The Adventurer

not reward naïveté. I would have thought getting left at the altar would have taught you that much."
    "I am not naive, damn it. And leave Richard out of this. You're evading the point."
    "What do you want? A complete history of my life to date so you can psychoanalyze my reasons for being cautious about you? Don't hold your breath."
    "What was your wife like?"
    "Good Lord, you don't let go of something once you've glommed onto it, do you?"
    "No. Was she pretty?"
    "Yeah."
    "Was she kind?"
    That made Gideon flounder for a split second. He had never thought of Leanna as kind. She had been too wrapped up in her career and her own emotional problems to be kind to others. She had needed kindness, but she hadn't dispensed much of it. On the other hand she certainly hadn't been vicious, he reminded himself. Just a little mixed up about what she wanted.
    "You think kindness is important in a beautiful, sexy woman?" he asked derisively.
    "Of course, it is. It's important in anyone."
    "What cloud have you been living on? Look, everyone liked Leanna and, as I recall, she was fond of small animals so she certainly couldn't have been unkind, right? She was also very intelligent, very attractive and very sophisticated."
    "Oh."
    Gideon smiled grimly in the darkness. Sarah sounded woefully disappointed. Obviously she'd been hoping to hear that Leanna was a bitch. But Leanna had not been a bitch, just an unhappy, confused young woman who'd turned to Gideon at a low point in her life and then realized her mistake.
    "She was also published," he added, not knowing why he felt compelled to twist the knife. It was as though he had to find a way to rip through the iridescent veil of Sarah's bright-eyed optimism and discover what lay underneath.
    "She wrote?" Sarah sounded more wretched than ever. "Like me?"
    "No, not like you. She was an assistant professor at a small college in Oregon when I met her. She wrote articles on archaeology for academic journals."
    "I see. Important, scholarly stuff." Sarah was obviously getting more depressed by the minute.
    Gideon suddenly felt as if he'd been pulling wings off a fly. "The only problem Leanna and I had was that she wasn't in love with me. She just thought she was for a while. She tried, I'll give her credit for that."
    "What happened, Gideon?"
    "We split when she realized she loved someone else."
    "Someone with flash, you said?"
    "Did I?" Gideon frowned, remembering the brief conversation on previous marriages he'd had with Sarah yesterday. "I did say that, didn't I? Yeah. She found someone with flash and she went for it the way a trout goes for a bright, shiny lure."
    "Did you try to stop her?"
    "I tried to tell her she was making a mistake. The guy she fell for didn't have it in him to be faithful to any woman for long. I warned her she wasn't going to be happy with him. But she thought she could change him."
    "She married him?"
    "No. They got engaged as soon as our divorce was final, but he was killed before the marriage could take place."
    "How sad. For all of you. But maybe that way Leanna never had a chance to find out what a louse he really was."
    Gideon shrugged. "Maybe. I never saw her again after the divorce. I heard she remarried a couple of years ago. A college professor. With any luck she picked the right man this time."
    "That's very generous of you," Sarah said with obvious admiration. Her voice glowed with approval.
    "It is, isn't it?" He grinned briefly and was surprised by his own amusement. It was certainly the first time he'd ever found anything at all humorous about his divorce. Something about Sarah seeing him as benevolent, kind and generous was very entertaining, however.
    "Does this mean you're not carrying a torch for her?" The hope in Sarah's voice was unmistakable.
    "Carrying torches is a waste of time."
    "Well, that's certainly true. Unless, of course, you're thinking of someday trying to fan the flames?"
    "I'm not. I learned a long time ago never to look back."
    There was silence from the far end of the room. Gideon could feel Sarah mulling over the information he had given her. Her head was bent in concentration.
    "This man your ex-wife married," Sarah said at last, "the one with flash, was he a friend of yours, by any chance?"
    Gideon didn't move. His momentary flare of amusement evaporated. "I knew him."
    "Ah. So he was a friend of yours. A close friend?"
    He didn't like the sound of that. "It's not what you think, Sarah."
    "Sure it is." She obviously felt she