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H ad she known he’d find her? Perhaps she had. Perhaps she’d needed him to. “Some things don’t change,” she said simply as Jason fell into step beside her.

“I’ve found that out in one afternoon.” He thought of the town that had stayed so much the same. And of his feelings for the woman beside him. “Where’s your daughter?”

“She’s sleeping.”

He was calmer than he’d been that afternoon, and determined to stay that way. “I didn’t ask you if you had other children.”

“No.” He heard the wistfulness in her voice, just a sigh of it. “There’s only Clara.”

“How did you pick the name?”

She smiled. It was so like him to ask questions no one else would think of. “From the Nutcracker. I wanted her to be able to dream.” As she had. Dropping her hands in her pockets she told herself they were simply two old friends walking through a quiet town. “Are you staying at the inn?”

“Yeah.” Amused, Jason rubbed a hand over his chin. “Beantree took my bags up himself.”

“Local boy makes good.” She turned to look at him.

It was easier somehow walking like this.

Odd, she realized, she’d seen the boy when she’d looked at him the first time.

Now she saw the man. His hair had darkened a bit but was still very blond.

It was no longer unkempt, but cut in a carelessly attractive style that had it falling over his brow.

His face was still thin, hollow at the cheeks in the way that had always fascinated her.

And his mouth was still full, but there was a hardness around it that hadn’t been there once.

“You did make good, didn’t you? You made everything you wanted happen. ”

“Most everything.” When his eyes met hers, she felt all the old longings come back. “What about you, Faith?”

She shook her head, watching the sky as she walked. “I never wanted as much as you, Jason.”

“Are you happy?”

“If a person isn’t, it’s their own fault.”

“That’s too simple.”

“I haven’t seen the things you’ve seen. I haven’t had to deal with what you’ve had to deal with. I am simple, Jason. That was the problem, wasn’t it?”

“No.” He turned her to face him and slid his hands up to her face.

He wore no gloves, and his fingers warmed against her skin.

“God, you haven’t changed.” As she stood very still he combed his fingers up through her hair, then down to where the tips brushed her shoulders.

“I’ve thought about the way you look in the moonlight countless times. It was just like this.”

“I’ve changed, Jason.” But her voice was breathless. “So have you.”

“Some things don’t,” he reminded her and gave in to the need.

When his mouth touched hers, he knew that he’d come home.

Everything he remembered, everything he thought he’d lost was his again.

She was soft and smelled of springtime even when snow dusted the ground around them.

Her mouth was willing, even as it had been the first time he’d tasted it.

He couldn’t explain, even to himself, that every other woman he’d held had been nothing but a shadow of his memory of her.

Now she was real, wrapped in his arms and giving him everything he’d forgotten he could have.

Just once, she promised herself as she melted against him.

Just once more. How could she have known her life had such a void in it?

She’d tried to close the door on the part of her life that included Jason, though she’d known it wasn’t possible.

She’d tried to tell herself it was only youthful passion and girlish fancy but she’d known that was a lie.

There’d been no other men, only memories of one, and wishes, half-forgotten dreams.

She was holding no memory now but Jason, as real and urgent as he’d always been.

Everything about him was so familiar, the taste of his lips on hers, the feel of his hair as her fingers raked through it, the scent of man, rough and rugged, that he’d always carried with him even as a boy.

He murmured her name and drew her closer, as if the years were trying to separate them again.

She wrapped her arms around him, as willing, as eager, and as in love as she’d been the last time he’d held her. The wind whipped around their ankles, puffing up clouds of snow while the moonlight held them close.

But it wasn’t yesterday, she reminded herself as she stepped back.

It wasn’t tomorrow. It was today, and today had to be faced.

She wasn’t a child any longer without responsibilities and a love so big it overshadowed anything else.

She was a woman with a child to raise and a home to make.

He was a wanderer. He’d never pretended to be anything else.

“It’s over for us, Jason.” But she held his hand a moment longer. “It’s been over for a long time.”

