Gallagher could hear Charlie starting to cry and, out of the corner of his eye, he could see her struggling to get on her feet, could sense her urgency to stop that which nothing was going to stop now.

  His fist frozen over his shoulder, Gallagher focused on the face before him, registered the fear, and felt a primal satisfaction in it. He was not surprised that a coward lurked beneath the bully. He could feel the muscles in his arm bunching, the pure power of his fury coiling along the length of his arm. He swung.

  His fist stopped an inch short of the man's face. Gallagher's arm shook from the force he'd had to exert to stop that blow. He felt the blood-red recede from his eyes. He wasn't even sure exactly what had stopped him. Something in the eyes, and a sudden sick feeling at the bottom of his belly that he was wrong—terribly, dreadfully wrong.

  Those eyes locked on his with such dread, with all the terror of a cornered animal, were not the eyes of a man. They were the eyes of a child.

  He felt dazed. His fist dropped impotently to his side, and he gave way easily under Charlie's shove. He rose to his feet, staring at them.

  She was gathering the man-boy into her arms, rocking him like a mother, crooning soothing words into his ears. And he was crying now, huge tears slithering down his cheeks, his fists clutching at Charlie's jacket as though he would never let her go.

  'Chuckie,' he sobbed. 'Chuckie, Chuckie, Chuckie.'

  Finally, she looked up at him. Gallagher expected to see anger in her eyes. He was prepared for it—and deserved it. All the assumptions. All the silent accusations he'd made. He held his breath. She could kill him with her eyes right now.

  The breath released slowly. There was no censure in those huge, golden eyes. Just an intensely beautiful light that could have brought him to his knees.

  'Oh, lord, Charlie,' Gallagher murmured hoarsely. 'What have I done?'

  The man-boy slid him a wary look. 'You were going to hit me,' he accused, and his voice trailed down to a wail of remembered fear.

  Slowly the sobs subsided, Gallagher standing there feeling helpless and like a fool, as Charlie sat in the snow rocking and crooning and stroking. Finally, gently, she pushed the boy from her embrace and tugged him to his feet.

  'Gallagher, this is my cousin, Kenny.'

  Kenny hid behind her, having to crouch to do so.

  'He won't hurt you, Kenny,' she soothed. 'He made a mistake.'

  'I'm sorry,' Gallagher addressed the boy softly.

  'You can't know how sorry I am.'

  'I don't like you,' Kenny reported stubbornly.

  'Now, Kenny --'

  Gallagher held up a hand, silencing her. 'I don't like myself very much right now, either, Ken.'

  'Because you nearly hurt me?'

  'Yes, because I nearly hurt you. Charlie, I'll give you and Ken a lift home. I think we should talk.'

  Charlie felt ill at ease with Gallagher seated comfortably at the table in her small kitchen. The room was too small for him. He filled it, became its focal point, with his arm hooked casually over the back of his chair, his long legs stretched out beneath the table. She was aware of his eyes resting on her carefully turned back. She worked with him, and flying was far more complicated than making tea. And yet now she felt awkward and clumsy. She dropped the sugar. She spilled the milk. She wondered what a man—especially a man like Gallagher—would think of a woman who was more at ease in a cockpit than a kitchen.

  Finally, she set the teapot between them, pulled out a chair, and settled on it in a kneeling position, unaware that her posture was one that suggested she might get up and run at any minute. She could faintly hear the cartoons in the next room, where Kenny sat watching them.

  'Speak,' Gallagher requested softly, taking a sip of his tea, those sapphire eyes locked on hers.

  'About what?' she asked carelessly, nervously studying the tea-leaves in her cup.

  'For starters, I keep expecting a twelve-year-old—yours—to come bounding into the room.'

  She looked at him with genuine bafflement.

  He sighed. 'You told me you had a dependant. Then you mentioned that your child was twelve. Is there a child?'

  She smiled weakly. 'No. Kenny's my dependant, and I'm afraid he does act about twelve, so in that moment I used him as an excuse to get out of doing something I didn't want to do.'

  Gallagher nodded solemnly. 'Why didn't you just tell me, Charlie?' he finally asked softly.

