Inside the carriage house, Sugar Beth dove for the half-empty bag of Oreos she’d left on the couch. As she munched, Gordon trotted downstairs, followed by Colin and then Winnie.

“Was that entirely necessary?” Colin inquired, nostrils flared with distaste.

“Ask her.” Sugar Beth jerked her head toward Winnie and stuffed another Oreo in her mouth.

Winnie gazed at the door, her expression bemused. “You upset him.”

“Not to mention what you did to me.” Colin thrust a pointed finger in her face. “You’re a lunatic. Someone should lock you up. Bloody hell, I’ll lock you up.”

Sugar Beth ignored him so she could turn her wrath on Winnie. “This is it!” she exclaimed through the Oreos. “Tonight’s mortifying little escapade stamps Paid on whatever debt I still owed you. That man loves you. He doesn’t give a damn about me, and as far as I’m concerned, we’re even. If you don’t see it that way, I don’t really care. Got it?”

Winnie gave a distracted nod.

She’d shown up barely ten minutes earlier with Colin in tow. She’d told Sugar Beth that the window in her bedroom was stuck and she needed him to open it. Sugar Beth hadn’t believed her for a minute. Winnie had brought Colin here simply to cause trouble. Apparently the two of them had enjoyed a cozy pizza dinner at Frenchman’s Bride. And didn’t that just warm the ol’ heart cockles?

“You were completely shameless,” Winnie continued, staring at the door. “You threw yourself at him.”

“I wrapped around him like a snake. And, believe me, he noticed.”

“Uhm . . .”

Sugar Beth waited for Winnie to grab her purse and take off after Ryan. Instead, she picked up the pot of white tulips and floated toward the stairs, a dreamy smile on her face.

Sugar Beth shook her head as she disappeared. “That woman is playing some serious hard-to-get.”

“Come into the kitchen,” Colin said. “I’ll make you a cup of hot chocolate.”

“There’s not enough chocolate in the world to satisfy me tonight.” She followed him anyway.

“Do you need a drink that badly?”

She thought about it as he opened the refrigerator. “No. I’m just tired. And frustrated.”

“Nobility’s a bitch.” He gave the milk a suspicious sniff before he poured it into a saucepan, then extracted an ancient tin of cocoa from the cupboard. “Were you truly an alcoholic or is this another of your exaggerations?”

“Let’s just say I looked forward to getting drunk a little too much. The day I ordered my first club soda was the day I started liking myself.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Right before I met Emmett. Until then, drinking was the way I coped with crisis.”

“Now you do it with sugar.”

“And grease. Don’t forget the grease.”

He adjusted the burner, then turned to inspect her, and the lazy sweep of his jade eyes made her skin prickle. “Are you wearing anything underneath that jersey?”

“Sure.”

He lifted an inquiring brow.

She told herself not to be a smart-ass, but she was born to be bad. “Tallulah’s White Gardenia.”

She should have known better than to toy with a master. Those lips curved in a thin smile, and his visual inspection continued, lazier than ever. It sent little shock waves skidding through her. While he was enjoying himself, she deliberately turned away to locate the mugs and sugar bowl. She hadn’t been entirely truthful about the White Gardenia. She also wore a pair of blue bikini panties with questionable elastic.

Colin divided his attention between the saucepan of milk and her legs. The tension grew with the silence in the kitchen, but she seemed to be the only one bothered by it. Why didn’t he just go away? Even knowing Winnie was upstairs didn’t make her feel safe, and by the time he’d poured the hot chocolate, she was ready to jump out of her skin. She nearly did when he finally spoke.

“Everyone in town is talking about how you saved Winnie’s life last night.”

“More like I tripped her when she got to the door, then dragged her outside so everybody’d think I’d saved her.”

He smiled and lifted his mug in a toast. “Well done.”

“You’ve been hanging out with me way too long.”

“Interesting that Winnie never mentioned it to me.”

“Too devious. She’s storing up more ammunition against me.”

“That would explain it, then.” He pulled his cell from his pocket. She frowned as he punched in a number. He waited, listened. She heard the muted beep of an answering machine. “Ryan, Colin here. Winnie’s staying with Sugar Beth tonight, but she left her car at my place. I’ll talk with you tomorrow.”

As he hung up, Sugar Beth frowned at him. “You’re going to tell him I set him up, aren’t you?”

“Tempting, but I believe I’ll let Winnie do that.” Once again, he took in the sweep of her legs.

“Stop it.”

“You’re determined, then, to dump me?”

“Absolutely.” She heard a queer little catch in her voice.

He took a step closer. “I hope it goes without saying that I wouldn’t think of trying to press you to change your mind.” Another step. “British rules of fair play and all that.”

“Colin . . .”

“Of course, I am an American now.” He slid his hands along her arms, leaving a trail of sensation in their wake. “And we Yanks are an aggressive lot.”

“Oh, Colin . . .” She didn’t get a chance to say more because he was kissing her again, and she was letting him, kissing him back, taking his tongue and giving him hers in return. He used his knee to separate her thighs, cupped her under her shirt.

“God, Sugar Beth,” he murmured against her lips. “You feel so good.”

The warmth of his hand penetrated her skin through her panties. She was overcome with a need for him that made her weak. That was weak. She simply couldn’t do this any longer. “No.” She pushed him away. “I won’t let you turn me into some kind of sexual challenge. I meant it, Colin. I’m not an obstacle for you to conquer just to prove you can.”

His eyes grew hooded and the lips that, only seconds earlier, had been soft, tightened. “Is that what you think of me, then?”

She rubbed her arm, tunneled a hand through her hair, slowly shook her head. “No. You’re aggressive, but you’re not a predator. You don’t mean to hurt me.”

“Exactly. Why should I go to the bother when you’re doing such a good job of it by yourself? I can only hope you’ll be in a better mood when we get together in the morning.”

“The morning?”

“I promised to help you search the depot and the carriage house. Surely you haven’t forgotten. Shall we say ten o’clock?”

Spending the morning with him was the king of bad ideas, but she needed his help. And no matter what he had in mind, she wouldn’t let him bulldoze her with any more kisses. “All right,” she said. “Ten o’clock.”

Gigi didn’t usually like church too much. Sometimes the sermons were okay—Pastor Mayfair was pretty cool, and Sunday school had been sort of interesting today—but she wasn’t too crazy about the Bible, in general, which had way too many depressing parts and, in her opinion, should be R-rated for violence. This morning, though, she didn’t even mind John the Baptist getting his head chopped off because her mom had slipped into the pew next to her right before the worship service began.

Gigi wished she could think of a way to change places, so her mom was in the middle, next to her dad. Still, they’d looked at each other across her and smiled, although Gigi couldn’t tell if they were real smiles or just-being-polite-for-the-sake-of-the-child smiles. As the sermon went on, she fought the urge to lean against her mother’s shoulder and close her eyes like she used to when she was a little girl.

She’d even put on a totally lame Bloomingdale’s skirt and blouse because she wanted to make her mother happy. She still hadn’t figured out what she was going to wear to school next week, but she’d started thinking about giving up her Goth stuff. Yesterday Sugar Beth had told her it was an excellent eighth-grade look, but the way she’d said it had sort of made Gigi feel like she was only copying everybody else instead of being an individual.