"Yeah, just about. She's like one of my sisters."

"Peggy and Dean have both been away at school together. They've been dating for a year now."

"I didn't know that. How do you know?"

"Peggy told me. She worked for me for a couple of days before tonight. And unlike you, I haven't had my head buried in files and corporate meetings despite what the gossip says."

"I thought you didn't listen to gossip."

"Doesn't mean I don't hear it."

He sighed and took Dean's seat on the stone wall. "Yeah, I have been working a lot. Until lately."

"Are you going to blame me for that?"

"Well, you are a task."

"Really?" she said, pursing her lips.

Tyler smiled as he watched Lane serve a couple of customers, then took the latte she prepared for him. He stayed where he was and turned his gaze to the crowd. There were vendors from every store, and the local radio station was covering the event. Tyler returned his gaze to Lane. She was moving fast and furiously now, and when he asked if she needed help, she waved him off, claiming to be "in the zone." Still he watched her, his imagination coming quickly into play.

The party lights shone down on her, turning her hair the color of autumn leaves, but it was the light that lined the walkway that offered him the silhouette of her long legs beneath her skirt. He remembered seeing her running on the beach. He hadn't known it was her at first. She'd been right, it was too dark. But when she'd walked up the beach path between the properties, he knew. No one had posture that straight. Regal. She didn't walk into a room, she glided. And he'd bet his inheritance that there was a lot more beneath those layers of clothes and ugly hairdos that she would ever show anyone.

He wanted her to show it to him.

He realized it wasn't just a s.e.xual attraction though there was that, and if he thought about their last kiss, he wouldn't be able to stand straight but the attraction was her quick mind, her wit. And that she wouldn't open up to anyone. She let a person get so far, then closed the door. Tyler liked pus.h.i.+ng against it.

"What's your brother's name?"

She looked up, surprised. "Oh, ah, Angel."

"Strange name for a guy."

"It's a nickname for Angelo."

"Angelo Douglas, hmm?"

"How about your brothers and sisters?" she said quickly.

"There are four of us. You met my brother Kyle, and between us is Reid. And we have one sister, Kate. Kate's married with children."

"And did you drill a hole in her husband the way you did Dean?"

"I whipped the tar out of him once."

Lane whirled, her eyes wide. "You what?"

"We were in high school. He hit on my prom date."

"Oh." Lane managed a smile, but Tyler saw a little sadness behind it.

Lane envied that he'd grown up around the same people all his life. She couldn't recall anyone from her childhood that she wasn't related to.

"Any more siblings?" he asked her.

"Richard, Mark and Sophie." At least, those were the anglicized versions. She wanted to say to him, I'm Elaina, Elaina Honora Giovanni. Her grandmother's name was Douglas, the Irish half of her bloodline.

Lane served customers and handed over the reins to Peggy when she returned. Dean got behind the cart with her, helping, and Lane had to pull Tyler away. "Come on, watchdog," she said. Tyler tossed his coffee cup in the trash and in one smooth move swung Lane into his arms and into a dance.

"Tyler, what are you doing?" she asked, embarra.s.singly out of step, whatever the dance was.

"The s.h.a.g."

"I beg your pardon?"

She must have attended boarding schools, he thought. Her diction was always perfect, just like her posture.

"It's easy. You're not a real Southerner if you can't s.h.a.g," he said.

"Apparently." Around them the laughter and excitement of the crowd grew. It was infectious.

"Loosen up, Lane, you're stiff as a board."

"Why, thank you, Fred Astaire." She tried, honestly she did, and it took another song for her to learn the steps, and then she was having fun. Her father used to tell her brothers that the man who can dance gets the girls. And Tyler must have stolen them all. He was a great lead, and for a moment, the area cleared for them. He spun her, dipped, with a little samba, and Lane didn't care that the crowd had singled them out. Her head was spinning as fast as Tyler could spin her in the dance steps. People sang with the band. Flashbulbs blinked in the night. The flicks of bright light made her flinch and she missed a step but Tyler pulled her close and then the rest of the world didn't matter.

