coffeepot and poured a liberal dose. “Dominic thought I was cold, too—in bed and out of it. Do you want some?”

He didn’t spare the wine a glance. “You never should’ve given those assholes the time of day.”

“But I did,” she said, raising the wine to her lips. She tasted, let it sit on her tongue, then swallowed, swirling the liquid in the glass. “Which makes me either stupid or desperate.”

“It’s simple,” he stated. “Stop dating pretty playboys.”

“Who should I date instead?” She gestured with her wine. “You?”

He cracked a smile that wasn’t at all friendly. “You’d run screaming in a week.”

She lowered her brow. “Why is that, exactly? Do you have pentagrams drawn anywhere on your person?”

“No.”

“Are you mangled?”

“No.”

“Do you keep tarantulas or dance with cobras?”

The lines in his brow steepled and she sensed he was trying not to give in to amusement. “I told you. I don’t have pets.”

“Do you have some sort of fetish most women find offensive?”

“No.”

She shrugged. “Then why would I run from you, exactly?”

“I’m not Prince Charming.”

She clicked her tongue. “I’ve looked for Prince Charming. No luck there.”

“Doesn’t mean you and me are meant to be,” he asserted.

Some part of her wanted to challenge that. Even the part of her that knew better wanted to know what it would be like...the hot mess they would be together. When heat fired in her again, she drowned the images with more wine.

“And, for the record,” he said, “you’re not hard or cold. You’re calm and together, and you have a strong sense of what’s right for you and what isn’t. You know how to take out the trash. That’s why the playboys have come and gone. And so has your father.”

She looked away. “My father has nothing to do with this.”

“Your daddy’s got everything to do with it,” he said. “It was him who taught you what toxic people look like.”

She thought it over. “If I’m together or strong, I learned it from my mother. She kept my brothers and me together through the upheaval. Even when she was sick, she had spine. She was incredible. I can’t fathom why she never kicked my father to the curb. They lived separate lives by the time she bought this place, but she never divorced him.”

“Maybe he made it impossible for her to do so,” he intoned.

She felt the color drain from her face. “You’re having a glass,” she decided, handpicking another piece of stemware. She poured him one and passed it to him over the countertop. “I don’t believe in drinking alone.”

He lifted the drink, tipped it to her in a silent toast, before testing it.

She watched his throat move around a swallow. Her own tightened. She was growing tired of the tug-of-war between her better judgment and the side of her that wanted to dance in the flames. She was having difficulty quantifying both. “What was your mother like?”

His glass touched down on the counter with a decisive clink . “I don’t talk about my mother.”

She culled a knowing noise from the back of her throat. “That’s what’s wrong with you.”

A laugh shot out of him, unbidden.

Another one , she thought, satisfied.

He shook his head. “God, you’re a pest.”

Even as he smiled, she recognized the pain webbing underneath the surface. “She died, didn’t she?” she asked quietly.

The smile vanished. He masked the hurt skillfully with his hard brand of intensity. “So what if she did?”

She took a moment to consider. “That would mean we have something in common.”

He stared at her...through her.

There was a lost boy in there somewhere. The foster kid who’d been dumped into the system while he was still coming to terms with losing the woman who’d raised him. She ached for that child, just as she ached for that part of her that had listened to Joshua cry himself to sleep every night and had been helpless against the tide of grief.

The line of his shoulders eased. He lifted the glass and downed half the wine in one swift gulp. Frowning at the rest, he cursed. “She’d just kicked my stepdad to the curb. He was a user with a tendency for violence. We moved around some to throw him off the scent. I didn’t mind. Stability’s fine and all, but I had her, and she had me, and that was...everything.”

He chewed over the rest for a time before he spoke again. “There was this STEM camp I wanted to go to. I didn’t think I’d get to go. It cost money, and she was working two jobs to keep the building’s super off our backs. She put me in the car one afternoon, said we were going out for groceries. She drove out of town and pulled up in front of the camp cabins. She’d packed me enough clothes for a week. I was so happy. I don’t remember hugging her goodbye. I just remember running off to join roll call.”

She waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she asked, “Is that the last time you saw her?”

