Mike Sinclair awoke slowly from his long slumber to find himself in very unfamiliar surroundings. His body ached almost everywhere and he was still rather cold. He could not exactly remember what had happened to him, but he squinted his eyes a bit to see if he could.

He remembered that he had been on his way to a winter cabin retreat for a long awaited vacation. Upon arriving at the ranger’s gate, he'd been told that the road had been closed due to the snowstorm moving through the area. Using his persuasive personality and charm, he told the ranger in no uncertain terms that he had every intention of getting to the retreat and even went as far as to tell him to try to stop him if he dared. Then he put his rented, 4-wheel drive Chevrolet Blazer into gear. He had driven for a little while through a dense forest before he found himself right, smack-dab in the middle of two stone golems that towered over him in all their mountainous magnificence. He’d stepped out of the truck to take a look around and to get his bearings... He could not remember much past that except for the vague recollection of the earth shaking beneath him before the world was suddenly bathed in deafening, blinding, suffocating whiteness. He thought that he had died. He should have known that Fate was only playing yet another cruel joke on him.

Sitting up slowly, Mike pushed his tangled hair out of his face and tried to remember more of what had happened. He did remember images of a dark figure leaning over him. The whiteness of snow seemed to swirl around the figure like an ivory cloak. He remembered seeing blurry images racing past him as if his whole life was passing before him, yet he had been quite unable to see clearly. After that, he remembered mostly feelings and sensations. First, he’d been bitingly cold and almost numb. He had felt as if ice-water was flowing through his veins and arteries instead of warm blood. The pain was paralyzing. Then his blood began flowing again -- not at a fast rate, but quicker so that the warmth had begun to flow through him once again. Then there had been the sensation of silky smoothness lying close to his chilled body at a few different time intervals. With that silky smoothness came warmth, comfort, and a feeling of peace... a feeling he hadn’t felt in a very long time … not since he’d walked away from... well... never mind who he’d walked away from. He sighed.

Now, after who knew how long, Mike was in a strange place not knowing whether or not he was in any danger. What was worse, he suddenly realized, was that his clothes did not seem to be upon his person. Looking around the room, Mike could see no sign of the clothes that he had been wearing. Luckily born into a very observant family, he noticed that in the corner sat his two bags. Slowly, because his body hurt, he unfolded himself from the comfort and warmth of the bed, where he had been wrapped up like a caterpillar in its cocoon, and slowly hobbled over to his bags. Needing something to throw over himself quickly because of his sudden need to shiver uncontrollably, he retrieved his burgundy, terry-cloth robe from the top of the pile and put it on. Then he grabbed some socks and slid them onto his chilly feet.

Being of a curious nature, Mike hobbled from the bedroom to find himself in a hallway leading to a flight of stairs. Descending, he found himself entering a very spacious living room. In it he found a comfortable-looking, plush black couch stretching along one wall. Above this black couch rested a beautiful painting of a white wolf with incredible blue eyes. The background contained a setting sun; its rays stretched across the frozen tundra causing the permafrost to glisten like zillions of tiny diamonds. Mike circled the entire living room facing numerous items that made the room seem very much like a ‘lived-in’ home.

He saw numerous pictures of an African-American family. Sitting in the center of the stone mantle was a large group-picture containing six people: two older people, whom he assumed to be the grandparents, another couple, and two girls. There were separate pictures of the grandparents, the other couple, and the two girls before Mike saw a series of pictures of gray-white huskies. There was one picture however that caught his eye. It was of an African-American woman who did not appear in any of the other family pictures. Mike assumed that was because she had been the one taking the pictures. The reason why the picture caught his attention was because it resembled someone he knew from long ago.

Mike hobbled over to the mantle to get a closer look at the picture. The woman’s face was slender and smooth, her cheekbones high and well-pronounced. Her small eyebrows were slightly arched and stood as sentries on a smooth forehead above a pair of deep brown eyes. Also guarding these eyes were a pair of curly eyelashes that curved and nearly touched the bottom of the woman’s eyebrows. Her small mouth was not smiling nor was it frowning. It just was.

The woman’s long, dark brown hair curved at her shoulders, her bangs resting lightly on her face and temples, parted in the middle. Standing carefully on his toes, Mike looked more closely at the woman’s eyes. There was a deep, hidden sadness in those eyes... A shiver ran up Mike’s spine and he huddled deeper into his robe. Frowning, he turned around to see a very good mounting of a white wolf standing between open French doors. He frowned again. Who would put a magnificent mounting like that in an open doorway? Mike began moving in the direction of the stuffed animal, and when it started growling loudly, he let out an ear-splitting scream loud enough to wake the dead.

