LITMIR.BIZ

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of how their birthdays fell. For some reason, the college systematically grouped incoming freshmen into dorms based on when they were born. Brynn, Fiona, Tildy, and Cassie all had October birthdays. Living in close quarters on the same hall, they formed a quick, intimate bond long before they pledged the same sorority.

      Rachel, whose birthday was a month earlier, lived at the opposite end of the hall, but latched on to their foursome because, as she put it, “All those September Virgos down at my end are too conservative and unemotional. You Libras are much more easy-going and social.”

      Brynn often popped up to point out that she was actually a Scorpio, born on the twenty-ninth. But Rachel, who was into astrology, told her she had more Libra traits—and that strong-willed control-freak Fiona had more Scorpio ones.

      “We’ll do this party for Rachel up at the Prom,” Fiona said in her usual case-closed way.

      The Prom was local shorthand for promontory, and referred to an enormous, flat rock outcropping high in

      the woods above the campus. Secluded despite relatively easy access via a winding trail, the sweeping vista plus a cluster of makeshift log benches made the

      Prom a favorite Stonebridge party spot.

      “Just so you know, I’m going to invite my sister, too, if she’s around when we get back to the house,”

      Fiona added.

      Brynn said nothing to that. She knew that Tildy was getting annoyed about Deirdre’s continued presence in the sorority house, and she wouldn’t be welcome tonight. She had been staying with Fee for over a week now, trying to get her life together after being thrown out of their parents’ house.

      Luckily, Dee wasn’t hanging around that night to join the party and further complicate matters.

      Only the five sorority sisters slipped out of the house and headed up the trail, armed with flashlights, the champagne, a portable CD player, and jackets or sweaters to ward off the autumn chill.

      They gossiped and giggled as they ascended, four of them unaware that the fifth had concealed something lethal beneath her silver-gray and cardinal-red sorority sweater—and that when the night drew to its grim conclusion, only four Zeta Delta Kappa sisters would descend.

      “Matilda Harrington,” Tildy says crisply into the telephone receiver.

      “Good morning, gorgeous,” a low voice croons.

      She quickly looks around to see if anyone is in earshot of her cubicle, lamenting as always the fact that her position as special events manager at the nonprofit doesn’t even warrant walls that reach all the way to the ceiling.

      At least the coast is relatively clear this morning. It’s just past nine; most people aren’t at their desks yet. No sign of the perpetually lurking Ray Wilmington, even.

      “Hey, there, gorgeous yourself,” she says, low, into the receiver. She pushes aside the yellow legal pad containing the guest list and RSVPs for her thirtieth birthday party in a few weeks. Plenty of time to go through those later. “When did you leave?”

      “Oh, around three or so. I kissed you good-bye but you were snoring blissfully.”

      That would be thanks to the tranquilizer Tildy had popped shortly before he showed up unexpectedly on her doorstep. Had she known he was coming, she’d have foregone the pill and relied on him instead to provide a distraction from…

      From Happy Birthday…to me.

      Tildy didn’t tell him about it, of course. That, or the drugs that were necessary when she grasped the full, horrifying implication of the greeting card.

      Renewed uneasiness threads its way through her even as she protests lightly into the phone, “Hey, I don’t snore!”

      “Oh, but you do. Delicate little snores, like a kitten taking a nap in the sun.”

      If Ray said something like that, Tildy would immediately roll her blue eyes.

      Funny how the difference in whether a flirtatious line comes across as hopelessly sappy or infinitely sexy lies in the speaker himself.

      “So listen…What are you doing for lunch?” Tildy asks throatily, after casting another furtive glance around the office.

      “You,” is his satisfying reply.

      Smiling, she hangs up a moment later, then belatedly opens her date book to make sure today’s noon slot is free.

      It isn’t.

      She simply erases her lunch tasting meeting with the caterer who’s doing her birthday party. That can wait until tomorrow or the day after, she thinks, bending over the page to blow away the shreds of pink eraser.

      Life has been so much easier ever since Tildy took to writing her appointments in pencil—a necessity when you’re living an active love life strictly on short notice.

      She’s flipping through her Rolodex in search of the caterer’s phone number to cancel their lunch when a long shadow falls over her desk.

      Ray Wilmington.

      She knows it must be him before she even looks up to find his gaunt, black-bearded Abe Lincolnesque presence looming above her.

      “What up?” he asks.

      She snorts—aloud—at the ludicrous gangsta greeting spilling from the wimpiest, most white-bread human in all of Boston.

      “God bless you,” he says politely.

      She doesn’t bother to inform him that it wasn’t a sneeze, but a snort. Of laughter. At him.

      “How are the tulips holding up, Matilda?”

      Ah, the tulips.

      She debates telling him that they wilted and she had to throw them away.

      No, he might then decide to send her another bouquet.

      Her desire to avoid that scenario is based less on the futile expense to his limited budget than it is on the inconvenience to her.

      She’d have to go through the motions of thanking him again, and risk clogging the disposal with all those stems, or cutting herself on the shards of another useless glass vase.

      Much less complicated to simply say, “The tulips are fine,” and resume her Rolodex perusal.

      “Did your lunch meeting cancel on you?” Ray asks, and she sees that he’s peering over her shoulder at the newly erased twelve o’clock slot in her date book. “Because if you’re suddenly free, I know a great little place—”

      “I’m not free,” she interrupts curtly, wishing he would just get lost.

      “Then how about tomorrow?”

      Presumptuous is the perfect adjective for Ray Wilmington, from his investigative interest in the details of her life to his assumption that she might be willing to share a precious free moment of it with the likes of him.

      It isn’t just his looks that are off-putting—although Tildy’s certainly not the least bit drawn to him. He’s tall and dark, yes…though the handsome is conspicuously missing. Put a stovepipe hat on top of his prematurely thinning hair, and he really would be a dead ringer for old Honest Abe.

      Abe Lincoln would hardly be Tildy’s type.

      Especially if Abe was making a pitiful salary and living at home with his mother in Dedham.

      But it’s more that Ray’s blatant interest in her, which began right from the day he started at work here in July, gives her the creeps. Her well-honed inner radar interprets him more as a potential stalker than potential suitor.

      Ignoring his query about tomorrow, she tells him pointedly, “I’ve got some phone calls to make,” as she lifts the phone receiver again.

      “All right, Waltzing Matilda.” Ray emits a self-satisfied chuckle at his own cleverness,

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