And if the way Hope looked at the world—that is to say suspiciously and very, very carefully—was any indication of how Mia had been as a kid, then she had been doing it for a long time.

She probably had reasons, too. Good reasons.

Not that he’d know, because she didn’t talk about herself.

Well, that was the first thing that was going to change. He’d been patient; he’d been easy.

But if she wanted more, then so did he.

And he figured she owed him. Big. He was going to make her pay up, and it wouldn’t be in her favored way. It would be with talking. And then and only then would he let her distract him with that gorgeous body.

The thought of it amused him.

And aroused him.

Hope was looking at him strangely. “So you really like her, huh?”

Hell if that wasn’t the unfortunate truth. “Is that a problem?”

“Not for me. But for you, it might be.”

Yeah. Truer words had never been spoken.

Chapter Eighteen

Work made Mia’s head spin. First Ted nosed his way into another Anderson account meeting, and right there on the spot made some creative adjustments with the wording of the ad that had taken her and Dillon and Janice all week to come up with.

And because the Anderson people loved the adjustments, Mia couldn’t say a word.

But it burned.

Sure, she was aggressive when it came to her work, but she never, never, horned in on others.

Then Dickhead himself couldn’t find the gold pen he’d gotten for ten years of “exemplary” service, and had the nerve to ask her if Hope might have lifted it over the weekend.

Mia had to keep checking to make sure her head was still on her shoulders, that it hadn’t blown off.

Without Tess handling the front desk and with no assistant yet to replace her, the phones went crazy and Mia forgot an appointment with a client.

Forgot. An. Appointment.

Oh, and her plant’s leaves had stopped sagging. Now they were just falling right off. In desperation, she put the plant on her desk and pointed at the thing. “Stop dying, damn it!”

Then she went into her own files to get the artwork and ad mock-ups for tomorrow’s meetings, and she found everything all jumbled up and out of order, as if someone had recently gone through and shuffled everything.

Someone with fat, nosy fingers.

Ted?

Hard to tell, but she missed Tess with all her might. Tess who would have cut off the fingers of anyone who tried to mess with her.

She realized her head hurt. Work, always her life, her joy, had given her a headache. She couldn’t believe it.

Early in the afternoon, Tess called to check on her, and just her voice lifted Mia’s spirits. At least until her words sank in.

“Bad news.”

“Perfect, because I’m way too happy,” Mia said wryly.

“Okay, let’s do this another way. Good news. You get to take a weeklong vacation from your house, which has termites.”

“Um…what?”

“The place has to be tented,” Tess said apologetically. “You have to get out and stay out for five days.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Buddy’s working you in, his schedule is crazed. If you get out by six tonight, he can do you. No pun intended.”

“Oh, my God,” Mia repeated.

“Is that a yes?”

“And if I say no?”

“Termites eat you out of house and home.”

“Shit.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“Shit.”

“Honey, you’re beginning to sound like a parrot. Why don’t you and Hope stay with me?”

Tess had an apartment the size of a postage stamp. Plus Mia didn’t want to impose, but mostly she liked to be on her own. “Thanks, but we’ll rough it at a hotel.”

“You never lean on me.”

“Of course I do.”

“Name the time.”

“Um…”

“Uh huh. And why did I have to find out from Mike that you were born and raised in Tennessee like Hope? I mean, I’ve heard the accent, which I matched to Hope’s the first day I saw her, but, damn it, I wanted to hear about you from you.”

So she’d fooled exactly no one.

“Honey, honestly. What is wrong with growing up from humble roots?”

Mia sighed. “Do we have to do this now?”

“As opposed to never, right? You’d prefer that.”

“Look, I’m a different person now. I like people to know me as I am now.”

“But who you were factors in. You’re a smart woman. You know that.”

Maybe. But she’d been running for so many years because she didn’t want to face the fact that, looking around at her life right now, right this minute, she might have to admit she was far more her momma’s daughter than she’d ever wanted to be. Sure, she had money and a good job, but she hadn’t ever kept a man, or even a friend, for longer than it took to sneeze.

Tess being the exception somehow, but mostly that was a tribute to Tess’s tenacity rather than anything Mia had done. “Look,” she said. “I don’t lean easily, I don’t share easily, you know that. But I do both with you more than anyone else.”

Tess sniffed, sounding slightly appeased. “Well, that counts for something, I suppose.”

“I have to go. You wouldn’t believe the crap here. So are we okay?”

“Yeah. I love you, Mia.”

Mia sighed. Lots of people were throwing that word around lately. But there was leaning, and there was truth. “Damn it, I love you back.” She hung up.

Then dialed a local hotel she often used for business. No availability. A few minutes later she discovered why, after calling her way through the phonebook. Thanks to some geek/tech convention that had come to town, there wasn’t a single hotel worth staying in within thirty miles that had availability, and she was not going to a motel, thank you very much.

If it had been just herself, Mia might have taken her credit card and her weary soul off to the Bahamas until she could deal with her issues, but she had Hope.

And Hope had school.

Finally she escaped the building she would have sworn she loved being inside more than life itself and took her first deep breath of the day, even if it was pure smog.

She drove straight to Tess’s. “I need a pound of cookie dough,” she said when Tess opened her door. “And a spoon.”

Mike peeked out over Tess’s shoulder with a grin on his face. He smiled at Mia, kissed Tess, and then, with a wave, left.

Mia watched him go, then looked at Tess. She wore a matching grin to Mike’s, flour smudged on her cheek, and sported a suspicious-looking red spot on her throat that screamed I just had sex. When Mia shot her a bland smile, Tess covered her red cheeks with her hands. “So I needed some cheering up.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“Honey, you speak volumes with the mere arch of a brow.”

