LITMIR.BIZ

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“Of course I am, darlings. I’m only surprised you had to ask.”

      Matthew Garvey laid the last signed paper down on the conference table, leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Congratulations, Ryan, old friend. By paying off this loan two years early and floating that new floor plan account, you’ve just made the bank’s shareholders very happy. Not to mention making yours truly look pretty damn smart in the bargain.”

      Ryan grinned at his friend, although he couldn’t bring himself to quite meet Matt’s eyes. Doing that gave him the damnedest, most unexplainable headache. “So, then, I guess you wouldn’t want me to diversify. You know, not keep all my eggs in your bank’s basket? Divvy up a few of the accounts among the other banks that keep wining and dining me, trying to steal me away from you?”

      “Give me their names,” Matt growled halfheartedly. “I’ll call them myself with your regrets.”

      Ryan got up from his chair, put his hands flat against either side of his spine, stretched. “Man, one more all-nighter and I’ll feel like I’m back in grad school. Jessie sure did pick a rotten time to go find herself.”

      As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Ryan winced, and not because his back muscles put up a stink at being cramped in a chair for the past few hours. He counted to three, feeling that flash of headache again, hoping to be able to get to at least five before Matt picked up on his stupid, revealing statement. What were such things called? Something close to Freudian slips, he was sure.

      And it was all Allie’s fault, taking him aside, telling him things he wished he didn’t know and then leaving him to do battle with his conscience, wondering if it would be wrong to tell or the greater wrong to keep silent.

      The slip of his tongue sort of settled that for him, he decided, still counting silently.

      He only got to four before Matt said, “Find herself? That doesn’t sound like Jessica, Ryan. She’s just about the most complete, controlled person I’ve ever met.”

      “Yeah,” Ryan agreed quickly. “Yeah, she sure is. Competent…a workaholic here at the plant. She’s smarter than I am, in case you haven’t noticed. I don’t know what we’d do without her.”

      “But she’s gone off to find herself,” Matt said, knowing Ryan wanted to change the subject, but holding on to this one small bone of information with all the tenacity of a bulldog.

      Jessica had been avoiding him ever since Maddy’s wedding—ever since Maddy and he had called off their own wedding, that is, and eloped with J. P. O’Malley, newest king of the computer software world.

      He’d called. He’d e-mailed—the communication of choice in his set these days, it seemed. He’d stopped over at the house without notice, on the pretext of seeing Ryan, hoping to find her at home.

      Nearly two months now, and she had never once let him close to her. If he came to the Chandler offices, she was in conference; if he arrived at the Chandler home, she was on her way out. She wouldn’t acknowledge him; she wouldn’t talk to him.

      He hadn’t even seen her since the morning after they’d— Wincing, he tried to rethink the words morning after, but they wouldn’t go away, couldn’t be denied. Just as he couldn’t deny that Jessica was avoiding him.

      Hell, as far as he was concerned, Jessica Chandler had walked out of his arms and straight into oblivion.

      He stood up, walked around the wide conference table. Both he and his friend were a few inches over six feet. Ryan’s hair was as black as Maddy’s, his eyes the same bright green. And looking as evasive as hers had looked for too many weeks before the now-canceled wedding.

      Something was up. Matt knew it. And if the prickle at the back of his neck meant anything, he was smack in the middle of the “why” of the reason behind Jessica’s flight from Allentown. “Where is she, Ryan? Where did she go?”

      Ryan turned away, peered out the window overlooking the parking lot of the clothing manufacturing plant that had borne the Chandler name for three generations. Almira had been right. Ryan didn’t know how she’d known, he didn’t know all that she knew—and didn’t want to!—but the woman had been right-on in saying that sooner or later Matt was going to come to him, demand to see Jessica.

      And now, on orders from his grandmother, Ryan was supposed to tell him. He was supposed to break his solemn promise to his sister and tell Matthew Garvey that Jessica was hiding out—was there another way to say that?—at the house in Ocean City. He had been further ordered to make her disappearance sound as mysterious as possible, then stand back and watch Matt’s reaction; tell him more if the guy seemed upset.

      Okay. Matt had reacted. And upset was probably too mild a word. So how had his grandmother known all this? He hadn’t even asked Allie why he had to make the revelation of his burning secret so dramatic. It was one of those things he was certain he was better off not knowing. But he had his suspicions.

      Hence his headache…

      “I’d be breaking a confidence, Matt,” he said, stalling for time, trying to analyze the look in his friend’s eyes, trying to tell himself what he saw there was not pain, couldn’t be pain. Real, physical pain.

      “You’re not allowed to tell anyone, Ryan?” Matt asked. “Or just me?”

      Ryan winced, not really playacting anymore, because this was his friend, and his friend was hurting. “If you ever decide to sell the family bank, you might want to take up law. You cross-examine real well for a banker. You’re right, Matt. I’m not supposed to tell you. She didn’t want me broadcasting her whereabouts to anyone, but you were the only one she mentioned by name.”

      “She mentioned me by name.” Matt’s eyes flashed blue fire as he felt his hands clenching into fists at his sides. Tension, strain—they’d been his companions for long weeks, and he was almost afraid he was going to lose it entirely and shake the answers out of Ryan if he wasn’t forthcoming soon. “And you not only kept your word, you didn’t come to me, ask me what the hell was going on?”

      “I thought about it,” Ryan confessed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Then I thought about how you haven’t beaten down the door demanding to see Jessica whether she wanted to see you or not. She might be wondering that, too. I know Allie wanted me to wait until—never mind. Let’s just say I was waiting for the proper moment? God, that’s lame. I’m sorry, buddy.”

      Matt let out his breath on a sigh, feeling his anger drain away to be replaced by something just as uncomfortable. Sometimes he wished Jessica wasn’t Ryan’s sister. Ryan was a good friend; the kind of guy other guys confided in, told their troubles to, be they financial or female or anything in between.

      But the “troubles” with Jessica weren’t the sort Matt wanted to discuss with Ryan. Not by a long shot.

      “We…um…” he began slowly, searching for the right words. “We, um, Jessica and I spoke together the night of…well, the night Maddy and I decided to break off our engagement. After dinner, when I went out back to the gazebo, feeling pretty much like a fifth wheel at the dinner table. Jessica followed me. Trying to comfort me, I suppose.”

      “You spoke together? Out back, in the gazebo, in the dark? Just the two of you? You were gone for a couple of hours, if I remember correctly,” Ryan said, nodding.

      And then he winced, one of his many suppositions reforming into more of a certainty. “Boy, now that explains it. I see it all now. You spoke together, and eight weeks later my sister picks up and takes off for parts unknown—at least to you—after spending those weeks avoiding you like the plague. Must have been some conversation.”

      “Yeah. Yeah, it was,” Matt said, going back over to the papers on the table, gathering them up, stacking them neatly. “So was the talk we had the morning after the first one, right before she told me to go to hell. Since I figure I’ve been there ever since, maybe she’ll think I’ve done enough penance and will talk to me again. Now, are you going to tell me where she

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