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holding her so tightly she could barely breath. “I knew it was going to rain,” he said. “I was getting the tents up when you walked off. I thought you’d have sense enough to come back when it started. God, Chris, you’re going to be the death of me. It’s a wonder I found you.”
    Chris was so happy that she was safe and that he was here that she began kissing his neck exuberantly. “I knew you’d find me. I knew it from the moment the ground fell away. One minute I was sitting there and the next I was falling. I wasn’t even sure it was raining.”
    Ty forcibly pulled her arms from around his neck—and he looked like a man in great pain. “Chris,” he said in a pleading voice, “have you ever seen a grown man cry? I mean really cry? Like a brokenhearted two-year-old?”
    â€œNo, I don’t believe I have or that I want to.” She was reaching for him again. “Ty,” she said.
    He caught her hands in his, holding them together in front of him. “Then please stop this,” he said. “Please leave me alone. Don’t follow me, don’t touch me, don’t mother me, don’t put salve on my back, don’t cry when I get mad at you. Don’t do anything. I’m begging you, please.”
    Chris leaned toward him. “It doesn’t matter to me that you were in prison. You may think that I’m of a different class than you but I’m not. Ty, I think I may be in love—”
    He put his hand over her mouth. “Don’t say it. Don’t ever say it. I couldn’t bear to hear it. We’ve only known each other for a few days and in a few more we’ll never see each other again.”
    â€œThe number of days doesn’t matter. Do you know how many men have asked me to marry them? I receive proposals in the mail. I’ve been to dinner parties and had two proposals by the end of the meal, but I’ve never even been tempted—not by marriage or by their attempts at seduction. But you, Tynan, you’re the man I want.”
    Ty’s face went through one contortion after another and for just a moment, he leaned toward her as if he meant to kiss her. But the next second, he ran from the dry rock cropping, out into the rain.
    â€œDon’t you understand that I CAN’T? I can’t make love to you. Now get up! We’re going back to camp and don’t come near me again.” He grabbed her wrist and pulled her out into the rain with him, then half pushed her up the steep bank. Once on the trail again, he didn’t touch her, just pointed the way back to the camp.
    Chris knew that some of the water on her face was a deluge of tears but she didn’t know how much until she reached the camp. There were three tents set up, one for each of them. Under a tree, its opening facing away from the other two tents, was a tarpaulin that she knew was Tynan’s.
    Ty stood back, arms folded over his chest while she went into the tent he pointed to.
    It took Chris an hour to change into dry clothes, because her tears kept running down her cheeks. She cried all night long. The first man she’d ever loved and this had to happen.
    When morning came, her face was red and swollen, her nose half again its usual size and her head was aching. When Tynan came to tell her that they’d stay in the tents until the rain stopped, she couldn’t look at him, but just kept her head down and nodded.
    By noon, Chris was exhausted from so many hours of crying and thinking, but she’d made some decisions. Slowly, she built a little fire under the dry leaves of the tent and heated some soup left from the day before.
    She took her rain gear from the pile of garments in a corner. There was no furniture in the little tent, just a sleeping roll, a few clothes and now the little fire under the flap outside.
    With her back rigid, Chris left the tent. The rain was coming down very hard and when it hit