Nora Roberts - High Noon

"I'll set it up. Will you finish telling me?"

"I guess we can fast-forward to hitting the jackpot."

He lit candles as she set the plates and napkins on a wicker table. "Local boy makes way good, just because he bought a six-pack and a lottery ticket. Had a hell of a celebration. I think I was solid drunk for two days. First sober thing I did was go over to Ma Bee's. I bought this funny little brass bottle, like a genie bottle. I told her to rub it, to make three wishes. I was going to grant all three."

"Aren't you the cutest thing?" Phoebe said softly, then sat at the table.

"I thought I was pretty damn clever. She said that was all right, she'd make three wishes. The first was that I wouldn't piss this money away being an idiot and forgetting I had some brains. The second was that I take this opportunity, this gift, and make something of myself. I guess I looked like a balloon that had its air pricked out, because she laughed and laughed, and she gave me a slap on the arm. She told me if I needed to give her something, if I needed to do that to be happy, she'd like a pair of red shoes with heels and open toes. Size nine. Wouldn't she be some sight going to church Sundays in those red shoes?"

"You must love her beyond measure."

"I do. And mostly I tried to keep my word, too, all the wishes. The red shoes were easy. Not being an idiot's more problematic. People come out of the woodwork. That's the way it is, and passing out money, it can make you feel important. Until-like getting fists punched into your face-you start to realize it's just fucking stupid."

"And you're not. You're not the least bit stupid."

"I had my moments." He slid pizza onto her plate, then onto his. "I bought this land for my mother, had the house built. I used to hear her say, if she could just get out of the goddamn city. I could do that for her, and wouldn't that make me important to her? I gave her money in the meantime, of course. Got her out of that apartment and into a pretty little house while this one was being built. My old man turned up, as bad pennies do. I wasn't quite as gullible there. I gave him twenty-five thousand, all he was smart enough to ask for. But I had Phin draw up an agreement. He couldn't come at me for more. He wouldn't get it, and if he tried I could sue him for harassment, and other legal mumbo. It probably wouldn't hold up, but my father wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, so he took the twenty-five and went away again."

"It must have hurt you."

"Should have," Duncan said after a moment. "It really didn't." He ate pizza, drank wine. "I brought my mother out here when the house was nearly finished, when it was easy to see what it was going to be. I told her it was for her. I'd furnish it any way she liked. She'd never have to work again.

"She walked around the empty rooms. She asked me why the hell I thought she'd ever live out here, in a house big as a barn. I said she just didn't see how it would be yet. I was going to get her a housekeeper, a cook, whatever she wanted. She turned around, looked at me. 'You want to give me what I want? Buy me a house in Vegas, and give me a stake of fifty thousand. That's what I want.'

"I didn't do it, not then. I kept thinking she'd change her mind, once she saw the house finished. I brought her out here again when it was-badgered her into it. The gardens were in, and I'd furnished a few of the rooms, so she'd get a real sense of it."

Gently, Phoebe touched his hand. "But it wasn't what she wanted."

"No, it wasn't. She wanted the house in Vegas and fifty K. I bargained. Live here for six months, and if you don't change your mind, I'll buy you a house wherever you want and give you a hundred thousand.

She took the deal, and six months later called me out here. She was already packed. She had the number of a realtor she'd been working with, and had the house already picked out. I could take care of buying the house, and send her a check at Caesars in the meantime. I decided it was time to stop, metaphorically, taking that fist in the face. I had Phin draw up another agreement, then I went out to Vegas, did the deal, gave her the papers, which she signed without a blink. She took the check, and that was that."

"How long ago?"

"Going on five years now. She got a job serving drinks, ended up catching the eye of some high roller. He paid to track down the old man, get a legal divorce. They got married two years ago."

"And you live here."

"Seemed a shame to waste this place. Figured I'd sell it, but it kind of grew on me. And it was a point, too. Point being sometimes you don't get what you want, and it doesn't matter if it's fair or not. So you better find something else."

It was amazing, really, she realized. One evening had satisfied her sensible and her lustful parts. She'd not only had stupendous sex, not only gotten to know him better, but had come to understand him.

"I don't have to tell you she didn't deserve you."

"No. She might've deserved the badass in training, but she didn't deserve who I figured out to be-with a little help from my friends."

"Did you buy that house for Ma Bee, the one where we were on Sunday?"

"All the kids-which includes me-went together on that three years ago. She'd take it, you see, from all of us, from the family, but she wouldn't have taken it from any single one of us. If you see the difference."

"Yes, I do. And what about Jake? What happened to him?"

"He does the contracting, when I pick up a place. His father went into construction after he got out of the ring, a few years before my own fateful day with them. Jake went into the business. He's good at it."

"I bet he is." Obligingly, she plopped another slice of pizza on his plate. "You have a way of picking them."

"I do." He laid a hand over hers. "With a few disappointing exceptions, I have a hell of a way of picking them."

The air was full of sounds, the peeps, the clicks, the whirls of night, when Duncan walked her to her car. "So… what do you think about taking a sail some evening?"

"I think that would be very nice-some evening. It's a little hard for me to miss too many evenings at home. Added to that, you've been lucky so far that I haven't gotten called in before or during one of the evenings."

She turned, leaned back against the car. "You're complicating things for yourself, dating not only a cop but a single parent."

"Complications are interesting, especially when you figure out how to work them around the simple." He leaned down to kiss her. "Some evening."

"All right." She reached for the car door, turned back to follow impulse. "Why don't you come over for dinner this week? It wouldn't be without its complications, but my mother's already fallen for you."

"Yeah? Well, if I didn't get anywhere with you, I figured to hit on her next." He tucked Phoebe's hair behind her ear, gave the little gold hoop she wore a tap. "She makes a hell of a cookie."

"She certainly does. Thursday work? It would give them enough time to fuss appropriately for company, and not give them quite enough time to drive me crazy with the details of it."

"I can do Thursday."

She angled her head. "You don't have a book to check? Appointments to consider?"

"I can do Thursday," he repeated, and this time when he kissed her, he turned up the dial until heat balled in her belly.

"Well." She rubbed her lips together. "Well, I'd better go before I decide staying's an option. Because it isn't," she said, nudging him back when he started to speak. "Thursday. Six o'clock." She laughed as she slid into the car. "It's a school night."

"As long as I don't have to do any homework. You drive safe,

Phoebe. And you should wait until you're home before you think about me. Otherwise you'll get all stirred up, maybe drive off the road."