Tyler felt her laughter sing through him. Once she got the hang of the dance, she was wild, and he wished the music wouldn't stop. Beach music. A chilly night, a bonfire. He was inside a little slice of heaven.

Then the song ended, people applauded, and Lane buried her face in his chest, catching her breath.

"Oh, that was fun!" she said, tipping her head back to look at him. "Thank you."

He grinned, pus.h.i.+ng hair off her cheek. "Been a while since you cut loose?"

"Yeah, I guess." She'd nearly forgotten she could let go like that. She'd been hiding, careful for so long.

"Come on, I have to get back to my post till midnight. Unless you'd like to stay behind?"

"No, I'll go back with you."

His heart squeezed when she moved close to him and didn't stiffen when he put his arm around her. They walked back toward her shop, the crowd thinning now, and Tyler sat on her porch steps with her.

"Want more coffee?" she asked.

"No thanks, I'm wired for sound now."

"A beer, wine?"

He tipped an imaginary cap. "Can't. I'm on duty, ma'am."

Lane leaned back against the porch rail, a couple of feet separating them as he did the same. "Thank you, Tyler."

"For what?"

"Making me an official Southerner."

He winked at her. "You'll have to work on the drawl, though. We could do it again at the Winter Ball, at the end of festival week."

He could almost see the door slam shut. "Thanks for asking, but I can't."

"Why not?"

"A gentleman is not supposed to question a lady's refusal."

He made a face. "You went to charm school or something, didn't you?"

"My mother was a stickler for being proper."

"Well, that's hooey."

"Hooey?"

"Yeah, baloney, unfounded, nothing hooey."

"Do you know how silly you sound?"

"I don't care. Why not go with me?"

"I think people will get the wrong idea about us if I do."

"And what idea is that?"

"That we're together."

"We haven't really been together yet."

In the dark she turned red, heat spreading up her face.

"But we will be," he said.

"See? That's where the bad reputation comes in, Tyler, You a.s.sume too much. I'm not going to sleep with you."

"I hadn't planned on sleeping with you at all." Her momentum dropped.

"I'd planned on doing everything in bed with you but sleep."

Lane's insides ignited. His words set off a waterfall of sensation hot, molten, earth-shaking power moving through her body, under her skin, to land in a spot between her thighs. She was suddenly very warm and damp at the thought of him touching her, of being in a big bed and doing as he said ... anything but sleeping.

"What if I just don't want to go to the Winter Ball?"

"Then don't."

"Okay, this discussion is over, then."

"Not a chance in h.e.l.l."

"You'll keep asking?"

"Till you give me a good enough reason to stop."

"I don't have to."

"Yes, you do."

"Why?" she cried.

He slid over till he was right beside her, facing her, his leg c.o.c.ked and touching hers. "Because you've lived in the town for nearly two years and haven't met anyone but Nalla and a few customers. Because the townspeople all need to see the woman I'm seeing."

Her insides melted.

"And the Winter Ball is like a cotillion. We all dress up and pretend we're high society."

Which was exactly why she didn't want to go. There would be cameras, reporters.

"It's a fun night, like a fairy tale. It gets everyone geared up for Christmas. And if you don't go with me, then I have to go alone," Tyler said.

He was on the city council of aldermen. It was politically correct for him to go.

"You could take another date."

"You want me to?"

"I don't care."

But she did. He could see it in her eyes.

"I'll have to think about it more," she said.

He frowned. "Okay, that's better than a no, I guess."

"I said think, not yes."

"Fair warning," he said, putting up a hand. He stared at her for a second, then settled back on his forearms. "You know, Lane, I've never had to work this hard for a date in my life." He stretched his legs out, his gaze on the crowd, ever vigilant.

"That I do not doubt."

Lane's gaze rode the long-legged length of him, and she felt the quiet power he exuded. It made her hunger to feel his bunching muscles and tanned skin. To feel him moving against her, naked and slow.

"Maybe once before. Mary-Sue Sanford."