Divine Evil

didn't regret a minute of it.
    His hand closed lightly over hers as he cruised down the two-lane road again.
“Je t'aime,”
he said, as he often did.
    It made her smile and bring his hand to her lips. “I know.” He was a precious man, she thought. Even if he could make her crazy. “Just warn me if you decide to pull over for any more goats or other animal life.”
    “Do you see the field there?”
    Angie glanced out the window and sighed. “How could I miss it? That's all there is.”
    “I would make love with you there, in the sunlight. Slowly. With my mouth first, tasting you everywhere. And when you began to shudder, to cry out for me, I would use my hands. Just the fingertips. Over your lovely breasts, then down, inside you where it would be so hot, so wet.”
    Four years, she thought. Four years and he could still make her tremble. She slanted him a look and saw that he was smiling. She shifted her gaze downward and saw that he was quite sincere in his fantasy. The field no longer seemed so intimidating.
    “Maybe Clare can direct us to a field that's not so close to the road.”
    He chuckled, settled back, and began to sing along with Beausoleil.
    Because she was too nervous to work, Clare was planting petunias along the walkway. If Angie and Jean-Paul had left New York at ten, as discussed, they would be driving up any minute. She was delighted at the thought of seeing them, of taking them around the area. And she was terrified at the idea of showing them her work and discovering that she'd been wrong.
    None of it was any good. She'd been deluding herself because she needed so badly to believe she could still make something important out of a hunk of wood or scraps of metal. It had come too easily at first, she thought. Both the work and the acceptance of it. The only place to go was down.
    Do you fear failure, Clare, or success?
Dr. Janowski's voice buzzed in her head.
    Both-doesn't everyone? Go away, will you? Everyone's entitled to a little private neurosis.
    She pushed all thoughts of her work aside and concentrated on turning the soil.
    Her father had taught her how. How to baby the roots, mix in peat moss, fertilizer, water, and love. By his side she had learned how soothing, how fulfilling the planting of a living thing could be. In New York she'd forgotten the pleasure of that and the comfort of it.
    Her mind wandered. She thought of Cam, how intense their lovemaking was. Each time. Every time. It was like feeding on the most basic of levels. They went at each other like animals, hungry and feral. She'd never been so, well, lusty with anyone else.
    And, God, she thought with a grin, what she'd been missing!
    How long could it last? She shrugged and went on with her planting. She knew that the darkest and most intense of passions were supposed to fade the fastest. But she couldn't let it worry her. Wouldn't. However long it lasted would just have to be enough. Because right now it was hard for her to get through an hour without imagining getting her hands on him again.
    Lovingly, she patted and firmed the dirt around the red and white petunias. The sun beat strong against her back as she covered the soil with mulch. They would grow, she thought, and spread and bloom until the first frost shriveled them. They wouldn't last forever, but while they did, it would give her pleasure to look at them.
    She glanced up at the sound of an engine, then sat back on her heels as Bob Meese pulled his truck into her drive. “Hey, Clare.”
    “Bob.” She stuck the spade into the dirt and rose.
    “Nice flowers you got there.”
    “Thanks.” She spread dirt from her palms to the hips of her jeans.
    “Told you I'd bring the lamp on by if I got a minute.”
    Her brow wrinkled, then cleared as she remembered. “Oh, right. Your timing's perfect. My friends should be here anytime. Now they can actually have a lamp in their room.”
    And what a lamp, she thought, as he pulled it out of the back. It was about five feet high with a bell-shaped red shade, beaded and fringed, on a curving, gilded pole. It looked like something out of a nineteenth-century bordello. Clare sincerely hoped it was.
    “It's even better than I remembered,” she said, and tried to recall if she had paid him for it or not. “Could you take it on into the garage? I'll get it upstairs later.”
    “No problemo.” He hefted it inside, then stood studying her tools and sculptures. “I guess people pay a bunch for stuff like this.”
    She