“Which is harder on you than most,” Laurel commented. “Love can kick your ass.”

“I always imagined it would be a kind of lifting, that everything got just a little better, and more . . . And more.”

“It does,” Emma insisted. “It can. It will.”

“But first it kicks your ass.” Mac smiled as she lifted her shoulders. “At least in my experience.”

“I don’t like it. I like doing the ass kicking.”

“Maybe you are, and don’t know it,” Emma suggested. “He might be feeling the same way you are. If you told him—”

“Absolutely no way in any circle of hell.” Parker swiped a hand through the air as if to banish the very idea from the face of the planet. “Things are fine, they’re just fine. Besides, let him tell me something for a change. I feel better,” Parker insisted. “I should have vented or spewed or whatever I did before.We’re both enjoying ourselves, and I started overthinking it. It is whatever it is, and that’s just fine. I’ve got a client coming in.”

As Mac started to speak, Emma squeezed her knee under the table. “Me, too. Hey, it’s poker night.Why don’t we have our version. Wine, pizza, movie?”

“I’m in,” Laurel said.

“Sounds good. Why don’t we—” Mac broke off as Parker’s phone rang.

“Somebody run it by Mrs. G. If it’s okay with her, I’m all for it. I have to take this.” Rising, Parker clicked on the phone as she left the room. “Hi, Roni, what can I do for you?”

She had to be grateful the call, the meeting with a client, two more calls, and an emergency consult with the caterer regarding last-minute menu changes took up her time and attention. She couldn’t overthink and obsess about Malcolm or her own feelings when she focused on the details, mini crises, and demands generated by clients.

In any case, she told herself as she finally walked downstairs, she probably wasn’t in love with Malcolm. It was more likely a kind of infatuation blurred by an undeniable sexual haze.

Infatuations were harmless and fun, and could be looked back on when the vision cleared with fondness, even amusement.

Yes, she much preferred the infatuation theory.

Lighter, steadier, she swung into the kitchen to confirm the proposed Girl Night with Mrs. Grady.

“Mrs. G, did you . . .” She trailed off when she saw Malcolm at the breakfast nook.

An old cloth protected the surface of the table, and on it were scattered various tools, various unidentifiable parts of what she assumed was the vacuum cleaner lying gutted on the floor.

“On the phone,” he said, and jerked a thumb toward Mrs. Grady’s rooms.

“I didn’t know you were here.” And that was another thing, wasn’t it? she thought. He so often gave her no time to plan, to prepare, to strategize. “What are you doing?”

“I had a Porsche to baby out this way, so I dropped by. Mrs. G was about to haul this to the household appliance graveyard.” He shook his hair out of his eyes as he loosened a screw, or a bolt, or something that connected a thing to another thing.

“I can fix it.”

Parker walked a little closer. “You can?”

“Probably. Worth a shot.” He tipped his head to smile at her. “It’s not as complicated as a Porsche.”

“I suppose not, but how do you know where everything goes when—if—you put it back together?”

“Because I took it apart.”

She’d have made a list, Parker thought. Drawn a diagram. She watched him fiddle with what might’ve been a motor or part of one. “What’s wrong with it?”

“According to Mrs. G, it started clunking.”

“Clunking?”

“Some clattering, too. You want a lesson in appliance repair, Legs? I can give you some basics, buy you some nice, pretty tools.”

She looked, very deliberately, down her nose at him. “I have tools, thank you very much.”

“Are they pink?”

She flicked the side of his head, made him grin.“Those are my tools.”

“Yeah? They’re good ones. Are you done for the day?”

“Hopefully.” Look at his hands, she thought. Naturally she was infatuated. They were so competent, so sure. Just as they were when he put them on her. She took a step back, decided she’d go ahead and have a glass of wine now.

“I thought it was poker night.”

“It is. I’m heading over to Del’s later.”

He hadn’t shaved, she noted, and there were tears and grease stains on his jeans. She supposed the dress code for poker was very, very casual.

“Do you want a drink?”

“No, I’m good.”

He worked in relative silence while she poured herself some wine. Just a muttered curse, a hum of satisfaction now and then. His foot tapped as if to some inner tune, and his hair fell in a dark, disordered mass that made her fingers itch to get into it.

Maybe she was a little in love with him, but that was as harmless as infatuation.Wasn’t it? It wasn’t as if she was planning the rest of her life around him, or with him.

