LITMIR.BIZ

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wanted her? She wasn’t a woman?

      For two years Connor Reilly had been coming to the shop she’d inherited from her father when he passed away five years ago. For two years she’d known Connor and listened to him talk about whatever female he might be chasing at the moment. She’d laughed with him, joked with him and had always thought he was different. She’d believed that he’d looked beyond her being female—that he’d seen her as a woman and as a friend.

      Now she finds out he didn’t even think of her as female at all?

      Fury erupted inside her while she futilely tried to reign it in. Not once in the past two years had she even considered going after Connor Reilly herself. Not that he wasn’t attractive or anything. While he continued to talk, she glanced at his profile.

      His black hair was cut militarily short. His features were clean and sharp. High cheekbones, square jaw, clear, dark-blue eyes that sparkled when he laughed. He wore a dark-green USMC T-shirt that strained across his muscular chest and a pair of dark-green running shorts that showed off long, tanned, very hairy legs.

      Okay, sure, he was gorgeous, but Emma had never thought of him as dating material because of their friendship. Now, she was glad she hadn’t gone after him. He would have laughed in her face.

      And that thought only tossed gasoline on the fires of anger burning inside her.

      “So you can see,” he was saying, “why it’s so nice to have this place to hang out. If I want to win this bet—and I do—I’ve gotta be careful.”

      “Oh, yeah,” she murmured, still watching him and wondering why he didn’t notice the steam coming out of her ears. Of course, he hadn’t noticed her in two years. Why should he start now? “Careful.”

      “Seriously, Em,” he said, and stood up, turning to look down at her. “Without you to talk to about this, I’d probably lose my mind.”

      “What’s left of it,” she muttered darkly.

      “What?”

      “Nothing.”

      “Right.” He grinned and hooked a thumb toward her office, located at the front of the garage. “I’m going for a soda. You want one?”

      “No, but you go ahead.”

      He nodded, then loped off toward the shop. She watched him and, for the first time, really looked at him. Nice buns, she thought, startling herself. She’d never noticed Connor’s behind before. Why now?

      Because, she told herself, he’d just changed the rules between them. And the big dummy didn’t even know it.

      While the sun sizzled all around her and the damp, hot air choked in her lungs, Emma’s mind raced. Oh, boy, she hadn’t been this angry in years. But more than the righteous fury boiling in her blood, she was insulted…and hurt.

      Just three years ago she’d allowed another man to slip beneath her radar and break her heart. Connor had, unknowingly, just joined the long list of men who had underestimated her in her life. And this time Emma wasn’t going to let a guy get away with it. She was going to make him pay for this, she thought. For all the times she’d been overlooked or underappreciated. For all the men who’d considered her less than a woman. For all the times she’d doubted her own femininity…

      Connor Reilly was going to pay.

      Big-time.

      A few hours later Emma was still furious, though much cooler. In her own house, she had the air conditioner set just a little above frigid, so a cup of hot tea was enjoyable at night. Usually she found a cup of tea soothing. Tonight she was afraid she’d need a lot more than tea.

      Even after Connor left the garage that afternoon, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him and about what he’d said. Anger had faded into insult and insult into bruised feelings, then circled back around to anger again.

      There was only one person in the world who would understand what she was feeling. Alone at home, she set one of the last remaining two of her late mother’s floral-patterned china cups on the table beside her, picked up the phone and hit the speed dial.

      The phone only rang once when it was picked up and a familiar voice said “Hello.”

      “Mary Alice,” Emma said quickly, her words tumbling over each other in her haste to be heard, “you’re not going to believe this. Connor Reilly told me today that he doesn’t think of me as a woman. I’m a ‘pal,’ A ‘mechanic.’ Remember I told you about that stupid bet he and his brothers concocted?” She didn’t wait for confirmation. “Well, today he tells me that the reason he’s hanging out at the garage is because he feels safe around me. He doesn’t want me, so I’m neutral territory. Can you believe it? Can you actually believe he looked me dead in the eye and practically told me that I’m less than female?”

      “Who is this?” An amused female voice interrupted her.

      “Very funny.” Emma smiled, in spite of her anger, then jumped up off the old, worn sofa in her family’s living room and stalked to the mirror above the now-cold fireplace. “Weren’t you listening to me?”

      “You bet,” Mary Alice said. “Heard every word. Want Tommy to call out the Recon guys, take this jerk out for you?”

      Emma grinned at her own reflection. “No, but thanks.” Mary Alice Flanagan, Emma’s best friend since fifth grade, had married Tom Malone, a Marine, four years ago and was now currently stationed in California. It was only thanks to Mary Alice that Emma had ever discovered the mysteries of being female.

      Emma’s mother had died when she was an infant, and after that she’d been raised by her father. A terrific man, he’d loved his daughter to distraction, but had had no idea how to teach her to be a woman. Mary Alice’s mother had filled the gap, and when they were grown, Mary Alice herself had given Emma the makeover that had helped her attract and then win the very man who’d left her heart battered and bleeding three years ago.

      The two women stayed in constant touch by phone and e-mail, but this was one night Emma wished her oldest and best friend was right here in town. She needed to sit and vent.

      “Okay then, if you don’t want him dead, what do you want?” Mary Alice asked.

      Emma faced the mirror and watched her own features harden. “I want him to be sorry he said that. Sorry he ever took me for granted. Heck, sorry he ever met me.”

      “You sure you want to do this?” her friend asked, and the worry was clear in her voice. “I mean, look how the thing with Tony worked out.”

      Emma flinched at the memory. Tony DeMarco had done more than break her heart. He’d shattered her newfound confidence and cost her the ability to trust. But that was different and she said so now. “Not the same situation,” she said firmly, not sure if she was trying to convince herself or her friend. “I loved Tony. I don’t love Connor.”

      “You just want to make him miserable?”

      “Damn skippy.”

      “And your plan is…?”

      “I’m gonna drive him crazy,” Emma said, and she smiled at the thought of Connor Reilly groveling at her feet, begging for just a crumb of her attentions.

      “Uh-huh.”

      “I’m going to make him lose that bet.”

      “By sleeping with him?”

      “Sleep’s got nothing to do with my plan,” Emma said softly, and ignored the flutter of something warm and liquid rustling to life inside her.

      Two

      Saint Sebastian’s Catholic Church looked like a tiny castle plunked down in the middle of rural South Carolina. Made from weathered gray brick, the building’s leaded windows sparkled in the morning sunlight. Huge terra-cotta pots on the front porch of the rectory,

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