“Let me drop them off,” Jack offered. “I’m headed back to town anyway. I’ll make sure they get checked in. Miss Timm is a bear about that.” Then he laughed at his own joke.

“Thanks, Jack. Get your backpacks, guys,” she said.

In less than two minutes the twins were in the truck and Jack was backing out of the clearing. Dylan and Katie were still standing on the porch. When the truck was out of sight, she faced him.

“So. You’re leaving.”

“How would you know that?” he asked.

“Your duffel is on the back of the bike and you have a confused look on your face, like you don’t know the way out.”

He shook his head. “I can take that duffel off the bike and put you there for one more ride. Anywhere you’d like to go.”

“Tell me what you came here to tell me,” she said.

He gently grasped her upper arms to pull her closer. He kneaded her arms and looked into her eyes. “Here’s what’s happening, Katie. I talked to Lang—a couple of our employees have left the company, hopefully for greener pastures because they know we’re in trouble. Our big plane is gone. Lang is going to send out his résumé—he has a family to think about. I have a company circling the drain and a producer in L.A. who wants to sign me for a movie if he can, a chance for me to bankroll that little Montana airport. I’d rather fly than act, but I’m a businessman—I’ll do what I have to do.”

“I think that’s admirable,” she said.

“Movies—they’re not exactly forty-hour weeks,” he said. “It’s a major commitment, for months. It won’t be quick. There won’t be time off. And for me, who has been out of the business for twenty years…well, I have a lot of catching up to do if I’m going to do a decent job.”

“I’m sure.”

“I don’t know when I’ll see you again, Katie.”

“I told you—I don’t have any expectations.”

“I have work there and in Montana,” he said. “I don’t have any real reason—”

“I know, Dylan. It was a fling, I know. Not something I’ve ever done before, but I knew going in that you were… How did you describe yourself? Kind of hit and run?”

“You’re probably better off,” he said.

“Sure. Right. You told me—you have bad-relationship DNA. Listen, don’t drag this out. This is no big surprise… Actually, I knew before my tire went flat, and it has nothing to do with your DNA. Our lives just don’t match.”

“I’d like to ask you to come with me, but I have no idea what I’d be asking you to do. I have no idea what the next months would—”

She was shaking her head. “Nah. Tempting though you are, I have commitments here. I have kids to raise and I promised them a stable and steady father figure. Plus, I think I like it here, bears and all. People step up for each other. There’s a real dearth of handsome movie stars, but…”

“I haven’t been a movie star since I was about fourteen. You do get that, right?”

She nodded. “Sure. But listen—my life has finally leveled out after a rocky year and I’m not in a position to take risks. Not with my boys. They’re so good, so resilient, I sometimes take them for granted. But now and then one of them will say something that reminds me they’re only little boys—they’re tender and they need security. Just a few weeks ago Mitch asked if I thought his dad would like him.” Her eyes misted. “My first commitment is to them. I’m not for taking chances. Do you get that, Dylan?”

He gave a slow, solemn nod. “You don’t have any regrets about us, do you?”

She shook her head and tried a smile, though it was tremulous. “You’re the best four-week boyfriend I’ve ever had. The only one.”

He swallowed hard. “Will you tell them goodbye? Will you tell them I couldn’t wait to see them again and I said goodbye?”

“Sure.”

“I could wait, but—”

“If it’s all the same to you, I can’t do this all day. So I might’ve regressed to my childhood and had a little crush…”

He leaned toward her and touched her lips gently. “Little?” he asked softly.

“Come on, think about this,” Katie said. “You don’t really want a lot of blubbering and sniveling and someone clinging to your ankles as you try to get away. You have business to get to and I…” She lifted her chin. “I have a life to get on with.”

He smiled at her. “You were the best time I’ve ever had, Katie.”

“You weren’t bad. I’ll think about you sometimes.”

“Our timing might’ve been off,” Dylan said. “If we’d met at another time, in another way…”

“There’s a small danger there, too,” she said. “You don’t want to get between me and the cubs. If you think that bear was scary…”

“If it matters, I’ve never had this much trouble saying goodbye before.”

She swallowed and her nose got a little pink. “Thanks for saying that. Now please, get going. Are you driving the motorcycle all the way to L.A.?”

“I rode it all the way here from Montana—not a quick trip. But I’m in kind of a hurry now. I should… Katie, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m going to see you again because… I let you down.” He was quiet for a second. Then in a hoarse voice he said, “I hope you get on with your life in exactly the way you want to.”

He leaned toward her, kissed her forehead and turned to go. Halfway to his motorcycle, he turned back, closed the distance between them in two giant strides and took her roughly into his arms. He covered her mouth in a powerful kiss, licking open her lips and taking possession of her. She let out a small whimper, holding him tightly, answering his kiss with her acquiescence. A tear slid down her cheek.

When he pulled away, he touched her cheek gently with his thumb.

“Yeah,” she said. “You just weren’t going to be happy till you made that happen. Now get outta here. I’m really done saying goodbye.”

A little peck on the lips and he left.

He popped a wheelie on the way out of the clearing.

Katie stood there for a while after the sound of that motorcycle was little more than a distant purr. Then she sniffed, wiped her cheeks and muttered, “What was I thinking? I should’ve known better. Those Hollywood bad boys never change.”

Dylan had been on his bike for over four weeks and he was in no mood to ride all the way to L.A. His brain was sluggish and he was distracted. This is exactly what happens, he told himself, when you let yourself get too comfortable. He’d had plenty of girlfriends in the past but had never had the kind of routine he’d had with Katie. He’d let himself get lured into a false sense of security and now, headed for the job he dreaded but had to do, he was feeling a profound sense of loss.

