LITMIR.BIZ

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moved to the screen door before answering, keeping his voice low, assuming Amelia must be asleep. “All dry,” he confirmed.

      She looked him up and down. “Who needs a six-thousand-dollar suit, anyway?”

      He jokingly spread his arms. “Is it me?”

      “It’s you.” She paused. “Surprisingly.”

      “Hey, I can hobnob with the common folk.” Not that he could remember having done it recently. In fact, his last hamburger was probably at summer camp when he was in grade school. He was more a rib-eye kind of guy.

      “Sure.” She nodded sarcastically. “I bet you hobnob all the time.”

      He didn’t answer, and instead slid open the screen door to join her.

      “Would you like some wine?” she asked. “Sounds great.”

      She pointed with the spatula. “On the counter next to the fridge. Bring me a glass, would you?”

      “You got it,” he answered easily, liking this laid-back side of Devin.

      In the kitchen, after a few minutes of hunting for a bottle, Lucas realized she’d been referring to the cardboard box with the plastic spigot, sitting there on the kitchen counter. Wine in a box. Now that was a first.

      He located a couple of stemmed glasses, then figured out how the spigot worked and filled them up.

      He sniffed the bouquet, swirled it to check the legs and finally took an experimental sip of the deep burgundy liquid identified on the box as “Red Wine.” It was a bit sharp, but not horribly objectionable. Probably not a lot of time for the tannins to mellow prior to the boxing process.

      He gave a shrug as he lifted both glasses and headed back to the deck. When in Rome.

      He set the wineglasses down on Devin’s round table. It had a glass top and was surrounded by four thickly padded chairs.

      “Can you grab the condiments?” she asked without turning from the grill.

      “Sure.”

      “I’m toasting the buns,” she called from behind him. “They were frozen. I hope you don’t mind.”

      “I don’t mind,” he assured her. “Anything else you need from the kitchen? “

      “Not that I can think of.”

      Lucas returned to the small kitchen and located mustard, ketchup and relish in the refrigerator.

      He balanced them in his hands and ambled back to the deck once more, finding Devin setting toasted buns and burger patties on plastic plates on the round table.

      “We’ll need a knife,” she told him.

      He shot her a look of impatience. Had he not just asked if there was anything else?

      “What?” she challenged.

      “Why didn’t you say something?”

      “How did you expect to spread it on your bun? Oh, and grab the mayo, will you? “

      He gave his head a shake.

      “What’s the matter, Lucas. You miss the serving staff?”

      He kind of did. But he wasn’t about to answer that. So instead, he retrieved a couple of knives and a jar of mayonnaise.

      When he got back, Devin was folding her body into one of the padded chairs.

      The wind had died down, leaving the air crystal clear above the water, accenting the view across the darkened lake.

      “Thanks,” she told him briskly, snagging one of the knives and starting to prepare her bun.

      Lucas checked out the array of condiments and decided… what the heck? He loaded up his bun, adding a slice of cheese to boot.

      The burger patty itself looked a little crisp on the outside, blackened in spots and shriveled rather small in comparison to the bun.

      Devin took a big bite. “Mmm,” she murmured in appreciation. “I’m starving.”

      “Busy day?” he asked. He’d followed Steve’s LoJack beacon out here the minute he’d realized where the man was going. He had no intention of giving him time alone with Devin to indoctrinate her into the Steve Foster view of Pacific Robotics.

      “Long time since lunch,” she responded.

      Lucas took a bite of his own burger. No meat in that section, but all in all, not bad.

      “You sent Steve packing,” she observed, biting down on a quarter-cut pickle.

      Lucas swallowed, deciding to put his cards on the table. “Absolutely. He’s trying to co-opt you to his side.”

      “And you?” she asked. “Are you trying to get me on your side?”

      “Mine’s the side of truth and justice,” he responded.

      Co-opting Devin was not his preferred plan. He needed a decisive win when it came to Amelia. He couldn’t take the chance that Devin might support him now, and then later change her mind because someone had convinced her of the merits of a particular lame-assed project.

      “Not from where I’m sitting,” she told him.

      “Yeah?” He was curious to hear how she’d couch his side versus Steve’s.

      “So far, of the two of you, Steve looks like the good guy.” Lucas set down his burger. “And you wonder why I have to fight you? “

      The woman had absolutely no frame of reference. She was a babe in the woods, vulnerable to whomever might sell her a bill of goods.

      “We can compromise,” she offered.

      “You want me to compromise? You’re so confused, you think Steve is the good guy.” Lucas took a swallow of the wine. It really was pretty bad.

      “If I made an agreement with you up front, I’d stick to it.”

      He didn’t believe that. Not for one moment. “Until some point in the future when you disagreed with me.”

      Devin took another contemplative bite of her pickle. “I suppose that’s true. I mean if you were really wrong about something.”

      She was everything he feared—erratic, unreliable and illogical.

      Lucas pushed back his chair. “You are impossible.”

      “No. It’s the situation that’s impossible.”

      Lucas hated to admit it, but he could see her point. “I don’t have an answer that’s going to satisfy you,” he admitted out loud. “All I know for sure is that I can trust me.”

      She gave a small, rueful smile. “And I can trust me.”

      They both stared at each other for a long moment of silence.

      “Stalemate,” he stated fatalistically.

      “New topic,” she told him, lifting her glass. “Nice rescue on the catamaran. Lexi asked me to thank you again.”

      “I haven’t been sailing in a while,” he answered, itching to continue the debate until she capitulated, but knowing the time wasn’t right. “That part was fun.”

      “Sorry about the suit,” Devin offered.

      “Funny how I keep losing my clothes around you.”

      She glanced away, and he realized his double entendre had embarrassed her. Hell, he hadn’t meant it that way. Not that he hadn’t thought about it. Truth was, he had.

      Damn it. Not good.

      He took another sip of the wine. The taste seemed to be growing on him.

      “Do you like sailing?” he asked, trying to bring

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