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looked out at the sleeping court. None of the lights in the cabins had come on. She closed the screen, then shut the inner door and leaned against it. She was breathing as hard as I was.
    “He’s dead. Jerry’s dead,” she panted.
    I could smell her across the room.
    “Yeah. He’s dead.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “I’m sure.”
    She said, “I’m glad. He got what he had coming to him. But what are we going to do, Swede? I mean about him.”
    My knees gave out, suddenly. I sat on the arm of a chair, a lump of ice forming in my stomach, trying not to look at the man on the floor.
    “There’s only one thing we can do.”
    “What?”
    I told her. “Call Sheriff Cooper. Explain just how it happened.”
    She screamed the words at me in a whisper. “And you think that he’ll believe us?”
    “Why shouldn’t he?”
    “He’s the law. He’s trained to be suspicious. You’re already out on bail. For having hit another man too hard.”
    It was hot in the cottage with the door closed. My whole body was drenched with sweat. I missed the smell of the flowers. I missed the cool swish of the sea.
    Corliss left the door and reached up on a high shelf for a partly filled bottle of rye. Her torn dress gaped as she stood on tiptoe.
    “You want a drink, Swede?” she asked me.
    I shook my head at her. “No.”
    “You’re sure you don’t need one?”
    “I’m sure.”
    She put the bottle back on the shelf. “Oh, Swede. This would happen now. What are we going to do?”
    My throat was a vise, squeezing the words. “I told you.”
    “You mean call Sheriff Cooper?”
    “Yes.”
    Corliss crossed the room and stood in front of me. “No.”
    “Why not?”
    Her voice was fierce. “Because he won’t believe me. He won’t believe us. He’ll take you away from me and lock you up.”
    My throat continued to strangle my voice. “So what have you to lose? I’m a man, remember?”
    Corliss moved in closer and pressed herself against me. I stopped trying not to look at the man on the floor and tried not to look at the breast peeping from her torn dress. In agony. Wondering how low a man could get. Wanting her as I’d never wanted any other woman. After she’d just been forced to lie with another man, and I’d killed the man who had done it.
    “Go away. Please,” I begged her.
    She said, “You’re bitter, Swede.”
    “Why shouldn’t I be?”
    She pleaded with me. “But you mustn’t be, darling. Please. I was excited before. Ashamed.” Corliss cupped my face in her hands. “We have our whole lives ahead of us.”
    “After this?”
    “Yes. Even after this.”
    I slid over the arm onto the seat of the chair to get away from her, to keep from making Corliss hate me for life, with a dead man for witness.
    “Get me a cigarette. Please.”
    Corliss found a pack on the dresser. She lighted a cigarette, then sat in my lap to share it, the soft warm pressure of her body adding to my torture. She knew, she had to know, she couldn’t help but know what I was going through.
    She sucked the cigarette to a glow, then put it between my lips. Her words and her thinking were staccato. “No, I’ve made up my mind.”
    “About what?”
    “About us.” Her body seemed stroked by some inner fire. “We can’t go to the law. We can’t. You hear me, Swede?”
    I said, “Why can’t we go to the law?”
    Corliss cupped my face in her hands again and kissed me. For a long time. It was a sweet kiss, without passion but filled with promise. “Because I love you, Swede,” she said finally. “Because even after what has happened, I want you, physically, every bit as badly as you want me. Because we aren’t going to let this ruin our lives. Because we’re going to get married in the morning just exactly as we planned.”
    I tightened my arms around her waist. “But, Corliss—”
    “Yes?”
    “Maybe Cooper will understand. After all, there’s a law against what Jerry did.”
    Corliss took the cigarette from my fingers and