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like a sack of heavy potatoes. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"
    Her unsteady lower lip pouted as she glared up at him tearfully. "I...told you I'd never...never had a lover!" she shot back.
    "Woman lie like hell most of the time, why should I have believed you?" he growled, hands jammed deep into the pockets of his slacks as he studied her slender body. "My God, what did you think I wanted to stay overnight for! A Ploynesian dinner I could have had in Atlanta!"
    Tears started rolling down her cheeks. "Please go," she said in an utterly defeated tone, her eyes closed tightly. He was just like all the rest of them, except Phillip, just out for good times any way he could get them. Without an ounce of feeling or compassion.
    There was nothing in him but lust, and she wanted to hate him, but she was too drained.
    "You can't have been that naive," he persisted.
    "Is this what you meant when you said I needed someone?" she asked quietly, her eyes downcast. "Someone to just take me to bed and that would make everything all right? You said you had enough women, that we could be Mends. And then you have the nerve to women lie." She stared up at him accusingly. "Please leave my room. I'll get back to Atlanta on my own, if I have to walk every step of the way."
    His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Is it my age?" he asked harshly.
    "I don't sleep with men!" she cried. "And no, it's not your age! For heaven's sake, you make yourself sound like Methuselah!"
    The hard lines on his face seemed to soften. "Well, by God, there's a woman under all that ice," he murmured.
    "Go away." she grumbled.
    He drew a deep, wistful breath. "It's usually the other way around," he mused, with a wicked look in his eyes.
    She stiffened. "Well, I'm not one of your women!"
    He smiled gently. "Pax, little one. I'm not quite as inhuman as you seem to think I am. Trust takes time, didn't you know?"
    "Don't expect me to ever trust you again," she grumbled.
    "Burgundy."
    She looked up, and the anger left her. "Yes?"
    "I do, so desperately, need one friend," he said, and there was sincerity in the deep voice this time, an aching loneliness flickering for an instant in his eyes.
    Tears poured down her cheeks. "So do I," she admitted, forcing the words out.
    He reached down a big hand and touched the tears, wiping them gently away. "We'll start over, right now," he told her quietly. "I'll stop trying to seduce you, and we'll concentrate on doing things together. Okay?"
    She forced a smile to her lips. "Okay, Cal."
    He took her hand and raised it to his warm, hard mouth. "I've never known anyone like you," he said strangely. "Without question, you'll be the first woman 'friend' I've ever had."
    She sniffed. "That sounds unique. Do I get a medal or something?"
    "A free ride home," he said tonguein cheek.
    "Oh, get out of here and let me sleep!" she laughed.
    He paused at the doorway, looking back at her curiously. "This afternoon, on the beach..." he began absently.
    She reddened. "I'll see you in the morning," she told him.
    His eyes ran the length of her slender body. "Sleep well," he said tautly. "God knows I won't."
    And with that remark, he went out the door.

Chapter 4
    That trip turned out to be a milestone in their relationship, and things changed considerably after it. Cal never again treated her in any way other than that of affectionate comradeship. There were no more attempts at seduction, no overnight trips. He took her out occasionally. More often, he'd join her for an evening of television or challenge her to a swim in the pool next door, which had finally been completed. She found him to be a man of many moods, never the same man twice. One day he'd prick her temper and laugh at the explosion, the next he'd clam up and not talk. Once he called up and asked her if she wanted to go on a picnic.
    After their picnic lunch she looked at him, as he was sprawled out on the grass behind the house on the banks of the little stream, his head resting on his arms as