Christy was never as glad to see anyone as she was to see George. She rode up beside him and stuck like glue, trying not to notice the abrupt way Nate Lang made his departure. She was still shaking inside from what had happened.
“Are you all right?” George asked when they stopped to water the horses on the mountain trail.
“Of course,” she said brightly, brushing back her disheveled hair.
“You look funny,” he said, frowning. “Upset.”
“I almost fell off my horse,” she lied. “It unnerved me. But I’m all right now. Are you?” she added, remembering his fall.
He smiled sheepishly and adjusted his glasses, an action that Christy found all too familiar, as they slipped down his nose. “Well, actually, that was a planned fall. I’m good with horses, but I thought you might notice if I got hurt.”
“Of course I noticed,” she chided gently.
He cleared his throat, toying with his horse’s reins and looking at them instead of her. “Christy, I like you…a lot.”
“I like you, too, George,” she said gently. She put a hand on his forearm. Nathanial Lang was right, she thought as she studied the flustered young man. It was better to be honest with people. “George, I have to tell you that I’m going to be married when I go back to Jacksonville. I hadn’t made up my mind when I came out here, but I sort of had it made up for me.”
He looked wounded for a moment, then he got himself back together and straightened. “I’m sorry, for myself. He’ll be a lucky man. Have you known him long?” he added, and forced a smile.
“Since I started teaching,” she said. “He teaches sixth grade at the elementary school where I work. He’s…he’s a good bit older than I am. He’s divorced and he has three sons. They’re all in high school, but they like me and I like them.”
He tried not to show how dismayed he felt. Surely Christy deserved better than that! “You’ll have one big family, what with his kids and the ones you’ll have together,” he said cheerfully.
She seemed to wither before his eyes. She even looked momentarily older. “Oh, Harry doesn’t want any more children,” she said. “He’s made sure he won’t have any, so there’s no question of…” She turned away, hating the thought of never holding a child of her own in her arms. It was too painful to think about. “We’d better go.”
George helped her to mount and then got on his own horse. What she told him was enough to keep him depressed all the way back to the ranch.
Christy refused to go on the overnight camp out. Nate went, and she was glad to have the recreation room pretty much to herself. She was so engrossed in a book that she hardly heard Mrs. Lang come in and sit down across from her.
“You’d have enjoyed the camp, Christy,” the small woman said, smiling at her gently. “It’s quite something, the campfire on the desert and the taste of freshly brewed camp coffee. Our foreman, Terrance, plays guitar and he has a marvelous voice.”
“I didn’t really feel up to it,” she said, and it was the truth in several ways. “I got pretty sore from the ride earlier today.”
Mrs. Lang’s dark eyes were persistent as they searched the younger woman’s face. “Nate hasn’t said two words all day. He snapped at me when I asked if he was going camping, and he stayed in his study until it was time to leave. When he found out you weren’t going along, he used language I won’t even repeat. It got worse when George volunteered to stay behind with you. I think Nate might have roped and dragged him with them if he hadn’t changed his mind.”
Christy flushed, fumbling with the book. “George is a nice boy. But I explained things to him this afternoon. I had to make him understand that…well, that there was no chance of our being more than friends.”
Mrs. Lang smiled. “I had an idea that you’d have to speak to him eventually. I assume your affections are engaged elsewhere?” she fished delicately.
Christy nodded. “I’m getting married when I go back to Florida.”
Mrs. Lang dropped her dishcloth and bent to pick it up, her expression astonished. “I had no idea that you were engaged,” she said haltingly.
“I’m not,” Christy told her. “I came out here to think things over. I changed the way I look, but not the way I think and feel,” she added sadly, lifting a ravaged expression to the older woman. “I’m still old-fashioned and full of hang-ups and unsuited to the modern world.”
“In other words, you don’t sleep around.”
In spite of herself, Christy laughed at the twinkle in the other woman’s eyes. “No, I don’t sleep around,” she agreed. She leaned back against the sofa. “Men don’t really want marriage anymore. They don’t need it unless they want children or belong to some conservative organization that likes settled executives. It’s not that easy for even a pretty woman to find a husband, but it’s doubly hard for an unattractive one. I can’t live a breezy, rootless existence with only a career for comfort. I want a home of my own and children, even if they aren’t my own,” she said firmly, for her own benefit. “I’m twenty-five. If I don’t marry while I have the chance, it might never come again.” She looked up. “I don’t want to live alone until I die.”
