“Yes.” Her smile turns muted.

“He seems like an okay guy. How’s that going?”

“He’s a good man. Kind. Patient. Funny. He seems to love spending time with Jamie. I’m lucky.”

The words she uses to describe this guy suggest he’s top-notch boyfriend material. She might say she’s lucky, but she doesn’t sound happy. She’s not in love, though I suspect she wants to convince herself she is. “You guys have been dating for…six months?”

“Eight.” Her voice has gone quieter.

“Getting serious?” I ask.

I don’t think she’s ready for that.

“He’s spending a couple of nights a week at my place.” Britta hesitates. “I have this feeling—intuition?—he’s thinking about proposing.”

I sit back in surprise. “Really? That’s…fast.”

“A little,” she concedes.

“How do you feel?”

“He says he loves me.”

I analyze her expression, her body language. She’s closed off, her movements small, her voice gone soft. She didn’t actually answer my question. “You don’t love him back.”

I see a crack in her outer shell. “I care a lot. And if he asks me to be his wife, I can’t think of a single reason to say no. He’s loving and steady. He has a good job, a great family. He treats Jamie like his own. He helps with everything when he’s around the house. His heart is open…”

In other words, he’s perfect—for someone else.

“You can’t help it if you’re not ready to move on.”

“I need to be! I loved your brother. But he’s gone, and I can’t stay stuck here.”

She’s got a point…but one point isn’t the whole picture. “If Makaio wants to marry you, don’t you owe him your whole heart? Is it fair to make him settle for only the parts of you that you’ve wrested free from Griff?”

Now she looks agitated. “Maybe knowing I’m committed will make a difference. Maybe that will free up my heart. All I know is that Griff has taken years of my past, and I refuse to give him more of my future.”

That’s wishful thinking. “I get it, but—”

“Why are you grilling me like this? In the old days, you would have just asked if he made me laugh and if he was good in bed. What’s with the probing questions about the state of my soul?”

I can’t refute her. Normally, I would ask those very questions. I might claim I want details just to watch her blush. But I fear the reason I’m different now has something to do with Keeley’s bad influence.

“You’re right. It’s none of my business. I’ll shut up.”

She sighs with regret and shakes her head. “Sorry. You asked fair questions. I just don’t have any answers.”

“I’m always here if you need help figuring it out.”

“Thanks. You’re one of my best friends.” She gives me a sisterly pat on the shoulder. “I mean this in the most loving way but, at least for now, I need you to butt out.”

If she was grilling me hard-core about my love life, I’d probably be touchy, too. “All right. I’m butting out. Just don’t rush into anything, okay?”

“It’s been three years. I’d hardly call that doing a ten-yard dash to the altar.” She picks up the last of her stuff. “I think I’ll go ahead and leave. I can run a few errands before I pick Jamie up. Good night.”

“Night.”

I’ve got two hours before I can go home. I return a few phone calls, answer a few e-mails I’ve been putting off. Rob and Britta have assembled a “war room” in Griff’s former office and filled it with ideas for the Stowe estate. I poke around, see their progress, make a few mental notes. Something is bugging me about everything they’ve laid out so far. I was loving it yesterday but today it feels like too much hoopla. Like we’re planning a rockin’ New Year’s Eve party in March. The strategy seems overdone and outdated. The visuals look like overkill. Everything feels…wrong.

What would be right?

No damn idea. What do I know about the Stowe kids or their preferences? I don’t usually research clients. What’s there to say? They have a house to sell and I know how to list well and find a buyer. End of story.

Except my gut tells me not this time.

When I plop behind my desk again, my eyes go immediately to the clock on my laptop screen. Seventy minutes until I can close up shop.

Could this day drag on any more?

I can fill it by staring at a wall and thinking about all the fantastic things I’d like to do in bed with Keeley. With the sleek line of her shoulders and back, along with the feminine flare of her hips, she’d look great if I fucked her from behind, filling my hands with her tits. Mentally, I throw in a few of her gasps and cries because of course I’m going to make her come. On the other hand, she’d look great on top, too. That bright hair thrown back, exposing the delicate, pale curve of her throat, breasts bouncing with every thrust as she grabs my shoulders and cries out my name.

Yeah, I can picture it now.

Unfortunately, it also makes my cock so hard my pants are damn uncomfortable. And I still have sixty minutes before I can leave. Even when I get there, no matter how much I want to touch Keeley, she’s not going to say yes simply because I want her to. If I press her, she’ll remind me that she’s not fair game.

Maybe I should pull my brains out of my dick and focus on work.

Google tells me that the Stowe descendants are George, twenty-seven, and Vivienne, twenty-three. Their father died a decade back after a lingering bout with cancer. The elder of the Stowe kids finished an MBA from Yale three years ago and has been running the family business day to day since. Shortly thereafter, their mother moved to Maui and remained until she died of an unexpected heart attack ten days ago. Vivienne graduated from Vassar last year and, though planning to be married soon, is making the Stowes’ legacy, their syrup company, her number one priority. The Burlington Free Press even included a picture of the siblings clutching hands and sharing a moment of grief on the snowy day of their mother’s funeral.

I sit back, ponder. By all accounts, these heirs value family, tradition, and their New England roots. George was quoted as saying that he had never stepped foot in his mother’s Maui home and never planned to. He sounds proud of that fact. It seems a bit like sour grapes to me, but I imagine that if I’d come from a normal family—which I didn’t—if my father had died and my mother took off to someplace seemingly exotic seven time zones away, I might be bitter, too. Confused at the very least.