“Fluffy?” Hank and Maggie mouthed the word in unison.

Maggie groaned. “I must have left my bedroom door open.” Her hand clamped back onto his shirtfront. “Horatio’s outside, isn’t he?”

“Horatio is under the dining room table.”

There was a bloodcurdling cat screech, and Hank and Maggie rushed to the dining room. Fluffy was backed into a corner. Her ears were flat back to her head, and she growled low in her throat. It was a sound that would put fear into the heart of any living creature…with the possible exception of Horatio.

Horatio bounded up to the cat, gave a joyful bark and pinned the cat with one heavy paw. There was another feline growl, followed by a quick right claw to the snoot. Horatio yelped in pain and Fluffy took off, climbing up the first available object-Harry Mallone’s rigid back.

Horatio snapped at the cat, and Fluffy hurled herself onto the table, knocking over a candlestick. In an instant the white linen tablecloth was a wall of flames. Hank grabbed a corner and yanked the tablecloth into the kitchen and through the back door, leaving a trail of singed food and broken crockery.

Everyone followed Hank outside and circled the little bonfire of food and linen that was burning on the back lawn. Their eyes glazed over in rapt fascination and their jaws went slack in stupid silence as the buttermilk biscuits burned one by one, then the carrots and broccoli and, last but not least, the beef incinerated.

So this is what my first dinner party is reduced to, Maggie thought. A bunch of people standing around watching a rump roast burn. She had a ridiculous urge to sing camp songs and checked to see if anyone else was smiling. Only Hank was.

Their gazes caught and held, and Maggie felt her heart begin to beat faster. She couldn’t remember a man ever looking at her quite that way. His mouth was smiling, but his eyes were hungry and possessive. There was a moment of perfect understanding, a meeting of minds and emotions, and an acknowledgment of genuine affection that passed between them.

The rump roast got boring after a while. It had burned itself into a charred chunk about the size of a baseball. It was black enough to look like a Cajun delicacy and had the density of a meteorite.

“So,” Maggie said, “anyone ready for dessert?”

“I think I’ll pass,” Linda Sue said. “I have to be getting on home now.”

Holly tiptoed around the mashed potatoes on the back porch, following Linda Sue. “Yeah, me too. This has been great, but it’s getting late.”

Harry Mallone clamped a hand on his son’s shoulder. It was a gesture of condolence usually reserved for sickrooms, wakes, and the passing on of a severance check.

Hank chose to ignore the obvious. “About that loan-”

Helen Mallone gave Maggie a hug. “I’m going to take Harry home now, and don’t worry about the roast, dear. Hank never was much of one for leftovers. Maybe it’s all worked out for the best,” she said gently.

Elsie met Maggie in the kitchen. “Do I smell something burning?”

Maggie sniffed the air. “I think that’s the pot roast. Fluffy knocked over a candlestick and the tablecloth caught fire. Hank dragged it all out into the backyard.”

Elsie looked through the screen door at the smoldering rubbish. “It don’t look so bad. You didn’t burn down anything important. Is that black chunk the pot roast?”

“Yup.”

“I’ve eaten worse,” Elsie said.

Half an hour later the remains of the fire had been shoveled into a garbage bag, the floors were fresh scrubbed, and the unbroken dishes had been washed and dried. Mabel and Aunt Marvina, Elsie, Hank, and Maggie sat at the kitchen table, eating pie and ice cream.

“I remember my first party as a new bride,” Mabel Toone said. “I’d only been married for three weeks and I had dinner for fourteen on Christmas Eve.”

“I can see it like it was yesterday,” Marvina said. “I wore that green velvet dress with the rhinestones on the bodice. Everything was perfect, except that Great-aunt Sophie had too much to drink and fell into the pineapple upside-down cake. Her elbow slipped off the table,” Marvina explained, “and Sophie went face first into the whipped cream. It made a terrible mess.”

“We didn’t mean to interfere with your party,” Mabel said to Maggie. “It’s just that we were worried about you, so we came to check up.”

“Mom, I’m twenty-seven years old. I can take care of myself.”

“You left in such a hurry, and all you said was that you were going to live with this man in Vermont. We weren’t even sure you were getting married. There’s something fishy here. Are you…?”

Maggie put her finger on her fluttering eyebrow. “No. I’m not pregnant.”

Mabel Toone looked Hank over. “Did he force you into this? Did he kidnap you? He looks a little shifty to me.”

“I wasn’t kidnapped,” Maggie said. “I needed a quiet place to write my book, and Hank sort of showed up…”

Mabel looked horrified. “You mean you got married so you could write a book?”

“Yes. No!” She didn’t want her mother to worry about her. And she didn’t want her mother to think she was an idiot. “I got married because…I wanted to.”

Hank inched his chair closer to Maggie and slung his arm around her shoulders. “Love at first sight,” he told Mabel. “As soon as we saw each other we knew this was it.” He gave Maggie a big, loud kiss on the top of the head. “Go ahead, buttercup, tell your mother how much you love me.”

“Uh…I love him lots.”

Mabel didn’t look convinced. “I don’t know.”

Hank loosened his hold on Maggie. His chin rested against the mass of orange curls over her ear, and his voice grew softer, more serious.

“I know this must be difficult for you, Mrs. Toone. You’re worried about Maggie, and I don’t blame you. We shouldn’t have been so secretive about our romance, but the truth is, it sort of took us by surprise. I think it would be nice if you and Aunt Marvina could stay with us for a few days. I’d like the opportunity to get to know you better.”

His fingertips lightly combed through the wisps of hair at Maggie’s temple, and a rush of tenderness for the woman he held in his arms almost left him breathless. “I love your daughter,” he told Mabel Toone. “And I intend to take very, very good care of her.”

“I guess a mother couldn’t ask for more than that,” Mabel said. “It’s nice of you to invite us to stay, but we’ve got a room at one of those bed-and-breakfast places, and then we’ve got to get back to Riverside. Marvina has an appointment to get a permanent on Thursday, and nobody will water my plants. Besides,” she said with a broad smile, “I know how it is with newlyweds.”

Hank made a masculine sound of appreciation. It hummed against Maggie’s ear, sending vibrations all the way to the soles of her feet. In spite of all her good resolve, she felt herself relax into him.

It was almost impossible not to like Hank Mallone. He might be a womanizer and a schemer, but he was also sensitive and charming and there was something about Hank Mallone that touched her. He didn’t just heat her blood-he also warmed her soul. It was nice, and it was sad. And it was infuriating that he’d lied so smoothly about loving her. Hank Mallone was a rascal, she thought.

“Well,” Mabel said, “we should be getting on. The pie was delicious,” she said to Elsie. She gave her daughter a kiss and hugged her son-in-law. “You keep in touch.”

“They’re nice people,” Hank said when he and Maggie were left alone on the front porch. “They really care about you.”

He was being generous, Maggie decided. He could have said they were meddlesome. “You think I’m a bad daughter?”

He laughed. “No. I think you’re struggling to find a balance between being a daughter and being an in de pen dent adult. And I think you’re mother’s struggling to relate to an adult child.”