Thanksgiving

Chapter 4

The historic district of Williamsburg was roughly the shape of a long rectangle. At the west end of the rectangle was a small commercial shopping area, Merchants Square. Just beyond that, at the very end of Duke of Gloucester Street, sat William and MaryCollege. On Friday afternoon, Megan parked in the Merchants Square parking lot and pulled the collapsible stroller from the back seat of the big maroon car. She set Timmy in it, adjusted his harness, and gave him the new yellow blanket Pat had bought.

During summer months Merchants Square was filled with people browsing through the shops and eating at the outdoor cafés. Today, the sky was winter gray, the wind whipped Megan’s hair across her face, and the tourists browsed at a rather fast pace. The stroller clattered over the brick sidewalk as Megan headed for North Boundary Street.

She tucked her flyaway hair into the collar of her navy pea coat and reread the address she’d written on a slip of paper. Turning left off North Boundary, she began looking for house numbers in a neighborhood of small bungalows, which were rented mostly by students and a few young faculty members. She stopped at a large gray clapboard house and studied the dark windows of the small apartment over the attached garage. A ripple of unidentifiable emotion passed through her. Fear?Anger?Relief? She didn’t know what she felt. She lifted Timmy from the stroller and walked to the outside stairs leading to Tilly Coogan’s apartment.

“What do you think, Tim? You think Mommy’s home?”

Timmy held the blanket tight to his chest. “Mum,” he jabbered.

Megan pressed her lips together. Mum had flown the coop, she thought grimly. Mum was nowhere to be found. She wondered if Timmy knew that. It was only natural that he missed his mother, and yet he seemed like a happy, well – adjusted child. Megan supposed children were flexible at this age. Or perhaps it was a reflection of Timmy’s personality that he could take things in stride.

She knew it was an empty gesture, but she knocked on the apartment door anyway. There was no answer, and she tried the door and the window beside it. Both were locked. There had been no word from Tilly, and Megan was worried. She was beginning to wonder if the girl would return. After caring for Timmy for five days, she couldn’t understand how Tilly could have left him, even for an hour.

She took a stack of letters from the black metal mailbox and riffled through a week’s worth of junk mail. Tilly Coogan must have led a lonely existence in Williamsburg, she thought. No one to take in the mail, and only letters addressed to “Occupant.” She stood looking at the blank window for a few minutes, as if at any time a light might be switched on or the phone would ring. Neither of those things happened, and Megan finally turned with a sigh and walked back to Duke of Gloucester Street.

At five o’clock the twilight was heavy over the darkened buildings. Duke of Gloucester Street was almost empty as the shops closed for the day and the lantern – style streetlights blinked on. Megan paused briefly at BrutonParishChurch and listened to the faint strains of organ music.

Her life had always been very secure, she realized. The little brick house in South River, New Jersey, had been a lot like the practical pig’s house. It had held up against all the huffing and puffing of childhood. Her father had been a policeman. In South River that was as safe as being a shoe salesman, and only slightly more prestigious. Her mother was a housewife, plain and simple. It was what she wanted to do, and she did it well. They’d had a twenty – foot Criscraft in their driveway and a gas barbecue in their back yard. Her father had regarded growing grass as a moral obligation, right up there with church on Sunday and sparkling white socks on Monday.

Megan’s finely arched brows drew together in a frown. She’d spent her whole life worrying about freckles, for crying out loud. This poor kid in the stroller didn’t have a father. He didn’t have a little brick house. He didn’t even have a mother anymore. He had Megan and Pat, and that fact raised frightening questions in Megan’s mind… questions without answers.

She continued past the miller and the silversmith. Anne Hedgeworth stood on the steps of the wigmaker’s shop and waved. She wore a white ruffled pinner, a colonial headdress, and an apricot dress with lace at the shoulders and cuffs. Megan waved back, marveling at how Anne always looked so attractive in the fancier costume of the Williamsburg upper class. At the end of the day, Anne’s stomacher was precisely buttoned and her pinner in place, an accomplishment Megan suspected she could never achieve.

“There’d always be a button popped at my waist from too many sugar cookies,” she told Timmy. “And I can’t manage a mobcap. What would I ever do with a pinner? Anne looks pretty, but I think I’m destined to be a peasant.”