“Look, a good cheer-up requires chocolate, not a penis.”

“Hello Mrs. Pot. Meet Kettle.”

Mia let out a sigh. “I’m just worried about your tender heart getting broken.”

“Well, don’t.” Tess’s smile faded and so did some of her glow. She turned away and went into the tiny kitchen and began to measure ingredients. “I’m just having fun. I’m not going to let my heart get involved.”

Mia squeezed into the kitchen and hopped up onto the counter. “That’s new.”

“Yeah, well, maybe things change.”

“Like what things?”

“Like maybe he has a bazillion women to chose from and I’m fairly worthless at the moment,” Tess said quietly, mixing dry ingredients in a bowl.

“What?” Fury rose hard and fast. “You’re not worthless, and if he said—”

“No. He adores me. He’s sweet and kind and sexy and funny, and makes me feel like I’m the most important thing on the planet.”

“But…?” Mia asked, reaching for a bowl that looked finished. She fished a wooden spoon out of the canister and dug in. “Because I’m feeling like there’s a big ‘but’ here.”

Tess shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“Other women text-message him, or at least one did. I read it. It said Come do me.”

“What?”

“He was so embarrassed, and deleted it right away. He told me that he’s led a fairly wild past and that sometimes that past comes up and bites him on the ass, but that’s he’s changed. That since me, he’s changed.”

“And you believe him?”

Tess stared at her, then shook her head. “I want to.”

“Oh, Tess.”

“Look, I’m getting ready for the unemployment line, okay? I don’t have a lot of time to stress about this.”

A stab of guilt pierced Mia’s heart. “Collect unemployment because Dickhead is an asshole, but we’re going to make this cookie dough thing work. I’ve made a bunch of calls. I have a few clients interested in using the dough as charity fund-raisers. They’re going to call you.”

“Oh, Mia. Thank you—”

“I don’t want your thanks. After all you’ve ever done for me? My God. I’d do anything.”

“Stop.” She began to pour the dough into the pound-size containers she sold to her customers.

Mia dug into hers and moaned out loud. White chocolate chip. “Oh, my God. That’s better than sex.”

Tess laughed. “No, it’s not.”

Mia thought of Kevin and how good he felt buried deep inside her, and felt a shiver rack her. “Okay, not quite. But close. Seriously, you’re going to be the Mrs. Fields of cookie dough.”

Tess grinned. “I want to be.”

“You need a bigger kitchen.”

“Yeah, but the start-up cost—”

“I’ll lend it to you. No, don’t say no yet,” she said quickly when Tess opened her mouth. “Just think about it. Cookie dough in malls across the country…you’ll make millions.”

“I don’t need millions,” Tess said softly. “Just enough to get by on so that I could stay home with my babies.”

“Babies!” Mia grabbed her shoulders. “You’re not—”

“No. But someday…”

“You are not thinking of having babies with Mike.” But the look on Tess’s face said it all. “Shit.” Mia dug for another big spoonful of dough. “That’s insane.” The sugar rush began, but she took yet another. “Utterly and totally insane. I mean, sure, he’s cute and sexy as hell, I’ll give you that. But the text messages—”

“You should have seen his face, Mia. He was horrified that I would think he was with another woman during this time he’d been with me. He wanted me to believe him.”

“And you do.”

She sighed. “He doesn’t know it yet, but yes. I think I do. Don’t say it’s too soon.”

“Can I just think it?”

“I have so much going on. I need you. I need your help.”

Mia’s gut twisted. “I’m right here. For anything. You know that.”

“I know. I’m blessed, because Mike said the same thing.” When she saw Mia’s face, she smiled. “You know, it’s okay to lean on a man once in a while.”

“Why would you want to lean on anyone?” Mia asked a bit desperately, thinking of Kevin and how she’d had the urge to do just that. “And how do you really know it’s okay?” she whispered.

“You have to trust.” Reaching over, Tess squeezed her hand. “Let your guard down once in a while.”

Mia stuffed another spoonful of dough in her mouth, then looked at her watch and groaned. “I’ve gotta go. I have to run a few errands, find a hotel, pick up the kid, then work some more. Damn it.”

“You used to love your work.”

Yeah, and wasn’t that yet another worry. Something was happening to her neat and tidy world, something not so neat or tidy at all…

Mia raced out of Tess’s place and ran her errands; the printing shop for the new Runner posters that she’d had made, the shoe-repair shop where she’d turned in the Manolos with the broken heel, the dry cleaners…

By the time she finished, she had five minutes to pick up Hope before the teen center closed. She had no idea what happened if she was late, but just thinking about it brought back memories of her mother being late to pick her up from school. She could remember sitting on the curb all alone, an hour or more after the bell had rung, feeling as if no one gave a shit.

God. If she did that to Hope…She popped open her cell phone and dialed Hope’s while navigating the 134 east.

“Hey,” came Hope’s Southern drawl.

“Hey,” Mia said quickly. “I’m on my way, I’ll be there—”

“Sorry, I can’t answer right now, but you all be sure to leave me a message and I’ll get back to you.”

Damn it! The kid’s voice mail. What did a sixteen-year-old have going on that she couldn’t answer her phone?

The possibilities, none of them good, goaded her into speeding as she called information for the teen center. She got directly connected, then waited impatiently while that phone rang.

And rang.

“’Lo,” came a low, annoyed voice of a male teen. “Teen center.”

“Yes, this is Mia Appleby. I’d like to speak to Hope Appleby, please.”