She lifted her chin. “I get up every day glad to be alive. How about you?”

He hesitated, then chuckled dryly. “Perhaps there’s a case for naiveté.”

His insolence sparked a rare spurt of temper. “Mister-whatever your name is-I saw both my parents killed five years ago in a car crash. Don’t you go telling me I don’t know what life’s about. I’d still rather look up than down any day. It’s a question of choice. If you haven’t made it, I feel sorry for you!”

The door snapped open at the far end of the room; two drunken revelers trying to find privacy. “Get out of here,” the stranger snapped, making Trisha jump warily at the instant autocratic order in his voice. They left promptly, and Trisha, suddenly uneasy, stirred to get up.

“Stay.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Stay. I have a mountain I want to tell you about. If you’re so young that you still believe in dreams you should like hearing about it.”

She fell in love hearing about it. At midnight there were New Year’s fireworks, shouts and a hullabaloo from below that destroyed their conversation. The tall dark man stopped talking, pulled her up from her sitting position and held her hand as they watched the fireworks over Lake Saint Clair from the window. When he turned to her finally, every instinct already guessed what he was going to do. The dark grave look in his eyes was oddly possessive, searing as his face moved closer. The secrets shared, of dreams both wanted to believe in, felt like the kiss that happened. She had never felt as protected as she did with his arms around her, the first sweet yearnings of desire burning inside of her.

Sometime after that the raucous dance music slowed and mellowed for the tired, thinning crowd below. Old nostalgic love songs floated into the hushed dark room. For two hours they danced alone in the stillness. On occasion he would lift her head and just look at her, and she held nothing back in the way she looked back at him. She wasn’t so young that she didn’t realize she could be hurt; she just didn’t care. He was a man of dreams, a man to protect as she had never felt protected. She felt cherished, desired. She curled close like a kitten, her arms around his waist, her forehead against the soft new bristle of beard forming on his chin at the late hour.