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know what to do. So far from town and all."
    He didn't believe for one minute that she had any idea of how far she was from Remembrance. He doubted she even knew where the nearest town was. But he didn't pursue the question. He neither expected nor wanted her to spill her guts to him. She was welcome to her secrets, whatever they were.
    "Oh!" The sudden exclamation brought Devlin's eyes to her.
    "What's wrong?"
    "It just occurred to me that I haven't even asked you if you'll let me spend the night here again."
    The anbarrassed color that flooded her cheeks was really rather attractive, he decided. It made her eyes seem darker, wider.
    "You're welcome to stay the night."
    "You must think I'm a dreadful person." She pushed her half-eaten dinner away, her distress obvious. "I've barely thanked you for saving my life. I hardly even acknowledge your kindness and then I presume on your hospitality. You should have gotten rid of me hours ago.''

    *'Don't worry about it/* Devlin ignored the fact that, hours ago, he'd been thinking exactly the same thing. "Everybody needs a little help now and then."
    "But I shouldn't have just assumed I could stay here."
    "I don't mind." He reached across the table, closing his hand over the fingers she was twisting together. The impact of the small touch was more than he'd expected. Her hands felt so delicate beneath his, as fragile and vulnerable as a child's.
    He was torn between conflicting urges. He wanted to put his arms around her and tell her everything would be all right, that he'd keep the world from hurting her again. And he wanted to carry her into the bedroom and see just exactly what that heavy length of hair looked like spread across his pillow.
    "You're welcome to stay the night," he said again. He drew his hand away casually. Annalise didn't seem to have noticed anything unusual about the moment.
    "I can't offer to pay you," she said with difficulty.
    "Good. Because I wouldn't accept it." He pushed back from the table and stacked their plates. He felt her eyes following him as he moved to the counter. After a moment, she stood up and cleared the table of their glasses. Devlin took them from her and placed them in the dishwasher.
    "I really do appreciate everything you've done for me," she said.
    "I haven't done all that much." He snapped shut the latch on the dishwasher and turned to look back at her. He really wished she didn't look so vulnerable

    and so uncertain. The protective shell she'd locked herself inside of was breaking up around her.
    "Tomorrow, Fll get myself out of your hair," she said.
    "We'll worry about it tomorrow." Devlin pretended not to see the uncertainty in her eyes. He knew as well as she did that getting her out of his hair was going to be more than a matter of simply waving goodbye as she disappeared into the sunset.
    Hours later, hands beneath his head, Devlin stared up at the ceiling. The exposed beams were nothing more than deeper shadows in the darkness above him. He'd considered, briefly, putting in a ceiling, but he liked the feeling of spaciousness that the open beams gave.
    But his thoughts weren't on the architecture. And they weren't on the next day's tasks. Since the day he'd decided to build a home, the house had occupied most of his waking hours, either thinking about it or working on it.
    Tonight his thoughts weren't on plaster versus dry-wall or whether to build a deck or pour a patio. Instead, he was thinking about the woman who now occupied his bed—his comfortable bed, he amended, taking note of just how hard the floor was, even with an air mattress beneath him.
    It didn't take a genius to guess that Annalise had hit rock bottom. The emptiness that had been in her eyes this morning had told of someone who no longer cared what became of them. She hadn't reacted when he'd

    asked her if she'd tried to commit suicide, because it really hadn't mattered to her.
    When she awakened to find herself alone with a strange man, she hadn't shown any of