He was already awake the next morning when she went into his room; he was bending from the waist and rubbing his thighs and calves. She regarded him with satisfaction, glad that he was taking an active part in his recovery.

“I had a long talk with Serena last night,” he grunted, not looking up from what he was doing.

“Good. I expect the apology was good for your soul,” she said, slipping behind him and kneading his back and shoulders.

“She was upset. It seems Richard has been leaving again as soon as he takes her home at night, and she thinks he’s seeing another woman.”

Dione’s fingers stilled. Was it possible? She hadn’t thought him the type to sneak around. It seemed so tawdry, and Richard wasn’t a tawdry man.

Blake swiveled his head around to look at her. “Serena thinks he’s seeing you,” he said bluntly.

She resumed the motion of her fingers. “What did you tell her?” she asked, trying to stay calm. She concentrated on the feel of his flesh under her hands, noting that he didn’t feel as bony as he had at first.

“I told her that I’d find out and stop it if he was,” he replied. “Don’t look so innocent, because we both know that Richard’s attracted to you. Hell, he’d have to be dead not to be. You’re the type of woman who has men swarming around her like bees around a honey pot.”

Richard had said much the same thing about Blake, she thought, and smiled sadly at how far they both were from the truth.

“I’m not seeing Richard,” she said quietly. “Aside from the fact that he’s married, when would I have time? I’m with you all day long, and I’m too tired at night to put forth the energy that sneaking around would take.”

“Serena said that she saw you on the patio one night.”

“She did. We were talking about you, not making love. I know that Richard’s unhappy with Serena—”

“How do you know that?”

“I’m not blind. She’s devoted the last two years to you and virtually ignored her husband, and naturally he resents it. Why do you think he was so determined to find a therapist for you? He wants you walking again so he can have his wife back.” Perhaps she shouldn’t have told him that, but it was time Blake realized that he’d been dominating their lives with his physical condition.

He sighed. “All right, I believe you. But just in case you start thinking how attractive Richard is, let me tell you now that the one thing I won’t tolerate is for Serena to be hurt.”

“She’s a big girl, Blake. You can’t run interference for her for the rest of her life.”

“I can do it as long as she needs me, and as long as I’m able. When I think of how she was after our mother died…I swear, Dee, I think I’d kill to keep her from ever looking like that again.”

At least she’d had a mother who loved her. The words were on Dione’s lips, but she bit them back. It wasn’t Serena’s fault that Dione’s mother hadn’t been loving. Her burden of bitterness was her own, not something to be loaded onto someone else’s shoulders.

She pushed it away. “Do you think he really is seeing someone else? In a way, I can’t see it. He’s so besotted with Serena that no one else registers.”

“You register with him,” Blake insisted.

“He’s never said anything to me,” Dione replied honestly, though she was still stretching the truth a little. “How do you know? Male intuition?”

“If you want to call it that,” he murmured, leaning back against her as he tired. Her soft breasts supported his weight. “I’m still a man, even if I couldn’t chase a turtle and catch it. I can look at you and see the same thing he sees. You’re so damned beautiful, so soft and strong at the same time. If I could chase you, lady, you’d have the race of your life.”

The soft words alarmed her in a way that was different from the panic she normally felt when faced with a prowling, hunting male. Her hands were still on his shoulders, and his weight was resting on her; his body was as familiar to her as her own, the texture of his skin, even the smell of him. It was as if he were a part of her, because she was building him, remaking him, shaping him into the gorgeous man he’d been before the accident. He was her creation.

She suddenly wanted to rest her cheek on his shaggy head, feel the silky texture of his hair. Instead she denied the impulse, because it was so foreign to her. Yet his head beckoned, and she moved her hand from his shoulder to touch the dark strands.

“You’re beginning to look like a sheepdog,” she told him, her voice a little breathless and tinged with the laughter that they shared so often now.

“Then cut it for me,” he said lazily, letting his head find a comfortable position on her shoulder.

“You’d trust me to cut your hair?” she asked, startled.

“Of course. If I can trust you with my body, why not my hair?” he reasoned.

“Then let’s do it now,” she said, slapping his shoulder. “I’d like to see if you have ears. Come on, get off me.”

A shudder rippled down him, and he turned his eyes to her, eyes as blue as the deepest sea, and as primal. She knew what he was thinking, but she turned her gaze away and refused to let the moment linger.

