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to do what feels right to you there.”
    “I don’t know what’s right. I only know what’s wrong.”
    He walked back to the same park, sat on the same bench and set the bottle beside him.
    “I can’t tell you what to do, Andrew, but I think if you don’t resolve this and let it go, it’s going to keep hurting you.”

    “I know it.”
    “She’s only going to be here a few days. If you could make your peace with it, and with her, while she’s here, you’d be better for it. I never made peace with Buster. The son of a bitch.”
    She smiled, hoping he would, but he only continued to watch her with those steady, serious eyes. “Oh, Andrew.” She sighed, looked away. “What I mean is, I never made the effort so we could be civil, and it still eats at me some. He wasn’t worth it, God knows, but it eats at me. He hurt me, in a lot of ways, so all I wanted to do in the end was hurt him right back. But worse. Of course, I never did because he never gave a shit.”
    “Why’d you stay with him, Annie?”
    She pushed a hand through her hair. “Because I told him I would. Taking vows at the courthouse on your lunch hour’s just the same as doing it in a big church in a fancy white dress.”
    “Yeah.” He gave the hand that now held his a squeeze. “I know it. Believe it or not, I wanted to keep mine. I wanted to prove that I could. Failing at it was like proving I wasn’t any different from my father, his father, any of them.”
    “You’re yourself, Andrew.”
    “That’s a scary thought.”
    Because he needed it, and so did she, she leaned forward, laid her lips on his, let them part when he reached for her. Took him in.
    God help her.
    She could feel the edge of desperation, but he was careful with her. She’d known too many men who weren’t careful. The hand on his face stroked, felt the prickle of a day-old beard, then the smooth skin of his throat.
    The needs that kindled inside her were outrageous, and she was afraid they wouldn’t help either of them.
    “You’re not like them.” She pressed her cheek to his before the kiss could weaken her too much.
    “Well, not tonight anyway.” He picked up the bottle, handed it to her. “There, that’s a hundred percent profit for you.”
    There was a relief in it, he realized. The kind a man feels when he whips the wheel of his car just before plunging off a cliff. “I’m going to go to a meeting before I go home.” He puffed out a breath. “Annie, about tomorrow night. It would mean a lot to me if you’d change your mind and come.”
    “Andrew, you know I don’t fit in with all those fancy art people.”
    “You fit with me. Always have.”
    “Saturday nights are busy.” Excuses, she thought. Coward. “I’ll think about it. I’ve got to go.”
    “I’ll walk you back.” He rose, took her hand again. “Annie, come tomorrow.”
    “I’ll think about it,” she repeated without any intention of doing so. The last thing she wanted to do was go up against Elise on the woman’s turf.

twenty-seven
    “Y ou need to get out of here.”
    Miranda glanced up from her desk, where she was buried in a sea of papers, saw Ryan watching her from the doorway. “At this moment, I basically live here.”
    “Why do you feel you have to do all of this yourself?”
    She ran her pencil between her fingers. “Is there something wrong with the way it’s being done?”
    “That’s not what I said.” He walked over, laid his palms on the desk and leaned toward her. “You don’t have to prove anything to her.”
    “This isn’t about my mother. This is about making certain that tomorrow night is a success. Now I have several more details to see to.”
    He reached over, plucked the pencil out of her hand and snapped it in two.
    She blinked, stunned by the ripe and ready temper in his eyes. “Well, that was mature.”
    “It’s more mature than doing the same to that stiff neck of yours.”
    If she’d held a silver shield and lowered it between them, it would have been no less tangible a block than the way her face closed up.
    “Don’t you shut me out. Don’t you sit there and play with one of your ubiquitous lists as if there’s nothing more important to you than the next item to be crossed off. I’m not a fucking item, and I know just what’s going on inside you.”
    “Don’t swear at me.”
    He turned on his heel and started for the door. She expected him to go straight through, to keep going, as others had. Instead he slammed the door,