God, why couldn’t she just relax and keep it simple?

“How’s that coming for you, Malcolm?” Mrs. Grady walked back in, winked at Parker.

“I think I’ve got it.”

“Well, once you’ve got that thing back together, you wash up. You can have some cookies and milk.”

He glanced back at her, grinned. “Okay.”

“It’s nice having a handyman around the house.We’ve been a household of women for some time now. Not that we don’t muddle through, but the next time one of the washers gives me grief, I know who to call.”

“

One of the washers?”

“We’ve a utility room with a set on every floor.”

“Convenient.” He cocked a brow at Parker. “And efficient.”

“It is that. I’m going out with some of the girls tonight. I’ll see to your pizza before I leave,” she said to Parker.

“We can just throw something together,” Parker began. “Just go have fun.”

“I plan to, but I can do both. I’ll be seeing your mother tonight, Mal.”

“Yeah? She’s going?”

“A bite to eat, plenty of gossip.Then who knows what trouble we’ll get into.”

“I’ll make your bail.”

Mrs. Grady laughed in delight.“I’ll hold you to it.” Lips pursed she walked to the table. “Look how you’ve shined up those innards.”

“Needed some adjusting, some cleaning, and the indispensable WD-40. How many of these do you have?”

“Only one like that. It’s an old one, but it’s handy for my rooms. Otherwise Parker’s brought in a fleet of new, spiffy ones so I don’t have to haul a machine up and down the steps if I want to do the floors between cleaning crews. Oh, I ran into Margie Winston. She told me you breathed new life into that rattletrap she drives.”

“That old girl’s got a hundred and eighty-five thousand miles on her.The Pontiac, not Mrs.Winston.”

Parker listened to them talk, easy conversation, as he put the machine back together. That was another point in his favor, she mused, the easy conversation, the way he knew and obviously interacted with his client base.

And the way, when he plugged in the vacuum, tested the suction, he grinned. “She sucks.”

“Would you look at that! And it doesn’t sound likes it’s grinding metal while it’s at it.”

“She should be good for a few more miles.”

“Thank you, Malcolm. You’ve earned the milk and cookies. Just let me put this away.”

“I’ll do it.” He crouched to wrap the cord. “Where do you want it?”

“Just in the utility room there, first closet on the left.”

Mrs. Grady shook her head as he carried the vacuum out. “If I were thirty years younger, I wouldn’t let that one slip away. Hell, I’d settle for twenty and try my hand at being a cougar.”

Parker nearly choked on her wine. “I didn’t hear that.”

“I can say it louder.”

Shaking her head, Parker caught her breath. “You’re smitten.” “Something’s wrong with you if you’re not.”

“Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” Mrs. Grady said as she started putting tools back in the trim silver toolbox.

“I’ll get those.You promised your sweetheart cookies and milk.”

“I’ll see to that, then, and top off your wine. You keep him company awhile.”

She set out a plate piled with cookies, a tall, cold glass of milk while Malcolm came back to wash his hands.“Drink that milk, and I’ll tell your mother you’ve been a good boy.”

“She won’t believe you.”

After Parker stowed the toolbox, she found him alone in the kitchen.

“She said she had some things to do, and you’re supposed to keep me company. So what does the Quartet do after pizza when the guys are away?”

She sat across from him, took a sip of wine. “Oh, we have slow-motion pillow fights in our underwear.”

“Another fantasy come true.Want a cookie?”

“Definitely not,” she said, thinking of the petit fours.

“You’re missing out.We’ve been here before.”

She smiled. “Yes. But this time I’m not annoyed with you.Yet. Are you feeling lucky? Poker,” she said in mock scold when his grin flashed.

“Feeling lucky can make you sloppy. It’s better to be lucky.”

“All right. Here’s to being lucky.” She tapped her glass to his.

“While you have homemade pizza and sexy pillow fights.What’s a guy have to do to get invited to one of those events?”

“Not be a guy would be requirement one.Though we can arrange for the homemade pizza at some point.”

“I could settle. Listen, speaking of invites, my mother wants you to come to dinner Sunday.”

She’d lifted her glass halfway to her mouth, and now set it down again. “Dinner at your mother’s. Sunday? This Sunday?” It was odd to feel the tickle of panic, however slight, in her throat. “Oh, but we have an event, and—”