not to grin too broadly, Luke pulled out a chair at the table in the middle of the big old-fashioned kitchen. Thalia and Lorraine couldn’t be more different and yet he liked them both. His mother had told him once that Thalia was more like her father, who had died young. Best buddy John, on the other hand, was a lot like his mother: funny and daring and ready for anything.
Lorraine plunked a dinner plate piled high with cookies on the table and went to get glasses, talking a mile a minute about everything from the weather to the stock market.
When she paused for breath, Luke said, “So what’s new with John?”
“He’s still in Chicago working for that Internet start-up company, still has the same wife and kid, still likes it. He’s going to try to get home while Thalia’s here but it’s iffy with his workload.”
Luke picked up a chocolate-studded round. “I’d sure like to see him one of these days.”
Thalia said, “Me, too. Fortunately, his company sends him to California now and then, so we get together there.”
“You like California, do you?” Luke pulled one of the three tall glasses of milk close enough so he could dunk his cookie. Biting into it, he closed his eyes in ecstasy. Lorraine was probably the best cookie baker in Shepherd’s Pass, with the possible exception of Emily. He couldn’t think of anything else Lorraine could cook worth diddly, but her cookies were first-rate.
He chewed blissfully for a moment, only belatedly realizing Thalia hadn’t answered his question. Opening his eyes, he saw her looking down at the cookie in her hands, her expression closed.
Before he could repeat his query, Lorraine spoke up.
“Of course, she doesn’t like California. What’s to like? All those people, all those cars, all those freeways, all that smog? She’s only living there because she’s stubborn.”
“Oh, Mother.” Thalia put down her cookie. “My life is there. I have an apartment, friends—”
“An ex-husband,” Lorraine informed Luke. “Sometimes I think she’s still carrying the torch for Don.”
“No way.” Thalia’s denial sounded heartfelt. “We tried and now it’s over. We’ve both moved on.”
“Better you should move back—back home to Colorado,” Lorraine said. “Like Luke did.” She swung her attention his way. “You’re glad to be back, right?”
“Of course, but I’m not glad to be living at home.” He grimaced. “Mom was dead set on it, and since Dad had only been gone a few months when I got here…” He shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time, but boy, have I lived to regret it. I’m planning to get my own place as soon as I have time to look.”
Thalia’s tight expression relaxed into sympathy. “I was sorry to hear about your dad’s death.”
“Thank you,” he said. “It was quite a shock to all of us, but we’re getting along.” Not that it had been easy. Just digging through his father’s far-flung business interests had been a chore in and of itself. Then there was the shock of realizing just how big the estate was. If money could buy happiness, his mother would be a very happy woman, indeed.
Instead of what she was: miserable.
Lorraine reached for a cookie. “You haven’t seen his mother’s new house, have you,” she said to her daughter.
“No.”
“It’s at the end of this road,” Lorraine said darkly. “It’s a darned mansion, is what it is. Of course, it was the Daltons who sold all that land to the developer for Shangri-la. They tried to buy my measly little five acres, and when I wouldn’t sell, they just built around me like I was a tree stump in the middle of a road.”
Thalia glanced questioningly at Luke, who nodded.
“That’s pretty much how it happened,” he agreed. “But it’s not like your mom’s stubborn or anything, or like they didn’t offer her ten times what this land is worth.”
Lorraine burst out laughing. “Oh, you!” she said affectionately. “Thalia’s on my side no matter what you say.”
“I certainly am,” Thalia agreed.
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “so am I. You’ve got a great place here, Mrs. Myers. It’s eccentric, like its owner. I like that in my houses and in my women.” He winked broadly.
Lorraine looked pleased; Thalia merely looked annoyed.
“Really, Luke,” she said, “aren’t you ever serious?”
“Of course. I’m serious now.” And he was. He did like eccentric people, people who did the unexpected and did it with flair. Like Thalia herself on that long-ago day, when she’d done her much-too-young best to seduce him. What he wouldn’t give to have her try that again!
Damn, she needed something to loosen her up. If he didn’t know what she was capable of, he wouldn’t give a second thought to the buttoned-up woman with the disapproving air. Even if she was beautiful. Even if she did occasionally slip and let genuine emotion show on her face.
Ah, hell, maybe he would.
A banging on the front door defused the increasingly taut moment. Lorraine frowned.
“Who the heck could that be?” Rising, she left the room.
Luke waited until she was gone and then said, “You’ve got a heck of a mother there.”
“Don’t I know it.” That could be the first genuine smile he’d seen so far on Thalia’s smooth face.
“Didn’t you ever want to be like her?”
She looked astonished. “Good heavens, no. I love her, but she’s so out of control.”
“And you don’t like that.”
“You know I don’t. I like things neat and tidy.”
“And predictable.”
“That, too.” Her chin lifted. “There’s nothing wrong with predictable.”
“There’s everything wrong with it, Thalia. It’s…it’s limiting.”
“It’s reliable.”
“It’s boring.”
“I could take that personally,” she snapped.
“Everything I’ve said to you is personal,” he agreed. “I—”
Raised voices from the living room intruded. Both of them knew immediately that his mother, Sylvia Dalton, had arrived.
SYLVIA AND LORRAINE MIXED like oil and water, always had and probably always would. Thalia could imagine them as wizened little old ladies—one silver-haired, one orange-haired—sitting side by side in their wheelchairs at some senior citizens home sniping at each other night and day.
