“Dat?” Katie whispered.

Aaron held up a hand, as if to ward her off. Then he picked up the coffee mug and turned away, heading out of the barn with the stooped shoulders and heavy gait of a much older, much wiser man.

“Have you had enough?”

Coop spoke over the litter of dishes on the table between them, and Ellie could not answer at first. She couldn’t eat another bite, but she had not had enough. She didn’t think she could ever get enough of the buzz and the chatter, the heady mix of society perfumes, the sound of cars jockeying about on the street below the rooftop restaurant.

Ellie watched the light from the chandelier spring rainbows from her glass of chardonnay, and she grinned.

“What’s so funny?” Coop asked.

“Me,” Ellie said, a laugh bubbling up from inside her. “I feel like I ought to keep checking my shoes for manure.”

“Five weeks on a farm doesn’t quite make you Daisy Mae. Besides, your dress is considerably more flattering than bib overalls.”

Ellie fluttered her hands over her waist and her hips, reveling in the feel of the silk shantung against her skin. She never would have believed Leda capable of picking something so simple and sexy off the rack at Macy’s, but then again, lots of things had been surprising her lately. Including the sidelong glances that Sarah and Katie had given each other at lunch, clearly in on a secret they did not care to share with Ellie. And including the unexpected arrival of Coop, taking her breath away with his dark suit and silk tie and small bouquet; thoughtful enough to have carted along Leda as a conspirator who came bearing formal wear and high heels and who was resolved to play warden for Katie while Coop took Ellie to dinner in Philadelphia.

The wine-it made her limbs loose and liquid, made her feel that a hummingbird had taken the place of her heart. “I can’t believe we drove two hours to a restaurant,” Ellie murmured. It was a gorgeous one, to be sure, with a Saturday-night orchestra and the lights of the city rising in its floor-to-ceiling windows-but the thought of Coop traveling all the way to the Fishers’, and then all the way back to Philly, made Ellie feel things she was not ready to feel.

“One and a half hours, actually,” Coop corrected. “And hey, it took some time to find a place that served decent chow-chow.”

Ellie groaned. “Oh, please, don’t mention that dish.”

“Maybe some pickled tripe would hit the spot?”

“No,” she laughed. “And if you even think the word ‘dumpling’ I won’t be held accountable for my actions.”

Coop glanced at her empty plate, which had once had a perfectly grilled piece of swordfish upon it. “I take it the fruits of the sea aren’t big in the Fisher household?”

“If Sarah can’t put it in a thick, rich sauce, it doesn’t get to the table. I’m going to gain so much weight there I won’t fit into my suits when it comes time to go to trial.”

“Ah, but that’s the point. You have to get fat enough for the judge to believe that you never slipped away from that farm, not even for a low-cal lunch.”

Ellie stretched in her seat like a cat. “I like slipping away from the farm,” she said. “I needed to slip away. Thank you.”

“Thank you,” he said. “My dinner companions are never this entertaining. You’re certainly the first one who’s mentioned manure.”

“You see? Already I’ve lost my edge. Maybe I ought to do what Katie suggested.”

“What did Katie suggest?”

“She said-let me make sure I get this right-that if I knew I wanted a good-night kiss, I should make sure to bump up against you on the turns, and comment on your horse.”

Coop burst out laughing. “This is what you two talk about?”

“We’re just a couple of girls having a slumber party.” Ellie smiled widely. “Have I told you what a fine horse you have?”

“You know, I don’t believe you have.”

Ellie leaned forward. “Quite the stud.”

“I’ve got to get you drinking more often.” Coop stood, tugging on her hand. “I want to dance with you.”

Ellie let herself be dragged upright. “But that’ll mean the ball’s going to come to an end,” she moaned. “I’ll turn back into a pumpkin.”

“Only if you keep eating Sarah’s dumplings.” Coop pulled her close, and began to turn her slowly around the dance floor.

Ellie rested her head beneath his chin. Their hands were twined like ivy, growing up between their hearts; and his thumb grazed the bare skin of her shoulder. She closed her eyes as his lips grazed her temple, and let herself be led in gentle circles. For a moment she stopped thinking of Katie, of the trial, of her defense, of anything but the incredible heat of Coop’s hand on her back. The melody stopped, and as the musicians put down their instruments for a break and couples left the parquet floor, Ellie and Coop remained in each other’s arms, simply staring.

“I think I might like to see where you stable that horse,” Ellie murmured.

Coop regarded her carefully. “It’s not much of a barn, as barns go.”

“I don’t mind.”

And he smiled so brilliantly that she basked in it, that she did not notice how the temperature had dropped even after they were outside and driving to his apartment with the windows rolled down. She sat as close to him as the console would allow, their hands tangled on the stick shift. When they reached his home, Coop turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, apologizing from the very first moment. “It’s sort of a mess. I didn’t know-”

“It’s all right.” Ellie stepped into the room carefully, as if too heavy a footfall might shatter the magic. She took in the glass of cola, flat, sweating a ring on the glass coffee table; the psychiatric journals littering the floor like lily pads; the running shoes knotted together at the laces and hung over the rungs of a ladderback chair. None of the furniture matched.

“Kelly got most of it,” he said quietly, reading her mind. “These were the things she didn’t want.”

“I think I remember the coffee table from college.”

Ellie walked to the bookshelf, to the state-of-the-art stereo system. “They say you can tell a lot about a person from their CD collection,” Coop said. “You trying to figure me out?”

“Actually, I’m looking at the wires. It’s been a while since I’ve seen so many of them.” She touched her finger to a small photograph, one that showed Ellie hanging upside down from the limb of an apple tree, a limb above the one Coop himself had been sitting on to take the photo. “I remember this from college, too,” she said softly. “You still have it?”

“I dug it out, recently.”

“You kept telling me to stop laughing,” Ellie murmured. “And I kept telling you to take the damn picture before my shirt crept up again and I flashed the world.”

Coop grinned. “And I said-”

“‘What’s the matter with that?’” Ellie interrupted. “What was the matter, Coop?”

“I’ve thought about it,” he said, loosely linking his arms behind her. “And for the life of me, El, I can’t remember.” He slid his hands up her sides. His kiss, open-mouthed, breathed fire into her. Ellie tugged his shirt from the back of his pants and skimmed her palms over the muscles of his back, pushing closer and closer until she felt his heart balanced just above hers.

They fell together onto the couch, scattering a stack of papers. His hands tangled in her hair, pulling her down, as she worked at his belt and zipper. Coop tightened his embrace. “Can you feel that?” he whispered. “My body remembers you.”

And just like that, she was eighteen again, pinned like a butterfly beneath Coop’s confidence. Back then, she’d loved him so much and so well that it took months to realize that what Coop made her feel was not necessarily what she wanted. Back then, she had told him a lie to let him down easy, one that hurt all the more because it was so far from the truth: that she did not love him enough. “I can’t do this,” she said out loud, the words that she didn’t have the strength to utter when she was in college. She pushed at Coop’s chest, at his legs, so that she was sitting up on the end of the couch, clutching the bodice of her dress together.