“Tell me about this man you’ve decided to marry.”
Christy did, her eyes dull and lackluster. “He’s almost forty,” she added. “But he’s a kind man, and he’ll give me security and a good life.”
“Do you love him?”
“I’m very fond of him,” Christy said hesitantly.
“Do you want him?”
She thought of Nate’s mouth on hers, his hands holding her against him with passionate need, and she closed her eyes. “I can endure that part of the marriage.”
“Oh, my dear,” Mrs. Lang sighed heavily. “My dear, it’s more than just endurance. Men know when you feel nothing. It will hurt your husband. Eventually, it will kill your marriage. It isn’t fair to either of you to marry without desire.”
“The way my life is going, I can have either but not both,” she said with a humorless laugh. She looked up. “Mrs. Lang, I’ve done a bad thing. I’ve pretended to be something I’m not, and now I’m having to pay for it. I wish I’d stayed at home and been satisfied with what I had.”
“If everyone took that attitude, America would never have been discovered,” Mrs. Lang returned. She leaned forward and patted Christy’s hand. “Don’t worry so, child. Let each day take care of itself. You still have a week to go, you know.”
“I thought I might go home Monday…”
“No!” Mrs. Lang stood up. “Don’t you dare. Running away from a problem never solved it. Besides, you’ve already paid for your holiday. The least you can do is stay and enjoy it.”
Christy wasn’t sure that it was the right thing to do, but in her heart, she didn’t want to leave Nate yet. She wondered if his mother had guessed how she felt about him. She was a wise little woman with keen eyes, and she didn’t miss much. It was flattering that his mother didn’t want her off the Lang ranch. Since she didn’t, it blew up Joyce Ann’s theory that Nate was a mother’s boy. No, he wasn’t. Not by a long shot. But he would never be Christy’s, either. He’d as much as said so. Every day she remained here would be painful and too long. But running wasn’t really her style, either.
“I suppose I should stay,” Christy said finally. “It would leave the others in a bind if I go early.” She forced a smile. “And you’re right. Running doesn’t really solve things, I guess.”
“That sounds more like it,” the older woman replied. “Now I have to get back to my dishes. Why don’t you have an early night? Nate mentioned that you wanted to go to church with us in the morning?”
“If you don’t mind, Mrs. Lang, I think I’ll pass. This time,” she added, trying not to give too much away.
But Mrs. Lang was shrewd. She had a fairly good idea of what had happened. “I understand. Another time, perhaps. Goodnight, Christy.”
Christy smiled gently. “Goodnight.”
She knew it was cowardly to back out of church because she couldn’t face Nate after what had happened the day before, but it was too much to ask. She was too ashamed of herself. He said that she’d led him on, and maybe she had. She hadn’t realized that she was doing it, that was what made it so terrible. She was a greenhorn, all right, in just about every respect.
She got up the next morning after a sleepless night fraught with erotic, violent dreams that kept her tossing all over the bed until dawn. She dragged herself up and took a shower. Then she glared at herself in the mirror, wondering if she shouldn’t go whole hog with her repentance and turn herself back into the pitiful wallflower she’d been before she came out here. But that would be silly, she decided, and it wouldn’t bother Nate. It would just make people feel sorry for her, and that was the last thing she wanted. But she didn’t go to a lot of trouble with the careful makeup she’d used before, and she didn’t spend half an hour curling her hair with the styling rod.
She decided to give breakfast a miss, because she might run into Nate. Then she decided to give lunch a miss for the same reason. She had some cookies in her purse. She ate those and drank some water, hating her own cowardice. This wasn’t like her, really it wasn’t, but her pride and her heart had never been crushed so terribly.
When she didn’t come out for lunch, Nate was disturbed because he knew she hadn’t had breakfast. She couldn’t starve herself, for God’s sake! He felt more guilty by the minute for the way he’d hurt her the day before. He should have been a little less cruel, but then, hindsight was a great asset. He wondered how he was going to bear being around her for the rest of her stay, seeing that hurt look in her eyes and knowing he’d put it there. But then, she shouldn’t have flirted with him so much, he told himself. And there was still the matter of those clumsy antics to get his attention. She’d asked for it. He had to keep believing that, or he was going to go crazy.