“Alive?” He jerked a nod. “The son of a bitch found her. Bashed her skull in with a hammer. Next time I saw her, she was lying in a casket.”

“I’m sorry.” She breathed the words. “I’m so sorry, Noah.”

“He got off,” he added grimly. “Broke down on the stand and got sent to a psych ward instead of doing his time upstate.”

The wine on her tongue lost its taste. She winced as she swallowed. “No closure for you, then.”

“Hell, no. All things considered, it’s better than what Allison went through before she got shuffled into foster care.”

“What happened?”

“The truth’s too ugly to speak here,” he grumbled.

“Where else could you speak it?” she asked.

Turning up the glass, he swooped down the rest of the wine and reached across the counter to place it in her deep-basined sink. He gripped the edge of the counter, bracing his feet apart. “Her mother was killed, too. Her father did it, right in front of her, before he shot himself.”

“Oh,” Laura uttered. She closed her eyes. “She never... She never told me.”

“And you’d never know.” He gave a shake of his head. “Even as a kid, she was all sunshine and rainbows. She had this raggedy stuffed bunny she carried around by the ear. There was nothing anyone could say to convince her it wasn’t alive or that it should be washed or thrown away. She called it Mr. Binky.”

Laura found she could smile after all. “You wound up in the same home she did.”

“I’m not sure what would have happened to her if I hadn’t.”

“Why?”

He hesitated again. “She didn’t have anyone else.”

“Your foster parents—”

“—didn’t give a damn. I was fourteen when I went out and got my first job. I had to. Otherwise, Allison and I wouldn’t have eaten. I had to teach myself to cook. There’s nothing more motivating than that pit in your stomach—that one that’s been there for days because someone drank away the grocery budget for the week. I was scared the reason Allison’s cheekbones stood out was because she’d gotten used to that feeling. She was so used to it, it wasn’t remarkable to her anymore. She’d just come to accept it. So I worked, and I cooked so she’d never have to know what hunger was again.”

“I had no idea it was like that for her,” Laura said.

“In that home, nobody hit us,” he explained. “Nobody snuck into our rooms at night. Nobody screamed at us. But there’s a different kind of abuse and that’s straight-up neglect.”

Laura had felt neglected, too, but not like that. It wasn’t the same. Her father’s indifference didn’t compare to being left to starve or fend for herself.

She had starved, she realized. For his approval. For affection. After her mother died, she’d had to learn to stop. Men had disappointed her, even those before Quentin and Dominic—because she’d half expected their approval and affection to die off, too. She’d taken the safe route out every time.

“Allison told me the same thing she used to tell you,” Laura mused. “That I don’t live enough. Smile enough. Put myself first enough.” Suddenly, what she’d told Joshua the day after Allison’s body was found rushed back to her...

I think you two could have made each other happy, at least for a time, and... I don’t know. All this reminds me not to waste time if you know what’s right for you...

Behind him, she saw the blue glow of the pool through the glass door to the patio. Air filled her lungs, inflating her with possibilities. She set aside her glass and rounded the counter. “Let’s go for a swim.”

“What?”

“Let’s swim, Noah,” she said, grabbing his hand. She tugged him toward the door. “Just you, me and the moon.”

“Wait a second,” he said, trying to put on the brakes. “I didn’t exactly bring a bathing suit.”

Be brave for once, Laura , she thought desperately. Buoyed by wine and a spirit she’d ignored too long, she told him, “Then I won’t wear one either.”

Noah’s eyes lost their edge. His resistance slipped and he turned quiet.

She slid the door open and stepped out into the cold. “Don’t worry,” she said when he hissed. “The water’s heated.”

He stared at the steam coming off the surface, then at her as she took off her socks and untied the drawstring of her loungewear pants. “So we’re doing this,” he said.

She frowned at his jacket and boots. “Are we?”

When she shimmied out of her pants, his brows shot straight up. He shrugged off the jacket one shoulder at a time. “I can’t let you swim alone.”

“And you say you’re not a hero,” she said, pulling her shirt up by the hem so that she was standing in the cold in her gray sports bra and matching panties. She shivered, dropped the shirt and crossed her arms over her chest. “Hurry up, Steele, before I lose my nerve.”

