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beginning.
    By the end of the first set the court surface was zigzagged with skid marks. Red dust streaked the snowy material of her dress and marked her shoes. Sweat rolled down her sides after thirty-two minutes of ferocious play. But she’d taken the first set six-three.
    Adrenaline was pumping madly, though Asher looked no more flustered than a woman about to hostess a dinner party. The competitive drives she had buried were in complete control. Part of her sensed Starbuck was watching. She no longer cared. At that moment Asher felt that if she had faced him across the net, she could have beaten him handily. When Kingston returned her serve deep, Asher met it with a topspin backhand that brushed the top of the net. Charging after the ball, she met the next return with a powerful lob.
    The sportswriters would say that it was at that moment, when the two women were eye to eye, that Asher won the match. They remained that way for seconds only, without words, but communication had been made. From then Asher dominated, forcing Kingston into a defensive game. She set a merciless pace. When she lost a point she came back to take two. The aggressiveness was back, the cold-blooded warfare the sportswriters remembered with pleasure from her early years on the court.
    Where Starbuck was fire and flash, she was ice and control. Never once during a professional match had Asher lost her iron grip on her temper. It had once been a game among the sportswriters—waiting for The Face to cut loose.
    Only twice during the match did she come close to giving them satisfaction, once on a bad call and once on her own poor judgment of a shot. Both times she had stared down at her racket until the urge to stomp and swear passed. When she had again taken her position, there had been nothing but cool determination in her eyes.
    She took the match six-one, six-two in an hour and forty-nine minutes. Twice she had held Kingston’s service to love. Three times she had served aces—something Kingston with her touted superserve had been unable to accomplish. Asher Wolfe would go on to the semifinals. She had made her comeback.
    Madge dropped a towel over Asher’s shoulders as she collapsed on her chair. “Good God, you were terrific! You destroyed her.” Asher said nothing, covering her face with the towel a moment to absorb sweat. “I swear, you’re better than you were before.”
    “She wanted to win,” Asher murmured, letting the towel drop limply again. “I
had
to win.”
    “It showed,” Madge agreed, giving her shoulder a quick rub. “Nobody’d believe you haven’t played pro in three years. I hardly believe it myself.”
    Slowly Asher lifted her face to her old partner. “I’m not in shape yet, Madge,” she said beneath the din of the still-cheering crowd. “My calves are knotted. I don’t even know if I can stand up again.”
    Madge skimmed a critical glance over Asher’s features. She couldn’t detect a flicker of pain. Bending, she scooped up Asher’s warm-up jacket, then draped it over Asher’s shoulders. “I’ll help you to the showers. I don’t play for a half hour. You just need a few minutes on the massage table.”
    Exhausted, hurting, Asher started to agree, then spotted Ty watching her. His grin might have been acknowledgment of her victory. But he knew her, Asher reflected, knew her inside as no one else did.
    “No thanks, I’ll manage.” Effortfully she rose to zip the cover around her racket. “I’ll see you after you beat Fortini.”
    “Asher—”
    “No, really, I’m fine now.” Head high, muscles screaming, she walked toward the tunnel that led to the locker rooms.
    Alone in the steam of the showers, Asher let herself empty, weeping bitterly for no reason she could name.

Chapter 3
    It was the night after her victory in the semifinals that Asher confronted Ty again. She had kept herself to a rigorous schedule of practice, exercise, press, and play. Her pacing purposely left her little time for