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you," she told him. "Not even in New York."
     
    "I'm a realist," he corrected. "I don't expect miracles."
     
    "Maybe that's why none ever happen for you," she said. She leaned on the cane a little and stared down at Bruce's grave. "Bruce was a dreamer. He was always looking for surprises, for the unexpected. He was a happy man most of the time, except when he remembered that he was always going to be second best. You're a hard act to follow. He never felt that he could measure up to you. He said that even your mother talked about you more than she did about him."
     
    He raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know that. She seemed to hold me in contempt most of the time. We never understood each other."
     
    Her quiet eyes searched his face, the hard lines around his mouth. The iron man, she mused. "I don't think anyone will ever understand you," she said quietly. "You give nothing of yourself."
     
    His jaw tautened and his pale eyes kindled through the cloud of smoke that left his pursed lips. "Now that's an interesting statement, coming from you."
     
    It was the emphasis he put on it. She saw with sudden clarity a picture of herself lying in his arms by the firelight, moaning as he touched her breasts....
     
    "I didn't mean...that kind of giving," she said uneasily, and dropped her eyes to his broad chest. It strained against the denim, rippling muscles and thick dark hair that covered him from his collarbone down.
     
    He took another draw from the cigarette. "You said before that you never had anything going with Bruce. Was that true?"
     
    "Yes," she said simply. She searched his pale eyes. "I'm sorry there were hard feelings between you because of me. I didn't volunteer anything, you know, but he asked a lot of questions, and I was pretty upset. I don't even remember what I said to him. But I didn't tell him about...what happened. He guessed. Maybe I looked like a fallen woman or something." She laughed bitterly.
     
    "You aren't a fallen woman," he said. "I came up on your blind side, that's all. I should have realized when you didn't put up a fight that you were too naive to know what was happening. You thought I'd stop in time."
     
    She shook her head. "I trusted you, it's true. But you didn't rape me. It was never that."
     
    He sighed heavily and reached out a tentative hand to brush at the loose hair around her collar, pushing it away from her throat, from the scar on her cheek. She shivered a little at letting him see.
     
    "Was it very painful?" he asked tenderly.
     
    Her lips trembled as she formed words, and around them the wind blew cold and the sun gave barely any warmth, and death was in the trees as well as the graveyard.
     
    "Yes," she whispered. She turned away, trying not to let the feelings overwhelm her a second time. All she seemed to do lately was cry. Impatiently, she brushed away her tears.
     
    Ty shifted awkwardly. He wasn't used to women crying. He wasn't used to women, period. He didn't know how to handle this situation.
     
    She straightened. "I'm embarrassing you," she murmured.
     
    He'd forgotten how honest she was; she never pulled her punches. Just like himself. His broad shoulders rose and fell. "I'm not used to women," he told her.
     
    She searched his eyes. "Why did Bruce tell me you were a womanizer?"
     
    "Don't you know?" he asked quietly.
     
    "You weren't, though, were you?" she persisted.
     
    He reached for another cigarette and lit it. "What a hell of a question," he said shortly.
     
    "Never mind, don't answer me; I don't care," she shot back. She moved away from the grave, putting more weight on the cane than was necessary in her anger and frustration. "I ought to go back to New York and let Ward Jessup move in with you!"
     
    "We'd never get on," he said imperturbably, falling into step beside her. "He's a nonsmoker."
     
    She didn't believe she'd actually heard him right. Dry humor-from Tyson Wade? She kept walking. "Bruce had moved out, hadn't he?"
     
    "Bruce is dead," he