LITMIR.BIZ

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with ten balls on the table at once. You seem to be deliberately missing the point, changing the subject and confusing the issue. It’s not about bathtubs. I don’t know Ms. Moran well enough to let you stay here. Not that you’ve been invited.”

      “Can’t you tell everything you need to know by looking around?” Michelle said. “You said yourself it looked like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs could come singing out of the woods at any moment. This is not the home of someone of questionable character!”

      “You’re going to be a lawyer,” he groaned. “I just know it.” Jessica noticed he sent another look her way. He was embarrassed, not only by his lack of control over his niece, but also about the fact that he was familiar with fairy tales. Well, it was true that he did look like the man least likely to be familiar with magical princesses.

      Considering how much she had planned to relish his discomfort, she found her plan backfiring. She felt a little sorry for the man. Not much. Not enough to damage her resolve, just a thimbleful of pity.

      “Even if Dopey or Snoozy or Sneezy or whatever comes forward with a character reference, you have not been invited. So…”

      “A character reference?” Jessica repeated. He’d used up his thimbleful mighty fast. Of all the nerve! “May I remind you, you came here? Expecting a miracle? What kind of person wants a character reference from somebody they think can work miracles?”

      She realized that, despite her vow to remain detached, she was feeling a passionate desire to pick up one of her garden shovels and clunk him over his handsome head.

      “Nothing personal,” he said, as if that would take the sting out of it. “My job makes me cynical.”

      “This is not the type of place an ax murderer lives,” Michelle informed him. “I bet she gardens for a living. Right?”

      Maybe a shovel murderer, Jessica thought. “I’m a horticulturist.”

      “You don’t know the first thing about murderers of any kind, Michelle,” he responded, coolly.

      “And you have the inside track ’cause why? Handing out speeding tickets and eating doughnuts has made you an expert?”

      Brian went very quiet. Jessica could see the muscle working in his jaw again, and she knew instinctively he was counting to ten.

      Michelle seemed to realize she had overplayed herself, but her confrontational tone softened only slightly. “Are you worried she might be growing a little hemp among the roses? Is that it? Are you going to shine your flashlight in her eyes and say, ‘are your pupils dilated?’” She turned to Jessica. “He did that to me, you know.”

      Jessica knew that to give Michelle the sympathetic reaction she was looking for might be a mistake, but she let her annoyance at Brian cloud her judgement. “Really?” she said indignantly. “That’s horrible.”

      Brian shot her a look that was not the least bit hard to interpret, and then he returned his attention to Michelle. Despite herself, Jessica was beginning to find his restraint admirable, which was unfortunate, since she really didn’t want to find anything about him admirable.

      “I said I was sorry I did that to you. Don’t you let go of anything?” he asked.

      Not if it could be used to her advantage, Jessica realized. She found this interchange very telling, but she was annoyed by her own less-than-stellar ability to detach. She was not sure how she could want to hit Brian on the head with a shovel and feel just a wee bit sorry for him at the same time, but she knew it was the kind of complication that spelled danger for her quiet little life.

      Still, he just had it so wrong. Michelle wasn’t the kind of girl who would unquestionably accept his authority. Had he been engaging in these power struggles with her for months? Had he won any?

      “You knew Jessica in high school,” Michelle pressed. “You said you saw her do a miracle. Jeez, you’d probably ask Moses for a character reference, even if you saw him part the Red Sea.”

      “I probably would,” Brian said, without apology.

      Michelle changed tactics with head-spinning swiftness. Suddenly, she smiled sweetly, touched her uncle’s arm, blinked up at him.

      “Please let me stay, Unkie. I won’t be a nuisance. I’ll help out. I’ll sleep on the floor. I have to be with O’Henry. I have to.”

      Knowing it would be very unwise to take a side and knowing it would be even less wise to do anything that would put her in close proximity to Brian on a daily basis, Jessica still couldn’t stop herself. Because, the argument aside, she had heard the very real need in Michelle’s voice.

      Jessica saw the truth, shining clearly, rising above all her confusion about Brian. The child needed to be with her dog.

      And Jessica had to help the right thing happen. Yes, she had been hurt by life and hurt by love and some of that hurt could be attributed to this man in front of her. But had she let those hurts make her into the kind of a woman who could turn her back on what needed to be done for a wounded child?

      Michelle was here, now, and so was the dog, and it was perfectly clear they both needed her. She couldn’t turn her back on that, even if it would make her life so much easier and less complicated.

      “Okay,” she said. “Michelle can stay.”

      Brian turned and stared at her. That muscle in his jaw was really very attractive, probably because it worked so hard.

      “Excuse me? I don’t think that’s your decision to make!” Despite his level tone, he was furious, his eyes snapping with anger.

      “I think it would be a good idea for her to stay. I have an extra room.” Jessica lifted her chin to meet his glare. She did not want or need this aggravating man’s approval. Not by a long shot.

      So, even if the look he gave her made her want to retract the invitation and run, she would not give him the satisfaction of having that kind of power over her. Instead, she smiled as sweetly at him as Michelle just had.

      “Now, I’ve been invited!” Michelle crowed.

      Brian glared at his niece and then at her. Jessica was very glad she was not on the wrong side of the law at the moment. She had a feeling he’d have her up against the wall and in cuffs in a heartbeat. She wondered if he would search her.

      The thought, so naughty and so out of character, was a stern reminder of why she should not have done what she just did: tangle her life with his.

      “Could I see you privately for a minute, Ms. Moran?” he said through clenched teeth.

      Michelle rolled her eyes. “This is where he takes you aside and grills you. He did it to my friend Monica’s mom before I could spend the night there. How embarrassing. ‘Mrs. Lambert, are there weapons in your house? Do you use illegal drugs?’”

      “How do you know that?” he snapped at his niece.

      “Mrs. Lambert told me. She thought it was funny. And cute. But I didn’t.”

      He’d obviously had enough of the exchange with his niece because he gave her a look so smoldering that it bought her sudden silence. Michelle could not hold his gaze and scuffed at the dirt in front of her with the toe of her sneaker.

      Jessica felt his fingers bite into her elbow. She should have been insulted by his rough touch, but, unfortunately, it made her think more very naughty thoughts and made her highly aware of the threat he was to her well-ordered world. She was unceremoniously hustled out of Michelle’s earshot.

      He dropped his hold on her elbow, but it stung where he had touched, as though he had branded her with his anger. She found herself looking up into those chocolate-brown eyes. It felt like the years melted away, and she was sixteen all over again, her heart beating too fast, so filled with wanting that it hurt.

      She reminded herself, firmly, that she had banished that girl who wanted things she could not have. Still,

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