GINA WILKINS - Healed with a Kiss

Because he could trust his sister implicitly—and maybe because she’d softened him up with pot roast and cherry tarts—he kept his tone indulgent when he said, “I’ll let you know if I decide to take your advice. Now, I’d better head back to my place. Ninja’s going to want his evening walk. Thanks for dinner, Bon. It was delicious, as always.”

“Let me send a couple of tarts home with you for later.”

He grinned. “I won’t argue with that.”

* * *

“It was nice to meet you, Alexis,” Mark Fiorina said as he held her hand a bit too snugly in a good-night shake Friday evening. “I hope to see you again sometime?”

Turning the wish into a question made it clear he was fishing for her phone number, but she merely gave him a vague smile. “It was very nice to meet you, too, Mark,” she said.

Though he’d seemed a little dense when it came to social skills during the evening, he must have picked up on her politely worded message that she wasn’t interested in going out with him. Her mother’s latest “prospect” was pleasant enough, if a little dull, but she had no desire at all to see him again. With a nod, he took his leave of her mother’s home. Alexis intended to make her own escape almost immediately behind him.

“Honestly, Alexis, what was wrong with that one?” Paula Healey demanded from behind her daughter. Her hands were planted on her curvy hips, and her penciled brows creased beneath her salon-streaked ash-blond hair, making her bafflement clear. But then, that was the way her mother often looked at her. “He’s a good man, a successful investment banker, and you didn’t even give him your number, did you?”

“No, I did not. When are you going to stop these ridiculous attempts to fix me up with someone? I keep telling you, I’m not interested.”

Predictably, her mom’s lower lip quivered. “I just want you to be happy, Alexis. You need more in your life than work, you know.”

“I have more in my life than work. I am perfectly happy. I need you to accept that and back off, Mother.”

“I blame your father. Two nasty divorces set a terrible example for both you and your poor brother.”

Alexis didn’t even bother to point out that her mom had been involved in one of those nasty divorces, not to mention the years of acrimonious child custody fights that had followed. She knew her mother would argue that her current marriage was successful, though Alexis had always considered this one a rather calculated arrangement. Her mother, however, was the type of woman who needed to be married to feel secure, so whatever worked for her.

Alexis liked her stepdad just fine, though he was the reserved, brainy type who contributed little to a conversation unless it had to do with economics or American history. Like her mom, Duncan seemed content to be married for practical, socially advantageous purposes. They got along well, though they appeared to live almost separate lives from the same home, with different friends, different hobbies, different interests. Maybe they’d stay together, if for no other reason than because it would simply be too much trouble to split up. Maybe theirs was the best way to approach a marriage. No rosy-eyed illusions, no unrealistic expectations, no bitter disappointment when it didn’t turn out to be everything they’d dreamed of in romantic fantasies.

Yet just the thought of getting into a long-term relationship with Mark Fiorina—or any of the other men her mother had paraded in front of her—made Alexis so depressed she just wanted to curl up in a corner somewhere. She would so much rather have fun with Logan for a short time than tie herself down for years to someone who didn’t excite her at all. There was no way she was going to mention Logan to her mom, of course. Her mother would insist on knowing details and meeting him, interrogating them both, which would ruin everything. Her time with Logan was like a secret gift to herself, a private respite from all the annoyances in her life.

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