The jacket hit the ground. He grabbed his T-shirt by the back collar and pried it loose.

Muscle and sinew rippled and bunched under a tapestry of black-and-white pictures. The wings she’d gleaned under the sleeve of his shirt took the shape of a large falcon. It spread across his upper arm and shoulder, finishing with another wing that reached as far as his left pectoral. The designs boasted more bones mixed with clockwork, as if he had tried to convince the world that he was half human, half machine. They were vivid and detailed. Although some lines and shapes had faded more to blue than black with time, none of them bled into others.

The effect was...breathtaking, she found. She was stunned by her own reaction.

Laura tried not to stare at him—at all he was—as he unzipped his fly and pushed the denim down. He fought with his boots before discarding them and the jeans completely, leaving him standing in his boxer briefs.

She reached for him, happy when he let her lace her fingers through his. Drawing him up to the top of the starting block, she grinned. “On three.”

“One,” he began.

“Two...”

“Three,” he said and pushed her.

She flailed for a second before breaking the surface. She opened her mouth to shout at him but shrieked when he cannonballed in after her. The residual splash was impressive. She swept the water from her eyes as he surfaced, grinning. “Prick!” she shouted, tossing water in his face.

“You look good wet, Colton.”

She felt more than stirrings of heat. The tendrils of steam off the water’s surface could’ve been from her. Unsure what to do with herself, she floated on her back. The moon was directly overhead. She drifted for a moment, watching it and the stars before flipping onto her stomach for a lazy freestyle lap.

She’d drowned parts of herself in this pool. The pool hadn’t been installed for fun or leisure. She’d needed it to stay fit and sane. Water purified. It cleansed. It took away her doubts and reinforced what she needed.

Usually. Still unsure of herself, she did another lap.

“Hey, Flipper,” he tossed out when she came up for air.

She swept the water from her face. “What?”

He nodded toward the starting block. “Want to race?”

She laughed at the idea. “Sure. But, fair warning—I won the California state championship two years in a row.”

“Do you still have the trophies?”

“Maybe.”

“Of course you do,” he said knowingly. He gripped the edge of the pool and pulled himself out.

She tried not to groan. He wasn’t just ripped and inked. He was wet, his boxer briefs clinging. Peeling her eyes away from him, she climbed the ladder to join him. She slicked her hair back from her face. “Ready to lose?”

He didn’t answer. Glancing over, she caught the wicked gleam in his eye as he gave her a thorough once-over. She felt her nipples draw up tight under her sports bra. “Would you like to frisk me, Detective?”

His gaze pinged back to hers. He blinked. His mouth fumbled.

Without warning, she threw her weight into him so that he tumbled into the pool.

Before he could come up for air, she executed a dive. Without looking back, she pumped her arms and legs into motion.

She felt the water churning to her right. As she raised her arm in a freestyle stroke and tilted her face out of the water, she saw him gaining, cutting through the water like a porpoise. She quickened her strokes.

They were coming up to the wall. She reached out blindly, groping for it.

Fingers circled her ankle, bringing her up short. She spluttered, arms flailing, as he held on.

Then she heard laughter—deep, uninhibited. She stopped fighting. As he drew her back against his chest, she abandoned the competition for lightheartedness. Delighted, she dropped her head back to his shoulder and belted a laugh to the sky.

His arms had hers pinned, and he tightened them. She could feel the reverberations of joy from his chest along her back and listened to the colonnades of his laughter. She closed her eyes, absorbing them.

The laughter wound down slowly and his body stilled, an inch at a time. He said nothing, holding her as steam curled around their joined forms.

She felt his breath on her ear. Then the bite of his teeth on the lobe, light and quick. “Laura?”

She shuddered at the sound of her name. “Yes?”

“In our game of Twenty Questions, I never asked you the most important one.”

She tilted her cheek against his as he drew her closer still, his lips grazing her jaw. “What’s that?”

“How do you like to be touched?”

The breath left her. It bolted. She felt the flush sink into her cheeks. It sank lower, deeper. And it turned darker, more shocking and satisfying.

Take what you want, Laura , she told herself.

She touched the back of his hand. Raising it to her breast, she brought it up to the ache, snug beneath the heavy curve. Spreading her fingers over his so that he mirrored the motion, she let her fingertips dig into his knuckles and encouraged him to grasp, take.