She turned at the alley leading to the Raleigh Tavern Bake Shop. The bakery was closed for the day, and inside two women bustled about, cleaning trays and packing away Sally Lunn loaves and Queen Ann tarts. They saw Megan and Timmy looking in the window and hurried over with a cookie for Timmy.

Getting a free cookie at five o’clock had become a ritual for Timmy and Megan. For the past three days she had taken Timmy for a walk along the quiet streets, gotten a cookie from the women at the bakery, and gone to Patrick’s house to share the evening meal. Usually it was a disaster. Gray chicken cooked in the microwave. French fries that bubbled over and set the stove on fire. Thank goodness they hadn’t burned the house down. The night before, they’d made shoe – leather steak. Tonight they were playing it safe with canned chicken noodle soup and bagels with cream cheese.

It was five – thirty when Megan reached Pat’s little white house. The air over Nicholson Street was fragrant with the smoke from blazing fireplaces, and the windows of private residences glowed golden in the encroaching darkness. Usually she was the first to arrive at Pat’s, but today the lights were shining in every window, upstairs and down, and the cheerfully lit house reminded Megan of a giant jack – o’ – lantern.

Pat was setting the table. He looked up and grinned when she opened the door. “Hope you’re hungry. I’ve gone to all the trouble of opening a can and slicing a bagel.”

He wore jeans with a hole in the knee and a powder – blue – and – white rugby shirt, and Megan thought he looked much more tasty than the soup he was heating. She took off Timmy’s coat and put him in the high chair. “You’re home early.”

“Had some cancellations.” He filled Timmy’s three – section baby plate with green gook, red gook, and brown lumpy gunk.

Megan grimaced when Pat handed her the spoon. “Do I have to do this?”

“I did it last night.”

“Is that red gook smashed beets?”

“Yup.”

She reluctantly sat opposite Timmy. “This isn’t fair. I hate smashed beets. He had smashed beets for lunch yesterday, and it took two showers to get them out of my hair.”

Pat had a sexy rejoinder to make about showers, but he bit his tongue. He’d been very careful since Tuesday night. He’d declared his intentions, and now he was waiting. Not very patiently, he admitted, but he was determined to give Megan a few days to get to know him. Besides, falling in love was more than sex. It was conversation at the dinner table, confidences shared, support offered, and comfortable quiet times. His mind knew this to be true, but his body was pushing for sex.

Timmy plunged his fist into the red gook, and smashed beets flew everywhere.

Megan didn’t even blink. She’d been through all this before. Beets dripped from her nose and clung to her hair. Her khaki safari shirt looked as if it had measles. Pat turned back to the soup, but Megan could see his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. She smiled stiffly and offered Timmy a spoonful of beans. He ate three spoonfuls and sneezed. Now Megan had green interspersed with red.

Pat wiped the beets off her face. “It’s not so bad, honey. It looks… colorful. Needs a little orange, though. Maybe I should give you some squash.”

“I’m going to give you squash in a minute. I’m going to squash your nose.”

“You wouldn’t want to do that,” he said, trying to look serious. “It’s so cute.”

“Hmmm. You think your nose is cute?”

“I know it’s cute. My whole face is cute. You can’t imagine how awful it is to be thirty years old and still be cute.” He set a plate of carrot sticks and green – pepper slices on the table. “Old ladies stop me in the supermarket and pinch my cheek.”

“That is pretty terrible.”

He munched on a carrot. “I always wanted to be handsome, masculine, enigmatic- but I ended up cute.”

He was all those things, Megan thought. When you got to know him, he was handsome and incredibly masculine and even enigmatic. Cute was just a first impression that later gave way to more complicated qualities. She gave Timmy a bottle of milk and took his supper plate to the sink. She poured herself a glass of orange juice, turned toward the table, and stepped in a splotch of beets.

“Yow!” she shouted as she slid across the floor. She landed with a solid thud on her rear.

Pat studied her now juice – soaked shirt. “I was only kidding about the orange. You really didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

She pressed her lips together and glared at him.

“Are you okay?” he asked belatedly. “Did you get hurt?”

“I’m fine, but I’m disgusting. I never realized being a mother was so dangerous.”

He gently helped her to her feet, then put his arm around her shoulders and steered her to the stairs. “I have a great idea. How about if you take a nice, hot, relaxing shower, wash all the beans away, get dressed in one of my clean shirts, and I’ll mop up the floor?”

