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listen, either. I know I screwed up before, but this is different.”

      It didn’t sound all that different, Claire thought grimly. “I know you’ve made some really bad decisions and you’re doing your best to avoid the consequences.”

      “Shut up. You don’t know anything. You have everything and I have nothing. You don’t have any right to come back here and tell me what to do.”

      Jesse opened the car door and got out. Claire stopped the engine and followed her. They hadn’t even left the police parking lot. Couldn’t they at least go a couple of miles before a blowup? “Jesse, don’t.”

      Jesse turned to her. “Don’t what? Don’t get in the way? Don’t be a screwup? All my life I’ve created trouble for Nicole. I’m the reason she couldn’t do what she wanted to do. I’m why she couldn’t leave Seattle or go away to college or any of that stuff. You think I don’t know that? You think it makes me happy?”

      “Then why do you keep hurting her?”

      “I’m not,” Jesse screamed. “Go away. Just go away.” She started walking. “Wait. I’ll take you home.”

      “I can take the bus. I’ve done it before.” Jesse pulled her coat around her and walked across the street to the bus stop. Claire returned to her car. What was she supposed to do now? She had no experience with situations like this. Should she demand Jesse get in the car? It wasn’t as if she could force her. Before she could come up with a plan, a bus pulled up and Jesse climbed on. Claire watched her go, wondering how they’d all come to this and what hope there was to ever getting it right between the three of them.

      “AMY’S GOING TO SPEND the night with us Friday,” Nicole said at breakfast the next morning. “It’s time for Wyatt’s annual self-flagellation.”

      “What are you talking about?” Claire asked.

      “Every year, on the anniversary of Shanna leaving, he gets totally drunk and reminds himself why his romantic relationships never work out. It’s a guy thing, because it makes no sense to me. Fortunately he doesn’t want Amy to see any part of the event, so I take her and when he’s sober, he comes to get her. It’s become a tradition.”

      “Sounds like a fun girls’ night,” Claire said. “Why does he have to get drunk to deal with his past?”

      “Not a clue.”

      Claire didn’t think she could ask Wyatt about that kind of thing yet, though they’d been out a couple more times and each date had been better than the one before. She’d wondered why he hadn’t asked her out for this weekend and now she knew why. But she didn’t know how much he still cared about Shanna or why he hadn’t told her about the annual night of drinking and solitude.

      “You don’t think he’s still in love with her, do you?” she asked.

      Nicole sipped her coffee. “Not even for money. That was over years ago. This is more about what he thinks about himself. He swears he comes from a long line of men who screw up relationships. Based on my brief but disastrous marriage to Drew, I’m inclined to believe him.”

      Claire didn’t bother pointing out that Drew was only Wyatt’s stepbrother.

      “We’ll have a good time with Amy,” she said. “What about a movie fest? We could go rent some DVDs.”

      “Good idea. Wyatt normally takes a couple of days to get over his bender, but I think he’ll surface more quickly this time.” Nicole grinned. “He’ll want to see you.”

      “Maybe,” Claire said, hoping it was true.

      She was intrigued by the idea of a drunk Wyatt. Didn’t men want to have sex when they got drunk? She’d seen it in hundreds of movies. So far, while their dates had been fun, the physical side of the relationship hadn’t progressed at all. They were kissing and kissing, but nothing else. She knew he didn’t know she was still a virgin, so that wasn’t the reason he was holding back. Was he just being a gentleman?

      If he was, didn’t that make him a nice guy? Would it be wrong of her to take advantage of him while he was drinking?

      The phone rang. Nicole reached for it. While her sister was talking, Claire walked up to her room and pulled her to-do list out of her drawer.

      Have sex was right there, near the top. She desperately wanted to know what it felt like to be with a man. Wyatt had flat out told her he wanted to have sex with her. She was simply considering manipulating circumstances to her advantage. Who would that hurt?

      BY TEN THAT NIGHT, both Amy and Nicole were in bed. Claire had spent the afternoon trying to find something sexy to wear over to seduce Wyatt. She’d wanted to be appealing, but not obvious. There was also the issue of having to drive over to his house in whatever she chose, so lingerie was out of the question.

      She’d settled on tight jeans, shoes she could slip out of and a low-cut sweater. Underneath, she had on matching bra and panties in pale pink silk.

      It felt strange, dressing to seduce a man—probably because she’d never done it before. Would Wyatt be critical of her choices? Was she overthinking the process?

      Unable to decide, she left her room and crept downstairs. She wrote a note and propped it against the coffeemaker, the one place Nicole was sure to look in the morning, and kept the wording vague enough that if Amy read it, as well, she wouldn’t know what was going on. Then Claire went to her car and drove over to Wyatt’s.

      On the way, she tried to rehearse what she was going to say. Nothing sounded right. With any luck, she wouldn’t have to speak at all.

      She got to his house and had just pulled in the driveway before she realized that while she was nervous, she wasn’t freaked. She had butterflies in her stomach but no impending sense of doom. No panic attack.

      That had to be good, she told herself as she walked up to the front door and rang the bell. At least there were still lights on. She’d been worried about waking him.

      He answered fairly quickly. “Claire?”

      “Hi, Wyatt.”

      He frowned. “Are you okay?”

      “Uh-huh. I thought you might like some company.” She pushed past him and walked into the house. He closed the door and followed her into the family room.

      Here she could see evidence of his party for one. There was a half-empty pizza box and a bottle of Scotch on the coffee table. The glass next to it was nearly empty.

      She turned around and smiled. “How are you?”

      He put one hand on the counter, as if he needed help balancing. Other than that, he didn’t seem drunk. Had Nicole been exaggerating or had he gotten a late start?

      “I’m okay,” he said. “Why are you here?”

      “I told you. I thought you might want company.”

      His eyes were slightly dilated. But she didn’t know all that much about drinking. She never partied and her big indulgence was an occasional glass of wine.

      “Tonight’s not good for me,” he told her. “I’m not at my best. You should probably go.”

      “You don’t have to entertain me,” she said. At least not in the way he would think she meant.

      She walked over and put her hands on his shoulders. Now she could smell the liquor on his breath, but it wasn’t icky. She leaned in and kissed him.

      Wyatt responded right away, kissing her back with an intensity that delighted her. This was going to be easier than she’d hoped. Then he pulled back.

      “Not a good idea,” he muttered. “Not tonight. Not like this.”

      “It seems like a great idea to me,” she murmured. “Come on, Wyatt. What’s the harm?”

      She kissed him again, this time brushing

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