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  I resisted the grin that threatened to overtake my much-deserved glower. “Sometimes the heroine—”

  “Jasmine Swoonready Sweetwater,” she supplied rapidly.

  I tugged the pillow higher, leaned against it. “Sometimes she jumps him.”

  “Oh, well, that’s a switch.”

  “Ravages him like a wild bear.” I did smile a little now. Because with Brainy Laney Butterfield in my life, things couldn’t be all bad. But they could still be pretty damn awful. I exhaled, closed my eyes, and felt anger and humiliation burn through me again. “He didn’t deny it, Laney.”

  “Maybe that’s because he knew you weren’t ready for the truth.”

  “Yeah, and maybe it’s because he knocked her up and neglected to mention that little factoid to me.”

  “Have you spoken to him since you threatened to cut his liver out with a lobster pick?”

  “It was his tongue.”

  “How creative of you. Have you spoken to him?”

  I put my hand over my eyes, hiding my face from no one. “He hasn’t called. Or stopped by. You know what that means.”

  “That he’s smart enough to realize a police lieutenant is more effective with his tongue intact?”

  She had a point, I supposed, but—“What if it’s his?” I whispered, as if I didn’t want the world to acknowledge the possibility.

  She sighed. “I guess you figure that out when you know. But maybe a better question is, what if it’s not?”

  I scowled at a bag crumpled near my left knee. It looked a little engorged, as if it might still have a couple gummy bears tucked inside. What harm could a few thousand more sugary calories do me? I reached for the bag. “What are you talking about?”

  “Maybe it’s time to fish or cut bait, Mac.”

  “What?” I asked and watched the bag slip back to the bedspread. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because my fingers were so swollen from the infusion of high-caloric sodium that I could hardly make a fist. “You know I don’t fish. Or . . . bait.”

  “You’re the bait.”

  “Now you’re not even making sense. Are you—”

  “Chrissy!”

  I jerked a little at her perturbed tone. “Yeah?”

  “Either marry the man or set him free.”

  The thought stunned me into silence for a couple beats, then, “Even if I wanted to . . . ” I froze up again, terror tightening my throat.

  “Marry him,” she supplied.

  “Yeah, even if I wanted to . . . do that, wouldn’t he have to be amenable to the idea in order for us to actually . . . ” I searched hopelessly.

  “Get married?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “You don’t think he’s ready for matrimony?”

  “Ready for . . . ” I laughed—crowed, actually, throwing my face up toward the ceiling and cackling like a force-fed laying hen. “We’re still talking about Rivera, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “The dark lieutenant.”

  “Yes.”

  “A man with the attention span of a parsnip and the morals of a . . . duckwit?”

  “Duckwit?”

  “I’m tired,” I said and scrubbed my scrunchy face with a restless hand. “It’s the best I could come up with.”

  She sighed. “Why the Oakenshield?”

  “What?”

  “He took you to one of the classiest restaurants in town.”

  “So?” I asked, feeling my toes curl up beneath the covers like shivering hermit crabs.

  “And wore a suit coat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And was extremely attentive?”

  “I have no idea what you’re getting at.”

  She waited, letting the silence do the heavy hitting. “You’re really going to make me say it?”

  “Say what?”

  “He was going to propose, Mac,” she said.

  The phone slipped from my fingers like buttered spaghetti noodles.

  Three

  Don’t give up, Christina! You can still achieve mediocrity.

  —Sister Clarice . . . not Chrissy’s biggest fan, but not her greatest detractor either

  * * *

  “Mia . . . ” It was eleven a.m. by the time I welcomed the third client of the day into my office. Sometime during my commute to L.A. Counseling, I’d been able to put Laney’s ridiculous matrimony idea out of my mind. The fact that I’d nearly been the victim of vehicular homicide while challenging the 5 had helped drive the conversation from my head. “How are you?”

  Mia Taublib is one of my favorites. Dark haired, fair skinned, and small, with just enough flesh on her bones to keep me from wanting to commit dietary hara-kiri, she was far preferable to the entitled teenager or the narcissistic power couple who had preceded her that morning.