She dug her heels in at the foot of the stairs. “Wait a minute. Is this a trick to get me up to your bedroom in a naked condition?”

“That’s insulting. Boy, that really hurts. What kind of a person do you think I am?”

“Desperate? Perverted? Lecherous?”

“Besides that?”

Megan smiled at him. He wasn’t desperate, perverted, or lecherous. He’d been very nice. For three days now he’d been a perfect gentleman. A little too perfect, she admitted. She missed getting swept off her feet by his passionate kisses. She knew it was all for the best, yet still, it had become a tad frustrating. It was like waiting for an earthquake that never happened. You were relieved, but you were also strangely disappointed.

Ten minutes later, she stepped out of the small upstairs bathroom and admired Pat’s bedroom while she towel – dried her hair. These two rooms occupied the entire top floor of the cottage. The bedroom was directly under the eaves, so that the roof sloped on two sides, and two dormer windows looked out on the street. Window seats had been built into the alcoves, and their chintz teal cushions matched the puffy down quilt on the queen – size cherry wood four- poster. The upper half of the room was papered in a small, Williamsburg teal – and cream print. Below the chair rail the walls were painted creamy white. Two large pewter- and glass chimneyed candlesticks sat on the low cherry dresser.

It was the most romantic bedroom Megan had ever seen. It was a room for loving long into the night, she thought dreamily, until the candles were melted stubs and the lovers were sated and comfortably entwined under the feather quilt. She had such a strong feeling of belonging in the room that the thought of Pat lying under the quilt without her brought a painful lump to her throat.

Dumb, Megan, she told herself. Really dumb. You’re going to let that good, solid brick wall you’ve built around yourself crumble because the guy sleeps in a room with wallpaper and a pineapple bedstead.

Kitchen sounds drifted up to her. The refrigerator opened and closed, spoons clanked on glass bowls, and there was a soft splat followed by an expletive. “What happened?” she called down.

“I dropped a damn egg on the damn floor, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put Humpty – Dumpty together again. I wish you’d get down here. I have something to ask you.”

She put her jeans back on and helped herself to a blue plaid flannel shirt hanging in Pat’s closet. It all felt very intimate, wearing his shirt, using his shower. Downstairs their baby would sleep in his crib by the fireplace. And Pat was making domestic sounds in the kitchen, waiting to ask her something. Lord, what could it be? The Big Question? He’d already told her he wanted her. It was all a little sudden, but sometimes love was like that. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter. Megan Hunter. She looked at herself in the mirror. She was over the edge.

“Are you around the bend?” she asked her reflection. “Mrs. Hunter? Don’t you ever learn?” She stomped down the stairs. “Just because I’m wearing your shirt, don’t think I’m going to marry you.”

He stared at her, blank – faced.

“Wasn’t that what you were going to ask me?”

“No. I was going to ask you to crack the eggs for the gingerbread. I keep making a mess of it.”

She looked at the brown dough in the big bowl on the counter. “Sure, I get all the tough jobs.”

“So why don’t you want to marry me?”

“Nothing personal. I don’t want to marry anyone. I’m a free spirit. I’m the wind. I’m a saucy strumpet.”

He grinned. “Do you know what a strumpet is?”

“Not exactly.”

He whispered the definition in her ear.

“Hmmm,” she said. “Well, I’m not one of those.”

He draped his arm around her shoulders. “What about it, Windy? Will you crack my eggs?”

“I suppose it’s the least I could do, since you’ve mixed everything else together.”

An hour later, Megan took the last cookie sheet out of the oven and set it on a wire rack. “This isn’t going to work,” she told Pat. “You’ve already eaten half of the cookies. We’ll never get enough for Thanksgiving at this rate.”

“I can’t help it. They’re great. Besides, I’m not the only guilty party.”

She planted her fists on her hips. “I ate one cookie. One!”

“Yes, but you’re wearing half a dozen.”

She examined her shirt. It was caked with cookie dough and smudged with flour. “I’m not a neat cook.”

He tweaked her nose. “You’re an adorable cook.”

So they were back to nose tweaks, she thought, pouting. Fine. “I’m going home.”

He looked disappointed. “I’ll make cocoa and popcorn if you’ll stay awhile longer.”

