And, he reminded himself, she was his best friend’s honorary sister.

In any case, it was rare to see her when she wasn’t with her regular gang of girls, some of her family, surrounded by people. Or, like now, with some guy.

When a woman looked like Emmaline Grant, there was always some guy.

Still, it never hurt to look. He was a man who appreciated lines and curves—in buildings and in women. In his estimation, Emma was pretty much architecturally perfect. So he popped nuts, pretended to listen to the conversation, and watched her slide and sway through the room.

Looked casual, he observed, the way she’d stop, exchange greetings, pause, laugh or smile. But he’d made a kind of study of her over the years. She moved with purpose.

Curiosity piqued, Jack eased away from the group, merged with another to keep her in his eyeline.

The some guy—Sam—did a lot of back stroking, shoulder draping. She did plenty of smiling at him, laughing up at him from under that thicket of lashes she owned. But oh yeah, her body language—he’d made a study of her body—wasn’t signaling reception.

He heard her call out Addison! and follow up with that sizzle-in-the-blood laugh of hers before she grabbed a very fine-looking blonde in a hug.

They chattered, beaming at each other the way women did, holding each other at arm’s length to take the survey before—no doubt—they told each other how great they looked.

You look fabulous. Have you lost weight? I love your hair. From his observations, that particular female ritual had some variations, but the theme remained the same.

Then Emma angled herself in a way that put the some guy and the blonde face-to-face.

He got it then, by the way she sidled back an inch or two, then waved a hand in the air before giving the some guy a pat on his arm. She wanted to ditch the some guy, and thought the blonde would distract him.

When she melted away in the direction of the kitchen, Jack lifted his beer in toast.

Well played, Emmaline, he thought. Well played.


He cut out early. he had an eight o’clock breakfast meeting and a day packed with site visits and inspections. Somewhere in there, or the day after, he needed to carve out some time at the drawing board to work up some ideas for the addition Mac wanted on her studio now that she and Carter were engaged and living together.

He could see how to do it, without insulting the lines and form of the building. But he wanted to get it down on paper, play with it awhile before he showed Mac anything.

He hadn’t quite gotten used to the idea of Mac getting married—and to Carter. You had to like Carter, Jack thought. He’d barely blipped on Jack’s radar when he and Del and Carter had been at Yale together. But you had to like the guy.

Plus, he put a real light in Mac’s eyes. That counted big.

With the radio blasting, he turned over in his head various ideas for adding on the space so Carter had a home office to do . . . whatever English professors did in home offices.

As he drove, the rain that had come and gone throughout the day came back in the form of a thin snow. April in New England, he thought.

His headlights washed over the car sitting on the shoulder of the road, and the woman standing in front of the lifted hood, her hands fisted on her hips.

He pulled over, got out, then, sliding his hands into his pockets, sauntered over to Emma. “Long time no see.”

“Damn it. It just died. Stopped.” She waved her arms in frustration so he took a cautious step back to avoid getting clocked with the flashlight she gripped in one hand. “And it’s snowing. Do you see this?”

“So it is. Did you check your gas gauge?”

“I didn’t run out of gas. I’m not a moron. It’s the battery, or the carburetor. Or one of those hose things. Or belt things.”

“Well, that narrows it down.”

She huffed out a breath. “Damn it, Jack, I’m a florist, not a mechanic.”

That got a laugh out of him. “Good one. Did you call for road service?”

“I’m going to, but I thought I should at least look in there in case it was something simple and obvious. Why don’t they make what’s in there simple and obvious for people who drive cars?”

“Why do flowers have strange Latin names nobody can pronounce? These are questions. Let me take a look.” He held out a hand for the flashlight. “Jesus, Emma, you’re freezing.”

“I’d have worn something warmer if I’d known I’d end up standing on the side of the road in the middle of the stupid night in a snowstorm.”

“It’s barely snowing.” He stripped off his jacket, passed it to her.

“Thanks.”

She bundled into it while he bent under the hood. “When’s the last time you had this serviced?”

“I don’t know. Some time.”

He glanced back at her, a dry look out of smoky gray eyes. “Some time looks to have been the other side of never. Your battery cables are corroded.”