A nameless intimacy had enfolded them. She was jittery, yet she couldn’t say that she was really frightened. It was…odd, and her forehead was furrowed with a pensive frown as she plied the scissors on his thick hair. He was a patient, and she’d learned not to be afraid of her patients. He’d gotten closer to her than she’d ever allowed anyone else to get, even the children who had tugged the most strongly at her heartstrings. He was the challenge of her career; he’d become so much to her, but he was still a man, and she couldn’t understand why she didn’t get that icy, sick feeling she normally got when a man got close to her. Blake could touch her, and she couldn’t tolerate the touch of any other man.

Perhaps, she decided, it was because she knew that she was safe with him. As he’d pointed out, he wasn’t in any condition to do any chasing. Sexually, he was as harmless as the children she’d hugged and comforted.

“You look like Michelangelo, agonizing over the final touches to a statue,” he said provokingly. “Have you cut a big gap in my hair?”

“Of course not!” she protested, running her fingers through the unruly pelt. “I’m a very good barber, for your information. Would you like a mirror?”

He sighed blissfully. “No, I trust you. You can shave me now.”

“Like heck I will!” With mock wrath she practically slapped the loose hair off his shoulders. “It’s time for your session on the rack, so stop trying to stall!”

In the days that followed nothing else was said about the situation between Serena and Richard, and though the couple continued to have dinner with Blake and Dione, the coolness between them was obvious. Richard treated Dione with a warmth that never progressed beyond friendliness, though Dione was certain that Serena wasn’t convinced that the situation between them was innocent. Blake watched everything with an eagle eye and kept Dione close by his side.

She understood his reasons for doing so, and as it suited her to be with him, she let him be as demanding of her company as he wanted. She liked being with him. As he grew stronger his rather devilish personality was coming out, and it took all her concentration to stay one step ahead of him. She had to play poker with him; she had to play chess with him; she had to watch football games with him. There were a million and one things that took his interest, and he demanded that she share them all. It was as if he’d been in a coma for two years and had come out of it determined to catch up on everything he’d missed.

He pushed himself harder than she ever would have. Because she could lift more weigh than he could, he worked for hours with the weights. Because she could swim longer and faster than he could, he pushed himself to do lap after lap, though he still couldn’t use his legs. And every week they had a rematch at arm wrestling. It was their fifth match before he finally defeated her, and he was so jubilant that she let him have blueberry waffles for breakfast.

Still, she was nervous when she decided that it was time for him to begin using his legs. This was the crux of the entire program. If he couldn’t see some progress now in his legs, she knew that he’d lose hope and sink into depression again.

She didn’t tell him what she had planned. After he’d done his sets on the weight bench she got him back into the wheelchair and guided the chair over to the parallel bars that he would use to support himself while she reeducated his legs in what they were expected to do. He looked at the bars, then at her, his brows lifted in question.

“It’s time for you to stop being so lazy,” she said as casually as possible, though her heart was pounding so loudly it was a miracle he couldn’t hear it. “On your feet.”

He swallowed, his eyes moving from her to the bars, then back to her.

“This is it, huh? D day.”

“That’s right. It’s no big deal. Just stand. No trying to walk. Let your legs get accustomed to holding your weight.”

He set his jaw and reached out for the bars. Bracing his hands on them, he pulled himself out of the wheelchair.

The weight lifting came in handy as he pulled himself up, using only the strength in his shoulders and arms. Watching him, Dione noted the way his muscles bunched and played. He had real muscles now, not just skin over bone. He was still thin, too thin, but no longer did he have the physique of a famine victim. Even his legs had responded to the forced exercises she gave him every day by forming a layer of muscle.

He was pale, and sweat dripped down his face as Dione positioned his feet firmly under him. “Now,” she said softly, “let your weight off your hands. Let your legs hold you. You may fall; don’t worry about it. Everyone falls when he reaches this phase of therapy.”

“I won’t fall,” he said grimly, throwing his head back and clenching his teeth. He was balancing himself with his hands, but his weight was on his feet. He groaned aloud. “You didn’t say it would hurt!” he protested through his teeth.

Dione’s head jerked up, her golden eyes firing with excitement. “Does it hurt?”