  Shirley Templeton, my stalwart and slightly OCD receptionist, liked her, too. Hence the measure of bonhomie in my voice. “And you must be Tade,” I added, greeting the man who followed her inside. He was tall, handsome, and military straight. Very much like Mia had described him. Reaching out, I offered my hand. He took it in his. A warm, easy handshake with the added bonus of a kick-ass, self-effacing smile. I liked him immediately.

  “Ma’am,” he said.

  Generally, I’m not crazy about being ma’amed but there was a hint of magnolia in his voice, making the word sound charming rather than insulting. I smiled as I motioned toward my comfy client couch, never letting on that I’d been in a junk food stupor just a few miserable hours before.

  To combat the dip in confidence caused by the previous night’s debacle, I’d dressed carefully in a blue wrap dress, snappy coordinating jacket, and trendy ankle boots with heels high enough to make a hippo’s legs look svelte. I’d wrestled my hair into unwilling submission and clipped it into a not entirely ugly updo. Upon checking the mirror above my bathroom sink, I’d decided I didn’t look like the sugar junkie I knew myself to be.

  “I’m so glad you could make it in,” I said and sat down in my swivel chair near the door. “I’ve been hoping to meet you.”

  “Well, I couldn’t hardly skip out,” Tade admitted. “Not when you’ve helped my gal here so much.”

  I watched him for a second, then glanced at Mia. She was quiet this morning, and I wondered . . . had I helped her? So much? Despite my verbalized skepticism about Laney’s assertion that I’m intuitive, I like to think I’m just that. At least on some level. But the truth was, even after months of sessions, I hadn’t quite gotten a handle on Mia’s situation. Hadn’t quite figured out why she paid me for our conversations. Her life seemed pretty good, relatively stable. She had what sounded like a nice home, a baby she adored, a husband who adored her, and enough disposable income to keep them in diapers and CoverGirl; she was always meticulously made up, so that her sporadic bouts of adult acne were barely visible. Her bobbed hair was shiny, and her ensemble, a pale pink dress with a high waistline and three-quarter sleeves, looked great on her.

  Tade and I made small talk for a minute, allowing me to get the lay of the land. While Mia worried at a fingernail with the thumb of her other hand, we discussed L.A. weather (as exciting as rock salt), the stock market (about which I know nothing), and babies (about which I know even less). But we finally got down to it.

  “So . . . ” I said, swiveling my chair a little as I crossed one half-bare leg over the other. I’d considered wearing hose with my uptown ensemble, but I’d sooner take a vow of chastity than feel the constraints of that elastic garrote around my still-engorged midsection. “How long are you home for, Tade?” He was a member of the U.S. Armed Forces. That much I knew, but little else. Mia’s lack of forthcomingness had made me wonder, on more than one occasion, if he was involved in some kind of special ops. Seeing him, as upright and self-assured as any romance novel hero, made me almost certain he was.

  He glanced fondly at his wife, then reached across the couch for her hand. Their fingers joined. “I’ve only got a few days. Just long enough to
get some things squared away.”

  “Oh?” I leaned back in my chair. “What things are too round?”

  He chuckled a little, a nod to my stellar sense of humor. “You know. Those little things Mia can’t quite get a handle on alone.”

  His wife’s lips twitched the slightest degree. My antennae quivered, fully engaging my senses for the first time in hours. Some people assume therapy is all about listening to the client’s words, but body language is often far more loquacious.

  I gave Tade a brow raise, then added a modest head tilt. The Mia Taublib I had come to know was talented, intelligent, and funny. When she’d first moved to L.A., she’d taken a few small but well-received parts in some fairly significant features. More recently, however, she’d decided to become a full-time mom. She was, in fact, basically raising their son unassisted. To my way of thinking, that’s tantamount to Wonder Womanhood, which caused me to question why she came to me. Oh sure, she was a little insecure, maybe. A little uncertain of herself sometimes. But judging by the previous night’s debauchery, I was pretty sure that, of the two of us, I could gain considerably more from therapy than she could. “Does Mount Whitney need moving or something?” I asked.