  'You don't give a damn about my personal life, remember?'

  He was silent for a moment. 'I saw you around town with Ken a couple of times. I thought he was your boyfriend.'

  His eyes were suddenly hooded, and she was uncertain what to make of the words. Surely that couldn't be the reason he'd been on such a short fuse, so unfeeling, so unfair, so . . . untouchable? He couldn't have been jealous? Gallagher? But if he had been . . .

  Something stirred gently in her heart, but she stopped it. If he had been jealous that only made life more complicated, more threatening. More of a risk.

  'I just didn't see that it was any of your business. I just didn't think that my personal problems would be of the least bit of interest to you.' She regretted her choice of phrase immediately, because something in Gallagher's eyes flickered at the word 'problem'. Pity?

  'If you had unusual circumstances that prevented you from giving as much to the company as I sometimes expect, I think it would have been only fair, to both of us, if you had let me know.'

  She felt deflated, when she should have felt relieved. Not jealousy, after all. His concern was for his company. For the employee-employer relationship.

  'Perhaps I should have told you.' She studied her tea again. 'It's just that sometimes it's very difficult for me to explain about Kenny. Most people don't understand. There are still a lot of prejudices and stigmas attached to the handicapped, and particularly to the mentally handicapped.'

  The scar leapt suddenly along his jawline. 'And I struck you as a person with narrow-minded prejudices? Did and still do?'

  'Certainly not,' she replied, an edge of sarcasm creeping into her voice. 'You don't have any prejudices. You were dead set against hiring a woman pilot. But prejudices? Where would I get such a ridiculous notion?'

  He sucked in his breath. 'That's long behind us, Charlie, and below the belt. Nobody is without prejudices. The mark of the kind of person they are is whether they can overcome them. I did. Shouldn't that have earned me a measure of your trust?'

  'Did you ever overcome your reservations about hiring me, Gallagher? If you did, I haven't felt it. It's December. I've been expecting my walking papers.'

  He looked troubled, ran a hand through his tangle of black curls. 'Professionally, Charlie, I have no problems. You're a damn good pilot.'

  'Thank you,' she said stiffly, 'I didn't know that.'

  'See?' he said, softly. 'There it is, right there. You don't react the way I expect a woman to react. You're supposed to get coy and grateful when I say something nice to you.'

  She was genuinely puzzled. 'But I am a good pilot. I don't need you to tell me the obvious to make it true.'

  'I know that. I think I even like it, sometimes. But I don't know how to relate to you. It's like you've thrown out the rule-book.'

  'I didn't realise there was a rule-book!'

  'Of course there is. Nothing that's written down, but a whole set of culturally defined rules about how men and women are supposed to relate. But you don't play by it.'

  'Couldn't you just relate to me as a person? Forget gender?'

  'Oh, Charlie,' he said with a slight grin, Took in the mirror some time. It would take a bigger man than me to forget you were a woman.'

  'Oh,' she said, both uncomfortable and pleased. She could feel a self-conscious blush suffusing her cheeks.

  For a moment they sat in silence. Her blush intensified as he studied her with such frank masculine appreciation. Intensified again as she realised that she was studying him with just as frank feminine appreciation.

  He was right, she realised, there were rules. Rules that could be obliterated in a second by the chemistry that was bubbling in her stomach. And in his, if the intensity in those darkening eyes was any indication.

  'Tell me about you and Kenny,' he invited softly. Was he deliberately breaking the tense awareness that was beginning to stir between them?

  Charlie hesitated, nodded, and took a deep breath.

  'Kenny and I grew up like a brother and a sister. My parents were theatre people—actors, who never quite made the big time. They travelled, following dinner circuits, and Shakespearian festivals. For the first few years of my life, I travelled with them. I hated it. I was never in the same school. I never had the same friends. We kept weird hours, and associated with some pretty strange people.

  'I read a lot, and I knew that it wasn't normal, that a different kind of life existed, and I was always dreaming of this perfect, normal family. Then, one Christmas, we were invited to stay with my Uncle Henry and Aunt Joss. They were so wonderfully normal,' she recalled dreamily. 'They had this big, wonderful, robust family, and I loved every second of being with them. We were there for two weeks. The last week I cried every night thinking about going back on the road. My misery wasn't as private a thing as I would have thought. My parents noticed it. Aunt Joss and Uncle Henry noticed it. They wanted to take me. Actually wanted to,' she remembered fondly, 'and, though my parents were reluctant at first, they agreed to try it for a year.'