He went into the dining room where guests were going through the buffet line and started to fill a plate for her when he encountered George holding two.
“I thought I’d take Christy something,” he told Nate. “She’s feeling kind of low. I guess the man back home called and upset her or something, because she was really depressed yesterday. I don’t think she’s even come out of her room. I haven’t seen her at all.”
Nate felt as if he’d been frozen in his boots. “The man back home?” he prompted.
“The one she’s going to marry,” George said miserably. “He’s forty and settled, and she says he’ll look after her—Here, Mr. Lang, you’re about to spill that chicken…”
Nate set the plate on the table and walked out of the room without speaking. He found himself, eventually, out on the desert behind the ranch, standing bareheaded in a stand of spreading creosote bushes in the dirt. The wind whipped through his hair and he felt it, but it hardly registered. Christy was going home to marry someone. She’d been engaged all along and she hadn’t told him. She’d let him take her out and make love to her, and then she’d fought free and started spouting excuses.
Was she a virgin? Or was it just guilty conscience because she was betraying the man she’d promised herself to? He wanted to jerk up a creosote bush and beat the desert with it. It might help alleviate some of his bad temper. The woman was driving him crazy! Well, let her go home and marry her settled man, he didn’t care! He’d be glad when she was out of his hair and in someone else’s, he told himself. Of course he would!
He was so angry and irritable that he locked himself in his study for the rest of the day and didn’t even go in to the office. In fact, he didn’t even stop working to eat. Let her marry her settled fool. He didn’t give a damn.
* * *
Christy avoided the house all day, having an early night. Bless George for bringing her food, because she’d rather have starved than have to face Nate until she’d gotten her nerves settled. George had admitted that he’d told Nate about Harry, and she imagined what Nate was thinking now. He probably had a good picture of her as a two-timing Jezebel. She couldn’t win for losing, she thought miserably.
Sure enough, Nate looked at her the next morning as if he hated the sight of her. She was wearing her jeans and a white embroidered smock top for coolness and comfort. She’d put her hair up and she hadn’t used any makeup at all. But if she’d hoped to look plain again she didn’t succeed. Her face looked young and innocent with her clear complexion, and her hair in its soft bun, leaving her nape bare, gave her a vulnerable air. Nate found her every bit as attractive now as he had when she worked at her makeup and her hairdo and dressed to the hilt. That made him feel even worse. He strode toward his car and went to his office without one single word to her, or to anyone else.
George stuck with her when they went out to the dig, encouraging and kind. Why, oh, why couldn’t she have given her heart to him? He wouldn’t throw it in the sand and stomp on it the way Nate had!
It was a long day, as Mondays always seemed to be, and the heat was oppressive. She was glad when they were able to go back to the ranch to have lunch under the palo verde trees. But when they got there, everything was in a frenzy. Mrs. Lang was nowhere in sight and one of the maids was trying to set the buffet table, muttering to herself in rapid-fire Spanish.
“What’s wrong?” Christy asked gently.
But the answer came in Spanish and Christy had only a little French to her credit. She smiled apologetically, going out to sit with George.
Mrs. Lang, looking harassed and haunted, came out of the house just as everyone lined up for the buffet.
“What’s wrong?” Christy asked gently.
“Nate,” came the reply. “There was a cave-in at one of the mines this morning. He was in it when it happened, part of an executive tour.”
Christy went stark white. “Is he alive?” she asked, her voice shaking.
Mrs. Lang studied the young face for a long moment and then she smiled gently and touched the thin shoulder. “Yes, he’s alive. Very much alive. Just a little bruised and scratched, but the doctor wanted him to spend the rest of the day in bed, to make sure there are no complications.”
“Oh, thank God.” Christy bit back tears, embarrassed at the way she’d blown her cover. She shook her head to clear the tears, glad that she and Mrs. Lang were standing apart from the archaeological group, so that no one could see her face.
“I’ve got to go to town and get some prescriptions filled for him,” the older woman said with a calculating stare. “Could you sit with him for me?”
“He wouldn’t like that, Mrs. Lang,” Christy said quietly. “It would be better if you asked someone else.”
“No, I don’t think so.” She took Christy by the hand and led her firmly down the hall and into Nate’s room, where he lay smoldering in his bed with his chest bare and the sheet lying precariously across his lean hips.