He obeyed. Her mouth opened on a silent cry as he molded her, kneading her through her sports bra.

“Don’t be a lady,” he told her. “Don’t be quiet.”

She swallowed, the sounds clawing up her throat. “You...you want to know my secret?”

“All of them,” he said, brushing his thumb over the unmistakable outline of her nipple. “I want to know every last one of your secrets, Pearl.”

A bowstring drew taut between her legs. Urgency quivered there. “I hate when you call me that,” she said. “And I think about you even when I shouldn’t.”

“When?”

He is so good at this , she thought, arching back as the kneading quickened. “All the time.”

“When?” he said again, the note dropping into his chest as his hold tightened.

“I think about you when I work,” she rattled off. “I think about you when I’m with others, when I’m alone. In bed. In the shower.”

He groaned. Turning, face-to-face, she saw the answering heat and need behind it. “I think about you kissing me...touching me...”

“Is that what you want?” He was close, but he pulled her closer, so his mouth brushed her own. “You want my hands on you? My mouth?”

She heard herself beg, “Please.”

His eyes closed but not before she saw his relief. “As you wish,” he whispered before taking her mouth in a decisive kiss.

He didn’t kiss softly. He took, and she clung. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on for dear life.

His hands spanned her waist. They cruised, flattening against her ribs, as he licked the seam of her lips, encouraging. She parted for him. One hand rose to the back of her head as he plumbed, touching his tongue to hers.

Her body bowed against his. Every inch of him was hard and fine. She spanned her fingers through the short hair at the nape of his neck, looking for purchase.

There was none. With him, there was nothing but that slippery slope of want and need, and she was going under.

She felt the pool tiles on the wall at her back. Pinned, she felt her excitement focus, sharpen. It arrowed toward her center.

With a harsh noise that sounded almost angry, he snatched his mouth from hers. He cursed, placing his hands safely on either side of her head.

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth. It stung. The tip of her tongue tingled.

His jaw muscle flexed. It was rigid. His eyes were alive, knife-edged, electrifyingly tungsten. The hands planted against the wall clenched in on themselves. She felt him go back on his heels and grabbed him by the arms. “Where do you think you’re going?” she demanded.

He shook his head. “I’m no good for you.”

“I don’t care,” she blurted. When he opened his mouth to protest, she reached up to cover it. “You’re not Prince Charming? Fine. But I want this, and you want this.” She replaced her hand with her mouth, skimming softly in a gliding tease.

His hands dropped to her shoulders and latched as she lingered. He drew a quick breath in through the nose.

She broke away and saw the ardor on his face. “I won’t run from you tomorrow or the next day. I’m here.” She kissed him again, deeper. “Take what you want,” she invited.

He winced. “There’s nothing you could ask me that I wouldn’t give. That scares the hell out of me. I don’t care what those other fools told you. You’re not ice. You’re a four-alarm fire. And I’m burning, damn it. I can’t afford this. I can’t afford you or what you do to me.”

“I’m not going to run,” she whispered. She thought of Allison, his mother... “I won’t be gone tomorrow.”

His hands still clutched her shoulders, firm, but they were no longer keeping her at arm’s length. They pulled her into his circle of danger and heat. His muscles were still rigid, his grimace unbroken. But she felt him give... With her hands sliding from his waist to the backs of his hips, she angled her mouth to accept his.

It wasn’t an onslaught this time. His tongue flicked across hers and he nibbled her lip, but the clash took on a different hue. She ached with it, the ball of need inside her roughening. It grew diamond bright.

“Tell me again,” he instructed. “Tell me what you want me to do to you.”

Fitting her palms to the backs of his, she used them to sweep her body from throat to thighs. She slowed the motion down as they followed up the seam of her legs where her thighs came together, up her belly, over her breasts, cheeks, hair...

He raked his fingers through the damp strands, then did it all again on his own. His hands slid firmly down her torso, teased her inner thighs before putting on the brakes, slowing the motions, skimming the folds of her sex so that her hips circled and she sought. She clamped her hand over the back of his, encouraging.

