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  “Okay. I like the way you talk. I like the way you look. I want to know more about you. I want to sleep with you. And when I’m with you, I feel.”

  “Feel what?”

  “Just feel.”

  “Those are good answers,” she said after a moment. “Really good answers.”

  “Are you going to give me your five?”

  “I’m still working on them. But in the interest of full disclosure, you should know I’m good on a date, but tend to grade lower on relationships.”

  “I don’t see that. How can you when you’ve had lifelong relationships with your three friends? Layers of relationships with them.”

  “I don’t have sex with them.”

  “That’s an interesting disclaimer, but intimacy’s only a part of relationships that go beyond friendship. It doesn’t define them.”

  “Come on, Carter, sex is a whopper. Not to mention the work and effort that goes into maintaining a relationship that includes it. But just to focus on sex for a minute.”

  “I’m not sure that’s smart when I’m driving.”

  “What if we hit that level, and it’s a bust? What then?”

  “Well, I’d first apply the basic rule. Most things improve with practice. I’d be willing to practice quite a bit.”

  “Cute. But if it isn’t a bust, that’s when things start getting complicated.”

  He glanced at her. “Do you always borrow trouble?”

  “Yes, in this area, I do. I haven’t stayed friendly with any of my exes. I don’t mean it’s all ‘I hate his guts and wish he’d die a lingering death, or at least be doomed to selling toaster ovens for all eternity.’ But after it’s done, we just stop connecting. And I

  like you.”

  He drove for a while in silence. “Let me sum up. You like me, and feel if we have sex and it’s not good, we won’t like each other. If it

  is good, we’ll complicate things and end up not liking each other.”

  “It sounds stupid when you say it.”

  “Food for thought.”

  She muffled a snort of laughter. “You’re a smart-ass, Carter. You’re subtle and sneaky about it, but you’re a smart-ass. I like that, too.”

  “I like that you’re not particularly subtle about it. So I guess this relationship is doomed.”

  She slid him a damning glance, but her lips twitched. When he parked in front of her studio, he smiled at her. “You keep my mind engaged, Mackensie. When I’m with you, and when I’m not.”

  He got out of the car, walked her to the door. “If I called you tomorrow, would that be pushy?”

  “No.” She kept her eyes on his as she reached in her bag for her keys. “I’m thinking about asking you in.”

  “But—”

  “Hey. I’m supposed to be the one who says

  but.”

  “And you’re free to expand on that. But it’s not a good idea. Yet. Because when, if,” he corrected, “we go to bed, it shouldn’t be to prove a point or answer a question. I think it just has to be because we want each other.”

  “You’re a rational man, Carter. I think you’d better kiss me good night.”

  He leaned in, and he framed her face with his hands. Long fingers, she thought, cool against her skin. Eyes soft in color, intense in expression holding hers. A moment, another, so that her heart already raced before his lips brushed hers.

  Gentle, easy, so that her racing heart sighed.

  As her skin, her blood warmed, he drew her closer and deepened, deepened the kiss, a whisper at a time until everything blurred.

  She went pliant, and the long, low sigh she made was surrender. He wanted to touch her, to feel those lovely breasts in his hands, to stroke his fingers down the length of her back, to know the thrill of having her legs locked around him.

  He wanted more than a rational man could.

  He stepped back, contenting himself with a brush of his thumb over her bottom lip.

  “This could be a mistake,” she said. Letting herself in, quickly, she leaned back against the door. And she wondered if the mistake was not asking him in, or knowing that she would before much longer.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MAC PUT IN A SOLID FOUR HOURS WITH THUMBNAILS, Photoshop, prints. The work kept her focused and level. There could be no mind-wandering journeys about sexy English teachers when she had clients expecting—and deserving—her best.

  She concentrated on balancing color, brightening or dulling the saturation to translate the mood, the emotion.

  She sharpened a candid of the bride and groom, both laughing as they charged down the aisle, hands locked together, and blurred the background, everything but the two of them.