  She was lost in thought now, unaware that a faint pain laced her words and hollowed her eyes. 'For the first year they called often, sent me things, came to visit. After that, things just tapered off.' She stopped, aware of her sadness, and smiled in defiance of it. 'At this point we exchange Christmas cards and not too much else. But they're a part of me, still, even if I haven't been around them much. I inherited a spirit of adventure from them that was completely alien to my aunt and uncle. In a way, I ended up with the best of both worlds. Stability from Joss and Henry, imagination and a sense of fun and adventure from my parents.'

  'What happened to your aunt and uncle?' Gallagher prodded softly.

  'They died. Aunt Joss died, too young, of cancer. Uncle Henry just kind of gave up and followed. At that time Kenny and I were the only ones still left at home. I've always been really close to him. Uncle Henry and I discussed it one night. We knew I was the right one, even though I was the youngest. They had a modest insurance policy. It went to me. It's a sad twist of fate, but it was the money from their insurance that allowed me to pursue my dream of becoming a pilot. I weighed it out carefully. The money was for Kenny, but forty thousand wasn't enough to last him very long. And I wasn't going to be able to support us both as an accounts clerk. So, I set myself up in a profession that would allow me to comfortably look after Kenny for the rest of his life. It's icing on the cake that I get to do something that I love to do.'

  'You said it was a big family. Do they help you?'

  'They're all older than him. They barely know him. They wanted to put him away somewhere. They wanted to --' She stopped, controlled her voice. 'It was unthinkable. I was the one prepared to take him—the one who wanted to. So I did. And we're doing just fine.'

  Somehow his hand had come across the table and closed around hers. His grip was dry and strong and firm. She found herself looking at his hands, thinking they were beautiful. She reluctantly removed her hand from his, picked up her tea, met his eyes. They were beautiful, too.

  'And that's that,' she said with a faked blitheness that didn't fool either of them.

  'Life's been hard on you,' he said softly, unwanted sympathy mellowing his voice and his eyes.

  She was reminded suddenly of something Tanya had said. Tanya had stayed for tea after work, as she often did, listening to tales of Charlie's day, telling her what she and Kenny had done ...

  Charlie teased her about reading tea-leaves and Tanya looked at her sombrely.

  'With some people, it is not necessary to read palms, or leaves. With some people you read faces.'

  Charlie wanted to pretend that she didn't care for such nonsense but, like most people, she was intrigued at the hint of mystery, at the vague suggestion that someone could tell her something about herself, her past, her future.

  'And what do you see in my face?' she asked lightly.

  The look Tanya gave her was searing and intense, her voice low and musical as she spoke.

  'I see four dragons. I see desertion. I see death. I see betrayal.'

  Charlie stared at her, stunned. Her parents had deserted her. Her aunt and uncle had died. Paul had betrayed her. 'And the fourth?' she queried lightly.

  'The fourth lies within you, waiting to be slain.'

  'That's ridiculous,' Charlie said firmly.

  'Is it?'

  Was it? 'Kenny has, no doubt, told you a great deal about us.'

  'No. Kenny, Mike—they don't dwell much on what has been. Sometimes I think that's the lesson they have to teach us. That there is no past. And no future. Just now. Only this moment. It's funny—great spiritualists work very hard to arrive at a state of mind very close to what Kenny and Mike already have.'

  'That's very perceptive,' Charlie conceded slowly. She hesitated, gave up trying to appear indifferent. 'What else does my face tell you?'

  'That you carry bitter burdens, and that you often question the path of your life. You see the lives of others unfolding without the tragedy and troubles you have seen, and it angers you that life is so easy for some, but not for you.'

  Charlie could only stare at Tanya helplessly. Her most secret thoughts seemed to be on display.

  'And?' she finally whispered.

