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himself up on his elbows, and peered down at her face. “I can get that lecture from my sister.”
    “I didn’t mean it the way it must have sounded. I was just making conversation.” In the candlelight flickering on the side of his face, Meg could appreciate how attractive he was.
    “I’d rather go light on the conversation and …” He let the sentence trail off.
    “And what?” Her pulse began to pound.
    “I’d like to kiss you,” he said. “Can I?”
    No boy had kissed her since Donovan, and she felt woefully out of practice. “Permission granted,” she told Eric.
    He slid his arm beneath her shoulders and cradled her close. He touched her temple with his lips, sending small shivers down her spine. He kissed her softly on the forehead, then on the cheeks, and then fully on the mouth. The incredible sweetness of it all went through her like melting candle wax.
    She let him trail kisses down her neck, along her throat, then back to her mouth. She reveled in the sheer physical pleasure of the moment. When he pulled back, she didn’t even open her eyes. She was floating on a sea of warmth, and she savored it the way a hungry person savors a succulent dollop of deep, rich chocolate.
    “You taste good,” he whispered. “I really like you, Meg.”
    She couldn’t answer. Although she’d experienced physical pleasure in his arms, a part of her felt disengaged and uninvolved. And some voice inside her was saying that he had done this before, and that it worked for him. He knew how to romance a girl, all right. He knew just what to do, just what buttons to push. She was certain that many girls had fallen for his charm, enjoyed his kisses.
    “Your picnic was wonderful,” she said in his ear.“Thank you. But I really have to be getting back. You know we’re always on call around here, and I shouldn’t leave Lacey alone with my group all evening.”
    Eric’s expression turned to one of astonishment, but he recovered quickly. “Are you sure? It’s not
that
late. We’ve only been gone a little while.”
    “Sorry,” she said with her sweetest smile.
    If he was mad, he didn’t show it. He began to put things away. She helped him blow out the candles, pack up the basket, and fold the blanket.
    “You okay?” he asked before they started back to the canoe.
    “I’m fine, Eric. Better than I’ve been in months.”
    He grinned. “Then we can do this again?”
    She shook her head. “Probably not.”
    “I don’t get it.”
    “I’m not sure I do either, but this is the way it has to be.”
    They returned to the canoe, got in, and paddled in silence back to the place they’d shoved off from. Once on land, Meg caught his hand. “Thank you, Eric. I really mean that.”
    “Um—yeah, sure,” he said, but he looked totally confused in the pale light of the half moon.
    Meg stood on tiptoe and kissed him lightly on the mouth. Then she turned and hurried backtoward her cabin, leaving Eric standing on the shore, shaking his head.
    In nearby shadows, Morgan stood watching. So Eric had made a move and Meg had gone for it. Morgan felt an edgy spark of jealousy, an emotion he hadn’t felt since before Anne died.
It’s a free world
, he told himself.
She can do anything she wants, be with anybody she wants
. Still, his insides simmered.
    There was nothing he could do about it, except maybe give Eric a wide berth for the next month. The guy got on his nerves. Morgan recalled the moves he himself had once put on Anne and how she’d turned him away. At the time, he’d been hurt. Then he’d learned of her HIV status, and he had been grateful. Anne had been a wonderful girl. He missed her.
    Meg was the first girl to interest him since Anne, and she was attracted to a guy like Eric. “Figures,” Morgan said under his breath. Life just didn’t seem to have a way of working out for him. No, it surely didn’t.

EIGHT

    T wo nights later Morgan was sitting in the tack room rubbing saddle soap into a saddle thrown