  A shadow crossed Tade’s face, a dash of ire and skepticism that marred his affable likability for the first time.

  “Your wife’s a very capable woman,” I explained. “I didn’t know there was anything she couldn’t handle.”

  “Oh . . . ” He chuckled. The shadow I’d seen in those blue-diamond eyes winked away. “She’s a wonder, ain’t she? She tell you she drove Junior all the way cross-country to celebrate his birthday with her mama?”

  “She did.” In fact, we had discussed the idea at length a few weeks prior to her excursion. Apparently, taking a high-energy toddler alone on a road trip is not for the faint of heart. But Mia hadn’t developed a strong support system since moving to L.A. and missed her mom. Some women do, I guess. Not me, of course, but that’s just because I have the kind of mother who usually eats her young long before they get a chance to miss her . . . or escape. “In Tennessee, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “Tullahoma. ’Bout eighty miles from Chattanooga. That your idea?”

  “I beg your pardon?” I asked, wresting my thoughts from my cannibalistic progenitors.

  “Mia says the trip was your suggestion.”

  That wasn’t exactly how I remembered the discussion, but I sat quietly, watching him and listening to her. Her silence, her increasing nerves. “Yes,” I said finally. “Mia was lonely. With you gone so much of the time, it can be difficult for a new mother . . . for anybody, really, to adjust to life so far from family and—”

  “See there,” he said and leaned back with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s one of the things my wife can’t quite get a handle on.”

  “Go on,” I said.

  “I mean, I get lonely, too.” He softened his voice, squeezed Mia’s hand. “You know that, don’t you, baby?”

  She nodded, a quick bob of her head. “Yeah. It’s just . . . my family’s only seen Tade Jr. a couple a times. Once at his baptism and once—”

  “But that ain’t the point, is it, sweetheart?”

  “No.” She ducked her gaze, shot it back to his. “No, I guess not.”

  He smiled. She followed suit. I seemed to be the only one not grinning like a chimpanzee. “I’m sorry,” I said, Spidey sense tingling. “But what is the point, exactly?”

  “There’s a reason we moved here from Tullahoma,” he said.

  Now we were getting somewhere. “And what is that reason?” I asked.

  I glanced from one to the other, maintaining an intelligent silence. Believe me, there are few things as smart as remaining mute.

  “Tade didn’t think . . . ” Mia paused, changed course smoothly, though her tone was a little edgy. “We didn’t think growing up near my family would be the best situation for Tade Jr.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?”

  “They can be . . . ” A blush of pink stained her cheeks. “I mean, sometimes—”

  “Her brother-in-law made a move on her.” Tade’s tone remained level, but there was a chip of ice in his eyes.

  “Grant didn’t mean—” she began, but he cut in again.

  “So what did happen, then? You come on to him?” Tade’s color was high suddenly and Mia’s pale, as if the hue had washed from her to him.

  She cleared her throat. “I don’t think we have to discuss that now.”

  “Isn’t that what you gals do here? Talk about things that are bothering you? Or maybe his attentions don’t bother you so much.”

  “I didn’t come on to Grant,” she said. Her voice was quiet, her shoulders hunched as if bracing for a blow. I tensed, too, suspicions shifting into overdrive. She’d never exhibited bruises, but I realized suddenly that I often didn’t see her for several weeks after her husband’s sporadic visits. And maybe the so carefully applied makeup wasn’t to cover acne flare-ups after all.

  “I know you didn’t, honeybee. I know.” Tade stroked her hand with his thumb. “But don’t you see? We had to get away from all that.”

  “Yeah, but . . . I mean . . . Sadie left him. Grant and her ain’t even together anymore.”

  “But she married him, didn’t she?”

  “She made a mistake. People make mistakes.”

  He scowled a little, looked as if he might question that assertion, but turned to me instead. “Don’t get me wrong. Sadie . . . her sister . . . she’s all right. Flighty, but all right.”

