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“Your laugh is the same.”
    Angie dropped her eyes first. “I wouldn’t like to think much about me was different.”
    “Why not? We all change in twelve years.”
    “That’s not what I meant.” She wasn’t quite sure what she was trying to explain. Simon was right, there were several things different about her. She was a mature woman now, not a naïve teenager.
    Proudly, Prince returned with the stick, and bending over to retrieve it gave Angie a moment to compose her thoughts. “In some ways, I’m looking to recapture that enchanted summer of my life. That summer with you.”
    “You can’t.” Simon’s words cut at her as painfully as a slashing knife. “That time is gone forever.”
    Angie paused and felt a compelling urge to reach out and touch him. Tightening her hand around the stick, Angie threw it again. “I know.”
    “Why did you come back?” Simon demanded harshly. “Why now, after all this time?”
    Slowly, she turned toward him. “I had to come. I’ve wasted too many years as it is.”
    Panting, Prince returned with the stick, but when Angie bent over to take it from his mouth, Simon stopped her. Gripping her left hand, he raised his eyes to hers.
    His dark brows furrowed together. “You’ve never married?”
    Angie swallowed, but her voice wavered emotionally. “I couldn’t. I married at seventeen.”

Three
    Simon went pale, his hand dropping hers. “Are you saying that you never married because of what we did?”
    Her head drooped. Angie couldn’t find the words to explain. “No. I realized when your mother gave me the check that whatever commitment you felt toward me was over.”
    “Haven’t you got that turned around?”
    “How do you mean?” Angie asked, missing the gist of his question. She remembered vividly how Georgia Canfield had come to her and explained that Simon had found another girl at college.
    “I wasn’t the one who asked to be free.” His mouth tightened grimly.
    “Not technically,” she argued. “You sent your mother to do it for you.”
    “What?” he exploded. He opened his mouth, then closed it again as if to cut off what he was about to say. “I think we’d better talk.” Pivoting sharply, he headed toward the house, leaving a confused Angie to follow in his wake.
    He was so far ahead of her that by the time she reached the back of the house, he was already inside and the door was left open, waiting for her.
    The back door led to a porch with a matching washer and dryer. Angie wiped the mud from her shoes on the braided rug just inside. Rounding the corner, she paused in the doorway of the kitchen. The room was huge, with bright countertops and shining appliances.
    His hip was leaning against the long counter, his arms crossed over his chest. “Now say that again.”
    “What? That your mother asked for your freedom?”
    “Yes.” His eyes were measuring her. “How could you have believed such a thing?” He looked as if he wanted to strangle her.
    “I didn’t!” she shouted, in her defense. “Don’t you remember I took the Greyhound bus to the university? I asked you myself.”
    “You couldn’t have.” He straightened and began pacing the polished tile floor like a tormented beast trapped in the close confines of a cage. Suddenly, as if he needed to sit down, he pulled out a chair. “I think we had better start at the beginning.”
    Angie joined him at the round oak table, her hands clasped in her lap. The confrontation with his mother might have taken place twelve years ago, but she vividly remembered it as if it had happened yesterday. And now Simon was acting as if none of this were true.
    “Don’t lie to me, Simon. Not now, after all these years.”
    “I swear before everything I hold dear that I never asked to be free from you, Angie.” Every facet of his face was intent, imploring.
    Slowly, Angie shook her head, not knowing what to believe.
    “Start from the beginning,” he urged, his gray eyes wide and rapt.
    “You’d