“I’ve asked Miss Haley to sit with you while I go to town for your prescriptions, Nate,” Mrs. Lang said, pretending innocence. “I’ll have Nita bring a tray so you can have lunch while I’m gone. I won’t be long.”
She was out the door before Christy could argue any more, before Nate could voice the words hanging on the tip of his tongue. He glared at Christy from cold slate eyes, a slash across his forehead and another across his cheek making him look even more dangerous than before. The gashes had been treated with antiseptic, and the one on his forehead was stitched. It would probably leave a scar. There was a bandage on one shoulder, white against the dark tan of his skin. He looked bruised and a little groggy, but formidable just the same.
“I’m sure one of the men wouldn’t mind sitting with you…” she began hesitantly, so shy with him that it was painful just to talk to him.
“Sit down,” he said. “I won’t bite.”
She colored as she slid into the chair near the bed, sitting stiffly on the very edge of it with her hands folded in her lap.
He studied her with more interest than he wanted to show, from the color in her cheeks to the rapid movement of her blouse. He made her nervous. He could see her eyes darting reluctantly over his bare, hair-roughened chest and away, as if the sight of him fascinated her. Once it would have amused him, even flattered him. But now he knew the truth about her, and he hated her attention.
“What’s his name?” he asked, drawing up one knee under the white sheet to rest his wrist on.
“His…name?” she faltered.
“The man who’s waiting for you back home. The one you’re going to marry,” he returned, his voice cutting.
“Oh. Him.” She looked down at her hands. “His name is Harvey White, but most people call him Harry. He’s forty, he teaches sixth grade, and he’s…settled and mature.”
He was also fifteen years older than she was, he thought angrily. Too old. Of course, he himself was twelve years her senior. He pushed that thought to the back of his mind and glared at her.
“A bachelor?”
“No,” she replied. “He was married. His wife left him to marry another man. He has three teenaged sons. They’re very nice,” she added helplessly.
His jaw tautened as he stared at her. “A readymade family. What about your own kids, how will they fit in?”
“We won’t have any,” she said, refusing to look at him. “Harry had an operation. He…doesn’t want any more children, he said three was enough for us to look after financially.”
“Oh, my God,” he ground out. “You little fool, is that what you want?”
She lifted her face, aware that most of the color had drained out of it. She had a little pride left. “I’ll have a secure life. I might not have made a good mother. Some women aren’t cut out for it.”
He was certain that she was. There was a nurturing quality about her, a tenderness, that a child would sense and respond to. He hated the thought that she wouldn’t have children. It wounded him.
“There are other men in the world,” he said shortly.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said sadly. She smiled. “I’ll be fine, Mr. Lang, you don’t need to be concerned about me.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said, his voice harsh as he stared at her. “My name is Nate.”
She didn’t know how to answer that, but she didn’t have to. Nita brought in the tray and set it on the table by Nate’s bed. There was coffee and tea and cups with cream and sugar, a platter of cold cuts, salad and dressing and fruit, with two plates and utensils so that Christy could make whatever combination they wanted.
Nate spoke to the little Mexican woman in her own tongue, very fluently. She laughed and left them.
“I want coffee, black, and salad with ham and cheese and Thousand Island dressing,” he said, leaning back on his pillows.
She almost smiled at his assertive tone. He was, at least, consistent. He never pulled his punches, even when he ordered lunch. She fixed his plate and handed it to him, putting his coffee cup and saucer within easy reach.
She fixed herself a fruit salad and coffee, also black, and went to sit in her chair.
They ate in a companionable silence. When they finished, she collected the plates and stacked them on the tray, then poured second cups of coffee.
“How did the cave-in happen?” she asked.
“Damned if I know. One minute the ceiling was overhead, the next I was wearing half of it,” he said simply. His dark eyes narrowed as he searched her face. “I don’t spend a lot of time in the mines, but the occasional inspection is a necessary part of my work.”
“Yes, I suppose it would be,” she said. She sipped her coffee.
“I don’t like your hair like that, Christy,” he said unexpectedly.
She steadied the cup that was trembling in her hands. “I’m sorry, but I don’t wear it to suit you.”
“Christy.” He said her name, savoring it. “What’s it short for?”
