The Final Mission

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But as quickly as the heat showed, it was followed by a flash of puzzlement, as if he didn’t understand what he’d just felt.

Guilt. It was thick on the air, she realized. They both felt guilty, though perhaps for different reasons. She felt it because it was partly her fault Mary had died. He probably felt that an instant of attraction somehow betrayed her. And frankly, Courtney wondered the same thing, because as she had caught that flicker of sexual yearning in his gaze, she had felt herself respond all the way to her center.

Desire, evidently, had its own calendar and its own causes, and simple thoughts of propriety, ugly things like guilt, couldn’t entirely squash it.

Life went on whether you wanted it to or not. That was the hardest part. Just when you felt everything should freeze in time and space, that the whole world should halt because you had lost someone you loved, life intruded, reminding you that you had to go on.

“Have you decided whether you’ll go camping with us tomorrow?” he asked.

“I …” The hesitation, so strong earlier, the decision she thought she had made … all of a sudden they were gone. “Yes. Yes, I will.”

One corner of his mouth lifted. “Good. You’ll enjoy it. There’s a cabin up there, not much, but I’ve kept it up because the boys love to go up there in the summers when we look after the horses. You won’t exactly be roughing it.”

“It would be fun either way. I think—” she hesitated, then blurted it “—I think I need some fun.”

“I think you do, too. I think we all do.” His smile widened slightly. “How devoted are you to spending another day in my office?”

She thought about all those photos she still needed to review, all the tapes and CDs. “There’s a lot I need to look at still.”