“Like hell! Hot needles—”

She let out a whoop of joy and reached for him, drawing back as she remembered his precarious balance. Unbidden, her eyes moistened. She hadn’t cried since she was a child, but now she was so proud she was helpless against the tears that formed. Still, she blinked them back, though they shimmered like liquid gold between her black lashes as she offered him a tremulous smile. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

“No, what?”

“That the nerves are working! It’s all working! The massages, the exercises, the whirlpool…your legs! Don’t you understand?” she shrieked, practically jumping up and down.

His head jerked around to her. All the color washed out of his face, leaving his eyes glowing like blue coals. “Say it!” he whispered. “Spell it out!”

“You’re going to walk!” she screamed at him. Then she couldn’t control the tears any longer and they trickled down her face, blurring her vision. She brushed them away with the back of her hand and gave a watery chuckle. “You’re going to walk,” she said again.

His face twisted, contorted by an agony of joy; he let go of the bars and reached for her, falling forward as his body pitched off-balance. Dione caught him, wrapping her arms tightly around him, but he was too heavy for her now, and she staggered and went down under his weight. He had both arms around her, and he buried his face in her neck. Her heart gave an enormous leap, her blood turned by icy terror into a sluggish river that barely moved. “No,” she whispered, her mind suddenly blanking, and her hands moved to his shoulders to push him off.

There was an odd quivering to his shoulders. And there was a sound…it wasn’t the same sound of her nightmares.

Then, like someone throwing a light switch and changing a room from dark to light, she knew that this was Blake, not Scott. Scott had hurt her; Blake never would. And the strange sound was the sound of his weeping.

He was crying. He couldn’t stop the tears of joy any more than she’d been able to a moment before; the heaving sobs that tore out of him released two long years of torment and despair. “My God,” he said brokenly. “My God.”

It was like a dam bursting inside her. A lifetime of holding her hurts inside, of having no one to turn to for comfort, no one to hold her while she cried, was suddenly too much. A great searing pain in her chest rose into her throat and burst out in a choked, anguished cry.

Her body shuddered with the force of her sobs, and her enormous golden eyes flooded with tears. For the first time in her life she was being held close in someone’s arms while she cried, and it was too much. She couldn’t bear the bittersweet pain and joy of it, yet at the same time she felt as if something had changed inside her. The simple act of weeping together had torn down the wall that kept her isolated from the rest of the world. She had existed on only a surface level, never letting anything get too close to her, never letting herself feel too deeply, never letting anyone know the woman behind the mask, because the woman had been hurt so badly and feared that it could happen again. She’d developed quite a defense mechanism, but Blake had somehow managed to short circuit it.

He was different from every other man she knew. He was capable of loving; he was at once a laughing daredevil and a hard-hitting businessman. But most of all, he needed her. Other patients had needed her, but only as a therapist. Blake needed her, the woman she was, because only her personal strengths had enabled her to help him with her trained skills and knowledge. She couldn’t remember anyone ever needing her before.

She cuddled him close to her, stunned by the slowly increasing warmth inside her that was gradually melting the frozen pain that had dominated her for so long. She wanted to weep some more, because she was both frightened and excited by her new freedom to touch and be touched. Her hand stroked his hair, her fingers lacing themselves in the silky waves, as his tears finally stopped and he lay sweetly, limply against her.

He lifted his head to look at her. He wasn’t ashamed of the tears that wet his face and glittered in his blue eyes. Very gently he rubbed his wet cheek against hers, a subtle caress that mingled their happiness as well as their tears.

Then he kissed her.

It was a slow, wondering kiss, a gentle touch that sought but didn’t pursue, a delicate tasting of her lips that lacked any aggressive, masculine need. She quivered in his arms, her hands automatically moving to his shoulders to shove him away if he progressed beyond the still-guarded borders of intimacy that she could accept. But he didn’t try to deepen the kiss. He raised his mouth and instead touched his nose to hers, rolling his head back and forth in a light, brushing movement.

After a long moment he drew back slightly and let his gaze roam over her face with a certain curiosity. Dione couldn’t look away from his eyes, watching the irises expand until they had almost swallowed the blue. What was he thinking? What caused that sudden flash of desperation that startled her, the shadow that crossed his face? His eyes lingered on the soft, trembling fullness of her lips, then slowly lifted to meet her gaze and lock in place. They stared at each other, so close that she could see her reflection in his eyes and knew that he could see himself in hers.