  “She’s not flighty.”

  “Come on. A stewardess? It’s the definition of flighty,” he said, and glancing at me again, laughed at his own wit.

  Mia pursed her lips.

  “Come on, baby,” he said. “That’s no kind of life for a married gal. Away from home all the time. Truth is, maybe that’s why ol’ Grant strayed in the first place. That or because she was screwing ’round on him.”

  “She never did.” Anger battled feebly with the anxiety in her eyes.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do too.”

  “Enlighten me, then,” he said. “Tell me why Grant came sidlin’ up to you when I was away serving our country.”

  “All he did was invite me to dinner.”

  “Knowing his wife was gonna be gallivanting off to Reno or some such. So tell me how that would have gone down, Mia. After a couple appetizers . . . a few drinks. I mean, it ain’t like ol’ Grant’s the king of self-restraint and you’re the . . . ” He swept a hand dismissively toward her. “The damned duchess of self-discipline.”

  Mia stiffened but didn’t speak. She’d curled in a little. Her arms were crossed against the slight roundness of her belly, but her legs remained perpendicular to the couch, pretty sandals flat on the floor.

  “Let’s just slow down for a minute here,” I said. “Address one issue at a time. You believe Mia’s brother-in-law made advances toward your wife. Is that correct, Tade?”

  His eyes were narrowed. “He was always watching. Always leering at her.”

  “He liked me.” Her tone had become wheedling. She swept a fallen lock of hair behind her ear. “But I never did nothing with him. Never would. You know that, baby.”

  “So you declined his invitation?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I mean, when I found out Sadie was going to be gone, I called him up, said I couldn’t make it.”

  I nodded, believing. “And why was that?”

  “What?”

  “Were you uncomfortable at the thought of being alone with him?”

  “Well, yeah, I guess. That and . . . ” She darted her gaze toward her husband. “I didn’t wanna make Tade . . . unhappy.”

  What had she been going to say? “And that would have made you . . . ” I, too, glanced at Tade. “Unhappy? Knowing she was alone with another man even if she had no interest in that man?”

  He shifted his attention to me. “You married, ma’am?”


  There was that word again, but now it seemed short on charm and long on derision. “We’re discussing you right now, Mr. Taublib.”

  He grinned, as if privy to a secret I hadn’t heard and wouldn’t understand even if offered the opportunity. “Well, if you was, you’d know a man don’t want his wife to be pawed by some paunchy treehugger with a snotty attitude and bad hair.”

  Tade did have good hair, I admitted. It was the rest of him that I was beginning to think might suck the big one.

  Mia straightened, a modicum of sass shining through. “I told you, Grant never touched me.”

  “Well, maybe if you’d lose a couple pounds you woulda had more luck with that.”

  Her gasp was nothing more than a faint inhalation. I managed, by sheer self-restraint, to stifle mine. She rose to her feet, slowly, resolutely.

  He stood more rapidly. “I didn’t mean it like that, baby,” he said.

  “Listen,” she said as I rose, too. “I think I’m gonna head home. I’m not feeling—”

  “I’m sorry.” He crooned the words. “You know I think you’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”

  “Maybe I’ll see you next week,” she said to me, but he was taking her arms in his hands, turning her toward him, face a devout mask of sincerity.

  “That’s why I’m so crazy jealous, honeybee. I love you so much!”

  Her expression looked stiff, frozen.

  “And you love me,” he reminded her.

  She said nothing.

  He grinned, bending his knees a little in an attempt to obtain eye contact. “You love me, right?”

  “Sure.” Her voice was very low, very flat.

  “So what if you’re a little overweight and the house is kinda a mess sometimes? Nobody’s perfect, right?”

  Well, holy fucking shit, I thought, for sure one of us wasn’t. And regardless of my own glaring shortcomings, I wasn’t referring to myself.

  “Let’s go home, baby.” He rubbed her arms up and down. “I’ll make it up to you.”