  Just the two of them, she thought, wildly happy in those first seconds of marriage. Everything around them soft-focus and dreamlike, and their faces, their movement, their unity vivid.

  It would come rushing back, she thought, other voices, movement, demands, connections. But in this instant, in this image, they were all.

  Pleased, she added noise, just a hint of grain before she tried a soft proof to test her paper. Once she’d printed it, she studied it, searching for flaws.

  She added it, as she sometimes did, to the order placed. A little gift for the new couple. Shifting work stations, she unboxed the combination album her clients had chosen, and began to assemble the pages with images that told the story of the day.

  She repeated the process for the smaller albums and photos chosen by parents.

  Back at the computer, she generated the custom thank-you cards using the portrait the client had selected. She boxed them in units of twenty-five, tied each with a thin white ribbon before taking a break.

  She still had to mat and frame a dozen portraits for the couple’s personal gallery and what they’d chosen as gifts.

  But she’d get it done, today, Mac thought as she stood and stretched. She was on a roll, and she’d contact her client in the morning to arrange pickup or delivery.

  She bent over at the waist, letting her arms hang loosely, and called out at the knock on her door. “It’s open.”

  “You’ve still got no ass.”

  Mac turned her head for an upside-down view of Delaney. “I had a feeling.”

  “Stopped by to drop off some paperwork, catch up with Parker before I headed over to Jack’s to watch the game.” He peeled off his coat, tossed it toward the couch. “So, how was the wine?”

  “Good, thanks, Mr. Cutie.”

  “You and Carter Maguire, huh?” At home, he strolled into her kitchen. She heard the fridge open, then his aggrieved voice. “Mac, you have

  no ass. Why do you only have Diet Coke in here?”

  “So people like you don’t suck down all my supply.”

  She straightened as he came back, popping the top on a can. “Beggars, choosers. Word is you and Carter hooked up because his sister’s a client.”

  “We ran into each other again because of that.”

  “And you flashed him your tits, first chance.”

  She lifted her eyebrows. “Those would not be Parker’s words, which is your source. If you’re going to be such a girl about this, why don’t we sit down and braid each other’s hair while we gossip.”

  “You don’t have enough hair.” He took a slug of the soft drink, grimaced a little. “Blah. Anyway, back to topic. A man’s got to be curious, and mildly suspicious about other guys and his honorary little sister.”

  She went in for her own Coke. “We went out to dinner. According to my data, people have been doing that for several years.”

  “Date two, according to my unimpeachable source. Not including the flashing.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her when she came back in.

  “There was no flashing, only the momentary lack of shirt. Pervert Boy.”

  “I’m known by many names. And your evasions make me wonder if this is serious business.”

  “I’m not evading, and what’s your problem with Carter?”

  “I
don’t have a problem with Carter, other than you’re you and he’s a man. I like him.” With a shrug, he sat on the arm of her sofa. “Always did. I haven’t run into him since he moved back, until last night. I heard he’d been hooked up with Corrine Melton—she worked for a client of Jack’s—and he, that would be Jack, found her a pain in the ass.”

  “What do you know about her?”

  “Aha, so we are serious.”

  “Shut up. Tell me.”

  “Impossible to do both at once.”

  “Come on, Del.”

  “I know nothing, except she irritated Jack and apparently came on to him. While she was still hooked up with Carter. Which I’m now assuming she’s not.”

  “What does she look like? Is she pretty?”

  “Jesus, Mac, now you are being a girl. I have no idea. Ask Jack.”

  Scowling, she pointed to the door. “If you have no juice, take your drink and go. I’m working.”

  He grinned at her, that potent flash of Brown grin. “But I’m having such a good time.”

  “No juice from you, you get none from me.”

  The phone rang. She checked the readout, didn’t recognize the name or number. “Mac Photography at Vows.”

  “Mackensie! Hello from beautiful, sunny Florida.”

