LITMIR.BIZ

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to his senses.

      “Wait a minute, will you, Cindy?” he said when his red-haired quarry headed back through the hedge.

      “Don’t have time, I left the iron on.” She had her own style of haughty, and it made Steff look like a rank amateur.

      “I won’t take but a minute of your valuable time,” he said before he could check the sarcasm.

      But she was gone, and he refused to chase after any woman.

      Maura was strolling over to join them. Steff waved her away, sighed and touched her hair again. “Croquet is such a childish game, isn’t it? I don’t know why I bother.” Her Southern accent took on a finishing-school polish, which was absurd considering the school she’d attended, Salem College, was just over in the next county.

      Hitch heard the Stephensons’ side door close quietly. Another opportunity missed. Dammit, he didn’t know why he even bothered. As soon as Mac told him who she was, he should have gone over there, spoken his piece, and by now it would be over and forgotten.

      Well…maybe not forgotten. Snatches of the past were beginning to return. A redheaded waif watching wistfully from the sidelines like a kid outside a candy store window. He’d given her no more than a passing thought at the time, but now he wondered why she’d never been included.

      Because she’d been just a kid? She wasn’t that much younger than Steff and Maura. Probably just naturally shy.

      But it hadn’t been shyness he’d glimpsed in those blazing eyes. There’d been fear, followed swiftly by anger that first time. And pain? Yeah, that, too. He’d mentioned her limp to Mac, afraid her mad dive to escape his wheels had caused it, but Mac told him she’d always had a slight limp, especially when she’d been overdoing.

      Evidently, she’d been overdoing.

      Forget her, man. You told her you were sorry just after it happened. Let it go.

      We’re on the final countdown, Cindy thought gleefully as she dashed up the back stairs carrying an armload of clean towels and a heavy tea tray. She was sorely tempted to tell Charlie’s mother, a second cousin whose husband owned a bank or something, that towels could be used more than once without laundering, and that there was a perfectly good kettle and a supply of tea bags in the kitchen.

      Tonight was the rehearsal party. Tomorrow was the wedding, and then, glory hallelujah, it would all be over. The guests would go home, Aunt S. would leave for the mountains to recuperate, Steff and Mac would be off on their honeymoon, Maura would be getting ready to head north and conquer New York.

      And as soon as she got her car running again, little Cindy would be free to go back to her regular Monday job. The job that actually paid cash instead of just room and board. Another six months and she should have reached her savings goal, if a new alternator didn’t cost too much, and then it would be goodbye Mocksville, hello world!

      A few minutes later, after freeing a snagged zipper, collecting a bundle of lingerie to hand wash, a trayful of dirty dishes and an empty pizza box from the room Steff’s friends shared, she headed down the front stairway—the back one was so steep she avoided it whenever she could, even though Aunt S. always frowned to see her coming down into the front hall with a load of laundry or dirty dishes.

      “Hi,” someone called softly when she was halfway down. Her carefully balanced load tilted precariously.

      “Steff’s not here, but I think Maura might be around somewhere.” Maura was always around somewhere if there was a chance of seeing Hitch. Cindy had heard them talking about him last night—Steff, Maura and Steff’s girlfriends. The consensus was that he was a real catch, a certified hunk and sexier than what’s-his-name who had starred in that hit movie that Cindy had never got around to seeing.

      She could have added her own opinion, but she didn’t think it would be appreciated.

      “Watch it—here, let me take that tray.”

      “I’ve got it,” she said, and grudgingly added her thanks.

      “You need a dumbwaiter.”

      It stumped her for a second, but then she blinked and said, “Oh, you mean one of those elevator gadgets. If they come in mahogany with stained glass windows, I might get Aunt S. to have one installed. She doesn’t care for modern conveniences.”

      “But then, she’s not the one being inconvenienced, is she?”

      Cindy couldn’t help herself. Her eyes sparkled, her lips twitched and she bit back an irreverent retort. Hitch was grinning openly. Had anyone mentioned that he had gorgeous teeth?

      And a sense of humor?

      Would that crew even recognize, much less appreciate, a sense of humor?

      She knew in explicit detail what they thought of his narrow behind and his broad shoulders, and the way his slacks rode low at his waist and sort of bunched up at the fly. Maura said she’d seen him in swim trunks, and he more than lived up to his advertising.

      They’d all groaned and then giggled—even Steff, who wasn’t a giggler, and who shouldn’t be thinking that way about her fiancé’s best man.

      Cindy, who’d been delivering another round of diet colas at the time, was tempted to mention his nasty disposition and his recklessness behind the wheel, but she’d learned a long time ago to keep her opinions to herself.

      “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about what happened the other day,” he said when she reached the bottom step.

      At close range he was even more lethal than he was behind the wheel of a car. Funny how she could remember so much about him after all these years. Such as the way he’d always been so patient with the pesky kids from across the street. Such as the way he’d always risen whenever Mama Mac came into a room.

      Such as the way all the girls, herself included, had been in love with him then. Not that he’d ever even noticed her.

      And while the intervening years might not have improved his driving skills, they’d done nothing but enhance his dark good looks. Fortunately, Cindy had long ago outgrown her brief infatuation, since the days when she used to gaze at him through the hedge whenever Mac brought him home from college.

      “Look, I’m sorry, but I really don’t have time to talk now. Besides, there’s nothing to talk about. You’re a rotten driver, and I’m lucky as the dickens, and that’s the end of that, okay?”

      “Not okay. I’m usually an exemplary driver, but—”

      “No excuses, I told you I don’t have time.” She edged past him and headed for the kitchen.

      He was two steps behind her. Where in the world was Maura? she wondered. Where was everyone else? Usually, the house was brimming with people, all with their separate demands. “Shouldn’t you be practicing your role as Mac’s best man?”

      “Tonight’s the rehearsal.” The festivities were being held immediately following the rehearsal instead of after the ceremony, as the bride and groom had to leave right after the wedding to make their connections to Bermuda. “Tell you what, save me a dance at the party afterward and we’ll call it even.”

      She gave him an exasperated look that in Hitch’s estimation did nothing at all to diminish the effect of those steady blue eyes. “I never—”

      “Never say never.” Hitch’s smile, meant to be disarming, faltered as it occurred to him that she might not dance because she was self-conscious about her limp. He started to tell her it was barely noticeable, and thought better of it. “Look, we could just sit and talk, maybe share a glass of champagne and some cake—how about that?”

      Cindy always hated it when people were embarrassed by her limp; otherwise, she seldom even thought about it. More often than not when people noticed they assumed she’d hurt her ankle, or had something in her shoe. Sometimes she said she had. It was no big deal. Didn’t even bother her except when she was rushed off her feet,

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