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“Milk?” Thalia jumped up, eager to avoid further dissension.
“I don’t suppose there’s coffee made.” Sylvia said it as if it were a test for gracious living.
“Darn it, Syl!” Lorraine grimaced. “I am not going to make a whole pot of coffee just for you and end up tossing most of it away. There might be a little left over from breakfast in the carafe, but—”
“Never mind.” Sylvia gave a condescending sigh. “A glass of water will be sufficient.” She tore off a crumb and lifted it to her mouth as if suspecting it of containing hemlock.
Thalia pulled a small bottle of water from the refrigerator and offered it hopefully. Lorraine watched impatiently for about thirty seconds before she burst out, “Okay, out with it, Syl. What are you doing here?”
“I can’t drop by to visit a neighbor?” Sylvia countered.
“You ask me that after forty years’ worth of cold shoulders?”
“It isn’t forty. More like thirty-five.”
Lorraine appealed to the gallery. “She’s quibbling.”
“No, seriously.” Sylvia leaned forward. “Lorraine, I must speak to you about Shangri-la number two.”
Lorraine caught her breath sharply. “There is no Shangri-la number two.”
“But there will be, if you’ll stop trying to rouse the populace against it.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“But Rainy, you know it’ll benefit the community, and the land will eventually be developed anyway. In fact—” Sylvia’s voice dropped, became confidential “—the developer has agreed to raise his offer for this little ol’ plot of land of yours. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with what he—”
“Out!” Lorraine rose in all her leotard-and-tights-clad dignity. Her red-gold curls quivered with indignation. “Out of my house! If you have intruded into the sanctity of my home to insult me with another pathetic offer when I’ve already made my feelings perfectly clear—”
“Mother!” Thalia tugged at Lorraine’s elbow. “You’re going overboard. Mrs. Dalton didn’t insult you.”
“But I will now.” Sylvia also rose, regal in her classic designer suit. “I don’t know why I waste my breath. There’s no reasoning with an unreasonable person.”
“Out!” Lorraine’s pointing arm quivered.
“I’m going. Lucas, come along.”
“Not yet, Mother.”
“You’d side against your own flesh and blood?” She looked horrified.
“I’m not siding with anyone. I came to check out Lorraine’s dog and that’s what I intend to do.”
“Fine.” She lifted her chin still higher. “I’ll expect you for dinner at seven.”
“I may not be hungry after all these cookies.”
“Lucas! I will expect you for dinner at seven.”
“Yeah, right, whatever.”
Sylvia marched to the kitchen door, then spun around to glare at Lorraine. “I am assuming this altercation will not affect Saturday.”
Thalia frowned. “What’s Saturday?”
“Lucas’s birthday party,” Sylvia said grandly. “Lorraine’s Pretty Posies is providing flowers and decorating for a pool party. Or was.” She gave her nemesis an accusing look. “Are you still?”
Lorraine’s jaw tightened. “Certainly, I am. That’s business. This is personal.”
“Then I expect you to have everything there at noon and don’t screw this up!” Sylvia turned and marched out of the room and the house.
Lorraine stood as stiff as a poker until the front door slammed. Then she closed her eyes, clenched her hands into fists and said, “Ohh! That woman makes me crazy.”
“It’s mutual, Mother,” Thalia assured her. “You two go at each other like junior high kids.”
“Maybe because that’s when it started,” Lorraine snapped. “Well, my supper’s ruined. Excuse me. I’ve got to go change.”
Alone, Luke and Thalia looked at each other in mutual puzzlement.
“What do you suppose started this feud?” she wondered aloud. “It seems to grow worse with time, not better.”
“They may not even remember themselves.”
“That’s certainly possible. Your mother’s always been really nice to me.”
“Your mother’s been nice to me, too. In fact, she’s one of my favorite people.”
The corners of her mouth curved down. “I suppose you think I should be more like her,” she accused.
He surprised her.
“Nope, I’d like you to be more like yourself, Thalia. I don’t believe you’re the uptight pulled-together person you’re trying so hard to convince yourself you are. In fact—” he leaned across the table, his gaze locking with hers “—I think the real you is the person who conceived what is probably the only wild and crazy thing you’ve ever done in your life.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I hope you don’t mean what I think you mean.”
“I certainly do.” Thrusting his hand around her neck, he yanked her forward and planted a quick, hard kiss on her unprepared lips. “I saw the real you—literally—for about two seconds. Because I didn’t lose my head and ravish you on the spot, you seem to think it was a disgraceful episode best forgotten. I don’t happen to agree. I think it was a glorious episode I’d like to repeat at the first possible moment—and this time, no backing away.”