He didn’t whisper so much as breathe the words again. “Show me. Show me exactly how to make you come alive.”

Her touch worked urgently against his, demonstrating.

He caught on. “Like this?”

She nodded, then stopped when he increased the rhythm. She gulped air.

His hand slipped beneath her underwear. She moaned and churned.

This would break her, she decided. That was his endgame. He wanted to watch her come apart one molecule at a time. The flames inside her raced and leaped as she climbed the ladder fast.

She came, biting the inside of her lip.

“Let it go, Pearl,” he bade. “For Christ’s sake.”

She couldn’t leash it. A cry wrenched from her, unpolished and visceral. Everything he made her feel.

“Yes,” he encouraged, his mouth on her throat.

She shuddered as she came down off the high, messy and resplendent. Something bubbled up her throat. It crested, escaped. A sob, she heard, distressed. “Oh, God,” she uttered. She felt rearranged and so sparkly and sated, she thought she could taste stars.

“Hold on,” he said, tossing one of her loose arms around his neck, then the other. Grabbing her around the waist, he hoisted her out of the water.

She fumbled over the ledge of the pool, coming to rest on her hands and knees. Every limb felt like a noodle. “Oh, sweet Lord,” she said, then snorted a laugh. Quickly, she covered her mouth, wondering where it had come from. When he didn’t follow, she asked, “Coming?”

He swiped his face from brow to chin, gave a half laugh and glanced down at his waist.

Understanding gleaned. He may have slaked her need, but not his own. Looking toward the wicker cabinet where she kept towels and a robe, she dragged herself to her feet.

She retrieved two towels, the long ones that wrapped around her twice. She folded herself into one, knotting it beneath her collarbone.

Behind her, she heard a splash and turned to see him emerging from the water. He passed a hand over his head as he turned from her, slicking the hair back away from his face.

She went to him. “Here.”

“Thanks,” he said and reached for the towel.

She pulled it away, trying to compress the sly impulse to smile.

He saw it form on her lips anyway. “You think this is funny?” he asked.

“I do,” she admitted, holding the towel high.

He cursed and rearranged his feet so that he was facing her.

She saw what he’d been trying to hide from her. His erection was at full mast, the soaked boxer briefs straining to contain it. “I think it wants you to let it out.”

“You’re right.” He snatched the towel.

She watched him scrub the terry cloth roughly over his face and hair. He toweled off his chest and arms before wrapping the towel around his waist. “What’s stopping you?”

“What if you don’t like what happens when I do? What then?”

She considered him. “What wouldn’t I like?” When he didn’t answer, she gripped the towel on either side of his waist and yanked him toward her. She stole a kiss while she had him on the back foot, hardening her mouth over his to prove a point.

He hummed in unconscious agreement.

She pushed him away abruptly and watched him fumble for a second in protest. “You want to know another secret?” she asked when he opened his eyes.

“I told you,” he said after a moment. “I want all your secrets.”

“There’s nothing I don’t like about you, Noah Steele,” she revealed.

His chest lifted in a rushing breath.

“Why not show me the rest?” she suggested.

“You don’t do this,” he ventured. “You don’t just take a man to bed. Not without flowers, dinner. Hell, candles. Silk sheets. Some ridiculous dress meant to tie your man’s tongue in a knot.”

“Maybe.”

“We didn’t have dinner,” he noted. “I didn’t bring you flowers.”

“No,” she admitted.

“I don’t see any candles.”

The candles were all inside her, she thought desperately. They stood tall under columns of flame. The wax melted away and puddled, refusing to cool. She wanted his hands all over her again, and it was driving her wild.

She wouldn’t beg this time. She wanted him to beg.

She would make him.

“I’m not wearing a dress,” she pointed out.

“You’re not wearing much of anything and damned if that helps.”

She smiled. “But I do have a bed with silk sheets.”

“And you want me to mess them up?”

“Don’t you get it?” she challenged. “You can shred my sheets, for all I care.”

A slow grin worked its way across the forbidding line of his mouth. “You are, far and away, the most bewitching woman I know.”

She closed her hands over the knot of her towel, untying it. Letting it fall to her feet, she grabbed him by the hand. “You know what’s better than flowers?”

“What?”

“That.”