Sofia took Diablo herself, suspecting that Nana’s horse had been too long unridden. She placed Duane on Genuine—short for The Genuine Fake Copy of the Artificial Real McCoy, a name Sofia had given the mare when it was still a gangly foal struggling to find its feet for the first time. She had turned out to be a genuinely pleasant animal and an easy ride for even the least skilled riders. She and Genuine watched Duane closely. He might not be skilled, but he at least had the basics down.

She guided them into the woods, first at a walk, then a light trot. Duane’s uncertain seat made her decide against a canter, though Diablo was begging to be allowed to run. Once well clear of the house, and circling deeper into the woods between Domaine Serene and Erath wineries on the uncultivated west side of the Dundee Hills, she slowed them once more to a walk. They were following a dirt road that let them ride side-by-side for a little while.

“What you said back there…” she couldn’t complete the question.

“Uh-huh,” Duane didn’t sound happy.

“How sure are you?”

“Very,” he was sticking with no more than two syllables, a restraint he’d shown since the waiter had rushed over to clean up the shattered wine glass and make sure she was okay.

“But…” It was pretty much the most disgusting thing she’d ever heard. And when talking about her mother and brother, that was saying something. It was even worse than when he’d come into her bedroom thinking he get some of that from his sister.

“Ask Consuela.”

“What? Why?”

Duane was settling more easily into the saddle, loosening his hips to take on the horse’s rhythm rather than continuing to force his own. Maybe they could canter later. After Duane stopped being so close-mouthed.

“Why ask my sister?”

“She doesn’t miss anything.”

Her confusion must have shown on her face.

“You two aren’t close either.”

“She was entering third grade when I left for college.”

“Well, she’s a grown woman now with a very sharp mind.”

“How do you know? She never even spoke at lunch.” Or had she? Would Sofia have even noticed? Every time she looked at Consuela all she could remember was the little girl in pigtails who had seemed bolted to her hip.

“Didn’t need to,” Duane stated, then apparently decided to throw caution to the wind and speak like a normal human again. “You didn’t see the proof about your mother because I was blocking your view. It was the way Camila clung to Emilio the moment I released my hold on him. I wasn’t feeling kind—still not—so he’s going to be hurting for at least a day or two, but what Camila was showing had to do with far more than a mother’s care.”

“There’s not a maternal bone in her body,” Sofia wanted to spit to clear the foul taste of that out of her system.

“Making my point all the more. There’d been a puzzling dynamic all through the meal that I couldn’t explain, but that’s the piece that made it all fit. Your sister was watching me, not them. She already knew and wanted to see if I noticed. When I did, it earned me a sad smile as if she was saying, ‘Welcome to my world.’ Seems like a pretty shitty one to me.”

Sofia couldn’t believe that she hadn’t noticed. Now that Duane had pointed it out, Sofia supposed that it was obvious—perhaps painfully obvious. Yet, despite her vaunted intelligence skills, she’d missed what was right in front of her face. She knew from training that the hardest thing to see was often the most obvious because it disguised itself in the world of the accepted “normal.” Yet another lesson: there was always more to learn.

“Mierda!”

They rode in silence until the dirt track narrowed. Where it turned south, she picked up the single file horse trail deeper into the Douglas fir and cedar woods to the north.

“Can we just pretend that I don’t have a family?”

“I dunno,” Duane rode easily as they took a small jump over a fallen alder. “Your grandmother is an interesting woman. And I suspect Consuela is as well.”

“Consuela has some degree, an MBA maybe? I just never think of her as grown.” Or think of her at all, really, which was pretty shameful. “The others are slime.”

“Yep, the others are slime.”

She could have done without his easy agreement reinforcing the truth.

“There’s one other exception,” he noted.

“Who?”

When he didn’t respond, she reined in Diablo and turned to face him.

He sidled Genuine up alongside her until they were boot-to-boot. He had a strange half smile as she puzzled at it.

With his effortless strength, he plucked her from her saddle and set her astride Genuine’s saddle facing him.

“Oh,” was all she managed as she clung to him.

“Where are we headed?” He kissed her lightly, teasing her lips with his taste of fine wine and deep earth.