And he had to get over it. Fast. She was moving on. A kind man would not do anything to hold her back.

He drove to that small airport in Arcata, talked the manager into storing his bike in a hangar and hitched a flight to Santa Rosa where he’d pick up a nonstop to Los Angeles. A month ago he’d packed for a seven-day ride with his friends and everything was getting pretty worn out even though he’d done laundry; he intended to spruce up his scant wardrobe. He wasn’t going to try to impress anyone, but he would have the courtesy to look civilized for business meetings.

Dylan was completely miserable about setting Katie free, but kept telling himself it was necessary. She might be disappointed in him for a while, then maybe a little angry, but ultimately he believed she’d be glad she didn’t have to worry about how her future would turn out with someone like him, some actor with a bad track record. A fling, she’d said. And as she’d said from the beginning, she could do a lot better.

There was one significant problem—he’d never met a woman like her before and probably never would again. Better? He wouldn’t. Not a chance.

“Okay, so I want Katie,” he muttered. So what? he asked himself. He’d get over it. He’d gotten over other things he wanted but couldn’t have.

The minute he got on the ground in Santa Rosa and turned on his phone, it came alive. There were voice mails and missed calls. He checked the call log while he waited for his flight to L.A. to depart. His mother? His MOTHER? And his half brother, Bryce? His stepsister, Blaine? There must have been twenty calls and he’d never given anyone this phone number. Lang, knowing his family history, would never have shared his cell number. He’d had a few calls from family members over the years, either at Childress Aviation or the Montana house, but they always wanted something from him, not looking for ways to reach out in friendship or, God forbid, affection.

He couldn’t resist and listened to the first message. And he thought, This is exactly how you get reeled in, by letting them in your ear, your head. Even though he hated his mother, he loved her and had always wanted her to act like a mother.

“Dylan, darling, I heard you’re going to be in town to talk about a movie and I have to talk to you first, because, well, the business hasn’t been real nice to me in the past few years and I’d like to…”

He clicked off. He didn’t even want to know what Cherise would like—a part? A job? A loan from his grandmother? A contact? She had a script he should read? A little party at which she would like him to appear to show the public they were still family? The possibilities were endless.

He called Jay Romney. “It’s been twenty-four hours since I made an appointment with you and I have twenty messages on my phone from family members. I never gave them this number. I thought we agreed—no one would be told about the potential for a movie.”

“Are you f**king kidding me?” Jay asked, genuinely shocked. “It just figures. Listen, kid, with all due respect, your family has a lot of friends in low places and your call came into my office. Delete them. I can’t control everything.”

“You’re saying you had nothing to do with this?” he asked.

“Absolutely not! Why would I? I want you for a movie! You think I’d screw that by handing out your personal cell number? Here’s mine, log it. You call me on my cell only. And if you want to reschedule to avoid these people, I’ll do it. Just say the word.”

He keyed in the cell number and then, after a moment of silence, he asked, “No one’s dying, are they? Because I didn’t listen to the messages.”

“No one’s dying that I know of. But in your family…”

“I listened to my mother’s voice mail—she said she heard I’d be in town about a movie and the business hasn’t been kind to her the last few years…and that’s about where I deleted,” he said.

“You’re a sweet kid, Dylan, but you can cut ’em loose. You’re on your own here. I’m not dealing with anyone but you.”

“If any of them are involved in this…”

“I’m not dealing with anyone but you, Dylan. That’s it. On my word.”

His word was probably worth a cup of coffee and little more, but of all the people he had worked with in Hollywood, Jay was probably the most honest and trustworthy. He said, “I’ll see what happens. If this gets out of hand, obviously there won’t be a movie with me in it.”

And then he traveled the rest of the way, with his phone off. He made it to L.A. in the late afternoon, rented a car, found himself a nondescript hotel and watched TV, something he did rarely. He spent Saturday at a mall, buying more appropriate clothes and shoes. He checked his call log and messages, looking for one in particular, but the only one that mattered to him wasn’t there. And of course it shouldn’t be—they’d said goodbye.

Sunday night he drank a little more than usual and when he slept he dreamt of Katie, her warm body against him. Not a sex dream… It was much worse than that—it was more intimate than sex. It was the kind of closeness he had with her. She was there, soft and sweet and laughing, saying smart-ass things, holding him against his worst childhood fears of loss and abandonment.

On Monday when he went to Jay Romney’s office, standing in front of the door, waiting on the street, was Cherise. His mother.

“Dylan,” she said, a bit breathless. “Sweetheart!”

“Why does anything ever surprise me,” he muttered.

Cherise straightened herself. She would be sixty-three by now, older than his father would be had he lived, but she didn’t look a day over forty, though her skin was a little tight across her face. She was too thin, but that would not be too thin for Cherise’s tastes; she worked hard at thin.

“Is that all you have to say to your mother after all these years?”

She hadn’t called him once in twenty years to ask how he was getting along. Never just to talk. She always had an agenda that revolved around him helping her out in some way. For reasons he would never be able to explain, he had achieved the kind of enduring popularity and success his extended family found enviable and it was that for which they reached out to him, the rare times they had. “Pretty much,” he said. “I didn’t listen to all the messages.”

She stiffened as if affronted. “I only said I’d like to see you while you’re in town…”

“There were calls from Bryce and Blaine,” he said. “Why are you circling the wagons? What is it you think I can do for you?”