LITMIR.BIZ

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didn’t end up smeared all over her face.

      Cade said, casually he hoped, “Is your dad coming to get you?”

      The gum was forgotten. Rachel and Liddy both directed stares of uniform hostility at him and said nothing. Cade had never thought of himself as easily frightened, but there was something about their instant alliance and the cold blue of their gaze that disconcerted him. He said, determined not to be outstared, “I guess I shouldn’t have asked that, I’m sorry. I hope I’ll see you both again.” Then he pushed open the swing door and stepped outside into the sunshine.

      They won that round, he thought ruefully. Hands down. And why should he be surprised that Lori’s daughters had strong personalities? Lori had never been what you’d call backward.

      But Lori wasn’t going to win the next round. The one that was slated for Monday at noon.

      At five to twelve on Monday, Cade wandered into the aerobics room at the gym. Two or three others were already there, chatting desultorily at the front of the room. Lori was kneeling in the back corner, putting her tapes into the machine. Soundlessly he walked up behind her. “Good morning,” he said. “Or is it good afternoon?”

      Her whole body jerked, then went still. With a deliberation he had to admire, she finished adjusting the controls on the tape deck before she looked around. Her eyes skidded up his long, well-muscled legs, his shorts and loose singlet. Quickly she pushed herself to her feet “Good morning, Cade,” she said. “The weight room’s two doors down. Or had you forgotten?”

      “Unfortunately, I forget very little.” He held out his guest pass. “Thought I’d try aerobics today. One should always be open to new experiences, don’t you agree?”

      “You’re coming to my class?” she said tightly.

      “That’s the plan.”

      She looked as though any number of sizzling retorts were on the tip of her tongue. He watched her swallow them as four more people came through the door. “Fine,” she snapped. “Just don’t overdo it your first day, I’d hate to see you hurt yourself.”

      “Come off it, Lori,” he said softly. “You’d like to see me carried out on a stretcher.”

      “No, I wouldn’t, it would ruin my reputation as a teacher,” she said with a sweet and patently insincere smile. “Enjoy, as they say.”

      He watched her walk away. Today her top was green, her shorts navy. Both were shiny and both clung to all the right places. She didn’t look like the mother of two children. Cade positioned himself in the back row and prepared to pay attention.

      A considerable number of people had gathered in the room by now. At the last minute a middle-aged woman rushed in the door and headed for the back row. Inwardly Cade flinched; it was the woman from the studio, the one where he’d seen the photo of Lori and her two daughters. The woman caught sight of him, gave him a pungent glance liberally dosed with suspicion, and pointedly moved forward a row. This, at any other time, might have amused Cade.

      The class began. Very soon Cade concluded that Lori was very good at her job, no matter what her reasons were for having it. She referred to people by name, she kept up a running stream of encouragement and banter, and she insisted on good technique. The sequence of moves was extremely vigorous, disabusing him of any notions that aerobics was for sissies. The others in the class were accustomed to these moves; Cade was not. More than once he found his arms and legs at odds not only with each other but also with the smoothly orchestrated steps everyone else was taking. Including the big blond student called Tory, stationed once more in the very front row. He, Cade, had been smart to stay in the back, he thought irritably.

      He found himself sidestepping to the left and doing bicep curls while the rest were stepping to the right and had switched to a rapid overhead move Lori was calling the arrowhead. Wishing he had half his father’s coordination—for Dan MacInnis had been an inventive dancer—Cade struggled on. It wasn’t the moment for Lori to look down at him, give him another sweet smile and say in a carrying voice, “Get your legs doing the moves first. The arms can follow. And you can always march on the spot if this is too strenuous.”

      If sweat hadn’t been dripping into his eyes—he hadn’t worn his sweatband figuring he wouldn’t need it for a mere aerobics class—and if he hadn’t been determined to accomplish what students who were roughly half his age were doing with ease, Cade might have thought of a witty retort.

      Just as he was getting the hang of what she was up to, Lori switched to something called the grapevine. “Keep your hips angled forward, not sideways...like this,” she called out. Cade looked at her hips, at their supple movements and delectable roundness, and stumbled out of step again.

      He thoroughly disliked feeling like an uncoordinated klutz, he who rather prided himself on his body’s fitness. He scowled at Lori as his arms alternated triceps and lateral raises, thinking meanly, I bet you can’t bench press 250 pounds, lady.

      Pretty childish. About Liddy’s level. Even if it does make you feel better.

      She was jogging now, jogging as lightly as if she had springs in her heels, carrying the class along on her own energy and cajoling them in a way they plainly loved. This was not the woman he remembered. She wouldn’t have lowered herself to such a mundane task, let alone enjoyed it.

      Some of the stretches in the last ten minutes used muscles Cade hadn’t even known existed; by the time the class ended, his hair was clinging wetly to his scalp and he was in dire need of a shower.

      As Lori ran to the back of the room to get her tapes, he walked over to her. There were patches of sweat on her green top both down her spine and under her breasts; he thought they were one of the most erotic things he’d ever seen. He said truthfully, “I sure know I’ve been exercising. You run a good class—thanks.”

      “It’s my job,” she said dismissively.

      “Got time for a coffee? Or a sandwich in the cafeteria?”

      “No. Thanks.”

      It was time to make his move, the one he’d rehearsed on the way over. “Lori,” Cade said, taking her by the elbow as she would have walked past him, “it must be as obvious to you as it is to me that you and I need to have a talk.”

      Her lashes flickered. She said in a rush, “I have only one thing to say, Cade...although it is important. I’m truly sorry that all those years ago I was partially responsible for getting you fired. Truly sorry. Now let go of me, please.”

      “Partially?” he flashed. “That’s not the way I see it.”

      “Partially. That’s what I said.”

      “Let’s not get hung up on semantics—you got me fired.”

      “It was more complicated than that.”

      “It was very simple. You told Daddy and Daddy fired me.”

      “How very convenient for you that rich rhymes with bitch!” Refusing to drop her gaze, Lori yanked at her arm. “Let go! Because that’s it. There’s nothing else we could possibly need to discuss.”

      He said in a level voice, “Why did you look so frightened the first time you saw me?”

      “Cade,” Lori said, “the past is the past. Dead, gone and buried. I’ve never believed in reincarnation and I’m not going to start now. I don’t want you talking to me. I don’t want you talking to my children. Have you got that straight?”

      “I probably shouldn’t have said anything to Rachel and Liddy...I apologize for that.”

      “I don’t see how you knew who they were.”

      “Come off it—they look enough like you to be clones. Plus I saw a photo of the three of you in the window of a studio downtown. The woman who owns it was in the class this morning.”

      “You mean Sally put that photo on display? I’ll have her hide

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