They stopped for dinner in a shady glade beside a mountain stream. The day had passed in companionable silence. He was grateful that she had not spent the time trying to pry further into his life. He was still baffled by how she'd gotten the information she already had so readily. He didn't want to share himself with anyone, not any more. Yet he'd told her more than he intended, and he hadn't really meant to.

When they entered the glade, she slipped off her pack and set it against a tree. He watched her walk to the stream, squat down beside it and splash water over her face and head. Flipping her hair back, she looked up into the trees above her and took a deep breath. He took off his pack and set it beside hers. Standing, she left the stream and walked back toward him. With a smile, she shook her head, spraying him with the water that was dripping from her hair. "The water feels great," she told him.

He smiled good-naturedly. She got the impression he was an easy-going man and he liked to play...until someone had taken that away from him. "Well, since you made us lunch, I'll make dinner. How does spaghetti sound?"

"Whatever you want, counsellor."

She met his eyes. "Did you forget my name?"

"No. 'Counsellor' just fits you."

"And it makes me less personal, easier to dissociate from." He frowned and looked away. "It's ok, detective. Two can play at that game. Do you want to build the fire or get the food ready to cook?"

"I'll take care of the fire."

"All that anger should make it easy to start one."

He leaned over to catch her eyes, and he saw a glimmer of amusement. "Are you trying to antagonize me?"

"Sorry. Habit."

"Bullshit."

"I have a habit of speaking my mind before I think. If I made you mad..."

"No. Just annoyed."

"I'll have to try harder."

Now she was smiling. He wasn't sure what to make of that.She watched him as heheaded out of the glade to find wood for a fire. Wow, he was easy to annoy, probably because of the current emotional state he was in. If she could get him past that, maybe she could help him get past some of the pain. She couldn't help but wonder what kind of woman could so completely devastate a man like him. Some part of her wanted to meet her, to find out what had driven her to leave him. Part of her felt an unsettling annoyance at a woman who could do this to any man, and she couldn't help wondering if he somehow deserved it. But as devastated as he seemed, and as considerate as he seemed, she could easily see him bending over backwards to please a woman he'd so totally given his heart to.

She retrieved a collapsible pot from her pack and filled it with water. Boiling the water would take care of any microorganisms that might harm them. She pulled out a half-pound package of spaghetti and a foil pouch of sauce. Setting it all down by the packs, she sat on a fallen log at the edge of the glade and waited for him to return with the wood.

He headed into the forest, eyes searching for suitable firewood, mind turning a mile a minute. Dissociate? Is that what he was trying to do, and was it so obvious? He was hesitant to make a connection with anyone, but she was making it damned difficult. And she was right. He was angry. He was furious with himself for driving her away, when all he'd ever wanted to do was pull her closer. How many times had he been tempted to push that stray hair back from her face when he leaned over her shoulder to see something on her laptop screen? How often did his hand hover close, hesitant, only to have him draw back and let the moment pass? How many nights did he dream about her, only to awaken and find his bed empty? He sighed heavily, noticing that his arms were full. He was so used to operating on autopilot, he hadn't even realized he had all the wood he needed. He returned to the glade.

She watched him step from the forest and scan the area for a suitable spot to build the fire. Kneeling in the chosen area, he arranged some of the wood, setting the kindling wood in the center and building the larger wood around it. He walked to his pack, pulling a lighter from an outside pocket, dropping a pack of cigarettes on the ground in the process. He replaced the cigarettes and took the lighter back to the wood. She slid off the log and crossed the glade to squat beside him. After a few minutes, the kindling caught and began to burn. He softly blew on the flames to encourage them to grow and catch onto the larger pieces of wood. "You're very gentle," she said quietly, near his ear.

He looked at her, surprised that she was so close; he hadn't heard her approach. "Um, it won't get you anywhere if you blow too hard. Put out the flame and you have to start all over."

"And that's hard to do...once the flame is out."

He nodded, not sure they were still talking about the campfire. "Yeah, it is."

She nodded. "I know how it is."

"Do you?"

"Why so surprised? You think I've never built a fire before?"

"I'm sure you've built many. I'm just surprised that anyone was able to...extinguish your flame."

Her voice became very soft and sad. "He didn't mean to."

He lightly touched her arm, reassuring. That also surprised her, that he would reach out like that to someone else in the midst of his own pain. Her voice remained quiet as she asked, "What's her name?"

He tensed, withdrawing his hand and returning his attention to the fire. For a minute she didn't think he was going to answer, but he did. "Alex."

"Your wife?"

He snorted. "No. I've never been married."

"A longtime girlfriend, then."

"Um, no. Not a girlfriend at all, really."

She looked at him. "All that pain and she's not even a girlfriend?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "Is dating a prerequisite to being hurt?"

"You do love her."

"That's...incidental."

"So your heart was broken."

"It's more complicated than that. I...don't expect you to understand."

"Why is that? I've already told you I've had my heart broken."

"By someone who never meant to break it. You just seem to me to be more of a heart-breaker."

"Why? Because I'm a pain in the ass or is that a lawyer crack?"

"Tell me you've never broken a guy's heart."

"That has nothing to do with anything. You tell me your Alex meant to break your heart."

"I...I don't know. I have no idea...what her intention was."

"Did she love you?"

"I...I never could read that part of her. I don't know."

"Ok, so you don't think I can understand. Explain it to me. Make me understand."

He looked down at the fire, which was burning nicely. He slowly shook his head and got up, walking across the glade to the stream. She wondered at his retreat into himself. Not a wife, not even a girlfriend, but this woman had deeply hurt him. She couldn't imagine an unrequited love causing this much pain. He seemed like an intelligent guy, not one to give himself over to fantasy--not like this. She was torn. Let him suffer or push him to deal with his pain. In spite of his aloofness, she liked him, and she hated to see him hurt. So she decided to do him a service and give him a push.