Ebony turned off the shower at the same time that Mike released the scream which reverberated through her house. Quickly, she threw on her black robe after quickly drying herself off, and ran into her bedroom to find that her patient was missing.

Oh, my goodness! He must have found Fate!

Ebony ran from her room and sped down the stairs to the living room where she found the man standing on her couch looking as pale as a ghost. Fate was sitting calmly by the fireplace looking at the man as if he had broccoli growing out of his ears or something. Both Mike and the wolf looked at Ebony as she entered the room with her robe resting all lopsided on her body. Both of them were struck with an overwhelming sense of déjà vù when they looked at one another. Then realization struck them both like a bolt of lightning.

"Mike?!"

"Ebony?!"

They spoke this in unison before disbelief settled on them both like a ton of bricks.

"No, no, no! This can’t be possible!" Ebony stammered as she leaned heavily against the wall.

Mike slumped down on the couch and stared at Ebony. "What happened to you? You’ve lost weight! You look great! What are you doing here?" The questions poured from his mouth like water from a faucet.

"I have to be dreaming… or maybe I'm having a nightmare," Ebony mumbled to herself as she pushed her still damp hair away from her face. "He’s just a figment of my over-active imagination."

That’s when Mike slid off of the couch and rushed over to her. "Ebony, it’s me!" With that, he pulled Ebony away from the wall and pulled her into a very tight hug. It would have been the perfect situation: two friends meeting after all these years and very happy to be together again. Except there was one, tiny flaw in the details: Ebony wasn’t responding to the hug. As a matter of fact, she went as stiff as a board when Mike placed his hands on her.

Frowning, Mike pulled away from his friend and even went so far as to take a few steps back. "Ebony? What’s the matter?"

Ebony only stared at Mike with the same expression on her face that was in the picture hanging over the mantle. Then she unglued herself from the wall she had been leaning on and went to close the French doors that Fate had left wide open, so that the heat would stop vacating the premises. Mike watched her intently as she moved around.

I wish he would quit looking at me and stop making me so damn nervous! He knows that I hate being watched, Ebony thought nervously to herself. She locked the doors, but she did not turn around. She could feel Mike’s intense sky blue eyes staring straight into her soul like he always used to do when they were together. She spun around so quickly that her robe parted slightly to reveal smooth, light ebony flesh beneath. Her back was pressed against the cold glass so that goosebumps began appearing all over her body... all over. Mike’s eyes widened noticeably. Ebony, noticing the movement of her robe and of Mike’s eyes, adjusted her robe and recovered herself.

"Why are you looking at me like that?!" she finally asked when she could bare the scrutiny no longer.

Ah... Her voice is still so very smooth... Mike thought. No words formed in his throat however to answer the question that was asked of him.

When Mike did not answer, Ebony moved towards Fate and knelt in front of him. Tell him to stop looking at me! She looked Fate directly in his ice-blue eyes. He’s making me nervous, Fate!

Fate looked deeper into her eyes and then touched his nose to hers briefly before he trotted toward the kitchen. The moment Fate’s nose touched hers, all nervousness left her. She felt no fear, but she still felt a little anxious at confronting this man with whom she’d shared so much of herself over the years that they’d spent together, and who had left her life so suddenly without cause or justification. Taking a couple of logs and some kindling from the basket next to the fireplace, she stoked up the fire and then turned toward Mike who was still staring at her intently.

"Would you like a cup of cocoa? I have a pan warming on the stove," Ebony began softly.

Mike was startled at first, because it had been so quiet in the room before. He only nodded.

"Follow me." She began walking towards the kitchen. Just as she passed by Mike, her movements were stopped when Mike’s hand wrapped around her wrist lightly.

"Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?"

She looked at him with haunted eyes for a split second before she allowed a steel-enforced, titanium alloy, concrete wall to go up. In that haunted look, the words: "As if you didn’t know" revolved around inside of his mind before she finally whispered, "Nothing’s wrong," and walked past him after managing to free her wrist from his grasp.

Mike stared at Ebony’s retreating form in confusion before he moved in the same direction. He wasn’t going to push her into revealing her emotions to him. It probably was a bit more of a shock for her to see him after all these years than it was for him to see her. After all, he was the one who’d walked out of Ebony’s life with no explanations ... never to return.

