learned to walk the straight and narrow. And to force her creative brain into remembering the rules, she’d devised a method of making lists just to keep them straight in her head.
Her latest rule for survival: No dating impulsive men.
Lennon frowned as though she wasn’t quite buying this explanation. “What do you mean ‘opposite goals’?”
“He wanted to get married.”
Lennon dissolved before her very eyes into one of those melting oh-how-romantic expressions Ellen was very familiar with after eight years of working with romance authors.
“And you turned him down?”
“Of course I turned him down, Lennon. Honestly.”
“But why? You were crazy about him.”
That was before she’d found out he was crazy. “Listen, Lennon, he’s past history and I’m looking to the future.” Plastering her smile back on, Ellen tried to look reassuring. Her cheeks stretched. Her jaw creaked. “I’m waiting to meet the one, and when I do, you’ll be the first to know.”
“The one?”
“The man who’ll love me for who I am, with no questions. The man who’ll respect my situation enough to play by my rules.”
Lennon looked thoughtful. “Unconditional love. Are you sure you believe that exists?”
“Of course. I couldn’t edit romances if I didn’t. But I’m not going to sit around waiting for it to happen. I’ve got things to accomplish and goals to reach. Worrying about whether or not a man fits into the equation is simply not something I’ll do. If I meet the one, so be it. If not, well, so be it.”
“You’re sure Christopher isn’t the one?”
“Completely.”
“What convinced you?” Lennon insisted. “A man that intense and that gorgeous has to be amazing in bed.”
“I am not sharing the details of my sex life, so don’t bother badgering me. You and Miss Q might discuss how much and how good over dinner, but I prefer to keep my sex life private, thank you. That’s the second rule of the Talbot family code of conduct—no discussing sex at the dinner table.”
“Note to self—” Lennon grimaced “—have a handy excuse to decline the next Talbot family dinner invitation. Just out of curiosity, what’s the first rule?”
Ellen patted her purse. “Always be accessible, which means the cell phone stays on.”
Talbot family code of conduct rule number four: Don’t pry. Ellen could almost hear her mother explaining, Prying shows a decided lack of manners, and unless you’re interested in answering similarly private questions…
She wasn’t.
Unfortunately, Lennon wasn’t versed on Talbot family code of conduct rule number four. She sighed so heavily that Ellen knew she was in for a lecture about making time to have fun. Another conversation they’d had before.
She switched gears, fast. “I will tell you it’ll be a frosty Friday before I involve myself with another impulsive man.”
Lennon set her mug down on the table with a thunk, leaned back in her chair and smiled. And kept smiling.
“What’s so funny?”
“Finally.” She made a visible effort to curb her amusement, though not much of one, judging by her smothered laughter. “You are the most stubborn person I know.”
“I’m not stubborn. I just like stability and constants. He’s an adrenaline junkie who lives life to test fate. The press would have a field day, and that wouldn’t be fair to him. Or me, for that matter. I can’t handle living my life worrying about what sort of stunt he’s going to pull next and what the fallout will be. Marriage! We’d only dated three months.”
“I accepted Josh’s marriage proposal after three days.”
“Your decisions aren’t subject to public scrutiny. If I accept a marriage proposal after three days or even three months, my mother’s parenting skills come under fire. Her party spins my acceptance to mean she raised a confident daughter. The opposing party spins it to mean she has no control over her wild child. I prefer not to start the debate. I don’t enjoy the spotlight in my face, and the media loves writing about guys who flaunt the rules.”
“Christopher is one of the neighborhood kids, Ellen. I’ve known him since I was ten years old.”
She might have laughed at Lennon’s casual description of “neighborhood kids,” which brought to mind a motley gang riding bikes or playing ice hockey on frozen ponds in the winter. But like Ellen’s own, Lennon’s upbringing hadn’t exactly been traditional. She’d been raised in the exclusive Garden District of New Orleans, where kids lived in mansions and toured the continent during summer breaks.
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that I’ve known him a long time. Christopher may enjoy adventurous hobbies, but he’s no adrenaline junkie. He just likes to have fun—which is something you could use a little help with, I don’t mind saying.”
She should have known Lennon would drag her back here despite evasive maneuvers. “You call driving a car in circles at a hundred miles an hour fun?”
“He plays hard, but that’s only because he works so hard. He’s incredibly driven. Just like someone else I know.”
Her pointed stare left no doubt that she considered Ellen guilty of the same crime.
“Well, I don’t spend my weekends jumping out of airplanes, or scuba diving for sunken treasure.”
“I don’t always go into the Gulf with Josh on his week-long fishing excursions—and we make out just fine. A couple can enjoy individual interests. What’s wrong with that?”
“I don’t equate the risk factor of deep-sea fishing with rappelling down a mountainside in the Rockies.”
“It could be dangerous if Josh was caught in a hurricane.”
“Josh won’t be caught in a hurricane unless he’s an idiot. They have meteorological satellites that track storms.”
Lennon was still battling that smile when Ellen slugged back the last of her latte and set the mug on the table.
“He thrives on breaking the rules,” she said. “I was just his challenge du jour.”
“You don’t believe Christopher cares about you?” That wiped away the last of Lennon’s humor. “Ellen, the guy’s crazy about you. I know because he told me.”
He told me, too.
With a sigh, she decided to make the argument she’d intended to reserve for herself. “If he was so crazy about me, then why couldn’t he compromise and do things the right way? Why did he just let me go? He made a few token phone calls and that was it. I haven’t heard from him in three months.”
“You
