He nodded. "The most peaceful place on earth." He brushed her face gently. "I love you."

She shook her head. "Don't."

"Do you find it so hard to believe?"

"So quickly? Yes, it's hard."

His shrug had a touch of helplessness that sat oddly with his usual air of confidence.

"I, too, was taken by surprise. You see, I'm like you. I plan my life ahead. I had not planned for you, and yet there you were, at the airport.

"Justine, I don't understand what's happened to us any more than you do. I only know that it has happened, and there's no going back. To say that it's too soon, that we've barely met, is easy. I admit it, but it changes nothing.

"That day I went to the airport, I had nothing on my mind but collecting supplies. Then I looked up and saw the woman I'd been waiting for all my life. She was red-haired and glorious, and she looked me straight in the eye in a way that said, 'Fool with me at your peril.'

"I'd never had a challenge that thrilled me more. There and then I decided to fool with her. And the more I knew her, the more I knew it had to be for the rest of my life."

"Don't I get a say?"

"Of course. Tell me what you want from me. A brief adventure? Fine. We'll have an adventure. And afterward you will stay with me forever."

"Then it wouldn't be an adventure," she countered. "An adventure is brief. That's why it's an adventure."

"And you don't think that spending your life with one man might be an adventure?"

"That's just clever words."

"What you really want is a fling, but flings are for people who can't commit themselves."

"You forget I've been married."

"No, I don't forget. But I don't think you committed yourself to that marriage, otherwise you wouldn't have cast it aside at the first hurdle."

"You know nothing about it," she cried, on the defensive again.

"Then tell me. Show me that I'm wrong."