“Your eyes are like melted gold,” he whispered. “Cat eyes. Do they shine in the dark? A man could get lost in them,” he said, his voice suddenly rough.

Dione swallowed; her heart seemed to be rising to stick in her throat. Her hands were still on his shoulders; beneath the warmth of his flesh she could feel the flexing of his muscles as he levered himself up on his elbows, the weight of his body still pressed into hers from the waist down. She shivered, faintly alarmed by their posture, but too bemused by the emotional intimacy quivering between them to push him away.

“You’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen,” he murmured. “As exotic as Salome, as graceful as a cat, as simple as the wind…and so damned mysterious. What goes on behind those cat eyes? What are you thinking?”

She couldn’t answer; instead she shook her head blindly as fresh tears made her eyes glitter. He sucked in his breath, then kissed her again, this time parting her lips and slowly penetrating her mouth with his tongue, giving her the time to decide if she would accept the caress. She was trembling in his arms, afraid to let herself be tempted by the gentle touch, yet she was tempted, terribly so. Her tongue moved hesitantly and touched his, withdrew, returned for another shy taste, and finally lingered. He tasted marvelous.

He deepened the kiss, exploring the ridges of her teeth, the softness of her mouth. Dione lay quietly beneath him, unaware of the growing force of his passion until suddenly his mouth turned hard and demanding, asking for more than she could give, reminding her abruptly and with chilling clarity how it had been with Scott—

The black pit of her nightmares loomed before her, and she squirmed under him, but he didn’t feel the sudden tension in her body. His hands grasped her with the roughness of desire, and the last thread holding her control snapped.

She tore her mouth from his with a raw cry. “No!” she shrieked, sudden fear giving her strength. She shoved him away with all the considerable power of her arms and legs, and he rolled across the floor, bumping into the wheelchair and sending it flying across the room.

He pulled himself into a sitting position and seared her with a scathing, furious look. “Don’t bother screaming,” he snapped bitterly. “It’s a cinch that nothing’s going to happen.”

“You can bet on it!” she snapped in return, scrambling to her feet and straightening her blouse and shorts, which had somehow become twisted. “I’m a therapist, not a…a convenience!”

“Your professional integrity is safe,” he muttered. “From me, at any rate. You might want to try someone like Richard if you’re really serious with your kisses, though I warn you right now, all of his parts are in working order and he might not be so easy to throw off!”

It was evident that his ego had been bruised, because she’d tossed him off so easily; he hadn’t even noticed the wild expression that had touched her face. She gave silent thanks, then calmly retrieved the wheelchair and placed it beside him. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she said curtly. “We have work to do.”

“Sure, lady,” he snarled. “Anything you say. You’re the therapist.”

He pushed himself so hard for the rest of the day that Dione had to lose her temper with him that afternoon to make him stop. He was in the foulest mood she’d ever seen him in, surly and bleak. Even Serena was unable to coax him into a better mood that night over dinner, and he excused himself shortly afterward, uttering that he was tired and going to bed.

Serena’s brows lifted, but she didn’t protest. Richard got to his feet and said, “Let’s go into the study for a minute, Blake. There are some things that I need to talk over with you; it won’t take long.”

Blake nodded briefly, and the two men left the room. Silence fell between Dione and Serena, who had never had much to say to each other.

Serena was apparently engrossed with the strappy white sandal she was dangling from her toes. Without looking up from it, she asked casually, “What’s wrong with Blake tonight? He’s like a hornet.”

Dione shrugged. She wasn’t about to tell Serena about the kisses that day, or the reason for Blake’s ill humor. Instead she passed along the encouraging news that Blake, for some reason, hadn’t. “He stood today. I don’t know why he’s so grouchy; he should be on top of the world.”

Serena’s eyes lighted up, and her pretty face glowed. “He stood?” she cried, dropping the sandal to the floor and sitting upright. “He actually stood?”

“He had his weight on his legs, yes, and he could feel it,” Dione clarified.

“But that’s wonderful! Why didn’t he tell me?”

Again Dione shrugged.

Serena made a rueful face. “I know; you think I make too much of a fuss over him. I do; I admit it. I…I’m sorry for my attitude when you first came. I didn’t think you’d be able to help him, and I didn’t want him to get his hopes up, only to be disappointed again. But even if he doesn’t walk again, I can see that therapy has been good for him. He’s gained weight; he’s looking so healthy again.”