“Christiana,” she said. “I was named for my grandmother.”
“It’s pretty.” He stared at her until she felt like a butterfly on a pin. “Get up and close the door, Christiana,” he said, his voice husky. Despite what he knew about her—perhaps even because of it—she stirred him to his bones. He wanted nothing more than the feel, the taste of her. It was suddenly exciting to know that no other man had touched her. He knew instinctively that even this man she was going to marry had never been allowed the intimacies he had. It made him feel a foot taller.
“I won’t,” she said quietly. She closed her eyes, so that the sight of him that way, his skin dark against the white sheets, his face sensually inviting, wouldn’t tempt her. He had nothing to offer except an affair, and she wasn’t built for affairs, even with a man she’d grown to love.
“Afraid of me?” he asked, his voice deep and soft and slow as he watched her.
She lifted her haunted eyes to his. “Please stop it,” she asked softly. “I can’t play the game. I’m not brave enough.”
He wasn’t taking no for an answer. His lean fingers went to the sheet and he smiled at her in a way that made her nerves leap. “Close the door, or you’re going to get an eyeful,” he said, and moved the sheet so that it inched down his ribcage.
She couldn’t believe he’d do it, but she knew he didn’t make threats. “That’s not fair,” she accused.
“Live dangerously. I might only want to talk.”
“Really?” she asked in disbelief.
“Are you that conceited?” he murmured, letting his eyes run over her as if she hardly interested him at all. “You really aren’t that desirable, honey,” he lied.
She flinched and got to her feet. “All right,” she replied. He’d cut her pride to the bone, but she wasn’t going to let the hurt show. She went to the door and started to go through it.
“Do it,” he threatened, “and I’ll follow you, just as I am.”
That would be interesting, she thought, having a naked man follow her out to the tables. But they were all men out there and she was the only person who was likely to get embarrassed.
She closed the door firmly and turned, leaning back against it. “You’re no gentleman,” she said shortly.
“That’s a fact. Come here.”
She hesitated. But he stared at her and the sheet inched down again.
“It’s blackmail!” she accused. But she went, her face scarlet. She could see enough to embarrass her already, despite the fact that he was a little blurry at a distance.
“And I thought you were sophisticated,” he said, shaking his head as she approached him warily. “My God, I was blind as a bat, wasn’t I? It sticks out all over you.”
“What does?” she queried.
He caught her hand and jerked her down beside him on the bed. “Your chastity,” he said. He drew her hand to his hair-covered chest and pressed it there. “Take your hair down.”
“Please…”
“Come on, honey,” he said gently. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. Mother won’t be gone that long, and I’m not going to do anything you’ll be ashamed of later. Okay?”
She still didn’t quite trust him, but his nearness was working on her will power. Again. She lifted her hands to her hair and let it loose, so that it curved gracefully around her shoulders.
He reached up. His strong hands lifted and turned her across him, so that she was lying beside him on the cool, crisp sheets.
“Nate, don’t,” she whispered, her eyes pleading with him.
“Life is too short to settle for crumbs, Christiana,” he said quietly. His eyes fell to her soft mouth. “I want the whole cake.” His mouth settled gently on hers, probing, coaxing her lips to open for him, so that he could taste their warm fullness. He arched over her, one hand sliding under her back to lift her even closer while the kiss grew slower and harder and then, deeper.
She stiffened. His head lifted and he looked down into her eyes.
“Why are you afraid of that?” he asked softly. “Deep kisses won’t make you pregnant.”
“I don’t…want to be that intimate with you,” she said miserably. “You’re just playing!”
His fingers curled into her thick hair and tugged. “Like hell I’m just playing,” he murmured. “Has Harry held you like this?” he asked suddenly. His slate eyes blazed up dangerously and his hand tightened in her hair. “Answer me. Has he?”
“No, but…”
“Have you let him touch you the way I did the other afternoon?” he persisted.
“Please, you’re hurting my hair.”
“I want to know if you’ve been intimate with him,” he breathed roughly.
“I don’t…feel like that with Harry,” she blurted out.
He could feel himself tautening, but with pure pleasure, not with anger. He searched her face with eyes that glittered. “And you’re going to marry him?” he asked coldly.
“I’ll learn,” she said mutinously.
