Homeport

his anger drained, he rested his brow against hers. The hands that had gripped her shoulders gentled and skimmed lightly down her arms. “Maybe I wanted to see if I could. That doesn’t say much for me.”
    “I didn’t think you were coming back.” Desperate for distance and the control she hoped came with it, she eased out of his arms. “People have a remarkably easy time walking away from me.”
    He saw now that he’d damaged something very fragile, and something he hadn’t recognized as precious. Not just her trust in him, but her belief in them. He didn’t think or plan or calculate the odds, he just looked at her and spoke. “I’m halfway in love with you. Maybe more. And nothing about it is easy.”
    Her eyes went dark, her cheeks went pale. She laid a hand on the edge of her desk as she felt her balance shift. “I—Ryan . . .” No amount of effort could catch any of the words spinning around in her head and form them into coherent thought.
    “No logical response for that, is there, Dr. Jones?” He stepped to her, took her hands. “What are we going to do about this situation?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Whatever it is, I don’t want to do it here. Can you leave?”
    “I . . . Yes, I suppose.”
    He smiled, brushed his lips over her fingers. “Then come with me.”
    They went home.
    She assumed he’d want to go somewhere quiet, where they could talk, sort through these emotions that were so obviously foreign to both of them. Perhaps a restaurant, or the park, since spring was dancing prettily into Maine.
    But he’d driven up the coast road, and neither of them spoke. She watched the land narrow, the water, quietly blue in the midday sunlight, close in on either side.
    On the long rocky beach to the east, a woman stood watching a young boy dance in the playful surf and toss bread crumbs to greedy gulls. The road curved just close enough for Miranda to see the wide, delighted grin on his face as the birds swooped down to snag the feast.

    Beyond them, the soft red sails of a schooner held the wind and cruised snappily southward.
    She wondered if she’d ever been as innocently happy as that young boy, or as confidently peaceful as the schooner.
    On the sound side, the trees were dressed in that tender green of April, more haze than texture. She loved that look the best, she realized, that delicate beginning. Odd that she’d never known that about herself. As the road climbed, the trees stirred, swaying under a soft spring sky laced with white clouds as harmless as cotton.
    And there, on the edges of the hill where the old house stood, was the sudden ocean of cheery yellow. A sea of daffodils, a forest of forsythia, both of which had been planted before she was born.
    He surprised her by stopping the car and grinning. “That’s fabulous.”
    “My grandmother planted it all. She said that yellow was a simple color, and it made people smile.”
    “I like your grandmother.” On impulse he got out, walked to the verge, and picked her a handful of the yellow trumpets. “I don’t think she’d mind,” he said as he climbed back inside and held them out.
    “No, she wouldn’t.” But she found herself wanting to weep.
    “I brought you daffodils once before.” He laid a hand on her cheek until she turned her head to look at him. “Why don’t they make you smile?”
    With her eyes closed she pressed her face to the flowers. Their scent was unbearably sweet. “I don’t know what to do, about what I feel. I need steps, I need reasonable, comprehensive steps.”
    “Don’t you ever just want to stumble, and see where you fall?”
    “No.” But she knew that’s exactly what she’d done. “I’m a coward.”
    “You’re anything but that.”
    She shook her head, fiercely. “When I step into emotional territory, I’m a coward, and I’m afraid of you.”
    He dropped his hand, shifted position so he gripped the steering wheel with both of them. Arousal and guilt churned in his belly. “That’s a dangerous thing to tell me. I’m capable of using that, taking advantage of that.”
    “I know it. Just as you’re capable of stopping by the side of the road and picking daffodils. If you were only capable of one of those moods, I wouldn’t be afraid of you.”
    Saying nothing, he restarted the car, drove slowly up the curved lane and parked at the front of the house. “I’m not willing to shift back and make it only business between us. If you think that’s an option here,