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the front porch.
    The air was cool, thank goodness, now that darkness had dropped over the countryside. It was a clear night, the air moist but not muggy, and the stars overhead shone with a clarity unmasked by clouds. There was a moon, too, a great golden globe hanging so close that Maura felt all she had to do was reach up to touch it.
    Xan slid a proprietary arm around her shoulders and divested her of her medical bag containing her midwife's kit. He handed her carefully down the steps as though she or the stairs might break. At this point, Maura felt flimsier than the stairs.
    "Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle before?" he asked her with a grin. As he packed her bag into one of his commodious saddlebags, he looked sideways up at her. The moonlight gilded his face and reflected twin moons from the dark pupils of his eyes.
    She was momentarily caught up in the magic of the moons. Then she smiled, thinking that if Xan Copeland knew anything about her previous life, he'd find this a ridiculous question. "No, never," she said, wishing she could tell him how funny this situation was to her.
    "Here. Put on this helmet." He held it toward her. It was gold, with sparkly flecks in it. They shimmered in the moonlight.
    Hesitantly she pulled the helmet over her head and tried to fasten the chin strap.
    "That's not the way to do it," he chided, bending forward to snap it properly as he would a child's. She was tall, over five foot seven, and he still had to bend over. She wondered how tall he was. Six one? Six two?
    He knit his brows, fascinated by the effect of Maura's wearing a motorcycle helmet. She looked fantastic, even with smudges of fatigue beneath her eyes. A shock of auburn hair fell over her forehead and the rest hung from beneath the helmet in a soft and beguiling fringe.
    "Now hop on," he told her as he held the bike.
    "You mean just—"
    "Sure." He smiled encouragingly. It occurred to her that when they were riding, she'd have nothing to hold on to except him. This whole scene seemed as though it belonged to someone else's life, not hers. But she gamely hitched her skirt above her knees and swung a leg over the bike.
    He got on, too, and before she could change her mind, they were wheeling around the clearing, the roar of the engine rending the night. Her hair whipped out behind her, free as air. The wind danced on her face, and she felt as though she were flying. She surprised herself by laughing out loud, when just a few minutes ago she had felt so drained of energy that she never would have thought she'd be laughing.
    "Do you like this?" Xan shouted over his shoulder. She could barely hear him with the noise of the wind rushing past.
    "Yes!" she shouted back.
    "That's why I keep a motorcycle as well as a car. Riding is one way for me to get rid of tension." His hair ruffled backward, caressing the side of her face as she inclined her head forward to hear his words.
    She clutched Xan's midriff more tightly. Underneath his knit shirt he was spare and lean, just as he looked, with no roll of flab at his waist, only firm muscle.
    Maura relaxed a bit when they pulled out on the deserted highway, and he relaxed, too. As his muscles untensed, he leaned backward slightly into her. The sensation of his vibrating back pressed to her soft breasts and flat belly was titillating, to say the least. It was a wholly sensual feeling, suffusing her entire body to send warm ripples to the center of her, but surprisingly, these sensations weren't unwelcome. She swallowed at this new knowledge of herself and looked over his shoulder, watching the white divider lines on the road slide past.
    The distance to Teoway Island, one of the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina, wasn't as far in miles as it was in cultural lag. Annie's cabin and others like it were located along a lonely highway on the mainland in the Shuffletown community about twenty miles from the elegant and historic city of Charleston. Unincorporated, forgotten, and