  “Mom.” She immediately held a finger at her temple and flicked her thumb like a trigger.

  Del tossed his coat back on the couch. Friends didn’t leave friends in a twist. And if Linda was on the phone, Mac would end up twisted.

  “I’m having the

  best time. I feel like a new woman!”

  “Whose phone is this?”

  “Oh, it’s Ari’s. I left mine in my room, and we’re sitting out by the pool. Or I am. He just went to see what’s taking so long with our drinks. The sweetie. It’s glorious here! I have a treatment soon, but just had to talk to you first, so Ari lent me his phone. He’s

  such a gentleman.”

  Jesus, Mac thought, she’d actually predicted this. “I’m glad you’re having a good time.”

  “It’s been amazing for me. For my health and well-being, my mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. I need another week.”

  Mac closed her eyes. “I can’t help you.”

  “Of course you can! Sweetie, I have to finish this. If I don’t I’ll come back and slide right down again. It’ll all have been wasted, as if you’d thrown your money away. I just need you to clear another thousand. Well, two to be absolutely safe. I need to complete myself.”

  “I don’t have any more to spare.” She thought of the work she’d done, more than four hours of work on a Sunday.

  “You can charge it,” Linda said with a trill that went sharp around the edges. “It’s not like you have to run down here with cash, for God’s sake. Just call the office here with your credit card information, and they’ll do the rest. Simple as that. I’ve already told them you’d be calling, so—”

  “You can’t keep doing this to me.” Her voice wanted to break. “You can’t keep expecting me to pay and pay and pay. I—”

  Mac jolted when Del grabbed the phone out of her hand. “Don’t,” she began, and he cut her off with a look.

  “Linda? Hi, this is Delaney Brown. Sorry, Mackensie’s been called away from the phone.”

  “We haven’t finished—”

  “Yes, you have, Linda. You’ve finished. Whatever you’re pushing her for this time, she said no. Now she’s busy.”

  “You have no right to talk to me this way. You think because you’re a

  Brown, because you have

  money you can push yourself between me and my own child?”

  “No, I think I can do that because I’m Mac’s friend. You have a real good day.”

  He hung up and turned to where Mac stood, misery shining in her eyes. “Don’t cry,” he ordered.

  She shook her head, went straight into his arms to press her face to his shoulder. “Goddamn it, goddamn it, why do I let her do this to me?”

  “Because if you had the choice, you’d be a good and loving daughter. She doesn’t give you the choice. It’s on her, Mac. Money again?”

  “Yes, again.”

  He rubbed her back. “You did the right thing. You said no. Keep saying that. Now I want you to promise me you’re not going to answer the phone if—when—she calls back. If you don’t give me your word, I’m dragging you out of here, forcing you to watch the game at Jack’s.”

  “I promise. I wouldn’t have answered, but I didn’t recognize the number. She used somebody named Ari’s phone and called the business line. She knows how to get to me.”

  “Screen your calls, at least for a while, unless you’re sure who it is. Okay?”

  “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Del. Thanks.”

  “I love you, baby.”

  “I know.” She stepped back, smiled at him. “I love you, too. Go watch football. Don’t tell Parker. If I need to, I will.”

  “All right.” He picked up his coat again. “If you need me—”

  “I’ll call. That’s another promise.”

  She couldn’t go back to work, not yet, not until she cleared her head and could focus again. And the pity party she felt coming on, with balloons and streamers, wouldn’t clear anything.

  Take a walk, she thought. It had worked before, with Carter. She’d see if it worked on her own.

  It wasn’t evening, and it wasn’t snowing, but the air was clear and cold. Everyone else tucked inside, she thought. Tucked in, but close. If she wanted or needed company, she could find it.

  Not now, she thought again, not yet. Remembering the bird feeders, she hiked through the snow to fill them from the lidded can. Running low, she realized as she scooped out feed. Something for the grocery list.

  Ten pounds of bird feed. A quart of milk. A new spine.

