LITMIR.BIZ

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important stuff to do. They’re important people,” she added.

      “Same here,” Miles said. “Good people, but busy people.”

      Lanie and Miles began to talk a lot after that, about so many things. Their childhoods, their schooling, their families. Things they hoped to do in the future, things they wished they had never done in the past. By the end of an hour together, they were seated at one of the tables in the corner of the sunroom as comfortably as if they were enjoying dinner at a restaurant. Miles had gone to the bar for another drink and returned with not only a glass of wine for Lanie, as well, but a book of matches to light the candle on the table so that the two of them would have some light.

      Gradually, it occurred to Lanie that this was, without question, the most enjoyable evening she’d ever spent anywhere, with anyone. Miles was just so easy to talk to, and something inside both of them connected in a way that felt easy, natural and right. She kept telling herself she needed to get back to the fund-raiser, that her parents would be looking for her. Then she’d remind herself that it was still early, that these things usually lasted till well past midnight and that she could spare a little more time to talk to Miles.

      Unfortunately, just as Lanie was thinking that maybe she wouldn’t go back to the fund-raiser ever again—or anywhere else where Miles Fortune wasn’t—their conversation came to an abrupt halt. Because that was when the fern hanging immediately behind him and just above his head suddenly snapped free of its mooring, sending what looked like its entire contents raining down onto his head, his shoulders and into his jacket and shirt. In fact, she felt more than a little dirt splatter her own face and hair as it cascaded over Miles, skittering over her bare shoulders and working its way down the front of her dress.

      For a moment, neither of them spoke, or moved, or blinked. They just sat there, frozen in the moon-kissed and candlelit darkness, their hands held up impotently to stop what had already finished happening. Or maybe they were surrendering to the inevitable, Lanie couldn’t help thinking, whatever that inevitable might be. In any event, she suspected they both looked pretty foolish. Miles must have thought so, too, because in the next moment, as one, they both began to laugh. Hard.

      Miles, gentleman that he was—however involuntarily in this case—took the worst of the hit, she saw. Where her own dress would probably be fine after a thorough shaking, his jacket and shirt might very well be goners. Little piles of soil perched on each of his shoulders like epaulets, and a veritable pyramid sat atop his head. Without thinking, he gave his hair a good shake, toppling the pyramid and sending a good bit of it down on Lanie. She gasped as she jumped up from her seat and took a few steps backward. Miles halted immediately, standing to help her. But that just sent more dirt flying.

      “Oh, man, I am so sorry,” he apologized. But he didn’t quite manage to hide his grin. “I didn’t mean to get you even dirtier.”

      Instead of being offended, Lanie began to laugh again. “I don’t know that it’s possible for either one of us to get dirtier at this point,” she told him. She looked at the offending planter, still swinging haphazardly behind him. “How on earth did that happen?”

      He turned around, too, to inspect the culprit, and Lanie was surprised to see it hadn’t quite emptied, since there was still dirt trickling out of it. The poor fern, though, was a definite casualty, lying in a heap on the floor behind him.

      “I have no idea,” he said when he turned back around. “Must have had a loose link in the chain or something.” He shook his arms this time, less vigorously than he had his head, and dirt tumbled off of him quite liberally.

      “I guess we should be grateful they hadn’t watered the plants for a while,” she said, fighting another fit of giggles. “Otherwise it might have been a mudslide. I hope you didn’t pay a lot for that jacket.”

      “It wasn’t the jacket that was expensive,” he said.

      “No?”

      He shook his head slowly in response…something that just made more dirt fall to his shoulders and into the garment in question. “No, it was the whole suit,” he said. Thankfully, he didn’t specify a price, but Lanie, who had an excellent eye for fashion, figured it had been at least four figures.

      “What about you?” he said, jutting his chin up in the direction of her person. “Are you going to be able to salvage that dress?”

      She shrugged…and felt the dirt in her bodice shift into her bra. Okay, so maybe she’d taken a worse hit than she’d thought. “What, this old thing?” she asked with a smile, even though she’d only worn the dress once before. “I dust with this.”

      He laughed outright at that and began brushing halfheartedly at his shirt again. “We can’t go back into the party like this,” he said. “Not only do we look a mess, but people will wonder what the hell we’ve been up to all this time. It won’t look good.”

      “And people do tend to gossip a lot after an event like this,” Lanie concurred wearily. She, too, began to brush at her clothing again, but really, when all was said and done, she wasn’t that big a mess. Miles had far more to worry about than she did.

      “Give me your jacket,” she said. “I’ll try to shake out as much as I can. Maybe if you free your shirttail, you can get most of the dirt out of your shirt.”

      “That’s okay,” he said. “I can manage. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you all dirty, too. You go on back. There’s a ladies’ room before you get back to the ballroom. You can get yourself cleaned up in there.”

      “Not until we’ve gotten you cleaned up in here,” Lanie objected. “Come on. There’s no one around. Give me your jacket and shake out your shirt. It will only take a minute.”

      With clear reluctance, he shrugged out of his jacket and handed it to her. She turned away from him as he began to untuck his shirt, in an effort to give him a little privacy, regardless of how innocent the action was. Holding his jacket out at arm’s length, she gave it a gentle shake, but that one movement freed a considerable cloud of dirt, so she turned the jacket upside down, releasing handfuls of dirt from the pockets. She scooped her hand inside each one to free as much of the leftover soil as she could. Then, spreading the jacket open wide in front of her, she started to give it another shake…

      Only to be blinded by a flash of glaring white light from the other side of the window in front of her.

      Three

      No, it wasn’t just one flash of light, Lanie realized as she blinked against the dizzying display, but dozens of them, one right after the other. Flash, flash, flash, flash, flash. Then a brief pause. Then another round. The flashes were so bright, and so fast, and there were so many of them, that Lanie instinctively closed her eyes and pulled Miles’s jacket up over her face to block them.

      She wasn’t sure what happened after that. She heard Miles utter a few choice oaths and epithets behind her; then he dashed between her and the window to block her from view of whatever was on the other side. She started to lower his jacket, but he stayed her hands and jerked the garment back up in front of her again, preventing her from seeing what was going on.

      “Don’t,” he told her in a voice edged with something vicious and dangerous. “Keep your face covered.”

      “What’s happening?” Lanie asked, completely befuddled now.

      Instead of receiving an answer from him, she felt him wrap an arm around her shoulders, his other hand holding the jacket in a way that allowed her to see where she was going but kept her face hidden. He hurried her out of the sunroom, but instead of turning left, to go back to the party—and a crowd of people—he turned right and hurried them both in that direction. Lanie let him do it, figuring he knew more about what was going on than she did, since he’d seized control of the situation so quickly and expertly. They didn’t slow down until Miles was leading them down a narrow corridor, and she could see just well enough through the slightly parted lapels of his jacket to know he was leading her to a men’s restroom.

      For

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