"Now she tells me. So, what's on the menu tonight?"
"How about Tuna Surprise?"
"What's the Surprise?"
"Managing to turn this mess into something edible," Annie said, and laughed. "Here. Start dicing the potatoes. I'll heat up some oil and slice the rest of the onions."
"Suppose you supervise while I do the work. It's my fault we're stuck out here, in the tail end of nowhere, so it's only fair I get to make dinner."
"Let's face it, Cooper. We're trapped in a place most people would kill for, so stop apologizing and start dicing."
Annie splashed some oil into the skillet, then leaned past Chase and placed it on the burner. Her breast brushed lightly across his arm, and he felt himself harden like stone. Desire, an overpowering need for her, for Annie, the mother of his child and the passion of his youth, surged through his blood, pumping hard and hot, and pooled low in his belly.
He jerked away. As he did, his elbow knocked against the knife and it clattered to the floor.
"Damn," he said, as if it mattered, as if anything mattered but wanting to take his wife in his arms.
Milton Hoffman's face, the face of the man she loved, rose before him as if it were an apparition. Hoffman, who couldn't love Annie as much as he did because, dammit, he did love her. Not again, but still. He'd never stopped loving her, and it was time to admit it.
"Annie," he said in a low voice.
Annie looked up. The temperature in the kitchen felt as if it had gone up ten degrees.
The message was there, in Chase's eyes. Her heart leaped in her chest. She told herself not to be a fool. What was happening here wasn't real. Reality was the papers that had legally severed their marriage. It was a woman named Janet, waiting for Chase back in New York.
On the other hand, hadn't some philosopher said reality was what you made of it?
"Annie?" Chase whispered. He reached toward her and she swayed forward, her eyes half-closed...
The smell of burning oil filled the kitchen.
Annie swung around, grabbed the skillet and dumped it into the sink.
"We'll have to start over," she said, with a shaky laugh. She looked at Chase. "With the cooking, I mean."
Chase nodded. Then they turned away from each other and made a show of being busy.
* * *
Annie fried more onions, parboiled the diced potatoes and put together a tuna casserole.
Chase made the coffee and opened a package of crackers and a box of cookies.
When everything was ready, they carried their meal into the living room, arranged it on the low, lacquered table and sat, cross-legged, on the black-and-white cushions. They ate in silence, as politely and impersonally as if they were strangers who'd been asked to share a table in a crowded coffee shop.
Afterward, they cleaned up together. Then Annie took a magazine from a stack she'd found in the kitchen.
Chase said he'd take another walk.
Annie said she'd read.
But she didn't. The black-and-white cushions didn't offer much in the way of comfort. Besides, her thoughts kept straying away from the magazine, to the hours looming ahead. There was an entire night to get through. She and Chase, sharing this cabin. And that bedroom.
How would she manage?
She jumped when Chase stepped into the living room.
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't meant to startle you."
"That's okay." She folded her hands over the closed magazine, her fingers knotted tightly together. "I was thinking," she said carefully. "I mean, it occurred to me..."
"What?"
Annie took a breath.
"Well, there is one advantage to being here by ourselves."
Chase looked at her. His eyes were burning like coals. "There's a definite advantage."
There was no mistaking his meaning. Annie felt her heart swell, as if it were a balloon, until it seemed to fill her chest.
"What I mean," she said, speaking with care, "is that there's no one here to know what our arrangements are. We wouldn't have to explain anything..." Her words stuttered to a halt. "Don't look at me that way," she whispered.
Chase shut the door, his eyes locked on hers. "Do you want to make love?"
The directness of the question stole her breath away. She shook her head. "No! I didn't say-"
"I want you, Annie."
His voice was rough and his face seemed to have taken on an angularity, but she knew what she was really seeing was desire. She knew, because this was how he'd looked, years ago, when their need for each other had been an unquenchable thirst. They'd be talking, or just sitting and reading or watching TV, and suddenly she'd feel a stillness in the air. And she'd look up, and Chase would be watching her, and what she saw in his eyes would make her breasts swell so that she'd feel the scrape of her bra against her nipples, feel the dampness bloom between her thighs...
"Babe," he said thickly, "I want you so much I can't think straight."
It seemed to take forever before she could draw enough strength to answer.
"We can't," she said, in a voice that sounded like a stranger's.
"Why? We're adults. Who is it going to hurt, if we do what we both want to do?"
Me, she'd thought, me, Chase, because if I go to bed with you, I'll be forced to admit the truth to myself, that I still-that I still-
"No," she said, her voice rising in a cry that seemed to tremble in the air between them. "No," she repeated, and then, because it was the only safe thing she could think of, she took another breath and lied again, the same way she had when they'd been preparing dinner. "It wouldn't be fair to-to Milton."
"Milton." The name was like an obscenity on Chase's lips.
"That's right. Milton. I'm engaged, and so are you. What I meant about nobody knowing what we do tonight, nobody asking questions, was that there's no reason for us to share the bedroom."
"I see."
She waited for him to say something else, but he didn't.
"Surely, in this entire house, there's another-"
"No."
"No?"
"Look around you, dammit. There's no sofa. There's not even a chair, except for the rocker in the bedroom."
Annie stared at him, wondering why he sounded so angry.
"Well," she said, looking up at the ceiling, "what's on the second-"
"Did you see a staircase?"
"Well-well, no. No, I didn't. But-"
"That's because there aren't any rooms above us. There's just a storage loft, full of boxes. And bats."
"Bats?" Annie said, with a faint shudder.
"Bats," Chase repeated coldly, furious at her, at himself, at Dawn, at Kichiro Tanaka and the city of Seattle and the Fates and whoever, whatever, had put him into this impossible situation. His lips drew back from his teeth. "The bats eat the spiders. The impressive ones, the size of dinner plates."
"In other words, you're telling me we'll have to make the best of things."
"A brilliant deduction."
Annie tossed aside the magazine and shot to her feet. "Listen, Cooper, don't be so high-and-mighty! I'm not the one who got us stuck out here, and don't you forget it.
"No," he snarled, "I won't forget it. If you'd put your foot down in the first place, if you'd told our daughter, flat out, that she couldn't marry Nick-"
"That's it," Annie said, stalking past him.
"Don't you walk out on me, lady."
"I'm going to find something else to read," she snapped, over her shoulder. "Even the label on a can of tuna would be better than trying to have a conversation with you."
"You're right," Chase snapped back, shouldering past her. "I might even take my chances and try swimming to the mainland. Anything would be an improvement over an evening spent in your company!"
* * *
Annie sat on the rocker in the bedroom. She looked at her watch.
Chase had been gone a long time. Surely he hadn't really meant that. He wouldn't have really tried to swim the cold, choppy water...
The bedroom door opened. She looked up and saw Chase.
"Sorry," he said briskly. "I should have knocked."
"That's all right. I, uh, I was just sitting here and-and thinking."
"It's been a long day. I don't know about you, but I'd just as soon turn in and get some sleep."
"That's what I was thinking about. Our sleeping arrangements. We can share the room."
"We are sharing it," he said coldly. "I thought I'd made that clear. There isn't a hell of a lot of choice."
"You did. And I-I agree. It's not a problem," Annie said, rushing her words together. "The bed's the size of a football field. I'll take the right side. You can have... What are you doing?"