  Too bad she couldn’t buy the last on the list at the local market. She’d just have to grow one when it came to Linda Elliot Meyers Barrington.

  After locking the lid back down, she walked to the pond, stepped under one of the willows. There, she brushed off the snow on the bench under the fan of whippy branches and sat for a while. The grounds remained coated in white, but the sun had stripped the branches so trees speared up, winter bones, toward a sky the color of old, faded denim.

  She could see the rose arbor, white as the snow, with the canes twined and twisted, and sharp with thorns. And beyond, the pergola, massed with dormant wisteria.

  She supposed it looked peaceful, color and life sleeping through the winter. But at the moment, at that moment, lonely was the only word that came to mind.

  She rose to go back to the house. She’d do better with work. If she made mistakes, she’d do it over and over until she passed through this mood.

  She’d turn on music, loud, so she didn’t have to hear her own thoughts.

  Even as she opened the door she heard the weeping, and her mother’s sobbing voice. “I don’t know how you can be so cold, so unfeeling. I need your

  help. Just a few more days, Mackensie. Just—”

  And, thank God, her machine cut the call off.

  Mac closed the door, took off her coat. Work? Who was she kidding?

  She curled on the couch, dragged the throw over her. She’d sleep it off, she promised herself. Sleep off the misery.

  When the phone rang again, she tucked into a defensive ball. “Oh God, oh God, leave me alone, please leave me alone. Give me some peace.”

  “Ah, hello. It’s Carter. You must be working, or you needed to go out. Or, ha, you’re just not in the mood to talk.”

  “Can’t talk,” she murmured from the couch. “Can’t. You talk. You just talk to me.”

  She closed her eyes and let his voice soothe her.

  IN HIS TOWNHOUSE, CARTER HUNG UP THE PHONE. THE THREE-LEGGED orange cat he called Triad leaped into his lap. He sat, scratching the cat absently between the ears and wishing he’d been able to talk to Mac. Even just for a minute. If he had, he wouldn’
t be sitting here, thinking about her, instead of doing his Sunday chores.

  He had laundry to deal with, tomorrow’s lesson plans to review. More papers to grade, and the story outlines from his Creative Writing class to read and approve. He hadn’t finished his paper on “Shakespeare’s Women: The Duality.” Or given enough attention to the short story he had in the works.

  Then he was expected for Sunday dinner at his parents’.

  He was mooning over her, and realizing it didn’t seem to make a damn bit of difference.

  “Laundry first,” he told the cat, and poured Triad onto the chair as he himself vacated it. He put the first load in the washer in the claustrophobic little laundry room off his kitchen. He started to make himself a cup of tea, then scowled.

  “I can have coffee if I want. There’s no law that says I can’t have a damn cup of coffee in the afternoon.” He brewed it with a kind of defiance that made him feel foolish even though no one was there to see it. While his clothes washed, he took the coffee back upstairs to the smaller of the two bedrooms, outfitted as his office.

  He began grading the papers, and sighed over the C minus he was forced to give one of his brightest—and laziest—students. He felt a conference coming on. No point in putting it off, he decided, and wrote

  See me after class under the grade.

  When the timer he’d set signaled, he went back down to put the wet clothes in the dryer, load a second batch in the washer.

  Back at his desk, he evaluated outlines. He made comments, suggestions, corrections. Using his red pencil he added words of praise and advice. He loved this kind of work—seeing how his students used their minds, organized thoughts, created their worlds.

  He finished the work, and the laundry, and still had more than an hour to kill before he needed to leave for dinner.

  Casually, he began to search for recipes on the Internet.

  It didn’t mean he’d ask her over for dinner. It was just an in case sort of thing. If he lost his mind and actually followed Bob’s advice, it would be good to have a plan.

  An outline, so to speak.

  Nothing too fancy or complicated, he thought, as

  that would be a disaster. But not too basic or ordinary. If you were going to cook for a woman, shouldn’t you make more of an effort than tossing something in the microwave?