Surprised by the apology, Dione didn’t know what to say beyond the conventional disclaimer, “That’s all right.”

“No, it isn’t all right. Richard’s barely speaking to me, and I can’t say that I blame him. I’ve treated him like the invisible man for the two years since Blake had the accident. God knows how he’s been as patient as he has. But now I can’t get close to him again, and it’s all my fault. Still, I’m irrational where Blake’s concerned. He’s my security, my home base.”

“Perhaps Richard wants that distinction,” Dione murmured, not really wanting to get into a discussion of Serena’s marital problems. She hadn’t forgotten that Serena thought Richard might be seeing another woman, namely herself, and she didn’t think that involving herself with them would be smart. She liked Richard enormously, and Serena had behaved remarkably well since their bad beginning, but still, she felt uneasy discussing Richard as if she knew him a lot better than she actually did.

“Oh, I know he does! The trouble is, Blake’s such a hard act for any man to follow. He was the perfect older brother,” she sighed. “Strong, affectionate, understanding. When Mother died he became my rock. Sometimes I think that if anything happened to Blake, I’d die on the spot.”

“Not a very considerate thing to do,” Dione commented, and Serena looked at her sharply before giving a laugh.

“No, it wouldn’t be, would it?”

“I’ve been jealous of you,” Serena continued after a moment, when Dione showed no signs of picking up the conversational threads. “I’d been with Blake almost constantly since the accident; then you practically forbade me to come over except at a time you decided would be all right. I was livid! And almost from the beginning, Blake has been engrossed with his therapy, which has taken his attention away from me even when I am with him. He was so close to you, so obviously taken with you; you could get him to do all the things the other therapists couldn’t even get him to think about.”

Dione shifted uncomfortably, afraid that Serena was going to start talking about Richard. It looked as if there was nothing she could do to prevent it, so she decided she might as well hold up her end of the conversation. Lifting her head, she turned somber golden eyes on the other woman.

“I knew you felt that way. I regretted it, but there was nothing I could do about it. Blake had to come first; you were interfering, and I couldn’t let you do that.”

Serena arched her dark brows in a manner so like Blake’s that Dione stared at her, taken by their similarities. “You were entirely right,” Serena said firmly. “You were doing what you were supposed to do. It took about two weeks before I began to see the difference in Blake, and then I had to admit that I was resenting you on my behalf, not his. If I really loved Blake, then I had to stop acting like a spoiled brat. I’m sorry, Dione; I’d really like to be friends with you.”

Dione was startled again; she wondered briefly if Serena’s apology had any ulterior motive, but decided to take the younger woman at face value. When all was said and done, she herself was there only temporarily, so anything Serena said wouldn’t affect Dione beyond the moment. Lifelong friendships didn’t come Dione’s way, because she’d learned not to let anyone get too close to her. Even Blake—however close they might be right now, no matter how well she knew him or how much he knew about her—when this was all over, she would be gone and very probably never see him again. She didn’t make a habit of keeping in touch with her ex-patients, though she did sometimes receive cards from some of them at Christmas.

“If you’d like,” she told Serena calmly. “An apology really wasn’t necessary.”

“It was for me,” Serena insisted, and perhaps it had been. She was Blake’s sister, and very like him. Blake didn’t back down from anything unpleasant, either.

Dione was tired after the emotional impact of the day, and she didn’t look in on Blake before she went to bed. The mood he’d been in, he was probably lying awake waiting for her to stick her head in so he could bite it off. Whatever was bothering him, she’d worry about it in the morning. She fell into a deep sleep, untroubled by dreams.

When she was jerked awake by her name being called, she had the feeling that the sound had been repeated several times before it penetrated her sleep. She scrambled out of bed as it came again. “Dione!”

It was Blake, and from the horse strain in his voice, he was in pain. She ran to his room and approached the bed. He was writhing, trying to sit up. What was wrong with him? “Tell me,” she said insistently, her hands on his bare shoulders, easing him back.

“Cramps,” he groaned.

Of course! She should have realized! He’d pushed himself far too hard that day, and now he was paying the price. She ran her hands down his legs and found the knotted muscles. Without a word she got on the bed with him and began to knead the cramps away, her strong fingers working efficiently. First one leg relaxed, then the other, and he sighed in relief. She kept massaging his calves, knowing that a cramp could return. His flesh was warm under her fingers now, the skin roughened by the hair on his legs. She pushed the legs of his pajamas up over his knees and continued with her massage. Perhaps he would go back to sleep under the soothing touch….

