“I could still have gotten here by eight,” he repeated, “but the thing was, my son’s team lost. The ball game.”

“Look, Mr. Anderson,” she started impatiently. She stopped beside her Mazda, opening her purse to find the keys.

“I took him for an ice-cream cone. It was the first game the team had lost,” he said quietly. “Tiger struck out. What else could I do?”

She glanced up. The gun-metal gray of her eyes had softened to a rich, deep pewter. The bastard! If he’d handed out any decent line, she could have kept on freezing him out, but the image of a young boy coping with defeat, needing a soothing ice-cream cone… So his son came first with him. She respected that. Still, having started from a score of minus five hundred, he had only worked his way up to zero. “I’m sorry he lost,” she said honestly, and bent her head over her pocketbook again. Tissues, brush, lipstick.

“Can I help?”

She piled her brush, lipstick and change purse into his open palms. Three grocery lists, a dentist’s receipt, the cameo that needed a new chain, the bracelet that snagged stockings, her checkbook.

“I know my keys are in here-”

“Have you had dinner?” He was struggling to keep his face straight. “Under the circumstances, I suppose that’s a foolish question…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” he said gravely. “I like an occasional drink before dinner myself.”

“Well, I don’t. Drink before dinner.” She found the keys and unlocked the car door. A second later, she started shuffling her belongings from his overfilled hands back to her purse.

“Obviously.”

“Pardon?”

“Obviously you don’t usually drink before dinner,” he said ironically. “By the way, you’re not driving home,” he added cheerfully.

“I shbeg your pardon.” She frowned. That seemed to have come out wrong. “Your sister is a lovely person, Mr. Anderson-”