your house on the Fourth of July. I’m Anne.”
“Kids, say hi to Annie,” Wade prompted.
Anne gave him a sharp look.
“Uh, Anne. Her name’s Anne.”
“I ‘member you, Anne. We’re making a terrarium for our frogs,” Sam said proudly, pulling a jar from their shopping cart, which also held several small green plants and some decorative rocks. He extended the jar for Anne’s inspection. Inside the jar, which contained a little moist dirt, were two of the tiniest frogs she had ever seen, no bigger than the end of her finger.
“Oh, aren’t they cute,” she said, taking the jar and holding it up to the light. “I had a pet frog once.”
“We caught ‘em as tadpoles,” Sam said, “and they took all summer to grow legs. Now they need a better home.”
“Do these frogs have names?” Anne asked.
“Mine’s Alexander the Great,” Sam said. “And mine’s Miss Pooh Bear,” Kristin piped in, apparently having overcome her shyness. “Do you have a boo-boo?” She pointed to the Band-Aid on Anne’s inner arm.
“Just a little one. Thank you for asking, Kristin.”
Wade wasn’t satisfied with her answer. “I haven’t noticed the Bloodmobile around town.”
“Ah, no, I have your brother to blame for this.”
Wade rolled his eyes. “Jeff and his needles. You’re not sick, are you?”
Anne waved away his concern, hoping she did a good job of sounding nonchalant. “No, of course not. Just a routine blood test.”
“What for?”
“Nosy, aren’t we? Jeff is checking to see whether I have two X chromosomes,” she answered without missing a beat. “You know, since I’m so—” she lowered her voice “—defeminized.”
“Oh, come on, Anne, don’t hold that against me. It was a moment of desperation.”
“Of course I’m holding it against you. What else would you expect from an uptight, frowning—”
“Okay, okay, I get the point. I’m sorry. I was way out of line. You don’t look at all defeminized today.”
She felt idiotically pleased by the compliment. She was just wearing a pair of jeans and short-sleeved cashmere sweater, but it had to look better on her than that potato-sack jumper she’d worn to Autumn Daze. She turned away and pretended interest in a potting-soil display.
“Looks like you’re planning quite a gardening project,” Wade said.
“They’re for my mother.”
“Hey, what’s in there?” Kristin asked, pointing to Anne’s shopping cart. To her mortification, the child was pointing to her Hollywood Lingerie bag, which was pink and sparkly and naturally attractive to a five-year-old girl.
“Yeah, I’d like to know that, too,” Wade said with a wink.
Busted. Why hadn’t she put the bag in her trunk before shopping for flowers? Didn’t she know what kind of speculation she might invite, carrying around a bag like that?
“Socks,” she finally said, her voice coming out sounding strangled. “They were on sale.”
She could tell Wade didn’t believe her, and she hoped the rush of heated blood through her veins didn’t reveal itself in a blush. He would have to pry that bag out of her cold dead hands before she would admit what was in there.
“I’ve really got to get home,” she said, turning her basket toward the checkout lanes.
“No time to chat with an old friend?” His voice was like warm honey—not his normal voice, which was pleasant enough, deep and smooth and sort of musical, but the voice he used in seduction mode.
Their gazes locked, and the store background noises receded, replaced by the roar of Anne’s blood in her ears. She could kiss him right here, right in the middle of Garden City. What was wrong with her? Why did all her powers of discretion and common sense disintegrate around Wade?
He ran one finger up her arm, which answered her question. She cast a nervous glance at the kids, but their attention had been captured by a giant plastic ant guarding a display of insecticides.
Did she just imagine the way his eyes seemed to change from ordinary brown to dark chocolate when he looked at her? Maybe she was reading way more into his gesture than he intended.
She took one step back. “Cut it out, Wade.”
“No one’s looking at us.”
“Can I be any clearer? I do not want to—” She realized both children had turned and were staring at her, fascinated with whatever she was about to say.
“Careful,” Wade said. “Little pitchers…”
“You know what I don’t want.”
“I know what you do want. And you want it bad.”
Anne was sure her face was bright pink as she took her turn with the cashier. The worst part of it was, he was right. She did want it. But all of her objections to renewing her relationship with Wade still held firm. He’d been perfect for slam-bam Annie, but the real Anne was more fragile. She didn’t want to be hurt. Besides, he’d be gone soon and so would she.
She quickly paid for her flowers, said a hasty goodbye to the children, pointedly ignored Wade and made her escape.
Under some other circumstances, perhaps, she would take Wade up on his offer. She liked him, liked him more each time she saw him, even when he played cat and mouse with her. She liked how devoted he was to his horse—he treated Traveler more like a pampered lapdog than working livestock. She was surprised by his ease with the children. They were perfectly comfortable with him, and he obviously had a soft spot for them.
Just as his initial impressions of her were wrong, maybe he wasn’t the one-dimensional rodeo Romeo she’d pegged him as.
Well, it was a moot point now.
When Anne arrived home, Deborah was thrilled to see the flowers. “I’ve completely neglected the yard for months,” she said as she helped unload the Mus-tang’s trunk, and Anne felt a little twinge of guilt. The only reason her mother had neglected anything was because she’d focused her entire existence on Anne and her dilemma. “These are perfect. Will you help me plant them?”
“She’s got work to do,” Milton interjected.
“But, Milton,” Deborah objected, “she needs to get more fresh air and sunshine.”
“She’ll get plenty of that tomorrow.”
“What’s tomorrow?” Anne wanted to know.
“A barbecue—at the Hardisons’. It’s for Pete’s eightieth birthday. Don’t tell me I forgot to tell you.”
“Yes, you did. I don’t think I can make it,” Anne said automatically. The last people she wanted to be around were the Hardisons, particularly Jeff or Wade.
“But you have to, dear. Pete Hardison hasn’t seen you since last Christmas, and you know you’re one of his favorites. His feelings would be hurt if you skipped his birthday party.”
Deborah was right. “Grandpa Pete,” as she called him, had doted on her when her family had first moved to Cottonwood. He’d never had a daughter or granddaughter of his own, so he’d informally adopted Anne.
“Will the whole family be there?” Anne asked.
“I assume so. Even Wade. I don’t know if you heard or not, but he’s back home.”
Anne jumped, but as her mother grabbed a flat of plants and set them on the garage floor, she seemed to assign no particular