Abruptly he sat up and thrust her hands away from his legs. “That’s enough,” he said curtly. “I don’t know what kind of a thrill you get out of handling cripples, but you can play with someone else’s legs. You might try Richard; I’m sure he could do you more good than I can.”

Dione sat there astonished, her mouth open. How could he dare to say something like that? She’d pulled her nightgown up to give her legs more freedom of movement when she’d climbed on his bed, and now she thrust the cloth down to cover her long legs. “You need slapping,” she said, her voice shaking with anger. “Damn it, what’s wrong with you? You know I’m not seeing Richard, and I’m sick of you throwing him up to me! You called me, remember? I didn’t sneak in here to take advantage of you.”

“You’d have a hard time doing that,” he sneered.

“You’re pretty sure of yourself since you’ve gotten stronger, aren’t you?” she said sarcastically. It made her doubly angry that he’d act like that after what they’d shared earlier. He’d kissed her. Of course, he couldn’t possibly know that he was the only man to have touched her since she was eighteen, which had been twelve years before, but still…the injustice of it made her get to her knees on the bed, leaning forward as she jabbed a finger at him.

“You listen to me, Mr. Grouch Remington! I’ve been driving myself into the ground trying to help you, and you’ve fought me every step of the way! I don’t know what’s eating you and I don’t care, but I won’t let it interfere with your therapy. If I think your legs need massaging, then I’ll do it, if I have to tie you down first! Am I getting through that hard head of yours?”

“Who do you think you are? God?” he roared, his face darkening so much that she could see it even in the dim light that came through his windows. “What do you know about what I want, what I need? All you think about is that damned program you’ve mapped out. There are other things that I need, and if I can’t—”

He stopped, turning his head away. Dione waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t she prompted, “If you can’t…what?”

“Nothing,” he muttered sullenly.

“Blake!” she said in utter exasperation, reaching out and grasping his shoulders and shaking him. “What?”

He shrugged away from her grip and lay back down, his expression bleak as he turned his face back to the windows. “I thought that learning to walk again would be the answer,” he whispered. “But it’s not. My God, woman, you’ve been around me for weeks now, running around in almost nothing sometimes, and those see-through nightgowns of yours the rest of the time. Haven’t you noticed yet that I can’t…”

When his voice trailed off again Dione thought she’d explode. “Can’t what?” she tried again, forcibly keeping her tone level.

“I’m impotent,” he said, his voice so low that she had to lean closer to hear him.

She sat back on her heels, stunned.

Once he’d said the words aloud, the rest poured out of him in a torrent, as if he couldn’t control it. “I didn’t think about it before, because what was there to arouse me? It didn’t matter, if I couldn’t walk, but now I find that there’s an opposite side of the coin. If I can’t live life as a man instead of a sexless gelding, then it doesn’t matter if I walk or not.”

Dione’s mind went blank. She was a physical therapist, not a sex therapist. It was ironic that he should even mention the subject to her, of all people. She was in the same boat he was in; perhaps she’d sensed that from the beginning, and that was why she hadn’t been frightened of him.

But she couldn’t let this prey on his mind, or he’d give up. Desperately she tried to think of something to tell him.

“I don’t see why you’d even think you should be aroused by me,” she blurted. “I’m a therapist; it’s totally unethical for there to be any sort of relationship except a professional one between us. I certainly haven’t been trying to seduce you, or even interest you! You shouldn’t think of me like that! I…I’m more of a mother figure than I am anything else, so I’d think it was odd if you responded physically to me.”

“You don’t remind me of my mother,” he said heavily.

Again she searched for something to say. “Did you really expect all of your capabilities to return immediately, just because you put your weight on your legs today?” she finally asked. “I would’ve been surprised if you had been…er, responding like that. You’ve had a lot on your mind, and you’ve been in terrible physical shape.”

“I’m not in terrible physical shape now,” he pointed out tiredly.

No, he wasn’t. Dione considered him as he lay there, wearing only the bottoms of his pajamas. He’d started leaving off the tops several weeks ago. He was still lean, but now it was the leanness of a hard layer of muscle. Even his legs had fleshed out some as he gained weight, and thanks to the rigorous program he’d been following, he even had muscles in his legs, despite his inability to command movement from them yet. He was a natural athlete anyway, and his body had responded promptly to the training. His arms and shoulders and chest were showing the benefits of weight lifting, and the hours in the pool had given his skin a glowing bronze color. He looked incredibly healthy, all things considered.

