"Hello, sweetheart," Catherine greeted.

Kelly's small arms circled her waist and hung on tightly. "I'm glad you're here. I'm not scared or anything."

"Yes, I know," Catherine said, a smile curving the corners of her mouth. The house was pitch-black. "When did the electricity go off?"

"Just a little before I called you." Kelly aimed the flashlight across the living room. "Dad keeps this one handy in the top kitchen drawer, and I found it right away."

"You were a clever girl."

"You really think so?" Kelly sounded proud of herself.

With her hand on Royce's daughter's shoulder, they advanced into the family room and sat down on the sectional together. Kelly chatted easily, as though it had been ages and ages since they'd last talked, which in fact had been several days.

There was a peacefulness that settled over the area, and the dark, which had once seemed so intimidating and uninviting, began to feel like a welcome friend.

Kelly must have sensed it, too. She placed the back of her hand against her mouth and yawned loudly.

"Are you tired?"

"Not really," Kelly answered just before she yawned a second time, but she snuggled closer to Catherine, propping her head in Catherine's lap. Within minutes the measured, even sounds of Kelly's breathing convinced her the girl was sound asleep.

Catherine must have drifted off herself, because the next thing she knew the lights were on. Straightening, she rubbed the sleep from her face just as Royce walked in from the kitchen.

He stopped abruptly and frowned. "What are you doing here?"

Chapter Ten

Kelly was alone," Catherine explained in a husky whisper. "The lights went out and she was afraid." Royce looked shocked, as though he were viewing a ghost. She was certainly the last person he expected to stumble upon in his own home.

Carefully, so as not to waken the slumbering youngster, Catherine gingerly moved from the sectional.

She reached for her coat and purse. "Now that you're here, I'll go." She removed the afghan from the back of the sectional and spread it across Kelly, who was dozing peacefully.

"What happened to Cindy?" Royce wanted to know before she left. His mouth had twisted into a tight line of impatience, and Catherine didn't doubt that the teenager was out of a job.

"Her mother came down with a bad case of the flu and she needed her there. She did phone and ask Kelly to walk over to her house."

"It's six blocks. I don't want my daughter traipsing around in the dark." Once more his mouth tightened.

"Kelly didn't go because she hates throwing up."

Royce frowned.

"She didn't want to catch the flu," Catherine explained.

The tight features relaxed, and the two shared a warm smile that seemed to arch between them like two ends of a magical rainbow. It had been so long since they'd shared something so intimate. So long since they'd lowered their guards to allow themselves the simple pleasure. Their eyes met and held for the longest moment. Their breaths seemed to echo each other's. Half a room separated them, and yet it was as though they were standing close enough to touch. A thought Catherine found infinitely appealing. There was security in Royce's arms. Security and love.

It was Royce who dragged his eyes away. His hands were buried deep within his pockets. Catherine would have liked to believe he'd placed them there to keep from reaching for her.

"It was good of you to come by," Royce said evenly.

"It wasn't any problem." The only problem was loving him so much and having to pretend otherwise, even when they were alone together. Such pretense went against the very core of her nature.

Royce followed her into the entryway, stepped ahead, then paused, his hand on the doorknob. His back was to her when he hesitated. "How was your dinner with Dan?"

The question caught her by surprise. Idle curiosity was the last thing she expected from Royce. In addition, she'd nearly forgotten that she'd ever gone out with the commander.

"Forget I asked that," Royce stated gruffly, and jerked open the door.

"Dinner was very good. The company, however, was charming, but decidedly uninteresting."

Royce raked his fingers through his hair and kept his gaze lowered. "Are you going out with him again?"

"No."

Royce's eyes, round and dubious, flew up to meet hers. "Why not?"

Catherine felt as though the weight of the entire world were pressing down upon her shoulders. Royce honestly seemed to need to know why she had no interest in dating another man. Had she been so

lacking in communicating her love? Had she failed in letting him know that he was the very reason she lived and breathed? Didn't he understand that she was prepared to risk everything that was important to her for him?

"You want to know why I'm not dating Dan?" she asked, having trouble hiding how incredible she found the question. "Because, you idiot," she said, battling the urge to sock him, "I'm in love with you."

Royce stood directly in front of her, blocking the door. His eyes, his beautiful blue eyes, drank thirstily from hers, as if it had been years instead of hours since he'd last seen her.

"I shouldn't have asked that." His words were low and dark, laced with a thread of anger, as though he was furious with himself for his lack of control.

"It doesn't matter, really it doesn't," she countered softly, her voice as thin and delicate as the fluttering of her heart.

"Your love matters to me." His eyes lowered to linger on her mouth.

Catherine thought she'd go crazy if he didn't soon kiss her. She wanted him so much that she could taste the desire building within her. It circled her like a binding rope, imprisoning her.