“No.” He caught her before she could turn away. “It isn’t. I told myself it was, and that I’d come back and prove it. You’ve been eating at me half my life, Faith. It’s never going to be over.”

“You left me.” The tears she promised herself she wouldn’t shed spilled over. “You broke my heart. It’s barely had time to mend, Jason. You won’t break it again.”

“You know I had to leave. If you’d waited—”

“It doesn’t matter now.” With a shake of her head she backed away.

She would never be able to explain to him why it hadn’t been possible to wait.

“It doesn’t matter because in a few days you’ll be gone again.

I won’t let you whirl in and out of my life and leave my emotions in chaos. We both made our choices, Jason.”

“Damn it, I missed you.”

She closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were dry. “I had to stop missing you. Please leave me alone, Jason. If I thought we could be friends—”

“We always were.”

“Always is gone.” Nonetheless she held out both hands and took his. “Oh, Jason, you were my best friend, but I can’t welcome you home because you scare the hell out of me.”

“Faith.” He curled his fingers around hers. “We need more time, to talk.”

Looking at him she let out a long breath. “You know where to find me, Jason. You always did.”

“Let me walk you home.”

“No.” Calmer, she smiled. “Not this time.”

F rom the window of his room, Jason could see most of Main Street.

He could, if he chose, watch the flow of business in Porterfield’s Five and Dime or the collection of people who walked through and loitered in the town square.

Too often he found the direction of his gaze wander ing to the white house near the end of the street.

Because he’d been restless, Jason had been up and at the window when Faith had walked outside with Clara to see her off to school with a group of other children.

He’d seen her crouch down to adjust the collar of her daughter’s coat.

And he’d seen her stand, hatless, her back to him, as she’d watched the children drag themselves off for a day of books.

She’d stood there a long time with the wind pulling and tugging at her hair, and he’d waited for her to turn, to look at the inn, to acknowledge somehow that she knew he was there.

But she’d walked around the side of the house to her shop without looking back.

Now, hours later, he was at the window again, still restless. From the number of people he could see walk back to the Doll House, her business was thriving. She was working, busy, while he was standing unshaven at a window with his portable typewriter sitting silent on the desk beside him.

He’d planned to work on his novel for a few days—the novel he’d promised himself he’d write.

It was just one more promise he’d never been able to keep because of the demands of travel and reporting.

He’d expected to be able to work here, in the quiet, settled town of his youth away from the demands of journalism and the fast pace he’d set for himself.

He’d expected a lot of things. What he hadn’t expected was to find himself just as wildly in love with Faith as he’d been at twenty.

Jason turned away from the window and stared at his typewriter.

The papers were there, notes bulging in manila envelopes, the half-finished manuscript pages.

He could sit down and make himself work through the day into the night.

He had the discipline for it. But in his life there was more than a book that was half finished. He was just coming to realize it.

By the time he’d shaved and dressed, it was past noon.

He thought briefly about walking across the street to Mindy’s to see if she still served the best homemade soup in town.

But he didn’t feel like chatty counter talk.

Deliberately he turned south, away from Faith.

He wouldn’t make a fool of himself by chasing after her.

As he walked, he passed a half a dozen people he knew.

He was greeted with thumps on the back, handshakes and avid curiosity.

He’d strolled down the Left Bank, up Carnaby Street and along the narrow streets of Venice.

After a decade of absence he found the walk down Main Street just as fascinating.

There was a barber pole that swirled up and around and back into itself.

A life-size cardboard Santa stood outside a dress shop gesturing passersby inside.

Spotting a display of poinsettias, Jason slipped into the store and bought the biggest one he could carry.

The saleswoman had been in his graduating class and detained him for ten minutes before he could escape.

He’d expected questions, but he hadn’t guessed that he’d become the town celebrity.

Amused, he made his way down the street as he had countless times before.

When he reached the Widow Marchant’s, he didn’t bother with the front door.

Following an old habit, he went around the back and knocked on the storm door.

It still rattled. It was a small thing that pleased him enormously.