“It doesn’t matter, Erica.”

But it did-to her. Leaning back in the shadows, she waited. Kyle shifted restlessly against the pillows. “My father told me the McCrery name meant nothing to me,” he said neutrally. “He died lonely, because of my pride. I misjudged him badly over the years…”

She shook her head violently, though he couldn’t see the gesture in the darkness. “Kyle, you were good to him,” she protested. “I know you lived far away, but that…just happens. You called; you always saw that he was cared for; you sent him money. Morgan told me once that you even built this house; you were in school, working three jobs, and he thought you were crazy to come back up here that summer… And you stayed with him that whole month before he died-”

“I left the minute I was eighteen and never really came back. I knew I was all he had. He knew how I felt; he told me so before he died. The respect of one man for another-I never had it for him, and I was wrong. But I didn’t know how much it mattered that he didn’t have it for me.”

“I don’t understand,” Erica said, her voice growing angry. “Kyle, I don’t have to understand. He was wrong.” She slipped the dress over her head impatiently. She shivered a little, but the cool night air was like silk on her skin. Moonlight brushed the delicate lines of her collarbone and shoulders, her long, slim thighs. Her mind was racing, trying to find the right words to say to Kyle, trying to understand how and why his feelings for his father had so painfully changed him from the man she had married.

Her hair fell in a slow-sweeping red-gold arc as she bent to remove her panties. When she straightened, her entire profile was illuminated, her skin tinged with the satin sheen of moonlight. “Listen,” she began.

He was out of bed, moving up behind her. He pulled her back against his chest, nuzzling her hair back with his chin so he could kiss the hollow in her shoulder. “We can’t have you standing in that window, love. Anyone passing by would undoubtedly have an accident. The look of you-that natural sensual grace of yours-could well cause a five-car pile-up.” His lips dipping for her shoulders again, he added gravely, “We can’t have that on your conscience.”