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."He stopped pacing and looked at her with narrowed eyes."That sounds like goodbye."She pressed her hand against her heart as if she could stop it from aching."I suppose it is.""Is that the way you want it?" he asked, his voice hardened into steel."It's not what I want, it's the way it is," she explained calmly.Then suddenly she blurted, all her frustration coming to the surface, "We have no future, you and I.Whatever there is between us would last one night.It would have been a one-night stand.Maybe you thought that's what I wanted." Maybe because that was what she wanted."But what would happen after that? You'd go back to a life you love.But what have I got waiting for me?" Her voice broke."I don't know."He took a step backward, his jaw tightened.She knew he couldn't deny it.After tonight he'd return to his ranch and his family.He wouldn't give her a second thought.But she'd be hooked forever on Parker Robinson.No matter what she found out tomorrow, she knew he was the only man in her life.And he didn't want her in his life."When you find out," he said at last, "let me know.""I'll do that," she said stiffly."Good night," he said, moving through the connecting door and closing it firmly behind him.Actually it was a cross between slamming and closing firmly.The next morning Parker insisted on giving her a ride to the department.Numbly, she accepted.On their way through the lobby they passed a well-dressed woman on her way in.She stopped short and shrieked."Christine Austin! I can't believe my eyes."Christine stopped and stared.The woman, a total stranger to her, threw her arms around Christine and kissed the air somewhere around Christine's ear."What on earth are you doing here?" she demanded.Before Christine could think up some kind of reasonable answer, the woman looked her up and down, taking in her Western-style checked shirt, jeans and shoes."Don't tell me you're with the sheepherders?" She laughed merrily at the very idea."The place is crawling with them, you know.""I know," Christine murmured."So how was the camping trip? I take it you found the place all right?""Yes, yes," Christine said with a sideways glance at Parker.The woman followed Christine's gaze and gave Parker a curious look.There was a brief awkward silence during which Christine should have introduced them, but couldn't.Then the woman continued."You look great," she told Christine."You needed to get away from everything.After what you went through."Christine fought off the urge to ask what had she been through and simply nodded."It's good seeing you again," she murmured, then edged her way toward the double doors with Parker at her side."Keep in touch," the woman called."I'll tell everyone you're back."Outside the glass double doors of the hotel, Christine stopped cold and faced Parker."The past is catching up with me," she said, biting her lower lip.He nodded, looking at her as if he'd never seen her before.She wrapped her arms around her waist, filled with an unbearable sadness.Unwilling to go forward, and unable to go backward, she just stood there, her gaze locked with Parker's.It was the end, and it was the beginning.Whatever happened, nothing would ever be the same.And they both knew it.Chapter EightParker drove slowly down a winding street with large houses set on wide, well-landscaped lots.He was looking for number 732 Canyon Street, the address listed in the phone book for Christine Austin.After the woman left and they'd finally recovered their senses that morning and returned to the hotel lobby, he and Christine went through the listings for Austin in Denver and found her there.He glanced at her, but she had her face pressed to the window looking for what he presumed was her house."There.there it is," she stammered, pointing to a three-story stone house at the end of the street.He pulled up in front of the house and before he could get out, she'd jerked the car door open and was standing on the curb."Thanks for everything," she said, meeting his gaze only briefly before she turned and strode up the walk."Wait a minute," he called through the open window.But she didn't even turn around.She'd heard him, but she didn't look back.Was that the way it ended, with uncertainty and doubt, with nothing resolved? He sat in his car until she'd found a key under the mat, unlocked the door and disappeared into the house.Then he slowly drove away.Who was in there waiting for her? Who was there to take care of her, buy her clothes, eat the food she cooked? He would never know.Like a ball of yarn unraveling, Christine's memory was coming back to her now, faster and faster, pell-mell, whether she liked it or not.As she walked up the cement path, staring at the pale gray stone house, she wondered if someone might wave from a window or come bursting out the front door to greet her.But no one did.She stood on the front porch for a long moment, then reached without thinking for the key under the mat and unlocked the door.She knew Parker was still there, waiting and watching from the street.But she also knew he was not a part of her life anymore, any more than she was part of his.She stepped over a pile of unopened mail into a cool, tiled foyer.Ignoring the mountain of correspondence, she continued to the living room with its stone fireplace and upholstered wing-backed chairs.In one corner there was a large library table stacked with presents of various shapes and sizes wrapped in silver and white.Wedding presents.Her wedding presents.But she wasn't married.She glanced at a card tucked under a white ribbon."Christine and Michael."Michael
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