put, no one in Endicott, Indiana, wanted change. Ever. Not to their small-town culture, not to their small-town values, not to their small-town economy. And not to their small-town homes, either, evidently. Nothing ever happened in the tiny community, anyway, so why should anyone be amenable to change? Kirby would probably be more successful trying to launch a career as a voodoo queen.
There had been a time in her life when Kirby had loved her hometown for the very reason that it did resist change and development. She’d liked the quiet pace, the simple pleasures. She’d wanted nothing more than to marry a local boy, settle down and start a family here. In fact, she still wanted those things. Which was probably why Endicott was starting to annoy her so much lately. There were reminders everywhere of all the things she had wanted and hadn’t been able to find.
She closed her eyes again, but couldn’t quite shake the sensation of being watched—and very intently, at that. Nonsense, she tried to tell herself. The only way anyone could be watching her would be if they were on the roof of the Admiralty Inn, the tallest building in town, a good mile away. And even if someone were watching her from that lofty standpoint, she’d just be a smudge of chaise longue amid a sea of grass. No one would be able to tell that she was naked. No one in Endicott had ever seen her naked.
Not that she hadn’t tried.
In fact, Kirby had spent the last two years of her life trying to get naked with men, but no man in Endicott had ever been even remotely interested in getting to know her that intimately. She was the town good girl—too nice, too sweet, too innocent, too virginal for anyone of the male persuasion to even attempt to try that with her.
But then, she had no one but herself to blame. She’d always chosen the path of goodness—had been the most highly decorated Girl Scout, the most conscientious candy-striper, the perlaest cheerleader, the most dependable baby-sitter. And after her father’s death when she was twelve, she had become the sole caretaker for her mother, who had been weakened by heart disease shortly after Kirby was born.
Everyone had considered her a saint after that, even though Kirby had just thought herself a daughter who loved her mother. And when her mother passed away shortly after Kirby’s eighteenth birthday, the entire town had turned out in sympathy. After that, Endicott had, in effect, become Kirby’s caretakers. Older folks became surrogate parents. Younger folks became surrogate siblings. And no man in town wanted to get intimate with his sister.
Too, when Kirby had become old enough to understand what sex was all about, she’d insisted on saving herself for marriage. Of course, now that she was thirty years old and a potential life mate was nowhere to be found, she had altered her philosophy on that in a number of respects. Two years ago, as a matter of fact, shortly after her twenty-eighth birthday, when she’d realized that thirty—and Bob’s next visit—were so near on the horizon.
It had occurred to her then that if she was going to find that forever-after kind of love she’d wished for when she was fifteen, by the time the comet made its next visit, then she was going to have to give Bob a little help.
Unfortunately, by the time she began to rethink her virginal status, most of the eligible men in Endicott had been chaimed—a good many of them by women who hadn’t shared Kirby’s opinions where their own maidenhead had been concerned. What few available men were left simply didn’t view Kirby in a particularly sexual light. Not that any of the others had felt any differently.
She sighed heavily, thought about moving someplace where no one knew her, then, as always, dismissed the idea completely. Endicott was her home, the only place she’d ever known. Although she had no family left to speak of, her friends were here. She’d never traveled as a child, and simply had no desire to move. The thought of starting up all alone somewhere just held no appeal.
So she lived in the house where she had grown up, existed on a small income from investments, struggled to make her decorating business a viable source of income and spent most of her time alone.
She opened one eye and gazed up at the cloudless, pale blue sky. “Thanks for nothing, Bob,” she muttered.
Darned comet. So much for the myth of the wishes. So far, Bob was zero for three. Angie’s excitement had yet to materialize, Rosemary’s lab partner had yet to get what was coming to him and Kirby was nowhere near finding a forever-after kind of love. Endicott was still boring, Willis Random—if you could believe the gossip—was thriving as a brilliant astrophysicist teaching at MIT and not one single example of husband-and-father material had come close to entering Kirby’s orbit.
“Some wish-granting comet you turned out to be,” she added morosely, closing her eye again.
But when she heard what sounded like the faint ding-dong of her front doorbell singing through the soft silence of the backyard, she jumped up from the chaise longue and thrust her arms through the sleeves of a short peach-colored kimono, then dashed into the house.
“I’m coming!” she shouted as the doorbell sounded impatiently several more times. “Will you please lighten up on that thing? I’m not deaf,” she concluded as she jerked the door open.
“No, what you are is incredible.”
The rich, masculine voice poured over her like something hot, liquid and sticky. For a moment, Kirby could say nothing in response to the man’s observation, so surprised was she by his appearance on her doorstep. So she only gazed at him in silence, mouth slightly agape, wondering if she hadn’t simply fallen asleep on the chaise longue and been plunged into one of those erotic dreams that plagued her from time to time.
Her guest was, in a word, gorgeous. His jet-black hair, sleek and straight, was bound at his nape in a ponytail by some currently invisible means of support. A white short-sleeved T-shirt, deceptive in its simplicity and clearly not Fruit of the Loom, loosely covered—but not quite loosely enough—a torso corded with muscles. The baggy, pale gray trousers were also obviously of expensive cut, cinched around a slim waist, trim hips and legs she would have killed to know more about.
But what caught her attention most was the single, exquisite, apricot-colored rose the man held in one hand, and the dewy magnum of champagne he held in the other. Quickly she forced her focus back to his face, where her surprise at his appearance had prevented her gaze from lingering. Now she took in his features, one by beautiful one, and felt the world drop away from beneath her.
His eyes were as pale as his hair was dark, an almost mystical gray framed by long, sooty lashes and straight, elegant black brows. His nose was narrow, his lips full and his cheekbones had evidently been carved from Italian marble. As she watched, his magnificent mouth curled into a smile, and he tipped his head forward in greeting.
“Hello,” he said simply.
When Kirby realized her mouth was still hanging open, she quickly snapped it shut. “Uh, hi,” she began eloquently.
He smiled a mischievous little smile. “My name’s James. What’s yours?”
“Kirby,” she replied without thinking.
“Wanna come out to play?”
She blinked at him three times quickly, as if a too-bright flash had gone off right in front of her eyes. “Wh-what?” she stammered.
He shrugged. “Okay. We can stay in and play. I’d like that better anyway.”
She shook her head hard in an effort to clear it of the muzziness that had overtaken it, and wondered if maybe she had spent too much time in the sun. Behind the
