LITMIR.BIZ

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      There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then he laughed. “No, Robson. I’m not gay. I’m just not getting married.”

      Firm and final. The Voice of Authority was back now. This was the Sebastian Savas she knew.

      “Act like that,” she said lightly, “and it won’t be a problem. No one will want to marry you.”

      “Good.”

      If there was ever an exit line, Neely decided, that was it.

      “Right. Well, I won’t be expecting to get an invitation to your wedding anytime soon then. Thanks for warning me. I’d better go make your phone call now about the leak. And Harm wants out. Don’t you, Harm?” She patted the sleeping dog who never even opened an eye. “Bye.” And she rang off before Sebastian could say anything else.

      Not that there was anything else to say.

      But she couldn’t stop thinking about the conversation, even long after she’d hung up. It was as odd as it had been unexpected. But maybe he was just bored.

      Still, when her cell phone rang the next evening and she saw Sebastian’s name come up on her caller ID, Neely was amazed.

      “What?” she demanded, the heightened awareness she always seemed to feel around Sebastian battling with her very real desire to hang up at once.

      “And a very good evening to you, too, Robson.” He sounded amused, and he’d lost the clipped tone he’d used when making his pronouncement on marriage the night before. Once again she heard the slightly sexy undertone beneath his sardonic response and she wondered if he was doing it on purpose. To bait her, perhaps?

      She refused to succumb to its allure. “Good evening,” she said politely. “To what do I owe the honor of this call?”

      “Aren’t we prim and proper, Robson? Wearing pink?”

      “It’s none of your business what I’m wearing!” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she felt as if she’d been had. Was she always going to jump at the bait he dangled?

      “What do you want?” she muttered.

      She had been enjoying a quiet evening on her own and allowing herself the pretense that the houseboat was hers and hers alone, refusing to think about Sebastian Savas who had, drat his hide, invaded her dreams last night. How perverse was that?

      And now here he was again.

      “I want an update,” he said briskly, all business. “Did the guy come and fix the leak?”

      Neely breathed easier. “Yes. Took him most of the afternoon, though. He’s sending you the bill. A hefty one, I imagine.”

      “No doubt.”

      He wanted to know what was done, and Neely told him as best she could. She hadn’t been there the whole time. “I had work to oversee,” she told him now. “I let him in, and I came back later to check how things were going. But I can’t give you a play-by-play. Sorry.”

      “It’s okay. I appreciate your bothering at all. Thanks.”

      “You’re welcome.”

      She expected him to end the conversation there, but he didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t say anything. Still, he hadn’t hung up. She could hear him breathing.

      There was no noise in the background of his call tonight, either. And Neely found herself with visions of Sebastian in his hotel room, lying on the bed flickering once more into her mind. She focused on a boat zipping across the lake, trying to get rid of the visions out of her head.

      “Do you know where to buy little rose-colored boxes?” he asked suddenly.

      Neely blinked. “What?”

      “Not for me,” he said hastily. “My sister’s getting married. She’s been rattling on about these damn boxes she wants on the table at the reception. For mints or something. She keeps calling me and bugging me.”

      Neely’s mind boggled. Sebastian not only had a sister, but she called him and bugged him about tiny wedding favors?

      “I said, try the Internet. But she wants to see them in person,” he said wearily.

      Neely almost laughed at the combination of fondness and frustration in his voice. “Oh, dear.”

      “So, do you?” he demanded when she didn’t speak.

      “Why on earth would I?”

      “They’re rose,” he said. “That’s almost pink. As far as I’m concerned, it is pink. But Vangie insists there’s a difference.”

      “Of course there’s a difference,” Neely said. “But I don’t know anyplace to get them. Some wedding place, I suppose. How many does she need?”

      “Two hundred and fifty or so.”

      “Yikes. When’s the wedding?”

      “Three weeks.”

      “And she’s just now starting to look for them?”

      “No. She’s just now decided for sure that’s what she wants. Or thinks she wants. What difference does it make? How the hell long does she have to have them anyway?”

      “Not long, I suppose. But…I should think she’d want things prepared.”

      “Oh, she does,” Sebastian said grimly. “But she keeps changing her mind. Or having it changed for her. First they were silver. Then they were rose. Then they were silver and rose. Now they’re rose again. For simplicity’s sake,” he quoted wryly. “And God knows how many more times it will change. Since the rest of them got here, it’s four times worse.”

      “Rest of whom?”

      “My sisters. Not all of them, but more than enough.”

      “All?” Neely said faintly. He’d mentioned one. That had been surprising enough. And now there were more? “How many sisters do you have?”

      “Six.”

      “Six?” She gaped, unable to imagine it.

      “And three brothers.”

      “Dear God.”

      “At last count.”

      “What!”

      “My old man has a habit of getting married and having kids,” Sebastian said grimly. “It’s what he does.”

      “I see.” She didn’t, and she suspected Sebastian knew that. The whole notion of ten kids in a family astonished her. And then there was the “my old man has a habit of getting married…” part.

      Did his “old man” have a habit of getting divorced as well?

      Was that what was behind Sebastian’s complete cynicism toward marriage? She could understand that. But somehow, even though he’d brought it up, she couldn’t see herself asking him.

      Still, that alongside the nine brothers and sisters would go a long way toward explaining Sebastian’s standoffishness. When you were one of ten, you probably needed to draw pretty definite boundaries. But from where she stood, as an only child, there was a definite appeal to the sound of all those siblings.

      “You’re so lucky,” she told him.

      “Lucky? I don’t think so.”

      “I would have given anything for a sibling or two.”

      “A sibling or two wouldn’t necessarily have been bad,” he said heavily. “It’s nine of them that gets old.”

      “I suppose.” But she wasn’t sure. She thought it sounded like far more fun than being dragged around from commune to commune after her mother.

      “It’s

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