Royce lifted his hand, and his movements were so slow and deliberate. He touched her face, his fingers gently caressing her cheek as if he were blind and was acquainting himself with her. His touch, so light and tender, seemed to reach all the way to her soul. Nothing could have prepared her for the utter beauty of it, the sheer magnitude of these precious, silent moments.

Royce must have felt it, too, the intensity of it. The beauty of it. He was breathing hard when he pulled his hand away, much too hard for such a nondemanding task.

"Thank you for coming," he said, jerking the door open.

"Royce." She wouldn't let him send her away, not again. Not when she needed him so desperately.

"Please...just go." The words were wrenched from him. Sagging with defeat, Catherine did as he requested.

Catherine had dreaded the Birthday Ball all week. She wasn't in any mood to celebrate. Nor was she in the frame of mind to socialize and stand idly by while Royce waltzed around the room with one woman after another. Not when she so longed to be the one in his arms.

She hadn't talked to him since the night she'd gone to be with Kelly. These days were by far the most miserably long ones of her life. It was as if their brief moments together had been ripped out of time. Royce hadn't spoken to her, hadn't looked at her, hadn't acknowledged her.

Catherine had talked to Kelly only once on the phone, hungering all the while for some word from

Royce. Something. Anything.

The situation didn't seem to be going any better for him. In the past few days he'd been in one bear of a mood. Half the time it seemed as if he was looking for an excuse to slam his fist through a wall. He wore his bad-boy image as tightly as a glove. It fit him well.

It had taken Catherine only one week of this trial time to make several valid perceptions. She now accepted the fact she was in love with Royce Nyland. But she'd known that before this self-imposed restriction.

She'd also realized that if he asked her to marry him, even if the proposal came on the tail end of a bout of jealousy, or a bout of anything, she'd accept.

What she hadn't anticipated was this heart-wrenching loneliness. The silence that had once fit so comfortably in her life, she now found deafening and painfully disturbing. The pleasure of her own company was sadly lacking. A hundred times, in a hundred different ways she found herself missing Royce even more than she had in the beginning. Since the night with Kelly, she missed the looks they'd often shared, the strong communication between them that made words superfluous. The throaty sound of his laughter. Oh, how she loved hearing him laugh.

She saw him every day, walked past him, spoke to him as if he meant nothing to her as if they were little more than casual acquaintances. If she found it hard to continue the sham. Before it was doubly so. Now, painfully so.

Following through with this charade was difficult enough during the day, but to purposely expose herself to it for this Birthday Ball was a challenge she dreaded.

Catherine was forced to admit, however, how beautiful everything was. The orchestra was playing on the opposite end of the room while a mirrored ball hung overhead, casting reflections of warm light about the room. Romance, music, muted light surrounded the couples that circled the polished dance door From a distance they resembled graceful swans coasting on a mirrored lake. It was all so beautiful. So splendid.

Catherine stood on the outer edges of the crowd and looked on, admiring the handsome men dressed in either their dress uniforms or tuxedos. The women wore a variety of gowns. Catherine had chosen to wear the formal evening dress uniform with a long straight skirt of navy blue, with matching jacket.

It wasn't until she'd arrived that she understood her choice of outfit for the evening. She needed to remember she was in the Navy. All too often of late, she'd wanted to disregard the pledges she'd made when she accepted her commission. Love seemed far more important than the rules and regulations, which only went to prove how dangerously shaky her thinking was becoming. Royce was right. They needed this time apart, and since he seemed determined to use every one of these thirty days, she had no recourse but to stand by patiently until he'd come to a decision.

Catherine arrived. Royce noticed her the moment she walked in the door. It was as if everything came to a sudden, grinding halt. The music faded, the dancers went still, even the lights seemed to have dimmed. Royce stood, frozen. An air-raid alarm wouldn't have budged him. He simply stood and watched her, soaking in every delicate nuance of her. She was lovely, so breathtakingly lovely that she quite literally held him spellbound. He'd missed her. Dear Lord, how he'd missed her. He felt as though it had been a thousand years since he'd held her in his arms, a thousand years since he'd tasted her lips. Royce was so damned hungry for her that he would have gratefully accepted a few stolen moments alone even if it meant sitting in the front seat of his Porsche on a lonely deserted road.

"Evening, Nyland."

Royce turned to find himself face-to-face with Admiral Duffy. "Good evening, sir," he said, having trouble even then pulling his eyes away from Catherine.

Catherine found herself scanning the dancers, watching, searching. She wasn't fooling herself, she knew who she was looking to find. She didn't see Royce, at least not at first. It wasn't until later, after she'd gotten herself a cup of punch and was wandering around chatting with casual acquaintances that she found him.

He was across the room from her, involved in a conversation with two other men. The first was the admiral, she could tell that much. The second man was turned at an angle so Catherine couldn't identify him, not that it mattered. Royce captured her full attention.