“I can’t. Tomorrow is Saturday. I have to work tomorrow.” That much was true, but she could have stayed. She was just in a snit because he’d tweaked her on the nose. Men were so fickle. One minute they were slobbering all over you in a fit of passion, and the next thing they didn’t want to marry you. The hell with them.

“Where’s your car?” he asked. “I didn’t see it when I parked in the garage.”

“It’s at Merchants Square. I went to see Tilly’s apartment.”

“She’s not home.” He plunged his hands into his pockets. “I check on her every day.”

Megan glanced over at the little boy sleeping by the fireplace. “What happens if Tilly doesn’t come back?”

Pat leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. “I don’t know. I’d adopt him, honest to goodness I would, but it’s not that easy. I’m not sure of the law. I think he’ll be made a ward of the state, probably placed in a registered foster home until relatives can be located. Even if I tried to adopt him, it would take a year for the paper work to be done, and I probably wouldn’t get him, because I’m not married.”

“Isn’t there anything we can do?”

Pat gritted his teeth when he saw the tears clinging to her lower lashes. He was close to tears himself, and he was mad. Tilly Coogan had disappointed him. She was a young unwed mother, but she’d seemed responsible and mature for her years. Timmy was a healthy, happy, well – loved baby. Ten days earlier Tilly and Timmy had left his office as a functioning family unit. And now she’d abandoned him. What had gone wrong? Maybe he should have been more observant. Maybe he could have prevented this.

He pulled Megan to him and hugged her, burying his face in her hair. “I don’t know, Meg. I’m giving her until Thanksgiving, and then I’ll hire a lawyer and a detective. In the meantime, we’ll take good care of Timmy.”

Megan blinked back the tears. “It’s his first Thanksgiving. We have to do this right.”

Pat smiled. “Yeah. He probably can’t wait to sneeze turkey on you.”

She slipped her arms into her pea coat. “I’ll leave on that happy note.”

Pat handed her the keys to his car. “How about if we swap cars for tonight? I don’t want you wandering the streets alone.”

He walked to the car with her and waited while it churned a few times and caught. “I’ll come pick it up tomorrow at six o’clock. Wear something pretty. I’m taking you out to dinner. I think we both need a decent meal.”

“What about Timmy?”

“I have a baby – sitter. My receptionist’s daughter.”

The following day, Saturday, Megan dressed in her colonial costume, skipped down the stairs of her house, locked her front door with a flourish, and whistled all the way to work. She cracked her knuckles throughout the day, glancing at the watch she had hidden in her pocket, sighing heavily when time seemed to drag. At five o’clock she bolted from her ticket taking post in front of the silversmith’s shop, and at five – thirty she flew into her house and practically jumped out of her big, black shoes. She dropped her long skirt and white apron at the top of the stairs and was stripped down to her long johns by the time she reached the bathroom.

She had a dinner date with Patrick Hunter, and she only had half an hour to make herself ravishing. She caught a glimpse of her red cheeks and flyaway hair in the vanity mirror. Maybe not ravishing, she thought. Ravishing would take days. In thirty minutes the most she could accomplish would be to look clean and presentable.

Half an hour later, Megan applied the final swipe of mascara to her lashes and stepped back to appraise herself. She wasn’t sure how she looked, but she felt ravishing. She’d used the blow dryer and brush on her hair until it was a shining cloud of soft waves around her face. She wore a smudge of eye liner, a little peach – toned blush over cheeks that were already flushed, and a pale coral lip gloss.

“Geez,” she murmured, “is that me? Last time I got dressed up like this was in April… for my wedding.”

Pat knocked once and let himself into the house. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. A khaki jumper or a denim skirt. Maybe a pair of dressy corduroy slacks. He was completely unprepared for the woman who appeared at the top of the stairs.

She could have stepped off the cover of a magazine or hosted an exclusive Washington tea. She wore a pale pink sweater and matching skirt. The outfit was belted at her waist and clung to all her delicious curves and made her hair seem impossibly red. The slim skirt came to just above her knee, baring long, shapely legs in silky tinted stockings. Her dressy heels matched her small black handbag.

“I can’t believe I made it on time!” she said breathlessly.

