Luke saw the words slip past Carla’s cool, tightly held surface and knew as clearly as if she had shouted it that she was remembering what had happened three years before, the night she had graduated from high school, stood in front of him and declared her love.

Most nights Luke might have been able to smile and send Carla on her way feeling no more than a little embarrassed for her sweet declaration. But it hadn’t been most other nights. It had been one of the nights when his elemental hunger for Cash’s little sister had driven Luke to the temporary relief of straight Scotch. Instead of turning away from her, he had come to his feet, grabbed her and kissed her with every bit of the wild hunger in him. When she had tried to slow him down, to talk to him, he had lashed out.

What did you think a man wanted from a woman who loves him, school girl? And there’s the problem, isn’t it? You’re a girl mouthing woman’s words and I’m a man on fire. Run, school girl Run like hell and don’t come back.

Carla had taken Luke at his word. She had run and she hadn’t come back. And he had locked himself up in the barn with his tools, transforming his yearnings into gleaming shapes of wood – chair and dresser, headboard and footboard, beautiful furnishings for the dream that could not come true.

"Ah, well, live and learn," Carla said.

"What have you learned, sunshine?" Luke asked.

He saw the ripple of emotion in her clear eyes as he called her by the old nickname. But the emotion passed, and she was again watching him with the combination of distance and coolness that she had used on him whenever she couldn’t avoid him.

"I’ve learned that being adventurous is another name for being a fool." she said.

Luke saw the tiny flinch she couldn’t conceal and knew that he had hurt her. He hadn’t really intended that. He had just wanted to see something besides aloofness and distance in her beautiful eyes.