What could she say? She couldn’t reassure him that his mind and body would recover and let him respond normally, because recovery hadn’t happened yet for her. She couldn’t even say that she wanted to “recover.” Perhaps she missed out on a great deal of human warmth by living the way she did, but she also avoided the pain of human cruelty. Until the accident, Blake had led a charmed life. He had loved, and been loved, by more women than he could probably remember. To him, life wasn’t complete without sex. To her, life was much safer without it. How could she even begin to convince him of something she didn’t believe in herself?

At last she said cautiously, “You’re better, yes, but you’re not in top physical condition yet. The body is a series of complementary systems; when any part of it is hurt, all the systems cooperate in helping to speed healing. With the therapy program you’ve been following, you’ve focused your mind and body on retraining your muscles. It’s part of the recovery process, and until you’ve progressed enough that such intense concentration isn’t needed, I think you’re being unrealistic to expect any sexual responses. Let things happen in their own time.” After considering him for another minute, she tilted her head sideways. “I estimate that you’re at about sixty-five percent of your normal strength. You’re expecting too much.”

“I’m expecting what any normal man expects in his life,” Blake said harshly. “You were bubbling over with self-confidence when you promised me that I’d walk again, but you’re not sure about this, are you?”

“I’m not a sex therapist,” she snapped. “But I do have common sense, and I’m trying to use it. There’s no physical reason why you shouldn’t be able to have sex, so I’d advise you to stop worrying about it and concentrate on walking. Nature will take care of everything else.”

“Stop worrying!” he muttered under his breath. “Lady, it’s not the weather we’re talking about! If I can’t function as a man, what’s the use in living? I’m not talking about just sex; there’d be no marriage for me, no children, and while I’ve never wanted to marry anyone yet, I’ve always thought that I’d like to have a family someday. Can’t you understand that? Haven’t you ever wanted a husband, children?”

Dione winced, physically shrinking away from him. He had an uncanny knack of hitting her where she was most vulnerable. Before she could stop herself, she blurted out thickly, “I’ve always wanted children. And I was married. It just didn’t work out.”

His chest rose and fell as he drew in a deep breath, and she could feel his gaze searching her face in the darkness. Surely he couldn’t see anything more than an outline, since she was sitting out of the dim light coming through the windows, so why did she feel as if he could tell exactly how her lower lip was trembling, or see the sudden pallor of her cheeks?

“Damn,” he said softly. “I’ve done it again, haven’t I? Every time I say something, I stick my foot in my mouth.”

She shrugged, trying not to let him know how thin her armor was. “It’s all right,” she murmured. “It was a long time ago. I was just a kid, too young to know what I was doing.”

“How old were you?”

“Eighteen. Scott—my ex-husband—was twenty-three, but neither of us was ready for marriage.”

“How long did it last?”

A harsh laugh tore from her throat. “Three months. Not a record-setting length of time, was it?”

“And since then? Haven’t you been in love with anyone else?”

“No, and I haven’t wanted to be. I’m content the way I am.” The conversation had gone on long enough; she didn’t want to reveal any more than she already had. How did he keep chipping away at the wall she’d built around her past? Most people never even realized it was there. She uncoiled her legs and crawled off the bed, tugging her nightgown down when it tried to crawl up to her hips.

Blake said a harsh expletive. “You’re running, Dee. Do you realize how long you’ve been here without receiving a single phone call or a letter, without even going shopping? You’ve sealed yourself in this house with me and shut the world out. Don’t you have any friends, any boyfriends on a string? What is it out there that you’re afraid of?”

“There’s nothing out there that frightens me,” she said quietly, and it was true. All of her terrors were locked within herself, frozen in time.

“I think everything out there frightens you,” he said, stretching out his arm and snapping on the bedside lamp. The soft glow drove away the shadows and illuminated her as she stood there in her white gown with her long, black hair streaming down her back. She looked medieval, locked away in a fortress of her own making. His blue eyes seared over her as he said softly, “You’re afraid of life, so you don’t let anything touch you. You need therapy as much as I do; my muscles won’t work, but you’re the one who doesn’t feel.”