Releasing her, he straightened. She stared at him, stunned, her lips tingling. She wanted to press her fingertips to her mouth but didn’t want him to guess how much he’d affected her—annoyed her!
“So where’s Reckless?” he asked.
“R-Reckless who?”
He laughed. “Reckless, the dog.”
“The dog?” She had to shake this off—without shaking, of course.
His smile teased her. “Reckless…the…dog,” he said with slow emphasis. “Remember? I am making a house call.”
“Oh, good grief.” Flustered and on the defensive, she jumped up. “He must be out back. I’ll call him in.”
“I can go where he is. Come along.”
“Me?” She backed away.
“What if he tried to bite me?”
“Reckless doesn’t bite.”
“What if I need help?”
“You can always call for—”
“What if I just like your company?”
She had no answer to that. Rising, she followed him out the back door.
“THAT’S A GOOD BOY. You’ve been real patient with me.” Luke ruffled the dog’s silky black hair and got a mournful look in return. He glanced at Thalia and frowned. “I don’t like this,” he said.
“You don’t like what?”
“I saw Reckless last week for a sore paw. The paw’s cleared up just fine and I can’t see anything else obviously wrong with him. Beyond the fact that he’s too thin and just not real perky.”
She knelt in the grass beside Luke, her expression concerned. “Is he sick?”
“I don’t think so. But just to be on the safe side, you or Lorraine might like to bring him by the clinic next week for some lab work. Maybe I missed something.” Or misinterpreted something, he thought, because something was bothering this dog.
She pulled back visibly. “I’ll tell Mother.”
“Tell Mother what?” Lorraine walked down the steps to join them. She’d changed into jeans and a sweatshirt with lettering across the chest that read Shangri-la It Ain’t!
“I’m a little worried about your dog,” Luke explained. He stood, Thalia rising with him. Reckless didn’t move, just sat there looking, brown eyebrows on his black face giving him a sad expression.
Lorraine frowned. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I’m not sure.”
“He has been a little peaked lately.” She cocked her head and frowned at the dog sternly. “Reckless, what’s your problem?”
The old dog pulled himself up and walked over to her, his feathery tail moving slowly and without enthusiasm. She leaned down to stroke his head.
“How long have you had this dog?” Luke asked.
“A couple of years. I had a friend—a rancher—who sold out and was moving to Denver. I’d just lost Geezer—you remember him, Luke.”
He nodded. That mutt must have been at least fifteen years old.
“Anyway, I had the room here.” She gestured to the rolling, pine-studded land beyond the open gate. “I also like Border collies, although I’ve never had one before. I was happy to take Reckless in, and he seemed to settle in just fine. But lately—” she frowned “—it seems like Reckless is aging right before my eyes.”
“We’ll figure it out,” he reassured her. He looked at Thalia, who’d been listening quietly. “I’ve got to hit the road.” Which he regretted, since she was loosening up at least a little bit.
“Okay.”
She didn’t seem to care, but that didn’t deter him. “Walk me to my car?”
“Why? Did you forget where you parked it?”
He saw her stifle a faint smile. “I’m willing to say so to get my way,” he countered.
“Oh, all right.” She was trying to sound annoyed, but he didn’t buy it. “I’ll be right back, Mother, and then there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
He wondered what that might be.
They started for the gate, but Lorraine said his name.
When he turned, she said through tight lips, “I’m sorry about the way I spoke to your mother. Will you tell her that I—”
“Nope.”
“What do you mean, nope?” She looked offended. “You don’t even know what I’m about to say.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’m not getting in the middle of that.”
Thalia looked at him with approval. “Good for you!” she said.
Lorraine said, “Well, I never!”
“Oh, Mother!” Thalia laughed. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
And they walked away from the seething woman.
AT THE CHEROKEE, he turned to her. “I expect both you and your mother to stay at the party Saturday as guests. I’m spelling it out just in case you didn’t understand.”
Her eyebrows shot up. Was he kidding? “We’re the hired help,” she reminded him. “No way.”
“Hey, it’s my birthday.” His golden-brown eyes smiled at her. “Shouldn’t I get what I want?”
The thought of what he might want took her breath away. She barely managed to say, “You got a pony when you were seven.”
“And a Porsche when I was sixteen. Uh-uh, what I want at thirty-one is you…at my party, of course.”
Her mouth was so dry she could barely speak. “We don’t always get what we want, even on our birthdays.”
“I remember your sixteenth birthday.”
He reached out to brush her hair away from her cheek and she flinched. “Don’t,” she said.
“Don’t what?”