He nodded. He didn’t know what to say. Megan Murphy was so many different people, he couldn’t keep up with them all. He watched her hair swing around her shoulders as she descended the stairs, and wasn’t sure how he would get through the evening. She was breathtaking… and he was just a cute pediatrician.

“Are you Megan Murphy?” he asked. He wanted to make sure. “You’re beautiful.” He reached out to touch her sleeve. “What’s this soft, fuzzy stuff?”

“It’s an angora blend. Do you like it?”

Like it? He wanted to get naked on it. Good thing they had a six – thirty reservation and had to leave the house immediately. He was afraid once he started fondling Megan Murphy in her bunny dress, he’d lose control.

It wasn’t in the plan for him to lose control. This was their first date. It was supposed to be romantic and civilized. Extreme fondling on a first date wasn’t civilized, he told himself, helping her with her black wool coat.

He locked the house and held the driver’s door open for her. “The other door is broken,” he explained, and immediately decided he would never get it fixed when he saw her dress ride high on her thigh as she slid across the seat.

He drove to the historic area and pulled into a parking lot on Francis Street. “I thought we’d eat at the King’s Arms Tavern,” he said. It had been the most romantic, elegant restaurant he could imagine, but suddenly he worried that this exquisite creature sitting next to him might be jaded. Surely she was taken to expensive restaurants every day of the week and had eaten at the King’s Arms hundreds of times.

Her eyes brightened. “I’ve never eaten here,” she said excitedly. “I could never afford it. I’ve been to Christiana Campbell’s for lunch, but never the King’s Arms.”

She slipped her hand into his as they crossed the street and walked through the dark garden behind the tavern. “Do you know what they serve here? Colonial game pie and fig ice cream and oyster pie. I have the menu memorized!”

He couldn’t believe it. She’d never eaten at the King’s Arms. He knew she didn’t want to get married, but didn’t she even date?

The garden led to an alley that led to Duke of Gloucester Street. The street was nearly empty, with only a few people strolling toward the King’s Arms. Candles flickered in the wavy glass tavern windows. Megan and Pat read the bill of fare while they waited to be called inside.

“They have wandering musicians here,” Megan said, “and everything’s lit by candles. And the waiters wear knee breeches. You probably know all that.” She smiled, slightly embarrassed at her enthusiasm.

“Nope. I’m new in town, and it’s nice to have my very own tour guide.”

“I guess I’m new too. I moved to Williamsburg in June. I needed to get away from… things. I really love it here. I’ve always been a history buff.”

They stepped into the tavern and were seated at a small table by a fireplace. A candle flickered in its glass chimney, illuminating the white linen tablecloth and formal place setting.

“I’m a history buff of sorts,” Pat said. “My ancestors lived in Williamsburg when Lord Botetourt served as governor. I was born and raised in California, but I’ve always been drawn to Williamsburg. Now that I’m here, I feel like I’ve come home.”

Megan nodded. She knew exactly what he meant. She didn’t have Williamsburg roots, but her heart told her this was where she belonged.

She gave the costumed waiter her order and her menu and watched Pat. She liked the way he looked in the candlelight. It made his eyes dark and mysterious, and emphasized the few laugh lines around them. He was wearing a navy blazer, navy stripped tie, and a white shirt with a small blue check pattern.

When their soup arrived, he regarded his bowl with undisguised apprehension. “You ever have peanut soup before?” he asked.

“It’s supposed to be good.” She delicately stirred the muddy brown concoction in front of her. She sniffed at it, then dipped a small chunk of toast called a sippet into the soup.

“Well?” he asked.

She thoughtfully chewed her soup – coated sippet. “I like it. You can try yours now, you coward. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

He grinned. “I leave adventure up to you. I’m the laid – back, sensible country doctor.”

Sometimes, she thought. He definitely had an easygoing California style, but there was nothing laid back about his kisses. And he was slightly crazy. Not an out – of – control craziness. Pat had a quiet, teasing sense of humor that was often turned inward. Her initial impression of him had been wrong, she admitted. He was responsible, sensitive, mature, and very caring. It was his self – confidence and the fact that he liked himself and the world around him that allowed him to be a little crazy.

She made several selections from the relish tray offered to her and smiled at Pat. “I’ve been thinking that you’re a little crazy.”

He seemed surprised at that. “Me? Dull Pat?”

She tasted the sweet corn. “You’re the only person I know who has a rabbit hopping around in his house. And you have an… um, unusual sense of humor.”

