LITMIR.BIZ

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of altered—

      A car stood at the curb next to her mother’s driveway. Luke leaned out an open window of the red Jeep Cherokee to wave. Surely he didn’t intend to hang around and taunt her while she was home. If he did, she just might have to alter her plans and go back to California early, even if it meant ignoring her mother’s pleas.

      She no longer wanted a thing from Luke Dalton, and most definitely not what she’d wanted before. She’d been young and foolish then. Now, she was…well, not old at twenty-seven but certainly seasoned. There was nothing left for him to teach her.

      She shivered at the possibility she might be wrong.

      Parking her mother’s old pickup truck in the driveway, she climbed out and waited for him to join her. No complications, she reminded herself. She was a serious person with a serious life and a serious plan for leading it. She was not interested in a quick tumble with every good-looking man she met—check that.

      She might be interested; what woman in her right mind wouldn’t be? But she wouldn’t act on that interest, no way, no how. She was not a woman who’d consider a cheap affair, no matter how attractive—

      Oh, my. Luke gave new meaning to the word attractive. Tall and lean and lithe, he strode toward her, the lowering sun striking blond sparks off his brown hair. When he grinned, even white teeth flashed.

      “You waited for me,” he said.

      She shook herself free of her imagination. “I didn’t. I—”

      I—nothing; she had waited and he hadn’t even had to ask. Spinning around, she led the way up the steps of the big old Victorian house. Flinging open the door, she indicated with a wave that he should enter first.

      You’d think a serious person like Thalia would have a serious mother. Instead, she had Lorraine, who now looked up from the free weights she was swinging with abandon, a broad smile of welcome on her crimson lips.

      “YOU BROUGHT LUKE HOME with you,” Lorraine exclaimed with pleasure. “That’s wonderful!”

      Luke didn’t think Thalia considered it all that wonderful. He looked from mother to daughter, trying to suppress the smile that tugged at his lips. Lorraine must have been a trial to Thalia her entire life, but he’d have given anything to have a mother with hair like Lucille Ball’s and a bawdy humor that made him grin just thinking about it.

      At the moment, Lorraine was working with barbells. A black headband held back a tumble of red-gold curls and her ample figure was barely constrained by a black leotard and tights. Her cheeks glowed; she looked healthy and happy.

      Thalia kissed her mother’s proffered cheek. “I didn’t bring Luke home, Mother, he brought himself.”

      Lorraine put the barbells on the floor. “Regardless of how he got here, I’m glad to see him. I’ve got a cookie jar just stuffed full of those chocolate chip cookies he and John used to gobble up.” She turned toward the kitchen, waving them to follow. “Come along, kids. Mother Lorraine will spoil your suppers for you.”

      As she’d been doing as long as Luke could remember. It used to piss his own mother off something awful when he’d pick at his food after a visit to the Myers house. Still would.

      Thalia was dragging her feet. “I think I’ll pass on the cookies and go on upstairs,” she said. “It’s awfully close to dinnertime and—”

      “Thalia Renee, you get yourself in this kitchen,” Lorraine said without slowing her pace. “This may be your supper, young lady.”

      Trying not to grin too broadly, Luke pulled out a chair at the table in the middle of the big old-fashioned kitchen. Thalia and Lorraine couldn’t be more different and yet he liked them both. His mother had told him once that Thalia was more like her father, who had died young. Best buddy John, on the other hand, was a lot like his mother: funny and daring and ready for anything.

      Lorraine plunked a dinner plate piled high with cookies on the table and went to get glasses, talking a mile a minute about everything from the weather to the stock market.

      When she paused for breath, Luke said, “So what’s new with John?”

      “He’s still in Chicago working for that Internet start-up company, still has the same wife and kid, still likes it. He’s going to try to get home while Thalia’s here but it’s iffy with his workload.”

      Luke picked up a chocolate-studded round. “I’d sure like to see him one of these days.”

      Thalia said, “Me, too. Fortunately, his company sends him to California now and then, so we get together there.”

      “You like California, do you?” Luke pulled one of the three tall glasses of milk close enough so he could dunk his cookie. Biting into it, he closed his eyes in ecstasy. Lorraine was probably the best cookie baker in Shepherd’s Pass, with the possible exception of Emily. He couldn’t think of anything else Lorraine could cook worth diddly, but her cookies were first-rate.

      He chewed blissfully for a moment, only belatedly realizing Thalia hadn’t answered his question. Opening his eyes, he saw her looking down at the cookie in her hands, her expression closed.

      Before he could repeat his query, Lorraine spoke up.

      “Of course, she doesn’t like California. What’s to like? All those people, all those cars, all those freeways, all that smog? She’s only living there because she’s stubborn.”

      “Oh, Mother.” Thalia put down her cookie. “My life is there. I have an apartment, friends—”

      “An ex-husband,” Lorraine informed Luke. “Sometimes I think she’s still carrying the torch for Don.”

      “No way.” Thalia’s denial sounded heartfelt. “We tried and now it’s over. We’ve both moved on.”

      “Better you should move back—back home to Colorado,” Lorraine said. “Like Luke did.” She swung her attention his way. “You’re glad to be back, right?”

      “Of course, but I’m not glad to be living at home.” He grimaced. “Mom was dead set on it, and since Dad had only been gone a few months when I got here…” He shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time, but boy, have I lived to regret it. I’m planning to get my own place as soon as I have time to look.”

      Thalia’s tight expression relaxed into sympathy. “I was sorry to hear about your dad’s death.”

      “Thank you,” he said. “It was quite a shock to all of us, but we’re getting along.” Not that it had been easy. Just digging through his father’s far-flung business interests had been a chore in and of itself. Then there was the shock of realizing just how big the estate was. If money could buy happiness, his mother would be a very happy woman, indeed.

      Instead of what she was: miserable.

      Lorraine reached for a cookie. “You haven’t seen his mother’s new house, have you,” she said to her daughter.

      “No.”

      “It’s at the end of this road,” Lorraine said darkly. “It’s a darned mansion, is what it is. Of course, it was the Daltons who sold all that land to the developer for Shangri-la. They tried to buy my measly little five acres, and when I wouldn’t sell, they just built around me like I was a tree stump in the middle of a road.”

      Thalia glanced questioningly at Luke, who nodded.

      “That’s pretty much how it happened,” he agreed. “But it’s not like your mom’s stubborn or anything, or like they didn’t offer her ten times what this land is worth.”

      Lorraine burst out laughing. “Oh, you!” she said affectionately. “Thalia’s on my side no matter what you say.”

      “I certainly am,” Thalia agreed.

      “As a matter of fact,” he said, “so am

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