All Over You. Sarah Mayberry

took a slug of her wine and shook her head for the second time. One of her elbows found its way onto the table and she leaned forward to accentuate her point.

      “You’re an actor. You’re supposed to be one-dimensional. We’re supposed to be talking about how great you are,” she said.

      There was just the slightest slur in her words, enough to make him shake his head subtly when the waiter approached, wine list in hand, hoping to secure an order for a second bottle.

      “But, instead, we’re talking about vegetables. And music. And architecture. And our favorite movies,” she said.

      She sounded put out.

      “This bothers you?” he asked, slicing into his panfried snapper.

      “Yeah, it bothers me. The way I figure it is this—some people in life get the looks, others get the smarts. You can’t have both.”

      “Why not?”

      She looked genuinely outraged. “It’s not fair. Good looks and smarts—there’s no defense against that,” she said.

      He raised his eyebrows and reached for the lemon wedge on the edge of his plate.

      “Defense? Is there some kind of war going on that I don’t know about?” he asked, squeezing lemon juice over his fish.

      “Oh!” she said suddenly, jerking back.

      He glanced up and realized that his lemon wedge had misfired and squirted her in the eye.

      “I’m sorry—are you all right?” he asked, half standing and leaning forward.

      She pulled her glasses off and blinked a few times. Then she smiled.

      “Nice shot,” she said, tongue in cheek.

      Smooth, really smooth, he chastised himself. The only time she’d unwound with him all day, and he tried to blind her. Feeling guilty, he plucked the heavy black frames from her fingers.

      Her eyes widened. “It’s okay, I can clean them myself,” she said when he began drying them on his pristine napkin.

      “At least allow me to exorcise my guilt,” he said, caught in the unobscured magic of her green gaze.

      He’d noticed her eyes before—their exotic tilt, their color—but her glasses had always provided a chunky barrier to her thoughts. Now he felt as though he could see straight through to her soul.

      “What’s wrong?” she asked, tugging at the neckline of her dress uncomfortably.

      “You have amazing eyes,” he said, staring into them intently. “What color is that? Like sea foam. But greener.”

      “Moldy green,” she said dismissively. “That’s what my sisters used to call it.”

      “Jealousy is a curse,” he said.

      “Oh no, they’re not jealous of me,” Grace quickly corrected him, reaching for her wineglass again. “They’re stunning, all of them.”

      He shrugged, unconvinced. In his experience, brothers and sisters only took shots at the qualities they most envied in their siblings.

      “They are,” Grace defended. Her long earrings brushed the creamy skin of her neck. “They even get paid to be beautiful— Felicity’s a weather girl, Serena is an actress and Hope’s a model. So there’s nothing for them to be jealous about where I’m concerned.”

      For the first time, he sensed vulnerability beneath her tough-broad demeanor. First she was sexy and amusing, now she was vulnerable. He felt as though he was being treated to the dance of the seven veils, except it was Grace’s disguises that were dropping away instead of veils.

      “Felicity, Serena, Hope and Grace. Let me guess—your Mom’s Catholic?” he asked. He’d long since finished cleaning her glasses, but her eyes were too beautiful to hide. He set the frames on the table. If she wanted them, she could ask for them—in the meantime he was going to enjoy the view.

      “As Catholic as it gets,” Grace said, rolling her eyes. “I still blame Dad for not stopping her with the names.”

      “Are you close to your sisters?” he asked, knowing he was pushing it. Grace had already proven she was a very private person.

      She shrugged, looked away. “Sure.”

      He saw a flash of unhappiness in her eyes and wondered.

      “What about you? Do you have a big family?” she asked.

      “Two younger brothers,” Mac said. “Both of them happy-as- pigs-in-mud married with kids.”

      She cocked her head to one side. “Now you sound jealous.”

      “Absolutely. They’re the smart ones—knew what they wanted, went out and got it, and now they’re in clover. Why wouldn’t I be jealous?”

      For a long time, he’d viewed his brothers as having mundane lives full of routine and obligation. Only lately had he begun to realize that they were content, even fulfilled, in a way that he’d never been.

      She made a disbelieving raspberry noise. Quite a loud one, thanks to whatever she’d had to drink before he picked her up and the lion’s share of the bottle of wine they’d been enjoying. The couple at the next table looked across with a frown. Mac hid a smile behind his napkin.