The waiter returned with warm Sally Lunn bread and tiny Indian corn muffins. Pat made a small mountain of muffins on his bread plate. “My sense of humor has always gotten me in trouble. My first year in med school I got Jimmy Szlagy to help me steal a cadaver and-” He stopped abruptly and grimaced. “You probably don’t want to hear about this while we’re eating.”

She scraped the final dregs of soup onto the last chunk of toast. “I probably don’t.” She slathered butter on a thick wedge of bread and closed her eyes in epicurean anticipation. “Yum.”

Pat relaxed back in his chair and watched her. She was a person filled to the brim with a love of life, he thought. Eating wasn’t a bodily function to her. It was a celebration. “You’re the only woman I’ve ever dated who got orgasmic over bread,” he said huskily, then smiled. “Are you as easily pleased in bed as you are at the dinner table?”

Megan paused with her slice of bread midway to her mouth. A thrill raced through her when she realized she’d been waiting for this. She wanted him to flirt with her. She might even want to be seduced. Her gaze caught and held his as she tested the texture of the bread with the tip of her tongue. She sensually licked a buttery fingertip, enjoying his rapt attention, and lowered her lashes. “There are some things a man should find out for himself.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Is that an invitation?”

She tipped her head back and laughed softly. It was fun being a temptress in a crowded restaurant, she thought. It was exciting and relatively safe. She paused while the waiter replaced her soup bowl with a salad dish.

“It’s an opinion,” she said, spearing a tomato with her fork, “and I think I’ve been saved by the salad.”

Pat wagged a finger at her. “Nothing can save you, Megan Murphy. Destiny has brought us together. It’s been predetermined that your beautiful, silky red hair should be spread across my pillow.”

“Destiny had nothing to do with it,” she said, suddenly nervous, not sure if she should let the conversation continue in this direction. “It was your adventurous rabbit that brought us together.”

A minstrel wandered into the candlelit room, playing an eighteenth – century ballad on his guitar. Megan turned to face him, but thoughts of Pat and his pillow were spinning in her head. The minstrel’s tunes, the elegant table, the room filled with people intermingled in a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds that were soft – edged in comparison to the clarity of her desire. She wanted to sleep with Patrick Hunter. She wanted to know him in the most intimate way possible.

She busied herself with her main course, spreading a bit of currant jelly across the flaky brown crust of the game pie, as her waiter had suggested. She mechanically tasted slivers of duck, rabbit, and venison, and was surprised when her plate was empty. “I ate all that?”

Pat sipped his wine. “You seemed preoccupied.”

Preoccupied, she thought. If he only knew. She’d spend the entire meal mentally making love to him.

They finished the meal with raisin rice pudding and coffee. “I can’t eat another bite,” Megan said. “In fact, I may never eat again.”

Pat helped her into her coat. “Now for the really exciting part of the evening. I’m going to take you to the movies.” He slung his arm around her shoulders and hurried her through the garden to the parking lot. “My parents have taken pity on their poor, deprived son and sent him a TV and a DVD player.”

“How nice!”

“I have great parents. I can’t wait for you to meet them. I’m glad they’re coming here for Thanksgiving.”

“I have great parents too. Thank goodness they’re in Florida.”

He started the engine and looked at her sideways. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing. The problem is, they have this super marriage. And since this marriage has made them so happy, they want me to have a super marriage too.”

“And you don’t want to get married.”

She stared straight ahead as they drove along Waller Street. “Right.”

She wasn’t sure anymore, though. Two weeks ago she’d been comfortably on her way to spinsterhood. Now she was caught in the middle of a ready – made family, and she liked it. At the end of the week, she’d woken up before the alarm rang, eager to see Timmy and Pat. And this morning she’d caught herself brooding because she hadn’t awakened in the cozy pineapple four- poster on Nicholson Street. Awakening in Pat’s bed was a dangerous daydream. Her emotions weren’t listening to reason.

It was an interesting phenomenon, she mused. She suspected that in other relationships she’d followed reason and tried to fabricate emotions. This time her emotions were running amuck, and at the head of the list was passion.

She studied Pat’s dark, boyish profile and wondered if she could indulge herself. Her body answered immediately Yes! Her mind worked more slowly. It said maybe.