  'And,' Tanya said with a smile, 'life has made you incredibly strong. Strong enough that one day you will quit complaining that life's lessons are too hard, and instead you will ask, "What am I to learn from this?" And you will find that all along you learned. That you grew stronger. By stronger, I mean you learned to love, to be gentle, accepting, compassionate. When you are old, and you will grow very old, you will have that look in your eyes—that wondrous look of laughter and wisdom. That look that means you have seen the worst of life, and reckoned with it, allowed it to teach, instead of destroy. You think your suffering has been without reason? No, Charlie, no. You were chosen because you are one of the few. The very few.'

  Despite herself, Charlie found herself completely entranced by the soothing, melodious voice. 'The very few who what?'

  Again, that soft, wise smile. 'One of the very few who will know heaven on this earth.'

  Charlie forced herself to laugh. 'Oh, sure!'

  Tanya just shrugged, and smiled . . .

  'Charlie, where are you?'

  She looked blankly at Gallagher, as she came back to the present, and then grinned. 'Heaven only knows,' she muttered.

  Kenny came in. 'Can I have some more hot chocolate?'

  Charlie got up to get it for him.

  'Come and join us for a minute,' Gallagher requested softly.

  Kenny gave him a wary look, sidled over and slid down into a chair. 'You almost hit me,' he accused.

  'Yes, I did. And I'd like to explain myself, if you'll let me.'

  'I didn't do nuthin'!' Kenny proclaimed loudly and defensively.

  'Hmm. I thought I saw you push Charlie.'

  'Well, she made me mad! The bags were heavy, and I wanted to sit down, and she wouldn't let me. And I wanted candy at the store, and she wouldn't get me none! And why did we have to walk? I was cold, too. My hands were cold.'

  'I told you to wear mittens,' Charlie reminded him quietly from the counter, watching the interchange with wary interest. Kenny was still rattled. The situation was delicate. It would be so terribly easy for Gallagher to mean well, and to say exactly the wrong thing.

  But Gallagher seemed to know exactly where he was going and what he was doing.

  'Ken,' he said, not following her example and using the more juvenile 'Kenny', 'when I look at you, do you know what I see? I see a strong, big man. Is that what you are?'

  Kenny puffed up considerably, and shot Charlie a triumphant look as though he'd finally been recognised. 'Yes. I'm a man.'

  'Because you're a man, Ken, you're bigger than Charlie, and stronger than her. Is that right?'

  Kenny nodded smugly. 'Yup.'

  'Well, there's a rule about being bigger and stronger than somebody, Ken. You have to watch your temper. You can't ever hit somebody, or push somebody, who is smaller and weaker than you. A man can't ever fight with a lady. Do you understand?' His voice was very stern. 'Not ever.'

  'I didn't mean to,' Kenny said in a small voice.

  'That's not good enough. You could have hurt her, and you could have hurt her badly—without meaning to. How would you have felt about that?'

  Kenny's eyes were bright with tears that he was making a very manly effort to control. 'Awful,' he said softly.

  'Man to man, now, Ken—I don't want anything like that to ever happen again. Is that understood?'

  'Yessir.'

  Charlie's mouth dropped open. She had never, ever heard Kenny use that particular phrase, and she saw his reluctant respect for Gallagher in it.

  Gallagher dropped it. He didn't add anything or make threats. He simply expected to be understood and obeyed.

  'Could I ask you something?' Kenny asked, his tone still cowed.

  'Sure,' Gallagher said. 'Shoot.'

  'If you aren't ever supposed to hit somebody smaller than you, how come you just about hit me?'

  Charlie took in Gallagher's stunned face, and smothered her laughter. He had just learned lesson one about trying to tell Kenny something. That, for somebody who was not too bright, occasionally his logic was infallible.

  Gallagher sent her a pleading look, but she just grinned. It was a hard question, and she wanted to see if he could retain the integrity and clarity of his original message while he tried to explain the little twist.

  'Ken, that's a tough question,' he said, giving it his full respect. 'But I'll try to answer. Because Charlie is a woman, and I know you should never, ever be rough with a woman, I didn't really even notice your size, whether you were bigger or smaller than me. I just noticed that you were a man, and knew I had to stop you from hurting Charlie.'