Just one night to pretend that she was a normal woman, with a normal life.

Surely, taking her eye off the ball for one short dinner couldn’t hurt anything, could it?

Jeremy banged on the door again. “Are you ready?”

She closed her eyes and stuck her hand in the closet, grabbing a hanger. Whatever it was, that’s what she’d wear. It turned out to be a flowing, brightly printed skirt that hit her at midcalf. Maybe just a little too sweet, so she paired it with a form-fitting cream-colored sweater and a pair of heels.

At long last, she picked up her purse from the dresser and opened her bedroom door. “Yes, I’m ready now.”

“Wow, you look really pretty!” Jeremy said, which told her she must have chosen well, since he rarely commented on her outfits. Then again, she rarely ever dressed up, since it was always just the two of them.

“Thank you,” she said, but he was already running off to get a snack from the kitchen.

They lived in a three-bedroom, two-bath house, plenty for her and Jeremy. Rather than waste the formal dining space, she’d converted it to her home office. They never used her mother’s untouched living room, though, preferring the den. Their family room was open to the kitchen, with a bar and stools in between that they could use for meals. More often than not, they ate in front of the TV, mostly because she had trouble keeping the bar clean of the junk mail and completed homework assignments that accumulated there.

The TV was tuned to one of Jeremy’s favorite car channels. A coloring book lay on the coffee table, surrounded by a huge box of crayons, from which he’d removed almost every one. He’d been working on an orange rooster. Coloring was an exercise assigned by his teacher, Miss Richards, to help his dexterity, though he often had trouble staying within the lines.

Harper eyed the two baskets of laundry plopped at one end of the sofa. She’d have to get to those sooner or later. Glancing at her watch, she decided there wasn’t time now to do the hated task.

The doorbell chimed, and she actually jumped. Okay, maybe she was a little nervous. After all, it had been over a year since she’d gone out with a man. And Will Franconi wasn’t just any man, was he?

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“It’s Will!” Jeremy raced to the front door.

Harper grabbed her jacket off a chair, then scooped a few things off the hall table and into the drawer as she passed. When Jeremy opened the door, Will immediately took her breath away. His white button-down shirt was open at the collar, revealing a dusting of hair climbing up from his chest, and he should have been a jeans model, they looked so great on him.

Jeremy was dancing around him on the front stoop. “She took forever to get ready, Will. I had to keep pounding on the door.”

Harper closed her eyes briefly in mortification.

“That’s a woman’s prerogative,” Will said with a smile she saw once she braved opening her eyes again.

“Well, I’m ready now,” she said brightly.

“Not just ready, Harper,” Will said in that low voice that sent tingles coursing through her, head to toe. “Gorgeous.”

He held out his hand and she let his warm fingers close around hers, palms resting together. It felt good. Too good. But she simply couldn’t make herself pull away. Not when it felt like there hadn’t been nearly enough good things in her life...and certainly nothing this good.

“I’ll have her back home safe and sound, Jeremy, don’t you worry.”

“I wasn’t worried,” Jeremy said with all seriousness. “She gets to stay out as long as she wants because she’s an adult.”

“Trish will be here in half an hour,” Harper reminded Jeremy.

She didn’t mind his being alone for half an hour, but certainly not a whole evening. Number one, Jeremy didn’t like the dark. And two, though she’d trained him to use 911, she wasn’t confident about his reaction time. Harper always had Trish, their neighbor’s college-age daughter, come in for a few hours if she was going to be late.

“I know, Harper.” Her brother gave an exaggerated wave as Will led her down the front path.

She’d expected a muscle car like the Challenger. Even an expensive Ferrari or a Porsche. But he held open the door of a BMW for her. Nothing flashy or showy, though it was elegant and luxurious. He helped her with a hand to her elbow, and she felt his heat through her jacket. She couldn’t remember ever being this aware of a man—the true-blue color of his eyes and the thickness of his black hair, wondering how soft it would be against her fingers.

As he closed her door and walked around to the driver’s side, she firmly reminded herself that she needed to maintain dignity and control tonight.




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