“Diablo knows the way,” she leaned out just enough to slap Nana’s horse on the butt, sending him ambling ahead. Letting go of all the madness, she lay her head on Duane’s shoulder and let the easy rhythm of horse and man lull her until she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

“It is my favorite place in the Hills.”

Duane could see why. Diablo had led them to a small lake tucked deep in the forest. It wasn’t big, perhaps a hundred feet across. There was a clearing at one end, barely big enough for the two horses now grazing there. Medium- and old-growth trees circled the little lake, but the high afternoon sun managed to reach down to them from the patch of blue sky.

“Too bad we didn’t bring bathing suits. I really wanted to see you in that bikini.”

Then he turned and saw that Sofia was already stripping down.

Sofia Forteza naked in the bedroom was one thing. Sofia Forteza naked in the forest was something else entirely. This wasn’t the lethal jungle of Venezuela; it was a haven in the gentle woods of Oregon. Here she was both the fantasy of the bedroom and the wonder of their first meeting in the wilderness.

The water was cool and they swam and floated in it speaking of nothing. When they grew too warm, they paddled into the dappled shade made by the tops of the highest trees. When too cool, they swam back beneath sun shining down from the cap of sky. And the entire time he could not take his eyes off the woman beside him.

“What the hell are you doing to me, Forteza?”

“This!” Sofia pounded a palmful of water into his face. She tried to swim off, squealing with delight when he managed to snag her ankle. She was as rough and tumble in the water as she had been on the sheets. They were both going to be bruised after this, if they didn’t drown first.

Somehow she broke free and bolted for the shore. He wasn’t a SEAL, but there was an honor to be upheld. They raced the length of the lake.

Their shared calls of hitting the shore declared it a tie. Actually, Sofia had him by a hand length, not that he’d ever admit it.

“My great-grandmother, she was a mermaid,” Sofia proudly declared as she stepped ashore, knowing she’d won, and began wringing the water out of her hair.

“I’m descended straight from the Greek god Pan,” he swept her up in his arms and carried her over to lie on his clothes. Where some protection was also handy in his jeans pocket. “Pan was a big fan of hanging out with stunningly gorgeous nymphs.”

“Hmm,” Sofia made a delighted sound. “Descendant of a lustful Greek god. Remember I was telling you about the Greek officer who I danced with in the shower. He—”

He stoppered her merry laugh with a kiss, apparently the only way to silence her. No, he soon discovered, there were other ways. Or at least ways to elicit other sounds aside from coherent speech.

Halfway through, Sofia rolled him onto his back and sat astride him.

“I want you to see what I’ve been seeing.”

“What, your magnificent breasts?” He caressed them with his hands so that she knew exactly what he was talking about.

She clamped her hands over his to keep them there, but nodded upward. “No. This!”

Sofia, beautiful Sofia, framed against the pines and the blue sky as she slowly began rediscovering the rhythm they’d been building since the moment he’d dragged her onto his horse.

“You aren’t of this world!” At least not any world he knew. His world was bounded by women fitting into a very clear role. Sex—sometimes good, sometimes great. Fun—while it lasted. Then safely gone. A space that Sofia refused to occupy. She kept bursting through the careful perimeter he’d staked and claimed as his own.

What if she became more?

She was going to be gone. After this mission or the next, she’d disappear back behind the invisible curtain of The Activity as neatly as the Wizardess of Oz.

And when she did, what was going to happen to him?

There was an easy answer. Keep it light. Keep it about the sex.

But even as she did something with her hips that should be stamped Top Secret and Potentially Lethal—maybe a move straight from Mata Hari for eliciting information from unsuspecting men—Duane knew this was no longer about sex.

She still clamped his hands to her breasts. He arched up his hips to reach deeper into her. She hung her head. Bracing on the edge, preparing for the moment of release. Her hair a wave darker than the oldest bark on the sheltering trees.

Then Sofia looked at him. Her fathomless eyes were watching him, puzzling at the same question.

If this wasn’t sex, what the hell was it?

His release triggered hers, and this time she wasn’t the only one to groan with the power of it as it swept over them. He’d heard women describing their orgasms as “shattering.” For perhaps the first time, he understood. Those carefully constructed perimeter fences inside him were crumbling—fast.

Even as they both slid from ecstasy to shudder to collapsing together until they were as close as two people could be, the question remained.

If this wasn’t sex, what the hell was it?