When Mike entered the kitchen, Ebony was stretching to reach a couple of mugs on the top shelf. Without thought, he came up behind her and grabbed a hold of both of the cups. In order for him to do that, however, he ended up caging her inside of his extended arms. When he straightened up, they were standing very close together. The sparks flying between them were enough to start a conflagration of pent-up sexual tension. When the old feelings began welling up inside of Ebony again, she did the only thing she could do: she escaped. She ducked under Mike’s arm and walked over to the stove where the pan of hot chocolate was resting. Without looking at him, she took a spoon and began to stir the mixture before she turned around to face him.

"The cups?" she asked, raising both of her eyebrows.

Mike, who was still standing by the cupboard where he had retrieved the mugs, stared at Ebony for a second or two before he walked over to hand her the asked-for items. After handing them to her, he went to sit down at the table. He watched her mechanical-looking movements for a while just to study her body language. After a few moments, he frowned a bit.

"So what have you been doing with yourself all these years, Ebony?" he asked deciding that it was time to break the ice that had formed in the living room with that hug.

She cleared her throat slightly before she answered. "What have I been doing all these years?" Her voice cracked slightly as she tried to stop the sudden rush of emotion from overflowing. Clearing her throat again to dislodge the lump that had suddenly formed there, she stated, "A little of this, a little of that. You know how it is..." She continued to stir the hot chocolate.

Well, that had certainly got things off to a wonderful start. Mike scratched his head some as he tried another tactic. "How was graduate school?"

"Challenging."

"Have you done anything with your major? Any job prospects?"

"No."

"What brought you way the hell out here?"

"The death of my aunt and uncle." Ebony said this calmly and seemingly without any emotion.

Now this was getting down-right frustrating. He was trying every available question to start a conversation with her and the woman would not elaborate on any of her answers. Biting on his lower lip, Mike tried one last time to bring Ebony out of the wall she had so successfully built around herself.

She was pouring the hot chocolate into the mugs when Mike’s next question caught her so off-guard that she ended up pouring some of the hot mixture onto her hand. She dropped the pan on the floor.

The question that he had asked was this: "Did you miss me, Kitten?" When the hot chocolate went flying in all directions, he rushed over to her to see if she needed any help.

"Are you okay?"

Ebony held her hand with her other hand. "Am I okay?"

Mike nodded.

"How can you even ask me that question right now when you know good and damn well that I am not okay!"

"Put your hand in some cold water. That should help with the burn a little bit."

"That’s not what I was talking about and you know it. After six years, you suddenly reappear in my life and try to act as if nothing's happened. You walked out of my life, Mike, and I thought it would destroy me. And then, like a ghost out of my past, here you are again probably to walk out of my life again in the same fashion. If you ask me, I’d rather not go through that again." And with those words, she began to exit the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" Mike asked, suddenly fearing that she would leave and never return. He also felt a gut-wrenching pain in his heart at the thought of the pain he knew she must have gone through all those years ago when he'd abruptly ended things.

"I need to get dressed, not that it’s any of your business. I was in the process of finishing my shower when you screamed like a woman in labor," she smiled sardonically at him, though the smile never reached her eyes. Then she continued, "As you can see." She held up her arms so that Mike could see that she was still a little bit damp. Her black robe was clinging to every curve that she had, and it was parted just enough so that some of her cleavage was showing. Her hair was all tangled due to the fact that she'd never had the opportunity to comb it out before the scream.

"I see..." Mike’s focus centered on her cleavage and his eyes suddenly turned a deep sapphire. Seeing this color change, Ebony beat a hasty retreat to her bedroom and locked the door behind her, the mess of the hot chocolate totally forgotten.

Mike was left standing in the kitchen with hot chocolate dripping onto the linoleum floor. His muscles had stiffened up a bit, but he took the opportunity to clean up the mess. After all, he was the one who had caused it. While he cleaned, many images of Ebony danced through his mind. The vision of her naked flesh always sent his mind on a downward spiral to the sewer. He smiled, in remembrance, as he recalled that when they’d been a couple.

"Hey, babe," Mike had whispered softly into her ear. They were standing in her little apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She had been cooking dinner -- a lovely chicken dish -- and he had been watching quietly up until that point.

Dressed casually in a pair of cut-off jogging pants -- which showed a generous portion of her shapely legs, and a white tee-shirt; she looked so sexy standing there chopping vegetables. Mike had been sitting at her kitchen table, just watching, when the urge to wrap his arms around her had hit him like a lightning bolt.