"Just a minute."

The door closed. I lingered on the porch, motionless in the utter blackness, until it swung open.

"All right," she told me.

She stepped back, watched me come into the room, her gaze following me as I strode to the small fireplace, then turned to face her.

She was wearing a long, dark robe, her feet barely visible below its hem. Her hair, long and in disarray, shimmered in the firelight, filaments of gold.

"I can"t stop thinking about you," I said. "On the beach. The way we ..." I felt everything within me grow fierce and bold, as if suddenly enamored by a single, stirring truth. "I can"t let you go, Dora."

She shook her head gently. "Cal, please, there"s something you don"t know."

I saw her script in the ledger books. "It doesn"t matter, Dora." I swept forward, drew her into my arms, felt her body grow taut. "I don"t care what you"ve done. Nothing matters to me but you."

She eased herself out of my embrace. "I can"t, Cal."

"Why not?"

She seemed unable to answer, so I provided an answer of my own.

"I know you don"t want to hurt Billy," I said.

She looked at me regretfully. "I already have."

"You can"t help who you fall in love with."

She said nothing, and so I made the only demand that mattered to me. "Tell me you love me."

She touched my face. "I do."

"Then?"

She drew her hand away. "I can"t, Cal."

"You can do whatever you want."

"No," Dora said.

"I won"t let him stand in the way."

Her eyes flared, and I saw a terrible resolve rise in her. She walked to the fireplace and stood beside it, rigid now, suddenly more stone than flesh. "You"d better go, Cal."

"I won"t give you up. I"ll do anything, but I won"t give you up."

"You don"t care who you hurt?"

"No."

I moved toward her again, but she stepped aside and quickly opened the door.

"Please go," she said.

"I"ll do anything," I repeated as I stepped outside. "Remember that."

"Good-bye, Cal," she said in a tone that sounded so final, I whirled around, determined to appeal it.

But the door was already closed.

Chapter Twenty-four.

And you never saw Dora again?

It was Hap Ferguson"s voice, sounding urgently in my mind as I drove the final miles toward Tom Shay"s cabin. He"d called me in the day following my brother"s funeral. Later, as we"d talked in his office, he"d sometimes scribbled notes into the same small pad in which he"d once written Dora"s name.

And you never saw Dora again?

No, never again.

And during that last meeting, Miss March didn"t say anything about leaving Port Alma?

No.

You only talked about business? Yes.

The fact that she might need to take over for William?

That"s all we talked about.

Where did you go after you left her house?

I walked home.

I heard my footsteps in the autumn leaves, moving along the walkway, headed home.

Straight home?

Yes.

Straight home until I noticed the light burning in my mother"s room.

So you didn"t see William at all that night?

No.

The door to Emma"s room was closed, as I saw when I stepped into the shadowy foyer, but Billy had left the door of our mother"s room ajar. I could see them in the light, my mother in her bed, Billy in a chair beside it. He was hunched forward, his hair wild and unruly, his face buried in his hands. My mother watched him silently, her expression so grave that I knew he"d told her everything, poured out all his love for Dora, what he knew of her and didn"t know, his brightest hope, his darkest dread, then sunk his face in his hands, and waited for The Great Example to point the way.

For a time, she remained silent, her eyes very still, turning the question over in her mind, trying to decide what her son should do, follow his heart no matter how perilous and uncertain the route, or choose the unimpa.s.sioned path, leave his one true love behind. Then, with great effort she lifted her hand, drew the gold band her own mother had given her years before from her finger, and gave it to my brother, her head high, determined, as certain as she had ever been that the heart knew best.

"For Dora," she said.

Billy leaned forward, kissed her cheek, and took the ring from her hand. He grasped the cane he"d propped against her bed and brought himself to his feet, the issue now settled for all time.

By the time he turned back toward the door, I was gone.

What did you do after you got home?

Nothing.

And you stayed there the rest of the night?

Yes.

And the next morning?

