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"You're thinking of that time." She sneered. "But the problem was different. I...." she gasped. "I totally put myself there, was way too familiar, and way too.... Like I didn't know what I wanted exactly, like I wanted.... I kissed you back."

"Yeah. So you're saying you didn't kiss him back?"

"Nope. I didn't. It wasn't the same at all."

"Then why did you run?"

"I'm sorry for hurting him."

"And you're mad at yourself for letting it happen and not seeing it coming in time to avoid it."

"Is that natural?" she blurted.

"Most people don't jump on a plane for Florida and end up in the Caribbean, but yes, I think it's fairly normal to want to take responsibility when things go wrong, or not as you intended them to. It's all right, Trace. Austin is to blame here."

"You would say that! You are just...." She was still fuming and he had to shake his head. He reveled in her quirkiness, the sudden wake up call. She was there!, the girl he remembered, before Raine, the girl he knew from the stage, from the band, from nights in the snow...

"I am not... just...." He returned, still smiling, knowing she could sense it, and not knowing how to hide it. She knew him too well, and heard it in his voice. It irritated her.

"Yes, you are! Inside, just a little, you're putting yourself in his shoes, and you think I over-reacted.... And you think...."

"Go on, tell me what else I think..." he prompted.

But she had stopped talking.

"Trace?"

"I told you I won't hang up on you."

"I guess I don't believe that either."

"Then why.... Why are we planning on spending eternity together? If you can't trust me...."

"Oh, ho!" he chortled. "Don't pin this on me! I think you have hung up on me before, at least answered and then pressed stop when you saw it was me." The semi-flirty conversation was unfamiliar after the last several years of mission and other stuff. They both immediately felt the restraint.

"Why did you call again?" Tracy finally said.

Richard sighed. "To find you and make sure you are okay."

"I'm okay." She said tightly. "I'll call Michael and my dad and let them know I am okay."

He nodded though she couldn't see him. "That would be the best." He felt stilted with her for the first time. No, the second time, that day on the rock in Northern England, during filming, when she was pregnant...he shook himself, memories came too fast for them both. He needed to get off the phone. He wanted her to be the one to hang up. It would be easier on him if she did, right now, he wasn't sure if he could.

"It was nice of you to use your magical powers to locate me for them." she said then, a completely twisted playfulness permeating her musical voice. He shuddered, remembering other times that playfulness had come out. He could imagine the sparkle in her eyes, and was enchanted all over again. A year and a half of worry was dropping from his shoulders. His whole concern had been for her weakness in trial, her fragility in the face of great loss and burden, for so long....to hear that girl again, the one he'd fallen so madly in love with.... Sent waves of excitement through him. He'd weathered so many storms.... So many! And now, when the opportunity to get off the phone for the second time had presented itself, he simply couldn't let go.

"Yeah, well, it's all part of the service ma'am."

"I see." She said seriously. "And what else is part of the service?"

Richard felt that falling sensation the second her words were out. The very second. He could vaguely see the bathroom mirror, and himself in it, his white garment shirt stark against his skin, which seemed white to him from lack of exposure to the sun, but his natural tan did wonders. He checked his eyes, very, unnaturally bright. He knew they would be. It was the first time since he left on his mission that worry about Tracy wasn't the first thing on his mind when he looked in the mirror in the morning. Instead, he felt that anticipation he'd felt the first time he'd encountered her.

"I know how to start your morning fire." He said just as seriously, and with just the right amount of double meaning, he almost could believe he wasn't really flirting outrageously.

"Um, my.... Morning fire. I guess I need a morning fire out here, on the Caribbean Sea. The waves and salt spray, the sun so hot on the tennis court, yeah, a fire would be...."

"I'd like to see you right now." He said softly, closing his traitorous eyes and clapping a hand over them in mock surrender, picturing her.

"Really?" she quipped, enjoying herself.... A hint of rebellion, naughtiness, that 'breaking the rules' together feeling.

"Got a swim suit on?"

"No, just red basketball shorts, and a baby blue small men's T." Her voice was a little breathy now, and close, quiet, as if she were holding the phone closer somehow. "I'd like to see you right now, Richard. Let's see. You woke up when Daddy called you? And you...." She was imagining what he might have done. "You rolled out of bed and made a few calls quietly so as not to wake your Elder Greenie, What's His Name. And now, you're.... let's see, in the bathroom for some privacy. Om.... You're wearing your garments and PJ bottoms. Hot, you are so hot. You've got one hand holding the phone to your ear so you can hear me clearly describing your lean, muscular physique..." She emphasized the words in amusement. "And the other arm... up, above your head, leaning against the door jamb. Yeah, and your eyes were closed, but now.... You're checking yourself out in the mirror with those deep sky blue eyes, fringed with charcoal gray lashes and your cowlick is falling in your.... No, you've got a missionary cut, so your cowlick is.... Standing straight up! Am I close to right?"

"So close it makes me wonder if we wake up together on a normal basis."

