LITMIR.BIZ

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cabinet for the chips and into the refrigerator for the dip. “Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.” When she was certain Suzette was out of hearing range, she lowered her raspy voice and said, “If that girl gets any perkier, I’m going to bite through my tongue.” She followed Suzette to the dining room.

      Mya’s thoughts exactly. It was no wonder she worried.

      It was quiet in the kitchen suddenly. Too quiet. Finding Claire watching her, Mya handed over the other tray.

      Claire put it right back down again. “You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?”

      “Serve red wine with cheese? I’m living dangerously.”

      Claire didn’t pretend to be amused.

      And Mya said, “Not you, too.”

      “I’ll say my piece, and then forever hold it. You’re going to get married.”

      “I thought you’d be happier for me.”

      “I am happy for you.” She must have read Mya’s expression, because she said, “This is my happy face.”

      Another time Mya might have smiled.

      Claire forged ahead. “You don’t find it at all unsettling that you accepted Jeffrey’s marriage proposal because of something Dr. Phil said on national television? Love is a decision. Where does he get this stuff? Will I take a cruise or climb Mount Everest? Shall I fix green beans for supper, or corn? Should I flunk the kid I caught cheating today or call him in and talk to him? Those are decisions. Trust me, love is not a decision.”

      “You don’t believe I love Jeffrey?”

      “I think you’re fond of Jeffrey, much the way you’re fond of your new living-room rug. Jeffrey is a nice guy. In fact, there should be a law against anybody being that nice, Suzette notwithstanding.”

      “What’s wrong with nice?”

      Claire gaped. “You chew up nice people for breakfast and spit them out before lunch.”

      “How flattering.”

      “Come on, Mya. A woman like you hasn’t remained single this long for lack of opportunities. Don’t even try to tell me Jeffrey’s marriage proposal was your first.”

      Mya floundered for a moment. “Now I really am flattered, because the truth is, I haven’t had all that many marriage proposals.” She prayed Claire didn’t expect her to be more specific.

      “That’s because you almost never let a man close.”

      Relieved, Mya said, “Jeffrey is attentive, intelligent, ardent and imperturbable.”

      Claire fanned herself with one hand. “You’re making me hot. Tell me something. Why is it that your every description of Jeffrey begins with a vowel?”

      Leave it to a high-school English teacher to notice that.

      The kitchen door opened, and Suzette stuck her head inside. “Did you talk to her?”

      Mya threw up her hands. “You two planned this?” Looking at these women whose personalities were at opposite ends of the spectrum, she said, “Let’s just suspend my personal belief for a moment. Let’s say love isn’t a decision, and the fact that Jeffrey makes me think, makes me feel special and safe, and he’s a good kisser isn’t enough reason to marry him. How does a woman decide who to marry?”

      With a flourish, Suzette took a sheaf of papers from her oversize purse. “I put that question to my second graders this morning. Claire, did you ask your class?”

      “That was an assignment gone wrong. Trust me, you don’t want to hear the results.”

      Suzette nodded. “My students’ answers were problematic, too.”

      Now Mya was curious. “What did they say?”

      “Nobody believes in true love anymore. Not even eight-year-olds.”

      “Maybe they’re too young to make a decision,” Claire said.

      New lease or not, Mya gave her the finger.

      Waving as if at a bothersome insect, Suzette said, “I asked my students how they would decide who to marry. The smartest girl in the class said you wait until you’re old, at least twenty, and you go on a date, and if you believe half his lies, you go on another, and at the end of the summer you get married.”

      Mya smiled.

      Suzette didn’t. “Her best friend said you don’t decide. God does. You have to wait until you’re grown up and see who you’re stuck with. The boy who sits next to her stood up and declared that no age is a good age to get married. You got to be a fool to get married.”

      “Nine will get you ten he’ll be sitting in the back of my class ten years from now,” Claire said. “If he’s still in school then.”

      “That’s awfully judgmental!” Suzette admonished.

      “You say judgmental, I say realistic. Potato, po-tah-to.”

      It was like watching a tennis match. Times like these, Mya understood why she’d started watching Dr. Phil’s program every chance she had.

      “Are you bringing more chips?” Millie called from the next room.

      Suzette dashed toward the door with the bag of chips, practically tripping over one of Jeffrey’s cats. When the door stopped swinging, Claire said, “And that’s another thing, Mya. You’re a dog person. You don’t even like cats.”

      Mya scooped two of the oversize fur balls off the kitchen counter before they sampled the crab dip. Depositing them, none too ceremoniously, in the back room, she closed the door and brushed at the cat hair they’d left on her green silk blouse. “You have it all wrong. Those sneaky, obese, flea-ridden creatures don’t like me.”

      “What’s not to like?”

      Back in control, Mya let that go.

      Claire looked worried, but she said, “Listen. It sounds like Jeffrey’s here. We’d better get out there and save him from Suzette.”

      Right behind her, Mya said, “You mean from my mother.”

      Oh, sure. Now Claire laughed.

      “You’re positive you don’t want something to drink?” Mya held up the bottle of wine.

      Jeffrey put it back on the coffee table where she’d gotten it. “Booze and E.R. duty don’t mix.”

      The man was just about perfect, no doubt about it. “You’re not hungry?” Mya asked. “Not even for apple slices dipped in honey?”

      Everyone had gone, and Mya was trying to put things away. Uninterested in putting anything away, Jeff put his arms around her. “I’d rather have a different kind of honey.”

      Claire was right. Jeff was so nice he was corny. Corny wasn’t all. Thirty-two years old, Jeffrey Anderson stood six feet three inches tall, had linebacker shoulders, a wash-board stomach, hands and feet like a Labrador puppy and the sex drive of a seventeen-year-old. The thought burned through Mya’s mind before sliding away to a place she didn’t go anymore.

      Nuzzling her neck, Jeff said, “I have to be back at the hospital in thirty-eight minutes. We can spend the next half hour doing anything you want, anywhere you want.”

      Now what kind of woman could complain about that? He knew all the moves, and she would have to be a fool to waste them. And yet she always had the feeling he was asking for permission. Jeff was a gentleman. There was nothing wrong with that. Still, sometimes she wished he would just take her, devour her, infuse her with passion and delight until she writhed in ecstasy.

      He turned her gently into his arms and kissed her again. Holding her to him, molding and kneading until she groaned, he eased her backward toward the

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