I went to see my brother.

All that night and the following morning, I"d relived the scene I"d witnessed in my mother"s chamber the evening before. I had no doubt that Billy would do exactly as she advised. He would go with his heart, rely upon his deepest gift, the trust he had in life, the deep and all-surpa.s.sing nature of his love. I also knew that once he"d confronted Dora, she would have no choice but to leave Port Alma. Nothing I might say or do would be able to dissuade her after that. And so my only question as I drove toward my brother"s house that morning was what I could do to stop him, and in doing that, buy the time I needed to convince Dora that we could be together, even if we had to leave Port Alma. I could hear myself urging her to do just that, a.s.suring her that in time Billy would get over it, forgive us both, welcome us back into his life again, my voice no longer a lawyer"s voice as I said these things, no longer calm, reasoned, but charged with an ardent pa.s.sion.

Were you going to William"s for any particular reason?

No.

Even as I recalled the lies I"d told Hap that day, all I"d concealed from him, I still couldn"t fathom how it had all happened, the whole tortured story that had led me to the mountain road I now drove down, my life reduced to a single purpose: Find her.

I knew I was closing in upon her, the road narrowing steadily, drawing toward the dead end Hedda Locke had described, Tom Shay"s mountain refuge only a few short miles away. But with each mile, I could feel an inescapable desperation building in me, a ravenous hunger to recall everything that had happened, so that I could fit it neatly into whatever Dora might later tell me, and thus bring it into conformity with my own sense of things, reach, at last, the center of the web I dangled in.

So you just decided to drop by William"s house?

Yes.

And that was on Sat.u.r.day?

Yes.

The day he died.

Yes.

Did you mention to William that you"d seen Dora the night before?

Hap"s face appeared again, his eyes closing slowly as he leaned back in his chair, tugged gently at his right ear.

No.

Why not?

He was in a strange mood. I didn"t want to disturb him.

What sort of mood?

He seemed ... elated.

Elated? Why?

Because he was himself again, I suppose.

How did he look?

Like our mother. That same look in his face.

What do you mean?

Completely self-a.s.sured.

A door opened, just as it had that afternoon, and I saw Billy sitting upright beside the fire, his gaze no longer puzzled. All doubt and all confusion had fled. No man before or since ever looked more reborn.

"I"m glad you came by, Cal," he said, his voice quite calm. "I wanted to tell you that I made a mistake."

"Mistake?"

"About the money. There"s nothing missing. Not a penny." He grasped his cane and drew himself to his feet in a single graceful sweep. "So you don"t have to go over the books. They"re perfectly in order."

There"d been no mistake, of course. Billy had simply decided to blind himself permanently to whatever darkness he"d glimpsed in Dora, no doubt realizing what we all must realize in the end, that it is only by choosing not to see that we can love at all.

He walked to the window, parted the curtains. "You haven"t spoken to her, have you?"

"To Dora? About the ledgers? No, I haven"t."

"I don"t mean the ledgers."

"What, then?"

He released the curtains but did not face me. "About me," he said softly.

I felt her lips touch mine, heard again our fervent whispers. "I haven"t talked to Dora at all," I lied.

He turned to face me. "Good. Because I"ve decided to do it myself. Tell her how I feel." His voice took on a fierce certainty. "Without her, I wouldn"t have made it through, Cal. I"ve been thinking about all she did for me. While I was hurt, sick, whatever you want to call it. Anyway, it came clear all of a sudden. What love really is." His eyes shone brightly, a knight again, sword at the ready. "It"s sacrifice, Cal. It"s how much you"re willing to sacrifice what you want for what someone else needs. That"s what I feel for Dora. That"s how I know I have to do it. Offer myself. Everything. Now."

I started to speak, tell him the awful truth, that it was all an illusion, that Dora did not love him, never could. But he raised his hand to silence me.

"I know you don"t believe any of this, Cal. You never have. But it doesn"t matter. It"s just between Dora and me now."