He touched her soft mouth with his free hand, bending over her with silent intent. “You don’t learn desire,” he said softly. “Either it’s there or it isn’t. You feel it for me, don’t you?”
She reddened. “I won’t stay here and let you… Nate!” she gasped.
“You won’t what?” he asked, as his hand smoothed deliberately down her body, trespassing under the waistband of her jeans to stroke her smooth, flat belly. “Go ahead. Tell me.”
But she couldn’t. Her mind was in limbo. She stared up at him helplessly, too entranced to even struggle.
He liked that helplessness. His hand smoothed back up, under her embroidered smock top to the lacy covering of her bra. He traced the whirl of lace, watching her face color, feeling her breath quicken.
“This is what you like most, isn’t it?” he murmured, and his hand slid gently under the lace, to touch her bare skin, to trace the hard nipple that was screaming her response. “You like me to touch you here. But you like my mouth more than my hands, don’t you, Christiana?” he whispered, bending. “Even through the fabric, it drives you mad…”
It did. She whimpered at the feel of his mouth on her. Her fingers clung to his thick hair and she shivered with the fire-hot brand of his mouth even through two layers of cloth.
“To hell with this,” he ground out. He found the fastening underneath her and pushed the offending barrier out of his way, jerking up her smock so that he could find her with his mouth.
It had never been like this, so intense, so heated. She felt the hungry mouth fasten on her breast and she began to weep with reaction. The pleasure was almost pain in its intensity. She clung to him, pressing closer, begging for his touch.
He lifted his head, pausing to look down at his handiwork with blazing eyes before he lifted his gaze to lock with hers. She looked loved, he thought dazedly. Her misty pale green eyes were half-closed, her face a study in absolute surrender. He thought he’d never seen anything half as lovely in his life.
“Can Harry give you that?” he asked huskily.
“Don’t,” she pleaded in a broken whisper. “Don’t…play with me. I can’t help it.”
He let out a rough sigh. “You might not believe it, but neither can I.” He rolled away from her, his face hard and drawn.
She turned her head and only then noticed that the sheet had come away. He was as beautiful as a sculpture, all long elegant lines and powerful muscle. Even where he was most a man, he was beautiful. She couldn’t see him with a great deal of clarity, but her eyes found him fascinating, dark skin with a tangle of black hair all over him, the very epitome of masculinity.
He felt her eyes and turned his head, watching her gaze wash over him. It aroused him to see her pleasure in his nudity, and the arousal took a physical form that she saw with dawning realization and then flaming embarrassment.
“You don’t have to be afraid of it,” he said gently when she averted her gaze jerkily. “It’s a reaction I can’t help, but I won’t hurt you.”
“I’ve never seen a man like…that,” she whispered.
“Yes.” Her reactions were too drastic to be faked. She was virginal all right, and her innocence excited him so much that he could hardly control the need to drag her under him and slake his thirst. But that would be wrong. “Christy.”
She darted a glance at him, feeling threatened.
“It’s all right to look,” he said, his voice slow and tender.
She hesitated, but curiosity was too strong. Her eyes slid over him and back up again, her face scarlet. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered, her voice hopelessly adoring.
The look on his face fascinated her. He frowned slightly, his eyes searching and curious. It wasn’t a comment he’d expected from her.
Because she didn’t understand the look, she was afraid she’d put her foot in her mouth again. She sat up, rearranging her disheveled clothing with hands that trembled.
He sat up, too, turning her to him. He didn’t speak, but his eyes did. They were eloquent. He turned her across his legs, so that she could feel him intimately against her. When his mouth settled over hers again, she opened her own willingly, adoringly, and gave him complete access. His tongue thrust inside and she went limp in his arms.
“I can’t take any more,” he whispered, his voice deep and shaken as he lifted his head. “Cover me.”
He held her up so that she could tug the sheet over his hips, concealing what he couldn’t help.
He held her then until the faint tremor went out of his powerful body, until he could breathe normally again. “I want you,” he said at her ear. “You’d better cut your trip short and go back to Florida.”
She bit her lower lip. “Why?”
“You know why,” he said with a bitter laugh. He tilted her face up to his mocking eyes. “My mother raised me to be a gentleman, but what I feel isn’t so easily controlled. This time I mastered it. Another time, I might not. If you want to go to your marriage bed a virgin, you’d better get as far away from me as you can.”