"I think about you a lot." She said.

"As much as you think about Blaze Phelps?"

"Oh.... More."

"As much as Archer?"

"That make out session on the beach was nothing." She purred, knowing she hadn't told him yet about Archer, so the only way he knew anything was from looking at a tabloid magazine cover. She'd seen the one in question in the grocery store, with Archer bending over her at the beach, looking for all he was worth like he'd just finished kissing her. The one she'd seen had focused on her inability to care for her children, not her alleged affair with the young singer. Who's taking care of Danny? Was the caption. Had he seen the same one? Well, she'd make him think twice about believing anything he read on the cover of a tabloid.

"It must have really turned him on to make out with you while you were sleeping, with one hand on Danny's leg while he drove his little race car up your arm."

"I wasn't asleep." She said smugly, trying very hard not to laugh, knowing he hadn't just glanced at the photos, but had scrutinized them very carefully to have picked up on those details.

"Really? I could have sworn I've seen that slack jawed expression when you snored in front of my TV."

"I've never snored in front of your TV. You don't own a TV." She laughed outright, a kind of witchy cackle that sent him into a full on bark of accompanying laughter.

"When I get home I'll have to buy one so I can watch you snore in front of it." He chuckled. "I have seen you snore before."

"Not in your dreams, rich and famous." She said haughtily. "I haven't snored since....ever."

"When your head falls back like that, your mouth falls open a little and you... breathe real heavy."

Annoyed as any woman would be, she tried to make light of it, actually enjoying the quiet, illicit banter. "I only breathe real heavy for one reason." She said.

"Making out?" he guessed.

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Yeah, I would." He breathed back at her, heart racing, knowing it was going to be hard to focus today, but unable to stop.

"Well, guess you'll just have to come back to the states to find out."

"Find out if you'll make out with me?"

"Maybe I will, perhaps I won't."

"I kind of thought we were a done deal." He said. "So, making out with you is also a done deal."

"Oh, probably, it is. But you never know. I think you'll have to court me. I won't give in too easily."

"I can't imagine you playing any harder to get than you already have. Marrying another guy was about as hard to get as it goes."

He heard her slight gasp, but hoped she wasn't bristling. Worry flared dramatically. "Trace?" he asked cautiously. "I shouldn't have said that."

He heard her little whimper, and shook his head, pounding his ear into the door jamb like she'd said. How stupid could he be? Certain references were to be avoided at all costs for awhile, at least until he was there.

"Trace?"

"Y-yeah." But the catch wasn't from crying as he'd thought. She was... laughing.

Bewildered confusion snapped him to attention, a cautious, but tormented smile lingering at the corners of his eyes as he pulled at his hair. "I'm sor-"

"Jerk." She laughed. "You should be."

"Did you call me a jerk?"

"I did. Who would say such a thing to me? Are you insinuating that I married the wrong guy?"

"N-no." He hesitated, not sure of her mood, and not acquainted with her playfulness on this level. She'd never been completely free when he'd flirted with her before.

"I guess I have been pretty hard to get, haven't I? Guess it was pretty hard for you at Casey's funeral." She was semi-serious, at least not upset at all, he found no trace of irritation in her tone.

"Really hard." He admitted.

"But it didn't stop you from being my friend." She said and now her voice was not flirty at all, just very serious. "So, I guess you're right, a make out session has been earned. You won't have to court me....much."

He sighed in relief. If he could have seen her eyes.... But he wasn't sure even then if he would know the pain and sorrow-- scarred Tracy from the accepting, healing, ready to move on girl he now had on the phone. "Flowers every Sunday, breakfast in bed, and a warm fire..."

"There you go again with the fire!" she laughed. "I'm on a cruise in the warm Caribbean! It's hotter than blazes out here! Don't talk to me about fires!" she was laughing.

"So, out of curiosity before I really do have to get off the phone, why did you choose the Caribbean? Why a cruise?"

She laughed. "A nice running place where nobody could find me."

"Oh, so you admit you did run away?"

She sighed. "Yeah, I admit it. So... later, when we're... you know... you'll have to just accept that about me."

"And wonder if you're half a planet away when you get mad at me? Heck no, that's not happening. I'll just have to go with you."

"You always do, don't you?"

"Usually it's out in the snow though. Guess you really turned the tables on me this time."

"You still managed to find me really fast, faster than anyone else." She was laughing.

He blew his breath out through his nose, and shook his head. "I'm one up on all of them. I figured you'd run. Go ahead, run. I'll always find you."

"That's actually quite comforting, Richard."

"I told you before, do you remember?"

"When I was at Dad's? Yeah. I remember. I actually remember a lot about that time in our lives."

"In its own way, a weird kind of courtship, huh?"

She laughed. "I guess you could call it that. I never thought of it that way because we were just friends."

"I suppose you could call us just friends, but I think we have never been just friends."

"I could answer that.... But maybe I shouldn't." she said.

****