Three Fates

open her door, step inside with her. Already there was a purr in her throat and a quiver along her skin.
    And he couldn’t do it. She was half-drunk and criminally vulnerable. Worse, somehow worse, the want for her was a great deal more personal than he’d bargained for.
    He eased her back with the sudden, certain knowledge that his plans had just suffered a major snag. And the snag could become a large and tangled knot.
    “Spend the day with me tomorrow.”
    She felt as if she were floating. “Don’t you have work?”
    “Spend the day with me,” he repeated and tortured himself by leaning her back against the door and taking her mouth again. “Say yes.”
    “Yes. What?”
    “Eleven. I’ll be here at eleven. Go inside, Tia.”
    “Go where?”
    “Inside.” God help him. “Inside,” he repeated as he fumbled a bit with her lock. “Damn it, one more.” He yanked her back against him, kissed her until the blood was roaring in his head. “Lock the door,” he ordered and, giving her a little shove inside, shut it smartly in his own face before he could change his mind.

Six
     
     
     
     
    T IA wasn’t sure if it was curiosity or lust that drove her to look for the old journal. Whichever it was, it was a powerful force to make her face her mother in the middle of the day.
    She loved her mother, sincerely, but any session with Alma Marsh was wearing on the nerves. Rather than risk a germ-crawling taxi, she walked the eight blocks to the lovely old town house where she’d spent her childhood. She was so energized, so full of the delight of the last two days and Malachi, she didn’t even think about the pollen count.
    The air was thick as a brick, and so miserably hot it wilted her crisp linen blouse before she’d walked crosstown to Park Avenue. But she strolled along, as she headed uptown, humming a tune in her mind.
    She loved New York. Why hadn’t she ever realized how much she loved the city, with its noise and traffic, its crowded streets. Its life. There was so much to see if you just looked. The young women pushing baby carriages, the boy walking a group of six little dogs that pranced along like a parade. The sleek, black, hired cars taking ladies to lunch, or home again after a morning’s shopping. And look how gorgeous the flowers were along the avenue, and how smart the doormen looked in their uniforms as they stood outside the buildings.
    How had she missed all this? she wondered as she turned onto her parents’ pretty, shady street. Simple. On the rare times she actually walked outside of her own three-block radius, she kept her head down, her purse in a stranglehold and imagined herself being mugged, or run over by a bus that jumped the curb.
    But she’d walked yesterday with Malachi. They’d strolled up Madison Avenue, had stopped at a little sidewalk café for cold drinks and careless conversation. He talked to everyone. The waiter, the woman beside them with, of all things, a miniature poodle in her lap.
    Which could hardly be sanitary.
    He talked to shop clerks in Barneys, to a young woman debating over scarves in one of the terrifying boutiques Tia usually avoided. He struck up conversations with one of the guards at the Met, and the sidewalk vendor where he’d bought hot dogs.
    She’d actually eaten a hot dog—right on the street. She could hardly get over it.
    For a few hours she’d seen the city through his eyes. The wonder of it, the humor in it, the grit and the grandeur.
    And she was going to see it again tonight, with him.
    She was nearly skipping by the time she reached her parents’ house. There were flowerpots flanking the entrance. Tilly, the housekeeper, would have planted and tended them. She remembered now that she’d wanted to help plant the pots once. She’d been about ten, but her mother had worried so about dirt, allergies and insects that she’d given up the idea.
    Maybe she’d buy a geranium on the way home. Just to see.
    Though she had a key, Tia used the bell. The key was for emergencies, and using it meant decoding the alarm, then explaining why she’d done so.
    Tilly, a sturdy fireplug of a woman with stone-gray hair, answered quickly.
    “Why, Miss Tia! What a nice surprise. All settled in, then, after your trip? I really enjoyed the postcards you sent me. All those wonderful places.”
    “A lot of places,” Tia agreed as she stepped into the cool, quiet air. She kissed Tilly’s cheek with the easy comfort she felt for few. “It’s good