“What does that mean?” She stepped up, stuck her head under the hood along with him. “Can you fix it?”

“I can . . .”

He turned his head toward her, and she turned hers toward him. All he could see were those brown velvet eyes, and for a moment, he simply lost the power of speech.

“What?” she said, and her breath whispered warm over his lips.

“What?” What the hell was he doing? He leaned back, out of the danger zone. “What . . . What I can do is give you a jump that should get you home.”

“Oh. Okay. Good. That’s good.”

“Then you’ve got to get this thing in for service.”

“Absolutely. First thing. Promise.”

Her voice jumped a bit and reminded him it was cold. “Go ahead and get in the car, and I’ll hook it up. Don’t start it, don’t touch anything in there, until I tell you.”

He pulled his car around so it was nose-to-nose with hers. As he got his jumper cables, she got out of the car again. “I want to see what you do,” she explained. “In case I ever have to do it.”

“Okay. Jumper cables, batteries. You have your positive and your negative. You don’t want to get them mixed up because if you hook them up wrong you’ll—”

He clamped one onto the battery, then made a strangling noise and began to shake. Instead of squealing, she laughed and smacked his arm. “Idiot. I have brothers. I know your games.”

“Your brothers should’ve shown you how to jump-start a car.”

“I think they sort of did, but I ignored them. I have a set of those in the trunk, along with other emergency stuff. But I never had to use any of it. Under yours is shinier than mine,” she added as she frowned at his engine.

“I suspect the pit of hell is shinier than yours.”

She puffed out a breath. “Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t argue.”

“Get in, turn it over.”

“Turn what over? Kidding,” she said.

“Ha. If and when it starts, don’t turn it off.”

“Got it.” In the car, she held up crossed fingers, turned the key. The engine coughed, hacked—made him wince—then rumbled to life.

She stuck her head out the window and beamed at him. “It worked!”

He had an errant thought that with that much power, her smile could have sparked a hundred dead batteries. “We’ll let it juice up a few minutes, then I’ll follow you home.”

“You don’t have to do that. It’s out of your way.”

“I’ll follow you home so I know you didn’t conk out on the way.”

“Thanks, Jack. God knows how long I’d’ve been out here if you hadn’t come along. I was cursing myself for going to that damn party when all I wanted to do tonight was zone out with a movie and go to bed early.”

“So why’d you go?”

“Because I’m weak.” She shrugged. “Sam really didn’t want to go alone, and, well, I like a party, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to meet him there and hang out for an hour.”

“Uh-huh. How’d it work out with him and the blonde?”

“Sorry?”

“The blonde you palmed him off on.”

“I didn’t palm him off.” Her gaze slid away, then rolled back to his. “Okay, I did, but only because I thought they’d like each other. Which they did. I’d’ve considered that good deed worth coming out tonight. Except I ended up broken down on the side of the road. It seems unfair. And mildly embarrassing since you noticed.”

“On the contrary, I was impressed. That and the salsa were my favorite parts of the evening. I’m going to take the cables off. Let’s see if she holds a charge. If we’re good, wait until I’m in my car before you pull out.”

“Okay. Jack? I owe you.”

“Yeah, you do.” He gave her a grin before he walked off.

When her car continued to run, he shut her hood then his own. Once he’d tossed the jumper cables back in his trunk, he got behind the wheel and flashed his lights to signal her to go.

He followed her through the lace of the light snow, and tried not to think of that moment under the hood when her breath had brushed warm over his lips.

She gave a friendly toot of her horn when she reached the private road for the Brown Estate. He eased over, stopped. He watched her taillights shimmer in the dark, then disappear around the bend that led to the guest house.

Then he sat a little while longer, in the dark, before turning the car around and heading home.


In her rearview mirror, Emma saw Jack stop at the mouth of the drive. She hesitated, wondering if she should’ve asked if he wanted to come down, have some coffee before he doubled back and drove home.

She probably should have—least she could do—but it was too late now. And all for the best, no question.

It wasn’t wise to entertain a family friend who banged a booming ten on your spark o-meter, alone, late at night. Especially when you still have some belly vibes going from a ridiculous moment under the hood of a car when you’d nearly humiliated yourself by moving on him.