of the long slender hands playing with the grass, the broad shoulders, the gray eyes. There was something so startlingly handsome about him, as though one expected to see him in evening clothes or playing football. He looked like other Americans Serena had seen in her four and a half years on the Hudson, but he was far more beautiful than any she had seen.
Oddly her thoughts were not unlike what Bradford Fullerton was thinking at that precise moment about her. He was standing alone in his office with the lights off, his jacket cast over a chair and his tie on the desk, looking out at the willow tree. He could still see the sun reflected in her eyes as she handed him half of the orange, and suddenly for the first time in a long time he felt a physical yearning, an overwhelming hunger, his body craving hers, as it had craved no one else's for a long time. He had been home on leave once for a week at the end of the war, and he had made passionate love to Partie, but he had been faithful to her since coming back, and he really had no desire to stray. Until now. All he could think of as he stood there was Serena, the shape of her neck, the grace of her arms, the way her waist narrowed to almost nothing beneath the starched white apron strings. It was insane. Here he was, engaged to the most beautiful woman in New York, and he suddenly had the hots for an Italian maid. But did that matter? He knew that it didn't, that he wanted her, and he didn't just want her physically—he wanted something more from Serena. He wanted her secrets. He wanted to know what lay in the deep mysterious shadows of those huge green eyes.
He stood there for what seemed like hours, staring out the window, his eyes glued to the tree, and then suddenly he saw her, like a vision, a magnificent ghost darting past the tree and then sitting quietly in the darkness, the long hair flowing in the breeze behind her, almost silver in the moonlight, the delicate profile turned up as though to sniff the night air, her eyes closed, and her body shrouded in what looked like a blanket as she stretched out her legs on the grass. He could see that her legs and feet were bare, and as he watched her he suddenly felt his whole body grow tense, as everything within him surged toward the mysterious girl. Almost as though he had no control over his actions, he turned and left the room, closing the door softly behind him, and hastily he ran down the long flight of marble stairs. He walked down the long stately hallway to a side door that he knew led into the garden, and before he could stop himself, he had walked softly across the grass until suddenly he stood there behind her, shivering in the breeze, trembling with desire and not sure of why he had come. As though she sensed him standing there, she turned and looked up at him with wide startled eyes, but she said nothing, and for a long moment he stood there and their eyes met and she waited, and silently he sat down beside her on the grass.
“Were you talking to your tree?” His voice was gentle, as he felt the warmth of her body beside his. He wasn't sure what to say to her, and it seemed foolish, but as he looked down into her face he saw now that it was shimmering with tears. “Serena? What's wrong?” For a long time she didn't answer, and then she shrugged with a little palms-up gesture and a lopsided smile. It made him want to take her in his arms, but he still didn't dare to. He wasn't sure what she would think. And he still wasn't sure what he thought himself. “What's the matter?”
She sighed then, and almost without thinking, she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “Sometimes …”She spoke softly in the cool darkness. “Sometimes it is very lonely … after a war.” Her eyes burned into his then. “There is no one. Not anymore.”
He nodded slowly, trying to understand her pain. “It must be very hard.” And then, unable to resist the questions that always plagued his mind, “How old are you, Serena?”