Three

      Flint dragged another straight chair to face Julie and straddled it backward. He crossed his arms over the top slat, rested his chin against them and stared at her, absorbing her image. How often he’d dreamed of seeing her again, ached for her. Now he felt like a desert-parched man at a crystal-clear oasis. He slaked his thirst on the loveliness of her face, a face that had first captivated him fifteen years before and had profoundly altered his life. Time had been gracious to her, drawn her beauty more keenly, transformed her from a lovely girl to an exquisite woman.

      “You’re more beautiful than ever,” he said, speaking his thoughts aloud.

      “Thank you,” she said, her nose going up and her blue eyes turning frosty, “but you have exactly ten minutes to have your say. I would suggest that you use your time on topics more important than my looks.”

      He grinned at her imperious tone. “Right. Where shall I begin?”

      “I’m sure I wouldn’t know. You’re the one who skipped town on our wedding day.”

      “Darlin’, I didn’t skip town. I explained that I wasn’t ready to get married. All I had to my name was two hundred dollars in the bank, a shack on the water and a used Harley. I was earning barely enough as a fishing guide to support myself. I couldn’t give you the things I wanted you to have or provide a decent place for you to live.”

      “You’d been telling me the same tale for two years. I was sick of waiting. I told you dozens of times that money wasn’t that important to me. Besides, I had my teaching job. We could have gotten by just fine.”

      “But I didn’t want to just get by. I wanted—” He scraped the red kerchief from his head, tossed it aside and raked his fingers through his hair. God, how to say this? “I wanted to give you fine things and a big beautiful house. But more than that, I wanted to be somebody, somebody that your family wouldn’t look down their noses at. Somebody you could be proud to marry in front of the whole damned town instead of having to sneak off and find a justice of the peace. That’s why, even though it took me eight years to do it, I got my college degree. I had a burning desire and a crazy idea that I could be a writer.”

      Her brows went up and her eyes grew wide. “A writer? You?”

      “Yep.” He rested his chin on his arms again. “I’ve always had a powerful urge to write. In fact, I used to stay up half the night, pounding away on an old typewriter I scrounged up. I fancied myself as the next Ernest Hemingway.”

      “This is the first I’ve heard of it. Why in the world didn’t you tell me?”

      “Pride, I guess. Nobody knew except Miss Fuller, my English teacher in high school, and Dr. Stephenson, my creative writing teacher at Lamar.”

      Her eyes turned sad. “I can’t believe that you didn’t tell me something so important to you.”

      “I’m sorry. I should have, but I was waiting until I sold something. All I’d done was collect enough rejection letters to paper the whole courthouse. What kind of a profession was writing for somebody like me—the town bad boy, that old drunk Wilber Durham’s kid? Hell, maybe I was deluding myself in thinking that I could be a writer. I was scared to death that you would laugh at me.”

      “Gee, thanks! It’s nice to know that you thought I was so shallow and insensitive. No wonder you jilted me!” She sprang to her feet. “This has gone far enough. Take me home this minute.”

      “Not until I’ve had my say. Remember, I have the keys.”

      She rolled her eyes upward and made exasperated growling sounds between her clenched teeth. She marched around in quick circles, pulling at her hair, most of which had come loose from its pins and hung in charming dishevelment. He knew that she was furious and getting madder by the minute, but he was desperate. No way in hell was he going to let her get away until he made her understand that the two of them were meant for each other.

      “You have to sleep sometime,” she said, smirking.

      “Julie, honey, will you listen to me? I’m trying to explain. I didn’t jilt you. I asked you to wait for another year.”

      “And after that it would have been another year…and another.”

      “I promised you that a year was all I was asking.”

      “You promised me that you would write to me, too, but you didn’t.”

      “I did write to you. I wrote you several letters.”

      “Baloney! I never got them.”

      He frowned. “You didn’t send them back to me with the newspaper clipping from your wedding?”

      She looked truly stunned. “Certainly not.”

      “Then who did?”

      “I don’t know.” Julie dropped to the chair, hung her head and was silent for several seconds. “My mother,” she whispered. “It could only have been my mother.” She looked up, a pained expression on her face. “Dear Lord, how could she have done such a thing when she knew—” She clamped her mouth shut and glanced down at her fingers.

      “When she knew what?”

      Tears trickled down Julie’s cheeks. “When she knew how…how much I loved you, how much I needed you.”

      Flint’s heart nearly choked him. “Oh, darlin’.” He pulled