"Thanks, big brother," Carla muttered as she remembered Cash’s smiling send-off that morning. "Thanks all to hell."

Not that she was angry with Cash for being amused by her predicament. He had only been doing what big brothers always did, which was to treat their smaller sisters with a combination of mischief, indulgence and love. Nor was it Cash’s fault that Carla found herself driving over a rough road to a live-in summer job with the man who had haunted her dreams for every one of the seven years since she had been fourteen. Cash wasn’t at fault because he hadn’t been the one to suggest the bet that he had ultimately lost.

However, he had neglected to mention that Luke would be part of her birthday celebration. When Carla walked in the front door and saw him, she had nearly dropped the pizza she was carrying. Luke had always had that effect on her. When he was nearby, her normal composure evaporated. She had made a fool of herself around him throughout her teenage years.

Well, not quite all of my teenage years, Carla told herself bracingly. Iwas eighteen when I took the cure. Or rather, when Luke administered it.

After that, she had stopped finding excuses to go out to the Rocking M and watch the man she loved. But she hadn’t stopped soon enough. She hadn’t stopped before she had told Luke that she loved him and begged him to look at her as a woman, not a girl.

The memory of that disastrous evening still had the ability to make Carla flush, go pale and then flush again with a volatile combination of emotions she had no desire to sort out or describe. The one emotion she had no trouble putting a name to was humiliation. She had been mortified to the soles of her feet. But she had learned something useful that night. She had learned that people didn’t die of embarrassment.