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heartbeat. She was stunned by the simple joy of it, of feeling his long body covering hers, of hearing her name on his lips, of crying out in abandon and then sinking into the warm bliss of the aftermath.
    A quietness fell over them like settling snowflakes. They lay side by side, holding each other, listening to each other breathe and wondering at the suddenness and the intensity of what had just happened.
    After a long time, Madeleine shifted, propping her chin on his chest and looking up at his night-shadowed face. “I want you to know something.”
    He brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek. “What’s that, darlin’?”
    “I don’t do this very often.” She was glad for the darkness; she had begun to blush furiously.
    “Do what?” he asked, a smile in his voice.
    “This … everything.” She felt awkward and tongue-tied, but also exhilarated, and for the first time in her life, able to laugh at herself. “I’ve never done this on a first date.”
    “Sweetheart, I hate to burst your bubble, but we never even
had
a date. You picked me up at a party, remember?”
    “Oh. Shameless of me.” She touched her tongue to his chest, just to see. His groan of pleasure made her smile. “What I mean is, I’ve never participated in a one-nightstand before. I want you to know I’m not that sort of person.”
    “You’re not.” The smile still lingered in his voice. “Then what’s so different about tonight?”
    “You,” she said without hesitating. “
You
make it different. You make me want …” Her voice trailed off as she slid her hand down the length of him.
    “Want what?” Now his tone sounded strangled, with no trace of a smile.
    “More than just one night,” she whispered. “Lots more.”
    He muttered something that sounded like a curse and surged up. With one swift movement, he turned her on her back and plunged into her, and the rapid rise of his passion took her breath away.
    He loved her into a dazed state of drowsiness, until she was replete with exhaustion, and when she finally pillowed her head against his shoulder and drifted happily toward sleep, she made a discovery she had never dared to contemplate before.
    Sometimes dreams really did come true.
    * * *
    The electronic burble of a high-tech phone plowed through Jack’s consciousness, rousing him from the best sleep he’d had in months.
    Between the first and second rings, he remembered exactly where he was.
    In the bedroom of Madeleine Langston. With Miz Maddy herself, naked and tousled in his arms.
    Holy shit.
    Between the second and third rings, he managed to extract himself from the bed. She moaned and sighed, pulling a fluffy pillow over her head.
    Perfect, he thought, plunging his legs into his trousers,his arms into shirt and jacket sleeves.
Sleep on, babe
, he silently pleaded with her.
Give your dream lover a chance to go poof
.
    By the fourth ring, he was dressed and on his hands and knees, groping for his second cowboy boot. Where the hell had it gone—?
    “Hi, this is Madeleine….”
    The sound of her voice nearly brought Jack out of his skin. Then he realized it was an answering machine.
    “Oh, Maddy,” said William Wornich’s tattling voice, “I’m positively
chartreuse
with curiosity. Who
was
he, Maddy? John Wayne, for goodness’ sake?”
    She muttered something from beneath the pillow.
    Oh, shit. She was waking up.
    Jack faced an agonizing choice. He could make a run for it and leave her with fond memories of her mystery man or he could do the honorable thing—confess what he had done and suffer the consequences.
    It took him exactly half a second to agonize over his choice between hero and coward.
    Leaving a size-twelve cowboy boot somewhere in the boudoir, John Patrick Riley raced out of Madeleine’s designer apartment—and out of her fairy-tale life.

Chapter Six
    “Y ou call that a Santa Claus?” Jack asked, looking Derek up and down. They were at the Santiago Youth Center in Brooklyn. Teenage boys